#anyway everyone go check it out the demo is out on steam | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

beelsnack · 4 years

Text

When MC Gives The Obey Me! Boys a Present

Lucifer: The Eldest had always been an early riser. Honestly, he wasn’t fully convinced that this habit hadn’t been the real reason behind his moniker “Morning Star.” Although there was no sun in the Devildom, and therefore no sunrise, he still liked the idea of sitting by the grand window in the living room with a cup of coffee, watching the sky change from inky black to a dusty lavender. He would steal this few precious moments of peace while everyone was still asleep.

Well, almost everyone.

It was common for the human to get up early as well. On occasion, his brothers would keep them up with some ridiculous scheme that tired them out, but almost every morning the human joined Lucifer for coffee. He would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy having them to himself.

“Good morning.” they smiled as they entered the dining room. Their hands were clasped behind their back, and Lucifer regarded them with a raised eyebrow.

“Good morning. And whatever could you be hiding there?”

Suddenly shy, they kept their gaze on the cup of coffee Lucifer had poured for them. “Um, well...uh...” they cleared their throat, bringing their arms to their front to reveal what they were holding.

Lucifer studied the little box curiously. It was plain and black, made of velvet and looked like it came from a high end store. Well, now wasn’t that interesting?

Swallowing, the human pushed it towards him, quickly hiding their expression behind their coffee. “I-It’s for you. I didn’t want to give you it with everyone else around.”

“Oh?” he couldn’t help the quirk of his lips. “Don’t tell me you brought me something scandalous.”

“No!” they exclaimed. “Of course not, I just - it would - just open it, will you?”

He chuckled lowly. “As you wish.”

All teasing remarks died on his tongue as he opened the box. Nestled inside was a brooch, a brilliant ruby surrounded by delicate obsidian in a lace-like pattern. The gem caught the light and shone beautifully, and Lucifer was at a loss for words.

“You’ve been so kind to me.” the human’s voice, soft with sincerity, drew his gaze from the brooch. “I wanted to thank you. Asmo dragged me out shopping the other day, and I saw that. I had money left over from working at the bookstore, and I thought...”

They trailed off, flushing nearly as red as the brooch. Gently, Lucifer removed it from it’s box and affixed it to his uniform.

“I like it.” he smiled, catching their hand as they set down their cup. He brought their knuckles to his lips, watching as they squirmed. “I shall wear it with pride.”

Mammon: The human world was an exciting place. It had been a while since he dared to pop up in the mortal realm, afraid that one of the witches would catch wind of his presence and track him down. But the human had been wanting to take a visit to their world for a while, and someone had to make sure they didn’t get themselves mauled.

(Mammon was absolutely weak against the power of the human’s puppy-dog eyes and would probably throw himself into an active volcano if they pouted at him enough.)

After hours of exploring all the nooks and crannies the city had to offer, they eventually wandered into a coffee shop. After ordering their drinks - paid for by the human, of course - they tucked themselves into a table in the corner by the window.

“Man, I’m tired.” Mammon groaned, slumping back in his seat. “Followin’ you around all day is exhausting.”

They laughed. “Sorry. Maybe this will make up for it?”

They reached into the shopping bag at their feet and pulled out two little boxes. After carefully examining each one, they nodded to themselves and placing one of the boxes in front of him.

“What is this?” he tilted his head, picking the box up and shaking it. Something rattled inside.

“A blind box!” they grinned. “Remember those keychains we bought with Satan and Lucifer? These are from the same series, but their little figures. You don’t know what one you get until you open it.”

“Ehhh? Man, you humans are creative little things, aren’t ya?” he looked at the side of the box that had all of his options. “Aw, man, these are all the mythical creatures, aren’t they? Where’d you snag these, anyway? And when?”

“In the game shop, when you were trying to win the demo.”

“Hey, no one told me it wasn’t winnable, a’ight?”

The human shrugged. “Whatever. The sign for these things said ‘test your luck,’ and it reminded me of you, so I bought them.”

Mammon always did love a gamble. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s crack these bad boys open!”

Mammon basically tore the box apart. He ripped open the little plastic bag and a small plastic figure of a dragon tumbled out. It was even breathing fire!

“Hey, check out what I got! Betcha it’s cooler than yours, huh?”

When he looked up, the human was holding the exact same figure.

“Looks like we got our matching things after all!”

He felt his cheeks heat up, and he might have laughed just a bit too loud as he straightened up. “Look at that! How about it, human? Do you feel honored to be matching the Great Mammon?”

The bright grin they sent his way made his heart flutter a little bit. “Of course. I have to match with my first man, don’t I?”

Levi: He kept checking the time on his D.D.D. The stream was going to start any minute! Maybe they decided that didn’t want to watch it with him after all? Maybe they had just been screwing with him in the first place. They probably -

KNOCK KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK KNOCK

“Levi, it’s me!”

He sat in surprise for a moment before he realized that he had to actually let them in. He scrambled over to the door, squaring his shoulders and taking a few deep breaths to try and appear cool before he opened the door.

“Where were you? The stream’s starting soon!”

“Sorry, sorry!” the followed him into his room, kicking the door shut behind them. “I couldn’t remember where I put it, I was tearing apart my room looking for it, of course it was in my desk drawer - “

“What are you talking about?” the human had a tendency to babble if left unchecked. Now that his heart rate had returned to normal, Levi noticed the thin piece of cardboard that they were holding.

“Oh, right, sorry!” Levi really wanted the human to stop apologizing for everything, but didn’t know how to say it without sounding like a dick.

They held up the mystery item for Levi to see. “Last time I was in the human world, I picked these up! They’re cool, right?”

Attached to the cardboard were two black-corded wrap-around bracelets. Both were decorated with a pixelated heart, one saying “Player One,” the other saying “Player Two.”

Well, so much for a normal heart rate.

“I - you - what - a-are you sure you want to wear something like this. With - with me?”

Levi didn’t want to think about how soft and kind the human’s face looked when they took back the cardboard and began taking the bracelets off. They remained silent as they handed the Player One bracelet to him. His hands were shaking as they dropped it in his palm.

“I don’t want to wear it with anyone else.”

Satan: No matter what he did, Satan always ended up losing his bookmarks. They got lost in books that he had forgotten he had, accidentally thrown away when he cleaned off his desk, he definitely saw a cat steal one and just couldn’t bring himself to take their new toy from them. Every time he turned around, a bookmark had gone missing.

He was in the middle of searching for one - he absolutely refused to dog-ear the pages, he might as well rip the page out - when he heard the door to his room open. “Satan? Are you in here?”

He couldn’t help the small smile. The human was probably the only one in the house he didn’t want to punch in the face. “Up here.” he called.

The human began climbing the spiral staircase that led up to his bedroom proper. He still couldn’t find a bookmark, so he was forced to turn the small paperback over and rest it on the desk. He could practically hear the spine breaking and wanted to cringe.

“What’s up? I thought you were going shopping today.”

“I already did.” they were holding a small bag in there hands. “I couldn’t really find anything I liked, no matter what Asmo made me try on. But! I found something for you!”

Satan blinked as they handed him the bag. “Really? For me?”

“Mhm!” they looked quite pleased with themself. “Go on, open it!”

He reached into the bag and plucked out it’s contents. “A...what is this?”

It was made out of metal, shaped like a dagger with a green stone (there was no way it was real emerald) decorated the hilt. He moved it around in his hand, and felt it bend. It was a similar shape to a paperclip.

“It’s a bookmark.” the human grinned. “It clips onto the page, and the top part here sticks out so you don’t forget you have it in there! It’s just something litle, but I remembered you complaining about how you’re bookmarks always disappear, so..yeah.”

They lost a little bit of steam when Satan just continued to stare at them. “...You don’t like it?”

“Of course I like it.” he replied. “I’m just shocked you remembered something trivial I said weeks ago.”

Expression turning sheepish, they shrugged. “I guess I just have a good memory.”

Satan hummed, leaning down to press their foreheads together. “That you do. Thank you.”

Asmo: The best part of taking a long, luxurious bath was putting on his favorite bathrobe. It was soft and fluffy and felt like a cloud against his skin. And it always sent a little shiver up his spine as it was sliding off to reveal -

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

Ugh. Someone always had to interrupt, didn’t they? His beauty routine was terribly intricate, and there would be hell to pay if he broke out.

“Asmo? Can I come in?”

...Okay, this was an acceptable interruption.

“Of course, darling, door’s open!” he briefly contemplated leaving his robe untied before deciding against it. Undressing was part of the fun.

The human stepped into his room, arms laden with shopping bags.”I wanted to show you what I got!”

“Ooh, yes!” he beamed. “Show me, show me!”

They set their bags down on the bed, digging through the bags to decide what to show him first. Asmo sat at his vanity, watching them search. They’re eyes lit up like jewels when they found what they were looking for.

“Ta-da!” they produced a length of dark magenta fabric. It looked soft, and caught the light in a way that made it shimmer. A silk scarf.

“Oh, isn’t that lovely?” he crooned, standing up to run his fingers delicately over it. “And so soft, too! What a find, darling!”

“So you like it?” the human asked. Asmo hummed, nodding. He couldn’t stop feeling the scarf. Silk always felt good against the skin ~

“Good! Because I bought it for you.”

He paused mid-stroke, bringing his eyes up to look at them. “Eh?”

“I saw it at the store,” they placed the delicate fabric fully in Asmo’s hands. “And I thought that the color would look sooo good on you. It was the last one, too, so I snatched it up.”

“Oh, aren’t you a treasure!” he wrapped his arms around the human and damn near squeezed the life out of them. “You know me so well! But, you know...”

He slipped the scarf around their waist and used it to pull them flush against him.

“I can think of a couple different uses for silk.”

Beelzebub: There would be a world of trouble if they got caught. But you wouldn’t know that at all just by watching the human. They hummed to themself as they mixed the ingredients, like this was normal cooking duty instead of an emergency late-night food run.

Beel felt kind of bad. Not only did he ruin their bedroom over custard, he woke them up in the middle of the night because he had a nightmare. And instead of being angry with him like they should be, they offered to make him cake.

“You don’t have to. You can go back to bed.” he mumbled. Despite the cheerful expression they wore, he could tell they were tired.

They turned around, pointing their spoon at him accusingly. “No, I can’t. I just put the cake in the oven.

“But...”

“Besides,” they shrugged, turning around to put the dishes in the sink. “I’ve been wanting to try out a new recipe for a while. What better way to shake of a nightmare than taste-testing, right?”

Beel had never heard that one before, but he wasn’t going to argue. Instead, he just folded his arms on the table and rested his head on top of them, watching the human work. “Can we call this nightmare cake?”

“No, that sounds like it’ll taste bad.”

“I’m calling it nightmare cake.”

They wrinkled their nose at him, and he couldn’t resist reaching out and giving them a little nose boop.

“Thanks. I’ll bet this is going to be better than any store bought cake.”

Belphegor: Honestly, he was trying to do his assignments. He had actually missed going to classes while he had been locked in the attic, and he was already on thin ice with Diavolo. But he was so sleepy...

A knock at his door jolted him awake. Damn, he dozed off again.

“Yeah?” he called, rubbing at his eye.

“Can I come in?”

Oh. The human. “Yeah, door’s open.”

They stepped into the room and immediately zeroed in on him. “Did you fall asleep on your homework again?”

He lolled his head back without turning around in his desk chair to look at them upside down. “No.”

“Then why do you have ink on your cheek?”

“It’s a fashion statement.”

They raised an eyebrow. “What are you supposed to be stating?”

“...That I fell asleep while doing homework.”

Belphie didn’t want to admit how much he liked the human’s laugh. So, he focused on something else. “What do you have there?”

“Oh!” apparently, they had forgotten what they were holding. “There was one of those crane games at the arcade, and I won this!”

Belphie straightened up and turned around. They were holding a plush toy shaped like a black ram. It was kind of cute.

“It kind of reminded me of you, so here!” they held it out to him, but he only looked at them quizzically.

“Why did it remind you of me?”

“The horns, mostly.”

Upon closer inspection, those did look like his horns. “Huh. Yeah, okay, I see it.”

The human thrust the plushie out again, and this time, he took it. It was really soft and cuddly. He could definitely imagine falling asleep with this. But...

“Hey!” the human yelped as Belphie stood and shoved the plushie in their face. “If you don’t like it you can just say so!”

“I want it to smell like you.” he drawled. “So I can think about you before I go to sleep.”

“So you try to suffocate me with it?!”

Truthfully, Belphie just didn’t want them to see him blush when he muttered, “Thanks for the gift. I really like it.”

#shall we date obey me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me levi #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me asmo #obey me beelzebub #obey me beel #obey me belphegor #obey me belphie

169 notes · View notes

gyromitra-esculenta · 4 years

Text

Even If the Waters Rise 2/3

Shadowrun inspired Mermay part 2 out of 3 - this thing turned into a monster because this here is like 9k words. Also, contains anime fights, and too competent people. (Honestly, like 95% of teams I ran would fuck up this scenario spectacularly).

Also, warnings for the whole planned thing: blood, gore, and violence; cannibalism (human on metahuman); questionable jokes and questionable totem choices; ambiguous relationships; referenced limb loss/cybernetics/etc; mating cycles.

The whole inside of the sub stinks of the cigar smoke.

The ventilation system manages to get rid of the smoke itself, but the reek remains. Jack would call bullshit on Jesse's insistence it's a vital part of the ritual - the justification itself a steaming load of bullcrap.

Point is, even if he's pretty sure that's the fact, he won't, because he doesn't know enough about the subject to not make a fool out of himself. He finishes fitting the exo jacket and does a cursory check of its mobility and the armor plates layered over it.

The next is the pistol and the rifle, both at full capacity, unlikely he will end up needing another power unit for either of them. The hip pack holds eleven demo charges and the pad, Jack threads the cable with the plug under the armor and leaves it hanging for now.

"Much longer?"

"Nah, about finished," Jesse answers without opening his eyes and takes another deep drag of his cigar. Seeing this, Jack feels almost nauseated in his stead.

The visor clicks neatly into the sockets of the frame, integrated jack connecting immediately. He plugs the pad cable into the remaining port. The tactical overlay reloads, feeding him new data.

"Som, want to ride tonight?"

"No, thanks, I'll go through the tac, I have an idea what we'll find and I'd prefer not being flooded by your sensory output."

"I'm feeling a bit bloodthirsty, anyway."

"Don't you always." Sombra flashes his display in response. In time for Jesse to turn around in the chair as the coyote fades back into existence on the serape.

"And done. We're in the clear from this side. I have the entire array down to a pat."

"No good if anyone with a moderately adequate sense of smell can, and will, smell you downwind." Jack rolls his eyes while putting the face mask on.

"All part of the process."

"Sure. Not dragging your sorry ass back."

"Dude, it's going to be the other way around."

"Even if," Jack grabs the rim of the hatchway and pulls himself up, bracing against the railing and leaning back inside, "it will be your fault alone."

"There's a ladder for a reason, dude, you don't need to show off yet." Jesse hands him the drone he sets off flying right away. The thing veers away and gains the altitude with a subtle whizz of its rotors. Sombra will keep it at a distance until Jesse does his thing.

"See if I pull you up now. Genji?"

"Waiting for the signal." The reply comes on the spot, the voice metallic even through the comms.

Jack jumps off the sub, landing softly on the shore. The wall is at least four meters tall, four and twenty according to the display's measurements. His fingers dig into the concrete as he scales it - feels like nothing - the boots keep his feet anchored to the surface. On the top, he surveys the area. No-one is standing guard, probably too lazy and too comfortable with the alarms set up, the only thing to worry about another gang or triad wanting to move into their turf as unlikely as it would be considering the current power balance. But then, with the worth of one facility and the specialists in the trade involved, probably everyone gets a piece of this pie to not upset the supply chain.

Jack lets down the rope, waiting for Jesse to clip it to his harness before he pulls him up.

"You need some kind of diet."

"You're the only one complaining. There's just a lot of me to go around. Love handles are a thing, you know?" Jesse wheezes, finally joining him on the wall. "Thatta way," he points to the closest building. "Cover me while I negotiate."

"Don't die on the way."

"You're just jealous I got some healthy fat on me."

"The only person insisting it's sexy is your recurring ex, and that's because it gives you higher blood volume."

"Wait, dude, seriously?" Jesse looks up from the spot Jack let him down.

"No idea. I'm making it up as I go."

"Well, shit, you really had me consider dieting for a sec there."

"Should've kept the charade up." Jack lies down on his side at the top of the wall, the rifle held precariously with no additional support. Its matte coating disperses the light. "I have fov. Go."

"You expect me to run?" Jesse snarks holding down his hat - incidentally running - stopping a few steps from the building, more a shed than anything else.

"Kind of." Jack centers the reticle on him, noticing the coyote is gone, again. Which doesn't bode well. "Where's the friend?"

"Working, shush!"

Jesse plops down, cross-legged, the prosthetic hand in his lap, the other holding something close to his chest - probably one of his amulets - and Jack briefly entertains the thought of shooting the stupid hat off his head just to make a point. In truth, keeping half his attention on Jesse allows for a smooth feed of environmental data from the surroundings, and if anything goes wrong, though magic, the spirits usually go down well enough when treated with sufficient amounts of very mundane munitions. His are several grades above that.

"The fuck is it...?"

The spirit forming out of the wall in front of Jesse looks nothing like any other he had ever seen before, standing as tall as a troll, a mass of mangled flesh and fur sloughing off its skeletal frame in gag-inducing half-liquid scraps. The half of whatever is supposed to cover its maw is missing, showing off the strange shape of the skull and the frankly terrifying fangs from between which bubbling drool dangles.

It roars soundlessly and Jesse shudders, breaking the first amulet.

The spirit moves forward, sluggishly, against the invisible force pushing it back. Jack puts his finger on the trigger, wondering if he'll even notice the entire thing going south fast enough. If he doesn't, well, Jesse's in scalding water.

Jesse discards remnants of another focus.

The moment Jack's half a mind to light the ugly motherfucker up, a flash of grayish-brown jumps to the spirit's back. The coyote sinks its teeth into the spirit's nape and closes its jaws, twisting. Jack swears there's some kind of cracking sound that's not a sound at all. The rest of the rotting flesh dissipates and the bones burn before following suit.

"Okay, done," Jesse spits to the side, disgust clear in his tone. "All were bound to this one."

"Jesus. What was that?"

"Bad Ainu spirit, powerful," the answer is surprisingly somber. "Feral."

"Tells me nothing." Jack slips off the wall, the drone navigating overhead filling in the gaps in the tactical overlay with new data, finding and pinpointing heat signatures.

"Corrupted bear spirit, someone brought it inland. Nasty stuff, dude." Jesse pats the coyote. Predictably, it snaps at his hand, and he pulls it back with a quiet curse - staring the coyote down until it turns and walks away, unbothered. "Anyway, the one who set it up is gonna feel it, but the further away they are, finding out what that was will take longer."

"No change of movement patterns so far. Genji, take over 'Love Handles' here," Jack snickers at the indignant look Jesse directs at him. Genji confirms, his marker shifting on the display. "I'm moving along."

He follows by the wall, the sparse lamps providing enough contrast to shadow to have him blend with the surroundings. The complex itself - if it even could be called such - was not built with defensibility in mind, but rather adapted for the utility away from the prying eyes. It had to be a port before, maybe even a regular fishing dock, the layout betrays it with the repurposed boat sheds corroding in the sea air - the wall ending abruptly obviously there to protect from the wind and the waves coming in from the side.

Jack departs the relative safety of the wall towards two vehicles parked sideways in relation to the main building where the heat signatures congregate. One is an armored personnel transport, the escort most probably, the other a massive truck with a refrigerator. He takes two charges out of the hip pack and changes the frequency on both of them. The first one goes under the truck, just behind the join with the cabin, the second under the transport. All while keeping his attention on the lone signature exiting the building.

Jack clips the rifle to his back, focusing on the hostile. A smoke break, judging by the movements. Slowly shifting his weight, Jack moves into the position, tracking the motions of the enemy. The tac display flicks between the straight visual feed and the heat map.

Ten meters, turning away from him.

The smell on the air is stronger this close to the building; the mixture of the toxins in the blood is palatable on his tongue here, kicks off his fight-or-flight instinct and the adrenaline floods his system. And for Jack, it's always fight, never flight. The first limiter is off, an overkill, but he doesn't care.

He springs from behind the transport - jumping as the hostile is turning - left palm grabbing their forehead, right fist coming to stop in their nape with a crunch.

His feet hit the ground in front of them and he shoulders the weight, lowering the soon to be a corpse man down. The dropped cigarette still smokes. With a smile, Jack puts one explosive in front of the wildly moving eyes.

"Damn, that's cold even for you," Sombra whistles.

"I'm in a bit of a mood." Jack pulls the rifle into his hands and puts his back to the wall. "That's Arasaka gear."

"Adding their chatter to the monitored."

The display flickers, overlaying structural scan on the tac. Jack glances at the sky - the drone is nowhere to be seen. As it should be.

Genji and Jesse both catch up, sheltered by the vehicles.

"Genji, upper floor. 'Love Handles', find somewhere else, demos underneath."

"Where?" Jesse's heat signature unmistakably turns around with one arm outstretched.

"Go for the fridge. Two inside." Jack takes a deep breath and turns, walking inside with the rifle braced against his shoulder, trying to not be too quiet about it, as if he's the unlucky guy outside.

Five in the room past the corridor, visibly relaxed - four at the table, one lying down. Three on the level up.

"Genji."

The command is followed by a crash above and a scream. Jack falls into a crouch as soon as he gains the visual on the four hostiles turning to the metal staircase on the other side of the room.

The recoil on each shot is cushioned by the exo jacket. Mostly.

On the tac, the fifth one is scrambling in the corner to get up. One from the upper floor gets halfway down the stairs before Genji is on him, pushing him down to the ground, his katana sliding in easily at an angle between the shoulder blades. Jack rushes inside the room - flipping his own direction with a foot planted in the floor past the doorframe - the butt of the rifle slightly off balance as he fires. This one, he's going to feel in the morning.

The plasma projectile rips the meat off the target's throat.

Genji nods once, rising. He flicks the blood off the blade.

"See if you find any paper trail, I'm going..." There's the unmistakable sound of Jesse's revolver going off in the distance. Jack's not worried, not really, he had seen this thing vaporize someone's midriff once.

He shrugs and throws two charges at the opposite walls of the room, down to six now, and backtracks outside, leaving Genji to go through anything that may be in the open.

"Jesse?"

"One's inside."

"There's no-one inside."

Unless... The cold room. Someone went into the freezer. One big heatsink on the tac. Anyone outside would show.

Jesse is leaning against the corrugated metal, revolver in hand, few paces away from the body lying face-down - unarmored, precise shot to the back that blew out half of the chest on the way out, judging by the spray.

"Follow. Som, can you...?" Before he finishes, the drone does a dive fly-by by the entrance, returning to the sky after.

"Clear. Closed shut."

Jack shoulders the rifle. The smell of blood and meat is stronger here, will be worse inside - something about it always sets him off. The building's layout is as simple as it gets: built around the freezer block with a small makeshift separate space to the side to provide for temporary living arrangements.

"Jesse, check it out." Jack walks to the freezer's door. The lock panel shines with glaring red. He moves aside to let the drone pass - unholsters the pistol as Sombra connects to the door's interface. They open with a quiet hiss, expelling clouds of frigid air.

The smell is horrible, hooks into his brain. The urge to kill something - someone - anything - is unequivocal.

"Clear."

Jack rounds the doorframe, pistol at the ready. Rows of tables, singular iceboxes, all the equipment needed for the processing.

"At least a dozen..." The tails being bled in the beginning stage hang from the ceiling in the back. One sways minisculely. "Fifteen."

With deliberate slowness, Jack makes his way towards it - focused on the back area, cursorily glancing at the compact cooling units - nothing unexpected: hands, organs, two heads probably to be sold as centerpieces, all partially treated already.

"Found you."

A bit of a shoe is poking from behind one table. He smiles. The man flinches with his whole body when he sees him. Any other place, any other situation, Jack would consider him a non-combatant unless otherwise provoked into action. But here, surrounded by all the evidence...

He wants - needs - to kill something.

He barely listens to the jumble of the language he doesn't understand, could ask Sombra for a precise translation, but he doesn't care. She provides some, anyway.

"Says they were forced to."

"He's lying."

"No shit," Sombra chuckles.

For a brief moment, Jack considers his options. In the end, he pulls the trigger. The pistol has a substantially lower yield than the rifle - it still very well could dislocate the joints of someone unaugmented - and a limited use against heavily armored targets. Against anyone unarmored, it kills as well as anything else, leaving behind burnt gore.

The smell of seared meat, keratin, and fat does nothing to hide the odor of the toxins from the remains of dead mermaids.

"We have a transport incoming," Sombra pulls the drone from the freezer. "Nine minutes for a clear exit."

"Jesse, Genji, grab what you have and clear out." Jack listens for the confirmations while deploying the remaining charges inside the cold room. He wants everything in here vaporized, with no exceptions.

"Five minutes."

"I know, Som, you put the clock on the tac."

When outside, Jack breaks into a sprint - there isn't a reason to hurry that much but the exertion helps to work the adrenaline out and push the smell from his lungs. He scales the wall and jumps over it.

"Three minutes," Sombra speaks, the tone making him think she might be working now on her nails - ridiculous, but he can't help a chuckle at the image it provokes.

"I know." Jack pauses on the top of the sub to grab the drone and pass it below before he slides inside into his chair. He puts the rifle braced between his legs and sinks forward, bending his knees. "Floor it, 'Love Handles'."

Jesse does, muttering something along the lines 'I see this is what we're doing now' as Jack digs the pad from the pouch - waits a moment before keying in the frequency. The sub shudders, punched by the crump following the demo charges going off on the surface, and just like this, it's time to crash.

"It all reeks of your shit cigars."

Jack does a double-take, looking above the back of his chair at Genji sprawled over the boxes. Genji, who shouldn't be here with them.

"It's good tobacco and they're expensive!"

"I'm bred and born Yakuza, I know my quality drugs."

"Genji," Jack begins carefully, "You left your ride there?"

"No. I walked."

"You... what?"

"Walked."

It's beyond ridiculous.

"How...?"

"Thirty-two hours, to be exact," Genji interrupts the question Jack's been formulating. "A pleasant hike."

Jack decides he's not going to question it anymore. The only downside is he will have to listen to them bicker about meaningless drivel for hours. The other hindrance being the obvious fact he has to peel the armor and the exo off in the front instead of in the back, behind the seats. He manages.

The third unobvious drawback: with three people more-or-less breathing, the temperature rises to levels comparable with a sauna.

State-of-the-art, his ass.

The riveting bickering Jack can tune out as the combat high fades and his system goes into the post-adrenaline crash, leaving him slightly shaking and nauseous - tired and heavy - drifting in and out of bouts of light sleep. When they finally arrive, both he and Jesse look like boiled rats while Genji is no worse for the wear.

It makes Jack think how much - and if anything - is left of Genji himself, with the work he had done on him easily exceeding whatever Jack had, and Jack himself is teetering on the edge. And if Genji runs off a BTL, it's not his fucking business, so he had never asked, and neither had he asked about why - and how - nothing past the part of his head and the upper chest buried in the metal remains. They aren't both that much different, after all.

But that aside, he has about enough energy left in him to slap McCree's stomach flab - ignoring the smirking 'you're only doing it 'cos you're green with envy' comment as it wobbles - and stumble to the temporary bunk, burying himself under the flimsy covers. If anyone's going to bitch about him not helping with the unloading, they can bitch about it later, preferably tomorrow, and, anyway, he's been the one doing most of the work, so they can suck it.

He wakes up too cold, with the shoulder bruised and giving him hell.

Going by the light, it's late afternoon. His gear is laid out on the tables, as is the carry-on he had left before the departure. Jack considers a swim against Jesse's earlier advice, but a spiny back that flashes him in the distance finally dissuades him from the idea. Pity. Quick shower it is.

The rest of the evening he spends putting away the equipment back in the containers first, later scanning the data for Sombra while eating.

"The security was lazy and too lax, they had to have been operating there long enough to grow complacent."

"I'm not so sure about it. From what I've seen," Sombra murmurs, "they might have bet too much on the magic, it was good."

"According to Jesse." Jack pauses with the fork full of the awful reheated mush when she ‘ohs’ suddenly. "What?"

"I think we've hit the jackpot."

"Elaborate?"

"With a bit of luck and time, with this info, I think I might be able to pinpoint the fleet that has been supplying this plant, among the others. We hadn't found one of those in two years."

"Full-on naval run? Fun."

"Trying to appear disinterested? I know you secretly got a boner."

"You know me so well," Jack laughs. "By the way, where are you now?"

"Frisco. You'd like it here, half the time feels like you're breathing water because of the fog."

"My kind of city."

"The views aren't bad either. Have fun tonight once in your life, okay?"

"Why would I...?"

"Trust me."

Her thoughts fade, leaving him perplexed as to their meaning. At least until Jesse barges in some fifteen minutes later.

"We're going drinking, dude, and I don't take no for an answer."

"No."

"Oh, c'mon, dude, it will do you good."

And, frankly, Jack does not understand how Jesse manages to talk him into it - the word 'chaperone' might have been mentioned in the passing - but after two drinks and an hour or so on the dance floor, he does feel relaxed and wired at the same time as he navigates back to the bar. Genji is still nursing the same scotch, slightly emptier than before. Probably that one glass is enough to keep him buzzed for the duration of the entire night, what with the amount of the actual blood he has in his system. Jesse and Lucio are talking animatedly. Jack takes the free stool and flips through the pages of the price-list built into the bar, stopping on the more interesting cocktails.

"Bloody Mary. The other menu."

The bartender looks at him quizzically.

"You don't look like one to enjoy the more sophisticated drinks."

A rather quirky and unfitting word to describe what is basically a cocktail catering to vampires that are apparently a welcome clientele in the club.

"Hey, dude, JJ, he's a freak," Jesse yells from the side over the music, "but he's our freak, so give him what he wants, would you, dude?"

It turns out to be watered down blood with hardly any trace of alcohol in it and a celery stalk thrown in, served in a wine glass with some damn goofy bats on it. Way to stay inconspicuous - Jack snorts before taking another sip, surprised at how agreeable the concoction is. The flavor spills on his tongue and teases the sense of smell, not quite there yet, has him drink the rest of it in one go as he chases after the climax of the taste, and leaves him waiting on the last drops. Licking his lips with a sigh, Jack places the glass back on the bar counter.

Only now he notices the place next to him has been taken in the meantime.

"The same, again, JJ." The man has a deep voice and an eye-catching cybernetic, high grade. Definitely a designer shell on it built for aesthetic value.

"Change the water for ninety-proof, would you?" Jack nods at the bartender. The alcohol adds a layer to the impression, biting where the taste of blood fades. Jack shifts his attention back to the man, and the suits lounging nearby. They fit in the awkward way any corpo rat in a place like this would, if not for their attentiveness. "Counting on something, rich boy?"

Metal fingers grip his jaw, turning his head to the side, put the pressure in, the grab far too familiar in how it applies the force to the bone.

"Those are some fine cock-sucking lips, pity for them to go to waste."

As his eyes drift lower and stop at the rich boy's crotch, Jack catches himself on the fact he's considering it. But the thing is, nobody touches him like they own him, except for Gabriel - because Gabriel does own him. There's something vicious and cruel winding up in him.

"Say what, rich boy, you beat me," Jack flicks his eyes visibly towards the stage, "you get them."

"Even better without the teeth," the rich boy laughs, nodding to the bartender, and the hand is off. Oh, it's a risk Jack's willing to take because there's a point to be made.

"Put it on the ice." He gestures to the drink and hops off the stool, moving towards the stage without looking back, knowing he's being followed. The lights and the music change, people knowing the club's gimmick move back from the marked spot and pull the stragglers with them.

Jack jumps over the rising waist-high barrier and stops slightly off the middle of the ring. He turns around and rolls his shoulders, the right still sore and hurting. Somehow, Lucio is already on the stage chatting up the DJ. The rich boy gets right in his face. Smirking.

"Your bitch ass is mine."

"Sure."

All the lights not focused on the ring and the stage go out.

Jack dives under the first swing. The second one he sidesteps, it's his turn to smirk as he judges the technique and the speed, the coiled spring in him ready to snap. There’s momentum behind the punches, but the speed and the precision are lacking. The footwork is not especially good, either, but the rich boy might feel cocksure because the pure mass and strength probably won him some scuffles, not to mention the monkeys at his heel. To pass the real judgment, though, he does have to get hit.

Jack fumbles partially the next dodge, the fist connecting with his face carries a surprising amount of force behind it even as he's moving away from it - the hand is not only for show, it seems - the second jab comes abruptly. As he hits the floor, the thought he's not the only one to con this fight is unexpectedly exhilarating.

Goddamn fucking McCree screams 'five hundred on the blondie' from the side.

Jack rolls away from the punch that leaves a dent in the spot he had occupied a moment earlier. He pivots on the ball of his hand evading the following hit and jumps to his feet. This would do some serious damage. The stakes just got higher.

Jack licks the blood off his lips, the taste now undiluted, coppery, wipes the rest of it with the back of his hand, smearing it and smiling widely.

"That one's a freebie, enjoy it while it lasts."

The punches come reliably in pairs, the cybernetic hand is favored over anything else, probably at the cost of other techniques.

The coiled spring snaps, and Jack goes into the offensive, dancing out of the way and turning. The first punch misses him completely, the second one catches the sleeve of his jacket as he puts his elbow with the added momentum of the movement below the joint - skirting under the other hand immediately to find himself at the rich boy's back. He plants a foot on his ass and pushes, sending him tumbling to the ground. The surprised look of someone who just realized they bit off more than they can handle is a cherry on the top of the fucking cake.

Jack, swaying to the rhythm of the music, waits for him to get up. The flash of anger - closer to rage - at the obvious disrespect fuels his interest in the fight. He baits the guy two or three times - gets away in the last moment driving home the point he's untouchable until he allows it - watching the rich boy’s coordination and control go to shit.

It's a dangerous kind of game, pushing the opponent until they feel cornered and lash out, but the rush makes up for it.

Jack meets the rich boy in the middle as he changes his approach from evasion to the offense; goes for a quick jab below the ribs followed by a hit below the jaw. He deflects the grab aimed at his head - the fingers close around his forearm - he drags the hand holding him in front of the rich boy's chest while turning on his left foot and throws his other leg up in with a half-turn - hooking the ankle behind the man's neck.

Then, he brings his leg down with force, noting, again, the sheer surprise on that face - the grip on his arm seizing and taking with it the sleeve of his jacket and leaving the synthskin under it scraped by the fabric.

Jack puts the knee in the rich boy's nape as he lies. With the cybernetic trapped under him and his left arm twisted, he is in no position to try anything, especially when Jack adds more pressure to the wrist. He leans down, chuckling, bringing his lips closer to the man's ear.

"Who's the bitch now?"

He gives the arm another cautionary shake before he jumps off the rich boy's back and leaves the ring. At least, compliments due where they are, he knows when he's beaten and doesn't follow to make a scene.

Back at the bar, with Lucio fretting over his face, Jack finishes his drink. Genji is already gone, and Jesse’s nowhere to be seen - until Jack catches the sight of him leaving the club with a bob of white hair on his shoulder. Fucking moron. If Jesse turns up later as a vampire or a desiccated corpse lying in some ditch, it's not Jack's problem anymore.

He hisses briefly as Lucio sets his nose proper and dabs it one last time with a tissue for good measure before making his way back to the stage. Time to get going, he can feel the interest of the spectators in him growing. Jack waves the bracelet at the reader. It blinks red. His tab is paid.

Maybe Jesse, with the money he made off him.

Outside the club, Jack briefly considers catching a cab before his eyes land on the luxury car one of the suits from before is leaning against.

Fuck it.

It's the night of poor decisions all around, Jack thinks as he strides towards it.

"Move," he barks at the monkey, not waiting for the tensing man to comply before he opens the side door looking inside. The rich boy puts away his phone and the other suit aims at Jack's head with the handgun. "Send the monkeys away, or have them sit in the front."

Their displeasure is visible and only serves to heighten Jack's amusement, more so when the rich boy nods. He gets in, gives the approximate address of the dock, and the car starts rolling down the street to join in with the traffic.

"One rule. You touch me only when I tell you to."

He makes quick work of rich boy's pants and grips the already half-hard length in his hand - looking up with a clear warning on his face before he goes down on him, feeling the cock properly fill out and become rigid between his lips. Makes sure his teeth scrape against the skin. He pulls away when the hips under his palm start to jerk with the motions and swats with a warning growl at the hand reaching to hold him in place.

Still kneeling on the floor, Jack strips out of both the jacket and the shirt underneath in one go, throws them to the side. Unbuckling his belt, Jack moves to the opposite seats, braces against the back, and looks over his shoulder.

"Need a special invitation?"

The inside of the car is too small for anything like this - for both of them - Jack delights in how it puts the rich boy in an awkward position. A moment later, he has his face pushed into leather and a hand fumbles with his pants. He hisses first at the burn, the cramping pain deep inside rips an aborted whine out of him - cold metal planted between his shoulder blades keeps him down, not that he minds.

Jack’s fingers rip up the upholstery.

Greedy and selfish, it's what the rich boy is, as is Gabriel himself, but how the same quality differs so intricately between the two of them is something illuminating in its simplicity.

The rich boy takes and tries to assert his dominance when he has none, whereas Gabriel knows Jack belongs to him and Jack knows back he himself is, in a way, his prized property to be taken care of - the bullet to be fired at whatever Gabriel wishes him to destroy.

The sex is barely satisfying and ends too soon with the rich boy falling against his back - Jack shoves him off unceremoniously and tucks himself back into the pants - but it manages to scratch the itch he didn't even know simmered under his skin for the whole evening.

"Save it," Jack nips in the bud whatever the rich boy wants to say as he gathers his clothes from the floor. "No matter what mommy and daddy let you play with, you can't afford me."

He puts the period on it with a slam of the door behind himself.

The lone security guard at the gate with maybe a tad too secretly amused expression on her face buzzes him in. Jack doesn't worry about giving out the location, no-one with any sense tries to get too deep into the seaside properties, and tomorrow he's gone from here, anyway.

In the morning, flowers wait for him at the gatehouse: a basket overflowing with white, gold, yellow, and blue. The card attached holds an unsigned phone number. He pockets it.

"Keep the flowers."

"What am I supposed to do with them?" The guard sounds offended, her face scrunched in something between offended and bewildered.

"Eat them?"

"You don't eat flowers."

"Artichokes?"

"That's one flower, and it's green."

"Fair. Leave them, throw them out, I don't care."

"The basket's nice, don't want it?" The guard leans on her elbows, thinking. Jack lifts his carry-on up for her to see.

"That's all I travel with."

He leaves her still pondering the flowers to catch his train moving inland - a first-class ticket and the whole compartment to himself, all booked by Sombra. Sometimes Jack wonders if she ever sleeps.

The itch is back with a vengeance, and he taps an anxious rhythm into his knee. An hour before his stop he realizes it's another episode coming, the prickling shifting deep into the bones, yet on the verge of becoming an outright ache above the everyday static of pain he can keep under the edge of his awareness. Just his fucking luck.

Until now, it's been possible to navigate around the days he got reduced to jittery nauseated mess hardly capable of logical thought and any movement besides dragging himself to the bathroom, maybe back if he didn't collapse on the way.

Keeping from lashing out is taxing.

It disconcerts Jack more Gabriel will witness him in this sorry state than Gabriel seeing the bruises and other marks left by someone else on his body - at least on parts that were still his body and not artificial filling for what he had lost. The need to back out of the earlier-than-usual meetup and the sudden surreal hope that maybe Gabriel will fuck him through it contradict - he doesn't even know if either is a viable option, each for a set of different reasons.

He's paler than normal when he steps off the train.

By the time he reaches the hotel he's sweating and breathing shallow, the pain in the imaginary joints rising well above the threshold and crashing in waves rolling over to his chest and stomach. His fingers swipe over the keyboard, too uncoordinated - sending the customary text. Getting the reply only acts to exacerbate his anxiety and question the reason to arrive. The hesitation proves to have substance when he notices two suits standing guard in front of the door, an ork and a bluish-skinned elf.

"She's waiting for you," the elf addresses him.

Against his better judgment, Jack enters the suite, ready for... For what, he has no idea, just hopes his clenched jaw radiates apprehension rather than anything else - a tall order, he knows.

'She' gets off the sofa with a strange flowing quality, at least Jack suspects so. The wide-brimmed hat decorated with dark fabric shaped into flowers hides her frame behind a veritable veil of darkness from behind which only two glowing mismatched eyes are visible.

"Gabriel can't make it." The voice is without a doubt feminine. She circles him once, observing him like some exhibit on a display. Jack feels anger floating to the surface at the unwelcome scrutiny he's subjected to. "Fascinating," is the ending conclusion. The gloved hand emerges from the curtain of darkness holding a familiar object.

A pillbox.

"This is a new formula that should be more effective in treating your unique condition, you should start administering it immediately." Her tone is flippant and uncaring. "I am told you are careless with taking the medication as recommended."

Jack grabs the box from her hand; the gloved finger his hand brushed against is either ended in an elaborate manicure, or tipped with a claw.

"I don't see how's that any of your business."

"I am, after all, the one manufacturing it. I would hate to see my work go to waste."

Without another word, covered by her own bubble of darkness, she glides to the door, leaving Jack alone and glaring at the pills.

The temptation is there, enticing and futile. He made the mistake once, he's not going to repeat it.

The first time, popping the pills one after another for a brief relief from the hurt: the few seconds of bliss when nothing ached forgotten immediately after when the pain slammed back into him without warning - screaming in frustration when there were no more left to take. The first time was the worst, the rest he just suffered through.

His fingers shake when he sets the pillbox down on the table - the dancing twitches playing off the connected nerves sending out random signals in confusion.

Jack stumbles to the bathroom and sinks to his knees. Forehead resting on the cool raised edge of the tub - terrifyingly conscious of every single inhale and exhale - skin clammy and cold and hot. Slowly, he sets the parameters, stopping each time he has to swallow the tasteless saliva gathering in his mouth.

He almost gives up twice: once before finishing the setup, the second time as he's trying to undress himself - the drive to just curl up on the floor barely losing to the prospect of some relief.

Sitting on the rim with his feet submerged in the water, Jack plugs into the pad.

"Som?" He reaches out after wrestling his thoughts under some semblance of control. When she nods back, he concentrates on the memory. "I want to show you something."

She pulls it up and watches while Jack smiles, feeling the wave of emotions and sensations wash over him. The dragon glides in the water again.

"Wow. That's why you purged the drives?"

For a moment, he loses track of his thoughts.

"Yeah."

"You sound strange, I know Gabe couldn't..." There's a shift in her voice and her distress banishes the rest of Jack's control sending it spiraling as he clenches his jaw. "Your cortisol levels are off the charts, as well as... Why didn't you tell me you're in so much pain, I'm sending something right..."

"No!" Jack interrupts her, too sharp and sudden. "No," he repeats after a deep breath. "It's normal. I just have to... It won't help."

"Jack."

"It happens. Flare-up. It will pass. Just... could you loop it for me? The dragon?"

Sombra stays silent for seconds ticking away before the scene plays out again in his mind.

"It will stop when you unjack."

"Thanks, Som. I mean it."

"I know. Fuck. This isn't right. I'll work on it."

"It's okay," Jack slips into the water, the momentary temperature shock providing a short respite before the nerve endings become accustomed. "You did what you could."

"Hang in there."

"Thanks."

He sinks to the bottom.

Arms wrapped around knees, Jack lets his mind flow with the memory. Under the surface, shortness of his breath makes no difference and the saltiness of the water flushes away the horrid taste in his mouth. Almost enough to keep thoughts from forming- coast over the waves of pain. Between this, and the moments he relives, time becomes meaningless, counted only by the steady movement of his chest.

The sensation that shouldn't be there sends him spiraling into confusion and panic - a brush against his back becoming a grab - breaking the layer - drowning.

While trying to fight off whatever - whoever - it is, and coughing out the water, his hand catches on the cable and rips the plug out. Only when something puts pressure on the bone below the hinges of his jaw, Jack realizes he's lying down and grabs at the arm holding him.

"Stop struggling."

The voice and the command register slowly, and when they do, he lets his palms fall away from Gabriel's hand. His head is turned to the side and the vertigo of the renewed connection provokes another wave of nausea Jack protests with a whine.

"How many times?"

He has to hear it twice with the fingers digging into the vulnerable points of the bone emphasizing the words for the question to parse.

"Eight... ten?" Jack licks his suddenly dry lips, tracking with his eyes the syringe Gabriel holds with his other hand. "..'s not going to help."

He had not needed to talk during any of the previous episodes and he winces hearing his own slurred words, more than he does at the prick of the needle and the numbing cold propelled by blood crawling from the injection site in his neck. The freezing pain is almost the polar opposite of the sensations thus far - he panics, again, trying to fight off the unmoving hand until the ice sinks its teeth deep into the marrow and shoots through his brain as he jolts on the bed with a scream before he blacks out.

When Jack comes to, the light is too bright, the contrasts too strong, and it floods his vision even through the clenched shut eyelids. He's hot, far too hot, the back of his head is damp - warm hair sticking to his neck, slicked to his forehead and temples with sweat. What is worse, whatever he's lying on - and under - is coarse and abrasive, even the minimal friction caused by his chest rising and falling with each breath is nigh unbearable.

Moving his arms proves to be an exercise in futility with how sluggish and weak they feel. Through the cotton fog swirling in his mind Jack wonders about the malfunction - how much the limbs are fucked if they refuse to cooperate with the nerves, the intent itself should be enough to prompt the action - or is it him who's fucked with the neural pathways misfiring.

He manages to kick the sheet down, it's enough to get it past the hips. The synthskin's not reacting to whatever's going on – otherwise, he'd go crazy from this. The cool touch on his stomach makes Jack jump in place and groan as the surprise forces his eyes open.

Unsticking the tongue from the roof of his mouth requires some work.

"Why are you here?" Is what Jack intends to say. What makes it out instead is garbled and croaking.

"You were experiencing a toxic hormone buildup," Gabriel replies like that's the answer to his question.

"...what was?"

"Artificial hormones to counteract, and stabilizers."

"Huh?" It's even harder to focus with the fingers gliding in slow circles over his skin - soothing - almost enough to forget the discomfort. "Would pass, normal."

There's no response, of course. Jack licks his lips. The points where Gabriel put the pressure when he held him down still hurt. Funny how he can recall only one other time something like this has happened.

He had his arm blown off and caught several slugs with his side. It had been his own fault, probably, and Gabriel had a discernible aura of anger and irritation to him when reaching for the hand and lifting the shirt to check on the stitched injuries. And being manhandled like this didn't sit well with Jack, yet. Ended with him pressed against the wall, Gabriel's hand on his throat - fingers digging into the bone and his knees going weak - and mind-blowing sex. The first fuck of his new life, and no questions asked.

"We could talk?" Jack suggests, finally able to see in the dimming light. "Don't think... I'll remember it, anyway," he adds when it obviously falls on deaf ears, but Gabriel's always like this, this being this, no explanations, no nothing. It bothers him now, surprisingly, between feeling like a wet cloth, the fuzz, and Gabriel's aloofness.

Eerily, brings up the same mean streak as before.

"Did you... you and him, did you fuck?"

The thing about Gabriel is, he never lies. Just doesn't answer if it's inconvenient. The palm lying flat on his stomach, now motionless, gives merit to the question one way or the other.

"We had... a relationship, of sorts."

But Jack gets his answer and it fucking hurts to hear Gabriel say it. Must be the hormones. The curiosity, too, because for years he had managed to not give a fuck about it all until now.

"What was he like?"

The chuckle has him turning his head to confirm its actuality - the plug catches on the cloth - he's still jacked in. The cool air on his wet hair sends shivers down his spine as Gabriel puts away a book, a paper one, to help him move to rest on his side.

With the bent arm trapped underneath, it's almost bearable. The pillow remains damp and warm.

"Impudent and fearless, the two definite qualities of his."

"Got it. Stupid and bitchy." The irony of basically badmouthing himself does not escape Jack. "Sounds like someone I know."

"Does it, now?"

"He's dead," Jack blurts out, the words following thoughts without a moment's hesitation, tumbling out one after another with no consideration. "I'm the one in here. If he comes back, it's not going to be him."

Gabriel tips his chin up with his thumb.

"Impudent and fearless, and so very clever, too clever for his own good. At least, with you, I can hold a conversation."

It's Jack's turn to chuckle.

"You could. If you ever talked to me. You're only talking to me because I won't remember it, remember? That's what you think."

"Probably."

"That's. Fucking. Cruel."

"Or maybe because you are asking now."

"I don't ask because you never tell me shit." Jack's sure his weepy frustration - and the emotions all over the place - can be easily read in his voice. "Who was he to you, anyway?"

He's steeling for the punch when Gabriel appears to be mulling the question over in his mind, his thumb tracing Jack's lower lip.

"Someone special." It hurts. He should fucking stop doing it to himself. "And, so are you. Both alike, yet unique in ways you could never comprehend."

"Maybe I could. But you won't tell me."

"No." The finger leaves his lips and travels down along his throat, past the dip between the collarbones.

"See. Herein," Jack laughs at the word, giving in to the fog, lightheaded as if drunk, "lies the problem. You never tell me shit."

"It is for your own good."

"Bullshit. You don't want to deal with the fallout, do you?" The last part barely makes it out of his mouth before Jack flinches at the touch with a high-pitched inhale cutting off anything else he wants to say. Fuck. That's one way to end the conversation. He's really fucked up if he didn't notice he's fucking hard since some point in time - and Gabriel is taking his sweet time too, teasing with his hand - it's not enough, and Jack reaches out to pull him closer barely registering his limbs finally cooperate with him. "Fuck. Don't... please."

He's choking up on words. Gabriel shifts to lean over him, continuing the deliberate motions with no intention of letting him finish, and his desperation is growing, punctuated by small sounds of distress slipping out as Jack digs his fingers into his back. The sensation of being filled arches his spine - it doesn't feel right - not wrong - just not right - but he clings to it with a needy whine and jerking hips - trying to pull the body above him closer, giving up any kind of control in lieu of chasing the denied pleasure.

The first rolling wave has him biting on the fingers between his teeth - toe-curling as it spills down the phantom nerves and runs back - still not enough, and he pleads with the whole of himself for release only to be rebuked with Gabriel's voice in his ear leading him through it. Again and again - until he's a crying mess gasping for breath and begging for Gabriel's mercy - and when it is granted, he's unprepared: coming with a soundless scream caught in his throat and his back taunt like whipcord before sinking under the surface into the depths.

Pliant, shaky, and raw, is how Jack feels waking up tangled in sheets; still too warm but not burning hot anymore, sticky with old perspiration and damp with fresh sweat. Alarmingly... lucid. The light speaks of early morning, or that peculiar breaking moment of the evening. Either way, it no longer pains his eyes.

The itch in his bones lingers, but gone is the urgency - and the memory of yesterday redefines his concept of mind-blowing.

Parched, Jack sits up looking around - feels his heart fall before he spies Gabriel sitting on the covered balcony, working, as usual, judging by the screens surrounding him, but Jack will count his blessings because Gabriel wasn't even supposed to be here according to that woman that has his skin crawling even now when he thinks about her.

He slips out of the bed, standing on wobbly legs.

The sheet feels too coarse around his waist and he discards it, walking the rest of the way naked. The artificial breeze feels wonderful on his skin. Jack halts in front of Gabriel - trying to grasp the vague recollection of... actually having a conversation with him.

"We talked," he blurts out at the questioning gaze of black and red eyes, surprised. "Yesterday."

"Yes." Gabriel holds out his hand in an invitation to him.

"What did we talk about? Was it important?" He waits for a rebuttal and laughs when Gabriel remains silent, puts his palm in Gabriel's waiting hand, and lets himself be pulled to sit on his lap, conscious in an instant of the fact he's ruining one of those ridiculously expensive suits just by touching it. "It was important. But you won’t tell me what it was, will you?"

"No."

There's a glass pressed to his lips and Jack eagerly drinks the water in big thirsty gulps, some of it dripping down his chin; he stops Gabriel from taking it away before he finishes all of it, and then just leans against him with his cheek cradled to his neck. He winces at fleeting nausea when Gabriel plugs his jack in, but, even so, the mood settles soon into comfortable silence - and he had learned to treasure those rare quiet moments with Gabriel. There's just something bothering him, more humorous than anything else.

"You know," Jack finally gives voice to it, "I'm willing to bet my meager possessions you actually knocked me out with an orgasm."

"You would lose them in the wager."

"Oh. Fuck. I was being only half-serious."

"You should be 'half-serious' about your health."

Straight to what Gabriel considers being the issue.

"It has always passed before, so that's..."

"Then you would notice those 'episodes' of yours are regular and take place approximately every five months."

Jack winces at the unusually irate note in Gabriel's voice.

"They do?"

He feels that sigh with his entire body.

"At the moment, the foremost concern is finding an adequate formula to mitigate the unaccounted symptoms. You will sign in with Sombra every day so she can gather current metrics."

"If it happens in five..."

"I accept no objections.”

Jack turns his head so he can look over the screens in the air - most of them blurred with personal encryption, and probably nothing he would even understand - but he notices one static picture with live readable feed and his stomach plummets for a second.

The perfect explanation for Gabriel's general disposition.

The rich boy.

And Jack has to breach the subject, somehow. Because Gabriel won't. He shifts and points to the holoscreen in question.

"Are you... Are you angry about it?"

"I am irritated by your negligence."

"And this?"

"It is of no consequence. It's understandable," Gabriel continues without missing a beat, "that you would find other sexual partners."

The dismissal should put him at ease, not threaten him with the inexplicable urge to cry.

"Tell me I'm not allowed to."

"Would that change anything?"

"If you tell me I'm not allowed to," Jack pushes his face into the crook of Gabriel's neck in some form of trying to hide away from the tumultuous swirl of emotions it brings up, "then I won't. Please, tell me I'm not allowed to."

Fucking pathetic for a grown man, to fight against tears and fail, but it's what happens when Gabriel remains silent on the subject, and Jack tangles his fingers in black fabric, the stifled sobs raising in force. Fucking pathetic, losing it over a thing he always knew. And fuck hormones for making him feel shit - now he would take the pain over this complete mess. And fuck Sombra for telling Gabriel on him.

And, honestly, fuck himself for harboring some kind of misguided hope against any logical rationale, Jack notes with the angry spite. Angry is often better, but now, it's not helping at all. It only makes matters worse.

Slowly, he drifts off into a fitful sleep, waking only when carried: by his own hand slipping loose off his lap. Gabriel lowers him into the water, the temperature slightly higher than his usual.

"There are other matters I have to attend to." The words are accompanied by the palm lingering on his cheek and the thumb tracing the arch of the bone before Gabriel moves away. Jack waits for the sound of the doors closing behind him. He's just tired as he sinks below the surface.

What the fuck is even his life?

#sometimes I write #r76 #reaper76 #jackande #mermay #doom76

6 notes · View notes

bearpillowmonster · 2 years

Text

Mass Effect Review

(This is Legendary Edition btw)

I hear so many good things about this series, moreso about the later ones than the first one though. So I got the ME2 demo on Steam and...I didn't like it. I liked being able to customize a character but it looked plasticy and the gunplay felt rubbery. Part of that might have been me preferring to play third person games on console and first person on PC though. So Legendary Edition came out and I thought I'd give it another shot, especially if they fixed up some of my gripes. I always hear how great the characters and choices are, which were some of the things I liked from BioWare's previous games and wanted to see come to fruition. This time we'll start with the first game proper.

When you hover over an item, it makes a circle but no button appears in the middle, instead, it's at the top of the screen, which is weird. There's a map but you have to go into the menu to access it and it's kinda uninformative sometimes, or maybe I'm just using it wrong. But once you visit an area, you can fast travel to it, if it's a world that allows it. The pause menu itself doesn't tell you a whole lot when it comes to controls either, in fact, it doesn't tell you anything, some stuff it doesn't demo for you so you kind of just have to experiment.

The sprint is shaky like a high school student's Powerpoint presention transition so I prefer not to use it. The music is pretty nice at times, it's really noticeable on the Normandy.

I don't think I would've had the patience for this sort of thing back when I first tried it but playing KOTOR made me a bit more tolerant for the things that it carries over. In fact, I was hoping that it'd be better playing it versus watching it and I think that's the case, there's a certain atmosphere to it that you can get into.

You can definitely tell it's aged, despite being a remaster, the graphics are fine for the most part (Feros makes you blind as a bat though) but the lines can seem robotic (specifically with Shepherd) and animations stiff, there are good animations though too, just some are stiff. The photo mode is fun to play around with but limited in the elevator. Why would I want to take pics in the elevator you might ask, well that's when Liara does her-

Twitter flagged this one as NSFW, lmao.

Uh anyway, sometimes choices can seem like a Telltale game where you pick one thing and it says another, some options have the same dialogue or responses, I'm not going to really complain about it though since it's not just this game that does that.

The elevator rides give you context to current quests as if it's breaking news or an infomercial. Depending on who you have in your party, different characters will have different things to say and have conversations with each other, even remarking at the landscape and certain things in the area. This isn't the only game to do that but it's all these elements combined that just add to the atmosphere I was talking about. When Liara's mother dies, everyone that I had in a party with her by that point had told me that I should check on her, is that chemistry or what?

Seeing the societal structures of all these aliens is very diverse and interesting to pick apart, it makes me interested in not only the character but think twice when I come across one of their species. Like say there's a krogan, I'd start out by just taking it out but after getting Wrex you decide to just not equip him when fighting them to avoid making him slaughter his own species. Then when he tells you about the Genophage, you feel guilty for killing them yourself. Then when he asks to be the one to bring an end to it, it makes you feel sad. In some ways, these guys are betrayed by their species, that and they're the ones betraying them to be on your team. Deep stuff.

You know I like making in depth character analyzes so I guess I'll do it for this game too but in a separate post, that way I can just add to it when I finish 2 and 3.

I think eventually it even gets to be like Fire Emblem where you have optional recruits and if you're not careful, you can lose party members permanently but for now that's not really a problem. You sort of make what you will of the combat, you can choose to command your party members around but you don't have to. You can choose to do stuff with your weapons (ie upgrading, switching out) but you don't have to. You apparently pick a class at the beginning but I don't think I did that. I think you need to make a custom character while I just picked plain old default John Shepard, which I wouldn't normally do but when I tried the ME2 demo, my character looked funky to stare at all the time. Worry not, what you lack (in my case, decryption) can be resolved by equipping a party member with that ability so yes, there's a "skill tree" of sorts but I don't find it all that complicated, maybe to use but not to upgrade.

I think it'd benefit from having actual bosses, there are special characters you fight but they aren't all that different from regular enemies. And the villain is a little cliche with his "if you can't beat em, might as well join em" mentality and only speeding up the process. I know he thinks he's doing people a favor but I think it would've been better written if there was more than that. Say Sovereign gets revealed and now Shep knows what he's up against, Saren could've revealed that he wanted people to find out through him so that people would be made aware (like the council that never listens) and do something about it. And yeah he knew it was inevitable but he wanted to act as the warning. Something like that seems like it could've serviced the story better but we have a lot of other great stuff to look at.

I actually expected a lot of what I got to be in the later games and that this one would be bare bones but this is far from bare bones, I actually have no idea what to expect for the later titles' gameplay because this one introduced everything I knew of. I clocked in around 17 hours, it was a good experience that I found myself excited to come back to. 4/5

#mass effect #game #review #legendary edition #liara

0 notes

iliveonmylaptop · 6 years

Text

Fic Commission

I commissioned a Civilian piece from the lovely @texas-toasted (and it is so worth it go check her out guys) so here it is! Its so good I'm in love.

It was going to be a long night.

Insomnia wasn’t a new problem; it clung to her skin like sweat whenever the sun went down. What Christa dreaded was the ruminating. It was a by-product of anxiety, she figured, to run things over and over in her head like a mathematics simulation. There was no clear end to it. It felt like trying to reassure someone that had a blatant intention of not listening. She wasn’t one of those people whose level of pride was so over the top she couldn’t be helped at all, but this was different. This was debt. This was something she could never pay back-but she’d be damned if she wouldn’t try. It descended on her when she least wanted it to. Christa was in debt to these men, the ones that had saved her from certain demise at the hands of company politics, and sometimes feared her gratitude didn’t get across. She’d work herself to the bone lending a sympathetic ear or running down to town to fetch supplies, or ferrying intelligence back and forth between the two bases. It was the least she could do, after what they’d done for her. She tried to pay it back every day.

This was practical torture. Christa wanted nothing more to sink into her bed and close her eyes. Her muscles were aching something dreadful. It had been a long day, one of the longest she’d had in a while. Christa counted it as one of the best, because she was able to see everyone on the team, but it made the hours stretch out like the shadows of the setting sun over the base.

It had been odd, last night, to see Soldier up so late. He was usually in bed by ten in the evening, and up at five o’clock sharp to make his rounds of the base, banging on doors with his riding crop to get everyone awake for morning exercises. Not everyone always showed up, and usually most of the men much later in the morning, but Soldier didn’t seem to notice. Running it seemed to be his favorite part of the day. With some prodding she got out of him that Medic had ordered he take off of running boot camp some days, to slow down the damage to his knees. Respawn didn’t quite prevent against the effects of old age, and all the rocket jumping was causing damage. It was a hard pill to swallow. But Christa tried to present it as a sign that life would move on whether anyone wanted it to or not. War seemed to be the only thing that mattered here, filling their minds with a deafening crescendo of battle. But time was going by, and someday, this would all be over.

It seemed to be something that needed to be constantly told to the men. It was easy here to forget there was a world going by just outside, and Christa knew she was lucky to be able to see that whenever she wanted. They were stuck in an endless loop of killing, and it was far too simple to just let everything else go.

The base was as silent as the grave in the morning, but Christa woke up early anyways, taking mental notes on the tasks she could help with today. A ceasefire had been called for the weekend, but her onslaught of duties never ceased.

She ran into Scout, cursing up a storm in the hallway. Apparently, he’d been trying to get a box down from a high shelf, and it had fallen on his skull and burst open, scattering old sketchbooks everywhere like a group of pigeons taking flight. It had made him feel sort of terrible inside, he told her, to see the portrait sketchings he’d done of his family from memory, and to think of how long it had been since he’d seen them. It was almost like a vacuum in the base sometimes, tempting to not think of anything else but war. On her last supply run, Christa had seen some stationery on sale, and after barely a moment of thought retrieved it from her room and brought it to Scout without a word. When she suggested he write to his family, to keep up correspondence, something on his face cleared and he thanked her profusely.

“You’re needed in the kitchen,” Soldier howled through the thin metal, beating his riding crop to death on her door.

With some reluctance, Christa roused herself. She felt like she had just closed her eyes a minute ago, and it was already the next day. Some part of her that felt snappish wanted to protest that she should be allowed to sleep, but Christa closed her mouth and sought out a sweater and a pair of socks. They were worked much harder than her, and she could afford to have her joints feel a little creaky on a supply run.

She shuffled into the kitchen to an explosion of light and activity.

Colorful lights were strung along the ceiling and a slightly threadbare tree, twinkling above things wrapped in brown paper. A sweet and slightly burnt smell was coming from the oven where Pyro was crouched. Behind them, Heavy stirred a pot of something on the stove methodically, steam billowing upwards into the overhead vent. The rest of the mercenaries were placing things under the tree and hanging paper garlands, passing around drinks and conversation tinted with actual cheer.

“What is this?” Christa spluttered.

Spy spotted her and maneuvered between Soldier and Demo to get to her. “They wanted to ‘ave a Christmas. Your suggestion, wasn’t it? That we were all forgetting life goes on outside this place? They took it into consideration. And wanted to to something nice for you for your work, I suppose.”

“I mean-” she started, cheeks coloring the same shade as some of the red ornaments.

“Merci, Civilian.” he said simply, and dissipated into thin air.

#im so happy #the civilian #ocs #tf2 #fanfic

2 notes · View notes

discardedmilkywaywrapperwrites · 4 years

Text

Return to TuFort

Activating Halloween Mode was, looking back on it, a very strange and especially stupid idea. The fact that it wasn't even a full moon, and was also the middle of July, did not give TF2 spy player and steam account name "staricipant" a large amount of confidence when the vote was originally brought up a few moments ago. The vote count then jumped to 99 votes in favor, which was about... participant slides to the side as a blast of appropriately named magic rushes right by their head. 99-24, that's seventy five votes more then were on the server. And of course, Merasmus guffawed as he announced the event.

staricipant, firing and hitting a revolver shot on the damned wizard, regrets having decided that it was simply a unique update, a reward several years lacking in the past. Now they knew it was false, of course, and if they made it out alive they'd have to write up the event and post it onto a creepypasta site. Still, the idea that TF2 was being updated again would be the more unbelievable part of the tale. There's a texan yell as an engineer, (staricipant stopped paying attention to team colors about a minute and a half ago), gets transformed into a chicken and his level two sentry transforms into bird feed.

The soldier begins taking a few steps back and the pyro muffles something that staricipant takes to mean "distract the wannabe wizard". staricipant whips out their watch, a trusty strange dead ringer that doesn't seem like such a waste of cash now with their life on the line, and then charges the wizard. Merasmus says something unintelligible, and then a greenish purplish blueish redish yellowish bolt with a few other colors mixed in that comes out to a shade of grey shoots out of his staff. Closing their eyes, staricipant *really* hopes this is less painful then it looks.

---

There is a computer, with no one nearby. The steam menu is up, and although it says that TF2 is currently running, the application is not up. It's quite fortunate no one was around, at least currently. The computer shorts out, the monitor going dark and the keyboard completely unrelated popping off the two 0 keys. The screen flickers back to life, with a new distinction.

A warping effect makes it hard to read, and a monochromatic filter does not help either, but it almost seems as if the steam library has folded in on itself. If you were there, which you aren't, you could squint, and you might be able to make out some mixed names. "Fist Full of Overlords", "Darkest Mania", "Portal to Monkey Island"...

"Return of the Team Fortress" is currently running, the steam menu says, but the application is not up.

---

staricipant wakes up, face down on hard flooring. A glance around solicits a groan from the beleaguered spy main. This wasn't some bizarre dream coming from too much playing of violent video games? No, this was good old RED spawn room, alright. They quickly check their armory, still not understanding now that they've fallen into the spy's shoes how they holster a revolver without a visible holster. The sapper, the knife, the strange dead ringer...

Opening the Spytron 3000 Disguise Kit raises an alarm, however. The cigarettes removed, in their place, a second screen. In fact, the regular screen does not display the options of disguises, but a team roster in their place. Confused, staricipant taps on the new screen. The player-list is all there, all 24 of the poor sods who decided it was a bright idea to play Tufort today. Unless this sort of thing happened on other servers...

Not a good thought. staricipant scans over the player list. Twelve on each side, all of them greyed out, even their own username. Instead of having the pings of each player, there is simply grey text saying "unknown". How strange. staricipant exits the new screen and returns to the old one. It does not seem like they can disguise, but they test it anyway, tapping on the Heavy Weapons Guy. It zooms in on his face, and a piece of text appears next to the icon. "[?], a Red Heavy, [?]". How helpful. What does any of this do or even just mean?

staricipant gives up, closing the disguise kit and pocketing it. Revolver out, although they're not sure how much good it'd do if Merasmus or any of those other beasts came back. The spy opens up the resupply cabinet, pulling out a few small med-kits and pocketing them, and then leaves the spawn room. Sure, it'd be faster to jump down off the balcony, but staricipant wasn't that confident in game mechanics to risk an injury. Better take the stairs, just in case.

It's still a relatively short walk to the bridge between the forts, and staricipant is glad they didn't pick soldier or heavy when this started, seeing how slow the two walk. staricipant's walking speed itself comes to a halt as they stare down at the charred corpse of a scout. They recognize them, of course, they're... staricipant's virtual eyes widen in worry. What happened? No, they're a scout, obviously, but what was their username?

The spy closes their eyes. They remember... well, their life before a madman wizard who may or may not even be real sucked them into the hit FPS, and they remember getting shot by that wizard and waking up here, but... what happened between those points? They knew they checked the list before, and they were here for the fights... where did they even fight Merasmus? This bridge? The intel room, and if so, which one? Was it outdoors or indoors? They never had memory problems before, and certainly none like this. staricipant feels more like a ghost then a real person right now, and they aren't technically wrong.

As they step around the poor scout, their pocket vibrates. staricipant takes a step away, and it stops. A step back, and it vibrates. staricipant decides not to stick around and continues on into the BLU fortress- the doorways are barricaded. Resupply cabinets and tables block unwanted access. Counterintuitively, this gives staricipant hope. "Bonjour?" An annoyed cough. That's what they get for possessing a frenchman. "Hello? Anyone in there?"

But it's as silent as a ghost town. Only the wind answers, and it's not a very understandable source of information. staricipant looks at their other options. Not being a soldier, or a demo, or even a pyro, there's no way they could get to the balcony from here. The sewers were an option, and not even an unfeasible one. Just... yes, staricipant realized how stupid it was as they berated themselves, they were a bit scared of water over head height. And the TF2 mercs didn't swim as much as spam the spacebar to quickly hop back out of the water. Jumping in was a no go, at least, and since time did not seem to be of the essence, the spy turned to enter the sewers from RED base.

They don't make it very far, though. In fact, they stop almost immediately, glaring down at the corpse of the scout that dares to make their pocket vibrate. Finally, they pull out whatever it is... it's their watch. A lovely gold, and a bronze shimmer floats over it occasionally. It cost about a dollar and ten cents trading refined for it, but it was worth it. staricipant flicks open their watch and this isn't their watch. It... it shows the time, inside. It has an hour hand and a minute hand. staricipant isn't an expert in watches, or even in non-digital clocks, but they'd hazard a guess and say the time is 1:30, although on day and night they would have no idea.

It is still vibrating. The Dead Ringer, as much as staricipant knows, does not normally... ring, let alone vibrate, but what do they know? Maybe this is a common reaction to corpses that the Spy knows of but isn't important to the player. A unique piece of lore, maybe? Something to update the wiki about. Could it stop shaking, though? It's going to fall out of their hands- and it does. staricipant, still getting used to wearing fine gloves, flubs their chance to catch it, and it falls, rattling, onto the dead scout's ankle. The world goes dark, and video game player staricipant gets a killer headache.

---

"Med down! Oh ey, you want some too?" "Try! You idiot, get back here!" "I can take'm oh god oh I am on FIRE help me hel-"

---

staricipant stares, dumbfounded, at the flaming corpse of the scout. The voices in their head seemed so lifelike, and yet everyone in this scene is as motionless as a statue. The scout, falling over, was attempting to flee a pyro down the bridge, as a sniper in the direction the scout was running pulls an arrow out of the quiver for their bow. A spy stands next to the sniper, whiffing a revolver shot on the pyro. staricipant realizes that something is very off.

They can see, but there's no color anymore. They can't even tell which team the scout is on, or the pyro, or the sniper, although they can guess the pyro isn't on this team's side. A glance behind the pyro shows the dead body of a medic, assumedly the cause of this "Med Down" call from the scout. There's no one else around, really. But the entrance to the BLU base is unblocked, now! A sneaky way around a problem, and staricipant didn't even need to get their shoes wet. They proudly march inside, and stare at a black void. They touch it, and it repels them like a trampoline. How helpful.

It also hurts their head, again. Great. They walk back outside, staring up at a white sun. Something vibrates in their pocket, and they check the watch in their hand. Wait, no, that's not it. This time, the disguise kit is to blame. staricipant flips it open, anger slowly creeping under the ski mask. What now? Both screens are empty, but when it's open, that quickly changes. The right-hand screen begins... typing.

[24 names met their fates here, in these fortresses.] [It is your solemn duty to put name to face, and face to fate.] [Accomplish this, and you shall be set free.] [Fail, and remain stuck.] [Good luck.]

"Good luck?" The spy snarls, anger having been replaced by rage. "I get trapped in some bizzaro TF2, and the message is GOOD LUCK?" The disguise kit is slapped closed and shoved violently in their pocket. staricipant sits down suddenly, grumbling. "Oh, isn't this just magnifique. Magnificent, damn it all to hell. Fine, I'll solve a stupid puzzle. Just so I can stop being french."

#obra dinn #team fortress #fanfic #crossover #video game

1 note · View note

texanredrose · 7 years

Text

Over a Cup

Yang brushed a leaf from her hair as she stepped into the little coffee shop across the street from her apartment. Unlike her best friend and roommate, she didn't really like caffeinated beverages all that much, but this little shop also had a really delicious line of muffins and a special protein shake that she would actually consider killing for, if she was completely honest. After busting her butt for an hour at the gym around the corner, nothing felt quite as good as sitting outside on the patio, letting her hair air dry as she enjoyed her reward before heading back to her apartment. Aside from the chance to people watch and enjoy the outdoors, it gave her some much needed time to clear her mind.

About three years ago, her sister posted a video online, one taken very sneakily from the door of her bedroom as Yang raged over a lopsided multiplayer match in a first person shooter game. Between the two of them, Ruby had more technical proficiency in video games overall, but her elder sister could be stubborn and very creative when it came to coming up with ways of venting her frustration. Apparently, that combination appealed to many people and, before they really knew it, the sisters had a thriving gaming channel. Sometimes, it was Yang raging over a game or Ruby doing a speed run, and they’d even gotten to a point where they had reviews and demos and the like. On the upside: a steady gig they both enjoyed. Downside though? A lot of time spent indoors, which sometimes chaffed at the elder of the two. Given something to fiddle with, Ruby could stay inside for days, but Yang absolutely needed a breath of fresh air, hence her morning trips to the gym and the coffee house before heading back to the apartment and sitting down to record for a few hours.

Heading up to the counter, she checked her watch and grinned a little wider when the door chimed behind her, a sure sign that the woman who seemed to have a similar morning schedule had arrived right on time.

At first, Yang hadn’t noticed. More interested in her reward, she hadn’t thought to notice who ordered after her, but after a month or two, it occurred to her that the same voice placed the same order almost every day, and she’d snuck a few peeks at who seemed to always be behind her in line. The woman was tall, probably a little older than herself with white hair pulled into a tight bun and sharp blue eyes, always dressed in a crisp suit of white or some shade of blue, and ordered a grande mocha latte with an extra shot of espresso to go every day in a crisp, precise tone that brooked no room for argument. If Yang had to guess, she probably worked as a lawyer or an executive at some big name company, because for as often as they both frequented the coffee shop, she couldn’t be convinced that she’d ever seen the woman wear the same suit twice, and they definitely didn’t look like the bargain ones the sisters would occasionally wear to online media conventions and the like.

But aside from all that, she’d taken notice of one aspect in particular: the woman was drop dead gorgeous. Like, ethereal beauty wrapped in a satin glove, or one of those famous depictions of an ancient Goddess, maybe even a Maiden herself.

Yang hadn’t done anything with the information, though. A pretty lady stands behind her in line every day. What, was she supposed to turn around and strike up a conversation?

... actually, that sounded like a neat idea. Worst that could happen would be a few awkwardly exchanged lines and an uncomfortable silence, then they could go back to just standing in line together tomorrow like nothing happened.

Turning around, Yang prepared to deliver the best pick-up line she could, about to let it fly from her tongue when she stopped short. Behind her stood not a tall woman with piercing blue eyes and a resting bitch face but a dude about her height with shaggy grey hair and a raised brow.

“What? I got something on my face?”

“Nah, man,” she said, laughing lightly. “Just wanted to say that’s a killer hoodie, man.”

The men looked down and then smiled. “Hey, thanks. Got it from that thrift shop down the street.”

“It looks good on you,” she replied, turning back forward and thankful that the heat didn’t start rising in her cheeks until after she’d faced the counter again. Of course the one morning she decided to try striking up a conversation with the woman, she wouldn’t be there. Typical Xiao Long luck at work, she thought to herself as a self depreciating smile claimed her lips. Ah, well. Regardless of her lack of initiating a conversation with the person she wanted to, Yang proceeded to wait her turn and order her usual muffin and protein shake as always, waiting by the counter afterward and glancing at the door occasionally. The woman had to be coming through soon, probably just running a little late. It happened to everyone, so why not her?

When her order came up, she grabbed it and pushed her way outside, claiming one of the patio tables and sitting down in one of two chairs. In a manner of two minutes, she’d demolished the muffin and sat there, sipping on her shake while taking surreptitious glances up and down the street. Considering their orders were usually ready around the same time, Yang had noticed that she often got into a sleek looking white coupe, occasionally a silver one, and even a blue one every now and again. All of them looked expensive as hell and she mentally chastised herself for actually thinking she could start up a conversation with someone who probably made her yearly income in a manner of weeks.

But... by the time she’d finished her shake, the woman hadn’t arrived. Must’ve been running really late, which had to suck- even if she didn’t keep herself on as strict a schedule as the majority of the world, she still had deadlines.

Tapping her finger against the empty cup, Yang came to a decision. It probably wouldn’t amount to anything but it would be a nice gesture all the same. So she walked back into the coffee shop and waited in line again, getting up to the counter and giving the slightly surprised barista the order.

“A grande mocha latte with an extra shot of espresso, please,” she said, smiling wide. “Uh, to-go.”

The barista smirked, amusement shining in amber eyes. “People take days off, you know.”

... okay, she really didn’t expect to be found out that quickly. “Well, I mean, yeah, but if she’s just running late, it’d be nice to help her out.”

The woman on the other side of the counter- her nametag read ‘Blake’, which was probably her name- chuckled, though she tapped in the order all the same. “Are you really expecting a date out of this?”

“No. Honestly, I’ll take a ‘thank you’.” Yang shrugged. “Look, it I was running so far behind that I had the option between ducking in for my morning bright spot or getting to where I need to be, I’d like for some stranger to take pity on me and stand by the curb with a coffee.”

“And if she bypasses the place completely?”

“It’s the thought that counts?” She shrugged, pulling out her cash while the barista went about making the order. “That’s gotta earn me a little karma, right?”

Blake nodded. “You know, it just might.”

As she stepped aside to await the cup, Yang shot off a text to her sister, letting her know that she wouldn’t be back for a little while. With a rough guess, she figured twenty minutes- or, she supposed, however long it took for the coffee to become too cold to be drinkable- wouldn’t be that much of a delay, and all they were doing today would be editing and such.

A few minutes later, Yang went back outside to her little table and waited, the cup sitting in front of her. It wasn’t cold enough yet in the year for steam but the brisk wind did send a shiver down her spine. She preferred warmer weather, honestly, and would probably retreat to inside the shop in about a month or so. For now, she could enjoy it.

After about five minutes of waiting, a sleek white coupe pulled up and some part of Yang couldn’t believe it, sitting forward in her seat slightly.

It suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t thought of what to say.

Shit.

Go with straight to the point, that usually worked out pretty well for her.

Standing up as she saw the woman she was waiting for exit the parked vehicle, Yang grabbed the cup and took a few steps towards her, clearing her throat.

“Uh, Miss? Here, I got you your coffee. Just how you like it.” Welp, that made her sound like a stalker. “I, uh, kinda picked up on it, since you always order after me. Anyway, figured it’d help out if you didn’t have to wait for your order, since you’re running late and all.” She paused, noting the woman had just stared at her thus far. “But... if you’d rather not... accept coffee from a total stranger, ya know, I totally get it-”

“How long have you been waiting?” The woman’s voice held a healthy amount of skepticism... but not much ‘fuck off’ and at least a little bit of genuine curiosity.

“About five minutes,” she replied, doing her best not to buckle under the woman’s sharp gaze. “I figured, ya know, you probably stopped here because it’s on your way to work, and if I just gave it a little time, you’d swing by. I mean, if you really wanted coffee this morning.”

With narrowed eyes, the woman accepted the cup... and then brushed past her into the coffee shop anyway.

Yang’s shoulders fell, a frown turning the corners of her lips down.

Well.. she’d tried, at least. Probably wouldn’t be able to look the woman in the eyes ever again but... hey, it wasn’t like they’d had any interaction prior to this.

She probably should just walk across the street and go home. Considering how awkward just giving the woman coffee was, sitting at a table when she came back out would probably be ten times worse... but at the same time, she really didn’t want to walk into the apartment and be confronted with her sister’s perpetual cheer just yet.

So she went back to her little table and sat down, lolling her head back and closing her eyes. Maybe if she just feigned being lost in her own world, she could avoid any further awkwardness.

A few customers came and went from the coffee shop and just as she prepared to get up and start her day, someone cleared their throat.

“Is this seat taken?”

Lilac eyes opened wide, surprised to find the woman standing beside the table carrying what appeared to be the same cup she’d given her... plus another. “Huh?” Blue eyes fell on the vacant seat. “Oh! No, go for it! Have a seat!” Sitting up properly, Yang watched as the new cup was set in front of her and the woman gracefully lowered herself into the extra chair. “I, uh, kinda thought, ya know, you’d head out... pretty immediately.”

“Today’s my day off,” she said, taking a sip- and, from how far back she tipped the cup, it certainly wasn’t her first.

“Uh... really?” Although it probably wasn’t entirely polite, her gaze flicked over the woman’s form. With a crisp suit and the tight bun, it... really didn’t seem that way. “You, uh, look like you do every day. No offense.”

“What’s wrong with that?” White brows furrowed, and it kinda looked like the woman was pouting just a little. Okay ‘pouting’ wasn’t the right word; she just seemed genuinely confused by the words. “Should I not look presentable when I go out in public.”

“I mean, yeah, sure, if that’ what you want.” Yang tilted her head slightly. “But doesn’t it hurt, having your hair pulled up like that all the time?”

“Isn’t it frustrating, having the wind always blowing your hair everywhere?”

She laughed, caught a little off guard by the quick retort. “Well, fair enough. Things can get pretty hairy on a windy day.” Yang’s lips pulled into a slightly wider smile at the woman’s unexpected chuckle, an idea coming to her. “But, check this out!” She reached into the pocket of her jeans, pulling out the hair tie she used in the gym. It was still a little damp from sweat but worked to pull her bountiful mane up into a messy ponytail. Once finished, she flashed a smile. “See? I can change things up.”

The woman watched her for a moment before reaching up to pull out some unseen pin- and she almost couldn’t believe it was that easy- which allowed her bun to to come undone, a shake of her head sending long white waves cascading over her shoulders. “There. Now are you willing to believe me?”

“Uh huh,” she replied a little dumbly, surprised at how much less severe the woman’s countenance appeared now that she had her hair down. “I’m, uh, Yang, by the way. Yang Xiao Long.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” the woman replied, offering her hand. “My name is Winter Schnee. And, if you’re willing to try it, I think you might rather like that.” Her gaze darted down to the untouched coffee cup. “It’s chai tea. Not heavy on the caffeine but a good flavor.”

“Huh. Alright, I’ve got some time to kill.” She reached over and picked up the cup. “So... what is it you do? If you don’t mind the question, of course.”

Ruby called her an hour later, wondering what held her up- not upset, of course, but just unused to her sister getting so thoroughly distracted- and Yang blushed a little at the realization that they’d gotten so caught up in chatting, she hadn’t even noticed how long ago they’d finished their drinks. When she hung up, promising she’d be there soon, Winter offered an apology that didn’t sound quite sincere.

“I didn’t mean to keep you from anything important.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” She drummed her fingers against the table. “Ya know, I’d ask for us to chat in the mornings more often, but you seem pretty busy-”

“Honestly, I arrived about an hour and a half early for work every day,” the other woman said, a smile curling her lips. “I think I can spare half an hour here and there.”

“Well, alright then.” Yang chuckled. “It’s a date!”

“And one I look forward to.”

#Elderburn #Elderburn Week #Day 3: Coffee Shop AU #TRR writes

70 notes · View notes

gosatsuvns · 7 years

Text

Weekly Update #176 - A Look Back At 2017 & A Look Ahead At 2018

Tomorrow's the last day of 2017. With that in mind I have decided that, rather than postpone it until the 1st or even wait until next Saturday, I will use today's blog post to take a look back at 2017 and give you an idea as to what you can expect from us in 2018.

So, without further ado, let's see what we have managed to accomplish throughout this past year!

Unfortunately, this year, we don't have anything as big as the release of SHINRAI - Broken Beyond Despair to look back on. Nevertheless, there are a number of things I'm rather proud of.

At the beginning of the year, I was mostly working on SHINRAI's sequel, Withering Without Hope, updating the sprites for recurring characters like Raiko, Nobara and Henjin, for example. I generally worked on a lot of basic things in order to lay the foundation for our next game. Like the story and setting, planning the layout of the new location and starting to work on its design. If you have read one of our more recent blog posts, you might already know that the events of WWH will take place at the Ginmaku Movie Theater. I'm planning to finish the first background of the game as soon as possible so that you can have an actual first look at it.

Over the past 1 1/2 months, I've gotten back into WWH again and I'm planning to continue working on it over the next few months as well... as opposed to pushing it aside almost completely like I did around April.

Why did I do that, you might wonder... Well, that's because I wanted to focus solely on GENBA no Kizuna, the other project we are currently working on and which we officially revealed in June along with its main cast.

Up until that point, I had referred to it as our "dinosaur project" and by now, you should know why that is (at least if you've kept up with our blog posts over the last six months).

GENBA takes place at the Kaseki Residence, home of a world-renowned paleontologist. As such, it features a dinosaur-themed interior, but this "dinosaur theme" is also seeping into character designs and other things, similar to how "Halloween" was the theme for BBD.

GENBA is going to be shorter, a bit more fast-paced and more gameplay-oriented than SHINRAI, featuring a lot more interactivity. With the police actively involved in the investigation, the story being told mostly through dialogue, as well as the ability to experience it through the eyes of multiple characters, it will certainly feel rather different from our previous VN.

Nevertheless, it is still a murder mystery and it does actually connect to SHINRAI in very important ways. A topic I've talked about not too long ago.

With our focus mainly lying on GENBA for most of the year, we naturally made quite some progress with it. By creating a whole bunch of assets ranging from backgrounds to sprites and even menus, the game's foundation is laid now as well, to the point that we're getting really close to the release of a first demo!

That's really what most of our energy went into this year. We did pull off a few other things too, though.

For instance, after all this time, we now have our own website, which we launched back in June along with the GENBA announcement. It still requires more work and I really want to finally expand the sections for GENBA and WWH as well as add some other things to it, but that will be one of my goals for early 2018.

Outside of that (after an eternal back and forth), we have also decided to launch a Patreon page, which we did back in September. Through this, we hope to get enough funds together to eventually hire more people for our tiny team. At the moment, however, it's main purpose is to help us with covering the costs of GENBA's soundtrack.

Now, you might wonder, what exactly you'll get in return for supporting us on Patreon. Well, here's a quick list of everything you currently get access to:

- 3 character design sketches for the suspects appearing in GENBA - design sketches for Kenji and Misaki, 2 of the new characters in WWH - 3 full-length BGM tracks for GENBA - a look at the full script of GENBA's prologue - the first part of WWH's prologue - a post featuring unused BBD art + talk about visual clues - higher resolution & alternate versions of seasonal artworks + a whole bunch of WIP-looks

Things patrons can look forward to in the coming weeks: the final suspect character for GENBA, WWH's first BGM track, the second part of its script and more character designs. You'll also be able to decide through a poll who will be featured in February's Valentine's artwork. And, last but not least, early access to our GENBA demo!

Patreon is really about getting to see things way ahead of everyone else and being able to influence the stuff we do by offering suggestions. Patrons will be able to help us prepare the demo for its public release, for example.

Another thing I want to use Patreon for, however, is to post more WIP-stuff and other things I've always been way too shy and embarrassed about to share publicly. One big other thing patrons can look forward to, for example, is a post about our very first VN project which never got released. I will talk a bit more about how we got started and share with you some very old assets to give you an actual look at our early work from way back in 2011.

So yeah, if you're curious about those kinds of things, please consider checking out our Patreon page. Your support would be greatly appreciated!

I'd actually like to take this opportunity to once again thank everyone who has supported us thus far, whether it'd be through Patreon or any other means.

Throughout this year, we had some incredible things happen. From something as simple as getting new reviews on Steam to even receiving fan mail, both digitally as well as physically. It still feels strange and very surreal to think that some people actually enjoyed SHINRAI that much. People have even asked about possible merchandise, which is kind of shocking to me. But I guess that will be something to look into in 2018.

One of the greatest compliments I have received this year, however, is that SHINRAI actually inspired others to go forth and make their own stories. That's quite touching to hear and... I dunno... like I said, it's surreal. Sometimes it's really difficult to believe that this isn't just a dream. Because these are the kinds of things I have dreamed about for the longest time. For a big chunk of my life, actually.

Really, I'm deeply grateful for all the support we have gotten. People going out of their way to leave us a good review or even send us a message simply to show their appreciation... things like that truly make me happy and I couldn't ask for more. And they certainly serve to fuel our passion. I hope that all of you will continue to stick with us until our next projects come out, no matter how long it will take!

Which I guess brings me to the final point: what's in store for 2018?

Well, like I said before, our main focus will lie on finishing that GENBA demo. It was already supposed to be released in late November, which didn't quite work out. And although not much is missing anymore, we didn't make too much progress on it in December. Which is mostly due to the fact that December is always a really busy month. Aside of a lot of RL stuff, we had to take care of the seasonal artworks and... I admittedly decided to rather devote myself to WWH, simply because I was in the right mood for it. And while I plan to continue work on WWH, I will definitely get back to that demo now, too.

When will GENBA be finished in its entirety? That's a good question. To be honest, I was hoping to release it in 2018, but it's always difficult to assess whether or not that will work out. I can't foresee what kind of hurdles we might stumble into or how long exactly certain tasks might take. That said, I still want to make it my goal to finish GENBA in 2018.

Please keep in mind though that whenever I set goals such as this (even the demo release for late November), it's more of a way to motivate myself rather than me making an actual promise. Might sound like a lame excuse, but... I know that, even if I don't manage to make the deadline, I will still do my best to actually meet it, resulting in more progress than I would achieve otherwise.

If I tell myself that releasing GENBA in 2018 is impossible, so I'll just say 2019... I will make a lot less progress on it, because I'll have that "there's still time"-feeling in the back of my mind. That's why I think it's always important to set personal goals and work towards them as hard as you can. Whether or not you actually manage to reach those goals doesn't really matter as much as the amount of progress you have made once their deadline hits.

Of course, those goals should still be somewhat realistic, so that you can actually feel as though they're perfectly possible to reach. There is no point in purposely setting completely unrealistic goals. That might actually be more detrimental to your work ethic than anything else. But finishing GENBA in 2018 seems doable to me, so I do want to work towards that. Just don't be mad at me please if it doesn't work out after all, haha.

Anyway, this is starting to get a tad too long, so I should finally wrap this up. I will talk more specifically about our January goals in next week's blog post. Until then, please take care and have a happy new year!

And once again, from both Natsu and myself: thank you so much for your interest in the things we do!

1 note · View note

phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess · 7 years

Text

TF2 Headcanon

@camiluna27 gave me a weird headcanon and it ended up like this. It is TRASH.

Title: For Fuck’s Sake

"Jesus christ, when I said GET A ROOM GUYS, I didn't mean it like this!" Scout shouts down the corridor, only slightly above the awkward cacophony of moans, groans, cries and... slapping sounds he didn't wanna think too hard about, really.

It'd been a hell of a long day, well, week actually. And sure, everyone was entitled to let off steam however they wanted, but this... this was ridiculous. There was a moment when Scout paused in horror, realising that somehow he'd become the fuddy old guy just trying to sleep, while all the 'kids' got freaky.

"Oh no... I'm old." he whispers, feeling sick.

Though not as unwell as the sound of his father getting it on did, and god, the bastard had to be putting on a show just to fuck with him. Wait, no, wrong phrasing!

Scout shakes his head, trying to pretend none of this was happening. None of it. They definitely didn't get louder after he shouted at them, nope...

Live in Denial. That's his new motto.

It was hard enough to look everyone in the eye after hearing them all like this in individual pairings, because people say the weirdest shit when they're banging... but this? This was overkill.

Not like he could escape, either.

Scout had realised what was going on about an hour ago, and grumblingly made his way outside towards Sniper's camper. Surely the guy would let the runner kip on his little couch, if he saw the bags under Scout's eyes, right?

Wrong. Oh so very wrong. He didn't know who else was in there (well, he did, their voice was distinctive but he wouldn't admit to the knowledge)... but it was clear that things had a 'do not disturb' scenario ongoing in there.

Well fuck... he'd tried to go back to his room and ignore it...

Heck, he questioned going to the Infirmary for some sleeping pills... but about two feet from the door he realised that SOMEONE was playing doctor in there... and he didn't wanna know at all.

At the very least, he could try Pyro, right?

The guy, uh, gal, uh... whoever under that suit, had a good grasp on ignoring reality. Might as well see if they had a solution... perhaps he could borrow one of the pyrovision masks?

...oh, oh that was a bad idea.

He'd had no idea that those two... were together, but clearly...

Defeated, and desperate for sleep, he stumbles into the common room towards the couch. He could make do. The room was far enough away from the dorms that it should be quiet enough, right?

Theoretically, yes. But in reality... wrong, oh so very wrong.

When his own footsteps had died away, and he was motionless, everything else was amplified to an obscene degree.

"FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" he shouts, snapping up, grabbing the blanket he'd been trailing around with him, and one of the shabby couch cushions.

Somewhere, someone laughed and made a lewd comment back at him, but Scout was beyond registering words. He'd been in motion all day, and only respawned a few times; which meant the usual energy kick he got from dying near the end of the match, hadn't been thre today. It usually tided the runner over into dinner, showertime, then bed...

But all he could think right now was how much everything ached to just... stop. To lie down for a moment, and drift into nothing; and yet, his comrades all seemed to be of a different frame of mind. Where did they get the energy for this shit?

It was so late... well, no, it was like, eight o'clock... but that was late for the weary, alright?

He made it outside, blank eyes ceaselessly roving over the landscape outside, trying to find a solution. Sniper's van was out. So was the roof, because the ventilation shaft carried sounds like you wouldn't believe.

Sure, he could 'wait them out' under normal circumstances... but the need to sleep was too urgent. Which was frustrating, because the longer the noises irritated, the less chance he'd sleep... and in the past, he'd just end up passing he threshold of no sleep that left him exhausted but unable to rest without bothering Medic about it.

He just wandered around for a while, finally finding the ladder to one of Sniper's hidden nests.

Oh thank fuckin' god. Even if every rung felt like a marathon, he still crawled up, up, up, until salvation was in sight.

The blank, hard wooden walls were warped, ancient, decrepit. Some boards poked up and out, but Scout didn't fucking care. He shoves Sniper's crates aside; the ones the guy sat on, used to steady his rifle, and occasionally hold jars of jarate. There's enough space if he curls up a bit; nothing fancy but it'll do.

The cushion is scratchy, and the blanket too thin for the night air; but it was quiet. Sir Hootsalot made a loud hoo somewhere nearby, but that was about it.

"Finally..." Scout breathes, curling inwards, and letting aching eyelids fall shut. And with that... sleep looms out of the darkness, and consumes him.

- - -

The next morning began, as most usually do. Soldier woke first to do his insane series of fitness exercises at six am sharp, no matter what had gone on the night before; and the sound of him exercising often woke the rest up. He was not a quiet man, and shouted encouragement at himself and the raccoons the whole time. Occasionally someone would join him, but mostly they sent someone out to congratulate the guy and talk him into toning it down...

Soldier was up already, mid-routine. Engineer, one of those foul Morning People, would rise to brew coffee and get everyone else up if possible. Medic and Heavy would arrive, by seven, looking as prim and proper as ever. Pyro was always tagging around behind someone, and no one could even tell if they slept... but they were there, and responsive. Demo could be coaxed awake with the promise of coffee... and then deployed as a friendly, yet firm, Scottish alarm clock. He was the best at getting Spy up, and even Sniper -the latter of which required multiple instances of encouragement of a morning. Even if the aussie had gotten used to the different timezones, he still had difficulty waking up in the morning; and sometimes fell asleep whilst walking into the base, often slouching against a wall until someone shook him.

As for Scout, well it depended. On weekdays the kid would have to be all but dragged out of bed; but on the weekends, he'd shoot out at all times, ready for morning cartoons. Spy often made a mockery of the practice, but Engineer pointed out that there ain't no harm in having something a little fun and silly to enjoy. Then tilted his head at Pyro, who would be watching the espionage agent with that cold, blank stare... daring the man to say something against cartoons.

His absence was therefore as conspicuous as Medic operating without Archimedes somewhere in the vicinity. Though no one could quite grasp onto the notion just yet. That is to say, something felt off, but no one had cottoned on to what was missing as of yet...

Mostly they were conversing over toast and tea, laughing about the night before and prodding general fun at everyone for the noise. And that's when someone realises.

"Where's the lad? I remember he was yellin' up a storm last night but I didnae see him this morning..." Demo interjects.

"Psh, he's probably just still asleep, you know how he is. Lazy." Spy responds, unconcerned.

"Mrrruh-uh, rrmp-phy." Pyro adds, which had a few eyes looking towards Engineer for clarity.

"Uh, Py said his room was empty when they passed earlier. Maybe he tried to escape the ruckus 'n slept on the lounge?" Engineer clarified, frowning.

"Is not in common area, though cushion is missing." Heavy says, looking pensive. Medic idly sips at his coffee, and offers nothing additional.

"Maybe he went out to the van. Did you see him, Snipes?" Engineer tried, mentally ruling out the Infirmary because everyone knew that was off-limits after dark on Fridays unless you were really messed up.

"Uhhhh..." the sharpshooter begins, shooting a glance towards Soldier, "If he did, he wouldn't have knocked..."

"Well, it seems we 'ave to find zhe idiot zhen..." sighs Spy, stubbing out his cigarette on the table and standing up. "Come along, zhe faster we do zhis, zhe quicker we can return to breakfast..."

No one remarked about the fact Spy obviously cared that the runner was missing, it would have spoiled the moment.

And that was how the great Scout-hunt began. Searching high and low, through all nooks and crannies... seeking any sign of the missing mercenary member... they eventually wound up back in the kitchen to report an inability to locate the runner.

"Just where in the hell is Scoot hiding?" Engie sighs in frustration, jaw tight and fists clenched. "We looked all over the damn base, even the roof and pipes... not that I think he'd go down there, not after the whole Loch Ness Monster story Demo told a while back."

"Oh aye, he was too scared to go near the place for a week straight it was bloody hilarious..." laughs Demo, beaming. The smile wavers slightly, "But if he isnae on base, then he's got to be somewhere close on the map, right?"

"Bloody hell why didn't we think of that?" Sniper exclaims, heading for the door. "I'll see if I can find his tracks and let you kno-... oh, we're all coming. Alright then."

They head to the main entrance and find the door slightly ajar, which would normally mean that the BLU Spy was somewhere in the building... but most were relatively confident it was Scout-related. Pyro could check later, anyway.

Sniper cast his gaze around, noting what looked like drag marks, but not heavy enough for a young man of Scout's size. "Looks like he went as far from everyone as he could, and I think he had some sort of sheet with him... looks like he dragged something."

"Fine, fine... just tell us where he is, bushman." Spy condescends. Sniper lets it go because the other is clearly trying not to show he's worried... Spy's already on his third cigarette since they started searching.

The further he followed it, the more Sniper was certain he knew where they were heading. Eventually, he stopped following the tracks altogether and just went straight for the nest's concealed ladder.

"You sure?" Demo asks, "I mean, it's well-hidden..."

"He knows where it is, showed him ages back... 'cause the other sniper got him in the knee and we couldn't find Doc to fix it. Had to stash him somewhere and find a healthkit..." Sniper responds, absently. "And he likes to stargaze too... but I suppose you'd already know that, Spook..."

Spy did not rise to the bait, and let the challenge rest. He arched an eyebrow behind the mask, all the same.

"Alright, I'll go get him..." Sniper says eventually, ascending the ladder with ease born of years of repetition. By the time he clears the top, and lifts the trap door, the aussie is finally able to sigh in relief.

There he is, the idiot.

Scout was a small ball wrapped haphazardly in a thin blanket; head angled awkwardly on the couch cushion. There were dark circles under his eyes, exacerbated by the odd pallor of his skin.

Sniper climbed in and shook the runner, getting a feeble muttering in response; so he tried again. "C'mon mate, wake up..."

"Nnnnnn..." Scout whined back, shifting slightly and shivering as flesh was exposed to morning air.

Sniper frowns, then looks down through the hole to call, "Hey Doc, could you come up here a minute...?"

He can hear the Medic grumble his entire trip up the ladder, complaining about how labcoats were not made with this activity in mind. Though eventually, he emerges, alights on the precariously creaking platform and immediately moves to Scout.

"Ah, scheisse..." Medic huffs, poking, prodding, taking pulses and observations. "It certainly seems zhat he has caught something from being exposed to zhe night air..."

"Yeah, thought so. Doesn't wanna wake up... so I'm not sure how to get him down..." Sniper admits.

"Oh zhat is easy." Medic smiles, leaning towards the open trapdoor. "Herr Heavy, vould you be so kind as to catch zhe Scout vhen I throw him through zhis hole?"

There's a shuffling, some concerned voices shouting that Medic 'can't just toss the lad about', and a thick "Da." of affirmation.

"Good, danke." mutters the doctor, hefting Scout up like he weighed nothing, and positioning them over the exit.

The next thing Sniper knew, Medic had dropped the runner, and there was a split-second before Heavy confirmed he had him. "Bloody hell, steady on Doc, nearly gave me a heart-attack!"

"I vould like to see you try, zhat mega baboon heart I gave you vas an excellent specimen..." Medic mumbles to himself, and Sniper let it go. No sense asking what Medic put in them anymore... no need to worry about it.

They climbed back down without any pomp or ceremony, to find the others gathered around Heavy. Engie was trying to wrap the Scout up, Soldier was ordering the 'maggot' to 'rise and shine' in an oddly soft shout, Demo was feeling the kid's forehead for fever, Spy was... pretending he wasn't worried. And Pyro was... uh, just staring.

Sniper could have laughed, because the runner just about disappeared in Heavy's arms like this. But on the other hand, it was worrying. Clearly, they all shared the same concerns.

Medic ushered them inside, to the infirmary and then threw everyone but Heavy out. Bustling about, trying to find a thermometer...

Scout made a cracked, sad sound, and it drew the attention of the mercenaries present. Heavy offered the disoriented runner some water, but stopped him gulping it down.

"hnn?" Scout queried, confused.

"You slept outside, you dummkopf, und now you have a cold..." Medic admonishes. "Vhy on earth didn't you just knock on a door instead? You vould be velcome by most of zhe others..."

No one needed to address the fact that Spy was automatically excluded from the statement.

"J-just wann'ed... sleep... t-tired..." croaks the runner, clearly still fairly well exhausted. "Loud... couldn't..."

"Alright, don't hurt yourself, hase... just take zhese und go back to sleep. It should knock zhis out of your system by tomorrow, if I formulated it correctly..." Medic soothes, handing over a fistful of odd little red pills, which Scout stared sceptically at for a long minute.

"Heavy has used them, they are safe, leetle Scout." assured the Russian, handing the glass of water back.

It's painful for everyone, watching the runner try to swallow each little capsule past what must be a red-raw throat... but eventually it is done. He flops back on the bed, worn out from the effort, and doesn't resist when someone tucks him in.

The minute he fell asleep, Medic looked to Heavy. "Vell, zhis could have gone better..."

"Hmmm, da. Maybe we should buy leetle Scout headphones, for next time?" grins the other.

"Oho, planning next time already are you, Misha?" Medic laughed, heading for the door. Heavy said nothing as he followed, merely made certain the curtains would not let in light to disturb the runner, and shut the door.

It was nearly evening the next day by the time Scout woke up properly. Oh there'd been momentary jerks back into consciousness, but they were fleeting. Expected.

This was different. Sure, he felt a little less energetic than usual but nothing else seemed amiss. Medic was delighted to find he'd inadvertently created a cure for the common cold; but then, if anyone on this earth was going to... it would be the Doc. Scout said so, and Medic actually blushed in flustered delight.

Heavy had laughed, and called the runner a flatterer.

It was late, but someone had saved him dinner, so he reheated it and went to town on the meal. He pauses in his room to grab some clothes, and laugh at the fluffy ballonicorn earmuffs 'someone' had secretly left for him; they were adorable, and fit nicely, but the handwritten note in crayon gave away who the 'anonymous friend' was.

Finally, the runner headed off for a much-needed shower, realising what sleeping through a day or so could make you smell like was unpleasant... only to do a u-turn when he realised the place was definitely already occupied.

Maybe he could use the Infirmary one? Dare he risk it?

"Yeah, fuck it..." Scout sighs, knocking on the door. "Hey Doc, the uh, shower's in Use if ya get me, so can I use yours?"

"Of course, Herr Scout, go right ahead..." Medic responds absently, revealed to be pouring over paperwork at his desk as the door swung open. "Shut zhe door please, I do not vant zhe birds to get loose."

"Oh, uh, yeah, sure... sorry. Thanks, too." Scout stutters, eyes fixed on the way the man was twirling a pen around idly. He zoned out for a minute, jerking back into focus when Heavy touched his shoulder, and Scout just about launched himself through the ceiling in surprise.

"Shower is free, leetle man." the other repeated, and went over to sit by Medic, as the doctor started to speak in rapid-fire german about something related to the page before him.

Scout took that as a cue to go scrub up. Really, everyone was being real polite about it, but he stunk to high heaven... The shower was possibly the best thing he'd ever experienced in his life; there was something fuckin' magical about it, really. Soap smelled pretty good too, not like the cheap stuff in the main showers; this was like, fancy or something. Left you smelling real nice even after you'd washed the suds off.

Weird thing to think about, but then, the whole weekend had been pretty fucked up from the start. Scout towelled off, double-checking his brothers' dogtags were still firmly attached on their chain, and then slipping on the clean clothes.

It was like... having a whole new physical body, and it felt amazing. Scout would have thought it was insane to think something like that seriously, and yet... it somehow described the situation perfectly.

A large gush of steam followed him out of the small, yet comfortable, bathroom. "Hey doc, thanks, feels great!" he shouts.

"Good, you vere stating to smell..." Medic says, steepling his hands. "Und how do you feel now, hase?"

"Uh, great actually. Almost like I never got sick..." he responds, watching Medic write it down.

"Wunderbar." the other whispers, underscoring something vehemently.

Scout finds Heavy is scrutinising him for hints of deceit, but seems satisfied overall that Scout was being truthful. He stands up behind the Doctor, crossing both arms, and nods.

Medic bends down to scribble something furiously on his paperwork, and for a second, Scout is struck by how utterly lewd the innocent scene before him had become. He thinks his jaw must have fallen open, because he saw Heavy grin, and lean over to whisper something in the Doctor's ear...

"Vhat? Oh, I see vhat you mean..." Medic murmurs back in a stage-whisper. He clears his throat, raising his voice, "Are you sure you're quite vell, Herr Scout?"

"I-.. uh, I'm great..." Scout manages back, mentally flashing back through some of his more scarring memories, trying to calm down. Maybe this was a side effect?

"Are you certain...? You seem... tense." Medic queried, seemingly all business, and not noticing the way Heavy was bending down to kiss at the back of his neck.

"I-...uh... you remember that thing you said the other night about knocking on doors and asking if you can be the meat in a heavy-medic sandvich?" Scout blurts, immediately covering his mouth in horror.

Heavy hides his face so as not to laugh at the runner openly; but Medic can feel the rumble of amusement vibrating in the air. The doctor fights to maintain his own nonchalance.

"Oh? I don't recall zhe exact phrasing..." he pauses, to watch the runner tensing, like he's about to run for it. "...but I do like zhe sound of it."

"...really?" Scout's incredulous expression is what breaks Medic's composure, and he laughs.

Scout turns to run, but Medic shouts, "Vait, I vas not laughing because I am joking... you just look so very eager, und I vas zhinking about how your illness could have easily been prevented had you asked back zhen..."

"Oh." Scout relaxes, taking his hand off he doorknob. "Then ya good with that, or should I go chat up Sniper?"

Everyone in the room knew the runner wasn't going to do that. Though they weren't the most romantic types, Sniper & Soldier had something, and tended to turn everyone else away...

"You can come over here, and ve vill decide vhat to do from zhere, alright little hase?" Medic advises, as Heavy moves back to make a space for the runner to occupy.

"Sure?" Scout challenges, one more time, looking at the far-too-quiet Heavy for his take on the situation.

Misha grins, "Da, will be good... as long as leetle Scout is okay with being the bread as well as the meat."

Scout lets out a tiny, "Oh my god, yes..."

Medic puts his hand on Heavy's arm, "Now, now, Misha, don't get him too excited or he'll drop dead before ve accomplish anything fun..."

Heavy's grin turns downright lecherous. "Is always respawn."

- - -

The End

- - -

Additional:

While a handful of other mercenaries wanted to check on Scout, they all took note of the commotion going on in the Infirmary and decided to leave them be for now. Spy spent several days sending murderous looks at the trio, predominantly Heavy & Medic, but it would be hypocritical to complain about their lack of decorum.

138 notes · View notes