#shrapnel is used to being shorter than everyone

[papaver-decervicatus]

Cat/Mouse/Den: Pt. 4, Mus Urbanus

Fatal attraction is one thing but stuck on a stakeout, a certain little mouse decides to push her luck with the cat who's been chasing her... just how far is too far, and how much more can they take?

CW: Obsession, stalking, canon typical violence, intrusive thoughts, unsanitary wound care

Authors Note: Hahaha, remember how I said I was going to do shorter updates? Yeah well, I felt really bad for missing the previous week but I did have a lot of terrible IRL shit happen, so working through that was a priority. That being said, going back through all the amazing comments and everything everyone has written has been absolutely keeping me afloat! Thank you all so so so so so much, you will never know how much it all means to me.

There are a couple of Hannibal references in this part that, hopefully, will start to make sense by the last part of the story (which was, coincidentally, the first part written!) Not going to lie, I am just glad to publish this so I never have to think about this damned part again as I have been stuck on in for literal months. Also sorry if Soap's accent sucks, the only experience I have with anything remotely Scottish in the way of language tendency is my grandmother whose father was a Scottish immigrant and that's it.

Anyways, I hope you like agnst and interrogation scenes, because next week, König loses his faith in god and in mouse while tied to a chair! See you there!

❣️Cura ut Veleas ~ Caedis 🥀

PREV | Pt. 4 Mus Urbanus | 4.2k words | Mouse POV | NEXT

“Mouse?” A voice from in front of her calls out, but only after she deliberately drags her feet into the threshold of the neutral ground, alerting him of her presence. 

“Quiet as a.” She utters her usual response, stepping into the little flat in Buenos Aries, Argentina. She hears the smile as Soap sucks in a breath at her little joke. Her callback should be old by now, shouldn’t make him smile anymore, but he does anyway. He’s easy to get along with, something hard to come by in war. She crosses the minimal space between the two and takes stock of his little setup. 

For a mission, it’s luxurious. He’s sitting, in a chair might she add, with a scope poking barely out of an antique window on the 7th floor of an apartment building, looking into a busy market square. His arms rest on a table littered with little signs of life, a map of the area adorned with notes and coordinates in inexpensive ink, no less than 7 pens whose caps are chewed through (everyone’s got bad habits but this little sin of his drives poor Price up and down the goddamn wall), two disposable cups with sediment rings denoting how much instant coffee was drunk from them at a time before they returned to their places besides their drinker. Most notably, however, are two radios in a strange moment of near fornication– backs ripped open and wires crossed in an almost pornographic display of field ingenuity. 

Damn demolition specialists, she hears the echo of Gaz say in her head and she absentmindedly rubs the scabbed over cut on her left hand where the shrapnel of a certain someone’s frag grenade got her two weeks ago. She wants to be mad but-

“Hear any good ones, lately?” Soap turns to her, he’s disengaging from his post, changing his guard for her to take his spot, just as command ordered. He’s been in this little nest for about 6 hours and she can feel his desire to scuttle and tinker about radiating off of him. As he takes apart his gun, already aware and familiar that she refuses to use anyone’s but her own, his eyes shine to life. The color of sky blue permafrost, yet they radiate a certain lived-in warmth impossible to distance yourself from. Eyes almost like-

She bites her tongue at the thought. Bad time to be thinking about König… she mourns. But, speaking of the man.

“Yes, but it’s bad,” she offers, in fake warning as she sheds her outer jacket before moving to unhook the case that stands between her and the assembly of her gun. She knows the warning will only intrigue the poor pyrotechnic more. 

His smile is nothing short of sadistic as he raises an eyebrow.

“No, like, really bad,” she emphasizes, throwing a pleading look his way. His grin gets even more shit-eating-er if that sort of thing were even possible. “I mean it, MacTavish. Pass it along to your long-suffering Lieutenant, and you will be picking teeth out of your shit.” “I’m sure I’ve done worse to Ghost,” he supplies, rolling his shoulders. Yeah, I’m sure you have, she thinks but is much too self-preserving to say, especially aware that the Frankenstien’s monster of a radio he’s resurrected from two dead circuit boards is likely not secure enough to promise any real privacy. She would rather not alert Simon Riley that she’s become a dealer in his and Soap’s arm’s race of terrible jokes. He does not take prisoners, after all… 

“Alright, alright, just don’t tell him it’s from me,” she smiles, putting her hands up defensively in a quick jest. “Okay, play along with me now,” he nods along as he steps away from the perch and lets her take his spot at the table. 

“So, what's the difference between a piano, a fish, and a gluestick?”

“I know about two-thirds o’ this one.” 

Mouse trap baited. She smiles.

“Give it a go, then.” She wiggles in the chair, pressing her cheek to the crux of the sight and its metal holder. She sighs into the familiar feeling of control that settles into her bones as she hunches over.

“Can tuna piano but’cha can’t tuna fish?” He supplies, half teasing her already.

“Yep, but you’re forgetting something.” She sighs and goes to fiddle with the red-light optics extension, Command is confident enough in her abilities that she was specifically told to take it off for this one. She hears Soap whisper a quiet ‘oh shite’ behind her when he realizes he probably forgot to himself and she laughs a little. 

“What about the glue?”

Mouse trap set. Poor Soap, always getting himself into ambushes…

She smiles wide and hums remembering how excited her kitty-cat was to tell her this part. 

“See, I knew you’d get stuck on that one.” 

Mouse trap sprung. A moment of silence.

“Oh fuck me, that one is bad.” Soap chokes out a hearty laugh as he collects his discarded coffee cups from her side.

“No thanks,” she purrs as she finally sets herself into position. “Use it at your discretion, soldier.”

“Aye, that I will.” 

Soap goes to rummage through the kitchenette to her right and she takes the moment she lacks supervision to indulge herself. She does not move her sights to alert the man with her of the wandering of her eyes, instead, she scans windows and alleys without visual aid. The stale air threatens to choke her as she rakes over the golden-hued morning scene with desperate efficiency. 

After what feels like an eternity of stolen glances switching between her targeted area and anywhere he may be, she sees him. 

Technically, she has no way to know for certain that it’s König, she doesn’t have his usual wave or cheeky grin (affectionately referred to as a Cheshire Cat Smile in her own belabored heart) to alert her to his presence. That being considered, there is a masculine figure barely peeking out of a window into an alleyway who is just shy of 7 feet tall and his face is covered. Yeah, probably König. She smiles despite herself and her company. She wonders if he has radio access to her little hideout. 

(She remembers the seemingly endless weeks of his arrival to her perch. The early morning light hits the streets the same way it had hit the forest ground that day. Like a fairy tale prince, beseeching a princess on hand and knee, he would always somehow appear in her sights, nearly as though it was just meant to be! 

His form stands out tall and proud from its surroundings and she recounts every single reason he should not be here. By the third time their eyes caught she’d decided he was doing it on purpose, but she never let him get away with it without some acknowledgment on her side. She can only imagine that if she’s getting hunted for sport, her calling out his position will, at least temporarily, halt his advance. 

But by this rate, she’ll be in his mouth by the end of the year. 

His eyes are cold and bloodshot red. Painted tears lick their way down the hood she’s never seen him without, possibly a feeble attempt at impersonality? Maybe if he looks enough like a monster people will just trust their first assumption and leave him alone. But she’s never been one to judge a book by its cover…

“I see you, König.” She warns out to him. He stills among the foliage, bathed in sweet-honey-like warmth from the rising sun. He does not shy away from his imminent death on the business end of her rifle, of course not! Instead, he raises his chest proudly, seemingly aware that the loneliness in her yields to whatever greater magnetism the loneliness in him commands. He’s an enigma, it bothers her that of all the people to put the effort into finding her, it has to be him. Mostly she curses herself for promising him a next time all those encounters ago, if she’d known what sort of a game it would inspire in the predator stalking her like prey despite her flipping sniper rifle, she never would have said a thing. 

He may be in her scope, but he’s got her under a finer microscope to seek her out so faithfully. She wishes she got this sort of dizzying devotion from someone, anyone else. It is the third day this week he has found her.

What she expects to happen is what has happened for weeks now, 1) he hears her transmission, 2) he smiles at her as a predator smiles at pray, his eyes find hers and her hackles rise in utter terror, and 3) he hums to himself and turns away, self-satisfied enough to have won hide-and-seek for the time being.

That does not happen. 

Instead, König sits down, right where he is, and pulls out that monster of a knife he keeps strapped to himself. He throws it up and catches it without looking at it, instead his eyes are laser-focused on Mouse. This is, of course, despite the fact he should have no earthly idea where she is. He plays with his knife idly for what must be an hour, but she does not- no, can not- look away from him.

She remembers her trigger finger twitching with sinful power, she remembers choking back the insistence at killing another lonely person, devoid of their autonomy on a basic level when they signed up for a mercenary-issued ticket to hell.

She remembers hopelessness. She remembers refusal. She remembers the smile reaching his eyes when she played along with his joke. 

“Why don’t rats like cats?” Her radio labors out. 

She half forgot what his voice sounded like, surprisingly excitable and shrill for a man of his stature. Her brain stutters around the implication of the only words she’s heard him say to her since the fateful ravine that gained Mouse her own personal 6’10” shadow. 

She blinks a few times in surprise, genuinely pondering if her long hours hiking through the woods have made her susceptible to hallucination and general hysteria. She is not thinking when she timidly responds-

“Why?” 

“Because they are weapons of maus-destruction.” Konig replies like it’s not the stupidest thing she’s ever heard in her goddamn life. Perhaps it's pity at the memory of his discomfort around his comrades. Of the thought of the way he tries to make his body so small when around others (truly an impossible task he routinely fails.) Maybe it’s irrational fear, twofold and buried in her instinct to shoot despite the clear disadvantage on his behalf and her insistence that she does not do her damn job, or fear of the inhuman man in front of her stalking her through the woods. Or it could be discomfort, no one ever prepared her for dealing with whatever the fuck this is in basic training or field school. In the end, it doesn’t really matter what it is.

In the sparkling, decadent light of a sunrise, her heart hammers in her throat at the first joke he’d told her, in some strange and desperate attempt to fill the meters of silence between them.

She laughs. 

And he hears it.

And with his wide stance, his ghastly executioner’s hood in the place of a crown, and his knife back in its holster- his beautiful eyes seem to smile. Suddenly, his eyes look lived in, like someone has just put up new curtains in an abandoned house. His whole affect changes hinging on what was an irresponsible outburst on her behalf at best.

And for the first time, she does not fear a monster hunting her through the woods, silent and purposeful in his pursuit of prey. Instead, she wants to understand a man, whose eyes have lit up like a princess has just laughed when he kissed her hand.) 

Soap wanders back into her small perch with two cups of coffee and sets one down next to her. She takes a quick glance and hums with appreciation. He takes another sip out of his and she remembers that they’re supposed to share shift for about an hour before his rotation ends.

“You treat all your girls to coffee in the morning?” She quips.

“Only the pretty ones,” he returns with an effortless charisma and her breath catches.

Not because of Soap, but because in that alleyway, where she really shouldn’t be looking, she sees the uneasy rise of two massive shoulders and-

Oh my god, did König just… get jealous? 

The next idea she has is downright evil, really this is not the place or the time or any of that but-

Fuck it. She’s already flirting with the enemy, what more could this do? She’s already told the poor mountain of a man something dangerously adjacent to “God I really missed you when we didn’t talk to each other for three weeks like a horny teenager and by the way I love you desperately and think about you when I’ve got my hands down my pants,” and she probably imagined him tensing up, anyways. No harm, no foul. 

Maybe, it's dangerous, to wave a steak in front of a mountain lion, but what if she wants to get mauled?

“Hey Soap, what page are you on?” She says, putting her terrible plan into action. She sees him look up from his report, or more likely an idle sketch, on her periphery. 

“Ah, only the second chapter, did'ya move my bookmark?”

“Nope, the book’s in the leftmost pocket in my duffle.”

“Thank ya,” He says and moves from his spot to go fetch the book from it. She takes a quick sip of her coffee, delighted to realize he’s made it to her specifications as far as milk and sugar go, as he rummages around in her bag.

The impromptu book club started nearly eight months ago when Nova passed her copy of Emma by Jane Austen off to Gromsko to help him with his English. That turned into Mouse recommending the book Jane Eyre to Nova on the pure suspicion that she would hate it, which she did. Gromsko still needed to practice and enjoyed the spirited discussions so he joined the blossoming group with an English copy of The Doll by Aleksander Głowacki after he finished Jane Eyre. Never one to be left out, and surprisingly well-read when he wanted to be, Soap had pitched the idea of The Lord of the Flies (because to quote “Fucking Brits,” and he wanted to subject others to his high-school reading list.) If she remembered correctly, Farah and Reyes had also started sharing copies of books they enjoyed occasionally.

“Can’t believe it was Gromsko that put it in rotation.” Soap says, pulling out a well-worn copy of The Silence of the Lambs from the bag.

“He said he picked it up years ago in Polish thinking it was a cooking field guide.” She offers, as the man next to her idly thumbs through pages.

“Yer shitting me, yeah?”

She just shakes her head and smiles into her scope. Soap laughs and removes his homemade bookmark, a pencil sketch of a stake-out view somewhere in Mexico scribbled onto scrap paper. He keeps his thumb on the page and flips through to where hers is, much further along.

“Yer a right romantic, ain’cha Bonnie?” Soap laughs somewhere between the pages and somewhere behind her. “Hmm?” 

“This part, that’ya highlighted,” she hears a well-meaning sneer in his words. “The one you put the hearts by and everything…”

Mouse’s mouth tethers itself into a terse line and she attempts her best noncommittal shrug. 

Somewhere in her line of sight, a mountain shrugs himself chuckling lightly. She wonders what it would feel like, to lay on his broad, muscled chest as he laughs, how closely he would hold her, how she could rest entirely on top of his chest and not touch the ground beneath them and-

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” She lies through her teeth. Soap’s laugh behind her is loud and proud. Suddenly, his casual sadism isn’t so amusing when turned around on her. 

“Do you think it's because I like to look at you and think about eating you up—“ he reads from the book, voice dripping in mock chivalry and breathless romanticism. “About how you would taste?"

She feels her cheeks and ears heat up as Soap loudly proclaims her funeral to all those who may care, and she doesn’t miss the way König leans a little too close to his radio as he goes about mocking her. His stance shifts as if he hangs on the very words like he’s found a secret buried deep in her subconscious. Technically, she has no way of knowing, but Mouse knows in her heart that König is smiling. At least someone is having fun. 

Once Soap comes down from his laughing fit he puts her bookmark back to its spot and talks at the back of her head. 

“With your pressed flower bookmark and everything. Oh, it would be sweet if he wasn’t Hannibal the Cannibal.” Soap hisses out. “I always figured you were…” he pauses searching for the right word, “adventurous from how Gromsko talks bout ya, but seriously cannibalism?”

If she’s not mistaken, König’s hand grips ever so slightly tighter on the radio attached to the best. Maybe the battle plan has to change, but she’s still got some ideas. 

Soap is completely oblivious to the electricity licking up the air between her perch and one man on the ground. He looks around frantically, seemingly desperate to find her, and look in her eyes. Mouse is a sniper, she really should hate the attention, but something fatalistic descends into her smile as she lets Soap continue his little outburst. 

“I swear. You and him, yer sure there’s nothing there? He’s even given you special field medicine lessons, no one gets treatment like that from Gromsko.”

“His name is Sobieslaw.” Notably, it is not a denial. Technically, everything that’s just been said is the truth. 

König’s shoulders rise. 

He looks right down her site. 

She smiles. 

Come and get me, kitty-cat. 

“See! That’s what I’m talking about. You’re the only person who calls him by his first name.”

“Because you never put in the effort to learn it.”

“That don’t mean a thing since I don’t have tits.” 

“You do, just not as good as mine.”

“Aye, off it. Gromsko is into you.” She can hear from the way Soap’s voice carries haphazardly around the room that he is pacing and talking with his hands. She doesn’t turn her back, gaze still fixated on the looming shadow in her sights. Soap continues, entirely unaware of the exact type of beast he is tempting. “He swaggers around you, never even bothers to fucking ask to pick up your boxes, he just does it. His voice gets all soft around ya, too, like he’s cooing at a goddamn pet animal or something. He nearly got into an actual pissing contest with Ghost the other day when he bitched about you beating him in poker. Face the facts, Bonnie, he wants you.” 

König’s eyes have focused with the ferocity of an apex predator and his chest labors out concentrated and sharp inhales and exhales. He resembles a recently sharpened knife, desperate for some carnage after a particular kind of attention. His body is crumpled in on itself not unlike a cat getting ready to pounce. His heels dig desperately into the cobblestones beneath his feet. His hand flicks out his beloved Glock field knife with all the reverence of a praying man.

In short, he looks every part like he does in immediate battle. He looks like he did the split second before he started sprinting for her in the snowy woods, the scene that occupies her lonely nights when she tries in complete vanity to recreate the feel of his hands cradling her sides.

Mouse should be scared of König.

Instead, she sees before her a scene of complete and hopeless adoration focused so intently on her alone that she should be afraid of. Realistically, she recognizes the clear and present danger of the moment. Is König upset at her? At Soap? At a potential adversarial suitor by way of Gromsko? She doesn’t quite know, but after a career of intentionally hiding like a coward, she basks infatuated by the calamitous captivation he exhibits.

He looks like he wants to maul something to death.

As keen as she is on getting him close enough to try to get over to her (and ideally, throw her under him,) in her infinite mercy, Mouse decides the teasing has gone on long enough.

“I like Gromsko just fine, but not like that.” Soap audibly scoffs and König’s entire form relaxes. Both men mutter something to themselves before an encore of gunfire breaks out. Mouse’s heart stutters to a stop when her radio comes in.

“Visual on Gaz, he’s hit!” Nova calls out, clearly alarmed. Soap grabs for the radio right next to Mouse and brings it to his face, holding onto a few loose wires as he does to ensure the amalgamation does not fall apart in his fingers.

“Where is he?”

“Two blocks from south from you, Gromsko is a click out.”

Soap looks at Mouse with his heart bobbing in his throat. The pain and worry on his face is palpable.

“Go.” She says. Soap looks around frantically at their supplies, seemingly taking a split second worth of inventory, making as many life-or-death decisions as he can in such little time.

“Soap, listen to me,” Mouse soothes. “I keep overwatch, you take my TAC vest and stabilize him until he can get a medic.”

“Mouse, I can’t just leave you-” “You can, and you will. Go.” She says with all the finality of a door slamming shut. Soap doesn’t look at her again as he gathers her supplies and nearly sprints downstairs. 

Soap leaves. Quickly. Quietly. He never looks back.

Her stomach settles into discomfort and she looks through the door he closed with the same sad nostalgia she looked through falling snow and monumentous trees. She can’t help but think she would not get the same priority in Gaz’s situation. Like some terrible premonition, she imagines bleeding out on the ground as Soap turns away, never once looking back.

Would König come for me? She ponders, before she smothers the paranoia-induced delusion with the memory of his large hands on her sides. She looks down at her shoelace, where she carved a cylindrical hole through his effigy to attach it. The birchwood mouse carving that sleeps at her right toe gives a silent reassurance: he never really left you, did he?

By the time she looks back into her scope, in between the all-too-familiar white noise of war that’s broken out around her, she sees a shadow dart out from the alleyway one down from where König is. The figure is cloaked in the specific type of military fatigue denoting his affiliation, one that is unluckily for him, kill on sight. It ducks behind the building to the right, where König is. It stalks out, lining itself up behind the hooded man, brandishing a drawn pistol.

König doesn’t have the time to react to the blood spray that litters across his back from the other man’s head once Mouse pulls the trigger on her gun, silently thankful (as awful as it is,) that Gaz getting hurt allowed her to take the shot without Soap inquiring into her actions. (But maybe it’s her fault in the first place that König was distracted enough to allow someone to get the drop on him…)

König looks back towards her and his head lulls to the side like a heavy flower bloom weighed down by morning dew. His eyes, somehow the softest she’s ever seen, are also carving a large chunk of her soul like a knife cuts through soft wood. When he lifts his hood to blow a kiss to her, she knows she will never get her traitorous heart back.

“Danke, mein Engel,” the radio on her table whispers in his voice.

“It’s only fair. I did owe you, after all.” She responds, all together unconcerned with whether or not he can hear her. She smiles, thankful she can see those bright eyes another day. 

When he turns away, she feels her entire heart walk away with him. With every step of his fleeting form, she feels less and less herself, as though someone had separated her shadow from where it meets her feet. Something has changed in the air between them, a sad resignation settles into her trigger finger when she releases it.

For the first time, she does not feel as though she wouldn’t run if he took her, but rather that some integral part of her is with him as he leaves. 

All is fair in love and war, but she’s not sure just how much longer she can stand to play cat and mouse.

taglist!

@kneelingshadowsalome @sprout-fics @bucca2 @dead-cipher @gallowsjoker @lostagoodcigar @berryjuicyy @haisebo @crowbird

And special thanks to @bucca2 and @ivymarquis for finally kicking my ass into gear to write this. Can't wait to read yall's WIPs!

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

oh fuck .. that zombie drabble... pls...... need..... more...... im begging ..........

warnings: language, violence (zombies being set on fire), angst (at the undead situation), fluff, featuring OT6 worrying over Yoongi (and bickering XD); continuation of this

pairing(s): yoongi x reader

--

“Jimin, what the FUCK?!”

“Um…!”

“You said it would blow up!”

“I saw it in a movie!”

“My dudes, they are walking this way!”

A large explosion occurred, thundering throughout the ground. Fire and shrapnel flew threw the air, causing the six men to cower back and stop yelling at each other for a world record of two seconds. The loud noise caused the zombies to disorient, tumbling into each other and walking towards the sound, into the blazing flames and shattered metal gasoline barrel.

They were zombies. They wanted to eat brains.

That didn’t mean they had them.

The group watched the zombies light themselves on fire.

“You didn’t say it would do that,” Kim Taehyung hissed, prodding Park Jimin in the stomach.

Jimin’s short dark hair flipped as he protested. “I didn’t do that! The factory was supposed to blow up!”

“And why would you blow up our base?” Kim Seokjin cut in, poking Jimin in the stomach with Taehyung, both of them taller and more broad-shouldered than the shorter man. “Yoongi hasn’t made it here yet! You want him to come to a pile of ashes and think we all died?”

The zombies started falling on top of each other, creating a pile of burning bodies that smelled, in short, undeniably revolting.

“Ugh, let’s get out of here,” the youngest, Jeon Jungkook, winced, pulling up the black bandana he was using as a face mask over his nose. “It’s disgusting.”

“We can’t,” Kim Namjoon insisted, taking Jungkook’s arm and pulling the younger man closer to him, away from the railing. The group was standing on the high level of a water tower next to the factory, looking down at the burning zombies. “Hyung isn’t here yet.”

“Is he even going to make it here?” Jung Hoseok shuddered, hiding behind Namjoon, clutching the taller man’s shoulders. “Can he even read the map Taehyung drew?”

“That was a map?” Seokjin looked appalled, full lips in a large ‘o’. “Fuck, he’ll never make it here if that was supposed to be a map. Jungkook should have drawn it!”

“Excuse me, I worked hard on that,” Taehyung snapped, glaring at the older man. “I took a few creative liberties, sure–”

“You can’t take creative liberties with a map,” Jimin scolded, glad everyone had forgotten his little snafu of not being able to blow up their temporary base with some half-assed techniques he had witnessed in action movies. “It’s a map. He has to find us.”

“I’m not leaving him behind,” Namjoon clicked his tongue. “We’re waiting for him.”

“Of course, we’re not leaving him behind,” Seokjin agreed. “I’m just saying we might die before he can actually decipher that map.”

Underneath them, the sluggish, flaming zombies were following subsequent explosions, away from the group at the water tower. The sun was lowering. Night was rapidly falling. The zombies were attracted to the light and sound.

“What are they doing?” Jungkook muttered, squinting. “Where are they going?”

“Ugh, we’re so fucked,” Taehyung growled, rubbing the back of his head, his black-brown waves bouncing with the action. “We can’t stay here. We really will die.”

“No, we won’t,” Namjoon affirmed. He clenched his jaw, narrowing his eyes. “We’re going to survive, just like how we’ve survived yesterday, and the day before that, and the one before that.”

The tall, tanned, dark-haired man glanced at the canning factory, chewing on his lip. Their bags of supplies were still in there. They had to evacuate immediately because of Jimin’s loud announcement of him creating a makeshift bomb to blow up a swarm of zombies who had suddenly come upon their hiding spot. They were only a group of six, after all. They couldn’t fight a hundred zombies by themselves. Not without at least one injury and Namjoon wasn’t having that.

He wasn’t going to let anyone get hurt on his watch.

“Hyung, where are you?”

That was Jungkook, his normally cheerful voice stained with worry, voicing all their concerns.

“Damn, you all holding a eulogy or something? Who the fuck died?”

The deep, raspy voice behind them, accompanied by a grunt of annoyance.

All six men – Kim Namjoon, Kim Seokjin, Jung Hoseok, Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung, and Jeon Jungkook – whipped around in shock as the black-haired, pale-skinned man holding a baseball bat covered in nails and a homemade-looking bow slung around his torso hoisted himself over the final rung of the ladder of the water tower, grumbling under his breath.

“Why the fuck would you pick somewhere with such a long ladder and who the fuck drew this, took me fucking ages to figure out…”

“I told you,” Seokjin muttered, smacking Taehyung in the arm.

“Hyung!”

Jimin scrambled across the metal floor and rushed to Min Yoongi, who pointedly dodged him and shoved him back, away from the ladder.

“You trying to fall off or what?” Yoongi chuckled, flicking Jimin in the forehead. “I just got here and you’re ready to end it?”

“Ah, sorry…”

Jimin pouted a big pout, sticking out his full lower lip.

“How dare you take that perfect ass away from my line of sight, especially when I’m carrying your shit,” you said loudly to announce your presence, lifting yourself over the last rung of the ladder, only to freeze and realize seven pairs of eyes were staring at you.

Oh.

Oh! Some very handsome dudes!

You mildly regretted swapping your own clothes at Yoongi’s apartment, but you needed to be able to move easily and comfortably, and what was better than Yoongi’s hoodie, t-shirt, and sweatpants? Plus, bonus, they all smelled like him. Nice. Well, maybe being low-key horny while fighting zombies wasn’t the best idea, but smelling Yoongi’s comforting scent with every movement was pretty fucking nice and reinvigorated your will to live.

Everyone needed something, right?

Your axe-spear was at the base of the water tower. You couldn’t carry that big thing up here. You were already carrying the backpack of supplies from Yoongi’s apartment and the handful of sticks you had turned into arrows with balled-up wads of cloth tied to the ends, soaked in gasoline. Yoongi had shaken his head as he watched you making them, declaring that this wasn’t going to work several times.

“Come on, you have good aim, right?”

“I can barely shoot arrows with an actual bow and arrow, and that was in fucking high school. What makes you think I can shoot with ones you made? And where did you learn this anyway?”

“YouTube.”

“Why the fuck were you looking up how to make a bow and arrows on YouTube?” Yoongi muttered, rubbing his forehead. “I didn’t know the woman I shoved my dick into was low-key a psychopath. You could even recognize what gasoline barrels look like.”

“I mean, it works in Resident Evil, so why not in real life? Also, does this make you not want to shove your dick into me anymore?”

“… Give me the fucking arrow and set it in fire and pray I can shoot this thing accurately.”

He hadn’t looked at you directly, ears red.

“Who are you?” Hoseok piped up, breaking you out of your memory of Yoongi being cool as fuck shooting a flaming arrow and blowing up a gasoline barrel.

"Who am I? Who am I?” you jokingly scoffed, crawling up the ladder and onto the metal ledge. “I am the guardian of lost souls! I am the powerful, the – wait, hold on a second, maybe you all don’t know this quote–”

“Mulan?” Jungkook piped up, dark eyebrows raising into his long black bangs. “Mushu, right?”

“Ah, yes, thank you, attractive young man, Yoongi had no idea what I was talking about–”

Said Yoongi bonked you on the head with his fist, making you yelp.

“I let you within three meters of them and you instantly start flirting,” Yoongi grumbled, clicking his tongue. He introduced you gruffly as you rubbed your head, frowning, wondering what the fuck he was talking about, only to be yanked by the arm and gestured from man to man, Yoongi telling you each of their names. You paid attention, mentally noting each name and face, because these were Yoongi’s important friends, and if they were important to him, they were important to you.

Sure, maybe Yoongi and you had only gone on one date and fucked multiple times after (within the span of a weekend, whoops). You two hadn’t exactly known each other for very long, but these past couple days were full of slaughtering zombies together, so inevitably you two were now close, thanks to some lunatic who released a pathogen in the subway during rush hour, turning a significant portion of the South Korean population into zombies and causing mass hysteria. At least, the was the theory heard on the news before the news station got swarmed with zombies.

Awesome.

Not.

“We have to get down from here,” you muttered, looking up at the sky. “I would love to talk, but we’re going to die if we stay here. Do you all have supplies? Weapons?”

“Yeah…” Taehyung chewed on his lip, pointing to the factory. There was still a decent number of zombies left. You would have to fight your way through them. “They’re in there.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

You handed Yoongi the arrows and the lighter in your pocket before heading back down the ladder.

“Uh…”

“Jungkook, Taehyung, Jimin, go with her. Namjoon, Hoseok, hyung, and I will shadow you guys,” Yoongi declared, handing Jungkook the bloody baseball bat covered in nails. The younger man’s eyes widened, blinking rapidly, slightly put off by the bits of guts and brains stuck to it.

“Why does he get the weapon?” Taehyung whined.

“Because he’s the muscle pig.”

“Hey!”

“Thanks for not sending me with them hyung,” Hoseok mumbled, shuffling awkwardly. “I seriously have no idea what to do.”

“Hold these and give them to me when I ask for them. Let’s go.”

“Holy shit, is that an axe? Spear? What the fuck is that?”

“Has nobody played Dead Rising, I swear–”

“I have!” the youngest chirped, bounding up to you. “I didn’t know you could make that stuff in real life.”

“I mean, you can’t make a chainsaw gun, but the blunt weapons with some added logistics…”

Jungkook frowned, raising his eyebrow. “Huh, yeah, I guess so…”

“Can you guys discuss video games some other time and not when zombies want to chew our nuts off?” Taehyung hissed, before realizing you were there. “And, uh… your ovaries?”

“Tits?” Jimin offered inquisitively as you handed Taehyung a stout metal pole you had picked up from the ground.

“Everyone has tits,” you retorted. “You’re just flat.”

Jimin blinked slowly. “Why do I feel offended even though I know you’re right? And why are you giving me this?” You had given him your axe-spear.

You gestured to his arms. “You have short reach.”

“Hey!”

“Let’s go, uh, Jungkook, right? Lead the way.”

Jungkook grinned, looking very pleased as he took a practice swing with the nail bat and nearly took Taehyung’s leg out.

“You fucking idiot–”

“Let’s get this bread, my dudes, go, go, go!”

“How do you know we have bread?” Jimin wondered out loud as the head-bashing ceremony of straggling zombies began.

“I just said it because I heard it in a video I was watching once–”

You were going to survive the zombie apocalypse with not one, but seven men by your side.

Probably.

You looked back and caught Yoongi’s eye, seeing his open-mouthed smirk and knowing sparkle in his dark brown orbs as he watched you direct the younger members, unable to hide the stupid amount of fondness he had for you now.

Thanks, zombies.

-

cont. 2021.06.07 — can’t sleep

--

drabbles masterpost | masterpost

[lxckynxmber19]

♤ Name: Arius

♤ Aliases: Ari, Jackal, Coyote, Dog Man, Nightstalker, Gas Mask Weirdo, The Stranger, Vanisher, Old Yote (Peeker only)

♤ Age: 207

♤ Birthday: April, 28th, 2080

♤ Gender: Male but to the left

♤ Pronouns: He/They

♤ Height: 5'8"

♤ Weight: ~140 pounds

♤ Body shape: Lean, decently toned especially in their shoulders and back

♤ Scars, markings, tattoos, etc: Scars on the left side of his lips cutting through his beard (gecko claws); two above his right eyebrow (shrapnel); one along the left top of their head + a large one on the back (implant surgeries and falling off a cliff respectively); two on their chest (top surgery); various others around his body from general life and self harm. Blackwork tattoos on their neck, wrists and ankles, as well as his scleras being tattooed black. Metal fang caps on his lateral incisors and canines (both rows), hiding naturally sharp teeth

♤ Hair color and style: Warm gray, cut into a choppy strip on top that gets shorter towards the back || A long, graying brown strip that's braided all the way down (pre- meeting the Great Khans)

♤ Eye color: Bright amber with a subtle glow

♤ Skintone: Light tan, olive undetones. Freckles along their shoulders and thighs

♤ Sexuality: Gay as gay can be

♤ Voice type: Slightly higher than mid range, gritty and icy like freezing sand

♤ Posture: Decent while standing, tends to slouch when sitting

•

□ Birthplace: Southwest Commonwealth, Nevada

□ Current location: Outside Jacobstown, Mojave Desert

□ Parents: Unknown, raised by Big MT scientists

□ Siblings: None

□ Pets: While he doesn't technically own them, they occasionally take care of some nightstalkers that come to visit

□ Current occupation: Drug dealer, local cryptid

•

○ Personality: Arius is often described by customers and caravaners as mysterious, cold, scary, among other things one would probably call a horror movie villain. In truth, most of their off putting behavior is a front. Underneath the surface, they're wise, hard working, a lover and a helper. Kindness shown to them is always returned twofold, though he may not stick around to see their reaction

Internally, Arius never truly recovered from their past suicide attempt and ideation. That coupled with an intense fear of vulnerability leaves them immediately untrusting of everyone he meets. It can take weeks before they let someone in, and usually only a little at a time. To him, good and bad are subjective since "everyone has their own ideas of what they mean"

○ Best traits: Smart, loyal, a good listener

○ Worst traits: Distant, intimidating, blunt

○ Vices: Occasional drug use, causing a little mayhem

•

◇ Favorite food and drink: Fire Ant Fricasse, Ruby Nash's radscorpion casserole, anything spicy really, cactus water

◇ Favorite color(s): Burnt orange, black, charcoal gray, light brown

◇ Favorite movie/TV genre(s): Slasher films, comedy

◇ Favorite music genre(s): Industrial, west coast jazz, metal, some country

◇ Favorite time of day: Midnight

◇ Favorite season: Fall

•

Misc info:

• Arius tattooed his scleras himself, while their other tats were done by a robot in the east coast

• Their metal fangs are made from bullet casings - same bullets used to kill a few Big MT scientists during his escape

• Their various implants cause radios to distort, making it hard to listen to music

• Despite the magnetism in the implants, Arius himself isn't magnetic

• Arius takes advantage of their ability to disappear, usually using it to prank people. At one time, he found himself in the same house as a couple other people with a ouija board. They pretended to be a summoned ghost, scaring the people so bad they fled

• While they help the Great Khans as much as they can, he doesn't consider himself to truly be one since they can't pass initiation. Under extreme physical stress, their stealth implants activate as a last ditch effort to save himself, and it's kinda hard to hit what you can't see. The Khans themselves, though, refer to him as one of them

• They have an abnormally high capsaicin tolerance, allowing them to eat stupidly hot peppers raw

• Arius is most active at night and is rarely seen during the day. If they are, it's not for long

• None of their customers know what their face actually looks like. However, most cities and settlements he's been to have seen it unknowingly, since he's usually recognized by their mask

• Arius will fix up old toys in their spare time

[howtowhumpyourhiccup]

At Face Value

Summary: Post-RttE. Hiccup whump. As he grows older, Hiccup's insecurities with his physical body seem to take a bit of a backseat. They never completely disappear, but in time they are mere whispers that only occasionally bother him with their awful words. But his appearance, whether the features of his face are attractive or not, is one of the few things that never quite come to mind. Until one incident puts a stain on what many have called is a face carved by divinity.

Rating: Teen and up

Words: 1 238

Author’s Notes: This has been collecting dust on my list of finished fic for a year now.

Hiccup has always struck me as someone who wouldn't care much about his face. His insecurities have always seemed to be about how he isn't built like everyone else in his village. But even so, your face is important. So I figured Hiccup wouldn't be okay with having a big ol' scar on his either.

Thus this fic was born!

Constructive criticism is appreciated!

Enjoy!

Ao3

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

It's quiet as Hiccup sits on his spot at the table. He holds a mug in his hands that he's been staring at as it remains untouched. He's tired and should really be heading to bed now. The sun has set a while ago and he's taken some painkilling herbs given to him by Gothi, which are making him a little bit drowsy.

Toothless is present, too, as they rarely leave each other's side. The dragon would've chased him upstairs himself if he wasn't napping near the fire burning in the fire pit. The flames the only thing making any kind of sound in their living space. Well, that and the dragon's soft snoring.

His dad isn't here yet. He must either be running late or is being held up by something or someone. And with how late it is, Hiccup figures his friends must be home already. Astrid might already be asleep, as a matter of fact.

This leaves him plenty of time and quiet to think.

A couple of days ago, he's gotten hurt during some stupid experiment of his. He got the bright idea to create small canisters that can hold a certain amount of pressurized Zippleback gas or an amount of Nightmare saliva. If he could pull them off right, it would've done wonders for his Inferno. Whenever its fire would inevitably die down, he could refill it and ignite it again.

But alas, one of his prototypes has failed, again, and with painful consequences as a result.

He was testing one with Zippleback gas and something had caused it to go off. He doesn't know what sparked it, everything about that particular memory is quite vague to him now. He just knows that his face, hands, and shoulder took most of it. He's lost three of his fingers. One on his left, two on his right.

He screamed. A lot. The little that he does remember is that Gobber had come running when he heard him and that Toothless had been sent into a panicked frenzy, wanting to help and having no clue on what to do.

He had curled up against the workbench he was working on, bleeding profusely and blinded by both the pain and the smoke and heat affecting his eyes.

His father reached the forge just seconds later, having already been in the general area when he heard his son screaming bloody murder.

But in the end, it really isn't all that bad all things considered. Gothi has taken expert care of his injuries, has told him that he's fortunate he still has his hands and face at all after an explosion from such close proximity.

In the past few days since his accident, Astrid, Fishlegs, and his father have been taking care of his wounds.

Some shrapnel has cut into his shoulder. The wounds aren't deep, though they are probably going to leave some scarring. Hiccup counts himself lucky that it means he won't lose any functionality in that part of his body.

As for his facial injury...

Hiccup supposes it isn't too bad. It had become clear that same day that there was nothing wrong with his eyes. A good thing. And then there is the wound his face did sustain. It starts on the side of his head and goes all the way down to his jaw. It's a jagged line that breaks off into two branches near the bottom of his face, the much shorter one nearly cutting into his upper lip.

It's an especially painful injure. It pales in comparison to the phantom limb and chronic pains he frequently suffers from in his stump, but it's certainly up there. Hiccup already knew the face is one of the more sensitive parts of the human body, he knows the same counts for dragons. But he never knew how much a facial injury could actually hurt until it happened to him.

It made him feel some sympathy for Dagur. The former Berserker Chief now turned Consort-prince has his own scars on his face, which are uglier and look like they were once far more painful than his.

And unlike him, Hiccup is surrounded by a whole team of loved ones willing to help him heal and keep his injuries from getting infected. Snotlout and the Thorston twins haven't needed to do it yet, but Hiccup knows they will volunteer if they need to.

Honestly, Hiccup feels bad for just feeling bad about his own hurt. Dagur has suffered far worse than he did and the main reasons for being so down now are rather shallow.

It's a first for him and he should much more upset that another one of his inventions turned out to be a grand mistake. He will always admit to his flaws, but he never considered himself shallow before. But apparently, that is a side to himself that he hasn't discovered until his accident.

He hates this blemish on his face. He didn't used to worry about his looks or how attractive he is to other people. Whenever he did worry about his appearance, it was more about the scrawny nature of his built. But he worries about his looks now.

People often comment on how much they like his face. It never fails to catch him off guard or even make him feel embarrassed. They tell him or even Stoick that the Gods were in a very good mood the day they decided to give humanity Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third. Sometimes, he catches his own friends staring, too.

He has seen his reflection before and he never thought he saw anything special, but after the accident, he worries.

Astrid has reassured him that it isn't as bad as he's making it out to be last time she helped change his bandages. She even stated how sure she is that it's going to him look badass, rougher.

Not that he cared much before, but hearing her say that still helped him feel at least a little bit better about his situation.

The other Riders try to make him believe he looks better now. That this future scar will give him more credit as a Viking and Dragon Rider, but Hiccup can see them cringe whenever they see it.

At least the swelling is going down. And the wound didn't go through his eyes, which could've cost him his sight on that side if it did. He should be grateful for all of this!

And yet...

It has taken him so long to feel any kind of confidence with his own body. It's taken him years for those berating voices in his head to finally become nothing but inaudible background noise. Now that his face is sure to scar, by his own fault no less, those voices are quickly growing louder again.

After years of suppressing them, they are there, they are as loud as ever, and they are given something else to yell at him about.

Hiccup lets out a deep sigh. He would've hung his head if it didn't make his wound pound so much.

Gently laying a hand on the bandaged part of his face, he supposes he needs to start from scratch and spent another four years building his confidence from the ground up again. Until the next time he inevitably gets himself hurt by his own stupid fault and he'll have to start all over once more.

[little-miss-dumpsterfire]

I think I made you up inside my head - chapter three

Chapter three my select few darlings! Yes, it’s already on wattpad (sorry if you’ve read it already) but I like to share!

Are you ready kids?

Chapter Three - I am only what you made me. I am only a reflection of you

Trigger warning - mental health issues and blood/gore.

If you're not comfortable, please skip. 💛

******************************************

Sharp tears prickled in his hazel eyes as the ability to form coherent words seemed to escape him. He had known the minor details surrounding Lindsay's untimely death - a reality tv darling dropping dead was headline-worthy - but her family were tight-lipped about the exact circumstances of her demise. His mind raced as he tried to comprehend how Izzy had known all of this; her knowledge rivalled that of a fly on the bathroom wall. As if she could hear his innermost thoughts, Izzy answered his unspoken question.

"I knew the right people to ask," she told him, brushing the hair out from in front of her eyes, "I knew she didn't just die. I wasn't going to let her death be treated in such a blasé fashion."

Axel choked, the words lodged deeply in his throat. "Bu- I mean... how did you get the mirror?"

"I found it one day. It was in a box on my doorstep. Any sane person would leave it be, but if the media established anything, I'm clearly not seen as sane. So I opened it. I don't know who sent it to me. My money's on a producer who revels in the sadistic thrill derived from the torment and suffering we went through. I couldn't throw it away though, because what would be left of her if I did? She was already condemned to the ground. I wasn't going to be the one to throw her memory to the wind."

Izzy looked to her left, her reflection dimly lit in the glass cabinet on the far wall. "In my head... all I think of is when it's all over, is this how I'll be defined? The final victim of Total Drama... that's etched into my brain. I'll become another knick-knack in a hall of curiosities. We're no longer people in here, Axel, we're collectables."

Thoughts bounced around erratically in Axel's head - conflicting notions manifesting like an angel and a devil on his shoulder. In front of him was a woman who was struggling with the turmoil outliving all of her friends. Yet, the magnetic pull of the almighty dollar swayed his actions towards chasing stardom.

He lightly gripped her forearm, giving her his best convincing empathetic smile.

"Tell me the stories. Let the voices out of the purgatory that is your mind. Everything...one, everyone in here will not be relegated to the sidelines, I won't let that happen." Axel assured Izzy, his warm smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

Ignoring the suspicion that washed over her thoughts - for the time being at least - Izzy continued walking down the aisles of shelves. Axel shadowed her, following a few paces behind, mindlessly fiddling with the items on display. Two tarnished faux-gold lockets sat near each other, the two halves of the 'BFF' heart separate from one another. As he went to push the two sections together, Izzy stopped him abruptly and pushed his hand away.

"No," she started, startling Axel with the sudden sternness. "They can't be together. They don't share a heart anymore."

"So what? They grew out of being obnoxious teenage girls and went their separate ways. Big fucking deal!"

She stared daggers into him, holding the shelving for support. "You've got no idea, kid. Just because the sun's covered, it doesn't mean your shadow's gone."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As far as appearances were concerned, Katie and Sadie were almost each other's doubles. Matching short pigtails with bright pink hair ties, coordinated short shorts, crop-tops and wedged sandals... the two looked like they fell from opposite sides of a funhouse mirror. To all of us on the cast, and the audience at home, no doubt, the only differentiating factor between the two was their build. Katie was slim and taller than Sadie by about four inches, whereas Sadie was shorter and carried more weight.

The two 'BFFL's sat together on the stairs leading to the dock, ready to film their segment for the opening sequence. Waiting for the crew to finish setting up the camera equipment, Katie busies herself with refastening her hair ties.

"Okay girls," an unseen producer informs them, "we need your best-infatuated expression. So give up wide eyes, big smiles, the whole nine yards."

The girls nod in response, awaiting their cue. Sadie clasped her hands against her chest - a wide smile plastered on her face - and Katie bit her lip coyly.

"And.... cut. Alright, move set to the dock for Beth's fire-baton stunt. Doug, remember the extinguisher this time." The producer called about. "Great job, girls. Especially you, Katie. That lip bite was dynamic."

Sadie looked to her right at her best friend. "Wait, you bit your lip? We agreed on a wide-mouthed smile."

"It's no big deal, I just wanted to try something different," Katie shrugged, readjusting her shoulder strap. "We can't always be the same, you know?"

Personality-wise, once you got to know them separately, it was like night and day. Katie was free-spirited, leading with her heart. Her passion for all things fashion was evident through her and Sadie's matching outfits and her behind-the-scenes chats with the likes of Lindsay and Heather. Sadie, on the other hand, was more logical, leading with her head. She was more likely to be the sheep as opposed to the shepherd. And when Katie was eliminated early? It was like leading a lamb to the slaughter.

Sadie sat on a jagged log at the campfire, head in her hands violently sobbing. Bridgette futilely offered her support, attempting to coax the girl from her hysterical state.

"Hey, Sadie, it'll be okay. You've got all us Killer Bass on your side." Bridgette lightly rubbed circles on the crying girl's back.

"No!" Sadie snapped at Bridgette, tears staining her cheeks. "It's not okay! I need Katie. When she's not near me, I break out in hives. She's my everything! I need her more than oxygen! Without her... I'll just die!"

Concerned expressions flashed on the faces of their fellow teammates as Sadie's wails echoed through the woods of Camp Wawanakwa. She clutched the debris from the dock closer to her chest; small cracks formed as wooden shrapnel shattered from around the edges.

What we thought back then was just a toxic 'uber' friendship between two sixteen-year-old girls was far more deep-rooted than any of us anticipated. Regarding Sadie... the best way to sum that up is to quote my dearly missed best friend Noah: 'Sadie is a whackjob with more baggage than an airport terminal'. But I suppose that is giving her a disservice. Upon Katie's departure, Chris was notified by Sadie's therapist of the extent of her mental state. I found out too because back then, well, let's just say you couldn't leave me in the dark for too long.

Sadie's childhood wasn't easy in the slightest. Her relationship with her birth parents was relatively non-existent. Therefore, she was surrendered into the custody of the state. The conveyor belt life of passing through the foster care system took a toll on the girl, with an absence of permanent parental love leaving holes in her heart. Her talkative nature and inhibitions to talk and hug strangers lead to her first visit to the therapist. She was a clear cut case for the child behavioural scientists: disinhibited social engagement disorder, an attachment disorder. Looking back, this was evident in all her future actions, particularly those with Katie.

The bell rang on the first day of their last year of high school. Sadie - dressed as per usual in fuchsia shorts and a striped crop top - eagerly skipped over to the locker of her best friend. As the locker door slammed and her friend came into view, the excited expression on Sadie's face dropped.

"K-Katie? What's this?" Sadie questioned, holding her sticker-covered folder flush against her chest.

Katie raised an eyebrow quizzically, straightening out her paper timetable to find her first classes location.

"What do you mean, Sadie?"

"I mean that!" the shorter girl exclaimed, gesturing at Katie's outfit. The taller girl had moved away from her typical Total Drama outfit, substituting it with a pair of denim jeans and a pastel pink cardigan.

"Oh, this? I just wanted to branch out a bit. I mean, matching outfits? What are we, twins?"

Katie giggled at her observation, with Sadie clearly missing the joke.

"Anyway, I have to get to English, but I'll see you around, yeah?" Katie chirped before walking off with two other girls.

Sadie stalked over to Katie's locker, using a spare hairpin to open it. Her heart broke upon looking at its contents. Gone were the photos of her and Sadie plastered onto her locker door. Cutouts from fashion magazines and runway shows lay in their wake and stuffed under a pile of books was the BFF necklace Sadie gifted her years prior.

Following their graduation, the pair had drifted apart. Katie received an offer to the most prestigious fashion school in Canada and left their small town for Toronto. Unbeknownst to her, Sadie followed suit and got a job at a sewing goods store. Sadie became Katie's shadow, desperately following her every move. Her morning routine was memorised, her coffee order became part of her mental wallpaper. Sadie's infatuation only grew, as in her mind, distance made the heart grow fonder. If only Katie knew that this distance was all of a few metres.

A harsh squeak dripped from the tired hinges of the ladder as Sadie climbed up the rungs, fastening something onto her wall. For her neighbours, the sound had become a part of their daily lives, as day after day, Sadie adhered more photos on the apartment wall. The collage of the lush green of leaves, the yellow of the bustling taxis and blue of the cloudless sky swirled around on the wall, catching a person's attention as they entered the room. A timber coffee table was neatly placed on the left, adorned with additional photo frames and miscellaneous decorations. The centrepiece to her display shimmered brightly when the morning sun shone through the gap in the curtains. Perched in a small, open velvet lines box was one half of a golden heart-shaped 'BFF' necklace.

Sadie took a step back and tilted her head, taking in the view from as many angles as she could. She had finally achieved the pinnacle of her undying love and infatuation for her former 'BFFL'. Neatly arranged across the length of the wall was a mural, dedicated to her muse, to the reason she woke up every morning. Candid photos of Katie walking down the street, exiting cars and meeting friends for coffee dates were carefully taken by the shadow she didn't know that she had.

A year and a half passed. There was a stark dichotomy between Katie and Sadie's lives. The final year of her fashion degree was approaching quickly, and Katie was not entering it alone. I don't know how many of us predicted it - probably Noah with his impeccable 'gaydar' - but Katie had fallen in love with an architecture student called Daisy. From what was depicted on their respective social media accounts, it was clear to us that they were enamoured with one another. The presence of another woman in Katie's life infuriated Sadie, as she believed that that position was reserved for her and her alone.

Then came the drop in the ocean that caused the whole tsunami. If it wasn't for Katie's selfless nature... well, I imagine things would've turned out a lot differently.

Katie sat cross-legged on the couch, a decorative throw rug draped across her lap. Their rescue cat, Archibald - a male calico - rested behind her head, purring with content as she opened her laptop. Her fingers barely touched the trackpad as she scrolled through her Facebook feed, bypassing ads for strange items and memes about the current political climate.

"Ekaterina," an auburn-haired girl walked through the doorway, a basket of washing in her hands. "I'm making something for lunch after I finish this washing. I'll probably use what's left in the fridge and make a frittata. D'you want some?"

"Ooh, yes please, Dais," Katie smiled at her partner, who poked her tongue out at the use of her nickname.

Katie clicked on her latest post to see who had reacted and liked. A smile crept across Katie's face as she clicked onto the picture: a photoshoot in a field on flowers where a bright ring sparkled on Katie's ring finger. She looked down at her left hand, still in a state of shock at Daisy's proposal. One name stuck out as Katie scrolled through the comments. She hadn't thought of them for years now and wondered what they were getting up to.

She clicked on their profile to compose a new message. Daisy walked up behind her and scratched Archibald's head before planting a kiss behind Katie's ear.

"Oooh, who are you talking to? Not your girlfriend, I hope," Daisy taunted, giggling breathlessly.

Katie threw her head back against the couch cushion and looked up at her fiancée.

"Yeah, I'm shopping elsewhere. I need someone who appreciates my nicknames!" Katie threw back, puffing her cheeks out comically. "No, you goose. It's this girl I used to go to school with. It's been forever and a day, and I thought I'd see how she's going."

"Sadie Calhoun... isn't she that one you went on that show with?"

"Yeah... I felt like such a poser back then. I don't think I've ever squealed since," Katie responded.

"Hey, people change. I had such a crush on you when I saw you on TV, and look now!" Daisy told her before walking away towards the kitchen. "I snagged the girl of my dreams!"

Katie laughed as she typed an introductory line, sending it through before closing her laptop.

*********

A sudden buzz from her phone against the wooden table shook Sadie out of her delirium. She had been sat before her photo wall, carefully cutting out photos of her face for what could have been hours. Paper scraps lined the wooden flooring like irregular speckles of snow as Sadie rose to her feet. Picking up her phone, her eyes shone brightly with its blue light as a squeal escaped from between her lips.

On her screen - behind the myriad of cracks and scratches - sat a notification that held Sadie's heart in a tight grip: Message request from Ekaterina Byers.

If this were a sitcom, I'm sure Sadie would've pinched herself at that moment to assure that she wasn't dreaming. But with one olive branch in the form of an instant message, Katie had signed her own death warrant.

Sadie opened the notification with bated breath, her cheeks aching from the smile that was cemented in place. Her heart fluttered with anxious butterflies as she read the message.

Ekaterina Byers:

"Hi, Sadie. I wonder if you remember me, probably not! High school seems like forever ago! Haha! 😝  I just thought I'd reach out and see if you wanted to get a coffee sometime and just catch up on life!"

The words swirled and danced before Sadie, who lovingly took in every single one with deep adoration and love. Everything she had wanted to tell her, the praise she had wanted to shower Katie in bounced around in her head. She placed her phone down, forcing herself to calm down before she wrote a response.

Sadie Calhoun:

"Oh, hi! OMG! Of course, I remember you! I'd love to catch up! You're the busy fashion designer, so you pick a time when you can squeeze an old friend in! 😎 💕" Watching the three dots in the bottom left corner caused Sadie's breath to hitch in her throat. She was typing... Katie was typing. They'd finally be reunited, not just from behind a camera lens. She felt as if she was in the painting 'The Creation of Adam', just a fingers touch away from her god, her whole world.

Ekaterina Byers:

"Haha, as if! I'm not there yet 😂  Would next Friday suit? Say about 9am at the Good Coffee Co. I need to hand in my portfolio at 8:30 so that'd work well."

Impulsively, acting out of desperation alone, Sadie immediately responded.

Sadie Calhoun:

"Yes! I'll be there! See you soon, Katie! 💕"

Sadie locked her phone before focusing her attention back to her craft. She picked up her scissors, skilfully manoeuvring around the edges of the photos. She stuck the product onto the wall and gazed upon it proudly. Hundreds of small cut out photos of her head were plastered on the wall, covering up any person Katie was with, replacing them with herself.

They did meet up, that much we do know. Testimonials from five different individuals confirmed that they saw the two girls at that café on Friday the 25th. What they talked about is up for speculation, because that stayed between the two of them. Why were testimonials needed if two young adults were just catching up over a cup of coffee? Because that was the last time Sadie Calhoun and Ekaterina 'Katie' Byers were seen alive.

Katie's eyelids drooped as she sat in the passenger seat of Sadie's car. Sadie - the 'good samaritan' that she was - had offered to drive Katie home after she suddenly felt light-headed following her coffee. Sadie parked in the driveway and opened Katie's door for her, helping her up as she tiredly hobbled towards the front door. Katie wearily collapsed onto the couch, her eyes barely registering the environment around her. She could hear faint crashing and shattering sounds as she struggled to keep her eyes open. She looked down upon the couch she was dozing on and sat up with a start.

"This isn't my house," she whispered to herself, scanning the room for any familiar objects. She froze in place when she spotted something utterly recognisable to her: her face. Hundreds of different angles of her face created a mosaic, a shrine to a friendship that was never meant to last.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Sadie smiled sweetly as she entered the room. "It couldn't be anything but. Not when the subject is as exquisite as you."

Confusion washed over Katie's face as Sadie approached her, a clothed parcel delicately held in her hands. Sadie reached up to caress her old friend's cheek; Katie snaked away from the touch, petrified of the girl in front of her.

"Hmm. That's the problem, isn't it?" Sadie soliloquised, her grey eyes meeting Katie's scared onyx eyes. "You stopped being Katie. You stopped being my best friend. I know Katie is living in those photos, not 'Ekaterina'. Katie wouldn't have left me. No, not at all. Forever isn't a term to just throw around."

Black tears dripped down Katie's face as she silently sobbed. "W-we were kids. What we were wa-wasn't healthy. We're two separate people, Sadie! I couldn't live being so connected to a shadow. I wanted t-to shine on my own."

"But I don't wanna be separate people! I want to be with you... to be you. To never be apart from you!" Sadie passionately yelled as Katie started to slump down in front of her. The world around her became dark as her lids closed tightly. As her consciousness drifted, a phrase echoed through her head.

"Don't worry now. We'll never be apart again."

*********

Excruciating pain emanating from her side woke her with a jolt. A dull haze covered her field of vision, but as she pulled her hand away from her waist, she could see it as clear as day. A warm layer of blood coated her hand like a glove. Her eyes slowly settled to the room she was in. Metres ahead of her was the collage of photos, but the furniture has been removed, leaving a wide-open space.

Her fingers felt around to find the source of the pain, coming across thick strands of string attached to her waist. A scream silently bubbled up inside her, threatening to explode.

Rough, uneven strands of double-wound fishing wire had been haphazardly sewn into both her and Sadie's sides, connecting them to each other.

A groggy smile spread across Sadie's plump cheeks as she revelled in her actions. "I told you we'll never be apart again."

An extreme shock was the only emotion Katie was able to come to terms with. Her body was statuesque; set in place by a fear-driven paralysis. A dryness inhabited her mouth, inhibiting her ability to swallow the truth in front of her. The room swayed and distorted around her - a prison cell painted with her face - as she forced her eyelids shut. This couldn't be reality. It was the sick dream of a girl trapped in the suffocating world of a teenage girl.

The pain Sadie felt in her abdomen only further fuelled her pleasure, letting every wave of pain wash over her in euphoric ecstasy. Her heart felt complete again as if she had regained a long-lost limb.

"I knew we'd become one again," Sadie hummed, intoxicated by being in Katie's presence. "Daisy was just a placeholder... keeping the bed warm for me. With every thread... every stitch... our closeness is now defined. We'll never be apart again. Best friends for life."

"...for...life," Katie mumbled, fresh blood weeping from her wounds.

Night and day passed slowly, the shadows cast from the pair forming contorted, misshapen dark splotches on the walls. A sickening warmth surrounded Katie, whose heartbeat pounded heavily in her ears. Her waist was bruising a deep purple, with the surrounding blood vessels snaking across her abdomen. Sadie was shaken awake by Katie's convulsions as her body became slick with a layer of sweat.

"Katie? I'm here, it's okay."

"I don't feel good... I want Daisy," Katie slurred, lazily searching the room for her partner.

The 'tethering' procedure was as wildly unsuccessful as one could imagine. Sadie's homemade suture kit - a sharpened metal knitting needle and fishing line - only managed to pierce through Katie's large intestine. Bile and stool seeped into her abdomen, eventually finding their way into her bloodstream. The coroner estimated she died two days later of septic shock.

A thin beam of light eclipsed the drawn curtains and rested on Sadie's face as dawn broke. Her hand moved softly to caress Katie's hand; a stiff claw lay in her wake. An overwhelming panic flooded Sadie's system as she attempted to wake the other girl from her 'deep' slumber. Half-lidded blood-red eyes stared back at Sadie, a trickle of dried blood pooled at her temple. Sadie's heart shattered like a golden locket as she cradled the limp body in her arms, pulling the skin taut around her suture wounds. The shadow had won. It had succeeded in snuffing out what was left of the light.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"What happened to Sadie in the end?" Axel asked, taking a minute amount of sadistic glee from the story.

Izzy turned to face the young man. A single tear crept down her cheek as she fiddled with her rings. "She refused to live without Katie. She starved to death, all the while she left Katie's decomposing corpse attached to her hip like a growth."

Izzy wiped the tear from her eye, suppressing sniffles as Axel glanced around the room.

"Hmm...Alright. Who's next then?"

[x688plsloveme]

Whumptober Day 2 - Explosion (Danse)

Danse hates being out of power armor. He feels naked without the armor, but it’s not like he has any choice after his forced exile from the brotherhood. Operating without its extra protection isn’t as hard as he thought it’d be. He does still have memories of his trainee days, even if they aren’t actually his memories. He’s still the same force to be reckoned with, he just needs to remember that he’s not as indestructible anymore. 

Though he certainly feels like it next to his partner, Rubi. She helped him when he was at his lowest and saved his life more times than he could count. Not even power armor makes him feel as powerful as just having Rubi by his side. It’s no surprise that he’d readily give his life for his loved one. He was completely serious but also knew that Rubi would never let him do that. They’re both self-sacrificing dorks and they know it. Thankfully, the trip they’re taking now is a routine one that they’ve gone dozens of times before. They’re heading to Diamon City to visit Nick and Piper and catch up on the latest gossip. They know the way like the back of their hands. There’s no way something could go wrong. 

Right?

Downtown post-apocalyptic Boston is just lovely this time of year. The gray, crumbling buildings and occasional corpse really do give the place a special kind of charm. Danse isn’t really paying attention to all that though - his attention is elsewhere. Specifically, It’s on his girlfriend Rubi who is currently ranting about how much she misses cars. He focuses on little details that are a result of her wild way of talking. Her hair, shorter than usual on account it being set on fire awhile back, was sticking up in ways that want to make Danse laugh, and her expressive brown eyes (which Danse adores) shines with both mirth and annoyance. An impressive combination in Danse’s opinion. Rubi throws her hands in the air and huffs. “Everyone used to have cars! They’d get people around fast! But noooo. Now we have to walk hours just for a short visit!” Danse can’t help but stare fondly at his girlfriend. “How could so much rage be contained in such a sweet woman?” This went on for quite some time, Rubi talking about whatever happened to pop into her mind, and Danse watching fondly. They liked each other’s company, but it’s also a way to distract the both of them from the exhaustion slowly creeping into their bodies.

With both of them occupied with the other, they don’t notice the gunners who have very recently set up camp up ahead until it was too late. A shout was their first indicator that something was wrong. The next was the bullets that zipped past their heads. They quickly duck behind an old car - ironic - and start popping shots themselves. The good thing about gunners is that, despite being organized, they are terrible at teamwork. They’re always competing to who can get the most kills. The couple is safe behind the car for now, but they can’t stay there forever.

Danse gives Rubi cover fire as she scans the area around them to look for alternative cover, but of course, lady luck never liked them and this time was no different. the only other cover is a few dozen feet away and it seems that the gunners are starting to get bored and are aiming for the car’s engine. Rubi points this out, and, even through his growing panic, Danse sighs. “Great. Just what we needed. Not every car will blow up after being shot at, but if that smoking is any indication, we need to think fast.” 

Rubi looks up at her boyfriend as he knows what she’s thinking the moment the two lock gazes. His eyes go wide. “You can’t seriously be thinking of running for it right!?”

“We have to! There’s no other choice!”

“We’ll get blown full of holes!”

“Better than dying in an inferno-!”

The two are interrupted by a bang behind them. The engine hood had just blown off. Danse and Rubi look at each other with equally panicked eyes and start running at the exact same time. Danse was never the best runner though and he got slightly behind his partner. YetThe gunners stopped bothering with them a couple minutes ago when a group of raiders wandered by to see what all the noise was about. Rubi ducks behind cover, but Danse is too slow. Seconds before reaching cover, the car explodes, sending fire and shrapnel up and out around it. The brilliant flame throws Danse fowards right past where Rubi sits. The sight of him is absolutely horrifing.

The entirety of his back is covered in burns, making the air smell disgustingly of charred flesh. There are also several lacerations caused by the bits of metal slicing him open which are oozing sluggishly with his blood. He keeps gasping in pain and it doesn't seem to be getting any better. Rubi starts to run to him but is stopped when he lifts himself up a bit to look at her.

"Go! Hurry up and shoot them while they're distracted!" Rubi seems torn, but does what he's asked of her even with dread sitting heavy inside her.

She goes into the fray and drops the remaining gunners and raiders one by one until there's no one left. After double checking, she runs back to Danse to treat his wounds. He's still lying on his stomach when she's gets to him. When he hears her coming he doesn't exactly smile, but he does relax a tiny bit. He knows he'll be okay with her around. Rubi is, of course, way more worried. She doesn't trust herself to speak without crying for now, so she just takes as much shrapnel out of her boyfriend's back as she can and administers a couple stimpacks on the worst areas. She kisses him every time he seems to be in more pain.

When he is more or less stable, Rubi helps him up. "C'mon you big baby. We're close enough to Diamond City that you can just get patched up there." Danse smiles. "Since I'm injured does that mean I have permission to use you as an armrest?"

Rubi glares with enough venom to make a deathclaw back up. "Do it and I'll finish what the car started."

"Yes ma'am."

He says this, yet still ends up doing it ten minutes later. It's fine though, she'll make him take the couch when they go to sleep at Piper's place, injured or not.

@dumbfuck-mojave I hope you like it!!! 💖💓💝💗♥️❣️💙💛💜💚💖💓💓♥️ It was fun to write and I hope it was equally as fun to read!

I forgot to make Rubi's sprite lmao. Here it is:

[my-creative-hell]

Wounds

Bullet wounds had to suck. A hole being ripped through you by a shard of shrapnel travelling at ridiculous speeds, tearing through flesh and bone easily, and sometimes cleanly, depending on how lucky you ended up being.

Hannah pondered this thought as she looked down at their patient, a young black teen, who had bee shot by a policeman on bullshit allegations that he was carrying a gun. He was not, and yet he had been shot at almost point blank range.

Hannah smiles gently, her normally reserved sympathy leaking onto her facial features slightly as she watches the teen return her smile with tired eyes.

It had been almost a week since they had managed to stabilise him, removing the bullet that had been lodged in his abdomen. It had been pretty touch and go for a while, he had quickly become a priority patient for Hannah and her fellow staff that knew the sickening story behind the wound.

“How we doing today, Raph?” Hannah questions her patient, the smile falling slightly as she enquires his condition.

Raph looks up at her from his position lying on his bed, his eyes flickering down to his freshly bandaged wound, wincing slightly at the memory, causing Hannah to purse her lips in subdued rage. He was a good kid, she could see that clearly, the white glowing essence around him indicated he would most likely get into heaven.

“I’m doin’ okay, you know? The painkillers help a hell of a lot.” He chuckles slightly, surprising Hannah as always with his sunny disposition, so much so that she had to crack a smile once again.

“Well, it’s the strong stuff, so I’d be concerned if it wasn’t working.” Hannah jokes, watching Raph smile at the joke. “I’m glad you’re feeling okay. We’re done for the check-up for today, you just press the buzzer if you need anything, alright?”

Raph nods in response, flashing Hannah a small smile as he lays down to rest, shutting his eyes as she leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

Sighing, Hannah walks into the main reception room in the hospital outside his room, picking up her somewhat cold cup of hot chocolate from the desk, flashing a quick look to the receptionist when he looked at her.

It hadn’t been long; Hannah had barely drank anymore of her drink when Raph’s buzzer went off, though it was quickly turned off again.

Frowning, Hannah walks over to his room, drink in hand, a confused expression on her face. But then she got there, and it all made sense.

Her co-worker ‘Grave’, as she was known, was standing in front of the closed door of Raph’s room, pissed off. And it was easy to see why.

She had clearly pushed out the officer that was standing in front of her, behaving rather aggressively. The same officer who shot the poor kid, and had not yet been prosecuted.

Visitation was over; the family had long left Raph alone, vulnerable and alone. Then this psycho showed up, and was seemingly attempting to rip into Grave as well, though Hannah knew better than he did. Hannah could see the rage evident in Grave’s eyes, and opted to watch for a while and let her have her way.

“You kill innocent people and for what? Huh? Tell me why the fuck you think it's a good idea to harm anybody who isn't even doing anything wrong, then I'll let you leave.” Grave’s voice was sharp, demanding and filled with rage, as she pushed the officer to be closer to a wall, limiting his exits from the situation.

The officer was mad as well, nose flared and eyes wide. The dark aura around him told Hannah everything she needed to know about this man. He was a shitty person, and he was going to go to hell for it, eventually.

“You better stay in your fucking lane, girl.” He spat in Grave’s face, attempting to scare her and get her to leave him alone. But that only served to make her angrier, which Hannah knew. She could only watch and see what would happen next.

The reception had fallen silent, everyone who could see what was going on was watching intensely, eyes wide and afraid, clearly worried they were about to witness another unfair shooting from an obviously racist officer.

“Stay in my lane?” To anyone else, the voice would have sounded small and afraid, but Hannah knew that voice meant all hell was about to break loose from Grave. And she personally couldn’t wait.

A table had been rolled into the hallway by who knows a while ago, littered with tools, and Grave slammed her hands on it loudly, clattering the tools.

“Stay in my FUCKING LANE?!” She practically screamed in his face, and Hannah could see the officer twitch slightly, not expecting her to be so bold.

“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE BROUGHT IN HERE BECAUSE OF YOU? DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY BULLETS WE HAVE TO TAKE OUT OF CORPSES EVERY FUCKING DAY?” Not many would have noticed straight away, but Hannah could see Grave’s fingers curl around one of the scalpels on the table, her knuckles lightening; she gripped it so hard in her fisted hand.

Hannah was distracted slightly as she saw the officer’s aura grow even darker, frowning as she now placed her mug on a table nearby, reaching into his mind to find whatever horrible thought he had no doubt just had.

As expected, there were many shadows in his mind, allowing Hannah’s mind to move swiftly through his own as she stood staring at him. An image of him shooting Grave popped up, instantly maddening the demon. He had a firearm on him, and was prepared to use it.

“Y-“ The officer tries to talk, probably preparing for a final line before he would try to shoot Grave, but he was cut off by the infuriated woman, who was advancing swiftly. ”NO YOU FUCKING DON’T, YOU GODDAMN PIG! SO DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME TO STAY IN MY LANE, BECAUSE IT ISN’T JUST MY LANE.” She paused for a second to draw a breath. “IT’S. MY. GODDAMN. HIGHWAY.” A final advancement made Hannah certain of what she was going to do. “And I have no problem with running you off of it.”

With those final words, Hannah watches unfazed, as Grave takes a calculated step forward, the scalpel easily sliding through the officers flesh, embedding itself inside of him in a swift motion.

The rest of the hospital dissolved immediately, and pandemonium ensued. People began running and panicking, all the while Hannah watched.

Within a few seconds, she could hear someone picking up a phone, and sighed. It only took a second, a quick second of focus before everyone in the hospital stopped, standing still, not panicking.

It took only a second for Hannah to reach into their minds, grasping control and forcing everything to a stop. Human minds were weak compared to a being as old as her; it is easy to do, though on this scale it was slightly annoying.

Huffing a sigh, Hannah approaches Grave slowly, gently putting her hand over the one gripping the scalpel, brushing her skin in an effort to calm her slightly. Her voice was soft and calm when she spoke.

“Okay, lets just remove the knife from the flesh and step back, allow him to suffer, not die.” Hannah reasoned. The officer looks at Hannah with terrified eyes, though he received no sympathy, only a sneer pointed at him from the much shorter woman.

“No, no. I-I need him to stop being such a dick and he won’t learn his lesson by just suffering. If I kill him it’ll be one less cop to deal with.” Grave replied, the anger still coming off of her in waves, making her arms and hands shake slightly, which Hannah attempted to still by gripping her hand tighter.

Hannah slowly allowed Grave to look at her, her fake green eyes staring into Grave’s brown ones, calm and gentle, something to be trusted. She flicked her eyes back to the cop once more, the dark aura ever strong.

“Trust me, he’ll get all the suffering he deserves in due time, in a place where not even insanity can save him, he will be in pain forever. But let him suffer now too, the more suffering, the merrier.” Hannah had a low voice, and stared into Grave’s eyes as she speaks. She knew Grave would know exactly what she meant.

“…Okay, fine.” Grave yields, allowing the scalpel to slowly be pulled from the officer’s body, fresh blood pouring from the wound she had created.

Hannah gently pulled her away, smiling warmly in an effort to reassure her.

“Ta, hun. Okay pig, let’s go.” The officer quickly got a glazed look in his eyes as Hannah controlled him too, forcing him to follow her so she could stitch him up, and create a fake memory for why he was stabbed.

The rest of the hospital was released as Grave stood in the hallway, the patients and families and workers having no idea what just happened, as mundane fake memories filled their head, making them none the wiser, making Grave smile as she watches her demon friend walk away with the officer, knowing for sure he was going to get limited pain killers.

[wykart]

Does it Matter? (It’s Klaus)

Part 2 of Fifty-one years (and one day) later (read on ao3) 

I've made this a sequel rather than the next chapter of the fic because I was really happy with the way that 'Fifty-one years (and one day) later' ended, and wanted it to be read as a self-contained (relatively short) story. However, I couldn't stop thinking about what would happen next in this version of events! 

So, if you want more of this timeline, and are ready for some MAJOR angst, then continue at your own risk :) I hope you enjoy!

Summary: The truth comes out, and Klaus must come to grips with the fact that his entire life of happiness with Dave was taken away by his own brother.

2 days, 16 hours

He took the briefcase back up to his room after he was done lecturing them all. He finally had them all gathered in one place, and he had a lead on who was going to cause the apocalypse. He’d had to… circumvent a couple of things to get them all here, all ready for what was coming, but it was all trivial in relation to the extinction of the human race. Well, that’s what he told himself anyway. He dusted off the case and tucked it under his bed. The shrapnel still embedded in his side sent a pulse of white hot pain through him as he bent over. He couldn’t ignore it any longer, and he would be no use to the others if his wound got worse and he was put out of commission for hours, even days… that wouldn’t do. He resolved, however reluctantly, to talk to Mom about patching it up. She may have been a robot, but her first aid training was impeccable.

...

2 days, 14 hours

Five had sent the other three off on errands of their own – Diego and Allison to dig up data on Harold Jenkins from the local police station, and Luther to search through Dad’s research for something about that impending apocalypse good’ol’Reggie would always work into the odd lecture or grandiose speech. Klaus, on the other hand, was useless. He couldn’t be trusted with anything important, and for good reason. Five had said that all of them needed to be together to stop this thing, but Klaus felt like he could’ve slunk away into the shadows without any of them noticing. He’d turned up after being missing for a day, a few shades darker, hair shorter, new tattoos and muscles and everything, and Five had been the only one who’d noticed.

That’s where he was going now, to see Five. He wanted to know if there was anything he could do to help – not that he particularly cared about helping – just to clear his conscience so he could laze around guilt-free. There was that, and the fact that Five seemed hurt. He’d been clutching his side earlier, limping like he was injured. He wasn’t the sort to admit when something was wrong with him, to show signs of weakness.

It was strange to see Five’s old room occupied again, they’d kept the door shut for so many years, never wanting to renovate or reuse the space, never wanting to admit that he was really gone. There was some crazy math shit on the walls that made Klaus’ head spin, and that creepy mannequin was smiling at him from the bed. He didn’t want to think about what his little (way older) brother and that mannequin got up to at night.

The bed was covered in dirt, and Klaus followed the trail down to the floorboards, leading under the bed. There was a pretty battered looking black briefcase under there, but Klaus knew better than to open it this time. So Five had one after all, then why had he been so angry at Klaus for destroying the last one? And why had he bothered using a fake briefcase just yesterday when he met up with those psychos from the motel? He turned the object over in his hands, there was damp, dark mud covering the bottom corners – and it was fresh. There were sticky strips all over it, where duct tape had been pulled off, taking some of the black coat with it. It was scratched up, worn out, not like the pristine, perfect box Klaus had used. In fact, he could have sworn that pattern of scratches where the very same that Klaus had dug in with his nails during his nervous nights in the jungle, clutching it, reminding himself of where he’d been, and of what he’d decided to give up but never brought himself to let go. One of the latches was missing from the top of the case, as if it had snapped off at the axis. Suddenly, a rush of recognition shot through him and he rummaged in the pockets of his military vest, puling out a black hunk of plastic he’d found back in Vietnam. It had been lying in the jungle on the path back to the tent… just sitting there at the edge of the clearing where Klaus had lost everything. It fit perfectly in the space that the case’s missing latch had left behind – clearly, this was where it had come from. Had Five stolen this case from another of those time travelling bastards?

“Hey Ben, take a look at this,” He beckoned his brother over, who’d been leaning in the corner of the room, bored. “I found a piece of this case back in 1968, so whoever Five took this from was there that night.” He was perplexed - what would Five’s old time travelling buddies want with - “Dave.” He said, eyes staring off, far away, to another time. He heard the racket of gunfire ricocheting around his skull, the whistle of bombs dropping, the thundering of helicopter blades, screams and cries of triumph. His voice, strained against the uncaring din, screaming for help...

“Klaus?” Ben asked, leaning over him, his face knotted with concern. Klaus pulled his hands from over his ears, wiping away the beginnings of tears that had been forming in his eyes.

“I’m okay,” he lied. “It’s just, Luther said that Five’s old employers were all about ‘correcting the timeline’ or whatever. I stole their briefcase time machine thingy, and I’ll bet they knew about it too.”

“So you think, what-“

“They came to kill me, or at least get the case back.”

Ben thought for a moment. He hadn’t been there with Klaus during those months, being negative-twenty-one years old and all. He’d only spent a night wondering where Klaus had gone when he’d disappeared on the bus, wondering if he would ever rematerialise. He’d been so happy when he found Klaus again, knowing that he wouldn’t be banished from this plane of existence for good, wouldn’t have to face the fact that he no longer existed in any real sense. He’d been happy, until he saw the blood on his hands and the hurt in his eyes - the tan and the tattoos and the fresh wave of grief he was drowning in. Of course, he’d never met Dave, but he could tell how much he meant to Klaus - a shred of hope and normalcy found in the least normal of situations - and even that had been taken away. “So you think they killed Dave?”

“I think they came to kill me, and Dave just got in the way.” They way Klaus was looking at him, begging him to prove him wrong, it was heart breaking.

“I... don’t think that makes a lot of sense,” he considered, pacing around the room. He used to spend so much time here as a kid, with Five and sometimes Vanya, taking a moment of peace away from their more rambunctious siblings. “They’re supposed to be professionals, I doubt they’d miss. What if they were trying to get the case back here, to the present where it belonged.”

“So then, they killed Dave?” Klaus was trying to puzzle it out. The fact that such an organisation existed at all was a troubling notion. It might have even caused him some form of existential distress if he wasn’t already so deep in a pit of self-loathing and nihilistic indifference that he didn’t care anymore.

“Well, wasn’t he the reason you stayed? You told me you only stuck around because of him, what if they knew that?” Ben tried to pretend that he wasn’t hurt by this notion - he was dead, after all, and didn’t make for great company. Would Klaus really have abandoned him? More importantly, would he really have abandoned everyone else?

…

“Klaus?” Five was standing in the doorway to his bedroom, watching Klaus fiddling with the briefcase he’d stowed under there. He was muttering to himself, like he so often did. A shot of panic ran through Five’s thoughts, but he promptly reminded himself that there was no way that Klaus could retain any memories from his un-lived life, there was no way he could know. “What are you doing?”

Klaus jumped and looked around to see Five standing there, the shrapnel now removed from his gut and bandaged up. “Oh, hey there Five, I thought you’d be busy, you know, stopping the apocalypse and all.”

“I came to get my gun, In case you forgot, I have someone to kill today.”

“Right, of course,” he hummed to himself for a moment, clearly not getting the hint that Five wanted him to leave, “won’t that look a little suspicious though, I mean, you’re a little schoolboy walking down the street with a hunting rifle,” he giggled, “might turn some heads.”

Five knew that Klaus was just trying to get on his nerves, it was one of his very few talents, but Five didn’t rise to the bait. He only sighed and walked over the threshold, Klaus’ eyes trained on him all the while.

“Where did you get this?”

“What?” He sighed, not looking forward to another trivial discussion.

“The briefcase.” Five’s stomach turned. “What about it? I got it from my employers, same place Hazel and Cha-Cha got their’s.”

“Looks a bit battered up though, wouldn’t you say, not like Chazel and Ha-ha’s at all.” He looked up and began muttering to himself, as if an invisible person was standing by his side - maybe there was. “See, I’m not traumatised, I don’t even remember their names,” he laughed, hollow and forced. Five rolled his eyes.

“Get to the point, Klaus, I’m kinda busy here.”

“I just want to know who’s briefcase this is. See this,” He held up the broken off piece of the latch, waving it in the air, “I found this in the middle of a battlefield in the Vietnam war.” Five shrugged his shoulders, doing is best to feign disinterest.

“Huh,” Klaus murmured, studying Five’s expression, “you’re not surprised?”

“What are you talking about?” He was on edge, had he slipped up, was it possible that Klaus knew something?

“Well, I never told you I served in Vietnam, all I said was that I went back in time.” Shit. “You’re smart Five,” he continued, a smirk on his face at catching Five out, “but you’re not a mind reader - as far as I know anyway. And if you are I think you’re obligated to tell me because my thoughts are pretty fucked up and I’ll have to remember to tone them down for your young, naive ears.” Again, that laughter, the sound that masked the truth - that his mind was falling apart.

Five tried his best to mask his shock and think up a quick reply, but it was too late, his expression had already betrayed him. “Look Klaus, you’re a mess, I know it, you know it, we all know it,” Klaus nodded eagerly, smiling fondly to himself. Was this man capable of taking anything seriously? “You told me about Vietnam,” he lied, “you probably just forgot about it.”

“Did I?” He asked quietly, to no one in particular. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.” He rounded on Five again, dragging himself to his feet. “Tell me the truth Five, it’s okay, I’m not Luther. I’m not going to lecture you about how,” he pouted, puffing our his chest and putting on a comically deep voice, “murder is wrong, number Five.” He paused, obviously expecting Five to laugh. “Okay,” he shrugged, murmuring under his breath again, “tough crowd. At least I know you appreciate me.” A moment of silence, then Klaus hissed at the empty air.

Five was starting to panic. If Klaus really did suspect him, why on earth was he being so cool about it? He knew that Klaus used humour as a coping mechanism, it was his defining characteristic, but this was a step on the side of lunacy. “What are you getting at?” He said, coldly.

“I’m just saying, if you killed this bastard, I want to know!” He exclaimed. Five realised he wasn’t talking about Dave. He thought that Five had killed the previous owner of the briefcase, the agent that he suspected had killed Dave instead. It hurt, a twist like a knife to the gut, that Klaus hadn’t even entertained the idea that Five had been the one to pull the trigger. “Come on Five,” he cooed, “did you kill the bastard who owned this case?”

“I did... in a way.” Because the man that Klaus had become was dead, fifty years of his life gone in a moment. Fifty years of happiness... But it had to be done. Allison and Diego would be back any second now with the information he needed, if he could just stomach this conversation for a moment longer, he could leave facing the consequences to another day. For now, it was essential that they all stick together, no matter if all that held them in place was lies.

“Well, congratulations man,” Klaus’ earnest smile made Five feel sick. He trusted him, completely. Klaus looked down at the floor, the light in his eyes suddenly drained out. “But that means,” he murmured, “that means it really was my fault.”

“What?” Five asked.

“Well, if those guys go around correcting the timeline, then they were there for me - God I was so selfish,” he put his head in his hands, burying his face, trying to hide away. “I thought I could just stay there and forget about all of this and I loved him and then... he died for it. He died because of me. This is all my fault.” His shoulders shook with silent sobs. It tore Five apart. “Why do I have to ruin everything?” He muttered, breaking down. “Why couldn’t I just leave him alone, he was better off, everything would be better off if I just-“

“Klaus.” Five said, trying to get through to him.

Klaus seemed to remember that Five was standing there, watching all of this unfold. “Fuck, Five I’m sorry,” he sniffed, trying compose himself, “thanks for what you did, even though you didn’t do it for me or anything, I mean, why would anyone do that?” He laughed again, that same hollow, pleading cry for help.

“Don’t say that,” he muttered, but Klaus didn’t seem to hear. “Please, please don’t say that,” because Five could feel his will unravelling.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so useless with this whole apocalypse thing,” Klaus said, “I’ll get my shit together, okay? I’ll actually be useful for once, just give me something to do.” And there it was, Five had him right where he wanted him - but he couldn’t take it. He’d been a fool to think that forty-five years away from this place had desensitised him to all the weakness that came with love and empathy. Despite everything he’d tried to bury, when loving had been too painful, Five still cared. It was as if two facets of himself were locked in a game of tug of war, the part that had suffered through the future and knew what had to be done, and the part that couldn’t stand seeing his brother broken like this; the way he blamed himself and felt indebted to him despite the damage Five had done to him. Was the world worth this? No matter the cost, he decided that it was.

Klaus was still standing there, smiling tearfully, and despite everything that Five stood for, that to love was reckless, that it brought only danger and pain, that the truth was worshipped like a false idol, relative, irrelevant, his to twist to more important ends... he couldn’t stand it any longer.

“It was me,” He muttered, barely more than a whisper. Klaus looked at him expectantly, waiting for an explanation. There was no turning back now. “I killed Dave.”

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

You Asked, I Told + Chapter 33 Update

Hello everyone! First off, I am so, so, SO sorry for taking so long to update. I am about to put the finishing touches on Chapter 33, and if all goes according to plan, I should have it for you between March 7th-9th - just in time for Captain Marvel! Meow. This chapter is clocking in at OVER 30,000 WORDS, so although it has taken me an abysmally long time to complete it, I hope the length will make it somewhat worthwhile. 

And now for your Asks! These contain a spoiler for chapter 15 and some milder spoilers for some of the later chapters (30-32-ish). 

I understand this completely. I have problems with a lot of military fics because of their verisimilitude (or lack thereof). I will say in general that I have had a good deal of affiliation with military-related environments and individuals in my life and that I have done my research to the best of my abilities. Part of why I take so long to update is the immense amount of research I do. That said, as I mentioned at the beginning of the fic, sometimes I may stretch or alter the details (a platoon/fire team/company is not as small as I portray it, same with convoy sizes etc.) in order to make it easier for me to write. And I will just plain screw stuff up because I’m a person. But over all, the most important thing for me is to capture the themes of deployment, war, recovery, readjustment (or not), trauma, etc. and convey these things with realism. But I do try to get a lot of the details right, too. 

I hope a lot of this stuff rings true to you in the fic. I invite you and other uniformed personnel and veterans to DM me and let me know how I can make the details ring truer. I have shaped the work in other ways based on feedback and am willing to do it further, provided I don’t have a good reason for making things the way they are now. 

Yeah, I’m sorry I had to turn off anons because of the trolls. I’m glad you enjoyed the emotional catharsis for Steve here. He really needed to actually feel his emotions rather than turning everything into pain and puke. (BTW, meta note, I write a lot of vomit for some reason. I know it’s a large part of being a heavy drinker, because you just can’t drink that much and not puke a lot, and I wanted Steve to be a puker because I wanted to showcase a huge somatic reaction, but yeesh, what is UP with the all the puke? I hate vomit IRL, so much.)

And I am the worst queer in the world, as I was just told by a virtual stranger yesterday, because I have NOT seen A Star is Born yet. But I am going to watch it this week! I’m glad that it rang true with this depiction of addiction. Relapse is messy, and it happens on anniversaries - Oh, the anniversary relapse is a BIG thing in recovery. I’m excited to see the parallels now. Thank you for the rec!

I am actually TERRIBLE at recommending fic in the sense that I barely read any at all :(    I’m ruined for most fics these days because if it’s not profoundly, painfully realistic, I have trouble buying into it. I hate that I’m so picky now. I wish I had a bunch of great recs I’m holding out on, but if you’ve seen my bookmarks, you’ve seen many of the ones that stick out most for me. A lot of them are because I love the writing itself, which helps me get my creative wheels turning when I need to craft good prose. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.

But seriously, @praximeter​‘s The Night War: 60th Anniversary Edition FTW. It’s my all time favorite fic and one of the most excellent character studies - and one of the best studies in trauma - I’ve ever read. Talk about an unreliable narrator. And it raises some excellent questions about who we let fight and under what circumstances - how much do we use people in war, even if they’re clearly so compromised from trauma that they can barely function? You’ve got to REALLY read it, though. It’s not a lazy read. Highly recommended, though. Be prepared to have your guts torn out of your body and thrown on the floor and danced upon by Prax. It makes her Mask Fic look like a giggling prance through the daisies.

Yeah - I think the last chapter was exhausting and distressing and disheartening for many. And it was maybe a bit confusing, in regards to Bucky’s relapse. On one hand, he’s a hawt LITERAL mess. But on the other hand... this is not unexpected. This is part of recovery, especially for a lifelong alcoholic. He planned it. He took some steps to mitigate risk. He was not trying to off himself. He had a limit set. He just didn’t want to cope in healthy ways anymore and he made an informed adult choice to drink a fuckton of vodka for a week. Was it healthy? Good GOD, no. But he was doing it with an oddly sound mind, right? He tried other means of coping first. He gave it his best, and he decided to do this instead. And he cleaned up his mess after and put his clothes on and did the big boy thing and called his therapist. So even though it was awful and gross and sad, you could also look at it as a stark contrast from his Carle Place days. And he LOOKED AT HIS DICK...!!!!! HOLY SHIT. That is a feat 19 months in the making. And he did it sober. That in itself is impressive. 

But I can definitely see pain for a lot of people, and the exhaustion of this chapter, the OH GOD just STOP IT, here we go AGAIN. And that is how friends and families and loved ones of addicts can feel, and the addicts themselves! Tired. Just tired of the same old thing, over and over. But he also made a lot of objective progress in important ways. Even if it doesn’t feel like it because the progress is covered in old pizza crust and vomit and dildos (yes, even the BIG ONE). 

This is referring to Chapter 15, when Bucky was in the hospital after his surgeries, yes? I don’t think he needed a trach tube, actually. He had his weapon up to his face to aim at the enemy, so his neck/airway didn’t sustain any major injuries because his arms and rifle took the brunt of the shrapnel. His internal organs were spared from major injuries because of his body armor. He needed to have his collapsed lung decompressed in the field, but that was it. That might have been followed up with more drainage later at a field hospital. I figured his alveoli were ruptured from the IED blast wave, leading to the collapsed lung, which is usually treated with 100% oxygen, so no trach needed there. And when I researched other reasons why one would need a trach, I didn’t see anything that would really apply to him. So no trach for Bucky! You can spare him that little bit of misery in your imagination, if you WANT.

Haha, yes, the “enjoyed... I think?” parallels the “I’m glad... I think?” that I feel/write when people say they’re wrecked by the fic. I’m so glad this has encouraged you to do some research! I’d love to know what on. There are so many threads to chase. Just glance at the TAGS, my God. Choose your own adventure. Thank you for letting me know you’re enjoying and that it’s sparking your curiosity!

Ugh, I would love to say that I have a great schedule for updating planned, but as you can probably surmise, I am slow and unpredictable. My life has gotten much, much busier since I started writing this fic and my work far more draining, so both time and energy aren’t on my side these days. I don’t dare to promise an update on any kind of schedule because I just can’t say. I’m sorry. And you’re absolutely right - it’s because I want to deliver the best quality I can. And I’m also trying to give you huge meaty chapters, too. But I HOPE it won’t be another five months before the next update. I really do. The next chapter will probably be shorter, so that’ll help. I will really do my best. 

This is a GREAT question. I think it’s important to note that dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) - although originally designed for borderline personality disorder (BPD) - is trans-diagnostic treatment as a skills group. This means that it can be for anyone who needs help with regulating emotions and managing their relationships better. We don’t really know what Bucky’s diagnosis is. BUCKY doesn’t know what it is. All he knows is that Scott identified his functional life problems and thought the group would be a good fit. Bucky sure does have some BPD traits, but it’s also important to note that some of these traits can also be present in someone with a fuckton of trauma - especially from childhood. 

I set out to write someone with just a lot of trauma, really. Someone who had difficulties with regulating emotions as a core problem. Someone who used sex and booze and avoidance to manage everything. And also someone with a lot of attachment and intimacy and trust problems, which can really all look like BPD! And they can all look like developmental trauma! I wanted it to not be entirely clear what was going on, because that’s often how people appear in real life. We’re not quite sure what Scott makes of him, except that he sees he needs healthy skills DESPERATELY and wanted to get him in this group ASAP. (Good call, Scott!) 

Okay, everyone! Thank you so much for all the love and great questions!! I’ll be in touch in a couple weeks with more BW for you. Thank you for all of your support and patience <3

[razieltwelve]

Thunder (Final Rose/Gate)

Note: This is a followup to Opening Gambit.

Lightning studied the holographic display, and her lips curled in distaste. The enemy had finally gathered their forces, and they had come to take back the gate. If the intelligence they’d gathered using satellite imaging and surveillances drones was correct, there were roughly one hundred thousand enemy soldiers. By the end of the day, Lightning would be surprised if any of them were still alive.

“Your orders, ma’am?” one of the techs asked, ready to convey her words to the rest of her forces.

“Wait until the main bulk of the enemy has breached the exclusion zone and then open fire.” Lightning smiled thinly. It was fortunate that Fang was here. Her wife was a warrior through and through. This one-side, ruthless slaughter would have disgusted her. Lightning had always been more of a soldier. In the back of her mind, Saviour was simply happy that the coming battle would be swift, decisive, and highly efficient. “Have the artillery open fire first. Allow the troops on the outermost wall to pick off any survivors. We might as well blood some of our troops while we’re here.”

X     X     X

The Vengeance Mark III Ultra-Heavy Transforming Tank (VUHTT-3) was one of Dia Technologies’ most popular products. It was basically an ultra-heavy tank that could transform into arguably the most powerful artillery cannon in the world. It boasted extremely durable armour and impressive manoeuvrability with inbuilt forcefields and the ability to fire some of the deadliest projectiles in the world across distances up to, and in some cases even surpassing, thirty miles.

It’s predecessors had helped to hold Mountain Glenn, with one of the VUHTT-1s to survive the battle being responsible for more than 3000 Grimm kills with its high-explosive shells. And it was the VUHTT-3 that had helped hold the line when hordes of massive Grimm had besieged some of Atlas’s most important cities. A squad of VUHTT-3s had helped to destroy one of the largest Grimm hydras in existence, a behemoth that stood more than two hundred feet tall. Their devastating barrages had weakened it enough for a member of Team STRQ to strike the killing blow.

These awe-inspiring war machines now faced a new foe: the soldiers of another world. Lightning had forty of these tanks at her disposal. As the enemy crossed into the exclusion zone, twenty of them rumbled into position before transforming. Their treads gave way to massive support pylons as their barrels split and merged with parts that sprung up from the main chassis to form even larger cannons. As the twenty tanks turned into twenty artillery cannons, a grim silence fell over the area.

“Requesting permission to open fire,” the commander of the tanks asked.

Lightning’s reply was immediate. “Permission granted. Fire until the enemy’s formation has been broken and then withdraw to Defensive Positions A through E.”

“Understood. Commencing fire.”

X     X     X

The only warning the soldier had that he was about to die was the eerie whistling sound that filled the air. A split-second later, he and everyone around him was consumed in a cloud of flame and metal.

X     X     X

Lightning watched the carnage unfold through several of the drones hovering over the battlefield. The VUHTT-3s had done their work well. Within moments of opening fire, the enemy had already sustained thousands of casualties. The enemy had clearly crafted their armour to withstand swords, arrows, and other similar weapons. The standard high-explosive fragmentation shell the VUHT-3s fired was designed to immolate and shred hordes of Grimm. The enemy might as well have been wearing paper.

Even so, the enemy continued to press on. She wondered if it was foolishness or bravery. As per her commands, the tanks continued to fire until the enemy’s formation had completely disintegrated. 

“Ma’am, enemy fliers have begun their assault.”

“Understood. Open fire with the anti-air batteries.”

X     X     X

Aerial Grimm were some of the greatest threats to Remnant’s safety and stability. As such, the various kingdoms and nations had spent ridiculous amounts of money on developing technology to counter aerial Grimm. Standard anti-air batteries used a combination of lasers, missiles, machine guns, and flak cannons to provide flexible but effective defence against a variety of threats.

Lightning had been given her pick of available technologies, and she had chosen a system that combined flexibility with power. At the centre of her defence were eight heavily fortified towers that house massive flak cannons capable of turning the sky into an ocean of shrapnel, as well as rail guns that could pummel anything with armour heavy enough to withstand the barrage.

Spread throughout the rest of the facility were a host of lasers, missile pods, machine gun emplacements, and so on. Whether it was a swarm of lightly armoured threats or a handful of massively armoured capital threats, Lightning was confident her defences would be able to handle it.

She was correct.

The first wave of dragon and wyvern riders simply ceased to exist under a withering hail of machine flak cannon and machine gun fire. Others tried to dive low to avoid the onslaught only to be met with a storm of lasers. Lightning made a mental note to send teams out to recover the bodies later. The creatures might be worthy of study, and she knew Vanille, Diana, and many of Remnant’s other scientists would be interested in examining them more closely.

“This is a slaughter, ma’am,” one of the comm operators murmured.

“Yes,” Lightning said. “It is.” She put one hand on the young man’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I understand. In our world, we train to fight Grimm. But these aren’t Grimm. These are people.” She turned her attention back to the holographic display. “Hopefully, the next time they think of attacking us, they’ll think again.”

X     X     X

The battle didn’t last much longer after that. A few thousand of the enemy got close enough for the defenders on the outermost wall to open fire, but that was by design. To their credit, they executed their orders perfectly. The enemy were cut down in shorter order, and they did not suffer a single casualty in return. Lightning would have been surprised if they had. The only enemy to get that far had been infantry, and the standard rifles used by Vale and Atlas had an effective range of around a mile when used against lightly armoured targets like these soldiers. Against a Grimm, the effective range was more along the lines of four hundred years, but she wasn’t about to complain about it.

Total enemy casualties were around sixty thousand. Lightning’s lips curled. It was a grim result, and she hoped the enemy would be smart enough to avoid repeating it tomorrow since the rest had apparently withdrawn.

She was wrong.

The enemy attempted a night assault next, and it met with similar results. It was little wonder some of her troops looked a bit queasy. A hundred thousand casualties in a matter of days. It really was horrific. However, they quickly recovered their nerve when they were reminded of what these people would have done had they the strength to retake the gate and beside Remnant.

There were, however, a few survivors, and Jihl and her forces learned some very interesting things from them.

X     X     X

“I’m told you are the commander of this army.” King Duran of Elbe studied his opponent intently. This pink-haired woman had devastated his forces, slaying thousands upon thousands of his troops. Was it magic? Was it something else? He didn’t care. All that mattered was that his army was gone. And it was only now that he realised how badly he’d been played. The Saderan Empire had never arrived. No. They had never had any intention of arriving. Instead, the allied forces had simply been a sacrifice, a way of buying them more time against an opponent they’d known would destroy the allies with barely more effort than it took to swat a fly.

“I am.” The pink-haired woman glanced at his mangled body. Duran had lost an arm and a leg. It was only by the strange magic of these people that he was still alive. “My name is Lightning Farron although I suppose I go by Grand Marshal Lightning Farron for the time being. I am told that you are a king.”

“King Duran of Elbe,” he replied. “You are not what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“Demons,” he said simply. “You slaughtered the armies that went against you, and yet your forces have provided treatment to the few who survived, and I am told the others survivors are being treated well.”

Lightning stared at him for a long moment. There was something unnerving about her, like being in the presence of one of the apostles. The air around her was thick and heavy, a miasma that seemed to sap his very will. Abruptly that feeling faded. “We are not monsters, and your good treatment comes with the expectation of cooperation.”

“Ah, yes. I see.” That Duran could understand. “And what might I receive for cooperation, grand marshal?”

“I have… agents who have already infiltrated these lands. They have told me that you commanded an allied force, one separate from the empire that thought to invade my world. You have been set up, King Duran. They knew what we were capable of and did not warn you.”

“No, they did not.” Duran grimaced. The words were like ashes in his mouth. With his army destroyed, it was only a matter of time before the empire thought to suborn his kingdom. “And they will only profit from our defeat.”

“Which would be a shame,” Lightning replied.

“Oh?” Duran tried to keep his voice level.

Lightning turned away. “Jihl. I’ll leave this in your hands.”

A blonde woman came forward and smiled. It was, Duran thought, a very cold smile. “I think we both know why you’re here.” Jihl sat down beside his bed. “You’ve betrayed, King Duran, and used for the benefit of others. With your downfall, the Saderan Empire will undoubtedly look to strengthen its influence over your kingdom if not conquer it outright. It seems… unfair for them to profit from your misery, don’t you think?”

His lips curled. “Yes. Yes, it does.”

“What if I told you that we could give you a new leg and a new arm? What if I told you that you could make them pay for what they’ve done?” Jihl leaned forward. “What if I told you that your kingdom could benefit from all of this?”

“I would ask why you would do such things for me.”

“We’re strangers in a strange land, King Duran. We need friends and allies.” Jihl gestured at his mangled body. “The events that led you here were unfortunate, true, but victory can be found even in times of grave misfortune if you know where to look.”

Duran’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me what you want.”

“How about this...”

[onegayastronaut]

Road Trip (Kara Danvers x Emma Swan)

Requested by @argent-watcher:  I'm not sure if to this is where we send requests and if it's not I'm sorry but could you do another Supergirl and Once upon a time oneshot but that all meet when Kara saves Henry during a fight with another alien? A gain I'm sorry if this isn't where we send requests

Part 1 (here)

Words: 1443

Emma was driving around Storybrooke in her yellow Bug patrolling Storybrooke on this sunny day. She had the biggest smile on her face as she remembered what happened last week when she visited Kara in National City. Kara had forced her to go to every donut shop and hole-in-the-wall Chinese food restaurant there was in town. To no one's surprise, it seemed as if everyone knew who Kara was and know her orders by heart. It still blew Emma's mind how much food Kara could go through in one sitting, but she was used to Kara eating fifty chicken nuggets while watching Netflix by now.

This weekend was Kara's turn to visit Emma at Storybrooke. This visit was going to be special because Emma was taking Kara out on a road trip. Emma knew that Kara could take them anywhere in a matter of minutes, but Emma wanted this trip to be special. On this trip, the journey is more important than the destination. Nothing was going to disturb them from having a peaceful couple's trip this week, as Snow and Charming had promised to look after Henry while Emma was out.

As Kara flew through the speed force, she was beyond excited to be seeing her girlfriend in Storybrooke. Even though it has only been a few days, it was unacceptable to not wake up next to Emma every morning. Besides, she missed how Granny always gave her extra pancakes in the morning. She could feel her stomach growling at the thought. Just as Kara was about to exit the speed force, it felt like someone, or something, was trying to come with her, but whatever it was disappeared as quickly as it came. Kara shook off the feeling as she landed in Storybrooke. Nothing was going to take away from this weekend with Emma.

Five plates of pancakes later and enough maple syrup to feed ten people later, Kara was finally ready to leave. Emma could not help but stare at her girlfriend fondly as she waited for Kara to finish eating.

"Ready to go?"

"Always." Kara took this chance to quickly kiss Emma and run to the car. Kara loved using her super-speed to open the door for Emma if they were driving together.

"Wooow, such a gentleman!" Emma's voice was dripping in sarcasm. "Does this mean that you'll actually breathe between eating now?"

Kara rolled her eyes as she said "No promises!"

Emma couldn't help but snort in laughter as they got into the car together. Teasing has always been a part of their relationship, and it was good to see that it hasn't changed in the last few months. This trip was going to be fun.

The moment Kara got settled into the car, she closed her eyes and essentially passed out while holding hands. Emma couldn't help but smile at Kara as she drove to the edge of town. This moment of peace was destroyed the moment Emma felt the ground shake underneath the car. She let out a somewhat irritated sigh. Heroes can't have off days I guess. Turning the wheel, she started heading back to Storybrooke.

Sensing a sudden turn in direction, Kara forces her eyes open and looks at Emma. "What's wrong? Why are we headed back into Storybrooke?"

"I think I felt something while we were driving out. It's most likely nothing, but I just want to be sure before we leave."

Just as she finishes talking, the ground shook again. It seemed to be coming in shorter intervals, like something huge walking around town. This causes Kara to sit up and take notice of what might be happening. As they turn the corner into what is considered "Main Street" in Storybrooke, both Emma and Kara turn pale. There was what seemed to be a huge alien making it's way towards Granny's, leaving ruined pavement in its wake. And if that wasn't bad enough, Henry was standing right in the middle of the street brandishing a sword.

Neither Kara nor Emma waste any time jumping out of the tiny car to race towards the situation.

"Get out of the way Henry!"

Hearing his mom's voice, Henry turns around and starts to move toward Emma. The only problem was, the alien was close enough to step over Henry, essentially trapping him where he was. Thankfully, Kara was able to use her cape to shield Henry from most of the shrapnel that the alien tore up from the pavement.

"Henry, I'm going to need you to listen to me. On my mark, you're going to run to your mom and leave me to deal with this alien, okay?"

"Okay, mom." Henry looked scared, and it wasn't until a few seconds later that he realized that he called Kara mom. Kara looked surprised, but there was no time to discuss the issue as the alien punched the cape.

Taking a moment to shoot laser beams at the alien, Kara distracted him long enough for Henry to run to Emma, who quickly hugged him.

"Kid, what were you thinking?"

"I was trying to be a hero, like you and mom."

"Well next time wait for the adults to be here before making any rash decisions okay?"

As they were talking, Kara was punching the alien with everything that she had, while also being thrown against the street and the buildings. Kara instantly recognized the alien as an escaped convict from Fort R'azz and was the mysterious passenger that nearly knocked her off course when she was flying here. The amount of money and time to fix this part of town was going to be astronomical, and Regina was going to be pissed. But that was a problem for a later time, as Kara could not afford to feel guilty now.

It didn't take long for Kara to find out the weakness in the alien's physiology, a very fragile core that could be exposed once she used both heat and ice to crack it. Using her ice breath and laser vision, Kara managed to break off the alien's armor and land a punch that caused the alien to fall on the ground and not get up. It wasn't until everyone was sure that the alien was knocked out that the seven dwarves came out from hiding to congratulate Kara on her victory.

"Hey, what's going on here?" Regina could be seen running down Main Street with her face in the classic "Madam Mayor" scowl.

"Well, uh, hey Regina! So, there was this alien here, who may or may not have followed me here to Storybrooke when I was here to see my girlfriend." Kara ended her rambling with a smile, hoping she could get away with ruining half of the street.

"Not so fast young lady! You're not getting off the hook so easily." Regina looked less mad now that she saw it was Kara, doing her usual of saving the city.

"Hey, did somebody say my name?" Captain Hook walked up, trying to look like he was somehow responsible for helping save the day from the alien.

"No one called you Hook." Both Regina and Emma rolled their eyes.

"Well, the dwarves can fix the street, whereas Kara and I need to get back on our trip!" Emma seemed more than eager to get away from Hook, whereas leaving Storybrooke before Regina started handing down responsibilities seemed like a smart move.

"Mom, can I come with?" Henry looked eager to spend more time with Kara. "Kara can teach me how to fight and beat bad aliens!"

"No kid, you have to get to school now. Shoo!" Looking disappointed, Henry started walking away.

"Well, it was good seeing everyone again. But Emma and I need to go together after I drop this rogue alien back at the DEO." Kara walked over to Emma and hugged her. "And one more thing, I'm hungry again so I may need more of Granny's food."

"Is there a moment when you're not hungry?"

"Honestly, no. I'll see you in a little bit so we can get back to our trip!" With a chaste kiss on the cheek, Kara picked up the alien with one hand and was gone through the speed force. It didn't take long before the portal opened up again to reveal Kara wearing her civilian clothes. Emma was still confused on how the whole space/time thing worked, but as long as she could keep seeing her girlfriend, she didn't really mind. 
"I'm ready to go on our trip now."

"Finally. Are you sure you didn't bring any unfriendly aliens along with you this time?"

[storiesofwildfire]

For the First Time (Again)

          { @starkreactorr -- plotted starter }

♔—- Almost six months passed since Loptr and his twin brother, Loki, stepped foot inside of a Jaeger. For more than four years, they’d been drift compatible and they’d been two of the best Jaeger pilots in the business of defending the world from the massive monsters known as Kaiju. Everyone within the industry knew of the twins and because they often made appearances in their sky-scraper sized mech suit to defend the civilians of Earth from invading aliens, they were pretty well known to people around the world too.

     But their last mission left them both injured. Loki, fortunately, suffered very minor injury. He spent about a week in recovery, patching up what were mostly surface wounds, but Loptr? Loptr nearly died that night. A massive piece of shrapnel tore through his abdomen as a category IV Kaiju threw their Jaeger to shore, where it landed on its back. The sea monster climbed atop it, and shredded the suit’s chest plate in order to get to the pilots inside. The only saving grace had been the fact that the mission hadn’t been a solo one. Category IV’s were rare and it was rarer still for one Jaeger to go head-to-head with one alone.

     Cherno Alpha, a Mark-1 Jaeger from Russia, piloted by two of the most experienced pilots in the business, managed to pull the Kaiju off of Loki and Loptr before the beast to get to the tiny humans inside, but the damage had been done. Loki disengaged while Loptr slowly bled out, unconscious and hardly able to be moved. It was a miracle that Loki could even pull his brother from the wreckage. 

     And their drift caused him to feel every ounce of pain that his brother endured while being nearly ripped in two.

     The injuries resulted in Loptr falling into a coma for almost six weeks. Their Jaeger, Rogue Viper, was destroyed beyond repair and harvested for parts. And Loki? Gods, Loki spent every single day at his brother’s bedside, praying and wishing beyond a shred of a doubt that his twin would wake up. Loptr did eventually wake up, but the lasting damage of the attack meant he would never step foot into a Jaeger again, leaving Loki co-pilotless.

     For a while, that was all right. The shared trauma the brothers endured made the idea of climbing back into a mech suit a bit too traumatizing to think of, but as the weeks turned to months and Loptr turned to engineering so he could help build more Jaegers, Loki was left with an empty, burning hole in his chest. The one thing he was good at, above all other things, also happened to be one of the most valuable resources the planet currently needed, to protect and defend those who couldn’t protect themselves.

     And he couldn’t do it.

     It killed Loptr to watch his brother go through such a disconnect. Loptr always enjoyed being a pilot, but it wasn’t his true passion. Loki, on the other hand, lived and breathed the need to be front and center for the action and his brother seemed lost without that purpose. Loptr found joy in building and maintaining Jaegers, but Loki only kept himself busy. No one aside from his twin was drift compatible with him. They were both far too complex and too difficult to fully understand for an outsider to share a neural link with. At least, that’s what Loptr thought until he spent a few months working with Tony Stark. The shorter man was beyond intelligent, sassy, witty, creative, cynical in the best ways possible, and Loptr found himself thinking that he could very easily drift with his colleague. And if he could drift with Tony, surely Loki would be able to as well?

     Loptr planted the idea in Tony’s mind after a while. The other engineer seemed a bit resistant at first, but the more they spoke about it, the more Tony came around to the idea. It was a slow process. One didn’t just decide to jump into a Jaeger and head off to fight Kaiju in the blink of an eye, after all, but the more he spoke with his friend about it, the more he thought there might be a legitimate chance of working.

     And what better way to test it out than to have Loki meet his engineering partner?

     Loki stepped into their workshop with two cardboard lunchboxes and slowly made his way over to where Loptr sat. The most distinguishable difference between the brothers was definitely their hair. Loptr kept his hair short and highly styled while Loki’s hair hit the middle of his back in an intricate braid. Loptr also sometimes sported facial hair, usually a goatee, but Loki was always cleanly shaven. Out of the pair, Loki looked almost androgynous while Loptr only gave off the air of being a rather beautiful man. But they had the same facial features, the same alluring emerald eyes, and the same lithe build. 

     Loptr smiled as Loki came over and handed him one of the boxes. “How did you know I was hungry?”

     “We’re twins, remember? I always know when you’re in need of something,” Loki pointed out. “Plus, you didn’t show up for lunch, so I figured you were engrossed in your latest project.” Loki looked over the table at the endless blueprints. A new Jaeger design, it seemed. 

     “Sorry, guess I lost track of time,” Loptr muttered as he opened his box and took out half of a toasted turkey sandwich. “I’m actually glad you’re here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

     “Oh?” Loki asked, arching a brow at his brother. Loptr looked... far too excited about his turkey sandwich. “You aren’t trying to set me up on another date, are you? The last one was absolutely awful.”

     “No, no, nothing like that. Well...”

     “Loptr!”

     “It’s not a date! But it’s kind of just as intimate as one, really. Even more so...” Loptr stared down at the sandwich so he could avoid his brother’s intense gaze. “I think I might have found someone who could be drift compatible with you. He works here, with me. His name’s Tony. He’s a brilliant engineer, but I think, more than anything, he wants to get back into a Jaeger.”

     All Loki could do was blink at his brother, his mouth slightly ajar in shock. He’d almost given up hope that he could ever find another co-pilot. “Really...?”

     Loptr nodded and set the sandwich back into the box. He took a black and gold cane from the side of his desk and used it to push himself up to his feet. He could walk just fine, but not without a little bit of support from the cane. At least Loki had carved it to be a beautiful piece of functional art. 

     He hobbled over to where Tony sat and Loki was quick to stand and follow after him. “Hey,” Loptr said, a soft smile tugging at his lips as he looked down at his friend. “I thought you might like to meet my brother. Loki, this is Tony Stark, Tony, this is my brother, Loki.”

     “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tony,” Loki said, flashing one of those highly recognizable, charming smiles. Loptr possessed the exact same one.

[noxicity]

Shinku Kaiyō

Name: Shinku [meaning crimson], Kaiyō [meaning ocean] Gender: genderfluid, dfab but is male most of the time Age: 18 Sexual Orientation: Demiromantic, Asexual Occupation: student Height: 196cm/6′4″ Weight: ??? Hair Color: red Hair Type: long, its hangs around their waist and the bangs sometimes cover their eyes Eye Color: yellow Skin Color: tan Nationality: Japanese School: UA Year: 3 Distinguishing Features: big milky scar running along the left underside of their jaw

Hero/Villain Profile Hero/villain Name: The Macabre Hero: Bloody Strings Costume: a tank top vest that has a mask for the lower half of his face, forearm storers, leggings and steel toed boots. He puts his hair up in a bun for hero work. Quirk: Bloody Strings Weapons: - two trench knives - a tranquilliser gun Gadgets/Tech: - forearm protectors that can store his blood and keep it fresh letting him control more people than he would be able to otherwise

Extra Likes: - plush toys - running - learning about medicine - ocean Dislikes: - warp quirks - people who ridicule his dad for making a turn for the better - sand Habits: - tugs at his hair - tapping his fingers on a flat surface Fears:  - is scared of becoming a villain like everyone thinks - the villain from his car crash, Fuhai recently told him they learned the man goes by Kurogiri

Family: - Shinku Mizu (36) - a doctor in the er unit her quirk is “Blood Flow” it lets her control the flow of someones blood with direct contact, she uses it to keep the patients alive by making sure they don’t bleed out before transfusions can be found for them. Loves her kid more than anything, hopes she never has to treat him at her job like when Kaiyō was a kid. - ??? Masutā (39) - used to be a villain known as “The Puppet Master” but decided that being a villain wasn’t for him and willingly turned himself in at 27 not knowing Mizu was pregnant. Has finished his sentence and is now a stay at home dad, his quirk his “Puppet Strings” would really like it if his old friend Fuhai would leave them all alone. - Tatchi Fuhai (38) used to be a hero named “Asmodeus” but retired do to the affect his quirk was having on his body, now he bother the Shinku family as that one uncle you love but don’t admit relation too. His quirk is “Rot”.

Romantic Interests: isn’t interested in anyone currently to his father’s relief Allies: Shinsou, Monoma Rivals: ??? Enemies: the villain alliance wants revenge on his father that gave them information for a shorter sentence so he could raise his son Physical Weaknesses: - bruises easily because his blood is always just below the skin - has sleep apnea from a car crash when he was young Mental/Emotional Weaknesses: - people treat him like a villain more than normal because of his father’s past, it’s taking its toll on his anger control - is more bothered then he shows at the fact his parents had an unintended quirk marriage considering todoroki in 1-A

Quirk Name of your quirk: Bloody Strings Description:  - Kaiyō can use him blood as strings to mingle in his enemies blood and control them  Strength: - he can force his “puppets” to fight their allies or give basic information of themselves such as name, parents, birthday - can control mannequins as well but at the cost of only being able to control one person at a time, the number of mannequins he can control is 6 Weaknesses:  - gets anaemic when controlling more then 3 people or 1 person and 6 mannequins  - has to cut himself to activate his quirk - it doesn’t affect people not born with a quirk, so he would know izuku doesn’t genetically have one What age did you obtain it:  - it activated when he was eight, the VA tried to kill him and his mum so Sōsa would have no choice but to join them again How did you obtain it (what was happening at the time): - shrapnel had dug itself into the underside of his jaw and in a panic at the villain approaching him and his mother he managed to stop the man for a few seconds which was enough time for his dad to clear his head and stop them

[xivelliot]

One month after the burning of the Temple of Rhalgr

One room over, the door swung open.

Crashed open, more like, the door itself pulled straight off the barricades of rotten wood and too-short nails that'd stapled over the frame. Yanked fully free from the carpentry bindings with all the ease and thoughtlessness of prying apart a mold-worn thread.

Hawthorne closed his eyes, prepared for the following crash of every vase and clay-made bowl that'd been piled in the face of the other room's door, the walls, the other room's shelving. He didn't really want to look at it, but he felt he could guess the sideroom's carnage from sound alone, the new gravesite of the past month's work mapped out in a stilling duration of new shards scrambling out of the path of his visitor's footsteps. A pillar of hand-painted and stone-polished plates, crashed in twain or splain in splinters across the countertops and the doorway apron. Two stacks of teacups engraved, each, with flowers and knotwork beholden to Ala Mhigo's crest scattered into a gorey, glossy, crimson-clay graveyard that bore only a fraction of the painted bloom. An arrangement of newly broken platters, planters, unfinished mugs. Vases. Bowls.

"I thought I'd nailed that shut." Hawthorne chewed on his tongue, turning his blade back to the tall clay pot that sat on his wheel. Small gestures of shapes etched out its surface; sweeping great lines and started imprints of figures, rows of geometry and small caverns dug out in a still-wet pattern. He pumped his heel twice, turning the great wheel to carve a line through the  base of it.

"Generally," he continued, "if a door has boards on it, someone doesn't want it opened. Generally, also, if a shop has a sign that says 'Enter Here', you go in /that/ door. Unless it really is too much a folly on your identity to assume you've got a weak spot for pottery. But maybe, in those cases, send a letter? Wear a cloak? Come at dusk, even. Alternatives are--"

An interrupting clash from the other room, and Ashley Riot stumbled out from the clutches of the new carpeting of earthy shrapnel. Hawthorne cut silent, looking up finally to see the thick dust of red that clouded out of the connecting hallway and over the soldier that'd wandered into his home. Already red hair hung disheveled, purified in its rusty tone, and the crimson spilled down to tint the rest of Ashley in the same tomato dyes. Red shirt, red pommel, red line of blood seeping down his right arm, red shards of a platter jutting out of three or four brand new tears in his pant leg.

"...never a thing for you, for some reason." Hawthorne finished, and he looked him up and down another three times and blinked. From the countertop, he pulled a washcloth from the pile of clay-coated rags and held it out at an arm's reach, like getting out of his chair would be too much a struggle and a strain.

Ashley's response was a full expression of exasperation and futile attempts to start dusting himself off. "I really  hope there isn't any bloodweed in any of this."

"In that batch? No. That was just a genuine, poorly-placed pottery tower." When Ashley took the rag, Hawthorne remained stretched out across the chair's back, his arm still extended, palm up, back arched in a full display of fainting grief. "Now, I have genuine pottery dust." He continued, "All my dreams of a civilian's life, a month of clean hands, awash and away once again with the bombardment of my true nature storming through the door. Oh, am I ever free of this expertly-set metaphor? Oh, am I ever free of my father's blood!"

"Here I'd simply thought you'd boarded up your door to try and trick me into thinking you'd moved." Ashley interjected.

Hawthorne's arm threw back over his eyes, his other hand raised up into one of the few beams of light that cracked through the walls of curtains and clutter in the dark room. "Woe to the day I tried to take on Gelva's walk of peace! Lamentation for the hope I could split from this fated path with the simple intention of decorated pots! My lesson that no manufacture of this land shall ever carry me to redemption! May it never be forgotten, my effort. Free from the same lapses of memory that /everyone/ in the Undercity seems to go through when they all communally forget that there /are/ other Silverbrands to do their bidding."

The thin light went dark when Ashley dropped the now-crimson washcloth over his head, residue of red dust pluming out in a fabric cough. For a split second Hawthorne was lost to laughter, but he quieted up soon as another creak of the back of his chair, already groaning and bent and too old to bear the monk's weight, signaled that Ashley had thrown an arm on it as well. He pulled the rag off enough to stare up at the man, Ashley's forearm on the chair's back. Ashley's smile a bit more lighthearted than ever expected.

"I came to you," Ashley said, "Because, as always, you are by far the most tolerable of your family members. Even if that's... a pretty heavy stretch. I would think you'd find that a compliment."

Ashley's smile was a grin in the tired way that Ashley always grinned - which was less a grin, really, and far more an appeasement of emotion. For show. For business. The nonpolitical smile he always held that always portrayed that he was Just Doing Work.

Hawthorne returned the expression.

"You think so?" His grin bold, he watched Ashley's smile waver just enough for confusion to touch the other’s brow. His foot pumped again and the wheel groaned into a turn. Somewhere, Hawthorne’s hand had moved back to his blade and the pottery, back to carving the thin line in the base of the sculpture in the event that either of them had forgotten he was holding it. "I mean, the part about being tolerable."

"Well," Ashley moved from resting his forearm on the chair to just keeping his wrist on it. "Relatively speaking. You, at least, will hold a conversation."

"I think I can take that as a compliment. I must admit, though, it's a bit unfair of grading. I mean at least, with your bosom buddy leaving blades around in about half of my father's nieces and nephews, I think at least even I can understand if it's gotten a little bit hard for people to keep their heads out of their asses around Undertaker's hellhound."

When Ashley stopped grinning, Hawthorne didn't.

The wheel spun again in front of him, his blade at the base and the clay shearing off into neat, red ribbonry. Hawthorne caught, just in the corner of his eye, the very slightest change in color on Ashley's knuckles where the kingsman gripped the back of the chair.

Hawthorne was looking up at Ashley, though. Smiling, his hands on the pot and the wheeling chugging away with tired, stuttered turns that each did their part in permeating Ashley's silence. Ashley's brow twisted down into a slight bend. And when Ashley breathed out, his chest moved just enough for one of the sparse beams of light to flash over the sheathed sword and pommel. Sword always on his belt, always strapped over his second layer of clothing, but tucked under the jacket. Always angled just so that never would the handle ever fall a second too far out of reach, the hilt remarkably bare and remarkably un-decorated.

Hawthorne smiled.

"I'm gonna assume," he said, the wheel whining into a long, oil-begging squeak between them. It'd grown talented, in it's years, of always spitting out the right groan, or pop, or wheeze to fill the gaps in conversation. The blade slid deeper into its mold of clay. "Your absolutely invigorating silence here means you /weren't/ the one heading the charge of finding a river big enough to throw Hamund in?"

"No. I was not."

"Do you think my cousins know that?"

The following silence that hung around Ashley reverberated so tangibly that Hawthorne could've reached up and carved a pattern in the very air. The dip in the soldier's brow took another turn into furrowing, and his jaw set with bone, steel, and iron.

Hawthorne sucked on the inside of his cheek. "Do you know who /was/?"

"Hawthorne-"

Ashley had opened his mouth initially as a warning. As a threat, and a reminder. The advisory of caution, though, snapped from his grasp along with the steeping weight of the air in the room when Hawthorne cut him off with a roll of laughter.

Shorter than him, hungrier than him, the somewhat small ex-Fist threw back his head and laughed far too long and far too loud for a Highlander of his stature. The room filled with it. The dust and the shadows, every vase and bowl that still could be filled with sound.

"Riot! Riot, Riot!" As he cackled, Hawthorne's hands shot up to shield both from the very expected blow and the following glare that Ashley bestowed upon him, embarrassed fury piercing through the shrapnel of tension. "Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck! Hamund was a cock, Ashley! You thought I was serious! Riot, look at yourself! He's in the ground ‘cause he was a damned good idiot, and he sure as hells deserves that title. One less cousin anyway to keep up on. Come on, Riot, what do you need? What does Berny need, huh?"

Footsteps. Hawthorne drew his hands back finally to spy the other now in the more distant half of the workroom. Even with the fulms between them, the unsatisfied look on Ashley's face was palpable.

"There's a shipment coming up from Thavnir two weeks from now. Five guards. I need their bodies unfindable and five men to wear their uniforms, and a distraction to either cover or rationalize my initial attack. You'll be paid for the expense of the stand-ins and any materials used in your work - plus twenty percent - in addition to the usual fee for dragging you up into the sunlight for once."

"I do burn easy."

Hawthorne looked back up as he made the comment, locking eyes with Ashley. The man had only barely paused in his pacing on the other side of the room, planted between a coat rack covered in larger, similarly dusty towels, and a couple shelves of clay-caked tools. Ashley’s glower hadn’t changed, the set glare of a Riskbreaker, but under all the dust and red the slightest shift in his pallor gave away the scene that flashed through Ashley’s mind. It wasn’t long, enough that maybe the look of the other could be a trick of the light, or a lapse in perception. But the smell of burning flesh only needed a second to pull a reaction, even if only from memory.

The razing of the Temple of Rhalgr, hardly more than a month ago. The dead brought low on the fervor of the crown.

Hawthorne smiled, moving enough to fall back in the path of Ashley’s stare and resummon the man’s attention. "Does that quote include the materials spent in your entrance?"

"Yes or no, Silverbrand." Ashley spoke quietly as he turned more, inspecting the other pots and plates that filled the workroom’s shelves.

"I just want a full gauge of my remaining funds. You know, I need to buy more nails for my door, and Gelva-"

"You'll do it, or I'm moving on. I don't have all day to track down your next most sociable of kin."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeahyeah." The chair creaked again as Hawthorne kicked out one foot onto the countertop and teetered on the chair's back legs. The pottery wheel spun on its own, for now, winding down. His arm still hung outstretched, blade gliding ever thinner lines into the clay surface. "I'll do it, don't worry. What, Hawthorne Silverbrand turning down an opportunity to siphon out more of the crown's money? What do you think I'm turning into?

"Of course," The wheel stopped. Hawthorne dropped back down onto all four legs of the chair and hunched himself before his work, watching closely as much smaller carving were pulled between the stronger lines and larger gestures. "This would be easier if the temples were still intact. My esteemed history as a monk of Rhalgr doesn't quite hold all the bearings and persuasion it used to, when that little detail would now get me a public throat cutting in the Quarter square. But I'll see what I can do."

Hawhthorne was still looking up, but this time Ashley only continued his pacing around the small store - his eyes on only clay and craftware. "If you can only find four men,” he said, “I can work with that. Or, four men and a body."

"I hope your man knows what he's doing, Riot."

From the Riskbreaker, silence followed - a silence soon swallowed up once again by the sound of the wheel, the pottery blade, and Ashley's teeth grinding to the bone.

[lostquickies]

Dear Emily, “Tabula Rasa” means blank slate.

So except for the pilot and a select few episodes, each episode actually centers around one character and their flashbacks, which relate thematically to what’s going on in the present day on the Island. 

First up is Kate.

It doesn’t take long for the secret that Kate’s the criminal who escaped from the handcuffs to get out. Jack finds out from the Marshall when he finds Kate’s wanted notice in the Marshall’s pocket, and soon Hurley knows, too (he’s helping Jack care for the Marshall).

Turns out that everyone on the Island trusts Kate instinctively. They give her the gun that Sawyer pilfered from the dying Marshall (no one wants Sawyer to have it).

In flashback, we go back to the time just before Kate was caught (and brought on board the plane to be extradited back to America) when she was caught camping out in the barn of a stranger in Australia, who feeds her, and takes her in for room and board if she’ll help out on his farm. He’s only got one arm (and a mortgage) and hasn’t been doing so well since his wife died. She tells him her name is Annie. He’s Ray Mullen.

She stays with him for three months before leaving in the middle of the night. He catches her leaving and tells her, “everyone deserves a fresh start,” implying that he knows she isn’t who she says she is but he doesn’t care. But what has actually happened is that he knows her real name and that she’s wanted, and there’s a large reward. He turns her in for the money ($23k), and didn’t want her to leave before he could do that. She only realizes he’s betrayed her when the Marshall comes up behind their truck in a big black SUV. She runs the truck off the road, but instead of leaving the farmer to die in the wreckage, pulls him out. 

In present day, Kate and Jack play criminal chicken. He is waiting for her to fess up to being the criminal, and she doesn’t do it. 

Meanwhile, Jack is determined to try and save the Marshall, who now has an infection after Jack performed field surgery to remove the shrapnel from his gut. He’s looking for stronger antibiotics in the wreck of the fuselage (dead passenger luggage contents will be very useful going forward) when he runs into Sawyer, and they have a Very Significant conversation. Sawyer basically tells Jack that there aren’t any rules now on the Island, and everyone else needs to catch up. He says, “I’m in the wild,” and rescue isn’t coming. (Jack semi-agrees with him by the end of the episode, except he has a more optimistic spin.)

It becomes clear that the Marshall is going to die. He is making a lot of miserable noises, and everyone on the beach is disturbed by it. They edit the episode so that we kind of think Kate is going to kill the unconscious Marshall so no one learns her secret, but instead he wakes up and tries to kill her. It becomes clear that Kate is not a murderer and cares about people’s lives (as shown in the Ray Mullen flashbacks). The Marshall even notes that she won’t kill him, even to put him out of his misery, because she didn’t let farmer Ray die back then.

At this point, Jack can’t keep a secret, so after determining that Kate isn’t injured from almost being choked to death, he tells her he found her mugshot. This is in the context of her asking if he can put the Marshall out of his misery. He says, “I’m not a murderer,” and leaves unsaid, “but maybe you are.”

We still don’t know what Kate did. (And actually, it’s been so long, I don’t remember what she did!)

Kate ends up giving the gun the others had given her for safekeeping back to Sawyer, so he can be the one to put the Marshall out of his misery. Only, he shoots him in the lung, which will mean a long, painful death not that much shorter or less painful than dying of sepsis. And now there are no bullets left. (Headshot, Sawyer!) So Jack has to do it after all. (This is also a significant moment. A doctor takes an oath to “First, do no harm.” And while you could argue that the harm here would be letting the man suffer, a sentiment which Jack agrees with obviously, it’s still illegal in most places in America to help a terminally ill patient die on their own terms. Jack is making a leap here, acknowledging the Island is not necessarily a place where they can live by their old rules.)

This is doubled down at the end of the episode. Later on the beach, after the Marshall is dead, Kate says she wants to tell Jack what she did, but Jack tells her he doesn’t want to know, that it doesn’t matter who any of them were before this. “Three days ago we all died. We should all be able to start over.” Jack’s version of Sawyer’s “I’m in the wild” looks more like giving everyone a second chance, a “blank slate.” Hence, the title of the episode. 

There’s a B-plot with Walt’s dad (his name is Michael, but they still haven’t named him on the show yet! It’s frustrating!) being jealous of Locke, and butting heads with his son. Michael is suspicious of Locke, particularly after Walt tells him they’ve been hanging out, and Locke told him a secret (which we still don’t know). Michael and Walt fight about the dog Vincent again, and Michael promises to find him once it stops raining. It then immediately stops raining.

Locke is creepily observing all of this. He whittles a whistle from some driftwood, and while Michael is still trying to find his own ass, blows the whistle and calls Vincent to him. He then ties Vincent to a tree and lets Michael know where he is, so Michael can be the good guy and bond with his son. This is a creepily competent thing to do, and while sweet and nice, is also sort of menacing in the way they play it. Like, you should remember this moment for the last season. Locke, alone, staring unsmiling at father and son, while unfriendly music plays in the background.

Other stuff worth noting:

*We finally learn the Korean woman’s name. It’s Sun. Her husband still has no name, and he’s still acting like a jerk. Michael hilariously comes across a half-naked Sun, bathing in the jungle while he’s searching for Vincent. They are both very awkward.

*Hurley is VERY nervous to be around Kate after he finds out she’s the criminal. 

*Character tics are beginning to come out as well. Hurley calls everyone “Dude.” Sawyer has nicknames for everyone instead of using their actual names (i.e. Doc, Freckles, Abdul)

*When Micheal goes into the jungle to look for Vincent, something very scary and loud chases him. What could it be? (This is when he happens up on the topless Sun.)

*We learn that Oceanic Flight 815 had departed from Australia, and was heading to L.A. Also, the favor Kate wanted to ask the Marshall in the pilot was that he make sure Ray Mullen got his $23k reward. 

*Claire (the pregnant Australian woman) and Charlie (the rockstar who does drugs) start bonding.

*Survivor stuff: They set out tarps to catch rain for drinking. This is Sayid’s idea. They’re going to have to do a lot more work to make that beach livable. And they should really all be sunburned to hell at this point.

I was originally going to combine this with episode four, but it got too long! I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to double up on episodes. Maybe the more useless ones later on?

Love from,

Ashley

[jacewilliams1]

Pilots make a deal with the devil

Several years ago after the TBM, PC-12 and Piper Meridian were well-established as sales successes, I asked executives from each manufacturer if the worry about having only a single engine ever came up in discussion with prospects. Each answered no. And each had the same explanation. “People have already decided they are OK with only a single engine before they ever talk to us,” they told me.

The people willing to own and fly a single-engine airplane have made a deal with the devil.

That deal does sort of involve eternal souls, as the motif implies, but more specifically puts everyone onboard the single-engine airplane at risk. Ask anybody you meet what happens when the only engine on an airplane fails and they all get the answer right. The airplane comes down.

Pilots of single engine airplanes make a deal with the devil – and that’s OK.

People who fly singles are willing to take the risk of engine failure in exchange for lower costs, higher payloads, greater fuel efficiency and the other benefits that come from feeding only one engine. Their deal with the dark side is that the risk of total power loss is small enough that it almost certainly won’t happen to them.

Such deals with the dark side are actually pretty common in everyday life. A glaring example is riding a motorcycle. The risk of traveling on a motorcycle versus a conventional vehicle are as obvious as the risk of flying a single. And many—even most—riders object to even the most basic risk management such as helmet requirements. Millions of people decide the risk of riding a motorcycle is worth it to them. And you can think of many, many other examples of trading risk for something more valued.

For decades anyone who flew as pilot or passenger made his or her own deal with the devil. The risks in flying were just inherent and unavoidable. The flying risks could be reduced, but still loomed large. Just run an inventory in your mind of all the celebrities, rock bands, and movie stars killed in airplane crashes in past years. And we only remember them because of their fame. Fatal crashes in all types of flying until sometime in the 1980s, or maybe 90s, could rightly be called “commonplace.”

But that has all changed at the top of the aviation pyramid. When you fly on a major airline in an advanced country, or in a corporate airplane operated by a well-organized flight department, your risk of being killed is very close to zero. There has been no fatal crash of a U.S. jet airliner since 2001. The only major airline passenger killed during that period was aboard a Southwest Boeing 737 when flying shrapnel from an uncontained engine failure broke a cabin window and caused the injuries. The devil has lost his bargaining power at the top end of aviation.

Flying major airline or corporate jets has become so close to risk-free because technology advanced to the point where we no longer must trade risk for the speed of air travel. Airplanes and equipment became more reliable in all respects. More importantly technological advances make is possible to add layers of essential structure and equipment so that no single failure, or even foreseeable multiple failures, can prevent the airplane from reaching a runway.

Turbine engines are now so reliable that a failure is extremely rare. And in air commerce or business jet flying, every flight must be planned so that from takeoff to touchdown the loss of the most critical engine cannot prevent the takeoff and return to a runway from ending safely.

The primary structure of airline and corporate airplanes must now demonstrate that it is “damage tolerant.” That means that the failure of any single element of the structure cannot prevent the flight from concluding safely. Spars, for example, have multiple elements any which of can carry limit load.

And in airline and corporate jet flying all crews must be trained and checked to standards unheard of decades ago. Absolutely realistic simulators are the basis for training so pilots experience and handle critical situations at least once a year even though they almost certainly will never experience such an emergency in flight.

For the past several decades very serious people from all disciplines of aviation have sat through countless meetings running endless “what if” scenarios. The goal is that no “what if” question can lead to loss of the airline or corporate aircraft more than once in a billion flights. Since no piece of machinery, electronics or structure can possibly meet that standard the certification and operational rules have been created to require multiple backups for everything necessary to continue flying after a failure.

I can hear some of you yelling at your screen, “What about Sully and Jeff Skiles? They couldn’t continue flying after a failure.”

The airlines have essentially solved the safety problem. But at what cost?

You’re right. But, has the loss of both engines in a transport category jet happened more frequently than once in a billion flights? Since I can’t think of another episode, absent crew mismanagement of a failure, where all power was lost in a transport jet, I think the one in a billion goal was satisfied. Which makes the Miracle on the Hudson even more of a once-in-everyone’s-lifetime event.

My point is that as an industry, an activity, we in aviation know how to take the devil out of flying. What is required is significantly higher cost and loss of convenience.

The cost of near total safety is obvious in the number of engines, systems and structural redundancy required. But less apparent are the necessary operational restrictions. For example, want to fly your “safe” airplane by yourself? Sorry. A single pilot comes up short on essential redundancy. Want to use that nearby but shorter runway airport? Nope. You must have enough pavement to safely abort or continue a takeoff after an engine failure at the worst possible moment. And you must certainly have enough runway with large margins for stopping on landing. Don’t want to feed and maintain another engine “just in case?” Sorry. That also misses the maximum safety goal.

So for personal aviation to continue and deliver the convenience, and even recreation, many of us want, we must still make that deal with the devil. And I believe most pilots are aware of that risk tradeoff, and most make conscious choices of what risk to take and how to minimize all risks to the greatest extent possible.

I know this because at Flying magazine our reader surveys showed year after year that stories about safety, accident analysis, handling weather and all other forms of risk management always ranked at the top.

Cycle World magazine was also part of our company and the editors there had a very different experience. They ONCE ran a story on improving motorcycle riding safety and readers and the industry went nuts. Riders absolutely didn’t want to hear about safety, or lack of it, or how to improve it. Each rider, apparently, had their own deal with the devil and it was their right to take on whatever risks they choose. Quite the opposite of the pilot community.

Airline and corporate flying has reached a level of safety none of us could have imagined even 30 years ago. As an industry, we know how to essentially eliminate fatal accidents. As pilots flying for our own reasons we can learn how the big boys did that, and adapt as many of the lessons as we can afford, or decide are worth the required tradeoffs. We still must make our own deal with the dark side to fly our own airplanes for our own reasons by ourselves, but I hope we are making the best and most informed deal we can.

The post Pilots make a deal with the devil appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2019/08/pilots-make-a-deal-with-the-devil/