#but also I’m like really pulling an Icarus on how long it’ll take them to fire me

[wurm-food]

think I’m going to go bury myself in some dirt or something. it’s better than being belittled at my job I don’t give a shit about. idk

[winterhawk-olympic-bang]

Emotive Writing

Guest Poster: @thepartyresponsible​

Emotive writing is about making people Feel Things. People use this all the time to sell you stuff, but we’re out here giving emotions away for free. Here are a few tips and tricks I’ve found to make people feel the most emotions.

Word choice:

This is the most straightforward part of emotive writing. Your word choices add an extra layer of complexity to your message. You aren’t just telling readers what happened; you’re signaling to them how they should feel. Most writers do this unconsciously, but being deliberate can make it especially effective.

Here’s a non-emotive, just-the-facts sentence: The soldier lifted his weapon and turned toward the enemy.

Here’s the same sentence reworked to make you care a bit more: The exhausted soldier raised his broken shield and faced the invading army.

The actions here are fundamentally the same, but exhausted and broken invoke sympathy while invading skews negative.

The words you choose are sign posts for the reader. They indicate how to interpret the story and help your readers orient themselves and form expectations. Subtly building expectation is important because, while surprise can be effective, shock is generally numbing and confusion tends to be irritating, so word choice helps you frame things and guide your reader along.

One of the keys here is to attempt some subtlety. If every sentence about your protagonist reads like an ad campaign (effervescent, brilliant, impervious) and every sentence about your antagonist reads like a political diatribe (cruel, spineless, malicious), you’re probably overusing your sign posts. People want to know who to root for, but too much emotive language can make them feel manipulated.

Think of word choice like adding spices to food. If you put oats in boiling water, you’re making oatmeal, and the spices you use won’t change that. But if you throw in some honey and cinnamon, I know we’re headed somewhere wholesome. If you sprinkle in little discordant notes of garlic powder and cayenne, what we’re cooking is a tragedy. And if you upend an entire bottle of cinnamon, a quarter cup of nutmeg, and toss in seventeen whole cloves, I am not staying for breakfast.

Narrative distance:

Narrative or psychic distance is the space between the reader and the character, usually navigated by the intermediary figure of the narrator. Your narrator can be an omniscient figure that knows the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of every character in the world. Or your narrator could be sitting on the shoulder of your main character, close enough to hear their thoughts and know their story but not so close that they speak with the character’s voice. Or your narrator could be your character.

If you want to ramp up emotion, you usually want a narrator who is very close to one character (or, alternatively, to separate characters in turn). But you don’t have to stay at one distance for the whole story, and, just like word choice, shifts in narrative distance can be helpful indicators to your reader about the story and the characters.

A sudden, dramatic shift in narrative distance is quite jarring, like a sudden zoom-in during a movie. It can be effective, but it’ll lose its punch if it’s overused. Generally, if you want to shift narrative distance, you should build to it slowly. Here’s an example of shifting from a distant third person to a closer third person:

They wake the Soldier because the archer is missing. He has a habit of slipping his lead, disappearing post-mission. The chase grew tedious years ago, but the Soldier runs it just the same. He’ll do as he’s told. But it bothers him, when he lets it. The why.

Why does he do this? the Soldier wonders, when he shouldn’t, when it isn’t his place. Where is he going? he thinks, when he can’t stop himself. Who is he running to? But he tries to think nothing at all.

Another trick of narrative distance is to suddenly pull back to show a character who’s been compromised, shocked, or deeply hurt by something. Imagine spending a long time in a close Bucky perspective, hearing his thoughts, and then being abruptly walloped across the face with: The machine went quiet, and the Soldier opened his eyes. Zooming out can emphasize what’s been lost. Because you aren’t just taking the soul of Bucky Barnes right out of him, you’re also taking that closeness away from the reader. You’re silencing the voice they’ve been listening to.

Whether you zoom in or out during highly emotional moments depends on what you’re trying to accomplish and also on who’s involved.  Some characters have loud, messy emotions that will get louder when they’re hurt. Some characters will freeze over and push a narrator further away. You can use narrative distance to show a character slowly opening up or suddenly slamming a door. But you need the reader to have a solid understanding of the character in order to follow what the shift means, which leads to the next component.

Know your characters:

So, here’s the thing. You gotta Velveteen Rabbit this. Every character is Tinker Bell. If you stop believing, they die.

If you want people to care about these characters, you have to treat them like living, breathing, fully feeling people. They have favorite colors. They have phobias. They have Friday night plans and blisters from new shoes and sesame seeds stuck in their teeth. They have superstitions and secrets. You don’t need to know all of these facts, but you should try to give the impression that someone could know them. The more real your characters are, the more we’re going to care about them.

Since this is fanfiction, you start with a receptive audience. Your readers are fond of these characters. Figure out why. Figure out which parts of the character you can relate to and dig in until you feel like you can understand the parts of them you can’t relate to.

Try to collect things that make you feel close to that character. I always have music playing when I’m writing, so I make playlists for characters and playlists for stories. If I feel like I’m losing a character, I’ll go back to their playlist. But you could also use Pinterest boards, reread favorite fics or comics, rewatch movies or fanvids, or spend an unreasonable amount of time researching bows and tactical knives. Whatever works!

Also, remember, your characters don’t know what story they’re in. They don’t know it’s going to end well (or terribly). Maintain that tension, because that’s where the emotions are. When you watch a good horror movie, you’re not really scared of the monster. You’re scared for the characters, because they don’t know if they’re going to survive.

Emotions come from the characters. That’s why it’s still sad that Tony Stark dies, no matter how many times you watch it happen. Tony Stark was brave and flawed and usually right and often sarcastic, and it hurts to watch him die because that’s a full, unique human we’re losing. We know him well enough to know he’s choosing to sacrifice himself and why he made that choice and who will mourn him.

Know your characters, and let them be messy and weird and wrong and hopeful and cantankerous and unique. Fear is relatable, flaws are relatable, and awkward, ungainly, stubborn progress is relatable. Just remember what it is that makes their progress their progress because, if you can swap Dominic Toretto in for Ted Lasso and have the exact same story, you’ve probably lost your characters.

Plan your emotional trajectory:

Okay, time to get a bit technical. This is for people who like to plan. For those terrifying, godlike writers who just sit down and write, this might not be helpful. For my fellow planners:

There’s a theory (which you can get a general overview about here or, if you’re very into data, right here) that there are six core emotional trajectories in narratives:

1)      Rags to riches (rise)

2)      Riches to rags (fall)

3)      Man in a hole (fall then rise)

4)      Icarus (rise then fall)

5)      Cinderella (rise then fall then rise)

6)      Oedipus (fall then rise then fall)

Since rise and fall can mean different things, I find it helpful to combine these building blocks with emotional axes, which you can find some examples of here.

So, basically, for my winterhawk baseball au Got a Heart in Me, I Swear, I planned to follow the “man in a hole” trajectory (fall then rise) along the anxiety-confidence emotional axis with some bleedover from the humiliation-pride axis. Which basically means Clint started comfortable enough, nosedived deep into anxiety and humiliation, and then slowly built his way to confidence over the rest of the fic.

If the listed axes don’t appeal to you, you can very easily create your own. Just think of an emotion, identify what links it to its inverse, and then list the related emotions between the two opposites. Disgust and adoration are opposites, but they’re linked by attention, right? You can’t ignore something you find disgusting or adorable. So, here’s an example emotional axis you could follow: Disgust – Resentment – Obsession – Fascination – Reverence – Adoration. Enemies to lovers, anyone?

Emotional axes help provide a natural framework for your character’s emotional trajectory. They can be subtle; you don’t have to start on one end of the spectrum and go all the way to the other. A story that moves just a step or two on an emotional axis can be incredibly compelling. That small progress from discomfort to hope can hit really hard if the progress feels fought-for and earned and real.

Tips for writing emotions:

·         Get physical: If you want to show an emotion instead of telling it, describe its impacts on the body. Most characters won’t think I’m embarrassed. They’ll feel a drop in their stomach like someone cut the elevator cables and a hot stinging in their face like they’ve been slapped by some disappointed version of themselves. The more visceral your descriptions, the more the reader will feel them. If you want your reader to feast on feelings, you have to set the table.

·         Dramatic zoom: When something very intense happens, shift the narrative distance. In or out is fine, but a sudden, dramatic event should result in a sudden, dramatic change in focus. Characters might hyperfocus on their physical bodies (the mechanics of breathing, the ringing in their ears, the mad animal urge toward flight) or they might be kicked so far out of their own heads that they feel like they’re dreaming or watching the scene play out from overhead. This distance is useful for two reasons: it feels real, and it allows readers to absorb the situation in pieces, without being overwhelmed by it.

·         Unreliable narrator: Some emotions can be so charged that people don’t want to own them, like grief, shame, jealousy, rage, lust, and guilt. Characters might unconsciously misrepresent these to themselves as something else. A grieving mother might insist she’s tired. A rehabilitated assassin who’s fallen in love with an absolute dork might tell himself he’s just tracking a target. Everyone knows what it’s like to lie to themselves, so this makes characters relatable. And, also, everyone likes being in on a secret, so, sometimes, this is just fun.

·         Face the monsters: We’re often conditioned not to dwell on unpleasant things, which is part of why it can be powerful to examine them in stories. From small things like inglorious emotional states (envy, cowardice, resentment) to character flaws (recklessness, withdrawal, arrogance) to personal tragedies (loss, betrayal, abandonment), the negative parts of human emotional life pack quite a punch. Acknowledge them. Not only are they relatable experiences, but redemption and recovery arcs are some of the most compelling stories we have.

[straighttohellbuddy]

World building is the best tbh. I’m forever world building and now I have several worlds to play in and my neurodivergent brain cannot stay still enough to focus on one lmao. SLOWBURN ROMANCES ARE MY LITERAL JAM LIKE PLS!!! I LOVE THEM!! Also!!!! Concepts!!!! Pls share!!!! I love learning about the worlds of my fave fics and I can hands down say right now that this fic will literally shoot to the top of my list of favourites which means you’ll occupy the top three spots. Sorry to hear that ur feeling rough, so am sending u the biggest hug. I’m not okay but I’m taking care of myself today so that I will be 🧡-🐈‍⬛

alsjfsldkjf i have too many worlds TBH, literally one of the best parts of my 2020 was writing for the classic rock fandom and writing one of my good friend’s ocs alongside mine, like there’s so many different worlds that our two characters have now, i’m like 26k deep into a high school au that i need to get back to at some point, and then i wrote a oneshot abt the high school au but they’re adults, and then there’s also the original timeline, and then there’s the present day in the original timeline where they have kids and i probably care too much about people who aren’t real...... hahaha

OKAY OKAY OKAY HERE WE GO I’LL GIVE KIND OF AN OVERVIEW OF THE ALBUMS AND A FEW SONGS BUT IF U WANT ME TO GO IN DEPTH ON ANY OTHER SONG JUST ASK!!!

yes i have a playlist for each, if you wanna hear how i interpret the vibes of the songs. if you interpret them differently, thats awesome!! i’d love to hear y’all’s opinions on them!!

testing one two - the first ep they release, the song titles are mostly themed (fast forward, press play, pause, rewind), but are mostly things y/n has been working on for a while but never got around to finishing, things they are rather proud of. i see you shiver with... is the first song they wrote specifically for the album, and it’s the last song on the EP because it’s a Rocky Horror reference; i see you shiver with...

a n t i c i p a t i o n - first full album!! the vibe is Hopeful But Hesitant it has all the songs from the ep, plus some new ones!! collabs with youtube musicians troye and dodie, and y/n’s label sets up a collab that turns into a genuine friendship. the breakout dance hit is what else is there to say ft. Troye Sivan, which is about not knowing what to make content about when it feels like you’ve already told the world everything. it featured the prechorus and hook

You, know, ev-ery-thing about me / gave it all for free / my life in HD / So, let’s dance, let me see your hips sway / we’re gonna be okay / what else is there to say?

So say that you love me, say that you love me, say that you love me / let’s die hand in hand. / I’ll tell you I love you, tell you I love you, tell you I love you / supply and demand. 

personally, i also conceptually enjoy srs bsns which is a really upbeat song about how they don’t care if people don’t take them seriously because they know in their heart that what they’re doing is good

hyperfocus - 2nd EP, a pretty substantial departure from their usual style, but also happens to quietly be Corpse’s favourite, and is actually y/n’s most polarising, because it has both the Grammy award winning HEARTBURN and the o brother where art thou which was written partially as a joke to capture a fond moment of them and 5SOS dicking around together in a hotel. written while on tour wit 5SOS, im writing the reader as having ADHD (because I have ADHD and i can do what i want), and the backstory is that they’d changed the medication/dosage they were taking, and as it’s their first full tour, they were under a lot of stress and were in a weird place mentally and emotionally, and hyperfocus is the result of that. i’m going through some stuff has HUGE agoraphobic vibes. 

HEARTBURN has the same vibes as Florence + The Machines’ Howl. It’s about being a demon without saying that or directly implying that unless you know demons real well. This is when the pressure for them to confirm their identity got real bad, and it was their way of working through those emotions.

tear in existence in the shape of a person / when i’m seeing clearly i can’t see myself / world can’t swallow what it can’t get it’s teeth into / got everything i wanted but i ain’t got my health

Got heart-burn--- / I’ll tear me apart / I’ll tear you apart / I’ll tear me apart. 

SCREAM gets rereleased as a remixed single featuring Fall Out Boy the following year. It won the MTV music award for best collaboration in 2018. 

In the time between hyperfocus and working on it, Y/N releases several singles, including a cover of Tell Him by The Exciters to be featured in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. They also take time to sort out their health, do a little bit more YT stuff, and travel internationally to do festivals. 

working on it - is kind of a middle ground between their original stuff, and hyperfocus, like pop-punk meets horror-pop meets whatever you’d classify halsey as. the first three songs were mostly written before the fic starts, so before they’re getting back to YT, but the last three, nightmare scenario, designed to hurt (touch me), and not scared were all written after they’d started hanging out with sykkuno and corpse. 

in-universe, imposter syndrome was originally something else, along the same lines of tired that they’re hiding that they’re a demon, but after meeting corpse nd sykkuno and having people who know, and lowkey being influenced by corpse’s music, the song changes directions, and YO OKAY YO::

I literally am so fucking flattered, my darling friend @bingusmode​ wrote lyrics for imposter syndrome and I’ve been yELLING about them ever since i’ve read them!! (also bunnie is fantastic and lovely in general 10/10)

if you thought you saw me 

i’d think about it twice

cuz while i know i’m naughty

everybody thinks i’m nice

cutest giggles get me

places that i long to be

but it’s not long before

everybody hates me

when you figure out i’m fucked up

you’ll probably think that can’t be right

but babe my image runs to save me

cuz i’m ugly day and night

nothing good about me

not the angel that i seem

cuz i’m a piece of shit

and i’ll ruin your fuckin dreams

i’m an impostor babe

you better run for your life

cuz there’s a bloodlust runnin through me

and you’re dripping off my knife

there’s no one here to save you

cuz you ate up all my lies

so beg me while you can

and draft up all your goodbyes 

if any of y’all are inspired by anything i put out, feel free to take it and run!! you have my blessing!! i am so overwhelmingly flattered by people who like my stuff enough to create because of it, directly or indirectly! lyrics, art, songs, anything!! legit! I love you!!

okay so designed to hurt (touch me) has big House of Memories by Panic! At The Disco vibes, and YES it’s about Corpse. YES it sends mixed messages. YES it has greek myth imagery and YES that imagery is confusing. not sure if any of these sets of lyrics actually go after each other but also idk??

will my fall from grace be graceful / as each move i see you make? / propped up on pedestals side by side / beneath our feet they shake / i’m the only one to hear you ask  / “What have they done to me?” / My boy, your wax throne is sun-drenched / you’ll fall in the name of your legacy.

eyes like yours watched rome burn / while hands like mine lit the pyre / we both heard me say we’d go down in flames / now you’re turning me into a liar / since you smile like that, like you can’t feel the sting / and we both know i can’t feel the fire

been telling myself i’m designed to hurt / but, baby, aren’t we a sight? /

check your reflection, your angles, apollo / you’re icarus in the right light /

we’re on the edge, i’m not scared to fall / we’ll take refuge in the night /

been telling yourself you’re designed to hurt / but, baby, doesn’t this feel right?

also, albumtouralbumtour is a reference to Bohemian Rhapsody.

OKAY AND FINALLY

n o s t a l g i a - the album the reader’s working on during the fic.

literally as i was writing this, bunnie sent through some FIRE lyrics for how the light gets in, (@bingusmode) i am going to be thinking about these on REPEAT for the next MONTH BRUV

little bit of darkness, treat me like a toy 

i got my hopes up and got them destroyed

bitter taste of regret sitting heavy on my tongue

can’t believe i let you convince me that you were the one

sitting here in silence, fabric running thin

petals burning in my lungs and stealing oxygen

embers from a cigarette falling to the floor

god i can’t take anymore

so i stumble to the window and pull the shades

and the moon pours in like you threw a grenade

i can’t understand why

i keep trying

cuz i never seem to win

but having any hope is how the light gets in 

from there, moment before impact ft. Billie Eilish is a club anthem along the lines of bad guy or COPYCAT, bass heavy with a drop that’s out of this world.

powdered pain, i’m in your veins / i’m the sting, the drip, the thing / you’re craving, but you hate to see me misbehaving / i heard my breakdown got you high / it’s true, but baby i can’t lie / i never got that rush, that burn / that makes you feel alive, i had to learn / to pick the slippery slope down which i fell / plan my pitstops on the way to hell / to pick my padding before i spiral / so if i break it’ll be in style

watch my misdirect, now freeze, / notice you can’t see the forest for the trees / you’re so desperate for my demise / but baby, i’ll make you watch me rise.

this is the moment before impact

controlled chaos, crash land / take a breath, trust the plan / i know you hope i’m not okay / you get off on my audio misery

controlled chaos, crash land / take a breath, trust the plan / i need you to know i want it this way / my breakdown won me a grammy

and this is the moment before impact

ur my favourite - interlude ft. sykkuno is probably one of my favourites, it’s just really soft, just a snippet of a conversation between the reader and sykkuno, maybe one of them told a joke and they both just sound real happy and sweet. its nice. it’s a nice moment.

means something is also for sykkuno!! it’s about how good-strange it is to be open and honest with friends, and how they usually aren’t but they’re glad they can be open and honest with him!!

meanwhile, i don’t think about u - interlude ft. CORPSE is a phonecall between corpse & the reader right after they announce they’re going to feature on acting like that, where corpse asks if they do this sort of thing to spite him, to which the reader responds ‘do i consider you when i’m making decisions about my career? no, corpse, actually i don’t think about you at all’ which then directly contrasts the song that ends the album, which is (how it feels to be) beautiful fireworks, which is essentially ‘i know how hard it is to exist like this, to be the centre of attention, to give off light and bring people joy, even when you’re in pain. i’m here for you. i love you.’

okay, i swear im done now, i’ll get back to writing the fic! (also i cannot BELIVE i managed to figure out how to embed those playlists but im so happy) edit: it didn’t actually work when i posted the ask, so anyways im sorry but y’all are abt to be spammed with playlists because i care too much abt this fic

[wherevermyway]

can’t wait for you (to shut me up) // binsung // oneshot // 18+

pairing: seo changbin x han jisung rating: explicit! 18+ warnings/tags: smut, food kink, roommates, spicy (literally), dacryphilia, don’t try this at home, explicit sexual content  word count: 5,475 also on AO3

originally posted: 14 december 2020

Han Jisung doesn’t turn down a dare. Ever. His roommate and occasional fuckbuddy, Seo Changbin, however, makes Jisung regret being so cocky and arrogant after he gets his hands on some capsaicin extract.

Alternatively: fuck bruh moments, Jisung has an Icarus moment.

disclaimer: this is a work of fiction! any reference to persons in this work of fiction are purely coincidental. the characters referenced from Stray Kids are  interpretations loosely based on their personalities in the group and do  not represent the real people behind the personas. if this, or any of  the content included in the warnings above make you uncomfortable,  please stop reading now.

Saturday nights always proved to be bizarre. Jisung’s friend and roommate, Changbin, was quiet and reserved six out of seven days of the week, only completely opening up as he got drunk and played some stupid multiplayer game every Saturday evening. As the night went on and Changbin’s friends logged off, the two of them would usually split a twelve pack of cheap beer together, take a break from their class projects, and do stupid things that usually involved drunken dares.

Jisung was never one to turn down a dare. He had an arrogant nature that would likely prove to be a fatal flaw one day. “You’re gonna regret that,” Changbin would tut, shaking his head after Jisung would accept a dare without hearing it out. Usually, it was something stupid or mindless, like licking honey off of Changbin’s foot, or walking through the library with a vibrating butt plug for as long as the upperclassman deemed necessary.

They weren’t dating — at least, not officially; this was something they constantly stressed with each other and their friends. Their relationship was just an eclectic, liberal interpretation on the boundaries of friendship. Friends could fuck each other after all, right? Honestly, the sex was too good between them to really bother with dating other people, but they did agree that they weren’t exclusive, even if it had been a year and a half of the same strange dynamic.

“You stupid motherfucker!” Jisung could hear Changbin shouting at the television all the way down the dorm hallway. The anthropology student was generally mellow and calm, until he had a couple beers in his system and joined a gaming session with his friend Chan.

The younger blond shook his head with a smirk as he ripped his lanyard out of his pocket, shuffling around to get the correct key to their dorm in between his fingers. The four single-serve shots Jisung snuck into the library for his study session were having an effect on his ability to smoothly rifle through the keys, but not enough to actually affect his cognition. Jisung slid the key into the lock and turned it.

When he opened the door, he expected to see Changbin, but he didn’t expect to see him in a loose, torn tank top and basketball shorts, especially not in the dead of winter. Toronto was cold, even indoors, and Changbin was sometimes nothing short of a madman. The older man was too busy yelling banter into his headset to notice Jisung standing in the doorway with his eyebrows comically raised and his jaw hanging open a bit.

Jisung tried to regain his composure before Changbin realized that his roommate was home, but, as he brought his bottle of beer up to his lips, the older man turned his head slightly, and they made eye contact. A bit of lager splashed up against Changbin’s face; he recoiled and quickly wiped his chin off. Jisung darted his eyes away, nearly forgetting to remove his key from the lock as he shut the door behind him and awkwardly mumbled some sort of greeting.

There was tinny chatter coming from Changbin’s headset, knocked slightly askew, and the older man scoffed. “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he rolled his eyes and offered a polite wave with his fingers as he stared at the television, mashing some buttons on the controller in his hand. He set the near-empty bottle down on the table and raised his voice a bit. “If these motherfuckers would stop spawning missile launchers and aiming them solely at me, maybe I’d be able to help better.”

Jisung set his bag down on the kitchenette countertop, then opened the fridge and grabbed two beers from the door. He scanned the contents of the fridge, hoping that there was still leftovers from a couple nights prior. However, his face fell to a slight frown as nothing but a half-empty carton of whole milk and seven bottles of beer stared back at him. It was late, and Changbin probably figured Jisung would eat while he was out.

He wasn’t incorrect, but Jisung really looked forward to stealing one of the cold slices of leftover pizza when he got home; it always went well with the Molson Changbin would get for the weekend after class on Fridays. It was a mediocre beer at best, but it was good for mindless drinking. “Bummer,” Jisung muttered under his breath, grabbing a couple of the bottles from the shelf. He closed the door to the fridge and took the magnetic bottle opener off of the door. He popped the caps off of the beer bottles, leaving the bent metal on the countertop as he made his way over to the cheap, scratchy couch, languidly flopping down next to Changbin, putting an amber bottle down on the table next to his other beer bottle.

The older man grunted as thanks, focusing on the enemy in his sights on the screen, his tongue between his teeth and eyes squinting in concentration. This week’s gaming session with Chan featured Grand Theft Auto V, Jisung recognized the map. Changbin had mentioned something about a double XP event, and that he and Chan were trying to get their crew’s ranking higher up the list. It was all some inane bullshit that went in one ear and out the other to Jisung, but he enjoyed listening to it, regardless, since Changbin’s face would light up as he passionately explained just how renowned their crew had gotten.

This also meant that Jisung could get away with being a little handsy with Changbin, especially since he started drinking a little sooner than normal for a Saturday night. He took a long swig from his beer, then set the bottle down on the table, scooting closer to the older man. Changbin didn’t notice, still leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees. Jisung crawled his fingertips up Changbin’s thigh, causing the upperclassman to involuntarily flex for a moment, his head twitching to the side but unable to break his gaze away from his match.

Jisung’s fingers kept creeping closer and closer to the inside of Changbin’s thighs, which parted further and further away with each little movement. After Jisung’s fingers landed over the stretched fabric above Changbin’s pelvis, the older man lifted his arm and leaned back a bit. He nodded once, silently granting Jisung permission to continue. The younger man bit his lip in excitement as he slipped down to the floor on his knees.

There were a lot of nice, strange little oddities about their relationship that Jisung loved. About a year ago, when things started to shift from stupid drinking dares to more sexually explicit dares, Changbin had drunkenly dared Jisung to suck him off while he was on voice chat, gaming with Chan and a couple of his friends. “Don’t look away from my face,” he had demanded with a bit of an ironic quiver to his voice. “I wanna look down and see you staring up at me.”

“That sounds like fun,” Jisung giggled as he accepted the dare. “You sure you can stay quiet enough for your friend to not notice, though?”

Changbin flushed, looking away from Jisung as he gritted his teeth. “You don’t hear me in my room late at night; Chan won’t hear anything. Besides,” he rolled his eyes and sighed, “Chan’s heard me get off over voice before, and he doesn’t care; actually probably finds it hot, knowing him. Wouldn’t shock him, really.”

It still wouldn’t shock him a year later, but now he’d give Changbin shit for roping his roommate into it, instead of just handling it himself. None of their friends knew that they were more than roommates, but Jisung’s friend Felix had suspected something was happening when Jisung agreed to be roommates with Changbin again for his junior year of university. Likewise, Chan had made some choice quips about how Changbin should have moved out and gotten a real apartment, not an apartment-style dorm that was ultimately owned by the university.

For this odd dynamic, some things were worth sacrificing.

Jisung worked in a calculated fashion as he offered small licks and nibbles up and down Changbin’s cock. The main objective wasn’t to get him off, just riled up enough to cause a bit of tension. Changbin slowly started to become more and more disheveled the longer Jisung teased him, the final nail in the coffin was when Jisung kept tonguing at his frenulum with progressively lighter and lighter licks.

“I’m done, man,” Changbin growled into his mic, grabbing Jisung by the hair and roughly pulling him back. There was a pause as they stared at each other, the younger man smiling and showing off his teeth with a wide, proud grin. “It’ll be fine, dude,” Changbin continued with a hint of a whine, pressing a couple of buttons on his controller. “We can deal with it tomorrow. I’ve got more important things to deal with.” The older man motioned for Jisung to get up and rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Chan. You’re just jealous. Night.”

Changbin practically tossed the controller across the room after he turned his system off. “You’re trouble, distracting me like that when you knew it was a big weekend for Chan and me,” he tsked, standing up and tucking his dick back into his shorts. “I hope you’re ready for a hell of a dare.” He padded off to the kitchen and Jisung smacked his hands against the coffee table to a loose rhythm.

“I’ll take whatever you throw at me,” the blond smirked. “Favourite part about the weekend.”

The elder shook his head. “You’re not going to think that after tonight.”

Jisung watched Changbin rifle through the cupboards of the kitchen and he tucked his head into his hands. “Come on,” he drawled out with a whine, “all of the stuff you’ve dared me to do has been mild and pretty boring so far. Unless you’re gonna have me walk around naked, blindfolded, and in high heels with nipple clamps down the hallway, I don’t think you can really shock me at this point.”

Changbin paused. The mental image of Jisung’s words must have danced around in his thoughts, because he was frozen for at least half of a minute, letting out a stifled shudder as he turned around. “Not quite that, but it won’t be mild, to say the least.”

“So get on with it. What’s the dare you’ve got in store, Binbin?”

“The first part is simple,” Changbin smirked and leaned back up against the counter, folding his arms. “Let me suck you off.”

Jisung’s eyes lit up, and Changbin already knew this was going to end up poorly. “Hell yeah!” The blond shimmied his shoulders and nodded his head. “I’m already down for whatever you’ve got in store.”

A simple shake of the head is all that Changbin offered in response. He untucked his right hand, showing off a tiny vial with a small, viscous liquid inside of it. “You didn’t even hear the whole dare.”

“When have I ever said no to your dares?” Jisung had a point: a year of dares every Saturday, and he never once declined. It was stupid, though, because he never heard the entire thing through. Changbin would bait him with a good idea, then throw in the crazy idea afterwards. It had always worked out, but tonight’s dare could easily go sour very quickly.

“This isn’t like the others,” Changbin’s smile faded and he shook the bottle between his fingertips. “I know you get really eager over these dares, but this one is gonna hurt. It’s high time you learned to stop being so overzealous, Sungie.”

Jisung scoffed and rolled his eyes, slapping his hands down on the table. “Whatever, whatever, man. What’s the last half of the dare?”

Changbin gritted his teeth and pulled his lips into a straight line. “This isn’t something you can really say ‘no’ to after you actually ingest it.”

“Drugs?”

“I mean, technically? It’s a chemical.”

A confused frown grew on Jisung’s face. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You wonder why I’ve been ordering spicy takeout all week?” He sets the vial down behind him and tucks his hands into the pockets of his shorts. Jisung shrugs his shoulders and makes a noncommittal grunt in response. “I’ve been gauging your tolerance level to see if you could handle an intense dare.”

Jisung rolled his eyes again. “Spice challenges are boring, dude,” he pouted as he looked at Changbin. “We killed that one at Roma’s last week—”

“Twelve million scoville units.” Changbin cuts off the excited junior. Jisung quickly loses the arrogance in his demeanour and sinks into himself a bit as his eyes grow wide. “Yeah, I thought so. Don’t worry, it’d only be two drops from this vial. You consume two drops of this hellfire oil, and I’ll distract you by sucking you off. Still interested?”

There’s a long, uncomfortable pause that hangs in the air as Jisung weighs his options.

Changbin curses something unintelligible under his breath. “I’ve got other, less potent ideas,” he offers, biting his lip as he watches Jisung think.

“Sure, I’ll still do it,” the younger man says with a shrug, like it didn’t really matter to him at all.

“Sungie,” Changbin brings his knuckles to his forehead, shaking his head as he sighs with disappointment, yet still smirks to himself. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

Jisung stared at the plate in front of him, with two neon red spicy cheetos set in the middle, one on top of the other. It almost looked like a photo he had seen in one of his art history books, so captivating by its simplicity. He had eaten these MSG-laden salt bombs several times. Adding a couple drops of oil infused with the epitome of lava would be fine, right? Temporary discomfort. Temporary.

“Sungie,” Changbin grabbed Jisung’s shoulder, softly shaking him. “Did you hear what I just said?”

The blond shook his head. “Sorry, got distracted.”

“This is a really stupid idea,” the older man sighed, “like, I really don’t think we should do this.”

Jisung knitted his brows together and scoffed. “I’m not turning this down. We’re doing this, dude.”

There was an irritated groan that came from Changbin as he gritted his teeth and tucked his head into his hand. He stared at Jisung and frowned. “I’m going to regret challenging you to do this more than you’re going to regret accepting this dare, I just know it.”

“That’s on you,” the younger man arrogantly quipped, running a hand through his hair with fake confidence. He grabbed the bottle of beer that was next to the small plate and chugged the last of it, slamming it down on to the table. “Anything to get you to get me off.”

“You know, you can just ask me.”

“Yeah, but dude, where’s the fun in that? That’s so… domestic, like actual couples do that.” Jisung rolled his eyes and smirked. “Anyway, let’s get this over with. Hey, we could film it and go viral or some shit, too, that could be fun.” Changbin deadpanned and scowled, causing Jisung to wave a hand nervously. “It was a joke, man.”

The older man shook his head and grabbed the tiny glass vial, staring into the oil as it lazily sank down the sides of the bottle. He continued to scowl, squeezing the dropper and unscrewing the lid from the glass. “You don’t have to do this,” he repeated, yet still brought the dropper over the red snacks.

“Shut up,” Jisung folded his arms and sighed. “If you really didn’t want to do this, you wouldn’t be going through with it. Just admit you wanna watch me sweat and cry and suffer and call it a day. You’re such a sadist.”

A flush crept up on Changbin’s face. He said nothing, just shook his head and dropped a single, quick drop of oil on each nuclear red corn puff. As he hovered his hand over the plate, Changbin nervously looked up at Jisung and opened his mouth to say something.

“Nope,” Jisung grumbled, shaking his head. “I’m not backing out of this, so don’t say anything.”

The older man rolled his eyes, then screwed the cap back on to the vial. “Fine,” he muttered, standing up and making his way into the kitchen. “Then I’ll just tell you that, again, you’re an idiot for accepting this.”

“You’re an idiot for suggesting this!” Jisung shouted and let his jaw hang agape for a moment, hands thrown up in the air in disbelief.

Changbin spun around on his heel and pointed a finger in Jisung’s direction. “You need to stop accepting dumb things without hearing the whole thing first!”

Jisung pouted and dropped his hands, recoiling a bit. “I only accept these things from you because I trust you, Binbin.”

The way Jisung’s voice went from an irritated shout to a soft whine caused Changbin to visibly wince. “Sungie,” he started, bringing his palm to his face with a heavy sigh. “That was harsh of me, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, I guess,” the blond mumbled. “Just grab the stupid milk and get back over here. The whole point of this was so you’d suck my dick and distract me anyways.”

Changbin did as requested, but the air in the room was different now. He set the carton of milk down on the table and tugged his tank top down, playing with the hem of his shirt as he sat down on the couch. “You gonna be okay?”

Jisung took in a deep breath, looking away from the plate in front of him, turning his head to look at Changbin. They stared at each other for a moment, and then nervousness behind the blond’s eyes faded as he arrogantly smirked. “I’ll feel a lot better once you’re between my legs and doing your best to distract me.”

The older man couldn’t help but deadpan again, rubbing his temples with his middle finger and thumb. “You’re something else, Jisung,” he grumbled.

“Yeah, but you like that about me.”

“It’s true,” Changbin shrugged, dropping his hand to his lap. “You ready?”

Jisung turned to look at the plate and he nodded once. “This is a dumb idea, but fuck it.” He reached his hand out to the hellish crisps, fingers twitching a bit as he grabbed both of them off of the plate. He turned to look at Changbin, whose eyes were wide as he swallowed with anticipation.

“You sure about this?”

“Shut up, Changbin.” Jisung rolled his eyes, then shakily put the food into his mouth.

He chewed for a couple of seconds, nothing really happening. Maybe the oil that Changbin got from his friend Hyunjin was a dud. Then, he swallowed and everything started to fall apart. Rapidly.

Jisung’s eyes went wide as he coughed and shook his head a second later. “Oh my god!” He panicked, hands flailing and fanning his head as his face reddened. “Jesus fucking Christ, that’s—” he choked on his own saliva, coughing up a fit. Changbin’s face contorted in reactionary terror, reaching out to the carton of milk, offering it to Jisung as the younger man shook.

“This was a horrible idea, why the fuck did you go along with this?”

Jisung ignored Changbin’s comment, practically drowning himself in milk as he choked down the liquid, trying to swallow it and breathe at the same time. “Hot,” garbled up from his throat, some of the white liquid sputtered up into the air as he spoke, some dribbling down his chin. “Changbin,” Jisung whined, his eyes teary, glistening as much as his face was as it started to sweat, some visibly beaded up on his forehead. “Distract me,” he managed to pant out between gasps, wiping his face off with one hand and motioning towards his lap with the other.

“You’re a madman,” Changbin licked his lips, biting at the inside of his cheek as he watched Jisung unravel into a sweaty, teary mess. If Jisung could focus on anything other than the stinging, stabbing pain in his mouth, he would have noticed that Changbin was enjoying this a bit too much. Instead, he wanted to rip his tongue out of his mouth and forget he ever existed.

He decided, right then and there, that he was never going to take on a dare like this again.

Changbin stumbled to the floor, too busy watching Jisung writhe and sweat to pay close attention to undoing the button and zipper to the younger man’s jeans. The blond leaned back into the couch, chest rapidly rising and falling as he panted and whined, letting out strings of profanity as he suffered. Sweat, tears, and saliva dripped down his face, making Jisung’s face shimmer in the bluish white light of their dorm.

“For fuck’s sake,” Jisung loudly whined, shakily reaching a hand up Changbin’s head, curling his clammy fingers in his hair, “distract me, come on.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Changbin apologized, tilting his head down to focus on getting Jisung’s cock to spring free from the confines of his jeans and boxers. Surprisingly, it was already half-hard, causing Changbin to lift one of his eyebrows and offer a quip. “Excited over this, huh?”

Jisung groaned, rolling his head back and pushing Changbin’s head down. “Not distracting me,” a long, drawn out whine interrupted his sentence, “like you promised.”

Changbin chose not to say anything, instead he dug his elbows into the couch as he worked Jisung’s cock into his mouth. He gently pressed the tip of his tongue against the base, eliciting a small squeal from the younger man, who twitched and whimpered in response.

“More, please.” Jisung rolled his shoulder blades up against the back of the couch, furrowing his brows and wiping his forehead haphazardly with his free hand. “Wanna fuck your mouth, wanna come all over that pretty face of yours.”

The older man curled his lips in a devious smile. “I just said I’d suck you off,” he pulled back a bit, looking up at Jisung with a bit of snark, “not that I’d get you off.” Changbin flashed his teeth with an evil grin, until Jisung lifted his head and wildly stared down at him.

“If I didn’t feel like my face was about to fucking melt off,” Jisung hissed through his teeth, trying to stay relatively composed, “I swear to god I—” Changbin firmly gripped the base of Jisung’s cock and wrapped his lips around the head, sucking at it hard enough to cause the blond to stutter over his words. “Distracted, yeah,” he weakly moaned out, letting his head lull back.

There was an audible pop as Changbin pulled his lips off of Jisung’s head. “Distraction and sucking your dick was what the deal was.” He continued to grin, letting his hand continue to work Jisung’s shaft as he watched the younger man’s face contort in reaction. “Maybe once everything’s settled and you stop crying over a little pain, I’ll give you what you really want.”

Tears continued to stream down Jisung’s face no matter how much he tried to mop them up with the back of his hands. There was a fair amount of runny mucous dripping from his nose, too, rendering him into a sloppy, sticky mess.

Admittedly, it was a bit gross, but Changbin found it more disturbing that seeing his junior fall apart made him painfully hard. The way his tears shined on his pink cheeks, the way he whimpered and mewled in discomfort, all of it was strangely arousing to him. “Maybe we should shower first,” Changbin laughed to himself as he moved back down and wrapped his lips around Jisung’s cock.

“Maybe you should,” Jisung panted heavily, looking down to the older man, gasping as he spoke, “should go fuck yourself.”

Changbin looked up at the underclassman and flipped him off with a free hand. He hummed a laugh, the vibrations causing Jisung’s eyes to cross. The younger man threw his head back and rolled his hips up into Changbin’s face, causing the upperclassman to choke a bit, not expecting to feel Jisung’s cock hit the back of his throat.

Jisung pulled his shirt up and off as Changbin continued to bob his head up and down, circling his tongue around the length in his mouth. “Fuck,” the younger man whimpered, hastily wiping his face with his shirt as if it were a kitchen towel. He continued to let out a few strangled curses as he ran a hand through his hair.

Changbin offered a few more tongue flicks against Jisung’s cock before pulling away and standing up. “Come on,” he offered a hand to the perplexed man on the couch, “as much as I’m loving this, I really just wanna get fucked by you.”

After some extensive handwashing and some half-assed showering, Changbin found himself bent in half over his bed, with two of Jisung’s fingers inside of him. “I should just fucking edge you,” the younger man quipped with a smirk on his face, watching his elder twitch his fingers against the bedsheets, awkwardly scrambling for purchase.

“Please,” Changbin whined, “I gave you what you wanted, Sungie.”

“Yeah, you did.” Jisung slipped a third finger inside, biting his lip back as the upperclassman writhed and moaned underneath him. “Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t wanna see you suffer a bit as payback.”

Changbin gritted his teeth, turning his head back a bit to stare up at Jisung. “Fuck you, I told you what you were getting into. Hell, I warned you several times.”

“You had your fun,” Jisung bent over and nipped at Changbin’s shoulder. The teeth sinking into his skin caused the older man to let out a bit of a moan. “My turn, now.” He curled his fingers down, causing Changbin to drop further, letting his head collide against the mattress as he mumbled incoherently in approval.

“Yeah, I like that. You should keep your mouth shut more often, huh?” Jisung rocked his fingers back and forth a bit, then gradually started pumping them in and out of the man beneath him. “I bet you probably loved watching me cry out there, didn’t you?”

Changbin attempted to choke out an affirmation, but he was too lost in the feeling of how Jisung’s fingers moved inside of him to coherently respond.

“Figures,” Jisung tutted. “You’ve always been a weird one. I’m feeling impatient tonight, Binbin. While I’m annoyed you enjoyed making me cry, I’m tired of being hard.” He pulled his fingers out, then brought his hand to his cock, wiping some of the lube around it. Changbin opened his mouth to speak, but Jisung cut him off, slowly pushing his cock inside of the older man.

Instead of spouting off of a bold comment, Changbin lets out a throaty groan, gripping the sheets tighter. Jisung slowly pushes himself completely inside the upperclassman, a smirk growing on his face as he watches the man under him twitch. “You feel nice,” Jisung breathes out, moving his hands to both of Changbin’s hips, “you feel so nice. Want me to keep moving?”

Unable to form a coherent sentence, Changbin simply nods, and Jisung smiles. The younger man grips the hips in his hands tighter as he slowly moves in and out. The men exchange a myriad of lewd noises between them as they blend together.

“Jisung,” Changbin arched his back, tilting his head closer to the younger man. He didn’t have to respond for Jisung to know what he wanted.

The younger man shifted his hand from Changbin’s left hip up into his hair, running his fingers through the soft, damp, brown locks. It started off as a soft tug, then he quickly drew his hand into a fist and pulled back, eliciting a sharp cry from the older man.

This was Jisung’s favourite part of their interactions. Changbin liked to be pushed around a little bit after Jisung completed his dares. “Who’s gonna cry now, hmm?” He ruffled his senior’s hair around a bit, then tugged on it again as he thrusted in hard, stilling his movements. “Asked you a question, babe.”

“You can’t make me cry,” Changbin said, choking back tears. It was a bold-faced lie, they both knew that, but it fed into the moment.

“That a dare?” Jisung scoffed, then tugged at Changbin’s hair once more.

A whine escaped Changbin, eating away at his confidence. “Of course it’s a goddamned dare.”

“It’s always a dare.” As soon as Jisung finished speaking, he started roughly fucking into Changbin. The brunette tried to dip his head down and lose himself in the moment, but the blond held his head up by the hair gripped between his fingers. “I’m not gonna stop until I see you break, babe.”

“You’re gonna,” Changbin mumbled, “gonna have to try harder than that.” He tried to sound confident, but it was obviously false confidence. A few tears fell from his eyes, causing Jisung’s lips to curl upwards.

“Aww,” the underclassman mocked, “you’re doing a terrible job at faking it.”

Jisung let go of Changbin’s hair, letting the brunette’s head drop, then moved his newly-freed hand down to stroke he upperclassman’s cock. His stroking was a bit frantic, his thrusts becoming less and less controlled. “Want me to come on your back like always?” His voice cracked a couple of times as he kept moving.

Surprisingly, Changbin shook his head. “N-no,” he whined, “inside. Come inside me.”

“Really?” Jisung knitted his brows in confusion. That was something they had never done before, and the idea made his stomach flip. “If you’re being serious, I need to know, Bin.” He panted once before Changbin nodded his head.

“Just fucking come inside of me,” the brunette whined, “I’m so close and it’ll—”

Before Changbin could finish his statement, Jisung doubled over and let out a shuddering moan. He kept pumping the cock in his hand, but his movements were disjointed. Changbin shakily reached between his legs, wrapping his hand around Jisung’s, helping the younger man finish him off.

It took maybe two strokes before Changbin came on to his sheets. They would have to clean the sheets later, but that was fine. Hell, they could just sleep in Jisung’s bed, if they were really that out of it. Feeling the sticky, sweaty weight of Jisung atop him was worth it. They awkwardly laid there for a few moments, catching their breath.

“Hey, Jisung?”

“What is it, Bin?”

“No more fucking dares. At least,” Changbin sighed and rolled his eyes, “think them through before accepting them first, yeah?”

Jisung smiled, planting a kiss between Changbin’s shoulder blades. “I’ll consider it. No guarantees, though.”

“You just want me to keep fucking you after you complete a dare, don’t you?”

“Technically,” the younger man shrugged as he shakily rose to his knees, “I fucked you this time. But yeah, I want you to keep doing that. I wanna keep this up.”

“You’re so fucking dumb.” Changbin pushed himself up by his palms, his arms trembling a bit from all of the activity.

Jisung looked down at Changbin before pulling the older man back by the shoulders. “Yeah, but you like that about me.” Changbin opened his mouth to protest, but found his lips locked with the younger man. The energy between them as they kissed was different than their usual kisses. This was needier, more intimate and felt special compared to the others.

The older man broke away from the kiss first, for just a moment, looking down, then back up to make eye contact with the younger man. “I don’t want you to date anyone else.”

“What?” Jisung pulled back, blinking rapidly.

Changbin rolled his eyes, his expression softening. “You’re so dense, Sungie. We should be exclusive.”

Jisung shook his head. “No, no, I get that.” He smiled, awkwardly giggling at the same time. “I just never thought you’d be so cute about it.”

The brunette gritted his teeth and his expression fell into a scowl. “Don’t call me cute.”

“Fuck you,” Jisung laughed. “If you wanna actually date me, then get used to it.”

“You know what?” Changbin shifted his position a bit, letting Jisung’s cock fall out of him and cum drip down his legs as he turned. He grabbed the younger man by the shoulders and pinned him down to the bed. “Maybe I just will.”

They exchanged playful smirks with one another before they connected their lips together once more, kissing each other a bit more tenderly than they usually did.

“The boyfriend instead of the roommate,” Jisung quipped, bringing his hands up to Changbin’s face. “I like the sound of that.”

Changbin pushed a soft kiss to Jisung’s lips before pulling back with a smile. “Me too.”

[stormcrawler75]

Taking a Different Path (No Matter How Different the Path) Chapter 4

Summary: In the past, the four escaped subjects raid Walmart for food and clothes. In the present, Roman deals with his brother's decision to go to College. Warnings: Mentions of stun guns and mentions of eating disorders.

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January 4, 2001 2:19 AM

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Logan looked the grocery store door up and nodded before giving Patton a firm nod. "Give me the babies," he ordered, holding out his arms. "You'll most likely need your full concentration for this."

"I don't know about this, Lolo," Patton said hesitantly as he passed the two sleeping babies over to Logan, who held them only semi-awkwardly. "The Doctors said that stealing was bad."

"They said that because they didn't want us to take extra food when it was in arm's reach," Logan explained with a sigh. "Something we did several times. It didn't bother you then."

Patton pouted at him and stomped his foot. "That was different! We were starving then-"

Logan arched an eyebrow and glanced down at the babies. "And they are starving now," he pointed out. And he was right. Other than stolen bottles of water, a banana, and a bottle of newborn milk stolen from an actual newborn, none of them had had a single thing to eat. And it was showing. Roman had lost some of his chub and the unnamed baby was a lot smaller than he should be. "They won't survive much longer without food," Logan said to Patton softly. "I know you don't like this but we need to do it."

The two of them stared at each other for a long moment before Patton fixed his jaw and turned to the store's door, holding out his hands and squeezing his eyes shut. Logan didn't look away from Patton, not even when he heard metal doors squeaked and strain as they were pried open. He worried for a moment that the noise would wake the babies but, very luckily, they remained quiet the entire time.

Patton gasped for breath when he stopped, doubling over and supporting himself against his knees. "D-did I do it?"

"You sure did," Logan said proudly, looking at the doors with a bright smile on his face. The metal doors had been pried open, leaving a nice sized hole for them to walk through. "You did amazingly, Patton. But-"

"I'm not done yet," Patton finished, wiping his forehead. He smiled at Logan tiredly. "Wait here. I'll be out in a little bit" Patton slipped inside the Walmart, leaving Logan standing outside with two very small and hungry babies in his arms.

Logan sighed and looked around nervously. He felt so vulnerable out in the parking lot without Patton watching his back. Doctors could be watching them from anywhere with stun guns waiting at their sides. Guards could be on their way over here to drag them all back to the Hospital with the Doctors waiting there to rechip them. He swallowed and pushed back those thoughts. They would do nothing to help anything right now. 

But, perhaps stepping into the shadows a little more would help.

"I am very glad that the two of you are asleep right now," Logan whispered, looking up at the moon. It was so beautiful when not looked at through a barred window. "The two of you would find this very upsetting. But it'll be alright. We will be getting you both some food right now. And something to carry you in." He smiled down at them gently. "And a book of names too. We need to find you a proper name, little one," he told the unnamed baby softly.

The response he got from the baby was nothing but a little grunt. Logan sighed. From his experience these last few days, grunts meant only one thing. He really hoped that this store had more diapers in it. 

He startled when Patton poked his head out of the hole in the door. His friend's face was drenched with sweat but he had a bright grin on his face. "Finished," Patton chirped. "Got all the cameras crushed into little balls and the people putting the things away knocked out!" He skipped out of the hole and held out his arms demandingly. "Now gimme one of the cuties! I'll get the diapers and carrier bags and you get some food Then we can both find some clothes for ourselves. 'kay, 'kay?"

 "Of course," Logan agreed. He passed Roman over to Patton and sighed in relief at being relieved of the extra weight. "We need backpacks too."

Patton nodded. "Got it!" He walked back inside and disappeared into the aisles. Logan took a deep breath and looked back down to the baby, just in time to see the baby's eyes open seconds before tired and hungry cries started up.

"Shhh, shhh," Logan cooed, rocking him back and forth as he walked inside. He grabbed a cart and awkwardly started to push it with one hand. "We're getting you food now, little one." He squinted up at the signs. His glasses had gotten chipped in the escape making it even harder to read than normal. But eventually, he found the aisle with all the baby food. 

There were so many different kinds.

Logan ended up grabbing plenty of the little jars with mashed foods inside, about ten boxes with bottles of something called "powered formula", newborn food, inside, and some little biscuits for Roman to chew on. Roman liked to chew on things ever since his teeth started to grow in. He also grabbed a sippy cup for Roman and a baby bottle for the baby.

Logan immediately broke the box full of formula opened and poured one of the bottles inside the baby bottle. He firmly put the top on and held it to the baby's mouth. "Come on then," he said gently. "I know it's cold but you gotta drink it."

It seemed that the baby didn't need the encouragement. Almost immediately, the baby latched onto the bottle and started to drink. Logan sighed in relief and paused, resting against the cart and smiling tiredly at his small burden. "There we are," he whispered. "I told you that I'd find a way for you to survive."

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January 13, 2020 1:02 PM

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Roman stared out his window with a sad expression on his face. His right wing was stretched out in front of him and he was slowly grooming it. His feathers had been puffing up so much lately that it was making it harder and harder to groom. And Roman knew that it was completely, totally, one hundred percent, his own damn fault.

Really, Roman should know better than to forget to groom his wings. Wing care was super important! How could he please Icarus' adoring fans with puffy feathers?! It just wouldn't do!

Before, Virgil would help groom Roman's wings but since Virgil was off to stupid College, Roman had to do it all by himself. 

College. Who even cared about something as stupid as College? College was dumb and stupid and you didn't learn anything important at College. Roman thought that College was the stupidest thing that his baby brother could've thought of.

His gave drifted over to the stolen Arts College poster he had ripped from a wall on one of his daily flights. His mood turned melancholy as he took in the picture of the man standing on a stage with roses littered around him. 'Yeah,' Roman thought with an air of jealousy that was somehow both general and directly pointed at Virgil. 'College is so stupid.'

Who cared that Virgil was going off to make new friends and leave his older brother behind? His older brother that was stuck inside all day except for when he was in costume? Roman certainly didn't care. And it didn't matter that Virgil was going off to be a terrific vet and start his own life. Roman had his own life. He didn't need his emo younger brother.

Roman sighed and flopped back on his canopy bed. "Who am I kidding," he muttered. Sadly, there was no answer to his open question. Rude. And before he realized what he was doing, Roman had his phone in his hands and was staring at Virgil's number.

He had made such an ass of himself these past few days. Going on live TV and telling everyone that there was going to be a new member of their team. Roman wasn't an idiot. Virgil was just as stubborn as him and wouldn't turn his back on stupid College, not now. All Roman did was make a complete fool of himself and got embarrassed by Logan carrying him off. And then sending that text this morning?! Ugh, no wonder Virgil stayed away from him! His older brother was the world's biggest drama Queen in the world!

But... if he admitted that he was wrong then he'd have to admit why and... Roman didn't think he could stand the pitiful looks from his normal looking brothers. It would just be too awful. And Roman would probably start crying and there was nothing worse than running eyeshadow.

Roman tossed the phone across the room. 

He sighed and turned onto his side, pulling his laptop over to him and pulling up his blog. He posted:

[Does anyone else get having something about you that draws so much attention and you love it? But you also hate that it draws so much damn attention?]

Roman sighed and rested his chin on his hand. This computer was the only normal interaction he got outside his brothers. And he really did love his brothers! He adored them! Patton was so supportive and he was finally gaining some more weight! Roman was so proud of him for eating more than he had before. He didn't think he had ever been so proud of his older brother than he had been when he saw a bit of chub on Patton's stomach at morning training. The morning training that his baby brother wasn't at.

Annnnnnnnnnnnd, welcome back bad mood! How good to see you again!

Roman pushed those awful feelings back and reminded himself to ask Logan to make him some hot chocolate. Logan made the best hot chocolate ever, even if he sometimes didn't mix the power all the way through. It was the thought that counted!

Just when Roman could almost taste that powerdy hot chocolate on his lips, his feathers bristled and he froze. He sat up clumsily and looked around wildly. The windows were closed and the door was locked shut. Roman shivered a little. For some reason, he felt like he was being watched.

Roman forced himself to stand up, his feathers puffed up behind him, and walk over to the window. He looked around nervously and couldn't seem to calm down even when he didn't see a single person outside. 'It was just a bird,' he tried to convince himself. 'Everything's fine.'

But even so, Roman drew the curtains closed. Like Logan always said, it was better safe than sorry. You never knew who was watching.

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

The Many Deaths of Fabian Cortez

Once again, @thecorteztwins inspired me to write something stupid about Fabian, featuring his many deaths and resurrections on Krakoa as he annoys every woman on the island.

Warnings for the usual level of Fabian-style sexual harassment and groping.  A couple of the deaths are gruesome, but nothing described in much detail.  One of the deaths got a little more angsty than funny, sorry about that.  Also sorry for any continuity mishaps, I’m not familiar with a few of the characters in here.  I characterized Chrome and Delgado based on thecorteztwin’s headcanons for the personalities.  Under a read-more, because this sucker wound up long. 

The first time it happened was when Fabian made the monumental mistake of flirting with Selene.  He’d already been trying his luck (meaning “pestering and in some cases straight- up assaulting”) with some of the gentler, less violent mutants. Dr. Cecilia Reyes simply covered her body with a forcefield when he attempted to grope her, then pushed him aside when he persisted.  Wallflower used her pheromones to induce a jolt of fear that sent him scurrying away. Sooraya shifted into a cloud of dust and reformed on the other side of the island after Fabian commented that it was a waste for a beautiful woman like her to cover herself completely (Icarus promptly punched Fabian in the nose to “discourage” him from trying again). Meggan played dumb blonde and asked Fabian to explain, several times, what exactly he meant by “Does the carpet match the drapes?”  She finally flew off when he failed to recognize the obvious brush-off.  

           So Fabian was brimming with unearned confidence – because the women’s non-homicidal attempts to rebuff him had been, in his mind, “playing hard to get” – when he decided to approach the former Black Queen.

           “Well, it’s your funeral, man,” Dominic said, lifting a beer as if to toast him.

           “Because she’ll literally fuck me to death, you mean?  Not to worry!  I’ve got incredible stamina and a very healthy heart.”

           “Don’t listen to him, mate, go for it.  Tell her about how you’re the ‘true pinnacle of homo-superior,’ she’ll be real impressed.”  St. John couldn’t finish the sentence without snickering.

           “It…seems like a bad idea,” said Simon nervously.  He hadn’t really intended to fall in with the bad guys, especially since he’d been trying to prove himself as an X-Man, but the original Pyro had immediately glommed onto him with a pushy, aggressive friendliness. And he supposed they weren’t really doing anything wrong just sitting around drinking and swapping stories.  It was better than awkward run-ins with Iceman, who was trying to pretend that the two of them hadn’t banged.    

           “Shush, Baby Pyro.  Let the man do his thing,” St. John said, tossing back another Jack and Coke.

           “Please don’t call me that,” Simon muttered.

           “Yes, I shall now ‘do my thing,’ as you so eloquently put it.  Try not to eat your own hearts out with jealousy when she falls into my arms,” Fabian said as he swaggered off.

           “She’s gonna eat his heart.  Literally,” Dominic grunted.  “Why are you even encouraging this, Johnny?”

           “Because it’ll be hilarious, and there’s fuck all to do on this island. I’m about ready to start writing again, I’m so bored.”  

           “Ugh, don’t expect me to help edit if you’re gonna start in with more of that Harlequin romance crap –“

           “You are literally the last person I’d ask to help edit, you illiterate wanker – “

           “Hey guys, I think he’s making his move.”  Simon pointed across the way, interrupting the quarrel.  (Simon had already recognized that original Pyro and Avalanche bickered like an old married couple, and drawn his own conclusions about that.)  Fabian was trying to casually lean against a tree while chatting up Selene, but had misjudged the distance, and was now stuck in a weird diagonal slant.  He made a vain attempt to compensate by pushing off the tree in a series of awkward, one-handed push-ups, while flexing his other arm.  Selene stood with her arms crossed like a very sexy, very terrifying statue.

           “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen,” Dominic snorted.

           “This is bloody brilliant, it is.  I’m absolutely putting this in my next book.”

           “It’s gonna be a comedy, then?”

           Fabian had stopped the push-ups, and was now gesturing at Selene, then back at himself.  He ran a hand down his chest and abdomen in what he probably assumed was an alluring manner.  Selene hadn’t moved, but something in her posture seemed tenser than before.  Simon thought he could see a vein standing out in her forehead.

           “Wish we could actually hear him,” St. John remarked.

           “I like him better when he’s out of earshot,” Dominic responded.

           “You almost gotta admire him, in a way, haven’t ya?  I mean, the sheer bollocks on the man to walk up to the Black Queen and try to put the moves on her.  Most men’s dicks would just shrivel up in fear.”

           “Is it really brave if he’s too stupid to be scared?”  Dominic crushed his empty beer can and pulled out two more, tossing one across to Simon.

           “Yeah,” Simon put in.  “It’s kinda like jumping the fence at the zoo and trying to pet a lion.”  The sense of camaraderie was making him feel more at ease. The alcohol helped, too.

           “See, Other Pryo agrees with me.”

           “Please don’t call me that, either.”

           Across the way, Fabian gestured again at Selene, then cupped his hands and twisted them around in an obviously lewd gesture.  Selene finally broke her stance, grabbing Fabian by the front of his shirt and pulling him forward into a passionate kiss.

           There was a collective gasp from the three mutants watching.

           Then, a dark energy crackled over the two embracing.  Fabian’s eyes widened in fear, and he attempted to pull away, but Selene put her hands on the back of his head and forced his mouth down onto hers. The blackness rippled across Fabian, then drained into Selene, who seemed to stand taller and stronger while Fabian’s muscular body withered in her arms.  Soon there was nothing left but a desiccated corpse, which Selene contemptuously tossed aside, wiping her mouth and looking like she’d just enjoyed a full meal.

           “Alright, Dom and Baby Pryo.  You’re both right.  The tosser is just too dumb to live,” St. John conceded.  

             The second incident showed that Fabian had not learned any kind of lesson at all from his experience with Selene, as he decided to proposition Mystique. The exotic blue skin, contrasting with her fiery red hair and revealing white costume – how could any man resist? And why would she dress in such a way if she didn’t long for male attention?  Her cold, aloof temperament added to the appeal, with an exciting hint of danger.  (Of course, for most would-be suitors, it was significantly more than a “hint” of danger. But Fabian was never one to notice things that didn’t fit into his world view.  As far as he was concerned, she only needed the right man – himself – and she would melt into his arms like a delicate snowflake.)  

           She presented a particularly dangerous picture as Fabian approached, cleaning and oiling the guns that she had spread along the table.  Sitting across from her, Toad was absorbed in his Nintendo Switch, waiting for her to finish so that they could start planning the next mission.  He’d earned some downtime, and was determined to get in a little practice so that Doug Ramsey wouldn’t destroy him at the next Smash Brothers game.  Again.

           “Mystique.  Why is a beautiful woman like yourself doing such base manual labor?”  Fabian slid into the seat next to her.  “Why not leave it to him?”  He gestured across the table at Toad, who briefly looked up from his game to scowl back.

           “No one touches my guns except me.”  Mystique did not look up from her work.  “What do you want, Cortez?”

           “Just to spend a little time with you, so that we could get to know each other better.”

           “If you don’t have anything interesting to say then stop wasting my time.”

           “I have many, many interesting things to say to you.  But perhaps it would be easier if we had some privacy. If the third wheel sitting across from us would possibly take a hint?”

           “Stay, Toad,” Mystique insisted.

           Toad nodded.  He wasn’t really paying attention to the game anymore, as he couldn’t resist sneaking up glances to watch Cortez be inevitably put in his place.  He felt a little bad about it – indulging in that kind of schadenfreude was an unhealthy habit of his from back in the early days of the Brotherhood.  He had so desperately wanted Magneto to love him, and he’d spent so much of his life as the unwanted, outcast butt of every joke.  It gave him a thrill of glee to see someone else get in trouble for once.    

           “If that is your wish, Mystique, I will allow it.  But you may prefer that we move this someplace more private once the conversation becomes more….intimate.”  He reached out to brush a hand against Mystique’s cheek, and she jerked away, looking up at him for the first time.

           “What is this actually about, Cortez?  Do you have information or some kind of plan in mind?  I know you’re a devious little shit and I can respect that, but cut to the chase.”

           “Very direct!  I like it. I love it when a woman takes charge.” At least as long as her “taking charge” happened to coincide directly with Fabian’s own desires and fantasies. “My ‘plan,’ as you so delightfully put it, is simple.  You. Me.  Enjoying each other’s bodies and experiencing pleasure that you couldn’t possibly imagine.  We could find a bedroom, or a secluded spot on the beach –“

           “Are you fucking kidding me?”  Mystique snapped.  “I thought you had something I could use, but you’re just hitting on me?”

           “And why not?”  Fabian stood up, spreading his arms wide to better show off his muscular chest.  “Am I not incredibly attractive?”

           “You’re making a huge mistake,” Toad warned, now openly watching the scene with his chin resting on one hand.  “I’d back off while you still can.”

           “I didn’t ask you,” Fabian said coldly.  “And pull your tongue back into your mouth, you repulsive creature. She’s probably too disgusted by the sight of you to respond to my advances.”

           Toad slurped his tongue back up out of sight, tucking the excess into his cheek, which now burned with embarrassment.  The long tongue had been a later mutation, and he’d never quite gotten used to it. Keeping it all inside made his mouth feel uncomfortably full, and it often lolled out without his noticing. But he was all too aware that others found it disgusting.

           “You’re far more repulsive than Toad could ever be,” Mystique said, standing up to face Fabian with her arms crossed.  Toad felt a small spot of warmth blossom in his chest.  He certainly didn’t feel bad anymore about watching Fabian get what was coming to him.    

“Understand, because I’ll only say this once,” Mystique continued.  “I am not, and will never be attracted to you.  I do not desire you or your company in any way – sexually, romantically, platonically.  Do not speak to me again unless you have something relevant to say.”

Fabian seemed taken aback for a moment, then he grinned.

“So, you’re saying that you’re only going to refuse me once?  I get it, you like a man who persists, who makes you feel that you are worth fighting for.  I won’t make you say it again.”  He put his hands on her shoulders and leaned in for a kiss.  His lips never touched hers – instead, Mystique’s hands moved rapidly, and there was a sharp cracking sound as Fabian’s head wound up facing the wrong way on his body.  He dropped to the floor.  The whole thing happened too quickly for him to even register surprise, so his now slack face, with eyes glazed over, still held some hint of hopeful anticipation.

           “Wow, that was…sudden,” Toad muttered, his tongue slipping out again. Mystique just looked at him, one eyebrow raised.  

           Toad shrugged back at her.  “I mean, you did warn him.”

           “If anyone asks, he tried to take one of the guns.”  Mystique was absolutely not in the mood for an Xavier lecture, it was even worse than a Magneto lecture.

           “Agreed.”  Toad nodded.  

              The third time, Fabian made what he believed was an entirely innocent gesture.  He saw a lovely ass, barely covered in tight black booty shorts, and he gave it the playful slap that such an ass invited.  

           Obviously, his first mistake was in assuming that clothing was an invitation for touching, and that he had a right to put his hands on anyone’s body.

          His second, and ultimately more important mistake, was that the ass in question belonged to Illyana Rasputin.

           Illyana whirled around at the touch, and her eyes narrowed.  Whatever pick-up lines Fabian had planned shriveled and died on his tongue as her piercing blue eyes seemed to stare directly into his soul. A chill ran through his entire body, and he shuddered involuntarily.  For once, Fabian was immediately aware that he had gotten in over his head.  This was no woman, it was a demon wrapped in a beautiful body, meant to lure in innocent men like him.

           The she-demon reached out a hand, and said a single word.

           “Limbo.”

           The word seemed to echo in Fabian’s ears as the ground melted away below his feet, and he dropped into a glowing circle.

           Later, Illyana would claim that she had only intended to teleport him across the island, far away from her.  It was a complete mistake that Fabian had somehow wound up stranded in Limbo, and torn apart by demons.  And hey, that wasn’t her fault, right?

             The fourth time, Fabian had retreated back to familiar ground – his own beloved Acolytes.  He’d led the group for so long, and served under Exodus (despite the man being painfully unfit and incompetent), so surely they’d all welcome him with open arms. And there was his own dear sister, resurrected at last.

           Unfortunately, Anne Marie was a bit miffed at him for the events that had led up to her death, which Fabian thought was rather unreasonable.  It was so long ago, Fabian could barely even remember it. Who could really say anymore who betrayed who, or who caused Asteroid M to crash?  The important thing was that it all ultimately came down to Magneto’s poor leadership.  Anne Marie didn’t quite see it that way.  She directed an icy glare at him whenever he ventured into the compound that most of the resurrected Acolytes had chosen to share.

           “Anne Marie, have I mentioned recently how happy I am to see you returned to us?”  

           “Chrome, please tell my brother that I am not speaking with him.”

           “Fabian, Anne Marie says – “  Chrome began in a deadpan.

           “Yes, yes, I heard her,” Fabian hissed.  His sister’s stubborn hostility hurt him more than he expected, although he was used to her being childish and willful, having grown up together.  He hadn’t actually intended for her to die all those years ago; he hadn’t imagined she’d be so stubborn as to stay by Magneto’s side until the end.  

           “Look, Anne Marie, things were complicated back then.  I had a plan –“

           “Chrome, please tell my brother to stop making excuses for his despicable betrayal of Lord Magneto.”

           “Fabian, Anne Marie says –“

           “Chrome, why are you participating in this immature nonsense?”  Fabian snapped.  

           “Because it amuses me, and I like her better than you.”  Chrome was blunt as always.

           “Fine,” Fabian sighed.  “But let me remind everyone that we’ve all been reborn on this island to start fresh, all sins forgiven.  Why don’t we let the past stay in the past?  I mean, I’ve died several times now, I don’t know why you’re all making such a big deal out of it.  And Magneto is alive, anyway.  He’s alive and thriving, so no harm done.”

           “Disagree,” Delgado muttered, from the corner by the window.  He was staring longingly out at the trees and sunshine, but unwilling to leave his team-mates alone with this snake.

           “Why are you even here, Cortez?  Are you recruiting for your stupid harem again, or are you going to try to replace Exodus.  Because you must know neither of those things are ever going to happen,” Frenzy spoke up from the table, where she and Unuscione were splitting a bottle of wine.

           “You say ‘start fresh,’ but you’re the same as ever,” Unuscione added.  “You never change, Cortez.”  

           “Why should I change when I am so magnificent?  Perfection itself!”  Fabian exclaimed, although his enthusiasm withered a little under his sister’s glare.

           “I have rarely met anyone so completely and utterly wrong,” Chrome snorted. Fabian paid him the generous favor of ignoring him.

           “Rest assured, I am not here to reclaim my rightful place of leadership. Although I’m not sure why you all wouldn’t want that.  Someone has to take charge.  Magneto is running the island with Xavier, and Exodus has abandoned you all to go tell stories to children.”  

           “So, it’s the harem, thing, then?” demanded Frenzy.  “It’s always one or the other.”

           “My friends, can’t I just visit you all out of the goodness of my heart?”

           ‘That has never happened,” Chrome pointed out.

           “Ever,” Delgado added, quite unnecessarily, Fabian thought.

           “Loooook,’ he adopted a soothing tone.  “I just think that we should all start thinking about the future.  After all, we’re going to be living out our lives here.  And eventually, we’ll no doubt start forming family units.  It’s only natural.  And one of the rules of Krakoa is to make more mutants, after all.”

           “Wow, there it is,” put in Unuscione.  “I knew you’d get there eventually.”

           “I think we need to sort this out early, so that it doesn’t get…messy later on,” Fabian continued.  “After all, I’m only one man, and there are only so many hours in the day.  We don’t want fights breaking out.”

           “Oh my god, will you just leave?” Frenzy exclaimed.  “We don’t want you around.”

           “Now, now, don’t get excited.  I know you deny your feelings because you don’t think you’re worthy, but I assure you, I find you extremely worthy.  You and Unuscione both.”

           Unuscione jumped up from the table at this point, forcefield spreading across her body, but Frenzy put an arm in front of her.

           “The other mutants already think we’re violent trouble makers,” she said. “Let’s not prove them right.”  

           “Yeah, but….it’s Fabian.”  Unuscione gestured at Cortez as if his very existence explained everything.

           “I know.  Let’s finish this wine and then go burn him in effigy.”  

           “I like the way you think.”

           “So……”  Fabian folded his arms, giving a long-suffering sigh.  “No one is willing to help propogate the mutant race with me, despite my obvious superiority in all respects?  And all because you’re all holding a grudge over a few tiny little mistakes in the past, that weren’t even really mistakes, just part of a long-term plan – “

           Fabian was interrupted by a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. He heard Delgado call out his sister’s name, and whirled around.  He didn’t quite complete the turn, as the wine bottle was snatched up off the table and shattered against his temple.  

           Fabian collapsed amid a spray of red wine and broken glass.  His vision rapidly fading, he looked up to see his sister standing over him, holding the end of the broken bottle, her face contorted with rage.

           “You are not forgiven,’ she whispered, and then both sight and sound faded as he slipped away.

           “Hey, we were drinking that,” said Frenzy, although her annoyance faded as she looked up to see Anne Marie starting to shake, tears spilling out of her eyes as she dropped the bottle.  “Um, hey….you okay, hon?”

           “It’s okay, Anne.  He had it coming.  And they’ll just bring him back next ceremony anyway,” Unuscione said.

           “We’ll take it from here,” said Chrome, as he and Delgado came to stand on either side of Anne Marie, gently taking her arms.  She looked at both of them with a dazed expression, and then down again at her brother, the tears continuing to drip down her cheeks.  

           “Come with us, Anne Marie.  Outside. You’ll feel better,” said Delgado. The two former Acolytes led Anne Marie outside, and they sat together for a long time under the trees, quietly watching the birds

.  

                 The fifth time it happened, Fabian had learned a few lessons, and decided to approach some meek, sweet-natured mutants again.  Which is why he was sitting next to Marie-Ange Colbert, the former Hellion known as Tarot, with his arm draped presumptuously around her shoulders.  The way she seemed to quietly shrink away did not bother him.  Obviously she was just shy.  The sense of innocence and vulnerability was very attractive. Someone sweet and kind was exactly what he needed after the pain of his sister’s betrayal.  He couldn’t get Anne Marie’s face out of his mind, so twisted with hatred.  He shoved the image aside, and focused on the beautiful girl in front of him.    

           “I’m sorry, Monsieur Cortez, but our destinies are not in any way entwined. The cards are not favorable,” Tarot said.  She attempted to shrug off his arm, but he pulled her in closer.

“Your superstitions are adorable, my dear girl,” he purred.  She seemed so lovely and pliant.  He’d tried approaching the exotic one with the tail and lavender hair, but she’d hissed at him in a way that was really unbecoming, then run off into the woods.  “But we mustn’t let them stand in the way of true love.  Imagine the possibilities of the two of us together!”

           Tarot turned slightly green as she unintentionally imagined it.  

           “Hey, that’s enough.  She’s not interested, and you need to take your hands off her.  Now.”  James Proudstar stood in front of the pair, scowling down at Fabian.  Although he no longer considered himself a proper “Hellion,” he still felt some responsibility to watch over his resurrected team-mates on Krakoa.  His fierce expression and massive bulk would make anyone with common sense hesitate – but Fabian was not known for his common sense.

           “We are having a private conversation,” he said smugly.  “If the lady is not interested, she can tell me that herself.”

           “I’m not.”  Marie said firmly.

           “My dear, you play hard to get.  Why don’t you say it like you really mean it?”

           “She’s not interested.  Now back off.”  Jetstream joined his team-mate towering over the pair.  Two other Hellions – the muscular Beef and electro-powered Bevatron came up behind them in a show of support.    

           Sitting off to one side, Empath watched the proceedings with a quiet smirk, enjoying simply being able to watch things again. On Krakoa he’d fallen in with his formerly deceased team-mates largely out of familiarity.  Given that people like Selene, Mr. Sinister and Apocalypse had been invited to the island, his own comparatively minor crimes were largely forgotten.  He hadn’t really changed at his core – he was still a cruel, narcissistic bastard who enjoyed the suffering of others.  But his time spent blind had humbled him and taught him an important lesson – to shut up and stay under the radar.  It was nice to see the group united in hating someone that wasn’t him.

           “And what will you do if I don’t, as you so crudely put it, ‘back off’?  There is a proscription against violence on this island, as you all well know.”

           “No, the rule is we’re not allowed to kill humans,” James corrected. “Mutants can always be brought back.” Manuel nodded in agreement.  Amara had burned him to ash a couple of times before declaring a kind of “truce” in which he agreed to never speak to her again and she agreed to stop killing him.

           “Yes, yes, but we are discouraged from starting meaningless fights,” Fabian pressed.  “We don’t want to disrespect the island by wasting precious resources.”  Mutants killing mutants wasn’t technically against the rules, but the killer had to explain their reasons.  A mutant who killed too frequently and easily would be put in a brief “time-out”: imprisoned within the island itself like the mutants who killed humans, but for a much shorter time.  They had to have some deterrent, or else old grudges, plus the villains living among them, plus the cathartic ability to murder without consequences would quickly turn the island into a bloodbath.

           “That doesn’t seem to stop you from getting killed.  Over and over again,” Haroun pointed out.  “Even more than de la Rocha, somehow.”  

           “Yes, we are getting really tired of watching you come back in the resurrection ceremony,” Bevatron agreed.  “It is supposed to be a sacred ritual.  It kind of – how you say? – ruins the magic.”

           “We’re all gonna have to watch it again if he doesn’t take his arm off Tarot right now,” Beef said, cracking his knuckles ominously.    

           “Are you all really threatening me?” Fabian sputtered self-righteously.  “Just because I dare to love?”

           “There is no love!”  Tarot finally snapped, flinging his arm aside and standing up, putting some distance between them.  “I want you to leave me alone.  Right now.”

           “My poor, dear girl.  You are confused by your team-mates’ lack of respect and understanding.”

           “She’s not confused, she’s rejecting you.  Take a hint, jerk.”  Roulette walked up to join the group glowering down at Fabian.  She had waves of blond hair and fuller curves than the slim Tarot, and Fabian felt his desire stir for this one as well.  So many worthy mutant women on the island.  The fact that he didn’t have a harem assembled already was proof that the universe was a cold, indifferent place with no sense of justice.  And certainly not because he was doing anything wrong.  Anne Marie’s face flashed up again, and he shook his head to clear it, gazing again at the blond.  

           “Such harsh words from such a lovely vision of a woman.  Don’t be jealous, there is room in Fabian’s heart for both of you.”

           “That’s it –“  Beef started to step forward, but Roulette put a hand against his chest.

           “No need to start a fight,” she said, summoning a glowing black disc into her hand.  “We’ll just give this ass a healthy dose of bad luck to encourage him to back off.” She tossed the disc at Fabian, who attempted to catch it, only to have it disappear within his hand.  

           “Sorry, was that supposed to harm me in some way?”  Fabian scoffed.  He stood up, arms extended.  “As you can see, I’m fi-“

           He was cut off as he stepped on the end of his cape, and staggered backward, falling over the bench that he and Tarot had been sitting on.  As his feet kicked up, one of his boots flew up into the air, hitting a tree branch that had been weakened by rot.  The branch came crashing down.  Fabian gasped and rolled away at the last second.  Unfortunately, his trajectory took him right across a nest of fire ants, and he had only a moment’s respite before they came boiling out of the ground, stinging enthusiastically.  He leaped to his feet, shrieking and batting at his clothing, running in a blind panic.  His cape snagged on a tree branch, and yanked him back off his feet, his head slamming down on a rock.  Then everything was quiet for a moment, Fabian limp and still on the ground.  

           Jenny burst out laughing, while Tarot had her hands clasped over her mouth in shock.  James walked over and gingerly nudged Fabian with his foot.  

           “Wow, Jenny, you killed him.”  

           “Oh my god, I didn’t mean….”  Jenny gasped between bouts of laughter.  “I mean, that was amazing, but I really didn’t mean to kill him.  But that was amazing, wasn’t it?”

           “Oh dear,” Tarot sighed.  “We will have to explain this.”

           “Ugh, I don’t want another Xavier lecture.  He’s such a self-righteous prick,” Jenny scowled.  Then her eyes fell on Fabian’s discarded boot, and she began laughing again.

           “I’m sorry guys, it’s just…it was like a cartoon.  Totally worth it.”

           “It was an accident,” Haroun asserted.  “We all saw it.  You were just trying to drive him away and protect Marie.  We’ll back you up.”

           “Don’t worry, Roulette, I caught it all on video,” Empath announced, pressing a few buttons on his phone.  “Aaaaaaaand it’s up on Youtube now.”

           “Manuel, no!”  James scolded.

           “Manuel, yes!” Haroun countered.  “Let the whole internet see that bastard’s humiliation!”

           “Hey, look at all the hits already!  This is going viral, Jenny,” Manuel said, turning the phone towards her.

           “Oh wow!  I’m gonna be a Youtube star!  We’ve gotta find a way to monetize this!”  Jenny gushed.

           Meanwhile, deep in the forest, oblivious to the recent events, a lavender cat and a russet wolf slept curled up against each other in a contented pile of fur.  

             The sixth time, Fabian didn’t even manage to stay alive for ten minutes.  He noticed, as he came out of the pod naked and dripping, that many of his fellow Upstarts seemed to be getting brought back at the same time.  

           “What happened to you?” he demanded of Shinobi Shaw, who was facing the crowd with no shame about his nudity.  Probably enjoyed giving them a show (and flashing his own father), as did Fabian himself.  One silver lining of his frequent deaths was that the mutants gathered for the ceremony got to see his glorious physical perfection.

         “Orgy went wrong,” Shinobi said with a smirk.  “Never try to have an orgy in a cave that floods at high tide.”  

           “You couldn’t just leave?  Also, why did no one invite me?”

           “We were way too involved to just get up and leave when the tides started coming in.  Some people were in very elaborate restraints.  Including me.  Also, we were all pretty wasted.  We’re the whole reason Storm is giving a speech right now about being responsible and how our lives are precious resources not to be wasted.  Blah, blah blah.”  Most people would be embarrassed about drowning in a drunken orgy, but Shinobi seemed to hold it as a badge of honor.

           “Why wasn’t I invited?”  Fabian demanded again.  “I mean, look at me!”  

           “It was just kind of a small-scale thing, really,” Shinobi began, as more mutants emerged from the pods.  “Just a few of us.”

           “Wait, are those the Marauders?”  Fabian asked, looking at the newly resurrected mutants.  “Did you invite the Marauders and not me?”

           “Oh, no,” Shinobi assured him glibly.  “I’m sure they all died at the same time for unrelated reasons. Sinister’s always cloning them, anyway, he probably just wanted an upgrade.”

           “Hey, Shinobi!  Great orgy!” Riptide waved from across the way. “You are absolutely the blow job king, my friend, I concede the title.”

           “Okay, maybe a few Marauders got invited.  C’mon, some of them are pretty hot.”

           “Shinobi, loved the orgy,” called Arclight.  “Let’s do it somewhere less lethal next time.”

           “Nah, it’s not a good orgy unless a few people die,” put in Scalphunter. “Makes it more exciting.”

           “Are you kidding me?” Fabian exclaimed.  “All of the Marauders and not me?  Have you not seen this?”  He gestured down at his crotch.  

           “Oh, I’ve seen it.”  Shinobi smirked again, not even having the decency to look sheepish for all his lies. “It’s very impressive, but women don’t seem to like the way you use it.  And you don’t seem willing to let me touch it.”  

           “I don’t swing that way,” Fabian said, although an image of Quicksilver popped up in his head for some bizarre reason.  “And what do you mean women don’t like the way I use it?”

        ��  “Let’s just say I’ve…heard some complaints,” Shinobi said.  

           “Okay, you know what?  Let’s do this whole orgy thing over again,” Fabian declared.  Seeing the nude women around him was already sending blood down to a certain area, and lust was amplified by a frustrated anger.  “We’re already naked, let’s start now.  And then we’ll see who has complaints!”

           “Much as I love the idea of giving the crowd a show, I think you’re jumping the gun a little here, Cortez,” Shinobi said as Fabian marched over to the nearest pod where a woman was emerging.  He pulled her up against his body, and found himself staring into the eyes of Siena Blaze.

           “Heard I missed the orgy.  I’m sure you were incredibly disappointed.  Let me make it up to you, right now.”

           “Let go of me, Cortez,” Blaze ordered, trying to pull out of his grip. He held her closer.

           “Don’t be shy.  We’ll give the crowd a show they’ll never forget.”

           “-look well, mutants.  Once again, your own have been brought back to you.  See them and rejoice, for – oh, by the Goddess!” Storm exclaimed, as her speech was interrupted by a piercing scream and a muffled explosion.  She looked over to see Siena Blaze, her hands smoking, standing over a bloody splatter that had formerly been Fabian Cortez.

           “Um, sorry….”  She shrugged. “He grabbed my ass.”

           “Fine,” Storm groaned.  “Stand with your fellow mutants and let the ceremony continue.”

           “Okay.  Oh, hey, Shinobi!  Great orgy!”            

             “We have to do something about this.  It isn’t just the waste of resources, it’s the message we’re sending. People can’t just kill each other with impunity.”  Magneto had come to consult with Xavier about the “Cortez” problem.  All of his killers had been subject to investigation and some minor punishment, but the pattern seemed to suggest that Cortez himself was the problem.  “Maybe we just shouldn’t bother bringing him back.  The man is a snake. I should know.”

           “Unacceptable,” Xavier responded calmly.  “All mutant life is precious.  We will waste none of it.”

           “The man is a disruption.”

           “He’s followed the rules so far.  There are far worse people living on Krakoa than Fabian Cortez.  We must treat him fairly.  And I must admit, his eagerness to breed is very in line with our goals here, if he could just find a willing partner.”

           “But we can’t let this ridiculous cycle of death and rebirth continue, can we? Maybe a time-out in the earth for awhile.”

           Xavier leaned forward with a cryptic smile.  “I believe I have a solution.  And it will require only a minor psychic tweak at his next resurrection.”

              At the resurrection ceremony, Fabian Cortez emerged from the pod for the seventh time in a month.

           “What is your name,” Storm asked him, quietly praying he would last longer than ten minutes this time.  It was all getting very repetitive.

           “Fabian Cortez.”

           “And how do I know that it’s you, Fabian?”

           “Who else could possibly measure up to my greatness?”  

           “It’s you,” Storm sighed.  She presented him to the crowd, which responded with muted applause, mostly from younger mutants who hadn’t met him yet.  

           As Fabian stood to one side while the other, much less important mutants returned from the dead, boredom began to wear on him.  He’d been through this so many times, and there was only so much enjoyment he could get out of displaying his body to the crowd.  He glanced around, spotting a beautiful young woman next to him with dark skin and flowing black hair.  He believed Storm had introduced her to the crowd as Threnody, but he hadn’t really been paying attention.  He let his eyes wander appreciatively up and down her body, then sauntered over.  No harm in a friendly proposition, especially since they were both already naked. Maybe he’d finally get to participate in an island orgy.

           “Hello, beautiful lady.  Today is your lucky day, because you get to experience the glory that is Fabian Cortez.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him.  Then his mouth dropped open in shock, because the face starring back at him was his own sister, with her lighter skin and short blue hair.

           “Anne Marie, I….how?  Why did you look like….I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to….please forgive me…”  The idea of hitting on his own sister filled Fabian with revulsion, and even the faintest hint of guilt.  He hadn’t forgotten her face after she struck him down.  On some level, he was perhaps apologizing for many things at once.

           “I’m sorry, what are you talking about?  I don’t know any Anne Marie.”  His sister pulled away and stepped back, suddenly transforming back into the dark-skinned woman.  “My name is Melody.  I don’t know you at all.”

           “I’m…sorry.  I was confused for a moment.”  All sorts of odd feelings were twisting around in Fabian’s stomach.

           “Fabian!”  A voice called from the crowd, and Anne Marie emerged, walking up towards the platform where he stood.  “I’m right here.”

           “Does this mean we’re on speaking terms again?”  Fabian asked hopefully.  Anne Marie’s mouth was still set in a hard line, but her eyes had softened a bit since he saw her last.

           “Killing you was rather cathartic.  I worked some things out of my system.  But don’t press your luck, I’m still angry with you.  There’s a reason for what you saw.  Come with me and Xavier will explain everything.”  Storm ignored the entire exchange as Anne Marie pulled Fabian off the stage and walked off with him.  He’d come back so many times, it didn’t really matter if he stayed for the entire ceremony.    

           “Psychic trigger?!” Fabian exclaimed.  

           “Yes,” Xavier continued.  Fabian and Anne Marie were meeting with him in a private room, after Fabian had thankfully been given clothing to wear.  “You have been killed multiple times because you are incapable of showing the women on this island the slightest hint of respect.  You let your reproductive urges lead you around.”

           “Isn’t that a good thing?”  Fabian protested.  “We are meant to make more mutants.  I want to do exactly that.  In fact, I’ll work extremely hard at that task.  Can’t you just assign me a few partners?”

           “That’s not how we are going to do things here,” Xavier said firmly.  “We will not go down the road of forced breeding.”

           “It’s worked out okay for the Inhumans,” Fabian tried.

           “No, it hasn’t.  There’s a streak of instability running through the royal family, people are still born with useless or debilitating powers, and the lack of freedom has the entire society boiling over with repressed emotion.  It’s no wonder Black Bolt’s brother manages to organize a coup every other month.”      

           Fabian shrugged.  He couldn’t really argue with that.  His encounters with the Inhumans had all been thoroughly unpleasant – especially that obnoxious, back-stabbing lunatic Maximus the Mad.  He couldn’t believe he’d ever considered the man a convenient ally. Never again.  And he definitely meant it this time.

           “So, what….I’m going to see Anne Marie in every woman until I find a willing partner?  That seems unfair.”

           “It’s entirely fair,” said Anne Marie.

           “The illusion will only kick in when you approach a woman with lust and disrespect, as you so often do.  When you think of her only as a sex object, and not a separate person with her own needs and desires.  Then, the psychic trigger will make her appear as the only woman you care about more than sex – your sister, Anne Marie.”

           “B-b-but….how long is this meant to last?  What am I to do in the meantime?  A man has needs, you know.”

           “There are ways to take care of your needs without bothering anyone,” Anne Marie said all too knowingly for Fabian’s tastes.    

           “It will last until you manage to show respect for a woman that you desire. Until you can put her needs above your own lust, and love her as a person, not a sex toy.”

           “Ugh, but that could take yeeeeaaars!”  Fabian whined.  “So few of them are truly worthy of me.”

           “It’s our solution to the disruption you’ve caused on this island.  Consider yourself lucky that you are not spending time in the ground, that is much more unpleasant.  But we wanted a merciful solution.  I will admit, there is some value in your presence, Cortez,” Xavier continued.  “Every group that has encountered you seems to have come away with stronger ties of friendship and camaraderie between them.  In a way, it seems, you managed to bring people together.”

           “Yes, because I have excellent leadership skills,” Fabian agreed.  “And people are drawn to my strong charisma.”

           “That’s….not exactly the reason why.  But nonetheless, your presence has produced some positive affect.  With this psychic trigger, hopefully the positive will outweigh the negative.”  

           Xavier dismissed them rather abruptly.  Fabian sulked as he walked beside Anne Marie, heading back towards the Acolytes’ set of rooms.  

           “Honestly.  A psychic trigger.  As if I’m a child.  Or an animal that must be contained.”

           “Well, one part of you certainly is,” Anne Marie muttered.  Fabian scoffed.

           “Look, try to think of it like a fairy tale.  You’re under a curse –“

           “Until I find my one true love!”  Fabian finished.  He rather liked the idea.  He was, of course, a handsome prince under a curse from a wicked sorcerer, who was just jealous of his good looks and flowing head of hair.

           “Until you learn a lesson.  Look, Fabian.”  Anne Marie turned to face him.  Her face was still stern and set with anger, but he could also see pain – carved into every line on her face.  It made him feel….not so good.  

           “I’m not over what you did.  I won’t be for a long time.  It hurt. But our Lord Magneto is alive again, and so are we all.  And Krakoa really is a place for new beginnings.  So maybe you can be better, too.  Please try.  For me.”

           She kissed him softly on the cheek, and walked away.

Notes:

This got slightly more serious than I intended, I just wanted a silly story where people got to kill Fabian in hilarious ways. Oh well.  This also turned into an excuse to write a bunch of neglected characters that I like hanging out and occasionally sleeping together.  Shinobi is definitely going to try to bang both Pyros at once.  He may or may not succeed.      

I don’t know all the Marvel women’s ages, but just assume that everyone Fabian hit on was at least 18.  He’s a sleaze, but he’s not that much of a sleaze. Also, Meggan was probably just visiting her old Excalibur team-mates, she lives elsewhere with Brian.

[tentwars-winter]

Icarus

Chapter 5:

(also, if you haven’t heard the news already, here’s the playlist. don’t listen on shuffle and begin on song 5 for this chapter)

We had gone to the doctor shortly after that episode, just to be sure that my wound wasn’t infected. Winston did a good job, Dr. Watson said. I was too sad and weak to say anything, but I’ll blame it on the stitches.

My mother follows me to play rehearsals, sitting in the back corner with her teeth bared. The only time I get to talk to Orca is when we’re spitting out out lines, and even then I can still feel my mothers eyes upon me.

“And if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.” Orca, playing Benvolio, said, giving me a look of sadness as I leaned against them, pretending to be drunk.

“This cannot anger him: ‘twould anger him to raise a spirit in his mistress’ circle of some strange nature, letting it there stand till she had laid it and conjured it down; that were some spite: my invocation is fair and honest, and in his mistress’ name I conjure only but to raise up him.” I reply as Mercutio, running my fingers slyly against their hand.

“Come, he hath hid himself among these trees, to be consorted with the humorous night: blind is his love and best befits the dark.” They laugh, tipping forward to show that they too were drunk. Their hair brushes against my face purposefully.

“If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. Now will he sit under a medlar tree, and wish his mistress were that kind of fruit as maids call medlars, when they laugh alone. Romeo, that she were, O, that she were an open et caetera, thou a poperin pear! Romeo, good night: I’ll to my truckle-bed; this field-bed is too cold for me to sleep: come, shall we go?” I flirt, the tone coming naturally.

“Go, then; for 'tis in vain to seek him here that means not to be found.” They wink and reply, and a familiar blush covers my face as we exit top stage left. Orca kisses my cheek before we part ways, my mother nowhere in sight. I let my hand linger for a few seconds too long, but leave nonetheless.

I stay quiet and out of the way of the set team, hiding in a corner as far away from my mom as possible while I wait for my next scene.

During my death, Orca and I touch more than is needed but less than is wanted. The way we move on the stage isn’t platonic, but there’s no real evidence to say that it is romantic.

I hate the way that we can’t be together with my entire soul. I want to swing my hands around and punch everything within a two mile radius, especially my mother. I bite my tongue and hold myself back, though. My rage is what put me here in the first place, and I doubt it’ll get me out.

As we leave the theater, my mother speaks extra loudly about how she would never want her daughter to end up with a Jew as we pass Orca. I send a pitiful look their way, but they turn their head in shame before I can fully send the message.

I used to like the snow; the way it glitters and shines beneath the moon. The sparkle reminds me of the bluest of eyes I’ve ever seen, the happiness in it, at least. Now, though, the snow is melting thanks to global warming, their eyes no longer sparkle, and it’s a new moon tonight. The perfect time for heartbreak.

I slam the door too hard, but don’t flinch at the sound. My mom gives me a dirty look as I do so.

“What’s your problem?” I aggressively ask her as she begins to drive.

“What do you mean my problem? I’m not the one all over a Jewish girl.” She growls at me, and I absolutely lose it.

“They’re not a girl.” I scream.

“What else would she be? A boy?” My mother hisses, making a left turn.

“How about neither? Huh? Maybe they aren’t a girl or a boy.” I rebuttal.

“The more reason not to be with her.” She states. I take a deep breath in.

“And I’m the exact same way.” I say calmly, fear settling into my bones. I have never seen such a look of hatred on my mother before.

“That does it. You’re grounded young lady.” She says as the car stops, taking my phone from my hand.

I rush out of the car and stomp my way into my room, glad that I’m grounded. What would I do with my phone, anyways? Call Orca? Oh, wait.

I try to read, but my brain isn’t picking up any of the words. It’s all ‘Orca this’ and ‘Orca that’. My hands shake. Why do I have to yearn for something I obviously can’t have? God. blah blah blah… mom leaves… dad comes upstairs…

“Oh, dear.” He says, sitting next to me on the bed. “Is this about Orca?” I just nod. “Oh, hun.”

“I love them, dad.” I cry to him, and he gives me a long and pitiful look.

“I thought they were a girl?” He says to me carefully.

“They physically present feminine, but they are gender neutral. I didn’t say anything to mom on the off chance that she didn’t kill me for liking a Jewish person, let alone “girl”, and actually accepted it.” I sniff to him. “I should’ve known.” My father comforts me.

“Why did I have to love them? Why did they have to become both the sun and the sea to me, dad? Why couldn’t I just be what mom wanted: a good, christian child that would marry a christian man?” I wail to him.

“This is what God would have wanted–” He begins, but I cut him off.

“God has left us!” I cry, and then get quiet. “God has left me.”

“Nonsense, your mother has left us.” He slyly began, a sparkle of trickery in his eye.

“So?” I remind him. “She’ll be back.”

“Not for a little while, little bird. She’s on a business trip.” He smiles to me, running his hands through my hair. “And I have a very important shift tonight from 10-12 and I’m so unfortunately on graveyard tomorrow.” He winks at me.

“But I thought–” I begin, but he hushes me and arises.

“Your phone is in the top left dresser on the window side of my and your mother’s room, I’m going to pretend that I didn’t tell you that.” He says, waltzing towards the door. A smile makes its way onto my face.

“And, Penny,” he turns back to me, “keep your distance from both the sun and the ocean.”

“Don’t worry, dad, I will.” I assure him, and he smiles as he leaves.

I quietly make my way to my parents room, my boots softly clicking against the wooden floors. Once I’m in, I hastily grab my phone and pull up Orca’s contact. I text them something a needy bottom would, and put my phone back away. I silently return to my room when I hear my dad’s voice.

“I’m leaving, make sure to use protection!” My dad shouts.

“Dad!” I yell back as he laughs loudly and closes the front door.

I sit on my bed, tapping my foot. I really am a needy bottom, huh?

There’s a tap on the window, and I immediately open it and peer down. My love stands below, rubbing their arms in the cool wind.

“Are you gonna let me up, or am I gonna have to freeze first?” They joke, and I quickly run to the backdoor so I can let them in.

The first thing we do is kiss, not bothering to close the door first. The cold envelopes us, but the warmth radiating from our closeness both cancels it out and over powers it– for a few moments.

“I can see you missed me.” Orca says breathlessly as they close the door.

“Shut up.” I blush, hiding my face.

“No need to hide the fire on your face, I’m the only one looking.“ They flirt, kissing my temple. “Now, where’s your room. I think we need to talk about this”

I grasp their hand and drag them up the stairs.

I hastily throw them into my room, slamming the door behind me. Orca opens their mouth and I immediately begin to kiss them. When it starts getting heated, a pair of hands moves from my hair to the front of me quickly.

“I don’t think this is going to work.” Orca pushes me away.

“What do you mean?” I ask desperately, reaching out towards them.

“I mean us,” they stand, going to the window on the opposite side of the room.

[timeisacephalopod]

Moral Alignment

My parents were watching some dumbass reality cop show and I got an idea lmao. So here’s a soul mate thing with Sam/Steve because I really don’t write them enough. This is basically just a long ass crack fic tbh.

Steve kind of hates being a cop. When he was a kid he had all these delusions about saving people and being a good person but all he does is deal with people being assholes and do a lot of running mostly. And the useless calls because some parent wants to teach their fucking kid a lesson. Ugh, if he never gets another one of those calls it’ll be too soon. At the moment he’s stuck patrolling around, which is literally doing nothing for a stupid amount of time but whatever. 

He’s driving down a darker street just to waste his own time when he notices a guy walking along the side of the road dancing a little to whatever is playing in the headphones he’s wearing. When he walks under a street light Steve’s eyebrows go up because wow that guy is hot.

So, like a complete moron, he pulls off to the side of the road where the guy is walking, noting that he’s pulled his headphones off and Steve asks for his name. Technically its something he can do not that he does it often because he thinks its mostly a waste of time but it works for him now. Or at least it does until the guy looks at him, going from somewhat confused to absolutely irritated in a matter of moments as he feels it too. 

That warm, pleasant feeling in the heart that indicates you’ve met your soul mate but there’s also the words, barring that. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” the guy says and Steve’s cheeks heat a little in embarrassment. He had always sort of hoped his words would be wrong but apparently he’s not so lucky. No one ever is but it’d be nice to cheat the system given his um... rocky start to things.

“I mean I’m not that bad...” he says in his own defense.

“‘Not that bad’? You just randomly stopped a man minding his own damn business to ask for his name and you have that nasty mustache,” he says.

Steve touches his face gently, “I busted my razor this morning and I haven’t had time to buy a new one,” he says. “And I only pulled over because I thought you were cute,” he adds, a little embarrassed.

His soul mate rolls his eyes and honestly its the most dramatic thing he’s ever seen and he knows Tony Stark personally. And Clint, for that matter. And Bucky. “You pulled me over because you think I’m attractive? You are a complete waste of my tax dollars,” he says, arms crossed in annoyance.

“I can’t even argue with that,” he mumbles. “I’m a shit cop. Also my name is Steve Rogers, and I still kind of want yours. For soul mate purposes, not cop purposes,” he clarifies.

“Sam Wilson. Are you always this easy to throw off guard? Because that seems like a bad trait for a cop,” he points out.

Steve sighs, “I am unflappable. I once had a woman throw actual turds and vomit at me and I was fine, everything worked itself out. But talking to people I find attractive? Never been good at it.” God knows how the hell he and Peggy managed a relationship when he constantly tripped over his words. She found it endearing until she met Angie but Steve thinks they’re a sweet couple. Very loving.

Sam squints, “and what, you never find the people you arrest attractive?” he asks.

Yeah, its happened. “Usually I have a partner with me so you know, he does stuff. Not much stuff, he’s a way worse cop than me. Once we were trying to deescalate a situation and he hid behind the trash cans with the civilians and left me to it. Thankfully raging drug addict with a gun is not my type.” Bucky though... should not be a cop. Usually Natasha sticks him on desk duty because his ability to organize paperwork is actually pretty good.

“Are there any not shit cops that you work with?” Sam asks, squinting again.

“Pretty much everyone but me and Bucky. Ever seen Brooklyn Nine Nine? We’re Hitchcock and Scully even though we both want to be Rosa or Holt. In that order.” They suck at the job mostly because they have no passion for it, which is what makes anyone good at their job, but now they’re kind of stuck with this so whatever. 

It pays the bills and sometimes Steve gets to rescue kittens from trees so that’s decent. That time he had to chase that one woman through a haunted house with his easily scared best friend and completely useless cop though is far less ‘decent’ as far as career choices go. Bucky damn well knew they were all fake, why did he keep screaming at the ghosts? And everyone thought they were wearing costumes. Fuck Halloween, Steve’s tired of being mistaken for a stripper gram.

“Hmm,” Sam mumbles. “Well, at least you don’t seem racist even if you’ve got all the makings of a ‘go back to your own country’ starter kit going on,” he says, waving an arm around at the car and his face. Steve so resents that but the mustache is a little much. When Natasha saw him this morning she told him he looked like he’d be willing to dry fuck a truck’s tailpipe and Bucky laughed so hard he almost choked to death on his donut.

“Did I really give off that racist of a vibe? I want to know because I don’t really want to give that vibe off,” he says seriously. He might hate being a cop but he doesn’t want to be intimidating either, especially not in a racist way. Though if anyone knew about the Princess Bubblegum and Marceline bobble heads in his car they’d probably not find him intimidating in any kind of fashion.

Sam gives him a look that indicates he’s 200% done with Steve and he really doesn’t know what he did aside from generally being a useless cop. “You pulled over because a black man was dancing around a little on the side of the road? I know I’ve got the rhythm of a drunk white girl grinding on some guy to ‘shake it off’ by Taylor Swift in a club but that’s not illegal,” he says.

Steve lets out a groan and drops his head to the steering wheel, ignoring the sharp ‘beep’ that sounds from the car. “Oh my god you thought I racially profiled you,” he mumbles.

“Bingo,” Sam says. “But... in your slight defense I’d arrest me if I witnessed that too,” he admits. “And also in your slight defense I guess I could have looked like someone you were trying to arrest.” He’s intentionally reaching but its sweet that he’s trying to let Steve off the hook especially since he out and out admitted to pulling him over because he thought he was cute.

He should probably find a new job. “So um. When we tell people how we met we’re telling them I heroically saved your life,” he says.

Sam snorts, “hell no, we’re telling them the truth- that your useless cop ass pulled me over to get my name because you thought I was cute and what were you even going to do after that?” he asks.

Steve winces again, “I didn’t think that far ahead, I was just hoping to strike up a conversation and get your number,” he admits.

“Alright honey, I’m taking pity on you because you are clearly a clueless, yet harmless, human being. Don’t hit on people in uniform, they’ll feel obligated to flirt back. What are you doing?” he asks and Steve lets out another groan.

“God damnit I am not usually this clueless, I swear. I think I might have sensed the soul mate thing because I’m not this stupid normally.” Jesus, he can’t believe he hadn’t thought of that. Thankfully Sam is the brains of this operation of god knows where this would go.

**

Bucky grins, enthused by Steve’s utter embarrassment regarding how he met his soul mate. “Natasha!” he calls, “come here, Steve’s got his best ‘dumb gay slut’ moment yet and it involves his soul mate!” And it’ll probably be his last so he’s pleased that this one is a damn good one.

Natasha immediately sticks her head out of her office, “on a scale of Clint and Phil meeting to you and Tony meeting how good is it?” she asks.

“Better than me and Tony, for sure,” he says and Nat grins, plodding over immediately. Yeah, he would too if the story was better than that time Bucky met Tony literally falling out of the sky and using Bucky as a cushion. He pities Tony for having the noise he made permanently tattooed on his body. Its worse than that noise in that song by Imagine Dragons- Radioactive- after breathing in the chemicals. The good news is that Steve finally topped his ridiculous story with his own.

He explains to Natasha what happened and from start to finish its a damn ride. Natasha snickers, considering Sam for a moment and the man is brave because he stares back. Sometimes when they have trouble getting confessions they send in Nat and most people are so scared they give up basically five seconds into her stare down. “So,” she says, “where do you fit in the Moral Alignment Test?” she asks.

Steve gives Sam a panicked look because this is a trick question- they all made up their own types years ago but Sam just smirks. “I’m chaotic asshole,” he says and Steve’s eyebrows fly up as Bucky gasps.

“You’re my mortal enemy. I’m lawful scared,” he says.

Sam squints at him for a moment before he turns to Steve, “I hope you don’t like this one much because I hate him already. Where do you sit on the alignment?” he asks Steve, who sighs.

“One, that’s the best friend I told you about. The Scully to my Hitchcock even though he’d rather be the Scully to my Mulder. Actually he’d be Mulder. Anyways I’ve been told I’m lawful super slut,” he mumbles, obviously hoping that would get lost in the rest.

Sam snorts, “guess that explains you ‘dumb gay slut’ reputation. Actually, you know what, pulling over to question me because you thought I was hot gave you away. And your lawful scared best friend needs to go,” he adds.

“Don’t be rude, I became a cop so I can arrest annoying people and you’re getting on my nerves,” Bucky tells him.

“How’s that going for you?” Sam asks, deadpan.

“See any annoying people around here?” he asks and from the look on Steve’s face he’s just pulled an Icarus, except he’d flying into the sun, not too close to it.

“I see you,” Sam says, power bombing him verbally through the precinct floor. Well, ok. He set himself up for that.

[kieren-fucking-walker]

Where Nobody Will Find You

“The top slams shut with a loud bang, and he’s plunged into total darkness. The silence ringing in the space around him almost seeming loud.

For a long moment he’s too frozen with fear to do anything but feel the way his breathing starts to get faster as his chest rises and falls in time with his racing heartbeat.”

*** Blackwing carry out a lot of experiments, Project Icarus isn’t good at passing their tests but sometimes, just sometimes, they manage to get one to work.

The first add on for my To Know the Parts of Me By Name series - Takes place during To Know Despair (Project Icarus)

[Please be aware that while you could read this on it’s own it will make MUCH more sense if you read the whole series (or at least Part 2) first.] 

(AO3)

(To Know the Parts of Me by Name {you are here} Part: 1 / 2 {+ add on} / 3)

They come for him while he’s sleeping.

It’s something they do fairly frequently, he knows they try to keep him as disoriented as possible to stop him from keeping himself too grounded in reality. He doesn’t know if it’s actually night time or not, but it’s a time they’d allowed him to sleep so he’d taken it either way. Occasionally he’ll get a rare glimpse of a clock and it will help him find his feet better, not even knowing when he is makes it difficult to keep track of the passage of time. Although he’s pretty sure that’s the point.

They don’t drag him out of bed this time though, merely blare the sirens loud enough to jolt him into wakefulness, it leaves him rubbing confusedly at his eyes when the guards step into his room. He’s taken to wearing his jumpsuits to sleep in, having learned early on that getting dressed under the watchful eye of a guard is special kind of unpleasant, particularly if they get impatient. They aren’t much more pleasant for not having to wait though and one of them grabs him by the shoulder and pushes him out of the door.

For the most part the guards don’t talk to him, there are a handful who like to but the majority won’t say anything unless they’re telling him to do something. He wonders if it helps them feel better about what they’re doing, wonders if they even think of him as a person, he knows for a fact some of them keep the distinction between him and them very clear he just doesn’t know how far that distinction goes. A lot of the time he’s too busy trying to think of himself as something other to dwell on it.

Even if they don’t talk, the guards are more than happy to shove him along when they don’t think he’s walking fast enough. Sometimes with hands but more usually with whatever they’ve got with them that day, this one in particular has a cattle prod taser that he knows from experience he’ll be more than happy to use if he gives him chance so he tries not to react every time he presses it between his shoulder blades to force him forwards. It gives him something else to think about rather than dwelling on the mounting fear as they make their way down to the basement. He’s been failing a lot of tests recently, even Riggins has been getting impatient with him, and he’s worried about what will come next even though there’s no point. He can worry all he likes, they’re going to do it anyway. The only option he has is to try and pull up his defenses now before they’ve already gotten past them.

“Ah! Just in time!” the room is full of scientists, some he’s seen before but quite a few that he hasn’t. The one who speaks seems excited, scurrying over to look him over with a bright smile. It would put him at ease but he knows that look, he isn’t excited to see him, he’s excited to see a test subject. He’s starting to learn that’s all he is to these people.

“We designed this one just for you, so I do hope it works out. If this goes well it could really be a turning point in your… development here. I think you might come to like this one, it’s far more refined than the other techniques if I do say so myself and we’re all hoping to see some interesting results,” he grins as he rubs his hands together, reaching out to put a gentle hand on his shoulder and guide him over to where Riggins is waiting for him.

“Svlad,” he’s got his serious voice on, the one that’s reassuring but also tells him this is important, and Icarus curls the fingers of his hands around his sleeves to hold onto them for comfort as Riggins drops to one knee to make them more level. “I’m going to need you to be very brave for me today, can you do that?”

Icarus finds himself shaking, glancing over to the big metal box in the middle of the room which he’s only just realised is probably meant for him. Riggins is asking him to be brave though, this is important, if he gets it right he might stop being so disappointed in him. He needs desperately to get back in his good books, there’s an aching in his chest every time he looks at him like he’s let him down.

“Yes. Yes I can do that,” he nods, setting his jaw even though his eyes are starting to water. Riggins smiles and ruffles his hair like he hasn’t done in so long, and Icarus exhales with relief at the first positive contact he’s had in months. It only makes him more determined.

“I knew you could. Now, this is probably going to be… unpleasant. But a lot of people have put a lot of effort into this and we really do think this could be something that helps us understand more about what’s happening in that head of yours. It might mean we’re able to unlock something in you, it might even help you to control it. So whatever happens I need you to remember that, okay? That this is helping. It will help us and it could help you, and I know you’re smart enough to understand how important that is.” Riggins always talks to him like he’s an adult like this even though he’s not. Like he’s smarter than other kids his age, like he’s more mature, like he understands more. Icarus has no idea how true that is, he hasn’t met anyone his age since he’s been here, but it always makes him feel more important. Like he’s being trusted with something. Like he has some control. Like he can help.

“I’ll do my best,” he promises, trying not to sound as desperate as he is to get this right.

“You’ll do as you're told? And you won’t put up a fuss about it?” it doesn’t reassure him any that Riggins seems to think he needs to remind him to behave, like they’re doing something that might make him forget.

“Yes, sir. I’ll be good,” he clutches at his sleeves even though Riggins seems satisfied with the answer.

“Good. Now, we’re going to need to shave your head,” he says it like it’s nothing, like it’s meaningless, even though it sends a bolt of cold right through to his core. “Don’t worry, it’ll all grow back, but we need to monitor your brain activity and it’s either this or… well. It would have involved some rather permanent surgery, so I thought you might prefer this.”

He knows what he’s expected to say, what he wants him to say, but his throat feels tight and his hand drifts up to touch his hair on top of his head without thinking. His eyes fill with tears even though he doesn’t know why it matters, why of all the things they’ve done here this feels like it might be the worst, but it makes him feel small just to think of them taking this from him as well. Making decisions about his body in a way that makes him realise just how far out of his control this is.

They could do anything to him.

They would do anything to him.

Still, Riggins is watching him expectantly and he swallows around the way his throat feels like a desert, knowing realistically the medical procedure would be worse than this and he really should be grateful. He’s being selfish.

“Thank you, sir,” his voice comes out little more than a whisper but Riggins seems satisfied, nodding his head as he gestures him over to a woman who’s already waiting to shave it off.

“Go on then.”

His steps are small as he makes his way over, but he’s just prolonging the inevitable. The woman doesn’t smile when he looks up at her after he’s sat down, and he turns his gaze to his knees, fidgeting with his fingers in his lap as he tries his best to stay still. The buzzing sound makes him jump though and he doesn’t even get a warning before he feels the clippers being pulled across his head and his hair falls down around him, fluttering to the ground like confetti. It’s not pretty though, not in the same way, and he squeezes his eyes shut because he promised he’d be brave but it feels like someone has reached into his chest and squeezed all the breath out of his lungs. It feels like they’re re-making him into something far from himself, something that belongs to them. Like the last of his identity is being stripped away from him.

He already knew that they would act upon him as they saw fit no matter what he did, he just didn’t know that something this simple could hurt so much. By the time they’re done he’s trembling, rubbing the sleeve of his jumpsuit under his nose and trying to steady his breathing enough to make sure none of his tears actually fall. This is important he tells himself. This could help. He just wishes he didn’t have to feel so helpless to be able to do that.

When he stands up from the chair he keeps his eyes fixed on the floor in front of him, trying to centre himself around something. He feels vulnerable and stripped bare, self conscious with all these strangers watching him so indifferently. The realisation that nobody here has any interest in helping him isn’t a new one, but it strikes just as hard every time. The only comfort he’ll get will come from Riggins, and he only gets it if he’s doing well. He has to do well. He can’t face letting him down again, not after this.

“What now?” he asks, trying to sound like it hasn’t bothered him at all and he’s not scared of whatever comes next, but his voice wobbles and his vision goes blurry for a moment before he blinks it all away, steadying himself with his next breath.

His answer comes in the form of another scientist strapping something down over his head. It’s cold and heavy and he sticks little pads against his skin where there are gaps in the metal, wires trailing out of them ready to be connected to something important. He fidgets with his fingers, stops when he realises they’re watching him and focuses on keeping himself quiet instead and trying not to panic. He still has no idea what’s going on.

It takes a long time for the scientist to be happy with the positioning of things, and once he is he tightens the final strap and Icarus can feel it digging into his head. It feels like a brand.

“Now,” Riggins makes him jump, looking up when the man puts a hand on his shoulder and gives him a kind smile. “This is the really important part, so I need you to focus. We’re going to try something that might seem a little scary, but I promise it will be okay as long as you behave yourself. This could be it, Svlad. All these people are here to see if we can prove that you’re special,” he cups his jaw reassuringly and he finds himself leaning into it, the gentleness is rare. “I already know you’re special, but this time we’re going to have to show them, so try not to panic. I’m going to leave you with the scientists now, but I’ll be just over there. Promise me you’ll try your absolute best?”

It’s too much pressure all of a sudden, he wants to kick and scream and run away but he can’t remember the last time Riggins looked at him with anything other than disappointment and even if the expectation and hope scares him he’d do anything to keep it.

“I promise, I’ll do everything I can.”

“That’s my boy,” he hasn’t any hair left to ruffle, so Riggins taps a finger against his cheek before he leaves. Suddenly Icarus feels startlingly alone among the countless pairs of eyes that blink down at him.

“Come here,” the doctor is beckoning him to the box, and after a moments hesitation he makes his way over, eyeing it up fearfully. “You need to take off your jumpsuit, everything else can stay.”

After everything the order just seems cruel. He’s trying so hard to keep his defenses up and in check but he’s not sure he’s going to be able to if they keep on stripping him down. Icarus just stares at him for a long moment, like he’s waiting for him to take it back, but when the doctor just raises an eyebrow he swallows down the last flicker of hope he has and starts working his shaking fingers against the buttons.

The fabric pools to the ground around him and he tries his best to imagine that he’s anywhere else but where he is.

“Good, you’re all set. Into the tank,” he gestures somewhat impatiently at the ladder attached to the box.

There’s no time to waste worrying about it, there’s nothing to be done to stop them. Instead he just complies, climbing the ladder one rung at a time until he’s climbing down the other side and standing in a box that comes up far over his head. If he looks up he can see the ceiling, lights beaming down on him, but everything else is just the inside of what seems like a giant metal tube. He wraps his arms around himself while nobody can see him, it’s a small comfort.

“There’s a socket to your left, plug the wires into it,” the disembodied voice of the doctor floats over to him and he scrambles to do as he’s told, the sooner he complies the sooner this will be over. The panel lights up briefly when he connects the wires, going dark after a moment.

“Good. Open the panel next to it and put the mask on,” it takes him a moment to pry the panel open and when he does he frowns at the object inside. It’s a breathing mask, like the ones they put on him when they operate. The sight of it fills him with dread because if it’s there he needs it, and for a moment he just holds it in his hand and tries to imagine what it must mean. “Is there a problem?” the doctor jolts him out of his thoughts and he shakes his head, forgetting they can’t see.

“No, no. Sorry.” He doesn’t want to upset anyone, especially not now, and he swallows down the fear as he puts the mask in place. The constant flow of dry air does nothing to help regulate his breathing.

“It is about to get very dark, be reassured that you are in a controlled environment and anything that happens can be stopped at any moment so please try to remain calm. Test one will now commence.”

He doesn’t get chance to ask what that means before the sound of an alarm blaring jolts him into covering his ears, an unholy screech sounding above him and when he looks up the lid of the box is rising up and swallowing away the light like he’s watching an eclipse.

The top slams shut with a loud bang, and he’s plunged into total darkness. The silence ringing in the space around him almost seeming loud.

For a long moment he’s too frozen with fear to do anything but feel the way his breathing starts to get faster as his chest rises and falls in time with his racing heartbeat.

Then the water starts coming in.

He hears it before he feels it, but it’s pooling at his feet before long and coming in fast enough to be climbing up his body at an alarming rate. The need for the breathing mask becomes suddenly apparent, and the panic hits him all at once.

He reaches for the sides of the tube, it’s bigger than he remembers and hard to do in the dark but he finds it before long, fingers scrambling against the edges for something, some kind of give but it’s all just smooth. He claws at the metal, shouting for them to let him out but the sound is muffled even to him in a box that’s designed to be as quiet as possible. The water is up to his waist now, climbing up his chest and he forgoes trying to find his own way out and just starts banging his fist on the metal like it will make any difference. Like anyone will help him. Like any of them would even care if he died in here like this.

He manages to tilt his head back, treading water as long as he can to try and keep his head above water but it’s rising too quickly and he’s too tired to be any match. It’s no longer than a few minutes before he goes under.

He can breathe at least, but that’s about all he can do. There’s a strange sensation of not knowing whether his eyes are open or closed in the totality of the darkness around him. He can’t feel the walls or the floor, and he feels for the most part like he’s floating in a weighted, inky blackness that’s pressing down on him and pulling him out in every direction possible.

He feels like he’s stopped being real.

It’s like all the panic has been sucked out of him, breath becoming shallow but steady as he lets himself slip into the feeling of not being anything at all. The only constant thing, like always, is that little thread wound into a knot inside of him, tethering him to… something. Not reality, not the physical world at least. Not the place with the scientist and the testing and the pain. Something else, something bigger, something more important than all of that. Something more important than anything.

It’s in him. It is him. Every part of him is woven inexplicably into this, and with nothing else to focus on it’s easy, it’s so easy to let himself follow it along to wherever it’s going.

He could get lost like this and it wouldn’t matter.

Until he reaches out and tugs on the string, and his mind reacts like he just stuck a fork in a toaster. Lighting up so suddenly it threatens to shock him.

It’s not nothing, it’s everything. It’s creation and destruction, the beginning and the end, light and darkness. A space between one and zero, infinite in all directions and heavy, so heavy. It pulls him in every direction and he can feel himself starting to unravel. Like he’s staring at everything that has ever and will ever exist and he wants to pour himself into all of it. Every millisecond of existence spread out in blinding white and blue above him and he sees it all, understands it all. It’s a jigsaw without a reference picture but he knows how to make the pieces fit, knows how to make it all work, how to put it all together again. There’s a whispering in his ear, and he reaches out, trance like, head spinning with calculations, with questions and answers and possibilities and taking in more and more and more like it’s never going to stop filling him up and unravelling him to stitch itself back together.

The entirety of time and space being poured into his head, every possible choice and outcome there will ever be, every single thing that has the potential to ever happen making his eyes wide and his mind race and it hurts, it hurts so much but he just can’t stop looking. He can’t even blink. He’s paralysed and helpless and terrified.

Fear like nothing he’s ever felt in his life before now because he can feel it. The thing. The wrongness. There’s something in here with him and it’s going to get him, if not now then eventually and he can’t move, can’t breathe, there’s nothing to help him and he can feel breath on the back of his neck which shouldn’t be here in a place where reality doesn’t exist. He can feel it, gaping and empty and hungry like it will devour everything in its path and still not be satisfied. He can feel the way it reaches for him first, feels the way it picks at his edges like it can unravel him, feels the way it forces his mouth open like it’s going to climb down his throat and suffocate him with every broken thing he can see laid out before him, even the smallest of mistakes piling up to make a mountain the size of which he can’t comprehend with his brain so small and so human. So limited.

It wants to open him up.

It wants him to see.

It wants to bend him to it’s will, to use him, to break him apart and consume him entirely.

He doesn’t realise he’s screaming, one long drawn out note that sounds nothing like a sound any human has made as he’s dragged out of the water and into the light. He convulses on the floor when they set him down, staring unseeingly up at the ceiling as he finds enough breath to start sobbing, tugging at the straps around his head to get whatever the hell they’d put on him off, throwing it away as he curls himself into a ball when hands grab at him and try to restrain him.

“No, no, no, no no no no,” he repeats it over and over, hugging his knees to his chest and he doesn’t even know what he’s trying to stop all he knows is he doesn’t want it. Doesn’t want more. Doesn’t want that. They stop trying to touch him after a moment, and it takes a long time before he’s able to look up from where he’s huddled into himself on the floor.

It feels like it takes forever for him to catch enough breath to start sobbing.

“Shh,” his voice is soft, soothing almost. He reaches for it blindly. “It's okay. You did well Svlad, I’m proud of you.” Riggins is stroking a hand along his head when he finally lifts it, it doesn’t feel the same now though, it’s not as soft, but the touch is gentle and he leans into it like a pet looking for attention. The touch helps to soothe him, the man is smiling at him and it makes him relax. He’s done well. He’s done well.

Icarus doesn’t make the connection right away.

“The results were positive,” there’s pride in his voice, but something is wrong and the dread that had been quelled by his gentleness is starting to creep back in. “Your brain activity was like nothing we’ve ever seen before, clearly we managed to trigger something in you. It worked.” He sounds reverent, the kind of tone he hasn’t heard in his voice in a long time. Then he turns his smile on him, one filled with that certain kind of wonder he’d given the first time he’d done something unexplainable, and it occurs to him all at once what that means.

He shakes his head, fisting his hands into Riggins shirt as he cries, loud and ugly in a way that echoes in the space around them and it’s testament to how pleased the man is that he lets him, just keeps smoothing his hand across his shoulders where he’s shivering from the cold.

“We have to tweak a few things, but this is good Svlad. With any luck you’ll do even better next time,” he shushes him but doesn’t snap at him, and Icarus just keeps crying while he lets him because he can’t go back there, he can’t. Not knowing what’s waiting for him, not knowing what it wants to do.

“I’m so proud of you,” the words are usually his greatest source of comfort, but now it just makes him shake more, huddling in closer to the man as he tries to find some good in all of this. “So proud.”

It’s the first time it’s felt like a knife in his gut.

It’s the first time he finds himself wishing he’d failed.

They’d finally made some kind of connection, but all he can do is cry.

[tb5-heavenward]

flight hours

onward and upward, continuing from here. 

4

Scott's led the mechs far enough away that whatever algorithms govern their targeting don't seem to register John as a threat---but TB1's being overwhelmed, and there's only so much banking and rolling Scott can actually do to keep the bastards from getting purchase on his hull and shocking their way through his shields. And to make matters worse, John is rapidly making his approach; Scott can see the little yellow icon closing on his own, though his forward display is clustered and crowded with the bright red of hostile parties.

"What the hell are you going to do?" he demands of his brother, and alters the parameters of his display to render in a proper three dimensions, rather than the flat radial view he'd found useful when trying to determine the pattern by which the swarm was aligning itself. From out the back of the plane, John's gone high, and they're already pretty far up to begin with.

"Make an entrance," is the answer he gets, cryptic and blasé. And then the little yellow icon doubles---triples---its speed, secondary and tertiary afterburners flaring on, as John dives at a sharp angle, heading straight towards the swarm of drones.

"Maniac," Scott mutters, and rolls to the left, bringing his unwanted entourage along with him. Two, three seconds, and then he sees a streak of yellow go shooting past, and the targeting algorithms that had failed to parse John's existence before now get a sudden introduction. Conflicting information ripples through the swarm and Scott's sensors detect aerial impacts around him as the drones attempt to track two targets at once, suddenly working at cross purposes to one another. Scott sees the number of active hostiles on his screen diminish, feels the turbulence through his bird, the explosion of two colliding drones buffets the air outside. As quickly as it had been scrambled, the swarm reorganizes itself, and a handful of the machines break away, take off in pursuit of Scott's little brother.

John seems to have expected this, and his voice in Scott's ear is uncharacteristically giddy. "How many have I got?"

"Eight," Scott answers shortly, and punches the throttle, twisting his controls upwards as he does so, so that his afterburners blaze and flare across the swarm as they move to follow. He incinerates two of them, the rest of them scatter downward, and he covers two, three thousand meters of distance in the space of seconds, before he throttles back, brings TB1 arcing back around, because he can't leave his brother in the middle of this mess. From this angle, far below, he can see that little speck of yellow pursued by a phalanx of black, bright and dark against the sunset-gilded clouds below.

John seems blithely unconcerned by this fact. "How many have you got?"

"Twelve, now."

"You've never been very good at sharing."

Scott grits his teeth. As an afterthought, he reaches up into his interface, pulls up a read on John's vitals. Heart rate, respiration, blood pressure---all elevated, spiking off the adrenaline rush and a flood of endorphins. Scott's pretty sure he's gonna grind his fillings loose as he feels his own pulse, hammering in his ears. He doesn't imagine that his own vitals look great, right at the moment, but in fairness, his brother is only compounding his stress levels, with interest. He's going to get himself killed.

"John, these things are discharging enough electrical current to knock me out of the sky, and you're barely shielded. First hit overloads your exosuit. Second fries the dampening on your blues. Therefore it'll be the third that kills you dead. So you're gonna get your ass up here and get aboard, and then we're both getting the hell out of dodge."

John doesn't answer. From high overhead, descending, Scott watches his brother slam on the exosuit equivalent of the brakes, retrothrusters firing as he throws himself backwards, right into the midst of the little phalanx of drones. Scott's still about a kilometer overhead as his heart skips a frantic beat---but when his sensors detect the pulse of electromagnetism, its centered on his brother. And then eight mechs tumble uselessly out of the sky, with a long, long fall to the surface of the sea below. Theta in action.

So that's that. John's even had the temerity to go and make it look effortless. Piece of cake. Easy as pie. A little voice in the back of Scott's brain, whispered and a little bit hopeful, supplies the words Twelve down, and twelve to go.

There's another hiss of the comm in his ear. And then there's a real voice, the voice of someone Scott's most often supposed to listen to. "The only reason they're hitting you," John informs him, in an infuriatingly superior tone, "is because you declined the ability to hit them back."

Still dividing his attention between evading drone strikes and trying to stay within a reasonable range of his brother, Scott doesn't have an immediate answer to that.

It's possible he should stop feeling quite so self-satisfied about this whole situation, given the likelihood that pride is an a priori type of requirement for a fall, and falling is a particularly serious hazard right about now. There's probably also something to be considered about Icarus, although John's got titanium alloy and a custom polymer composite standing in for feathers and wax, to say nothing of the awareness that the sun is not the biggest threat out here. Greek mythology might be a little more worthy of John's attention if Icarus had ever needed to worry about murderously inclined insectoid mecha drones.

There aren't really many helpful mythological allegories for their current predicament. Aesop's fables rarely concerned the nuances of air-to-air combat.

Not that there's going to be any further air-to-air combat, given the way Scott snaps at him, as though he's done something worthy of a scolding. "Don't do that again."

"Well, I don't think it'll work twice."

"I mean it."

The fidelity on their comms is excellent, and Scott's radio receiver is right by his jaw. John's pretty sure he can hear him actively grinding his teeth.

"I'm fine, Scott," he reassures his brother, twisting in midair and drawing a bead on Thunderbird One, still being swarmed by drones. There's nothing to do but try to formulate a viable plan as he cautiously keeps his distance, a solid kilometer between him and his brother, and Scott still flying around like he's drunk at the wheel, rolling and banking and weaving to try and shake the (helpfully diminished) cloud of drones. "Could use somewhere stable to land, though, if I'm going to get another shot. What was the name of the thing where you toggle your flight controls remotely so you can land on top of TB1?"

"It's Protocol Alpha and I literally spent three hours teaching you how to do it right, but it doesn't matter, because the only protocol you need to worry about right now is Protocol Get-Your-Stupid-Ass-Out-of-the-Sky-Because-We're-Leaving."

"...I thought that was Delta?"

"Now, John."

Scott's voice has gotten terse, taut and anxious, in a way that John recognizes is because he perceives a threat to someone else's safety. His safety. His own flippancy is probably accountable to a higher than normal influx of adrenaline (and what might possibly be a minor head injury, he hasn't yet been stationary long enough to tell if the dizziness has really stopped), a fight or flight response that's rarely activated. In this specific case, fight and flight are so closely intermingled that he can't really do one without the other. Scott's right and he knows that Scott's right, because aside from one successful strike, mostly down to luck and the element of surprise, there's no point to making this a fight. Flight is definitely the preferred option, in this case. There's no rational reason for John to consider what it would take to knock the remaining twelve drones out of the sky.

He's only been thinking it, he hasn't actually said anything, but somehow Scott still manages to intervene in the middle of that train of thought. "We're getting out of here," he repeats, stern and certain. "You need to get back aboard."

"Okay, how?"

"I'm working on it. I'm also kinda busy right now, but maybe you didn't notice."

Backsass under duress is a failing shared by Scott and Gordon, but also a strong and worrying indicator of the degree to which they're starting to really lose control of the situation. Scott's got enough on his plate. How is usually supposed to be John's job, anyway.

It's a problem of speed and distance, like most of the problems they're called upon to solve. John can't recall the exosuit's top speed offhand, but it's orders of magnitude slower than Scott's, and he won't actually be able to get back aboard TB1 unless it's stationary anyway. TB1 can't stop in midair while being swarmed by mechs; John's not sure how well Scott's shields are holding up, but they can't hold much longer. In the slowly darkening skies overhead, he can definitely see blue white arcs of electricity sparking towards his brother's Thunderbird, as the drones attempt to fry his control systems and knock him out of the air. Kayo's still ten minutes out. John's got the means to disable the rest of the swarm, but it would require getting right up into their midst once more, and they're securely on his brother's tail.

It makes him wonder what the objective is, what the Mechanic hopes to achieve. Before now, he's only ever retaliated against their interference in his own endeavours. Given their encounters with him so far, a trap set specifically for a Thunderbird just doesn't seem like his style. John can't help but try and see the big picture, though the broad strokes of the situation are substantially less pressing than the fine, moment-to-moment details.

Still. There are clues in the context, and even as he rockets along, a thousand meters below and behind his brother, he's still trying to think his way through the problem, starting from the beginning. Aerial rescue, practically right in their backyard. Phantom pilot in medical distress, in a situation that would require evac. Cargo jet packed full of drones, programmed to swarm and overwhelm a Thunderbird. If Scott weren't aboard and actively piloting TB1, it's probable that it would've been downed by now, plummeting towards the sea. When John had dive bombed through the swarm, they'd been briefly disarrayed by the appearance of a second target. Whatever the purpose of the trap, it had been set for one of them, not two of them.

So, in theory, two of them together can beat it.

They just need to figure out how.

continued >>

[kdinthecity]

Confessions of a Teenage Sugar Queen: Soulmates

Zuko retrieves his laptop bag from his room and heads for the kitchen table. I linger in the hallway, trying to focus long enough to make sense of his mom’s article, but the words are blurring together.

Damn you, tears.

I take a minute to collect myself before joining Zuko in the kitchen. He fishes something out of his pocket and places it on the table while he types in his login password. It’s a tube of chapstick, and I would be lying if I said I haven’t noticed that slight bulge in his pants before. He must carry it with him all the time.

I’m so wrecked. If I don’t kiss Zuko soon, I might die of thirst. I don’t like the taste of his particular brand of chapstick, though.

I figure this moment is yet another lost opportunity when he snaps the cap off, but it isn’t chapstick at all.

It’s a USB drive. Oh, yeah. He was going to show me something. Right.

When it loads, I can’t help but say the name out loud, “Ursa.”

“These are my mother’s files I found on my father’s—“ Zuko presses his lips together like he always does when he’s said too much. His hand is shaking when he double clicks on the disk icon.

I read through the folders, silently this time. “Anthology… Articles… ENG101... ENG110… Grades… Lectures… Notes… Painted Lady…”

“What’s in the Painted Lady folder?” I ask, ignoring the lump that has formed in my throat.

“I can’t open it. I’ve read through everything else on this disk, but that folder is password protected.”

There is only one other folder, “Pictures,” and it piques my curiosity. “What’s in there?” I point at the screen.

A deep sadness passes over his face, making the scar seem more pronounced than ever. He obliges and opens the folder to reveal one single image entitled “Beach.” It’s an artfully composed silhouette of a woman and a child walking along the beach at sunset. I can only assume it is Ursa and Zuko, but the figures are too shadowy to tell.

“That’s it?” Surely he has more photos of his mother somewhere.

“There were at least a hundred photos in that file. But that’s when the data transfer was interrupted. That’s when… I got caught.”

This is the story of the scar. I just know it. But I have no idea what to say next.

I don’t get a chance before he redirects. “Katara, I’ve tried every password I can think of to open this file—my name, Azula’s name, our birthdays, Mom’s nicknames for us, and all of that in every combination. I was wondering… what if the file came from your mom? What if… do you know of a password she might use?”

It is too much. I am suddenly my nine-year-old self sorting through a box of Mom’s stuff that Dad has refused to touch since she died. All I ever wanted was something like this—a collection of her writing, notes, and pictures. Instead, all that came back from the coroner was assorted jewelry, cosmetics, and other typical items from a woman’s handbag.

“Katara? Are you OK?” Zuko breaks through my reverie.

No, I’m not. I can’t do this right now. “It’s getting late. I should go.”

His shoulders drop in disappointment, but when our eyes meet, we come to a silent understanding. It’s the tide pool scene all over again but with our roles reversed. The impact of the triggered memory hits me hard, and it is easier to choose distance and distraction over the pain of pushing through it. I no longer blame Zuko for his reaction that day.

I also acknowledge that he did try to talk about it. And neither of us has to bear our burden alone. We have each other.

I tell myself that only this moment is lost, not everything—not yet. And then I leave.

I refuse dinner and hull up in my room. I can’t exactly describe what I’m feeling—confused, yes, and maybe a little angry. Or perhaps I’m just jealous that Zuko somehow ended up with access to my mother’s work when all I’ve ever gotten is my father’s gruff response, “Katara, just let it go.”

I’ve read all of her articles in back issues of The Modern Times, of course. Gran Gran secretly gifted me with an online subscription last year. Dad makes comments like, “It’s old news anyway, so we need to focus on moving forward.” Sokka says that Mom’s writing will probably always represent suffering and loss for our family.

Sometimes when I feel… like I don’t know what to feel, that is when I write. But that hardly seems like a therapeutic option right now given the circumstances, so I decide to watch Netflix instead. I really should catch up on Crossroads of Destiny because the new season starts later this month. I don’t want to miss out on Uncle Iroh’s premiere party.

When did I start referring to him as Uncle?

This episode is about Phaethon, son of Helios, the sun god. As his tragic story unfolds, I wonder if this is the plotline Zuko had confused with Icarus. The boy certainly tries to prove himself to his father and to the world, but only brings fire and destruction, eventually falling from his chariot in the sky to his untimely death. I can’t handle the images of scorched landscapes and dried-up riverbeds in my fragile state, but before I turn off the show, the earth goddess says something that strikes me.

“Help us, great Zeus! Is this the end of earth? Even the heavens are burning. The past turns to ashes, and the future is fire!”

The future is fire—the slogan for Ozai’s company. I don’t even know what Future Fire Technology does, despite Azula’s constant bragging. She asserts it’s the “way of the future,” whatever it is. So, I look it up on my phone. They make virtual reality components such as headsets, gloves, and even a full exoskeleton for an “immersive experience.” The website is vague on what their products are actually used for, though.

I regret leaving Zuko. I should have tried to help him with the password instead of freaking out. Our mothers are obviously connected somehow, and he put himself at risk just to get those files. Mom took all kinds of risks to get information in her line of work. I never wanted to be a journalist, but I do want to be like her.

Before I even realize what I’m doing, I’m pulling the box of her things out of my closet. I used to look through it nearly every day, but I haven’t now for a few years. I wipe the dust from the lid and carefully lift it to reveal an odd collection of treasures. I hold up a pair of pearl earrings, and a shaky sound escapes my lips, almost like laughter, but not. I remember begging Dad to let me pierce my ears so I could wear them. He said I had to wait until I turn 16. Here I am, almost 16, and I don’t really care about that anymore.

Next, I run the pad of my thumb over a necklace I had also hoped to wear someday. The pendant has a wave carved out of whalebone, attached to a blue velvet ribbon. Dad gave it to Mom when they got married, and I’ve always figured it would be too painful for him to see it again. Maybe I could ask him.

Maybe I could ask him if he knows Mom’s password, too. I will have to explain that I’ve found a file of hers, and he might not like that. I understand if he doesn’t want to dwell on the past, but surely he doesn’t want to forget everything?

Finally, I pull out a tube of bright red lipstick, and this is when I lose it. It was her “power paint,” she called it. When I pretended to be a warrior princess as a young girl, she would paint the Aleut symbols on my face and tell me stories of our people.

“Katara, are you OK, dear?” Gran Gran calls from the doorway.

I sniff and wipe my face with Zuko’s sweatshirt. Yes, I still have it. “I-I-I’m fine, Gran Gran.”

“Can I make you some chamomile tea? Or run you a relaxing lavender jasmine bubble bath? You’ve been working so hard lately.”

“No thanks. I’ll just… go to bed early, I think.”

“OK, dear. Just let me know if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Gran Gran.”

“Oh… and Katara? Your mother would be very proud you.”

I wait until she leaves before fully releasing the tears I’ve been holding back. I suppose a good cry is long overdue. I throw myself on the bed with Zuko’s sweatshirt balled up like a pillow. I don’t realize that I’m still clutching the lipstick. The cap pops off which means I’m probably making a huge mess on my sheets, but I don’t care. Besides, I’m a laundry expert. Mom even used to call me Moonpeach.

I wake up the next morning drowsy and disoriented. Strands of my hair are stuck to my face and my throat is raw—this is why I hate crying. I stand up and brush the wrinkles out of yesterday’s clothes. Mom’s lipstick falls to the floor with a clank, and I say out load to no one in particular, “OK, I’m awake, I’m awake!”

I groan when I look at my phone. Zuko will be here in thirty minutes to pick me up. I scoop up his sweatshirt and laugh. At this rate, he’s never getting it back. I give it a squeeze, a pathetic part of my morning ritual these days. As I scan the room for my shoes, a glint of silver catches my eye.

No. Fucking. Way.

Mom’s lipstick is a USB drive, too. All this time I never knew.

I am cursing our old school computer for how long it takes to boot up. My stomach churns so violently with nerves that I consider calling in sick today. I even taste bile in the back of my throat when the icon “Kya” shows up on the screen.

I don’t know where to start. The “Pictures” folder? There is one called “Fiction,” too. Did my mom write stories like I do? There is also “Case Files,” and that one scares me a little. My hand hovers over the mouse, paralyzed by indecision.

Then, I see it. “Blue Spirit.”

And after years of wishing I had all the rest of these files and only weeks of knowing Zuko, that is the folder I decide to click on first.

Of course. Its contents are encrypted and require a password.

“Zuko is here, dear!” Gran Gran calls from the entryway.

Shit. I can’t process any of this, so I quickly eject the disk and secure it in the zippered part of my bag. I haven’t even changed clothes, but at least I’m in uniform, so it’ll have to do. Both Gran Gran and Zuko eye my disheveled appearance with some concern, but I simply brush past them and head toward Zuko’s car.

I don’t talk to Zuko right away, and he respectfully heeds the silence. He probably thinks I still need my space after yesterday which is partially true. I’m actually dying to tell him what I found, but I’m also reeling from it. His mom has one of my mom’s files, and my mom has one of his mom’s files. What does this mean?

After I fix my hair into my usual braid for the day, I text Dad to ask him if he knows Mom’s password. He confirms what I already suspect—that it should be derived from my name, nickname, or birthday just like Zuko suggested.

I cast a sideways glance at Zuko who unsurprisingly has a death grip on the steering wheel and laser focus on the road. He always does that when there is something left unspoken between us. Is he this easy to read to everyone… or just me?

“Hey Zuko?”

Predictably, he lets out a huge sigh of relief since I finally broke the tension. “Yeah?”

“Can you come over after work today?” I ask.

“Sure.” He stares straight ahead, but a smile tugs at the corner of his lips.

I look down at his lap to confirm he still has the chapstick in his pocket. No, I am not ashamed of this in the least. “Great. And can you bring your laptop?”

He tilts his head in my direction and nods, but I don’t acknowledge this because I am still groping him with my eyes. OK, I may have a problem.

My problem is that I’m a fucking waterworks these days. I cannot stop crying! The bus driver keeps looking at me like I’m a dam about to bust.

Depending on the outcome of Zuko’s little meeting, I’m gonna bust someone’s ass for sure.

I can’t believe he’d agree to go meet with his sister! Ever since I connected the mysterious Ursa files with Zuko’s scar, I don’t trust the Kasai family at all. Except for Iroh, of course. Wow, how did the apple fall so far from the tree? In my Google search last night, I read an article about corruption within the company when it was an arms dealer under Zuko’s grandfather, Azulon.

Zuko says he will call me later. I text back that he should just come over. To pass the time, I read through a few of my mom’s short stories. Hers are not fantasy like mine, though. More like melodrama… and more than I can take right now. I pace between the kitchen and living room. Gran Gran gives me worried looks. I imagine Azula stabbing Zuko with skewers, and Ozai using him as a punching bag. I cry some more. I double check the freezer to make sure we have icepacks. Of course we do. Sokka lives here after all.

Dammit. I even miss Sokka, the big oaf. When we were younger, I had a stuffed penguin, and he had a stuffed otter. If I were crying at night because I missed Mom, he would put on a show to cheer me up—The Adventures of Otter Penguin!

I’m in the middle of composing a text to Sokka, complete with otter and penguin emojis, when Zuko calls.

“Hey, sorry it’s so late.” He sounds very tired.

“Are you OK?” I sound very motherly.

“Um, yeah. Mostly.”

Hmm, not the answer I wanted to hear. “What did Azula want?” I growl.

“She offered me a job at Future Fire. She said things were… how did she put it? Heating up. She could use the help… or something like that.”

Oh no. “Did you—“

“No, Katara.”

“OK, good.”

“It’s not good. I told her I’m happy at the Marine Center, but Azula doesn’t want me to be happy. I told her I’m already doing what Dad wants, but if she thinks I have his favor for any reason, she’ll fix that. She’ll report some bullshit story back to him. He’ll come by the Marine Center to check up on me. I’m so fucked.”

I can’t stand how defeated he sounds, so I deftly change the subject. “Hey, about that password…”

“Yeah? Did you think of something?” His tone changes completely—thankfully.

“Well, you could try Katara082800 or maybe KataraAugust2000 or something with my name and birthday which is August 28, 2000.”

“OK. Just a minute.”

Soon I hear his furious typing in the background. “No luck.”

“You could try Sokka’s, too. His birthday is September 6, 1998.”

I wait for what seems like forever. His frustration mounts with the continuous beating of the delete key.

“What about a nickname, Katara?”

I was afraid he’d ask this. “Don’t laugh, OK?”

“I won’t.”

“It’s… Moonpeach.”

A pause.

“Shit. Holy shit. Katara! That’s it!”

The silence that follows is deafening.

“Zuko?”

“Sorry.”

“Is it… stuff from my mom? In the file.” Because, dude, I’m dying over here.

“It’s uhhh—“

I have an epiphany. “Zuko, what’s your nickname?”

“What?”

“What. Is. Your. Nickname?”

“Oh, umm. Turtleduck.”

“Turtleduck?” I laugh but only because it sounds like a creature that would fit perfectly in my fictional world.

“Hey, I didn’t laugh at yours!” he whines. “It’s because I loved that Christmas song when I was a kid but called it a turtleduck instead of a turtledove, OK?”

I’m half-listening because I just typed “turtleduck” for the password, and the “Blue Spirit” file on my mom’s disk is now accessible.

Seriously, what does this mean?

“Zuko, if I can access my mom’s files with your mom’s password, and you can access your mom’s files with my mom’s password, do you think… were we supposed to find this together?”

Were we supposed to find each other?

Zuko doesn’t answer.

We should be doing this together.

“Zuko, can you come over?”

“I… I’m not sure if that’s a good idea.”

“What? I think… it was meant to be! How else would you explain it?”

“It could just be a coincidence. Maybe they used each others’ passwords to ensure no one would find out ever. Maybe we’re not supposed to know any of this.”

I don’t know what this is because I haven’t read anything, yet. I realize I want him here with me because I’m scared.

“Zuko, please…”

“Even if our moms wanted us to know, my father absolutely doesn’t. It’s too… dangerous. I shouldn’t… you should stay away from me.”

Another epiphany.

“Zuko, did your dad hit you because of me?”

“No! It was… I broke curfew.”

“You’re lying.”

Zuko lets out a noise of frustration, something I’ve never heard him do before. “ARRRRRRGGGGHHH. He just said it was a reminder. To not dishonor the family. He’s a fucking psychopath, Katara. Just let it go.”

I hate that everyone keeps saying that!

“No! I think… Ozai knew that our mothers were working on something together. Something big. A scandal perhaps… maybe it involved your father. So when he found out you were seeing me, he forbade it. And then beat you as a reminder.”

“Katara, have you read any of your mom’s files, yet?”

“No.”

“OK, so read them. And we’ll talk in the morning.”

Chpt. 1 | Chpt. 2 | Chpt. 3 | Chpt. 4 | Chpt. 5

[omgnsfwisnsfw-blog]

NSFW #2.4: Make Your Mark

The sun hung high in the clear azure sky, casting the cliffs and sandy ground in a light golden hue. The setting was one that called to mind any number of stories, mental images of camels and oases and, of course, pyramids. But to the contrary, NSFW were not visiting the Great Pyramids, one of the legendary Seven Wonders that happened to be in the city where Valor Pro was hosting their event. Instead, they’d traveled several hours away to Luxor, the fabled Valley of the Kings. It brought them to where they stood now- inside of a magnificent three tiered temple that seemed to glow in the same golden cast as its surroundings. Several groups of tourists wound their way up the grand staircases and through its ancient halls. Bishop Church and Mike McGuire, however, were already in an area only restored a few years prior, taking a moment to appreciate what lay before them- and turning an eye toward their GoPro camera, set up on its portable tripod. Their outfits coordinated well- both in khaki shorts and sturdy hiking boots, sporting their new ‘Cherry Bomb!’ tanks. Bishop sported an NSFW branded ballcap to shield his eyes from the sun, while Mike opted for their ever present Mets cap. They hadn’t made a habit of wearing their own merchandise lately but someone special was bound to get riled up when they watch. “Welcome to Egypt, Valor Pro faithful! I gotta tell you, there ain’t a better place the brass coulda picked for this show. The whole country is soaked in history. Legendary kings hundreds of thousands of years old have left their marks all around us. And this here? This grand piece of fuckin’ architecture is dedicated to one of ‘em- Hatshepsut. Now, Hatshepsut was an interesting piece of work, different from any other of the great Pharaohs of ancient Egypt. And that had a lot to do, well, with who she was.” They were in a long, somewhat narrow room with an arched ceiling. The walls were adorned with murals, colorful in spite of their age even though there were quite a few pieces of imagery missing, and the ceiling a still vivid blue sporting row after row of yellow stars to mimic the desert sky at night. While Mike spoke, John observed with his hands behind his back. For someone so broad, he did his best to minimize his impact on this ancient ground. “In modern times, everything about her is accessible within seconds. But here,” John’s right hand gestured to the pictures in front of him, “is one of the major ways the ancient Egyptians  communicated. And so despite Hatshepsut’s accomplishments, she was slowly erased and when she wasn’t? Her ascension and motives were all questioned and scrutinized.” “There’s been lots of speculation on why her successor- her stepson- did that. A common theory goes that he didn’t hold her any ill will personally, but didn’t want any other women getting ideas on doing what she did and becoming Pharaoh themselves. But whatever his motive was? It didn’t fucking work, because, as my partner said, you can look up her reign in seconds. We’re talking about her right now. Which is a testament to the fact that true greatness can’t be buried forever.” Mike went to lean against the wall in a casual manner, but a somewhat alarmed look from their partner stopped them and they folded their arms instead. “Of course, chipping away cartouches and pulling down statues ain’t the only way to try to diminish someone’s mark on the world. Trying to muddy the narrative’s the bog standard these days. Kicking up so much shit that what makes someone shine is lost in a storm of crap that either ain’t true or doesn’t matter.” John finally turned around to face the camera, he stood close to his partner. “We’re somewhat used to it,” John paused, “A business decision was made to not renew our contracts in our previous place of employment. There were whispers circulating as to why. And within moments, our tenure had been rewritten by those that linger like wraiths. Coming to Valor Pro was our way of saying to them, to anyone, that our legacy is ours. But here we are, contenders already, and yet the focus has shifted to something that is less than desirable. That’s why we feel that it is on us to remind everyone just who we are.” “We are the kings of tag team wrestling. The falling Icarus, the Cherry Bombers, the Bishop and the Queen. Our bond is fuckin’ unbreakable and our faith in each other is unshakable, no matter how much shit tries to cover up our legacy.” Mike shifted their hat to the side. “And here you are, Reboca, stepping up to us with your fuckin’ arrogance and cracks about our age while conveniently forgetting to say boo about the fact that your fiance's job is hanging in the balance. Too busy sucking yourself off to remember that detail? Or do you really not give a shit?” “Maybe you do. Maybe you’ve got that card clutched to your chest. But Cross Reboca, we understand where your priorities lie. You took one look at us and you dismissed us. You see NSFW as an appetizer to your grand feast. Dakota Jennings, though,” he turned to Mike, “Her actions are debatable but even then, I like her.” “Me too. In other circumstances, we could be friends. She’s totally my kind of gal. There’s just one eentsy weentsy little thing wrong- girl, you’ve got a real whacked out view of your current situation. Let’s break this down. We’ve talked about this and I don’t wanna hang on it too long, but let’s play devil’s advocate and say Vannah had it coming. That doesn’t mean you got carte fucking blanche to wallop everyone with a chair who looks at you goddamn cockeyed. Holy shit. I mean, I’ll admit to playing fast and loose with the rules, but when you go around making modern fucking art with steel chairs and blood? And the brass gets sick of your goddamn shenanigans and calls you to the carpet? There’s only one person responsible for the predicament you wind up in, and I’ll give you a hint- it ain’t Ms. Vanessa Byrne. And even so? And this is the kicker, Jennings- you cry foul on getting punished for your shit at the same time you’re selling fucking t-shirts of it. Wow.” Mike let out a subtle ‘whew’, having said all that in a minimal amount of breaths. Their partner graciously picked up the thread. “And so that’s why you’re here. Back against the wall. Wounded animal. Against all odds. All of those cliches. It puts Mike and I in an unfortunate predicament. We are the arbitrators. We have the final say on your career in Valor Pro.” There was a poignant pause. Footsteps going away from them in the distance can be heard. “Right now, right here, it gives me second thoughts. To extinguish a young career would be no proud achievement. But Mike knows about me. Knows how I handle business in that ring. Once I step between those ropes, friend or foe, I don’t care who you are.” “That’s true. We got a little saying between ourselves- ‘it’s different in the ring’. Now, that phrase has a few meanings for us, most’re personal. But the one you need to be concerned with is the one my partner just alluded to. Because he’s dead serious and so am I- soon as that bell rings, we don’t care. Soon as that bell rings, our sole fuckin’ sphere of concern involves watching each other’s backs and making sure one of you stays down for three, no matter what we have to do to make that happen. Reboca has his arrogance and skill. Jennings has her violence and moxie. That may or may not be enough, but we will do horrible fucking things to you to make sure’s shit it isn’t.” Mike’s eyes were hard-cut emeralds in the dim light, narrowed, sharp, and dangerous. “Three seconds is the easy way out,” John’s fists balled up, the muscles in his arms taut with tension, “I’d need about nine myself. First, blood flow is cut to the brain. All of those vibrant colors become muted. Vision fails. Then like pulling a plug, the ability to move, to speak, to remember, to feel love - that all goes away as the frontal cortex shuts down. A second later, unconsciousness. The bell rings. You don’t hear that. It takes three seconds for normal brain function to resume. And when it does, Dakota Jennings, you’ll come to the realization that while Cross Reboca still has his greatest opportunity to date, you will have nothing.” “Shit’s cold. But that’s the business. I’m sure you two understand.” Mike shrugged. “Also understand we ain’t selling you short. We know we’re in for a hell of a fight. We know you two won’t be split easy- no matter what Cross does or doesn’t say, even if he is the guy in this fight with the least to lose, you two are gonna get married. And it’ll probably be a big, fancy affair, destination venue, celebrity appearances, gourmet cake personally barbecued by Guy Fieri guaranteed to take you to fuckin’ Flavortown, the works!” John mouthed the words to himself, ‘barbecued cake?’ “You got that to look forward to. You got love for each other that nobody’s gonna deny. Nothing can take that away from you…” Inhale. Exhale. Their expression sets in a certain sort of determination and defiance.  They looked to their partner, who responded with a slight nod. “...just like nothing can take what me and Church have away from us. Nothing. We don’t have the glitz, the glamour. The fancy cars an’ movie stars, the high roller suites. You live like superstars. But we’re Not Superstars- we’re Fuckin’ Wrestlers. And that fact? That is why we’re going to be Valor Pro’s next Chimera Tag Team Champions.” Giving that crooked grin of theirs, Mike clicked off the camera. It wasn’t a moment too soon. Before Mike could even say anything about what they’d just recorded, a stampede of footfalls echoed through the ancient stone hallways, and a small throng of people came into the shrine where NSFW had just finished recording. They cut between them, the two of them momentarily on opposite sides of a small Nile of humanity, occupying the empty spaces in the murals long since partially erased. Their eyes stayed connected, even as the tour group made their way around the chamber and took pictures. When a part of the room thinned out, they made their way back to the center. Mike held out their hand. John took it, and the two of them joined the group in their appreciation of ancient history.