#fire alarm cables

[theriverbeyond]

very funny moment. me, never cooked fish before, frantically googling 'how to tell if salmon is cooked' bc we are prepping like 15 dishes at once across 2 kitchens and everyone else is busy so somehow i (vegetarian) was assigned the task of salmon. anyway the reviews r in aparently i did a great job (i wouldnt know).

[almatrading]

What is fire alarm cable and why it is singled out for fire suppression?

Fire alarm cable is used in multi-unit buildings, schools, educational institutions, commercial complexes hospitals and other public places where fire safety is required. These cables connect fire fighting equipment such as smoke detectors, exit sign boards, emergency lighting, and fire commander center. It is obvious that such cables come with fire resistant qualities. These cables are designed to resist heat or fire and supply electricity to fire alarms systems and emergency lighting in your building

[skillmumbai]

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[mixelation]

heya, so i've read your fic "it's about magic eyeball biology" right when it came out on AO3 but i just saw it's not online anymore. is there a way you'd be willing to send me the file? I REALLY like it and I was reading it basically every day for a few days because it made me laugh

i pulled it because i was getting comments about it on other fics and that was super annoying. but i guess i don't have a problem reposting it to tumblr. some notes:

this is an AU based on a bunch of jokes in this tag (chronological order)

someone asked about how weird it would be to be an SI and find out about the eyeball symbionts, so i wrote about tori finding out. this fic is a joke. it is not "canon." no one in plasticity, mutagenicity, or any other fic of mine has eyeball symbionts. i do not find it interesting, amusing, or fun to explore this concept in other fics. i do not want comments or questions about it. please respect this

the word i chose to use is "symbiont," which in my experience is the more common term used by people who study symbiosis. "symbiote" is from marvel.

Tori was successful in not vomiting the first time she watched an autopsy. Her stomach churned uncomfortably, but she ignored it, watching Keizo’s hands and pointedly not looking at the face of their latest victim. If she just focused on the steady removal of organs from the abdomen and not the face, she could pretend they weren’t from a person. 

Then Keizo moved on to the head, and she had to look. He pried open the eyelids, and her stomach rolled. 

“The eyes aren’t so bad,” Keizo narrated, voice gruff and bored. He held the lids open with one hand while he cut away with the other. “I like to use curved scissors to-- pay attention-- cut through the fascial sheath, and then you can cut away the orbital muscles and it’ll pop right out. Orochimaru-sama isn’t going to let you touch anyone with a doujutsu, so don’t worry about damaging the…”

Tori frowned, barely listening to Keizo, as the victim’s eye did pop right out. It was smooth, almost a perfect sphere, with the dark brown iris raised ever so slightly. Pink viscera clung to it in Keizo’s hand. 

“Hold on,” Tori interrupted, twisting her neck to try and look at the back of the eyeball. “Where’s the… you know, the optic nerve?”

She was pretty sure the optic nerve was, like, huge. It was a bundle of over a million nerve fibers or something insane like that, if she remembered the human anatomy unit correctly. Her teacher had called it a “bridge cable.”

Then again, that unit was from an advanced high school class, and Keizo was looking at her like she was particularly stupid. Even if he was mean, violent, and uncooperative, he definitely knew more about cutting out eyeballs than Tori.

“Is it smaller than it looks in cartoons?” she tried. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Keizo sneered. “Here, you do the second eye.”

That was the good thing about eyes, Tori supposed. You got two for the price of one. 

He passed her the curved scissors, which were slick with whatever goo lined an eye socket, and Tori hesitantly put down the notebook she’d been writing in. Feeling very light-headed, she copied Keizo’s movements, gently separating the victim’s eyelids and praying something would happen to intervene in what she was about to do. A fire alarm going off, or a earthquake, or fuck-- she’d take the hideout being actively attacked over this. 

No act of god stopped her. Her hands were shaking so hard that she accidentally punctured the sclera and transparent, goopy vitreous started leaking out. 

The eye did pop right out, though. There was no nerve at the back, and no evidence of one in the back of the pink socket. 

Looking into the face of dead, eyeless person, she could either feel the horror at what she’d done seeping into her very bones, or she could wonder: What the fuck?

xXx

She asked for an anatomy book. 

“I don’t see what the point is,” Kabuto told her. “You’re getting hands-on experience.”

“I want to know how things work when they’re still alive,” Tori replied. 

“Well…” Kabuto rolled his chair back from his desk towards a narrow bookstand of books and scrolls he kept in his clinic. “I suppose Orochimaru would approve. Here, you can look through this while we wait for that drug to kick in.”

He handed her what was clearly a picture book meant for children, a deeply condescending smile on his face. Tori pressed her lips together to prevent herself from saying something disrespectful, then forced her face into a polite smile. 

There was a chapter on different senses, and she slowly flipped through the chapter on chakra networks in mild interest, before she found the two-page spread covering sight. 

Mother of Christ, Tori thought. 

She hadn’t found an optic nerve because there wasn’t one. 

xXx

Part of Tori’s argument for why she shouldn’t be dissected like a frog was that there was no reason to think there was much special about her biologically, including her own anatomy. She thought it would be safer to simply not say anything.

But now she knew. She knew every person in this world was a walking sin against logic, and that knowledge, sitting in the Oto clinic with Kabuto, was a horrible, heavy burden that made it hard to breathe.

The picture book Kabuto had loaned her had explained vision to her the way Tori thought an alien who’d never even seen a human and also who didn’t have sight themselves might explain it: special cells at the back of the eye reacted to light, and then that information was transferred directly into the brain via a complex network of chakra, and this was not even the worst part. 

The worst part was that eyeballs were an entirely separate organism. A mutualistic creature that colonized newborn baby eye sockets and then metamorphosed into basically a giant eyeball that fed visual information into the brain in exchange for protection and nutrients. 

“During pregnancy,” the book had explained in a little Did you know? box, “a mommy’s body makes special hormones, which tell the visual symbiont to make babies too! The babies are called larvae, which have lots of little tentacles to help them move around. They like to stay with mommy, though, and so they find the baby when she holds it. Sometimes, when there’s a problem with mommy and she can’t donate larvae to her baby, a doctor can help daddy’s eyes make babies, or sometimes another mommy will donate!”

Tori was going insane. She was going to hyperventilate. What the FUCK!

“This is the worst thing I ever read,” she muttered to herself, eyes stuck on the book. Whatever drug Kabuto had given her was making her dizzy, but she felt like her vision was laser-focused and perfectly taking in the bright cartoon of two eyeball symbiont creatures. “Is this a joke? This has to be a joke.”

She was vaguely aware of Kabuto frowning at her. “A joke?”

“Visual symbionts?” Tori squeaked out, sounding and feeling hysterical. 

“Yes…?” Kabuto repeated. 

“No,” Tori argued. “No way.”

Bemused, Kabuto dug out more textbooks, these ones meant for actual medical professionals. He flipped through passages on syndromes related to host-symbiont genetic incompatibilities, being colonized by more than one symbiont, symbiont maldevelopment and absenteeism, chakra incompatibilities, if the symbiont spontaneously regrew its tentacles and left your head in order to start its sexual reproductive cycle. 

“Is this…” Tori felt like she couldn’t breathe. She felt more apt to vomit than she did when she’d fucked up trying to cut out someone’s eye. “Is this a genjutsu…?”

“Did you really not know about them?” Kabuto asked. “I thought you had biological training.”

Tori had to work very hard not to break down into hysterics. 

xXx

The good news was that “I have a special nerve that connects my eyeball to my brain and lets me see” sounded exactly as insane to both Kabuto and Orochimaru as “eyeball symbiont creature” did to Tori. 

Well, no, that wasn’t really good news. But she felt vindicated at both their absolutely baffled looks. 

She had to explain it three times– dropping words like “optic chiasma” and “retinal blind spot” before Kabuto believed her enough to press his fingers to her temple and send chakra into her eyes. 

“There is something there,” he said, sounding deeply perplexed, and Orochimaru perked up like a child receiving a Christmas gift. “I think-- yes, it’s a nerve.”

“I think you should be able to see it,” Tori said, “if you shine a light into the pupil.”

They did. Tori did indeed have a white spot at the back of her eye, right where her optic nerve entered her eye. 

“You’re like a cephalopod,” Orochimaru informed her, sounding like a dog owner telling their pet they were a very good girl. “This is how their eyes are arranged, an absolutely beautiful evolution. Oh, but the approach of the nerve is different. How fascinating.”

The examination ended with Orochimaru gleefully jabbing a needle into both Tori’s eyes. This was uncomfortable and painful, and he talked about how the presence of an optic nerve might be part of her future vision. 

At least this backs up my story, Tori thought as Orochimaru’s cool hand held her face down.

xXx

Orochimaru strolled into lab the next day and pulled Tori aside to go over the results of her test with her. He took her down the hall to an office, which was surprisingly homey, all things considered. Orochimaru’s office was lined with bookshelves, and had a nice wood desk and a comfortable looking chair behind it. There was an ornamental lamp, which along with the desk chair, were the closest to “creature comforts” that Tori had seen in Oto so far. 

She sat opposite to Orochimaru, in a much less comfortable chair. He spread a scroll out on the desk in front of her. 

“Do you know how to read the results of a DNA test?” he asked. 

“Uh,” Tori answered. “Not like whatever you’re about to show me.”

He hummed back at her, not at all bothered. “Ah, your otherworldly science. You should tell me about that later. For now…”

He explained how he’d compared the DNA extracted from her eye to DNA extracted from the hair he’d ripped off of her previously. They had matched exactly. He’d also ran her eye DNA against several visual symbionts they had on file, across many vertebrate taxa, and found no match at all. 

“Your eyes are one-hundred percent Tori,” he said. “It’s amazing.”

“...thanks?” Tori tried. As a joke she added, “I grew them myself.”

“Hmm,” he answered. “I wish I had more of you, and more of other animals from your world. I’d like to study how they evolved.”

“I don’t understand how they didn’t evolve here,” Tori told him honestly. They had a special socket and everything! “I think… do other animals have eyes here? I’m pretty sure eyes evolved more than once. In my world, I mean.”

Orochimaru leaned back in his seat, eyeing her indulgently, a smile tugging at his lips. “The leading theory is that the symbiont started as a flesh-eating parasite that attacked proto-eyes in vertebrates, and then evolved with us until it simply replaced our eyes. Most babies are born with soft tissue in their sockets, to feed potential symbionts, and some think that growth is left over from millions of years ago when our ancestors had their own eyes.”

“Oh,” Tori said, unsure how to respond to that. She’d been taught parasitism and mutualism were opposite sides of the same symbiotic spectrum, so moving from one end to the other made sense. “Well, that happens sometimes.”

Orochimaru laughed. 

They chatted. Orochimaru was good at answering questions thoroughly and without making Tori feel like she was stupid the way other Oto residents did, and he nodded along to her talking about whatever eyeball-related thing that came to her mind. Red-green colorblindness being a sex-linked trait, for example, was an extremely interesting topic for Orochimaru. 

“So do you not have the genes for photoreceptors at all?” Tori asked curiously. 

Instead of answering her immediately, Orochimaru had started writing down notes to himself. With the exception of occasionally labeling a tube or sample, Tori had never actually seen him write anything down before, and he scribbled with a sort of fervent focus. 

“I’ve never looked,” he said eventually. “There’s evidence for photosensitivity in those without symbionts, but… It would be interesting to use your genome to search for any analogous loci…”

Because the conversation flowed easily, Tori eventually felt bold enough to ask:

“So is this why you can just pass sharingan around like hot potatoes?”

Orochimaru paused in the middle of writing, blinking at her. 

“Hot potatoes?”

Tori blushed, and then backpedaled. “I know you… uh, Sasuke is going to get into a fight with Danzo at some point.”

She gestured at her forearm, and Orochimaru let a loud, rasping laugh. 

“I don’t think Danzo can see particularly well with those,” he said, eyes mirthful. “But I suppose eye transplants would be quite difficult with a nerve to connect, wouldn’t they?”

Tori nodded. She was pretty sure they weren’t even possible. There were… a lot of problems, there. But if the eyeball was supposed to be an external creature, it had to be easier to pass them around. 

“They have quite a high success rate here,” he answered, tone flippant as he played with the pen in his hand. “Unfortunately, an eye transplanted into a non-related host can rarely be coaxed into reproducing.”

“Huh,” Tori answered. “Why?”

Orochimaru’s lips quirked up into a smirk. “Perhaps that can be your next project.” 

xXx

It didn’t get to be Tori’s next project, because Oto ended up going up in flames. 

She didn’t even have time or energy to think about how everyone in this world was running around with symbiont eyeballs instead of regular eyes until months later, sitting in Sasori’s workshop and carefully stirring some foul-smelling concoction while he excavated someone’s insides so he could hide weapons inside or something. 

“You know, you guys should really invent magnetic stir-bars,” Tori said, eyeing the beaker of slowly bubbling sludge and wondering if the fumes could hurt her. 

Apparently Sasori was in a bad mood today, because he put the horrifying… scooping tool… down and turned to her fully. 

Like carving a pumpkin, Tori thought against her will, eyes fixated on the… organ scooper?

“What stupid thing are you rambling about now?” Sasori asked her, voice harsh. “You’re distracting me. If you make a single mistake with that poison--”

Tori was trying very hard to pay attention to Sasori’s threats and not think about all the horrible squelching noises of the organs she’d removed herself. It was better to listen to Sasori, really. Probably increased her chance of survival, even. 

There was movement behind Sasori. Tori squeaked in surprise. Sasori clicked his tongue in annoyance, picked up the organ scooper, and then used it to catch something right out of the air with the ease of a professional lacrosse player. 

“Oh, disgusting,” he said, staring down at it in evident annoyance. 

Something else plopped to the floor with an audible, vaguely wet thud. It rolled across the concrete floor, and Sasori trapped it against the floor with a firm sandal. Tori leaned over the bench to see what was going on, and saw the transparent ooze of viscera across the cement and gray tentacles trashing against the floor and the sides of Sasori’s sandals. 

“Is that an eyeball symbiont?” Tori asked, suddenly excited. She leapt to her feet and came to stand beside him, peering into the shell of the organ scooper. 

Sure enough, an eyeball with a halo of tentacles was rolling back and forth, desperately trying to escape. 

Holy shit, Tori thought. That was… that was amazing, actually. 

“It’s sort of cute,” she said. 

Sasori looked at her like she was insane. This was, apparently, such a bizarre statement that he didn’t immediately react to the eyeball finally lurching itself forward and out of the scoop. Tori caught it easily in one hand as it fell. 

“Don’t touch it,” Sasori hissed, grabbing her wrist. “Are you insane? It’ll induce your eyes too.”

“...what?” Tori asked, blinking back at him. “Oh, because the tentacles mean it’s trying to have sex?”

She stared down at the thing in her hand. The tentacles wriggled between her fingers. Kinky little bastards, weren’t they?

Sasori was looking at her with… awe wasn’t really the word. More like: What the fuck, I have never seen someone this carelessly insane before, and I am horrified that humanity could reach these depth. 

Which was kind of rude, actually, because they lived with Hidan. 

“What do you mean by ‘induce’?” Toi asked. 

“Do you not know how eyeballs work?” Sasori asked, sounding just shy of hysterical. 

Apparently, handling an eyeball symbiont in its sexual reproduction mode could induce a symbiont in a host to also leave the head and revert to its sexual cycle, so they could both run off and hopefully have an eyeball orgy with as many symbionts as possible. Tori guessed that made sense. The symbiont reproduced mainly asexually, but most things did occasionally run off to have sex. That was just life. 

Sasori was absolutely disgusted by the entire process. His symbionts were the only living part of him, and he was personally horrified by the idea of them crawling out of his head to make babies. 

He also seemed to be viscerally repulsed by the threat of a loose symbiont in someone’s living quarters, not because it might affect his housemates, but because he didn’t like the idea of more tentacled symbionts flopping around. 

“Is this like… an ongoing societal problem?” Tori wondered. Did people kill them on sight, or was this considered a beautiful miracle of life? 

She didn’t get to find out, because her question triggered a rant from Sasori about how much he hated them, and that they should just stay in people’s heads and look pretty like they were meant to. 

“Is it common to leave a dead host like this?” Tori asked when he calmed down. They couldn’t really move on their own unless they went into sex mode, after all… 

“Why are you still holding it?” Sasori demanded. His own disgust was the only thing keeping him from prying it out of her hand himself. 

“Oh, I don’t have a visual symbiont,” Tori said, blinking at Sasori. “I just grew my own eyes. Uh. Like an octopus.”

Sasori very slowly let go of her wrist. He stared at her, perplexed. 

The symbiont in her hand wriggled some more. Her own eyeballs stayed firmly in place. 

“...pick up the one on the floor,” Sasori said eventually. 

He wanted to keep them. He liked saving his puppet’s original eyes. Usually, when they left the host, he had to kill them and then isolate them for a week to be sure the hormones that could induce his own symbionts dissipated. That meant, once he was able to safely handle them, they were not in pristine condition. This, perhaps, contributed to why he hated them so much. They were frustrating art material. 

Tori thought, based on what she’d read about things doctors did, he was being a bit paranoid, the way some people didn’t like touching raw meat. 

“You’ll have to kill them and preserve them for me,” Sasori said, having fully accepted that Tori was a weird freak faster than she would have anticipated. 

Tori felt bad when she killed them, slipping a scalpel into their backs where Sasori indicated. 

“You’ll see more live ones,” Sasori sniffed when she complained. “This happens with about a quarter of my bodies.”

Fascinating, Tori thought. She’d never had one of her failed surgery… patients… do this. Maybe what they did in Oto also killed the symbiont? 

“And you don’t use all those bodies for full puppets, right?” Tori asked. “You won’t need every symbiont.”

“You can’t keep it as a pet,” Sasori sneered. 

Obviously she didn’t want a pet. She wanted to run some experiments. This was really interesting, after all! 

Instead of earnestly explaining this to Sasori, who seemed a bit on edge and likely to yell at her, she went for jokes at other people’s expense. He loved those. 

“I want to see if Jashin protects Hidan from them,” Tori told him, and he snorted. “Or see if we can get one to colonize Deidara’s mouth-hand.”

“He will kill you,” Sasori said, not without a hint of bemusement. “You’ll cut off all their tentacles next. I like to use curved scissors…”

[soumarhea]

Piston Peak Air Attack residential circle concept arts, with excerpts from The Art of Planes.

[Air Attack base]

Each member of the air attack team has his or her own hangar around a circular neighborhood pattern. “This layout was also largely influenced by the wonderful sense of community we got when we visited the ranger and staff residences in Yosemite,” notes Planes: Fire & Rescue head of story Art Hernandez. Shape language reflects this warm, welcoming atmosphere: “We use rounder, friendlier shapes at the air attack base, as opposed to more angled, formal shapes at the lodge,” explains art director Toby Wilson.

"Dusty's" and Blade's hangars;

Blade’s hangar is on the highest perch in the air attack team’s residential circle, out of respect for his authority. It features a front deck helipad, built for easy accessibility when the alarm sounds, so he can just roll out his door and take off, jumping into immediate action.

"Blade's hangar is on the highest perch—" if that isn't short king behavior, I don't know what is.

Windlifter's hangar;

His hangar is elongated a bit to give it almost a longhouse feel, and it features a repeated pattern of tailfins, laid out in a style often evident in American Indian tapestry. On the side yard, Windlifter also has a cable and pulley system that encases giant logs that he can use for weight-lifting workouts.

First time saw this I keep looking at his helipad and thought, "so he lands there, just to take off and land properly on the ground??", and then I remembered his workouts.

Dipper's and Cabbie's hangars;

Compared with the other hangars on the base, Lil’ Dipper’s clearly has more of a feminine feel to it, with cheerful bright blue paint, wildflowers, and window boxes made of old tires. “My favorite detail is the lawn art, an excavator styled to look like a pink flamingo,” laughs set designer Jim Schlenker.

Would having pink flamingo lawn art styled from an excavator is something like having monkey lawn art styled from human figure or is it different??....

Cabbie’s hangar displays camouflage décor. “We knew he would definitely feel at home in an ex-military Quonset hangar, and we gave him a ham radio with a huge antenna, imagining that he might stay in touch with his wartime buddies,” notes Planes: Fire & Rescue art director Toby Wilson.

Remember how big Cabbie's headphone is when Dusty first touch down at base? Yea I always think about that. Pretty sure it is bigger than Patch. Not sure why that one comes to mind, it just did.

Bonus,

Dusty: Damn, they put me in the storage room...

[sciderman]

i feel like.. Every character in your universe, Peter, Wade, Cable, Johnny, MJ, Gwen, fuck even Harry. All of them are “Right People, Wrong Time”. No matter what everyone they meet is the right person at the right time, because all of them are evolving characters who get better and get worse. They are all the right people for their respective partner, but none of them are in the right place. They fall in love with eachother, but the person they fall in love with doesn't even know who they are. They fall for the version of someone who that person despises most about themselves. I don't know if you do it on purpose, but there's a nice analogy you portray using love and time.

oh, bless you anon. if there are two themes in ask-spiderpool, it's love and time. heck, this little number is first on the ask-spiderpool playlist.

peter and wade are kind of always hilariously Not on the Same Page, ever, actually - when it comes to the freaky timescale of love. it's a running gag, really, that peter just has the poorest timing imaginable. he's always, always running late. always last to get the memo.

he decides it's time to fall in love with wade the precise Moment wade is making the active choice to fall OUT of love with him

wade's mad about that

peter decides to spring all this talk of love just as wade's finally finding his own sense of self-worth without all those extra complications messing up his head and peter sticks a wrench in it

i think all of wade and peter's relationship issues really do come down to peter having poor timing. for springing things onto wade long before or after he's ready for them. if he was earlier, it would've been less heartache. if he'd waited longer, maybe it would've been built on sturdier ground.

peter does the right thing at the wrong time. all the time. and he's trying - he's actively trying so hard right now to manage his timing. to not push wade too fast. to be patient.

but also not be too slow.

peter just - can't find the middle ground. and it's driving him crazy. he knows he needs the time to be right. but he doesn't know when the time will be right. the time is never right.

it's kind of the joke now, that peter and wade are kind of bouncing back and forth in time because neither of them are ready. they will be, eventually.

but for now...

it's true - kind of all of their relationships are victim to this - it's funny, i think i've been victim to it a bunch of times in my life, too. where a person might've been the one - might've been everything, but you... you just didn't act in time. you didn't recognise it at the time. things just... didn't work out. schedules didn't align. one small little misstep in the universe. i always wonder about what kind of people could've become important in my life, if i'd done a few things differently. if i'd said the right thing, at the right time.

ultimately, i think everything happens for a reason. and when something's the right time, it is the right time. there's no hypothetical "right time" that you missed the alarm for. if it were the right time, it would've happened. but life's a game about trying your darndest to know when to act, and when to hang-fire. and, well - what happens happens. you win, you lose. but whatever's meant to happen - well, it'll happen.

[in1-nutshell]

Hi I lied when I said the last time I asked for juno was the last time

Cygate whirl and first aid seprately react to juno having a panic attack or breakdown without rodimus or perceptor nearby

your nutshell summary are really cute

Bringing back Juno! Let's do this!

Hope you enjoy!

Juno having a panic attack/ breakdown with Cygate, Whirl, and First Aid

SFW, Platonic, Cybertronain reader

MTMTE

Cygate

The pair had been walking back to their shared room when the incident happened.

The evening had turned out to be a bit eventful.

Especially when a little argument sparked between the pair.

They don’t remember what the cause of it was, but it left both in a sour mood when they heard something.

It sounded like… crying?

Tailgate went forward with Cyclonus trailing behind with a servo on his sword.

The pair was surprised to see Juno on the floor curled up with both their servos clenched on their helm.

They were shaking like a leaf, bio lights blinking rapidly, and optics shut tight.

“Juno!”--Tailgate

Tailgate rushes to their side.

Cyclonus walks over but keeps his distance.

Juno shrinks a bit at the sudden contact.

Tailgate retracts his servos but gently takes one of their servos, softly running his digits over theirs.

He looks over at Cyclonus for help.

Cyclonus goes to their other side and grabs their other servo.

He pries their servo open.

The pair exchanged quiet words until Juno stopped shaking.

Cyclonus helps Juno up and supports most of their weight.

Tailgate tries to help with the weight the best he can.

The minibot ends up holding their servo the rest of the trip to the couples habsuite nearby.

Cyclonus helped Juno onto the berth as Tailgate closed the door for more privacy.

Juno looks down avoiding the gaze of the pair.

“I’m sorry—”--Juno

Tailgate grabs their servo again.

Juno shakes a bit trying to keep the tears at bay.

Cyclonus walks over and places a servo on their shoulder.

“Can you tell us what happened?”--Tailgate

Juno slowly nods.

“…I’ve been a bit overwhelmed with work… I don’t want what happened before to happen again… maybe if I had worked harder last time then maybe they wouldn’t have--”--Juno

“Stop.”--Cyclonus

Juno looks at Cyclonus who had tightened his grip on their shoulder a bit.

“No one could have spotted them. Even in review, all cameras had been disabled and the ones that were partially operational were not enough to bypass their cloaking devices. You did your job as well as you could.”--Cyclonus

Juno looks down at Tailgate.

“You were the one who sounded the alarm. You saved several bots who were in that area Juno.”--Tailgate

Juno shakes a bit and starts sniffling more.

Tailgate hugs their midsection.

The flood gate opens.

Juno falls on Cyclonus and Tailgate and weeps a bit.

The pair give each other a knowing look before going back to comforting their friend.

They do implore Juno to talk about their troubles with them, or Perceptor, or Rodimus or Rung if it was bad.

Tailgate later comms in Rodimus to come by and get Juno once they are ready and want to see him.

Whirl

Whirl had been walking with Juno when it happened.

Whirl had managed to rope Juno into going out for a drink after a while of pestering.

He secretly wanted to know what a tipsy or drunk Juno was like, and he wanted evidence.

That’s when something jumped from the corner in front of them.

It looked like Tarn.

Whirl immediately began firing at ‘Tarn’.

Turned out it was a well sculpted dummy that looked like Tarn.

“Ha! Just a dummy! A real good looking dummy but that’s not—”--Whirl

Whirl notices Juno on the ground wide optic and shaking.

Their optics glued on the fake Tarn.

Whirl moves to them slowly.

“Hey Jumpy, its not real you know.”--Whirl

Juno’s shaking faltered slightly, that was a good sign.

He kneels down to help them up.

“Now, up we go and—”--Whirl

As soon as his claw touched their back, they launched their arms around him pulling him close and burring their faceplate into his neck cables.

“Hey, Juno! Can you just…”--Whirl

He stops when he feels wetness dribbling down his cables.

“…Sod it…”--Whirl

He could hear the mumbles of Tarn and other members of the DJD.

Carefully hoisting them into his arms and walked back into his habsuite.

Privacy was needed for this kind of thing.

And he had a reputation to uphold!

They make it to the room; he trips over something and topples on to the berth with them.

Juno hadn’t let go the entire time.

Whirl started talking randomly to fill the void.

He started talking about the clocks he had been working on.

The talking seemed to work in calming the bot down.

An hour later Whirl was showing Juno the inner working of his latest clock.

He watches from afar that they get back to Perceptor or Rodimus before going back to his own business.

The next day, Whirl found several new clock parts at his door with a thank you note attached to it.

First Aid

First Aid didn’t know what made him walk out of the med bay but he is glad he did.

He figured he just needed a break from everything in the bay and needed to clear his processor.

He isn’t expecting to see Juno in a dark corner shaking.

“Juno!”—First Aid

First Aid comes over to the shaking bot and kneels down examining their frame for any injuries.

There are none.

He notices their rapid venting, tears, and them grabbing certain places in their frame.

Places that he remembered fixing when they came back from…

Juno was mumbling something but kept their optics shut.

“Juno, Juno its First Aid…You’re on the Lost Light, you’re on the floor, your safe… is okay to touch you?”—First Aid

Juno slowly nods as the shaking subsides.

The medic slowly lifts the shaking bot and helps them walk back to a private part of the med bay.

The pair goes to their habsuite and that’s where Juno explained to him what happened.

It turned out someone had blasted the Empyrean suite in their office as some cruel joke.

Which reminded them that they needed to explain to Magnus why the door had been kicked down and indented into the wall.

They thought they were back on the ship, the pod, the giant servos…

First Aid comms in Ratchet that he wasn’t going to be returning for his shift, something else came up and needed his attention.

First aid stayed with Juno until they were better.

The medic later comms in Perceptor giving him an update on Juno and lets him know that Juno is in the med bay.

[princessmotif]

related to this post i made about azula's varying respect for her friends and faith in their willingness to play the roles they're meant to in the fire nation, i think it's a really incorrect perspective to say that mai's betrayal was always obvious while ty lee's was shocking. i understand that a lot of viewers felt that way as kids and continue to feel that way as adults because ty lee was outwardly agreeable while mai wasn't, but it's just very shortsighted.

ty lee had to be threatened into joining azula. yes, she played her part very well afterward, but she clearly never wanted to be a part of this team. she manipulated azula constantly with praise and her veneer of stupidity to make azula feel she was loyal and not going to do anything out of line with her role again (i.e. running away again). her betrayal makes perfect sense. she was always looking for a way out; she just thought it would come after the war was won because she didn't see mai's betrayal coming before azula gave the order to cut the cables.

why wouldn't ty lee see the betrayal coming before that? she's very emotionally intelligent, and they all are highly aware of mai's feelings for zuko even if she wasn't. but like azula, ty lee knows that mai is committed to her role. furthermore, mai sincerely likes azula much more than ty lee does. she smiles when she sees azula in omashu, jokes with her, semi-embraces her of her own accord despite disliking hugs, agrees with no fuss to come along on the mission, feels comfortable disobeying orders she dislikes while ty lee clearly fears punishment, scoffs at the idea of azula lightningbending at her as if it's ridiculous, feels comfortable yelling at azula without needing to apologize, and overall treats azula with familiarity and a sense of equality between them. while mai says that she loves zuko more than she fears azula at boiling rock and azula says that fear is the only reliable way [to guarantee loyalty], mai never actually shows any fear or even particularly negative feelings toward or about azula. the only time we see real friction between them prior to the betrayal is when azula dismisses mai so she can tell zuko to stop visiting iroh. mai clearly knows azula is up to something in her desire to talk to zuko alone and that the excuse of mai needing to fix ty lee's braid is a lie, but that's it. even when they're children and azula makes them all play the game with the apple, mai looks at most somewhat concerned about the apple being on fire on top of her head. she doesn't seem to be truly afraid of azula or the fire. she's much more alarmed by zuko tackling her. of course, there are the implicit threats with their actual statuses in society since going against azula is going against the royal family, but we don't ever actually see azula threaten mai or mai show fear of azula.

mai's betrayal is much more surprising given what's actually shown of her relationship with azula and her willingness to play the part she's supposed to in the fire nation. azula is her friend, someone she treats as an equal despite their social statuses dictating otherwise, and the princess of the fire nation. this is why azula is so shocked that mai would do something so flagrant.

[roosterforme]

The Deployment Diaries Part 19 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: Your fear that you did something to distract Bradley eats away at you while you wait to hear about his condition.

Warnings: Angst, swearing

Length: 4400 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader

This was written to accompany my series Is It Working For You? along with a bunch of my one-shots! Check my masterlist for the reading order!

From the second the mission started, Bradley had a bad feeling. He usually felt calm and peaceful once he was up in the air. He usually felt a connection to his father. But this time, he only felt anxious. 

As soon as the target had been destroyed, he and the other pilots were under almost constant fire from enemy fighters. It was literally the worst case scenario, as the F/A-18s weren't equipped with heavy weaponry. They were made for stealthy missions, ones where you hoped you weren't detected at all, ones where you shouldn't need to use more than your two allotted missiles. 

The dogfight was intense, and Bradley had to help Titan out not once, but twice as the other pilot had run out of flares early on. It was such a relief to Bradley when he was out over open water, heading back to the aircraft carrier. He breathed a sigh of relief as he was able to account for the other three Super Hornets as well. They were all just trying to limp back to safety.

"Tally, tally!" called Empress through the radio. As soon as Bradley was alerted to the position of the remaining enemy bogey, he regrouped. He was the only one with any ammunition left. 

"I got this," he informed the others, looping back for a better shot at the enemy fighter. For a second, all he could think about was your face. He pictured your lips as you begged him to be safe. He pictured the uncertainty in your eyes when you told him you missed a birth control pill. He pictured you in bed underneath him, laughing at a secret just the two of you shared. 

"I need her," he whispered, as he lay down a round of fire, getting a few hits on the wings. But the other pilot somehow managed to keep control, banked around to the right and tried to gain the upperhand. Bradley unloaded his last round of bullets, hitting the fuel line and starting a small fire. But instead of ditching out of the flaming aircraft, the other pilot fired back, and soon Bradley had lost his hydraulics and radio functions. 

"Shit!" he yelled, realizing he had no control over his throttle as every red light imaginable started flashing at him. Alarms were screeching everywhere, and he knew there wasn't a chance he would be able to save this F/A-18. Too bad he didn't have Hangman here this time to help him. If he did, he probably wouldn't have to punch out.

Now he was rapidly losing altitude. Based on his last known air speed calculation, he only had a couple more seconds to bail safely. So Bradley made sure everything was in order before he pulled the cables to eject. But he had waited too long, taken one more breath than he should have before ejecting. The aircraft started into a roll, and Bradley's torso slammed against the frame as he launched out, sending him in a trajectory where he hit his head as well. 

The last thing he thought about was how pissed he was that he didn't have time to grab his helmet bag containing the photo of you. 

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

You felt yourself on the verge of hyperventilating. You were listening to Admiral Priscilla Franklin, but her words weren't making sense. You'd barely been able to confirm your full name for her. 

"Lieutenant Bradshaw was involved in a mission related incident. I can't provide you with much more information than that."

Your eyes were filled with tears as you choked out the words, "Is he okay?"

The pause on the other end was too long. You got yourself sprawled out on your back on the kitchen floor, trying to get blood to your head so you didn't faint. Why wasn't she telling you if Bradley was okay?

"Is he okay?" you demanded louder, sucking air into your burning lungs.

Admiral Franklin sighed. "He's stable at the moment. We are waiting for him to regain consciousness. He has broken ribs, lacerations and most likely a grade three concussion."

He was alive. 

"What happened to him?" you asked, choking on your tears.

"I can't provide you with more information at this time. I'm sorry." She actually did sound sorry. She could probably hear you panicking through the phone. "When he regains consciousness, the medical staff will be able to do a more thorough examination. See what kind of head trauma we are dealing with. He's being stitched up at the moment. We are going to need to get him medically evacuated as soon as he's able to deal with the flights, and get him back home. I will personally call you back with details when I have them."

Once the call was disconnected, you rolled onto your side on the kitchen floor and cried hysterically, grabbing onto Tramp when he came to see what was wrong. You cried for such a long time, your cheeks were raw and one of your contacts had come out. 

Bradley was alive, but something terrible had happened to him. You started to search for information about grade three concussions on your phone. Some of the information was terrifying, and you prayed he would still have a fully functioning brain. And lacerations? He might need to have them surgically closed if they were too deep. Broken ribs could be interfering with his lungs working properly. And even though you would have done anything for him, there was nothing you could do to help at the moment.

How was he going to get home? Maybe Admiral Franklin would let you come get him and fly back with him. Did she mention when she was going to call you back? You could barely recall anything she said now. 

Then your phone rang, and it was your mom. You ignored the call. You couldn't get yourself up off the floor at the moment, let alone collect yourself enough to talk to your parents. You barely moved until the room started getting darker as the sun moved across the sky. You could hear Tramp's stomach growling, and you knew it had been hours since your phone call with the Admiral. 

Carefully you stood, but your body felt like it weighed a ton, and you were having a hard time walking. You gave Tramp a scoop of dog food and then went to sit on the couch. You quickly texted Phoenix and the guys, letting them know the scant details you had about what had happened to Rooster. 

Then you curled up into a tight ball and thought about Bradley. You wondered if he was in pain. If he was awake yet. Was this your fault? Had he been too focused on things here to be fully present during the mission? Was he more upset than he let on that it was a false alarm instead of a pregnancy? You pressed your lips together as the tears started again.

About an hour later, there was a soft knock at the front door, jostling you out of your stupor. It took you a full minute to figure out how to stand and walk to go see who it was. "Phoenix," you said, but your voice sounded foreign to your own ears. You let her inside and she gently wrapped you in her arms. You could tell that she must have been crying at some point too, but right now she was being strong for you.

"You guys should just give me a spare house key, okay?" was the only thing she said as she led you back to the couch and gently helped you lay down once more. She covered you in a soft blanket and picked your phone up from the table. "You need to close your eyes and take some deep breaths. I'll answer any calls. I'm just going to take Tramp out to the front yard."

You nodded vaguely as she clipped Tramp's leash on and took him outside. You tried to close your eyes, but all you could picture was Bradley, his face a bloody mess, floating around in the Pacific Ocean. By the time Phoenix walked back inside, you were crying again. 

"How long until they call me back? I need to know what's going on," you whispered. 

"I don't know," she told you as your phone rang in her hand. "It's your parents. Want me to talk to them for you? Let them know what's going on?"

"Please," you sobbed. She answered your phone and slipped out through the sliding glass door. After that, Nat ended up doing everything. She heated up a bowl of soup and sat with you while you ate it. She got the bathtub ready for you and took Tramp for a longer walk while you soaked. She helped you change into clean clothing for bed. 

"I'm so sorry," you whispered to her. "I know you're upset too. I know you love him too. But you're doing everything for me. And I didn't even ask if you're okay."

Nat pulled you into a tight hug, rubbing your back as she took a deep breath. "I love him, but I don't love him the way you do," was all she said before helping you into bed. "I'll plug your phone in right here on your nightstand and let Tramp out one more time before I go."

You nodded, feeling so exhausted, you thought you might actually be able to fall asleep. "The spare house key is hanging in the pantry on Bradley's UVA keychain. Take it with you," you told her as you closed your eyes. 

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

"What the fuck," Bradley muttered, trying to make his jaw work. His head felt like someone had split it open with an axe. He had no idea why he couldn't open his eyes, and his thoughts were a mess. He reached for you across the bed, trying to find your body in the darkness. You must have gotten up already. Had he even slept? What day was it?

"Start the morphine drip. He's going to be in intense pain when he wakes up fully."

He didn't know who was talking. It sounded like there was a problem though. Did something happen to you? He needed to open his eyes and figure out where you were. 

He opened one eye a tiny bit, and he saw bright lights and movement. He closed his eye immediately. Then everything came back. He left for the mission. You took six pregnancy tests. They were all negative. He had to bail out of his fucking aircraft. 

He tried so hard to talk. He needed to know what was going on. He needed to call you and make sure you were okay, because something was telling him you weren't. But now the pain in his head subsided to a dull throb, and he thought it might be a nice idea to fall asleep for a bit. 

When he woke up again, he was finally able to open his eyes. "What the fuck?" he asked again, and this time someone answered. 

"Lieutenant Bradshaw, welcome back," came a cheerful voice that made Bradley want to punch someone. He looked around to see a man in scrubs examining his left arm, and when he examined it too, he jolted in surprise. 

He was covered in lacerations. They had been stitched up, but it was still a mess. 

"Where am I?" Bradley asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"The infirmary aboard the USS Ronald Reagan. I'm Doctor O'Connor. You had to eject from your aircraft, and you were recovered from the water. We are treating you for your injuries, which I'm sorry to say are extensive and numerous. However, you should be just fine in a few weeks."

Bradley stared at him in shock. "What day is it?"

"Tuesday afternoon."

"Holy hell. I need to call my girlfriend. Immediately." Bradley's heart rate spiked on the monitor, causing him and Dr. O'Connor both to check the screen. "She must be worried sick."

"Someone has already been in touch with your emergency contact."

Bradley had changed his emergency contact from his mom's cousin Brenda to you, after you and he had been dating for a few months. When Bradley asked you if that was okay, you'd seemed surprised yet really happy about it. And a few days later, you smiled and told him that you made him your emergency contact person as well. 

But he couldn't imagine you were too overjoyed at the moment. He wondered what you had been told about his condition. 

"When can I go home?"

The doctor hummed and looked at the computer screen. "Maybe tomorrow. You'll need access to a larger medical facility. You don't have any hemorrhaging or blood on your brain, but you did have extensive head trauma. Now that you're fully cognizant, I'll keep you updated on the plans."

"Thanks," Bradley muttered as he walked away. Extensive head trauma? Numerous and extensive injuries? He needed to talk to you, so badly.

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

Admiral Franklin called you at four in the morning on Wednesday, and you jumped instantly out of bed. 

"Hello?!"

"This is Admiral Franklin. I have return flight information for Lieutenant Bradshaw."

You gasped. "You're sending him home? Is it safe for him to fly? How's his head?" You had heard from her one other time on Monday afternoon, with an update on his condition, but there had been some concern that he might have blood on his brain. You had no idea how you'd made it to work this week.

"His brain is fully functioning. He should make a full recovery with the help of some doctors on base in North Island and a lot of rest."

You screamed. Literally screamed with joy and jumped around the room and started crying. "Thank you!"

You could hear the smile in her voice. "Are you ready to take down his flight information?"

"Yes!" you reached for a pen in your nightstand, but couldn't find paper, so you wrote it down on your leg. 

Tomorrow night, just before midnight, you would be picking Bradley up at San Diego International Airport. He was coming in on a flight from Australia. You had literally no idea what had happened to him or how he had been injured, but it didn't matter, because you were going to pick him up tomorrow and bring him home! 

You decided to call Phoenix and wake her up with the news. "This actually is worth being woken up for in the middle of the night," she said, voice raspy with sleep. "Let me know when you want me to stop by this weekend. I'll bring food and Jake and the boys, and I'll make them be on their best behavior."

Next you called your parents to give them the good news, since it was a normal time to be awake on the east coast, and you listened to your mom cry over the phone. And that made you cry, and then you laughed and cried together. 

And when you got to work and told your boss you needed to use a vacation day on Friday, and possibly Monday as well, he told you, "Take as many days as you need to. Just let me know when you'll be back."

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

Bradley was up and walking with help the following morning. But more importantly, he was allowed to eat and use the bathroom by himself. And most importantly, he had been informed that you would be picking him up in San Diego. 

Walking made him dizzy, and all he wanted to do was sleep, but the doctors told him to spend as much time moving around as he could. He was itchy and annoyed by the nearly one hundred stitches on his arm and neck, and all he wanted to do was take a hot shower. 

He would most certainly have more scars after this. It was just unclear how bad they would be, since he was still so bruised and swollen. And as he walked a lap around the small hospital wing, he couldn't help but think of his parents. Bradley had two bad ejections so far in his career, but nothing like the fate his dad had suffered. And the last thing he wanted to do was turn you into the kind of woman his mother had become after Goose died. So maybe his parents were somewhere, somehow watching out for him.

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

You changed into jeans and Bradley's UVA tee shirt after work and started cooking. Your heart was lighter than it had been in days. Even if it was your fault, and Bradley was distracted because of you, at least he would recover. 

You made Marry Me Rooster along with several other things that could be reheated throughout the weekend. Bradley was going to need to eat plenty of good food and get a lot of rest. And after you took him to see a doctor on base tomorrow afternoon, hopefully you'd have even more information about what you could do to help him heal.

Bradley had emailed you from the airport in Australia. It was short and sweet. 

Baby Girl,

I love you. Will you please pick me up at the airport? I'm coming home on flight 731. I'll be the guy with the horribly bruised face and a big smile just for you.

You figured if he was making jokes, he was doing pretty fucking great. You had made plans for the other aviators to stop by on Saturday or Sunday, contingent upon how your boyfriend was feeling. Phoenix promised she would wrangle the boys if needed. But you didn't want to focus too much on that. You just wanted to pick him up in four hours and thirty-two minutes and bring him home.

His flight was listed as on time, so you got there about an hour early, just in case and found a bench. Without a boarding pass, you couldn't get past the baggage claim area, so you send a message in the group text you had started with Phoenix, Hangman and the other aviators. When you went to tuck your phone in your pocket, it started ringing. 

It was Jake. "Hey, did you see my texts?" you asked.

"Yeah, I did, Angel. Hey listen... if I know Rooster, the reason he told you ahead of time about his bruising is because he probably looks real bad. You understand?"

You paused for a second and thought about Bradley's pretty face and his perfect body. "Yeah?" you said to Jake. "What about it?"

Jake sighed. "I know you're going to nurse him back to health and do a great job, too. But Rooster is self-conscious about his scars."

Your brow scrunched up. He wasn't that way with you. Not really. But you'd told him right from the start how sexy you thought he was. That wasn't going to change now, no matter how he looked. "Jake, is this your way of trying to tell me to be encouraging about how bad my hot boyfriend suddenly looks? If so, I'm not going to think he's less hot now, I promise."

Jake chuckled. "Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm trying to tell you. Just make sure he knows that. I know would feel terrible if I came back to my girl looking anything less than my best, okay?"

You started to roll your eyes, but then you realized Jake was probably right. "I'll make sure he knows how I feel about him. Sound good?"

"Night, Angel."

You paced around, thinking about what Jake said. Maybe Bradley looked like a mess, but you didn't care. You just needed him to be with you, and then you would take care of everything for both of you. 

You heard an announcement about his flight number and the corresponding baggage claim. So you headed in that direction. But thirty minutes later, you had collected his duffel bag with the large Bradshaw patch from the conveyor belt, but there was still no sign of Bradley. You took his bag out of the way of everyone else and looked up and down the walkway for him. You got your phone out to call him, although you really didn't want to rush him. But you were dying to see him at this point. 

Then you saw him from a distance. Nobody else was that tall with such a graceful gait. Nobody else gave you goosebumps just from the way they moved. You knew it was him immediately, and you broke out into a smile. Bending down and hoisting his bag onto your shoulder, you took off in his direction as quickly as you could move. 

As you got closer, you started running, and when you could make out his smile, you started crying. 

"Bradley!" you called to him. 

"Baby Girl!" he called back and you tossed his bag to the floor and came skidding to a halt in front of him. 

"Oh, Roo. Oh, Bradley." You covered your mouth with your hands. He truly looked terrible. His face was swollen and bruised and you could see stitches peaking out all over the place. His left arm was bandaged and resting in a sling. But he was smiling down at you as you wiped tears from your eyes, and he ran his right hand through your hair.

"Can I touch you?" you asked softly, and Bradley slipped his right hand around your waist, slowly pulling you closer until your body was gently touching his. 

"Please touch me, Sweetheart. It's the only thing that will make me feel better."

You laughed through your tears as you let one hand rest gently on his chest. "You scared me," you whispered, throat tight with emotion. "Like a whole lot, Roo." You let your other hand trail up over his neck and swollen cheeks, avoiding the clusters of stitches when you could. 

"I'm sorry, Sweetheart," he whispered back, kissing the tears on your cheeks. 

You laughed as he made contact with your skin, and then you started sobbing harder. 

"Come here," he told you, wrapping his right arm tighter around you.

"I want to touch you, but I don't want to hurt you!" you blubbered, trying to pull out of his grasp. 

"You're not hurting me. Touching you could never hurt me," he whispered into your hair. "I love you. Plus, I'm taking a lot of pain medication." 

He held you and let you cry against his chest. "I love you, too," you managed between sobs. When you finally looked up at him, he bent down slightly and softly kissed your lips. 

"I'm so much better now, Y/N," he promised. "I just needed you. I'm so sorry I made you worry. And I know I look horrible right now."

You smiled up at him and shook your head. Jake's words bounced around your brain, but you didn't have to lie to Bradley when you said, "You're still the sexiest guy I've ever seen, Roo."

He barked out a laugh and tipped his head back before grimacing in pain.

"Now let me take you home and take care of you."

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

When Bradley tried to pick up his duffle bag with his good arm, you snatched it up off the floor and scolded him. "Absolutely not! Nothing strenuous until a doctor tells you it's okay!" Then you laced your fingers through his and guided him out into the cool July night air. "I brought the Bronco, because I figured you'd be more comfortable with more room."

Bradley kind of hated your little car, but he'd never tell you that. You were convinced the thing was invincible and would last you ten more years. Bradley on the other hand was hoping it would die next week so you and he could pick out something bigger. 

"Thanks, Baby Girl," he said, pulling your fingers up to his lips. He watched you smile as he kissed your hand. This was the hand the ring should have already been on. He knew he needed to talk to you about the skipped pill and what that meant between the two of you, but he didn't feel like getting into it right now.

Despite flying back in a first class seat, Bradley hadn't been able to sleep much. He was itchy and uncomfortable and exhausted, but he knew as soon as he was with you again, he would feel better. And he honestly did. He watched you toss his duffel into the back of the Bronco, and said, "My girl's so strong." That earned him another soft kiss on the lips. Then you guided him to the passenger door and opened it for him.

Bradley gingerly climbed in, cringing a bit as his cracked ribs got used to the seated position again. A look of panic flashed across your face. "I'm fine, Sweetheart. Just really sore."

"Okay," you whispered. And then you took the seatbelt in your hand and gently pulled it across his body and buckled him in.

"That's my job," he whispered against your neck as you clicked it into place. But you were shorter than he was, and now you were draped across his thighs. "Baby Girl, climb on my lap," he instructed.

Your eyes snapped up to meet his. You licked your lips and tried to read the expression on his face. "Mmhmm," he hummed.

"Roo," you gasped. "I don't want to hurt you." 

You were wearing his shirt and the necklace he gave you, and he was needy for you, and now you knew it. 

"Nothing hurts below my ribs. Climb on my lap. Please, just for a minute."

Slowly and carefully, you planted your palms on his thighs and eased yourself onto his lap, his right hand coming to rest on your hip. You shimmied up his thighs until you were straddling him, and then you placed your hands on either side of his head on the headrest.

"Bradley," you whined, letting your lips meet his. The kisses were so sweet, but your bodyweight on his thighs had him getting a little hard. He had missed you in every way. 

"I'm sorry I made you worry. I hate doing that to you."

"It's okay," you told him between the gentle kisses you planted on his lips, nose and forehead. "Don't do it again."

He smiled and rubbed your hip through your jeans. "I'll try my best not to."

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

Thanks for reading along and loving them!

PART 20

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[cozzzynook]

Whenever Rodimus heat is about to start he gets really snuggly. Either Drift or Ratchet have to be nearby so he could snuggle them. He'll also cling to them when they try to leave.

- Rodimus has a habit of being clingy before his heat and a bit…emotional.

-before his heat hits he’s tired, often yawning and drinking oil. A sign of his coming heat but not exactly the blaring alarm for Drift and Ratchet to barricade him in the hab or keep him close.

- when his heats on its way he actually gets cold and often uses his outlier to warm up or stays in hotter places. Not the sign they really look for but something they notice.

- the next sign is him not liking how other bots smell and only finding certain scents pleasurable. An extra compliment passing Drift or Ratchet in the halls or before leaving their hab. Or the more obvious enjoyment is him just burying his olfactory sensors in their neck cables. Not really a sign since it usually turns into something else.

- another sign is a little weird but Rodimus will day dream more often. Lost in his helm. Prone to haunting memory files or day dreaming about old wishes he used to believe possible before the war. It’ll leave him closed off and quiet but he’s pretty good at hiding that part of himself so they usually don’t know until later.

- one of the big signs something is going on is Rodimus’s hips spreading out and his tanks showing off his gestation pouch. Thats the biggest sign they could get but it usually goes ignored because Drift and Ratchet are so hyper focused on his thickening aft and thighs they don’t realize his heats coming as they drag him to berth.

- another big sign is Rodimus not wanting to leave berth and piling up multiple blankets because their usual sheets and comforter aren’t enough. This usually rings a bell for Drift who comes back to their hab a little earlier than Ratchet. Drift is the one who will see Roddy never left and is instead curled up in berth on a large soft pile of blankets, recharging. By this time he’s thinking its the beginning of the warnings signs but its not.

- It’s Ratchet who gets the very last sign Rodimus is going into heat very soon and thats by waking up to the mech shifting in his sleep for once and waking him by being pressed frame to frame on the both of them without it being uncomfortable. He’s not sure how Roddy manages to always do this but he won’t complain since Roddy’s not really heavy like one thinks and he likes the kid touching him.

- Drift always wake up the next day and wonders how they can better track Roddy’s heats coming. He doesn’t mind Roddy clinging to him like a koala or having some fun in the wash racks because Roddy wants to touch them and that includes washing them. Ratchet likes when Roddy feeds them and he’s the better of the two holding Roddy as the clingy mech cooks.

- drift is better suited to cuddle up with Roddy on shifts because Ratchet needs space to work on patients but Drift just needs two free hands for his swords and Roddy can breathe fire without hurting Drift so its a win win.

- bonus : Drift goes into rut and knows by a notification from his hub every once in awhile. Ratchet gets an overheating notification and knows he’s going into rut soon. Their ruts were never often and barely came but since being with Rodimus, they’ve been regular and making them feel and look younger by a lot. They don’t mind too much. Though Ratchet still wishes he and Drift had warnings like Roddy.

[s3znl-gr3znl]

"Code 5, corp AC spotted."

Date [redacted]

//INCOMING CLASSIFIED FILE//

Coordinates [redacted]

Subject: Independent Mercenary Attack On Coral Survey Outpost 11C.

Officer Daniels had barely received the COM before the approaching AC turned the cadre of drones on the front line into slag.

"Its too fast! Code 1-5!" Cried one of his subordinates, the sound of alarms blaring slightly audible through the mic. "I cant get a lock- AUGHH."

Before he could blink, Daniels watched the merc bisect three of his subordinates MTs in a single motion, the pulse blade dimmed slightly by the hydraulic fluid and mechanical viscera. Daniels pulled his eyes from the security cam and bolted out of the room.

Of course an AC shows up during maintenance.

"Status," Daniels barked into his wrist-mounted COM.

"Sir...tearing through..cant contact...system," came a garbled response. Daniels found some small comfort in hearing his chief engineer's voice.

"Fire up my HC, I'm going to deal with this pest myself."

"Sir? Shouldn't we wait for backup?" His chief's voice now clear thanks to proximity.

Base COMs are still working. Something else is going on here. Did someone leak our objective?

A few moments later, Daniels arrived in the hangar and surveyed the mass of frantic bodies hurridly disconneting fuel pumps and diagnostic cables from his HC. Chief "Patty" rushed to his side and gave him the datakey for the HC.

"I doubt we'll get any backup, Patty," Daniels said as he climbed the stairs leading up to the cockpit. "Keep trying to get through, I'll hold them off until the COMs interference clears up."

Daniels had this dream a thousand times. He had it again as he climbed into the cockpit of his HC. Fire and ash awaits those who seek Coral.

The words echoed in his mind, like a faint ringing.

Dani, you can't beat them.

"Not now, Anise," he shuddered.

"Sir?" Came the chiefs voice through the COM link.

"Its nothing. Code 2-3, attending scene."

[dr-shortsighted-owl]

Welcome back to the world of maybe writing things that are not academic

Can you share some thoughts on your

Pacific Rim AU 💜

Oh spots, my spots! thank you for the ask!

I spoke to @try-set-me-on-fire about this fic idea, and @ronordmann too! It has the title 'SATURN IS FALLEN, AM I TOO TO FALL' from John Keats, Hyperion.

A retelling of PacRim With the Lads in a Jaegar called Icarus Hyperion because I need those 'flying too close to the sun' vibes.

It’s like touching an exposed wire, frayed and innocuously dangerous. Buck’s body jerks violently back to consciousness where it’s trapped, ensnared in the cables and harness as he’s spat out the drift, every nerve in his being burning.  

The jaegar above him, surrounding him, lurches and locks at his movement, the sound of grating metal on metal and alarms bouncing round the Con-pods shattered interior. Overwhelming dizziness floods him as he crashes around his own mind; Eddie’s connection is barely holding out but the pain - Eddie’s pain - is all-consuming. His shoulder screams where the nerves snap and spark, where blood pools between his skin and what remains of his suit, red on blue.

Somewhere he can hear the crackling, harried voices of Hen and Chim and Bobby. Their voices echo round his head, Hyperion's head, Eddie’s head.

From the shattered remains of the cockpit screen all he can see on the kicked up blue-stained sand below is the scratched expanse of Hyperions hand, and Eddie's crumpled body cradled in her palm.

[fromkenari]

A mass of fools and knaves

The full email exchange between Alex Claremont Diaz and Prince Henry Fox Mountchristen Windsor from Chapter Nine of Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. Put here for my best friend to read.

A mass of fools and knaves A agcd@eclare45.com                8/10/20 1:04 AM to Henry H, Have you ever read any of Alexander Hamilton’s letters to John Laurens? What am I saying? Of course you haven’t. You’d probably be disinherited for revolutionary sympathies. Well, since I got the boot from the campaign, there is literally nothing for me to do but watch cable news (diligently chipping away at my brain cells by the day) and sort through all my old shit from college. Just looking at papers, thinking: Excellent, yes, I’m so glad I stayed up all night writing this for a 98 in the class, only to get summarily fired from the first job I ever had and exiled to my bedroom! Great job, Alex! Is this how you feel in the palace all the time? It fucking sucks, man. So anyway, I’m going through my college stuff, and I find this analysis I did of Hamilton’s wartime correspondence, and hear me out: I think Hamilton could have been bi. His letters to Laurens are almost as romantic as his letters to his wife. Half of them are signed “Yours” or “Affectionately yrs,” and the last one before Laurens died is signed “Yrs for ever.” I can’t figure out why nobody talks about the possibility of a Founding Father being not straight (outside of Chernow’s biography, which is great btw, see attached bibliography). I mean, I know why, but. Anyway, I found this part of a letter he wrote to Laurens, and it made me think of you. And me, I guess: The truth is I am an unlucky honest man, that speak my sentiments to all and with emphasis. I say this to you because you know it and will not charge me with vanity. I hate Congress—I hate the army—I hate the world—I hate myself. The whole is a mass of fools and knaves; I could almost except you … Thinking about history makes me wonder how I’ll fit into it one day, I guess. And you too. I kinda wish people still wrote like that. History, huh? Bet we could make some. Affectionately yrs, slowly going insane, Alex, First Son of Founding Father Sacrilege

McQuiston, Casey. Red, White & Royal Blue: A Novel (pp. 239-241). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Re: A mass of fools and knaves Henry hwales@kensingtonemail.com                8/10/20 4:18 AM to A Alex, First Son of Masturbatory Historical Readings: The phrase “see attached bibliography” is the single sexiest thing you have ever written to me. Every time you mention your slow decay inside the White House, I can’t help but feel it’s my fault, and I feel absolutely shit about it. I’m sorry. I should have known better than to turn up at a thing like that. I got carried away; I didn’t think. I know how much that job meant to you. I just want to … you know. Extend the option. If you wanted less of me, and more of that—the work, the uncomplicated things—I would understand. Truly. In any event … Believe it or not, I have actually done a bit of reading on Hamilton, for a number of reasons. First, he was a brilliant writer. Second, I knew you were named after him (the pair of you share an alarming number of traits, by the by: passionate determination, never knowing when to shut up, &c &c). And third, some saucy tart once tried to impugn my virtue against an oil painting of him, and in the halls of memory, some things demand context. Are you angling for a revolutionary soldier role-play scenario? I must inform you, any trace of King George III blood I have would curdle in my very veins and render me useless to you. Or are you suggesting you’d rather exchange passionate letters by candlelight? Should I tell you that when we’re apart, your body comes back to me in dreams? That when I sleep, I see you, the dip of your waist, the freckle above your hip, and when I wake up in the morning, it feels like I’ve just been with you, the phantom touch of your hand on the back of my neck fresh and not imagined? That I can feel your skin against mine, and it makes every bone in my body ache? That, for a few moments, I can hold my breath and be back there with you, in a dream, in a thousand rooms, nowhere at all? I think perhaps Hamilton said it better in a letter to Eliza: You engross my thoughts too intirely to allow me to think of any thing else—you not only employ my mind all day; but you intrude upon my sleep. I meet you in every dream—and when I wake I cannot close my eyes again for ruminating on your sweetness. If you did decide to take the option mentioned at the start of this email, I do hope you haven’t read the rest of this rubbish. Regards, Haplessly Romantic Heretic Prince Henry the Utterly Daft

McQuiston, Casey. Red, White & Royal Blue: A Novel (pp. 241-243). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Re: A mass of fools and knaves A agcd@eclare45.com                8/10/20 5:36 AM to Henry H, Please don’t be stupid. No part of any of this will ever be uncomplicated. Anyway, you should be a writer. You are a writer. Even after all this, I still always feel like I want to know more of you. Does that sound crazy? I just sit here and wonder, who is this person who knows stuff about Hamilton and writes like this? Where does someone like that even come from? How was I so wrong? It’s weird because I always know things about people, gut feelings that usually lead me in more or less the right direction. I do think I got a gut feeling with you, I just didn’t have what I needed in my head to understand it. But I kind of kept chasing it anyway, like I was just going blindly in a certain direction and hoping for the best. I guess that makes you the North Star? I wanna see you again and soon. I keep reading that one paragraph over and over again. You know which one. I want you back here with me. I want your body and I want the rest of you too. And I want to get the fuck out of this house. Watching June and Nora on TV doing appearances without me is torture. We have this annual thing at my dad’s lake house in Texas. Whole long weekend off the grid. There’s a lake with a pier, and my dad always cooks something fucking amazing. You wanna come? I kind of can’t stop thinking about you all sunburned and pretty sitting out there in the country. It’s the weekend after next. If Shaan can talk to Zahra or somebody about flying you into Austin, we can pick you up from there. Say yes? Yrs, Alex P.S. Allen Ginsberg to Peter Orlovsky—1958: Tho I long for the actual sunlight contact between us I miss you like a home. Shine back honey & think of me.

McQuiston, Casey. Red, White & Royal Blue: A Novel (pp. 243-245). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Re: A mass of fools and knaves Henry hwales@kensingtonemail.com                8/10/20 8:22 PM to A Alex, If I’m north, I shudder to think where in God’s name we’re going. I’m ruminating on identity and your question about where a person like me comes from, and as best as I can explain it, here’s a story: Once, there was a young prince who was born in a castle. His mother was a princess scholar, and his father was the most handsome, feared knight in all the land. As a boy, people would bring him everything he could ever dream of wanting. The most beautiful silk clothes, ripe fruit from the orangery. At times, he was so happy, he felt he would never grow tired of being a prince. He came from a long, long line of princes, but never before had there been a prince quite like him: born with his heart on the outside of his body. When he was small, his family would smile and laugh and say he would grow out of it one day. But as he grew, it stayed where it was, red and visible and alive. He didn’t mind it very much, but every day, the family’s fear grew that the people of the kingdom would soon notice and turn their backs on the prince. His grandmother, the queen, lived in a high tower, where she spoke only of the other princes, past and present, who were born whole. Then, the prince’s father, the knight, was struck down in battle. The lance tore open his armor and his body and left him bleeding in the dust. And so, when the queen sent new clothes, armor for the prince to parcel his heart away safe, the prince’s mother did not stop her. For she was afraid, now: afraid of her son’s heart torn open too. So the prince wore it, and for many years, he believed it was right. Until he met the most devastatingly gorgeous peasant boy from a nearby village who said absolutely ghastly things to him that made him feel alive for the first time in years and who turned out to be the most mad sort of sorcerer, one who could conjure up things like gold and vodka shots and apricot tarts out of absolutely nothing, and the prince’s whole life went up in a puff of dazzling purple smoke, and the kingdom said, “I can’t believe we’re all so surprised.” I’m in for the lake house. I must admit, I’m glad you’re getting out of the house. I worry you may burn the thing down. Does this mean I’ll be meeting your father? I miss you. x Henry P.S. This is mortifying and maudlin and, honestly, I hope you forget it as soon as you’ve read it. P.P.S. From Henry James to Hendrik C. Andersen, 1899: May the terrific U.S.A. be meanwhile not a brute to you. I feel in you a confidence, dear Boy–which to show is a joy to me. My hopes and desires and sympathies right heartily and most firmly, go with you. So keep up your heart, and tell me, as it shapes itself, your (inevitably, I imagine, more or less weird) American story. May, at any rate, tutta quella gente be good to you.

McQuiston, Casey. Red, White & Royal Blue: A Novel (pp. 245-247). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[icallhimjoey]

can I request some super super fluffy Christmas joe with fem reader?

okay so i fucking love everything about Christmas, but it's still early in the season so this isn't overly Christmassy yet... but take it as our first dip into the christmas!joey pool together, enjoy! Wordcount: 1.4K

---

The Last Piece 🎄

It was freezing in your bedroom, but under the covers it was nice and toasty. The alarm had just gone off and you’d pressed snooze in hopes of getting a few more minutes in. Joe knew it was dangerous game for you to play, so he turned on his nightlight to illuminate the room. It was met with groans from your side of the bed.

“I know,” was all Joe said, sitting up and stretching. The cool air it wafted underneath the covers wasn’t welcomed by you and you pulled covers tightly around you, encasing yourself in warmth.

It was the day before Christmas, and the prospect of family commotion and unescapable social behaviour was all great fun for when you’d go over for dinner with Joe’s family tomorrow. But today the two of you were visiting your family, and you weren’t looking forward to it at all.

“Come on, up and out,” Joe patted your butt over the covers, and it only made you bury yourself into your little nest deeper, your head disappearing under the covers now too.

“Time to start mentally preparing for your stepmother,” Joe joked.

“Ugh, don’t call her that. She’s my dad’s girlfriend.”

Was there a difference? It made Joe chuckle and before you knew it, he was on top of you as he rolled over the duvet, his full bodyweight heavy on top of yours. He moved covers to reveal your face and kissed it wherever his lips landed in your current position and shimmied you from side to side in a bid to wake you up more.

“Stop, go open your advent calendar,” you tried, hoping it’d get Joe off of you so you could actually get some more sleep in.

It worked.

Joe hopped off and tiptoed his way over to the dresser where two advent calendars were perched up, resting against the wall. You heard the little cardboard door rip open and the plastic underneath crinkle. “Ooh, it’s a penguin!” Joe beamed, far too active and awake for your liking. The sudden silence you heard felt immediately suspicious and your inkling was right when Joe flung himself back on top of you with full force, quite literally jump-scaring adrenaline into your system.

“I’m finally free! Out of the calendar!” Joe’s voice was high pitched as he held the little chocolate penguin in between his fingers and pretended it took a few steps in between your faces. Then he promptly shoved it right into his mouth and crushed it with his molars.

“You’re such an idiot,” you smiled through tired eyes and received a chocolatey kiss from your boyfriend who then got up and took your covers with him. No more playing, time to start the day.

"If you make it to the living room before I do, you get to turn the Christmas lights on!" Joe tried to pump some excitement into you. It only worked a little. The Christmas tree in your living room was so large, you'd had to go out to get more lights for it, and the configuration of all the cables felt anything but safe to you, but with the lights turned on, it felt like pure magic. When you were younger, you'd always leave the lights on during the night, but the fire hazard you'd created together definitely needed turning off before you went to sleep.

You looked over at your own advent calendar – the empty one of the two on the dresser. You had opened all the doors on the first day, something Joe said you were going to regret every morning you’d wake up for the next month. But opening door after door after door on the first of December had been so glorious, you didn’t care about the rest of the month. The mixture of the sweet, cheap holiday chocolate, along with the faint idea of a puzzle you had to do to get to them and with the added feeling of being naughty had left you in pure bliss. It had definitely been worth it.

But Joe was the type to shove every little morning chocolate he got to eat in your face, and now you wanted chocolate too.

You heard the shower turn on and weighed your options.

Could you do it? Would you forgive yourself for robbing Joe of his big first-day-of-Christmas, last-day-of-the-calendar piece of chocolate? Oh yes, absolutely. Would Joe forgive you though? That was debatable. You had tried to steal Joe’s chocolate more than once that month, and he’d caught you every single time and had been able to wrestle his advent calendar from your grip just in time. That stupid flimsy plastic was way too loud for your shaky morning fingers to pry chocolate out without him hearing.

Maybe if you were quick. With Joe in the shower, there was all the more possibility he wouldn’t actually hear you.

You stretched before stalking your way over to your dresser. You looked into the hallway to make sure that Joe was actually in the bathroom, and when there was no sight of him, you opened a drawer and slammed it loudly for effect. You got nothing from Joe and felt the coast was clear. Taking hold of the cardboard calendar, you started slowly, carefully, afraid for it to make any noise at all, and used a fingernail to start opening that last door with the big twenty-five printed on. You remembered the piece being larger than all the others, and Santa shaped. For the first few bits, ripping the cardboard went fine. It wasn’t silent, but it wasn’t loud either. You had to be slow though. Gentle touches, no firm fingers.

It was taking entirely too long, but you didn’t want to mess it up. Your mind kept trying to talk you out of it too, but Joe coming back into a bedroom where half the cardboard door was opened seemed worse than him finding his calendar empty. You weren’t sure how that worked, but your fingers weren’t stopping, and you needed that piece of chocolate now.

Then the shower turned off, and you instantly panicked.

If you were fast, you could get it out before Joe’s feet could make it over to you. He had to dry off first too. The cardboard rips and plastic rustling grew slightly louder under your touch.

“What the fuck are you doing?” a wet Joe stepped out into the hallway, a towel slung across his waist that he was holding with one hand, and wet hair dripped down his face. He had heard you and had skipped drying off completely to check if his ears had betrayed him or not.

Your grip on the calendar became a death grip and you used all your strength to rip cardboard and push plastic. You managed to grab hold of the chocolate a fraction of a second before Joe tackled you onto the bed, his wet body crashing into yours full force.

“My last piece, babe?! My last fucking piece?” Joe wrestled you as you shrieked under his wet limbs, trying to bring your hand up to your mouth before Joe could steal it from you, but he had your arms pinned to your body, and after a few tries, you relaxed in his hands and threw your head back in defeat.

“Fine,” you surrendered, holding the piece out for Joe to take from you.

“Unbelievable.” Joe said, taking the chocolate, now with a slightly melted thumb print in the back of it, from your fingers and looked at it. Then he looked back at you and paused. You noticed how there was still a bit of shampoo in his hair. Had he heard you before he’d even finished his shower?

“Open up,” Joe finally said, and you weren’t sure if you heard it right. He then moved the chocolate to your mouth, and upon you opening, popped it in and rested his head on a fist that was perched up on your chest to watch you eat it.

“Your last fucking piece, babe?” you fed Joe’s earlier accusatory words back at him as you chewed, except yours were full of disbelief and love.

“That better taste as good as you hoped it was going to taste,” Joe made eyes at you, and you laughed. It definitely didn't, but you weren’t going to tell him. “Best piece of advent calendar chocolate I’ve ever had.”

---

The Taglisted: @kiwisa @jasminearondottir @josephquinned @cancankiki @sidthedollface2 @dylanmunson @munsonsgirl71 @alana4610 @emmamooney @xomunson @sadbitchfangirl @jssmth5 @bagelofthelord67 @nobody-000 @lluviamg06 @thatonefan-girl @kylakins88 @paola-carter @eddiemunsonfuxks​ - add yourself  

[jpitha]

Just a Little Further 11

Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

The round struck my shoulder with a noisy spack. I didn't even stagger back. Was it meant to be a warning, or was I just that well armored?

The Aviens clearly expected that to do more than it did too. They looked at me fearfully and fired again. Two more spack noises on my chest. It scratched my glossy deep blue armor - ugh, I'm going to have to polish it again - but nothing more.

All these thoughts happened in slow motion though, I was curiously detached from the attack. What my body actually did while I was thinking about the scratches on my armor was that in the moments between the first and third shots, I reached behind my back, swung my submachine gun out, flipped it to full auto and unloaded back at them.

The sound of the human made submachine gun was deafening in the docking area. "Get inside!" I shouted as screams were heard all around. It had happened so fast that I don't think the team realized that I had been shot, but they took my suppressive fire as an indication that something was wrong.

After maybe three seconds, the weapon was empty. In the smoke of the rounds, I looked out and luckily I think I missed the Aviens. They had ducked down as soon as I started to fire, and I wasn't aiming at anyone, I just wanted them to stop shooting me. I heard screams in the distance and an alarm. I turned and ran into the umbilical, slapping the close button behind me.

Inside FarReach, I closed our airlock door and waited for it to cycle. We didn't expose our environment to theirs just in case. I looked around at everyone. "Are you all right?" I asked.

Captain Q'ari spoke. "Yes, we're fine. They were aiming at you clearly."

"Good thing you have that friggin Space Marine armor Melody" Omar said. "Looks like you only got scratched."

"Ugh, I know. It's going to be a pain to polish out." Omar laughed too hard at the bad joke. He was very worried.

Q'ari looked at the damage. "It really is just a scratch. What did they shoot you with?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. Some kind of small pistol. Once I was shot at, training took over and I just unloaded the sub to give suppressing fire so you could escape. I didn't think to stop and ask them what they were shooting me with."

Fer'resi looked anxious. "Did you... kill them?"

"No, fortunately. They ducked, and I wasn't aiming to kill, I just wanted everyone to keep their heads down while you escaped."

Looking relieved, Fer'resi took out the translator. "At least we have this." He went to put it towards his head "Maybe we can final--"

"Stop!" I shouted.

He froze. "What?"

"They were very interested in having me wear that before we left. Suspiciously so. Don't activate it, don't wear it, don't even look at it until I can run an Information Warfare scan on it. I bet it's infected with something nasty."

Fer'resi jerked his hand back as if he had been shocked. "Um... you should take it then Melody" and gingerly handed the translator to me.

I set it down and started the peel my suit. Ugh, I was unreasonably annoyed that they had scratched it in three places. I caught myself and decided to take it as a good thing, since I wasn't worrying about anyone getting shot or being shot at instead.

Suit off, I took the translator with me and went up to my station on the Command Deck. Under my station I keep a sandboxed copy of my suite - that is, one not connected to FarReach - and I looked around on the translator for some kind of data port. There, on the bottom? Looks like there are two ports. One might be power, one might be data. With a sigh, I get out my probes and start signaling the ports. I might not know what the signal means, but if I get any signal, that's a good sign.

There. The second port. The first looks like it's power only. I take out a label maker and mark the ports for next time. I get out some impression putty and jam it into the port. Pulling it out slowly, now I have a model of what the connection cable should look like. I scan it with my pad and have a 3d model of the port. I touch my wrist and call for Omar. "Hey Omar, got a part I need you to print, you got a minute?"

"Sure, I'll be right up."

Omar comes up and sees me on the Command Deck alone. "What are you doing up here Melody? Captain said to get some rest."

"I'll have you know problem solving is soothing." I laughed. "Here. This is a 3d model of the kind of plug the data port on the translator is expecting. Can you print one up quick, looks like it's also got twenty pins, make sure it has a cable that can accommodate that. Leave my end bare, I'll just use a prototyping board to connect it to my sandbox."

"Sure thing Melody, I'll get that worked up for you in like thirty minutes."

"Thanks Omar."

While I wait, I head down to the kitchenette and get a coffee. Kieran is sitting there reading a book. "Oh hey "Holy One" he said, laughing."

Groan. "Kieran, you know damn well I'm the least Holy thing here."

"Eh, I bet it's a tie between you and Mei'la."

"Regardless, I'm not Holy at all. This is worse than everyone calling me Lieutenant!" I get my coffee and motion to sit. Keiran shrugs, puts a bookmark in his book and shuffles over. As I take a sip of coffee he asks. "So, how is it?"

"How is what?"

"Knowing every language? Fer'resi said that not only do you speak the Gate Builder language, but you just understand every language spoke to you?"

"It's odd. If I concentrate, I can tell that we're not speaking Colonic, but if I'm distracted, or thinking about something else, I don't realize it."

"So you didn't notice that I've been speaking Farsi to you"

I stopped. "No... I didn't. Why do you know Farsi?"

He laughed. "Before we came to Parvati my family was originally from a country called Iran. It's been more than four hundred years since we left Earth, but some of us think it's important to know the old ways. I'm impressed though, you're following along and answering in Colonic like it's no big deal."

"Well... for me it is no big deal. I just hear what people say and reply."

We chat a little longer, in Farsi - Kieran says he could use the practice - and then Captain Q'ari announces we have a meeting to discuss next steps.

I stand. "Come on Kieran. Let's go see what kind of mess I made."

"I'm sure it's not all that bad, but I agree. Let's go see."

As we got to the dining room and sat down, I notice that Fer'resi and Mitchel had set out snacks and coffee and tea. I forgot that we were the only ones who got two lunches, everyone else is probably hungry. Taking another cup of coffee I sit down.

Me, Kieran, Omar, Fer'resi and Captain Q'ari are here already and we wait for everyone else to come in. Snacks are had but the tone is subdued until the Captain stands up.

"Everyone." She looks around. "I do not believe this Starbase -" She looks at me.

"It's called "Reach of the Might of Vzzx" I say.

"Thank you, Melody - is safe. I am ordering nobody leave FarReach unless I give explicit permission. Something is going on here and I don't want us to get in the middle of it. Melody, please tell us what you've learned."

Huh. No Lieutenant again.

I leaned forward and faced everyone. Might as well start with the big one. "Okay, so they think that humans are the builders of the Gates and possibly the Starbases too."

Everyone blinks. Omar cuts in. "Wait, it gets better"

I nod. "Yeah, so the language that I learned how to speak with the nano machines? It's a Holy Tongue" I try to pronounce the proper noun. "It's like I'm talking to them in a religious language. Most everyone knows it, but it's not what they speak day to day, and everyone reacts oddly when I speak to them in it."

"So... Not only do they think Humans built the Warp Gates but they think that because of the language you're speaking to them with they think that you specifically are a builder and are Holy?" That's Ava Williams. She works with Mei'la in the power core and specializes on the other systems like Gravity. The non reactor systems basically.

I nod "As near as I can tell, yes."

"You should see the statue they have out front of their administration building." Omar sounds excited. "it's a dead ringer for a human woman in a pressure suit, and she's making some grand gesture pointing down their promenade."

"Oh, that's the other thing." I say before Omar can go on about the statue. "They say they have a population of ten million. Given that they also practice slavery, I bet it's even more than that if they're not outright lying about numbers."

When I mention the slavery, everyone looks a combination of upset, surprised and sad. Wow, I really am getting better at reading body language!

"Ten Million? Kieran shakes his head. "Impossible. Where would they get their food? From other systems? There's no planet here."

"They can't go into other systems. They all thought the Warp Gates were disabled until we came through. They told us that they have a planetoid left "by the Builders" that was hollowed out and has soil and an artificial sun and they grow food there."

Kieran looks incredulous. "I mean, it's possible sure. But... Call me skeptical. I don't think so."

Selem looks pained. She's getting annoyed at these tangents. Before she says anything I try and bring things back. "The other thing is that there seems to be two different sapient species who are in charge. The Aviens and the Mariens. The Aviens are like this bird looking people- " Fer'resi puts an image up on the screen when I say that. Looks like he was surreptitiously taking photos. "- and the Mariens are like... octopus people?" Fer'resi puts up an image of them. He then adds on images of all the different sapient species we saw. "I don't know if there are any others, but that's all I saw while we were walking to and from the Administration offices." He says, sheepishly.

Captain Q'ari nods "Well done Fer'resi. That was smart work."

I agree. "Thanks Fer'resi. It looks like the Aviens and the Mariens are - if not in outright war - are in a Cold War with each other. Given how they mentioned that the Gates have been closed for "three generations" I'm going to assume that what happened at the other location - which is called Wilds of Besmara by the way - caused the Gates to be locked. Someone locked the Gate on this side to keep something out, or someone locked the Gate on the other side to protect the people here. Either way, we opened the Gate and I don't know if it was locked behind us."

Mitchel - the other chef with Fer'resi - leans back in his chair and looks up at the ceiling. "So they think you're a God, we might have opened up the Gate to something that obliterated a whole system, the people here are squaring up for a fight and they keep slaves?"

"That's the long and short of it, yes." I said.

"Shit. We don't do things by half measures, do we." He said with a sad chuckle. "So, what do we do, Captain?"

Selem ran her hand over her ear absentmindedly. She's under a lot of strain now. "I don't know." She stopped. "No, I do know. The smart thing to do is blow our connection to the umbilical, and leave. Go to the next address, go home, whatever. If we stay, we're going to get even more involved in this..." She gestured. "Mess. But, if we do that we're going to contribute to possibly making a real hard time for the millions of sapients who supposedly live here." She looked out at us. "We're only a small team and one Starjumper kitted out for exploration. What do you think we should do?"

FarReach was first. "I'd like to help them, if we can. Look, if things get hot, I have a hunch we can take them on easily. Melody's pressure suit was scratched when she was shot, that was it. I can print everyone armored pressure suits like hers, if we needed to. It would only take a couple days to get everyones done. I already have your measurements. Based on the weapon she was shot with, I have a hunch that if any of the starships docked around us can fire back, we can destroy them without even going to WEP. We utterly outmatch them. They can't hurt us."

Captain Q'ari sat up a little. "That is a good point FarReach, Thanks for the perspective. If we're working hard to not accidentally massacre them, it's not like they can really cause us harm unless we get complacent or are tricked. But what do we do? Pick a side? That doesn't sound right to me. Defeat them both? Then we're in charge of the lives of millions onboard and as good as we are, I don't think the 12 of us can or want to run a Starbase."

As we sat there deliberating our next step FarReach came over the speakers. "Uh, everyone? There's a group of people at our umbilical."

Selem looks up. "The same people we were talking to before?"

"No. These people look..." FarReach struggled to find words "More... fanatical?"

Oh no.

"Can you show us please?" I ask, dreading the answer.

On our pads and the main screen FarReach shows us. It's a group of all different Sapients. The Aviens, the Mariens, the insect people, the ones we saw in pressure suits and at least two more. They're swaying and moving together. FarReach activates the audio fee and we hear that they're...

"Singing?" Omar says.

FarReach agrees. "Yes, they're singing."

Part 12