#hes so funny. and somehow one of the More well adjusted guys in this fucker

[incendiaryrequiem]

i can be called a loen enjoyer

[oliviayamaoka]

The Distraction (Danny Johnson / Jed Olsen / Ghostface x Reader)

Y/N encounters Ghostface, a snarky and creepy silent killer. However, he isn’t as silent as he is made out to be when you hit him with your toolbox in defense. To stall time for your survival and the progression of other generators, you decide to humor him and distract him for a long amount of time for the others.

Possible Warning: Sexual tension, slight blood, slight violence, and Danny having perverted thoughts (up to your interpretation on what he’s thinking)

You slowly vaulted over a wooden structure within Autohaven Wreckers. The green atmosphere felt very chilling and eerie, you didn’t like doing your trials in this realm. Your eyes averted to an untouched generator. Thank the Entity you didn’t hear a chainsaw revving or the menacing lullaby sung by the Huntress. Y/N kneeled down and began to work on the generator, putting their toolbox to the side. Who knew you’d become a mechanic of some sort within the Fog. 

“Shit.” You mumble as you cut your arm slightly on something within it. For a moment you had considered using your toolbox but it was better to just save it for another time.

Y/N sighed and pulled down a lever before reattaching some wires. The generators always confused you. Not in a way where you didn’t know how to fix them but how the hell did they power up the exit gates? Oh well, it didn’t matter at that point. You were forced to do this by a literal god. 

You suddenly gasped when you felt a firm grip pry you away from your generator. It must’ve been the killer. Y/N aggressively fought back and wiggled with desperate grunts and yells. You somehow managed to escape his grip, how the hell didn’t you hear him? You shoved him away but he grabbed your wrist tightly.

“Let go!” You yelled, hitting him as hard as you could since he seemed to have dropped his knife. You recognized the killer as Ghostface. He didn’t seem to think that you’d be able to get away the first time. Y/N’s eyes widened in shock and curiosity when she heard him darkly chuckle in amusement

“You’re like that bastard King.” He said to you as you both struggled. David was always verbal when ”fighting” the killers. He grunted as you kicked at his thigh, desperately trying to rip your arm away from him. 

“Since when did you start talking?” You asked him, humoring him in pure panic. Ghostface was a bit thrown off that you even responded instead of screaming at the top of your lungs. In fact, he doesn’t recall anybody saying anything back to him other than David King or Yui Kimura saying something snarky after a successful vault.

“You’d be surprised--agh!” He grunted as you smashed your toolbox into his face as hard as you could. This definitely threw him off since it hurt just as much as the pallet stuns did. Was that even allowed? He adjusted his mask to keep it from falling off. His chin sure as hell hurt.

“Sorry.” Y/N said to him almost immediately, stopping for a moment. You weren’t sure why you felt sorry for the bastard in that moment. You once did something similar with the Trapper when he accidentally stepped in his own trap, there was a moment of silence between the two of you as you both stared.

“What do you mean sorry?!” He asked you angrily but he didn’t lunge or hit you. He seemed just as confused and caught up in the moment as you. You threw your arms up in defense, it was a psychological thing.

“It was instinctual! What was I supposed to do, let you stab and hook me?” You said to him as he stood up. Ghostface was much taller up close, it was strange.

“Well, yeah. You’re only supposed to fucken wiggle or try get off of the hook. It said those were the rules.” He argued as you turned your head to the side in disbelief at his behavior. 

“Since when did you start abiding by the rules? Aren’t you supposed to be a serial killer or something?” Y/N questioned him.

“Uhhh, since that thing started torturing the other people who got trapped here. You think I wanna look like that fuckface with the chainsaw?” He said aggressively but you didn’t seem to back down at all. He was referring to the Hillbilly.

“He already looked like that, dumbass.” You say to him as he paused.

“Oh.” Ghostface responded before shaking his head to knock some sense into himself and began to try grab your wrist again. he tugged you closer when he did rather aggressively.

“What the fuck am I doing arguing with my prey.” He muttered as you pulled away again, taking a few steps back.

Ghostface, from your observation, was easily confused when talking to people. You figured it was normal since, well, when the hell did a psycho like him have time to talk to people? You recalled a conversation with Ace when you were upset due to one of your first trials. He had been previously married and referred to himself as a ladykiller, humoring the idea of trying to flirt with the Huntress. He was a wise dude despite being on the run from guys he owed money to, overall he made a good replacement father figure for a moment.

Clearly it was a bad idea but maybe instead of getting hooked or hurt, you could do what Ace jokingly suggested. It’d also be a funny story to tell some of your friends when this trial was over but it was scary thinking this could make him even more mad or aggressive. Oh, well, anything not to go through the pain again.

“Has anybody ever told you you’re handsome?” You asked, cringing at yourself for such a poor choice of wording.

“You don’t even know how I look.” He said, somewhat annoyed but loosened his grip slightly as you put your hand softly over his.

“That doesn’t matter. I feel like we could get to know eachother. I’m Y/N, by the way.” You say to him as he stopped completely, baffled even.

“What?” He asked in confusion.

“Think about it, if we have a nice little chat then I’m sure the Entity wouldn’t mind. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve been curious about your artwork. Or I guess you can say photography. I’m sure you have a collection.” You said.

“Right, like a puny thing like you would even understand what I do.” Ghostface said to you, crossing his arms. Admittedly, he seemed to slowly forget his objective when he began to even talk to you. Even he didn’t know why he kept responding to you.

“A puny thing like me? Oh, please. I’ve seen my fair share of blood and gore on the internet. I bet your photos wouldn’t even make me budge.” Y/N said.

“Really, now? I have a collection of photos of you and your little friends.” He said, getting rather defensive. Such a fragile ego, you thought.

“Oh, so you take photos of me?” You asked, pulling him closer. He seemed to freeze up when he was inches away from your face. Despite wearing the mask, he felt vulnerable. Why? You were just a survivor meant to be slaughtered.

“I don’t mean it like that.” He said firmly, although, it wouldn’t be a bad idea since you were rather attractive to him. Both physically and personality-wise. The thought amused him but he shook his head slightly.

“Shame. I could’ve offered you a special photoshoot.” Y/N said, enjoying getting into character at this point since all the generators should be done soon.

“A what?” He said, finally flustered. You couldn’t blame him. A survivor was practically seducing him. A part of him wanted to give in since he already wasted so much time just talking to you. There were, of course, other needs he needed satisfied. The idea of him showing no mercy on you got him hot and bothered.

“A special photoshoot. Just me and you, uhh... Ghostface?” You said to him, resting your eyes. 

“It’s Danny--I mean, Jed.” He said to you. You raised your eyebrows in surprise that he even told you his name, you could even swear your cheeks warmed up for a second. No. no, you thought. Do not get distracted.

“Jed, huh? Sounds easy to yell.” You responded with a smirk. 

At this point, Ghostface decided he definitely wanted you. He quickly gave into his desire since he had his own desires and fantasies he wanted to put at ease. Plus, a survivor like you giving yourself to him? It sounded too good to be true in his own dirty, messed up standards. He silently smirked behind his mask. Hooking and killing wasn’t the only way he wanted to hurt you now. He saw this as a way to properly get back at you for hitting him with your toolbox.

What did you get yourself into, he thought menacingly. Unbeknownst to him, you were already one step ahead of him. Ghostface wrapped his hands around your waist and brought you closer to him. Y/N froze for a moment but brushed her knee against his upper thigh in a rather suggestive manner. She didn’t think it would work yet it did.

“So, when do you want to do this, baby?” He asked you in a lower tone. You felt your cheeks flush and your heartrate beginning to increase but you had to stand your ground for a few more seconds. You looked away for a moment with an unimpressed stare.

“You’re such a gentlemen.” You said sarcastically, pushing away from him by his chest. The feeling of his leather and fabric was firm, you kinda liked that.

“Now what?” He asked in frustration. Your eyes averted towards the tools spread out on the ground from the box. Y/N came up with an idea.

“Pick my stuff up for me and maybe we can do something... quick.” You said, tugging your shirt downwards suggestively. 

“Okay, okay. Fine.” Ghostface responded to you sarcastically.

He turned to look at the tools on the ground. Kneeling down, he set the toolbox upright and began to put the tools back. Ghostface found it interesting how such small tools can play a big part in fixing the generators faster. He’d be pissed off if some random fucker like the Clown came and busted it up after long, hard work. You watched him actually do as you asked. It was somewhat heartwarming. No, actually, it wasn’t. You didn’t wanna catch feelings for him.

Y/N looked around, inhaling quietly. He seemed focused on picking up the smaller tools. You weren’t sure when to make your move. Suddenly, a horn blasted. A feeling of relief washed through your body. His head popped up as you quickly sprinted away from him. Ghostface whipped his head around. 

“Shit, fuck...!” He muttered. It was at this point where he realized what you did. He felt angry at himself for giving into his urges instead of just hooking you and killing you and your little friends. Ghostface smashed your toolbox against the generator in anger.

Standing up, he put his knife away. Despite being furious, he still found you attractive and confident for even trying that with him. It fueled a different urge within him. Oh, he would definitely make you pay. Not from the hooks, of course. He smirked at the idea of it and began to walk off to the other door once he began to calm down.

Y/N, he thought. 

[candycityy]

based on @pufferssss' discord headcanon of levi taking care of petra while she's on her period. just fluff, because my babies deserve it, sue me.

(You can also read this on AO3!)

==

She's off her game today.

He'd noticed it earlier that morning, during PT. He'd assigned them to complete a circuit, and most of the squad had groaned and complied, but she'd remained silent, just turned a shade paler.

"Something wrong, Ral?" he'd asked, when her face twisted into a pained expression. For a second, she'd looked at him entreatingly, like she was trying to communicate something with her gaze.

When he just stared blankly back, she'd sighed and shook her head. "Nothing, sir," she'd grumbled, before turning around and going off on the ten-kilometre jog.

But now – something's definitely wrong, he's sure of it. She looks distracted and self-conscious, her eyes flickering between the guys and him, and she keeps adjusting her uniform even though as far as Levi can see, every strap is perfectly in place. She's pale, too, looking far too drained for one measley circuit –for all her flaws, Petra's never been one to back down from a challenge, let alone show a sign of weakness.

He watches as she maneuvers robotically towards the end-point, slicing at the rubber-foam targets in an almost absent-minded way, wearing that pained, distracted expression. When an Abnormal emerges suddenly from the side, plywood arm raised for attack, he waits for her to snap to attention and dodge.

Instead, she turns, much too slowly and goes, as if in a daze, "Huh?" The arm slams down on her wires, and she lets out a shriek as she struggles to recalibrate her position while dangling mid-air. His irritation mounting, he swiftly swings over and plucks her out of the air, ignoring her protests, and dumps her unceremoniously on the ground. Following his lead, Eld, Gunther, and Auruo alight on the ground, expressions tight and wary.

"What the hell was that?" he demands. But instead of looking sheepish like she usually would, she shoots him a venomous glare. Like it's his fault she failed to dodge a damn piece of plywood.

"Sorry," she mutters, sounding not the least bit apologetic. Levi stares at her in disbelief. They've been together for a while, sure, but she's never been insubordinate like this, let alone in front of their squadmates, in the middle of drills.

"Ral." His tone is frigid. "I'll say it once more. What the hell was that? You're being out of line, and your drills were atrocious." His tone is harsh, and her gaze snaps to his, bright with fury.

"I said," she hisses, "I was sorry."

He's angry, now. "Well, you sure have a fucking funny way of showing it."

"Oh, fuck you, Levi," she spits, and there's a sharp intake of breath all around – Petra never curses, and she never calls him by name during training.

"Petra!" Eld exclaims. "Sir, as second-in-command, I'll take care of this – you can continue with the drills –"

"Fuck you too, Eld." She gets to her feet, dusting herself off, and glares around at her squadmates.

He's had enough. "Ral, I don't know why you think it's okay to speak to us this way, but –"

"I'm on my period," she finally bites out. She spins around, eyes flashing, and everyone but him takes an involuntary step back. "And I don't know what I did wrong but this time it feels like I'm being stabbed in the abdomen by a thousand daggers and I'm pretty sure I've bled through these stupid fucking white pants and God help me I'm so done with all of you insensitive fuckers."

There's a beat. He finally finds his voice, and says, lamely, "You should have spoken up earlier. You could've gone to the sick bay if it was that bad."

At that, she honest-to-goodness snarls at him, baring her teeth and curling her lip like a cornered animal. "Then. I'll. Go." The words come out in a low growl, and it's all he can do to keep his expression flat and unreadable.

"Go, then." For a second, her mask of fury cracks, and her eyes fill with tears.

But then she turns on her heel and stalks off, her boots crunching in the dust. He notices, belatedly, that there's a smudge of red on the back of her pants.

His squad stands there, shocked into silence. "You go tell her, Auruo," Eld says finally.

"What? No way, you do it, you're second-in-command –"

As the guys argue between themselves, Levi presses his head into his hands and wonders briefly why the universe seems to hate him.

==

Later, when he knocks on the door, he's not surprised when he doesn't get a reply.

Steeling himself for the worst, he pushes the door open a crack. She's not on the bed. Maybe I'll just go in and wait for her, then, he thinks, before a soft moan makes his gaze snap to the ground.

It's Petra, curled up into a fetal position on the ground. She's sweating despite the mild temperature, and her skin has taken on a deathly pallour.

She groans again, and the sound startles him out of his reverie. He opens the door and steps in. "What the hell, Petra?" he mutters under his breath, kneeling on the ground next to her. Her eyes are closed, and he thinks he hears a muffled fuck off before she sighs, turning onto her other side and pulling her knees even more tightly to her chest.

Despite her mumbled protests, he lifts her carefully back onto the bed and pours her a glass of water. "Open," he orders, gently lifting her head and thumbing her lip. She bites his thumb halfheartedly, and he lets out an irritated grunt.

"Dammit, Petra, it's just medicine for the pain. Quit being a stubborn brat and open up already." She mumbles something unintelligible, maybe another curse, but obediently opens her mouth and swallows the small white pill dry, ignoring the glass of water and grimacing as she does it.

Her eyelids flutter weakly, and she looks up at him through half-lidded eyes. "Go away, you ass. Don't wanna talk to you. Ugh, it hurts." She lets out a high-pitched whine, the sound somehow both irritated and agonised at the same time, and he snorts – it's just so Petra for her to be frustrated at her own pain.

"Lie down," he orders, pulling a hot water bottle out his bag and tucking it roughly into her arms. She presses it to her abdomen and curls into the warmth, making a small, pleased sound, and even though her hair clings to her damp forehead and her clothes are a rumpled mess, it's still inexplicably, ridiculously cute.

"Better?" he asks. She nods sleepily – and then, a few moments, just as she seems on the verge of dozing off, she sits up abruptly, almost shoving him off the bed in the process.

She looks at him with wide, panicked eyes. "You – oh, no," she groans. "You can't be here. My room is a mess, I'm a mess, there's a pile of bloody laundry in the corner..." Levi inwardly recoils at that, but manages to keep his face carefully composed, "...and – ugh – just, get out get out get out." She collapses back into bed, throws a pillow at his general direction (he dodges), and lets out a cry that's somewhere between exasperation and embarrassment.

"You're welcome," he deadpans, and she drapes an arm over her flushed face, covering her eyes. "I'll leave soon. Just as soon as you tell me you're okay."

"I'm okay, now get out." Her words are muffled from underneath her arm. With an irritated sigh, he gets up, pausing only when she peeks out from under her arm (again with the ridiculous cute) and asks, "where'd you get the hot water bottle from?"

"Nifa." He frowns, recalling the thinly veiled disapproval on the girl's face when he'd confided in her the morning's events.

"Oh." Her voice is small. "Um. Captain – Levi," she amends, and hesitates.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. You know. For everything. And, uh, sorry for freaking out earlier." Her arm goes back over her face.

"It's fine." Levi lets out a short exhale, and against his better judgment, leans back over her slight figure to gently brush the tangled hair out of her face. Her face is still fever-hot, and she sighs at the coolness of his touch.

"Feel better, Petra," he says, quietly. As he gets up to leave, his eyes flicker to the pile of laundry at the corner at the corner of the room.

Every cell in his cleanliness-obsessed body screams in protest.

Oh, what the hell. Without making a sound, he lifts the bundle into his arms – keeping it as far away from his face as possible – and leaves, closing the door quietly behind him.

Levi Ackerman, he thinks grimly to himself, as he makes his way towards the laundry room, you are such a fucking loser.

==

The next morning, Petra wakes up to a pile of clean, perfectly pressed laundry outside her door.

There's a note. Ral, it says, in a familiar, elegant script, you owe me a new bottle of bleach. Let me know when you're better, because I'm still giving your insubordinate ass a week of latrine duty. C.L.

Carefully, she folds the piece of paper and closes the door behind her. She flops onto her bed, feeling an irrepressible smile spread over her face – and somehow, all of a sudden – the ache in her abdomen doesn't feel quite so bad.

[shesclearlya3]

Class Fight (p.2)

pairing: teen!dandy mott x teen!reader

word count: 1,666

warnings: language, jealous dandy, slightly au!dandy, all characters are 18

part 1 part 3

1.

When he opened the door, you saw both boys sitting in chairs. They both had packs of ice on their faces and sheepish expressions.

"What were you thinking?" you hissed to them as Mr. Harmon gestured for you to take the empty seat next to Dandy.

"Well, now that y/n is here, I think you both owe her an explanation and an apology."

Jason and Dandy shared a look. Dandy now looked pissed, and you could only imagine what lead to this.

Oh, I have a pretty good fucking idea.

"Well?"

Principal Harmon looked at the boys expectantly. Jason and Dandy awkwardly moved in their seats, not looking at each other as their faces slowly turned black and blue as seconds ticked by.

You waited impatiently, your feet bobbing as you rolled your eyes. Principal Harmon was staring directly at the boys.

"Fine. I'll start." Jason said, throwing the melting ice pack on the desk. Dandy was glaring at his legs. "This guy is a fucking psychopath!-"

"Watch your language, Mr. Dean!" Mr. Harmon snapped, his fist beating against the desk. You jumped as a glass of water tipped over and soaked the floor.

"I apologize. He's crazy." Jason shrugged, "A nutter."

"That's extremely rude," you commented.

Jason laughed to himself, "y/n, you have no idea."

"Mr. Mott?" Principal Harmon inquired, staring at the oldest boy. "Would you care to counter?"

"No," Dandy said flatly.

"Dandy?" you asked, managing to catch his eyes before he looked away.

Dandy adjusted the ice pack. "I don't like him, he's a fu- moron."

"I could say the same!" Jason countered.

"Boys." Mr. Harmon sighed.

"You're a disgrace," Jason shook his head.

"You're an imbecile." Dandy laughed quietly.

"I want you to say that to my face, you looney bin." Jason snapped, curling his fist.

"Oh my gosh," you sighed, rubbing your face as the boys began to bicker and throw insults at each other nonstop.

"Boys!" Mr. Harmon snapped, "If you cannot set aside your differences for just a moment, you'll have detention every week for the rest of the year."

The boys shut up at that, mumbling half-assed apologies to one another.

"Now. You caused quite the spectacle in the quad today. Ms. Esmerelda is in the nurse's office with heart palpitations at the spectacle she witnessed today."

You frowned, wondering what the hell happened even more.

"It's not that big of a deal!" Jason sighed, "I punched the fucker in the face, we're even."

Principal Harmon sighed, "Language."

"Oh please, you curse up a storm all the time. It's just us in here!" Jason defended.

The principal had to hide his laugh. "Fine, I'll let it pass just this once."

Dandy was laughing, a slight crinkle in his eye as he winced from the bruise on his cheek.

"Dandy, this isn't funny," you groaned. "Why were you fighting and what does this have to do with me?" you insisted, standing up. Jason and Dandy both glanced at you, "The entire school probably knows about it by now and I don't take well to rumors!"

Dandy looked saddened as he looked at you, but Jason is the one who spoke first.

"Your friend thinks I'm trying to sleep with you."

Mr. Harmon cleared his throat, dabbing at his forehead as you gaped at the two boys. You could tell he was questioning his life choices.

You thought of the conversation earlier this week with Dandy. He currently looked proud of himself, dropping the ice pack. The bruise was nasty.

"He approached me and my friends as we were walking to the cafeteria. Matthew made a stupid comment about you, that I corrected him on, by the way," Jason defended, putting his hands up. "He told me to stay away from you and he threatened to kill me if I ever hurt you."

"Which is a threat we are taking very seriously." Mr. Harmon said, giving the infamous Harmon death stare to Dandy.

"I wasn't being serious... For the most part." Dandy shrugged.

You sank back into your seat, feeling yourself getting a headache. "Why are men like this?" you groaned.

"Is that it?" Mr. Harmon asked, looking between the boys.

"Yeah, we got into a fight and kicked the shit out of each other, then we got pulled apart. He hits like a girl." Jason laughed.

"I could easily say the same?" Dandy smirked.

"Fall into a fucking ditch." Jason mumbled.

"I'll be happy too, I don't want to be here anyway." Dandy replied.

You stared at Mr. Harmon, feeling like you were watching a television show that was about to be pulled from the air after the first episode. This had to all be a joke, right? There's probably a recorder under the table to be played over the speaker tomorrow.

"Mr. Harmon, I don't understand what is going on through their heads, but I can assure you that Jason and I are friends. The same with Dandy." you said. From the corner of your eye, you could see both boys with crestfallen expressions. "I don't condone violence and I certainly never wanted this to happen."

Mr. Harmon nodded, "I appreciate that, Ms. y/l/n. I do not blame you, men tend to be pigs." he said. The boys glared at him now. "To wrap this up, a month of detention for both of you, two nights a week. I don't want to go through this again, you hear?" he scolded.

The boys nodded slowly, and you stood up, wanting to go home and take a hot bath and listen to the radio. The boys stood up and sauntered out, Dandy giving you a genuinely sad look while Jason didn't bother to look you in the eye.  

You heard the bell ring, and you could already hear students asking if they listened to what had transpired outside. You weren't prepared to deal with this. You were always under the radar. Nobody ever had a bad thing or a rumor to say about you. Now the entire school knew Dandy Mott caused a fight with the Quarterback over you.

Mr. Harmon was shuffling papers on his desk, and you turned to look at him. "Sir? Would it be alright if I go home for the day? I'm feeling unwell."

Mr. Harmon is a strict principal, for the most part. However, he gladly dismissed you, writing a note himself, and you took it to the lady at the front desk after you gathered your things. You ducked out as fast as you could, not caring that it was cold and rainy. By the time you got home, you had settled into a hot bath. You hoped the scalding water would just take you out.

-

You were shaken awake first thing in the morning by your mother, who told you the party's host was sick and wouldn't be hosting the Tupperware party. Which meant you had no plans on Saturday night.

You didn't mind. If you went to the dance now, it would just turn into a gossip party about you. You could always have a night to yourself and see a new release. Maybe go to the diner and get dinner before.

The rain from yesterday had not let up, so you stayed in with your mother and did some cleaning as she played the radio. Your father was away on last-minute business and wouldn't be back until Tuesday night. You liked spending time with your mother. She was soft-spoken and never butted in when it wasn't necessary. She was just that person you always wanted around.

She could tell something was bothering you. Over lunch, you ate in your room, going over the required reading for English. You could faintly hear some weather bulletin on the radio downstairs. You were expecting a call from Zoe talking about the dance being canceled.

Just minutes after the phone rang. Your mother answered below before calling up to you and saying a friend was calling. You smiled, running out of your room and down the stairs, taking the phone from your mother.

"You okay, Zoe?" you teased.

"Zoe?" your smile fell as you heard Dandy's voice on the other end. "It's Dandy."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" you smacked your head. Your mother gave you a concerned glance. "I was expecting her to... Never mind. What's up?" you asked.

"I need to talk to you," he said quickly. "I'm coming over."

You paused, "I-Now isn't a good time, Dandy-."

"I'm leaving now." he said before the line went dead.

You hung up the phone, giving your mother a look as she pretended to be busy.

"Uhh, Dandy is coming over, I guess." you said, slowly taking a seat at the table.

"Oh?" your mother asked, her lips twitching as she somehow tried washing a dish with a dry rag. "I wasn't aware you two were speaking."

Your mother knew Dandy often gave you a ride to school. She assumed that the relationship had come to an end with the girls picking you up every day.

"It's complicated." you answered sadly.

"I see." she said, seeming to realize she wasn't washing correctly. She dropped the hand towel, giving you a pointed look. "Is he causing you trouble?"

You frowned, figuring the school would call to notify the parents their daughter was the cause of a brawl between two model students. You were surprised but realized she would have said something had they told you.

"Not quite. Things are just rocky right now." you said before you heard knocking on the front door. He was here already? He lived all the way across town. You stood up, ignoring the joyful look your mom was giving you as you ran to the foyer, seeing the silhouette of Dandy through the glass.

You wrenched open the door, seeing a drenched Dandy shivering under the porch roof. You pulled him inside, ushering him upstairs before her curious mind could reel the both of you back in the kitchen.

[sometimes-love-is-enough]

I MEAN IT GAVE ME CHILLS IN A GOOD WAY. and also it would be hilarious to write imo; just these 6 dudes that all look the same and just made up A Guy.

“Thomas,” Roman announces quite suddenly, with a triumphant gesture that manages to inadvertently sweep half of the script drafts off the couch in the process.

“I still can not believe we’re doing this,” Virgil says.

“Oh, you’d better believe it, Way Down Gay-destown, ‘cause I just got the perfect name for him. Thomas. That’s his name – Thomas Sanders.” Roman pauses, and wiggles his fingers a bit. “Thoughts?”

Remus perks up. “Oh, our fictional character has thots now?”

“Crawling all over him like weevils,” Virgil nods.

“I thought we were calling ourselves ‘Sides’,” says Janus.  

“Guys, please,” Roman begs.

“Thomas sounds good to me,” is Patton’s opinion. “It’s nice and friendly, and also it has two syllables, like the rest of us! It kind of fits in like that.”

“It is a surprisingly apt name, especially when you take into consideration that Roman most likely did not know of the linguistic root when picking it,” Logan muses.

Remus waves a hand lazily from where he’s draped backwards over the couch, writing Transformers inflation porn on the notes app of his shitty phone. “Uh, noparoni, falsehood, all that jazz. I was watching. He went on babynames dot com and everything for this.”

“...What he said, yeah.”

“Ah, yes, babynames dot com, the internet’s premier and leading source for all accurate name derivations,” comes the dry response.

“Thomas means twin,” Roman says. “It means twin, and it’s funny because we all look identical! It’s like another layer of meaning! A fun little injoke, just for us.”

“Yes,” says Virgil, “you’re right. We need many, many deep layers of meaning and in-jokes woven into the shared identity we’re crafting as part of Roman and Remus’s wild, spur-of-the-moment internet scam.”

“How dare you,” Roman objects loudly, flailing so suddenly that he nearly falls off the couch. “This is polar opposite of a scam, we’re – we are merely taking advantage of our uncanny shared appearance to... share joy amongst the humble Youtube vlogging community! And perhaps show off. Just a little. But to say that it’s a scam – ”

“No, this is definitely a scam,” Janus says. “I mean, look at us. We’re inventing an entire person for internet clout.”

Patton looks like he’s having second thoughts about this whole thing. “I’m having second thoughts,” he says. “Like, on an ethical, moral sort of level, is any of this... really a good idea?”

“People invent other people for shittier reasons all the time, I think we’re fine,” Virgil says. “I mean, look at internet catfishes. Or every male fiction writer with a very obvious and creepy fetish. Or J.K. Rowling.”

“J.K. Rowling doesn’t exist?” Janus says. “Excellent. We won, boys.”

Roman grabs a pen and scribbles it into the notebook, next to a hasty little stickman doodle of an average-looking guy and a list of qualities and attributes and skills. “Well, all that aside, nobody seems to have an objection to this, so Thomas it is! Thomas Sanders. Thomas I’ve-Just-Realized-He-Needs-A-Middle-Name Sanders.”

“Thomas F Sanders,” Remus suggests.

“The F stands for ‘Fucking’, doesn’t it,” sighs Patton.

“Well, yeah.”

“Way to go for the low-hanging fruit, dude,” Virgil says. “Okay, put a pin in the middle name for now. Our collective brainchild has a name, so... that’s something. I guess.” He grabs the notebook from Roman and squints down at the short-ish list they have so far. “Any more character traits we wanna give this guy?”

“Intense love of Disney films,” Roman says.

“We’ve already got that; you suggested it about five times already.”

“Maybe he can play the ukulele!” Patton suggests.

Virgil nods, and starts to write it down before stopping abruptly. “Wait. Can any of us play the ukulele?”

Silence.

“He can only have traits that we already have,” Virgil reminds them. “That’s the whole idea. We’re derivatives of him.”

“Well, I’ll work on the ukulele thing,” Roman says decisively. “Put it down anyway. Anyone else?”

“He can’t cook to save his life,” Janus says.

“Catholic guilt,” Logan provides, with a little wince and a slight adjustment of his glasses. “It provides a good base for many of the plotlines we wish to include in this, I believe.”

“Give him a huge dick,” Remus says.

“Remus,” Roman growls.

“Just a humungous badonker of a penis. He beats his meat and the entire earth rumbles.”

“Remus,” Patton groans.

Remus grins. "He’s packing some real chunky meat down there. As in, his drill is a five star excavator. A proper manmade wonder. It's the kind of meal you get a prize for finishing. A bridge between two warring nations. And the girth! God had to resize the Earth so the radii wouldn't match. You can use his cast iron pelvic greatsword as a radiation shield in Chernobyl. His – "

“Remus, weren’t you listening? We’re only giving him traits that we already have,” Virgil says, looking Remus dead in the eyes. “I’m not going to let you misrepresent yourself like this.”

The room almost immediately erupts into a loud chorus of enthusiastic oohs. Quite a few people throw things at Virgil, who lets out a snort of amusement and ducks to avoid getting nailed in the eye by a stray television remote control. Remus just cackles.

“We’re going to have to tone back the dick jokes, probably,” says Janus with some regret, once everybody calms down a bit. “Don’t want to get demonetized within the first few weeks.”

“Well, Remus already broke the Youtube demonetization speedrun last week, so at least we know what not to do,” Patton says absently. “The real question is, though – who’s going to actually play this Thomas person?

“Don’t look at me,” says Janus. “I’m looking forward to getting the play the villain for once.”

Patton points at him, mock-glaring. “Hey, don’t think you’re missing out on a redemption arc just because you like the evil aesthetic!”

Janus lets out a little affronted hissing noise at that, but doesn’t actually object.

“Well, I’m not shaving my moustache for any of you fuckers, no matter how much internet clout we’re gonna get for it,” Remus declares.

A quick, meaningful glance is exchanged between the four remaining people in the room.  

“Leave me out of it,” Virgil decides.

“I don’t really mind, either way,” Patton says.

“In that case, I shall arm-wrestle you for the honor of portraying our glorious, talented and entirely fictional centre of being on our upcoming Grammy-award-winning sixty-part webseries,” Roman declares, flexing dramatically.

“Which may or may not be a scam,” Logan says.

“...Look, are we doing this or what?”

“Absolutely.” Logan places down his book, and shrugs off his jacket. “I should warn you, however – I am what I believe is colloquially referred to as ‘absolutely fucking ripped’.” He breaks out into a surprisingly wicked smile. “Roman, let me be clear. I am going to be the one to portray Thomas Fucking Sanders, our beloved nonexistent media superstar culmination-of-our-collective-selves. And I am about to flat-out destroy you. Let’s go.”

There’s a beat of silence as everybody stares at Logan. The stares range from impressed to terrified to obviously horny. All of these are equally valid emotions to be feeling, because Logan is ripped, and somehow none of them have ever realized this before.

“Well, before we do that, give me five minutes to make popcorn,” says Janus. “Because I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

[grouptalekindnesssoulstories]

Two Imps in a Trench Coat

So, I got bored and scrolled through @infinimay ‘s prompt list thingys. I got an idea from Illusions AU, so here we are! I have decided to make them two guys in a trench coat, and everyone else think they hate each other because they are never seen together. 

And this time tumblr can’t be a little bitch and delete my progress cause I’m on desktop! Take that you dumb website

Also, I ended up using @enby-phoenix ‘s idea of the author interacting with the characters (Sorry, not sorry? :p I liked the idea)

Words: 1,665 

Warnings: Cursing (once again, I can not function without curses), Remus being himself, a panic attack (written by someone with limited experience), threats with no intention of following through, complete self-insert.

“Are you sure about this Re?” Virgil sat on the desk as Remus strained to see from the chair. They were about to send in a response to an ad for roommates. 

“Nope! It’s like an ace succubus!” The other imp said cheerfully. 

“How does that even translate to this?” Virgil offered a hand to lift Remus up. He ignored it, choosing to climb the back of the chair and leaping onto the desk. 

“We do whatcha gotta do! Like-”

“Nope, just send the e-mail you idiot. Both of them, and make sure it’s scheduled at different times, so they don’t link them” Virgil turned to instruct his twin. They had to be careful with their secret. 

~~~

“I’m here bitches!” Remus threw open the door on his moving day. The other four roommates were all gathered in the living room. He briefly wondered if his glamour was enough (Virgil had fussed over it for an hour). 

“Ah, I assume you’re Remus Jones” One responded, pushing up his glasses. 

“Language!” Another scolded after recovering for his shock. The person next to them laid an arm around them. 

“Let’s get started” Remus rubbed his hands, moving towards the group “You know I’m Remus, who are you?” 

“I’m Logan, I posted the ad. He/him if you could” The first one began. 

“I’m Janus, they/them. You can call me Dee though” The next responded, the one who had calmed Mx. Language-dude. “This is Patton, my boyfriend” 

“That’s me Kiddo! Oh, I use he/him” Patton bounced after being introduced.

“That leaves this fucker to be Roman” Remus turned to the last of the group. To his surprise, they resembled his illusion pretty closely. 

“Yes” He responded curtly. Remus shrugged, dragging his bags in. He had very little, as Virgil had not trusted him to move most of their stuff. He already missed the other imp. He couldn’t do anything to disrupt the glamour, and it was booooriiiing. 

~~~

Virgil moved in a few days later. Most of the others were at work. Remus was there, hiding in the closet to keep up the appearance of being employed. 

“I assume you are Virgil?” A crisp voice asked. Remus had updated his twin on everything, so Vee knew it was Logan. However, he didn’t want to give away his knowledge.

“Yea, what of it?” 

“I’m Logan. I’m assuming you received my last e-mail?” The human swirled the liquid in his cup as he spoke. 

“I did. So, where do I sleep?” Virgil shrugged, shoulders aching from all the bags he was carrying. 

“Over here. Unfortunately, there is a door between the two rooms over here, so you are in a sense sharing with our....loud roommate addition. I must return to my work” Logan walked away quickly, disappearing down the opposite hallway. 

“Re, where are you son of a-” Virgil muttered the moment he entered the room. 

“Here!” Remus bounced out of the closet, tackling his brother. 

“Shhh, gotta be careful”

“Nah, he can’t hear anything. Perfect for sneaking into his room and getting some emotional action” Re bounced, beaming wider than natural even for an imp. 

“Lead the way then. I’m tired from keeping this up. I’ll set up my ‘room’ later. Not like I’ll be using it much anyways if everything goes well” 

~~~

“Where is this new roommate?” A quiet voice asked a few hours later. Both imps jolted out of their doze, scrambling to figure out a way to sneak out. 

“Who’s turn is it to appear?” Vee hissed, glancing around.

“On, quickly! I bottom” Remus pulled on his brother’s arm. Virgil nodded, climbing onto his brother’s shoulders before adjusting the illusion. After a second of tweaking it and getting his balance, Remus walked them out. 

“You called?” Virgil drawled, signalling Remus to lean against the wall. The excitement that hit both of them was addictive in its strength.

“Hiya! I’m Pat!” The tallest of the trio standing there said. He bounced on his toes, practically vibrating in joy.

“Darling, easy” The other human closest to him soothed. After taking their boyfriend’s hand, said boyfriend calmed a bit. “I’m Dee. they/them”

“And I’m Roman” The last one added. Virgil immediately saw the bags under his eyes and the exhaustion rolling off him. It was almost as strong as Pat’s joy. However, it had less of an energy rush. It was so deep, it almost sapped energy. 

“Well, I’m sure you know by now I’m Virgil. Any more questions? I want to unpack” Virgil almost snapped. All three stepped back and Remus slid them through the gap quickly. The moment he shut the door to the spare Virgil’s room, he swung his brother off his shoulders. 

“Hey, hey. It’s okay spider. It’s not you. Do you need your blanket? Or Charlotte?” Remus rumbled, trying to stop the oncoming panic attack. Virgil shook his head, patting Re’s shoulder. Remus nodded and sat next to his brother. The moment he had settled, Virgil hugged him. The pair curled up, Remus humming to soothe the other imp. Before long, both were sleeping peacefully. 

~~~

“Do you hate Remus?” Roman sat down heavily on the couch next to the pair. Virgil was currently the one in the illusion, so it was him who responded.

“Never met the guy. If anything, he hates me” Virgil tried to sound as bored as possible. It had been a few months and the twins had gained more energy, fully emerging from their halfling state. They couldn’t risk going anywhere with each other though, and the rest of the apartment had noticed they never were seen with each other. 

“Well, what about me? You’ve avoided me ever since you moved in” Roman leaned closer, and Virgil was tempted to lean away, but that would weaken the illusion. It was true he had been carefully keeping away, and had grown closer to the rest of the group...but he didn’t hate Roman. It was the opposite, he couldn’t stand being near him with all of his exhaustion, sorrow, and depression.

“Mmm, nah. You’re just a lot” Vee responded after a nudge from his brother. 

“Of emotion?” Roman responded after a moment, a flicker appearing across his face. His plain features seemed to briefly warp. After a moment, he reached out a hand, laying it over Virgil’s paler skin. It passed through Virgil’s illusion entirely after a moment, shattering it. 

“Shit” Virgil met Roman’s eyes. Eyes that were glowing softly, and were slowly dissolving a similar illusion. Remus freed himself from Vee and bounced over, tapping the round face that appeared. 

“VeeVee, it’s real! It’s purely fat and would make great-”

“Re, stop that thought right now. We both know what it is and it’s gross af” Roman started giggling. 

“What’s so funny Princey?” Virgil asked, angling himself towards his brother, and the exit he could use. 

“Sorry, sorry. I’m just glad I’m not alone, and that I was right. Plus you’re so small!” He waved a hand at the pair. After a nod, they tackled him. After some scrambling, they were perched on Roman’s chest. He was pinned to the couch on his back. 

“What are you. It’s obvious this is no illusion. So what” “are you. And how did you figure out what we are” Virgil and Remus began, their own eyes glowing from using their magic. 

“I’m a selkie. Someone took most of my skin. And I saw you two the first night. I was bringing food for you both at Pat’s request and saw you curled up with tatters of glamour. I didn’t want to do anything with anyone around though” Roman explained, a nervous smile across his features. The twins exchanged looks and a nod. They scrambled off, freeing Roman by brushing dark red hands over the bonds. 

“We are Imps” “and your emotions were impossible to feed” “Off. So we avoided you” The pair informed him. 

“Plus Vee has a crush on you!” Remus added unhelpfully.

“Remus, I will shove my feet in your face the next time I’m on top” Virgil punched his brother. 

“Oooo kinky”

“You little fuc-”

“Uh...guys? You know Patton and Dee will be coming back from their date soon, right?” Roman broke in, glancing between them. “I also can’t tell you apart now, except by your voices” 

“Oh, shoot. he’s right” Virgil glanced at the clock as Roman somehow made the physical version of the 😢 emoji. 

“VeeVee has the curly horns, I’m taller at 3′4.5!” Remus piped up at the worst time as the lock jingled. 

“SHit on a fucking stick, Remus get your ass over here. We need to get our glamour back on” Virgil yanked his brother over, focused entirely on adjusting the glamour to look natural while still hiding both imps. 

“Um, you may not need be concerned?” Roman said awkwardly as Patton cursed outside the door from Remus’s panicked interference on the lock. 

“Uh, explain quickly before I burn you with...just quickly!” Virgil almost yelled, struggling with repairing the damage. 

“Pat, Dee, May I tell them?” Roman raised his voice. The door swung open as Remus yanked a blanket over him and his brother. Dee raised an eyebrow, walking in and closing the door behind them. 

“Tell them what exsssactly?” They almost hissed, eyes quickly taking in the selkie. 

“Of course kiddo!” Pat spoke up, smiling brightly. 

“I don’t mind, I sssssupposssse” Dee added as all eyes turned to them. 

“Well, You know I’m a selkie. Dee over there is a naga! And Pat is a werecat. Which is why he says he’s allergic, but there’s cat hair all over!” Roman said proudly. The imps felt the pride leak out of him. The gloomy emotional cover was breaking apart, showing the emotions he had hidden underneath after the initial meeting. 

“We’re imps! Here to suck your soul out through your emotions!” Remus popped his horned head out from the blanket. 

“Remus, shut up. You’re gonna get us kicked out” Virgil shoved his brother. 

“Are we sharing now? Is it touchy-feely time?” A voice echoed from the ceiling. 

“Logan!” All five exclaimed, the imps jumping into the air. 

“Yes, it is I. Your favorite vampire roommate” A voice drawled from the ceiling. The various bruises suddenly made so much more sense as the thin man dropped from the ceiling. His whole body looked like he was, well, dead. 

“....Re, I’m going to take a nap” Virgil vanished under the blanket again as the various glamours were dropped. The only one without a glamour was Patton, and his unruly curls were a disguise themselves. 

“A wise choice. We should all go to bed, including our other roommate” Pat smiled, earning a smile from Logan.

“Don’t fucking tell me there’s another one of you” Virgil’s voice was muffled. 

“Oh, I keep forgetting she’s here” Roman whined, glaring at the idiot. 

“She? I haven’t heard anything about a she” Re cocked his head. Logan sighed before turning his gaze towards their other roommate. 

“Yes, well. She doesn’t typically appear. You can’t see her, unless she chooses to appear” Logan adjusted his glasses. 

“Rude. I do appear” A distinctly feminine voice echoed from a spot on the arm of the couch. A blink, and there was a young woman sitting there. There were bags under her own eyes, and she seemed to be upset about something.

“Who are you?” VeeVee poked his head out from the blanket long enough to confirm she appeared human.

“I’m Delphine Ignia. I technically own this place. I can’t take credit for this whole thing though. Fin gets credit for the idea” she turned towards the imps, crossing her legs as she studied them with...normal blue eyes. 

“Are you a ghost? Cause I didn’t see your name on the lease” Remus cocked his head, readying a spear to throw as the woman’s leg suddenly swayed as she appeared to think.

“...no you wouldn’t. You see, I’m the one bringing this whole thing to life. I’m the author! Though, I usually think of myself as the writer. I’m not published so I feel like ‘author’ doesn’t fit” She had once again shifted as she spoke, her leg somehow bouncing on the ground as she spoke. 

“And you of all people need sleep. You can make a second chapter in the morning. You have the zoom meeting tomorrow” Logan scolded the young woman. She groaned, nodding. 

“Yea, yea. I’ll lose the idea though! And I haven’t found the stopping point” 

“This is it. If the readers want, you’ll figure out a way. You did with How Far Can You Trust A Serpent” Dee pointed out.

“Fiiineeee. I am having a harder time typing cause I’m tired. Night guys. Sleep well! You have no choice but to sleep!” The woman started fading as her leg’s bouncing slowed. Before the roommates knew it, they were in their beds and collectively drifting off as the...writer, as she called herself, did. They all had a lot to ponder, and Delphine needed to fucking sleep. So they did.

[sylvanfreckles]

Critical Components

First foray into Detroit: Become Human! This was supposed to be an entry for Comfortember, even though I didn’t get anything finished until the end of the month, but the plot ran away from me.

Summary: The real rescue wasn’t when Hank shot the bastard who stabbed Connor in the leg. The real rescue was when he pulled his friend out of the hellhole that was the official CyberLife repair facility.

* * *

“Jee-sus,” Hank whistled, crouching down to examine the scattered remains of the android they'd been searching for—housekeeping model, if he wasn't mistaken. “The hell happened here?”

Connor's LED was blinking yellow as he processed the crime scene—they were supposed to be here to question a witness to a homicide a few blocks away, but it looked like they'd just found another victim. “She's not intact,” Connor observed. Hank rolled his eyes—even he could see that. Between the wires and the splatter of blue blood and the plastic exo-skin that had been fucking carved off.

“Anything else?” he asked sarcastically.

“I mean not all of the components are present,” Connor clarified. He crouched beside Hank and gently turned over one of the biocomponents to check for the serial number. “These appear to be approximately twenty-three percent of an HK400 android.”

“Twenty-three percent?” Hank rocked back on his heels, staring down at the scattered plastic around them. “There's a lot more than that here, Connor.”

“Yes. It would appear these are the partial remains of at least seven androids.”

Hank rubbed a hand over his face. “Shit.”

“Indeed.”

“I'll call it in,” Hank announced as he shoved himself back up to his feet. “See if we can get an ID on the victims here, establish a pattern for this asshole.”

“If they were standard models that won't be difficult,” Connor replied, proceeding into the next room of the ramshackle townhouse. “Original factory parts would be registered under the android's serial number, as well as replacements from reputable establishements.”

“Yeah, here's hoping they were up to date on their warranties,” Hank grumbled. He turned aside to call dispatch, requesting a crime scene team and a tech from the department's newly-formed anti-android crime unit.

It had only been three months since the revolution and CyberLife going under, and things in Detroit were less than peaceful, to say the least. He'd been relieved when the captain had let Connor join the force, even if that meant the two of them handled most of the android cases. Again.

Funny, it didn't bother Hank as much as it used to.

“What else you got?” Hank called, wading through the scattered android pieces as respectfully as possible.

“Thirium. A lot of it. From at least eight different models.”

“Shit,” Hank hissed again. “All right, come on, let's wait outside for the CSI guys. No good contaminating this any further.”

There was a hint of movement in the next room and Connor leaned into the doorway. “I cannot contaminate a crime scene, Lieutenant. I do not leave DNA evidence or fingerprints, and I can process trace evidence in real time. It would be more efficient to begin processing the scene now.”

“Yeah, well, I'm not leaving you in here by yourself,” Hank argued. “Not with some yahoo who's been carving up androids on the loose. We'll wait for backup.”

One hand on his hip, Hank stared down his partner. The kid had to know he was right. They'd been expecting a witness, not a blood bath—there was no telling what (or who) could be in the rest of the house. Connor's LED flickered for a moment, then his shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly. If Hank hadn't been around the kid almost 24/7 for the last three months now he might not have seen it, but there were benefits to having a newly-deviant android crashing on your couch.

Fuck. Living on your couch. Time to man up and face it...he was stuck with the kid.

Hank turned away to pick his way back through the android parts. God, that was creepy. Not as bad as finding bloody human parts, but still creepy. Some of them were intact enough he expected them to twitch back to life any second. What the hell was this fucker even doing?

There was a crash behind him, and Hank spun around just in time to see something leap out of a pile of refuse in the corner of the room and tackle Connor back into the back room of the house. Hank yelled out a warning and tugged his gun free, android pieces scattering as he ran for the next doorway.

“Hank!”

He pulled up short in the doorway. The thing, whatever it was, was grappling with Connor. They were too close together for him to get a clear shot, even when he saw the jagged knife in the thing's upraised hand.

“Hank, shoot him!” Connor gasped.

“Shut up,” Hank snapped. “You! Detroit Police! Hands up and back away.”

The thing sneered, a ragged hood falling back to reveal a man with scraggly hair and a wild-eyed expression. He threw his weight to one side, then the other, finally breaking free from Connor's grip enough to catch the android across the face with the blade.

Connor recoiled and the man threw himself backward, somehow rolling under Hank's guard before he could adjust and springing up with the knife upraised. But Connor was there, forcing the arm with the knife away from the man. The man spun Connor around so that he collided with Hank, knocking the lieutenant into the wall and sending his gun sliding away.

Hank swore again and tried to back away further as the knife flashed through the air. He knew it caught on Connor's arms more than once, but he didn't wait to see. As soon as he had a clear path Hank was diving for his gun, sliding around on the broken tile floor to get into a firing position.

“Hank!”

Oh god. He'd finally gotten himself turned around the right way in time to see the man plunge his knife into Connor's right leg. And again. And again. Connor toppled back, trying to shove the man away as his own blue blood splattered across the older stains on the tile.

The knife flashed again. And again. He was carving his way up Connor's leg, to his stomach, toward his thirium pump...

“Hey!” Hank bellowed. As he'd hoped, the man straightened up and whirled around to face him, knife still dripping blue blood, eyes bloodshot and wild. Hank squeezed the trigger—Connor was sprawled on the ground, out of the line of fire—and three shots caught the man in the chest and sent him collapsing on top of the android.

“Connor?” Hank swarmed to his feet and hurried over, peeling the corpse of their attacker away. “Fuck, Connor, you okay?”

He wasn't. The kid grabbed at Hank's arm, LED flickering red, shaking in shock or pain or whatever the hell damaged androids went through. There were superficial cuts across his arms and face, but the stab wounds in his leg and up his body were leaking thirium and Hank could see the severed ends of sparking wires through the tears in Connor's exo-skin. “Can't...I can't...”

“Hang on, son,” Hank shucked his jacket off and draped it over the kid, more to keep Connor from staring at the damage to his own body than to protect him from further damage. He tugged his phone off his belt and dialed dispatch again, free hand wrapping around Connor's thirium-stained fingers. “This is Anderson. We need a repair tech, now, Connor's been hit....”

* * *

They hadn't let him ride in the ambulance. They hadn't let him come to the emergency room. Hell, they hadn't even responded to his calls until the captain practically got a fucking court order. Now, three days later, he was finally here.

The Facility.

Hank pulled up outside the dour gray building and stared at it for a moment. The repair techs had just whisked Connor away, assuring Hank that he'd get the best care and come back in perfect working order—in a week to ten days.

That was bullshit. He was getting the kid now.

Nobody liked to be in the hospital, especially the fucking android hospital where they didn't even allow visitors. In the days since the revolution most of the CyberLife outlets and repair shops had closed, leaving just the central repair facility. By all accounts it was a miserable place, more like a factory than a hospital. Maybe that was acceptable when androids were nothing more than machines, but not now. Connor hadn't even been activated for a year now and he'd already spent too damn long on his own, no way was Hank leaving him hurt and alone in some soulless factory.

Hank climbed out of the car, still staring at the building. It was a massive, U-shaped structure, with the entrance at the bottom of the U. That part of the building housed the reception and technician offices, the actual wards themselves were in the two wings that stretched out to the back. The open space in the middle of the U was reserved for loading bays, lining up to each ward...because they shipped the broken androids here like so much freight and then just shipped them back out.

He ignored the “No Visitors”, “By Appointment Only”, and “CyberLife Authorization Required” signs on the door and shoved his way in.

The receptionist—human receptionist, he noticed with some surprise—smiled up at him patiently from behind the long counter. “Can I help you?”

“Uh, yeah,” Hank dug into his jacket pocket, pulling out the sheaf of papers with the official stamp of the Android Liberation Committee on the top. “I'm here to pick someone up.”

The woman's brow furrowed in concern as she took the documents. “I'm sorry, we don't handle the release of repairs here. Your android will be returned to you once repairs are completed—you should have received an email with that information, you can check its repair status there.”

It. Hank had meant to remain calm and civil. These were civilians, after all. Just doing their job, after all. It wasn't their fault that they were stuck in a shitty situation with dumbass rules. But hearing the receptionist casually refer to Connor as an it had Hank seeing red.

Hank slammed one hand on the counter, next to the paperwork, making the receptionist jump. “He's not a fucking it. He's my partner. I spent three goddamn days putting this shit together, and it says I can take him home. Got it?” He jabbed his finger against the paperwork to emphasize his point.

The receptionist had gone pale, but she picked the documents back up and thumbed through them. “Lieutenant Anderson?” she finally asked meekly.

“That's right.” Hank had leaned back a little, but still kept one hand on the counter.

“I'm sorry, sir...I was told to expect you, I just...you'll find your andr...uh, Connor...in bay D-19.”

He didn't wait for her to offer to guide him—not that she did—and snatched the paperwork out of her hands. There were clear signs on the walls behind her, pointing that wards A and B were to the left and C and D to the right, and just inside the hall to the right was a further map of the Facility.

Ward D was the ground floor, at least, so no finding an elevator or stairs. Hank stared at it for a moment, seeing nothing but big, warehouse-like spaces on the map, labeled with numbers. 1-80, 81-160. 161-240 and so on. So...D-19 must be in the first big room?

He glanced at the other side of the map and froze for a second. There were a jumble of labs and technical spaces all in ward A, the top floor. Ward B had only one label...Recycling and Incinerator. Fuck. They shipped androids off to be repaired less than a hundred yards from the place built to destroy them.

Hank shook himself off and stormed down the hall, easily finding the double doors that lead to the room he needed. But as if his day couldn't get any more horrifying, he pulled up short again when he saw what was on the other side.

He thought he'd been prepared for this, prepared to see some clinical, impersonal repair lot. Androids hanging in racks until their repairs were completed, or shoved into little cabinets. Tiny cubicles with the walls covered in diagnostic machinery...the chair from A Clockwork Orange, complete with headgear to keep an android's eyes pried open for whatever the hell they did.

These were just...beds. Four rows of twenty, each in a numbered space marked out on the floor, all lined up side by side in a massive room barely lit by bare bulbs overhead. Each bed had an IV stand and a monitor attached, the glow of the monitors casting a lurid green light over the androids beneath them.

When he stepped closer, he realized the androids were all strapped down. And hell, these weren't even beds—they were tables. Bare metal tables. The androids had their skin programs deactivated and most of them weren't even clothed, just smooth, blank plastic as far as the eye could see. They were all in stasis, or something like it, lying still and quiet with their eyes half-closed.

Hank hurried to the first row and followed it back, almost to the end of the row. Even in the dim light he recognized Connor before he got there—they'd deactivated the kid's skin like everyone else, but they'd just cut parts of his uniform away to tend to his wounds, so the scraps of his dark jeans and button-up shirt were a stark contrast to the pale gray exo-skin. Just like the others, he was so motionless on the table he could have been an empty shell, only the incomprehensible data scrolling past on the monitor seemed to indicate there was anything left alive in there.

“Connor?” Hank winced when his voice seemed too loud in the quiet space around him. He leaned over the side of the table to rest one hand on the android's face. “Hey, Connor, you in there?”

“Mr. Anderson?”

Hank glanced over his shoulder to see a dark-haired man in a lab coat standing a few feet away. “Lieutenant,” he corrected. He didn't extend his hand to shake, and the other man didn't offer. “I have clearance to take him home.”

“I'm William Adair, I'm the chief technician who worked on your RK800,” Adair explained. He had a tablet in his hand and was swiping through notifications. “I was hoping to catch you before you made off with it.”

It again. Hank ground his teeth, forcing himself to stay calm this time. He wouldn't help anyone if he decked Connor's technician. “Yeah, well, here I am.”

“Of course,” Adair smoothed one hand over his hair and looked up at Hank. “I know this is an awkward question, but you are aware that your android is a prototype?”

“He's not really my android,” Hank growled. “He's his own fucking person. Nobody owns him.”

Adair's smile was condescending. “And yet it has a registration number engraved on its chassis. But I didn't come here to discuss philosophy, as...interesting...as that might be with a person of your character. I came to make a proposition.”

Hank, still seething from the technician's callous behavior, folded his arms across his chest. “Answer's no.”

“But you don't even know what I'm offering!” Adair protested. He dropped his tablet on top of Connor's feet and pushed past Hank to make an adjustment to the monitor. “As a prototype, your android was built with state-of-the-art software I've never seen before. Some of these biocomponents are so specialized we can't even begin to understand them. I sent scans to the lab, but if you would authorize-”

“Is he good to go?” Hank cut in. He wasn't interested. Even if he had owned Connor, he wouldn't sell his partner to be picked apart by people like Adair.

Adair sighed. He leaned across the table to pick up his tablet and swiped through a few more screens. “We had to rebuild most of the synthetic muscle in its right leg,” he explained. “The damage was similar to a severed hamstring, so it isn't as simple as replacing a damaged component. The repairs are completed but they haven't fully calibrated with its systems. I don't see why you'd want to take it home right now anyway, it's just going to lie in the corner and need routine adjustment as the synthetic muscle molds to its structural framework. Might as well leave it here where it's out of your way.”

Hank's hands tightened into fists. If there had been any other technician in sight he would have decked this little asshole and found someone else to release Connor. As it was he had to be a god-damn nice guy. “That's my decision to make,” he ground out.

“Very well,” Adair shook his head. “Pity. We could have learned so much.” He must have sensed Hank's impatience, as the technician's hand starting tapping out commands on his tablet. The cords binding Connor to the table broke apart and retracted into the table, and the monitor began running new lines of code.

Connor shifted on the table. It wasn't much, just his head turning a little to one side and his eyelids moving, but it took a weight off of Hank's chest. “Connor?” he was back up beside the kid again, picking up one cold, plastic hand. “It's okay, son. I'm right here.”

The android shifted again, eyes opening, blinking as though he was having trouble focusing. Adair let out an impatient sigh and tapped something else on the tablet. The monitor whined in protest and Connor's back arched as he shuddered against a sudden jolt of electricty.

“The hell you doing!” Hank demanded, whirling on Adair, still holding Connor's hand. He'd felt that, felt the shock race through his friend's body.

“We can't just wait around for it to come out of stasis,” Adair complained. “You wanted to get it out of here and that's what I'm doing.”

Connor's other hand came up to grip Hank's forearm, and he turned around in time to see Connor fighting to sit up. Hank stepped in a little closer, sliding his arm behind the kid's shoulders to pull him up, letting him lean a bit against Hank's chest.

“H-Hank?”

“It's me, son,” Hank replied. He rubbed his hand across Connor's shoulders, watching as the android's skin projection slowly crept back across his face. “Ready to blow this joint?”

Connor was staring down at his body, at the smooth patches of skin that showed through his torn clothing. “My repairs are incomplete.”

“They're close enough. We can take care of the rest at home.”

Adair let out a long, unhappy sigh. “I'll send you the adjustments it'll need. You'll have to keep an eye on it over the next three days. If that's all you need, I trust you can find your own way out.”

“Wait a second, hang on,” Hank twisted to glare at the technician. “Got a wheelchair or something?”

“A wheel...of course not,” Adair shook his head. “Why would we need one of those?”

Hank rolled his eyes. “He's gotta keep off that leg for a while, right? How else is he supposed to get outta here?”

“It's supposed to remain in the Facility for another four to seven days,” Adair retorted. “Then its table would be wheeled to the loading dock where it could be crated to be shipped to your residence or a retail location.”

“Well that's not happening,” Hank released Connor to fold his arms across his chest. “So think of something.”

Adair's face flushed. “Mr. Anderson, you have no authority-”

“Lieutenant,” Hank interrupted, emphasizing his rank. “Do you want me to call my captain down here to have another word with you? Or do you want to get me a fucking chair?”

The technician stared at Hank, fury twisting his features, then he spun on his heel and stalked away. Hank huffed out a sigh and leaned back against the table, knocking into Connor's shoulder as he did. “You okay, kid?”

Connor was silent for a moment. “I appear to be functioning at 74% capacity.”

“Not what I meant.” Hank turned until his side was against the table so he could look Connor in the eye. “They treat you okay here?”

There was a hesitation—probably a fraction of a second, but long enough for someone who lived with an android to notice—before Connor spoke again. “I have no complaints.”

“Bullshit,” Hank waved his hand at the space around them. “This is...this isn't right. They just knock you out and tie you to a table. Plenty to complain about.”

Connor looked down. “Not... completely.”

“What's that?” Hank leaned closer to his partner. “What's that mean?”

“Nothing, Hank. Forget it.”

“Nuh-uh.” He ducked down, trying to see eye-to-eye with the kid again, resting one hand on top of Connor's. “I can do this all day, Connor. What do you mean 'not completely'?”

Connor sighed, still staring at his hands. “The stasis here...it's not a complete stasis.”

Hank felt his eyebrows shoot up. “Not complete?”

“We still have...there is still auditory and tactile input.”

He tried to line those words up in his head, find their meaning in plain English. “Hang on. Are you saying you could hear and feel everything those bastards were doing to you?”

“It is common for an android to be aware of what repairs their system is undergoing,” Connor explained. “During the course of our first investigation I was subject to repairs on more than one occasion. It just feels...different now.”

Invasive, Hank's mind supplied. Bodily autonomy was a bitch. And, judging by what that Adair creep was saying, who knew what else the techs would poke around with when they got their hands on someone like Connor. “When we get home you're gonna tell me everything those bastards said and did while you were under,” he said, voice low, as the sound of squeaking wheels got closer. “Then we can decide if the Liberation people or the captain need to know further, all right?”

Connor nodded, clearly uncomfortable at this line of conversation. Hank folded his arms to watch Adair's struggling form come closer, dragging a dark shape behind him in the dim light.

It was a fucking office chair.

“That's all we have,” the technician snapped, seeing the expression on Hank's face. “You asked for something with wheels, this is what we have. Unless you want me to get one of the refuse bins from the incinerator.”

Hank rolled his eyes. “Let's get out of here, Connor.”

Oh well. It was better than nothing.

* * *

“Sumo, down!” Hank hissed, trying to shrug Connor a little higher. The android's right leg was too weak to hold him up, and had been locked in a complicated brace that kept him from bending his knee. Thanks to the office chair they'd gotten him to the car at the Facility, where he'd been able to stretch out in the back seat, but once they got home Hank had to haul him into the house on his own.

“Little farther,” he grunted, shuffling slowly through the living room, one arm around Connor's back with the android's arm draped across his shoulders. “Sumo, no! Kitchen, boy, get in the kitchen!” Of course the big, furry oaf would decide to lie down directly in their pathway, just as both men were about to lose their strength.

“Your fault,” Hank grunted as they shuffled past the dog. “You spoil him.”

Connor gave a breathless laugh, which turned into a groan of relief as Hank finally eased him down onto the couch. “You spoiled him first.”

“Yeah, well,” Hank scrubbed a hand through the thick fur on the top of the dog's head. “I'm a sucker.” He studied Connor for a moment then made his way to the bedroom closet. “When's the first adjustment?” he called over his shoulder.

“In...ah, in an hour,” Connor replied. As far as Hank could understand, the synthetic muscle in Connor's right leg needed to be stretched back into place, but it could only be done in increments. Every few hours they'd need to change the dials on the brace on his leg, which would stretch the muscle out another fraction, then Connor would need to rest so his healing program could strengthen the fibers of his muscle. It was a long, painful process and Hank could understand why it was the sort of thing usually handled by android repair facilities...but that place had been a nightmare.

And now? Now that he knew Connor would be aware of it the entire time anyway? Yeah, he was better off staying at home, even if it meant waking them both up every three hours for the next four days.

Hank came back out with a pair of basketball shorts and a sweatshirt from Connor's minimal stash of non-office clothing. “Wanna get changed?” he offered. The Facility hadn't done anything to replace Connor's clothes. Hank supposed if they had gone through the whole repair they might have shipped him back in a standard android uniform, but...shit. The less they had to do with that place the better.

Connor struggled up to his elbows, fighting with the buckle on his belt. Hank held up a hand and dropped the clothes on the back of the couch, digging out his knife instead. The clothes were ruined anyway; might as well save the kid some pain and just cut them off the rest of the way. At least the shorts were loose enough to slide over the leg brace, and Hank had helped injured (and intoxicated) colleagues enough that it wasn't completely awkward to help his friend dress.

Sweatshirt and shorts in place, Connor practically slumped into the sofa, one hand rubbing at his side where the new repair was obviously still tender. “Thank you, Hank.”

“Hey, you've dragged my drunk ass around too many times to count,” Hank replied, dodging the kid's gratitude. It felt...awkward. Connor was just so damn earnest about everything. “It's only fair.”

“Not just that,” Connor shook his head. “The Facility. It's not a very comforting place. It's not...easy to remember who you are when they still tell you you're a machine.”

“Yeah,” Hank grunted. He leaned over the back of the couch, drumming his fingers against the cushion. “The way that Adair guy was talking. Did he say anything to you? Y'know, while you were under?”

Connor didn't answer right away and Hank didn't press him, letting the silence stretch out between them. “He kept talking about how valuable my biocomponents are,” Connor finally answered.

“That bastard.”

“Wondered what kind of offer you would take, if CyberLife would release any programming files for comparison. Like I was...”

“A machine,” Hank finished. “Yeah. Guy was a real scumbag.”

Connor closed his eyes and folded his hands over his stomach, exhaustion starting to pull him under. “I would prefer not to return there, if possible.”

Hank chuckled. “Yeah, okay. Just don't get stabbed next time, then.” He tugged the blanket off the back of the couch and spread it over Connor. Get some rest. See you in...forty-eight minutes.”

The kid was already asleep...in rest mode...in stasis...whatever it was, by the time Hank parked himself in the recliner.

That Adair bastard could bite him. Connor wasn't going anywhere.

* * *

(The original plan was: Hank rescues Connor from the android “hospital” because it turns out android hospitals are actually terrible places. Then I had to show why Connor was in the hospital. Then the head technician turned into an absolute bastard. Then I realized it wasn’t just a comfort fic anymore and I was building a world around this little grain of an idea. So here it stands, on its own.)

[thehivemindwrites]

A  Series of Disconnected Thoughts, Cast into the Void in No Particular Order

1. I’ve been finding myself thinking more and more about Kill Six Billion Demons recently. Not just because it’s absolutely gorgeous artwork and Moebius-meets-prog-metal stylings are extremely my shit (KSBD is responsible for adding Gojira to my rotation of workout music, and that alone has me in its debt), but because I can really appreciate a main character who is a walking disaster coming to some kind of enlightenment through a combination of getting her ass handed to her repeatedly, making questionable decisions, and basically just deciding to struggle forwards because I don’t know, what the fuck else is there to do? It’s hardly original (see: basically any shounen about The Power of Friendship and Not Giving Up) but damn if the presentation of it in this particular case isn’t particularly delightful. Plus it gave us the image of a giant hulking demon wearing a jacket that says KILL BOSS and that’s rad.The creator of KSBD is also co-creator, as it happens, of the newly released Lancer TTRPG, which I backed on Kickstarter and will, one day, get a rad fucking hardcover copy of (but for now I’m reading through the pdf and swearing oaths that one day I will play it). Anyway, as someone who also got where he is through a series of questionable decisions and getting his ass handed to him by life in general (oh, and an enormous amount of luck), I can relate. Plus the phrase “Reach heaven through violence,” while kind of terrible on the surface, feels good to shout at yourself while you’re off for a run. 

2. Part of this whole exercise thing - a side-effect of it, if you wanna call it that - is that generally I feel better about myself like in general. I’ve mentioned that before. What it doesn’t do, of course, is magically mean that I’m now 100% good and not still dogged by a persistent sense of self-loathing that I’ve just had to accept will never really go away. Like for example: I’ve lost 35 kg since starting this whole gym thing, except you might remember the goal was 40. I still haven’t hit that goal, and frankly I’ve spent the last like three months bouncing around the same like, 3 kg zone because I’ve been traveling a lot and that basically fucks up my workout and eating routine. It’s frustrating, and it sure does let the part of me that knows deep down that I’m a fat fucker and always will be no matter what I do run wild from time to time. Which is, I’m coming to understand, just gonna always be there. This stuff doesn’t go away! Ever! 

Which doesn’t mean it’s right, even a little. You tune it out and throw yourself into battle with it over and over again. You get bloodied and broken and claw back and then you get bloodied and broken some more. Insert that gif from Princess Bride of Westly saying LIFE IS PAIN, HIGHNESS here. Thing is, there’s something about the struggle that’s nice. I am not sure how motivated I’d be to do anything if part of it wasn’t motivated by the desire to prove my dumb brain wrong about, uh, me. If I wasn’t fighting the various little demons that plague me every so often, I doubt I’d be so well-adjusted. I certainly wouldn’t be mentally healthy. None of this makes sense as I read it back, of course - it sounds like I’m saying “boy it’s nice to be miserable,” which isn’t true. Being miserable sucks shit! I don’t recommend it! But it is nice to see misery coming and punch it in the face (metaphorically speaking). Sometimes I think the thing that makes me go to the gym and work so hard (this sounds like I’m bragging, but I can assure you I’m not - “work so hard” means “not collapse and fall off the elliptical after five minutes because oh god I don’t want to be here”) is out of some desire for self-annihilation through pushing myself past my physical limits. Reach heaven through violence (see, I told you it sounded cool).

3. The world has gotten really fucking bad for a lot of people, and I don’t know that it will get better for them any time soon. In fact, given the latest talk from the ol’ UN Climate Change report, it’s gonna get even worse. I would very much prefer that were not the case! It’s motivation enough to get out and vote and shit, at least for me - and as someone who is, you know, ridiculously privileged, that’s the absolute least I can do. Which is why I try to do more, mostly involving donating money to causes that seem like they’re able to cause the sort of trouble that needs to be caused. Or just use expertise to protect the people I don’t know how to protect, because I’m a lot of things, and one of them happens to be smart enough to know that I don’t know shit. So I make sure people that do know shit have the money they need. Pretty straightforward, I think. 

The other thing I try to do, because giving money isn’t really something I think about much at all (I’m stupidly fucking fortunate to have a job that pays well, remember), is occasionally go out and actually be present at protests and the like - there are a lot of climate protests and they’re all a good time. Occasionally it’s worth overcoming one’s intense social anxiety to do so. Lord knows it’s significantly less of a risk for me to be out shouting at cops than most. 

4. She-Ra might be one of the best shows out there. There’s something nice about a show that both does and does not present a simple world. Yes, the Horde is bad. Like, objectively bad! They do a lot of looting and subjugating and are generally just deeply not chill people.On the other hand, the people who make up the Horde are still people, and I have a lot of time for a show that can manage to humanize its Big Bad Villain whilst still making it very clear they are  still, you know, not good. It’s messy, and complicated, and sad, because sometimes you have to fight people you used to be friends with! Sometimes you have to make the call that hey, we can’t be friends anymore, because I can’t support the things you’re doing anymore. I’ve made that call before - I bet everyone has, at some point (if you haven’t, I’m sure you’ll have to eventually). Fortunately for me, it’s never been that difficult of a choice, if only because the people I had to go against weren’t people I’d known for very long. 

Anyway, that’s part of it - you gotta just cut people out sometimes. There’s more to it though, because the other thing the show believes is that everyone - even the real shitty people - can change. It doesn’t mean everything’s forgiven, and it doesn’t erase all the bad shit, but they can still change. It’s worth changing, even if it isn’t a cure-all. 

So yeah, I like She-Ra a lot. It’s also just well-written, and funny, and it’s a real good time to see a bunch of diverse characters running around having adventures and being fuckin’ rad. Plus, they’ve shown an incredible willingness to completely change the stakes from season to season - the end of season four in particular is  the equivalent of detonating all the things you thought were important. It pulls a bait and switch so ruthless that I might have applauded if I wasn’t so self-conscious about making noise that my neighbors might hear. The combination of season 3 and 4 was a masterclass on raising the stakes and then explaining that actually, you were playing for stakes even higher than you could’ve thought possible. Oh, and the people you thought you could trust were just using you, and hey, what if we got rid of the thing that you’ve more or less defined yourself by for the entire show? Good luck in season five, motherfucker! I’m a fan, is what I’m saying.

6. Work on Vanquisher 2103 continues apace. I mentioned this before, but we’re doing a once-a-month schedule while the holidays and work beat my ass into the ground, and as it turns out I really enjoy taking a full month to write a chapter. It’s a comically slow pace, but it’s working for me and hopefully the fact that the chapters have tended to be a little longer (and allowed me to expand on ideas a little more, and do a little more research here and there) makes it worth the longer wait. I’d like this thing to be good! There’s a part of my brain, again, that will always insist that nobody reads this and it’s bad and I’m fucking up, constantly - that point, at least, is probably accurate. I am writing characters who in theory have life experiences that are very much Not Mine, which involves a lot of reading things from people who would know better than I do. It’s nerve-wracking, and the only thing I am bone-deep certain of is that I’ll fuck up and hopefully y’all will forgive me for fucking up when that happens. I’ll keep reading and refining and eventually maybe it’ll be okay. Hopefully, anyway.

7. I went to Ireland and guys, Ireland is bullshit. I am offended by its gorgeous cliff-sides and open grasslands and heart-rending beauty. The immense friendliness of the people I met and the fact that you can’t sit in a pub without hearing some dude play a jaunty reel on a tin whistle or accordion or something is a personal insult. I was Arthur Dent angrily demanding to know why this bloody fish is so good the whole time.

I cultivated an immense drinking habit while there. I was also approached by a random German tourist who somehow clocked that I could speak German and we shouted about socialism for an hour auf Deutsch. I met some woman from Louisiana and we ended up having drinks a couple nights in a row to talk about traveling in general and Germany in particular, because her ex-husband is German. There were some Swedish retirees who were both very pleased by their country’s social safety net and also depressingly sour about the fact that refugees got cheap dental care - we might have had some harsh words exchanged before more drinks helped smooth over our frank discussion of differing viewpoints. I had to explain American health care to some people from the UK who were surprisingly gung-ho about the idea of privatized medicine until they talked to me (one of them talked about how the UK used to be an Empire and could be again in such a way that made me want to throw things. We did not talk for very long because I couldn’t fuckin’ handle it). These were strangers that I willingly engaged, because I was having an adventure, and I guarantee none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been going to the gym and committed to the idea of proving the voice in my head that tells me I’m an awkward mess that nobody would ever want to talk to in their life wrong (also, let’s be honest, if I hadn’t had several pints of cider at the time). 

By the end of the trip if I heard one more pub singer’s version of Whisky in the Jar though, that I was gonna produce my pistol and fucking shoot myself in the head.

Go to Ireland if you can. If you live there, fuck you how dare you live somewhere that rad.

8. I didn’t have an eighth thing but I’m committed to this “each thing is numbered” bit which means that even the end of this thing has to follow the trope. This is the end of the post where I say “okay bye I’ll be back the next time I get the urge to throw a bunch of highly unpolished ideas out.” 

[thepaperpanda]

The Soul World Paradox

Summary: Peter Parker wakes up in the new place to him. Quickly he finds out that he is trapped in the soul world among other heroes that were affected by snap of Thanos' fingers.

Warnings: none!

Words: 1767

Authors: Beast

Request by: @kastrup-sofie Request: I have a request Action takes place at Soul Stone. After IW all avengers and heroes who were wiped away from Earth, meet there and they accuse each other of things that happened. And, f.e. Quill screams at Strange, Spidey think Bucky is Jesus and he is Heaven, T'Challa cries after his sister and Okoye Something funny ^^

There was nothing but darkness all around him.

Second later, he heard some voices.

A sudden thought ran through his head; he knew some of the voices.

He slowly opened his eyes. At first, he blinked few times, giving his sense a time to get used to the lightness.

He saw a blurry figure that was leaning towards him.

"Are ya okay, kid?" asked a strong, deep voice.

He blinked again and slowly raised a hand to cover his eyes a bit.

Within seconds, his vision became less blurry and it got a proper acuity.

He blinked few more times and he cocked his brows before asking out loudly: "Jesus?"

Bearded face above him got brighter with a smile that appeared on other man's lips.

"Uhm. No. I'm not Jesus."

Peter shook his head and sat up slowly, being supported by a bionic arm.

"Oh! Mr. Barnes!" boy rubbed his eyes with thumbs, breathing deeply. "Mr. Barnes... What has just happened?"

Bucky, who was kneeling next to Peter, smiled sadly.

"I have no idea, kiddo. I think, however, that something pretty bad happened."

Peter nodded, confirming that he understood what Bucky has said a second before.

Young man looked around once again, when his eyes were fully adjusted to light.

He was sitting at the sandy ground, some flora were around them, mostly a dried bushes.

A bit ahead Peter noticed Black Panther. King was kneeling down on the ground, hiding his face in his palms while mumbling "SHURI... OKOYE..." on and on.

A bit on the right, there was Falcon with Wanda. Man was helping Scarlet Witch to get up on her feet again. She was trembling all over her body, Peter could easily noticed an anxiety in her eyes when she looked at him briefly.

On the left, Peter Quill was walking in the circle while Drax was trying his best to calm his mate down.

"Quill, stop it, for fuck's sake, I can't focus when you keep on walking like a weirdo," Drax sighed as he stretched his back.

Peter's eyes wandered to Bucky again.

"I think that the Wizard has spoiled something..." Boy mumbled quietly, trying to get up.

Bucky blinked but offered his metal arm to Peter. When boy was standing unhesitatingly on his feet again, Bucky rested hands on the hips.

"What? Wizard? Did you hit your head that badly?" he tilted head aside, blinking in disbelief. "What are you talking about, kid?"

Peter shrugged casually.

"Suddenly me and Mr. Stark were on the other planet, I suppose. And there was the Wizard and he was having that amazing cloak that was doing all the things Wizard has wanted. and then they appeared, I don't know any of them, I mean, I didn't know them back then," Parker pointed at Drax and Quill and Mantis, which just joined her friends. "They called themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy but God's my witness that I don't believe them, they simply were trying to stop that big, purple dude that was pretty angry and came out of nowhere. But they found out that he killed his daughter that was his girlfriend," Peter again pointed a finger towards Quill. "And he got offended and because of this we didn't manage to take that shining glove out of the purple dude's hand, Mr. Barnes," Peter took a deep breathe, he was trying to present everything as faithfully as it was possible.

Bucky's eyes were getting opened wider with every sentence said by Peter.

Finally, after few long moments of silence, inquired: "What the hell? What?"

Peter rolled his eyes. "Please, Mr. Barnes, don't make me say it all again, I'll get lost."

"Hey! Barnes! What the fuck have you messed up this time?!" Falcon yelled looking at Barnes, shaking a dust off of his back.

"Hey! Get off me, Wilson!" Bucky snarled loudly, he was clearly angry at the moment. "Maybe you've just blew a wrong piece of an energy field around Wakanda, huh!?"

T'Challa looked first at Sam, then at Bucky, he slowly approached Barnes.

"Easy, my brother," he said as he put his gloved palm with claws on Bucky's bionic arm. "We have to gather everyone and figure some plan out, White Wolf."

Bucky gave a slight nod. Peter opened his eyes wider.

"White Wolf? It sounds pretty cool, Mr. Barnes!"

When Bucky along with Sam managed to gather everyone at one point, T'Challa got on the large piece of stone that was laying between some bushes.

"I'm T'Challa, the son of King T'Chaka. I'm the king of Wakanda," he shortly introduced himself. "I have no clue what happened but I feel that Thanos somehow succeeded to snap his fingers like he said he will," Black Panther looked around carefully. "Last thing I remember was that I was trying to force my friend to run and then there's is a blank spot in my mind," he sighed deeply. "I don't know you, guys," T'Challa rubbed his claw agains his jawline as he looked at Guardians. "Who are you?"

Peter Quill was simply standing with arms crossed over his chest.

Mantis was one who spoke her mind aloud.

"We're Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm Mantis. This is Drax," she pointed at  muscular man. "That's Peter Quill and we have Groot over there," Mantis smiled a bit and waved to the tree-figure that was walking towards them.

"I AM GROOT!" Tree mumbled sadly and as he walked closer, he sat down on the ground shaking his head in thoughtfulness.

Suddenly, everyone heard a strange noise, something between a click and chuck.

A tall man dressed in a red cloak appeared among them out of nowhere.

"Mr. Wizard!" Peter clapped his hands. "I was scared we lost you once and for all!"

Before Bucky asked an obvious question, man raised his hand up, asking voiceless of silence.

"There was no other way," man sighed, taking his cloak off.

Material shivered softly and floated straight to Peter, placing itself on boy's arms and rubbing his back a bit.

"I'm Doctor Strange," black haired man spoke. "And I gave the Time Stone to Thanos."

There was a silence for a long moment.

T'Challa got off the stone and ran to man, punching his stomach with hand curled in a fist.

Within a second both men were laying down on the ground, struggling and grunting.

The cloak was trying to help its owner by hitting King of Wakanda time after time.

"STOP IT, FUCKERS!" Someone shouted out loudly, a strong and deep male voice nearby them.

Everyone raised their heads in that direction, T'Challa  Strange also stopped fighting.

In front of them all was standing a tall, well-built, black man. He was wearing a black, thick coat and an eye patch.

"Nick Fury..." Bucky whispered under his breath. "So this didn't happen only to us in Wakanda..."

"I don't know what the fuck did you do, guys, but I am fucking pissed off." Fury placed hands on his hips, his face was full of anger. "And you, man," he tilted head towards Strange. "Are you fucking kidding me? How could you just passed Time Stone to that fucking alien?!"

Strange pushed T'Challa off himself and slowly got up.

"There was no other way. I've traveled through many possible endings of all the situation we were having, and I swear, we managed to win with Thanos only by this one time when I gave him the Stone," Stephen explained carefully.

T'Challa snorted in disbelief, he knelt down on the sand.

"We have no idea what is going on with those who survived," he mumbled. "Shuri... Mother... Okoye... Nakia..." a single tear rolled down king's cheek. "I just wanna know if they are fine."

"If they did survive," Drax shrugged with consternation.

"Oh, c'mon!" Bucky shook his head with spite. "Stop saying this like they would be gone, okay?!"

Mantis came to Bucky and put her hand on his cheek.

"Easy now..." she whispered softly, smiling at him. "Let me help."

Within second, Bucky calmed down, his breath began to be more balanced.

"Vision..." Wanda was crying quietly, nuzzling to Sam. "So that was the reason he turned back time... He was having Time Stone..."

"So, you wanna say it's over now?" Peter blinked few times. "No, I don't agree, we gotta go back and help them! They need us! They need us, am I right, Mr. Barnes!?" he asked desperately, looking at Bucky.

Former Winter Soldier remained silent, he only lowered his head.

"Great," Fury rubbed his temples with gloved hands. "We are fucked."

"I AM GROOT!" Groot wailed sadly.

Fury looked at the tree and cocked his head aside.

"I saw aliens dropping down from the sky but it's my first time seeing a talking tree," he stated.

"We gotta figure some plan out," Peter nodded to himself. "We gotta go back. Mr. Stark will help us."

"Yea, especially Tony," Bucky snorted, chuckling darkly. "He is no one but a playboy that thinks he can do anything he want, kid. It's not a good example for someone like you."

Peter narrowed his brows.

"I beg your pardon, don't be such an..." boy hesitated. "An ASSHOLE!" he yelled and immediately covered his mouth. "I am sorry, I'm just being anxious now..."

Bucky rolled his eyes and turned with his back to Peter.

"Listen, guys," Wanda wiped her tears away. "I think we won't be able to come back to Earth until Thanos has Stones. Our last hope lies in those who stayed there," she came to T'Challa and patted his back slightly. "We can only wait, hoping they'll find a way to release us."

"I agree with her," Strange rubbed his beard. "I hope Tony understood what I was trying to tell him. Besides..." he turned to face Star Lord. "If you wouldn't hesitate then, we most likely would have won, Peter."

Quill only clenched his teeth, he turned around and slowly walked away, hiding his tears.

"I AM GROOT," Groot got up and staggered to his feet, swaying a little, he approached Star Lord, trying to hug him from behind.

But Peter refused, taking few more steps ahead.

"Leave him alone, pal," Drax miffed, looking at Groot.

"So... What's now?" Parker asked quietly.

Almost everyone remained silent but there was a dejected voice that said: "We will try to fight."

Everyone turned their head to see Star Lord who was looking up in the sky.

"We will fight when the time will come. I will fight Thanos alone if necessary. I will do whatever it will take. For Gamora."

Pandies🐼: @blue-dragon-ice @calkingwood @imidarogerson @grossograsso @thewildgardensstuff @irai-lauri @leven-and-ashley @la-verdura @bearded-steve-rogers @sebbystan-plantlover @atuckyismylife @krispyjellyfishzombie @personality-within @haseki-huricihan @choppedgardenwhispers @vroobelek @lattimelka @chris-beamz @hidden-secrets69 @side-blog-of-me @purepearls @i-am-margerita @volcanoxxx @kastrup-sofie @mikkal-akasaki @withoutashadowofhope @radbluebirdeagle @marvel-fan-site @smutloversblog @buquete @super-psycho-love69 @tanglesss @peter-sommer @baysidewest  @vegemania @philip-stan @chodiusmmm @subwaystunnel @tykorclint @dagger-dragger @kurant @nothing-can-least-forever @oxfordkipem @deliciousbouquet90 @tuptuptup @hellenna80 @karina-marina9 @latimeriaaa @bratko @wurld89 @scott-evans @kiss-me-rouge @ovonel-espaniol @dancing-tacco @ratugadhi @white-tiger-shangrila      @axn69 @eternal-life-awaits @mrs-laura-harmon @artsy-inside @gleeeeees    @darkllaama @jatut @agawux @fuzzy-tigrrr @jrjohnsson2  @cassandbeast      @maaargoshaaa @dontgetmewrongman @einexx @nwmtagsb @anini71          @secretlygrantaire @kyloren-supreme-ben @infinity-stones-seeker @thehappyspider @wings4life @huxyluxy     

[sweet-little-bird-fanfic]

YOUNG K - Pure Desire

Masterlist & Chapters: Check my bio for the masterlist link. Idk why but posts with links don't show up on the tumblr's search feature anymore. So, I'll leave the link to my master list there, where you can find the other chapters easily. I hope this is still functional for you guys, sorry for the trouble. I hope you can still enjoy my work despite the technical issues.

Summary: A young writer that's struggling with her work until she crosses paths with an intense and fated new type of inspiration; An inspiration called: YOUNG K!

Genre: Fanfic; Romance; Humour; Smut (in the future chapters)

Warnings: Swearing? ; The hot stuff will slowly begin on the next chapter and after that, it becomes a mess! I promise eheh  (っ˘ڡ˘ς)

A/N: a short chapter to create a good atmosphere and background.

Chapter 1- Drunk Hug

I knew the day wouldn't go well from the moment I woke up... 45 minutes late. To be honest, things had been hard lately. I've had been a professional writer for 3 years and I went to live in Korea right after I published my first romance. I bought a house and rented 2 of the rooms to 2 amazing brothers that ended up becoming my family: Kim Jii (he worked in the entertainment industry) and his 16 years old little brother Kim Joon (who was still a student). Truth to be told, it's not like I had been working that hard in those few writing years. Not because I was lazy, but because it was really simple for me to write a story and for some miracle, it would become a success. That was the case until I hit a wall last month whilst writing my third book! Nothing seemed right, I wasn't satisfied with anything and I was simply irritated with my own creation. There was something missing and I couldn't find what it was... But it was something crucial and I couldn't stop wondering if my passion for writing had reached its limits. I was so worried about that thought, that I made myself not being able to write properly. Call it a rocky mistake or an overthinking problem, but the point was that I was 1hour late to meet with my editor and I had nothing new to show him. "SHIT!"

I got off the bus and run as fast as I could. Gladly, the coffee shop We agreed to meet at was near the station. When I finally reached my destination, I was invaded by a strong and warm coffee fragrance, which woke up my senses a little. It wasn't hard to find the man I called "Boss". He had really short hair and was quite skinny, but his facial expression made him look like an angry bear. "I'm going to die." I sat on the chair in front of him and before I could apologise for being late, he threw a bunch of papers on the table in my direction. My heart started beating really fast when I recognise that those pieces of papers were the chapters I sent him by e-mail.

- You call yourself a writer, Miss?! - he said as loud as he could - I'm going to pretend you didn't send me this and that I didn't have to come from England to Korean just to scold you in person.

- I'm really sorry! I don't know what's wrong with me, but I can't ...

- You need to take a break and stop obsessing about writing. We didn't give you any deadlines, so I don't understand why you're writing a chapter a day. - he said interrupting me with a sharp voice.

I didn't move or say anything, I just looked down to my hand and prayed I wouldn't get myself fired. I could hear his heavy annoyed breath and I could feel his eyes observing me. There was a long moment of silence that was broken by his hand caressing his chin.

- When was the last time you did something that wasn't writing? - he sighted - Go out, get inspired. Don't contact me until the young writer I know is back.

He stood up and dressed his elegant coat as he made sure to burn my soul with his reprehensible look. Before leaving the store our eyes locked and he gave me a petty smile, which made me feel even worse than I already was.

That was it. I've had it! I needed to get some fresh air and get away from everything. I think I've never walked so much in my entire life. I explored the city pretending I was a tourist and that I had nothing to worry about. I tried the typical food, went to the famous attractions and even bought some souvenirs. I was now wearing an "I love South Korea" black shirt and a cool hat. Not to mention the bags I was holding with sweets, cosmetics and funny socks for the boys at home.

I grabbed my phone and sent Kim Jii (Bro) and Kim Joon (Baby bro) a picture of some socks:

Me: Do you need socks? ~~ Bro: Seriously... Baby bro: I swear, I'll burn them if you buy them, Noona! Bro: Go grab the matches. I bet she already bought them ME: (T_T) Bro: Ya paboya, don't come home early.          I made a mistake at work and had to bring it home ( ಥ ʖ̯ ಥ) ME: LOL... Are you trying to fix it? Bro: BYE! ❤︎ ~~~ Baby bro: AHAHAH I guess it's not that easy to fix omg, kill him Noona!                    you make enough money to support me, right? ME: BYE! ❤︎ ~~~ Baby bro: YAAAAAAAAAA!

                                                        ***

Making myself busy during the whole day was hard, but I managed to stay out until night time. I ended up at a street restaurant where I ate too much and definitely drunk too many bottles of soju. I wasn't sure if it was the alcohol in my blood making me feel lonely and defeated or if it was simply my low self-esteem working really well on putting me down, or if it was the sum of these two. But I couldn't stop myself from thinking about how stupid and untalented, I probably was. I was really strong and didn't let any tear fall from my watering eyes.

- I need a hug... - I said drunk and desperate for some affection.

I stood up and left some money on the table. I was able to walk half properly until I found a taxi.

- Good evening, where to?

- Home, please! - I said excitedly.

For some weird reason, the driver seemed to think I was joking by the way he looked at him.

- And where is home?

- Oh! It's where I live, Sir! - I drew a square in the air with my fingers - In a house!

He stared at me for more than one minute and studied my touristic clothes and bags. I offered him some sweets and after I gave him my address he seemed less annoyed. "Why is he mad? Maybe he had a bad day or something." I thought as I gave him more sweets to make his night less bitter.

It didn't take long until I arrived home. I was glad all the lights were still on because the path was somehow really blurry. As I walked into the house, I could hear a lot of voices and laughs. "Too loud, fuckers." I couldn't recognise all the voices, but they were quite familiar. There were four beautiful boys in the living room with Kim Joon, my baby bro. I get closer to try to find out who our visits were and I saw a skinny blond boy laughing and making the others laugh with him.

- Your laugh seems contagious. - I said with a serious face as I tried to catch my cat.

- Why aren't you laughing, then? - He said adjusting his glasses.

- Oh, I'm vaccinated. Don't worry! - I said hugging my cat and letting her go after squeezing too hard.

Everyone laughed but the blond boy, he made a straight face and tried to look offended. I didn't worry too much, he seemed like he could handle a joke. I saw Kim Joon walking in my direction and I automatically hugged him really tightly. He tried to get rid of my arms and look me in the eyes, but I hid my face against his chest.

- Noona, are you drunk?!

- Aigooo! - I said as I pushed him away - That explains a lot of things, you're so smart! - I said and caressed his hair.

- Ya, paboya! Why are you acting up? - I heard Kim Jii (big bro) behind me.

After hearing my big brother's voice, tears started falling down uncontrollably. I just turned around and hugged him and berried my face into his neck. He smelled really nice today and that made me feel easeful and numbed. My hands holding his muscular backs were trembling, but the feeling of his sturdy hard body against mine made my heart hurt a little less. And when he finally hugged me back a shiver run through my body and made my legs weak. I hugged him tighter as I felt myself give away and I felt his soft and hesitant touch on my messy hair. To think all I needed was a hug from my... "WAIT A MINUTE!" Smells good? Muscular backs? What do you mean sturdy hard body?! And why would he hesitantly touch my hair, when usually he just messes it all up! I stepped back and pushed away from the boy I was hugging. "Oh, my ovaries!"

What a handsome young man! I felt as if his deep dark eyes were invading my soul, as he slightly leaned his head to the left and stared at me confused. He smiled awkwardly at me when he noticed my embarrassment. His cheeks lift up when he smiled and made his masculine face look adorably cute. I was still really confused and didn't notice I was still walking backwards as I stared at his face. And when I finally recognised him, I tripped and fell on my ass.

- Young... Young K! - I almost screamed and then looked around and realised DAY6 were in my living room looking at my drunk self.

I saw Young K biting his lower lip gently as he decreased the distance between us and reached out his hand to me.

- You know my name! It's only fair if I know yours too. - he said with what I thought it was a kind but at the same time naughty smile.

- Fuck.

- What? - he asked letting a laugh escape and bit his lip again.

- Oh! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Fuck me! Fuck! NO! No, I don't mean that, hhhhhh fuck!

- What the fuck is wrong with you, Violet!? - I heard big bother Kim Jii shout behind Young K.

Masterlist & Chapters: Check my bio for the masterlist link. Idk why but posts with links don't show up on the tumblr's search feature anymore. So, I'll leave the link to my master list there, where you can find the other chapters easily. I hope this is still functional for you guys, sorry for the trouble. I hope you can still enjoy my work despite the technical issues.

Additional information: Violet calls Kim Jii and Kim Joon brothers, but their not her real brothers. She simply loves them a lot and since they live together they became each other family xD

~~~~

A/N: This wasn't a very long chapter but It was just the beginning! I hope you enjoyed it. Please let me know your thoughts about it ~

See you next time, hugs from your Sweet Little Bird.

[stupid-jeans]

how to return home, ch8 (Jalton)

IT’S FINALLY HERE. Thank you so much for waiting.

Here on AO3

Summary/Notes: We find out what happens to Adam. Jaz has a lot of feelings.

Thanks for being so patient, guys. Seriously. I know it's hard to wait on fic. I know. Especially when we were anxious about renewal...and then depressed about cancellation. We have more Twitter work to do...there is still a small sliver of hope. Next big thing is kicking off Thursday so please join us. We need every bit of help we can get!

The next thing on the docket after this will be the final chapter of the madness game. But since a couple more chapters of fight just a little are already done, at least one of those will go up first. The bottom line is I'm still writing and I'm not planning on stopping. So don't worry! Thanks for sticking with me.

The guy at the rental car counter gives her an upgrade. It’s probably because she’s barely holding back tears, and the military ID definitely doesn’t hurt. Somehow, she ends up with a truck identical to Elijah’s, down to the dark navy color, and when she sinks into the driver’s seat and adjusts the mirrors, she spares a second to breathe.

“Thank you,” she says out loud. It feels a little bit silly, talking to him here. This is the real world, it’s not base, it’s not home. But in the quiet of the truck, it feels good anyway.

Patricia had texted her the hospital’s address, and when Jaz keys it into her phone, it’s still a 53 minute drive.

“I take it back,” she snarls, wrenching the truck into gear and pulling out onto the road.

Driving gives her too much time to think, and she’s too close, now, to distract herself with thoughts of Hannah and Amir, or Gavin’s sexy city date. All she can do is think about Adam. Alive, yes. But hurt. Alone. She still doesn’t know all the details, but when she thinks about all the ways she could’ve lost him--could still lose him--it scares the shit out of her.

Jaz thinks about Xander, about her confession, and his response. Because yeah, the idea of losing any of them is unthinkable (she’d felt that again with Preach), but losing Adam? And losing him here? She scoffs to herself, her grip on the wheel tightening, cursing whatever higher power might be listening under her breath.

“You just gonna keep taking shit from me? What the hell’d I ever do to you?”

As if in response, the GPS directs her off the exit and she’s faced with bumper to bumper traffic.

“You’re a sick fucker, you know that?”

The expected arrival time ticks up a few minutes and Jaz hisses through her teeth, knocking her head against the headrest repeatedly.

“Anyway, what the fuck is the point? Aren’t I supposed to be taking risks, here? Making connections isn’t exactly easy for me. And here I am being, what? Punished for it? Give me a damn break.” She pauses, shaking her head. “We’re supposed to be safe here. Kind of an unspoken rule. We put our lives on the line the rest of the time. This is supposed to be a gimme. And okay, I get it, he’s fine. But he’s hurt. And he scared the shit out of me. And we both know I don’t do fear well.” Another pause, another breath. “Is that the point? Learning to handle my fear?”

The GPS rattles off her next set of instructions and the traffic lets up a little bit. Jaz finds herself laughing at this stupid game of ‘hot and cold’ she’s playing with some imaginary omniscient being.

“Fucking ridiculous,” she mumbles to herself before cranking up the radio to drown out her thoughts. It only half works, but she makes it to the hospital in one piece.

**

There’s some confusion when she arrives, because Adam’s still in the ICU and they only allow immediate family. Having never been good with words, Jaz comes pretty damn close to reaching across the desk and shaking the woman on the other side.

She already can’t stand hospitals and her anxiety is through the roof. Arguing with some glorified candy striper isn’t helping a damn thing. She wishes Connie was there, and that’s definitely a first. But Connie would know exactly what to say.

Instead, the receptionist checks her computer again, eyeing Jaz over the top of her glasses.

“They’re moving him soon. If you’d like to have a seat, I’ll let you know--”

Jaz stalks off, pacing aimlessly. She's embarrassingly close to crying when a nurse appears from down the hall.

“Miss Kahn? We’re moving Mr. Dalton to another room now, if you'd like to come with me?”

Jaz almost doesn't respond, because she honestly doesn't remember the last time someone called her that. But it clicks after a few seconds, and Jaz can only nod as the woman leads her back down the hall toward the elevator.

“He said you'd be waiting. Started asking about you as soon as he opened his eyes. You should probably look at getting his next of kin contact updated. That'll make things easier.”

Jaz knows she's just trying to be nice, but right now it's just noise, and she wishes the nurse would shut up. Her chest feels tight, her throat is dry, and her eyes won't stop burning.

They get to the room just as Adam is being helped into the bed from a wheelchair. She registers the apologetic flinch he offers as their eyes meet, but that doesn't stop the anger from welling inside her.

There’s a long moment of tension as the nurse settles Adam and checks his monitors, but then they’re alone and Jaz breaks.The tension and uncertainty pour out of her as she lashes out,, stalking toward him, angrily spouting off every last fear she’s spent the past day rehashing, over and over. She hadn’t started out yelling, but her voice rises because the door opens and a couple of concerned looking nurses appear. Adam waves them off.

“Jazzy,” he croaks, his voice hoarse and raw and it stops her dead. She looks at him again, finally, and nearly withdraws when he reaches for her, his knuckles grazing her cheek.

“I--I was...God, you scared the shit out of me,” she chokes, the fear bubbling so readily to the surface, it makes it hard for her to breathe. “I thought--”

Adam shushes her, his hand finding hers, squeezing. “I know, and I’m sorry. The last thing I ever wanted to do was scare you, okay? I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” She realizes she still has absolutely no idea.

“Come here,” he murmurs, scooting to the side and patting the bed beside him.

For a month now, all she’s wanted is to crawl back into bed with him, to do more than just remember the warmth of him, how safe she feels with him breathing steadily beside her. But making the choice now feels like a thing. Because now it’s not about necessity.Now she’s let him in that much further, and it’s just the two of them here, alone, in a hospital in Pennsylvania.

Still, Jaz feels a little broken, a little vulnerable, so she eases carefully onto the bed beside him and he settles, his lips pressing to her forehead.

“I took Patton for a walk. The woods around the cabin have always been quiet. But there were hunters. Stupid. You know how that dog gets around loud noises. Dumb mutt took off on me, spooked and he was just...gone. I went after him and lost my footing. Fell down a pretty steep ravine, knocked myself out pretty damn good. Broke my arm, bruised a few ribs. Apparently Patton came back for me. Didn’t stop barking his head off til someone came looking to see what all the fuss was about.”

“I knew something was wrong,” she mutters, gingerly fingering the edge of his cast, where it stops just below his elbow.

“Hey, can you--Just look at me for a second.” Adam shifts away from her and Jaz obliges him, her heart beating faster, anxiety creeping up her spine. “I would never disappear on you on purpose, okay? No matter what else is going on between us, I’d never just walk away from you. I need you to know that.”

“Man, you hit your head pretty hard, huh?” Jaz asks, though the humor is lost on the lump in her throat.

“I’m serious.” He’s not letting her back down from this and she wants to fight it, because that’s all she’s ever done. Instead, she offers him a barely perceptible nod.

“You were supposed to be safe,” she whispers.

“I am. How else was I supposed to get you here, huh? Baiting you with poptarts didn’t work.”

Jaz relaxes at that, finally letting herself process that he’s okay.

“Just figured I’d make you wait a little,” she says, her gaze flicking up to the monitor at his bedside, watching the steady blip of the heart monitor

“Isn’t that my job?” Adam asks, and it takes Jaz a second to realize he’s talking about teasing her. Her eyes lift to his and her cheeks flush.

“Are you honestly going there right now? You look like hell. When was the last time you took a shower? Or brushed your teeth?” Jaz laughs.

“Adding insult to injury now? That’s low.” Adam chuckles, but he winces.

“Easy there, tiger. You’re not that funny.”

Irrational fear surges again and Jaz is running out of steam to keep it at bay. He’s still hurt. He’d lost consciousness, for fuck’s sake. She can deal with fear in the field. There’s always action to balance it out, something to be done, some sure next step. Protocol. Not now. And the uncertainty has her floundering.

“I’m okay,” he murmurs. Jaz should be used to this by now--him figuring her out--but right now, the transparency leaves her feeling raw.

She withdraws from him, getting back to her feet. To his credit, Adam lets her go without a word. She paces until the doctor comes in sometime later, and hearing an honest assessment from a professional helps.

“When do we get to go home?” she asks before realizing she has no idea if Adam wants her to stay. This, Pennsylvania, is his home, not hers.

“Without any complications? We can talk about discharge by dinner tomorrow,” the doctor says. “I’ll stop by again in a couple of hours. I know hospitals are notoriously bad for sleep, but try to rest.”

“What’s the policy on overnight visitors?” Adam’s question catches Jaz entirely off-guard. Her heart skips a beat, and she tries really hard not to stare at him, but he wants her here. With him.

“You get one.” The doctor glances at Jaz, and then back at Adam. “We don’t look too closely at who it is. You’re in the clear. There’s a spare blanket and pillow in the cabinet under the sink.”

And then they’re alone again.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Have to…? Jesus, Jazzy. I want you here. You think I’d sleep at all knowing you were a few miles away and I couldn’t see you?” It’s the closest he’s come to saying he cares about her. The faint pricking of tears behind her eyes has her turning away from him, but he always sees her somehow. “Come here. Please.”

Part of her wants to be strong enough to push him away, to shut him out and keep him at a safe enough distance so they can go back, because forward is full of change and uncertainty and Jaz doesn’t do those things very well. But this, whatever they’re doing, is a slippery slope, she’s exhausted, and all she wants to do is be close to him. So Jaz crawls back into bed with him, mindful of the cords and the tubes and his injuries, but she fits against him anyway..

“We need to talk,” she whispers, eyes again drifting to screen on the monitor. It’s easier than looking at him right now.

“We will.”

Jaz believes him, and it’s enough.

**

Even tucked up against him, his heart beating steadily under her palm, Jaz still sleeps only fitfully. Hospitals are her least favorite place and she’s jittery and anxious, regardless of Adam’s physical state. When she manages to drift off, her dreams fill with slices of memories. Other hospitals. Other tragedies. Other nightmares. Tehran works its way into the tableau, the stark white fitting with the fluorescent, impersonal glow of the room she’s sleeping in now. There’s blood and there’s pain and there’s Adam, lifeless. Arthur’s voice, the one she’ll never forget, seeps in, too, talking about team and family. Things he has no business talking about.

Jaz wakes up panting and drenched in sweat. At her back, Adam’s fingers move just enough to tell her he’s awake. When she looks up, he’s staring at her, his concern obvious, and she sighs.

“I don’t want to talk about it yet,” she whispers. Being honest with him is getting easier by the day, and that scares the hell out of her. The clock on the wall reads just past 4am. Jaz thinks about home--her bed with the soft, hand-stitched quilt, the gentle hum of the fan stirring the air, the birds and the crickets and the faint smell of coffee brewing. It calms her and she breathes, slow and steady, syncing with Adam without meaning to. That’s what they do.

**

They wake up for good at 6am, because the shift changes over and the new doctor comes by. Jaz is sore and cranky and exhausted, but Adam’s here and it feels like home. Minus the guns.

“We’ll do another assessment this afternoon and talk about sending you home for dinner,” the doctor says, and Jaz wishes like hell that McG was here because he’d be able to talk some sense into the doctor who isn’t much older than she is. Another twelve hours in this place might actually make her insane.

“We still have to talk,” Adam says once they’re alone again. Of course he hasn’t forgotten. That she’s a total emotional mess probably isn’t helping her case.

“I need coffee.”

“I’m not trying to trap you,” he replies, and Jaz rubs a hand over her face. She’s forgotten what it’s like to be around him, to know she can’t hide. He’s right--it’s not a trap. But it’s hard to have feelings, let alone talk about them.

“Do you ever think about what you’ll do...after this?” It’s not what she means to ask. This isn’t the conversation he meant they needed to have. But it’s what comes out.

“I’m in for the long haul. This is what I do. What I’m supposed to be doing,” Adam replies, taking it in stride.

“I know. But what you do isn’t supposed to be who you are, you know? This job doesn’t exactly leave a lot of room for the other part, but eventually, you gotta figure it out. You deserve to figure it out.” Jaz is well acquainted with bad men, and Adam isn’t that.

“What do you want, after this?”

“I don’t know. To wake up in the morning and know where I’ll be falling asleep that night? To not always be waiting? A family, maybe?” Jaz shrugs like it doesn’t matter, like Arthur’s words hadn’t stirred something inside her that had laid dormant before.

“I didn’t realize that was something you wanted. The family thing.”

“Me neither. Before this year...I think I was happy with the way things were. I still am. But maybe I want more, too, eventually.”

More like Alabama, like family dinners and traditions and predictability. Like a job that isn’t life or death for the people she loves.

“You deserve that.” There’s something about his tone that sends and angry little stab of dread right through her chest and she stares at him, counting to ten, steadying her breathing. She doesn’t have to yell for him to listen. He’s proven that a million times over.

“And what about you? What are you hoping to gain here, Adam? Talking to me everyday like...like you want this, and then pretending like I could ever want anyone but you?” Absurdly, once the words are out, all Jaz can think is that Elijah would be losing his mind right now.

“I don’t know.”

Every single part of her screams to run at that, to get as far away from here as fast as possible, because all that’s here is pain. But it’s muscle memory. Running from him won’t solve anything, so Jaz breathes and counts and stays.

“We can’t go back,” she says quietly.

“I know that.”

“I don’t want to go back.” Suddenly, looking at him, all she can imagine is losing him and never knowing. “It scares the shit out of me. God, you have to know that. But I want to go forward, Adam. With you.”

“Okay,” he agrees.

For the first time in three days, everything makes sense.

[rustbolt-answers-your-bullshit]

Act 3, Chapter 7: The Gay(?)-est Chapter

“You said this would work.”

“Hey, I’m not a psychic.”

“Just a psycho.” Rustbolt smirked.

Brainstorm chuckled. “Oh, you.”

“So what now?”

“Now we try again.” Brainstorm handed Rustbolt a remote with a small button on it.

“Ugh, fine.” Snatching the remote, he pressed the button. There was a spark, and suddenly, a vortex similar to Brainstorm’s Eureka opened up. Through the portal was the pink meteor. It had loads of zombies on it. And alot of plants, too.

“We did it! We finally found life on Comet Z!”

Rustbolt and Brainstorm hugged each other, hopping in unison and giggling.

*Slap.*

Then, with a slap, Rustbolt opened his eyes to see Solar Flare staring down at him. “You had some weird dreams tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

“They all involved the meteor. The pink one.”

“It’s a comet,” Corrected Rustbolt. “Comet Z, as Brainstorm apparently named it.”

“How do you know what he named it?”

“He told EB, who told Sportacus, who told me.”

SF nodded. “So now what?”

“I don’t know about you, but I have someone to meet.”

“What?”

“Well, not MEET…” Rustbolt rolled his eyes. “I have to talk to Rose with EB. He said he’d swing by at four.”

“Dude, I already swung by.” EB’s voice came from behind him.

“WAH!” Rustbolt jumped, turning around to see EB leaning on the wall, chugging a Glacier Freeze Gatorade from a 6 pack. The other 5 were in his other hand, bound by plastic rings. “Wait what time is it?”

“It’s 8:42,” said Solar Flare. “According to my sundial.”

“Haha! A sunflower with a sundial! That’s golden right there.”

“I like him.” Solar Flare pointed to Boog. “He’s funny and has a great taste in music.”

“You bet your blue suede shoes I do!” Floof smiled.

Rustbolt chuckled.

“Woah woah hold up.” EB held up his Gatorade. “Open your mouth again, bro.”

Confused, Rustbolt nodded and opened. EB’s eyes widened. His jaw dropped and so did his Gatorade. The electrolyte-replenishing drink landed on the floor, and the jaw was a few inches short.

“DUDE YOUR TEETH”

“What about them?”

“Feel your gums, dude.”

Confused, Rustbolt put his thumb against his upper gums. He went side to side, rubbing along the length of them, and he felt bumps. Serrated somethings were making their way out. “Am I growing new teeth?”

“Dude, that’s awesome!”

“Yeah but I have perfect speech with only four teeth. You know how hard it’ll be to adjust?”

“Just ask Brain Freeze to help you.”

Sighing, Rustbolt nodded. “You’re right.”

EB picked up his Gatorade, which somehow landed perfectly right side up. Not a drop had spilled. “Well, I gotta head back to Zomboss. He called another meeting. He also said Super Brainz would be sneaking into LEAF HQ today so, be ready. I’m still Team Zombie, but you’re a zombie too so I gotta help a brother out, you know what I’m sayin’?” He nudged Rustbolt a few times with his elbow. “Haha.”

“You said he’d be here,” grumbled Captain Combustible.

“He will be, he will be.”

At that moment, the sound of two xylophone notes being played in an ABAB pattern filled the hallway. The stump and the zombie turned towards the sound to see Super Brainz, tiptoeing in perfect unison with the xylophone notes.

“There he is!” Yelled Cap Combus. With a roar, he launched himself at the super[zombie]hero.

The two wrestled each other for about twelve minutes until finally Rustbolt said “okay you two, break it up.”

They stopped fighting, and SB looked at Rustbolt. “Rusty? What are you doing here? I thought you would be frolicking in the flowers or something.”

“Great to see you too, asshole.”

“Friend stealer,” The Superhero countered.

“Egomaniac.”

“Flower kisser.”

“Flower FUCKER.”

SB grumbled in defeat. “Whatever.”

Rustbolt pulled Cap off of Super Brainz. “Get out of here and we won’t kick your ass.”

SB got up, and Rustbolt and Cap started walking away.

“The fire tree isn’t even scary,” taunted SB.

“Shut your fat flabby mouth,” snapped Cap.

“What’re you gonna do about it, Stumpy.”

Captain Combustible turned around and glared at the super zombie. “WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME!?”

“STUMPY.”

“Why you little MOTHERFUCKING BEEF-BRAINED COCKSUCKING AIRHEAD! I’M GONNA RIP YOU LIMB FROM ROTTEN LIMB!”

The next 8 minutes consisted of fire, crunching bones, screaming and the smell of burnt flesh.

“Well,” Rustbolt shrugged. “As they say, there’s no kill like overkill.”

So, after SB flew back home, fatally injured, Rustbolt and Cap walked back to their respective places of residence. When Rustbolt got home, EB was back in the house, talking to Solar Flare. “Sup, you two.”

They both flinched. “Oh! Rustbolt! EB was just, uh…”

“Teaching her how to flirt with words instead of sex appeal,” EB mentioned nonchalantly.

“Dude I feel like if anything YOU’D rely on your sex appeal more than a flower.” Rustbolt gave a look that said “I’m right and we both know it.”

His friend shrugged. “Well I rely on it, yes, but I use words alot more than she does, apparently.”

“Listen here, Dance-o. If you were a plant you’d go freaking Gaga over me.” Solar Flare ran her leaves down the outline of her body, swaying her ‘hip’ as her leaves made their way down her stem.

“If you say so.” Boog rolled his eyes. “Anyways, Rusty, you ready to go?”

“Don’t call me Rusty.”

“Forgot. Sorry.”

“I’m just remindin’ ya bro, you know I don’t like that.”

“Can you just lead us to Rose?” EB tapped his foot, suddenly annoyed.

“I know the way!” SF raised a leaf. “Can I show you guys the way?”

“Why not.” The two shrugged.

“Thank you for seeing me, Rustbolt.”

Rustbolt nodded. “I brought EB and Solar Flare too.”

“Well I did ask you to bring another zombie hero, so.” She glared at EB, who just winked and popped a pair of fingerguns her way. “I always see you two together, I don’t know why I expected you to bring anybody besides this disco dunce.”

“Hey, you’re not so pleasant yourself, petal pusher.”

“Hair-brain.”

“Control freak.”

“Hoho, guilty as charged.” She chuckled, smiling.

“So what did you need me for,” Rustbolt said, trying to leave as soon as possible.

“We need to have a private discussion tonight, you and I.” She pointed her wand at him. “As for now, we need to give you a more… plant-related… superpower.”

“Like what?”

Rose smirked. “How about we take advantage of those powers, hm?” She made her way over to the garden in her castle. She put down a few beans and a Mayflower in the water. “Use your powers to make a random plant in every lane.”

“You want me to pull off a cornucopia? No.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Then make weaker plants. Here, take this pen and write a few plants off the top of your head.”

“Why do you just have a pen on vine?”

“Because I write spells sometimes.” Rose handed him a pad of paper, too.

After a long time of trying out this signature superpower, a long time that I’m not gonna elaborate on, he finally succeeded. He had a cabbage-pult on heights, a metal petal, a snowdrop and a puff-shroom on the ground and a guacodile in the water.

“Excellent work, Rustbolt!”

“Good job man!” EB hugged his Rustbuddy™.

“Are you two gonna freaking kiss yet or something?”

They both let go of each other. “What?” They asked in unison.

“I ship you guys. Electrobolt for the win.”

Rustbolt and EB, after processing what the flower just said to them, turned to look at each other. And, as if they both knew exactly what to do…

They took a step closer to each other…

Leaned in…

…And Rustbolt pulled out his sharpie and drew anime-style blush lines on EB’s face.

The two erupted into laughter, to the point where EB fell over clutching his stomach.

“I love you man,” Rustbolt said in his deepest possible voice.

“Oh my GAWD, I like, love you so much, Rustbolt!” Said EB. But the way he said it. If there ever was a stereotypical gay guy voice that was it. The impersonation sounded nothing like EB’s “bittersweet” voice. And with that, the two laughed even more.

The thing is, EB has that kind of laugh that makes OTHERS laugh. His laugh in and of itself is just FUNNY. It’s a joyous laugh.

So, the two kept laughing until Rose finally sent them off, where Solar Flare guided them to a place that EB knew all too well. They approached the track, covered in tires, piers, moats and rope courses.

“The obstacle course,” EB said, horrified.

“Grass Knuckles’ course? Why?”

“I dunno, he said to bring you guys here.”

“WHY HELLO, FARTHEADS.” Grass Knuckles jumped down from a tree, like a fucking creep, and landed in front of them. “I have a friend I’d like you to meet.”

“Is it Lefty Louie?” EB snickered.

“No. I called you all here to meet my staff.”

Solar Flare wasn’t about to deal with this bull crap. So, she flew off.

“Staff?” Boog and Rustbolt looked over at each other. “Staff of what?”

“STAFF OF PUNISHMENT!” GK pulled a staff out of hammerspace and proceeded to whack the two with it. The conversation that proceeded had about a minute of just whacking and “ow” in between each line of dialogue.

“Dude, what the hell!?” Screamed Rustbolt.

“DONT THINK I  DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE UP TO.”

“What?”

“You may have everyone else fooled but not me! You lowlife zomBOZO! And your boyfriend too!”

Solar Flare, having heard the whacking and screaming, sighed and flew back. On the way, she saw Nightcap hopping along, also towards the obstacle course. She landed right next to her Kabloom Companion. “Wassup, my shroom?”

“Well, if it isn’t miss ‘Shroomier than thou.’ How goes it.”

“Still salty about that, huh.” She smiled nervously and scratched the back of her head.

“Yeah. But whatever. Anyways where you off to.”

“Me? I’m headed to the golf course.”

“Golf course is the other way.”

Solar Flare faceleafed. “I meant the OBSTACLE course. Dammit.”

“Me too,” the mushroom said.

“Going to see your boyfriend?~” She teased.

Rolling his eyes, he scoffed. “He came to my house, he left, and now my staff is gone.”

“He stole your jabby-whacky-stick?”

Huffing, Nightcap nodded. “That and he has some explaining to do. I saw him watching me train yesterday through the window.”

When the two arrived, they saw GK whacking the absolute SHIT out of the two zombies. That’s what Rustbolt gets for not wearing his suit I guess.

“…And your boyfriend too!” Screamed GK.

“What? If anything YOU’RE the gay one,” said EB.

“Yeah,” continued Rustbolt. “You making goo goo eyes at Nightcap.”

GK threw down the staff in anger. “I’m not gay!”

“You’re blushing.”

“Wha– My mask is RED, doofus!”

Rustbolt looked at GK. “You’re blushing.”

“Wha– My mask is RED, doofus!”

“Sup guys.” The three turned to see Solar Flare and Nightcap.

“Sup, we’re just talking about GK’s homosexuality.”

“I’m gonna shred you if you don’t shut up,” growled the Asian cabbage.

“He’s not gay,” Solar Flare said.

“Thank you!” GK was relieved that someone was taking his side.

“He’s just got a shroom kink.” And even without proper lips, she managed to pull off the best :3 you’ve ever seen.

Blushing, GK groaned. “I’M NOT IN LOVE WITH NIGHTCAP!”

“Then explain the peeping,” Nightcap responded emotionlessly.

Grass Knuckles looked at the fungus before him. “…I…..” He closed his eyes tight and rushed his words. “I really really look up to you and I aspire to be you someday or at least LIKE you because you’re so cool and powerful and you’re like the awesomest dude ever and well when we hang out together I feel like I’m getting to know you more and more and I watch you train because I go home every day and train like you do and I’m the one that stole your nun chucks last month because I wanted to learn to fight like you!”

Nightcap stared at the Bonk Choy. “You really think that highly of me?”

“Mm-hm!” Grass Knuckles, eyes still closed, nodded.

Nightcap’s frown turned into an expression of mild surprise. Then… It became… a smile. “Th…” he became frustrated. “Tha… Th…. Thuuuuuuu……… Thaaaaaaa…..” He growled, teeth grit. “Thank you.”

Grass Knuckles opened his eyes to see Nightcap hugging him. And smiling. Wow, a double whammy. He quickly returned the hug. Hear that? That’s the sound of the S. S. Grasscap scraping against the iceberg that is this story. You can practically taste the seawater flooding the lower decks, can’t you? The nose is going up… It’s practically vertical… And DOWN goes the Grasscap ship. Fucking sunk. Deal with it. You got your fluff, be happy with it.

Brainstorm glared through the telescope. He couldn’t get that dream out of his head. It was a dream entirely centered around Comet Z. And apparently Immorticia, the only Hero he spoke with today, said she had a dream about the comet as well.

Oh well, probably coincidence.

He was about to pack up for the night when he saw a streak of fire and… smoke? Smoke in space? Whatever was somehow making space smoke slammed into the comet, knocking it off course an observable amount.

Brainstorm stood up, and ran his fingers through his hair. Grabbing his communicator, he punched in a number. Within seconds, a (Garden Warfare) Scientist Zombie was on the screen. “Victor?”

Rolling his eyes, he huffed. “Yes, Chanler, it’s me. Your brother. Sorry I haven’t called in a while but I need you over here as soon as possible.’

“You know, ever since you got zapped by that Hero beam you never call, you never visit, you became a recluse and you left me to heal the masses.”

“I was never that big into healing anything, you know that. Why repair when you can upgrade?”

“Whatever. And now you call me, no context, telling me I have to be there ASAP!”

“Oh right, and how’s that whole Junkling fiasco going, or whatever her name is.”

“Her name isn’t Junkling,” Chanler said, blushing. “It’s Juk–”

“I’d love to hear it, little brother, but I need you to get here as fast as science can carry you.” He abruptly hung up, turning his attention to a huge monitor. It displayed charts and data curves and other information about the comet. He pressed the refresh button.

Holy shit.

All the info changed. And according to the computers and satellite tracking, it was now on a collision course. With Earth. Unfortunately since it just happened less than an hour ago, there wasn’t enough data to determine exactly WHERE on Earth it would land.

Comet Z just became Meteor Z. And that would have been a bad thing if Brainstorm hadn’t seen the corner of the monitor before turning it off.

He had his hand on the button and pressed it. So it shut off, but not before his eyes trailed to the corner of the screen. There was a picture taken, kind of blurry, but one thing was very visible:

A large. Pink. Z. Engraved onto the meteor. It really WAS meteor Z.

Brainstorm, astonished, hastily dialed Zomboss on his communicator.

“Brainstorm, my trusted advisor, is there something of importance that you need to tell me?” He had rejected the video call and answered it as a normal call.

“Sir, I have some…” Brainstorm blinked and saw the image, temporarily burned into his retinas. “… Some groundbreaking news. Groundbreaking in more ways than one.”

[mercenarypark]

tf2 mercs and pets

ive been writing on this since yesterday and now im sick of it so heres a lot of words i made to distract myself from my father #animal abuse #abuse #physical abuse #antisemitism #insects #spiders #dogs #cats #birds #snakes #long post #text heavy

-medic, obviously, has a LOT of experience with birds. his mother had a cockatoo that he was basically raised with, and throughout his childhood he would always try to befriend the wild birds around their home [on the occasion he was allowed outside, that is]. in college/med school, he kept up that same trend, earning a less than stellar reputation as "that weird fucker who tries to climb trees around campus to get a better look at the birds’ nests", alongside his other reputations, "the weird gay jew who doesnt understand personal space" and "probably the cause of at least three "disappearances" throughout the semester since they were last seen harassing him"

-BLU engie gets ein[the canary] after a family member dies, they werent particularly close but the guy didnt have a will or any friends willing to take the bird, and engie was basically the closest living relative available [note: only BLU engie has the canary, not RED engie, and he recieves it a few years after joining the mercs]

-pyro kept the dalmation puppy they take in the comics, and he's a big comfort for them, they'll sometimes spend hours just playing with him or hugging him to calm themselves down from a panic attack; funny thing is, no one's entirely sure what pyro NAMED him, not even the people who can usually understand pyro's mumbles[engie, medic, solly, demo]. all 4 of them seem to hear completely different things so theyve just kind of accepted as a group that the dog has four different names that are all equally valid

-pyro also loves a lot of bugs, BLU py had a pet praying mantis for a while until the administrator made everyone move bases again, this time to a much colder climate- they were worried the mantis wouldn't survive the lower temperatures and released it before they left; theyve also kept tarantulas, ants, and stag beetles before -engie is also really into ant keeping and he and pyro bond over that, engie builds big elaborate setups for their ant colonies

-medic talks to birds, a lot, and seems to hold full conversations with them a lot of the time. not just his pigeon flock, either, but any bird- from sparrows to falcons to parakeets

-demo volunteers at the "kitten orphanage" shown in end of the line- hed work at the regular human orphanage too, but... he has too many bad memories of his own time as an "orphan". the kittens all love him, engie will sometimes come by to find demo sprawled on the floor on his back, three kittens on his chest, one asleep on his neck, one kneading its paws on his cheek, one chewing on his shoe...

-medic doesnt understand dogs. hes not scared of them, not really, he just. doesnt understand how they work. he cant read their body language at ALL and he was rarely around them as a child. he's ok with cats, though he still cant understand their body language that well, and sometimes irritates the shyer or more aggressive ones by being too affectionate- he only blames himself for getting scratched/bit though

-spy says he never had pets growing up, which is probably a lie- he just doesnt want to give anyone any information about his childhood and family life. he's mentioned once or twice that he wouldnt mind getting a pet snake, though, which engie thought was fucking hilarious and fitting

-scout actually didnt have pets growing up- her family spent a lot of time trying to make ends meet, and a tiny, shitty apartment w/ her, her ma, and her 7 siblings wasnt exactly an optimal environment for a pet. she always liked cats, though, and mice, and after she joins the mercs she grows to really love birds, too, because theyre Everywhere at the bases

-[RED] demo got his parrot, joyce, from BLU soldier[only RED demo has the birdman of aberdeen in my hcs]. solly found it in a bush somewhere as a chick, and brought it to demo. demo has no fucking clue how the hell jane managed to find a baby parrot out in the badlands, but he winds up taking her in, getting a lot of help from medic to get adjusted [medic is absolutely delighted and fawns over joyce the whole fucking time he loves her so much]

-demo's really worried for the longest time that he wont be able to take care of joyce properly ["i can barely keep myself together, how'm i supposed to keep you alive?"]  but he grows to really love her and she becomes an emotional support animal for him, on some of his worst days he keeps himself from drinking himself into a blackout by keeping her busy and happy

-she becomes even more important to him after the WAR update events, as a living reminder of his old relationship with jane; it hurts him sometimes to look at her and remember the grin on jane's face when she first handed him that parrot chick, but he loves joyce anyway and nothing's gonna change that

-demo also used to own lizards, he's partial to bearded dragons

-both RED and BLU solly are licensed falconers and wildlife rehabilitators. no one's entirely sure how. but its the reason shes allowed to have her Horde of Raccoons and also her fucking bald eagle [note: BLU solly is the one with the Compatriot, RED solly is the one with LT bites and the other raccoons]

-engie grew up with farm animals, because of course. he's good with horses, pigs, cattle, and sheep, and working dogs. one of the times the mercs had their bases relocated, they wound up in texas so RED engie took everyone out to his family's old farm [he pays to have it taken care of while his dad's... gone and he's w/ the mercs]

-spy flips the fuck out when he realizes just how fucking huge hogs are. then someone[scout] absolutely knocks spy into the mud with the pigs and he gets trampled and everyone laughs. also spy is mildly terrified of horses. spy does not have a good time at dell's farm

-speaking of terrified of horses, demo,

well really he's not terrified, hes just distrustful. it takes a long time for tavish to warm up to engie's horses, with a lot of reassuring from dell that hes not doing something wrong

-medic's pigeons are extremely affectionate and loyal to him, first and foremost. at least one or two accompany him at pretty much all times, except for when they're locked into their aviary at night. they also love heavy, scout, and pyro, and like/tolerate everyone else

-heavy loves birds. his family has a lot of chickens, and hes very partial to them; he also has a parakeet, who his sisters take care of while he's with the mercs. RED heavy is the one that finds the red army robin; he sees an injured little bird in the snow and he brings it to medic

-jane “soldier” doe cannot take care of cats or dogs or other normal pets for the life of her but if you hand her an injured wild porcupine and say "hey, how do i take care of this" she'll know exactly what to do; sometimes both soldiers will just come out onto the battlefield bottlefeeding a squirrel or something, and somehow artfully dodge enemy fire while shooting rockets AND feeding a baby animal. how's that for multitasking

-scout's ma, peg, has a cockatiel that she gets after all her children have left the nest, so to speak. scout teaches it to whistle happy birthday and demonstrates that on peg's birthday and its sweet

-heavy has a very specific [canonical, at least w/ "pokernight at the inventory"] childhood memory of watching a boy kill a sparrow, w/ the implication that the memory haunts him a little bit; seeing the injured robin brought that memory to the surface, and it freaked him out more than he'd like to admit. he was kind of panicking when he asked for medic's help, but trying desperately not to show it

-spy hates dogs. he hates horses. he hates insects. he tolerates cats. but most damning of all, he hates birds. thats a big problem with at least half of the base loving or at least liking birds, and with all the pigeons/doves everywhere

-it takes YEARS before spy stops insulting or scolding medic's pigeons every time he gets the chance, and the main reason he stops is because medic absolutely was NOT having it... still though, spy has his limits. he never hurt any of medic's birds, or anyone else's pets, because he may be a mercenary but he does have some standards. mostly

-this is notable, because, hahahhhhhhh. im gonna eventually make a much longer post about this, but medic has a fair amount of Trauma[tm] from dealing with classic heavy's abusive bullshit; the thing is though, cheavy realized quickly that medic could handle being yelled at or physically punished for his mistakes or his worse quirks... but he had a very vulnerable flock of pigeons with him, that he regarded as family and who meant the world to him

-the scene in the comics where cheavy grabs archimedes tight and throws him to the ground was not an isolated incident, is what im saying. though it /was/ one of the more violent ones, since after a few threats and a few times of cheavy proving he absolutely would follow through on his threats, medic got the hint

-through his time working w/ the classics, medic becomes more secluded and on edge, and more prone to breakdowns and fits; and even more protective of his flock, urging them multiple times to fly away and leave him, to find heavy or scout or SOMEONE and stay with them, that he would come back for them when he could[but they always refused to leave him]... the baboon infant incident was a long time coming and he only held off on detonating it as long as he did through sheer willpower and a healthy fear of retribution

-ANYWAY. projecting aside.

-scout /would/ get a cat from the kitten orphanage but shes worried it would try to kill or eat some of medic's doves, since they basically free roam the base; so instead she goes by with demo sometimes to play with the cats and its Good

-ms pauling is a big dog person, and i mean that both in the "she really loves dogs" way and in the "she loves dogs that are Massive" way; she grew up with newfoundlands and bully breeds and shes still got a big soft spot for them; she has two shelter dogs, one's an 11 y/o pit+rottie, the other is a 7 y/o mutt that has some st bernard in it and who's blind in one eye; she spoils them rotten

-engie is really into fishkeeping and after all this merc business is over, he wants to have big fucking tanks installed in his home; hes also surprisingly passionate about the proper treatment of fish, like, he nearly decked spy once for saying betta fish just needed a fishbowl and not a whole aquarium setup

-medic has stolen at least a couple fancy pigeons from pigeon shows, mostly the ones that have been bred to an unhealthy degree to fit show standards, he spends a lot of time trying to give them the best care he can and maybe undo the effects of years of awful breeding 

-i literally dont care about sniper so he gets no headcanons

im tired

[cult-camp-counselor-inactive]

Opportunities

Richie was in the back parking lot of the dive bar he’s frequented most during his stay in this town. Quiet, used for staff and for the bands playing, but he “negotiated” in place whenever staff came out to say things like “You have to reserve that spot.” Dumb stuff. 

Speaking of quiet, the only thing he could hear was the occasional passing car, and the muffled music coming from inside. Not even muffled, he could only make out the drumming. He took it as an opportunity to practice his bass, so he’d been spending that time adding his own melody by ear. It was nice. It was quiet. 

At least, until people started yelling. The back door of the bar slammed open. Richie tried to keep his melodies going, but it was somehow harder to hear the music with the door open. He closed his eyes to focus his ears better. No luck. “hHhhhhh fuck it,” he said, and started riffing his own melody based on whatever he felt like playing. The people outside were kicking someone out of their band. 

“You’ve cost us another gig, I can’t believe you!” Said a girl’s voice. Loud, rightfully pissed. It was almost funny. The boy they were all angry at pleaded for another chance. But damn, Richie didn’t even have to open his eyes to know the guy was clearly high. Guess that was band business. Can’t play under the influence, or at least under too much of it. Richie sent out a small, non-religious-specific prayer for the guy, who needed rehab. Looks like someone’s driving him home. It got quiet again, and Richie could hear the muffled drumming again. 

That, and someone walking closer to him. He kept playing, eyes shut. The steps stopped a few feet away from him.

“Can I help you?” 

“Woww,” the voice of the previously angry girl revealed itself in a much sweeter tone, and Richie opened his eyes. “You play with your eyes closed often?”

“Sometimes,” he smirked. The girl was very pretty. Her most discernible features were probably her eyes. Even in the moonlight, they were a deep brown that glistened. Her hair was in box braids, save for her hairline, which was styled in a wave-shaped pattern. She had several piercings on her ears, and one on her eyebrow. Richie gasped. “Holy shit!” He’s seen this girl before! He felt like hitting himself with the world’s biggest “Duh”. That’s why that bar was so familiar, he’d seen it in his dreams before!

The girl was taken aback. “Uhh..”

“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I’ve just seen you perform before.”

“Oh,” she smirked. “I didn’t know we had fans.”

“Don’t let it get to your head, I never said you were good,” he joked, looking back down at his guitar. She gave an exaggerated pout. She lowered herself to his eye level. 

“You seem pretty good, though. Pretty big coincidence too.”

He looked at her, curious. She smiled. “I’m guessing you were listening to our conversation just now?”

“It was hard not to,” Richie replied, smirking. She shrugged. 

“That was our bass. Long story short, he’s cost us one too many gigs due to circumstances, and refuses to get proper help.”

“Damn, that sucks.”

“Yeah. Good thing his parents live in this area. They’ve been waiting for an excuse to force him into rehab. Saved up money for a few months, too. Of course, we’re paying them back for trouble with our sales-”

“Hold it, you don’t have to dump everything on me. I’m glad you’re getting your friend some much needed help,” he said, unenthusiastically. “And I’m guessing the point of all this is that now your bass spot is open?”

“That’s right!” 

“Pass.” 

“Aww, come on, please? We’ll do icebreakers and everything. You’ll be paid, too! And you’ve got skills!”

“Let me do a little bit of dumping myself. Due to my own circumstances, I don’t mix well with the public eye. It’d be bad business.” Richie looked over as two more people walked over, clearly hearing the conversation. There had to have been a foot difference between them. The taller one was a frail looking guy with a turquoise mohawk, and covered in tattoos. The smaller one was a plain looking girl, but the neckline on her shirt was low enough to reveal the tip of a large tattoo going near her chest and shoulder. 

“Running from the law, or someone dangerous?” The tall guy asked.

“Technically, both,” Richie smiled.

“Psssh, lame,” the man mocked. “I’m banned from two states. What’s your excuse?” Richie sighed. This was getting annoying. He stood up.

“As much as I’d love to hear your stories, I’m insisting that you reconsider your offer.”

“I’m sure we can run from the cops if you’re so worried.”

“Oh, it’s not the cops I’m worried about,” he gave a menacing grin. He pointed at his bright red tattoo. “If I told you everything this is associated with, you’d be going to the cops yourself.” Oh, they looked nervous now. The girl in front of him took a step back, and the tall one looked like he was about to start swinging. “Now that you know, I’m going to say goodnight, and wish you good luck in finding another bassist.“ They just stared at him. “... What?”

“I mean... It doesn’t look like any supremacist symbol I know,” started the tall one.

“Oh please, they come up with new symbols all the time. It’s tough to keep track.”

“It’s not a supremacist symbol!” Richie said, a bit offended. 

“Oh... Then there shouldn’t be a problem!” The tall one smiled. That set him off.

“Oh for Xemug’s sake --I don’t want to join your fucking band!” Richie yelled. He put a fist to his mouth and muffled an angry scream, kicking himself for saying the X word, as the people in front of him started laughing. 

“Xemug? What, you part of a cult or something?”

“Yes! .. Well, no.. I’m in hiding, but if it makes you leave, then yes!” Before he could get inside to his rv, the tall guy swing an arm around him, and dragged him off towards the big, black bus sitting in the lot. The others followed. Shit. He wasn’t wearing the guitar strap, so he couldn’t even let go to get his hands free and hypnotize the fucker! “Where are you taking me!?”

“Uhh, to hang out? We wanna hear your sound!” 

“This can’t be legal, this is kidnapping! How the hell is your grip so strong? You look like you weigh 90 pounds!” He just laughed. The two girls walking behind them giggled. “Are neither of you going to help?” 

“Nope!”

“We’re accomplices,” said the short girl. 

“Ugh,” Richie said, giving up. This must be why Daniel looked so negative all the time. Forced interactions. 

---

“So, I’ll go first,” said the braids girl. “I’m Shailah. I’m kind of the lead singer, but I also play guitar, keys, and the trumpet when it’s not my turn.”

“Don’t care,” Richie said. He was seated across from the three of them. He didn’t even have it in him to hypnotize them and leave. He just felt like being negative.

“I’m Kyle,” said the tall one. “I’m mainly on guitar, but I’ve also done a few solo songs.”

“... So, you both sing?”

“We all get our own solos sometimes,” said the short one. “I’m Jae-hwa. I do keys, violin, and the launchpad.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Special kind of key board.”

“We got two guys missing, Duc, our drummer, and Mack. He mostly handles odd instruments, like triangles, harmonicas, banjos, and harps as a few examples.” Richie raised an eyebrow. That was a little impressive. “He doesn’t know how to play bass though, so we need you!”

“And I’m telling you, it’s better off you go find someone else!”

“Oh come on,” Kyle pleaded. “Please? Can you sing? I bet you can sing. You project pretty well, did you do theater? Or choir?”

“Wh- how did you- ...” He sighed. “Both. But it doesn’t matter. I can’t save your lost gig tonight.” Also, as these people couldn’t seem to grasp, Richie wasn’t supposed to be near people anymore. Just because he said he wanted friends doesn’t mean he deserved to have friends that could get in danger!

“Yeah, we know that. But you seem like an interesting guy at least, so we want you on board!”

“How can you tell I’m interesting?”

“Well, for starters, you have your RV parked in a reserved-only spot, and we didn’t see you in the line of performers. And I”d like to know how you did that.”

“Hypnosis,” Richie said, casually. They looked dumbfounded. 

“No way,” Jae-hwa said quietly. “Did you hypnotize us?”

“No, but I could if I wanted to.”

“OOOoh, do it on me!” said Kyle enthusiastically. Richie shrugged. 

“Okay, don’t blame me if you suffer side effects.” He leaned over the table before Kyle could protest, waved his hand, and snapped. Kyle went slack-jawed, and his eyes went dull. It was a little bit fun. 

“You’re listening to my voice only, and you’ll listen to my commands only. The first time I snap my fingers, you’re going to think I’m... Lady Gaga. When I snap my fingers a second time, you’ll act like a chicken. When I say “Apricot”, you will leave the trance. Ready? 3, 2, 1,” He snapped. 

Kyle took a minute to blink, and focused his eyes back on Richie. His eyes went starry. He teared up. “Oh my god,” he whispered, choking. “I can’t believe it.” Kyle cupped his mouth with his hands. Jae-hwa and Shailah looked at him in astonishment. “Do you guys see this?” Richie grinned in the most smug way he could. 

“Want a Bad Romance?” Richie said, toying with Kyle. Kyle blushed, hesitated, and nodded. “3, 2, 1,” Richie snapped. Kyle was brought to attention. It took him a few seconds to adjust and get some sounds out, but sure enough, he squawked like a chicken. 

“Holy shit,” Shailah said. Richie giggled. “There’s no way this is real, he’s just going along with it!”

“Oh really? Apricot.” 

Kyle stopped. And then almost collapsed. He clutched his head. “Ohhh, why am I dizzy? What just happened?”

“Boom,” Richie mouthed. “Hypnotism, did you have fun?”

“Uuhh... I don’t... know? It was relaxing... Oh, but now my head hurts. Was Lady Gaga in here?”

“What else have you used this for?” Shailah said, nervous.

Richie thought to himself. “Things I... can’t say I regret. Nothing too serious, just murder.”

“Oh, well that’s good. I was worried there for a second,” she said sarcastically. 

“But you don’t... do that anymore, do you?”

“... No. No, I’m trying to get away from that,” he said, twiddling his thumbs. He sighed. “And because I’m trying to get away, they are trying to track me down.” Richie thought about his options. He was kind of bored. He was kind of lonely. Maybe the back up and some gained fame might give him a chance to visit the camp without trouble starting? “Do you still want me in your band?” 

“I thought you didn’t want to be in the band,” Kyle said, smirking.

“Yeah, well, you’re fun to hypnotize. But I do have conditions. There are a select number of states I can’t be near, and I’m going to leave without notice if I have to. I can’t guarantee your safety from cultist whack jobs, so you better not cry if they find me.”

“Deal!” Kyle said. “Well, on my end. What about you two?”

Shailah shrugged. “I took self defense classes.”

“I have a pocket knife,” Jae-hwa admitted. 

“Very cool, and the other two will... Have to deal with it!”

“No, we should tell them,” Shailah protested. “You know Duc gets anxious. They both should know this stuff.”

“Be my guest, tell them everything,” Richie shrugged. “But if they aren’t back by tomorrow afternoon, I’m leaving the state.”

The three looked at each other. They seemed unsure they wanted Richie in the band now. Well, not Kyle. He still seemed cool with it. It almost made Richie happy. The three nodded. 

“Okay then! Salut, good night,” said Richie, leaving with his bass to-

“Oh wait! What’s your name!” Kyle asked.

“Richie, now bye!” And finally, he left. That was tiring. But kind of fun. 

[wellmeaningshutin]

Short Story #63: Domestic Bliss.

Written: 3/13/2017                                                                Backwards Week

Head throbbing and wet, she tried to move around but she was unable to do anything, not only due to the weakness from the blood loss, but also because of the cuffs around her wrists that were too tight, and dug into her skin every time that she tried to fight them. Her wrists were cold, her head was cold, her body was cold, and it was funny for her to think that she had thought it was such a hot night, not too long ago. However, this was only humorous for a moment, because she was accepting the fact that this could be the end for her. Who would come and save her?

Screaming for help was impossible, because of the duct tape, and she wondered if she was able to scream, if she would have the energy to do so. Even her attempts to move free were limp and half assed. She could hardly see a thing, but she couldn’t tell if she was passing out, or if that was because her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark. All of these questions were just quick and passing, because she was about to die, and she felt like she should think of something important, something that existed outside of her immediate situation. Wasn’t your life supposed to flash by?

Deciding to give into her fate, since there was no way a neighbor had heard, no chance anybody had called the police, and she was now destined to be found days, maybe even weeks from now, when a friend or family member would stop by the house, or maybe even when the smell of her remains would grow to be too much, and a concerned neighbor would notice. There was a chance that her husband had escaped, had somehow given himself a chance to live another day, and would probably be trying to save her life too, but she knew this was nothing but a fantasy. It was time to face the reality of the situation, and not the current one, where she was handcuffed to her bedpost in a dark room, bleeding to death, unable to whimper, but the reality that she wasn’t just going to die, but that she was going to have to die alone.

If she weren’t so tired, she may have cried. ———————————————————————————————————

The man smiled down at her, and for some reason, she was able to figure out that this sparse grin, filled with so little teeth that the canines were the most prominent, it all meant that he was finally done. The worst of it was already over, and there may be a chance that they could make it out of it. “I don’t know about you,” He turned to the gunman, still with that grin, “but I’m getting pretty bored of this. Why don’t we wrap this up and call it a day, maybe go out and get a drink.”

The gunman only nodded in agreement as he sat in the recliner, stubbly chin resting on the palm of his right hand, looking like a teenager who had to sit through a lecture on tax codes, or really most people who would have to sit through that. Wordlessly, he slowly eased out of the chair, raised his arms above his head and stretched, cracked his knuckles, and then picked up the revolver off of the nightstand. Looking at the husband, sweating, breathing heavily, trying to avoid the man��s eye contact, then looking back to the wife, handcuffed to the bed, arms covered in cuts and burns, makeup ruined, he finally said the first words he ever spoke in that whole ordeal, “Leave her in here, it would be a pain to try to unhandcuff her.” Then, walking over to the husband, standing right in front of him so that the injured man’s face was almost touching the belly of the armed man, he looked down and say, “Hey, fella, can you walk?” The husband still gave no answer, just breathed heavily and turned his head to stare at his wife, to try to seem strong so that she would be less worried about all that happened. All of that strength was gone when the man grabbed his head and moved it so they were making eye contact, and then placed the barrel of the gun into his right eye. “Don’t make me ask twice.”

The husband considered staying strong.

“I don’t think your wife would like it if she saw you get your brains blown out, all over this rug of yours.” He cocked back the hammer, “And then she would have to stare at your remains, the ruined rug, that whole scene, while she was stuck there, bleeding to death. You really want to put her through that?”

The husband frantically nodded, shaking his head like it was a spell that would save them from the situation, but the man kept staring at him, considering if he should shoot anyways. “If you shoot him then somebody’s gonna hear it,” The smiling man cut in, “and we don’t need that kind of trouble. More importantly, why didn’t you have the gun already cocked when you were gonna shoot him?”

The gunman pointed his weapon away from the husband, who was still shaking his head, fearing that if he stopped they would shoot him, and the gun now pointed at a picture frame, which contained the couple’s wedding pictures. “What do you mean?”

“Well, if you’re going to threaten to shoot somebody, then why wouldn’t you be ready to shoot?”

“What does this have to do with anything?”

“I was just wondering, its like those guys who point a shotgun at people, to threaten them, but when they don’t listen the person just racks the shotgun, and its kind of, like I just don’t understand that.” The gunman smacked the husband in the face, while focused on the points his friend was making, just to get the bleeding man to stop nodding. “If anything, that shouldn’t be a threatening gesture, it just really means that your first threat was empty because you weren’t prepared to shoot them.”

“So what?” The gunman shoved the revolver’s barrel into the husband’s forehead, “Do you want me to shoot him now, just to prove the point?”

“He’s scared anyways, so there’s no point in that, but its just something you should consider for the future. And don’t forget about the noise the-”

“Yeah yeah, don’t worry,” The barrel of the gun now pointed at a vase filled with pink lilies, “I wont get us caught. You do have a point there. Now,” Looking back at the husband, who was currently crying, “Can you walk?” And, on cue, the husband began rapidly nodding, and the gunman smacked him to get him to stop. “Okay, get up, lets take you someplace else so that we could get out of here.”

The man who was missing teeth began to take the cuffs off of the husband, grabbed him by the shoulder, and roughly helped him get up to his feet. They marched him out of the room, turned off the lights, and closed the door behind them. From the hallway, the wife could hear one of them say, “Also, if you think about it, if you have to say ‘Don’t make me ask twice’, you kind of are asking a second time.” ———————————————————————————————————

“Now,” The talker instructed, “you there, girl, put lay down on the bed on your back, and put your arms through those metal bars. No, don’t look at us like that, we won’t do that to you. We just want your money, your valuables, and this is just a standard robbery, so don’t you worry, because if you do what we say, why,” he flashed that sparse tooth smile,”we’ll be out of here and no time. You two will forget we were even here in the first place. Now, you, pretty boy, use these,” he reached inside his coat pocket and removed a pair of hand cuffs, which he placed into the husband’s hands,”and cuff you’re wife’s hands together.” The husband complied, mainly because of the revolver that was staring at his head.”Now, you done? Make sure its nice and-”

“Shit!” The wife exclaimed after her husband had, in a state of panic, placed the cuffs on way too tight.

The talker laughed, “Shit, not that tight, but don’t bother because you can’t remove them anyhow. Now,” He looked around the room, spotted a chair and pointed to it, “pull that over here, right in front of the bed, make it face your lovely wife so you two can comfort each other. Now sit down, hurry up now. See, we’re not bad people, just victims of circumstance. We just need money to get by,” he began to laugh, but tried to keep a straight face,”just need to pay our rent is all.” When the husband was finally seated, he forcefully grabbed the man’s right arm, and handcuffed his right wrist to his right ankle.

The gunman walked to the bedroom door and closed it. The talker broke into laughter, and almost fell to the floor. The couple stared at each other in worry.

“I keep my jewelry in that dresser, top row, second drawer from the left.”

“Fuck your jewelry!” The talker said between laughs, wiping a tear from his eye.

“We keep our money hidden-”

“Did you,” pause for laughter, “Did you really think that we wanted money? You two are the dumbest couple we ever met.”

“What do you-”

“Hey, you got the duct tape?” The gunman fished around the inside of his jacket for it, while the husband and the revolver stared at each other, and then he found it, and presented it to the giggling man. “Well toss it over!” A toss and a catch, an action was almost effortless from either practice or experience. “We need to shut these fuckers up. I bet they’d just keep talking all night.”

As the grinning man placed tape over her husband’s mouth, the wife asked, “What do you want?” Then, after a thoughtful pause, “What are you going to do to us?”

Finished silencing the husband, the smiling man turned to the wife, got down on his knees so he was eye level with her, and said, “Now, if I said that you would probably scream for help, but let me assure you,” he nodded his head in the direction of the gunman, “that would be the stupidest possible thing you could do right now.” He then rose to his feet, and walked over to the wife, who was starting to look panicked, and as he placed tape over her mouth he told her, “Anyways, I don’t think there’s really anything I could tell you that would satisfy you. I tell you what, and you can’t understand it, so then you ask why, and you can’t understand that either, and it just goes on and on, question after question, so let me ease your mind and tell you this,”  he smoothed down the tape to make sure it was firm, and just in case, or to emphasize her situation, he began to add a second layer, “people like you will probably never understand people like us. There just aren’t any answers for you, there is no real meaning, and whatever is going to happen,” after the second layer was finished, he kissed her on her sweaty forehead,”is going to happen.”

The gunman put his revolver onto the nightstand, the husband tried to move out of the chair but it was awkward for him, so he fell to the ground. Not paying attention, the gunman fished a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, placed one in his mouth, and began to light it as his friend sent the heel of his boot crashing down onto the husband’s head. And then three blows onto the spine, in the top middle and bottom, for no clear reason. The husband did not get up, and his attacker turned the chair towards the door, and placed the bound man back in it.

Turning to the wife, the gunman held the cigarette in his hand, and stared at her pale arms. Slowly, he crawled onto the bed, and she tried to squirm and fight, but ever time she did the cuffs just dug into her wrists, blood was drawn, she went limp, but only until the cigarette found its way into her left armpit.

Fishing around in the back of his pants, the man with the missing teeth produced a pair of pliers, displayed them to the husband, and then put his hand on the tape. “Now,” he said, his words cutting through the silent panic that filled the room,”if you scream, then I can guarantee your wife will get it much worse than you will. Now, will you stay quiet?” The husband turned to the wife, their eyes met and were both full of panic. “Look, guy, I really need you to be brave right now. Look at her, she’s scared as hell, now you need to show here there isn’t much to be afraid about, you need to show her that you’ll take the worst of it for her. Now, promise you won’t or,” almost as if he were on cue, the gunman held the cigarette away from the wife, and then pulled a knife out of his pocket, which he snapped open and placed the blade very close to her eye. “Now are you going to promise?” And the husband nodded.

He didn’t realize it, but his wife felt horrible. She hated it that he would take the worst of it, over her, because she felt like she deserved to be in that position.

And neither of them realized that the knife was still going to be in play, it was just going to have to wait until the husband was silenced again. ———————————————————————————————————

A candle light dinner, two plates of spaghetti, a husband smiling lovingly at his wife, his wife giving a half smile and taking a drink of her wine. She didn’t know how to take the news, but it made her feel bad for not having a natural response to it. Maybe the wine had numbed her for the moment, but she couldn’t tell, so she could just drink more. When she finally found an appropriate reaction, she utilized it, “I love you so much. I feel so awful for never saying it, but-”

“Shh,” putting his hand up from across the table, to silence her, her husband lovingly replied, “I know, you don’t need to say it.” Grinning, he returned to eating his meal, and his wife polished off her second glass of the night. A third was about to be poured, but then the doorbell rang, and the husband jumped to his feet, almost knocking over his chair. “Its here!” With the excitement of a child on Christmas, he ran to the door, almost skipping, and said,”It took them long enough! You’re going to love this, I swear!”

Although, when he opened the front door he didn’t see a delivery man, and instead he saw two men in flannel coats, one of them jamming a gun in his face, grabbing him by the collar, and pushing him backwards into the house. The man with him slowly walked into the home, gently closed the door behind him, and looked at the wife, who was sitting terrified in her chair, broken wine glass at her feet, and was unknowingly dumping out a wine bottle onto that. “You should probably put the bottle down, that looks expensive,” the man said. She realized she was spilling it everywhere, and then placed it onto the dining table. The husband was bent backwards over their couch, barrel of the gun pressing into his cheek. “Now, stay calm, this is just a robbery. If you could lead us into your bedroom, give us your jewelry and such, we will be on our way in to time.”

The wife didn’t move, but when she heard her husband start to say, “Honey, just, just do what they say”, she rose to her feet and began to walk to their room. A mix of adrenaline and alcohol made her not even realize that she had stepped on a shard of glass, and that she was trailing blood behind her. ———————————————————————————————————

“So,” looking up from across the table, and giving her husband a smile that was red from a mix of rose colored lipstick and cheap wine, “When are you finally going to tell me what you were doing at the mall the other day.” He looked away with a sheepish smile. “Its starting to worry me that you wont say anything about it,” she teased, “and I’m starting to think that you might be cheating on me.”

His face went red, and he verbally stumbled to clear things up, “No, how could you, I wouldn’t, why would, how, but no, no no no, I didn’t” She playfully laughed at his embarrassment. “Its, okay, its because I was there for you. I wanted to surprise you, get you a gift, but the store was all out and-”

Raising an eyebrow, she asked, “Which store?”

“I couldn’t, that would give away the surprise!” She pouted in mock disappointment. “Don’t worry though, its coming any day now. It was supposed to be delivered last night but something probably delayed it, maybe it was the rain, but don’t worry, you’re going to get it any day now, and I can promise that you’ll love it. When I saw it I knew that it was the perfect gift for you, its, well, you’ll love it.”

“And what if I don’t? What if you give it to me and its the worst gift I’ve ever gotten?”

“That’s just hypothetical,” he said with an awkward laugh, focusing more on twirling his spaghetti with a fork than on her,”but you loving it, well, that’s a fact.” Then, without leaving room for further conversation, he began to devour the dinner in front of him, rapidly eating to soothe his nerves. This habit of his, stress eating, bothered his wife, but she mostly didn’t say anything about it. If she made him get rid of this habit, then he would have to find some other way to relieve his stress, and she was worried that it would be a path right into their bedroom. To silence her disgust, she downed a glass of wine, deciding that this would be her only glass for the night. ———————————————————————————————————

Making dinner, before her husband got home from work, seemed to be the worst part of her day. She loved it when she was out volunteering at the dog shelter, or the hours afterwards when she got home, where she had the home all to herself, and even when her husband came home, that wasn’t too bad, but the hour before, when she was making dinner, preparing for his arrival, that was the worst part of the day. Monitoring the sauce that was cooking over a low flame, she decided to pour herself a glass of wine, just to calm her nerves. If she drank now, while the sun was still out, sort of, then it wouldn’t count towards any drinks she would have that night.

Her husband, the loving and devoted man that he was, was starting to get worried about the amount that she had been drinking lately. He made her promise that she would cut back on the nightly wine, she agreed, and even made a genuine effort in the beginning, but then she realized that if she drank before he got home, he would never notice, and she could still get drunk without him worrying about her. Sure, she knew she might of had an actual problem, and should consider stopping, but what else did she have as a stress release? How else was she supposed to get through the nights? Was she supposed to stuff her face like her husband? Really, drinking just seemed to be the easiest option.

As she was making sure that she put the bottle away, to prevent herself from drinking any more before her husband came home, she noticed that the sauce was about done, the noodles were all buttered and ready, and that he would come home about any minute. She went through the routine of setting the table, making sure there were two, half-filled wine glasses for the both of them, and that the dinner would be ready to serve when he was ready to eat. Sitting in her chair, facing his that was empty, buzzed from the glass of wine, she started to get lost in deep thought about their marriage.

Sure, on paper it was supposed to be perfect, and everyone knew them as such, but there was something that always ate away at her, and it was only during these moments, when she was waiting for him to walk through the door, or right after their monthly sex, where she would think about it. The rest of the time it was merely forced down inside, and she would just put on a fake smile and lie to herself. It was in these moments where she would have to face the fact that she didn’t love her husband, and every act of blind love and devotion that he showed her, just killed her a little bit inside, each time. The only reason they were together was because she wasn’t sure if she could find anyone else, and she was really just terrified of dying alone.