#animal instinct and earthquakes

[dinums]

The Unexpected Visit

Thomas Shelby x Reader.

Summary: A Filipina woman accidentally travelled back in time. There, she began to work for the Shelbys

Part 2

"Hurry up! We're going to be late for your birthday celebration!" My best friend, Ava, shouted down the hall, prompting me to respond in the same hurried tone.

"Alright! Just give me a moment!"

I looked at myself in the mirror, feeling a sense of satisfaction as I admired my appearance. I was wearing a stylish black and white dress that fell just below my knees, with a white bow tie adorning my hair. My makeup was flawlessly done, accentuating my features.

"Shit, ang ganda ko," I murmured to myself. After securing a job as an animator and starting a new life in the United States, I was finally able to enjoy the fruits of my labor. This was where I would find happiness. Despite missing my home country, the Philippines, the familiar places there held too many painful memories that I preferred to leave behind.

Everything was supposed to go smoothly, until it didn't. From the far corner of my room, I caught a glimpse of someone—a dark figure—watching me. A chill ran down my spine, and my body instinctively went into fight-or-flight mode. Without a second thought, I fled from my room, convinced that the figure was pursuing me. It emitted a sinister laugh, filling the air with an eerie presence. Was this what my mother had warned me about?

---

"Puta... tangina, tangina! Ava, where's Ava?" These thoughts raced through (Y/N)'s mind as she ran, desperately searching for her friend while panic consumed her. As she neared the stairs, she could swear that the figure was still chasing her. In her haste, she stumbled and began to fall, but just as she was about to hit the ground, a blinding light engulfed everything.

---

On a quiet evening in the streets of Watery Lane, Birmingham, Thomas Shelby lay in his bed, lost in thought, cigarette in hand. Suddenly, the drawers started opening, and the air seemed to thin. The entire house shook, as if an earthquake were rocking the foundations. Thomas swiftly grabbed his gun, prepared to confront any potential enemy lurking in the darkness of the night. It felt as if the very earth were tearing apart at the seams. He was about to call for his family when a brilliant flash of white light blinded him, causing him to shield his eyes and turn away.

A loud crash followed, accompanied by the sound of a woman's voice. Thomas, now disoriented, cautiously approached the source of the disturbance, gun still aimed at the woman who had appeared in his home. She seemed panicked, her eyes darting around as she struggled to get to her feet, wincing in pain. It appeared that she had injured her leg, possibly a sprain, which forced her to remain seated on the floor.

Their eyes met, and the woman's breath seemed to catch in her throat. Tears welled up in her eyes as she stared at the gun pointed at her. With trembling hands raised in self-defense, she stammered, "Who the hell are you, eh?" Thomas questioned her, raising an eyebrow in curiosity. This woman was unlike any he had encountered before.

"M-me? (Y/N), my name... (Y/N). Please, can you... I don't... the..." Her words faltered as Thomas took a step closer, the gun still pointed at her. Overwhelmed, she broke down, crouching on the floor, averting her gaze. If she were to die, she would rather not see it coming.

As the door opened, she looked up and saw a woman and two other men entering. When her eyes met theirs and then returned to Thomas, the woman spoke up, moving to disarm him.

---

"Jesus, Tom! What are you doing to this poor lady?!" I heard the woman exclaim after the gun was taken away from him. I let out a sigh of relief. Tom, as the man was called, pinched the bridge of his nose, exasperated. The two other men seemed to be stifling their laughter, although it was difficult to discern as everything started to blur, as if the room were spinning.

When I regained consciousness, I found myself in bed, still in the same room as before—at least from what I could remember. As I surveyed my surroundings, I realized I was still wearing the dress, although the bows in my hair were gone. When I attempted to get up, the door opened, revealing the woman from earlier. In her right hand, she carried a tray with tea.

"Don't. You'll hurt yourself," she cautioned, pointing at my ankle. I nodded, and asked, "Can you tell me where I am...? Can I go home? Please..."

"You're in Small Heath. Thomas said you appeared out of thin air. How did that happen?" she responded.

"What year is it?"

"1919."

Small Heath, in 1919? That was far away from home, possibly evenin a different era altogether. It seemed impossible for me to have traveled there in the blink of an eye, let alone through time itself. Sensing my confusion, the woman tried to reassure me. She set the tray of tea on the bedside table and introduced herself as Polly Gray. I nodded in acknowledgment and placed the cup of tea on my lap.

"You're not from around here, are you?" Polly asked, her gaze lingering on the tea leaves in my cup.

"No, I'm not," I replied. She clicked her tongue, taking the cup from me and placing it back on the tray.

"Are you a Gypsy?" she inquired.

"No, I'm not," I repeated. I was starting to feel a glimmer of hope that Polly might be able to help me find my way back home. However, instead of directly answering my question, she posed one of her own.

"Can you read? Are you good with numbers?"

"I can read and do math. Why?"

"If you're going to stay here, you might as well work for us," Polly suggested, her tone implying that she had more to say on the matter.

"Why do you want to help me?" I asked but only got silence in return. The unexpected turn of events had left me bewildered, but I knew I had to gather my wits and adapt to this new reality. Working for Polly and her associates seemed like the only option available to me at the moment. Maybe, just maybe, they could provide me with the answers I sought and help me find a way back home.

"I'll work for you"

"Good."

////

It had been precisely one month and four days since I had become a part of the Shelby family. Despite initial reservations and a sense of distrust, Polly graciously took me under her wing. The other members of the family had an unspoken understanding not to pry into certain events that were yet to happen in their lives, acknowledging that I possessed knowledge of the future. However, that didn't stop some of them, particularly Finn, from asking what it was like. It was a joy to share stories with the young boy, and I was grateful that they kept my arrival in Small Heath a secret, creating a story on how I got up here, to not make the townsfolk ask questions, but then again who would ask the Shelby family questions?

In the present moment, I found myself inside the bustling betting shop, surrounded by a lively crowd. My responsibilities included tallying numbers, verifying receipts, and handling money and the transactions that came with it. The work was demanding, but it provided me with a sense of purpose, a distraction.

Across the room, John stood by the blackboard, inscribing odds while announcing them loudly for all to hear. Meanwhile, Arthur and Thomas had stepped out for a while, leaving Polly and me to manage the shop, with Ada looking after Finn.

"Mas maganda siguro kung animator nalang ako... or if I had a calculator here," I mused to myself, finishing up the last part of my work and giggling at the thought.

"A calculator? What's that?" I heard John's familiar voice as he approached me, a toothpick dangling from his mouth.

"It's- er, a device that helps you with calculations—counting, subtracting, multiplying, and even dividing numbers," I explained.

"Even the big ones?" John asked, curiosity evident in his eyes.

"Even the big ones," I confirmed, a hint of amusement in my voice.

Our conversation was abruptly interrupted when a bloodied Arthur burst into the shop, sending panic through the air. Everyone was ordered to leave, and Polly swiftly took charge, guiding Arthur to the house connected to the betting shop. Ada and John exchanged concerned glances, and I hurriedly joined them, mindful of my sprained ankle. I grabbed a clean cloth to help with Arthur's wounds, while Ada rushed to fetch a bucket of water.

Word seemed to spread quickly, and soon Thomas barged into the house, a bottle of alcohol in hand. He took the cloth from me, and I sat there, observing the scene. Conversations and typical sibling banter filled the air as Arthur and Ada exchanged words, while John and I simply watched them. Arthur began to explain how Inspector Campbell had asked him to assist with a robbery, recounting the encounter. Lost in my own thoughts, I couldn't help but voice my concerns.

"Will you help him? I mean, I wouldn't want to even think of helping a man who beat and bruised me... but..." I trailed off, realizing that all eyes were on me.

"Sorry, please continue," I quickly added.

"We don't help coppers," John stated firmly beside me.

Arthur continued, "He knew all about our war record... said we were patriots like him. I told him we'd take a family meeting and vote."

Knowing this was turning into Family business, I quietly saw myself out, going back to the betting shop to try and do extra work to keep myself busy. Despite the trust I had gained from the family, I understood that certain matters were their own to handle. It was their business, and I respected their boundaries.

///

My mind couldn't seem to shake off the lingering thoughts from our conversation. It had been a good thirty minutes, yet I couldn't help but wonder if the Shelby family would truly help that man with the robbery. After all, how could they trust someone who had beaten one of their own? The situation seemed precarious at best.

"Sana talaga bumalik na ako. Mas masaya siguro ako kung animator na lang ako... please, Lord, babait na ako kung ibabalik niyo lang ako..." I quietly murmured to myself, longing for the familiarity of my previous life.

"What are you blabbering about, eh?" a gruff voice interrupted my thoughts. I looked up to find Thomas standing before me, a quizzical expression on his face. I raised an eyebrow at him, which seemed to amuse him.

"You haven't apologized since the first time we met," I said, a hint of amusement in my voice.

"And you haven't told me what you said," he replied, curiosity piqued.

"It was a curse. I was cursing you to make a bad decision for pointing a gun at me," I snickered.

A moment of silence passed between us before we both chuckled. "So maybe it isn’t a curse... I was actually wishing to go back home. I even asked the Lord. I told Him that if He took me back, I would be nicer. I just think it would be nice if I could work as an animator. After all, I studied to become one after everything," I confessed, grateful for the Shelby family for taking me in and caring for me in their own ways.

To my surprise, Arthur and I discovered a shared love for drawing. It became apparent when he noticed me doodling one day, and he revealed that he used to love drawing horses. We began to draw together from time to time, he even thought me a few things or so.

Thomas, on the other hand, was more reserved. We didn't have much in common, but whenever I spoke in my native language, he would ask questions about its meaning. He also showed patience when I acted differently, allowing me to talk to him in a more casual manner over time.

John, being closer to my age, was a friendly presence. He had a boisterous personality, and I appreciated having someone to distract me from the noises in my head, a breath of fresh air in this intense environment.

Ada was easy to get along with. She lent me some of her clothing and was always open to conversation. She reminded me of my friends back home, particularly Ava.

Polly and I had a relationship reminiscent of the one I shared with my mother. At first, it felt like walking on thin air, but as I diligently carried out my duties and refrained from meddling in their affairs, she began to open up. She treated me like her own, and when I mentioned the similarities between her tea leaf reading and the practices of lbularyos or witch doctors, she encouraged me to share more.

And now, here I sat with Thomas Shelby himself. Thomas, who stayed quiet for most parts. His presence made me feel like I should continue talking.

"You lot can speak a different language too, right? Maybe you can teach me so that when I go back, I can make an impression, hm?" I suggested, which made him quirk a brow

"Then you'll have to teach me yours too, so it'll be fair, eh?" he replied with a smile and a shake of his head. Jackpot.

"Sure. Speaking of learning, do you know how I got good with numbers?" I asked, looking at him intently. It was just the two of us in the betting shop now, giving me the freedom to share. He then sat down next to me. Taking his gesture as an invitation to keep talking, I continued.

"When I was seven years old, my parents enrolled me in a program, a math center. It took me eight years to complete the whole program!" I explained, shivering at the memories.

"You didn't go to school?" he inquired.

"Oh, I did. I attended school while also studying math at that center. By the time I was sixteen, I was juggling school subjects like statistics, probabilities, and calculus, along with history lessons about my country... all that stuff. Later on, I learned animation, which gave me something to do, something I enjoyed."

"What do you do in animation?" Thomas asked, my face seemed to look very excited as i moved my chair closer to him, as if it wod be easy for him to be absorbing the knowledge I was about to share.

"Well," I began, a smile playing on my lips, "I draw illustrations, frame by frame. Basically, you see this?" I gestured, moving my hand as if I'm waving. He nodded in response as If my gesture wasn't obvious. "I draw something like that, people in motion, you know, like those pictures Ada goes to see. But Instead of people, its drawings. That was my job."

"And you can't do that now?" Thomas questioned, curiosity evident in his voice.

"Well...its easier to do it digitally," I explained, trying to find the right words to describe the concept, I used my hands, waving them in the air as if it would help the situation. Seeing his puzzled expression, I sighed and admitted defeat. "You know... its like this technology. It's hard to explain, to be honest. It's giving me a headache just thinking about it."

Thomas nodded, tilting his head slightly to indicate that he had listened to my explanation. After awhile more, we both stood up

"I've go to go, somewhere I need to be"

"Oh? Did my curse work? You're off to make a bad decision?" I joked which earned me another smile and a shake of his head.

"Maybe tomorrow, Do you drink?"

"That depends, is there an occasion?" I asked,walking over to the window, there I realised it was already dark, we've talked throughout the afternoon.

"Just come, eh?"

"Ask me again next time and I'll agree, if we spend too much time your ears might bleed."

"Next time then."

///

///

She stayed in Thomas' room during her stay, a decision made by the family. As she headed upstairs, she spotted Polly taking care of Finn. Pausing in her task, Polly spoke up.

"Need any help?"

"No, just check on Ada for me, thank you, love," she replied, and I agreed to do so.

"Alright, goodnight, Pol."

"Goodnight, love."

Making my way upstairs, I found Ada in her room.

"Are you going to sleep? Pol asked me to check up on you," I asked, and she yawned and nodded, pushing me towards Thomas' room.

"Yeah, off to bed. You too. I can manage myself. Goodnight, (Y/N)!"

"Oh, goodnight Ada," I said before she shut the door, leaving me confused, what are you up to Ada? I walked to the bed and crawled under the covers, ready to sleep.

As I drifted off, I couldn't help but utter a quiet gratitude, "Thank you, po," to no one in particular.

---

"Pol, do you know anyone who might know a way for me to get back? I think I'm losing hope already," I asked Polly, seeking some answers. It had been quite a hectic week word of mouth saying Thomas shooting someone, Mr. Campbell raiding homes of communists, Ada's pregnancy, and Thomas picking a fight with the Lee family.

"Oh, love. Just a little longer, hm? You'll go back. I'm sure of it," Polly said, her words providing temporary comfort. I had grown attached to the Shelby family, and the thought of leaving without knowing their fate weighed heavily on my mind.

"You know, Poll, I'm scared. If I do leave, then what about you guys? I won't ever get to see you all again... I won't know how you guys are doing unless I can read it from history books. I won't know how to help," I confessed, my voice filled with concern.

She took my hand in hers, offering reassurance. "Don't worry, love. Just give us a proper goodbye, and we'll be fine, alright?"

"I'll miss you if I do go," I admitted, a touch of sadness in my voice.

"We'll miss you too," she replied, understanding my worries.

---

That night, I decided to stay up late. I sat in the kitchen, working on a few doodles on a piece of paper. I drew frogs, horses, Polly, Ada, and Finn. The door swung open, revealing a drenched Thomas holding a bottle of whiskey.

"Woah," I exclaimed, surprised by his sudden entrance.

"A drink?" he offered, though his tone felt more like an order than an invitation. Remembering my promise, I grabbed two glasses and placed them on the table as he poured a drink for both of us.

"So, rough day? What happened this time?" I asked, curious to hear the events that had happened, though by the looks of it, thos wasn't a good one.

"I shot a horse," he replied. My eyes widened, my mouth agape, silently urging him to continue.

"It looked at me the wrong way, so I..." he trailed off, the weight of his actions evident in his voice.

"I look at you the wrong way most of the time. Maybe you should've done the same to me," I mumbled, moving my chair closer to him. He sighed, taking a swig of his drink.

"Back in France, I got used to seeing men die, but I never got used to seeing horses die," he confessed, his tone filled with remorse.

I nodded, taking small sips of my whiskey. "Horses, or any animals in general, they aren't like us. When we kill, it can be for so many reasons, but they do it to survive and protect. So, it's good that you feel bad about it. It makes you human. It proves you're not what you think you are."

"What do you think I am?" he questioned, curiosity lacing his words.

"You're not that far off. You're not as cold as anyone, or even yourself, perceives you to be, and that's a good thing. So, let it all out today," I encouraged, understanding the weight of his burdens.

We fell into a comfortable silence, interrupted only by the clinking of glasses as he poured himself more whiskey. After a while, I nudged him with my glass.

"I don't drink much," I confessed, offering him my glass. He took it and drank, and eventually, he began to talk again.

"Is that Polly?" he asked, pointing at the doodle I had made of her. I nodded, pointing out the other family members as well.

"I drew the people I talked to today. I guess I should draw you too, huh?" I suggested, feeling a sense of warmth in our conversation. He shrugged, turning his chair to fully face me.

"Should I stay still, then, eh?" he asked playfully.

"Nope! I've already memorized your face by now," I replied without much thought, not realizing the subtle smirk that graced his lips as I began to sketch him.

"You know, I'm glad that it was your house I accidentally traveled to. Even though it was scary at first," I shared, stealing quick glances at his drenched face to capture the details in my sketch. "Anyways, you'll catch a cold if you stay like that. When I was a kid, my parents used to throw their slippers at me from inside while I played in the rain."

"What? Would you do that to me?" he asked, a hint of amusement in his voice.

Imagining the scenario, I burst into laughter. The image of me throwing slippers at Thomas in the rain seemed quite comical.

"I will if you let me."

"Maybe someday"

When I finished the sketch, I looked at it with satisfaction.

"Pogi," I murmured, using a Filipino term that meant "handsome." Though he didn't need to know that

"Pogi?" he repeated, looking at me curiously. I shook my head, realizing I had slipped into a different language.

"I said I was done," I clarified, handing him the paper with a smile. He took it, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Thank you," he whispered, barely above a breath. We both knew that those two words held multiple meanings, and despite everything, he meant them sincerely.

[zhongrin]

| ◆ ch. vago mundo ⑊ zhongli

--⟢ ii. little dragon, big dragon |   teyvat continues to change, and nobody can stop it. but morax hopes that some things stay unchanged.

𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 ⬙ 𝑚𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 ⬙ 𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡

◇ tags ◇ fluff, rex lapis in the olden days is a (lovable) menace

◇ a/n ◇ everyone shush and hear me out!!!!!!! smol dragon!zhongli draped around your neck and purring like a cat. that's it that's the post.

"is that…"

"that improper animal… this new generation of disciples are just too full of themselves."

"the divine one is just far too lenient… i fear the young ones will continuously abuse their kindness."

rex lapis squints his eyes towards the whispers of the less fortunate souls, inwardly scoffing at the open jealousy in their words. it's your gentle touch that pulls him out of his musings, and he lightly cranes his eyes up to stare at your visage.

"this is quite a commendable feat, rex. to have such precise control over your physique… keep this up and you might even become an archon one day," you chuckle, fingers lightly tracing the small horns on the sides of his compact-sized dragon form.

he's unable to stop the instinctive purrs which are reverberating from the back of his throat, amber eyes closing in bliss as you let him curl even closer around your neck, though he takes extra care so his scales won't hurt you in the process.

"you know, a friend of yours came to find me the other day. guizhong, i think was her name? she told me about your… excursions."

the low purring immediately stops, and you hold back a laugh when you feel the little dragon shift uneasily around you.

"were those glaze lilies you gave me the other day from guizhong's little garden after all, hmm?"

".... maybe."

"oh, rex… you know how much she adores them."

"but you said you liked them the last time she showed you…"

"i do, but that doesn't mean you can filch them off guizhong's garden."

"but- she stole my treasures to give you those earrings last time, so now we're even!"

you had to laugh at that. the petty little squabbles from the younger acolytes are always one of your constant sources of entertainment, and this one is no different. you find the dynamics of this particular group amusing, and you can't deny that you might be a little biased when it comes to them. especially to the little dragon. he's witty and a little cheeky, just like all the hatchlings, but something tells you that he'll grow into an individual to be feared if he gains enough wisdom over the few hundred - or thousand, years.

you can only hope you'll be there to witness it when the time comes.

"i suppose, little wyrmling."

rex huffs, tail flopping back to your shoulder, snuggling closer around your neck.

"you didn't have to do all that, you know. i think they deserve to be angry."

morax shakes his head stubbornly as he closes the door of your bedroom behind the two of you. his hand lands on the small of your back and he leads you further into the room.

"while i have seen you making many mistakes throughout the olden times, i know you will always strive to do what you can to make up for it. i would never wish for dominion, but as long as i walk upon teyvat, there shall be no being who gets away with besmirching your name. and especially not in the nation i've cultivated to honor your very being."

you sigh at his tenacity and turn to face him instead, resting your hands on his chest and giving him your best patient smile. the hard lines on his expression smooth out, and you can feel him relax under your touch. soon enough his own hands fall back onto your waist, this time softly palming the sides of your hips, like a kitten making biscuits.

"though i'm honored, i think it's rather petty of you to go to such lengths when all they did was gossip… people have been working hard to rebuild the houses, right? an earthquake is just going to render their efforts useless…"

"ahem…. i'll admit that it wasn't my intention to react in such an… overly dramatic manner. it is my mistake. i realize now that i should have controlled myself better."

"oh, morax… this childish side of yours truly amuses me sometimes," you giggle when you sighted the reddened tips of his ears and the way he's lightly chewing his bottom lip in guilt.

sometimes you still can't believe that the rex lapis himself could be so… adorable.

"okay, enough of that! creator worship time is over! i want my dearest zhongli now, please?"

he perks up at your wish and you step back to watch him shift into his mortal form. it takes him a short few seconds, but it always fascinates you, the way he manages to do it so elegantly and the magical way his body transforms into a familiar appearance.

slender fingers absent of talons reach out towards you, and you meet him halfway, fingers interlacing as you nuzzle into his chest with a satisfied hum. zhongli's deep chuckle caresses your ears and he maneuvers the both of you towards the nearby armchair. but before he can sit down and pull you on top of him, an idea hits you and you pull away slightly to tug on his clothes.

"can i play with your hair?"

"it would be my pleasure, dear."

with a pleased grin, you grab the various cushions and blankets from the couches nearby, making a small nest-like surface on the floor instead. zhongli sits cross-legged on it as soon as you plop onto the higher chair right behind the small area you've made for him, and your fingers automatically tug off the hairpin that holds his hair down his back. you unconsciously hum a tune of ancient lullabies as you continue on to play with his long strands of brown-gold hair, and the god of contracts lets himself melt onto your hold with a contented sigh.

thousands of years may have passed, and you might have lost the memories of your olden days with him forever.

yet, as you continue to spoil him with your sweet words and comforting presence, he realizes that your love for teyvat, for him, no matter which forms and the identity he takes, has stayed true and strong even without those memories.

and zhongli realizes that it's all he could ever ask for.

© zhongrin | 2023 ◆ no repost. reblogs much appreciated. feel free to reach out to submit suggestions, feedback, comments, or if you just want to talk!

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[halcyone-of-the-sea]

Crimson Fangs Sing Me Lullabies

PAIRING: David 'Hesh' Walker x F!Reader

SYNOPSIS: Ten years is a long time to be alone.

WORD COUNT: 18.7k

WARNINGS: Angst, gore, canon typical violence, stitches & needles, death, fluff, puppy love type stuff, mutual pining, Hesh being adorable, Ghosts timeline

A/N: Back to my roots with 30+ page works.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

He vividly remembered the moment Riley had alerted him on that rainy Tuesday afternoon. It was when the sky was pelting against his soaked beanie and the abandoned houses of South California were utterly silent—as still as the heart in his breast. The ground under his feet was soft, grass giving way to slopping mud that caked up to his ankles in thick mounds of flooded earth.  

Hesh had only been out for a swift survey of the area, taking Riley for backup as Logan stayed at camp to pack and hide any trace of two individuals from inside Fort Santa Monica snooping around. Seeing as Federation Soldiers frequented the area, any piece of them that was left in No Man’s Land was subject to identification. Nothing from a broken branch or a boot track could be out of order; certainly not when the two brothers were here to scout possible weak points in enemy territory. Try and find ways to slip in a fire team—give ‘em all a good scare and wipe another point off the map. 

But Riley was along because not only was he Hesh’s responsibility, but the German Shepherd’s instincts were far superior than a soldier’s ever could be. For only 14 months, the dog was making quite the name for himself around the Fort.

A chilled wind whips down the street, the overgrown road filled with rusting cars and trash which flutters in retaliation of being disturbed all across the asphalt. Rain comes down sideways in great roars. Whatever the dog had honed in on, it was loud enough to be heard over the noise of nature.

“Riley,” Hesh calls, calm and collected, to the animal that was intently staring at a large home; hackles tense and tail pointed high. Blue was the color, hiding peeling white trim behind suffocating ivy. A large portion of the left side was ripped away to show its insides like a dead deer would, which had most likely happened when the earthquakes had been rampant during the first few years after ODIN was fired. Tectonic plates shifting and the like. Green eyes narrow. “Go on boy, search.”  

If there were Federation Soldiers this close to camp then it needed to be taken care of—quickly and quietly. No time to get Logan. 

Sharp ears perk and the lithe dog shifts its haunches, raised neck fur accented by a low growl. Paws pad over the ground and twin footfalls follow swiftly after, the body of a Honey Badger Assault Rifle pointed down but ready to aim at a moment's notice.

But nothing could have prepared Hesh for what he found that day. 

—

You press to the oozing wound with a futile hope that it would stop gushing, breathing so loud it can be heard over the deluge outside this shitty excuse of a shelter. Your arm was splattering blood all over the damaged hardwood of the first house you could stumble into, feet flinching back until your spine hits a dresser in the upstairs bedroom. 

Dust lives on every surface; flies through the air as you string curses under your breath with stuttering sobs. You’d hoped that there was a medical kit stashed away here somewhere—something to scavenge that could fix the knife slice that was making you dizzy. 

T…there was just too much blood.

But after the loud slamming of cupboards and the destruction of more than a few rusty door hinges, it hit you like a bullet to the chest as your clothes stuck to you like a second skin. Everything had been picked over. 

No medicine in the bathrooms, no rags in the kitchen, and no hope of bottled water to clean the wound out. Nothing. 

“No, no, no.” You force the black dots away from your eyes, vision blurry with tears as you press harder to the gash. It squelches and more scarlet hits the floor. “It can’t end like this. Not like this.” 

All that you had were the clothes on your back and the sparse materials in your backpack that amounted to an empty water skin, a blanket, and the pages of an old book. 

Blood pooled on the ground, and you realized far later that the only reason you had heard the noise downstairs was because of the steadying way you had bitten your lip; a sob cut short. Your body stilled like you were caught in a bear trap. 

It had been a soft whistle, barely heard over the sheets of rain hitting the broken roof. Water lightly taps your head in an uneven pattern as it leaks through the frame like an ant tunnel. Blinking as a few more tears are forced down your cheeks, you slowly turn to the door that hangs off one hinge. 

Small brown eyes are already locked onto you.

Its pupils are so tiny you wondered if the German Shepherd was half snake—they seemed almost slitted as you gaped at its presence. The army green vest that was wrapped around its frame only served to make you more afraid. 

Dogs were not your friends. Not in this day and age. Certainly not the ones that belonged to the soldiers that had cut your arm open not an hour earlier in the woods. That’s what they did, then? They sicked a dog on you? 

You swallow down a gulp and stand paralyzed as the beast’s lips curled back; its tail puffing up and wagging with aggression. Your breast filled with the constant drumming of a panicking heart.

“G—” voice small, weak, you try to appease the thing with a forced smile as your brows bunch in. This demon doesn’t even blink. “Good doggy.”

You stumble backward only a single shaky step, and then it lunges. 

The dog runs at you with a gnashing of teeth and a shredding snarl on its lapping tongue. Sharp barks meet your ear-piercing scream as they echo off the termite-eaten walls. Rushing back, you feel saliva splatter against your face; a sharp snapping flash just inches from your nose. Your back slams into the far wall with a resounding crash.

“Riley!” A masculine voice yells out, followed by feet rushing up the creaking stairs, but you don’t even hear it before fuzzy neck fur is gripped in your hands. Paws dig into your stomach. Worse, fangs graze your neck as ears stay stapled to an angular head; bobbing back and forth with intent to rip your flesh out. 

You could smell its damn breath.

Straining, every bit of adrenaline-laced strength builds as a split-second to act takes form. You plant your shaking legs and shove with your shoulders—racing away before the loud thump of the Shepherd’s form hitting the floor is registered. Its vibrating growl of hatred echoes off your brain along with its skidding claws. You stagger quickly into the bathroom and slam the thin wood with a loud yell of fear, finding the rusted lock before flicking it with a floundering grip.

The barrier shakes not a second later with the force of a vehicle as you balk back from it with a horrible fear in your breast.

What would it feel like to be mauled to death? You swallow through a closed throat, seeing the door almost cave with the force behind thrown at it; eyes wide and snapping to the tiny box you’d caged yourself into. Oh, fuck me.

“Riley!” Again that voice, closer. There’s a pause in the attack, but the deep barking continues. Eyes flinching, you shake wildly and notice the under-sink cupboard not a moment later with a prey-like haze over your thoughts. “Easy, boy, easy!”

Stumbling, you whip open the small enclosed area and do what you can to shove yourself into it—legs pressed tight to your chest and grunts falling from your lips as you try and maneuver past pipes. Your arm feels like there are a million knives stabbing one after the other, but you don’t for one second dare to stop what you’re doing. Letting the tiny door shut with a bounce of wood, you get totally swallowed by darkness. 

You realize quickly that the barking has entirely stopped. 

“Shit,” hand going to capture your mouth, your fingers press tightly to hide even the sounds of your ragged breathing, dealing with both the hunched-over nature of your spine and the knowledge of someone outside the door. 

Someone who was probably going to kill you. 

Silence lingers, but before long there’s a commotion of a hand that begins to jimmy the door knob. Your ears twitch, blood draining little by little from your head. 

Don’t open the door. Please, don’t open the door. 

The door is shoved open with a shoulder, a brief grunt echoing off the air as the thing slams to the wall. Soon after, the clatter tells you that it falls off of its rusty hinges along with the muffled curse of annoyance.

Measured footsteps make you stare, wide-eyed, at the tiny crack in the side of the wood ahead of you, light from outside dim but enough for you to notice shadows as they slink past. A sigh.

“Clear.” Weight shifts, and you hear a defining click of a safety. You press on your mouth harder. “What was all the ruckus about, boy? Another raccoon give you the slip?” 

Claws pad over broken tile and you hear a nose twitching as distinctly as you can hear your own pulse in your ears. This man that was talking….he didn’t sound like the normal soldiers you’d encountered. There wasn’t an accent to his American English, in fact, he sounded native to the region. Deep of voice and lax in phonics. 

But you had more pressing matters than a man’s speech pattern. A bark rips through the bathroom, and you hear a soft chuckle as your body spasms. 

“It’s not going to be in the cupboard. C’mon, Bud, we need to get back to Logan. Time’s ticking.” More snarling barks, getting higher in octave. The door rattles as you choke back screams as dog feet scratch with aggression, making the barrier bounce with every punch. “Hey, Riley! Enough!” 

A bulky shadow snatches a limb out, grabbing the handle on the back of the dog’s vest, but it’s a bit too late for that. White fangs capture the jutting edge of the frame and rip it off its holding with a raging of metal and splintered wood. You yell between your fingers and try to force yourself away—to try and disappear into a shattered bit of drywall that groaned as you put weight on it. 

Feet kicking out, the dripping wound on your arm makes you wrench the other hand to grip at it, a vain attempt to protect your weak area at the moment. It burns like you’ve just flayed the skin from your bone, peeling the flesh like a person would do to a raw steak. 

And then the dog is reeled back with a sharp yell, “Riley, stand down!”

At once all barking and drool-dripping snarls come to a halt. Panting, you look out to the half-body of the man and into the dead eyes of Riley—a beast that glares at you despite not being able to as his front legs are held off the ground by his vest similar to a kangaroo. It is like staring into the color of dead earth and waiting for it to swallow you whole. 

You wonder if you can die with a still pounding pulse, or if your soul can dip into the very confines of your intestines until you bleed it out. With black dots at the sides of your vision, as Riley is lowered to the ground and left to stand still, you decide that, yes, that could very well happen. 

There’s a large exhalation of air from the top, not-visible, image of the man and although you don’t want to look away from the small-eyed dog, eyes drift slowly to stare. 

Large toned thighs covered in green and brown camo tucked into muddy boots; straps and holsters that drip water with the subtle shifting of hips. Yet it’s almost immediately that those legs bend as a broad chest comes into view followed by a pale, square face. 

You blink quickly, dispelling tears from your lashes mixing with rainwater as it flows down from your forehead when green eyes meet yours—wide and strangely…curious? Brunette hair is trapped by a beanie, and the beginning of stubble spread out down his cheeks, jaw, and chin. Gray sweatshirt, combat vest, patches…your eyes struggle to take it all in but ultimately the large rifle sitting against his chest paints a clear enough picture, even if this man was completely different from the other soldiers you’d encountered out here. 

Shaking, you curl in tighter and hunch your shoulders, hiding away your arm.

Hesh doesn’t know what to think. 

He looks you over with a blatant expression of shock, Riley still on high alert beside him as one of his knees connects with the cracked floor. Lips slightly parting, the man’s head slightly pulls back, trying to understand what the hell he’s looking at. 

A… civilian? This far out in No Man’s Land? How was that even possible—Federation control was practically assured in this area and they shot on sight. Clearing his throat, Hesh sees your water-wet body jerk back, impulsive fear stuck over your head. He quickly raises his hands, dropping his rifle to let it hang from its strap with a clenching jaw as Riley huffs.

“It’s alright, Ma’am.” He coughs awkwardly, watching you incredibly closely. Still not sure how to handle this. “Erm…” A glance is sent to the far wall, “My name is Lieutenant David Walker with the United States Special Forces, you’re going to have to tell me what you’re doing out here. It’s not safe.” 

Firm, yet you notice the words are also subdued as the tension in the air somewhat lessons—like a mother scolding a child that she doesn’t want to start bawling. Your eyes waft away from him back to Riley, though the knowledge that the man was in the Special Forces was startling. You had thought everyone else was dead, most of all the remnants of the military. 

When did this happen? 

Riley still stands as still as anything, watching with his lips curling every so often. Hesh notices your terrified gaze and commands the dog with an easy comment, “Hey, Riley, away Bud.”

The beast pads off with one last long stare, back into the bedroom where you hear the thud of a fuzzy backside hitting the floor and a canid grunt. Immediately a great sigh exits your mouth, crumpled lungs wheezing. The man’s Adam’s Apple bobs as he lowers his arms, lips peeling into a languid frown when his head tilts.

“Sorry about him,” Hesh says, and your shy gaze stops on his neck. Green eyes narrow on you. “Riley’s trained to flush out Feds—not that good at rolling out the welcome committee. ‘Specially out here. He means well.” 

Your lips stay shut, shifting the bloody mess of your arm closer to you. If he was going to kill you, you think, he would have done it already. 

This Lieutenant David Walker wasn’t wearing the dark coloring of the other soldiers in the forest or the towns—wasn’t wearing the patch of twelve yellow stars set into the black void of a rhombus outlined with red. 

He wasn’t part of the group hunting you down. 

Hesh sighs deeply, sparing more glances around the broken-down house and the beautiful woman hiding away in the bathroom cabinet. Even with all of his burning questions, it wasn’t safe to be here. Logan was expecting him back. 

Itching at the back of his neck, the large man mutters, “Well, I guess you’re just going to have to come with us then.” Hesh wasn’t about to leave you here alone. 

Civilians were meant to be behind the Wall, and however you managed to end up outside, he needed to get you back not only for his own consciousness but because you looked like you needed a good meal and a warm bed. 

How long has this girl been out here? He asks himself internally. 

A gloved hand slowly extends out to you and you level on it with a stiff twitch of your feet, eyes glinting.

“Got yourself pretty much folded in half in there, Ma’am.” Hesh chuckles, trying to put you at ease as you just watch like a deer in headlights. “Can’t be too comfortable, huh? How about I bring you back to camp and I can sift ‘round in my packs—see if I can’t find something for you to eat, yeah?” 

It was like coaxing a wild animal from a cage. A chained fox ready to bite its own leg off for the simple release of freedom that it would bring soon after. Hesh couldn’t blame you, Riley usually had that effect on people. 

The dog wasn’t trained to be a pet, after all. 

At the prospect of food, your ears perked. If this person had food, they had to have bandages as well—medical supplies. You glance quickly down at your arm, seeing how the blood had drenched your abdomen from where it flooded out into the lines of textile and thin your lips. It didn’t look good; if it was left untreated…

Green eyes flutter to stare at where you had briefly peeked at. 

“Shit,” Hesh starts, sucking down a breath. His fingers curl from where they still wait for your hand in his. Looking at you as your heart skips a beat from the concerned comment and the unwavering way he stares. “Riley didn’t get you, did he? Let me take a look.”

David moves closer, head partially going under the counter to carefully touch you on the shoulder, shifting your arm from the top. If it was a simpler time, you would have laughed at the sight of such a built and tall man trying to stick his upper half into such a confined place. 

His fingers dig into your flesh and with a hesitant line on your forehead, you slightly present your cut as he sends you a tiny smile in reassurance. 

He…doesn’t look malicious. Maybe I can… 

You blink away black dots and shiver as fingers close around your wrist. Holding back a gasp, Hesh’s eyes widened at the gushing slice; immediately clocking it as a wound from a large and serrated knife. 

Federation? Many of the others from the recon units come back with similar wounds courtesy of the certain blades that the Feds used. 

Digits go to dig around in his medical pouch as your eyes flutter, seeing the heavy frown on David’s face and the lines on his forehead. Ears twitching at the sound of shifting paws, your body quivers. Green quickly glances up as your hand clenches; making more blood fall out to the wood. 

“He won’t do anything,” Hesh assures you, “not without my order. You just need to focus on me, alright? I’m going to wrap this up to help stop the bleeding.” A roll of bandages escapes his pack, and he gets to work tying off a tourniquet above your elbow. “Can you tell me your name, Doll?” 

Your nerves are alight from the rough scape of his gloves along your skin, but you whisper out your title with a stuttering voice. More hushed than a breeze on a humid summer’s day. Speaking after all that screaming hurt your vocal cords. It confuses you that you aren't more afraid of this man—the hard yet sparking eyes.

Hesh sends a quick glance and smiles. 

“Well, we’ll have you all fixed up soon. Promise.” He decided fairly promptly that it would be counter-intuitive to ask you so many questions in No Man’s Land; he’d wait for all of them to be back in the Fort and his father’s opinion. 

Elias Walker was sure to be intrigued by this.

Flinching when David carefully pours water on the wound to clean it out, more wrappings come after to press the torn edges of the injury close together, white rapidly becoming red. But the bleeding would stop soon, as the tight bite of the tourniquet cuts off the flow and leaves your arm completely numb. 

Hesh licks his lips and releases your hand, moving back to rest on the ends of his feet to let his limbs hang off his knees. Looking you over one last time, the man wonders if you were a scavenger. A drifter, maybe? There was a score around the Wall, but they all got caught eventually. 

But none of them were this far out, this afraid.

“C’mon,” David stands, one hand resting atop the counter and the other still extended into the cabinet for you. “We need to get going so we can make it back before dark. Or until the storm gets worse. I’d hate to catch a cold.” 

You stare and push down your fear, injured hand held to you as the other slowly drifts forward. Hesitating over his expectant palm you bite your lip before letting his grip encompass yours. Firmly, fingers tighten over your skin and you shiver at the prospect of touch. 

As gently as he’s able, Hesh helps you out from your hidey-hole, stabilizing you with a hand to the small of your back as you pop to full height. 

“Easy,” he murmurs, watching you stumble as he holds tight. The dog stands from the bedroom, ears erect, but the Lieutenant doesn’t even look. “Riley, stay.” 

Your eyes purposefully never stray to the canine. 

The grip over yours squeezes before it’s gone, and a part of you blinks at the sudden sweep of coldness that returns to you. 

“Thank you,” you whisper, sliding your vision to the still form at your side as the house creaks and groans; rain followed by a deep rumble of far-off thunder. Hesh’s lips pull up, huffing out a single, dismissive, chuckle yet his heart jumps with pride.

“Don’t worry about it.” The man’s limbs rest on his weapon, loose. “Least I could do for lettin’ Riley scare you like that.” A beanie tilts as his rugged head nods to the doorway. “Follow me, Ma’am.” 

You stare at the back of his head as he slips past you, walking past the broken door. Blinking after, you stuff your hands into your pockets and quickly catch up with a few strides; feeling light-headed from the leaving adrenaline in your blood. Not fully convinced you trusted him, David had the one beneficial factor of being in the American military that made you go along. 

Why would someone impersonate them? It didn’t make sense, and thus, he had to be telling the truth. 

But you really didn’t like being near Riley. 

Tail still stiff, the dog stays on David’s right while you keep to the left, if not slightly behind. Brown eyes glare and rage, and you hunch your shoulders in mute retaliation, fixing the position of your backpack after it was smashed between the wall and your body. 

“So,” Hesh tries to break the tension, carefully going back down the stairs and looking back. You perk. “How long have you been out here, if you don’t mind me asking? Don’t get many civvies in No Man’s Land.” 

His boots thump while your shoes lightly press, descending back to flat ground. 

“I…” You lick your lips, “I don’t know.” Brows peeling back, Riley exits the house first, Hesh pausing for a millisecond before humming leisurely and going after—not without a narrowed look of confusion directed at you first. 

“Alright.” He coincides. Maybe you were just in shock. “No worries.”

No Man’s Land? Silently, you dig into the back of David’s head when he leaves the shelter of the house, getting soaked by rain as nitrogen fills your nostrils. What’s that? 

Feet traveling out through rubble, you side-step wood and drywall, breathing in the outside air as you soon feel the water wet down your head and clothes once more, shivering at the constant slap to your scalp and cheeks. 

Shuffling after David, you see him call above the storm with one hand to his chest, speaking into a radio.

“Logan, I’m coming to you! I’ve got an injured Civvy with me—knife wound. It’ll need stitches.” There’s a murmur from the other end, but you hear none of it above the rain; Riley peels out ahead, taking point with a constant pattern that leaves the dog coming back after a moment or two into a heel position. “Affirm. Hold down the camp until I get back. We’ll need to move ASAP.”

Digging into the collar of your shirt, you stay in Hesh’s footprints, shoes getting even more mud-cased all along the old material as you all turn into the treeline, forsaking the dead neighborhood to go back to its rotting. 

You only send one glance behind before it’s swallowed by bushes and downed logs.

The cover of the branches offers some reprieve from the downpour, but only to a point where you still were left floundering over the rugged terrain while David walked it like a pro. 

Hesh was constantly looking over his shoulder at you—slowing his pace when you got too far behind him and Riley. At your almost frigid shivers, his lungs built in a low sigh. 

“Here,” he says, firmly, and plucks the beanie off his head to wring it out. Water pools to the soggy ground as your legs slow, constantly blinking eyes looking up from the rocks you were currently intent on not tripping over. “Sorry, it’s not much. Logan’s got a spare blanket he can lend you later.” 

Pausing, your fingers inside of your pockets twitch at the outstretched article, lashes fluttering as a raindrop bounces off your nose. Cleaning your throat when Hesh prompts you with a small, “Go on,” and a motion of his hand, you take the offering slowly. 

Slipping it on, you pull the thing far over your ears, hating how your hair feels under it but not willing to take it off once the pounding on your skull ceases. 

“Better?” David asks, tilting his head as his short brunette locks get weighed down to his forehead. 

You nod wordlessly, attempting a small flinching smile in gratitude. Hesh delays his turning feet for a moment, seeing that with a barely-there flush to his pale cheeks. Clearing his throat once more, the Lieutenant clicks his tongue for Riley to continue, and offers you a hand over the rocks. 

Up and over, he helps you all along the way, suddenly not caring about how long it might take to get back to camp.

Walking beside you, you take glances at David, wondering aloud, “Who’s Logan?” 

He smiles, green roving over the terrain and now on even higher alert now that there’s someone else with him for the trip back. Riley sniffs along the badly flattened trail, though still takes time to stare back at you with distrust. 

“My brother,” Hesh pushes his hair back, expelling water like a rag, “Riley and I went out to scout territory while he stayed behind. Erm,” the brunette chuckles and another wave of thunder rolls overhead. “Don’t think too much about it if he’s a bit quiet when you meet. Logan doesn’t talk much.” 

“I won’t mind,” you also chuckle, though yours is more forced; subdued. It was easy to speak to Hesh, even if your arm was pulsing and your heart was rampaging.

The Lieutenant sends you an appreciative side-eye, smiling slightly, “Good. I’d hate for you to think he was being—”

Riley halts with a huff. 

Attention shaping forward, David steps in front of you with a quick foot, and your frozen view of the western cluster of trees is blocked by a broad back. 

“Riley’s got something.” He speaks low, deathly serious. “Keep behind me.”

You suck down stiff oxygen, body weary as you peek over to stare at the dog and his vest as it shifts when he moves. The large white lettering of ‘Beware of Dog’ on the side catches your optics like a knife in the dark. 

Hesh takes slow steps ahead, knowing you’re behind him by the way your breath stutters and brushes the back of his neck. His vision bores into the treeline, peeling back bark like the books of a page, his heart a steady bump in his chest. 

Riley continues to alert, paws shimmying and fur caked in mud as his tail begins to go wild. 

David levels his rifle to the shadows dancing, clicking off the safety with a thumb before his cheek finds the stock, staring through the scope with deep-set brows. The man waits for the beast to engage first. 

With the minutes ticking and the rain drowning everyone, you find every swaying branch and twitching leaf to be as anxiety-inducing as a typhoon; still, Hesh stays unperturbed in front of you. About to open your mouth and utter a confused plea to keep going, Riley suddenly rushes.

Pushing headlong into the treeline growls akin to a demon echoing off the atoms of the air when the puffy tail disappears. There’s a moment of strained silence right after where your legs are itching for you to run, but David stays and so that means you will too. He’s really your only chance for survival at this point.

“C’mon boy,” the brunette mutters, hips shifting weight. 

It’s only when pained screams enter the air that the two of you really tense up, a loud, panicked thing that bounces off your eardrums over and over again. You gasp and take a step back, and that’s when two black-armored individuals burst from the bushes, yelling behind them and pivoting to try and shoot an enraged Riley with blood dripping from his maw.

Hesh dispatches them with only four bullets—two for each as their exposed necks explode into crimson. Snapping your gaze away you swallow tersely, blinking as if to dispel the image from your mind. You had seen people die before, in painful and gruesome ways, but that didn’t mean you had ever gotten used to it. Lowering his gun, Hesh tilts his head at the two Federation soldiers, the third taken out by Riley before he drove the others to him. 

“Good, boy!” David praises, oblivious to your plight, and the dog trots over with a lolling tongue, eyes bright. His gloved hand pats Riley’s side a few times, ruffling the fur atop his head as paws tippy-tap before shifting to look back at you. He double-takes, gaze widening with a frozen smile. 

Green blinks at your nervous expression and your body that had backed up a good five feet with your hands stuffed into your pockets. His petting hand pauses and Riley barks. Hesh watches you flinch at the sound and tenses. 

Awkwardly standing up to his full height, his fingers itch at his stubble.

“I…” David pauses, not sure what to say to you. Shaking his head, the man grunts out, “Camp’s this way, Ma’am.” A finger points down the trail and you nod quickly, still not looking anywhere near the bodies or Riley. Or him, for that matter. 

“Okay.” Sharing a look with the dog at his side, he thinks his lips and pauses before he takes off down the grass, concern and apprehension stuck in his veins. Not knowing why, he begins to feel a bit strained.

You stay well behind him all the way back to Logan, thinking and worrying.

I don’t know this man, you tell yourself, arms wrapped around your middle and beanie heavy atop your scalp. Even if he’s nice—even if he says he’s in the military, I don’t know what he could do. I have to remember that. 

And that damn dog. 

You can’t get its eyes off of you—constantly watching and tense as if you’d bolt and he would get the chance to pounce on you. It didn’t trust you and that sentiment was entirely mutual. Pulling your injured arm closer, the image of flashing fangs is playing in your mind as you and David get closer to a dense cropping of stones and deep foliage; now it was worse. Now Riley had congealed blood dripping off his chin, all fur up to his eyes deep red and stained. Rabid looking. 

He was one minute away from ripping my throat out back in that house. 

You shiver, but not from the cold. If not for the kind way Hesh had wrapped your arm and the promise of further help and food, you’re not entirely sure you wouldn’t try to bolt. 

People haven’t exactly been kind to you out here—not for many years.

Your eyes whip away from Riley and stay on David’s boots until the man pushes through one last bush, holding it back for you as you shuffle past with a silent nod of appreciation. The presence of another man immediately makes itself known when you stare into the remnants of a campsite. 

Grass trampled to form a semi-circle, a stuffed backpack rests against a large boulder and, in the middle of the area, sits a small pit for a fire. The dig-out ground is now flooded over by the rain, creating a concoction of mud and brown water. A large overhang stemming from two gigantic rocks gives a small reprieve, though there’s little room for more than two people, and if the rain slants the other way it would end up being completely useless. 

But the figure standing under it is taking what little cover it offers. Shifting with a similar outfit to David and blinking at you with brown eyes. Quickly, he lowers his gun when Hesh calls out, “Woah, Logan—it’s me!”

Blonde hair lays flat over the brother’s head, and you instantly see the resemblance between the two in the same shape of their jaws; the angle of their twin noses. But Logan did seem to be the younger of the two, though not by more than one or two years. 

David saunters forward, hips swaying, and pats you lightly on the shoulder before looking back to send you a soft smile of reassurance. Water flows off his chin. 

“Now, let's get that arm looked at.” He walks under the overhang and bumps forearms with Logan, who continues to watch you carefully. Riley trots up and the blonde rubs his head when David bends down to grab his backpack. 

You awkwardly shuffle, still out in the rain with a cautious feeling in the back of your chest. If you could peel back your skin, you would see an amalgamation of alarm bells strung up by cords of hesitance. Who was to say these men were any different than the black-clothed ones? Could you know their character based on a simple tourniquet and a soggy beanie? 

Brows tight, your shifting feet slosh through a puddle. Did you have a choice? 

Hesh calls over the rain, peeling out a large medical bag from his pack—the white cross capturing your vision. “C’mere! We need to get that stitched up.”

Sighing deeply, you walk until the rock stops the sky’s tears, fingers twitching in your pockets and feeling quite tired. 

“Logan,” the Lieutenant orders and the blonde takes his eyes from you slowly, his stubbled skin sporting a scar up the right side of his jaw. Riley looks up at him when the pets stop. “Give her your spare blanket, would you?” Green flickers to your arm before they go to your face. “Feelin’ alright about needles, Ma’am? It won’t feel that great, but I promise I know how to stitch a straight line.” 

You watch Logan jumble through his own belongings, shivering and hearing the snap of latex gloves from David’s side. They both worked like a well-oiled machine, with gears and pins moving in stupendous arks of shared understanding. If you were being honest, it almost overwhelmed you when a heavy fabric was dropped over your shoulders. 

Fingers go to keep the blanket over your form as a small protein bar was held loosely in your face from Logan’s hands. Brown eyes blink when you carefully take the item, whispering out a small, “Thank you, Logan.” 

The silent man studies your expression before he nods firmly, backing up and taking Riley with him out into the rain with a whistle to allow you more room. You respond to Hesh as he waves you over with a hand.

“I don’t mind needles,” you admit and David listens, patting the rock beside him on the ground for you to sit on. Doing that, you unwrap your bar and hunch deeper into the blanket. “It’s the blood that bothers me.” 

You get a silent side-eye and a gentle hum in understanding. 

“I’ll be done before you know it,” Hesh offers a twitch of his lips, going to lightly twist your arm so that the stained bandage can be unwrapped and laid to the side. “Then when you’re back in the Fort I can get you home to your family. I’m sure someone’s pretty worried about you right now, huh?” 

Your face scrunches, confusion taking hold as you’re just about to bring the protein bar to your lips. Fort? Family? What was this guy talking about? 

Not noticing your look, Hesh, sets off to work, one thumb caressing your numb forearm as he sews your flesh back together. At some point, you turn away, content to bite your lip at the pain and glare into the stone beside you rather than see the crimson slosh down your arm. David wipes at it every so often, seeing the curved needle slowly bring the ragged ends of skin to a neat line. 

He does his best to move as fast as he’s able, careful not to dig too deep and cause you more stress.

You eat your bar with a ravaging hunger, done with it almost immediately and licking the remnants off of your fingers. Hesh chuckles deeply, but a part of him is concerned at the sight.

You had said you didn’t know how long you’d been out here—how were you getting food? The wildlife? You didn’t seem the type to go hunting; didn’t even carry a gun unless it was in your backpack. David doubted that, though.

“Hell, the only person I’ve seen devour those things like that is Logan.” He comments, cutting off the last suture with the small scissors from the pack. You turn to watch his face, seeing the concentrated lines above his eyebrows and the way his tongue lightly pushes out of the side of his mouth until he licks his lips. “Don’t know how he does it—they’re more bland than his cooking.” 

You huff slightly at that, embarrassment heating your cheeks as the needle stops its up-and-down motion. Hesh finishes up with one last look over, tilting his head to the side. 

“You seem pretty close,” whispering, you glance at the figure in the rain, the yellow ball being tossed absentmindedly to Riley before it’s dropped at Logan’s feet as he walks the perimeter. 

Hesh smiles, “Definitely. Couldn’t imagine my life without him.” Fresh gauze is spread and taped down, new bandages unfurled. “Feeling alright? You’re doing great.” 

Your eyes blink at him, slipping over his handsome features and the way his hand holds you so softly even if he is quite large. The cold didn’t seem to bother him at all. You clear your throat and nod shakily.

“Isn’t the first time I’ve been stitched up.” Muttering out your confession your fingers twitch as David tightly wraps your wound up, securing the end and unwrapping the tourniquet at your elbow when he’s done. 

“Really?” The brunette frowns. “Sorry, that must have been tough.” 

You flex your hand, closing and opening your grip as his own travels to the marks the ruthless tourniquet had made on your skin. Freezing your eyes lay stuck to his fingers as the tips of them brush the indents, imaginary pricks under the skin forming as blood begins to flow properly again. 

Hesh doesn’t know what overcame him to do so, slowly pressing into the flesh with a low grunt stuck in his throat. Maybe it was some ill-placed concern for you—some guilt left over for how Riley had treated you before he had shown up. The fear in your eyes when he had killed those Feds.

But you…he wanted to help you.

Unexplainable actions make your heart thump, blood rushing to your head as your limb shakes at the contact. 

Quickly, green orbs pull far open, realization dawning. Clearing his throat, David swiftly moves his hand back to his knee, not meeting your eyes as a red flush makes everything from his nose to his ears pink. Your lips part at the sight in shock, jaw loosening. 

“Well,” he says loudly, moving back to stand and taking off the latex, “that’s that. You’re all set to go.” 

Without meaning to, a small giggle escapes your mouth as you rest your opposite hand on your arm. If anything that makes Hesh all the more flustered, quickly picking up all of his supplies and zipping up the medical kit with a racing pulse. 

Running a hard hand over the back of his neck, you see David call Riley and Logan back as his cheeks go back to their normal color. Your vision narrows on him, trying to understand this individual like how you could understand the thunder that rips the sky or the blanket over your shoulders. You swipe at the last dredges of rainwater on your nose, seeing the two brothers converse in hushed voices. Riley continues to watch you, shaking off inside the overhang and huffing.

It was quite obvious the dog held a grudge for you shoving him to the ground. Warming glee leaving you, you frown at the canine and shift your eyes to the outside world; the downpour is softer on your eyes than feral brown. 

You only turn back when your name is brought up. 

Hesh stares at you, serious, as Logan goes to swing his pack over his shoulder. “We need to start moving soon. It’s bad enough to be in No Man’s Land but to be this deep in Federation territory is worse. Do you have enough energy to keep going?”  

“I…” your lips stutter, taken aback, “Yeah, I should be alright.” If the terrain was anything like it was getting out of that town, I’m not going to make it a mile. Pulling the blanket tighter to you, you ask, “How far away are we?” 

Wherever they were going, it sounded like a good idea to tag along as long as they were allowing it. 

Hesh shares a stiff glance with Logan. 

“Full day of hard hiking, give or take. Terrain’s changed so much it’s a gamble every time.” Your face blanks, throat closing.

“Okay, sure.” You don’t know when you had come to care whether these men left you behind or not, but Hesh’s caring attitude had struck something in your chest like a drum. 

Now that you had someone to talk to out here, someone to caress your wounds, it felt vile to stake out on your own again. Running from soldiers with yellow stars and black rhombus patches outlined in red. This pair wasn’t so bad, at least from what you knew as of now.

David’s lips tighten, eyes sliding half-closed to narrow on you. Green meets brown, seemingly telepathically communicating in that way only siblings can. 

Hesh nods his head, slapping Logan on the shoulder firmly as he calls Riley to a heel position.

“C’mere, boy, we’re leaving.” The dog lopes over as the brunette stops in front of you with a smirk. A silent Logan huffs a chuckle from his position, shaking his head to himself. You look up in confusion, a slow death seeping into you as a teasing expression makes Hesh’s face shift. His arms cross over his chest.

“How do you feel about piggyback rides, Sweetheart?” 

—

You yelp, gripping tighter around David’s neck as the ground nearly gives way, his handle on your hips increasing. His mouth releases a grunt though he quickly rights himself so he doesn’t send the both of you careening over the edge of this rocky hill.

“Easy,” he huffs, looking behind at you as the slowing rain falls on everyone. A brow raises, puffs of breath escaping Hesh’s mouth as he begins to continue on. “Or you’ll choke me out before we make it back.” 

You cringe and loosen your hold, muttering, “Sorry, David.” 

“Hesh’ is fine,” he laughs, turning back, “Only person that calls me David is my old man. And don’t worry about it.” Eyes twinkle. “There are worse ways to die than being choked by a pretty girl.” 

You heat, sputtering for a minute as the joke registers; glaring at his head below your chin. 

“Well then, I guess you wouldn’t mind if I just yanked you off this cliff? Pretty girl and all.”

The deal had been you would keep up with Logan and Hesh as long as you could, from then on the Lieutenant would so graciously allow himself to be the pack mule while Logan and Riley protected the both of you. In all fairness you had done better than expected—David had called you stubborn and practically forced you onto his back when you started dry-heaving on the side of the trail. 

Over the walk, you had gotten into a habit of softly arguing with the man, Logan sending back amused glances every once and a while. It felt good to speak to people again.

“Hm,” Hesh huffs through his nose, sidestepping a boulder and carefully finding footholds in the ascending ground. Riley barks from the top of the hill as if telling him to hurry up. “Y’know I don’t have an answer for that right now. Would you be throttling me on the way down or no?” 

“Depends,” you deadpan, not looking at the edge that the man walks confidently, shivering but still keeping Logan’s blanket over your shoulders.

Hesh blinks water from his eyes, glancing over his shoulder. “On what?”

“On if I can get to you before Riley chomps my hands off.” A loud bark of laughter springs from his chest, unexpected but pure. It echoes off the cliffs and the trees, and you have to laugh slightly with him. You feel his hold squeeze your thighs, hiking you a bit farther up as he makes it to the top, Logan looks at him with a slightly parted mouth before his gaze slides to you. 

You swore there was a spark of thankfulness in his expression, but he’s turning and whistling for Riley a second later. 

“Shit, that’s a fair point.” Hesh chuckles, and you notice his shiver when the cold wind whips past. 

Cheeks burning, you move your hands making the man under you make a noise of confusion. Ignoring it, you peel at the blanket around you and place it above the both of your heads, blocking out the water even if the fabric was already soaking. You rest your elbows on his shoulders and sigh, looking at your bandaged arm for any blood. 

Dark, yes, but all the red fluid was dried. It was seemingly all good. 

Hesh feels his lips pull in a heart-felt smile, stubbled cheeks gaining a sheen as you hide his head from the rain. He didn’t need you to, of course, but the action came from a place of genuine care. It felt…nice. 

“That’s kind of you, Ma’am. Thanks.” Green peaks slightly up, and you turn away so you don’t meet his eye, cheeks burning.

“Least I could do.” Your mouth mutters. “Thanks for not letting Riley eat me alive…and the stitches.” 

Hesh grunts softly, still smiling. 

“Well, I’m not one to let my dog rip apart civilians. Least of all ones that need help.” He keeps a close gaze on Logan and the canine, watching the treeline and the rustling bushes from the blanket edge. “It’s a good thing I found you when I did—wound like that’s a nasty thing to treat half passed out.” He dares to push, “How’d you get it if you don’t mind tellin’ me?” 

You noticed how he would try to ask unassuming questions in hopes you would be able to explain yourself but in reality, you were just as confused. The military was still functioning? You had no idea, stuck in the same areas for…a long, long, time. 

It made you afraid. How…how many years had passed from when the sky had erupted with fire, beams of pure light slamming into the earth. You try not to dwell on it. 

Holding the blanket edge tighter, you wiggle your chilly nose to push back sniffles and explain to the best of your ability. Hesh had called those men Federation Soldiers, and you had heard of that title before the world had fallen apart like a toy castle under the fist of a child. 

Federation…You speak slowly, thoughtful of your words.

“I was running,” David slows a bit, putting distance between the others as he watches Riley sniff an old rusted bucket stuck in the middle of a Black Sage bush. His lips thinned, and a tense feeling in his gut was forming. “I don’t know for how long or where I was going, but I knew that if I didn’t run, I would die.” Your arm was throbbing, but you only look at it and continue. “I bumped right into one of those men when I was trying to see through the rain.”

Voice dipping slightly, you hold back a squeak of surprise when David’s thumbs start moving back and forth slowly over your thigh. Blinking down at the top of his head, you pause and speak through a hitch of breath—the man mistaking it for upset and feeling his eyes crease. 

“...He swiped at me with a knife and I raised my hand up to block it. I,” you stare over at Riley as he runs next to Logan, that brown and black coat soaking wet. “I thought they had sent a dog after me when I saw yours in the house.” 

Hesh tilts his chin to the ground, lungs breathing down a sigh through his nose. Walking around the form of an abandoned and rotting side table, the Lieutenant tries not to imagine how scared you must have been in that instant. 

He moves his head and you look into the expression of a soldier who takes his job very seriously. At the intensity that lives behind his eyes—at close range—you see flecks of bark and mossy dirt; a delicate and almost pretty curve of lashes. You’re entranced by a rugged beauty as you sigh. 

“That’s never going to happen again.” Skin heating, you see his gaze search your face, hold firm. “I said I would get you home,” he declares, letting a small smirk peel his lips. “And I’m not one to go back on my word, you hear?” 

Your chest tightens. You don’t have the heart to tell him whatever place he’s bringing you isn’t your home, but you feel light at the statement anyways. The insinuation was enough.

“Okay,” you mutter, and you both stare a moment longer. 

Nodding subtly, David studies the dirt and grime on your cheeks, the weather on the epidermis in what could have been sun exposure or simple blemishes. Your expression turns shy at the blatant staring, and you move your head back just as Hesh chuckles deeply, blood pumping. Walking faster, the Lieutenant rejoins the other two with an alert eye and a soft smile as a thankful feeling grows for the blanket over his head and the woman holding away the downpour. 

He decided then and there that nothing bad would ever happen to you as long as he was around.

It’s an incredibly long walk, but when you see the Wall for the first time, you nearly fall right off of Hesh’s back. The rain had stopped by now, though the air was still moist and the sun low—giving the world a shivering temperature. 

But the Wall. 

Hesh had called it Liberty Wall in a passing comment as he had let you slide from his hold, your feet stumbling not from fatigue but from sheer amazement. It was…gigantic. Falling to pieces, sure, but nonetheless a great achievement.

“There she is,” David sighed, stretching out his arms and groaning as Logan radios in from where you all stand along the ridge. Riley lies panting at Hesh’s feet. “Good to see ‘er again, huh? Been outside for too long, I’m about ready to eat a whole plate from the mess hall—and that’s really saying something.” 

About to chuckle to himself, eyes narrow in confusion at the realization of your blank expression behind him, frozen body with wide-open lids and parted mouth. Hesh’s brows crease. 

“Hey...you alright?” Clearing your throat, you notice the twin brown and green gazes on you with a quick swivel of your head. 

The brothers share a look.

“Mhm,” you bite your lip, hands descending into your pockets as you shuffle, shoulders rolling under the straps of your backpack. 

Hesh crosses his arms as the radio on Logan’s chest statics with a garbled voice, “Affirmative. You’re all clear to proceed, Sergeant. Good to have you both of you boys back so soon—Riley too.” 

It was becoming even more clear that you needed to be brought to Fort Santa Monica and to their father. You had met Federation soldiers, were in No Man’s Land for who knows how long, and acted as if you’d never seen possibly the most recognizable landmark that had been made during the last ten years since ODIN. 

“Logan,” Hesh turns to his brother but keeps his eyes on you, “radio into dad, yeah? Tell him we’re back and going to be showing up at HQ. Ask for an empty room.”

You stare along the barrier, mind running back to all the events that had happened since the moment the world had changed, wondering. Thinking. 

If this had been here the whole time… Faces flash over the back of your eyes like a layered movie before you push them back. The trail that Hesh and Logan had taken to get here was probably only known to the likes of them—no one else, or you would have traveled it ages ago. The dark-clad soldiers were so numerous that you’d never even thought to take the main road up North, nor the woods. They were everywhere all the time.

A hand grips your upper arm and you flinch, focusing back as Hesh’s strong jaw comes into view. He flattens his lips in a still-line smile of comfort.

“Let’s get you inside, Ma’am.” His hand carefully presses down farther on his hat atop your head, pulling it over your ears once more. “Find you some less soggy clothes.”

“What about you?” You ask without really knowing what you mean, finding some strange sense of comfort when David was near to you. 

The man chuckles, heart jumping, beginning to guide you down the slope and watching you closely in case you trip. Riley keeps on his right, neck hair still bristled whenever he looks your way. 

“What about me?” He asks, cheekily.

“You just carried me more than halfway here,” you shiver and dig deeper into Logan’s blanket, “and you’re just as soaked—I don’t want you to get a cold because of me, Hesh.” 

The sentiment was true. David was feeling worn out, and some of the liquid dripping down his face was undoubtedly sweat, but seeing that adorably concerned expression was almost enough to make him forget the aches in his shoulders and thighs. He blushes and turns his gaze ahead, clearing his throat. 

“Ah,” the man shakes his head, “don’t worry about that. Could’ve been worse.” He smirks, “could have had to carry Logan.” 

You laugh quietly at him as everyone makes their way down into a large, underbridge, area made of concrete; heading quickly to a checkpoint in front of a large pair of black-steel doors built into the Wall. 

“I don’t think it would be that bad. Funny to watch, at least.” Staring at the back of the younger brother, Riley suddenly comes up from behind you, seemingly intent on getting there first. His ear brushes your swaying hand and the next thing you know, Hesh is shoving you to his opposite side as savage barks make you yelp. 

“Woah, Riley!” David hollers and your heart jerks to a ravaging pace, air trapped in your throat as you’re kept close to a strong chest by an arm around your shoulder. “Holy Hell, stand down!” 

Logan by now had turned and was jogging over, grabbing the dog by the vest and peeling him back across the concrete. Panting, you watch with shaking limbs and look down at your fingers. 

Nothing more than a large scratch across the top of your left hand, but it was irritated. You sink deeper into Hesh’s side and cover it against your chest. Green eyes jump back and forth from you to the raging canine, Logan’s grim-set face glaring down at the furry beast, putting Riley into a sit with a gloved hand to his behind. David smushes you closer and after a minute of more barking, the dog falls silent, though still glares at you violently. 

You struggle to take down air, face scrunched like crumpled paper. This dog… 

Hesh glares and clenches his jaw at Riley, for the first time in his life entirely frustrated with the animal. 

Guiding you forward quickly, the brunette doesn’t move his grip, scowling over his shoulder before bee-lining to the entrance. He speaks in clipped sentences to the guards who all know him and his brother well. 

“Take us to HQ.” You’re ushered into the back of an armored truck, Hesh taking your right side and telling Logan to stay with Riley in the next vehicle of the convoy. 

Blinking quickly, you swallow down saliva and hold your hand tighter, shivering and staring at the floor. 

“Let me see,” muttering, Hesh reaches out. “It’s okay, it’s not your fault…Christ, I swear he’s never like this.”

You shakily put your hand in his, the large mark aggressive looking but barely bleeding. But you remember the pressure of Riley’s fangs vividly as they slid past your flesh like soap.

“Ah, shit,” the man huffs, “I’m sorry, Sweetheart.” His thumb runs over the mark lightly, gritting his teeth and sending you a stiff glance. Your vision tilts as you look away, but the slide of his hold was addictive; the small twitches of his fingers and the warmth they bring. 

“Y’know,” you attempt a small, wobbly, chuff, “he looks a lot cuddlier than he is.” 

Still tense and feeling guilty, Hesh pushes forward a dull twitch of his lips; blaming himself. Maybe the dog needed more socialization if this was how he was going to act around injured civilians when they barely brush against him. 

“Yeah, I suppose.” Still holding your hand, he squeezes before stuttering nerves release you—hesitation to let you go bunching his knuckles for a second more. He liked the feeling of you in his hold, liked how your tension slowly leaked away when his attention was on you. “Doesn’t hurt, does it?” 

You feel the slight pulse in your hand, sighing before shaking your head.

“No, not really.”

“‘Not really’ isn’t givin’ me the reassurance I’m lookin’ for, Ma’am.” Shuffling out of the blanket, you place the water-heavy fabric in the seat beside you as the car flies over the ground, speeding you into safety.

“I think it would be worse if I lied.” Itching at his chin, Hesh huffs and nods, his large body so close to yours that his shoulder bumped yours with every movement of the vehicle. 

Your heart is steadily calming, and you rub at your face. The feeling wasn’t bad, and you almost find yourself leaning into him and putting your head in the slot of his neck.

Stop that.

“Guess so, but it would make me feel less like an ass.” Smiling, you raise a brow and view the way his chest beats quickly through his clothes, bouncing his vest up and down with adrenaline. Green narrows at you and your face heats. “But, no, honesty would probably be best, Sweetheart. I’d hate for you to be hurting and not tell me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you smirk, swiping fatigue from your eyes as you yawn. “You’re very nice, Hesh—your brother too. Not what I would expect.” 

Wide lids side-eye you, lips parted. There’s a second of still silence as you slouch back against the seat, placing your stitched arm over your abdomen and pulling Hesh’s hat farther down your head; even if it was wet, it had gained a semblance of a precious gift. Like a present on a holiday, one you shake because you’re so excited to open it you have to stimulate your mind with its hidden contents. 

David blinks quickly, looking away to stare out the window and see the dark sky outside and the shadows it leaves as the twenty-minute drive to Fort Santa Monica truly begins. He lets you rest your eyes, but the comment has genuinely struck him.

Nice was not on the list of what most people called him. Stubborn—a natural-born leader, ruthless, and prey driven. But…nice. He clears his throat quietly and watches the raindrops sneak down the glass. 

“You’re not too bad yourself, Ma’am.”

—

You’re sitting in a large room filled with screens playing black and white video footage, pulling at the collar of a two-size-to-big sweatshirt and shifting in large camo pants. They had taken your backpack. In front of you, the face of an older man was simply watching you as you looked around with fatigued wonder. Desks with stacks of papers; large computer data storage boxes, the entire works. One of the upsides to this, you blinked at a water dispenser and realized, was that the lights were dim in here and you were finally somewhere that had AC. 

Inside your head, you were at a standstill. Part of you thought this was a dream, was this really all here the entire time, and you and the others just—

“I think we can start with names.” Your eyes whip forward, finding Elias Walker’s cold brown stare and graying hair as he stands across from the table you’re sitting at; your feet shuffle under the wood.

Hesh and Logan are by the door, the younger leaning on the wall petting Riley and the older keeping his arms crossed and fingers loose on the collar of his vest. Green softens when you look over slightly, a comforting smile finding your vision. He nods.

No need to be worried, he seems to say, I’m right here with you.

Over your head, the damp beanie was still there, now only slightly water-logged. You pull it down over your ears with a slow grip and listen. 

“You can call me Elias, and those are my boys you met,” a pale hand is moved in explanation. He grunts, “I’d imagine you’re all acquainted well enough.” 

You nod giving your name and mutter, “Nice to meet you.” 

Elias crosses his arms over his chest—it’s not hard to see how all of these men are related, though Hesh is more of a carbon copy of the father. The older man has a calm but stern look on his face as he frowns.

“And what was it that drove a civilian down into Federation-occupied land? Past the Wall?” You fiddle with your fingers in your lap, licking your lips. Elias wasn’t one to beat around the bush. “Better yet, how exactly did you make it outside—only way out is through the checkpoint.” Brown darkens, “else there’s a breach I don’t know about.” 

You struggle to answer, not sure if you know how to formulate a sentence that would make any sense. But this was starting to make you nervous. The unyielding intensity, Riley glaring at you, your blatant tiredness. Shock was settling but you didn’t know how to explain.

“How…” speech falters, and Hesh watches closely, frowning but knowing that you had to show them how you had gotten beyond the barrier. It was a massive security breach—it was a miracle you were even alive, really. “How long has it been since that wall was built?”

Elias stills. By the entrance, Hesh’s expression freezes. It’s as if the very air flips at the bare insinuation you offer forward. 

Shifting his hips, the older man’s muscles tense, as if he’s thinking over something very important. “Ten years since ODIN struck. Work on the Wall started right after.” A silent pause. Expectant. You feel your face drain of blood; a blank horror. 

Ten…ten years? It was silly, but your mind quickly went to your age—adding the numbers together and the time you missed. Ten years of hiding; of watching rare acquaintances die, scavenging for supplies. Ten years and this entire time you would have been able to live normally had the Federation camps moved just a tiny bit Eastward to open a path for you. 

“I…” You clear your throat, forcing out a blatantly fake laugh through a whimper, “Wow. That’s something, huh?” 

“You mean to tell me you’ve never left No Man’s Land?” Elias leans forward, placing his hands on the table and closing in. He doesn’t look angry, but his tone is disbelieving. Accusing. “That’s impossible.” 

“Dad,” Hesh steps forward, holding out a hand in front of him and glancing at your numb face—the sway of oblivion. 

“Ten years,” you whisper, staring off into Elias’s tense neck. “But she died just a week ago. All this time we could have…” David turns his head to you sharply. 

It’s like time stands still in that room—a void completely separate from all else besides a brewing acceptance. No one knows who you’re talking about, but the context is little needed for the way you spoke. Obviously, you had lost someone terribly important to you and Hesh understood that the reason you had probably made it so far was because of whoever they had been. You weren’t exactly the perfect image of a natural survivalist—not helpless, no, just not like the Lieutenant of Sergeant. Certainly not like their father.

“Shit,” a hand is lightly placed over your mouth, stomach bunching in your abdomen. 

“Let’s do this another time,” David interferes, and his father throws him a sharp glance. “It’s late, Dad. Everyone needs some rest; we can pick it back up in the morning—first light.” His mouth quirks in a stiff smile, and Logan backs him up silently.

Elias stands back up to his full height, crossing his arms loosely, and you’re stuck in the well that makes up your consciousness, descending bucket being fruitlessly dragged back up by a rusty handle only to fail halfway in the air as the rope bunches. The father sighs deeply and shakes his head, giving in to his son after a clench of his jaw. But it was obvious you posed no great threat.

“Alright.” Hesh nods and walks over to you, placing a hand on your shoulder as you look up at him slowly. He plasters a small smile on his face. It looked incredibly kind—the strong set of his eyebrows now soft. 

“Why don’t you come with me?” Fingers squeeze into your flesh. “There’s a pretty good barracks building a five-minute walk from here—doesn’t smell like the others and you’ll get a room all to yourself.” Elias watches, face losing a part of that tense edge. He shares a glance with Logan and turns to resume his work. “That sound good? I swear I won’t put you up in building three.” You stare and he acts like he’s sharing some big secret as he lets you stand up. “Ant problem.” 

You spare a tiny, broken, chuff of a laugh and his face brightens. A small win.

“You coming, Logan?” The Lieutenant asks, but the blonde is already shaking his head ‘no,’ pointing to the back exit to the shooting ranges. He was a night owl, through and through, and hasn’t changed a bit since they were kids. “Sounds good. I’ll take Riley.” 

“You boys take it easy,” Elias says over his shoulder, and you stay at Hesh’s side as he leads you out of the room, whistling for the dog to come to a heel which the canine does with a lolling tongue and sharp ears.

“You too, old man. Don’t worry about us.” 

“I always do.” The door closes and once again you three are walking together—Hesh more present with using his own body as a barrier between your form and Riley with his right hand near the dog’s vest handle. 

“I think my dad came off a little heavy, sorry about that.” David’s voice brings you back, pulling that bucket a little farther up from the pit below. “It’s just…”

The sentence falls.

You bite your lip and say, “It’s just his job. Even when I think about it,” the man still hasn’t released your shoulder, but instead moves his hand to the span of your shoulder blades. You try not to shiver and fail when he listens as if you’re the most viable source of news ever created. “It does sound a little...insane.” For lack of a better word. 

David chuffs, tilting his head and scrunching one eye. “Maybe just a little.”

The man feels you shaking and he doesn’t think you notice. Eyes wide and fingers twitching from where you keep them. The noise probably doesn’t help.

Buzzing lights and conversations only a door away as the two walk down the hallway and make it to the stairs to lead down to the main floor. From there the sounds were more barking dogs, vehicles, and gunfire from the training grounds. 

This was a military base, after all, and it never really went to sleep. It must be grating to hear after the utter silence of No Man’s Land.

“...But you wouldn’t be the first, believe it or not.” David tries to keep your mind off it, keep your attention on him…but he was curious; desperately so. Yet still, he didn’t want to rush you. You looked so overwhelmed it made his chest squeeze. “Heard a few reports from Dallas before it fell—a family that had lived in a man-made bunker and were found by patrols five years in when they were out scavenging.” 

“Really?” Your lashes caress your cheeks, and a small smile comes to you. You wonder how this man can make you feel so comforted; at ease despite the dog at his side and the various intimidating-looking gear strapped to him. Hesh was good-natured, it almost seemed impossible to imagine him a hardened soldier like you knew he really was. Kind, if not a bit mischievous and blunt. “That sounds more interesting than what I lived like.”

“Well, I doubt that.” Lips perk in a smirk. “Anyone with brains knows that time spent outside the Wall is always interesting.” 

“We just moved around a lot,” you admit, “those soldiers were always changing camps so we never stayed long anywhere.” 

“Hm,” Hesh makes a sound in the back of his throat, nodding. “Could’ve guessed that. Bastards jump around like cockroaches—can never get a good hit on ‘em.” He doesn’t press. 

“Really?” You feel more present now, itching at your cheek before looking at Riley as he lopes along and watches the roads from where you walk on the sidewalk. “What about the pattern?” 

David blinks his green eyes at you, face creasing. 

“Pattern?” 

“Yeah, they shift in a hexagon pattern every month. I had a map with it marked so I knew where to set camp.” Breath stills and Hesh stares at you, shocked, but his tone changes to a serious rush. He turns you slightly towards him with two hands on your arms.

“Would…you be able to mark those points again? If you had another map.” You lick your lips, cheeks going hot as you stutter, and feel his hands press into you. His chest was incredibly close to you, body heat leaking into your bones. Riley glares.

“Y-yeah, I think so.” David studies your face, searching for any hesitance. He pauses, green glimmering. There’s a moment when you notice the fast blinking on his face, the slight flush to his stubbled jaw as he clenches it, and are reminded of the caressing thumb that had dug into your inner elbow. 

Delicate stitches. 

The world blurs like a reflection in unknown water. Ripples that distort the streetlights into the shadows on his face and create soft waves of old scars and pale flesh in their warm illumination. Hesh’s breath hitches.

“G-good.” And he’s releasing you quickly as you wonder if being found by him was truly the best thing that could have happened. You spare a glance at Riley with racing blood, trying to stop the smile that insists to form for no reason. The dog cocks its head. “We’ll…get on that tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Whispers dance on airwaves as David keeps his eyes forward. Clearing his throat as you clock that tick and pull his beanie off. You bump your elbow to his side and he snaps his neck back over like a line with a hook. “You should have this back.”

You both walk slowly, side by side down a back street, and spare each other quick glances with flaming faces.

“No, that’s alright,” Hesh utters, rubbing at his neck and avoiding looking at you head-on. Your fingers brush the fabric and your expression softens. “I have a whole bunch in my room, don’t worry about it. I’d…” he chuckles to dispel the strange tension in his shoulders. “I want you to have it. Don’t want you cold.”

Your eyes crinkle, and the man swallows.

“So you think that your hat will help with that?” Teasing, you take it back anyways and situate it back on your head, shyly putting your hands into your pockets. “What? Is it special?”

“Woah,” Hesh, smirks with a raise of a hand, pointing lightly at you. “Hey now, Sweetheart, don’t disrespect my beanies like that—they’ll save your life.” 

Laughs bounce off the street. 

“I guess I’ll have to keep a close eye on it then,” Riley huffs and Hesh pats his neck firmly, giving him attention. “For my safety.”

“Damn right.” Your heart hurts from how fast it’s beating, that great muscle like a large drum that echoes in your ears. Skin tingles with an undeniable tension in the air.

The barracks building comes into view. 

It’s nothing extravagant, but the thought of a soft bed and a pillow not filled with mold was addicting. Your eyes blink along the structure as Hesh leads you in, keeping the door open for you as he tells Riley to sit at the entrance. The dog does so, though obviously with disapproval—grunting in that lupine way as the barrier separates him and his handler.

“He really does not like me,” you mutter out, raising a brow and catching back up to David who waits a few more feet into the building. 

The brunette sighs.

“He does tend to hold grudges. Once he wouldn’t play fetch with Logan for two days because he forgot to give him his dinner.” 

“Hell,” your brows raise up, “my odds are in the ground.”

“Probably, Ma’am.” You elbow his side again and he chuckles, bumping his shoulder into you as his hands sway at his sides. “Ah, don’t hold it too close, Riley’s just a special case. My father trained him so he’s all business.” A smirk, “Nothing like me.” 

You stop as Hesh does—in front of a nice-looking wooden door.

“Here.” He points to the handle and you grasp it, twisting and pushing past. 

You enter a tiny but clean room smelling like linen and golden light. Delicately, as if the world would break apart if you touched anything you stare at the lamp on the nightstand, the curtain over the window; the…comfort. The sight of an extra blanket on the end of the bed almost made you cry. 

“Now,” Hesh slides past you as your lip quivers, wide eyes looking around. “No one else can access these barracks without an ID, so there’s nothing that should go…wrong…” 

He trails off when he sees your face.

“Hey,” David takes a step forward. “What’s wrong?” His eyes slip around, looking for what might have upset you as he comes back to you.

“Nothing,” fingers lightly rest on your collarbone as you shake your head; vision going blurry at the man’s worried face. “Nothing’s wrong, Hesh, I promise. Just…” you laugh wetly, and a tear drops down your chin. “I forgot what it was like to have an extra blanket.”

It was more than that, but the statement was all you could describe right now without making a complete fool of yourself. David’s breath stills, hand stuck an inch from your arm. 

He watches the tears fall from you and, without thinking, he reaches up the back of his pointer finger and brushes it along the flesh; creating a line of fire up until he completely swipes it away. After a second of quivering silence, the air flimsy as your lungs jump, he finds no fear or discomfort in your expression and does this again—wiping away any trace of past hurts. 

Blinking, you tilt your head forward and bump it into his chest. Startled slightly, Hesh grunts, but his hand finds the back of your head above his beanie and cups it, staring down at you with hot cheeks and a thick throat. 

“I…” he begins but can’t find the words. You made him want to skin his hands of calluses so that the roughness of his touch was foreign to you. 

You only deserved warm flesh and extra blankets. As much food as you could eat—soft mattresses and even softer clothes. So short of a time he had known you, but not a second more did he want you to suffer. 

Ten years. He can’t even imagine it, and yet here you are in his arms. Kind. Unbroken.

Hesh’s head stutters, hesitating, before his neck bends and he presses his face into the top of your head, closing his sad eyes and running his other hand up and down your back. 

Sniffling, you melt even more into him.

“She died a week before you found me—my friend. She was with me since the beginning.” The hitched voice that comes out of you is so quiet that the brunette has to strain his ears to listen but listen to you he does. Silent as a bug and tightening his hold so you hear his strong heartbeat rampaging in his chest. 

Logan and him did this a lot when their mother died. Just hugged and held each other as if their lives depended on it. He doesn't know why, but he knows it has to be the same for you as well.

“Infection. She fell,” your voice cuts out, “fell on a rusty nail. She’s the only reason I made it this far.”

“Where were you?” Hesh asks, lungs aching for you. “When ODIN struck—in town?” 

You return to that time, hand sliding up to wrap around his waist to ground yourself. David lets you, increasing the pressure of his gentle hand on your spine. “Hiking. It…it was a family vacation.”

His jaw clenched tight. A swelling hatred strangles his neck, a feeling that makes his eyes slip back open—forests burning in his iris’ in great waves of an inferno. He had never wanted to charge out into San Diego more than at this very moment.

A family vacation had turned into a decade of surviving. Hesh didn’t have the heart to ask about where your family was now. He already knew the answer.

“Everything just…fell apart.” Your ribs hide your fast-paced lungs, your sniffling nose stuck deep into fabric.

“I know,” the man grunts, “I know it did, I’m sorry.” It’s all he can say. He knows. David pulls you back by the shoulders after a moment and slightly moves his head down to look at you head-on. “But you’re here now, okay? Behind the Wall. You made it. And I’m gonna make sure that you’re never alone like that again.” He attempts a smile as you see his concerned expression, shining with sincerity and honor. “I’d stake Riley on it.”

The wet giggle that exits you is automatic, and Hesh chuckles right back; put at ease and ears bouncing with that sound that he commits instantaneously to memory. 

“That’s counterintuitive, Hesh. I don’t want your dog.”

“Well then, it’s a good thing I never break my word, huh?” Perhaps why he was so good at this, comforting people, was because of Logan. Only two years apart, but he’d taken the big brother role easily—loved it, in fact. It made him feel good to see people smile.

But it made him feel on the moon when it was you.

You watch his green eyes slip over your face, thumb going to wipe away the last drops on your under eye as a deep heat starts smoking inside of you. David speaks lowly, compassion so visible you find you want to gaze upon his face for hours; mapping lines and piecing together what made this man…him. 

“Feeling better?” Smiling softly, you find yourself leaning into his hands on your face. The brunette smiles back and chuckles. It wouldn’t be so bad, you decide, to stick by his side—even if Riley was less than approving.

“Feeling better.”

You sleep that night with an extra blanket wrapped around your body and a dark beanie on your head; taking in the scent from the fibers of thistle and dog hair. You’d never smelt something more comforting.

—

A week passes with a flurry of activity. You find out that Los Angeles is still habitable—in fact, there’s a stable economy in the city and people are thriving. Fort Santa Monica is home to not only a handful of civilians from before the war but also an incredibly large amount of military personnel all under Elias Walker's command. 

Hesh had taken you out on the third day for a ‘tour’ as he called it, but it was also due to the fact that you’d been too afraid to leave your room when not called upon. There were so many…noises…again. People laughing, happy conversations, and greetings thrown your way.

“Word got out about the girl that lived in No Man’s Land,” David had teased as you awkwardly waved at a woman in fatigues that had slapped your shoulder and invited you out for drinks with her friends. You had politely declined. “Everyone’s eager, seems.” 

“I think I forgot how to properly speak to people,” you had sent a frown and a huff his way, keeping close to him as he led you on with a wave of his hand and a deep chuckle. 

But in all this time you had earned yourself a big reputation for being the woman who handed over intel that others had only just begun to unravel. Federation base locations. Patterns on movement—irreplaceable data.

Which was why you’d been asked, rather told, by Hesh that you’d be going to the bar with him and Logan for drinks. On the house. 

You’d quickly found it to be a strange affair.

“Not feelin’ up to it, Sweetheart?” your eyes lift from where you’d been swirling your still-full glass of amber liquid. “I know it can be a little loud—I’m sorry. Merrick’s a giggly drunk.”

Green eyes stare at you with pity, throat bobbing as a beer bottle sits on Hesh’s lips; the last dregs going down before he wipes his mouth with his sleeve. 

“If you wanna leave I’ll walk you back, okay?”

“No,” you wave a hand, touched but hesitant, “that’s alright. I’m fine, really.”

The lieutenant smirks and tilts his head—raising a dark brow in disbelief. The two of you had gotten close over the days; he had told you early on that you were easy to read for him.

“Don’t make that face at me, David.” You glare, pointing from your seat at the bar top. Hesh rolls his eyes and shakes his head as if disappointed.

“Whoa, first name—that’s illegal.” 

Your lips pull up in a sharp smile, leaning over the table as the music from the building plays in your ears; warm light on your cheeks and nose. “David, David, David!” 

“Hey! Quit it!” You’d grown fond of him in a way you can’t describe. So short of time and yet you both still get giddy when you see one another—hearts hammering. Even now as the laughter spills from both of your lips and people in the bar spare knowing glances, you don’t address it. 

“But really,” Hesh levels and you watch him spread his hands in surrender, beer bottle still shimmering in one hand, “whenever you want to go, just ask.”

“Hesh!” A call bounces from the far corner and you both look over, startled, to Ajax at the pool table. “Get over here so I can wipe the floor with you!” 

There’s a bout of laughter from the other bar patrons, bets being placed loudly. 

“Hey, it won’t be that easy—you’re on!” Hesh is off with a rush, patting your shoulder as he passes. You watch after with a wide smile and a raised brow, muttering to yourself.

“He’s unbelievable.” You can’t deny the loftiness that you feel when he looks happy like that. Really happy. It’s nearly a curse to try and think about what he would have become if the Federation hadn’t fired ODIN. He would have been in the military still, no doubt, but not quite the same. 

Hell, what would you have been like, even?

A shadow slips into the chair next to yours, and you look over, content. “Hey, Logan.”

The younger brother nods to you, sipping from his glass of water, a greeting smile on his square jaw. True to the brunette’s word, he was very quiet, but you didn’t find it in a disrespectful way. Logan carried himself with a subdued power, and the dichotomy between Hesh and him was laughable when you really thought about it; polar opposites.

You didn’t mind in the slightest.

Holding an easy conversation with nods or tiny comments back, you spoke with him for about twenty minutes while Hesh and Ajax called each other names and threw baseless threats through smirking lips like toddlers. At one point a very drunk Petty Officer Second Class, Thomas A. Merrick, had to drag a laughing Ajax off the pool table while you and Logan watched with exasperated glances. 

But the air was easy and the drink was flowing—soldiers from all over the Fort were here tonight. For you, though most just came for a good sip of alcohol and you didn’t blame them. You just did what was right, nothing more. 

“I think I’m gonna head out,” you tap a fist to Logan’s shoulder and he looks at you, sparing a quick glance at Hesh. You smile. “Nah, I think he’s going to be at it for a while. I’ll just walk back by myself—I’ve got my keycard, so I’m all good.”

A yell of victory rings from the corner before a loud exclamation of, “Rematch, right now! Your foot hit one of the balls to the left when you were climbing it!”

“It did not!” Logan stares blankly behind you and you laugh, slipping past. 

“Tell Hesh I said to have a good night!” You call over your shoulder, catching adoring brown eyes following you out and a mock salute from his water glass. 

Riley sits outside, resting his eyes, but when the door closes behind you the canine springs to his feet. The week hadn’t soured your relationship, but it definitely didn’t make it better either. Frowning, you pause in the night and look at the empty food dish and the filled water cup set out by Hesh for him.

“Tough luck, bud?” A muzzle lightly curls, but at least he wasn’t barking at you. Ears stand alert and ready. “Look,” you level, pulling Hesh’s beanie farther down your head as those beady eyes glare. “I think we got off on the wrong foot, okay? It’s not like I want you to hate me—I was protecting myself. You,” your finger points, and a lupine huff warns you, “came at me.” You point to your chest. “Remember?” 

It was comedic the way Riley yawned harshly at that moment, and you scoff.

“Who am I kidding, you’re hopeless just like your handler. I shouldn’t even be doing this,” reaching into your jacket pocket, you produce a small, soggy, napkin. Bending down, Riley growls low in his gut, but you ignore him. Not to say that the sound didn’t make your lips thin, though.

Unraveling the knot you’d tied in the bar, you look down at tiny cubes of medium-rare steak and sigh. “Look if this doesn’t work, I’ll give up.”

Flattening out the napkin, you pick up a piece and turn your vision upwards to an intently watching dog. At the sight of the food in between your thumb and first finger, the dog’s mouth gradually opens, tongue beginning to lull. A black nose twitches quickly. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” you grumble, “Hesh said you were a food fiend.” 

Tossing one of the pieces on the ground, you let him sniff it before his teeth flash and he grabs it quickly, tossing it up and munching on it. When Riley’s done he looks back at you expectantly, shoulders less wound up but still uneasy. 

“Well,” you push the rest forward before standing, “go on then. Don’t let me stop you.” 

Shaking your head to yourself, you leave him behind and set off down the street, mumbling, “You can’t say I never did anything for you…” 

You hear the sniffing before the clammer of biting teeth, happy pants, and tapping feet. Huffing, you can’t deny the slight jump that affects your heart. You’d have to tell Hesh about the progress tomorrow. 

Your cheeks heat, smiling to yourself as you think about the brunette. His hands always seemed to be on you one way or another and during the last two days he’d been holding onto you for longer; firm touches that he had to blink himself back to the present to take away. The actions made your skin tingle and more than once you’d caught your gaze lingering on his visage—his body. As if trying to will him back to you when he had to leave. 

But the staring was mutual. You had sworn at one point you had seen him more intent to fuzzily look at your moving lips than to focus on what you were explaining. Fingers absentmindedly tapping on a desk and humming at every word from you. The look had been…your body shivers warmly in remembrance, staring giddily at your shoes. 

You continue down the street, circles of light from the lamps hitting you one by one as you glide under them like a moth. Humming a light tune, you take the route that Hesh had brought you down the first time, imagining his hands on you and his lips on yours. 

When you giggle silently and chastise yourself for thinking like that, you hear the last whispers of a distant conversation that lead you to pause.

Your face freezes, smile stuck as your legs stall. It was Spanish wafting over the air, hushed and harsh. That wouldn’t be alarming, many people here spoke the language fluently as it was the native one of the entirety of the Federation—it was needed for intelligence gathering, or at least that was what Hesh had explained. No use going into No Man’s Land if you can’t understand the driving force occupying it. 

But this was hushed arguing, not some common conversation. It didn’t sound normal and the scuffling feet over the concrete gave you pause. The night suddenly became very cold. Backing up a step as you stare in the general direction of the increasing footfalls, the sudden sight of three heavily armed men as they round a corner with strong eyes. 

Your vision finds them immediately—and they do the same for you. It was instinctual, then, when your suddenly fevered face snapped to their patches. 

Gold stars and a black rhombus. Red outlined. Your expression utterly drops. 

There’s a single instance where no one moves, neither you nor those three Federation soldiers that now stare right back with an equal amount of shock. 

“Eh,” you make a sound in the confines of your throat and all hell breaks loose.

Jolting away, shouts ring out as hands snatch at your limbs, and you can’t even begin to think about how these people got into the Wall undetected. 

Everyone’s at the fucking bar!

Yelling loudly, you dash to the side, a quick swipe going above your head as the beanie is wrenched off of you instead of your hair. Not bothering to fight for it, though a large part of you wanted to, your feet take you anywhere but here. 

Roaring in anger, the soldiers pursued with rampaging boots and vitriolic order. Why they don’t shoot you is a wonder. Maybe it was because they wanted to try and salvage what they’d already lost. 

The screams escape you as you dash backward, retracing your steps but it isn’t going to be long before they catch you—true to that idea, just as the words exit your mouth, a harsh hand captures the back of your neck. 

“David!” The other winds around your mouth, muffled screams stuck behind gloves. Legs and arms striking out, your body is dragged into a back alley; the others all join to force you to submission. 

Your boot connects with someone’s kneecap, and a hoarse yell echoes as you rage with a frenzied pulse. Wide eyes look this way and that, sweat forming on your brow as a punch finds your gut and a resounding insult flies to your ears. 

Going slack for a moment, the violent white that bursts behind your vision leaves your straining muscles useless and you try to breathe behind the unrelenting hand over your mouth and nose. Like a shot deer, your dragging legs give out; coughing and gasping for air. 

Pain shoots down your chest with ruthless efficiency. 

You suppose in that moment of ringing ears, that it was chance that you heard the dull shunk of a knife being taken from a sheath. It wasn’t chance, though, when your desperate teeth snapped into the heavy hand, ignoring pain and the tears smeared over your face.

With a sharp cry, the hand loosens enough for you to get the last word, a brief moment of clear realization, “Riley,” you scream with little breath but sufficient volume, “Come!” 

The knife descended on you, but you jerked your shoulder to the side, head ripped back to bare your neck to the silent moonlight as the hand recovered your face. Black dots swirl, shadows lingering like phantoms in the recesses of your mind and spilling demons from your eyes. Hatred flares in you, but not as much as fear does. That silver blade connects with the meat of your neck and shoulder junction, tearing past muscle and tissue to rent a large slash open to the air. 

Your legs kick before arms wrap around them—more quickly called orders and insults directed at the one who had missed your neck peeling back the drums inside of your ear. Thick, hot, blood stains your clothes; the copper scent gets stuck in your nose as you gag and try to force your lungs to function with nothing to suck down. Darkness seeps deeper, and the knife is brought up once more, the tip digging into your cheek with a firm bite when you try to flinch away.

That’s when a guttural and vociferous yowl exudes from the chest of a rampaging canine as it bursts from around the corner of the alley, white teeth glinting and eyes red. 

Riley has the man with the knife by the neck in two seconds flat, reaming him back and clinging to his spine with only his fangs on his nape. Multiple wet crunches echo for but a moment, a small sliver in time, but then the loud pained bellows that follow after drown out all else. Like a bomb had been dropped, the man Riley keeps ripping apart falls sideways, hands reaching behind his head to try and pry the dog off. In a fit of fear and stupefaction at the turn of events the remaining men release you, tossing your body to the side and into the adjacent wall in panic. 

Hands reach for guns but it’s already too late. Riley has ripped the entire back of the man’s head off in a flurry of fur and jerking maw—flesh peeling back in long strings into a waiting mouth as the screams continue. Now, though, they come from only the remaining soldiers as you watch with mute horror; gripping your leaking cut and vision fuzzy from the blow that your head had taken from slamming into the wall. Lack of oxygen. 

With all the ruckus, it was only customary that the streets were soon awake with confusion and rising tension. You swore you heard your name being called streets over, hurried yelling as the lights flicker on from the building across the road.

But Riley. Christ, Riley. 

The second man’s pistol was stopped from rising any farther as fast fangs found a wrist, the shot bouncing off the ground as you balked back against the wall and cried out. Across the Fort, the yelling starts up. Louder now. That remaining soldier unaffected thus far by the feral rage is snapping into a ready stance—shaking as the barrel is leveled with the dog’s skull as sharp points go for the kill once again. 

“Riley!” You snag out a leg and rip it back, curling your foot around his ankle. Black clothes hit the ground hard, as the man inside went with them. 

It carried on just the same. 

Panting you stare into the blood-dripping muzzle that now turns your way, three opened necks pooling to the ground and twitching. Gargling gasps dribble like glasswork exploding in kilns; such a vulgar, primal, sound. But you only stare at the beady brown eyes as they seem to bite you as well. Framed with crimson, whiskers droopy as droplets hit your knee and rancid breath slides over your stalled face.

“Please…” you mutter, bruised head turning to the side, eyes clenched shut. Licking lips resonate and you clench your hands as you finally hear the frantic calling of your name coming down the road. Fast-moving shadows.

Hesh.  

Riley breathes on you, but before your swallowing throat can call out the brunette in fear of what the dog will do, a wet tongue licks a long stripe over your cheek. Eyes bugging, you snap your head back up, jaw slackened and brain struggling to calm down. 

The dog watches with a slow tilt of his head, tail lowly swishing. 

“What the fuck,” gasping wetly, the hand on your wound lessens, hot fluid gushing between fingers. 

Riley huffs, feet shifting. 

Laughing slightly in anxious confusion, your free hand lightly raises. Soft fur conforms to you, letting your digits weave through the locks. Riley licks his lips once more and sits on his fluffy behind, ears sharply up and twitching. 

Hesh nearly runs past the sight, heart too fast for his chest and teeth clenched tight together. His mind was as sober as it could be—a deep sense of unease clawing in his gut. 

He’s heard the screaming; the gunshot. When he’d run out of the bar after doing a quick headcount for you and being unable to place your form, Riley had already been gone. A trail of dust and a floating napkin were the only indicators. But the fear was worse than that.

Where had you gone? Were you in danger? No thought was behind his sprinting, just a flushed face and a deep need to keep you safe. He’d promised you. 

No one had been able to stop his senseless searching as he took off at a racer’s pace, looking down alleyways and carrying the pistol in his right grip until his knuckles had gone white and see-through. Like a loyal hound, Hesh was intent to find you. Even if it turned out to be nothing. 

And then the real screams started, and so he screamed too—your name.

But now he slams a hand into the concrete wall and reels himself back, a hunched shadow stiff in the side of his green vision before he can fully pass the alleyway entrance. 

“Holy…” Hesh trails harshly, gaze going wide. 

You were there surrounded by three Federation soldier’s bodies and while that was alarming, there was only so much you could do when you were a corpse. Riley held in your arms was something that Hesh couldn’t begin to explain. 

But the shock was short-lived.

“Sweetheart!” He called, boots propelling him forward as he slid to one knee in front of you, hands pushing past fur and muscle to bring yours forward by your shoulders. A handgun is placed into the back of his belt. “Woah, woah, hey. Tell me what happened. Where does it hurt?” 

Staring into your eyes you immediately relax at the presence of the man, his large body seeming to shield you away while sending glances around the area; not liking the thought of more attackers. 

“Hesh,” you breathe, massive weight coming off of you even as you bite your lip in a pained whimper. 

“I’m here. I’m right here.” Hands travel over your body, gliding over bumps and bruises quickly and efficiently. “What the fuck…” he growls deeply. “It’s all gonna be okay.” 

A swift glance is sent to the canine who watches blankly. 

“Good job, boy.” You stare blurrily into Hesh’s neck as he carefully peels back your hand, face scrunching and body pulling together as sparks of agony alight as the gaping cut meets the breeze. 

“I,” stuttering, you ignore his harsh inhale, the ripping of his shirt as he presses the tattered cloth to your neck. You shiver. “I lost your beanie.”

Fearful green eyes lock on your as the calls from the rest of the soldiers from the bar finally make an appearance. How fast had Hesh been running to find you? 

“Hey, don’t even worry about it,” his palm encapsulates your cheek like a prized family heirloom, keeping your face pointed toward him as you shiver. The soft scraping of his hard calluses itches your flesh. A strained smile graces his lips, “I’ll give you another one.” He looks the rest of you over and grits his teeth. 

He doesn’t care about the dead soldiers—the possibility of a breach. Suddenly, all of his priorities had shifted in the short span of a week, horrible loyalty rearing its head.

“I need you to stand up for me, Sweetheart, okay? I’ll be right here, I just need you on your feet. I know you can do it.” You nod shakily, pulling strength from his resolve as his arm pulls you to his chest like it had when you’d first hugged; using his muscles to drag you up a second after checking to see if you weren’t in too much pain. 

Standing now, his grip stays around you, propping you up into the crook of his arm and increasingly looking more and more worried. 

When you flinch and whine, he looks about ready to burn down cities to bring you comfort. 

“Riley, come on!” Hesh calls, then softer, “I know it hurts, but you’re doing great. Keep at it just a little longer.” 

He moves you quickly, and the pounding in the back of your head threatens to drown out everything—your neck and ribs barely made a dent like that did. A pan being hit with a spoon. Nails on a chalkboard.

“Logan!” David yells, and he feels incredibly warm. Riley brushes your staggering legs, keeping close and looking up at you. Leaning in more heavily, you gaze up into Hesh’s frowning face, his continued glances, and the furrow in his brow. 

You wonder how you’d never noticed how truly handsome he was before. Hesh had a strong face—good bones and a soft nature to his skin besides the stubble. And his eyes. Oh, his eyes. You blink up at him and he spares a stiff smile, mostly dragging you down the alley. 

Other feet pound the ground near the entrance.

“What’s that look for? Huh? Makin’ me nervous over here.” His fingers squeeze your shoulder. “Got something on my face?” 

“You’re kind, Hesh.” You whisper, blinking and stumbling before he grunts, twisting his grip to bring you up into a bridle hold. “Far kinder than you should be.”

His heart breaks.

Clenching your teeth, you bury your head into his neck before the brunette starts to run again. He pounds past Logan and a group of armed soldiers, who slide to a quick stop. Hesh only spares his wide-eyed brother a single, horror-stricken, look on the way through. Riley follows.

“Just keep talking.” He pleads, your dead weight in his grip worse than anything he’d ever experienced. “Y’know, you keep ending up in my arms.” He rounds corners, heading to the MTF with a bursting pulse. Hesh keeps looking down at you, pressing your head closer with a hand as if he could bleed himself to give you strength. “I think I should get my own plaque—Pack Mule. What do you think?” 

Laugh, please, laugh. Please, I need to hear it.

You laugh slightly, ear ringing to his blood flow. You want to melt into him, let him keep holding you like this and keeping you to him like a stuffed animal. His breath on your cheek, his glassy eyes and bitten lips. 

You’d known he was good from the moment you had seen him standing and gaping at your form in that bathroom cabinet, willing to treat your wound without even knowing if you were armed.

He’s good.

Hesh sprints past an entrance, shoulder slamming into a glass door as it’s thrown to the side. 

“Nurse!”

You don’t know why, but hearing his voice crack like that made you want to sob.

—

The soft antibacterial whip made you glower and flinch back, frowning straight into Hesh’s serious face.

“If you clean it anymore my skin will fall off.” You shoo his hand away from your shoulder, pulling the hospital gown back up in the process. 

“Just making sure it’s healing,” he looks up at you from his chair as you sit on the end of the bed. “Can’t be too careful.”

“Says the man who’s been here every day and leaves Riley to watch the door when he has to go to the bathroom.”

“Hey,” Hesh blushes, pulling back to slouch and crossing his arms. “It’s called being cautious. We still don’t know where the breach is.” 

You stare with a soft smile, exasperation in your eyes. 

“David,” he raises a brow at the title, “I’m okay.” 

Moving your hand from your lap, you absentmindedly pet the dog that sleeps on the hospital bed, itching behind Riley’s ears. Hesh watches, moments passing as the small tension seeps out little by little. He glances at the outline of stitches that he has to place bandages on soon but quickly looks away, frowning to himself. 

You sigh, shaking your head. 

“When I heard your voice from the alleyway entrance, I knew I would be just fine.” Green slowly slides back, gaze softening considerably as he watches your expression. A low grunt is forced out, a rubbing of a hand on his neck. “You promised, didn’t you?” Your head tilts. “You haven’t broken it.”

“No, I haven’t,” Hesh breathes, standing, “and I don’t intend to.” 

You smile, face hot as his vision blinks to the upturn of your lips. “Hey,” Riley stirs next to you, “at least I know I won him over.” Your hand pats the dog’s head. 

The brunette stares and a moment passes before he whispers, “knew you would.”

Blinking, you turn to find the most delicate expression on David's face and your breath hitches in your chest. He swallows but doesn’t hesitate. The words had been eating at him for a while, and as he was never one to shy away from speaking his mind, it was like torture to keep this from you. But now…now events have forced him into the spotlight. He can’t forgo this anymore, he can’t lie and say he hadn’t been sneaking glances or daydreaming about you. Your smile, your voice—even the way you walked or how your eyes lit up when you were passionate about something. 

It was just right, and seeing you like this now only strengthened that. Hesh had felt fear like he had when he was carrying you a total of a mere handful in his entire life. 

He mutters, “I knew from the second I found you out in No Man’s Land that you were special.”

Not believing your ears, you stop your petting. Wide eyes like dinner plates and a half-parted mouth. 

Was he…?

“I knew when you made me laugh when I was carrying you through the hills,” Hesh takes a step closer and grabs you lightly by the chin, tilting it up with a finger. His face was adorably burning, but you short-circuit at the words that continue to flow with candor. Your heart skips beats and with a clammy hand, you reach up to brush his wrist. Shivering, confidence builds. “I knew when I hugged you the first night you were here and,” he looked down, “I…I knew you were special when I felt my heart bursting out of my chest when I found you in that alley.” 

“Hesh,” you whisper, and you realize you close the two of you had become, breath mixing like a cocktail of glorious infection and stolen words. 

“If I hadn’t gotten there on time…” 

“Hesh.”

“...Even if I’ve only known you for a short while, Sweetheart, I can’t stop thinking the same thing every time I see you.” You stare, eyes wet, and suddenly no longer aware of where your head is anymore. 

His lips brush yours, but all you care about are those green eyes; digging, drilling past membranes and thoughts more effectively than any blade. You’re entranced, wholeheartedly frozen just for him—just as he is for you. 

It’s nothing but a whisper now. You feel the words more than hear them. His thumb tightens on your chin, and you don’t pull back as you steal his warmth. His kindness. 

His loyalty.

“...that even if I hadn’t entered that house on that rainy Tuesday,” he shutters, “I’d still be looking for you everywhere I went.” 

When his lips meet yours, you capture his soul, dragging him down into the depths of your lungs and breathing hope back into him. You smile through it, bandaged and stitched but happier than you’d been in a long time. 

Pulling back from a soft and delicate meeting of flesh, both faces are heated, burning under the pigments. There’s a moment of sanctity—holy silence one would find in a church during high mass—as you stare at one another. Hesh’s fingers run small movements on your skin. You beam and he says in a whisper, “Hey…I guess that means I did something right.”

“You’re lucky you’re perfect, David.”

“I could say the same about you, Sweetheart.” You giggle and drag him back in as Riley snoozes on, legs kicking in a silent dream. 

When the nurses come to check on you in four hours, they’ll find the bed occupied by three forms. 

A soldier, a patient, and a dog. All curled up in a pile of multiple blankets and hard pillows—arms wrapped around one another with the man pressing the woman’s face deep into his chest; even breaths of a soft sleep that sing like rare lullabies. All, in their own way, seem to have heavy smiles stuck into the lines of their faces.

They leave them be.

TAGS:

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[xinyuehui]

Link Click live action drama EP1-4 thoughts

Where to watch: Bilibili (no eng subs at the moment) Bilibili English site (Releasing on Jun 22, assuming it will have subs)

After seeing the atrocious live-action adaptation of Fox Spirit Matchmaker, all hope is lost. But the Link Click drama is produced by the same team who adapted Hikaru no Go (Qi Hun), which was good. Let's see how this goes…

Plot

The screenwriter said this is a prequel, but I disagree. I would describe it as taking the Link Click universe and creating a canon adjacent edition of it, an AU to the original. The outline of the story is very similar, but the finer details and premise are very different from those of the donghua.

In the donghua, the boys were already engaged in time travelling, and we learn later on that they met at university. So far, it has never been explained how they discovered their superpowers.

Whereas in the drama they changed the premise, Cheng Xiaoshi meets Lu Guang for the first time when Lu Guang rescues him from being beaten up by a fish vendor...interesting choice of first meet...Cheng Xiaoshi explains that he was born with a natural instinct, but it's not exactly clear what the superpower is. Qiao Ling is also unaware of Cheng Xiaoshi's superpowers.

Instead of Emma, we have Zhang Xueting, a corporate worker that face injustice. But in this case Cheng Xiaoshi doesn't take over her body, but some other guy. The relationship she has with her parents and the iconic line "Dad, mom, I miss you" is no longer in the drama. I feel like this one is a miss since the family aspect has been shifted.

Then the noodle lesbians...haven't appeared, unless they moved that to a later episode???

Following the donghua, the next one is Chen Xiao who went back in time to say final words to his loved ones before the earthquake. This one made me cry once again 😭

Characters

Everything has changed. OOC at some moments in my opinion. Since season 3 of the anime is not released yet, I'm taking a wild guess that the drama will have an original ending as well. The donghua team appears to have no involvement with the production of the drama.

Qiao Ling is not just a landlady, she is also a journalist at her day job. By the looks of it, helping people will be executed through her reporting profession, and it seems like she will have a lot more involvement compared to the donghua.

Her parents also comes into the story, her parents on the right in the screenshot below. They run a restaurant. Cheng Xiaoshi is very close to them and helps out some times.

Cheng Xiaoshi is portrayed as someone with no real job, he hasn't gone to university and uses idioms incorrectly. Obviously Lu Guang couldn't have met him at uni in this universe. He's a lot more exaggerated and cartoony. I have mixed feelings about this.

Because of the casting, Cheng Xiaoshi is shorter than Lu Guang. I'm sorry to all the girlies who were into canon tall Cheng Xiaoshi 🙏

Lu Guang now has a back story, he has a teacher who passed away that taught him about time travelling?? He briefly mentioned he found the Cheng Xiaoshi they were looking for. Looks like they will unveil the superpowers origins in the drama.

^ A glimpse of the teacher in his memory. Can you believe it's Yuen Kingdan?!?

The overall acting from the cast is fairly well done. There are several actors acting as Cheng Xiaoshi at the same time, and it still feel like it's the same person. Anyone who watched the Hikaru no Go live action will find familiarity here, as some of the actors from that production are also part of this one.

Overall

It's okay so far, although that might change as it airs. It's difficult to digest if you treat this as a faithful adaptation (I know the none cdrama fans have been questioning why Lu Guang don't have white hair). However, if you watch it like it's an AU, and resist the urge to compare it, it's not unwatchable.

I do have one small complaint, the drama should have had a different title because now it's going to get mixed up with the donghua content when people look it up.

One last thing. The ending song slaps hard!

[blueywrites]

new skin

The diner’s signature dish: Fresh-baked soft pretzel knots with sweet Georgia peach jam, topped with bitter trauma. Recipe includes a dash of pining, a sprinkle of faith, and a generous heap of healing love.

Linecook!Eddie x Waitress!Reader. 60s Diner. Slow Burn.

Follows canon, except Eddie lives, and Vecna is defeated after causing the 'earthquake'. This is written in second person 'x reader' format, but you've been given a name. The name and nicknames that appear throughout the story are listed below; use the InteractiveFics extension to replace them if you'd like!

full name: emmaline louise. nicknames: emma, emmy

series content warnings -> eventual sexual content (18+), fem!reader, plussized!reader, fatphobia, domestic violence, domestic abuse, miscarriage/pregnancy, discussions of suicidal ideation, significant religious themes, found family, hurt/comfort, slow burn, angst with a happy ending

chapter content warnings -> 18+ for mature themes. mentions of blood, numerous Christian religious references, disordered eating habits, anxiety, references to emotional abuse and manipulation, body image issues, internalized fatphobia

one: an empty room (10.3k) | next | masterlist | playlist | AO3

You surrounded me

and my windows are breaking

Something is rotten inside of me

I have to find it and

cut it out

House Song — Searows

It was a mortal man who drove you away but divine providence that guided you to Hawkins.

You’d been dropping off the key to your motel room when you saw it: a cockeyed paper pamphlet in the dusty wooden holder mounted beneath the counter. Stuffed beside “Indiana Caverns” and “The World’s Largest Ball of Paint,” it advertised a place where fissures had unfurled like the spindly legs of a spider, all radiating out from the center square. ‘Visit the town that hosts the gates of Hell,’ it read. You knew the town couldn’t really host the gate of Hell because Hell is a lake of fire and not a crack in the earth, though even the thought made a chill of foreboding shudder through you. Still, as you gazed at the name written in big red letters across the faded paper, you rolled it around in your mouth, seeing how it felt against your molars and exploring the way it tasted on your tongue.

Hawkins.

You’d expected bitterness. Ash and fire and brimstone, if the leaflet was to be believed. Instead, Hawkins tasted of pine, of sweet corn, and drugstore laundry powder. And that was odd, certainly. But maybe odd was what you needed— something wholly unfamiliar, nerve-wracking in its foreignness but peaceful in the knowledge that, if nothing else, you know he would never expect you to escape to somewhere like this. 

You’d been cutting a path from your home in Georgia due north, aimless and wandering, restless like a frightened prey animal consumed with nothing but thoughts of flee, flee, flee. The instinct had brought you from parking lot to roadside fuel-pump to motel six day after day, bouncing as the stacks in the cashbox wedged beneath the passenger seat began to dwindle. A pawn shop helped resupply your reserves, and your ring finger was lighter for it, but the running is beginning to wear on you. And there's just something about the taste of Hawkins lingering in your mouth, yeasty like wheat and clean in a way you haven’t felt since the day after Christmas when the bleeding began.

Your fingertips twitch before you snatch up the folded paper from the holder, spilling out into the gray of early morning. You cut a path back to the crack of warm light leaking from your room, where you’d wedged a stone against the metal edge of the door to prop it open. You slip inside one last time before you depart. 

There isn’t much to gather. Inside, there's just a musty floral bedspread and a side table with a bolted-down lamp. You flick the switch, leaving the room cold and dark in preparation for your departure. Your few personal belongings are already packed away in the car waiting outside, and it’s with a sense of familiar shame twanging at your heartstrings that you duck back into the tiny tiled room nestled in the corner of the bedroom. The pamphlet crinkles as you fold it and slip it into your coat pocket, freeing your hands to do what they will. 

This place is just one in a long line of stark rooms, transient nests that shelter you briefly as you flee. It's what made you think you were aimless and wandering, but you weren’t. Not really. 

During your flight from Georgia, you’d stopped in Lexington, Kentucky. And when you drove on, you could have, just as easily, chosen to go northeast, toward Columbus, perhaps curving over toward western Pennsylvania. But you decided to go northwest instead, dipping into the southern edge of Indiana, avoiding Cincinnati and its choked smog until you nestled into fields and farms again. It was divine providence that guided you that way, that bid you stop at this motel for the night, that helps you now discern the notes of flavor you hadn’t noticed back in the office as the leaflet crinkles in your coat pocket. Because beneath the unfamiliar— pine and corn and laundry powder— there is the familiar musk of fresh hay, mown on a sweet summer morning by your pa as soft whinnies huff from the stable. It warms you, though the January wind cuts through to the bone as you scurry back out of the motel room and let the door thump closed behind you. Your eyes dart for lookers-on, though the sting of self-consciousness isn’t quite as acute now as the first few times you’d waddled to the pastel blue Lincoln and fumbled the back door open with laden hands.

When you found that pamphlet and chose Hawkins, Indiana, as your final nesting place, God was calling you home. You will know that in the end, but you don’t know it now. Now, you’re just a scared girl carrying toilet paper, satchets of soap, and tiny bottles of mouthwash in your fists, pilfered from yet another temporary room. They tumble to join the pile of stolen treasures in the backseat, right beside the pillow from Tennessee and the scratchy blanket from Kentucky.

You've known since you were small that you aren’t a lamb— only Jesus is the lamb. Still, you'd hoped you are a sheep, pure and white, close to Him. Yet it turns out you’ve been wrong all this time. It turns out you're just a dirty, thieving crow, poking your beak in the dirt to search for shiny things to sustain you. As you stare at the pile of your baubles, the shame tugs again at your heartstrings, clawing up to settle heavily in the base of your throat. Thick like the beginnings of tears.  

You slam the back door and climb into the driver’s seat, sitting motionlessly for a long moment as you speak with your Father. You've always talked to God as long as you can remember but never had your prayers been so consistent as they've been this past week. First the waiting. Then the bleeding. Then the forsaking. Then the stealing. In all, you ask the same.

Please, Father. Forgive me.

 You pull the leaflet from your coat pocket, unfolding it carefully, avoiding the inflammatory language about gates and fissures as you search until you spot the tiny map and the star in its center that demarks the location of Hawkins. The instructions say that, from the south, you should take route four-thirty-one to route three north. 

Your aimless crawling has suddenly gained a clear direction; with it, your prayers shift for the moment. A hymn comes to mind, and you close your eyes as its melody plays in your head: Lead me, guide me, along the way. For if you leave me, I will not stray. Lord, let me walk each day with thee.

“Lead me,” you sing, a breath of a whisper as your eyes open. “Oh Lord, lead me.”

Beside your Lincoln, a businessman is loading his trunk into the passenger seat of his station wagon.

You crank down your window hastily, resting your fingers against the doorframe as you peek out without making a sound; working yourself up to speak with this strange man takes some effort. He has just closed the door and is about to cross around the front bumper when your voice finally comes, timorous but sweet as Georgia peaches. “Excuse me, sir,” you say, brows tipping as he turns to you. “Do you happen to know the way to route four-thirty-one from here?”

The cloud cover never wanes as you meander along the highways that lead to Hawkins. Even as the hour deepens to late afternoon, there is no glow of warmth from the sun; only cold bright grayness follows you as your gas gauge edges toward a quarter-tank, and you pull off to find a gas station and something to fill your aching stomach. You shade your eyes as you stand beside the pump and squint across the street, gaze catching on a familiar mascot: a swirl of hair like a dollop of black whipped cream and the red suspenders of Frisch’s Big Boy. The sight promises cheap food which will almost certainly be filling enough for your single midday meal.

The place isn’t overwhelmingly busy inside, but you still need to wait by the empty hostess stand before you’re taken to your seat. Against the long smudged window, shiny stickers and little childish baubles crowd the twenty-five cent machines, but your interest lies in the considerably more drab newspaper dispenser beside those colorful globes. You aren’t quite at your destination yet, but you’re close enough that local ads will likely provide you with a taste of your chosen home before you reach it. You purchase one quickly, wedging the newspaper under your arm and jumping almost guiltily when the hostess returns and finally chirps a greeting at you. You feel as if you’ve done something wrong as you trail after her, though as she hands you a menu and leaves you with a pleasant smile, she implies nothing of the sort.

You don’t spend long perusing the menu before you make up your mind. You order with a soft voice as the waitress scratches across her pad, promising to bring your orange juice and coffee in a jiffy. “Thank y’ma’am,” you say, small with your hands folded one over the other in your lap. 

You wait eagerly, stomach rumbling in earnest now that it knows your meal is well on the way. If you had to choose one type of food to eat for the rest of your life, breakfast would surely be it. A smile plays on your lips, and your mouth wells up with wanting as you picture it: crispy fried potatoes, eggs any which way, fluffy sweet milk waffles, cream of wheat with maple syrup and cinnamon. That one’s mama’s favorite. Pa’s is country fried steak, with a crunchy crust but tender and pink inside. Paul’s is—

You hedge from the thought, skipping quickly along to yours: dense, crumbly biscuits and thick, well-seasoned gravy, with little savory bits of sausage mixed in. They hadn’t had that here, so you ordered the pancakes and sausage links with a side of over-easy eggs, plus the coffee and orange juice. You’d gotten into the habit of eating once a day, mostly because it was easier to eat one big meal than try to stop for several smaller ones. That means that, as you sit there waiting, the scents of the kitchen and the clinking of silverware quickly become a dizzying reminder of your hunger, one that necessitates a distraction. So you spread the newspaper out against the table, turning each page slowly as you scan for the town that tastes of fresh laundry and hay.

You spot it once you reach the classifieds. It’s in an ad blazoned with one bold word across the top: vacancy. Forest Hills Trailer Park, the paper reads. Ready-to-move-in trailers, spacious for singles and small families. Just a five-minute drive from downtown Hawkins. In tiny font, tiny enough that you need to scrunch your nose and draw your face close to the paper to read it, the ad remarks, No background check or references required. First month’s rent plus deposit due at lease signing.

Forest Hills Trailer Park will clearly be a far cry from what you’ve left behind, but it checks all the necessary boxes, especially the most important ones.

You fold the newspaper, creasing it carefully with your fingernails before tearing bit by bit along that manufactured edge until the advertisement comes free. You’ve just carefully deposited the clipping into your pocket as the food comes, steaming and succulent, making your mouth instantly water. 

“How’s it look?” Your waitress asks as if you aren’t itching to pounce on the plate the second she goes away, devouring your sustenance like a starved animal.

“Looks great,” you assure her, tiny and sweet and small and docile. “Thank you so much.”

But even once she leaves you to it, your manners forbid you from such a thing. You keep your elbows off the table and cut the pancakes with little even saws of your knife, spearing each square daintily with your fork before raising it to your lips. You eat your meal as if everyone around you is watching, even though no one is.

When your waitress returns with a refill for your coffee, you ask her for directions to Hawkins. For the first time, her eyes rove over you, taking in the winter coat you haven’t removed and the glinting silver cross at the base of your throat that peeks above the collar of your starchy dress. She squints at you and asks, “What, ya visitin’ family?”

When you don’t reply, she gestures with the coffee pot. “Take thirty-five west and keep drivin’ ‘til you reach the barn with the cow out front. Then turn left there. Y’can’t miss it.”

The ‘cow out front’ turns out to be a cow statue, bigger than any real cow you’ve ever seen and certainly not one you could miss, as she said. You slow and turn left, finally abandoning the highway for a scenic road lined with pine trees that stand like silent sentinels as you carefully guide your vehicle along the road to… 

Home.

Your new home.

Now that it feels so imminent— this decision you’ve made to build your nest at the feet of the supposed ‘gate of hell’— doubt begins to creep in, freezing at the edges of your ribs and creeping toward your center. You’ve driven more than twelve hours from your origin-place, and America is vast— so vast— with more motels than stars you can count across the expanse of the sky on a clear summer’s night. 

And you’ve set your mind on this place because you saw it in a pamphlet? 

Your fingers tremble as you pass tree after tree, branch after branch, leaf after leaf, a sea of unending forest stretching to enclose you and the road you follow. Might as well’ve spun myself around at the treeline, pointed a finger, and started walking, you think to yourself, the leather of the wheel creaking under your wringing hands. It is one thing to run aimlessly; it is quite another to plop yourself down the same way.

'Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths.'

“Proverbs,” you whisper, your trembling beginning to subside with each exhaled word that passes through your lips. “Chapter three, verses five and six.” The fingers of one hand unpeel from the steering wheel to clasp instead around the silver at your throat. And by the time your fingers have warmed the metal, your doubt has calmed, and a sign on the right interrupts the treeline, declaring you’ve arrived. 

Hawkins, Indiana. The forest gives way to typical small-town life, though the evidence of what occurred here almost three years ago is still evident in the divots of scarred earth now frosted over with ice, like sharp gauze packing a wound. Some buildings are in permanent disrepair— collapsed, crumbled, roofs caved in, wood and brick sinking into the earth like sinew and bone, partially covered over by hairy weeds that expose the steady march of time. But as you drive slowly toward the center of town, where is rebuilt is teeming with small-town life, not unlike the place you’ve come from. As the sun begins to wane, warm lights slowly blink on inside cozy split-levels and ranches to take its place. Wives welcome husbands home from work before sitting down for supper; children are called in from the streets as mothers stand in breezeways, dropping bikes to be left abandoned in the frosty grass until tomorrow. Despite the present bleak midwinter and the past tragedy that befell them, life goes on for the people of Hawkins, Indiana. That fact conjures a sense of peace as you wander through, searching idly for Kerley— the road that leads to the trailer park. This is the place described as hosting the gate of hell? As you pass bare cornfields and sleepy suburban streets, Hawkins feels so far from it that your earlier fear seems suddenly silly.

You meander the town in your pastel blue Lincoln until you happen upon Kerley Street. By the time you finally reach the turnoff for Forest Hills Trailer Park, the black of night has fallen like a curtain over the vague rectangular structures that crowd beyond the gravel entrance. Your headlights swing and illuminate a slapdash sign that designates the land manager’s residence, and you’re relieved to see a vague glow seeping through the crack below the door and between the curtains, persistent despite the clear attempts to keep it concealed from the outside world. You park the car and hold onto the doorframe as you emerge onto gravel, which you waver over in your low heels until you reach the stairs at the base of the porch. There’s a cracked flowerpot on the bottom step, but instead of the husks of flowers you expect, it’s loaded with cigarette butts, decaying in layers of paper and used nicotine. 

You stare at the door for a moment before announcing yourself. You’re nervous to be confronted with the unfamiliar person beyond; foreboding clenches in your chest, but it can’t be helped. A rap of your knuckles conjures the man who’d tried so valiantly to hide that he was home. His shirt is dirty, his pants sag, and his shave isn’t close to even; he eyes you wearily as you stand on his stoop. “Locked out?” he asks dully, and you flounder a moment before replying, swallowing to wet your throat and hope your voice stays steady. 

“I don’t live here,” you say, “but… I’m lookin’ to. That is, I saw in the paper you had vacancies—” You shove your hand in your coat pocket and pull out the newspaper clipping, passing it over. The man surveys the ad perfunctorily, one bushy brow quirked. The toothpick between his teeth bobs as he plays with it, his eyes sliding to you as you ask hesitantly, “...Do you still have vacancies?” 

His chuckle comes so fast it’s startling. The sound is raspy, like he needs to clear his throat. “‘Course I have vacancies.” He pulls the toothpick from between his lips, flicking it heedlessly away. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

When you shake your head, he jerks his toward the doorway spilling light across the porch. “Come on, then. Let’s get this done.”

You forget his name almost as soon as he tells you, but your land manager seems nice enough. Brusque, sure, but harmless as you sign the papers and pay for the first month’s rent. He waives the deposit— literally waves your words away like irritating wings are fluttering near his ear— and explains, “Place is mostly unfurnished, but you got a bed at least.” 

You can’t do anything but stand there stock still as he tells you your house number— seven— and drops the key into your open palm. “Don’t bother callin’ me f’somethin’ breaks. I’m useless at plumbin’ and ‘lectrical. You’ll need to call someone in the profession.” You curl your fingers over cold metal, and the grooves of the key bite your palm as he wags a finger at you. “Y’lose your key, it’ll cost you a fiver to replace.” He waits until you’ve nodded enough to satisfy him, and then he sends you on your way, closing himself away again. The light leaking from the crevices is extinguished by the time you reach your car door.

You guide your car carefully along the gravel path, driving past darkened trailers, past a red dome made of bars and a picnic table, past a trailer with a caved-in roof you stare at as you pass. A great crack churned up the porch floorboards, and between them now sprout tall, dry, brittle grass made feeble by winter’s bite. There's a streetlight nearby, but it's broken; the moonlight that plays on the dilapidated structure makes you shiver. Still, there isn’t much time to react before you’re at your place. Your trailer is a carbon copy of the well-kept rectangular box beside it, except the other has a chain-link fenced-in yard at the front. A clothesline denotes the edge of your side yard from your neighbors’. 

As you cut the engine, the world goes quiet. You sit in the stillness, and for a moment, there’s just you, your car, and your new home beyond a scraggly dirt yard.

You think of the other places you’d called home before your temporary motel rooms. You think first of your childhood home, and your mouth fills with peaches, with the hollowness of piano keys and the rich dirt from under the wraparound porch. You think of that tall white house, where your delighted shrieks echoed through warm wood hallways as you ran out the back door toward the stables beyond. Your clumsy fingers had carved your name over your bedroom door in elementary scrawl. Pa’d been so angry when you did that, but he relented and ruffled your hair in the end, shaking his head. He always was too fond of you.

Then you think of the home you could call your own— not your parents’, but yours. Yours and Paul’s. Stately, proud, with more of a brick landing than a porch leading up to the dark oak door. Inside are gauzy curtains and rich wallpaper; plump pillows line the couches just so, and the servers display decorative crystal. As you remember, your mouth fills with powdered sugar and water lilies, the gloss of fine china and the silk of ruffled bed skirts. But there’s metal on the back of your tongue, the copper acrid and biting as it overwhelms the rest. You shudder a breath, breaking from your recollections to finally emerge from the car and face your newest home.

In the moonlight, you can see that it also has a porch, but it’s sagging. You mount its stairs, and they’re rickety, creaking under your heels. Inside, when the screen door cracks back into place behind you, the interior of number seven Forest Hills Trailer Park feels like a void of stillness. The light switch flickers erratically before coming to life when you nudge it with your fingertip as if it hasn’t been called to do its job for quite some time. A long narrow hallway directly across from you leads into darkness, with a living room on your right and a kitchen on your left. All of what you can see is empty aside from a thick layer of dust coating the window frames, which are cracked with dried paint, the drips of sloppy workmanship forever preserved in lacquer. There’s mildew growing at the corner of the wall in the living room, and you hesitate to explore it further, opting to head left instead.

At the threshold of the front door, you’d landed on a filthy, matted-down rug. You clack forward with hesitant steps as if afraid to disturb anything, as if this is someone else’s place, not yours. When you edge into the kitchen, cautiously pulling open the refrigerator door, the cold air leaking from inside is reassuring. But when it suddenly kicks and rattles as if sick or angry, the sound makes you tense and jerk away quickly. It’s empty in this room, too— every drawer and cabinet is barren when you tug them open, aside from the dried corpses of flies mounded in a strange pile on the linoleum in front of the kitchen sink. At least the land manager said there’s a bed. Vague unease begins to well in your chest; you hurry down that dark, narrow hallway, flicking the switch as you pass, but nothing changes. The light does not come on. In the back room, the bed is nothing more than the vague lump of a mattress, lonely on the floor. 

The screen door snaps closed behind you as you rush back down the rickety porch stairs. When faced with the choice, you elect to wrap yourself in your scratchy Kentucky blanket, your winter coat, and some extra socks to sleep in the Lincoln despite the bleak midwinter.

Because number seven Forest Hills Trailer Park trips off your tongue; it doesn’t taste like home.

The sun streams cheery light through the windshield, and you wake at just after six, mouth dry as cotton weeds. Your back and neck are sore, cricked from their position against the headrest all night, and the muscles spasm when you stir. You rub your bleary eyes clear, holding your palms against your lashes as if reluctant to remove them and see the state of your new home as it was last night. Eventually, you relent; in the light of day, you peek again at the worn trailer with its gray siding, faded and covered with moss at the concrete base, that rickety porch, and the dull brass knocker concealed behind the screen door… 

You take a moment to consider but can’t decide if it’s any better in the light of day.

With a handful of your stolen toiletries, you venture back inside, and the screen door makes you jump as it snaps closed while you’re standing closeby. Your heart hammers, blood rushing in your ears, and you chastise yourself lightly once it calms. I have to remember to lower the door closed, otherwise people’re gonna get mad with me making such a racket in the morning. 

A quick glance past that closed door you hadn’t explored yesterday reveals that the bathroom is in a bad state, so you avoid it aside from what’s necessary. You brush your teeth at the kitchen sink, setting the toiletries— tiny bottles and sachets of soap— in a carefully-laid line along the side, conscientiously avoiding the pile of flies near the toes of your kitten heels. With minty freshness on your breath, you feel finally awake, and it’s clear what your first order of business should be: getting this place spic and span. No use living in a pigsty, as mama would say.

You take a moment to survey the trailer more carefully, walking in circles around the living room, the kitchen, and the singular bedroom as you peek into nooks and crannies and compile a mental list of the supplies you’ll need. You move gingerly as if you still do not want to disturb this place, though it’s not quite as foreboding as it was last night. 

It’s just an empty box, after all.

You don’t bother unloading the rest of your meager belongings before driving into town for your cleaning supplies and other essentials: bedding and bath towels and cooking utensils and furniture to provide you with somewhere to sit and eat. It hits you then, as the ranches and yards subside into businesses and parking lots, how little you truly have. How much you’d relied on others before, how much you’d taken for granted.

Downtown Hawkins in the daytime is a bustle of quaint activity. The streets aren’t overly crowded because the town is not overly populated, but you can take your time perusing the shops you drive past. And you do— your eyes scan them almost desperately as you try to stamp down on the feeling rising inside that writhes in the pit of your stomach. A video store. An arcade. A laundromat. None of use to you right now, though the laundromat has you thinking of the dress you’re wearing, the way it pinches your arms and pulls tight around your stomach as you drive. You’d managed to ignore the feeling during your flight, but now—gasping and huffing on the comedown as you stop running, and with the enormity of your situation looming before you— the writhing is spreading from your stomach to your chest, pressing outward as if you’ll burst, and the wardrobe you’ve been wearing for months now is finally beginning to suffocate you.

Seeing the thrift store feels like a gust of fresh air has been breathed directly into your lungs, and you don’t even need to ponder it before parking and throwing the car door open to access the backseat. After all, there is no reason to endure any longer; no one is stopping you now. So you dump the contents of your two trash bags onto the Lincoln’s backseat and the remnants of your old life spill over onto the floor. Almost detachedly, you sort the contents into ‘keep’ and ‘sell’ piles; you keep your undergarments and pantyhose and shoes, and you stuff all the dresses— all their linen and gauze and luxurious cotton, all their structured hems and nipped waists and darted busts— into the trash bags to be sold.

If the employee behind the counter is surprised to see the quality of the items you’re selling, more suited to a department than a thrift store, he doesn’t show it. Calmly, you pull out each dress, laying the fabric out carefully before you slide it over the counter towards him. As the garments emerge from your trash bags, their associated occasions flash in your mind. The yellow gingham you’d often wear when visiting family. The pink peony was often seen in your kitchen, protected by an apron covered in flour. The blue linen, one of your old favorites, makes you think of Sunday mass. All get passed to the man on the other side of the counter, all but one that sticks in your memory, left laid against the bedspread back in Georgia. 

The man examines each dress and punches staccato numbers into a calculator with the eraser of his number two pencil until they’re all gone from you, and in their place is a wad of bills you can use to shop for a new wardrobe.

If the employee behind the counter finds it strange that you’ve sold your department store dresses to buy thrift store ones, he doesn’t show it.

Gathering your replacements doesn’t take long because you know exactly what you want. Your new wardrobe should be modest and comfortable, comprised of a practical assortment of casual dresses and cardigans, a couple of nicer frocks for your Sunday best, and some loungewear for the house, including a bathrobe that makes your cheeks burn when it slides across the counter toward that same employee from before. After making your purchases, you carry the plastic bag into the dressing room, slipping behind the velvet curtain and pulling one casual dress out at random.

You rip down the tiny zipper on the starchy dress you've been wearing since yesterday, and the release of pressure is bliss. Though the cotton of your new dress is a little scratchier than what you’d been wearing before, you don’t hesitate in kicking the old fabric aside before gazing at yourself in the mottled thrift store mirror. 

The new dress buttons up past your decolletage. It’s almost long enough to skim your ankles, and it is at least one size too big, maybe two. It looks more fitting for a forty-year-old than your twenty-one years; some might even call it frumpy. But it’s what you want.

Because when you think about the clothes you’d been wearing— think about how, over the last year, your breasts and hips and thighs and stomach had gradually broadened, softened, begun to press uncomfortably against the fabric even after your mother had let out the seams as far as they could go— frumpy doesn’t compare with what you’d experienced.

You remember the sympathy in Paul’s tawny brow as he stared down at you. ‘No, Buttercup, I’m sorry. Think of it as an incentive,’ he’d said kindly when you’d asked for an allowance to purchase bigger clothes. ‘I’m just trying to help you.’ You remember how the ladies in town could see the way the beautifully tailored dresses, once so flattering, now bulged and bunched around the heft of your changing body, especially around your midsection. And you knew, though they were always too polite to say it, that when you gathered with them after church or ran into them at the grocery store, they couldn’t help but glance at your tummy and wonder if you were pregnant. But you weren’t pregnant. You were just…

Fat.

The reflection in the mirror suddenly doesn’t feel like you. That’s not your soft jaw; those aren’t your round cheeks. Your dress wouldn’t balloon so far outward over your breasts and stomach, and your thighs wouldn’t rub together because that isn’t you. But those are your eyes, and your hair, and your lips and fingers. And when you twist to look at your backside, so does she; when you smooth your palms over your ample hips, she does too. So she must be you.

You just wish she wasn’t.

You pull your attention from your body and focus instead on your dress, trying to detach from that knowledge again. The important part is that this dress doesn’t restrict or cling or reveal any unsavory lumps and bumps, and that’s what you want. You pull on some woolen stockings and a loose cardigan since it is still January, and after sliding on your low heels once again, you leave the thrift store behind.

You can run from that dressing room— can slip back into your car, load the new plastic bag into the backseat and coax the engine to life— but you cannot run from your feelings. And seeing yourself in the mirror has left you hollow and wanting, exposing the void inside that begs to be filled in that familiar way, the way you’ve grown used to over the last year. Your kitchen at home may be bare, but from beyond your windshield, you can see what will help you fill it. There’s a bright spot down the road and across the way in the lot beside the general store.

Miss Daisy’s Diner.

As you leave your purchases behind in the car, your eyes glaze over the help wanted sign written in beautiful script in the diner window; you’re more focused on filling that hollow place inside you. And inside Miss Daisy’s Diner is more than enough to satisfy the ache.

There isn’t just the promise of good food waiting for you at Miss Daisy’s. There’s the scent of grease and salt on the air, sure, but there’s something else there too. Something that beckons you forward, light and almost ticklish, like the heat of panting breath, the softness of a furry ear dragging under your chin to the tip until it flicks off. Before you know it, you’ve taken two steps forward, and a waitress in a swish of skirts and a flick of her manicured nails has plucked a single menu from the stand.

“One?” she asks, chipper as you nod. “Booth or table?”

“Table,” you answer, and she leads you to one. 

She leaves you with the menu, but you don’t yet look at it, consumed by the crowded atmosphere around you. The restaurant seems almost suspended in time with its black and white tiled floor, the retro-patterned tabletops, the chrome, the beveled glass windows, the teal and white booths and chairs that squeak with vinyl when you adjust in your seat. The walls are loaded with pictures and posters, memorabilia of the 50s and 60s: Coca-Cola bottles, old cars, Elvis and Marilyn, novelty signs advertising products for cents on the dollar. The effect is charming, made even more so when you realize that each table, including yours, is decorated with a white daisy in a glass of water. Somehow, the interior of this restaurant feels jubilant and comforting, like the bright joy of Easter, even though it’s January. Maybe that has something to do with how full it is— though it’s around ten o’clock on a Thursday, the place is no less than three-quarters full.

“Hey there, dear. You decide what you want yet?”

The croak interrupts your reminiscing, and you startle upon seeing a different woman than the one who’d brought you here— older, with gray hair coiffed into a beehive and pink lipstick crackled on her lips. “Oh!” You are immediately repentant. “No, ma’am, I’m sorry. I haven’t looked yet.”

The woman snorts, but it’s all in good humor. “Ma’am,” she echoes you, though where yours was respectful, hers is slightly sardonic. “No need to go reminding me I’m old, dear.” You crackle with nerves, but she grins at you with slightly yellowed teeth. “I’ll come back when you’re ready. Just flag me down, all right?”

You manage a nod, nerves easing as she taps the table with her wrinkled hand and leaves you to it.

The menu is not overly vast, but it takes some time to decide what will fill that void you feel, what you’re really yearning for. In the end, you settle on a Reuben sandwich with french fries and a chocolate milkshake. Though all the waitresses are dressed the same here to fit the theme, you’re grateful for your waitress’s distinctive beehive as you catch her attention, peeking at the nametag she has pinned to the right of her collar when she arrives. ‘Sherry,’ it reads, and oddly, there’s a little doodle of a shamrock beside it which looks to be drawn on in permanent marker.

“Comin’ right up, sweetie,” she promises you.

“Thank you, m—” you swallow the ‘ma’am,’ and Sherry’s smile widens as she wags a finger at you.

“Watch it, you; I heard that,” she says, her voice a croaking tease. “Don’t you start.”

You giggle, and when she leaves you again, it isn’t just the promise of food that makes you feel better.

The sandwich comes quicker than you expected, considering how busy it is, and it's delicious: creamy Russian dressing, salty corned beef and mild Swiss sliced thin, piled together with tart sauerkraut. The outside of the bread is grilled crisp and not too greasy, and the fries are hot and crunchy, a perfect balance with the thick, sweet coldness of your milkshake. It’s perfect; you couldn’t have asked for more.

As you eat, you watch the waitresses flit about in their matching yellow dresses with white collars, aprons, and cuffs, gathering behind the bar counter when not visiting their tables or pushing through the swinging doors to the kitchen. You watch them laugh and chat with one another, and it pricks at something familiar inside you. It’s been years now, but you still remember what it feels like to flit from table to table, to smile and serve, to share in that camaraderie behind the bar, though the place where you’d done it was nothing like this. 

Once you’ve thoroughly cleaned your plate, Sherry stops by again just as the jukebox kicks on to play Baby I’m Yours by Barbara Louis.

“How was it?” she asks, and you tell her it was very good. “Any room for more?” She follows up, eyeing your empty plate, and there’s a sudden hot flash of shame, a moment where you think she might turn wolfish. But her tone and expression remain nothing but sincere, so it wanes. Still, you hedge on an answer, deliberating whether to accept the offer.

She notices your hesitation and perks her brows, coaxing, “We’ve got a mean pecan pie.” A little encouraging smile plays on her crackled lips. “Sounds like that might be right up your alley, judging by your accent.”

It is true— you love pecan pie. And that void was lessened by your meal but not quite filled. So you accept, and Sherry brings you the slice.

And you think maybe this is what does it— this slice of pecan pie. The crust all golden brown, the pecans placed so carefully on top, the filling gooey but not falling into a gelatinous heap upon the plate. Your sandwich had been so good, and your milkshake, too, and this, now— this just looks so good.

You take a bite of the mean pecan pie, and it is not good.

You chew slowly, nose scrunched, brow furrowed just slightly. It’s not… horrible. But it’s not good. Certainly not as good as the pecan pie at home.

Miss Daisy’s Diner is so inviting inside, suspended in time, straight out of the glossy world of dreams. The chrome is shiny, the teal booths pleasant, and each table is adorned with a single daisy. The doo-wop of the jukebox mixes with the hum of conversation; the waitresses in their yellow dresses laugh with patrons as they fill up their coffee mugs and emerge from those swinging doors with plates loaded with delicious food. But the pie isn’t delicious, and you would hazard a guess, as you crane your neck to peek at the display of cakes and muffins beneath the far end of the bar, that the rest of their baked goods are the same way: good-looking under the lights, but nothing compared to what you’re used to.

Nothing compared to what you can do.

'Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.'

When Sherry stops by the table to ask if she can get you anything else, your reply comes swift and easy. “I saw the sign in your window. Are y’all still hiring?”

It’s a quick affair, becoming a waitress at Miss Daisy’s Diner. 

When you ask that question, Sherry’s brows flash, but she sits across from you right away, crossing her legs smartly as she asks you a series of quick questions. You used to work at the restaurant in a country club back home, and though it’s been a few years now, you know how to answer them all sufficiently. That kind of knowledge— the knowledge you gain from experience— never really leaves you. When you finish, she looks at you discerningly before shrugging. “Well, y’seem alright to me. Just wait here. I’ll get Willy.” She pauses half out of her chair as if a thought has just occurred to her. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Emma,” you tell her, and despite the croak of her lungs, your name flows like molasses off Sherry’s tongue when she repeats it back to you.

Willy is the owner of Miss Daisy’s Diner, and he looks nothing like the ‘Miss Daisy’ pictured on the menu. Where she appears crisp and plucky, Willy is doughy and lax. You learn that there is no real Miss Daisy, though Willy jokes, "All my chickadees here are Miss Daisy. That’s why they dress alike." He doesn’t even interview you after learning Sherry already talked to you; apparently, that’s good enough for him. Instead, he just rambles about scheduling, uniforms, and payroll, speaking in slow circles that loop back and around again until Sherry cuts him off.

“I’ll get her up to speed, Willy,” she says, and his face splits with a lazy smile. 

“Sher’ll get you trained up,” he concludes as if it was his idea.

He begins to turn from the table, and you pipe up before he can leave. “When can I start?” 

Willy shrugs lazily, looking towards his employee. “Tomorrow?” he offers, and Sherry concurs, and that is that.

When you leave Miss Daisy’s Diner, your Lincoln is parked down the street where you left it, the white plastic bag of your new clothes visible through the backseat window. When you get in, your pillow and blanket are beside you, reminding you of the lumpy mattress and the pile of dead flies that need to be tidied. Your original goal for the day still looms ahead.

But, God, you aren’t complaining. You swear it. Because Hawkins is a refuge, and you have a job, and the bleeding finally stopped this morning. And there’s security in the first chore you’ve decided to begin your new life with. You’re intimately acquainted with mopping, dusting, and scrubbing, having learned to clean well in the last three years. While you don’t particularly enjoy it, there’s comfort in making something dirty into something clean. By tomorrow, your trailer will no longer be a pigsty, and maybe you’ll sleep in your bed tonight. Tomorrow, you get to go back to Miss Daisy’s Diner, back to Sherry and the jukebox and the flowers on the tables, and maybe you’ll be laughing behind the bar this time.

‘For I know the thoughts that I think concerning you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you the end that you wait for.’

Thank you, Father.

In the few days following your first day in Hawkins, you learn many things. You learn that the daisies on the tables of Miss Daisy’s Diner are made of fabric and wire, and the water is dried glue. You learn that Willy— given name Wilbur— might own the place, but the girls run it. You learn that the coffee maker sometimes doesn’t spit out water unless you smack it hard and that you won’t get a shiny nametag to match the others until Willy orders one from a special shop, which may take a while. You learn that the yellow dresses and aprons might look cute, but they aren’t all that comfortable, though Sherry kindly accommodated your request for the largest size she could get. It's not quite as big as the dresses you'd picked for yourself, but she did her best.

Still, these cracks in the facade of Miss Daisy’s don’t make it any less charming to you. The pace is hectic, and though each restaurant has its own way of doing things, you fall back into that ebb and flow quickly with the help of all the girls, who don’t hesitate to welcome you into the herd. That’s another thing that helps— the waitresses are all kind and helpful, though more curious about you than you’d prefer, sniffing at your hair and shoes when you aren't looking. It becomes apparent very quickly that they’re all the same: goats who bleat at one another across the floor and nibble at the strings of one another’s aprons in friendly affection, yours included. You aren’t quite one of them, but they don’t seem to notice.

You can’t hide your accent, of course, so they know you're not from around here. There’s always that awareness in a small town— even your tables ask you about it. You remain vague about your past, reserved but polite with your coworkers and charming with your customers, treating them with hospitality just like mama raised you. The beatitudes guide your manner: meek and humble, righteous and merciful, pure of heart and generous. A peacemaker, bringing harmony to those around you. 

It’s almost enough to make you think you might have white wool after all, though you can’t quite shake the raven feathers that shudder when you return home to your nest with its barren sticks and its piles of stolen trinkets you gathered on your flight to Hawkins. That’s why you spend as much time as you can at work, soothed by the dulcet tones of the jukebox as you flit from table to bar to kitchen and back again until all begins to feel familiar and comforting.

Safe.

By the end of your first week, you’ve also grown accustomed to the back of the house. Even the sight of Harry, the line cook, begins to comfort you. He is large, broad-shouldered and thick, but his movements are measured and gentle, set with a pace that speaks assurance that things will get done when they get done. In fact, his movements are so predictable that every time you shuffle through the swinging doors into the kitchen at the start of your shift, you anticipate the repetitive sound of his thick bull hands scraping the spatula slow and even as he works the cooktop. 

So the sight that greets you now as you catch the door from Sherry is quite jarring. 

Before the cooktop stands a man who is both shorter and thinner than Harry but somehow far more imposing. He’s angular and jagged, frenetic in his movements: booted foot tapping tile, elbow jutting sharp as he jerks the spatula, a wild mess of curls shaking as his head bobs exaggeratedly. And the sound of the kitchen isn’t at all soothing in his presence. There’s some kind of tinny howling coming from him, some unholy noise that nearly makes you halt at the threshold of the swinging doors before you realize it’s coming from underneath his hair and not from him, exactly. You quickly spot the thin cord running down to the tape player clipped to his tight dark pants, though the handkerchief swaying at his hip— old and spilling loose threads, black and white and emblemed with eerie skulls— has your nerves kicking up again just as quickly.

Sherry’s voice is hoarse from smoke and age but, to your surprise, not filled with even a hint of the same nerves as she greets the man. “Afternoon, Ed,” she says, sounding almost fond as she shouts to be heard above the music. 

Almost instantly, the headphones are jerked down to hang around his neck, and when the man spins abruptly from the cooktop to face you both, your chest clenches again. His voice is brash and warm, mouth split wide to flash his eyeteeth as his gaze finds your coworker quickly. “Afternoon, Sher,” he says, mimicking her fond inflection, a teasing grin dimpling the corner of his plush pink lips. “How’s my best girl?”

Your eyes quickly dart from him to Sherry and then back, face frozen so as not to reveal your reaction: a mixture of wariness and confusion since he looks almost thirty years younger than her. Sherry just rolls her eyes and purses her lips, which are crackled with deep pink lipstick. “Yeah, yeah. We’re all your best girl, aren’t we, Eddie?” It’s said with long-suffering sarcasm like this exchange is akin to slipping on an old pair of shoes— worn in and comfortably molded to one’s foot. 

The man, Eddie, doesn’t reply, though his smile does widen. Sherry nods your way but addresses him. “This is the new girl. Be nice,” she warns, wagging a gnarled finger.

“Whaddya mean, Sher? I’m always nice.” Eddie huffs through his nose, showily stretching his arms above his head and holding his clothed elbows as his eyes slide to you. Yours dip to the dark stains beneath his pits, the evidence of his toil and sweat that begs the question of why he’d be wearing long sleeves if he’s that hot. “Hello, new girl,” he says lightly, and his voice hums like there’s a secret joke he’s holding back from laughing at.

The cock of his hip, the sharpness of his limbs, the narrowness of his waist where the apron is tied hastily, the stretch of his ribcage against the dirty long-sleeved shirt, the tilt of his lips— it hits you suddenly what he is, just as suddenly as you’d realized that Sherry and the girls are bleating goats and Harry is a gentle bull.

This man is a coyote.

Suddenly, that feeling of safety is threatened. What else could explain that rush of tingling awareness pricking up your neck when he acknowledges your presence, if not the fear that a predator is near?

Instinct drives a prey animal when confronted in such a way. You’ve seen it yourself back at home: hens clucking and skittering in the dirt when they sense a fox, horses swaying uneasily in their stalls when a wolf prowls the woods beyond the paddock. And like a prey animal, your body can either freeze or flee. It chooses the latter. 

You squeak out some semblance of a greeting— even fear can’t entirely overwhelm the graces you’ve been taught— and hurry around Sherry to duck into Willy’s office. You want to close the door, to wedge a physical barrier between yourself and those dark eyes and flashing white teeth, but you resist the urge knowing Sherry will be coming in right behind you, and the gesture is not only futile but potentially rude. 

You’re tying your apron when she enters, and she catches your eyes immediately when you look up. Sherry purses her lips at the sight of your flushed cheeks and wide eyes; she chuckles, but there’s an edge of sympathy. “Oh, come on now, dear," she consoles you. “Eddie might look some type of way, but he doesn’t bite.” Her wrinkled eyes soften as she regards you, the tease in her voice gentling as she adds, “He’s a good boy.”

You force a smile, but her assurances can’t dispel the goosebumps prickling along your flesh. They don’t calm your trembling fingers as they slip your notepad into your white apron, smoothing along scratchy cotton afterward as if attempting to press out the bulge it makes against the front of your body. Your body whispers danger and your mind does, too. And if the spirit guides the flesh, then you know you feel this way for a reason. 

Sherry’s platitudes are no match for instinct and belief.

After your initial spook, your shift progresses much the same as any other. You greet your tables, fetch them drinks, faithfully record their orders, deliver their plates, ask them if they need ketchup or hot sauce, chit-chat just a tad, drop the check, and bid them ‘have a good day now,’ parting with a smile. Your voice doesn’t even waver when you push open those double doors; your call of ‘corner’ is sweet and stable, less tremulous than how you began earlier this week. The only time fear squeezes your chest is when you must clip up your tickets. Because that means you’ll have to approach the coyote, draw near to his jagged elbows, those dark, angular legs, and the abundance of curls that cling damply to the edges of his pale jaw and conceal his expression from your view. At least facing Eddie’s back or side is considerably easier than his front; luckily, he’s so thoroughly occupied by the cooktop that he doesn’t acknowledge you before you scamper off. Your fear becomes a predictable wave: with each step toward him, your chest tightens, and with each step away, you feel the clench begin to ease. 

You’ve just swung returned to the floor, loose and nearly chipper, when Samantha hurries over, holding a loaded plate, her ponytail and yellow skirts swishing as she skids to a stop before you. “Emma! There you are.” She beams brightly, and the words huff out of her as if just the sight of you is a relief. It makes you feel warm inside, and that warmth blooms in the smile you answer her with before asking, 

“Is that mine?” 

You look down at the plate as she nods, noting that the steak has just barely been cut on the corner, not even all the way through. “It’s from table four. She wants it cooked a little more. More like medium-well,” she explains, and you take the plate without a thought.

“Sure thing,” you say, and it isn’t until you’ve pushed back through those swinging doors into the kitchen that you realize what this task will require.

Your throat dries as you approach Eddie, eyes darting over the white of his shirt, how the fabric has gone somewhat translucent where it sticks to the planes of his back. His shoulders roll as he stretches to the side to reach a hoagie roll without moving his feet, which still tap along with the rhythm coming from the headphones slung around his neck. The sound of howling has since subsided to resonant thumping and the faint melody of some screeching instrument, which grows clearer as you edge closer with your plate. 

Closer and closer still you draw until you can detect the faint scent of sour sweat, pungent smoke, and something earthy as the coyote turns his head back to the cooktop, still oblivious to your presence. You halt then, feet sticking as your clenched chest whispers that you’ve come close enough. Eddie continues to load chopped beef, peppers, and onions into the hoagie roll, and you hover some steps away until his chin happens to edge left, and he catches you in his peripheral.

His long eyelashes flick up as his gaze flashes to you, eyebrows jerking in mild acknowledgment, mouth soft and slack. The eye contact makes you hasty; you push out your voice and plate together, squeaking, “Can you cook this more? …Please?” You tack the pleasantry on, nudging your elbows forward as if urging him to take the plate as quickly as possible.

You want him to take the plate, but still, you must resist a flinch when his hand outstretches to receive it from you. His palm is broad, with callouses dotting along the meatiest sections, and his fingers are long and ruddy at the tips. Your breath hitches at the sight of his hand’s approach, but all Eddie does is grasp the plate. As soon as his fingers close around its edge, you snatch yours back toward the safety of your body. “Thank you,” you say, and you hazard a glance at his face.

A dimple forms on Eddie’s cheek as he grins, and his voice is warm and brash when he meets your eye and replies, “For you, sweetness? Anytime.”

And then he winks, a quick flash of those long lashes to conceal a sparkling brown iris. 

Such a small thing, really, to say and to do. Thrown just as casually as a smile for a stranger who holds the door for you, just a brief moment of banter between coworkers as they cross paths in the diner kitchen. 

But the swell of emotion Eddie’s words and wink conjures within you is not a small thing. You jerk away from him, a fierce spasm of your muscles to match the fist of fear that seizes you tightly and shakes you until you’re left trembling. The feeling is visible all over your body— in the tightening of your arms against your middle, the shrinking of your shoulders, the blanching of your face, the quiver of your lower lip, the widening of your wet eyes.

The sudden violence of your reaction clearly shocks him. Instantly, Eddie’s spine straightens, and his face falls. Those dark eyes go wide to match yours, confusion sinking into ruefulness as your back begins to bow— feet planted but spine arching, upper body inching back as if your only desire is to get away from him. All the warm brashness in his voice has deflated as he stutters, “Look, I– I was just— I’m—”

Had he gotten it out, would it have been an apology? An explanation? Would it have put you at ease, unclenched that feeling inside? Who’s to say. Because desperate to repair, to stop your backward flight, Eddie reaches out a hand toward you again. Soft, palm upturned, fingers slack. An entreaty to stay and let him fix things. Suddenly and acutely, your wrist aches at the approach of his palm; with that shock of pain, your freeze finally turns to flight.

In a burst of white and yellow, you skitter and spin toward the swinging doors, leaving your predator behind.

It’s a temporary balm, of course. You cannot avoid the coyote in the kitchen forever. After all, you have a steak to retrieve. This is your responsibility, and though the temptation to ask Samantha to fetch it for you is there, you know it would be wrong to give in to that impulse.

Out of the kitchen, in the front of the house, Miss Daisy’s Diner carries on as if nothing has happened. All is calm; all is bright. You hear the familiar clinking of utensils against ceramic, the swish of yellow skirts and the squeak of sneakers, the bleating of the girls mixed with the crackly doo-wop of the jukebox. Someone has put on Try Me by James Brown, and you whisper the words along with him as you shake off the tension like feathers ruffling to wick off water. ‘Try me,’ ‘hold me,’ ‘need you,’ you sing, the words repeating over and over like the lazy spin of a record on the turnstile. The slow beat eases you back into the rhythm of the floor as you steal precious minutes before you must return to the kitchen.

When you can delay it no longer, you edge back through those doors, breathing slowly to keep yourself from turning away as you anticipate the sight of his body, angular and jagged, coiled tight. But the slope of the coyote’s shoulders is low, and the frenetic swaying of his hips is still now. The howling has quieted, and the jerking of his spatula is slow, slow like Harry’s, which you’re used to. It helps to ease your cautious steps as you reach him, stopping a short distance away. You can see that the plate of your steak is prepared for you to retrieve it, resting on the counter just on the other side of him.

It doesn’t take as long for Eddie to notice you this time, and your chest threatens to clench when his chin turns your way. You try to push out a reminder of what you need. “C-can you—”

Eddie doesn’t make you ask. “Yeah,” he interrupts, “No problem.” 

The three words do not sound angry or sad; they do not sound like much of anything, really. His mouth does not open wide to say them. Instead, his white teeth hide behind his pink lips as he passes you the plate with no other words exchanged between you. And as soon as you receive it, Eddie turns his face away.

Each successive visit to the kitchen that afternoon proves the truth of the matter. Since that first encounter, the coyote’s tail has since been tucked between his legs. The points of his teeth have been filed, and with them, over the course of those hours, your fear of his bite finally begins to ease.

So why, then, does your wrist still ache? 

chapter two: I'll be seeing you is coming soon.

taglist: @emma77645 @ashlynnkennedy @luna-munson83 @micheledawn1975 @gaysludge @hazydespair @ebaylee422 @thebrookemunson @a-time-for-wolvess @lightmelikeamatch @live-love-be-unique @daleyeahson @bexreadstoomuch @devilinthepalemoonlite @screaming-blue-bagel @mcueveryday @ethereal27cereal @vintagehellfire @razzeith @josephquinncore

@h-ness1944 - not taggable

[alpaca-clouds]

Iyashikei - The Art of Healing through Stories

Having talked about possible conflicts for Solarpunk novels (and other Solarpunk fiction media) over the last three days, let me now talk about something kind of adjacant. Let me talk about the elephant in the room: Why do stories need conflict?

See, Western Storytelling centers around conflict and always has. And due to the influence of Western colonial societies on the rest of the world, modern media for the most part does in fact feature some sort of conflict no matter where on the world we are. One might argue, that our brains have gotten so used to it, that we might consider any story without it as inherently boring.

This is why I find the Japanese genre of Iyashikei so wonderfully refreshing. Now, let me be clear: This genre is "relatively" new, originating in the 1970s when Japanese society after a large earthquake started to yearn for peaceful stories. The genre name literally translates into "healing type".

But is that not also one thing, that we are trying to do through Solarpunk? Helping people heal from climate depression and all the general trauma related through living in a world of capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy?

Iyashikei stories tend to not feature any sort of larger story or conflict. The genre often gets called "cute girls doing cute things", because especially in anime that is, how it often ends: Just the most slice of life you can imagine. People just making music. People just going shopping. People just going camping. No larger goal. Just hanging out.

In fact two of the older anime/manga, that often also get considered to be Solarpunk, are of this genre: ARIA and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. The first one featuring girls in a city like venezia just taking people around in gondolas. The later features a robot girl just going about her day in a cozy apocalypse.

And I know that it is the instinct to say: "How boring!" But... Well, a lot of the "Cute Girls doing Cute Things" have actually large fandoms behind them. Even in the west. So there clearly is an audience for this.

So... Why not embrace it? Why not tell Solarpunk Iyashikei stories? About people going about their day in a Solarpunk world.

[tortoiseguy]

If Capcom wants to make a compelling narrative for Monster Hunter, which they have shown they do, they really have to lean into portraying the guild as an antagonist.

The guild works closely with rich nobility, they have a set of rules for hunting that specifically hurt poor villages, and they frequently make catastrophic judgement calls when assessing threats that end up actively hurting the ecosystem. The guild has, so far, been correct once when taking out a potential problem monster with the magalas. In tri they thought that lagiacrus was MAYBE causing the earthquakes and then asked us to just kill it, no questions asked. In world they thought nergigante was MAYBE a threat to the new world and then asked us to just kill it, no questions asked. In rise they thought MAYBE that magnamalo was causing the rampage then asked us to just kill it, NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

That's not just some mistake that's the unnecessary death of an animal! Think about that in real life and how horrible that would sound!

"Oh we thought this pack of lions was killing livestock so we sent some people to kill them all. Turns out, we were wrong and it was this other completely different animal. We are conservationists!"

Not to mention legends of the guild is an entire ass movie about how the guild fundamentally failed this small poor village on a systemic level that Aidan, a CHILD btw, was throwing himself into life or death situations just so his community wouldn't be wiped off the map. When Julius calls Aidan out on the fact that he's supposedly poaching and not hunting, that wasn't a fun opportunity to give an exposition about the world. It was pointing out the guild's hypocrisy! Aidan's reactive anger at Julius calling him a poacher was the correct response! They shouldn't HAVE to make a three day journey to dundorma every time a velociprey takes a chicken. That kind of thing should be handled by the guild. The guild doesn't allocate resources to helping these villages while giving an incentive to not help them to individual Hunters. Then when these villages finally decide they aren't going to wait around for help or go through the multiple day travel to register a quest with what little money they have and actually SOLVE their problem. ITS ILLEGAL TO DO SO!!!

And you know what's super cool about poaching? How the punishment is the guild sending assassins to take you out. For the multitude of Monster hunter fans who seem to think that's a reasonable response to that, lemme just tell ya it isn't. That sounds an awful lot like fascism! ESPECIALLY because we now know what qualifies as poaching! It can be as small as taking out a few small monsters who have been proven to be a threat to your village without a license. Aidan literally could have been assassinated for helping his village. A CHILD!

Quit trying and failing to get me invested in the villainous schemes of some fuckin dragon that's just acting on instincts, Capcom. You already HAVE a perfect antagonist right there!

[greyghoulclub]

It’s gonna be fine (HG relay fic)

Thank you to @writer-in-theory for passing the baton to me! Thank you to @harringrove-relay-race for hosting this event!

It was a death wish, heading into the upside down on his own. Steve knew this but he had to do it. He had to make sure, make sure that Billy was gone. To let himself grieve and move on, move on from Hawkins, from the dumb kid he used to be. He’d told no one that he was doing this in case they tried to stop him. Stepping out of the Harrington house late at night, with a flashlight and his baseball bat, Steve headed into the woods behind his house.

The woods at night were creepy enough, but Steve’s brain was working overtime to psych himself out of doing what he was doing. It felt as if his brain was at war with his heart. Logically, he knew Billy was most likely dead. His heart didn’t want to believe it though, hoping against the inevitable that Billy was somehow alive. He jumped at any small noise, whether a twig snapping underneath his shoe or an animal rummaging in the darkness.

“Just keep moving Steve,” he muttered to himself.

Eventually, he reached the portal in the trees, it was perpetually open now, since the earthquake in Hawkins. An eerie red glow illuminated the trees around him, everything was completely silent in this part of the woods, apart from the almost tide-like noise of the portal, it was like the thing was alive and had a pulse. Steve steeled his nerves, almost three years of dealing with all this shit and it still scared him, but also gave him an adrenaline rush. He wasn’t sure which one was worse.

He stepped into the world full of monsters, his only source of light was his flashlight and the occasional flash of red lightning. From where he was, he was still in the woods, remembering the route he had taken with Robin, Nancy, and Eddie to what was Lover’s Lake in this bizzaro version of Hawkins. He was heading in the opposite direction, towards the ruins of Starcourt Mall, the last place he had seen Billy.

Coming out of the woods, he saw the upside down’s version of his house, just as quiet and unlived as it was in the normal Hawkins. It was sad in a way, even in this nightmare version of Hawkins the Harrington house was still empty. Nevertheless, Steve carried on through into the town.

This part of not-Hawkins had more monsters roaming about, forcing Steve to take a more roundabout way. Demodogs and the taller, more humanoid ones, what did Dustin call them? Demo… Demogorgons. That’s it, demogorgons. The faceless monsters roamed these streets more freely, feeding on the weaker ones and fighting over territory. Steve needed to be extremely careful and not make any noise to attract them, or else he’d never make it to Starcourt. Most of them had converged on Main Street, where the larger ones were taking their share of a dead demogorgon’s flesh. So if Steve took the left off of Cherry Oak Street and took the route to the community pool, he could get to the mall without being seen. Easy enough right? The monsters were too interested in their dinner to pay attention to anything else, and Steve easily slipped by into Cherry Oak Street. Nice and easy right?

Abandoned cars littered the streets, some with the windows smashed in, some overturned with the suspension ripped out. Some were just straight up on fire. The overturned cars made good hiding spots if any demodogs came snuffling by, Steve figured the smell of motor oil would cover up his scent, although some demodogs did nearly discover him. Luckily for him, the motor oil and the smell of burning drove them away. He still didn’t feel safe as he slowly made his way through the street, looking over his shoulder every other moment. It was too quiet, all of his instincts were screaming at him to get out of there. Run like his life depended on it.

But he had to be patient, lest he become a demogorgon’s dinner.

A booming flash of red lightning sounded in the sky, all of it relegating to one place, the Starcourt Mall. Something must be happening there. Could it be the Mindflayer? No it can’t be right? They killed it last year. Billy sacrificed himself to save them all. Steve could still remember Billy’s agonised screams as the Mindflayer’s claws pierced his flesh. Steve knows Billy did it to save everyone but, but he regretted not being able to get Billy out of there before the mall went on fire. At least then he could’ve been buried properly.

Still he slowly soldiered on, moving towards the wreckage of the mall. The roof was cracked open like an eggshell. Twisted pieces of metal exposed to the sky. Billy’s totalled Camaro was in the foreground, the windscreen cracked and the engine still steadily burning. That car had been Billy’s pride and joy, it was sad to see it in such a state.

A flash of movement from within the mall caught Steve’s attention. Too big to be a demodog, too small to be a demogorgon. Steve’s heart wanted it to believe it was Billy, but there was also a chance that it wasn’t and Steve was just walking to his death. Which sometimes, if he was being really honest with himself, didn’t sound too bad.

Steve entered the dilapidated building, taking in the wreckage that was caused last summer. Shopfronts destroyed, the plants torn from their pots at the root, shattered glass and neon tubes everywhere. He chuckled when he caught sight of the Scoops Ahoy building with the sign hanging off the wall. Those sailor uniforms had been ridiculous. But he still was sure he’d seen something moving in here. Steve wasn’t sure if he was seeing things but he was sure he saw a flash of dirty blonde hair.

He wandered through the lower levels of the mall, not daring to go upstairs in case it was unstable. Nothing seemed to be in here except maybe a dust bunny rolling through. It was too quiet and Steve didn’t like it. He felt like he was being watched, or maybe he was just being paranoid but his grip tightened on his nail bat.

His brain told him he was right to be paranoid when he got tackled from behind. His bat fell from his hand and landed somewhere on the floor. Whatever had gotten him was strong, managing to get him into a headlock. It looked humanoid, from skin that looked like it was once tanned, veins that looked a darker blue than usual popped from the skin. But the voice. The voice was familiar.

“What are you doing here pretty boy?”

“Billy? Let go of me, I’m here to help you.” Steve struggled against Billy’s grip. Even though he was taller, Billy was stronger, managing to hold Steve down.

Billy laughed mirthlessly. “You’re here to help me? Why didn’t you help me when I was possessed by the Mindflayer then?” Billy put more pressure against Steve’s throat and roared at him to answer.

Steve didn’t really have a good answer for him, his best bet was that he didn’t know he was possessed. That didn’t seem to please Billy much.

“You didn’t know? Really? That’s your excuse?” Billy sounded hurt. As if Steve had told his biggest secrets. Even though after their fight at the Byers’s house after Halloween, they had started to become maybe-friends over the Christmas break, both stuck in Hawkins with nothing to do. They’d settled some differences over shared packs of cigarettes and shitty beer from the Pay’n’Go. But what could Steve say? He wasn’t entirely privy to the kid’s Upside Down plans.

“I’m not saying this to save my neck. I genuinely didn’t know you were possessed by the Mindflayer. I was busy being beaten up by Russian soldiers trying to open a gate to this hellhole because they thought I was part of the Navy from my work uniform.”

Billy couldn’t help but laugh at that. It was so ridiculous that it couldn’t be anything other than the truth. He let go of Steve in his fit of laughter.

“True those uniforms were ridiculous, how the hell would they think you were Navy?”

Steve would have laughed too if he wasn’t catching his breath.

“Uh sorry, I thought you were him,” Billy replied sheepishly, “he’s mega pissed that you guys destroyed the Creel House by the way.”

“Who Vecna? Yeah we figured, but I’m just here to get you out of here if you want me to.” Steve offered a hand to Billy, the olive branch for him nearly choking Steve to death.

“But everyone thinks I’m dead.” Billy looked sceptic about Steve’s offer, like it was too good to be true. “Why would they believe it’s me and not a monster. What about Max?”

It tugged at Steve’s heartstrings to hear Billy sound so concerned about Max, also because he probably has no idea what’s happened with her. And Steve dreads telling Billy about it.

“Something is wrong with Max, I don’t know why but I can feel something is wrong. Please Steve, tell me, is Max ok?” Billy’s tone was so desperate, Steve really wanted to lie and tell Billy that Max was fine. But he knew Billy wouldn’t appreciate being lied to.

“Max… she got targeted by Vecna. She’s in the hospital right now, in a coma. If she survives she’ll probably be blind for the rest of her life.”

Steve held Billy close as the tears fell. Letting Billy go through the motions of it all. Trying to placate Billy by saying that it’s all gonna be fine but it felt insincere since Steve couldn’t really believe that himself.

“You’re right though, it’s gonna be fine, I’ll make it fine. For Max.” Billy’s voice was still shaky but with a determined tone. “She’ll need her big brother right?”

“Yeah, she will. So you wanna get out of here?”

“Yeah.”

Now I’m passing it over to @manwrre!

[kuroo-hitsuji]

This is a prompt to talk about Lucifer and Satan purring (!!!!!) and body types??

Woo thank you !!

Starting with body types bc i think it will be shorter than the purring (i have. Many thoughts about the purring lmao). They're admittedly not drastically different from the models, I'm constantly at war with my brain between Canon Compliance and creative liberties ahzhsjxh but its a lot of smaller details, i hope its not disappointing at all orz

Lucifer - ironically his body type is the most difficult one for me to describe shdhhd he's just kind of a Fit Guy tm. Like he's got decently defined muscles and the slight dorito shape from his shoudlers/chest to his waist that you expect from anime men lmao. But he's not shredded, no washboard abs or anything (but relatively toned still, could be a six-pack if he's deliberately flexing lmao), the most defined muscles are in his arms and chest, primarily. Also he's got long-ass legs, idk why he is just ⅔ leg and i cannot unsee it

Satan - lean muscle and pretty boxy, the shoulder to waist to hip ratio isn't all that drastic, not a lot of chest muscle and again lean but not shredded ab region (using the flexing concept again I'd put him at a 4 pack lol) but also more visibly defined than Lucifer's at rest as well due to a slightly lower fat percentage. Also he has like no ass and I'll die on this hill (the first obey me post i ever saw was someone calling him out for having a flat ass in a chat picture and it has stuck with me the entire 4 years 💀 not slander btw we support all booties here). He's just very square/rectangle coded in my mind for inexplicable reasons

Demons purring is a headcanon I'm constantly dying to talk about Thank You 🙏 i hope these are actually like afjsjg decently coherent, they got long (as expected but still)

Lucifer - witnessing him purr at all is Exceptional rare (hearing it is even less common) for a combination of reasons that mostly boil down to his general commitment to his reputation and him being reluctant to show vulnerability at most times (and in this specific case its exacerbated by the fact that he was not Always a demon and the ability to purr in the first place is relatively foreign to him). He's put in the work to keep a handle on it as much as he can, and to keep it silent when he can't (control, control, control), and outside of him practicing that alone the most common instances of it happening have been when he's with MC, or when he's Very drunk and in good/safe company (diavolo, primarily. Lucifer is still hesitant to fully drop his facade with him, but it's been slowly melting away over the centuries. Diavolo does his absolute best not to call attention to the purring in the very rare instance that he even notices it occurring, but it is an absolutely herculean feat for him lmao). Generally the only time it's at all audible is with MC, in those rare perfect moments that let him feel safe and cozy enough to fully relax, often with the help of cuddling and petting his hair, wings, or the base of his horns. Even then it's quiet, a low, deep rumble somewhere between what you'd expect from a panther or other big cat (if they were actually able to purr) and the kind of sound a small tremor of an earthquake makes, where you might not realize you're even hearing anything at first but you can Feel your eardrums vibrating anyways.

Satan - also purrs very infrequently, for a few similar reasons but also wildly different ones. He's more accustomed to it as a general ability, having never had a body that was unable to purr in the first place, but he's still not incredibly familiar with it for a while. He did it instinctively as a self-soothing method at first, back when he was still out of control and would get locked in his room for the safety of himself and others, doing it less the more he gets a hold on his wrath, associating it with the consequences of a loss of control rather than positive emotions. It's not until he becomes attached to and knowledgeable about cats that he starts seeing it in a different light, eventually allowing himself to give into the urge to purr occasionally without feeling bad about it, but with this a different problem arises: having something so in common with cats has him almost too giddy, to the extent that when he starts purring he struggles to stop, so he still represses it most of the time. He purrs most often completely alone in his room where there will be minimal consequences to him getting stuck in a happy-stim feedback loop for an hour or two if it does happen, and he's still a bit embarrassed about the idea of this happening in front of MC for a good while, but not totally against it.

His purr tends to be a bit stilted and not particularly deep in pitch, waves of it more clearly following his breathing. It's not loud but its not really quiet either, and he's never really been successful at trying to control anything about it other than completely suppressing it, adding to the list of reasons he can't do it stealthily in day to day life as some other demons might be able to (purring loudly in public is seen as vaguely inappropriate, not really in a big way but kind of the same vibes as crying in public in most human settings. You won't get in trouble or anything but its one of those things most people feel more comfortable with keeping private).

I think I covered everything but if not I'll probably end up adding anything I couldve missed whenever i actually remember it lol

Thanks again for the chance to infodump :)

[lovefrombegonia]

Whenever I read about Yuder using his awakener powers, I think of him fighting like Aang from ATLA or Sypha from the Netflix Castlevania series. Their powers visually are quite similar with them using all the elements. At least, that's what comes to my mind when I hear "can manipulate all natural elements". But it's not the same. I have a bit of trouble visualising how Yuder would look. Sypha is a mage and Aang is a bender. From what I have read until now from the novel, Awakener's powers are very much driven by simple will and instinct. So, for Yuder, especially, after being a commander for almost a decade at a time when his powers were used extensively, as he himself says it's more like being a commander for 20 years experience wise, the use of his powers would be more like using his hands and legs.

Sypha's movements look fluid and effortless but still very mage like. She is using magic she learnt. Aang's is very choreographed too. Obviously, the moves are based on real martial arts.

Disclaimer: In no way am I saying that these two are more or less powerful than Yuder. Just to be clear. This is strictly, a visual thing.

With Yuder Aile, I feel like his movements must look less choreographed and very natural. Like when you allow a skilled dancer to go free style with her favourite music that she listens to every day. Not just effortless, but also almost like muscle memory, or like instinct. Still, I can't think of a visual reference. In the manhwa, his movements are very simple, his just like 🫳🏻🫴🏻✨ and boom! Which does make sense, he has done it over a hundred times. Why would it look like these feats would take effort.

Still, I am eager to see more dynamic movements from him. With the future chapters being more action packed, when he fights the star of Nagran or the western region monsters. When he will unleash his inner "Yudrain", being so fierce that the enemies almost think of him like a scary demon LOL

I also wonder what his wind-water protection shield SOUNDS like? It's said that the shield he creates is so powerful, it can strip skin and flesh from bones if you try to touch it. So, the shield is more like a force field. It should sound like strong stormy winds you hear at night, the sound that enters your room in a thunderstorm through the slight openings of closed windows, almost sounding like a whistle. When creates minor earthquake, his hands shouldn't tremble much but would look like how we move our hand when listening to slow music that we like. But when trying to cut down a whole cliff, like when fighting pethuamet, would it look like he is trying to push down an invisible floor into the ground? Would his hands grab the air like he is actually able to feel the ground from a distance and then feel incredible physical strain when pushing down?

When he is running with the help of wind helping him speed up, what would that look like? Like he is skating in the air, perhaps. Or will he looks like just how we see speedsters run in comic book films. And when he jumps high with the wind, I imagine he would like the martial artists in Wuxian cdramas, jumping and gliding across the bamboo trees. Similar to the characters in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I really can't wait to see him flying into Kishiar's open arms in the Tainu arc *sighs dreamily*

One of my most anticipated uses of Yuder's powers is definitely when he will use it to see Kishiar's different powers surging through his body and enveloping him. It's gonna look so beautiful but the description in the novel was also weirdly ominous. Like the anatomically precise diagram of muscles in the human body. Red, gold, and blue swirls flowing through someone he loves with knots present in various parts, like a blocked artery. Can't wait to see what it all looks like in the manhwa!

Now, imagine if this ever gets animated?? Damn. I will ascend to heavens if that happens!

[mosaiclobster]

Swords and Saddles (Farmer x Hayden)

This 4-part fic is wrapping up very soon, so I figured it'd be fun to cross post before the final chapter goes up! This is the first chapter of my 10k+, E-rated Farmer x Hayden fic - if you like it feel free to check out the rest on AO3 xo

CHAPTER 1: SPRING

Hayden stepped into the frigid morning air, and breathed deep. He loved spring: growth, snowmelt, sun. It was the perfect time to welcome a new face to Mistria.

Hayden rubbed his hands together for warmth, and headed for the stables. Once he’d answered all the neighs and whinnies, Hayden grabbed a handsomely embroidered leather saddle off its perch. It was the same one his daddy rode on, and his grandpappy too. It wasn’t as old as Sweetwater, but almost nothing in Mistria was.

Hayden was proud of that legacy. It used to sit heavy on his shoulders, but he was strong enough to carry that weight. Unfortunately, most of Sweetwater’s horses weren’t strong enough - big enough - to carry him.

Rufus was 18 hands tall, and used to pulling plows and wagons. Hayden placed a broad, comforting hand on his speckled gray neck. “How ‘bout a little ride next door, huh?”

Rufus nickered good-naturedly, and took the saddle without complaint.

The new farmer had arrived late last night, but word traveled fast around Mistria. It was a small, close-knit town with an earned reputation for drink and gossip.

It felt even smaller now - some folks left after the earthquake. Hayden didn’t blame them, but he didn’t write them letters, either. There were buildings to repair, and animals to tend to.

Hayden braced against his stirrups, and looked eastward. Could be nice, having a neighbor again.

He spotted Celine first: her pretty, pleasant face, framed by blonde hair and a seafoam green half-cape. He’d known her all her life - not all of his, though. Sometimes it was hard to shake off the years between them.

The other woman was a head taller than Celine, even in flat leather work boots. Her linen shirt was tucked into brown, high-waisted trousers, and stark white against her olive skin. It brought out the freckles on her forearms, and the red in her long, curly hair. Auburn, that was the word for it. Chestnut for horses, auburn for people.

White was a bold choice for clearing farmland, but her cowboy hat looked well loved, and nicely fitted.

Hayden noted all of this without once pulling on Rufus’s reins. Celine’s eyes were wide as saucers, but the other woman only raised her brows. Instinct finally commanded him to stop, just short of spraying them both with dirt.

Celine was a kind girl, and slow to anger. She never shied from speaking her mind, though. “Hayden! You almost ran over poor Artemisia.”

“Ha! That’s a mouthful.” He blurted this nervously, and loudly.

Artemisia looked up at him, shielding her almond eyes from the early morning light. The sun made them golden.

She touched the brim of her cowboy hat, and smiled. “You said it. That’s why I go by Artie.”

Her nose was strong, and a little crooked - broken, mended, broken again.

The rest of her face was no less striking. Full lips, suited for a wide, expressive mouth. Thick brows and high cheekbones, marked by laughter and time. How much of it? Hayden wasn’t sure, but he’d put some tesserae on her being closer to Valen’s age than Celine’s.

She was beautiful. None of the gossip had prepared him for that.

Artie let Rufus sniff her outstretched hand. “He friendly?”

That voice. It was smooth and sweet, like honey.

Hayden patted the gelding’s neck, and tried to ignore the pounding in his chest. “Sure is. He likes meeting new folks as much as I do.”

Artie’s grin was wry, and gap-toothed. “That makes three of us, then.” Rufus snorted in agreement.

Celine’s gaze flitted between them. “Since you like animals, you should visit Hayden’s farm-”

“-Come by anytime. I’d love to introduce you to the herd. Or the flock, depending on who you ask.”

Hayden’s reins were slick with sweat. He squeezed the braided leather until his knuckles whitened.

Artie tipped her hat again. “I think I’ll take you up on that.”

Was that a wink, or a trick of the light? Hayden reached into his saddlebag, and prayed his hands wouldn’t shake.

“Here, before I forget.”

He held out a rusty old watering can, stuffed with bags of seeds. “Just a little something to get you started. Turnips are easy to grow, and they love Mistrian soil.”

Artie brightened. “I owe you one. Thanks, neighbor.”

Hayden managed the handoff alright, but he was eager to ride off before he could make an ass of himself. “Sure. Come by anytime.”

He’d said that already. Celine pursed her lips.

Artie smiled. “Be seeing you.”

Hayden rode Rufus towards Sweetwater, and marveled at the unseasonable warmth.

Half the town would be after her. He’d look like a bumpkin compared to Balor or Ryis, and a dullard compared to Jupiter or Adeline.

Hayden shook his head. He wasn’t the competitive sort, and there was no point in getting worked up over somebody he’d never have a shot with anyway.

He caught himself looking over his shoulder. Artie waved.

Nothing wrong with making a friend, at least.

It took a few days for Artie to make good on her visit. For one absurd, harrowing moment, it felt like summoning magic; he worried that the singular force of his thoughts had finally pulled her towards Sweetwater. He worried that, somehow, she knew what those thoughts were.

He’d been having dreams, too. The kind you can’t tell anyone about - that you shouldn’t even have in the first place.

Hayden focused on weeding his bed of tulips, and waited for Artie to approach. He was going to be friendly, neighborly, and normal.

“Mornin’.”

He looked up at the sound of her voice.

Artie was wearing a sleeveless white tank top and denim overalls with one of the straps undone. Her arms were well muscled, and crossed under her chest.

No bra this time. Hayden made eye contact, and held onto it for dear life. “Mornin’. You here for introductions?”

Artie smiled. “That’s right. Word around town is you’ve got a lady of the house.”

Hayden couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s one way of putting it. Smartest animal I ever raised - do you want to meet Henrietta at the beginning of the tour, or at the end?”

“Let’s save the best for last.”

Artie had an easy rapport with the animals, and a natural curiosity about them. Henrietta seemed charmed by her interest, and preened indulgently while Artie peppered Hayden with questions.

Hayden tried not to sound too eager. “Thinking about starting a flock of your own?”

“Someday. Henrietta’s a lot to live up to, though.” She gave the prize-winning bird a farewell pet, and followed Hayden towards the front gate of Sweetwater.

He pointed at the sword on her back, glinting in the morning sun. “You’ll make quite the livestock guardian.”

Artie flinched. Then she unsheathed her blade, and smiled. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I’m trying to convince your pal Errol to open the mines. All kinds of treasures down there, I hear.”

That explained the pickaxe, then. He dared a closer glance at the rest of her - no dirt or grass stains.

Hayden kept his tone curious, and light. “So, how’re you liking farming so far?

Artie stopped walking. She stuck her sword into the ground, and leaned on the hilt.

“It’s different.”

Compared to what? Treasure hunting? Hayden suddenly realized how little he knew about this woman, or where she came from. “Different always takes some getting used to. Can’t be the toil of it - you look strong.”

Just a friendly observation. He’d say the same thing to March.

Artie’s biceps twitched out of reflex, or pride. “Thanks. No, it’s not that.”

Hayden watched her try to find the words. He knew the feeling well, and gave her time to think.

Finally, a sigh. “I’m not good at waiting. I want something, I go and get it. I’d work twice as hard if I could make it all go twice as fast.”

“If only, right?”

Hayden was just being polite. He loved the pace of growing crops, of nurturing new life. Each plant and animal had its own natural rhythm. He was a patient man. He didn’t know any other way to be.

Artie leaned deeper into the hilt. The neckline of her top gaped open a little, but Hayden kept his focus on her reddish curls.

Artie’s eyes roamed freely: first over Sweetwater, then over Hayden. “Got any tips for a greenhorn? Or any ideas on how to pass the time?”

Hayden swallowed, and pushed past the shame of where his mind leapt first. “I hear the fishing’s good around here. Never took to it, myself.”

“Oh? What do you like to do, then?”

Something in Artie’s gaze sent a pleasant shiver up his spine. He put the feeling aside - it was a perfectly reasonable, neighborly question. “Spend time with friends, mostly. Play some cards, have a couple beers.”

Artie grinned. “I like that too. I had dinner at the Sleeping Dragon last night, can’t wait to go back.”

Hayden seized on the chance to change the subject. “Make sure to come in on Fridays. I’ll save you a seat at the poker table, but fair warning - Olric’s on a hot streak.”

“That doe-eyed blacksmith? You’re kidding.”

“I’m not! Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Artie gave him a once-over. “Alright. If Olric ends up with more tesserae than me, I owe you a beer. And if I win, you owe me one.”

Hayden crossed his arms, and smiled. “Sure, I’ll take that bet.”

She pulled her sword from the grass, and slung it over her shoulder. “Good. See you Friday.”

Not flirting. Just a friendly wager.

Hayden repeated those thoughts like a mantra for the rest of the week.

But when Friday night arrived, Artie did not. He told himself it was a relief - better this way. When Balor took the empty seat beside him, he didn’t protest, but it took him a few minutes to stop glancing over his shoulder at the door.

Then, a quiet panic set in. Maybe she’d just been humoring him. Maybe she regretted the bet, and decided to avoid him all together. He might’ve ruined her first Friday in Mistria.

A familiar voice snapped him back into awareness. “Hayden, are you alright? You look pale.”

“No checkup needed, doc. Just a little tired.”

Valen shook her head. “You’re not drinking enough water. Hemlock, can we get a pitcher for the table?”

Hayden groaned, but knew better than to argue. She’d been like this since they were kids. He dutifully sipped from his glass, and watched Terithia shuffle the deck with a flourish.

“I thought you were saving me a seat, Hayden.”

He’d never heard Artie say his name before. Somehow, that was more disarming than her hands on his shoulders.

Everyone greeted her warmly. Hayden was no exception - he stood up, and clapped her on the back. “Don’t worry, we can make a spot for you anywhere.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “Scooch over, then. You too, Balor.”

The men moved their chairs apart, and let Artie slide in with her own. “Thanks fellas. So, Olric. I hear you’re the one to beat.”

He smiled good-naturedly. “I’m still learning how to play.”

Terithia shuffled the cards again. “Don’t listen to him, lass. He’s a slippery one.”

Hayden learned two things that night: Artie was good at poker, and bad at losing.

He didn't fare any better, but he felt like a winner when Artie brought his beer to the table.

“You got me this round, Farmer Hayden.”

Balor tutted in mock disapproval. “A bet about betting, that’s something you don’t see everyday. Feel free to cut me in next time.”

Artie leaned back in her chair. “I get the sense you’re in on just about every deal around here, Balor.”

“It’s my business to be. Buy me a beer, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Hayden shifted his attention across the table, towards Valen. He didn’t want to impose on whatever was happening next to him.

“How’d you make out tonight, Valen?”

“Broke even.” She sipped her wine, and smiled coolly.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “‘Course you did. Wish I could say the same.”

“Oh? I’d say you came out ahead.” She clinked her glass against his pint of beer.

The demands of spring kept Hayden from spending much time with Artie. There were mares to foal, and crops to harvest, and more mouths to feed than ever. Fridays were the exception: he kept saving her a spot at the table, and she kept taking it.

One Friday, as summer neared, Hayden was late - a filly had wandered off, and it took him hours to soothe and bridle her. He walked into the Sleeping Dragon, dead tired and parched, to find Artie’s cowboy hat on the seat beside her. There was a beer on the table, full to the brim.

An impulse seized him. Hayden picked up the hat, and placed it on Artie’s unsuspecting head.

That got a laugh, especially from Artie. Everyone else settled back into conversation - Hayden could barely hear her over the din. “Look who finally decided to show. Thought you could use a drink, whatever it was that kept you.”

It was so full, he had to take the first sip without lifting his glass. Leaning down like that, it was hard to keep his hair out of the way - he reached for it, but Artie was faster.

“Careful, there.” She pushed his hair behind his ear, and lightly held it back while he drank.den

No one seemed to notice. Hayden sat back in his chair, beer in hand, and tried to think friendly, neighborly thoughts.

[emyluwinter]

This thought has been bothering me for the devil knows how long.

Alright-alright.

Listen.

Sage Island is located in the middle of the sea, right?

They are not close to the North, so the climate there is definitely not cold as I think. And that means…

How often will Sage Island be exposed to different typhoons-tsunamis and various storms? Earthquakes?

Are Sage Island near any volcanoes nearby? Active or sleeping? Is there movement nearby in tectonic Earth plates?

Based on my knowledge, some islands definitely go through this nightmare at certain times of the year.

The same "Rainy Seasons" in summer as in Korea and Japan. Or other island countries and states. (If someone enlightens me about smaller Asian countries and cultures, I will send a universal blessing to you!) I will explain to those who do not know this season begins presumably with the beginning of June and ends either in early July or in the middle. About a month or a month and a half there is a very depressing humidity and constant rains from time to time. (Humidity can reach up to 70%!!)

So….If the Night Raven College is surrounded by a magical barrier. And it is definitely higher than the port town and the RSA. (how they haven't been flooded and washed away yet is a mystery to me. Because the NRC is on the mountain. And the RSA is at sea level. Maybe a couple of meters higher to slow down the destruction of the foundation due to the encirclement of sea waves. I wonder if their premises are protected from mold and mildew?)

Does magic protection also work for weather or natural conditions?

For example, are college classes canceled if there is a threat of a typhoon or heavy rains?Tsunami threats?

Do the senior courses of the second and third year participate as a voluntary aid to the Port Town when natural hazards or problems come? (although, rather, these are additional mandatory classes for training how to act in certain critical situations. Based on the information in Chapter 6, students are necessarily taught this in their curriculum)

Perhaps there are different magical units specializing in this work! It would be great to see how students make various fortifications in the city, help citizens and ordinary people with their magic. Create separate group projects, perhaps magic items? to reduce the possibility of damage or danger to local residents. Senior courses - more complex magic formulas, spells, structures and strategies. Volunteers (or rather workers) from junior courses perform simpler but nevertheless important work.

From here, you can also increase the reputation of the college and magicians. Director Crowley is definitely listening to me now and recording everything. Ahaha.

Also, animals are more sensitive to weather changes. Beastmen or Merfolk, fairies would definitely be very tense and were all on pins and needles because of the impending severe weather!

Let's say if there are typhoons and all students are asked not to leave the dorms until the end of the natural threat….

Then imagine what a nightmare it would be for Yuu and Grimm at the beginning of life in TWST The Onboro building was held on the thin hope of the Yuu that they would not be crushed by the wreckage of an old unkempt building.

The roof looks like a colander with some it is hardly even possible to say "salvation" from the weather. Several retaining beams in the attic collapsed and pierced through the attic floor.

Grimm, starting from the very warning about the typhoon, looks like a tangle of nerves and anxiety. And he is unable to remove it or calm down, because he instinctively seeks refuge or wants to escape somewhere safe. Even if it's under Yuu's T-shirt, curled up like a bagel on their stomach.

Perhaps Yuu is asking the teachers to spend the night at least in a more fortified dining room next to the fireplace. With the wild howling of the wind, they will definitely not be able to sleep even despite all their efforts. (Although I am more inclined to the version that when Crewel and Train see Yuu and Grimm completely without any strength because these two could not sleep because of the storm and the onslaught of bad weather outside…. The Director is waiting for a very harsh and long conversation.)

By the way, are there any "forbidden" places on the Twst world map damaged due to magical wars, or phantoms? Remember the same Titans from Chapter 6. Their destruction and consequences should be simply terrifying.

Neither magicians nor people are allowed to enter or even approach such places. I'm also interested in the fact that phantoms leave poisonous miasma. How dangerous is it for living beings?

Oh so many questions..

[itsdafinalbraincell]

Hey guys! I wrote a small spy-x-family one-shot. This is the first time I've posted any of my writings online, and I would love some comments and good-willed criticism. Thank you for reading!

Fandom: spy-x-family (manga/anime)

Pairings: Loid Forger/Yor Forger

Tags: fluff, oneshot

What was I made for

Yor curls up in her bed, a fist clenched around her trusty weapon. A cold breeze rustles the curtains, the full moon bathing the modest room in a lazy blue hue. Breathe, Yor, you are home. The familiar smell of the forger household fills her lungs, and her grip on the dagger loosens just a little less. She should be happy, after all, she completed the task given to her with only a scar across her chest- nothing short of a feat in her cruel line of work. But the breath never sat right in her chest, her heartbeat thumping out of her chest, her head filled to the brim with thought spiralling down locked basements in her mind. A sharp whistle catches the assassin’s attention, and in an instant she’s out of bed, weapon held ready in front of her face.

But the wind howled innocently, the curtains rustling in the moonlight. Yor sighs and sits down at the edge of her bed, eyes instinctively scanning for any danger that lurking in her shadows. Guilt floods her mind as scenarios of Anya and Loid being attacked and mauled simply because they are her family.

Aren’t they a cover family anyway? It was the voice of the woman she guarded on the ship, and she found it difficult to argue with it back then.

Why did I even want to argue, she is right. But the happiness they gave her was real, the protectiveness she felt for them was as real as it was with Yuri. Her mind runs around in the same circle as it did since the cruise. Can I really quit my assassin work and be normal?

A part of her desperately wants to experience a normal life, but another one knew her job also kept her family safe. Yor wonders which was the one that truly cared for them. She sighs in defeat, wanting nothing more than some temporary peace. So, she does what always calms her nerves.

Yor walks across to the kitchen, rubbing her eyes to ward off the tiredness. She picks up a pair of scissors and snips a small packet of coffee powder, idly going through the soothing motions of making her favourite drink. For a moment her shoulders relax, but it was short-lived. A soft but unmistakable creak of feet on wooden floorboards snaps her senses back into action. Her body reacts before her mind, the air wheezes past her ears as she sends the scissors hurtling across the kitchen- only to be deflected by a startled blond man. Yor’s eyes widen in abject horror.

“L-loid! I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to I thought it was an intruder I took defence classes from my brother-”

“Hey- hey, Yor. Calm down, please. It’s ok really. Take a deep breath, Yor.” Loid’s calm firm voice soothes her nerves almost as well as coffee does. She sniffles and waits for a moment before inhaling deeply. Her shoulders drop again, and this time it feels lighter.

“I’m sorry” Yor feels her own voice feel far away “I didn’t mean to- do all that. I hope Anya wasn’t disturbed, she has school from tomorrow.”

Loid blinks for a moment and then smiles. “Anya sleeps like a rock. An earthquake could come through and she would be none the wiser.”

Yor musters a weak smile in response. Her not-husband husband’s eyebrows knit into a rare frown, eyes filled with a concern she has only ever seen in her brother’s. “Yor, I know it’s not my place to ask you this, but is everything alright?” His expression changes immediately into one of disbelief, like he couldn’t believe the words that spilled out of him any more than Yor could. “You don’t have to answer it of course, I just wanted to- I mean I wanted to make sure-” there was an uncharacteristic panic in his stature that made the assassin feel oddly comforted.

“I understand, Loid. Thank you for your concern. It’s just that I- find it difficult to sleep sometimes.” She sounds rather lame to her own ears, but Loid seems to buy it.

“Well in that case, I can keep you company. I find it difficult to sleep sometimes too.” He smiles and takes the packet of coffee from her hands, silently taking over the process.

“T-thank you, Loid.” Yor says, trying very hard not to turn into a beetroot.

They settle on the sofa with their drinks, the ticking of the living room clock feeling the comfortable silence. It feels odd without Anya cheerfully recounting her day at school or Bond trying to poison himself with caffeine, but it’s a difference that Yor welcomes. She inhales in the scent of her coffee, and for the first time since the cruise, the breath sits right in her chest.

[incorrectshantaequotes]

Sooooooo...remember that Harmony drawing/redesign I did around two weeks ago? Well - in the same vein, I present to you all: Plink!

So, before I go into the design notes - big shoutout to @shantaeandthebluemoon, whose design for Plink was absolutely one of my main inspirations here. Like, the vibes for that design were spot-on; I may have added a few of my own touches, but honestly she deserves the majority of the credit here. Anyway!

As you can see, Plink here has a vibe somewhere between "video game mage" and "mysterious witch who lives in the woods somewhere." Again, majority of the credit goes to shantaeandthebluemoon, but the pseudo-poncho around her shoulders is entirely my addition - I figured it made more sense for Plink to be almost entirely covered up, so it does double-duty both serving that purpose and being a subtle reference to the likes of Final Fantasy

The sash around her waist is there almost entirely to help break up the long cloak, and also to help keep some pink in her color scheme, since it's otherwise relegated solely to her shoes and eye beads

Now, the staff is where it gets fun. There's a bit of a gnarled look going on there, and there's a strange lantern hanging off the end of it. Now, again, this is partially just to add to the vibes. The vibes are very important here. BUT, there is also another, in-universe purpose to this staff. Because, you see, while I was doing this redesign, a thought occurred to me: "hey, hold on. how does Seer Magic work offensively?" Now, this isn't a new thought; between Shantae's animal transformations, Harmony's earthquakes, and Zapple's electricity, it's very clear to see how the other half-genies can/could fight, and even Vera you can do something with by saying her Refresh Magic also gives her some light control over plantlife. But Plink? Yeah hard to see that translating to combat. And in the past, my response to this thought has been "sssssome sort of psychic powers, maybe?" and then putting it out of my mind because it honestly doesn't matter that much. But this time was different, because this time? I got an idea. And that idea was...

Ta-da! Meet Blink and Ink. These two are spectral entities known as Eye Spies, cousins to the floating ghost eyes Shantae can encounter in HGH and SS, but unlike said ghost eyes, these two are considerably less hostile, and serve as Plink's primary means of offense since Seer Magic doesn't really help her much on that front. When she's fighting or wandering in the dark, they tend to possess the lantern, but outside of that they'll usually be possessing her eye beads.

Blink and Ink are what's known as thaumivores, creatures who eat and sustain themselves on magic. Now, they're hardly any danger to Plink; with how powerful genie magic is, if they tried to eat it, they'd end up exploding in the process before they could even get anywhere - the only thaumivores capable of doing that are also the ones at the top of the thaumivore food chain and the only species of sapient thaumivores, the Sirens. BUT, while they're not any danger to Plink, whenever they're out fully and not possessing anything, her magic will calm down and still out of instinct. That could be very harmful in a combat situation, hence why they possess the lantern, but outside of combat, Plink really appreciates the whole "calming down her magic" thing. Since she can have issues, you know, turning it off sometimes, Blink and Ink are very helpful on that front

"hey wait their names are Blink and Ink and they work together with Plink. is this a Pac-Man reference" Yes absolutely. The opportunity was right there of course I was going to take it

[alfietalksaboutcomics]

Wolverine And Leaving Krakoa

I’ve seen a lot of people complain about a scene in Benjamin Percy’s Wolverine where Wolverine (Logan) leaves Krakoa and the Krakoan project behind. I’ve seen chiefly two complaints going around, one is a complaint that this is out of character and the other is that this is inconsistent with how he's been written by other creators earlier in this era. However, I’d argue that this is all very much in line with the publication history of Wolverine and his character. 

First I’ll address the first point, that it’s out of character for Wolverine to reject a safe space for Mutants. On the face of this, I’d agree, but this isn’t what the story is about or the context it’s within. Part of the context is the government of Krakoa making increasingly morally dubious decisions as a nation. The other part of the context is the actions of Beast, both actions sanctioned by the Krakoan government and those not. Beast was given carte blanche as the head of X-Force and had no oversight by design, a deliberate choice by Charles Xavier and the Quiet Council. As head of X-Force Beast oversaw actions that include but are not limited to: acts of genocide against the people of Terra Verde, Torturing and experimenting on prisoners at a black site, Posining a child, and lastly, Murdering then kidnapping Wolverine (after he was resurrected) and turning him into a murder weapon against his will. While none of this was known to the Quiet Council at the time they did tacitly endorse it with their inaction. 

Then after Beast goes rogue the Quiet Council is brought up to speed on his various crimes but instead of going after him and bringing him to justice, they decide to let him act as a free agent taking down Krakoa’s enemies from the shadows. As I stated before Beast turned Wolverine into a weapon against his will and used him to commit political assassinations. Wolverine has a history of being abused by Governments and being forced to commit crimes on their behalf, this is reason enough to sow a level of distrust with a new nation-state. What pushes him over the line however is when an arm of the Krakoan government finally abuses him, as has happened to him so many times. Is it so illogical then that Wolverine, a rebel at heart, might no longer want any piece of that nation? 

The other critique I’ve heard from people is a claim that Wolverine abandoning Krakoa is inconsistent with his characterization in Al Ewing’s Immortal She-Hulk where he advocates for Krakoa. 

I have a couple of reasons why I disagree with this critique. The first reason is that Wolverine isn’t advocating for the Krakoan government in Immortal She-Hulk but advocating for the Mutant safe space that is Krakoa. Wolverine didn’t leave Krakoa because he disagreed with the Krakoan project, he left because he was fed up with its government and their actions. Another reason I disagree with the critique is that I don’t think that Percy’s take is any more out of character than Ewing’s, both are completely in-character ways for Wolverine to react to Krakoa but they’re just differing riffs.

One final note I’d like to make is that I think there is some resonance with the fact that Wolverine, a man with animal instincts, has the sense to leave Krakoa right before the Fall Of X. Much like a cat sensing an earthquake or a dog being able to tell that a tsunami is coming, Wolverine knows when to get the fuck out. Anyway, that’s my overly long ramble on this one panel.