#sorry for hijacking your ask to talk about zombies!

[artbyblastweave]

hello. I am in the middle of doing My Take on vampires and would appreciate your thoughts on Them in fiction. they don't seem to pop up more than occasionally in superhero media, but also you are pretty widely read & they have noticeable Eras/Tendencies that I can see.

I'm definitely not as much of a vampire guy as I'm a Superhero guy, so all my opinions on vampires should be taken with a grain of salt, and with the knowledge that a lot of this is stuff I've picked up through Osmosis and the occasional lit-review for that one class in college. But here goes-

One of my potentially more controversial takes about Vampires is that I think Vampires (and adjacent creatures like werewolves) are great at capturing the emotional truth of being part of a marginalized group, or sometimes just for being subaltern- the world against you, people make you feel like you're wrong for existing, that you're dangerous, etc.- and this is why they go gangbusters both on this website and in general. But the narrative often faceplants for me if it tries to portray vampires as a literal marginalized group because all of that stuff is often objectively true within the fiction in a way that it isn't true of real-life marginalized groups. It's a souped-up version of the X-men problem, because most of the X-Men aren't obligate cannibals! The result of this is that there have been several times I'm consuming something vampire-related that wants me to primarily sympathize with the vampires, and meanwhile I'm going "geez, that's a rough deal, but I think you all need to be killed on purely utilitarian grounds, sorry."

(I do also get the sense as well, right, that this is inextricably tangled up in the fact that a lot of foundational vampire literature was kind of just taking a lot of the horrible lies people tell about the scapegoat group du jour to justify their oppression and then making a guy of whom these things were objectively true. I get the impression, at a distance, that Dracula demonstrates like fourteen different flavors of "Those Depraved Easterners Are Coming For Our Women," although to truly lock in that Take I'm gonna have to read the thing instead of just absorbing it through Tumblr Osmosis whenever Dracula Daily is running.) There are ways to thread this needle, the big one of which is to just sand down the negative externalities of vampirism. Have them feed on animals or voluntary donors or make the human predation thing an in-universe slanderous fiction to begin with. Have them feed on exclusively on quote-unquote "criminals," if you have the right unexamined assumptions about the validity of the death penalty. Go the Elder Scrolls route, where drinking blood isn't necessary to survive but is necessary to maintain a human appearance, thus ensuring that the most morally conscientious vampires are the ones most likely to be identified as vampires and scapegoated by the angry mob. The issue I sometimes take with this is that the act of implementing a "fix" of any kind can sort of broadcast that you're trying to have your cake and eat it too- that you're cutting away the ideatic core of what makes vampires interesting when divorced from metaphor, taken objectively- that they're living trolley problems. As others have said, if you sand them down too much, what are you getting out of a vampire story that you couldn't get from a Tolkien Elf, or from Batman?

A fictional group which I've never really had this issue with, though, is Zombies, in the Romero tradition. When a work wants to construct Zombies as a primarily sympathetic group, it's much easier for me to get on board with that without feeling like the core Vibe has been compromised. This is because there's actually a fairly recent source text for zombies in the form of Romero's Living Dead films, and a major component of the Living Dead films is how much it sucks without recourse to become a zombie.

I was working on a post once, which I never finished, about how there are like, three-to-four vectors of horror that zombies can embody, which different works play up to different extents. While obviously one of the big straightforward ones is the fear that your entire community starts trying to kill you and eat you one day for basically no reason, a major anxiety on display in the original Living Dead trilogy- Dawn in particular- is that in the face of a weird but manageable problem human society would act as its own condemnation, totally failing to rise to the challenge-the horror is that we would let something as inept as a zombie be dangerous to us! Also present in those films? The horror of the idea that your daily routine is so rote and conformist that you wouldn't need to be sentient to continue to carry it out- that the biggest difference between you and them is that you can occasionally be evil in more interesting and evolved ways. And there's this fear of physically and mental degradation with zombies, which for a host of reasons I find extremely fucking relatable. The sense that your body is falling apart piecemeal, bits of you sloughing off when you turn the wrong way or turn your head too quickly. There's this fog over your thinking. The bone-deep knowledge that you used to be more, and are now fundamentally less capable- that there's just enough of you left to understand something is missing. (Read into my personal circumstances whatever you want from this.) Being a zombie is foundationally, fundamentally gross in a way that being a vampire isn't; when people try to do "sexy zombies" half the joke is the pairing of those two words. There's this horror comic Kieth Giffen did once called Tag which is basically entirely about the horror of being a corpse that could feel it; I think about that comic a lot. Anyway, because so much of the horror of zombism is external to whether they're actually attacking and killing people or not, you can totally sell me on zombies as an unfairly-maligned demographic in a way that's much harder for me to buy with Vampires- dropping the danger they pose to other people allows you to maintain so much more of the core of the thing than it does with Vampires, where it feels much more like you're tip-toeing around the tensions between Wanting To Have Fun and the moral horror inherent to what you're trying to have fun with.

[alpona]

Geats episode 13 liveblog:

- Has Ace reeeally not suspected Giroli being the game master yet, I wonder.

- 'just the concierge', yah right.

- 'Why save the world for so long, and still be hated?'

Yeah Ace-kun, why?

Why do we turn out as the bad one even after everything? Why are some people just meant to be the antihero protagonist? 🙂

(I'm sorry, having way too relatable existential dread right at the start of the episode... Excuse me. No wonder I get Ace.)

- obviously scared that Ace is trying to unravel DGP's secret. You've got a lot more to worry about game master-san, pretty soon many more riders will figure out how suspicious DGP is.

- hmm but eliminating and erasing Ace's memories should'nt be the solution, Ace made a wish to participate in every game, so unless DGP just ignores the wishgranting rule or whatever, their only option is murder.

- Tsumuri's saga of not being fully on board continues. So, let's guess which episode is she gonna go against game master? When is she gonna henshin?

- Keiwa back in the opening lineup, and his demeanor changed a lot from the first arc, more matured. Ah, sweet character development!

- his uniform's shirt also changed to cyan instead of the previous green.

- Ooo finally game master talky talky to the mad botanist! And sure, strong monsters do create interesting action, episodes, he's talking like a viewer 🤣

- Neon's father answering just like a typical father.... Or at least what I've known. Man, too much relatability this episode!

- congrats to Keiwa's temporary job, and his love for tanuki soba! If this is a food commercial, I'm sold!

- mystery about this red hat girl, interesting.

- punkjack directly attacking geats now. So they removed no fighting each other rule for him? Sure, that's what they'd totally do!

- This is probably the most vulnerable we've seen Ace.

- Even punkjack isn't spared from driver hijack, haha

-how do you keep doing this 'teleport stealing', kid? But thanks to this, we get to see rare n awesome unmorphed fights!

- Neon using her fanbase for info, of course, very useful, Misora says hi. Good thing she didn't get lost with misinformation.

- lol, using zombie so much made you do zombie gestures normally too, Michinaga?

- I like how the tables have turned here, the weaker players, Neon and Keiwa are in a stronger position than the stronger ones, huhu!

- And Keiwa's return re-establishes the status quo (Michinaga not acting so heroic again, hehe)

- teamwork? Overconfidence? Your keiwa-fied dialogue makes me cry, Ace-kun!

- but you're gonna trick Keiwa and take his driver now, right? No? Ok....

- More unmorphed fight yayy! Ace getting more beaten up yayy... Err I mean oo nooo...

-the world's against you Ace-kun....

- now Tycoon protecting unmorphed Ace, thats a nice parallel.

- New DGP staff, interesting. Are they the board/council kinda member, Game master's senior?

- Wait, they're NOT against Ace?? Ehhh?! Woah!

- aha, so you're gonna nicely ask for Keiwa's driver now, such improvement.

- Keiwa-kun and I both: just the face? Well well, this is what you'd call minimalist design lol

- And the full command twin buckle debut. I personally found the sword action much cooler.

- Ace-kun too nice these days, returning the driver exactly within few minutes, plus giving away the new buckle too.... At least secure the driver before being nice!

Am I the only one left being the antihero protagonist of my own story.... Er... Umm.. ignore the last line. Sorry.

- new DGP guy seems like another interesting character. And he does seem to have more authority than game master, once again, I'm eager to know how they work. And it's very interesting how even they're not on the same page, wow.

I miss the sly fox, not-so-nice Ace! And next week, game master henshins and possibly reveals his identity?

Well, I've been waiting for Ace to 'die' at least once pretty soon, (wow I say that so casually) and Christmas episode isn't too far, with how things are going, so....? Hm? Can we assume that?

[supernaturallyobsessedchic]

7 Days to Die - Part 1

Part 1: Surviving

Pairing: none to start with

Warnings: zombie hordes, language, injuries, scary situation, mentions of death and destruction.

Word count: 1,205

Summary: Town after town, horde after horde, the reader is trying to find a safe haven. Finding two scavengers who kindly take her in their company, maybe humanity isn’t doomed.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

7 Days to Die Masterlist

Mobile Masterlist

a/n: This is all un’beta’d, all mistakes are my own. But I hope you enjoy none-the-less.

~

Almost every car she got into to hijack was out of gas, she’s not the only survivor trying to get across the country.

All of this happened so suddenly, she even remembered how it started where she’s from. She was at work and someone really wanted in the café after closing. After bashing their head into the glass door, with no effects visibly noticed he came in and killed the first two employees that tried to subdue him and get him out. She ran for her life after that. Even narrowly escaping her hometown, the city of Lincoln Nebraska, not as big as Omaha but big enough to be a living hell to escape from.

Now she got so far north, she thinks she could be in Canada by the looks of the landscape. Beautiful mountainous landscape. Her phone, still working revealed it to be a rural area west of Vancouver.

As she walked the streets of a small rural town, she heard the sounds of a possible horde. Rounding a corner she saw the small horde of them. She remained quiet, noticing they didn’t see her. How could they? They’re dead. Though undead, the sense of sight has died but their sense of smell and hearing has heightened.

But a gust of wind hit them, giving them a big whiff of her scent.

“Shit.” She mutters under her breath.

The first walker in the group starts running after the scent, as did the entire herd.

“Time to put that cardio to work girl.” She coached herself as she took off.

The horde seemed to just grow and grow as she ran down the empty, lifeless road. A walker got close by nearly side swiping her, trying to flank her.

She focus’s on her escape, pushes herself harder the closer they got.

“Jared! Time to go!” she heard.

Seeing two men running out of an alleyway just as frantic as she was getting away from the horde.

“Jensen, there’s someone!” Jared shouted.

Jensen takes his hunters rifle and begins shooting some walkers to give her a cushion.

“Come on!” Jared waved her to join.

She didn’t question it.

She managed to reach the two men.

“Jensen, let’s go!” Jared shouts.

Jensen reloads his rifle as he turns to run away. Only reloading what he could before sprinting with Jared and Y/N.

They come to a fence, no gate in sight to allow them to go around the fence. But they see a whole big enough for two giants and Y/N.

Jensen crawls under first, lifting the fence a bit, Y/N goes through next.

The horde closes in, Jared hurries as fast as he could to get his pack on the other side before crawling.

Jensen didn’t need to be asked, he started shooting walkers.

“Come on Jared!” Y/N shouts, grabbing for his hand to help him out.

He started to yell as he kicked the few walkers that got a hold of his legs. But he got through the fence, nonetheless.

“You okay brother, they didn’t bite you did they?” Jensen drilled.

“No, I don’t think so. I didn’t feel it. I just freaked out mostly.” He said.

“Yeah, I would too.” Jensen says.

“And who do we owe the pleasure of joining our company?” Jensen asks kindly looking over at Y/N.

“Y/N.” She says. Clearly freaked out she just came close to being zombie chow.

“Y/N, this is—”

“I know who you are, I seen your show. Can we just get going?” she asked.

“Sure thing, lets get going.” Jensen says, picking up Jared’s pack for him. Jared seemed to be out of it, in his head.

“Maybe you could help us carry our loot.” Jensen asks, as he picked up a medic kit.

“Yeah.” She says, picking up what she could carry.

And they headed out on the paved road before turning on a dirt road into the woods.

Where are these guys taking me? She wondered.

 “According to the map, there’s a hold out not far from here.” Jensen says looking at the map.

“Are you guys from, like, a local settlement or something?” she asked.

“Oddly enough yeah, well it’s not close. It’s a few days walk, on a good day.” Jensen answers.

“Okay, how far is not far from the hold out?” Jared asked. “I’m exhausted man.” He adds.

“Right there, you can see it from here.” Jensen points.

From the dirt road, between some trees even with the sun going down she could see the cabin Jensen was talking about. Seeing the dark solid building behind the dark green trees that somehow are as alive as anything in the forest. Not even the undead can kill the forest.

They continued until they finally reached the cabin.

“Wait here.” Jensen says, drawing a pistol from his waistband.

Jared and Y/N waited on the porch of the small hunter cabin. Jensen headed inside; gun drawn as he searched the cabin for any signs of unwanted life.

“Clear!” he shouted as he entered the main room.

Jared and Y/N eagerly entered to get out of the brisk October night.

“I’m gonna clean up, I feel gross.” Jared says.

“You don’t look so hot, how about hit the hay, I’ll take watch.” Jensen says, giving Jared’s back a pat as he walk past Jensen.

“So, how’d you guys end up here in Canada?” Y/N asked.

“Wrapped up our show when the outbreak happened. It happened in Texas long ago, my wife and kids got here before it broke out here, same for Jared’s family, they’re up here to at our camp.” Jensen explained.

“What about you, how’d you end up here?” he asked.

“Just trying to find a safe haven from this mess. My home in Nebraska totally destroyed, it was a war zone of soldiers, citizens and walkers. My family didn’t make it.” she says. “Raiders.” She adds.

“Shit, I’m sorry.” He sympathizes. “Raiders are just as bad up here than anywhere else.” He says.

“I just want to be around living humans, not undead ones.” She says.

“I feel ya there, well, you are more than welcome to join our camp.” Jensen offers. “Don’t laugh, but everyone goes by nicknames there. Misha, we call him Cas.” He says.

She giggles. “That’s awesome.” She goes.

Jensen smiles, agreeing.

“Get some sleep Y/N, we got a long walk tomorrow, and I need you well rested.” Jensen says.

She nods. “I definitely need more than a couple of hours a night.” She says.

“I’ll keep you safe,” he says, as she settles for the couch.

He grabs a blanket from his large pack, unrolling it he lays it over her. “Get some rest sweetheart.” He says.

She hums with a smile. Feeling safe for once.

 Jared gets ready to lay down, he notices his leg with a nasty scratch. Turning a bright red, showing signs of a quick infection. Even signs of dead flesh already developing around the cuts in the flesh.

Looking up from his leg, with an anxious feeling he is infected. But shaking the thought with, the fence probably scratched him as he got up to soon or something.

He puts antiseptic and a bandage wrap around the scratch and tries to sleep for the night.

~

Feedback is much appreciated! Tags are closed

Jensen Tags:

@luci-in-trenchcoats, @supernatural-jackles, @becs-bunker, @backseat-of-deans-67chevy, @salt-n-burn-em-all​, @moonlight-on-her-skin​, @mlovesstories​, @winchesters-favorite-girl​

~

Copying and reposting someone else’s content is plagiarism and illegal. This work is property of supernaturallyobsessedchic. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. These works contain material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of these works may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher. An electronic reference link to the original posted work may be provided for purposes of promotion or assistance of publication by the readers discretion, if proper credits are given to the author in the re-post. 10/3/2020

[fermataheart]

dead art | silas & metzli

TIMING: Current. LOCATION: Metzli’s gallery. PARTIES: @fermataheart​ & @deathisanartmetzli​ SUMMARY: A little misunderstanding leads to a surprisingly positive outcome. CONTENT WARNINGS: Sibling death (mentions). 

It took hours to get the smell of death off of them last night. Three showers later and some perfume, and Metzli felt like they finally got it off. All they had wanted to do last night was unwind, but a stranger just had to bump into them. He just had to pull out the threatening growls from a spot reserved for their need to feel a little pain and distract themselves from their thoughts. Why they couldn’t find a better outlet, Metzli never bothered to try to find out. They were willing to just walk past, to ignore that deeply ingrained need to attack. But the stranger would not allow for that.

The two walked away after being evenly matched, or rather, because Metzli used their evasive tactics to just wear him out. Needless to say, they were a little sore as they made their rounds around the gallery. Things were finally back to normal, and patrons had long forgotten the recent show Eilidh and them gave everyone. The gallery’s success was of great importance to Metzli, and it made them feel good to see people enjoying their time surrounded by art they hand picked.

With a delighted sigh, Metzli walked towards the front as a familiar smell began to permeate through the door. Their smile turned into a frown immediately. A distasteful, and nauseating smell of death. An over-decayed smell of death. Similar to Macleod’s but much stronger. “What are you doing here?” They asked, gritting their teeth and marching towards Silas.

---

Memory issues, that was it. That had to be it. Maybe he wasn’t eating enough, going too long between meals, relying on squirrels and raccoons to sustain him… maybe it fucked with his memory. There was no other reason he should be losing time, but he was. Hours of his days and nights, just… gone. It was either memory issues, or the worst dissociation he’d ever experienced. And it had happened again last night—one minute he was laying in bed, waiting to fall asleep, and the next? Stumbling back into his apartment, confused. His clothes seemed damaged, like he’d gotten into a fight, but of course there wasn’t a mark on his body to prove it.

Ignoring it, Silas tried to squeak in a few hours of rest before the next evening rolled around and it was time for him to try out this painting thing. His stomach protested its emptiness, forcing him to go out and forage for some roadkill to sate his appetite, if only for a few hours. Gods, there had to be a better way to go about this.

Getting cleaned up as best he could in a nearby stream and making sure none of his dark clothing was stained with the carcass’ fluids, Silas hoofed it back into town and over to the gallery.

The less-than-welcome reception surprised him, and his thick brows furrowed in response. “Excuse me?” he grumbled, taken aback. “You’re Metzli, right? Came for the painting class you promised… for the writer’s block.” Confusion was evident on his face as he gave them a once-over, dark eyes narrowing. “Sorry do I—do I know you from somewhere?”

---

Metzli’s eye twitched at Silas’ apparent confusion. He was definitely the guy who incited the fight they had. For now though, they were going to give him the benefit of the doubt. “You started a fight with me. Last night. On Amity.” A layer of annoyance and disdain laced their tone and they stepped closer. “Do you not remember any of that? It was definitely you. I would remember those eyebrows anywhere.” A small dig, but a dig nonetheless.

Silence fell between the two and a hand gripped onto Silas’ hand to drag him into their office. Metzli wanted privacy, especially if there was something supernatural going on. Silas could have general memory loss, or be possessed, or maybe he was feral, or maybe he had a twin. Though, there was no way the scents would match exactly. Regardless, they wanted to get to the bottom of this.

“Okay,” Metzli began, sitting on their desk and crossing their arms, “Let’s go through this. It was you, but you don’t remember. That much is obvious given your genuine confusion. I think you’d remember hitting me with your own fucking arm and laughing hysterically.” Red eyes met with Silas’ and then they quickly faded back to black. Even with their composure intact, they were ready to pounce at any given moment.

---

“A fight?” Silas parroted them, eyes widening. “I don’t—what are you talking about?” The gentle tease drew a scoff from him, but anger was hardly his reaction. He was too damn confused to be angry, in all truthfulness.

Aforementioned brows rose at the intrusion of his personal space, but he didn’t put up much of a fight as they dragged him out of the entryway. “What the fuck,” he breathed to himself, crossing his arms over his chest once they were alone and Metzli had relinquished their grip on him, mirroring their defensive stance.

“My—my arm?” the zombie bleated in disbelief, immediately looking down at his limbs as if they would have suddenly sprouted little legs and taken off on their own. They were still both present, of course, and functioning as well as they ever had. He glanced back up just in time to catch the red glint in their eyes, and felt his stomach drop. Fuck.

“Look, uh… I don’t know, I think you got the wrong guy,” he backpedaled, rubbing his hands up and down his own arms. It was weird hearing someone tell you you’d done something you couldn’t remember—even worse when they told you you’d been dismembered doing it. “All arms are present n’ accounted for, so… sorry somebody jumped you, but I don’t see how it coulda been me…”

---

Eyes narrowed, annoyed and displeased. “Obviously you’re a zombie. I’m not an idiot. Your limbs heal fast.” Sucking their teeth, Metzli stood erect and paced around their desk to reach a drawer with a few bottles of wine. Today felt like a generous one. As they took two glasses out and poured, they raised their brows and spoke. “Listen, I believe you when you say you don’t know what I’m talking about. This place is fucking weird, and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone hijacked your body or if you were sleep walking. But it was you. I can smell you.” A glass was pushed forward to Silas, a gesture of good will.

The wine was dry, and a special blend that they had purchased from a special bar, but given Silas’ condition, they didn’t think it’d be an issue. Dulled taste was something that the two of them shared, but the blood would add something to it. “Hope you don’t mind some blood in it. It just actually tastes like something if there’s a little in it.” The first sip settled most of the nerves from seeing someone Metzli suspected to be an enemy, and the next few did well to quell the rest. “Do you run into this issue often at all? Or is this a first?”

---

Obviously you’re a zombie. Silas’ spine stiffened, his posture becoming rigid as he suddenly felt overly-exposed. It wasn’t a fact he went around telling just everyone, and frankly, it was something he himself was still coming to terms with. The idea that this perfect stranger could—no, he supposed they weren’t a perfect stranger, not anymore. Not since he’d apparently attacked them in the middle of the night.

The thought of it made the knot in his stomach grow tighter, and he stared blankly at the glass as it was pushed toward him. “You can… smell me?” Fucking hell, did he stink? He hadn’t noticed, and no one else he’d been in close proximity with that day had made any indication… what the—

“Never mind, don't answer that. I’m… eugh,” Silas groaned, reaching for the glass with a thankful nod. Looking down at it, his ears pricked at the mention of blood. “Who’s blood?” he asked, though the question wasn’t delivered in a way that seemed accusatory, just curious.

“Often? No, I don’t think so.” There was a beat of silence. “Well, maybe. M’not sure. Lately, I guess… lately I’ve been losin’ time. Didn’t think much of it.” Lifting the glass to his lips, the zombie took a long sip, relishing the way it actually managed to tickle his taste buds. “Figured… it was a diet thing.” Giving a half-hearted shrug, he let his gaze flick back to meet Metzli’s. “Sorry about—I, ah… didn’t know I had it in me.”

---

Metzli smiled and then laughed heartily, “I have a very keen sense of smell. Comes with the bite.” A single brow quirked upwards and their smile didn’t waver. “Don’t know whose blood it is, but the barkeep let me know that it was all donated willingly. That was enough for me.” Their shoulders rose and fell in a shrug, a little dismissive of the question. Knowing that much about how the blood was sourced was good enough for them. It had to be. Being ethical about where their source of sustenance came from was becoming a real burden. But they supposed if they were going to be good, it was worth a shot.

“Losing time? Sounds like a run of the mill possession. Piss off any ghosts lately, Sylvain?” Metzli inquired, more out of curiosity than concern. Silas was a stranger, but Metzli knew Sylvain from last night. “Someone could be taking your body for a joyride and you don’t even know it. If you can figure that out, you can generally ward the ghost off and be done with it.”

---

Possession? Syl— “What?” The reaction was unguarded, unfiltered, and absolutely wracked with shock. Silas couldn’t even immediately respond, gawking at Metzli, dumbfounded, as they went on to explain what could be done about it.

“Did you just… call me Sylvain?” His voice was barely above a whisper, the wine glass clutched tightly in his hands, pale knuckles somehow turning an even brighter shade of white. His eyes darted to the side, staring at something that was just behind his host. Breaths came quick and shallow while a ringing started up in his ears—he’d never felt this kind of fear when seeing the ghost of his sibling before, but now… The spectre was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and Silas was unsure if he’d only imagined it.

“Fuck.” While trying to steady his panic, the zombie downed a large portion of the wine Metzli had so kindly offered, glancing around the room like he was expecting a boogeyman to jump out at any second. “My brother. My twin, I—we, uh… it’s a long story.” Another gulp of wine. “He’s been dead for a long time. Since we were kids.” Why would he…?

---

Brows furrowed in confusion, not understanding why the name would throw him off so much. “Yeah, Sylvain. That’s the name you gave me last night.” Metzli answered, still not quite catching on until he began to explain. It was their turn to be shocked, mouth agape and unable to say anything for a few moments while they let their thoughts settle. “Looks like your brother has been having a little fun at your expense. I’d probably start sleeping with a salt ring around ya.” Voice was clearly joking, not registering the sensitivity the topic held.

“What’s your actual name then?” Metzli asked as they poured more wine into Silas’ glass and theirs too. Legs crossed and they adjusted their suit as inner turmoil painted itself on their companion. “He probably just wants to live a little.”

---

“He can’t do that, he can’t just…” Heaving a sigh, Silas pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger, eyes squeezed shut. “I’m Silas. And whatever happened last night was definitely not…” His hand fell from his face, eyelids fluttering open as he stared off into the middle distance. His voice was low and soft, laced with disbelief. “Not like Sylvain.”

A few more beats, and he glanced down at the glass in his hand, recently refilled. His gaze was hard and purposeful, as if he’d find all his answers in the deep red liquid. “He’s been around since it happened. I could always feel him. Didn’t actually see him til’ I got turned, ah’course. N’ he ain’t like any other ghost I’ve ever interacted with, he’s… quiet. Real quiet. Just stares at me, watches me, all hours of the day and night. Catch ‘im sometimes in the reflections of windows n’ puddles in the road, lookin’ at me… don’t know what he wants.”

You do now, his thoughts interjected. “Might be mad about what happened…” Of course he’s mad. It was your fault.

Forcing himself to look at Metzli again, Silas let out a soft, embarrassed chuckle. “Shit, sorry. This is a… lot. Mm, yeah—a lot. Thanks, uh, for the drink.” Lifting the glass in their direction, the zombie couldn’t hide the distant look of worry in his eyes, though he appeared to be trying to force his way past it. “Anyway, um… how badly did you kick my ass last night? M’curious.”

---

Metzli was familiar with that distant look, seeing it many times on themselves and others. The severity of the situation finally reached them, and made them suck their teeth in discomfort. “Uh, sorry about that...man.” Words were slow and awkward, unsure of how to go about it. Though they didn’t particularly feel bad, they knew how to logically see the circumstances for what they were: fucking depressing.

“You don’t have to go into any details. That’s your business,” Metzli said quickly, hoping he wouldn’t continue. That would just make everything feel even more cumbersome. “Didn’t do much ass kicking if I’m being honest.” A smile curled onto their lips and a chuckle tickled their throat. “I pretty much just tried to wear you out enough to just walk away. I was pretty drunk too.”

There was a knock at the door, followed by Janet, their employee, opening it and telling them that the final patron left. With a nod, they thanked her and waved her away. “Well Silas, the painting class should start soon. Think the class could help get your mind off things? Maybe even get you out of that writer’s block.”

---

Grateful that they didn’t press for more information, Silas allowed a small, amused smile to play at his lips. “Explains why I was so fucking exhausted when I.. came to back at home.” Fuck all of that. There had to be a way to get Sylvain to just leave him alone, once and for all. The presence of his twin had lost all its comfort years ago.

Looking between the two, Silas took another large gulp of the wine, nodding in agreement. “Yeah, yeah,” he said once he was able, “worth a shot, anyway.” Hell, it sounded like he might have plenty to write about after all… like the experience of being fucking possessed, for one. If only he could remember it.

---

“Follow me. You can bring your glass too.” Metzli beckoned him with a wave and walked out of their office. The painting room was only a few paces away and already seemed to have a few of the frequent customers Metzli saw on a weekly basis. Their scents were registered in their mind and they smiled. “Hopefully the class does you some good. And sorry you didn’t get a chance to view the rest of the gallery. That was my bad.” Words were spoken away from Silas, arms crossed behind them. Upon reaching the room, a finger pointed towards a rack of smocks. “Grab a smock from there and put it over your clothes. Class will start soon.”

Friendly faces smiled and waved as the two creatures walked in, greeted in return with a smile full of charm. “Hey Tim, hey Lorraine.” They waved and gestured toward Silas. “This is Silas. He’s trying it out today. Make sure to give him a few pointers.” A playful wink floated its way to Silas when they turned and they chuckled. Demeanor completely changed to cater towards the teaching position they were now in.

Removing their suit jacket, they went to the front of the room and put on a red smock to cover the rest of their suit. Canvases were all up, including theirs and the clock ticked its hand on the 7, indicating class should begin. “All right painters, let’s get started. Today is a novice class, so we will be painting something relatively simple, but fun.” The painting to their right was of a landscape during the night, full of trees and stars, even a few shooting in the sky.

---

“Oh, no, don’t worry ‘bout it—just means I can come back again soon to give it a proper look.” Wandering after Metzli, Silas was impressed by the shift in their demeanor. They sure were professional, if nothing else. Sipping awkwardly at the wine still in his hand, he used the other to throw a small wave back at the strangers, recognizing one of them from a coffee shop they’d both been in a few weeks back. When the introduction was made and attention shifted fully to him, he bit his lower lip and forced a smile, glancing down at his boots. He wasn’t normally this shy, but something was seriously throwing him off tonight. “Oh yeah, I’m real garbage at it—y’all are gonna have to carry me,” he warned playfully, managing to steal a glance at the strangers before letting his attention fall back on the gallery owner.

Something told Silas that he wouldn’t mind coming back here at all. Metzli seemed like a good sort.

Setting down his glass by a blank, unclaimed canvas, the zombie went to fetch a smock and loop it over his neck, watching how the others prepared for the evening’s activity and mimicking them. And, very much as expected, his skill was lacking. His peers would occasionally lean over to give him a pointer when they heard him mutter under his breath about how the paint wasn’t cooperating, still encouraging him despite the preschooler level of talent that was displayed on the canvas in front of him, but… he was enjoying it. If nothing else, it had removed the thought of his brother from his mind entirely, and the escape from anxiety was welcome. At some point, he pulled his long hair back into a messy bun, succeeding in ensuring he’d need a shower when he got home as the blue paint on his fingers tinted his dark hair.

As Metzli made their rounds, Silas gave them a sheepish grin as they approached to see his progress. “Painting only a mother could love,” he joked at his own expense, giving them a shrug. “Still, though… I think it’s doin’ the trick. Thanks again, for the suggestion, and—” He looked down at the now-emptied glass of wine, brows raised, “you’re gonna have to tell me where you got that, so I can get some of my own.”

---

With every brush stroke, the rest of the painters followed and listened to instruction carefully. Teaching wasn’t something that Metzli saw themselves doing, but there was a feeling of accomplishment when there was at least one student that did well. Tonight was not one of those nights though, and all the students were very amateur or…Silas. But given the evening he was having, they thought it best to be gentle. “Nonsense, Silas. We all start…” Metzli gestured to the painting, “…somewhere.”

A chuckle rang out and Metzli patted Silas on the shoulder. “I’ll give you the other bottle I have in my office. A little gift on me and an incentive to come back. I like you, so maybe we can be friends.”

Making one last round around the room, they walked to the front once more and finished the class with the final brush strokes on the canvas. Everyone presented their paintings, and complimented one another before packing up and shuffling out of the room, leaving the undead alone. “So what did you think? You gonna come every week?”

---

Releasing a breathy chuckle, Silas supposed that was a fair enough deal—a new friend in exchange for a bottle of wine. Graciously accepting the encouraging words of his peers before they all emptied out of the gallery, the zombie gave Metzli a sidelong glance before breaking out into his own laugh. “Well shit, I think I have to, now. I get the feeling Lorraine would hunt me down and give me an earful for giving up after the first night.” His eyes squinted in a grin as his chin tilted down toward the floor, hands bracing against his hips in a thoughtful pose.

“But yeah, I don’t see why I shouldn’t—it was fun, even though I’m shit at it.” He was compelled to thank them again, but it would have been too many times in one evening, so he bit his tongue instead. “Plus… you’re not so bad,” he teased, nose wrinkling. “Oh! But, uh… if you ever wanna see me doin’ somethin’ a little more in my wheelhouse, I play at Del’s most Friday nights ‘round ten. Sometimes we got the whole band, sometimes it’s just me, but.. yeah. Dunno how ya feel ‘bout gothic folk, but if you’ve never given it a listen, y’should stop in some time after class.”

---

“Gothic folk? Sounds like fun. I’ll visit some time and check it out. I gather there’ll be fiddle and everything?” Metzli loved fiddle as much as they loved classical violin. Stringed instruments held a special place. “Maybe we could even play a tune or two together. I actually play guitar. Mostly Mexican acoustic. I like to stay close to my heritage.” They smiled and patted Silas’ shoulder to lead him out of the room and back towards their office.

Grabbing the bottle, they turned and spoke with a more serious tone, “On a less lighter note, I would seriously consider sleeping with a salt circle around your room or even just your bed. At least until you figure out what the hell to do.” Metzli shrugged and handed the bottle over to Silas. “At least you made a fantastic friend and even got a free painting class though. Next one though, you’re totally paying. Paint ain’t cheap.” The tone shifted, just as they had planned. Things had been serious too often lately for them, and it would be nice to not have to deal with much more of it.

“Did we cure your writer’s block at all?”

---

Brightening like a kid who’d just been asked what his favorite kind of dinosaur was, Silas nodded energetically. “Hell yeah there’ll be fiddle, that’s my specialty.” Hearing that Metzli was a fellow acoustic enthusiast, his delight only grew. “Really? That’d be dope! M’always keen for a jam session. Get that though—stickin’ to your roots. My whole family is from down in the Louisiana bayous. Spent many a summer there with ‘em… definitely a significant influence on the kind of sound I make. Dixieland, that’s what I grew up hearin’.”

Following after them as the pair re-entered the office, Silas held out a hand to accept the bottle, his own boyish grin fading as the topic shifted. “Yeah…” the young man sighed, “yeah… you’re probably right. I’ll pick up some Morton’s on the way home.” The grin returned in a flash, softer and lopsided, but still a far cry from the fear he’d felt previously. A laugh was quick to follow, thumbs brushing over the label of the wine bottle as he offered Metzli a shrug. “You know what? I think we did.” Giving them a resolute nod, he pressed his lips into a thin line. “Body-snatching ghost twin… that’s got some fuckin’ songs buried in it, at the least. Sheesh.” A comfortable silence passed between them for a beat before Silas puffed out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

“Well… shouldn’t keep you any longer. Thanks, uh… yeah.” Too much. Grinning apologetically, the zombie held out a hand to shake. “Gotta get home and take a three hour shower, since apparently I stink,” came an afterthought of a quip, married with a chuckle. “Good meeting you, Metzli. See you around, yeah?”

---

Metzli was really enjoying the energy that Silas emanated. “Looking forward to hearing your sound and maybe even playing something together.” They smiled, matching the same spark of their counterpart. Even with the overwhelming news of his long dead brother possessing him, Silas was undeterred. At least, that’s what he presented externally. Metzli knew all too well what it was like to sew together the pieces of a torn facade. A performance, a dance they understood after decades of being on that stage.

“Glad to be of assistance. Hasta luego, carnal.” Metzli gave a friendly wave, watching their zombie friend walk away with a renewed spirit. Today, they made a choice to make a new friend. Every day it seemed like they added someone new, further rooting themselves to White Crest. Rooting themselves to the first place they could ever call home.

[alarawriting]

Inktober #2: Mindless

The patient was sitting on the table, dressed in a hospital gown, looking deeply irritated. “I don’t even know why I’m here. I wanted to go to Five Guys,” he said. “Why didn’t you take me to Five Guys?”

The woman with him – close to the same age, late 20’s or early 30’s – sighed. She sounded exasperated. “Greg, we have talked about this. You’re here because—”

“You know, there’s a great sale on fishing gear at Walmart. I could be at Walmart right now buying fishing gear.”

“You don’t even fish!”

“Hello,” I said. “I’m Dr. Park. What brings you here today?”

“Nothing!” Greg Landers, my patient, said. He was a white guy with brown hair and stubble on his face, medium build, and looked overall reasonably healthy. “I’m fine! I just want to go to Five Guys. Or you know, Charles Schwab is a great place to open up your 401K. They’ve got a satisfaction guarantee. You won’t see that at every investment firm!”

“He’s been like this for days,” the woman with him said. “He won’t go to work, he won’t do chores around the house… he eats, but he spends the whole time complaining that it’s not some restaurant he wants to go to. Mostly Five Guys. Greg doesn’t even like burgers that much.”

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced, Ms.--?”

“Oh, I’m Nicole Landers. I’m Greg’s wife.” I’d figured it was something like that.

“So tell me about Greg’s online activities. Do you know what he’s been doing lately?”

“Playing Hell War!” Greg said eagerly. “It doesn’t cost any money to play! I want to know if I have what it takes to beat the Lords of Hell!”

Nicole sighed again. “Two weeks ago you were telling me that Hell War was a cheap cash grab and that it’s impossible to win without spending your entire paycheck on in-app purchases. Also you’ve never liked mobile games.”

“Has he played any VR games recently?”

“Are we done here? I am really jonesing for some Five Guys. And then we can go over to Walmart!”

“Oh, yeah,” Nicole said. “We both play Fimbulwinter – that’s a survival game about a post-apocalyptic world plunged into eternal winter – and La Vie en Verte, that’s virtual gardening. He also plays Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, that’s a space game, but I’m not into that so much.”

Time to be politic. “Do you think he might ever have played a… well, a porn sim? Or been on a site for pirating games?”

“You know, I think I want my next car to be a Hyundai Annunciator. Those cars are slick. And they handle like anything, even in bad weather! And the mileage before recharge, wow. Amazing batteries on those guys!”

To my surprise, Nicole laughed. “Oh, yeah, Greg does porn sims. He’s bi and genderfluid, so he likes to go online in a female avatar and have sex with dudes. Not really my thing, but he lets me watch if I want.” My shock must have shown on my face. “What? It’s the 21st century, you think I’m one of those women who clutches pearls and has the vapors if my husband plays porn games? I can’t be a man for him and I’m too straight to want him when he’s wearing femmy clothes, but the porn sim can give him those things without him exposing himself to diseases or other risks by going with real people.”

While Nicole was explaining this, Greg told us what upcoming movies he thought were going to be “really awesome”, repeated his request for Five Guys, tried to explain the plot of Hell War in five-word sentences that were plainly marketing material, and talked about the lawnmower he wanted. Nicole rolled her eyes as he finished. “Greg, we live in an apartment. We don’t even have a lawn!”

“We could go to Century 21 and shop for a house! I know their agents will put us first.”

“And why would we want to do that?”

“So we can have a lawn! The Home Depot sells the best grass seed—”

He went on like this, but I stopped listening. “I don’t need to check anything else, Nicole. I’m sorry. Your husband’s become a zombie.”

“A what?” Nicole looked horrified. Belatedly I realized that just because she played VR games and was open-minded about her husband’s porn habit didn’t mean she was IT-savvy enough to know what I was talking about.

“Sorry, that’s not the medical term for them. He’s still alive, and physically he’s fine. But mentally, his consciousness isn’t operating his body. His brain’s been hijacked by an information virus.”

“An information virus? And what’s that got to do with zombies?”

“An information virus is like a computer virus for people. And we call people infected with this type ‘zombies’ because they’re not actually conscious.”

Nicole looked at Greg, who was animatedly explaining why TGIFriday was the best sit-down restaurant, ever, but Five Guys was in a league of its own. “He looks pretty conscious to me.”

“Ask yourself, Nicole, when Greg is normally conscious, does he spend his entire time sounding like a series of poorly mastered YouTube commercials?”

“No, that’s why I brought him here!”

“Right. The human brain can do an amazing lot of stuff without being conscious of it. You ever set out to drive a certain way, but part of it goes the way you usually do to a different destination, and you find that without paying attention you’ve somehow managed to drive halfway to the place you usually go rather than the place you’re trying to get to?”

“I hardly ever drive. We have self-driving cars.”

I controlled the impulse to sigh. That one was the best explanation. “Ok, well, if you think about how you type on a keyboard – when you start, you’re awkward and you’re hunting and pecking. But it gets to the level of muscle memory and you can just do it, without having to consciously think about it. Or mastering the controls for a new game.”

“Yeah, I guess…”

“I wanna go home and watch CSI: Racial Justice Unit! That is the best show on television today. You know it won an Emmy last year, right?”

“Greg’s brain has been hijacked by an information virus that compels him to advertise for maybe up to 40 different brands that he’s aware of. He probably caught the virus on a porn site; that or an illegal pirated game site, those are usually the biggest vectors. Some of those brands might be aware that the advertisers they’re working with are engaged in really shady practices like this, but most think they’re paying for ‘brand ambassadors’ who’ve voluntarily chosen to talk up the brand to their family and friends. The virus lets him do anything you can do without being conscious, and it turns out, that’s a lot more than people think it is. But right now he has no sense of rational judgement, his normal levels of compassion and empathy are almost entirely turned off, and he has no awareness that everything he says is an advertisement.”

“So – what can we do? Is it curable? Is he suffering? Oh, God, is he trapped inside his own mind while his body is running around spouting ads?”

“No. The real Greg, his actual consciousness, isn’t awake – that’s kind of what happens when people aren’t conscious. And yes, it’s very curable. I’m going to have him sit in this booth with a VR headset on and watch a detoxification protocol, and that should do the trick.”

“It won’t hurt him, will it?”

“No, not at all. It just nullifies the virus and wakes him up.”

“Ok. Let’s do that then.”

“Mr. Landers!” I interrupted his monologue about the Hyundai Annunciator. “Can you sit in this chair and put on this headset, please?”

“But I’m really hungry. I want Five Guys.”

“I think Nicole would be happy to take you to Five Guys after you watch this short VRdeo. Isn’t that right, Nicole?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure.” From her expression I could tell she would rather swallow a live earthworm, but anything to get him to sit down and watch.

“Well, okay. Long as I can have Five Guys after.” Greg sat down in the chair, I put the headset on him, and for ten minutes, that was that. I talked to Nicole about the importance of strong antivirals on the VR headset, not just relying on your network firewall, and maybe running a quick one-minute detox scan after ending a game.

The timer beeped, and I removed Greg’s headset. “How do you feel, Greg?” I asked.

“Okay, I guess, but I still want to go get Five Guys. Hey, Nickie, you promised, can we leave now?”

My eyebrows went up. “That’s… unusual.”

“It didn’t work?” Nicole was clearly on the verge of a panic attack.

“It didn’t, but calm down. This just means I have to go to the next level and do a manual treatment. That’s going to take a while, but I’m really curious as to how this particular bug survived the detox, so I tell you what; if you can wait, I have, I think, three more patients on the schedule for today, and then we can do Greg’s treatment.” Normally I’d ask them to make a second appointment for a thing like this, but my detox VRdeo was brand new, just updated yesterday. I wanted to see what kind of bug could get through a brand new scan, and I didn’t want to wait until next week or whenever my calendar was clear enough for a half hour session.

“I… guess we can wait…”

“Well, if we’re not doing anything, then how about we go to Five Guys?”

“Just take him,” I said. “It might shut him up for a little while, and it’s not likely to do him any harm.”

“But Greg doesn’t even like burgers.”

“Greg Landers the human man with a unique intelligence and personality doesn’t like burgers. Greg the Zombie, the cookie-cutter advertising goon, does. Unless he’s got allergies or sensitivities and can’t eat burgers—”

“No, he just doesn’t like them.” Nicole looked at her feet. “I… guess I could take him. When do we have to be back?”

I gave her my best estimate of how long it was going to take to get through the last three patients, and then as I walked them to the door I let the receptionist know to expect them back.

***

Once they were back, I sat Greg down with an interactive VRdeo that I’d be running with him, and then sat down and put on my own headset.

The information viruses work by directly injecting “code” from the brain’s “operating system” through either the optic or auditory channels, or both, but you don’t perceive them as code. You perceive them as something else. I don’t know what Greg saw – for everyone it’s different – but for me, it was very brief flashes of something I could barely see, something dark and full of wrongness, accompanied by a very brief flash of panic and horror. My brain knows when something’s trying to invade it from the outside. But my headset had the newest antivirals on it and the best, most sophisticated dedicated firewall, so for me the code injection attempts were just that, attempts.

The VRdeo that was running was highly interactive, keyed to produce full sensorium response – a perfect breeding ground for a zombie virus. Greg’s viruses couldn’t resist the opportunity to replicate and invade someone else. But that was not happening today. As the viruses struck out at me, my security grappled with them, analyzed them, and fed me images that in turn I could feed back to Greg that would neutralize that particular virus.

When we were finished, I once again asked him, “How do you feel, Greg?”

He was looking around in bewilderment. “This… is a doctor’s office? How the hell did I even get here? Did I pass out or something, Nickie?”

“Oh, thank God!” Nicole said.

“Looks like that did the trick,” I said. “Make sure you run antivirals, like I said. Good ones, don’t skimp on the cost. If you’ve got the money to game, you’ve got the money to protect yourself while gaming.”

“Thank you, Doctor, you’re a wonder—”

“What the hell is going on? What was wrong with me?”

I let Nicole explain to her husband as they walked out the door, and I locked up for the night. It’d been a long day, and I was hungry. I could really go for some Five Guys.

[lisinfleur]

Mishaps - Chapter 04: Closer

Author's notes: I fought like hell with this chapter. It was supposed to shorten the story, but well, who said I am the writer here? hahaha My stories are temperamental and have their own lives and well... Mishaps decided it will be longer. Period.

Warnings: SMUT. And ANGST.

Words: 3815

The hunting cabin of his family, at first sight, looked like a whole new world brought straight from a zombie apocalypse movie: the place was built in the middle of the woods, hidden from civilization and away from the road. To reach the cabin, you guys had to leave the road down through a dirt road for almost half of an hour until Ubbe had to go out of the car to open a small gate. Then, another half of an hour in a private trail that ended in a medium cottage entirely built of treated trunks - which made the house almost invisible in the middle of the trees where it was located.

However, the rustic impression was nothing but a design: inside, the whole place was lustful and well-furnished with furs and a decoration utterly turned to the hunting and fishing contests they must have done there in between the family members. "Pretty much a place for men to reunite, drink beer, laugh, and dispute whose cock is bigger while too drunken to measure it properly," you thought, and this thought brought a small smile to your face.

Maybe Ragnar wasn't a father like yours, after all...

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Hvitserk said, attracted by the smile on your lips. "My father made it for us. A place for us to rest during some holidays or free time. We used to come together in the hunting season and dispute who would bring the bigger hare or deer," he said, nostalgic.

Causing Ubbe to giggle from the door while coming in with the bags he took from the car.

"Yeah. Those contests were incredible, but in the end, Faðir always would bring the bigger one," he commented.

"Or Björn," Hvitserk remembered.

"They were the older ones and more experienced. I wish we could do a contest like that now that the dispute would be fair enough... I would kick Björn's ass with my new shooting skills!" Ubbe affirmed.

Their light conversation making you forget for a moment the situation you were into. They weren't your boyfriend and brother in law chatting about a family event or missing their father...

They were your hijacker and his brother who hours ago had a gun pointed to your head, ready to kill you with a single shot... And you knew that.

But you just wanted to forget. Just as you wanted to forget who you were. Where you came from.

"He's getting old. I doubt he could face a bear as he did that season do you remember, Ubbe??"

You wanted to sit there in that soft couch, your bare feet rubbing the fur of a bear rug - probably the bear they were talking so lightly about how their older brother had killed with nothing but a knife - and listen to that conversation with a smile in your face, getting impressed about your elder brother in law's skills just to get your boyfriend jealous of you...

You wanted to be there just for a moment with Hvitserk and not because the two of you had to hide so no one would discover you were a prisoner and he was a drug dealer trying to flee from the law.

But you couldn't.

Just as you couldn't tell your best friend your true name the true story of your life even knowing she was trusting you with her bigger secrets.

Just as you couldn't really sound nostalgic when telling any stupid story from the past Christmas with your friends.

You couldn't just erase your true life, get rid of your true memories and wake up someday really being Marie Ann Watson, to live without that sensation your whole life was a lie.

"Annie?"

Hvitserk's voice sounded calling your attention and you noticed the room was silent.

You were so absorbed in your own thoughts and doubts that you didn't even notice when Ubbe left the two of you alone in the cabin or when the conversation between the brothers had finished.

"Sorry... I was...”

"Lost," Hvitserk smiled caressing your face softly. "You must be tired, love. It was a long day and it has been being a long time for you, I know this. You should take a bath and then we could sleep a little. Ya know, like my father used to say when we were here: if you want some pizza here, you'll have to hunt the pepperoni. So, a little bit of sleep will be good for me to hunt something for us tomorrow."

You giggled at his little joke and it seemed to make him happy. Hvitserk liked to see your smiles more than anything. He was becoming really good at getting them. His fingers slid through your cheek, softly caressing your chin.

"This way is better," Hvitserk said, smiling softly at you. "I like when I can make you smile."

"I like when you make me smile," you answered, curving your lips a little more at him.

He came closer, nuzzling his nose against yours before softly pecking your lips.

"We'll find a way to solve this shit. And I... I'll find a way out. Ubbe and I want to stop. To live a normal life, away from this shit. We'll find a way out of this and then... Then it will be just you and me."

Promises you really wanted to see happening in your lives. Your arms softly embraced Hvitserk's neck and he covered your mouth with his lips, enjoying a long and loving kiss.

More and more you were fallen for that man and, at the same time, the more you were in love, the more guilty you felt.

The truth in your throat, like a knot...

The fear of losing what you were becoming to each other was eating you inside, not only by the feelings you had for Hvitserk but also by the fear of becoming something disposable to men like him and his brothers...

The problem with the time was also bothering you: there was already more than a month you were with him. The longer you were missing, the harder would be explaining your little disappearance to the police officers and it could really get Hvitserk some troubles.

Or worse...

It could cause them to change you once again. To move your location and change your identity one more time, forcing you to leave everything behind and start from zero once again.

Everything.

Including him.

"What's bothering you, babe?" Hvitserk asked against your lips, feeling something wasn't right with you today.

"How long will we stay like this?" you asked, looking at him "Hidden, I mean..."

He sighed.

"Officer Aethelwulf has been a pain in our asses for a while. He wants desperately to show some service and he has been trying to fuck up with us since my father was alive. For some reason, your missing person report went to his hands and now he's probably trying to make the right connections to relate us to your disappearance so he can bust one of us or the whole family."

You knew why...

Officer Aethelwulf was the one responsible for your file. Of course, your missing person report would end up in his hands.

"He's kinda finding ways to press us for information so we just have to keep you here until he decides to visit my apartment. Then Ubbe will call me and I'll go there to let the jerk come in and see my apartment. Ubbe will come to pick you up while this and I'll bring the officer here, so he can see we have nothing to hide. He won't find the relation and I believe it will be problem solved for now."

Then they just had to find a way to release you, for you wouldn't be locked forever, right?

"You... Don't intend to release me?" you asked, kinda innocently.

But he pulled away from you this time, sighing deeply, frustratedly.

"We gonna think about this later, ok?" he said, trying to look at you but not to be so serious or heavy, "My brothers still don't trust you and the more I like you, Annie, I can't risk my whole family releasing you this way... I will. But not now. Not yet."

Despite you were anguished, you could understand him. There was something in you that could instigate their mistrust. Your stories never sounded real and you were always a terrible liar. It was comprehensible people like his brothers wouldn't trust you at all.

You nodded, starting to walk towards the bathroom when he held you by your wrist, sighing again.

"Look... I'm sorry about this, Annie. I really want to solve these things for you and I'll find a way. I promise you." he said, caressing your hand with his thumb.

You nodded at him, resigned.

"I know. I trust you, Hvitserk," you said, unintentionally hitting his heart with your words and your smile.

You left to the bathroom but Hvitserk sat on the couch, rubbing his face, maybe as anguished as you could be.

He wanted to trust you. He wanted to release you and to let you go back to your life, to live it right the way he was planning before.

But if you were pretending...

If you were lying to him...

His whole family would be lost and he would be the only one to blame.

Hvitserk knew he couldn't risk his whole family that way, even knowing he was really in love with you already.

There was still something about you... Something deep that he knew was hidden. Something that justified that shadow in the bottom of your eyes. Something that was making him afraid of trusting completely on you.

However, it wasn't enough to prevent his heart from falling deeply in love with you and it was also killing him slowly.

Hvitserk got up, hearing the sound of the bathtub coming from the hallway. You were bathing, as he said. He walked at the small bar at the corner of the room and poured some drink to warm himself up.

A cup or two and he sat, trying to clear his mind from the flood of thoughts about that situation, pouring some more of the old mead his father used to like in his cup.

After the fourth or fifth dose, he was feeling lighter and the sound of the bathtub wasn't coming from the hallway anymore.

He walked towards the room and stopped at the door. The sight of your body catching his eyes while you were slowly sliding the soft towel through your skin, taking out the remaining drops of water from your bath. Fresh and clean, and shivered with the cold breeze of the night that was already falling on the woods.

Hvitserk swallowed dry. He knew he shouldn't be watching you in such an intimate moment, but yet, he kept himself silent, observing while you seemed to be caressing your skin with the towel, unaware of his presence at the door.

He could feel the warmth of the drinks spreading all over his body, mixing with the heat your sight was causing in his core, making his throat dry once again, but not for another drink.

While turning yourself to dry your hair, your eyes caught his figure at the door, but somehow you didn't feel scared.

Instead, the way he was looking at you caused shivers to go down your spine.

He wanted you.

You could see it in his eyes, staring you like a wolf would stare a hare.

And god... He was a tease for you since the beginning. It wasn't the first time you would lay down with a man, but there was a long time since your first experience.

And you wanted it...

You wanted it so bad...

You couldn't really explain why you turned yourself to him, looking into his eyes. You couldn't say if it was the heat in your body, the way his eyes were arousing you, or if it was only the immense need you had into you to have him without a single thought in your mind about your past, your present or the future of the two of you.

For some reason you chose to ignore, you opened the towel in your body, slowly letting it fall through your skin, showing your entire nakedness to his hungry eyes almost as an invitation mutely accepted by the glow of desire that filled his blues.

He came forward and you felt his warm hands touching your waist, shivering your skin with the contrast of temperatures in between his fingers and your fresh skin. You softly opened your mouth, sighing, and Hvitserk twitched his lips, clearly aroused by your sound, reflecting it in the way his hands became firmer on your hips, pulling you closer to his body.

You went without resistance, accepting his touches, sliding your hands through his collar, taking out the jacket he was wearing and throwing it to the ground, already searching the edge of his shirt to pull it up, invading his clothes with your fresh hands, retributing the shivers by touching his warm skin with your cold fingers.

He lost control.

Hvitserk's mouth covered yours in a lustful kiss and you felt his body starting to push you back towards the bed, stopping the kiss only to let the shirt pass through his head just to find the same destiny of his jacket and his shoes after it.

His clothes being left like a trail on the ground.

You fell sitting at the bed when your body reached the edge, breaking the kiss, but not the heat in between the two of you. Your hands went straight to his trousers, unbuttoning it and opening the zipper, causing the first moans and sighs of pleasure in his voice to start echoing through the room when your lips reached his lower belly in kisses as your hands were pulling down his pants and underwear.

You weren't really allowing your brain to think about how big he was or how barefaced you should be looking like, touching him shamelessly the way you were doing. All you wanted was exactly the sounds you got from his mouth in a hoarse voice when your fingers wrapped around his hot hardness, stroking his length while feeling his hand softly caressing your head, mutely asking for what was to come.

Hvitserk couldn't hold his moan of satisfaction when you slid your moistened lips around him, sucking his whole length into your mouth, causing him to bend, tamed by the pleasure.

"Shit... Oh, fucking shit! So soft!" he mumbled, barely being able to control his panting breath while you were sucking his cock so lustfully.

You never thought you could be so lascivious, but he was teasing your desire in a way no one has ever done before. You wanted him with all of you and his taste was making you even hotter than this pulsating desire making you wet.

"Fuck!" he cursed again, causing a strange feeling of satisfaction in your core when you felt his hips bucking, thrusting into your mouth erratically as if he was fighting to not to fuck your lips the way his body was begging him to.

You didn't know how to explain, but the taste of his precum and his efforts to hold himself back were making you want even more to feel him exploding and so, you fought alongside his body, causing him to moan louder when you embraced his hips, bouncing your head against his crotch, giving him the exact sensation he was trying to fight against, bringing him too close to the edge.

Hvitserk's fingers gripped your hair and he growled when you felt his shaft twitching against your tongue.

You felt his try to pull his hips away from you, but you just embraced him tighter, causing him to lose completely the control of his body and his pleasure to erupt into your lips, filling your mouth with his seed while his sounds of satisfaction were filling the room.

You were proud. Something in you was proud of the taste you just had. A man like him, a handsome one, would surely have lots of women. But how many of them had ever taken his self-control the way you did?

In his eyes, surprised on yours, you could see the answer was clear: none. No other has ever had Hvitserk so aroused, so ready. He could barely feel his erection retreating. Instead, the sight of your tongue rolling through your lips to take every single drop of his pleasure got him almost completely hard once again.

He couldn't explain what kind of goddess he found on you, but if he was sure he was in love with you before, now, Hvitserk was sure he was completely lost.

You were his damnation. his doom. And he couldn't help himself from wanting more.

Hvitserk towered his body upon yours, and you crawled back in bed, allowing him to come over the mattress, covering your body with his. His hungry mouth caught yours again and you embraced his body, kissing him back, noticing how he completely ignored the taste of his pleasure in your tongue, kissing you hungrily while one of his hands unashamedly landed in the middle of your legs, sinking his fingers into your entrance and starting to tease your clit with his thumb.

You moaned against the kiss and he hissed, aroused, cursing in a low voice against your lips that just caused you to feel even hotter.

"Shit, girl, you're so fucking wet... So damn tight!"

His words making you wetter under his fingers and his caresses causing your moans to substitute his, filling the room with your voice. Hvitserk smiled almost devilishly, increasing the pace of his thumb and curling his fingers to hit your sweet spots into your pussy, clearly playing with your pleasure as you had played with his before.

"You have a soft and silky mouth but I can't wait to taste these sweet juices of yours..." he said, licking his lips and smiling bigger as you turned your eyes darkened over his. "Open these pretty legs of yours, babe. Let me be a good boy and retribute your sweet surprise".

You didn't argue. Instead, Hvitserk felt your legs opening under him, more, like a new invitation that caused him to smile bigger.

"Such a good girl!" he praised, lowering himself in the middle of your legs, never breaking the contact of your eyes until his lips embraced your pulsating core in an intimate kiss that filled the whole room with your voice.

"Shit!" It was your time to curse and he smiled, licking his lips wet from your juices to mumble against your inner labia, causing the vibration to send shivers up your spine while he was speaking.

"So sweet!"

You felt his arms wrapping your hips from under your thighs and he laid his mouth on you, leaving you no choice but enjoy the feeling of his tongue exploring your intimacy entirely. You couldn't flee, for his embrace wasn't allowing you more than moving your hips to slide your clit in his tongue from time to time.

Not that it was really necessary: Hvitserk's skills were really way better than your imagination allowed you to estimate and you couldn't feel a single inch of your pussy he wasn't licking or sucking someway.

It didn't take too long for him to have you arching your body against the bed, gripping his hair strongly, ruining his man bun and making a mess of him when you came into his mouth, felling the pleasure spreading all over your body while he was thirstily licking you clean.

However, instead of calming his desire, your orgasm just set him on fire and, without giving you time to recover, Hvitserk crawled his way upon your body, easing his hardness into your still throbbing walls, moaning with pure bliss by feeling himself involved in your heat.

"Oh, god! Hvitserk!" you moaned, embracing his torso, lost in the pleasure, sinking your nails down his back when he suddenly started thrusting into your oversensitive channel, almost punishing you by the amount of pleasure you put him through. "Hvitserk! Babe!"

You tried to call him, but Hvitserk just kept thrusting, wildly, sliding your body up in the bed and hitting the wooden headboard full strength against the wall. The repetitive sound of his rhythm was mixing with your moans and his gasps of effort.

You could feel how tense his arms were when you relaxed under him, embracing his neck, kissing his skin as if your kisses and soft caresses were a reward for all the pleasure he was making you feel.

Slowly, your caresses reduced his pace. And he started going deeper into your body, getting longer moans and a tighter embrace from your hands around his body. One of them you slid into his hair, loosen it from the bun, watching as it opened like a curtain beside your face. You slid your fingers through the strands, caressing his nape, feeling as he rolled his hips in a different movement just to make you moan a little louder for his pleasure.

Hvitserk was filling you so well! His size seemed to be perfect for yours, your walls tightening embracing his shaft causing his efforts to become harder and harder as the pleasure was mining his strength.

In a few minutes, your skins were glued on sweat. His mouth against yours, panting, mixing your breath with his when you lovingly bit his lower lip before kissing him passionately.

Hvitserk couldn't deny anymore. He couldn't say it wasn't to be. The two of you were perfect together and when he felt your body clenching around him one more time, he wrapped his arms around your torso, embracing you tight into his arms and against his chest, thrusting a little bit faster just to release his seed into your walls, making you feel even warmer than your own juices made you.

With his panting breath, Hvitserk mumbled in your ear something that would be the perfect sentence to be heard after such deep and intimate intercourse.

"I love you," he confessed, nuzzling his face on yours, slowly recovering his breath control, and lightly kissing your skin and the crook of your neck "I love you, Annie. I love you..."

Annie...

You felt your eyes fill with a thin line of tears you didn't let pour. And you embraced Hvitserk tighter, feeling his body nestling into your embrace.

"I love you too..." you mumbled, swallowing dry as he softly rested his head against your chest.

Your heart heavy into your chest.

You loved him.

He loved Annie.

 But Marie Ann Watson wasn't who you really were...

And sooner or later it would be the end of you.

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[blackaquokat]

Bruised Hearts

Fandom: WKM

Pairing: DAtective (Abe x Y/N District Attorney)

Summary: In which an innocent outing turns into a fist fight and the fall out leads to an unexpected consequence.

(Or, alternatively, the author attempts to write in another character with mixed results.)

A/N: Hey guess what? I didn’t forget about this, but I had three different drafts and hated each of them until I finally powered through this one. I ended up going with suggestions by @beereblogsstuff , @dontworryaboutanything , and @skidspace but I did love ALL the suggestions in my inbox, so I will be tackling them at later dates. Something to note: this won’t be canon in Law & Disorder. Instead, this will be part of a different one which will be more in line with the canon suggested in Wilford Motherloving Warfstache. Take from that what you will.

(Spot the Ocean’s 11 Reference in this piece.)

Now, without further ado, here is the DAtective Installment of my 200 Follower Celebration works!

Oo00oO

“This is taking some getting used to…” his partner comments as they adjust their new glasses.

“I thought you had glasses when you were a DA?”

Abe thinks they look rather scholarly with the thick black rims framing their eyes. It’s still a bit of a shock to see his partner in modern-day wear, but…not an unpleasant shock.

Or at least it’s unpleasant in the way that a modern-clothed District Attorney sends his heart into sporadic beats of Morse code.  

“I only needed them for driving before,” they answer, oblivious to the heat rushing into his neck. “Or for going to the theater. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that death impaired my vision…”

Abe shouldn’t laugh, but he does. He also shouldn’t have this urge to grab their glasses and try them on himself, but that’s another problem entirely.

He half-heartedly protests when they drag him out of the biting cold air and into the nearest pub. “What’s going on here?”

“If I have to wear glasses on a regular basis now, then we’re damn well going to mark the start of this hell-fest with a drink.”

And they call him overdramatic.

(One time Abe announces a zombie apocalypse when a dead body twitched in front of him and suddenly he’s overdramatic. At least Wilford didn’t judge him, though he could have done without the gun waving at the time.)

While he’s on that line of thought…

“Shouldn’t we make sure Wilford hasn’t burned the apartment down?”

“It’ll be good to leave him alone a little longer, show him some responsibility, if he’s even at the apartment right now. Shot of whiskey, please,” they order from the bartender.

He orders a beer as his partner’s whiskey is placed in front of them. They banter back and forth, discuss the growing pile of cases waiting for them at home, and overall just…exist.

Together.

Even after a year since his partner’s unexpected return, and a little longer since Wilford destroyed his preconceptions of this nonsensical world they’re all trapped in, Abe still expects to wake up to an empty apartment. He still finds himself staring at his partner while they curse at the coffee pot, or when they sing whatever modern song they most recently discovered (lately it’s been an odd roulette of Beyoncé and some European metal group). Sometimes he’ll do something obnoxious like tug on the sleeves of their sweaters or ruffle their hair to get a rise out of them (which usually involves a hand-swat or a not-so-gentle elbow to his gut) to keep himself tethered to their presence.

(These moments tend to be hijacked by a randomly appearing Wilford, who either says something off the wall or does something rather insane to derail these moments. Abe only puts up with this since he wouldn’t have found the DA again if not for the psycho. He still questions as to when the term “psycho” became a term of endearment.)

He restrains himself from these actions now, since he’s already hyper-aware of how close they’re both standing next to each other at the bar, their glasses reflecting the hanging television screens and highlighting the liquid penny color in their eyes. Long before his partner lost their body and soul at the manor they looked like they’d witnessed eternity and scoffed at its depths, now they’re just tinged with an even darker awareness.

That eternity-tinged gaze is directed over his shoulder, narrowed in suspicion. “Can we help you?”

Abe turns to see three guys standing behind him. The one in the center has bloodshot eyes and keeps swaying from side to side.

(What kind of jackass gets flat-out drunk at eleven in the morning?)

“Hey, asshole, you’re in my seat,” the guy says without preamble. The two behind him do not look like they’re about to discourage him.

Abe chugs the last sip of his beer and settles it back atop the bar with a satisfying thunk. “I don’t see your name on it, bud.” He steps forward enough to keep his partner out of the jackass’s sight.

“I’d like you to move, pal.”

“Who you calling ‘pal,’ friend?”

“Who you calling ‘friend,’ jackass?!”

“Hey!” Abe jabs a finger at the guy. “You’re already ‘jackass’ in my head, we can’t both be jackasses today!”

“You son of a—”

“Ladies, ladies, you’re both pretty,” his partner suddenly interjects, treading between the two. “Please leave us alone before we all get kicked out for causing a scene,” they direct to the strangers.

Ever the attorney, his partner.

The trio of jackasses doesn’t hear the undercurrent of threat in their voice, however. The center jackass looks Abe’s partner up and down with something lewd and dismissive lined in his mouth. “Oh we’re way past that, birdie, now why don’t you back off and let the big boys hash it out? I can deal with you later.”

The word “deal” is emphasized with a shift of his eyebrows and Abe almost throws down right then and there, but his partner holds their arm out, as if sensing the direction of his thoughts.

Abe isn’t surprised when his partner stands their ground. They’ve never put up with being talked down to for long.

He is surprised when they clock the guy in the face without further verbal sparring.

The situation descends into chaos from there as Abe and the jackass’s friends join the fight with flying fists, bruised faces, and two bloody noses along with many other injuries until the bartender threatens to call the police.

Abe grabs the former District Attorney by the waist to keep them from giving one of the guys a second black eye. They fight vehemently against his hold.

“Whoa there, partner, take it easy—”

“Put me down, Abe, I got this!”

“I know you do, but why don’t we not deal with the cops today?”

Abe really shouldn’t enjoy carrying them outside and several blocks down, but he does. They’ve never been tiny, per se, but their solid form against his chest does odd things to his pulse. Their warmth also helps the initial rush of cold air pricking at his skin once again.

He finally releases them and they turn on him with an anger he’s certain could vaporize better men than he. Their glasses are askew, but somehow undamaged despite the peppered scratches on their cheek and split lip.

They jab a finger in his direction, voice going low. “Never. Carry. Me. Again.”

“Fine, but what the hell was that?” Abe demands. “Since when do you pick fights with total strangers?”

“If I recall, you were the one who almost got into that fight, I just beat you to it—”

“Don’t derail me with semantics, partner, what’s the problem?”

They cross their arms. Their knuckles are split and bleeding. “I didn’t realize I needed a license to beat the hell out of a bunch of perverted idiots.”

“C’mon, you know that’s not what I meant—”

But they’re already walking down the block again. Abe groans to himself and trails after them.

He doesn’t press for answers again, though it would be nice to have an answer for why he has a black eye right now.

He catches a glimpse of them shivering at the sudden rush of rain-threatening wind. They stifle the shaking once he catches up to their brisk pace.

At least this is familiar territory.

Abe takes his jacket off and puts it on their shoulders. He watches from the corner of his eye as they slip their arms into the sleeves.

As the rain slowly begins to trickles down around them, Abe spends far too much time wanting to take off their glasses to wipe the water off and maybe kiss their nose while he’s pushing boundaries.

Only the fear of another well-deserved elbow to his gut, or maybe even a punch to his face, prevents him from doing so.

Oo00oO

His partner doesn’t speak to him when they arrive home, but they do wrap up an ice pack for his eye. They head for the bathroom attached to the bedroom before he can try to fix up their own injuries, but not before he catches the guilt in their frown.  

The urge to demand an explanation wells up again, and Abe crushes it.  He can ask later, or they will tell him. He’s hoping for the latter. If he has to ask, it might mean they have no plans to bring it up themself.

And they really need to discuss this.

A quick glance around the apartment tells him that Wilford is not in, and probably has not been in for a while. Abe’s best guess is that the crazy bastard is off dancing again (when did “crazy bastard” also become a term of endearment?). So long as Abe and his partner don’t get any calls regarding any shenanigans Wilford gets up to, perhaps he and the DA can have the talk they need to have. In the meantime, he hangs up his wet jacket to dry and starts up the coffee pot because why the hell not?

A half-hour later, his partner re-enters the main room, their knuckles wrapped and the largest cut on their cheek bandaged. Their glasses rest on their nose still, smudged from a cleaning attempt it looks like. Without a word, they go sit on the couch. They pat the cushion beside them.

Abe sighs in relief. He hops over the couch and lands with a plop onto the cushions.

Before they speak, Abe blurts out, “I’m sorry.”

Their brow furrows. “I—what?”

He didn’t quite mean to jump right into this, but so long as he’s on the subject…

“You were right. I could have walked away, but I didn’t. Had you not stepped in, I definitely would have beaten the guy into a bloody pulp before you. I can’t exactly judge you for getting a head start on me. So I’m sorry for giving you a hard time about it.”

His partner taps their fingers against their forearm and shakes their head. “When I was still a lawyer, I probably would have just pulled you away and we both could have gotten out unscathed. Now…”

Abe hadn’t thought of that, but in retrospect, maybe that’s where his surprise came from. Far as he knows, they’ve only ever gotten into fistfights when no other options were available.

“Now?”

Their head tilts back to gaze at the ceiling. “Most days I still feel like I’m not here. Like I’m still trapped, like…like I still have something clawing to get out of me. When that guy looked at me the way he did…it brought back awful memories and I decided to just let it all out for a moment.” Their laugh is a bitter sound. “At the time, it felt good to let loose and finally tear into a guy without worrying about what it might do to my reputation.”

They look back at him. Their hand takes his, fingers tracing over a bruise on the back of his hand.

“I forgot, for a moment, that just because I wouldn’t necessarily be consequences for myself, didn’t mean there wouldn’t be consequences for someone else.” Their gaze is so intense Abe can barely breathe. “So I’m sorry you got hurt because I couldn’t walk away from a fight either.”

Abe should be thinking about their words, and he is, truthfully.

He remembers how uptight they were Before. Always afraid to stray off the straight and narrow the slightest bit for fear of all their hard work being undone in an instant. Even when they were undermined left and right they would keep silent, or as much as they could bear to depending on the circumstances. Abe can understand how the sudden disappearance of that intense pressure would affect them like this.

He remembers all of that.

But all he can think of now is how alive they looked when they clocked that bastard in the face. The furious fire alight in their eyes, the power of their hits, he never considered fist fights to be romantic, but then again, Abe never really had a specific type before.

Or perhaps his type has slowly taken shape into complicated former attorneys who call him out on his shit as much as they take part in it.

Abe doesn’t realize he’s moved until he’s already taken their glasses off their face and started cleaning the smudges with the bottom of his shirt. He chances a glance at his partner, who is staring at his moving hands like…well, he has no idea. A strange mix of confusion and something indefinable.

He doesn’t even try for an excuse for why he did that. And they haven’t done anything to stop him.

When he’s satisfied that the lenses are far clearer than before, Abe grins triumphantly at his handiwork, holding them up like a trophy.

His partner smiles back. There’s a bruise right on their cheekbone.

Abe means to put the glasses back onto their face, he really does. Instead he shifts closer to them, leaving enough space so they can move away if they wish to.

They don’t move.

“I will gladly have your back in any fist fights we start in the future,” he whispers. Before he can second guess himself, he pulls them in closer by the shoulder with his free hand so he can press a brief kiss to their forehead.

He intended to scurry off right after doing so, but they grab his hand and he stills. There is a long, pregnant pause.

They do not stare so much as probe deep into each other’s eyes like something out of a damn soap opera or something nonsensical and ridiculous along those lines. He wonders if they feel like their skin has been peeled away too. He wonders what they see that keeps them from breaking away from whatever this is.

Are they getting closer to him, or did he start leaning first, or is he just going crazy?

“Quite a storm out today, my friends!”

Abe and his partner jump to opposite ends of the sofa when Wilford suddenly appears, sitting on the middle cushion with his legs crossed. He’s wearing that godawful afro again. The false pink hairs are tipped with pearly raindrops.

His partner brushes their curls out of their face and clears their throat. “Hi, Wilford.”

Abe has no idea how they manage the nonchalance in their voice after the intensity of the moment five seconds before. Then again, they adapted to Wilford’s random and impossible materializing far quicker than Abe did.

“Were you out dancing?”

“Of course I was! Best way to pass a rainy day is a good disco party!”

“And the candy cane?” his partner asks.

“The what?”

They point to Wilford’s afro where, sure enough, the edge of a candy cane is sticking out.

Wilford pulls the treat out of his hair and stares at it for a moment. He shrugs and starts licking the cane, heedless of the synthetic fibers still stuck to it. “Perhaps one of Santa’s elves paid me a dance!” He declares mid-lick. “There were some lovely people there with pointed hats and striped stockings.”

“It’s October,” Abe points out. He doesn’t know why he’s still attempting to apply logic in this wherever-they-are, but it makes him feel better to try.

“An elf is an elf year round, my friend,” Wilford intones with the wisdom of an age-old scholar.

“They might have been witches, that’s all I’m saying. Wrong time of year for an elf to be hanging about.”

“Are you saying elves can’t be witches as well? My dear Abe, I wouldn’t have thought you to be so close-minded!”

“Yeah, Abe, don’t be so prejudiced,” his partner teases. “You might not get a visit from Santa otherwise.”

What the hell are they talking about right now?

His partner holds out their hand, uncaring of Wilford between them. Abe blinks and realizes he’s still holding their glasses. He hands them back sheepishly.

As they put their glasses back on, Wilford comments, “Well, look at you now, dear friend! You look like a scholar ready to prove the existence of dear old Nessie herself!”

They roll their eyes with a smile. “I appreciate that, Wilford.” They wink at Abe and he jerks his head away to hide a smirk of his own. “What are you up to now?”

“Well, now that we’re all on this couch together, I say let’s just enjoy one another’s company!”

Abe glances back to see a bowl of popcorn in Wilford’s lap, and the remote in his hand. “How the hell—?”

“Can we go to that channel that plays classic movies?” his partner asks without missing a beat. “I’ve been in a mood for something like Casablanca or Shop Around the Corner.”

“Oh, alright!” Wilford grumbles. He gestures at them wildly with the remote before switching on the television. “But I say we look for Tom and Jerry after this!”

“Sure. Now pass me the popcorn.”

Abe spares a glance at his partner again and thinks about their shattered moment. He shakes his head as a black-and-white film takes shape on the glowing television before them.

Probably for the best if he pretends there’s nothing between him and his partner. The three of them are already stuck in a world that doesn’t make sense.

Why begin one more thing he barely understands, even if it does stir up parts of him he thought were long dead?

Oo00oO

@skidspace , @peaceiplier , @wkm-detective-abe-squad , @veryobsessivefan , @lizard-in-a-skinsuit , @babymadz , @rainbowkittens97 , @peachythekeen-deactivated201810 , @statictay , @starcrossedforever87 , @dontworryaboutanything , @falseroar , @intemperantiae , @ren-mon , @memetoyoko , @soul-wolf , @musical-jim , @silver-owl413 , @sassy-in-glasses , @chelseareferenced , @sketchy-scribs-n-doods

[follyoliver]

ok so sorry to hijack this wonderful gif set but I’m trying to write fic and I’m stuck on something and I have to talk it out

How do you do a read more? Maybe I can put one in on desktop later

Anyway. When Aaron gets his arm amputated, who helps him take care of Gracie? Rick died like right after that, so everyone’s a little busy. Daryl is off in the woods looking for Rick’s body. Carol is at the Kingdom, I think, and might not want to get attached to a new baby anyway. Michonne is grieving, she already has Judith to look after, and she’s gotta fill the leadership void for Alexandria. Maggie and Tara are both at Hilltop, right? Siddiq is busy being a doctor. Enid too. Rosita is probably busy - even disregarding Rick, tensions have been ratcheting up with the Saviors, and she’s probably on alert. Eugene might be available, but he doesn’t have much of a relationship with Aaron, and I doubt he cares about babies that aren’t Rosita’s - plus, I just don’t want to write about Eugene, because I’m just never quite able to commit to liking him as a character. (He’s ok sometimes. Nobody ever holds him responsible enough for his massive betrayals.) Gabriel is busy being the town’s only religious figure in a time where that would be in pretty high demand, I suspect. (Though the show rarely goes there.) Jesus is at Hilltop and he also doesn’t have much of a relationship with Aaron at this point - I think they might’ve had one brief conversation? Maybe not even that. Who else? Lotta people are dead. Most if not all of the original Alexandrians - people Aaron has some kind of relationship foundation with - are dead.

So....if everyone is busy, then it’s down to either a minor character/OC helping out, which doesn’t appeal to me, or one of the above busy/grieving characters taking time out of their busy grieving schedules to look after an injured man and his tiny baby. I feel like Michonne, as a mother already, would at least - it would at least occur to her that Aaron needs help with Gracie. But I still think she’s too busy. I don’t know. She could ask Aaron and Gracie to stay with her for a while, until he’s healed up, and then he might help her out with Judith when he’s on his feet again, both out of gratitude and because if she’s leader now she genuinely does need help taking care of Judith, especially with RJ on the way. And Aaron understands losing a partner, at least.

I had a couple other scenarios I was going to try working out, to see how they compared, but I think I just talked myself into this one. It makes enough sense, and honestly, any excuse to write Michonne into a larger role in the fic. The only reluctance I have is that she’s so sad at this point in the story! And she has to wait for the movies, whenever they come out, to resolve that. Because Rick is dead as far as everybody knows, so she’s grieving, everyone’s grieving, but because the audience knows that Rick’s not actually dead, Michonne is never going to be allowed to move on. He was the main character! You can’t just mourn the main character and rebuild your whole life and be happy, that’s how it works in life but rarely in fiction because it just sucks. A betrayal of audience trust. Especially since he’s actually still alive. Anyway, I can’t even begin to resolve that in the fic I may or may not be writing, because it’s way too big for the scope of the story. Michonne is just going to have to pace the halls dramatically each night, unable to sleep, symbolically wandering the moors, going on risky lone wolf missions to kill walkers just to feel like she’s doing something real to protect what she has left, until she comes to her senses or better yet somebody catches her at it and brings her to her senses. Oh Michonne. Never more than one big tragedy away from setting out on her own into the Dead Lands with her katana and a couple of disarmed zombies tied to her wrist.

Aaron would be a pretty grounding influence, I think.

[wobblegong]

I was going to squee about my space-cat but I just got shotgunned through the Chains of Harrow quest & subsequent orbiter thing so instead I’m going to spew my thoughts everywhere. I have too many emotions about this ok. WARNING: Massive story spoilers (for many quest lines), massive gameplay spoilers, massive worldbuilding spoilers, BASICALLY NOTHING BUT SPOILERS UP IN HERE. You probably don’t want to read this unless 1. you’re caught up on everything including 2. you dgaf and find me nattering about a game you don’t play interesting. (~2200 words.)

I. Gameplay/Mechanics

Chains of Harrow is VERY WELL DONE, jfc. I continue to be impressed by Warframe’s execution. Some previous quests weren’t quite ideal but this one... this one was on point.

(Shout-out to my game dev friend who does totally unrelated stuff and their ANGUISHED GROAN when I asked how they’d do the one bit with moving the audio around in their not-Warframe engine; they stared into Hell as they contemplated it. “But Unreal engine apparently lets you do it just fine.” It’s so fun to be reminded that one engine’s effortless task is another engine’s “the only thing that eclipses the suffering this would require is your hubris”.)

There were spoopy screen effects, not that I’m surprised– already seen plenty of demonstrations of what they can do when I get flashbanged or fade in/out of a menu. One section has you chasing directional audio aka heading towards wherever the sound is coming from. (This was the worst section for me, I had to pause three times to get my panic wrangled.) The talking-heads approach to story, combined with the setting, combined with a few lite-cutscenes & one interactive segment... was actually fucking perfect. I usually feel like the exposition-dumps are somewhat contrived and aggravating, but here I was SOLD.

If I had any criticism, it’d be that the spoopy starts wearing off like 1/3 of the way in and just keeps eroding until the end isn’t spoopy at all. It didn’t feel like a deliberate tone-shift, just that they ran out of jumpscare (which is what the spoopy is 100% made of) and didn’t really replace it with anything. I don’t consider it a drawback though... if it had actually been scary the whole way through I’d be a gibbering jelly. Also everything else going on is so fantastic that I prefer the lack of distraction.

I did laugh when the main combat section goes Ghostbusters: you have to trap a spoopy in a box you toss on the floor, complete with a glowy beam trapping said spoopy. Mild grumble because I wasted a dozen traps before I googled wtf to do in that section (hint: APPLY BULLETS TO BAD THING) but fine, if I hadn’t been accidentally lied to I would probably have tried that first instead of faffing around.

Final “boss” fight was indeed kind of a bear but I was warned beforehand that I was gonna get punched out like forty times so when I only got punched out thrice it was like all my namedays had come at once! HOLY FUCK DON’T DO IT BEFORE YOU’VE DONE THE GARA QUEST THO & GOTTEN AN OPERATOR AMP ON CETUS. This quest predates all that BUT THE AMP IS GOOD. EVEN A BAD AMP IS BETTER THAN NO AMP. So... hot tip, get your little shit a little piece of shit and be thrilled when you can actually kill the boss fight adds in under 12 hours.

Ok no I have one true criticism: BLOOD ISN’T RED WAX, WHY WERE THE BLOODY MESSAGES ON THE WALL THAT COLOR. Actually they were... really 3D... ... ...maybe it WAS wax? Where the fuck did the spooperson get so much red wax for writing creepy messages?

II. Story

So the story is that you get a haunted I mean hecked up transmission, it’s spooky; you go to a fucked-up empty ship and find one Red Veil chick just hanging out with her cat. She says a lot of baffling things and then forty ex-Red-Veil zombies/ghosts/possessed assholes try to murder you, ineptly. Ok maybe they’re less inept if they’re not going in ultra-slow-motion. (My god, I will never stop being happy that Frost Prime was my first frame. So good and useful when I’m going into shit blind.)

You haul RVC (Red Veil Chick) out of there and plunk her ass down in the Steel Meridian camp because I guess the factions like each other enough for casual favors like that. She says some more barely-less-confusing shit and very earnestly (there’d be dewey eyes and heaving bosoms if she wasn’t wearing a full-body-inculding-head suit) begs you to go find some relic. Off you go to another fucked-up empty ship! UNNECESSARILY CREEPY WHISPERS lead you to said relic, which was the thing Rell focused on for soothing because most sensory stimulation was too much for him. Wait, what? And then ASSHOLE MCINVINCIBLE tries to stick his hand up your ass like a puppet and if you’re me you sprint in circles for 30 seconds crying while the NPC frantically tries to get you out.

You go back to RVC and she does a seance. It works. To summarize/paraphrase including story bits revealed further into the quest line, Rell was one of the Tenno who got shunned out of the gaggle even before they all got Tenno’d. Apparently this put him in a position to discover what the fuck is in the Void, at which point he had his meatsack body killed so his mind(/soul/whatever) could be chained to his specific ‘frame, leaving him awake/conscious to keep doorstoppering the badbadnotgood, even while the other Tenno were off snoozing per the Lotus’ plans. A line of RVCs (Red Veil Chicks) were in on this and dedicated themselves to... looking after him, inasmuch as you can look after someone who shoveled themself into a robot that’s been chained up somewhere it’ll never see the light of day. They could talk to him anyways– I guess they were mostly there to keep him from going bonkers and maybe intervene if anything ever went wrong.

Anyways, that’s all fine right up until it isn’t; RVC & the Lotus determine that his transference fucked up and fragmented so you need to go Ghostbusters the creepy phantoms of this guy’s psyche. Collect them all while dodging ASSHOLE MCINVINCIBLE (and a smattering of forgettable mooks– fuck off Infested, I don’t care if it’s your ship) and RVC thanks you/tearfully asks you to take them back to where his ‘frame rests so he can die because THAT’S ENOUGH SUFFERING FOR ONE PERSON THANKS.

Nothing gets to be easy, not even that, so when you find the ‘frame and start snapping its chains it wakes up. RVC has about five seconds to go “thaT’S NOT RELL” while your little shit self scurries behind a pillar before boss fight! Red Veil operatives (except dead or mind controlled or who knows what) try to punch you out while some kind of awful red glowing tear pops in and out to fireball you. But eventually you snap all the chains and yaaaay Rell gets his eternal rest. (I’m not crying, you’re crying.)

III. Meta Story/Worldbuilding

It’s SUCH A THING to me that RVC casually knows what the Tenno are. I mean, ok, makes sense because the RVCs were so involved with Rell, buT LIKE. MAN. NOBODY ELSE KNOWS. THE “KIND OF HAVE A CLUE” PEOPLE STILL DON’T KNOW MORE THAN “IF YOU DISSECT A WARFRAME YOU WILL NOT FIND ANYTHING THAT EXPLAINS WHAT THE TENNO ARE”. Fuck, I think the RVC even dresses down the Lotus over it a la “fuck u, u say they’re ur kids but u suck and u never knew about Rell”.

They completely skate right past RVC setting up shop in the hyper-secret Steel Meridian HQ. “Yeah, no big, me and my ouija board are gonna hang out at the secret base of a completely different faction, which happens to be located like three centimeters from the balls of the genocidal maniacs they defected from. Sorry you keep seeing my kavat in the background of my transmissions.” W h a t . ?

...ok, side thoughts out of the way: OH FUCK OH FUCKOHFUCKOHFUCK THE MAN IN THE WALL

As of this point in Warframe’s existence (out of game I mean) they have done... not the WORST job defining the Void, but of course a lot of it hasn’t been written out. (Both because good storytelling and also because the writers probably haven’t gotten that far. :p) Things we do know:

The ship of people who got stuck in there was (afaik) 100% casualties among all the adults. Fuckers all went feral apparently? But the kids lived. Although they came out weird and dangerous (understatement). People do still go into the Void atm, generally via opening a portal on another planet. People... don’t always come OUT of the Void, although presumably they come back out often enough for the major powers to feel like it’s not a waste of time to ransack that shit. I don’t know where they stuck this lore but iirc there’s some kind of horrible THING in there that basically shoves some kind of hijacking device into you, if it catches you, and then it controls you forever. (IDK if dying gets you out of it or if it can just be like HA HA NICE TRY MEATPUPPET and get you back up. With how this setting is, could go either way.) This is why all the Void tilesets have a variety of mob types: the THING has been hijacking the assortment of factions that wander in. Like I said, people don’t always come back out during those expeditions.

So the first badbadnotgood hint I personally played through was at the end of The War Within (Space Lil’ Shit 2 Electric Boogaloo, Now With More Tremors). It’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it brief, but while Space Dad is congratulating you, your Operator suddenly stares into the camera, eyes turning into voids, and a creepy voice taunts you, something about “don’t forget what you owe me kid” or the like. It’s a single line, but the way the camera snaps around (complete with some fucking over-the-top visual effects) & Space Dad catches your arm while you shake it off... thaaaaaat’s not a trivial hallucination.

Anyway. Among other things, during the Chains of Harrow the RVC is very fucking explicit about how Rell was grappling with/cockblocking a specific “vast and indifferent” entity that lives in the Void. Offhandedly, The Lotus dismisses this while mentioning that basically all Tenno have mentioned or claimed similar things. (RVC keeps on insisting.) Right before Rell finally dies, he asks who’s gonna take over his job if he stops, and the RVC coos that all the other Tenno will have to help now.

I have been told by one friend– without checking around, so could be wrong, but– that once you’ve finished the Chains of Harrow you’ll periodically get jumpscared on your ship by a creepy asshole who looks identical to your Operator, but has a different (asshole) voice. Said friend randomly turned around once and what looked like their Operator was sitting on their nav console. And taunted them. Said friend sprinted down to the transference pod to make sure their Operator was in the right place– they were– but was pretty freaked out by it.

Obviously, we don’t have much more detail at this point, but uH. This is not painting a rosy picture of the shit lurking out there in the Void. To me this is pointing towards some kind of extradimensional horror that you really don’t want to draw the attention of... and we’ve gone and done that. Possibly even that the Tenno were lucky to scamper away the first time after it got to play with an entire ship of people (some guessing there, but given its asshole moves so far...) and going anywhere near the Void after that was about as wise as standing on a hilltop in a thunderstorm while double-dog-daring Zeus.

I’m so excited to find out how fucked we are.

Given what the orbiter shit involved, the answer is probably very, and also creatively. BALLAS? WHAT?? WHAT?????

IV. Further Thoughts

I really would love to hear the perspectives of autistic folk. That said, I... more or less liked how the Chains of Harrow handled Rell? The quest established that he was very different; the other kids-eventually-Tenno ignored him, while his mother loved him (I’m open to other interpretations but everything I heard pointed to sincerity). He had the intelligence and agency to deal with badbadnotgood, and while the RVC had a certain maternal vibe she was pretty damn reverent when discussing what he’d done/was doing. Also (maybe most importantly in my reckoning) he didn’t get a happy ending, but he succeeded at what he was doing. By this setting’s standards that’s a rosier conclusion than almost anyone else gets.

Now that I’m thinking of it, I’m racking my brains for any parties that have known the truth of the Tenno and been kindly disposed towards them without getting all maternal/paternal. I’m coming up blank. (The fuck is with this setting and everyone treating them like kids btw? All indications are that they stopped aging so they look like young teens, sure, but all indications are ALSO that they’ve lived awhile time, even excluding their cryosleep! I’m willing to believe a certain amount of “their brain maturity stalled along with the rest of their aging so they have the hardware of a 13yo” but that wouldn’t undo living long enough to form a small civilization. SOME parts of teenagers not being like adults are hardware, but a lot of it is pure lack of life experience, which the Tenno have in spades by now. Also, you know, THEY PSYCHICALLY POWER SPACE NINJA ROBOTS, SHOW SOME RESPECT.)

...

And now I’m going to pass out to sweet dreams of tomorrow’s fully-grown space-kitty.

[sending-the-message]

In The City Of Meatbot-Powered Killers (part 6) by molotok_c_518

(WARNING: I can only mark this as "Series." I can't tag this with cannibalism, strong language, disturbing images, etc. If you are at-all squeamish, click away now.)

Table of Contents

Part 5

The Army waited too long. The eclipse inadvertently took care of their plan.

Today, when the helicopter rolled through, it found a small knot of bot-ridden, maybe 75-100, waiting for them. A few more trickled in, but it was nowhere near the 1000-2000 that swarmed the area yesterday.

When the Army did their meat-dump yesterday, it seemed like the mass of bodies was set... but at the height of the feeding frenzy, when the Bacchanalia seemed to be ready to go on forever, the sky began to dim.

Every one of the afflicted looked up, and just stared at the Sun for the duration. It was eerie as hell, as the entire horde was absolutely still through the entire occlusion. When it was done, they all scattered haphazardly.

I'm pretty sure they're all blind, too, because most of them were running into each other, trees, benches... their retinas are all burned out now.

That makes my escape more complicated now, as I was actually going to use the planned cannibal barbecue as a diversion, and a trigger to kick off the detonation of all of my research and equipment. I have no idea what the Army will do, now that they can't eliminate a large chunk of the impediment to accessing me in one fell swoop.

Meanwhile, I've been tending to my little reclamation project.

Her name is {Jane}, and she was the CAD person on the ceramic car project. In a way, she was the third or fourth domino in the fall of [REDACTED]: It was she who got Steve fired for stalking her, which put a copy of his badge in Bobby's pocket.

She has been healing up very well physically. I've been feeding her as much as she'll eat, which is nowhere near as much as she needed when she was infested with the bad 'bots. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say she was close to what she weighed before all Hell broke loose.

Emotionally, though... that's a whole other story.

About 36 hours ago, I untied her hands so she could eat by herself. She made no move to attack me, but she made no move to escape, either. It was like she had put a large amount of distance between herself and the real world.

I'm patient... ish. I fed her some more, then hunted up some clothes for her. I gave them to her, untied the rest of her, then left the room for an hour to let her get changed.

With the weight back on her frame, her dark brown hair grown back in (thanks to some meatbot tweaks, which we programmed in to help chemo patients retain their coiffure and their dignity), and wearing baggy clothes several sizes too big, she looked kind of... alluring.

"Hi," I said. "Are you ready to try and talk?"

She nodded. An encouraging first step, I thought.

"How are you feeling?"

"Strange," she whispered. "Like... free, but not. I can leave?"

I nodded. "I wouldn't advise it, though. There are a lot of blind bot-ridden wandering around out there."

She shuddered. "I'll stay here with you until this is over, then. I don't want to go back to... that."

"You remember it all, then."

Nod.

"Tell me. I might be able to help."

She shuddered again. It did interesting things to her body... things I was not going to think about, because this is my patient, not my fuck-buddy.

"It was... terrible. I did terrible things, and I hated them, but I couldn't stop myself from doing them once I thought them.

"I was at home, by myself, when a crowd of them charged into the house. They ripped off my clothes, then started to... bite me.

"I thought they were going to rape me. What they did was far, far worse.

"In about 5 minutes, I had been ripped up so badly I thought I would die. Five minutes later, I was healing faster than I thought possible, and I was starving... so I took a bite out of the first thing at hand: the leg of a teenage girl."

She shivered.

"In about a half hour, there were only 4 or 5 of us left, ripping chunks out of each other. Softer bits were best. They were easy to rip off and... chew.

"They grew back quickly. It did kind of slow down if all you ate was the fatty tissues, but get a long muscle, and it grew back very quickly.

"It hurt... but in a very good way... because the healing felt amazing, and because the endorphins flooded you and got you super-high.

"After a few more hours, they drifted out of the house, having stripped my fridge of anything edible... and few things that shouldn't have been edible... and ran off. I got the idea to come to campus and try to raid a dining hall.

"I managed to get into the campus center, and got into a kitchen, but the pickings were slim. No deliveries, and college kids eat a lot.

"I found some more cannibal orgies... that's really the only way to describe them.., and we managed to keep each other fed for a while. Gradually, some of the smaller members would... 'disappear,' as it were..."

I shuddered at that one. I had a horrible idea that not many children would ever be found when the cleanup finished.

"...and we'd still be chewing away on each other.

"The absolute worst part, though, was that I knew what I was doing the whole time. I wasn't locked into my own head, screaming to get out... I was right there and it was okay, because I was hungry, and feeding that need was all that mattered. I was revolted, but I got the idea in my head that if I just kept eating, it would be okay. So I kept eating. Even when I knew it was killing us all.

"Then I saw you on campus, heading for the labs. I saw you duck into the building. I decided that you were a new meal, and just waited for you to come out so I could... feed."

"You climb very well," I said.

"I didn't know I could until I was driven to it."

I nodded. "You had the idea to climb after me, and it drove you to try."

She nodded.

"How... how did you 'bring me back,' as you put it?"

I hesitated.

How do you explain to someone who's been through... done... horrible things because of your creation?

She looked at me... those pale green eyes are kind of frightening in the wrong light, like zombie eyes... and I could tell she sensed I had some kind of hand in the outbreak.

"You were on that team bringing rats to life or some crazy thing, right?" she asked... and I knew I couldn't dodge the questions anymore.

"Yeah... I headed it. We were trying to cure cancer. See, my sister died of an inoperable brain tumor 15 years ago..."

Two hours later, I sat in another lab trying to play State of Decay and decompress.

The black eye was healing fast. Some of the meatbots I had used to counter the bad 'bots were still resident in my system, and would be for at least another month, as per their programming.

She hadn't taken the revelation that I had at least tertiary responsibility for the current situation very well. There were a lot of shouts, and some hitting.

I didn't try to explain, or excuse it away. I had turned a blind eye to the power struggle, in favor of trying to get the project into the FDA human trials pipeline as rapidly as possible to save lives. Three people had used that naïveté to hijack my project for their own purposes, and their hijacking had cost tens of thousands of lives.

This is the part of the movie where the door to the lab opens, and the woman (who was cast as a love interest for the protagonist) attacks the hero, and it devolves into a sweaty naked love scene.

This is no movie, though. She came into the lab, and sat quietly while I tried to swat down a swarm of zombies with a station wagon.

"I'm sorry I hit you."

I shook my head. "I kind of deserve it. For what my project did to you... for what it did to [REDACTED]... I actually deserve worse."

It was her turn to shake her head. "You didn't program them to lobotomize people. You didn't program them to make people hungry enough to eat each other. You didn't let them out of the lab.

"You tried to help people. You did the most cliché science trope in fiction, trying to cure cancer, and someone else did terrible things. You aren't to blame."

"I am, though!" I yelled. "I could have double-checked the code before we sent it to the gene forge! I could have insisted on stricter screening for our people! I could have fired Dr. A and Dr. B for trying to push ideology into our project, instead of doing what needed to be done!

"I COULD HAVE LED, INSTEAD OF DELEGATED.

"I let myself believe that it could be done without... without politics."

She nodded.

"We need to get out of here," I said. "We need a way to get into the campus, and find a place to lay low until the Army sweeps through and breaks up the quarantine."

"What's wrong with the steam tunnels?" she asked.

"The... what?"

"You don't know about the steam tunnels."

"No... I've been trying to cure cancer."

"In the basement, there is a door to the tunnels underneath the campus. Students use them in winter to get between buildings, go to classes, jog, skateboard... it's warm down there, the corridors are wide, they're brightly lit, and you can see people a long way off. You can't be ambushed..."

"...and we can get out of the lab complex. Into the main buildings. Lay low until they sweep through. You're a genius."

She frowned. "They have to have your face in the database somewhere. Facial recognition will pick you up if they see you."

I shook my head. "One problem at a time. Let's get the cart down into the basement, and load up some freeze-dried shit. Where's the best place on campus to hide out?"

"Northwest dorms. It's summer, no one is living on campus, and it's on the opposite side of the college from the labs. Also, each dorm building has a kitchen... there might be some food in there."

I looked her in the eye. "Once we get there, you can strike out on your own. Pick a room away from me, and hide there. Or leave campus and try to find somewhere to hide. I'll give you half of the food we have left."

She shook her head. "Safety in numbers. Also, you saved my life."

"I put it in danger..."

"Shush. я вам должен."

"I... don't speak German."

"It's Russian."

"Okay. No hablo."

"What?"

"Nevermind. I won't make you stay."

"Fair enough. Let's get to work."

...and that is how we will be standing in the basement, near the door to the steam tunnels under the campus, getting ready to make a break for it, tomorrow afternoon, when I'm sure that the Army will try to burn out the cluster of infested nearby.

The charges are set. She helped me solder a bunch of the burner phones to ignition devices... when we email the phones, the whole top floor will be engulfed in flames.

It's almost time to leave.

[cloudtiain]

Of Beginnings and Names

I honestly cannot believe myself because I was SO excited at the chance to participate in Hijack week for the first time but then I poofed from Tumblr and just ForGOT. I also have zero plans for any of the prompts but managed to throw this up last minute. 

So yeah, here’s my contribution to “I had no idea you could do that” Though the prompt had barely anything to do with this,,,hope it can still count.

Superhero AU where Hiccup can half-transform into a dragon and Jack is basically the same he is in canon, minus being immortal and a zombie spirit. Established Hijack.

I apologize for Hiccup’s superhero name I literally could not think of anything.

Hiccup vaguely realizes that his clothes were on fire and flames were doing its best to burn away everything underneath as well.

It was pretty concerning, because while he was mostly covered by scales there were patches of skin that the flames were rapidly reaching, and yep, there it goes, ouch that hurts — of course one of the rare times Toothless was occupied elsewhere Hiccup manages to get injured, he’ll never hear the end of it, and ow, burns are no fun at all ——

“Dragoneye!” 

The voice was loud, being carried by the wind directly into the hybrid’s ear, but Hiccup was relieved to hear it anyways — even more so when he felt the ice and cold snuffing out the flames and soothing his burns.

He managed to gather his bearings together in time to watch as the wind shrieked and ice trapped the — well, Hiccup wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but it looked like a giant monster held together by molten rocks and lava. 

He could feel the drop in temperature from where he still hovered in the air, and wondered when exactly Jack became so strong.

“Are you okay?” Mentioned iceboy floated a bit closer, obviously figuring the monster-thing wouldn’t escape all too soon.

And then it actually hit him that Jack was here, flying with him, in some sort of hero costume he hasn’t seen before — and when did Jack make that? Why did he make it?

But it was undoubtedly Jack, at least to Hiccup. Though the white hair and blue eyes ( features that only appeared when Jack let go of his tight control ) plus the mask would have made it difficult for anyone else to make the connection, which was exactly point.

But Hiccup still couldn’t understand why.

It was a bit disorienting, but at the other’s worried look he managed to respond to the previous question. “I’m fine. Thanks.” 

It was an automatic answer, but it seemed to be more or less true. Only a bit of the flames managed to get at what skin he had left, and Jack’s frost was doing wonders for it. Though, thinking about it, the person in front of him wasn’t exactly Jack right now...at least to the public and Hiccup needed to keep up appearances. “So you’re some sort of new guy? Thinking about appearing frequently now?” And whoops. That came out a bit more accusing then intended. 

But the snow bringer merely flashed white teeth in an amused smirk and said, “You could say that. What, does the big bad hero not appreciate the help?”

“I don’t think bad and hero are supposed to go together. And I already said thank you, didn’t you hear?” The banter was automatic, likely on purpose. An attempt at distraction. But the half-dragon was known to be stubborn for a reason. “I have to say though, you sure don’t look like the hero type.” Which was a lie, Jack was about as heroic as the best of them, but there was a reason Hiccup has been a hero for half a year without Jack. A very good reason and he still couldn’t understand why.

“Well, I live to surprise and all.” And that was that. The other’s tone had gotten a bit flat, and Hiccup could almost see the ‘don’t ask’ vibes radiating. 

Well, to be fair, it really was a conversation for the less public ears, so he moved to the next relevant thing. “So, does Mr. Surprise have a name?” 

And Jack actually faltered at that, and huh, there was a story there. 

The grin spread before he knew it. “Did you actually come out here without even a name for yourself? You made an entire costume without even thinking that people might need something to call you by?”

“I didn’t even make this! It was N — a friend!” 

So North. Hiccup wasn’t even surprised. “And your friend didn’t think of a name for you either?” Knowing North he definitely made a name. And considering how reluctant Jack was at giving it, it had to be good.

Getting the name out of the other was another thing entirely, though. “Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. You sure aren’t going to be finding out though, Dragon boy.”

“That’s not my name.”

“Might as well be. Besides, from what I recall, you didn’t exactly name yourself, either.” 

“True, but I didn’t make a fuss and start pouting at mine. I didn’t have an entire fully functioning costume at the time, either.”

“I don’t have a name!” A beat. “And I’m not pouting!”

“Sure you don’t. Sure you aren’t.” 

“Ugh!”

And Hiccup laughed, which quickly cut off and turned into a wince as he felt a pull at burnt skin, and, oh yeah, that was still there. 

In retrospect, he probably deserved that.

Jack didn’t seem to think so though, even if Hiccup was outright laughing at him just seconds ago, and his expression of frustration quickly turned into worry. “How bad is it?”

Hiccup tried for a grin, hoping it didn’t turn out as pained as he felt it might have. “It’s nothing, really. A little fire can’t hurt me.” Which wasn’t exactly accurate, and with the small bit of frost that Jack gave him before melting he was beginning to feel his injury acutely, but the scales really did help ward off the worst of things. 

And clearly Hiccup was untrustworthy because the ice wielder was looking for serious injury anyways, placing a light frost wherever he saw burnt skin.

It’s a kind gesture and the shapeshifter was already feeling better, but focusing on finding the burns meant Jack stopped paying as much attention to his surroundings, leaving himself open for attack, and that was another fireball coming right towards him—

“Ja-nng-Look out!” 

It was just panic and fear, and please not him, why wasn’t he more careful, stupid, stupid — and something rippled across Hiccup’s back as he shot forward, suddenly able to control his flying so much easier than before, and managed to snatch Jack and twist sharply out of the projectile’s path and into safety.

“Whoa...I had no idea you could do that.”

Neither did Hiccup, but that...was too close. Way too close but of course the idiot didn’t even sound shaken, just all light humor and joking attitude, but Jack could have been hurt, badly, and if it wasn’t for whatever his scales did he —— Later. Later. Think of it all later.

Taking a deep breath and a quick look at his back — huh that sure was new, it looked like the ridges down his spine had split or something — he let go of the other and turned to where the volcano monster-or-whatever had melted a hole in the ice.

“Come on, no more getting distracted. We have someone to take care of first.”

He noticed Jack giving him a slightly concerned look, but he was already heading towards the villain before anything else could be said.

“Hiccup?” There was only a hint of worry in Jack’s voice, but it was enough to get Hiccup to pause. They had defeated the pile of flaming rocks easily enough after and headed straight to Hiccup’s room where he proceeded to pace after taking care of his injuries. 

Which was really going to solve absolutely nothing, so with a deep breath the hybrid slumped onto his bed, next to his boyfriend. “Sorry...It’s just, you always said how you didn’t want to be a hero. How it comes with too much responsibility and didn’t fit with your routine. And yet, here you are. And you almost got hurt because of it. Because of—”

“Hiccup. Don’t.” 

Jack’s voice was enough to halt the words, but Hiccup didn’t think he could — wanted to — finish his sentence anyways. Instead he focused on how cool arms wrapped around him, and he leaned into the touch. 

“Look, Hiccup," Jack began as he laid his head on a still scale-covered shoulder, soft puffs of breath hitting Hiccup’s neck that managed to relax him further. “Not everything is your fault. You didn’t force me to put on a suit and fly up there, alright? Don’t start blaming yourself for silly things. I know what I said before, but I really did want to do this. It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“Are you sure? Because we talked about this. You don’t need to become a hero just because you have powers. No one would hold it against you.” And Hiccup would personally fight anyone who tries.

“I know. But you’ve been hurt countless time these past months. And I decided I rather be out there cover your back whenever Toothless can’t.”

“Jack...” Because Hiccup didn’t want Jack to become a hero just for him. Doing this was his choice, and any injury was just an occupational hazard. 

“But that isn’t all,” Jack interrupted. “I’ve been thinking about joining you for a while, anyways. It wasn’t just an on the spot decision. Why do you think I had North’s costume at hand? Yeah, I didn’t really want to become a hero for the longest time. But, that was more because of other...things. You know that.”

Yeah, Hiccup knew alright. Thinking about that ‘incident’ that Jack told him about, that one day that basically tore everything Jack held dear away from him, all because of some guy’s ego growing too big and — And Jack had every right to hate heroes. Hiccup has been there during the nights the other woke with a strangled scream, sweat matting his hair — sometimes white and sometimes brown — and yet here he was, still willing to become one. ( Hiccup couldn’t decide of it was heroically self-sacrificing or self-sacrificially stupid )

“Hey, come on. If you keep furrowing your eyebrows like that it’ll get stuck.” And despite the show of nonchalance, the half-dragon could feel the slight tremors from the other and immediately wrapped his arms around Jack as well. “Let me finish. I’m okay, alright? It was a long time ago. A really long time ago...And, I’ve stopped associating heroes with that incident. For the most part anyways."

The shaking stopped and Hiccup couldn’t help the awe he felt even if he tried. 

“I probably hated heroes, no, I really did hate them. A lot. I had a lot of resentment and anger fester inside of me. But, not so much anymore.” And here Jack is smiling, in that way that never fails to steal Hiccup’s breath away, and cool lips pressed against his before widening once more. “I stopped hating heroes since getting to know you and Toothless. And besides, I’m not about to let one day rule my life forever. It sucks, but I’m just about over it. And I'm terrible at staying out of the way, anyways.”

The look that Jack was giving him was sincere, and honestly, it wasn’t all that surprising. Jack has been helping people one way or another since before they met, only without an alter ego and a fancy costume. Hiccup just didn’t expect that last line to ever be crossed.

Still, becoming a hero suited Jack well. “Okay. Okay, fine. Just, tell me if it gets to be too much, okay?”

“Deal.”

And surely there would be troubles later, because no matter what the other said it was clear that not all shadows were cast completely away, but they could deal with all that when it came. It’ll all turn out alright.

But, there was one issue unresolved... “Now...about this name that North came up with...”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.” Immediately arms retracted and Jack made a pretty impressive show of being busy with his phone — if the screen wasn’t still black.

“Come on, Jack. Just tell me.” Tugging away the phone was all too easy, even as Hiccup was having a bit of trouble not shaking with laughter.

“Really. No idea. Nope. Nothi—”

“Jack!” That wasn’t either of them and suddenly Hiccup’s bedroom door swung open and a man larger-than-life entered with a newspaper in hand.

“Oh no.”

North paid no mind to the ice wielder's dread, and he waved the newspaper around like a trophy. “I heard great news! You a superhero now, congratulations, Jack Frost!” 

“North!” Blue eyes only spared a second to glare at Hiccup as he snickered, before turning back to the newcomer. “I told you I won’t be using that name! I’m not going to be named after the guy known for nipping noses! And it’s too close to my real one, don’t you think that people will make the connection?”

The last point was possibly a fairly good argument, but North just steamrolled over it in his typical fashion. “Ah, but it is not just me! Reporter called you Jack Frost and it is all over paper!”

“What?”

The paper was ripped out of North’s hands and Jack read over the contents before groaning loudly. “He really did call me Jack Frost! He decided to name me Jack Frost! Who wrote this? Thinking he can go around handing out names, just who—” 

“...”

“...Jack?” The abrupt way the other cut off was slightly concerning, but before Hiccup could reach out the newspaper was flung into the air in a flurry of movement.

“The Moon?! Who uses ‘The Moon’ as their pen name??? Who does The Moon think he is?!”

[emma-overland]

Kintsugi 12

So this installment is semi-inspired by / dedicated to @animeotaku-bookworm and I say semi because they had requested a sick thing with Jack being ill however Hiccup has done tons of stuff for Jack so now it’s time to pay it back…again…And this is going to be a two parter…depends on how I feel with the ending.

Also I apologize for being so…gone but hopefully I’ll start updating regularly again…or as regularly as I had been doing and I’m totally bummed that I missed Hijack March Madness this year :c

Jack glanced up as the front door closed heavily and he glanced toward the clock. Seemed the shindig had run late this evening. He stayed leaning against the counter, where he’d been going over things on his laptop, listening to the familiar sounds of shoes being kicked off and then the entry closet opening and closing shortly after, followed by the very distinct sound of small zombie shuffles through the living room. The small zombie was dragging something, probably the dreaded school bag. Emma came into view as she moved through the home.

“Hey kiddo.” Jack greeted with a small smile. “You guys were later than usual?”

Emma nodded and rubbed her head with a small yawn. “Yeah Miss Merida was really tired so she was slow today.” The brunette climbed up onto one of the stools at the breakfast counter and set her bag on the one next to her.

The blue-eyed man frowned slightly. “Why was she so tired?”

“Um,” Emma dug through her bag for a moment with a frown on her face before pulling out her science folder. “Hiccy is sick and she was trying to help him…I think.”

“Hiccup’s sick?” Jack repeated in surprise.

Emma nodded absently. “Yeah, cold or something?” She laid the folder out and started to go through the pages slowly. “Miss Merida says he’s really stubborn and won’t go see a doctor or nothing.”

“Or anything.” Jack corrected absently with a frown. “You…do your homework and I’m gonna…make a phone call.”

Emma seemed to have stopped listening as she dug around in her pack for a pencil to write with, they were covering the solar system and Emma found it funny that her brother thought Pluto was a planet. He watched her for a moment before grabbing his phone and stepping onto the back porch. He hesitated for a long moment before tapping the icon and bringing the phone up to his ear.

“Sorry about gettin’ her back late.” Merida said immediately.

“What? Oh, no that’s not why I’m calling.” Jack responded with a frown.

Merida was quiet for a moment before letting out a small sigh. “Sorry about that Jackie-boy, been a bit behind. Wut can I do far ya?”

Jack hesitated for a moment. Was it too rude to ask about what was going on? But wasn’t that what people did in a small town? Care about each other? He made a small sound of contemplation as Merida waited patiently on the other end. “Emma said something about you were sick?”

“Oh, nah Hiccup went an’ got ‘imself sick.” Merida answered with a small laugh. “Told tha fool not tae be muckin’ about in tha rain fixin’ fences. But he’s stubborn as can be.” She hummed in amusement. “Gits it frum his dad.”

“Yeah, that sounds like him. How sick are we talking about? Just a small head cold or maybe something a little more?” Jack prompted.

Merida made a thoughtful noise and Jack heard the sound of a door opening and then keys rattling. She must have just gotten home. There were a few more doors before a quiet conversation was heard and a rather nasty cough down the line. “Wull, he’s not eaten anythin’ and he’s got fever, sniffles, and probably stomach things. Real nasty piece of work.”

“He needs to eat something.” Jack said after a moment of thought. “What’s he tried?”

“Canned soup broth stuff.” Merida answered automatically and grinned at Jack’s indignant, and possibly offended, snort. “Well wee’re not all Betty Crocker yanno.”

“You’re going to starve him to death or make him dehydrated. Something…I don’t know.” Jack muttered angrily. “I’ll be over in thirty minutes and make sure that kitchen is clean enough for me to use it.”

Merida laughed and bid Jack a farewell before the two hung up. He stood for a moment and tapped his toes against the cool wood of the deck in thought. He could take Emma with him and keep her and Merida confined in the living room…but that put the kid at a high risk of getting it. He’d been warned that while she was still recovering from the car accident there was a high chance of her being more susceptible to catching colds. Finally, he came back into the house and glanced toward his sister before tilting his head in thought. Maybe, Rapunzel would be willing to look after her for the night…

Jack frowned and shook his head. He’d have to take Emma with him. It wouldn’t be fair to drop her on his neighbor so suddenly. Open door policy or not. With his decision made he turned and started to grab things from the cabinets and put them into one of his many transport totes. The movements made Emma stop what she was doing and she watched him curiously.

“What are you doing Jack?” she asked as he dug through various things in the crisper drawer.

“We’re going over to Merida’s and Hiccup’s place. They can’t cook and Merida is giving him canned soup.” Jack answered as if it were a personal outrage.

Emma wrinkled her nose. “Ew, can soup is yucky.”

“Very yucky.” Jack agreed before making a circular motion with his hand toward his sister. “Put your things back into your bag. You can do your homework over there.”

Emma grinned and hastily put her things away before shoving them into her back with her textbooks and workbooks. Quickly she hurried to get her shoes on so they’d be faster at leaving.

 xXx

 Jack stood in a kitchen that was slowly becoming very familiar to him. Emma and Merida were seated at the dining room table each of them with school related things in front of them while Hiccup had been all but swaddled into blankets and forced onto the couch. Sure, Jack would have preferred that Hiccup stay in bed but the taller male was being surprisingly childish. At least he was no longer contagious. He was being rather quiet and seemed to mostly be dozing now that a cool washcloth was on his forehead.

Blue eyes darted over to the pot on the stove to check the progress of the chicken and he nodded, absently pleased. The chicken, onions and crushed garlic cloves were cooking nicely in the oil and Jack absently figured he had enough time to finish the rest of the vegetables. He’d already peeled and sliced the carrots, now he was working on dicing his just peeled kohlrabi, then he’d have to move quickly to dice the celery. Once done he turned back to the pot and nodded absently before adding water then white wine and finally lemon juice to the mixture.

“You aren’t allergic to anything, are you?” Jack asked, glancing toward Merida.

The redhead looked thoughtful for a moment before shaking her head. “Nah, nothin’ I saw in yer box anyway.”

Jack nodded and turned back to soup where he added more ingredients including ginger, bay leaves and a few other things before bringing it to simmer. Once it was satisfactory he dropped the temperature down to the mid-range and moved to check on Hiccup.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Jack asked as he reached out to check on the fever. He also gave Toothless a soft pat on the head as the large dog laid with his head in his human’s lap to try and comfort him.

“Your hands are cold.” Hiccup murmured tiredly. “Feels nice.”

Jack grinned. “I get that a lot.” He pressed one hand against Hiccup’s forehead while he dipped the washcloth back into the bowl of ice water to refresh it. “But that didn’t answer my question. Does your throat still hurt?”

Hiccup made a sound of disagreement as he leaned heavily into Jack’s touch. “’m good.” Slowly hazy green eyes opened to peer up at Jack fuzzily. “Hungry…I think.”

“You probably are with the water crap Merida’s been giving you.” Jack teased.

“Oi!” Merida protested from her seat. “Not a cooker Jackie-boy!”

Emma tried to cover her giggles and failed spectacularly at it earning her a ball of paper thrown at her. She squawked and threw the ball back at her teacher and Jack ignored the small war that broke out between the two girls. Jack lingered for a few minutes longer by Hiccup’s side before moving away to stop the war and check on Emma’s progress with her homework. Luckily she had one of her teachers just across the table so she was doing rather well with it and Jack smiled before ruffling her hair. Emma made an offended noise and tried to push her brother away but only really succeeded in pushing her own chair back an inch or so.

“So wut are ya makin’?” Merida asked after a moment or two.

Jack glanced up. “Nothing fancy really.”

The redhead gave him a flat look. “Ya say nothin’ fancy but ya brought…wut 20 somethin’ ingredients? Not tae mention all tha herbs and such.”

“It’s just a ginger chicken noodle soup.” Jack protested with a small frown. “And it’s 22 ingredients…21 if you don’t count the two different ways I use the garlic.”

Merida laughed a bit and shook her head. “Yer a special case o’ crazy Jackie-boy.”