#man i need to find my old sewing machine again it's somewhere in my house. i've been going hand sewing for a while akjdhgka

[thelooniemoonie]

DUDE NOT ONLY DOES IT HAVE TEN GAJILIION BUTTONS YOU CAN ALSO CHANGE THE LITTLE KNOB THING AT THE TOP FOR THE BUTTONS TO HAVE EVEN MORE OPTIONS TO SHOW ON THE LITTLE GLASS PART NEAR THE TOP!!!! (also fun fact these are from 1986!!1 he is an old man!)

WAIT FR?? THATS COOL AS HELL GRANDPA GOT SKILLS! HE'S GOT THE RANGE!!

[yellowcabdriver]

love language

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader

Summary: Javier wants to love you the right way.

Genre: fluff, hurt/comfort

Warning: none

A/N: this was written in like 20 minutes before I went to sleep so sorry in advance for mistakes 🥲 Also, a kiss on a head for those who guesses Javier’s love language I tried to force in here 🥰🤣

“What form of love language do you prefer?”

You raised your head from the paperwork you had been filling out for what seems like an eternity.

“What?”

Elena shook some heavy-looking glossy magazine in her hand.

“There’s a test in here. Wanna find out?”

You went back to filing the report and shrugged your shoulders.

“How many love languages are there anyway?”

“Umm…” Elena quickly flipped through a few pages. “Five.”

Usually, you were not the one to indulge in magazines, especially not at work but… it had been a long day at the embassy. Very long. You spent the first part of the day typing out reports for Noonan, then you had to go to the archive and sew together some old documents in a badly lit backroom in the company of, you were sure of it, a ghost of someone who died in that backroom choking on an ungodly amount of dust. Your back was aching, high heels required by the dress code were straight up slaughtering your feet one step at a time. And also, you were bored out of your mind.

“Wow, okay.” You sighed and plopped down on a chair. “Sure, let’s see. I needed a break anyway.”

With a victorious shriek, Elena started reading out questions and marking the answers down on the pages with a pencil that desperately needed to be sharpened.

“Okay, you got…” her lips inaudibly moved as she was counting the results. “You got words of affirmation.”

“Oh, bullshit!” You threw your head back in sardonic laughter and stretched out your legs. “I don’t enjoy being complemented at all, I always get super uncomfortable!”

Elena shrugged her shoulders as she was erasing her pencil notes from the magazine.

“Maybe you do, somewhere deep down.”

“Nope, not a chance,” you snickered. “Your magazine is full of lies.”

“Hey!” Jokingly offended, Elena hugged the magazine to her chest. “It’s my only entertainment in this lifeless pile of paper!”

“What did you get then?” You asked, propping your cheek with your palm making you sound all muffled.

“Acts of service.”

“Well then, I’ll tell David to serve you up real nice.”

An enemy missile in the form of a crumpled piece of paper landed on your table.

“Oh screw you!”

“What’s the hustle?���

Elena and you immediately straightened up at the voice of a visitor who, upon further inspection, turned out to be your boyfriend, Javier.

“It’s just me, not Noonan,” he raised his palms slowly walking to your table as you two relaxed into your previous positions. Javier sat down at the edge of your table next to your chair and leaned down to kiss you on the forehead, this was his way of saying hello.

“Are you ready to go home?” He asked. Boy, were you ever.

“Of course, I am. So tired,” you complained suppressing a yawn. Javier smiled, soothingly stroking your hand.

“Let’s just go home, they don’t even pay us any overtime anyway,” Elena muttered, shooting a resentful stare at the piles of documents in front of her.

“By the way,” Javier turned to look at Elena. “David is downstairs, I think you’re gonna catch up.”

These words were enough for Elena to throw away her magazine, which honour she was just defending by violating a Geneva Convention of friendship, and bolt out of office without further ado. You and Javier looked at each other in amusement and burst into laughter at the same time.

“We should also go.”

“Yep, let’s go home.”

Nominally, “home” was Javier’s apartment, it was closer to the office and was overall much nicer than your place. Driving down the familiar street—the next turn after that yellow house, you were thinking, is home—Javier put his hand on your lap and asked you:

“Why were you arguing with Elena? Did she do something to you?”

“Oh, she did, she Inflicted the pain of knowing the content of a beauty magazine,” you half-heartedly complained, enjoying the warmth of Javier’s large hand on your thigh. Javier grinned at your remark.

“That harsh, huh?”

“We were just bored and decided to take a dumb test from the magazine.”

Javier chuckled as he quickly glanced at you, his yellow aviators catching a glimpse of the setting sun.

“About what?”

“Something about love language.”

“And what about it?”

“Well, found out that my love language is apparently words of affirmation.”

The car slowly stopped in the driveway as you reached Javier’s apartment building.

“Really?” He smiled at you, kissing the back of your hand. You almost melted at the gesture of his casual affection.

“Yes, who would’ve thought, right?”

Javier laughed again, exiting the car and jogging to your side to open the door for you. You jumped down and placed a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth as a thank you.

“So it means you need to hear words of affirmation every day? Like your Cleo?” Javier asked, locking the car doors and turning slightly to look at you with a smile. You snorted. “Your Cleo” was a plant sitting comfortably on a windowsill of your office. She was a dying little thing until you saved her from being literally abused in the dark hallway of the embassy. Once you got her into a well-lit room and started watering her properly with actual water and not residue 3-in-1 coffee, Cleo turned into a stunning blooming beauty. You did talk to her, mostly paying her compliments—yes, weird, but you read somewhere that plants responded to positive affirmation. Javier, of course, didn’t believe any of that but for you, and he highlighted that specifically, he would greet Cleo every now and then when he entered your and Elena’s office.

“I am not like Cleo!” You huffed, making Javier smile as he hugged you by your waist and you two started walking towards his apartment. “But I believe everyone flourishes under kind words, don’t you think?”

Javier opened the door to his place and let you enter first.

“That’s a fair point, hermosa.”

The evening went by as it usually did: you two ate a dinner that Javier quickly put together—you maybe were a better cook but a slow one, for sure. Then you went to put Javier’s clothes into a washing machine, a dreadful loud thing that was tumbling around so hard you were afraid it would explode, while Javier washed the dishes. Finally, you two settled on the coach to watch some classic evening telenovelas because nothing relaxes a person more than an intricate plot of a tv show where somehow everyone ends up being everyone’s relative.

You were very engulfed in an episode—main character shot a man who turned out to be her biological father,—when Javier quietly asked:

“Am I saying enough compliments to you?”

“What?” You let out an involuntary laughter but as you turned to look at Javier, he didn’t seem to be joking.

“You said your preferred love language is words of affirmation and I’m… cariño, you know I’m not good with words,” Javier let out a bitter chuckle rubbing his temple—a nervous habit. “Am I showing you enough love?”

Oh.

Oh.

That you didn’t expect.

You turned the volume down and quickly climbed on Javi’s lap. He uncomfortably glanced up at the ceiling with a vulnerability you never saw him exude before. You could see something you would believe was more of your thing—an insecurity of being not enough.

“Javi, please, look at me,” you took his face in your hands and he immediately left a quick kiss on your palm, like a reflex.

God, that man was gonna be the death of you.

“Javi, my love, I never said anything about my preferences, it was just a dumb magazine. And besides, I don’t need to hear compliments, you know I can’t even take them well!” you said causing Javier knowingly to raise his eyebrows in agreement. Your left hand found its way to the back of his head and into his soft curls making Javier groan quietly.

“I love you so much and I love your ways of showing affection. I feel loved, if anything I feel adored.” You let your right index finger trace his aquiline nose and Javier closed his eyes at your tender touch. You began to press soft kisses all over his face.

“You love me so well, Javier Peña. You are so caring, so wonderful, so handsome, and sooooo sexy…” you exhaled as your kisses reached his jaw and you felt him smile. “I love you, Javi. So so much.”

Javier opened his eyes and pulled you in for a proper kiss.

“I love you, too, mi corazon,” his hands gently squeezing your thighs.

As this gesture pressed you closer, you felt the tightness in his jeans. Jokingly widening your eyes you glanced down, between your bodies, as Javier offered you a shy boyish grin.

“Ohh, but I see that someone else’s love language is definitely words of affirmation.”

Javier’s hands slid under your shirt and tightened around your waist as he began to leave open-mouthed kisses on your neck prompting you to let out a shamelessly loud moan.

“Oh yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that,” he softly said, nuzzling his nose into your neck. “I really love to hear your praise, mi amor.”

[diaryofabeautyfiend]

Officially Nowhere

“Sam! Where are we going?”

“Trust me, Cap. I know a place. We’re going somewhere safe.”

“Nat, you still with us?!”

“I’m good.” she said. Her breathing was ragged but she was holding on.

“She needs a medic. Fast.”

“I know. We’re 2 minutes out.”

They pulled up to a gate. Sam sped up to drive through. He silently thanked heaven that it wasn’t rigged with explosives. He’d keep that to himself. He knew you wouldn’t be pleased to have all of this commotion dropped in your lap but you’d help anyway. Steve jumped out of the car and grabbed Nat rushing her to your door. He went to go kick it in thinking the place was abandoned. Sam shouted, “WAIT!!” but it was too late. Steve had a gun to his head faster than he was able to release his leg. He froze in place looking to Sam who was running to his side.

“Y/N! It’s me! Don’t shoot!” Sam said putting up his hands.

“Wilson? What the fuck is this?”

“I’m sorry. We need your help. Romanoff is hurt. Please.”

“Lower your weapon, soldier” Steve said in a rather commanding way. You laughed. “I will as soon as she does” pointing to Nat with your chin. Nat had her weapon pointed at you.

“Everyone lets calm down. Y/N they are friendly. I trust them.” Your face softened a bit as Nat raised her hands. You holstered your weapon and stepped aside. “ Put her on the kitchen table. I’ll get my bag.” “Where are we?” asked Steve. “Officially? I am no one. You are nowhere. I’m not helping you. Unofficially I’m Y/N. I’m a former combat medic and this is my house. Nice to meet you. Now please. The table.”

You grabbed some supplies from a hall closet. Nat was talking so she seemed to be breathing ok. “Let’s see.” Steve hovered at her side. “Captain you’ll have to move so I can evaluate her injuries.” He moved out of the way and you got to work. “You know who I am?” He asked still watching you work. “Of course. Everyone does. Romanoff was it?” Nat nodded. “You were hit. Through and through by the looks of it. I can patch you up but you’ll need surgery to see if you’re bleeding internally. She needs to get to a hospital, Sam.”

“No. No hospital.” Nat said through gritted teeth. You gave her something for the pain. She started to drift off. “What did you give her?!” Steve shouted reaching for his gun. “Relax. It’s for pain. I don’t think your girlfriend wants to feel me rooting around inside a bullet wound.” He relaxed a little. Sam went to the fridge to get some water for Steve and a beer for himself. You finished sewing up the wound and swabbed her skin with disinfectant. “That will do for now. I have a spare bedroom in the back. We need to get her there to rest.” Steve picked up Nat and got her to the room. You started an IV and hooked her up to a few machines to monitor her. “She’ll be out for a while, Captain.” You patted him on the shoulder and pulled a chair to her bedside. “She’s lucky to have you.” As you stepped into the doorway he looked back and said, “Thank you, Y/N. I really can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate all you’ve done....and she’s not my girlfriend.”

You went back into the kitchen where Sam was already cleaning up. You opened a beer and got him another. “So. Wanna tell me what’s going on?” “Yeah. We’re fugitives. Hiding out from SHIELD, Hydra the US government. And, if that wasn’t enough, a brain washed super soldier who happens to be Cap’s best friend.” He sunk down onto the couch sighing heavily. You sat next to him laughing quietly to yourself. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. Just you. You always get mixed up in stupid ass shit. You’re like a trouble magnet.” He laughed half heartedly lying his head back.

“You have no idea. I’m glad I get to see you you know but not under these circumstances. How have you been doing?”

“You know me, Sam. I manage.”

“Have you been going out on jobs?”

“A few. Mild stuff. Search and rescues...assassinations. Nothing too strenuous.”

“What about the nightmares?”

“They are still around.”

You heard shuffling and saw Steve standing in the doorway. “Sorry. Nat’s awake.”

“Oh great. Let me go see about her.” Steve sat down in a big chair and let out a long tired sigh. “You hungry, man? Y/N has a big grill outside. I can throw something on.” With his eyes still closed he nodded and tried to will himself out of the chair to help. You came back with Nat at your side saying, “Look who’s back from the dead” Nat pressed her hand into her bandage stifling a laugh.

Sam jumped up to help her get situated. “Hey Y/N Steve and I are gonna get the grill going. What can I cook?”

“Oh I got it.”

“No, ma’am. You’ve done enough today. Put your feet up. We got it.” Sam said while he pushed you back down on the couch.

“Check the fridge. I have all kinds of meat in there. Grab what looks good.”

While they were rummaging through the kitchen you checked ok Nat again. “Y/N please. I’m fine. Take a load off.” And so you did. You sat quietly for several minutes watching the men out of the window. They seemed a little more at ease now chatting and laughing. You focused in on Steve. You wondered what he was really like when he wasn’t Captain America. He seemed worn out..worried. Nat was watching you watch him. You didn’t know it but you were biting your bottom lip. You did that when you were really thinking.

“He’s not bad to look at” she finally said. You startled at sound of her voice.

“No, he’s not. What’s his story? Girlfriend? Wife?”

Nat laughed, “he doesn’t date much. Kind of keeps to himself. You should see him on a mission though. The guy is a beast”

“I’ll bet he is.”

“What’s your story, Y/N? How many tours did you serve?”

“Three. Combat medic.”

“Is that how you know Sam?”

“Yeah. I saved his life a few times. Then he saved mine.”

“Can I ask why the Army thinks you were KIA?”

“Because they assumed that, when they left me on the side of the road to die, I actually did die. Thank goodness for Sam. He spotted me when he was out on patrol and took care of me. I owe him everything.”

“Whoa whoa whoa. Your own unit?!”

You chuckled “Yep. My own unit. I was the only woman. I had a nonconsensual run in with one of the guys. Asked to be transferred and swore I wouldn’t report. My last night on the base they took me out for a send off dinner. We never made it. A couple of them pulled me out of the Jeep. They took turns brutalizing and beating me. Pushed me down an embankment. I swear I have no idea how Sam saw me.” Nat’s mouth hung open and closed several times trying to find words. She was at a loss.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you. So you’re just hiding out here? All by yourself? What do you do for money? Physical contact with people?”

“I tend to avoid physical contact unless I have needs to fulfill.” You smiled to yourself. “As far as cash goes, when I was in the hospital I met some of the royal family from Wakanda. They were there on a good will visit meeting wounded civilians. They listened to my story and took me in. Put me to work. That’s why I can afford to stay in the lap of luxury.” You both laughed. She held your hand and squeezed. Giving you a shy half smile she said, “I’m so glad Sam found you.” You had tears in your eyes. You choked them back not wanting to give them any satisfaction. You don’t cry over that night anymore.

“Hey ladies! Soup’s on!” Sam shouted from the door.

You helped Nat out onto the patio. The four of you spent the evening talking and laughing like old friends. You and Steve were definitely flirting. You excused yourself to pick up the dishes. As soon as you were inside Sam an Nat pounced.

“Dude! You are totally flirting with her.” Sam said playfully. Steve waved him off.

“Come on, Cap. She’s flirting back. It’s adorable.” Nat teased.

Steve blushed. “She is isn’t she?”

“Get in there, man. Make a move.” said Sam as he nudged Steve’s arm. He shook his head “no” “GO!” they said in unison. He flushed crimson and sweat started to bead on his forehead. He went into the kitchen to help with the dishes. Steve kept looking out the window at the two of them who smiled like proud parents.

“Christ she’s going to eat him alive” Nat said still smiling.

“It’s hard to watch” Sam replied. The two of them went to bed leaving you two on your own.

“I’ll wash you dry?” You said as you threw Steve a towel.

“Yes, ma’am. So how do you manage to live off the grid like this? Must be lonely.”

“It can be. I work when I am asked. When I have needs to meet I take care of it.”

“I was under the impression that no one knew you existed.”

“I work for the Royal Family of Wakanda. It’s a long story. They’re the only ones.”

“What kind of work do you do for them?”

“I am a War Dog. Part of the central intelligence service of Wakanda.”

“So can you tell me what kinds of missions you go on?”

“Need to know, Captain.”

“I see. I hope you stay safe. And please call me Steve.” He rested his hands on the kitchen island watching you bend over to put away a pan. You could feel his eyes on you. You giggled to yourself.

“I’m the safest.” you say with a wink “And I rather like calling you Captain.” He cleared his throat and adjusted his pants to hide his arousal.

“Well I guess I’ll turn in.”

“Or you can stay up with me for a little bit. I don’t get much company I’m sure you can imagine. Let’s go out to the deck.”

You lit the fire pit and grabbed a couple of blankets. The air was crisp. The slight breeze felt good against your neck. You didn’t realize how warm you were. You pulled the blanket higher around your shoulders your skin shivering into goosebumps. You had a bottle of wine and a glass for each of you. “Red ok?” You poured way too much in his glass. “Red is fine. That’s plenty. Are you trying to get me drunk?” He laughed a little making your cheeks warm. “Me? Never.” “You do know I can’t get drunk? My metabolism is too fast. Alcohol burns right off. “ You plopped down next to him with an exaggerated hmph. “Well that puts a hitch in my plans.”

He smiled at you. This was not his Captain America smile. This smile spread on his lips very slowly like a cat that ate the canary. He rested his hand on your knee and said, “You don’t need to get me drunk.” You let out a small sigh and your eyes fluttered closed. You set your glass down and put your hand on top of his. You stared at each other for what felt like an eternity and you leaned in to kiss him. He was timid at first only softly pressing his lips against yours. “Is this ok?” you whispered. “Hell yes” he replied.

He bent his neck so you didn’t have to strain to meet him. You pressed your lips together slowly snaking your tongue inside his mouth. Your tongues met dancing together exploring each other. His fingers ran the length of your spine before settling at your hips. He pulled you on top of him without having to separate from you. You could feel how hard he was and you pressed down on him making him moan in your mouth. Your hands moved to his belt buckle removing his belt in one fluid motion. He unbuttoned your shirt pushing over your shoulders. You slipped your hand into his underwear stroking his impressive length the tip already dripping. Steve was horny to the point of pain. He moved his hips fucking your hand and was almost ready to cum then. “Wait....I don’t want to cum yet.” he said breathless dropping his head back. “Oh no, Captain, not yet.” Your voice was low and husky. Still straddling him you kissed the stubble on his jaw line down to the spot just below his ear. You felt his pulse racing against your lips. His skin was salty with sweat and smelled delicious. He was panting now. His hands were a vice grip on your hips silently begging you press down to give him release. You sat back on your heels taking off your shirt and bra giving him a little show. You stood up pulling your pants and panties down. He felt like you were moving in slow motion. You were back on him taking off his shirt. You trailed a finger over his abs marveling at the definition. The hair on his belly was sticky with his own juices. His cock looked like it was going to explode. You fisted the waistband of his pants and underwear in your hands and tugged them down. He lifted up a little to make it easier. Your eyes were locked on each other’s, Steve’s mouth open slightly breathing heavy. You slipped two fingers into his mouth and leaned down to whisper in his ear, “suck”. He obliged. Once they were wet enough you removed them and brought them down to your pussy. You leaned back so he could have an uninhibited view of your fingers dipping in. Your other hand was on your clit rubbing furiously. He steadied you with one arm at the small of your back. He wanted to touch you but you slapped his hand away. When you were almost to the point of orgasm you stopped sitting up abruptly. You lowered yourself onto his cock and rode him until you both exploded.

After a few minutes you rolled off of his lap onto the couch. You slapped your hand down on his thigh and said, “ What do you say, Captain? Up for round two?” His lips split into a devastating grin, “I can do this all day.” And so you did twice more. Once was in the shower where you scrubbed each other clean. He pressed your back against the cold tile driving himself into you while he held your legs. The last time was bent over the foot of your bed. When you finished he collapsed his full weight on top of you. Your breathing mirrored his both sated and exhausted. He trailed kisses on the back of your neck slapping your ass as he stood up. You crawled towards your pillow. He stretched out next to you. You didn’t speak. He pulled you onto his chest and held you. As you drifted off to sleep he kissed the top of your head. That was the first night in ages that you were nightmare free.

The next morning Sam was the first one up. He walked to the living room glancing out of the door going out to the deck. Your clothes were scattered on the ground. He chuckled to himself. Alright, Steve. He made his way to the kitchen to make coffee. Nat wandered in next, “Did I see underwear on the deck?” Sam looked over his shoulder, “Our little boy is growing up, Nat.”

You woke up feeling way too hot. Steve was sleeping with his body curled around you. You freed yourself and slid out of the bed trying not to wake him. He didn’t stir. You got dressed and snuck out of the room. When you got to the kitchen Nat and Sam were at the table chatting. “Morning. Ooh thanks for making coffee.”

“Y/N, wanna tell us what happened last night?” asked Sam

“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.”

“Is Steve still sleeping?”

“Yep. Or I killed him. Not sure.”

Nat’s phone rang. She stepped outside to answer. She came back in interrupting your conversation. “We have to go. That was Hill. We know what Pierce is planning for Project Insight. I’ll fill you in on the ride. On the road in 10.” Sam was on his feet gathering his things. You grabbed Steve’s clothes. Back in your bedroom Steve was awake but still lying on the pillow. He was thinking about Bucky. You opened the door peeking in. “Hey. Time for you to go to work, Captain. Nat just got a phone call. She said on the road in 10.” You sat on the bed next to him. He held your hand and brought it up to his lips to kiss your finger tips. “I don’t want to go.”

“Ah well. You have a job to do.” He kissed your palm and rested it on his cheek. His eyes closed and he sighed deeply. “Can I see you again?” “You know where to find me.” You smiled and got off the bed, “Now March, soldier”

You said your goodbyes. You told them to come back to visit. You couldn’t help but feel a little pang of sadness. Sam wrapped you in a bear hug. “Be safe, man.” “Thanks for everything, Y/N.”

“Cap. We have to go” Nat shouted.

“Be there in a sec. I’ll come back soon.”

“You’d better. Be safe, Captain.” He kissed you deeply. You hugged him around his neck. Nat beeped the horn. He kissed you again and then he was gone.

Later you saw on the news three Helicarriers were destroyed and crashed into the Potomac. The report said Steve was shot. You grabbed your phone and called Sam. It rang once, “He’s ok.” You hung up. You hadn’t realized you were holding your breath.

Once Steve was out of the hospital he said his goodbyes to Nat and Fury. He looked down at Bucky’s file. “You’re going after him.” “You don’t have to come with me. I have to make a pit stop though.” Sam smiled, “Where to?” Steve smiled back. “Officially? Nowhere.”

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

True Faith (Part 1.) (Favored Ones, Part 17.)

Series description: Many things were surely fucked up in the year 2038, but no-one ever told anyone how all of it went down. What happened before a group of people left for Seattle to handle personal matters? Why did one girl refuse to leave all of it be? And why there were so many dead in the end?

Quote for the chapter: “I feel so extraordinary... Something's got a hold on me.” - Lotte Kestner

Part summary: Many could feel that something’s in the air when Ellie started to drift away from the reality. And the only thing that could save her and put stop to all of these thoughts was you.

A/N: Okay, okay. I know I am going against the cannon game now, because Seatlle happened at the end of March of 2038, but trust me, this slower pace will pay off in the end. And boy, does it feel good to jump back to TLOU fandom.

Warnings: Gore, angst, description of hatred and other mental states.

Word count: 3.2 K

Tagging:   @nemodoren @xxgoldenhour @missdictatorme​​ @peakymarvels​​ @davnwillcome​ @pickleriiick​ @jodiereedus22​ @gladiosamicitias​ @tamkashi​ @eternallyvenus​ @avengerssstuff​ @fangirl-inthe-us​ @avery-miller​ @mikah-writes​ @mad-hatter-98​ @sadiaafrin99​ @flavorishy

Series master list: H E R E

Joel Miller’s playlist for the bonfire occasions: H E R E

Youtube playlists: JACKSON DAYS | SEATTLE DAYS

"I've seen what happened down there, sugar." - A voice resonated through the darkness, suddenly. It seemed as if you were somewhere deep underwater. There were this cracking sounds inside of your head, making your ears ache, yet the burden you were feeling in your heart was way worse than that. But the voice was sharp, almost deafening. And sadly, you wouldn't change the voice with anyone else's. It felt nice, but horrifying at the same time to hear her. - "How are you holdin' up, hm? You're still sure you'll outrun me in a race?"

Slowly, you took a breath in, looking around you as you stood there. It was the fucking pottery shop you've been in, the one you've visited her in a thousand times. The one you remembered by your heart. And your heart was sinking low when you saw her... Just sitting there. As if she never actually left you in Jackson alone. She was looking at the machine in front of her, making a mug out of scratch. Just like the last time you've had a proper conversation with the lady. Well... You've spoken at the hospital, but... The pottery shop reminded you of Eve the most.

"Given how your leg looks like, I suppose you ain't be runnin' for quite a long time, honey." - The woman smiled at one of her creations, slowly taking it to her palm as she started to draw another of her flowers on it.

"You're dead, you know that, right?" - You answered in a joking manner. Jesus, they must've given you some darn good drugs for you to reach such a state. No matter if it were the soldiers or Bobby, they did hella good job. - "I've been talking to your tombstone for the last few months." - At that, Eve gave you a nasty grin, tapping the side of her head with her index finger.

"As long as you're aware of it, I know it. You're not so dumb that you'd make out this is real, huh?" - The woman asked you with a light chuckle at the end, leaning her back into the chair. Sure, it was obvious that you're talking to yourself. But your brain didn't want to syke you out, even more, to present you sitting... Somewhere. It could be also Joel or Ellie whom your brain would choose to project... But it was her. - "I thought that. But really, Miller? You, sugar, are surprisin' me even when I'm dead, I tell you that."

"You've caught a few words from Tommy and Joel here and there, but you never spoke like a Texas-born woman." - You answered instead of straight answering the lady. At that, she chuckled, shook her head, and looked at you. She seemed... Different. As if she got younger. She had fewer wrinkles and her eyes were full of life.

"I'm just what you've made of me, you know? This is how you remember me now. So thanks for agein' me down a bit. Also, the accent suits me, huh?" - The woman said. Technically yeah, you said to yourself, but that wasn't the subject of the conversation at the moment. - "That's what you wanted, hm? And I can understand that. Have my wrinkly face on your mind all the time... It would sadden me too." - She joked around, making you sadden at the statement. That was exactly what you wanted to happen. And until that point, it was working. But now, you wanted to remember Eve just the way she was, with all her wrinkles, grins and jokes.  

"Do you realize... That if you wouldn't go on the patrol with Tommy... Then maybe, the man you've fallen in love with would be dead? Most likely?" - Eve leaned her head to her shoulder, sending you a concerned look.

"What good does it bring when I'm most likely dead?" - You asked back immediately. The imagination inside your head chuckled, looking away for a moment. - "If you'd be dead, sugar, we wouldn't be havin' this conversation at all. Dyin', yeah, sure, maybe, but dead? Hell no." - The woman dismissed with a dry chuckle, getting up on her legs to pour herself a glass of water.

"What now?" - Eve asked you, looking out of the window into the void around the pottery shop. For a moment, you were looking at her back, and because she knew you don't know what to say, she started to talk again. - "I mean... These people are there somewhere. Abby and Owen ran away just when your friends showed up. Doesn't that make you worried, honey?" - Her voice was resonating through your ears, there were still these cracking sounds inside your ears. What you've been trying to tell to yourself? Did it make any sense?

"What is your point?" - You asked after a moment of thinking, having the old woman turning to you. Suddenly, her face started to re-shift into someone else as the surroundings changed with it, making you dizzy in the process. Of course, it was Joel's house, and you had to close your eyes instead of looking at the man, falling on the ground right after as you threw up. You were panicking, Abby's face was flashing in front of your eyes accompanied by the manic expression in her face. The whole thing was about Joel, right? So this was what your brain immediately clicks to when you'll see him? Abby and her knife? Jesus Christ, it was a lot take in.

But as soon as the man touched your shoulder, it was like flipping the card around - finding yourself in his embrace as you both were falling asleep just hours before the patrol. But the touch wasn't making you feel good at all. To be honest, your eyes were slowly slipping towards the window as you searched for something in the darkness. It took you a long time to figure out where she was standing, but when you did... She was still standing there, looking into the window. And you were watching her back.

Hell, you couldn't make out what the fuck was that all about, but you've been trapped in a loop, circling between Joel and Abby. And you couldn't tell how long is that going to take. And neither could they.

Meanwhile, in Jackson:

The weather got drastically better after everything went down. At least the blizzards had stopped and the sun was slowly melting the snow everywhere. The Jackson was just going forward, not stopping because of what happened. Why should the whole city stop because of two people? Sure, people were saddened by what happened to you, but it wasn't their business in the slightest. Some animals needed to be taken care of, clothes to be repaired and pottery to be made. Tommy was a prominent figure in the hierarchy of Jackson, but the whole responsibility was put directly on Maria's shoulders.

There was one person whose world had stopped completely. All they did was that they sit at their home all the time, trying to think of a single reason why the fuck would someone do such terrible things to other human beings without having the reason to? Something like a regular sleep schedule? They didn't know what was that? The image of Tommy laying in blood on the ground was still carved inside their brain as they woke up every night with nightmares.

If there was something that needed to be said about Tommy, he was alive. Alive, yet not awaken. There was many possible outcomes for Tommy - he could wake up and have a memory loss. He could wake up and be crippled, whether physically or mentally. Tommy may never have the chance to talk like normal people. And... Bobby was sure that his condition is stable for now, but really, there was also a possibility they overlooked even the smallest crack in his skull. As soon as Joel brought the boy, Bobby started to check his skull, stopping the bleeding - when that was done, she sewed and took care of the wound, moving on to his broken knee and left forearm. And there was the possibility that he has a concussion, internal bleeding, and many other things. The people did a number on him.

And as for Y/N... Holy fuck. Bobby had never seen such screwed up ligaments above the knee. They also needed to tear a few nails off your fingers because the nails completely tore if off from the nail beds. It was pretty disgusting, sure, but Bobby was trying to keep you alive. While no-one was sure if Tommy has internal bleeding, Bobby almost cried with happiness when she was sure you didn't have it - as soon as your nose was put back in place, and it wasn't as swollen as when Dina brought you in, your breathing got into the normal state. Also, your pulse was checking up perfectly, so apart from the reality that your upper thigh muscles were ripped apart.

Sure, most likely, you'll be able to walk normally once again... After some time. But it was obvious that you'll be climbing for a few months at least. But most likely, you were about to be okay.

This was making the person at least a bit calm. But Ellie couldn't help herself - she wasn't falling asleep at night, all she could do was to think about the persons. Who were they? Where did they come from? Sure, she went back to the cabin to look through it, but not even the dead man Dina had shoot had nothing on his. These people were ready to leave at any given time. These weren't some stupid hunters, cannibals, or anyone like that. These people knew what they were doing. But... What did they search for? Why did they need to fuck you up when you were innocent? How did you and Tommy even get into the fucking cabin in the first place? Did they drag you in?

Ellie sat in the cabin for quite some time, on the couch, watching the stain of Tommy's blood, remembering every second of finding her uncle laying there, barely breathing and unconscious. The golf club was thrown on the ground and the window was opened up as someone ran away from the room. Now, it was too late to look for them, which was making Ellie more desperate to find them. The snow was now far gone, they didn't leave anything behind - inside or outside the house.

It didn't matter how much Dina was trying to make Ellie smile again - Ellie was still wearing the same expression, barely talking, looking into the ground as the incident wasn't leaving her head. She was only waiting for you or Tommy to wake up - and as soon as she'd hear who they were, she was ready to sneak out and come for each of them. It was inside her every time the opened the door to her house. As soon as she unlocked it, the image of Tommy laying in his blood just flashed in front of her eyes, making her panic for a second. Usually, she sat down on her bed, put a hand on her chest, and tried to breathe deeply. Soon enough, she stopped crying every time she saw Tommy on the ground.

The rage which has gotten into her once she was you fucked up on the chair as you frantically mumbled something to Jesse hadn't left her for a single second. It was making her sick from her stomach, hopeless and... She felt hatred for everything around her. Once, someone had a dumb comment regarding her and Dina, and even though she didn't say a word to the person, she threw her plate on the ground, walking straight to them. Maria, thanks to God, has stopped Ellie in the last second, catching her and dragging her away.

Not even Joel wasn't able to make her talk, no matter how hard the man tried to get at least a word out of her. Sure, she was now spending time at his place a lot, because what happened was a family catastrophe and they both needed to carry the other one through what happened. But she never spoke to him.

Yet, there were moments when Ellie spoke to someone. The problem was that you couldn't answer her. She wasn't exactly speaking anyway. She brought her guitar with her, the one which was in Joel's bedroom, singing to you while they waited for you to wake up. Sometimes, she sang you Take On Me, and other times, she pulled out Johnny Cash, since Joel told her that these are your favorites. Sure, she was a was perfectly aware that singing won't help you recover sooner, but it was probable that it will make you at least feel better.

Her fingers were picking the strings lazily as she proceeded to play the slow melody which was reflecting everything going on inside of her at the moment. Ellie didn't know that Dina was standing behind the door the whole time, but it relieved her girlfriend when she heard Ellie singing. Yet no matter how relieved she felt, she didn't dare to interrupt the moment happening in the room. It took Ellie another twenty minutes to finish the small concert for one person before she put the guitar down, looking at you sleeping on the bed. At that, Dina finally entered the room to change the artificial nutrition hanging next to your bed, sending Ellie one shy smile.

"You've been listening behind the door, weren't you?" - The redhaired girl asked quietly, shifting her focus from you to Dina. Her girlfriend just smiled but didn't give a straightaway answer right away.

"You are a good a singer, what can I say, baby?" - Dina whispered, making sure that everything's in check. It was a week and a half and you were still sleeping. Sure, you'd most likely be awakened by that time, but Bobby decided to keep you under the medicaments for some time - at least before your hands get in check somehow and until you wouldn't tear your muscles of your knee when you'd stand up. There was a wheelchair prepared for you, but with the amount of pus leaving the wound every morning, Bobby didn't want to rush any of it. You've been through pain and a severe shock. You needed some rest.

Of course, the medics in Jackson knew that they can't let you sleep for too long but at that point, you were still fine. That was the last thing that made Ellie still standing and being contained because she knew you'd wish so. The girl almost freaked out when Dina put her elbows around her neck, kissing the small sweet spot below her ear as both the girls watched you.

"What is going on inside your head, baby?" - Dina whispered after a small while, as she sat on your bed. While Ellie's eyes were pinned on your face, she could at least tell it is you at that time, Dina was smoothing the small strands hair off Ellie's face.

"You know what's going on in there." - Ellie muttered out, quickly flashing her look at the black-haired woman. These two were very much in love and if the incident wouldn't happen, their relationship would be most likely blossoming at the moment. But there were different thoughts inside of Ellie's head. The hatred she felt was immersive - it was almost as painful as on the day she got to know Joel had kidnapped her from the hospital and killed Marlene to protect his baby girl.

How could the man be so calm about the whole situation? It seemed that having his brother almost paralyzed and his girlfriend almost dad didn't move a single thing inside of him. At least that was what Ellie thought. Of course, he was in deep grief and an immerse state of anger, but there was nothing to do at the moment. Who would he be hunting down? Who were they? Where did they come from? Will they come back? Joel knew better than letting the anger flash out just like that. And more importantly, he knew that if you wouldn't ish to speak of them or tell him specifically to hunt them down, he won't be going on a killing spree just like that. He had a family to protect now and a future to go towards...  Yet Ellie was just nineteen-year-old kiddo, in the end, she didn't know better.

"Ellie... I'm not sure I want you to fuck around with these people. You hear me?" - Dina asked quietly, catching Ellie's palm in her hand. At that, Ellie left out a small chuckle, shaking her head.

"This isn't a thing you're deciding about. This is my own decision to make." - Sadly, Ellie was right. And Dina knew that. Even Maria, Tommy, and Joel knew that - if Ellie had decided to avenge you, there was no way they could stop her in her quest. Only you had the power do put a stop on that, and even about that, Dina wasn't sure entirely. The only way to stop Ellie was to make sure you won't tell her about the people once you or Tommy wake up... But there was this high probability of Tommy starting a witch hunt by himself because he was a hell of a proud man.

"And is it yours to make? Ellie, what if she wakes up and tells you she doesn't want to go after the people? What if Tommy wakes up and tells you he doesn't want you to go?" - The black-haired girl scoffed ironically, rolling her eyes at her girlfriend's pride. - "You don't know the first shit about these people. What are you even planning on doing?" - Dina asked quietly. She was glad that she hears Ellie talking after those few weeks, but at the moment she wasn't so sure if it was making her feel good to hear Ellie talk about what she had inside. This behavior was selfish, hasty, and suicidal. The only thing Ellie was about to archive was getting herself killed... And Dina knew that. Ellie did too, somewhere deep inside. Yet her ego and pride when it came to these things was... Huge.

"I'm gonna find... And I'm gonna kill... Every last one of them." - Ellie whispered, her eyelid twitching with anger. Slowly, she breathed out, closing her eyes. Dina watched the girl slowly pumping her palm open and close tight for a moment before Ellie gathered enough calmness to speak. - "And you can't stop it, no matter how hard you'll try, Dina. Joel can't, Maria can't... No-one can't. I'm not gonna let these fuckers get away with this." - It hurt Dina more than just some slap, knowing Ellie is already sure that no matter what, she'll get the justice she desired for you. Dina just closed her eyes for a moment before getting up to walk around the room, catching some breath.

"If you're going, I'm going." - Dina demanded silently, covering a good portion of her lips with her palms. - "But promise me that wed go only if she wishes us to go. If she tells you to stay put, you will." - Dina begged silently, knowing Ellie will find them on her own if she'd have to. But the false promise Ellie made with a silent nod calmed Dina down. It was just for a moment, but it did help somehow.

[quirkykayleetam]

Broken Pieces Superhero AU

Welcome back to our beautiful collaboration!  Damien and the world we’re in belong to the ever-talented @burtlederp while Daniel Wei is adapted from my series, Broken Pieces.  We wrote this together and could never have done this without each other’s wonderful help and support!

Chapter Two: Old Habits Die Hard

Damien took one last drag on his cigarette, fully exhausting it before he flicked it away and ground it into the gravel with his shoe. He paused, looking around with his hands in his pockets, letting the smoke slowly curl from his nostrils, admiring the lushness of the woods surrounding. 

He loved the summer here; the verdant forests, the bustling life, the warm summer sun (or having sun at all), even the damn mosquitoes. He took a deep breath of the fresh summer air before he turned to climb the rickety metal stairs to what he called home--apartment 204.

“Those things will kill you, you know,” a mellow voice said from the shadows opposite the door.  “Of course, I’m guessing you’re waiting on your choice of housing to do it first.” 

When the voice appeared, it belonged to a tall Chinese man with warm down-turned eyes and a slight grin on his face.  He knocked softly on the biohazard sign on the door next to Damien’s.  “I honestly thought this was a joke at first, a clumsy way to hide a secret lair, but no.  You actually live next to a biohazard.  How’s that working out for you, kid?”

When the man first spoke, he scared the daylights out of Damien, who jumped and cursed loudly, gripping the railing of the stairs with one hand and his chest with the other. He glared at the guy, frowning, and finished ascending. 

"I'm not dead yet," he replied gruffly, brushing past the man to get to his own door. He didn't add anything else, hoping this guy would leave him alone as he shoved his key into the door and entered.

“It sure is a rough world when the one and only Alchemist has to work three jobs on top of his League gigs just to afford this place,” the man said evenly.

Damien froze for a moment, door half open, then closed his eyes, sighing exasperatedly, and left the door open behind himself. 

"C'mon in, then, I wanna sit down."

Nodding, the man followed, wiping his shoes off at the door though there was no mat to be seen.

While the apartment was old, and dingy, and didn't smell particularly pleasant, it certainly wasn't barren and appeared very lived-in. The door opened to the kitchen in a way that it made the entrance feel very tight with the kitchen counters and cabinets on either side and a pile of shoes in the corner right of the door. A small wooden dining table filled what space was left of the kitchen linoleum after the counters ended on the far wall, the smooth floor giving way to the weathered carpet of the living room. It seemed the wall that was right of the entrance was a small closet, and Damien's room was on the far right end of the apartment.

An ancient sewing machine sat on the kitchen table, many bolts of fabric accumulated over years lying stacking in the corner behind it. A jacket hung off one of the three chairs around the table, and the living room was a mess of… well, more cloth. Left of the fireplace seemed to be the designated 'superhero suit' storage pile, the other side just laundry. Boxes were stacked all over the wall opposite, almost entirely blocking the front-facing window, a couch buried somewhere beneath them. Covering the fireplace, the wall behind it, and large swaths of carpet surrounding it, was a layer of singed carpet or wood and char, like a fire had once had its way here, uncontrolled.

Damien opened the fridge and pulled out a brown glass bottle, popping off the metal cap as he flopped down into the one chair at the kitchen table that didn't have something on it. He took a swig of his drink and stared, looking very tired, at the man expectantly. 

Unperturbed, Damien’s guest walked slowly around the apartment, taking off his black, military-style jacket before meeting Damien’s gaze.  In just a white t-shirt, he was clearly more muscled than Damien expected.  The corner of a tattoo, something red and gold peeked out of the cover of his left sleeve.  Throwing a selection of manila folders on the table, he offered his right hand to Damien.

“I’m Daniel Wei.  As you can probably guess, I’m ‘with’ the League.”  The man’s use of air quotes was not comforting.

Damien switched the bottle to his right hand and shook Daniel's offered hand briefly, his grip tight, and lifted the cover of the top-most folder with passive curiosity. 

"Mm," he grunted in response, taking another drink. "This isn't going to take long, right? I have rounds to make." 

“Kid,” Daniel said, “I’ll be honest with you: I’m in town for other reasons and there are other places I’d rather be right now too.  But since I’m here and here for good, I’ve been assigned as your brand new mentor--”

Damien nearly choked on his drink, leaning forward abruptly as he nearly spat it out. He swallowed it with a grimace and interrupted, "My new what?!"

“The League has let you operate on your own for an awful long time, but when I was headed here anyway, we saw this as an opportunity to...help you out a bit.  Give you a little guidance.  That kind of thing.”

"I--" Damien glared at  Daniel, trying to find words. "No?! No thank you?" he spluttered. "I'm doing fine, I don't need any help."

Daniel took another hard glance at Damien’s nearly empty fridge and the burned expanse by the fireplace.  “Sure, kid.  You’ve never gone hungry, never gotten yourself so hurt you could use a medic or at least another hand to hold the bandages.  You’ve never sprayed your opponent in deadly corrosive acid because you didn’t know what kind of damage it would do and you’ve definitely never struggled to understand your alchemical powers without even a high school diploma.

“I’m just saying that I’ll be around and, if you let me, we could make things a lot easier on yourself.  Check out those folders.  I’ll leave you my card.”

The small slice of paper Daniel left on the table didn’t have his name on it.  It was blood red with the stylized emblem of a wide-brimmed hat.  The only text read “The Rogue” with a phone number beneath.

Damien opened his mouth once or twice but closed it every time Daniel spoke again, face red with anger. He didn't say anything as Daniel tossed the card onto the table, didn't even glance at it. After a moment, he swallowed, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath--Daniel could almost see the steam blowing out his nose--and set his jaw. He took another generous gulp of his drink and met Daniel's gaze, anger still sparking behind his brown eyes, but his expression was even.

"Thank you. I'll consider it." The words sounded forced.

Daniel smiled and nodded.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Damien.”  Then he turned, put on his coat and walked off into the night.

Damien watched him go, nose curling as soon as Daniel was out the door and he was alone again. He shut and locked the door, then stood there, hand on the knob, the bottle in the other, and clenched his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut, feeling the anger boil in him. Who the f--k does he think he is?! Calling me "kid"?! His fingers dug into the cheap wood of the door and Damien quickly drew away when he realized he was leaving deep scratches in the wood, nearly going all the way through the door. He cursed, flicking his hand and looked around his dingy, lonely little apartment that felt much less little ever since he'd started being here alone.

Hesitantly, he walked back to the kitchen table and sat down stiffly, frowning down at the folders. He drummed his fingernails on the bottle, then gave in to curiosity, flipping the top one open.  Inside were the architect’s blueprints for a different apartment, a much bigger apartment, an apartment on the “right” side of town closer to the places that he worked.  The blueprints indicated secret basement access through a trapdoor in the bedroom that led to a laboratory of sorts complete with drains, air vents, a ventilator hood, and steel bookshelves built into the walls.  Beneath the blueprints was a lease already signed and paid for.  When Damien gave the folder a slight shake, keys fell out from the bottom.

Damien stared down at the shiny silver keys that glinted in the wan, dingy light of the one functioning light bulb remaining in the kitchen ceiling. He swallowed, looking back to the plans, flipping through them. After his eyes darted all over the pages, he leaned back in his chair, rubbing his face. He peeked out, looking around the little, cramped, dense apartment. The little, cramped, dense place he called a home. It was the last thing he had left of his life before… well, before he wasn't a kid anymore. If his Mom got better--She won't, a tiny voice in his mind reminded him--this… this could be the only place she could remember. Unless it wasn't here anymore. 

Damien frowned, and closed the folder after putting the keys back, and tossed it lazily to the overflowing trash can, where it bounced and scattered all over the kitchen floor.

"If this is another piece of f--kin' charity, I swear…" He muttered, turning to the next folder.  Inside he found a GED with his name on it, signed by members of the League and backdated to the first time he used his alchemical powers in public.  Underneath it was a letter written in excited academic writing from a former biochemistry professor and inventor who retired in Qinniq asking the Alchemist, whoever he was, to come work with him.  The man had so many different theories he wanted to discuss. 

Damien felt anger in his gut rise again. He scowled, memories of public school and old bosses and coworkers and his father and everybody in between flooding his mind, their taunts and jabs and nicknames and slurs and all of it coming back to him--

He tore it up and tossed the bits of it to the trash again, then opened the last folder.  This one was smaller than the rest.  It held only a prepaid bus card for fare from Qinniq to Anchorage, where Damien’s mom was, enough for him to go every weekend for an entire year.

Damien picked it up, his anger fading a bit. He swallowed, glancing between the card and the discarded folders in the trash. He slipped the card into his wallet and got to his feet, finishing off his drink and leaving the bottle on the table as he pulled off his shirt. 

He thought over Daniel's words, his offer, the folders as he changed into his costume. He pulled his gloves on slowly and frowned.

"Asshat," he muttered to himself as he slid open his back window and lept out into the night still lit by a sun that wouldn't disappear over the horizon until 11 o'clock.

Tag List (I’m including those of you who enjoyed the original Broken Pieces story, but if you want to be taken off, please just let me know!):  @stoic-whumpee​​​​​​, @whatwasmyprevioususername​​​​​​, @whumpty-dumpty-fell-off-the-wall​​​​​​, @straight-to-the-pain​​​​​​, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog​​​​​​, @0idril0​​​​​​, @fallingstormphoenix​​​​​​, @whump-fantasies​​​​​​, @imagination1reality0​​​​​​, @whumpback-wail​​​​​, @whump-tr0pes​​​​​, @untilthepainstarts​​​​​, @captivity-whump​​​​, @burtlederp​​​​, @redwingedwhump​​​​, @whumpiary​​​​, @captivity-whump​​​​, @blue-flare10

[bcdrawsandwrites]

Next entry for @badthingshappenbingo​!

I AM NO LONGER ACCEPTING PROMPTS! The single-bone marks on the card indicate which prompts I have received and am going to write, and I finally have prompts that will earn me a bingo once they’ve been written. (But they’re not written yet!)

This fic has also been posted to FFN and AO3, so you can check it out on my Assortment of Broken Bones collection on there if you like!

This one is for @mysteryfilmcatcher ! Uh... if they still exist? Hope you enjoy, if you’re still around! \o/;;

Prompt: Doesn’t Realize They’ve Been Injured Characters: Héctor and Victoria, post-movie, pre-epilogue

---~~~---

"What is this?! You call this a men's size fourteen?!"

"Sí, I do, señor."

"This isn't right! What do I look like, a clown?"

She spoke quickly. "No, señor, you don't have the nose for it."

Though she swore she heard a faint chuckle, in actuality, the joke seemed to have gone over his head. "I thought not! So why would you give me shoes this size?"

"Because when we measured your feet when you came in two weeks ago, that was the size we measured."

"This is not the right—"

"Did you try them on, señor?"

The man sputtered. "What kind of idiot do you take me for?"

"So you have tried them on, and they don't fit?"

"W-well, no, I… um." Grumbling, the man pulled the shoes off the counter, and stooped down to swap his old shoes with the new ones. Victoria could not see him, but she knew what his expression must have been when he very suddenly stopped grumbling. After a moment, the man rose to his feet again. "W-well the point is, it's wrong, but I don't have time to argue."

That said, he spun around and walked away with his new, perfectly-fitted Rivera shoes.

With a huff, Victoria plucked the paperwork off the counter and stepped away to file it. Honestly, she couldn't believe some of these customers—Rivera shoes always fit. They were known for it.

She glanced at the clock; they always closed at noon on Saturdays, and now it was only a few minutes to; it wouldn't hurt to start to close up early. She made a quick tally of the cash drawer, looked over the counter to make sure it was clear (as though anything needed straightening when she manned the counter), and double-checked the boxes for Monday's orders.

As she locked the doors and turned off the lights, she thought about how nice it would be to spend the afternoon by herself—a nice bit of quiet time after a morning of working here and dealing with all these terrible—

 CRASH—BANG!

Automatically snatching a nearby hammer off a workbench, Victoria spun around, searching for the source of the noise. She could hear the sound of faint moaning somewhere, indicating that she wasn't alone. It was harder to see in the darkened workshop with the windows and doors shut, but the light shone through the cracks enough for her to find her way around, and she managed to spot where a sewing machine had been knocked off of the counter… along with several other objects she couldn't identify in the dark. Frowning, but keeping her hammer steady, she leaned down to pick up one of the objects, only to be startled at the feeling of bone.

"AY! Careful!" a familiar voice cried, and Victoria jumped back initially, only to roll her eyes when she recognized whom the voice belonged to. This had hardly been the first time he’d caused trouble since they’d taken him in a month ago.

The bone sprang from her hands as a skeleton assembled himself in front of her before leaning against the counter. He plucked his shabby straw hat off of the ground and set it back on his head. "Uh… hola, Victoria!" Héctor said, waving a hand and probably giving a stupid-looking grin.

"Where did you come from?" Victoria asked, crossing her arms and glaring, though she knew he could barely see it. "I don't think Mamá Imelda would like you sneaking around here."

"Eh, I wasn't sneaking exactly… I was just… hanging out?" In the dim light, she could see him hold up one finger.

It took her a second to realize he was pointing upward, and she stared at him deadpan. "You were sitting up there."

"Sí."

"In the rafters."

"¿Sí…?"

"Why?"

"I just… wanted someplace quiet to write, so I thought I'd, um… take a seat up there, out of the way," he admitted. "I enjoyed your company, by the way. You handled those customers quite well!"

Victoria frowned, walking past him to pick up the heavy sewing machine and set it back on its workbench. "Of course I did. I've been in this business since I was a child. Did you think I handled them poorly before?"

That caught him off guard, and he faltered. "Wait, wait, no, that's not what I was… I mean—I just mean to say that you do your job well?"

She kept her glare fixed on him. His behavior brought to mind the foolish boys of Santa Cecilia who would try to win her affection with shallow praise; even now she still felt the annoyance burning in her chest at the memory. The only difference here was that Héctor sought platonic affection. In either case, it would not work. "I should hope so," she said coldly, and turned around. "I don't plan to spend the rest of my day in a pitch dark workshop, but you're welcome to stay here if you like, so long as you lock the door behind you."

With that, she made her way to the back door—

 Clatter!

Rolling her eyes, Victoria turned around to find that the man had fallen over, again, though this time he clearly hadn't tumbled from the rafters. "Now what is it?"

"Ah, I, uh…" Héctor grunted as he pushed himself up on his hands, turning back toward his left side. "I… think I hit my leg on something when I fell."

Victoria stared at him for a moment before recalling the sewing machine that had been knocked to the floor, and shuddered. "How did you not notice before?"

Managing to get back to his feet, Héctor leaned heavily against the counter again. "Well, that leg usually always hurts, so it's a little hard to tell sometimes when it gets messed up again." He shrugged. "Not the end of the world."

After switching the light back on, Victoria took a few steps closer to Héctor, adjusting her glasses to get a better look at the damage. His leg was bandaged with what appeared to be very old leather, so it was hard to tell if anything was different. But given he was starting to be remembered again in the living world, it must have started healing again, and the fall had disrupted that. "I see," she said, stepping back. "Are you all right?"

She'd asked it without thinking, and mentally smacked herself. Of course she wasn't cold—anyone with half a heart would ask a question like that—but knowing Héctor, he would cling to whatever scrap of affection he could.

To her surprise, he gave a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'll be fine," he said, carefully leaning away from the counter. "This leg's been broken for several decades now—a little crack isn't going to make much of a difference." With that, he began limping toward the door.

Victoria watched him, but it wasn't really him she was looking at.

She saw her abuela as she was in life, marching into the workshop as though her joints weren't stiff and worn down, as though her heart wasn't bad, as though she hadn't just pulled an extra three hour shift the night before to correct an accounting problem.

Not only that… she saw herself sitting at her workbench, suppressing another cough, fighting to hide yet another dizzy spell, pretending her entire body wasn't aching and freezing with illness.

Shaking her head, she strode past Héctor and shut off the light, waiting at the open door. His limp was more pronounced than it had been that morning, and he was moving slower than he usually did. Victoria tapped her foot.

"I haven't got all day," she said, facing him again. Ignoring his apologetic look, she strode up to his left side, lifted his arm around her shoulders, and helped him take some of the weight off of his bad leg. The feeling of having his arm around her made her tense and uncomfortable, but it was better than having to wait for him to drag himself back to the house.

Héctor stared at her in shock before a genuine smile crossed his face. "Gracias."

"Don't thank me," she grunted, helping him out of the workshop and locking the door behind her. "You would've taken an age to get out of there and forgotten to lock the door behind you, and I don't want someone breaking into the workshop."

Héctor was still smiling. "Of course, mija."

A jolt ran through her, and she grit her teeth for a moment. "I've seen you walk with a bad leg before. I know you can pick up the pace, Héctor."

Finally his smile dropped, and he nodded. "Sí, Victoria."

It didn't make her feel much better, and she swallowed down her frustration as they approached the house. "Just… be careful next time."

He nodded, and she helped him inside the house and into the living room. As he eased himself into a chair, she made to leave, but stopped, feeling like she should say something more. She turned back to him. "And Héctor…"

He looked up, hopeful. "¿Sí?"

"Por favor, don't sit in the rafters of the workshop ever again."

"Heh… of course, Victoria."

[fordarkisthesuede]

At the Brink of Midnight - Chapter 6

It’s finally here! .ﾟ☆(ノё∀ё)ノ☆ﾟ. My tumblr and Ao3 updates will now be synchronized on the same day from here on out! As always, thank you for your continuous support!!!

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Chapter 6:  Your Old Dark House

"You know, I'm surprised you didn't take the Batmobile last night," John commented as they rode the elevator up to the billiard room. He held his hands behind his back, loosely clasping his wrist with one hand, while standing completely straight and exuding an aura of unbelieving excitement. He smiled over at Bruce, light shining brilliantly in his eyes, looking every bit as charming as he had at the Stacked Deck.

"I thought it would be less conspicuous if I rode along in Jackie's car," Bruce offered with a light shrug. "I thought she was on our side..."

"I only ever saw her when she was tagging along in sessions now and then," John started smoothly, "but that was a woman whose hamster wheels were always turning. Just never quite knew what they were turning for..."

The elevator came to a halt, and Bruce pushed the section of wall open.

The parlor was barely lit and only slightly warmer than the cave. Bruce let John get out first, making sure the clock's wall shut firmly.

Bruce wanted to just make a bee-line for the door. He didn't want to look at the picture hanging above the mantle. His parents' kind eyes as they posed with him, the younger, innocent child that had no clue as to what they really did with their lives. The picture was taken two months before their assassination in Crime Alley, and Bruce sometimes wondered why his father didn't look more like the manic crime lord he turned out to be.

He couldn't find it in him to take it down. It was part of him, and it felt strange not to have their picture somewhere in the house, despite what they had done. It used to be a constant reminder to prevent senseless deaths like theirs. Then it became a reminder to be better than his family's name.

John seemed to scan the room, his excitement not waning in the slightest. "Wow, I knew it would be fancy, but... Still! Even have a family portrait!"

Bruce had a hard enough time looking at it. He certainly didn't want to talk about it, much less with the person his parents' would have undoubtedly disapproved of having in their home the most. "You haven't seen anything yet," Bruce said with as much charm as he could muster.

"Then lead the way, Lord of the Manor." John gestured his arms at the door, a small grin stretched on his pale face.

The foyer had strips of light coming in through the tall window above the door.

"Ha! It looks just like the pictures! Just, uh, darker."

Bruce felt his spirits lift at that. He figured it wouldn't hurt to switch on the light at the top of the stairs.

John winced and rubbed his eyes, but still seemed to instantly soak up the visuals. "Talk about classy. Just looking at all this makes me want to rob you," he joked, laughing a bit. "Just a little, though."

Just as Bruce suspected, John stood out in stark contrast to the color palette of the mansion. It was nice, seeing something so bright and lively in the otherwise empty space.

Bruce did agree to give a bit of a tour, despite what they had to do, and he figured the best way to get them both to move was to just start talking from the top. "So... Main kitchen's to the right of the stairs, in the back, dining room's through the second door across the hall..."

"Woah, woah - main kitchen? You have little sub-kitchens?" John grinned over, inching towards the staircase.

"No, just one other kitchen, on the far side of the house."

"Why does one guy need two kitchens?"

"It was either meant for long-term guests or live-in servants... I'm honestly not sure. There's a lot of rooms I don't bother going into."

"Ooh, let me guess!" John deliberately covered his eyes with one hand and posed with the other pointing up in the air. "I bet...you have a theater, and...a gym...and a conservatory!"

Bruce let out a slight chortle. "Got it in one. Though I do use the gym."

John pulled his hand away from his face, grinning triumphantly back at him. "I knew it! Don't think I haven't noticed you've been working out," he added with a look that Bruce felt was rather... flirtatious . "Miss the nightly excursions on rooftops?"

The usual awkwardness that came with John's honesty bubbled up; it was worse knowing that John had been completely right. Since giving up Batman, Bruce tended to work out until exhaustion, if just to give his mind the illusion that he was working like normal.

"Let's head upstairs - there's at least five closets for us to go through."

John laughed to himself as he started to ascend the stairs. "No need to feel embarrassed, Bruce," he said, humor weaved into his tone, "I get it."

"You're the only one who does."

John put a hand over his chest as he gave the billionaire a soft look. "Aww, Bruce! I'm touched..." He tore his gaze away to continue taking in the decor. "I hope the feeling's mutual."

Bruce wasn't sure what to say to that.

"Say, your Dad... He seems like he was the same height as you. Was he the same size as you, too? It's hard to tell from the pictures."

"I'm not sure," the former-vigilante answered honestly. "Alfred and I donated a lot of my parents' stuff years ago. There's only so much left."

"You have a sewing machine?"

Did he? Alfred was a man of many talents, including mending... He couldn't remember ever seeing a machine. "I know Alfred has a kit, but I don't think he has a machine."

"Hmm... No worries! As long as I can get my hands on some Stitch Witchery, we'll be good to go."

Was...was he planning on fixing something to fit him?

Bruce thought about telling him they didn't have time for that, but the reality was that they did. "Master bedroom's on the right."

"We're starting with your closet?"

"Might as well. Alfred's is off-limits."

"Naturally."

John's face lit up as they went through the bedroom's double-doors. Bruce didn't think there would be much to get excited about at first.

But then he realized he was letting John into the second most personal space he had. Few people had seen inside that room, and those that spent the night usually didn't find their way back inside afterward. Even fewer had the same observation skills John had.

It was strange, though, that John seemed to bypass everything in favor of the walk-in closet.

Or maybe he was being sneaky about where he was looking. It was hard to tell with him sometimes. It was why Bruce hadn't realized how much a "watcher" he really was until their conversation in the Fun House.

John immediately set upon going through the suits. "Let's see, black, dark blue, black, black - ooh, there's gray! Your spring color of choice!" He teased, grinning at him as he played with the sleeve between his fingers. "Have any suits you hate?"

Bruce blinked. "You can take whatever one you want, John. I'll get another."

John pursed his lips. "I'd feel bad if I took your favorite."

He was tempted to say that his favorite was downstairs, but it wasn't quite true. Or maybe he didn't want it to be true. "In that case, anything but the pinstriped black in the middle."

"...do you really trust me?" John asked carefully, flicking through the rack of carefully-hung suits. "Enough to do this again...? Work with you...?"

"Of course I do."

"Even though I messed things up?"

Bruce knew he had to choose his words carefully. John already felt - and looked - guilty enough. "We both messed up, John."

"But you didn't kill anyone."

He felt his heart squeeze at the thought and crossed his arms. "You've...come a long way since then." Bruce watched John's face carefully, trying to read him; his expression had softened. "Are you worried you're going to do it again?"

"Do you think Tiffany will?" He asked suddenly, turning towards him with a piercing, accusatory stare. "Or is it just me?"

"John -"

"No," he interrupted, his voice raised. "I want the truth, Bruce. Why did you let her go and put me back in Arkham?"

Bruce felt like he was aching all over. He hated seeing John like this. He hated feeling the stomach-gnawing guilt that came with it. But the only thing he could do was to be honest with him.

"It was the best way I knew how to help her. Putting her in Black Gate would have only made more problems for the Fox's. And...Arkham was the only way I knew I could help you." Bruce let everything come out, feeling like he was laying himself bare, and hoped to hell that John was seeing. "I didn't want to put you back in there. I had no choice." He breathed in, hating the angry hurt on full display on John's face. "I know what you two have done. But I also know you're trying to be better."

John sighed, his lean body slacking halfway. "You had seven months to tell me, Bruce. Lying by omission still counts as breaking our promise." He pouted slightly, glancing at the taupe suit he had been handling, and an unnerving smile broke on his face. "So you're going to make it up to me."

Bruce wasn't quite sure how to take that.

"I want one of your batarangs," John continued in a low tone that send a slight shiver up Bruce's spine.

Well... He did know how to use it. Neither of them knew what would happen outside, either. It could come in handy. And they did promise not to keep secrets, and he had a point, no matter how much Bruce could have protested that he had been going to tell him. Bruce supposed there was no harm in paying a penalty so simple. "...sure, that's fair."

"To keep."

"I'm not letting you take it back to Arkham."

"Of course not," John replied silkily, "You're going to hold onto it for me."

It was hard to guess exactly what John was thinking, asking for something like that. One batarang for putting the issue aside. He supposed John would never be able to get the rest of the Jokerrangs out of policy custody... "Fine. But just one."

John gave a mischievous grin as he reached into his pocket, pulling out a familiar sharpened bat-shaped tool. "Oh, good! That means I only have to give one of these back."

The vigilante's eyebrows rose to his hairline, staring at the batarang just being held out to him like a playing card.

"I know I should've asked, but like I said, you looked like you hadn't slept in a week, buddy," John said with a playful shrug. "Sorry."

Bruce nearly snatched the batarang back, glaring at the green-haired man.

John pulled the taupe suit off the hanger and folded it neatly over his arm. "I'm gonna need a couple of other things, too, now that I think about it..."

Bruce didn't know why he always ended back up in the parlor. Maybe it drew him in with it's natural coziness, despite the judgmental stares of his parent's picture. Maybe it was because it was the in-between for both sides of his life. (Used to be, he reminded himself.)

He'd left John on his own upstairs, who focused intently on his sewing project after a lengthy discussion about what Bruce had to order for him if he was going to step outside at all. At least it was easy enough for the warehouse to drone-deliver later.

But that had been an hour ago. Occasionally, he would hear movement from upstairs as John rooted around in the other four closets that might have held something for him to use. It had been silent for a little too long.

All Bruce had for noise for the past half-hour was the little blips from the drone he was controlling through the mobile gear he brought up from the cave. He'd flown around the city, checking up on Jackie's apartment (empty), the whereabouts of her car (unknown), and trying to find any sign of Crane's car (none) as he virtually sat outside the doctor's condo.

There had been no sign of life there - not so much as a twitch in the curtains, all of which were drawn shut. There wasn't so much as a desk lamp on inside, and at six-thirty in the morning, Gotham's penchant for cloud cover made it pretty dark. It was unlikely that Jonathan Crane was home, and Bruce was struggling to think of where he could have gone or what he was planning to do.

Arkham's server hadn't shown any key-card use for either him or Jackie Lant since the night before. Trying to track their phones came up as empty as they had the night before - likely switched off, but hopefully not dumped. Jackie Lant at least had a couple of social media accounts Bruce could cobble together information from; she had friends in the area, so she might have stayed the night at one of their places.

Bruce flew the miniature drone around the back of the condo again, parking it in the corner of the patio next to a cluster of potted plants by the tall fence. He and John would either have to pick the lock on the front door or jump the fences to break in the back way. For right now, he'd keep an eye on the back to see if there was any movement through the windows there...

A loud buzzing sound would have made Bruce jump if he were anyone else but himself, but it did shake him out of his thoughts. The gate's intercom was activated; he rushed to get to the panel by the front door and take a peek at the video, grateful that they couldn't see him.

Detective Bullock's round face glared at him from the driver's side of his unmarked Crown Victoria.

Bruce had expected as much. He didn't think Bullock would ever forget being punched in the face, even if it had been for a good reason at the time. He breathed in, willing himself to sound as just-woken-up as possible before pressing the call-button. "Yes?"

"Detective Bullock of Gotham City Police Department, Wayne. Open up."

Bruce feigned surprise as best he could. "Oh, sure - I'll be right down."

He pushed the button for the gate and rushed to strip and pull on the bathrobe he had thrown on the billiard table an hour ago, praying silently that John wouldn't pick now to make any indications he was in the house.

He waited a minute, knowing he shouldn't appear to rushed to see anyone, and took as many even breaths as he could before opening the door.

Detective Bullock was standing there with two armed officers, the Crown Victoria parked crooked in front of the GCPD squad car in the path.

"Good morning, Detective - officers," he added with a smile in their direction. "How may I help you?"

Harvey Bullock grimaced. "You'll do us a favor and cut the crap," he growled. "Your pal John Doe escaped Arkham Asylum sometime last night. You seen him?"

Bruce rose his eyebrows and let his shoulders slump. "He escaped?" He took a deliberate pause, pretending to search Harvey's face. "No... No, I haven't." (Bruce had blinked. He hoped Harvey wouldn't notice.)

"Right. Here's how it's gonna go, rich boy - we figure he's gonna try to get in touch with you, and seeing as how he's a homicidal lunatic-" Bruce felt himself frown before he could really stop the reflex - "we have to make sure we have someone around to stop your ass from getting sliced up. So officers Flemmot and Derming here will be keeping an eye on your place. We already have a couple guys situated on Wayne Tower, in case he tries there."

It was a perfectly sensible thing to do, despite it being a matter of public knowledge that Bruce took an active interest in Arkham's reformation and John's well-being after the Joker incident. Tabloids had run themselves ragged trying to dig up whatever they could in the first few months of Bruce's visits to the asylum, but Bruce had the sense of mind to pay the more talkative orderlies off before things would get too out of hand. He didn't care that people knew they were friends, considering what they knew already, but he didn't want any wild accusations to start flying. There was a couple of baseless theories in the trashiest rag about potential love affairs between the two, but one call from Bruce's lawyer cleared that up before anyone could say 'Wayne'.

Still, Bruce knew he had to feign some ignorance, if just to keep up appearances, so he put his hands in his pockets like he was being thoughtful. "You really think he'd try to go to Wayne Tower?"

"It's not a matter of what I think, moneybags." Bruce almost winced at the nickname. "It's a matter of what the commissioner thinks. And what he thinks is that either Doe or you are gonna do something stupid, given your guys' history. So you listen to me," Bullock growled, stepping up to get in Bruce's face, "If you so much as get a glimpse of your freaky little boy-toy while you're held up in either one of your ivory towers, you get us on the line asap. Else you're gonna be in shit so deep you'll need a snorkel. Got it?"

Bruce felt the urge to break the detective's nose for a second time. He could practically hear the satisfying crack it made. "You didn't have to put it that way," he answered, clenching his fist to try and quell the desire to punch, "but yes, I understand."

"Good." Bullock started to retreat, turning to the two officers waiting at the base of the steps. "You two, start sweeping the grounds, and keep a close eye on Wayne, you got me? I want to know if he so much as leans out the window. Oh, and Wayne?" He shot up a look from the bottom step as he shoved a cigarette into his mouth. "You got a small package," he added with a smirk, pointing to the medium-sized box sitting by unopened side of the door. Bruce rolled his eyes and picked it up, deciding not to dignify the distasteful jab with a response.

"I think I'll work from home today," he said aloud as he closed the door on the police officers now going their own ways, knowing that they heard him well enough.  

God, what he needed now was coffee. He went through his mental catalogue of the kitchen as he went, wondering if he had anything John would actually like, and thought about whether or not he should go looking for him.

Bruce stepped through the kitchen door and found that the idea was completely unnecessary - John was leaning against the counter island, fully-dressed in the modified taupe suit taken from Bruce's closet, seeming to watch the coffeemaker on the opposing counter. Bruce gently placed the box on the counter nearest him.

As if he sensed his presence, John turned his head, and immediately lit up. "There you are! Your eggs are getting cold!"

Bruce shot a glance at the table tucked away by the darkened window. Two plates, both covered with a different set of plates to keep them warm. Mugs were already sitting there, too, as well as the carton of half-and-half, the sugar bowl, two jars of jam (did he have two kinds? Bruce only remembered strawberry in the fridge...), and the maple syrup for some reason.

"How did you do this so fast?"

"Bruce, I've been down here for twenty minutes," John said with a somewhat flat look as he turned around to lean against the counter on his elbows. "You looked busy, so I was going to wait and get you, but then the fuzz showed up and... I figured you'd find me eventually."

"...what would you have done if they'd come in?"

"They can't come in without a warrant and they don't have...you know, that thing. What is it - uh, probable clause?"

"Probable cause."

"Yeah, that!" John emphasized with a snap of his fingers. "I knew you wouldn't let them in since I was here anyway, so there was only a mild panic attack for a couple of minutes back there."

Bruce felt almost like he was having one of those right now. The kitchen windows had their rolling shades drawn, but there was still a slim chance they could be seen through the sides... And the fact that John had crept around downstairs without a sound was as startling as it was impressive.

He really was full of surprises...

"Well, just...don't sit by the window," Bruce said lamely. "There's going to be two officers patrolling the grounds."

John let out a giggle. "Good thing they don't know how I escaped in the first place," he said teasingly, his green eyes twinkling up at Bruce. "They'd neeever guess."

"Hopefully they never will."

"I doubt it," John hand-waved, standing straight as the coffee machine beeped, "You're Gotham's golden boy, Bruce. You could visit me every single day and they'd still doubt you'd actually break me out. You could probably tell them that you were Batman and they'd never believe you..."

"I don't know about that... Avesta was sharp enough to pin Batman's identity on me after one meeting with me. She's a Gothamite, and I don't think she doubted it for an instant."

"That's different," John scoffed, moving the coffeepot to the table, giving Bruce a full view of the seamless job John had done on the suit.

It was... perfect, actually.

It accentuated his shoulders and waistline, leaving just enough room for the grappling gun at his back, and made a slim fit on his legs; he'd even found a dark green tie somewhere that complimented his hair.

John seemed to notice him staring (he was not staring, he was observing, he was not letting himself linger on any particular area, certainly not his swan-like neck, exposed due to not buttoning up the shirt all the way...) and turned to beam at him, posing his hands on his hips. "What do you think?"

Bruce shoved down the honest flattering compliments that popped up in his head that he would've said unabashedly with anyone else. Still, he didn't want to say anything rude just to cover his own feelings, either.

"I think I should hire you as my tailor," Bruce said genuinely, "You look great."

John looked as if Bruce had said he was handsomest thing he'd ever seen. "Thanks! I'm impressed with myself, actually, since I had limited supplies to work with..." Bruce almost felt like as if he had passed some kind of test with him, somehow...

He took the seat next to him at the table and puzzled over how strangely domestic this entire scenario was, despite the threats just walking around outside. He knew they had time, considering Crane and Lant were nowhere to be found, but there was always the nagging feeling in the back of his head that they had to move.

"So what were you up to?" John asked, smearing a heaping knife-full of strawberry jam on his toast.

"I was using the drones to try and find Crane. I haven't been able to find his or Jackie Lant's cars, so I decided to part the drone outside of Crane's condo for now. He doesn't seem to be home." He watched as John picked up the syrup and squirted it in streaks all over his plate, covering the eggs and half the toast like it was the only way to eat them.

"Crane drives a Lexus, doesn't he?" John asked with a forkful of syrup-coated egg poised to be eaten. "He seems like the type..."

"Yes, actually. I haven't been able to see any sign of it on traffic cameras, either."

"He probably parked it and swapped the plates with something else," John advised, pointing another bite at Bruce's face to emphasize his point. "Our glorified intern is probably still driving her crummy little sedan around."

He honestly couldn't imagine Jackie Lant as the type to steal a car. She seemed to be the kind to hide it. He wondered if she wasn't just going to try and continue life as normal today, considering John would've gone after Crane right away regardless of whether or not Bruce Wayne had a darker side. "...why do you think she wanted to kill him?" Bruce asked, sipping his coffee. (John had apparently opted for the dark roast rather than the French in the cupboard. Strange, considering John was now pouring quite a bit of half-and-half into his cup...)

The green-haired man just hummed in response, a calculating look coming over his face. "If I were the betting kind of guy," he started, "I'd say she was aiming to steal from him, first."

"You think she's after his formula?"

"Maybe," John replied with a secretive sort of smile. "But Crane was using it on us for a reason, Bruce. All those notes about how we reacted under extreme stress, seeing our worst fears manifested before our eyes by a nasty chemical reaction..." John's face twisted into something serious. "Crane might have had to kill his way in, but it doesn't change the fact that people pay a lot of attention to him."

Bruce thought back to the strange figures sitting on Crane's office shelf. "How did you know he's killed people?"

John looked down at his plate with a reminiscent expression. "I had some sessions with Dr. Kessler before I got released. He had that little souvenir floating pen on his desk since day one." John stabbed the yolk with his fork, watching the yellow goop leak out like a bloody wound. "I liked him."

"I'm sorry."

"They never found either of their bodies, did they? Kessler and his replacement, whatever her name was... Just empty homes and not so much as a goodbye note from either of them," John commented, meeting Bruce's gaze again with a dry smile.

"No. He and Dr. Norris are still on the missing persons list." Bruce let coffee wash out the bad taste that came along with the words. "I'm sure that Jackie Lant is going to go after Crane. That look on her face when she left..."

"You'll have to tell me," John pointed out with a wider smile.

"Sorry," Bruce said reflexively, remembering the punch he had thrown at the side of John's head. "She was...determined. Whatever Crane's planning to do, she might know what it is already. I wouldn't put it past her to already have some of his formula, too."

John leaned on his elbow, propping his head in his slim, pale hand to observe Bruce with a familiar, playful smile on his lips. "Hmm, decisions, decisions... Are we going to look into the home of the disturbed doctor or the treacherous trainee this morning?"

Bruce thought back to Crane's empty condo. He had no idea how long it would stay empty; and he wouldn't be surprised if Crane kept his formula - or at least an earlier version of it - at his house.

Then again, Jackie Lant's apartment was also temporarily deserted. There was no guarantee that she wouldn't try to go back to work. She might have a few answers scattered around, too, both for herself and Crane's actions.

But Crane's face when he had walked out... He'd been so assured of himself. Like he already knew what he was going to do next, despite there being no way he could have predicted John's escape and Bruce's intrusion on his office.

"Crane might have kept to himself, but his house will give us the best chance at finding out what he's up to. And if he tries to go back while we're there, we might be able to stop him prematurely."

"Good choice," John grinned, passing him the blackcurrant jam. Bruce didn't even know he had that kind... It must have been in the back of the cupboard. "But I wouldn't recommend going on an empty stomach."

Bruce felt his cheeks burn slightly as he started in on his own food, John watching him happily. He had a feeling he would watch the whole time if left to his own. "Your stuff came, by the way," he said with a nod towards the package sitting on the counter.

"Ooh, better get started, then!" John practically downed the rest of his own drink. "See you back in the billiard room, Bruce!"

With that, he rushed out of the kitchen, pausing at the door to peek out and see if he had a clear shot outside or not, and left Bruce on his own in the large, empty kitchen.

Bruce felt like he was waiting for a date to finish freshening up before they went out on the town. He'd passed the time by sending off the email notifications that he wouldn't be coming into the office and rescheduling his meetings. He'd still have one to do at home that he wouldn't be able to get out of or push aside, but that wasn't until the afternoon. He had lots of time before then.

He wished he had kept the Batmobile parked in the cave, now. He already had to take one of his other car's plates off so they could drive the stolen Honda around without being randomly looked up. Hopefully no one would notice. Bruce had already changed into plain street clothes and hadn't bothered shaving.

"Sorry for the wait, Brucie."

For a moment, it looked like a well-dressed stranger had broken into Wayne Manor. With his hair dyed temporarily dark brown and his face covered in a more naturally-toned foundation, the only thing that gave John away was the bright greens of his eyes.

He seemed to have applied the works:  nude lipstick, natural smokey eye-shadow, eyebrow pencil, and even brown mascara. He was completely unrecognizable to any stranger.

He'd clearly found something else in one of the closets upstairs, too. Bruce almost did a double-take - he was pretty sure that was his father's light trench-coat over Bruce's taupe suit. The matching hat was being twirled around on John's hand.

(He did tell him he could take whatever he wanted. It was too late to go back on that now... Bruce would just have to deal with it. It wasn't like he'd seen it that often when his father was alive, either.)

"What do you think? I kind of disassociated a bit towards the end while applying everything. It feels like I'm looking at a me from another world..."

It struck Bruce that this was very likely what John had looked like before he had woken up in Arkham, before he'd had whatever accident had bleached his skin and warped his D.N.A. to dye his hair green. It was rather handsome, if Bruce was being completely honest, but it didn't feel right. It was as if John was supposed to always have his unnatural color palette.

"You...definitely look different," Bruce answered.

John looked at his (very new) shoes. "It's weird, isn't it."

"No - well, yes, but only because I know you." Bruce fumbled, not wanting to see John hurt. "You look good. Just...not your usual good."

That brought a smile back, at least. "Thanks, Bruce. I needed that." He clapped his hands together, standing completely straight. "Well! I'm ready to go when you are!"

Notes:  John’s new look is totally inspired by Jack Napier in Mask of the Phantasm. Picture it, but combined with that tan trench-coat+hat combo other Jokers wear sometimes...

If only John was in Villain!Joker’s makeup... ♡( ૢ⁼̴̤̆ ꇴ ⁼̴̤̆ ૢ)~ෆ♡

[katiebug445]

Donuts and Comic Books

LingFan week day 6

Prompt: AU

A/N: I know I’m a little late getting this up, but I have been so busy that I nearly forgot about it, but I wanted to do something for this prompt because it caught my eye immediately. 

LanFan took a moment outside the door to collect herself, rehearsing what she was going to say over and over in her mind, before heading inside. For half a second, her fingers hesitated on the handle, unsure if she was prepared enough for this or not. What if they didn’t like her? What if she wasn’t cut out for dealing with people all the time like this, despite how much fun the perks sounded? What if, what if, what if…

This was the perfect job for her, she told herself. It was better than working fast food, wasn’t it? At least here, she’d be working with her own kind; geeks were hard to come across in this city. Giving herself a small shake, she pushed her doubt to the back of her mind and pushed the door open.

There was a man sitting at the counter with his arms folded across the glass with his chin resting on them. When he heard the door, he looked up, giving her a welcoming smile. “Long time no see, LanFan!” he greeted, wheeling himself out from behind the counter. “We were starting to wonder if we’d lost you to the normal world.”

“Of course not! Normal people are too boring!” she replied. The smell of ink on paper - both new and old - filled her nose, and it helped calm her down some. This was where she belonged, she knew it. “I actually had a question for you.”

The man raised an eyebrow, his blue eyes shining and a small smirk on his lips. “If you’re wondering if you’re invited to the staff party screening of Wonder Woman, I hate to break it to you, but you have to actually, you know, be staff. No matter how much we would like to have you there.”

“That’s actually what I wanted to ask about.” LanFan made her way over to him, trying to keep the pleading tone out of her voice as she launched into her speech. “You guys have been understaffed here since I’ve been coming in. Three people isn’t enough to run this place - especially on New Comic Day. And I know the ins and outs of how things are run here enough that you wouldn’t have to train me too much… I also really need a job.”

He was quiet for a second or two before letting out a small chuckle. “Are you just wanting to get hired so you can see Wonder Woman a day early with all of us?”

“No!” She exclaimed. “Okay, a small part of me is, but you know me well enough that you know I’m being serious about this. I’ve been coming in here since I was old enough to read. I, personally, have probably been half the reason you guys have been in business this long. My grandfather’s house is full of boxes of comics, figurines, and board games that have all come from this place. It’s to the point he said if i bring another one home, he’s gonna start charging me for rent.”

The man considered this. “I don’t know, Lan…”

“Please, Mr. Havoc.”

Havoc drummed his fingers across the arm of his wheelchair, eyes flashing between her and the display beside her. “Promise you won’t abuse your discount.”

“I promise!”

“And you won’t fight customers on New Comic Day if they take the issues you want.”

“I’ll try my best.”

“You know dressing up is mandatory during Comic Con week, right?” He asked.

LanFan sighed, rolling her eyes at him. “If I wasn’t prepared to cosplay, I wouldn’t have a closet full of fabric and a sewing machine set up in my room.”

Havoc grinned at her, unlit cigarette nearly falling out of his mouth, and held out his hand. “You’re hired.”

~

He needed a job. That was the first thing on his mind after he moved into his dorm. The room was so small, he barely had room to turn around between the two beds on opposite walls. A small desk was squeezed between his bedframe and the window, with a small stool stuck under it. They would have to share it, but that was okay. His roommate, he thought, barely passed 5’0”, and wouldn’t take up too much space.

Ling got to work on setting up his bed, taking careful time to make sure the sheets were just right before plopping down and looking around. He’d done it. He’d broken away from his family and made it out here on his own. He was completely cut off from his father, now, but that was okay. It would be worth it in the end.

His hand reached out, feeling the sheets beneath him, and an odd feeling of pride swelled in his chest. The mattress and the sheets were his first big purchase he’d made on his own. He’d snagged the desk from a thrift store a few blocks away, and found the stool in the trash, so those didn’t count. Everything about his bed was new. It was exciting.

Ling found out pretty quickly that he wanted to keep buying new things to make his stay here a little more comfortable, but in order to do that, he needed work. And work around a college campus wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to find. Still, he figured he’d try.

~

A couple days and a hint from his roommate later, he found out that the small donut shop just off campus needed a replacement after one of the employees got splashed with oil from the deep fryer and was now in the hospital for third degree burns. Despite the panic he felt at possibly being taken out by the same machine that already had one victim under its belt, the prospect of free donuts won out in the end, and he found himself applying immediately.

He was hired within the week.

~

On the slow days, Ling found himself staring out the window, watching people walk by the window and wondering what they where they were headed with their days, what would happen to them after they left his sight, and if they cared they were being watched by bored strangers.

He rested his arm on the counter, his chin in his hand, and leaning heavily against the glass when he first saw her. The girl across the street, at the comic book store, grinning and laughing with a man in a wheelchair. He immediately straightened up, eyes never leaving her face, how it scrunched up a little when she laughed or smiled. Her dark hair was falling a bit into her eyes, and it was falling out of the bun atop her head, but she didn’t seem like she minded too much.

She was beautiful.

~

He found himself watching her every minute he could spare, the mysterious girl that worked across the street. She always had a smile for whoever came up to her counter, and whenever there was a lull in her day, she bustled around the shop, helping out the wheelchair man, or the dark haired woman who worked alongside them. She never seemed to slow down.

Sometimes she would leave work before him, and he would watch her as she unlocked her bike from the front of the store, get on, and ride off. He wished he could see her a bit longer as she rode off, but unless he wanted to be obvious he was watching her, he couldn’t exactly do that.

~

The routine continued for nearly two months before he finally had enough.

On his break, Ling marched himself across the street, walked directly into the comic book shop, and up to the counter. Her back was to him for a brief moment, but she quickly turned around, and he was slapped in the face with the full effect at how pretty she really was.

Dark brown eyes framed by a small heart-shaped face, hair flying in all directions and hanging close to her eyelashes, that tiny, startled smile to show he’d taken her by surprise. It took him a moment to remind him what he was doing there, and he realized right then and there that he couldn’t exactly just ask her out.

“Can I help you?” She asked sweetly.

It took another second or two to remember how his voice worked. Ling cleared his throat. “Yes, I was wondering if you guys had any…” his eyes darted quickly around, looking for any kind of symbol he recognized, before finally landing on a semi-familiar red S. “Uh… Superman comics?”

The girl blinked, as if she hadn’t heard him right, and came out from behind the counter. “You mean only one of the most popular faces in comic book history? That Superman?” She shot him a quick teasing grin and led the way to the back, pointing at a section of the rack on the wall that was stuffed full of the comics. “Anything in particular you’re looking for, or just curious?”

“My, uh, my roommate really likes superheroes… he won’t shut up about them, actually. I just… kinda wanted to know what the hype was about.”

“Well,” she started, relaxing her stance a little, “is your roommate a Marvel or DC kind of person?”

“Uh… whichever one these are..” he pointed to the Superman and Batman comics.

“Well, then, Superman is a good place to start.” Lanfan replied, hoping she was being helpful. “He’s the typical good guy, everything you’d expect a hero to be. But it’s a little predictable, too. Batman is a bit darker, I personally think he’s a bit more interesting. Then you have Green Lantern, Aquaman, The Flash, and my personal favorite… Wonder Woman.”

That was a name he’d heard before somewhere. Hadn’t Edward compared his girlfriend to Wonder Woman once? “What���s her story?”

The girl looked shocked by that question. “What’s her story? You mean you don’t know who she is? How can you not know?! I have to show you.” She grabbed him by the arm, dragging him a little farther down the row, and not stopping until she landed on a graphic novel of her origin story. “Dianna. Wonder Woman. She’s only the greatest superhero of all time, and my lord and savior.”

She cracked open the novel, and began telling him everything she knew about the heroine. He couldn’t help but think the way her eyes lit up as she got into her explanation was completely adorable, the rise and fall in her voice, the way she spoke about this Amazon fighter, was filled with a passion he only wished he had.

When she stopped for a breath, he quickly checked his watch and swore internally. He had about a minute to get back to work before he was in trouble. He needed to get back. Before she could get started again, he held out his hand. “I’m Ling, by the way. Ling Yao.”

“LanFan.” she replied, looking up at him with a light shade of pink coloring her cheeks.

“Well, LanFan, I need to get back to work before my boss realizes I’m missing, but, I work across the street. If you’re up for some free donuts and a continued conversation about Dianna, I’m over there ‘til eight.” Ling took the graphic novel from her, tucked it under his arm, and walked up to the counter.

She rang him up, handed him the book, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You weren’t bored by it?”

“Not at all! The way you explain it, I might actually be able to get a grasp on what my roommate is talking about sometimes.” he shot her a quick smile, and started towards the door. “My offer still stands, if you want it?”

Her only reply was to return his smile before he took off, and she watched him cross the street back to his own shop. She took a breath, and thought that maybe a donut after work didn’t sound too bad after all.

[crossedbeams]

Lost Letters - Eight

|| Part One || Part Two || Part Three || Part Four || Part Five || Part Six || Part Seven || Part Eight

TXF |MSR | Revival - Post Home Again | Angst | PG | 8/8

Thank you to everyone who has been so encouraging and kind to this story. My plan to have it done for Christmas was horribly optimistic but I hope the ending has been worth the wait.

Mulder pulls up at Maggie Scully’s house at 10:55am on Christmas Eve and looks wistfully at the empty passenger seat. While he isn’t sure exactly what is about to happen, that he won’t end up arresting some misguided Santa wannabe for trespass, he does wish he’d found a way to explain the whole thing to Scully. She’s probably safer at home, but still, it feels wrong sitting here alone when this whole thing seems to have been about her.

He had planned to tell her, to offer her a way in and not return to his old habit of running at mysteries without her, but the right moment had never presented itself. Few conversations leave space for a casual, “Hey Scully, so I’ve been getting these anonymous letters about giving you your Christmas wish and apparently it all finishes on your mom’s lawn tomorrow!” It’s not exactly post-therapy, or pre-briefing conversation.  Then, there were more important things to consider, like that someone was murdering old folks and then hiding them in snowmen or the fact that the mother of his child had sat in a room with him and a stranger and laid bare some feelings he had thought long-lost.

“I’m angry. With myself for giving up and with Mulder for leaving all those years ago. And with myself for still not being able to get over it. And I’m scared that I’ll never not be angry. And I’m sad that being so angry for so long has cost me so much.”

She hadn’t cried but he had.

He’d cried like had the night his mom died; the guilt, the loss and the terror of loneliness rising uncontrollably from somewhere deep beneath all the healing he’d done and forcing itself free. Scully hadn’t held him like she had back then, hadn’t tried to sew him back together along the messy incisions of his grief, but she had passed him a tissue, stroked his arm and after their hour was up she had held his hand as they left.

When they reached their separate cars she smiled one of her sad smiles,

‘Between us, we must be keeping D.C.’s psychiatrists in business!’

A joke to try and soften the separation, an old tactic practiced in endless crises, but he hadn’t been able to respond in kind.

‘We probably should have done this a long time ago Scully.’

‘Mulder.’ she’d perfected the art of saying his name like a sigh. ‘There are a lot of things we should have done a long time ago.’

And then she was gone, only as far as the office but far enough for him to lose his nerve, to swallow back the story of the letters and all the other things he’d been meaning to tell her. Things like that he loved her, that for him hard anger had crumbled years ago into something soft and sad, regret and guilt and self-loathing, but not blame, not anymore.

As the second hand on his watch ticks towards the hour, Mulder decides that after he is done here he will go to Scully’s apartment and tell her these things. Maybe she’ll let him see the album again. She wouldn’t need to tell him new stories, reliving the first ones would be enough for now, it was more than he ever thought he’d get. He drifts into a soft reminiscence of a picture, Scully sleeping with William draped over her chest, his little fist pressed into her cheek. Maggie had taken that one, Scully said, the day her self-sufficiency had cracked with exhaustion and she’d called her mom begging for help cleaning up, only to pass out on the sofa the second she sat down. According to Maggie, mother an baby had slept through both the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner, stirring only when nature called the smaller of their party.

The purr of an engine invades Mulder’s memories and he glances up, expecting… he’s not sure what exactly he is expecting, but it’s not Scully, pulling into the driveway across from him with a quizzical expression on her face.

He gets out of the car right as a clock down the road strikes the hour, and crosses to her.

‘So what’s with the mysterious rendezvous, Mulder?’ She is curious but not cross, and holding a familiar red envelope.

‘You’ve been getting them too?’ He asks,and her eyebrow climbs north.

‘Them? Mulder, all I got was your note asking me to meet you here today.’ She holds up the envelope and he sees his own handwriting, spidery and slanted, forming the familiar letters of her name on the crisp paper.

‘I - I didn’t send that Scully…’ he stutters and instantly regrets his words when her expression of indulgence dissolves into a guarded blankness that he knows means she is hurt and hiding it. He hadn’t written it but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want her here. 

Too late.

‘Mulder. It’s Christmas eve and I don’t have time for… I thought you... Actually just forget it! We’re not who we used to be and it was stupid of me to come. This is not a festive ghost hunt I want to be a part of.’ And before he can find the words to stop her, she’s at her car door and grappling with the handle which resists her.

‘Scully wait-’

‘NO!’ she surprises him with her volume, with the brightness of tears already spilling and the hoarseness of her rage. ‘We were supposed to be moving forward Mulder and I won’t - I can’t - For fucks sake Mulder, give me my keys and stop whatever this is!’

But he doesn’t have her keys and he didn’t lock her car and he doesn’t have any words so instead he just crosses to her and puts his hands on her shoulders as she begins to sob, batting him away, hard at first and then weakly as she crumples into the shelter of his chest.

Around her sorrow she chokes out words, questions that he has asked himself many times and never been able to answer.

‘Why are we like this Mulder? Why do we never say what we want? I’m tired of leaving trails of clues, following ambiguous hints towards what I hope is a shared destination. I want things to be simple. I want to feel safe.’

And he wants to tell her she is safe but he doesn’t know it for sure; Mulder never has been confident in his ability to shield Scully’s heart from his own chaos or her body from their enemies. Even now doesn’t know that the engine he hears behind him isn’t some stalker or psychopath with a van full of red envelopes and cruel intentions. He pulls her away from the noise and towards the house while he tries to get his bearings in the mess this morning has become.

The engine turns out to belong to the mail man, whistling his way from house to house and barely sparing a glance for the spectacle that is Scully sniffling on the porch and Mulder trying to stand between her and the world. When he passes, Mulder flops down on the porch and pats the step next to him.

‘Sit down Scully and I’ll try to explain. though God knows I have no idea what’s going on.’

And with a snotty sounding cough she nods and stays. It’s more than he hoped for.

Mulder tells her about the first letter and his dismissal of it, then about thanksgiving, though he leaves out the terror that had choked him and the desperate fear that had possessed his whole body as he drove to her side. He hears the crook of her eyebrow, though he doesn’t look over, when he starts theorising about the writer’s motive and she quietly questions the more ludicrous of his ideas.

It takes less time than he expects to lay the whole thing out. In the light of day and the company of his oldest confidante it all seems much less dramatic than it felt as it happened, problems shared between them always did seem more manageable. Mulder only objects a little when Scully suggests that aside from the eeriness of the timing and the sneaky delivery of the letters, there’s not really a case. An annoyance maybe, a series of coincidences and a possible invasion of privacy, but the motive doesn’t seem to be sinister. And as for the end game... With Scully at his side in the winter sunshine, Mulder thinks maybe the letter writer has done a strange thing for the right reasons. 

It’s gone eleven, the hour has passed and they are together and talking, the low husk of Scully’s laugh is crackling through the years long silence between them like spring on a frozen lake. There have been days in the past few years, especially in the barrenness after Maggie’s death, where this eventuality has seemed as unlikely as the most ridiculous X-File. But here they are. Maybe that’s all the writer wanted. But how did they know?

It hits Mulder suddenly.

‘Scully, did you write the letters?!’ And he turns fast enough to read in her surprise that she didn’t.

‘Of course I didn’t Mulder! If I wanted you to show up somewhere, or to talk to you, I would have just called!’

It’s his turn to look disbelieving, and Scully blushes a little.

‘Okay, maybe I wouldn’t… But if I was going to ask you for help, this isn’t really my style. Why would I have invited myself in your handwriting? And surely you would have recognised my writing weeks ago?’

Mulder begins to argue that she could have got somebody to write on her behalf, but stops as soon as he starts. If Scully were desperate enough to reach out in letter form, the likelihood of her also being willing to share the depths to which she has sunk with a third party is minute. She also wouldn’t have been so hurt by his accidental rejection when she arrived. And she’s never been able to fake so much as his signature on an application form, let alone an invitation in his handwriting. So Mulder lets the theory slip into silence and they sit, waiting for a sign to move or a reason to stay.

Neither arrives, and though Mulder’s heart is warm in Scully’s presence, his ass is beginning to freeze. He levers himself upright, feeling each year in the complaint of his joints and reaches down to his partner.

‘C’mon Scully. Let’s not waste another Christmas Eve on a wild ghost chase. Coffee. I’m buying.’

And they leave the porch same way they arrived, together, though this time there are no tears.

As they pass the end of the driveway, the small red flag of the mailbox pricks at Mulder’s consciousness and he stops.

It could be nothing, and a leisurely coffee with Scully seems like enough of a miracle after the year they’ve had. But now she’s noticed it too and before he can stop her she’s opened the flap and pulled out a red envelope.

‘Oh.’

Is all she says and Mulder reaches for it but she won’t let go. It’s the same script, the same size as all the others, but Scully’s holding this one as though the answers to every question they have ever asked are inside.

When she looks at him, her eyes are wide and a tear is caught in each corner.

‘Mulder…’ she manages, and he begins to panic, wishing she hadn’t come, that he’d kept this stupid scheme away from her during this season of vulnerability, but it’s too late and she’s biting her lip as she looks back at the envelope.

‘This is my mother’s writing.’

And as the seal is broken, things begin to fall into place. The familiar feel of the S and C in the signature, seen so often in cards and on restaurant bills. How had he not seen it before? How had he not recognised the sweet familiarity of his name in Maggie’s phrases, her concern and her straight-forwardness in the requests made. Mulder is so caught in the revelation of his own blindness, that the questions about how a dead woman is sending messages don’t start to register until Scully has already read the note and started for the house.

She scrambles in her pocket for the door key, fumbles the lock and waves her hand in Mulder’s face as he starts to ramble about the impossibility, the insanity, the idea that this could be the cruellest of pranks.

Scully takes the stairs at something close to a run, stumbling over the rug at the top and righting herself against the wall even as the other hand reaches for the attic ladder. Her ascent is reckless, deaf to Mulder’s concerns and with each rung years seem to drop from her face, poles switching as she chases a wraith-like truth and he tries to protect her with scepticism. But Scully is unstoppable, charging through dust motes that hang lazy in the midday sun and stopping only when a box is recovered and placed between them, a neat red string holding it closed and an envelope tucked underneath.

Time slows down then, breathing with it, and when Scully meets his eyes, Mulder can see doubt creeping back in to cloud the manic blue that had dragged them inside.

‘She said this was for us.’ 

There is no question in Scully’s voice, but she doesn’t reach for the string either. Mulder waits for more, caught again in the hushed moments between intention and action, the place where he and Scully had worked for so long side-by-side but never touching. He wants to touch now, to tear into the box that was intended for them, the two of them, together, but he is also afraid.

She always was the brave one.

Scully’s hands are steady as she unties the bow and opens the envelope, as steady as they were when she shook his hand all those years ago in the basement, and reached for him on the night they finally crashed together. Mulder is less steady, so he moves behind her, one hand light on the small of her back and his head ducked into the sweet air above her shoulder that he always felt was his true home. This way they can read together.

Dear Dana and Fox.

I never planned to do things this way, but I also didn’t plan on leaving so suddenly. The Lord works in mysterious ways, I realise that now, more than ever. For many years I felt myself caught between those who were lost to me and those who remained. My faith let me keep Melissa and your father alive in my heart, believing I would see them again, and I hope Dana that the same will be true for you when it comes to me. I will always be with you, as are they, even when things seem impossibly dark.

What was much harder was the separation from those still living, from Charlie when he fled from us, from you when you disappeared for all those years, and from William. I never judged you for giving him up, and though I never truly understood your reasons, I had faith in your love for him. I knew you had only done what you felt you had to.

Which is why I must ask your forgiveness for what follows, for what I did and never told you. Over the years I watched you and Fox struggle with your grief and I waited for the right time to tell you, a time where what I had would be a blessing and not another burden. It never came or perhaps I was just never brave enough. But this is my last chance, my last letter, and my last confession.

Know please that this began, as it ends, with my love for you, my daughter and my son, and for the child we all so briefly shared.

Merry Christmas darling, and many happy years to come.

Mom

They open the box together, sat hip to hip on the settling boards of the house and unpack Maggie’s final gift.

It begins with letters, dated the second year they were on the run and addressed first to Father McCue and then to a series of Catholic adoption agencies. The tone is a mix of polite formality and heartbreak and the subject is William. Maggie appears to have petitioned various agencies to reveal the location of her grandson, with little success.

The trail gathers intensity as time passes, Maggie revealing her fears that her daughter and Mulder are dead, begging not for custodyor regular contact, but simply for reassurance that her grandson is okay. Her net widens to include Skinner at the FBI, Bill’s contacts in the government anyone who might be able to help and it all seems hopeless. Scully’s, ‘Oh , Mom,’ is laden with sorrow and just a touch of resignation at the genetic source of her tenacity, relentlessly pursuing the impossible.

But then there’s a letter in an unfamiliar hand, forwarded by an agency in Wyoming, the originating address redacted. The tone is hesitant, but stuck to the end is a small photograph of a toddler, leaning crookedly on the arm of a scruffy sofa. He has brown hair, big blue eyes and a grin that is 100% Mulder.

William.

The letter is from the boy’s adoptive mother, her update short, fear that the attempt to reach them means trouble for the boy who is now her beloved son leaching from the ends of her sentences the same way the ink spreads where Scullys tears hit the paper.

From there on there are thick folders of letters and photographs, one from each year, the tone growing conversational as it becomes clear that Maggie does not want to take the boy away. The Van der Kamps are simple, honest folks, and speak with unguarded pride about their son, photocopied report cards and classroom awards intermingling with Little League team pictures and Christmas round robins. There is a snapshot of a life in the box, a life that the two people surrounded by years of lost letters had made together and have missed.

The afternoon wears on in cycles of grief and elation: laughter at William’s terrible fourth grade poetry composition, his Halloween costumes and bad haircuts, and sadness over the few half-true tidbits Maggie was able to share when William began asking questions about his birth parents. There has never been direct contact, the same Wyoming caseworker passing on letters between the two parties each month, but the connection is there and it burns a clean hot line through the decade of unanswered questions that Mulder and Scully have been carrying like a cross.

When the light begins to fail Scully flops back onto the messy tumble of papers behind her, eyes bleary from crying but somehow lighter than she has been in months. Mulder sets aside the 8th grade essay on space exploration he’s been devouring and peels off his reading glasses, leaning back on an elbow until he can see her face in the half-light.

‘He’s okay,’ is all she says, and lays a hand on the five o'clock shadow on his cheek, connecting them over the record of their sons existence. The papers under her shift and William’s face appears, laughing over something off camera, but alive and thriving. Mulder smiles, and the act unknots something that has been choking his heart for the longest time without him really noticing.

‘He’s more than okay Scully’, he tells her, smoothing the strand of hair that always disobeys her careful styling behind her ear. ‘He’s a miracle.’

And she nods and smiles back and sobs and then pulls him down, pressing her lips to his cheekbone and his forehead as he holds her close.

When the night finds them they are still there, locked together by Maggie’s gift, still broken but now with a chance of healing. When Scully scrabbles for the light switch, Mulder makes a silly joke about it never usually being this easy to chase the darkness away and she laughs. They pack the photographs and letters back into the box but they do not tie it shut, instead passing it down the ladder and leaving it on the table as they start to build a fire in the long empty grate. He dials for takeout and she pours wine, each casting glances back to the box of memories that Maggie has left them, sated for the day but wanting to check it is still real.

When midnight strikes they are curled tightly together on the couch, lit only by firelight and in the shooting shadows Mulder asks the one thing they have not spoken of in the long hours of discovery.

‘Scully?’

She mumbles her wakefulness into his neck, her lashes kissing butterflies all along his throat.

‘How do you think she did it?’

Scully hums, and then shakes her head.

‘I don’t care Mulder, the logical explanation is… well there isn’t one. All that matters is that she did. So I’m taking this one on faith.’

The silence that follows is warm and it melts into Scully sleeping soundly against his chest. For the first time in a long time, Fox Mulder thinks he might try believing in god. Out of the corner of his eye he catches movement at the window and he sleepily turns to focus on it. She’s gone before he can clear the bleariness from his eyes, but for a split second he’s sure he sees Maggie Scully standing at the window of her house, smiling broadly, winking once and then dissolving into nothing.

The End

[vanessachampion]

Earlier this year before Lockdown, one of our best photographers went out to Zimbabwe to document the work of four charities. We catch up with Kristian Leven to find out more about his experience and also to see some of the work he shot for the charities. 

Can you tell us a little about how you heard about PhotoAid Global in the first place? And why did you want to join?

I was looking through Photo Professional magazine back in 2017, when an article about Photo Aid Global caught my attention. I loved the idea of joining an organisation that was aiming to connect charities and NGO’s whom are in real need of professional imagery to help promote the great work they’re doing, with photographers who would be willing to voluntarily provide their skills to photograph them.

What excited you about this project in Zim in particular? 

I can’t deny that it was the opportunity to go to Zimbabwe that really attracted me first. I’m always up for a new adventure and this definitely seemed like one. After reading a bit about the Semwayo Sewing School, it seemed like a fantastic cause to work alongside with, but it seemed like a big distance to go for one organisation. Thankfully another 3 were added to the programme to make the journey a lot more worthwhile.

You hadn’t been to Zim before had you?  

Real nerves to be honest! A nervous excitement that came with stepping into the unknown. I also wanted to make sure that it was safe to go to – unfortunately the only time we usually hear about other countries in the news is when something bad has happened there, and Zimbabwe has had its fair share over the years. Ness put my fears to bed though, and not only made sure that I was picked up and taken back to the airport, but also that I would have someone with me at all times. That person came in the form of Moses, and what a top guy he was! So thankful to have him as my guide, and bed partner!

I also wanted to repay the faith my sponsors had placed in me in financially helping me to go there, which I’ll go into a bit later.

Did the trip meet your expectations? In what way? Or was it totally different?

It was definitely as intense as I thought it would be! There was a lot packed into a short amount of time, and by the end I was pretty pooped. I knew this was going to be the case though so not a big surprise at all, but with my hosts being devout Christians, we unfortunately didn’t get the post shoot beers in which I was secretly in need of at times! But honestly I have nothing but huge love and respect for everyone there – I was really made to be very welcomed wherever I went, and I’m so glad I was able to help in a small way.

Can you tell us a little about your first impressions of the place?

Without question the worst roads I’ve ever experienced. I’ve sworn to never complain about ours ever again! But in all seriousness, I was actually relieved that there wasn’t anywhere near the same amount of poverty that I had seen in Ethiopia the year before. That was something I’ll never forget, and it was somewhat comforting to know that Zimbaweans aren’t in the same unfortunate predicament.

We’d like to know a bit about each of the projects you covered. All of these trips are always intense and by default in terms of money and resources the charities try and cram in as much as they can with you! 

Semwayo Sewing School

The first day was spent at the Semwayo Sewing and Design School, which was set up by the man who organised the whole Zimbabwe side of the trip, Moses Semwayo. He wanted to help women and girls in his local community gain a skill that would help supplement the family income at a time when there was a large amount of unemployment. The school, which started with just one student, has now taught over 100 women and girls to sew school uniforms, re-usable sanitary pads (which were particularly important during the Cyclone Idai aftermath), and general garments which could be sold to their local communities. The sewing school is currently based in a local church, with all the sewing taught on manual machines. The current class consists of six students aged between 18-36, some of whom walk up to two hours each day to attend.

The Mwana Trust

The second day was spent with the The Mwana Trust, an NGO that pays the school fees (there aren’t any state schools in Zimbabwe) of a certain number of orphaned and disadvantaged children, as well as providing food and support for them and their families. We headed to three separate schools in the morning, where the Trust gave out bottles of cooking oil to the children they support (cooking oil is surprisingly expensive and out of reach of the poorest families). Before leaving for the day, the children are given their lunch – one cupful of boiled maize each – and are told to bring in a container to help take it away; some of the children are so poor though they have to make do with old plastic bags. The Mwana Trust also teaches each student how to plant their own crops, an invaluable skill for them and their families, and thanks to generous donations, the Trust was able to plant their own community garden, the produce of which is shared amongst their beneficiaries.

Hope for Kids

Day 3 of the trip was spent with Hope for Kids, whom are also committed to offering education, food, and psycho-social support to the orphaned and disadvantaged children that they look after. I was with them on a Saturday, which meant we couldn’t capture the work they did in schools, but we spent the day moving between houses, handing out food parcels – which include 2 litres of cooking oil, soya chunks, fried fish, sugar, salt and 10kg of maize – to those most in need.

In the pictures you’ll see Pamela, 17, who lives with her mum and 3 year old sister in a house that was built by Hope For Kids after their original home was destroyed by Cyclone Idai; Brian, 17, who lives with his brother Lovemore, 21, in a small two roomed hut that one of their teacher’s gave to them in return for them completing their schooling; Ms Moyana, who looks after her grand-daughter Faith,11, since Faith’s mother died of a short illness; and Privilege, 14, who was left by her mother at her aunt’s house a few years ago and has not been seen since. The aunt looks after four of her own children as well as three other orphaned children; all the children share one bedroom

Joshua Dhube Primary

My final morning was spent at Joshua Dhube Primary School, which was opened in 2015 and largely funded by Mission Direct. It teaches 916 children from Kindergarten right up to Grade 7, however there are only 14 teachers presently, with the school on a government waiting list for more. In the meantime the Headmistress covers two grade years herself, with the help student support staff. The school is still looking to raise money to complete two classroom blocks, as well as the landscaping to provide a safer environment to play.

  You kindly also raised funds for extra financial help through sales of your prints, what compelled you to do that? The charities were over the moon. Can you also maybe explain how you raised funds to go on the trip?

I just didn’t want to go there empty handed. Yes, I was giving my time and skill for free, but I knew that if I could raise £100 at least for each charity, it would go a long way over there. I just didn’t realise quite how far it would go until they told me. It just puts so many things into perspective.

Also the cost of the flight was raised through sponsorship via Just Giving. I created a page and publicised it on Facebook, and I managed to raise £250 through friends, and my mum topped up the remaining £250!

Would you go again somewhere, either same place or elsewhere? 

I’ll probably leave Zimbabwe for any other PhotoAid volunteers for the foreseeable future, but I think it would be interesting and quite exciting to go back again in a few years, and be re-acquainted with everyone. Other than that I’m open to anything, and as long as I’m able to help in some way, that would be amazing. It’s actually spurred me onto seeing if I can volunteer my photography skills here in the UK, and I hope to make something happen soon.

Finally would you recommend other photographers wanting to put something back to consider doing something like this? 

Without question. I unfortunately heard the term ‘white saviour’ crop up in conversation a couple of times before I went there, which made me kinda question whether what I was doing was ‘the right thing’. When I was there, I asked Misheck, who runs Hope For Kids, whether he felt uncomfortable having a white person travel there to help them. He couldn’t have looked more bemused. He went on to passionately tell me that having volunteers come and help was a lifeline for them, not to mention the sponsorship money that would help put a number of children through school for the year.

As odd as it may seem here, it’s also perceived as a great honour to have a visitor fly all the way from the UK and be interested and take notice of an organisation in Sub Saharan Africa. The kids are also super excited, the majority of whom have never seen a white person before, and it’s a great experience for them as well! So I left without any doubt that the work done by the volunteers at PhotoAid was a massive help not only to the organisations and community, but most importantly, the children.

__________________

To see more of Kristian’s brilliant photographic work see his website where there are links to his social media. https://kristianlevenphotography.co.uk

If you are a photographer who is interested in registering with us or a charity and would like photographic support, please get in touch with our Founder Vanessa Champion.

Earlier this year before Lockdown, one of our photographers went to Zimbabwe to document the work of 4 charities. We catch up with Kristian Leven to find out about his experience and to see some of the work he shot for the charities Earlier this year before Lockdown, one of our best photographers went out to Zimbabwe to document the work of four charities.

[canayata]

50 The Most Awesome LEGO Building Ideas Creation

New Post has been published on https://www.apegeo.com/awesome-lego-building-ideas-creation/

50 The Most Awesome LEGO Building Ideas Creation

Every one of us had a LEGO set or at least some generic building blocks while growing up, and to most of us these little plastic bricks bring back the greatest memories. Some people though, are not ready to leave the memories of when they were young behind and, to our delight, continue playing with their LEGO bricks. We here at Apegeo have rounded up some of the most creative LEGO building ideas for you to see and maybe inspire to wipe the dust off of your own LEGO bricks set, that we are sure you still keep somewhere in the attic.

Now, when it comes to LEGO ideas, the possibilities of what can be built are endless! From various kinds of oh-so-real looking dinosaurs to life-size cars, humongous cruise ships and a liveable house, these crafty LEGO building aficionados sure took it up a notch. To be fair, most of them are real artists, architects or engineers, but we are sure that with a bit of patience, loads of spare LEGO parts and some calculations anyone could build an artwork of their own.

So stretch your fingers for some scrolling, prepare your imagination to run wild and go fetch a dust rag, because after looking at these fantastic LEGO creations you are sure to feel the urge to find your forgotten LEGO set. Vote for the most incredible creation and show your LEGO building ideas masterpieces in the comments!

#1 LEGO Batcave Built From 20,000 Blocks With 4 Lights Powered From Behind

This was made by Carlyle Livingston II and Wayne Hussay and it took them more than 800 hours to build it co2pix

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#2 LEGO Elephants

jared422

#3 Real Size LEGO Giraffe

jared422

#4 There’s One Giant Creation

nathansawaya

#5 My First Creation From Coming Out Of Dark Ages A Few Months Back

Mike Doyle

#6 Art Studio Needed A Piano. About 25,000 Bricks

nathansawaya

#7 Wayne Manor And Batcave Complete

It dissembles into about 20 large modular chunks that all fit in my Rav 4. It takes about 7 hours to put back together correctly including wiring the lights back up and set up all the minifigs and about 100 bats WetWired

#8 Largest LEGO Ship Without Support That Break The Guinness World Record

If you compare the LEGO version of “World Dream” with the real “World Dream,” it’s set at 1:40 ratio. The similarity between the LEGO ship and the real ship is close to 100%. If you look from afar, it’s not instantly apparent that this is a cruise ship built from LEGOs. It’s is 8.44 meters long, 1.33 meters wide and 1.54 meters high, and is made from more than 2.5 million LEGOs. The weight of it is also quite stunning because it weighs around 2 tons, that is, about 6,100 pounds Etllor,unwire.hk

#9 My Dad Was Going Through Old Photos And Found A Picture Of A Boat We Built Together That Was The Length Of Me And Was Two And A Half Feet Tall

My aunt gave me her entire stash of LEGOs from when she was a kid for Christmas that year. She crammed it all in a mattress box. I wouldn’t have been able to build it if I didn’t have all those LEGOs from the 80s and 90s PoopintheBox16

#10 All Done With LEGOs

Alana Thevenet

#11 One Of The Favorites

sissypunch

#12 Look At The Awesome New LEGO Sculptures At The LEGO Store In Downtown Disney

harshlight

#13 Full-Size LEGO House Made By James May

Top Gear presenter James May has just built the world’s first full-size LEGO house – including a working toilet, hot shower, and a very uncomfortable bed – using 3.3 million plastic bricks

#14 In The Waiting Room Of The LEGO Office In Sydney

silamtao

#15 My Real Dog Met My LEGO Dog

nathansawaya

#16 Spotted This In Legoland California

Fiid Williams

#17 LEGO Building Ideas: The Beatles

Simon Q

#18 After Months Of Designing, Then Building, Then Designing Even More, Then Building Again, It’s Finally Done

Hogwarts in its entirety. It’s around 34×54” in size, coming in at about 25,000 pieces in total (with a bunch of those pieces coming from an additional Hogwarts set). What I am proud of most of this build is that I didn’t really have to alter the original set at all (with exception to removing a few tables from the great hall and some of the easily removed rock plates on the open side). It can be slid apart to reveal the interiors, which was crazy tricky to maintain while at the same time closing it off ryankroboth

#19 Old Singer Sewing Machine With The Full Table And Drawers

Eugene Tan

#20 Gotta Love Passing The Loch Ness At Disney Springs

orangeblossomtravels

#21 Batman LEGO Display

Loren Javier

#22 Coastersaurus – LEGO Dinosaur

jared422

#23 LEGO Homer Was My Personal Project

I’ve spent over 2 weeks designing and building the sculpture. It was the first time I had ever made a large-scale LEGO sculpture. Much of the building process was pure visualization, double-checked by a little counting and math. I started the prototype by building Homer’s eyes and then making his face outwards from there Sean Kenney

#24 LEGO A380 Plane

The A380 is one of the world’s largest passenger aircraft, and Singapore Airlines was to be the first to fly this plane. This model is the biggest plane model that has ever been built in Legoland Denmark, made in Lego bricks with a wingspan of 320cm (~10ft). It is built to a scale of 1:25. They used approximately 75000 Lego bricks Eje Gustafsson

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#25 Splish Splash

nathansawaya

#26 Tyrannosaurus Rex Made Out Of LEGO Blocks

ccho,Simon Q

#27 Beauty And The Beast LEGO Statue

Manny Hi

#28 Pizza Slice

This is one of those weird moments when the cartoon – or, in this case, LEGO pieces – looks better than the real food nobu_tary

#29 Finally Switching To LED Light Bulbs

Björn R

#30 LEGO Avengers – Iron Man Hulkbuster Vs. Hulk

Heather Paul

#31 This LEGO Man

_ice_princess

#32 Lightning McQueen Life Size LEGO Sculpture

notenoughbricks

#33 One Step At A Time

nathansawaya

#34 Life-Size X-Wing Front. This Thing Is Huge

Pascal

#35 Spotted In “The Art Of The Brick” LEGO Exhibition

Simon Q

#36 Fully Functioning Air Conditioner Out Of LEGO Bricks

When I was asked to build an air conditioner, I thought “Nathan, let’s not just make a replica of an air conditioner. No, Nathan here’s a golden opportunity to make something cool. Let’s make a functioning air conditioner. Now that would be cool!” Please note that by ‘functioning’ I just meant a spinning fan. And by ‘cool’ I meant someone who would not address themselves by their own name. Working feverishly at the 2006 Carrier Convention I built a functioning replica of Carrier’s newest air conditioner, complete with the compressor, valves and a working fan. It took every hour of both days of the convention, but in the end, I was happy with the result. And with that spinning fan, wow, what a breeze Nathan Sawaya

#37 A Good Use For Just About Every White Piece I Own

Orangeomnivore

#38 Pegasus Made For Perot Museum In Dallas

nathansawaya

#39 Logo

Soeno Eat

#40 LEGO Building Ideas: Wasp Sculpture

Scott McLeod

#41 LEGO Polar Bear Which Is On Display At The Philadelphia Zoo

This sculpture is the largest and most visually complex sculpture I have made to date. It contains over 95,000 LEGO pieces and took over 1100 hours to construct together with 5 of my assistants. I spent 2 full days creating just the facial expression. I wanted to make sure the bear didn’t look too cartoonish, but also that his expression could be readable the way we read human emotions. Since he is stuck on an ice float and his species is endangered, I wanted him to look a little frustrated, a little sad, a little confused, and overall concerned about the predicament he is in Sean Kenney

#42 LEGO Boardroom Table

This boardroom table is 4ft x 9ft. A monolithic slab made up of a random pattern of the instantly recognizable LEGO pixels, with the company’s logo built in relief into the table top, falling away under a glass surface. Architects don’t typically work as contractors, so it was hugely rewarding for us and financially efficient for our client when we decided to build the table ourselves. The table consists of 22,742 pieces clicked together with traditional LEGO construction techniques (no glue), a 136mm grommet is located in its center abgc

#43 Blood Vessel Sculpture

This gigantic LEGO sculpture of a blood vessel was built in 48 hours over five days and using just under 50,000 LEGO pieces. No computers or programs were used for the design. Everything was done by eye straight from our imaginations Mark of Falworth

#44 LEGO Building Ideas: Bison Sculpture

Scott McLeod

#45 Eiffel Tower And MGM Grand

jared422

#46 Venom Mask

Brickatecture

#47 LEGO Building Ideas Lawnmower

Scott McLeod

#48 LEGO Kids

acklee

#49 LEGO Building Ideas: Motorcycle

Nathan Sawaya

#50 Wardrobe Malfunction. Statue Of Liberty Interpretation In LEGOs

ccho

[victoriagloverstuff]

Life on a Moving Skyscraper, Crossing the Great Lakes

The room was moving when I woke. The propeller’s rotation shook the toilet, chipboard closets, desk, bed, couch, doors. Lakers are less rigid than oceangoing freighters because they don’t have to withstand the same conditions. The 740-foot Algoma Equinox was built on the Yangtze River in China. Builders welded additional steel supports into it so that the ship wouldn’t break in half during the journey back to the Great Lakes. The supports have since been removed, Captain Ross said. You can see the hull bend when the Equinox hits a big wave.

Living on a moving skyscraper is a strange feeling. I had no idea where we were or what time it was most of the day. The ship’s interior is lit with fluorescent light and smells a bit like a hospital. The crew wanders in and out of the mess hall all day and usually eats silently.

Some of the men I sat next to I never saw again. The cook, Mike Newell, was a constant presence in the mess hall. He would come out while I was eating and talk for an hour or more. One day he told me a story about another writer who had ridden on the ship. Mike had spoken with him extensively as well, but the reporter hadn’t mentioned him in the piece he later published. “What is that?” he asked me. I said I didn’t know. “I’d like to find that guy,” he said, swatting the towel. “I’d like to show him a few things.” We stared at each other for a moment, then he walked back into the kitchen. He didn’t talk to me for two days after that.

The sky looked hazy blue from the wheelhouse, which stands 75 feet above the deck. A thick band of clouds blocked the sun. Mustard-yellow exhaust fell from the smokestack and hovered a few feet above the water. The deck was painted rust red, with white handles on cargo covers and bright-yellow safety instructions. Trees glided by at ten miles an hour. The ship crossed the border into Ontario last night, Captain Ross said. We were passing Cornwall Island when I walked into the wheelhouse. The border enters the Saint Lawrence River there and zigzags 200 miles to Lake Ontario.

The helmsman steered while Captain Ross told me stories about shipping on the lakes. He rarely looked away from the windshield when he spoke. If he needed to give a command, he spoke over whoever was talking. If an important announcement sounded on the radio, he tuned everything out and listened. When Tony called from the cruise room to say that the internet was down, Captain Ross hung up on him and gave another order: “Line up the buoys to starboard. Two degrees port. No. Two more.”

*

Captain Ross had spent the last 33 years on freighters. He was 60 years old, with receding sandy-brown hair and a graying goatee. He squinted constantly. Crow’s feet reached to his sideburns, and his stocky build easily filled his T-shirt. In Algoma company photos, he dons a navy-blue reefer jacket and a captain’s hat. In the wheelhouse, he wore jeans, a polo shirt, and sandals.

Ross was 27 years old when his father, a lifetime Great Lakes captain, called him from Quebec City and asked if he wanted to be a deckhand. It was December 2nd and he was working as a data entry clerk for the Hudson’s Bay Company—the same company that was formed by a royal charter in 1670 and that now operates a chain of department stores with Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue. He was married and had a newborn son. His father said the money was good, so Ross packed his things and moved onto the 600-foot George M. Carl.

He watched his father break up a knife fight his first day on the canaller and spent the next two weeks scraping and painting the bridge, cleaning and prepping cargo holds, and tending mooring cables. Captain Ross’s father had been at sea for half of his childhood, and Ross had never considered being a sailor. After he got his check for two weeks’ work—$700—he told his wife he was joining the fleet full-time.

It took Ross just four years to work his way up from deckhand to wheelsman to mate to captain. He attended marine school winter sessions, when the seaway is closed, then logged required ship hours during the warm months. In 1986 he captained his first boat, John A. France, out of port. “The first time you’re out there on your own, you realize there is nobody else to ask what to do,” he said. “My second and first mate were 60 and I was 30, and they were calling me ‘Old Man.’”

The first trip went without incident. The next 30 freighters he captained were not as easy. Gangs operated on the ships, and many of the deckhands were ex-cons who couldn’t get work elsewhere. The industry needed men so badly that if Captain Ross fired someone one day, he saw him on a competitor’s ship the next. Ross watched men get crushed by machines, mooring cables, and cargo hatches. He went looking for mates when they were late for a shift, only to find out that they had thrown themselves off the stern in the middle of the night.

“The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Paradise, Michigan, estimates that 6,000 ships and 30,000 lives have been lost on the lakes.”

Regulations were looser back then. The crew made swimming pools by spreading tarps between cargo hatches during lake crossings and drank beer poolside all afternoon. They gambled and partied deep into the night and, sometimes, while waiting to get into a lock, they jumped overboard to cool off. “All we had was one TV in the cruise room,” he said. “Going past Cleveland we could see an hour of a baseball game until we lost reception. Everyone congregated then; no one stayed in their cabin. We’d have 30 people in the galley playing cribbage, guitar, and cards. It made for a tighter-knit crew.”

*

The 300-square-mile Great Lakes basin spans about a quarter of America’s northland. The coastlines of all five lakes combined add up to just under 11,000 miles, almost half the distance around the world. An average of 200,000 cubic feet of precipitation falls somewhere on the lakes every second.

Water and latitude determine what lives or dies in the basin. In the north, the central Canadian Shield forest of fir, spruce, pine, quaking aspen, and paper birch is so dense that you can barely walk through it. Ridges and spires of gneiss and granite rise above the canopy.

Move south and east, and sugar maple, yellow birch, white pine, and beech take over the land. All the way south, near the mouth of Lake Ontario, the Great Lakes–Saint Lawrence forest is mostly red maple and oak, with elm, cottonwood, and eastern white cedar at lower elevations.

You think about these things when you have nothing to do but stare for hours at an unimaginable mass of water. You think about the natural border that the lakes and the Saint Lawrence create and how it helped shape political boundaries. You think about the seasons, the intricacy of biospheres, water cycles, heat cycles, the planet’s orbit, and its wobbly spin that makes night and day.

Two wood ducks swam away from the bow. The ship missed them by ten feet.

*

Thousands of mayflies swarmed the smokestack. They came from the water as nymphs, rose to the surface, grew wings, and flew. They are ancient insects. Aristotle wrote about their incredibly brief life span. There are other prehistoric creatures around here. The oldest known footprints on the planet were discovered in a Kingston, Ontario, sandstone quarry a hundred miles upstream. Scientists say they were made by foot-long insects called euthycarcinoids 500 million years ago. They were among the first creatures to migrate from water to land. Before the discovery, the quarry owner used the fossils as lawn ornaments.

Isolation and boredom aren’t the only danger on the lakes, Ross said. He pointed to a chart on the wall and showed me locations of a few shipwrecks. Superior and Michigan are the most dangerous because they are the longest—giving storms enough fetch to create two-story waves. Fronts flowing west to east in the fall are particularly rough. The lakes sit in a lowland between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians. Cold, dry air flows down from the north and meets warm, moist air coming up from the south. Add prevailing westerlies rolling off the Rockies and you get a vortex of constant and dangerously unstable weather. Winds can blow 40 to 50 miles an hour and whip up waves 25 feet tall, Captain Ross said.

The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Paradise, Michigan, estimates that 6,000 ships and 30,000 lives have been lost on the lakes. The gale of November 11, 1835, sank 11 ships on Lake Erie alone. The Mataafa Storm of 1905 sank or damaged 29 freighters, killed 36 seamen, and caused $3.5 million in damages. Storm losses in 1868 and 1869 led to the first national weather-forecasting system in the US, initially managed by the US Army Signal Corps using telegraphs in Great Lakes port cities. The most famous wreck, the Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in a November gale in 1975 with all 29 crew, went down a few hundred miles ahead on our route.

A few miles upstream, the river widened to five miles across. We passed Chippewa Bay and entered Thousand Islands, New York—summer home to millionaires for a century and a half. There are 1,864 islands along the 50-mile stretch. Most have mansions or sleek, modern houses on them. Many were retreats for business moguls and movie stars in the Gilded Age.

Back then, a short train ride from New York City to Clayton, New York, left visitors a few steps from a ferry or private launch that would take them to their house or hotel.

I stepped onto the wheelhouse deck to see Singer Castle. Sixty-foot stone walls and terra-cotta roof tiles glowed in the late-afternoon light. The water around Dark Island, which the castle sits on, was deep azure. Frederick Gilbert Bourne of the Singer Sewing Machine Company built the fortress. It is a medieval revival structure with 28 rooms, armored knights guarding a marble fireplace, a walnut-paneled library, and secret passageways from which hosts can spy on their guests. A few miles farther, on Heart Island, was another castle, built by George Boldt, proprietor of New York City’s original Waldorf Astoria. Boldt built it for his wife and had hearts inlaid in the masonry. When she died (or ran off with the chauffeur—stories conflict), construction stopped.

“It was interesting to watch people gazing at the ship. I wasn’t sure what solace it would give onlookers to know that the three men driving it were wearing Crocs and sweatshirts and laughing hysterically about their in-laws.”

Every island has a story. Thousand Island salad dressing was born when actress May Irwin tried it on a fishing trip there. Irwin shared the recipe with Boldt, who added it to the menu at the Waldorf. On a nearby island, a cabin burned down in 1865. In the ashes, a man was found with his throat slit and a knife stuck in his chest. It was allegedly John Payne, a hit man hired by John Wilkes Booth to kill Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state, William H. Seward. When Payne didn’t complete the job, and ran off with Booth’s money, Booth’s associates tracked him down.

A few houses on the North Shore looked like French châteaux with steep, peaked roofs and arched windows. Turreted homes and gingerbread-style cabins had replaced a 19th-century Methodist camp in Butternut Bay. Cattail marshes and lush reed beds edged the shoreline, and antique boats spanning a century circled the Equinox: split-cockpit runabouts, hard-chine sedan commuters, Nathanael Herreshoff steamers, sailboats, and Jet Skis.

The first mate pointed out an old steam-powered dory chugging toward shore as an SOS message was broadcast on the radio. A sailboat had lost power and was floating a few hundred yards dead ahead of the Equinox. Luckily, someone was close by to tow it home. I asked the mate how long it would take the Equinox to stop if something was in the way. “It doesn’t stop,” he said. “You should see this place at night. Or in the fog.”

Beneath the boathouses and million-dollar yachts, the Canadian Shield runs south across the Saint Lawrence and joins the Adirondacks. Twenty-five feet offshore, the water is 200 feet deep. Just behind the signal buoys, granite shoals are only two feet deep. Many of the islands here are perched on the edge of the seam. To be counted as part of the archipelago, an island has to have at least one square foot of land above water level year-round and support at least two living trees.

It was interesting to watch people gazing at the ship. I wasn’t sure what solace it would give onlookers to know that the three men driving it were wearing Crocs and sweatshirts and laughing hysterically about their in-laws. That is not to say the Equinox crew is not highly professional. They are. It’s just that enough time on the water makes people a little kooky.

We passed Wolfe Island and broke into a deep-blue plane. The shores fell away to port and starboard, and the Erie-Ontario lowlands on the southern shore of Lake Ontario appeared as a green streak. Behind us I could see the sweep of Tug Hill Plateau, which divides the Lake Ontario and Hudson River watersheds. Due west was flat calm—liquid silver etched by puffs of wind and three ducks skittering away from the Equinox’s wake.

It took ten minutes to walk from the wheelhouse to the bow of the ship. It felt more like a boat up there. Wake peeled away from the bow. The air smelled like pond water. The sun was a bonfire three fingers off the lake. An exact image of the sky stretched across the surface of the water, and the horizon arced with the curvature of the earth.

The first mate throttled up to 17 miles an hour, and the bow of the Equinox plowed forward. The hard part was over. Captain Ross went to bed, and Second Mate Charles Chouinard took the helm. The only sign of land was a smokestack miles away on the western shore. When Brûlé and Champlain first arrived, they would have seen only water. There is no reason they would have thought the lakes were not an ocean, until they tasted them. There was no reason they would have thought they could cross them either, or that there would be more lakes on the other side.

Some historians believe that Champlain and his truchement were not chasing a dream.

*

The elusive Northwest Passage they heard about from Indian tribes might have been a sixth Great Lake. Thousands of years ago, Lake Agassiz contained more water than all the other Great Lakes combined. It reached west and north of Lake Superior. When the ice dams holding it in place melted about 8,000 years ago, a cataclysmic flood raged through the Mississippi Valley, into Lake Superior and up the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean. Scientists theorize that the magnitude of the flood was so great that it might have disrupted ocean currents, cooled the climate, helped spread agriculture west across Europe, and been the source of several flood narratives, like the one in the Bible.

Ancestors of western tribes lived around the shores of Agassiz before it drained, and they passed on stories of the flood through the generations. The Huron may well have drawn the lake on birchbark at Lachine Rapids, leading Champlain to assume it was still there. By the time Brûlé made it to Huron Country, there was nothing left of it. Today, the remains of Agassiz can be seen 400 miles northwest in Lake Winnipeg.

__________________________________

Good read found on the Lithub

[marylcony]

Story of how I almost died and returned in time

After spending few wonderful days cruising in Halong Bay and resting at the beautiful coast of Cat Ba Island, completely different experience was ahead us. Mountains of breathtaking north region famous as "Sapa".

Sapa is actually a city lying among of hills and terraced rice fields. Views there are supposed to be breathtaking, although the city is quite often hidden in the fog. Nevertheless, this part of the Vietnam is truly a special experience.

I was looking forward going north probably too much. Too much excitement is never good and I ended up with travel sickness. My stomach was floating, I spent quite a lot of time at the toilet, plus I was really weak after not eating at all. And 8 hours bus ride to the mountains ahead! Moreover the bus company we took was the disaster itself.

The deadly bus ride

Not only they sold more tickets than seats, so some tourists ended up lying at the floor between the seats, the bus driver decided to stop for each-one passing by. So, once the driver spotted someone standing near the road, he stopped and asked if he/she needs a ride. Can you imagine how annoying it was? Luckily for me, the bus has a toilet so I was rescued.

The sickness wasn't unfortunately getting any better so once we arrived to the Sapa, I was exhausted and my stomach still dangerously floating. And the idea of trekking whole day made it all just worst. Fortunately, our local guide was just sweetheart. Unfortunately I don't remember her name, but she was sister-in-law of Mao, who is probably one of the most famous guides in Sapa. She comes from Sapa minority called Black Hmong. We were to soon find out, that these people are the most sincere, generous and friendly people we have ever met.

Lets call our young guide Susie, I slightly remember, that could be her English name (cause the Vietnamese one was impossible to pronounce for us). First of all, Susie took us for a breakfast. You cannot start the whole day trekking with an empty stomach...Ha, what an experience the breakfast was! If you weren't at the market in Sapa, you didn't see anything in your life!

Trekking in Sapa- dying in the mountains

Let's get it straight. You can choose almost every meal there! And I mean it. The smell there is not any better and you can imagine what it was doing with my stomach. So I just went with the plain rice together with my mother. My resilient father had some strange looking meat and soup, which he told us tasted awesome. I was looking tired at my rice and couldn't imagine how I would make it that day...

Soon after we started our trekking. Me, my mum, dad, our local guide Susie and one American girl. She was nice, maybe too much talkative and all cheer up style, but I put all my energy focusing on my survival. Days before when I was organizing our trip in Sapa with local travel agency from Hanoi, I chose the harder trek for us. The easier one was supposed to be full of tourists. Now, feeling like a complete shit, I was cursing myself for that choice.

The beginning of the trek was the hardest. To reach the mountains and the small villages there, we had to climb up first. And it was really just climbing steeply up. Fortunately Susie soon understood my condition and made a lot of breaks but we had to continue to make it till the dark.

Honestly, I really thought I am going to die, especially at the beginning when climbing up. I didn't take any photos just focused on my steps and try to restore my last energy. Finally, after about 2 and 1/2 hours we made it up, reaching some hill on the top, so we can enjoy beautiful scenery. The temperature wasn't so hot and there was a little breeze so I managed to breath steadily again. I wasn't able to make photos still, but at least I was able to enjoy the scenery and view.

The best Pho Chay of my life

After the short break we continued walking towards our lunch. Vision of lunch made me little bit more optimistic and maybe I started smiling a little. But only till we met some local children. They were barefoot, wearing some dirty old clothes, selling some colourful bracelets. They knew some few sentences in English like "Buy from me”, or “Three for two". Heartbreaking. I must confess, I felt sorry for them although I knew that it is not right. Our guide Susie didn't seem to be anyhow distracted by them, as it was a common part of her reality.

After some time we reached our lunch stop. Building in the middle of the mountains with sheet roof and colourful plastic chairs. Locals together with tourists enjoying their lunch. Honestly, I was little bit suspicious at the beginning, but the hunger was stronger.

I chose a vegetarian Pho and we shared it with my mum. It was a huge bowl with a tons of veggies and rice noodles, so it was more than enough for both of us. And, it was so delicious! Seriously, it was the best Pho Chay I have ever had! Hot, fresh, delicious taste and smell. Wau.

Susie, strongest girl I have ever met

We spent about an hour there, eating and resting a while, our young guide Susie chatting cheerfully with other locals, mainly tour guides as well. As I became later understand, Susie was somewhere about my age, 25 or something, married to the brother of Mao, so far no children, working as a travel guide in Sapa and learned her English only from the foreigners! Wau. I was amazed. Her English wasn't the best neither fluent...but still we were able to communicate, have a decent chat and she understood almost everything! It was unbelievable.

Susie was dressed in the national costume of the Black Hmongs, consisting of rock, blouse, everything in dark colours with beautiful embroidery. Everything of course made by hand. They dye the fabrics themselves with some local herbs, which is why they have constantly little bit blue fingers. Every time we made a break for a while, Susie took out some fabric and did embroidery.

She was making her a new scarf, never resting a while. I cannot forgot how beautiful she was, the combination of friendly playful eyes full of kindness and warm, welcoming smile. She was supposed to be around my age, but I could feel from her eyes, she's much more mature than me. I felt little bit ashamed- how I am pitting myself while my life is so much easier than hers!

Returning in time...back to my grandma stories

The lunch and great meal gave me little bit energy, so I was able to start chatting with our company and look around me more. We reached the top of some mountains, going more straight than up. We were crossing some rice fields, local villages or rather say some colonies. I had a feeling, that I returned in time. I felt like in stories of my grandma, when she was telling us, how it was in the first half of 20st century right before 2 WW, when she was young child.

“We were 9 children, but only 3 of us made it till adulthood. We didn't have too much, but luckily we had a huge garden, grew many vegetables and fruits and bred poultry and pigs. As children we didn't have any shoes, we went everywhere barefoot, there was no washing machine at that time, so we made laundry in the nearby river or  stream,” her tales resonated in my head. It was like I was living my grandma stories. People in the north Sapa were living the life from her stories...

The simple house of love and joy

We reached the house of Mao, where we were supposed to sleep in the night. I must say, I was so happy, tired and nostalgic at the same time. Looking at my mum, I knew she was having the same thoughts about my grandma stories as me. She has passed away just 2 years before and it was still a heartbreaking and sad memory for both of us. But being there, in the Black Hmongs village, somehow didn't make it sad, but on the contrary. We became quite cheerful, greeting with Mao and her old parents.

Mao and her parents immediately started taking care of us. They brought us warm fresh herbal tea and water and showed us their amazing ad beautiful handmade products. Scarfs, jackets, rocks, blouses, all sewed, dyed and embroidered my themselves! They also showed us handmade jewellery, which was done by the old man. They didn't know too much of English, but we understood each other.

I was amazed in what humble but still beautiful place they live. Their house was completely wooden just the roof was from the asbestos wavy sheets. With the no thermal insulation between the roof and the walls, we were shocked, how they can make it during the winter, when the weather drop down normally to minus 5 degrees Celsius or maybe more. Their house may looked simple, but it was nice, tidy, with traditional style, western toilet and shower with even hot water.

Later that evening we had a wonderful dinner prepared my Mao´s niece. She was just 15, but prepared the whole dinner by herself! And I must confess, even after the stomach sickness, I couldn't resist the delicious food. Mao and her family didn't want to have a meal with us but we encouraged them to join, so we can eat, talk and enjoy the time together.

Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Susie, cause she had to return home and still had about 10 km walking ahead! And there I was, complaining about my feet to hurt. After the meal, we shared our home-made schnaps we brought from Slovakia and laughed a lot. It had crossed my mind at that time, that no origins, country, language, nationality, culture or religion is important. When it comes to basics, we are all the same. Just humans, earthlings from one planet.

The darkest darkness and sky with too many stars

Tired from the whole day adventure and sickness I went to bed quite early together with my mum. I felt better but weak, so I better got myself a good rest. We slept right under the roof on they comfortable mattresses with mosquito nests. I fell asleep easily and fast, waking up in the middle of the night with strange feeling in my stomach. And it was a total dark there! Normally, your eyes get used to the dark after some time but...here was just more dark! I made some light with my phone and went to find out bathroom with my mum.

It was a funny experience, cause first, my mum almost fell from the ladder which led from our bedroom downstairs and made a huge noise. Than, I wasn't able to find the exit, cause the main entrance was locked. Luckily we made it to the bathroom just in time. And there I saw it! Actually not at the toilet but outside on the sky! The most beautiful night sky in my life. So many stars! I have never saw so many stars in my whole life. It was then I realized in what kind of light smog we live everyday.

Wondering around rice fields in the rain

In the morning another surprised was waiting for us. Delicious pancakes with local honey and delicious sweet bananas. And of course local herbal tea and coffee. The ideal way to start another trekking! Because it was our last day in Sapa and we still felt little bit tired from the last day, we decided to take it slow. Just some wondering around nearby villages, we visited some rice fields, local church and got completely wet from the sudden rain.

We stopped for a lunch in one restaurant on our way back down to the Sapa town. The restaurant had a small terrace but due to the rain, we were sitting indoors. Right in middle of the living room and bedroom of the owners. There was a big wooden bed without mattress, small wooden chairs, wooden table, big TV and of course WiFi. You get use to this very fast in Vietnam. They may have small and simple houses, but you bet they all have big TV.

After refreshing vegetable Pho, we headed down to the town. We were sad our Sapa journeys had to end, but we were more sad, that we had to travel another 7 hours with that horrible bus company again! Fortunately my stomach sickness seemed to be much better and we found a nice cafe in Sapa town to have a rest in.

While waiting for the bus and resting, we were tired and so full of new experience, that I had a feeling that it would take me at least a week to process everything. But you know, we were traveling and many other exciting places were waiting for us. And honestly, I am not sure, if I have processed it already, even 6 months after our journey. But one thing I am sure: I have to return to Sapa again! If you are ever going to Vietnam, you cannot skip this place either! Because, you know, in Sapa time has stopped and magic happens...

[victoriagloverstuff]

Life on a Moving Skyscraper, Crossing the Great Lakes

The room was moving when I woke. The propeller’s rotation shook the toilet, chipboard closets, desk, bed, couch, doors. Lakers are less rigid than oceangoing freighters because they don’t have to withstand the same conditions. The 740-foot Algoma Equinox was built on the Yangtze River in China. Builders welded additional steel supports into it so that the ship wouldn’t break in half during the journey back to the Great Lakes. The supports have since been removed, Captain Ross said. You can see the hull bend when the Equinox hits a big wave.

Living on a moving skyscraper is a strange feeling. I had no idea where we were or what time it was most of the day. The ship’s interior is lit with fluorescent light and smells a bit like a hospital. The crew wanders in and out of the mess hall all day and usually eats silently.

Some of the men I sat next to I never saw again. The cook, Mike Newell, was a constant presence in the mess hall. He would come out while I was eating and talk for an hour or more. One day he told me a story about another writer who had ridden on the ship. Mike had spoken with him extensively as well, but the reporter hadn’t mentioned him in the piece he later published. “What is that?” he asked me. I said I didn’t know. “I’d like to find that guy,” he said, swatting the towel. “I’d like to show him a few things.” We stared at each other for a moment, then he walked back into the kitchen. He didn’t talk to me for two days after that.

The sky looked hazy blue from the wheelhouse, which stands 75 feet above the deck. A thick band of clouds blocked the sun. Mustard-yellow exhaust fell from the smokestack and hovered a few feet above the water. The deck was painted rust red, with white handles on cargo covers and bright-yellow safety instructions. Trees glided by at ten miles an hour. The ship crossed the border into Ontario last night, Captain Ross said. We were passing Cornwall Island when I walked into the wheelhouse. The border enters the Saint Lawrence River there and zigzags 200 miles to Lake Ontario.

The helmsman steered while Captain Ross told me stories about shipping on the lakes. He rarely looked away from the windshield when he spoke. If he needed to give a command, he spoke over whoever was talking. If an important announcement sounded on the radio, he tuned everything out and listened. When Tony called from the cruise room to say that the internet was down, Captain Ross hung up on him and gave another order: “Line up the buoys to starboard. Two degrees port. No. Two more.”

*

Captain Ross had spent the last 33 years on freighters. He was 60 years old, with receding sandy-brown hair and a graying goatee. He squinted constantly. Crow’s feet reached to his sideburns, and his stocky build easily filled his T-shirt. In Algoma company photos, he dons a navy-blue reefer jacket and a captain’s hat. In the wheelhouse, he wore jeans, a polo shirt, and sandals.

Ross was 27 years old when his father, a lifetime Great Lakes captain, called him from Quebec City and asked if he wanted to be a deckhand. It was December 2nd and he was working as a data entry clerk for the Hudson’s Bay Company—the same company that was formed by a royal charter in 1670 and that now operates a chain of department stores with Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue. He was married and had a newborn son. His father said the money was good, so Ross packed his things and moved onto the 600-foot George M. Carl.

He watched his father break up a knife fight his first day on the canaller and spent the next two weeks scraping and painting the bridge, cleaning and prepping cargo holds, and tending mooring cables. Captain Ross’s father had been at sea for half of his childhood, and Ross had never considered being a sailor. After he got his check for two weeks’ work—$700—he told his wife he was joining the fleet full-time.

It took Ross just four years to work his way up from deckhand to wheelsman to mate to captain. He attended marine school winter sessions, when the seaway is closed, then logged required ship hours during the warm months. In 1986 he captained his first boat, John A. France, out of port. “The first time you’re out there on your own, you realize there is nobody else to ask what to do,” he said. “My second and first mate were 60 and I was 30, and they were calling me ‘Old Man.’”

The first trip went without incident. The next 30 freighters he captained were not as easy. Gangs operated on the ships, and many of the deckhands were ex-cons who couldn’t get work elsewhere. The industry needed men so badly that if Captain Ross fired someone one day, he saw him on a competitor’s ship the next. Ross watched men get crushed by machines, mooring cables, and cargo hatches. He went looking for mates when they were late for a shift, only to find out that they had thrown themselves off the stern in the middle of the night.

“The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Paradise, Michigan, estimates that 6,000 ships and 30,000 lives have been lost on the lakes.”

Regulations were looser back then. The crew made swimming pools by spreading tarps between cargo hatches during lake crossings and drank beer poolside all afternoon. They gambled and partied deep into the night and, sometimes, while waiting to get into a lock, they jumped overboard to cool off. “All we had was one TV in the cruise room,” he said. “Going past Cleveland we could see an hour of a baseball game until we lost reception. Everyone congregated then; no one stayed in their cabin. We’d have 30 people in the galley playing cribbage, guitar, and cards. It made for a tighter-knit crew.”

*

The 300-square-mile Great Lakes basin spans about a quarter of America’s northland. The coastlines of all five lakes combined add up to just under 11,000 miles, almost half the distance around the world. An average of 200,000 cubic feet of precipitation falls somewhere on the lakes every second.

Water and latitude determine what lives or dies in the basin. In the north, the central Canadian Shield forest of fir, spruce, pine, quaking aspen, and paper birch is so dense that you can barely walk through it. Ridges and spires of gneiss and granite rise above the canopy.

Move south and east, and sugar maple, yellow birch, white pine, and beech take over the land. All the way south, near the mouth of Lake Ontario, the Great Lakes���Saint Lawrence forest is mostly red maple and oak, with elm, cottonwood, and eastern white cedar at lower elevations.

You think about these things when you have nothing to do but stare for hours at an unimaginable mass of water. You think about the natural border that the lakes and the Saint Lawrence create and how it helped shape political boundaries. You think about the seasons, the intricacy of biospheres, water cycles, heat cycles, the planet’s orbit, and its wobbly spin that makes night and day.

Two wood ducks swam away from the bow. The ship missed them by ten feet.

*

Thousands of mayflies swarmed the smokestack. They came from the water as nymphs, rose to the surface, grew wings, and flew. They are ancient insects. Aristotle wrote about their incredibly brief life span. There are other prehistoric creatures around here. The oldest known footprints on the planet were discovered in a Kingston, Ontario, sandstone quarry a hundred miles upstream. Scientists say they were made by foot-long insects called euthycarcinoids 500 million years ago. They were among the first creatures to migrate from water to land. Before the discovery, the quarry owner used the fossils as lawn ornaments.

Isolation and boredom aren’t the only danger on the lakes, Ross said. He pointed to a chart on the wall and showed me locations of a few shipwrecks. Superior and Michigan are the most dangerous because they are the longest—giving storms enough fetch to create two-story waves. Fronts flowing west to east in the fall are particularly rough. The lakes sit in a lowland between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians. Cold, dry air flows down from the north and meets warm, moist air coming up from the south. Add prevailing westerlies rolling off the Rockies and you get a vortex of constant and dangerously unstable weather. Winds can blow 40 to 50 miles an hour and whip up waves 25 feet tall, Captain Ross said.

The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Paradise, Michigan, estimates that 6,000 ships and 30,000 lives have been lost on the lakes. The gale of November 11, 1835, sank 11 ships on Lake Erie alone. The Mataafa Storm of 1905 sank or damaged 29 freighters, killed 36 seamen, and caused $3.5 million in damages. Storm losses in 1868 and 1869 led to the first national weather-forecasting system in the US, initially managed by the US Army Signal Corps using telegraphs in Great Lakes port cities. The most famous wreck, the Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in a November gale in 1975 with all 29 crew, went down a few hundred miles ahead on our route.

A few miles upstream, the river widened to five miles across. We passed Chippewa Bay and entered Thousand Islands, New York—summer home to millionaires for a century and a half. There are 1,864 islands along the 50-mile stretch. Most have mansions or sleek, modern houses on them. Many were retreats for business moguls and movie stars in the Gilded Age.

Back then, a short train ride from New York City to Clayton, New York, left visitors a few steps from a ferry or private launch that would take them to their house or hotel.

I stepped onto the wheelhouse deck to see Singer Castle. Sixty-foot stone walls and terra-cotta roof tiles glowed in the late-afternoon light. The water around Dark Island, which the castle sits on, was deep azure. Frederick Gilbert Bourne of the Singer Sewing Machine Company built the fortress. It is a medieval revival structure with 28 rooms, armored knights guarding a marble fireplace, a walnut-paneled library, and secret passageways from which hosts can spy on their guests. A few miles farther, on Heart Island, was another castle, built by George Boldt, proprietor of New York City’s original Waldorf Astoria. Boldt built it for his wife and had hearts inlaid in the masonry. When she died (or ran off with the chauffeur—stories conflict), construction stopped.

“It was interesting to watch people gazing at the ship. I wasn’t sure what solace it would give onlookers to know that the three men driving it were wearing Crocs and sweatshirts and laughing hysterically about their in-laws.”

Every island has a story. Thousand Island salad dressing was born when actress May Irwin tried it on a fishing trip there. Irwin shared the recipe with Boldt, who added it to the menu at the Waldorf. On a nearby island, a cabin burned down in 1865. In the ashes, a man was found with his throat slit and a knife stuck in his chest. It was allegedly John Payne, a hit man hired by John Wilkes Booth to kill Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state, William H. Seward. When Payne didn’t complete the job, and ran off with Booth’s money, Booth’s associates tracked him down.

A few houses on the North Shore looked like French châteaux with steep, peaked roofs and arched windows. Turreted homes and gingerbread-style cabins had replaced a 19th-century Methodist camp in Butternut Bay. Cattail marshes and lush reed beds edged the shoreline, and antique boats spanning a century circled the Equinox: split-cockpit runabouts, hard-chine sedan commuters, Nathanael Herreshoff steamers, sailboats, and Jet Skis.

The first mate pointed out an old steam-powered dory chugging toward shore as an SOS message was broadcast on the radio. A sailboat had lost power and was floating a few hundred yards dead ahead of the Equinox. Luckily, someone was close by to tow it home. I asked the mate how long it would take the Equinox to stop if something was in the way. “It doesn’t stop,” he said. “You should see this place at night. Or in the fog.”

Beneath the boathouses and million-dollar yachts, the Canadian Shield runs south across the Saint Lawrence and joins the Adirondacks. Twenty-five feet offshore, the water is 200 feet deep. Just behind the signal buoys, granite shoals are only two feet deep. Many of the islands here are perched on the edge of the seam. To be counted as part of the archipelago, an island has to have at least one square foot of land above water level year-round and support at least two living trees.

It was interesting to watch people gazing at the ship. I wasn’t sure what solace it would give onlookers to know that the three men driving it were wearing Crocs and sweatshirts and laughing hysterically about their in-laws. That is not to say the Equinox crew is not highly professional. They are. It’s just that enough time on the water makes people a little kooky.

We passed Wolfe Island and broke into a deep-blue plane. The shores fell away to port and starboard, and the Erie-Ontario lowlands on the southern shore of Lake Ontario appeared as a green streak. Behind us I could see the sweep of Tug Hill Plateau, which divides the Lake Ontario and Hudson River watersheds. Due west was flat calm—liquid silver etched by puffs of wind and three ducks skittering away from the Equinox’s wake.

It took ten minutes to walk from the wheelhouse to the bow of the ship. It felt more like a boat up there. Wake peeled away from the bow. The air smelled like pond water. The sun was a bonfire three fingers off the lake. An exact image of the sky stretched across the surface of the water, and the horizon arced with the curvature of the earth.

The first mate throttled up to 17 miles an hour, and the bow of the Equinox plowed forward. The hard part was over. Captain Ross went to bed, and Second Mate Charles Chouinard took the helm. The only sign of land was a smokestack miles away on the western shore. When Brûlé and Champlain first arrived, they would have seen only water. There is no reason they would have thought the lakes were not an ocean, until they tasted them. There was no reason they would have thought they could cross them either, or that there would be more lakes on the other side.

Some historians believe that Champlain and his truchement were not chasing a dream.

*

The elusive Northwest Passage they heard about from Indian tribes might have been a sixth Great Lake. Thousands of years ago, Lake Agassiz contained more water than all the other Great Lakes combined. It reached west and north of Lake Superior. When the ice dams holding it in place melted about 8,000 years ago, a cataclysmic flood raged through the Mississippi Valley, into Lake Superior and up the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean. Scientists theorize that the magnitude of the flood was so great that it might have disrupted ocean currents, cooled the climate, helped spread agriculture west across Europe, and been the source of several flood narratives, like the one in the Bible.

Ancestors of western tribes lived around the shores of Agassiz before it drained, and they passed on stories of the flood through the generations. The Huron may well have drawn the lake on birchbark at Lachine Rapids, leading Champlain to assume it was still there. By the time Brûlé made it to Huron Country, there was nothing left of it. Today, the remains of Agassiz can be seen 400 miles northwest in Lake Winnipeg.

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