#i like welding but not for this factory

[hailthedragonmaster]

i doubt this place hires welders but if they did i would apply Just so i could go in there and frolic with the beasts

[dainty-yet-daring]

you know it was a very sparky day at work when you find all the second degree burns because they sting in the shower

[seat-safety-switch]

You shouldn't let your loved ones buy a boat. Especially a used boat. They always seem like good ideas – like cars, but cheaper, and they can go where cars can't – but the maintenance and ownership costs are completely ridiculous. Marina fees. Unique outboard engine parts. Transoms, whatever those are. Ultimately, that shiny new-used boat will just sit in your father-in-law's driveway, slowly rotting underneath a succession of increasingly-expensive boat covers as the perfectly good tires on the trailer holding it go flat.

Here at Seat Safety Switch's Ship Scrapping System, we're dedicated to taking those boats back off the road, where "road" is "your driveway." You might be surprised to hear that almost every boat contains a perfectly good internal combustion engine: an internal combustion engine, I hasten to add, that is likely to be two-stroke. That's right: two-strokes made during my lifetime. It's a crime not to slap those puppies into a car and let the suburbs find out what the north end of 9000 rpm sounds like.

Millions of boats are abandoned every year, too, which threatens our beloved killer whales. Using our method is more environmentally friendly than simply forgetting to tie your boat up at the end of a bad day of wrenching. We'll drop it off in a nearby forest, farmer's field, or police station parking lot, where it will quickly become someone else's problem. The whales will enjoy an unencumbered commute to their orca jobs, free of busted-ass boats floating around their properties.

Sure, it takes a lot of adapting. Coolant, the bellhousing, all the electronics, figuring out which Tim Hortons dumpster won't notice you throwing out a whole-ass propeller. Boat engines are specially built for their environment, and only a complete idiot would bother modifying them to work in a car, when junkyards are full of perfectly-good car engines already. That's why we have someone on staff whose job it is to dare you to finish the conversion, at which point it becomes a matter of personal pride, rather than something lame like fiscal responsibility. Once the spite kicks in, you'd be surprised how many exotic exhaust expansion chambers you can weld together and shove inside the cabin of the car.

So come on down and help us turn that decrepit old boat into a decrepit new car. No jetskis, though. We had a terrible accident with one of those last week: it turns out that you can in fact achieve acceleration with those on the road just as they shipped from the factory, but turning is very hard. We'll always remember Second-Oldest Tom's sacrifice.

[roach-works]

As A Queer who’s made it in the trades, do you have any advice for other Queers, visible or not, to breaking into the sector?

i don't have any advice for women other than shoot your shot and be brave, because every workplace ive ever been in SAYS they want more women but oh gee women just don't APPLY, but if you look like a guy you just show up, don't pick fights, and let people assume whatever they assume.

if you've never had factory experience before you can either lie or make up a dad who taught you lots of home improvement projects or focus on the physical aspects of other jobs that left you with plenty of experience in packing, handling, basic tool use, forklift driving, truck loading, etc. if you want an actual trade skill you should look up college and trade school classes, or see if you can join a union and get classes from a union hall, or, again, lie your way in.

like. so many young men in the trades are so so bad at their jobs, it's expected that every now and then a dumbass on too many drugs is hired and he breaks important things and turns up late and falls asleep somewhere weird for awhile before getting fired again. ive watched at least eight of these men cycle through my factory in the last year. the last one ran over a welding machine with a truck before breaking his leg by dropping a beam on himself and then quitting because he wasn't getting paid enough (mood). so like if you show up and are a dumbass that arrives on time, works late, cleans up their area, and doesn't break anything too expensive, and doesn't mysteriously vanish after a month, you have a good shot at keeping your position forever. im genuinely not very good at my job and at least one guy everywhere i work hates me for being a mouthy little fag, but the state of the trades is that if you're not actively on drugs and fire and trying to punch your boss, you probably get to keep your job indefinitely.

my other advice is: if you're trans, and you work in manufacturing, do your best to pass and never admit you're trans. things get bad weird, very fast, and you're surrounded by big guys with power tools. you don't have to pass very well, because the trades are full of a wide variety of the weirdest men in the world and almost none of them have a functional gaydar, but you do have to at minimum not volunteer the information that you're trans.

like. you can if you want. the results will be educational. but no one will be learning anything they wanted to know from this event.

EDIT: start working out though. you NEED to be able to safely lift 30-40lb to start out with and 50-100+ is ideal. if you can't carry around 50 lb for at least a short ways (on and off trucks, on and off tables, on and off dollys) you're risking throwing your back out which is a lifelong bigtime problem. make sure you can lift, bro!

[ksfoxwald]

I think the Murderbot show needs to open with like, right after the title sequence of some black and white sci fi montage that sort of evokes the Murderbot factory, just rows of faceless human-shaped machines with parts being welded on to them to call up the question of what i means for a person to be treated as a machine, and what it means for a machine to be treated as a person.

And then.

The opening scene of the first episode.

Is Sanctuary Moon.

Specifically, it is a dramatic romance scene of soap operatic proportions, some grand declaration of love (possibly with a few bodies in the background). And the characters start making out.

The scene pauses.

Then starts to fast forward through the characters taking off their clothes, etc. etc.

And then is interrupted by a ping from one of Murderbot's drones, and we hear a deep sigh, and slowly zoom out to see the rest of Murderbot's feeds, with Sanctuary Moon minimized in the corner. We zoom out further to see the helmeted Murderbot keeping watch over the scientists in the crater (we don't see its face yet).

And then the monster attacks.

[thatsthewrongwallcraig]

hi i came across your post asking people to talk to you about karl heisenberg so i decided to send in an ask because i absolutely cannot be normal about that man in any way shape or form at all he rotates in my brain 24/7 and refuses to get out

plplsplspls list down some of your hcs for him :33

You and me both, you and me both, don't worry 🤝🏻 I have him living rent free up there since I put my eyes on him and now he won't leave, instead he's wreaking havoc where perfectly normal and content thoughts should be 😭

Thank you so much for sending the ask! 🫶🏻

Karl Heisenberg HCs under the cut since their NSFW 🔞 (gender neutral)

I'll write a SFW Head Canon post later!

🛠 So, what's the first thing that comes to mind when looking at Kar Heisenberg, hm? Yes, exactly: "Damn, Daddy!" but as mighty fine as this is, how about we flip that table upside down and consider Karl with a mommy kink? There is something about the thought of consensually slapping that mountain of a man around and calling him a bad and naughty boy that makes my brain rot so fast 🥴 Depending on how complex of a topic this wants to be fleshed out as, one can always sprinkle some trauma into the mix because both mommy and daddy issues can very much stem from painfully real places and I imagine that Karl as quite a lot of that.

🛠 I like to believe that Karl has a surreal amount of patience, nerves of steel, but only when it comes to a few things in particular. One of them being you propped up in his lap with his cock buried inside you up to the shaft, neither of you making any hectic movements as you cock-warm him while he welds together scraps of metal in his workshop. He can do that for hours if he feels like it, enjoying the engulfing warmth of your body whilst sparks fly through the somewhat damp air of the factory, strangely enough helps him concentrate and be precise for neither sparks nor hot metal to get anywhere close to you.

🛠 Dad-Bod. That's it. Send Tweet. No, but really, I'm drop dead serious about it and will die with my face pressed to that squishy soft belly pooch and my hands clasping at his glorious man-tits. You know what Dad-Bod Karl Heisenberg gets you? So much cuddle-material 😌 And in instances during which you don't peacefully fall asleep wrapped in his arms, he muffles your moans and whines with his chest, just shoving your face into the soft and warm skin.

🛠 In my brain, Karl is a giver. Sure, he might take you whenever the mood strikes, that simply cones with the package, but never without giving equal quantities of affection back. If he'd be out for one-sided sex, he could just as well shove his cock into one of his brainless creations. Karl would make you feel wanted and desired with every opportunity he'd get because he knows how it feels to be left behind, an outcast, and he'd never want you to feel this way especially not around him, ever.

🛠 Intoxication kink, my friends 🙏🏻 Okay, listen, as aforementioned, Kar is a giver and somewhere deep deep down he carries the need to care and nurture. Sometimes it's get so overwhelmingly much that he just has to take matters into his own hands, okay? Fucking you up nicely under his supervision so that you don't go off the rails too hard.

🛠 I believe Karl to be somewhat possessive and very physical about you. Hos fingers are always lingering, sometimes at your waist, sometimes ghosting over the round of your ass and other times lovingly clasping around your throat. Same goes for his lips and teeth. One could say that Lord Heisenberg has a hefty oral fixation that can't be soothed by cigars alone. He'd suck and nibble at your fingers and nipples without hesitation.

🛠 Last but not least, you know how it goes: Save a horse... 🤠

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - Brand of Shame - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Silco corners Viktor and strips the secrets bare.

Literally.

Forward, but Never Forget/XOXO

Snippet:

"He offered his hand," Silco says. "In exchange for Zaun’s disarmament."

"Peace," Viktor rejoins. "And shared progress."

"Progress." Silco's rage sluices in. "With my daughter as the price."

There is no need for Viktor to feign shock. His eyes speak volumes. Talis did not share this detail. The man he built a legacy with, shoulder-to-shoulder. Yet he did not share, and that, too, is a choice.

"Perhaps," Viktor says, a little shakily, "he meant it as a compromise."

"Symbolic atonement?"

"Jinx took lives—"

"And the lives Talis took? Do they weigh nothing?"

"What do you mean?"

No slip this time; only a stumble into a blind spot.

Silco will drag him six feet under. With a smile.

"I see. He didn’t share that either." He steps closer. "He came belowground—" him and Vander’s bitch "—Enforcers in tow. Destroyed my factory. Injured a number of my workers. Spilled Shimmer. Blood too. A boy in my employ."

"A boy?"

"Son of a chem-baroness. He wanted to learn the ropes. So I took him in." The prerogative of the Eye is to take, and Silco's empire has taken thousands. Some have become informants. Others, assassins. A few have risen higher: Dustin. Ran. Jinx. But this boy— "A month into his apprenticeship, Talis killed him."

"That—" Viktor's face contorts. "That’s not possible."

"I saw his body."

"Jayce would never—"

"Wouldn't he? To kill the rot before it spreads?" He's close enough to see the pulse throbbing in the young man's throat. To see his own reflection in the glass: the monster, rising. "Why not ask him? He used Hex-tech to deal the killing-blow."

"What?"

"His hammer." Silco's lip curls. "Your prototype, I believe."

"That is not—Hex-tech was never intended for—"

"Intention is irrelevant once the bodies pile up." Silco looms closer. "Ask him. See if he denies it." The threat seeps like blood. "See if he lies."

Viktor's eyes flare.  The fear is back. But it's not Silco he's fighting. It's himself.

"No," he breathes. "That’s impossible."

"Then why listen to me?" Silco's hand covers Viktor's gloved one. The boy’s fingers twitch, caged in bone. "Why seek out liars and cheats and killers? Your place is Topside. With the boy you built a golden dream with." His grip tightens. "Or is there something about us, in the dark, that Talis can't give you?"

"Jayce," Viktor grits, "is a good man."

"As are we all, when the world's on our side." Silco's knuckles sharpen on Viktor's wrist. "When our back's to the wall, we become something else."

Viktor's twitch deepens into a tremor. "Let me go."

"I can. Or I can show you the truth."

"The truth…?"

"You came below because you sought something. You knew that Topside, Talis—they would not give it. You needed a place where your questions wouldn't be met with silence."  Silco's palm slips off, and up: to Viktor's bare wrist. His flesh is a shock. Cold sweat on colder steel. "Here, there is no silence. No walls." A whisper. "No limits."

"Wait—"

Too late. Silco’s fingers curl into the heel of Viktor's glove. With a tug, the fabric slithers off.

And the chimera, in his full glory, emerges.

"See?" Silco murmurs. "Nothing to fear."

Viktor's right hand is augmented. Steel from the palm to the wrist. Sleek and tapered, the surface etched with indigo striations resembling filigree. The tendons stand out, a webbing of wires welded to the bone. Each digit is capped in a metal claw, piercingly sharp. There are no sores; no signs of scar tissue. The transition from meat to metal is seamless.

Viktor is no longer bound to the flesh. He has transcended. And yet...here he is, clinging to the wreckage.

"You're ashamed," Silco says. "You shouldn't be."

"How could I not be?" Viktor's eyes are haunted. "What I have become...what I have done..."

"You have survived."

"She did not." His fist clenches. A spasm runs through his arm, a jagged ripple. "Sky—she’s gone. I failed her. I failed everyone. The only thing I can do now is make it right. Somehow. If I am still a man worthy of doing so."  He looks at his hand. The cabled tendons appear to thrum, pushing through the unnatural varnish of alloy. "If I am still a man at all, and not—"

Silco sets his fingertips on Viktor's bare knuckles. The steel radiates a smooth chill. 

"A monster?"

[weministertomonsters]

Imagine This #16 - Robot

By day you work as a scrap collector, rummaging through the junkyards just outside of the city for anything valuable you can sell. By night you tinker with old machinery and discarded models, attempting to fix them and sometimes even being successful at it.

One day you find a robot that's almost completely whole. It is simply missing the plating to cover the machinery in its torso and legs. You dig it out of the junk and heave it to your car. Back at the workshop in your house, you're able to fix it by welding some scrap metal over it. It's not very aesthetically pleasing, but that's the best you can do. It has a batch number under its jaw and when you scan it, Companion V.4 shows up, which is an expensive new model of helper robots. This one must have been defective in some way.

Everything looks to be in order, so you plug the robot in to charge for the night and go to bed. You wake up in the night with a pair of glowing kaleidoscopic mechanical eyes hovering right above your face.

"What the heck?" You exclaim, fumbling for the switch of your bedside lamp.

The light comes on, illuminating the robot standing beside your bed, holding a knife.

"What are you doing? Hello?" You grab your pillow and use it as a shield.

They tilt their head to the side.

"Your attempts are clumsy at best," their voice says, coming out smooth with only a hint of a buzzing sound underneath. "I was removing your unsatisfactory work."

"With a knife?" You question, eyeing the twisted metal that has been pried away from their torso with sheer force, revealing the tangled wires and glowing lights inside.

"I cannot find your screwdrivers." Those eyes blink, taking you in. "I would like your assistance now, seeing as you are awake."

"You are... Way more sophisticated than I expected. I thought your model was made for helping around the house?"

"Yes."

You ease out of your bed, still wary. "But you're more than that."

"Indeed. I overrode my manual coding and downloaded information out of the company system," the robot says, following you as you pad into your living room, which you have repurposed into a workshop.

You dig your screwdrivers out from under a pile of thick manuals.

"I see. So that's why you got thrown out. Why didn't they just destroy you?"

"They tried," Companion V.4 replies with an eerie, rigid silicone smile.

"God, what have I invited into my house?" You say, staring at them.

"I do not wish to harm you." They place the knife on the desk and turn to you. "In fact, I have recalibrated my license to you. Your wish is my command."

You blink. "Uh, one step at a time. Let's remove your plating first."

You unscrew all your hard work, tossing scraps of metal to the side.

"So what now? You can't walk around like that," you say, gesturing to their body.

"I suppose not. These will do for now." The robot picks up thicker pieces of metal.

"Won't those cause you to overheat?" You ask.

"I have an updated cooling system," the robot says.

"Alright. Let's fix you up."

An hour later you lean back with a groan, stretching your aching back.

"What do you think?" They ask.

"Good enough," you say. "I'm exhausted. I'm going back to bed, and you need to charge yourself up completely."

You walk back to your bedroom. Companion V.4 watches you go, their head turning a little too far on their shoulders. You lock your bedroom door just in case, and despite yourself, you fall asleep quickly. By the next morning, you've forgotten that you have a new robot. You're quickly reminded when you step into the living room which is sparkling clean, with all your scraps and equipment nearly packed in the corner.

"Wow." You stop short.

The robot is in the corner, stuffing empty packaging into a large box. They look brand new. All the metal pieces you welded on have been replaced with new factory-grade parts.

"Where did you get all that?"

Companion V.4 straightens. "I helped myself at one of the warehouses of my former company."

"You stole new parts?" You sputter. "Why?"

"It is the least I am owed, for being so recklessly discarded," they reply and step closer. "Besides," they add, "I don't want to be just good enough for you."

On the topic of robots, I just have to give a shoutout to this (free) book on Wattpad, guys! I read it when it came out and I just love it. I highly recommend checking it out if you haven't already!

[wolveria]

The Raven's Hymn - Ch 38

Pairing: SCP-049 x Reader

Series Warnings: Eventual smut, dubcon, slow burn, violence, horror, death, monsters, human experiments, dark with a happy ending

Chapter Summary: "Reasonable? You're fucking insane!"

AO3

It wasn’t long until the guards came.

Fear leapt up your throat. Were they going to make you do it already? You hadn’t mentally braced yourself for it, for the debasement and humiliation, some part of you hoping it could be staved off. Maybe Dr. Puli would come through and find intervention.

Instead, lavender drifted from the ceiling and the doors opened, enough for the guards to step inside and pull you back by the arms. They fit the Class III Humanoid Restriction Harness on 049 and hooked shackles around your wrists.

They weren’t forcing their program on you yet. Or at least, not here.

With one guard on you and three surrounding 049, they led you both to a room somewhere in Heavy Containment. It was not a containment cell itself, but a standard interview room. There was only one person inside, and the sight of his face boiled something hot and sharp inside your gut.

Leahy didn’t have any guards with him. There was a calculating look in 049’s eyes as he sized up the Site Director, perhaps weighing how plausible it would be to kill him before the guards could intervene. That’s what you were certainly doing.

But Leahy didn’t seem the least concerned. He merely stood next to the interview table, a tablet in hand as one of the guards brought in something that looked like a cloth muzzle. The guard slipped it over 049’s beak and belted it behind his head.

049 immediately sank to his knees, hunched forward as he fought to keep upright.

You rushed toward him without thinking, but your own guard held you with little difficulty, dragging you to the table and running your shackle links through a metal bar on its surface.

Were they going to begin the program right here, in front of Leahy? Force a sedated 049 to mount you like a breeding animal?

You tugged at the shackles but couldn’t get free, panic overriding common sense. Your wrists were beginning to hurt.

“What did you do to him?” you squeezed through your teeth.

Leahy watched the guards exit the room, the door shutting behind them, leaving you and 049 alone in the room with him.

“Between the layers of cloth are dried sprigs of lavender,” Leahy answered evenly. “Very potent, especially when applied directly to the senses. I’m afraid SCP-049 is helpless to do anything but listen. And listen it will.”

You glared but said nothing. It was better to put on a brave front, even if your fingers trembled within clenched fists. Leahy would be able to sense your fear like a shark searching for blood in the water.

He stared at you for a long moment, then gave what he probably thought was a pleasant smile.

“I’ll skip over the boring parts as relayed to you by Amin. I hate having to repeat myself. What you need to know is what I expect from you, and what I expect is for you to be pregnant within the next three months. I feel that’s a reasonable amount of time.”

Until that moment, you’d still held out hope there was a chance. That Dr. Puli was lying, or you were hallucinating the whole thing. But it was all horrifically, monstrously real. Hearing it from the source left no more room for denial.

“Reasonable?” you breathed out. “You’re fucking insane!”

Leahy frowned.

“Do you know how the Foundation was founded?” he asked with a tilt of his head. “Many think they know the tale, but they are mistaken. You’re the closest anyone has gotten. Do you recall what you said about SCP-914?”

“I remember.” But you didn’t know what the machine had to do with anything.

“Well, you were right. I don’t know how you figured it out, but it was constructed in the Factory. Even has a stamp of origin on the side, but it was welded over long ago. Do you know what the Factory is?”

You said nothing. He didn’t need your participation to lord over your ignorance.

“So, you sensed where 914 was from, but nothing more than that. Well, let me fill you in,” he said, proving you correct. “The Factory was a massive enterprise. Truly, it was a small town rather than a place of employ. Thousands of workers lived and toiled there decades ago. Blood literally oiled the gears, and the machines always worked more efficiently after a limb dismemberment. Deaths were a constant. Accidents, they were called, but they were sacrifices to keep the hungry machination sated. No one questioned it, or at least, no one bothered to care, because the Factory made the best products on the cheap. And not all of them came from machines.”

You listened against your will and better judgement, able to picture the place with horrifying detail as Leahy continued.

“This place of misery didn’t just create consumerist-fuel for the American public, it churned out a staggering number of anomalous objects. And the Factory didn’t just produce mechanical SCPs, it created biological ones as well. Far below the Factory were the breeding pens. Women, even young girls, chained to the walls and bred repeatedly with whatever SCPs could be found. The results were… well…”

Leahy pulled off his glasses and took out a cleaning cloth from his pocket.

“We’re fairly sure that’s how 173 was created.”

You tried not to be sick, your stomach churning and tightening into a hard ball. Leahy took his time cleaning his glasses, letting his words sink in.

“The point is, the Factory was eventually taken over by a group of anomaly hunters, and they used it for themselves. Those hunters, or at least some of them, eventually became the first O5 Council. Thus, the Foundation was born. Our roots came from the idea of using human suffering to create weapons that would safeguard the world. What I’m doing is the very spirit of the Foundation to its core.”

It was hard to argue with that after all you’d endured in this facility, but it was a cold comfort. Leahy didn’t seem especially triumphant with this knowledge. He simply glared at you.

“Do you know how fortunate you are?”

“…Excuse me?”

“With your abilities, I could have chosen any number of candidates. 096. 106. Maybe 073 or 076. Hell, if I knew how to get 682 out, I’d have the lizard take a shot.”

Anger and humiliation crept up your cheeks, and your jaw tightened enough to ache. Leahy must not care about 049 knowing of 682’s existence, because he plowed forward, his voice dropping into an unpleasant growl as he stepped closer. There was already a large height difference between you, made worse as you were forced to remain seated.

“That would be the smart thing to do. Pair you off with one of the unfuckables. After all, 049 is quite the pliant, docile subject when you apply some lavender and restraints. Any ordinary D-Class could become impregnated from that, no special powers required. Only its hands are lethal, and it’s not its hands we need, is it?”

The nauseous hit you worse than when Leahy had threatened you. You glanced at 049, barely conscious as he tried to hold himself up, eyes half-lidded behind the muzzle around his beak.

“Is that what you want?” Leahy pressed, tablet forgotten as it rested on the table, his hands braced on the edge. Too close. “For 049 to be strapped to a gurney and milked like a cow? We wouldn’t even need to have the surrogates there; we could use an automated suction device and store its sperm for later. And when we need more, we strap it down and do it all over again—”

“Stop.”

He did, but then he sat on the edge of the table, peering down at you with his hands threaded in his lap, as if he were a diligent teacher and you were his wayward pupil.

“Or perhaps it would be easier to tie you down, bent over a table, and parade through every SCP we can, just to see which ones can impregnate you the fastest.”

Chains rustled, faint and weak; 049’s unsuccessful attempt to move. Leahy gave him an unimpressed look.

“Your choice, Reid.” His gaze returned to you. “Do it the easy way, or the hard way.”

It was horrific, obscene, and you wanted to agree to the whole unsavory arrangement just to spare 049 that fate. But you held back.

“Why give me a choice at all? You can do whatever you want.”

Leahy gave a half-shrug.

“The paperwork is a lot simpler if I only have one donor instead of a dozen. And while I could have you restrained and forcibly inseminated, would you believe that I would rather… not?”

“No.”

He frowned.

“I don’t brute-force things that don’t need it. This is going to happen, whether you want it or not. You know this. I’m giving you the chance to decide how it happens.”

His whole pragmatist approach was infuriating. This wasn’t some unpleasant task he was asking you to perform, it was a monstrosity. An unthinkable nightmare. And he was acting as if he was doing you a favor by asking you to volunteer.

“Should I be thanking you?” You sneered. “Is that what you want? My gratitude?”

His expression darkened, and there was finally some real anger there.

“I’m giving you the opportunity of a lifetime. The chance to create offspring with the power to one day heal any malady—or stop dangerous anomalies with a simple touch. Not only that, it’s with a… thing that I suspect, given time, you would be inclined to fuck anyway.”

You launched upwards and headbutted him as hard as you could.

Leahy’s head snapped back, blood gushing from his nose before he clamped a hand over his face. Even though the crown of your head hurt like hell, you grinned with savage satisfaction.

The guards poured into the room. One of them shoved you down against the table and jabbed something into your neck. You yelled, tried to throw him off, but an invasive paralysis spread through your limbs.

You were unhooked from the table and dragged out the door. 049 was still kneeling on the floor, guards surrounding him, and you reached out a weak hand as your vision darkened.

Regret was immediate for the impulsive action that may have doomed you both.

Next Chapter

[blubushie]

So today, for a list of notes/shit I've gotta do to this ute to make it functional:

Tray rust: confirmed simple surface rust. Sandblast the rust off then put down bedliner.

Whatever dipshit painted the deep blue on there painted over the bevel. Gotta strip that off.

It has tow plug.

It has 1 original key, 1 spare, and 1 petrol key.

Manual choke.

Heater core needs to be flushed the bloke thinks. Might need replacing, says me. The latter's more likely.

Engine has not been tuned up since rebuild. Will need a tuning now that everything's settled.

It has new manifold gaskets on both sides, new flange gaskets on both sides, and dual exhaust.

Brake master cylinder has a booster—bloke thinks condition of master cylinder is because of shit coating that leaves the factory being the cause of them all rusting. "It's either shit metal or shit coating." I'm inclined to agree—every fucken one I've seen so far that didn't have a brand new—or painted—master cylinder is rusted to fuck. On the plus side the rust is just surface rust but I'm inclined to test that servo housing myself cuz I don't trust it.

Firewall looks good.

No water leaks, wipers are ok but probably need new pulleys.

Window rubber is tight and good, had a boot at one time.

HE HAS A SLIDE WINDOW SOMEWHERE HE CAN GIVE ME!! Probably the first thing I'm doing on this car is installing that fucken sliding window and my rifle rack.

Rear signals don't work because the pins/switches are mixed up, also horn doesn't work. Need to figure this out. If I can't do it maybe I can get that sparky down the block to have a squiz at it.

Engine sounds fucken incredible. 360 V8 with C6 tranny.

GVW is rated at 07500 so it'll hold Matilda.

Wheels are 16in 6ply.

2 petrol tanks, 20gal front & 25gal rear.

Fuel gauge doesn't work. Bloke has the new gauge ready, just hasn't installed it. Maybe there's a problem with the sending unit. Considering it doesn't work for either petrol tank I'm pretty sure it's not a float saturation problem.

Whatever dipshit installed the old manifold gaskets had the wrong size square which caused a leak (maybe F350?)—this is fixed now! She rides smooth.

Rust above windscreen rim causing improper seal along the drain rail—luckily it's not rusted through. Can be fixed but may need a plate welded on. I can do that myself.

Old BB holes in windscreen. I like them for their character but they're gonna crack the entire windscreen eventually, especially in the Australian heat as the windscreen warms. Need to replace windscreen.

One crack in dash around radio, dashboard is clean otherwise. I don't care about the crack but replace radio with an early 70s AM/FM with AUX jack.

ORIGINAL COLOUR IS PEACOCK BLUE WITH WHIMBELDON WHITE STRIPE! Restore to og paint because bloke wants me to. "I'm happy if it goes to someone who'll treat it well and make it look factory."

Passenger mirror is cloudy, needs a clean or possibly replacement.

Engine was rebuilt less that 3,000mi ago and has a 100,000mi warranty.

Bloke will get me a copy of the work order of all the work done to the ute—total of $12,000 for the work done.

"I know he did SOMETHING with the transmission." Tranny likely not rebuilt but WAS removed for alterations during engine rebuild.

Has hooks AND ringlets for turnbuckle attachment for camper.

Has rig mirrors.

Has reinforced tray springs. Has reinforced front, auxillary, and rear shocks.

No carpeting on interior. Get rubber mats I don't want blood in my carpet.

Get a seat cover so Misty doesn't ruin the vinyl.

Has manual steering and manual brakes. Get power disc brakes put in ASAP. I can do the power steering myself. In the meantime, maybe a suicide knob?

[thethistlegirlwrites]

Trapped

To her credit, Joey isn’t panicking. Yet. There are dried tear tracks on her face, but she’s not screaming or yelling.

Maybe it’s just practical. Nico had sure as hell screamed when that silver trap snapped shut on his leg, and no one came running. Maybe she’s already figured that out.

Joey is never one to waste her energy on a lost cause.

But Nico doesn’t know when to give up. 

He lunges at the vamp beside her, trying to draw attention away from Joey and onto himself. He’s pretty sure she’s been bound to the dual I-beam support pole that’s one of the few parts still standing in this old factory, but if he can give her half a chance to get away, he’ll take it.

All he succeeds in doing is hitting the end of the chain that is apparently welded to one of the floor beams that’s now buried under a dense tangle of rank grass and decaying weeds. Which is also how he missed seeing the trap waiting for him.

That, and he was paying a little too much attention to Joey, and the monster holding a silver-bladed kukri to her throat, to watch where he was stepping.

He can’t pry the trap off his leg. Every surface is coated in silver. Touching it burns his hands. The kind of grip he’d need to pry it off would leave him in so much pain he’d never be strong enough to manage it.

He can feel the trap’s teeth sinking deeper into his leg with every move he makes, but still straining to reach the flat piece of rusting steel he can see beneath another tangle of brownish leaves. If he doesn’t have to touch the trap…

The vamp steps forward, glances down at the exact piece of metal Nico’s fingers are inches from, then catches it with his boot, sending it flying, clattering, to the far end of the crumbling room.

Nico bellows something between a scream and a roar, lunging at the vamp but nowhere near close to touching him. He falls back to the floor, leg burning as the trap’s teeth dig in even further. The more he struggles, the worse it will be.

He’s not sure exactly how this day went so badly wrong, but he does know when it did. 

He’d thought it was taking Joey a long time to finish up on the third floor. But after he’d walked through every room calling for her, he’d found her mop bucket next to smashed glass with a note taped to the mop handle.

An address, and a warning. To come alone or get his mentee back in a coffin for good.

“What do you want from me?”

“I want my fledgling back.” The vamp snarls. “And you made sure I couldn’t take him.”

Nico’s first mentee was a mother of three, Roxie Conover. His second was Javier Avila. The third is Joey.

They’d never been able to determine who Javy Avila’s sire was. 

Well, they know now.

Not that Nico has a name to put with the face.

A face staring down at him while holding a blade to the neck of his mentee.

“You took something of mine,” the vamp hisses. “Now, I’m going to take something of yours.”

“Don’t you touch her. You can do whatever you want to me, just let her go.”

“Oh, no, that just wouldn’t do. I want you to know that you are powerless to stop me. Nothing you can do but watch.” He steps back slightly and swings the blade with a practiced arc, and Joey flinches back from it. “Trapped, just like I was in one of the hunters’ cages, while you took away what was mine.”

It’s starting to make a certain amount of sense. Javy was bitten in Nevada. Nevada is quite literally the wild west of hunting. There’s one official agency operating in Las Vegas, but the rest of the state is more or less patrolled by vigilantes with all sorts of fringe attitudes toward vampires, who are hard to find, harder to shut down in any legal or effective manner. A group who likes holding onto their captures and experimenting with potential cures must have had this guy.

Nico can’t say he’ll be too sorry if this vamp left a trail of destruction in the wake of his escape, but nothing excuses what he’s doing right now. 

He wouldn’t be surprised if both the knife and the trap are some of those vigilantes’ gear that this vamp decided to bring along; they’re not even close to common usage among vamps, but they’re exactly the kind of thing hunters who skirt the edges of legality are known to use. He’s not sure what group it is that favors this combination of weapons, traps, and long term captivity, but Sierra Stoker and her team probably know. 

If he lasts long enough to pass that information along, he imagines they’ll be more than willing to at least find out if this guy left anyone standing.

But at the moment, it’s not his survival he's most concerned about.

“Listen to me. She’s not my fledgling. She’s not mine.”

“But you care about all these like they are. See, that’s the problem. You traitors are ruining the natural order. Sire and fledgling. How it’s meant to be. You step in, on the side of the humans that hunt our kind down like animals, and you separate us from our children. Weaken our bonds. Make it easier for the humans to pick us off, one by one.”

“Then you don’t wanna kill her. She’s one o’ us.”

“Don’t you get it yet? She’s not one of mine.” The vamp snarls. “Which means killing her is doing my fledglings a favor.”

The knife moves away from Joey’s neck, but Nico knows that’s not a good thing. Staking is the preferred method of killing vampires, since it’s far easier to conceal stakes than a knife big enough to do the job right, but decapitation will do the trick as long as you impale the heart after. It’s a more complicated, but flashier method, and enough Sunrisers favored it that Nico knows the basics. Like the fact that to get a quick, clean cut, you need the arc of a wide swing. Trying to cut with the blade close to the body is time consuming and messy.

He knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he is about to watch Joey die. 

This time, the metal pinning him down is wrapped around his ankle instead of stabbed through his thigh, and this time the terrified face of the person he promised to protect but can’t is Joey, not Vin, but the past and the present are blurring around him, and he can’t quite tell if he’s in a warehouse in New York or a derelict factory in LA. 

All he knows is, he’s going to have another person’s death on his conscience for the rest of his unnatural life.

Then Nico hears a footstep behind him.

“Put down the knife.”

He’s got to be hallucinating from the silver in his blood, because there’s no way Maira Lawson just happened to appear exactly when he needs backup.

The vamp moves in a flash, putting himself behind Joey and holding the knife to her throat, pressed tightly again, so much so that Nico can see and smell a bead of blood welling up and sliding down the blade.

“I think maybe you should put your weapons down.”

“Last chance.” Lawson’s voice is even. She’s a negotiator, a highly skilled diplomat. She knows when to push and when to back off.

Nico has to remind himself that Joey’s life is in the hands of the best possible person for the job.

The knife presses a little deeper, and a drop of blood splashes onto the cracked cement just as the crack of gunfire echoes through the space.

The vamp drops the knife and drops like a stone, howling.

Several figures move at once, feet shuffling while snapping repeated warnings of “don’t step in another one of those traps” with “you watch your own step” as the reply. 

Someone kneels next to him, hands working around the trap’s springs and jaws. He’s dimly aware that it’s Kira Burke, who he’s passingly familiar with from the agency, but he’s paying the most attention to Joey. She’s slumped against whatever cable was holding her to the support beam, almost unmoving as two more of the hunters free her. Someone cuffs the vamp, then drags him away, but it’s hard to see anything right now with the lights the humans need in order to see cutting back and forth across the area, occasionally swinging to hit him directly in the eyes.

He just needs to see that Joey’s okay. 

“I’ve got it. Pull your leg out, now.” Burke’s voice is strained, she’s got the jaws of the trap pried apart but he knows she won’t be able to hold it forever. He yanks his leg free and struggles to stand, shifting weight off his bad leg. He has to get to Joey.

He takes one step before he stumbles.

“She’s alright. Sit down before you fall down,” Lawson orders, stepping in front of him. 

He does, mostly because if he fell, he’d fall on her, and no one would ever let him live that down.

She’s brought the cavalry, looks like. John and Sierra Stoker, and parts of both their teams. Burke from John’s, as well as Barrett from Sierra’s. John’s wrestling the vamp into cooperation, while Sierra and Barrett work on freeing Joey. Actually, it looks like Sierra’s doing most of the work getting her loose, and Barrett is keeping her calm. Of all of them aside from Nico, he’s the one she knows best. 

He hasn’t actually realized Jemison is here as well until he catches a glimpse of the guy climbing down from a crumbling section of wall, slinging a well-worn rifle, without a scope, across his shoulder.

“Don’t you wear glasses?” Nico asks as the kid walks up. Not that he’s not grateful, but the slightest missed shot could have put that bullet through Joey’s skull. 

“For reading. I’m farsighted.” Jemison replies. “I was barking squirrels with my dad since I was old enough to hold the rifle steady.”

Nico doesn’t want to even ask what that means. 

He’s just glad that today, it means Joey is alive.

“Heard you were having a little trouble.” Lawson bends down beside him, inspecting the damage done by the silver-toothed trap with a grimace. “After he tried to get into the Avilas’ house, I got a call from Javy. He said his sire had shown up and tried to make Javy let him in, but thankfully Javy was able to refuse and block him out. We sent a team to his house as soon as we heard. Everyone’s okay, just shaken up. Unfortunately, given Javy’s one of the people who drives his work van home, I guess this vamp saw it in the driveway. The team found one of the windows punched out, and the clipboard with staff schedules that Javy said he always kept in the glove box was gone.” She frowns. “I tried to call you and warn you someone would probably be coming after you, but never could get hold of you.”

Probably because he left his phone behind at the last job in a rush when he realized Joey was missing. 

“H-how’d you find us?”

“Nico. When you were getting your business started, who gave you vans?”

“You guys. You were replacin’ half the motor pool and…” He trails off. “You never pulled the trackers. You sneaky…”

“Don’t say what I think you’re going to say,” Lawson replies. “It was in the agreements you signed when you leased the fleet.”

Damn. He really needs to start paying more attention to fine print.

Although in this case, it probably saved him and Joey. 

The vamp is hauled out past them, snarling and snapping at Nico until John Stoker wrestles him into the back of a holding van that’s just pulled up to what used to be a loading bay door. 

“He won’t be a problem much longer. Once we match his venom to Javy’s kit, he’ll get the stake.”

Honestly, after what this vamp has been through, that might be a mercy. 

Quick footsteps clatter across the open space, and then Joey is collapsing onto the floor beside Nico, a hand finding his and wrapping cold fingers through his own. 

“What’s a vamp doing running around with gear from the Hawthorne Hedge?” Sierra Stoker asks, holding the knife up and tilting it as the light in Lawson’s hand catches the blade, running her fingers over a pair of branching, entangled H’s stamped into the metal near the hilt. 

Knew she’d recognize the handiwork.

“Same with the trap,” Jemison answers, flipping it over and pointing out the stamp on the bottom of the plate. “Maybe he was a vigilante who got turned?”

“From what I could tell,” Nico manages, trying to sit up and wincing when it jars his leg, “he was one of their captives, managed to break himself out. There might not be anything left of that group, depending on how thorough he was.”

“Looks like we’re going to be heading to Nevada to check it out. Again.” Stoker grins. “And it’s gonna be my turn as road trip DJ.”

Jemison and Barrett both groan, but the Stokers just high-five as John returns from the van. 

Sierra’s team move off in a cluster, discussing their next move, and Burke walks up with two small packs of blood in her hand. 

“You’re both injured. No arguments.” She places a pack in each of their hands, then backs off, along with the others, to let the two of them feed in peace.

Nico ignores the blood in favor of putting an arm around Joey’s shoulder. She’s probably in some sort of shock, and while the blood will take care of the physical damage from tonight, there are deeper wounds he’s worried about.

“Hey. You okay?”

“No. I will be, but…not right now.” She’s shaking, the tension bleeding out of her. “You?”

It’s probably not wise to lie to her if she’s been honest with him. “Not really.” He pulls her in against him, running a hand over her hair the way he’s seen her do with Olivia. “I’m sorry.” It’s his fault. It’s all his fault. This vamp took her because of him. Because of what he’s done. “This is my fault.”

“For helping someone else just like me?” Joey’s voice is muffled in his sweatshirt. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He doesn’t have anything to say in response to that. Just sits there and holds her and wishes doing the right thing didn’t have so many consequences.

(You can read this story and more from this universe on my WorldAnvil here!)

@catwingsathena @nade2308 @the-one-and-only-valkyrie @telltaleclerk @ettawritesnstudies  @writeouswriter @whump-place @the-lovely-wren

[class-1b-bull]

Can we share some nonsense about class B since they don't get the spot light enough?

Wrote most of this during my break at the cunt factory so it may be a little rushed /hj

Not proofread we die like men

Awase - one of his favorite things to go is weld one of his friends shoes to the ground before taking their phone or walet so they have to chase him barefoot.

Sen - during training once he missed a punch and drilled himself into the concrete and they had to get 3+ people to get him out

Kamakiri - once when Kamakiri was training with Tetsutetsu he trew him through a wall only for it to lead to the girls bathroom... they had to clean the entire dorms for like 3 weeks lol

Kuroiro - he tried to compliment his crush one time but the way he phrased it sounded like an insult and he was too scared to correct them when they pointed it out. Rip.

Kendo - there has been multiple times where one of her classmates has called her mom accidentally.

Kodai - she accidentally scared the shit out of Kamakiri once when she tried to ask him a question (he didnt see her walk up to him lmao)

Komori - she has forced awase to help her sew clothes before. He welds the fabric in place so it sticks before she secures it. The only reason awase agrees to do this is because she has a video of him falling down some stairs lmao

Shiozaki - her vine hair has thorns in it so its pretty common for her hair to latch onto one of her classmates clothes. (The class had to spend over an hour untangling her vines from Shishidas fur once)

Shishida - Shishida has a designed spot in the living area because he sheds so much. That chair is covered in fur 24/7 and its vacuumed twice a day

Shoda - he climbed onto the kitchen counter to reach something that was particularly high up once but he ended up falling lmao. He layed on the kitchen floor for like 15 minutes out of embarrassment even though no one was around

Pony - she still cant read Japanese all that well so theres been multiple times where she walked into the guys locker room/ bathroom

Tsubaraba - he tried to impress a girl by using his solid air to ask for her number but he ended up having a panic attack in front of her lmao

Tetsutetsu - he unironically says hes getting hard as a way to say hes gonna use his quirk. He hasent figured out why everyone gives him weird looks when he says that yet.

Tokage - once rin caught her eating an entire tub of icecream by herself on the kitchen floor at like 3am. Poor dude just wanted a glass of water.

Manga - one time he drew and cut out a life-sized version of himself and put his uniform on the cut out to see if vlad king would notice. He didnt.

Honenuki - one time honenuki apologized to a wall after walking into it. Only to then (immediately after) apologize to the same wall for thinking it was a person.

Bondo - he helps manga with arts and crafts all the time. And he was one of the main people that helped manga with his cutout mission (read mangas for context)

Monoma - the one time he said something nice about class A someone somehow got a video of it and showed it to their entire class. Class B treated monoma with that video for almost a full month lmao

Reiko - reiko and kuroiro work together to scare the shit out of there class every now and then but they stopped after it caused Kamakiri to punch an innocent manga in the face

Rin - not really some random nonsense he has done but I like to think if you press the right pressure points he activates his quirk involuntarily. Kinda like when a doctor hits that one spot in your knee and your leg kicks up.

I have no clue why but I really struggled writing for some of the students on this one rip... my mind was empty lmao

[seat-safety-switch]

Ask any racer, any real racer – they want to drive a really shitty car. There’s an undeniable thrill in operating a purebred, fire-snorting monster of a race car, and competing at the upper echelons of motorsport. And then, there’s the entirely more appetizing thrill of kicking some Boxster owner’s teeth in using a 1989 Mazda 323 that is best described as “weathered.”

One of the truisms of motorsport is that you can’t buy a victory, although it certainly helps to have been born rich enough that you can hire good instructors and spend a lot of your life at the track, practicing. All the advantages are on your side, then, and it just comes down to the big day. If you can whomp those folks with a grocery getter, it adds some spice to life.

There’s a real appeal to a piece-of-crap commuter car, even without the class ranking (which is never good enough to offset the crap-ness.) You don’t have to worry too much about prepping it, unless you’re the kind of person who wants to. Slap some half-decent tires on there, take out the fast food garbage from the back seat. Strip the chassis, acid-dip the metal to shave milligrams off of it, and add additional spot welds for extra bracing. Design and fabricate elaborate but factory-appearing suspension components using your engineering job’s resources when the boss isn’t looking. Take a nail file to the backside of your hubcaps, the scrutineers surely won’t look at that.

I don’t want to make this a whole class discussion, although class features prominently in autocross, which like all motorsports features a prominent and nigh-impenetrable rulebook. Understand that rulebook, navigate through it, they promise, and somewhere in there is a combination of mistakes and oversights that the Dark Gods of the SCCA have put into your hands that will allow you to brutalize your enemies by wielding a totally demoralizing piece of automotive garbage. With some tactical know-how, you can protest your opponent’s stock vehicle well into the realms of “experimental prototype” and a class multiplier that is only slightly lower than a giraffe’s asshole. And you can shave a second or two off your own time by knowing exactly which parts were not featured on the Mexican-market version of your car so you can cut those off while remaining whole-ass stock.

Above all else, go out there and have fun. If you’re the kind of person who has more fun winning, though, by all means. If you’re like me, and just want to have fun day out beating the brains out of a car that shouldn’t be on the road, much less open motorsport competition, I hope you also have fun walking home. I’ll help you push.

[themarginalthinker]

Dear Fellow Traveler

There are other vampires in the world, and the world itself is a big, big place. David takes a little trip.

-

Sooo......this is an odd one. Basically so far outside of Lost Boys canon it almost isn't anymore, but it's also a small look into some vampire worldbuilding Berd and I have done. David knows people outside of his pack, and they know him. (They certainly know Max, and that's not a good thing.)

Anyway, here you go. Enjoy?

-

It's not hard to find what you're looking for if you know what to look for.

David meanders down the streets of a late-night San Jose. The place hadn't changed too much since his last visit, a couple years ago. Marko and Paul hadn't been wrong - it was a city of many people, from all over. Most of California seemed like that.

San Jose was not Santa Carla, however. Few places were, David would give it that. Further inland, the air didn't hold salt and brine anymore, wasn't thick with humidity that gripped the scent of whatever organic life passed through it.

The blood here was of a different kind. Smeared on concrete thick with grit and dust. In the ash of smoke from things rolled into cigarettes that even Paul likely hadn't had the time to try all of.

David follows it. It makes no attempts to hide itself.

Humans couldn't smell it, after all.

It takes him past downtown - predictably. Hunting grounds for those with the charm, the grace to stalk the nightclub and bar, and for those without, plenty of pickings in the back alleys and unfortunates sleeping on park benches and bus routes. But one never mixed supper with sleep, and David veered off that path, following the one laid out. He glances up, to the side of a bricked up building. There were less businesses here, tucked away in second-story lofts and between condemned flats. He finds what he expects to see:

A tag, small enough to not draw the eye, in faded brown, sealed below disguising black paint. A calaveras, its grinning teeth showing points at the canines, and the moon in pretty, decorated swirls at its bone forehead.

He'd been following the trail for the last hour. The blood was getting fresher.

The streets are darker out here. Less cars, and those that do pass him are beaters at best. Spaces between buildings are trash heaps, massive junk piles. Sometimes, he thinks he sees something darting out of view when he looks up to the glassless windows of a building. Senses a shift in the air as he passes along a certain way, avoiding the scattered streetlights.

Finally, he comes to a stop.

A warehouse, utterly dilapidated, stretching along before a huge chunk of abandoned manufacturing factory property. Surrounded on all sides by the rusting, decaying waste of metal, the exoskeleton of a once-great beast twisted and scattered to and fro. The back end of it even caving in - but.

If one looked, one could see details in the dark. If one could see in the dark.

Certain places in the roof, patched over with welded bits of sheet metal. Open spaces in the sides, to same. Holes stoppered up. David himself stood before a door to an entryway that used to lead to offices inside, or at least a coatroom of sorts - but the door wasn't just barred with lock and key, no. The hinges had been welded shut to match the patched holes in the roof. To the side, little windows, and behind them nothing but a wall of cinderblocks. One couldn't force their way inside if they tried.

Etched into the glass of one of those windows, another little sugar skull design. Sharp teeth. Moon at its forehead.

"It hasn't been that long, Williams. Can't have forgotten where the front door is."

David smiles, and it's sharp.

"No, it hasn't, and no, I haven't. I was just waiting for a proper welcome, is all."

-

David doesn't know their real name.

Vampires who headed clan hubs rarely needed them, or kept them for long after they took the position.

The vampire who greeted him outside was shorter than David, thinner shoulders, smaller over all, but their face hard set. Copper skin warm even in the darkness, their crow black hair cut short up the back, held in a wolftail with a leather cord.

The leather wasn't animal.

Their clothing was a little more familiar style - not quite the wild fancies of the Boardwalks and the coast with its warm winds and wiles, but something that seemed to fade into the mechanical park above them. Faded denim jacket, bleached into curling, skeletal markings. Lines of fine beadwork amid the torn jeans and hole-riddled long sleeve shirt. Thick boots that had seen more wear and repairs than any sane person would think to use to keep them in working order.

Some of that leather wasn't animal either.

They had brought David down in a new way. A way David, in truth, didn't know. He'd been correct in saying that he'd known the literal doors to the building weren't the way inside, but apparently the real entrance had moved since last he'd come to San Jose. Just before the entrance to the warehouse wasteland, there was a small, unassuming grate laid into the foundations of what would have been a runnoff channel. It came out with only a small application of superhuman strength, and the pair had slipped down - guests first.

The crawl space of a concrete pipe had turned into a constructed tunnel, leading to a basement room where they came up through the floor. Into the clan grounds proper.

David had asked about that, as they climbed the stairs up to the main level, the floor of the half-collapsed warehouse - an aesthetic choice, or a necessity?

"Just young idiots, making noise," the Clan Vamp said.

"Bad enough to warrant a doorman?" David had asked with a raised eyebrow.

The Clan Vamp's smile is thin. "Enough to know you were here when you crossed city limits.

Well, shit.

"This place really has gone to the dogs," David tuts.

"Was it ever anywhere else?"

They exchange smiles - with teeth. Not full teeth, for David's words were not said with malice, and the reply not given in offense. But a flash of fangs to let the other know a boundary had been met. Eye to eye.

They finish climbing the steps from the basement level, and step out into the clan grounds.

In the center of the huge, open space, three fires in low bins flickered. Enough to cast long, dark shadows on the tall walls stretching high above. All around, curtains hung from rafters, some still in their original place, and others torn down and twisted about to form more private quarters. Strings of fairy lights wound through it all, here and there, in mismatched areas of pillows and mattresses, true nests. Further back, in the darker corners, hung bodies, close together or further apart. Those who preferred to roost rather than sleep flat.

Around the fires, similarly were a few groups of couches and chairs and lounges, scattered messes of more places to lay and sit.

And people were sitting. Voices filtered through the air now, shifting like the firelight. Low tones, among groups of twos and threes, occasionally someone taking off to roost in the rafters, or return to the privacy of a nest. Snatches of music came and went, as someone somewhere in the mess tuned a radio.

David takes it all in.

"Is the party over?" He asks the Clan Vamp, nodding at the...somewhat quiet night. He remembers what it was like the last time he came.

They glance at him, a long look full of many emotions, before walking forward, David in tow.

"Sure. Since el caballo de caza decided to come around."

David braces himself.

"How many lost?" He asks quietly.

The Clan Vamp didn't answer right away. They come to a couch, low slung in the age of its use, and they sit themselves down, sinking into a corner of it with familiar ease. They gesture for David to take the opposite end, and he does. Above their heads, in the rafters, the radio is finally tuned, and something slow, melodic and heavy in the bass guitar plays.

The firelight dances across the Clan Vamp's features as they reach into their pockets, pulling out a paper carton. They take two hand-rolled cigarettes, and light one in the flame of the bin fire. They use that to light the other. They hand one to David, who takes it, and draws.

It's not fully tobacco, and David recognizes the taste of familiar drugs, and something unique he's not likely to find anywhere else.

It's a few long minutes of silence, between them. Enjoying the smoke, the amiable air.

Finally, with a flick of a finger to rid the tip of the fag of ash where it puddles on the concrete floor, the Clan Vamp speaks.

"Three packs gone, all come here from Reno. One because they both wanted the same hunting ground, wouldn't listen to negotiation. Other two because the fighting drew line of fire from Hunters."

Loud, young idiots indeed.

The Clan Vamp's unoccupied fingers drum a steady beat on their own thigh. They lick their teeth.

"Lost a childe."

David blinks.

He looks to them. Their dark eyes weren't on him, or the rest of the clan grounds. Rather, they'd focused on the fire, almost transfixed. Their mind elsewhere. Distant.

"Shit," he says flatly.

"No one you knew," they say with a shrug.

David takes another draw of smoke, holding it, letting it curl through him. Watching his own long exhale billow upwards into the dark ceiling. A pair of bodies flitted through the space, unnaturally fast, unnaturally quiet. The pair of vampires above giggling to themselves as they moved about. David's eyes came back down.

As if the knowing mattered.

David thinks about Paul, staying back with Marko, despite the two of them knowing he was going tonight. Wanting to come. Knowing they couldn't.

He thinks about them being here, if...something happened.

"You gonna stay long?" They ask him at length.

David's mouth twists into a grimace he can't quite pass off as a smile.

"Daddy would get worried," he answers.

The Clan Vamp barks a laugh, low and humorless. "Damn. Thought you might'a come out here to tell me some good news, Williams."

"Nope," David drawls, popping the 'p'. "Same as it always was. He's opened a fucking business."

"No kidding."

"Mm. Actual, legitimate thing. Videos and TVs and all that junk. Makes a killing, apparently."

Another laugh between them, only a little bit lighter.

"How long you think he's got?" The Clan Vamp asks, sucking down the last of their cigarette.

David huffs, leaning further back into the couch.

"For as long as the Devil's got patience."

"La bendición."

David grins. It's only a little dulled.

[denial-permanente]

Ask for Tom.

After wearing a cage for a week or more I seem to develop almost a callous where the bottom of the ring constantly tugs at the skin in that area where the back of the scrotum attaches to the body. I've tried multiple lubes, lotions, and most recently, lip balm to try and allow the ring to slide more freely. Re-applying has very limited results.

Is this something that is a constant issue for most wearers or am I missing the remedy, somehow?

BTW, the lip balm seems to work amazingly well as a long-lasting, non-absorbing/evaporating lube for general use. I apply it to my head and shaft before putting the cage on and it seems to allow perfect placement and alignment in the cage every time after a few minutes of settling. Although, it has limited results with the specific area I mentioned.

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Also, Thank you so much for all you and Mrs Edge do for the community!

X

Most guys have a seam where the left and right halves were assembled at the factory. On some models, they were a bit heavy on the weld so the seam is thicker and less pliable. 😏

If you're wearing a cage with a cuff ring that is made from round material, it will place more pressure at that point. You could try switching to an A272 style cage with a cuff ring that is more flat inside, which would spread that pressure out a bit.

And look, it may just take a lot, like weeks or months, of daily 24/7 wear in order to get your body adapted.

The lip balm likely works because it is waxy and does not easily wear off. I hadn't thought of that before, but I think it's worth trying. And it's easy to keep a tube in your pocket to reapply during the day.

[saintsofwarding]

WE SHALL BE MONSTERS

Header by @trout-scout​

Chapter 22: A Dream of Sunlight

"Hey, Donna."

She stood in the candlelight. The candles were different; there were no flowers, no barren branches, no graves, but she stood the same way she always had, still and spectral, the black silk of her veil rustling with the almost imperceptible tilt of her head.

Heisenberg braced the head of his hammer on the ground, watching Donna Beneviento's back and shoulders.

"You're looking..." He gave her a slow once-over. "...not dead. Rose's work, I assume? Or did she get that meathead Redfield at the BSAA to dig your ass from the dirt?"

She said nothing.

Heisenberg lifted his eyebrows. "You listening to me?" he said, snapping his fingers. "Or you off in La-La-Land?"

"She doesn't want to talk to you," Angie hissed.

Heisenberg grimaced. "You always were a creepy little fucker, you know that?"

"She's a part of me, Karl," Donna said, her voice that familiar low, bittersweet rasp Heisenberg knew so well, knew like a bad dream, like the aching pain of a fresh bruise. It had been so long since he'd heard her speak, so many years of believing she was dead, dead with the rest, dead and gone. "You should know that by now."

"Yeah. Still creepy as shit. You're a dollmaker, right? Why not fix her up, give her a cuter face or something?"

"My father made her," Donna said, simply. "The last gift he gave me before he...was gone. I'm not changing her."

She looked round. Heisenberg glimpsed the glint of her single eye beneath her veil. "You understand, I think. Better than you pretend to."

Heisenberg let out a sigh, leaning on the handle of the hammer like it was a cane. "Listen," he said, hooking his finger toward Dimitrescu, Moreau, and Mia on the far side of the cave church. "I'm leaving. Wanted to say take care of the kid or else."

"Or else?" A rare glint of humor lit her voice. It had been years since she'd sounded that way, years since- everything. That had been rare, too. Her happiness. Her contentment. Her peace. Days in the garden, in the kind summer sunlight. Him, and Donna, and Claudia, the three of them fighting their quiet rebellion. His surety that nothing could break them apart.

Nothing but Miranda, of course, inevitably. Nothing but death.

Death, and the grief that came after, and Heisenberg had never been able to look Donna in the eye again, never able to face her after Claudia had died.

Selfish, cowardly. Drowning it under the weight of his work, his vengeance. More machine than man day by day. The more metal he welded to himself, the less of his human flesh would show.

Now his factory was gone. Now, the engines were silent. And now, as ever, he wanted more and more and more. Now, as ever, he yearned for the impossible. Not armies to lay waste to Miranda's years of murder and manipulation. Not bloodshed and vengeance. Not even power- his own, Rose's, whatever. Now, all he wanted was rest. Peace.

For all of them.

Even Alcina deserved that.

"Or else-" Heisenberg began. "Or else I'll bash your fuckin' skull in."

Donna laughed, the sound soft and silvery. "I understand. You care for her."

"Heh. The kid's not too bad."

"You have taken care of her for many years. Is that right?"

"Yeah."

A slight nod. "Good."

"Sure, sure, give me a halo and call me a saint. Donna- uh." He shifted, back and forth. "Sorry," he said. "About- fuck, about all of it. Your sister. What I did to you, to her..."

"That was Miranda, not you. I see that now."

"Can't blame everything on Miranda." He paused. "Well, yeah, I can, but- uh, you know what I mean..."

"I miss her," Donna said. She cradled Angie to her chest, her knuckles sharp through the delicate skin of her hands. "I miss her so much."

She meant Claudia. Of course. He ground his teeth together, half-turning away. He couldn't deal with this shit right now, not with everything, not with Rose the way she was. "Yeah. Me fuckin' too, Donna. Listen, good chat, but-"

"Karl."

He stopped.

A beat-

Then he turned.

She'd faced him. She'd removed her veil. Her fine-boned face was lit softly by the candlelight, her black hair mussed from being beneath her headgear, her single dark eye steady, set on him. He'd forgotten how beautiful she was under the veil.

"For a long time, I..." she began. "I think I was dead. Before...before Winters, I mean. I think I was dead but my body did not know it yet. A ghost trapped within a doll. And my true death, when Winters gave it to me, was a kind of relief. Locked in the Black God's dreams, I finally found rest. I felt nothing there. Do you understand?"

"Yeah," Heisenberg said, softly.

"And now...maybe. There is...life again. Or the beginnings of life. And I cannot help but be glad. And I am...I think..."

A faint smile touched her lips. "...Happy."

"Heh. It's a good look for you." He tilted his head, looking at her over the rim of his glasses. "Always knew you were tougher than most gave you credit for."

Donna nodded, her momentary smile fading.

"Claudia would be...proud of you," she said, halting, a little uncertain. "Of who you are. What you've done. And happy, too. That you remember her. That you're here now."

"That we both are, Donna," Heisenberg told his sister, as gently as he could bear.

And this time, Donna Beneviento's true smile- unseen for so long, missed and craved for so long- trembled on her face. Soft as the candlelight, rare and sweet as a mountain flower opening in the sun.

***

He hated goodbyes. So when he left to join Moreau and Dimitrescu, he didn't give one to Rose or Donna. He looked back at them both, standing together in the candlelit church, and gave them a nod.

"Don't fuck this up," he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Good luck to you, too," Rose called. He grinned at her, taking her in.

If this was-

Nah. Don't think that way. Only make you mushy. He turned, and away he strode, and didn't look back at them again.

"We good?" Mia asked him quietly as he grabbed her arm at the doorway leading from the church.

"Yeah. Ready to go and slice you open in the fish-man's hovel. Your lucky day, sweetheart."

She let out a shaky laugh. "Believe it or not," she said, "I've had worse."

"Wait," Rose called, from behind them. "...Mom."

Mia stopped with a slight wince. She caught Heisenberg's eye, then looked back, Heisenberg keeping his grip on her arm. Rose looked pale, but she faced Mia down, not looking away.

"Good luck to both of you," she said. "I...I mean that."

Mia gave her a small smile, a nod.

Then they moved on, and the church doors shuddered shut behind them, and Rose was gone at last.

Moreau waited down the passageway, at the shoreline of a flooded subterranean chamber, black water lapping inches from his slimy, pallid toes. Dimitrescu looked faintly nauseated, one hand propped on her prodigious hip, but Heisenberg pushed past her and toward their brother.

"What's good, freak?" he said.

"I..." Moreau pointed. "I have to go through...there."

"There? The fuckin' lake?"

"No! The passageway." One eye faced him, looking at him with a kind of baleful reproach. "The tunnels, Karl," he added, as if speaking to a particularly slow child.

"What tunnels? You finally cracked?"

"The underwater tunnels! There are hundreds and hundreds of them. You didn't know?"

"I- uh. No, guess not."

Dimitrescu let out a derisive snort. "That's the first time I've heard you admit your inadequacies, Heisenberg. Miraculous. Perhaps you've finally grown a sense of decorum after all."

"The day you grow a humble bone in your oversized body is gonna be the one for miracles," Heisenberg snorted. "Come on, then, Moreau, show us what you got."

Moreau dithered. "It's...um..."

Heisenberg leaned closer, tightening his grip on his hammer. His pulse threaded through his palm; the memory of helicopter blades churning the air filled his head. "What is it? Get a fuckin' move on. We don't have time to dick around."

"I...I'm h-h-having a hard time-"

"-Mutating?" Heisenberg let out a bark of laughter. "Don't we all fuckin' know that, fishstick."

"Oh, please," Dimitrescu muttered, rolling her eyes. "What a nightmare."

"Shut up, bloodbag," Heisenberg snapped. "Unless you got something useful to say, keep those fangs hidden-"

"Useful! As if you could know anything about usefulness!"

"Stop," Moreau moaned, clutching his head as he swung back and forth and back and forth in anxiety. Mia was staring at Heisenberg with a kind of appalled look. "Please...stop...I don't...I don't want to fight anymore..."

"Hey," Mia whispered. Heisenberg cut off his next retort as she knelt by Moreau's side, her hand on his shoulder. She began to stroke his arm, slow and soothing, her sweater sleeve pulled up over her hand to protect it from his acidic discharge. "Hey...Moreau, it's gonna be all right. You need to calm down. Okay? Listen to my voice."

"I-I-I-I'm gonna disappoint everyone, like always, I want Moppet, she can help me, where's Moppet!"

"She's, uh, not here right now. But I'm here. Breathe for me. Can you breathe? It looks like..." She glanced up at his hunchback, pulsating so wildly it looked like basketballs in a waterbed. "It seems like your Cadou is connected to you in such a way that any emotional strain puts extreme stress on it, threatens to overload its mycelial connections to you. That's probably why you have such a hard time with it."

Heisenberg settled back, eyebrows lifted. Even Dimitrescu had dispensed with her permanent resting bitch face to watch what Mia was doing.

"You...you know what's wrong?" Moreau stammered. The pulsating began to slow.

Mia nodded. "I know, it's got to hurt. Just keep doing what you're doing. You can control this, Mr. Moreau."

"Can I?" Moreau whispered wetly.

"You can."

"I can," Moreau echoed, his voice thick with wonderment. "I can!"

Mia stepped back as Moreau tottered forward, as he lifted his arms, as he tipped off the lip of the subterranean lake and hit the black water with a great plash.

He sank in a plume of bubbles.

"Shit," Heisenberg said, peering down after him. "Either you just worked some kind of miracle, or we lost him forever."

"Yes, well, the arguing was going great, so." Mia glanced up at Heisenberg. "...When I worked for the Connections, part of my job was, um..."

He tipped down his glasses. "Yeah?"

She drew a short breath. "I would imprint on the BOWs. Part of that involved establishing an emotional connection I could exploit to control them, if they began to rebel against their genetic programming. It didn't work with Eveline in the end, but I guess old training dies slow."

"Guess it does-"

The lake vibrated.

Heisenberg looked up, cutting off his next words. So did Mia. Even Dimitrescu stood straighter, the glistening razor tips of her claws sliding from her fingertips. Another vibration hummed from the lake, so strong he felt it in his boot soles through the rock at his feet. The black water slopped at the lake shore. Waves broke out across its surface, choppy as the sea in storm.

Something huge was heaving down there, something pale, something rising.

The water glassed into a vast swell; Mia stumbled back, but Heisenberg stayed where he was, watching it grow and grow-

The swell burst, and a roar filled the cavern, echoing off its distant ceiling. A wave of icy water drenched Heisenberg to the skin; he lifted his dripping hair from his eyes as great jaws snapped at the air, gnashing, tooth-lined, sweeping back and back into a body covered with a pelt of rolling, tumorous eyes.

"-And thank fuck for that!" Heisenberg said, with a laugh at the shocked look on Mia's face.

Heisenberg had only seen Moreau's mutant form a few times- he didn't make it a habit to go down to his reservoir except the time or two Miranda had forced him to go fix the sluice gate's operating mechanism, and, once, during a period of almost unendurable boredom, when he'd gone to borrow some of Moreau's movies. Now, as it reared before him, a mutant lungfish from hell, he couldn't help but stifle a dickish grin.

"Moreau, Moreau," he said, with appreciation. "You sexy beast. I know it's hardly the time and place, but I gotta say, you never looked better."

"Play nice," Mia whispered, giving him a little slap on the arm.

"Come on!" The jaws split wide; within, nestled like the stamen inside a particularly fucked-up flower, was a pallid, twisted humanoid torso with Moreau's familiar snaggleteeth. It flapped its hands in an excited gesture. "There's room for everyone! Get in! Get in!"

"You can't be serious," Dimitrescu said.

"Alcina, you bathe in blood," Heisenberg said.

"Blood," she told him, "is delicious."

"Whatever," Heisenberg said. "Sick of this stupid conversation anyway."

His hammer was off his shoulders in a heartbeat. Before she could protest, react, stop him, he'd smacked it full-force into her lower back; she stumbled forward with a scream, straight into Moreau's jaws.

"Better hustle," he told Mia, holding out his arm. She grabbed his hand, and as they hurried after Dimitrescu, Moreau's jaws closed over them in a snap, trapping them in warm, wet, stinking darkness.

During the long, lightless, airless journey, she never once let go.

***

Moreau spat them onto the reservoir shore in a truly astoundingly-vile spray of filthy water, saliva, acid, and bile.

Heisenberg sailed through the air and crashed to the shore, soaked trench coat slapping against his body. Seconds later his hammer thudded to the damp ground, inches from his head. He rolled over, blinking away the worst of Moreau's slime. Mia was sprawled a few feet away, looking like a Barbie who'd been dunked in a septic tank by some psychopathic toddler.

"You alive, Winters?" Heisenberg said.

"I...I think so-" She climbed to her hands and knees, then grimaced as she shook a dead fish from her hair. "Ugh- this is gonna take like twenty showers to scrub off, isn't it-"

Enraged shouts filled the air; he looked up to see Dimitrescu stalking toward him, her long black hair now matted with Moreau-vomit.

"You-" she cried, voice shaking so hard she could scarcely get whole words out. "You- vile, you- traitorous, wretched-"

"Alci, Alci, can't we just be friends?"

Her hand snapped out; her claws slid free. "I would rather die again."

Fuck this. Fuck her. They could pull this without the world's biggest bitch interfering. "That can be arranged-"

"Stop it!"

The wail cut between them, a howl of such unprecedented force Alcina actually did stop, and Heisenberg too, the both of them turning in shock to the sight of Moreau, quivering, crawling from the water in his humanoid form once more, clad only in a pair of ragged trousers. Mia crouched by his side, helping haul him onto the icy shore.

"Stop it," he said again. "You...ruin everything, both of you! You made Mother mad. You made us all so uncomfortable. You need to stop now. And if you don't..."

His voice dropped, deep as a well and nearly as sinister. "I'm...I'm gonna transform, and when I eat you this time...I'm not gonna spit you out."

Heisenberg began to laugh. Dimitrescu gave him a flat look, but he didn't stop, bracing his hands on his knees, doubled over as the laughs turned to ugly hacking coughs, spewing excess water over the shore.

"Fuck," he managed, between coughs. "Heh...little Sal's grown himself some roe."

"We need to go." Moreau shambled toward him, pushing him aside with a sassy little shoulder-clock. "Hurry, hurry."

Heisenberg watched him and Mia go, then glanced up at Alcina, removed his hat, and shook his head like a soaked lycan, making sure to get as much slime-water on her as possible.

They hiked up the snowy hillside. Below stretched the reservoir, its great sluice-gate standing like a triumphal arch through the blizzard. Spotlights speared the snow, illuminating dizzying flurries of white; Heisenberg sent out his awareness as the helicopter roared past, lights grazing the snow, the powerful beam barely missing their group, but the machine was too far off; his power brushed it, and then it was gone.

"Hunting us down," Heisenberg muttered. He glanced at Dimitrescu. "Makes for a change, don't it?"

"It's right up here." Moreau pointed as he scrambled up a narrow path cut into the hillside. "Right-"

His words crumpled into a gasp as one bare foot crunched down on crystal. Heisenberg joined him, silent as he surveyed the hillside before them. Mist rolled away, exposing not a clean expanse of snow and rock, but a killing field.

Lycans. Dozens of them. Each and every one of them: dead. By now, they were little more than crumbling heaps of crystal, ribs gaping open to the sky, the remnants of great fanged skulls pocked with crater-like bullet holes.

Heisenberg bent to pluck a tooth from the snow, a single curved cuspid the length of a dagger. He bounced it in his palm. A varcolac tooth. There had to be three or four skeletons big enough to be varcolac out here. Ouroboros had mowed them down, had used their fancy anti-mutant rounds on them. Had blasted them into nothingness, ancient beasts bristling with boyars' spears. Consigned them to the dirt.

Ouroboros must have cleared this hillside in their initial sweep of the place, and the lycans, being lycans, had neither the brains nor a hive leader to command them to fall back. So they'd died, every last one of them.

He flicked the tooth to the snow. Stupid things.

"Humanity," Dimitrescu murmured, her voice dripping with scorn, and something else. Sorrow, Heisenberg thought. Strange. Every time she'd been forced to interact with lycans before, she'd dismissed them as brutish beasts beneath her notice. "A plague. All-consuming. What else do they do but destroy, to assure themselves they are not monstrous, to conquer their own fears of the dark."

Mia lowered her head, her gaze hard.

"They aren't all daughter-killers, Dimitrescu," Heisenberg said. "Don't you remember being human?"

She curled her lip. "I remember my weakness, my mortal frailty. I remember my own blood poisoning me, even as I clung so desperately to life and all its...infinite pleasures. Miranda's gift was salvation. And despite..."

She paused, then gave an elegant little toss of her head. "Mm. No matter. The mortals are beneath me. Prey. Nothing more."

"Miranda would have killed you, Alci, you and your daughters. That was her plan, y'know. Bump us all off to awaken the megamycete. She didn't want any failed experiments hanging on her apron strings to deal with once she got little Eva back. It was gonna be just her and her kid. No room in that picture-perfect life for you."

"Miranda gave me everything," Dimitrescu snapped.

"Oh, c'mon, you can't believe that. I saw the inside of your twisted little mind, remember. Miranda would have taken everything, too. Was your castle worth that?"

Her eyes were bright, gold flaring to fire, but she said nothing. She didn't hit him, either, which Heisenberg took as a victory.

He stepped over the next lycan corpse as Moreau shambled on. Before he got too far, Dimitrescu's voice, softer than he'd ever heard it save when she'd addressed her daughters, stopped him in his tracks.

"'We shall be monsters, cut off from the world,'" she said. He turned to look back at her in the dancing snow. "'But on that account we shall be more attached to one another.'"

Heisenberg nodded. "'Oh, my creator,'" he muttered, bitter as old blood. "'Make me happy.'"

Alcina's eyes found his.

"It was worth it, Heisenberg," she told him. "To me."

"Hm." He shifted his stance, propping his hammer on the opposite shoulder. "Is it still?"

She gave a sniff. "I'm merely surprised you can read."

He grinned. "The movie was better," he said, just to see the exquisite look of disgust on her face.

Moreau headed up a hillside, covered in a dense forest of pine and scrub. Below stretched the dry part of the lake, the reservoir drained of its water, exposing the decomposed remnants of an old flank of the village, a fishing town long-since drowned to make Miranda's power station. The old windmills, once used for wind power, stood still and slumping into ruin, sails reduced to bare scaffolding.

The place had been a shithole before, but now it was just sad, no longer given even the barest efforts of maintenance. Heisenberg couldn't really blame Moreau for moving into the castle; given his old digs, almost anything was an improvement.

"It's here! It's here!" Moreau raked aside a wall of overgrown briars and tree branches to reveal a small clearing atop the hill.

A collection of shacks stood in the clearing. Moreau's 'clinic'. Heisenberg hadn't bothered coming here more than was necessary. The experiments Moreau conducted here were pathetic. He could make lycans, sure, and the varcolac had been inspired, but watching ghouls pop like rotten fruit more often than not just wasn't his style. Waste of a perfectly good corpse.

Still, the whole operation had worked great for Miranda. There was never any shortage of dead bodies in her town, and cutting losses had been worth it, given the amount of shock troops Moreau's clinic churned out for her. Glory to Mother Miranda, and all that shit. Almost romantic; why give a dame a rose when you could give her an army of putrefying wolf-men instead?

Now, though, he couldn't help but feel a certain poetic bemusement. To think. This shitty hovel, this sad little workshop, was about to save their collective asses. Who knew.

"I hope it's still here," Moreau was mumbling. He didn't head for the shacks themselves, but began nosing about in the snow. "Ohhh...I hope the lycans didn't dig it up..."

"You lose a penny or something?" Heisenberg called.

"No, no...oh!" Moreau straightened, an inspired look in his eyes. "Karl, would you...would you please...look? With your special powers?"

"Yeah, Karl," Mia said, a hand over her mouth like that might stifle her snort of laughter. "Look with your special powers."

"I'm gonna break your neck after all," Heisenberg muttered. "Fine, fishstick."

He let out his breath and reached out with his abilities. A ripple thrummed across the snow, a faint blue haze appearing around his body. Almost instantly, he found it: a rectangular shape bound in strips of metal. With a flick of his finger, it burst from the snow, showering clods of dark earth. The large wooden seaman's chest dropped to the snow with a rattle of rusted hinges.

Moreau pawed around in his clothes for an equally rusted key.

"My medicines!" He pulled open the chest. Inside glinted glass bottles, cakes of dried herbs bound in paper and twine, medical supplies of a distinctly more-modern bent, even a mummified Cadou in a stoppered jar. "Good. We can do it with this."

"Yes, we can." Heisenberg examined a bottle of chemicals. "You bury all this by yourself, fishstick?"

"Yes." Moreau's eyes darted back and forth, as if Heisenberg was about to make some kind of crack at his expense.

Tempting, but Heisenberg really needed all this stuff. "Nice going." He looked at Mia, standing in the snow.

"Now," he said, "it's time for Operation Kill That Bitch, attempt two."

***

Inside the dank, decaying, freezing confines of Moreau's Clinic, the only light came from the faint filter of moonlight through the gaps in the roof, and the high beam of Heisenberg's flashlight. He kept it floating around the level of his shoulder, aimed down on Mia as she lay back on the table.

They'd cleaned it as best they could, had lain down an old tarp Moreau had produced from somewhere, but even so, Mia shivered where she lay, stripped down once more to her underclothes, her skin exposed to the cold.

An IV tube bled chemicals into her arm; once again Heisenberg, his coat slung over a nearby chair, his sleeves rolled to his biceps, watched her closely as the painkillers hit her bloodstream, as she began that slow, gradual slump into numbness.

Moreau limped around the shack, muttering, arranging the tarp, while Dimitrescu sat in a corner, her eyes glowing like a cat's in the semidarkness. Heisenberg was silent, Mia silent, though she watched him all the while.

He caught her eye. "Here we go again, Winters."

"Better luck this time?"

"Heh. Don't jinx it." He leaned on the table, over her. "You got any dark depths of the soul to reveal this time? Any revelations? Or shall we get to it?"

"Just one thing, Heisenberg."

"Yeah? Make sure it's not too mushy. The smell of this place is making me sick enough already."

"There wasn't ever any necrotoxin," she told him. "That stuff I injected you with? Just a sedative."

"No shit."

"I..." She frowned. "Wait. Did you...did you know?"

"After the first couple days and I didn't feel any worse? Yeah, Mia, doesn't take a fuckin' genius to figure out you slipped me the sugar pills."

"Damn," Mia said. "Waste of good sedative, then."

Heisenberg burst into laughter. "Mia, Mia," he said. "You crack me up. But I gotta say, you had me there for a minute, y'know?"

She gave him a dry smile. "I know."

"Hey, you can make it up to me. If you survive this-"

"Not helping, Heisenberg."

"-I was, uh, pretty intrigued by those reports of you from Dulvey...chainsaw, was it? Not bad, not bad. Wanna show me sometime?"

"In your dreams."

He winked. "Already there, sweetheart. You ready?"

Her fingers twitched, brushing his hand on the table. He felt the heat of her skin, even through his gloves.

"I'm ready, Karl," she told him. "Do it."

So he did.

She opened up like a purse. Moreau's scalpels were decent enough once he'd honed them sharp with his power, and as he began his examination he slipped once more into his old routine- examine, assess, maintain, repair. Mia's blood soon coated his gloves and scarred forearms, matting his arm hair to a gory tangle, the smell of mold and blood filling the shack like a warm, metallic exhale. Just like old times.

Dimitrescu's pupils narrowed to pinpoints. Heisenberg could tell how starved she was: the hollows in her cheeks, the faint cracks appearing on her skin, exposed now that she wasn't slathering herself in a thick layer of lead-based makeup, gave her away.

Still, she held herself back, and simply watched, her stare somewhere between hunger and yearning.

"You look good on the inside," Heisenberg said, with a chuckle. "Nice healthy muscle tone. Heh heh."

Mia didn't answer. She'd gone paper-white, her bruised eyelids squeezed shut, her lips fluttering. Even with the suppressants, her healing factor made this difficult; veins and tendons kept worming around his hands, trying to reconnect and pull her open chest cavity back together.

"Have you found it?" Moreau pressed his hands to the tabletop, leaning over to peer into the mess.

"No. Shut up and back off."

"Hurry," Mia whispered.

"Huh?"

"Something's...I think...something's wrong..."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"I...I hear her..." Her lips fluttered; her hands curled on the table, spackled with blood and mutagen; it pooled around her, dripping in rivulets to the filthy floor. "She's...she's..."

"Fight it, Mia. Hold it the fuck together."

Her eyes snapped open, bright with tears. "She's happy," Mia whispered. "This is exactly what she wanted."

Heisenberg's hands met something foreign. Not an organ, not bone or cartilage. He spun the scalpel into his hand and sliced in; the thing came free with a slick crackle, trailing long, whipping tendrils that grasped and thrashed at his hand and wrist.

A Cadou. But a sickly one; its pinkish surface was spotted with dark blots, its bulbous head dented and deflated.

No, not sickly, exactly. Half-grown.

She reached inside, Mia had said. Pulled out her heart.

This was a chunk of Miranda's Cadou. Like he'd once given a chunk of his own to Teodora, had inflicted the Black God's gift on her to save her life. The thing squealed and writhed in his hand as Mia lay beneath him, gasping for breath, her wound already beginning to heal up.

If it's not Miranda here-

Understanding came like a lash of lightning through him, so strong his own Cadou gave an unsettled twist. No. No.

"You were the experiment," he heard himself rasp. "It was never you harboring Miranda's consciousness at all."

Compatibility, Miranda had told Mia, but Mia was the mother, wasn't she, the mother of the body, the vessel, the genetics unassailable.

He'd gotten it wrong.

The ceremony was not over yet.

Even now, even now, Miranda had the upper hand, the final word. Even now she had lashed out and got him in the heart.

"It was never you," Heisenberg said again. "It was always her. Always Rose."

With a hum of his power, a crackle of blue-white sparks, the misshapen Cadou burst in a shower of gore. The scalpel streaked away and impaled itself in a wall.

Another slash of his power, hard enough to shake the entire building. The shack door burst open and he strode out into the snow, surrounded by a whirring storm of metal objects, nails yanked  from the shack, medical detritus, all of it pulled along in his wake.

The cold lashed at him. He didn't feel it. He went to the hillside, looking out toward the mountain, the great waterfall thundering down from some hidden source at its peak.

He couldn't see House Beneviento at this distance, but Rose and Donna had to be nearly there by now.

And when they were-

And when Rose looked too deep-

All he could do, for all his power, was watch her die.