#there is a severe lack of whump in this fandom so i’m here to change that

[laurancezvahlslefteyebrow]

ANGST ANGST ANGST

CW: Blood and some scary words

What If: Garroth didn’t pass out when Zenix shot him

i made a few versions

[whumpetywhumpwhump]

Posting one of my actual (fandom-related) full fics on here... be nice!!

This is some good ol' intubation whump because it's my favourite.

(for slight context of character, see this old post)

When the call comes in, everybody in the ER is hoping it isn't Coop. Especially Neela.

Severe asthma attack. 26 year old male.

Somehow, because it's his day off and he really ought to be relaxing, it seems almost impossible for him to find himself back in the hospital as a patient. It just… isn't fair.

That doesn't stop the wheels of the gurney from rolling through the doors, though. Doesn't change the fact that Coop is laying half-conscious on top of it, his quick, shallow breaths fogging a nebulizer mask, his skin so pale it looks ashen.

“26 year old male,” the paramedic conducting the transfer restates. “Severe asthma attack with symptoms pointing to onset of status asthmaticus. Albuterol administered, as well as 0.5mg subcutaneous epinephrine, both to minimal effect.”

Dr Lewis, the attending on the case, moves to Coop’s side, slipping the chest piece of her stethoscope underneath his t-shirt as they continue to move into one of the trauma rooms. Her expression, when she withdraws it, is severe.

“His airways are pretty much closed up. He needs more epi now.”

Abby hurries to drag a crash cart in, and Neela follows the gurney all the way until it's positioned in the trauma room, at which point she starts readying an IV kit with shaking hands.

Coop does not look good. Even when compared to the time she almost killed him with epi. At least then he'd been alert, sitting up, and his skin hadn't lost all of its colour like it has now.

Dr Lewis returns from fetching some more equipment, and as she waits for Abby to arrive with the crash cart, she strokes Coop’s hair reassuringly.

“Hang on, sweetheart, we’re going to help you feel better. Just keep breathing for me, okay?”

Through weak wheezes that emerge from blue-tinged lips, Coop nods. His eyelids are heavy with exhaustion.

Neela hasn't seen an asthma attack this severe in person before, but she knows from med school how dangerous they can be- especially when the patient is as tired as Coop is. It isn't clear how long he's been struggling this much to breathe. The colour of his skin (or lack of, for that matter) tells her it's been too long.

If they don't work quickly, his body will run out of energy. He'll stop breathing, too exhausted to even inhale anymore. He'll lose oxygen.

He'll die.

“Neela, I need an IV of 100mg hydrocortisone.”

She turns to find Dr Lewis’ keen gaze on her. There's a thinly veiled panic in the attending’s eyes that quickly disappears as she turns back to Coop, gently trying to reassure him as he fights for air.

“I’m going to page Pratt as well, alright, Coop? He can get you some more albuterol so your nebulizer doesn't dry out.”

Neela can't see whether Coop replies, but if he does, it isn't audible. All she can hear is his terrifying wheeze and the hum of the nebulizer, shortly joined by a rapid beeping as a nurse finally helps him take off his shirt and hooks him up to a monitor. She doesn't dare turn around to look at his oxygen saturation. It's likely going to keep plummeting.

Instead, she focuses on setting up the cannula in Coop’s trembling arm, her left hand holding it steady while her right slides the needle in.

“There we are, Coop.” she murmurs. “You're doing so well, sweetheart.”

The pet name feels stranger coming from her lips than Dr Lewis', but at this point her slight blush is the least of their worries. While Coop’s this sick, it doesn't matter what she calls him. He just needs to start breathing properly again.

Once the IV site has been secured with a clear sticker, Neela measures out the dose of hydrocortisone. 100mg. When they're giving it as a steroid over a longer period of time, they prescribe 20-30mg a day, in two doses. The fact that they're pumping him full of this much at once is testament to just how emergent his case is.

“100mg hydrocortisone going in.” she announces. Connects the needle to the cannula. Pushes down on the plunger of the syringe.

Despite her accumulated knowledge surrounding medication, Neela still half expects the effects to be immediate. For Coop to suddenly relax, his airway opening up again, the colour gradually suffusing his cheeks. For the wheezing to fade as he breathes in properly for the first time in hours.

It doesn't. None of this happens.

Minute by minute, Coop continues to deteriorate. Abby brings in the crash cart. Dr Lewis injects the epinephrine beneath the skin of his forearm and, unlike before, he doesn't even react to the needle. His eyes flicker like his awareness is slipping away from him.

By the time Pratt arrives to switch out Coop’s nebulizer, such a small intervention becomes pointless. Even if Coop were able to breathe properly, time has proven that albuterol, on this occasion, just isn't working. Pratt sets down the new nebulizer and instantly crosses to Coop’s bedside, brow furrowed.

“Coop, man, can I listen to your chest?”

A barely perceptible nod.

When Pratt presses the cold stethoscope against Coop’s heaving chest, it seems more of a confirmatory action than one that's actually necessary. He sighs, shaking his head. Coop, as evidenced by the blue tinge to his lips, his rolling eyes, the pallor of his skin, is officially status asthmaticus.

He's in respiratory failure.

Things suddenly grow a lot more urgent. Pratt gives Lewis a gesture that she reciprocates, and a nurse pulls the crash cart closer to the bed. Neela’s heart sinks just as Abby sinks into position right at Coop’s bedside, crouching next to him as she strokes his hair and updates him.

“Sweetheart, your breathing isn't where we need it to be, okay? You're not getting enough oxygen. We need to put you to sleep for a while… intubate you. Do you understand?”

Coop closes his eyes, humming in assent even as a frightened tear slips down his cheek.

“Ju-just… d-d-do… iiiiit.”

His voice is shot. Weak. Resigned to his fate.

It's the same phrase he used when Abby shocked his heart back into a regular rhythm a few months ago. Back then, though, it had simply been a plea to get things over with.

Now, it seems not only a desperate entreaty, but also a solemn reminder:

I’ve been here before.

Neela knows, just as the other staff do, that Coop’s been super sick a couple of times. He knows what it's like to wake up in the ICU feeling like you're breathing through a straw. He knows what it's like for weeks to pass in the span of a minute.

He knows that when he's tubed, he can breathe, and that’s all that matters.

“We’re going to look after you, sweetheart, I promise.” Abby says, her own eyes a little misty. She brushes the sweat-damp hair from his forehead and squeezes his hand. One of the other nurses adjusts the bed so it's laying flat. The tears, terrified, continue to stream silently down his cheeks.

Abby lifts his hand, pressing an almost motherly kiss to the back of it, while Pratt slots a syringe full of medication into the cannula of his other hand.

“Propofol and some muscle relaxants are going to go in now, man. Just relax and let yourself drift off- we’ve got you.”

As the syringe is pushed, Neela can see Coop’s grip on Abby’s hand loosen. The thick tears decorating his cheeks seem, in themselves, to slow down, the scared expression in his eyes melting away beneath the anaesthetic. He blinks once. Twice.

Gone.

There's something so unnerving about Coop being still. How, as Pratt brushes his index finger underneath Coop’s eyelashes, the latter doesn't stir at all to crack a smile. When Dr Lewis gets into position behind his head and adjusts her patient accordingly, he's limp and movable. Floppy.

“Pratt, can you get that nebulizer off?”

“Sure.”

There are red marks across Coop's face from where the straps of the mask dug into his skin for hours. Now, he doesn't breathe at all. He looks dead. According to the dropping numbers on the monitor, he may as well be dead.

“Laryngoscope.”

“Here. Laryngoscope.”

A nurse places the metal instrument into Dr Lewis' awaiting hand. Her other hand gently tilts Coop’s head back.

“Alright… sliding laryngoscope in… got slight cord visualisation. Tube?”

“Tube.”

Neela watches her angle the endotracheal tube in with bated breath- and for good reason.

“C’mon, Coop.” Lewis murmurs, desperately trying to gain access. “I need to help you breathe, sweetheart. Let me help you breathe.”

Pratt steps up next to her, arms crossed. “Difficult airway?”

“Nearly impossible. Haven't seen this level of inflammation in a long time. Poor guy must have been so incredibly uncomfortable.”

The monitor continues to blare. Coop’s oxygen levels continue to drop.

Abby, still positioned right next to him, stroking his hair even as he lays there unconscious, glances worriedly at the screen.

“His sats aren't looking good.”

Dr Lewis sighs. “Yeah, I know, I'm just trying to- there.”

Her relief is palpable, and Neela knows at once that she’s finally in. She watches the tube slot into place before Lewis inflates the cuff, and Pratt connects everything up to the vent.

“Tube’s misting.” Abby says gently, as everyone begins to relax. “Looks like good placement.”

Pratt pulls his stethoscope out from around his neck.

“I’ll check.”

He moves to Coop's side and checks his breathing, first auscultating the left side of his chest, then the right. It's odd, Neela thinks, to observe how natural his breathing looks now, when only moments ago it was erratic and desperate- but of course, it isn't technically him breathing now at all. They've taken over for him.

After a few more checks with the stethoscope across Coop’s chest and neck, Pratt stands up, slinging the device back around his own neck.

“Bilateral breath sounds. You're in.”

Everyone in the room seems to relax at once, especially when the numbers on the monitor start to creep up to normal.

“Alright,” Dr Lewis breathes, turning to Abby. “Secure it, then we'll get him down to ICU. Keep him on max settings until we know it's safe to start weaning him off."

She moves back, as does Pratt, and Abby stands, giving Coop’s hair one last gentle run through with her fingers before she moves away to fetch the tube holder. Neela's eyes remain fixed on him, though. It's impossible not to when he's so completely still.

“You alright, Neela?” Abby asks gently as she returns a few moments later.

Neela nods. “Yeah, I just… it's so different when you know them. I didn't realise how sick it would make me feel.”

Abby gives her a small reassuring smile, then focuses her attention back on the packaging she's just picked up, tearing it open and pulling out the holder before she starts to peel off the tape on the pads.

“I know what you mean. It's not easy seeing somebody you care about like this, and it's somehow even harder with a person like Coop. He's always smiling, always moving, always there, and now…” She presses the first pad against his cheek gently, thumb brushing against it to secure it. “He's not. He's always there to take care of everybody else, and now…” She applies the other pad, movements just as careful and attentive. “He needs us to take care of him.”

Neela hums affirmatively, watching her secure the tube.

“There's just so much at stake. So much that could go wrong, and nearly did. Maybe it even has.”

Abby finishes, standing up fully again and adjusting things ever so slightly. Coop looks like the other patients in the ICU now, and it makes Neela’s stomach roll with anxiety.

“It isn't easy.” Abby responds. “But that's what the ER’s like, even if it happens with one of our own. It's fast-paced, it's risky, and sometimes the worst happens. Sometimes, we can't easily cure a patient, and we have to hope that they'll fight enough on their own to get through things.”

“Do you think he will? Coop?”

“There are no guarantees, but if anyone's going to, it's him.” She looks down at him with a mixture of affection and admiration. Her thumb strokes along the curve of his jaw. “He just needs to hang on long enough for the inflammation to go down. He just needs to do something which is pretty alien to him, and rest. Let us do some of the heavy lifting for a while until he's strong enough to do it on his own again.”

Neela nods. “He'll get through it.”

Abby smiles. “Exactly. He'll get through it… You’re a tough one, aren't you, sweetheart?” She brushes back some more sweat-damp and unruly hair from his forehead. “Let's get you somewhere you can rest, hm?”

Coop remains still, the only sign he's still there at all being the beeping of the monitor and the fogging of the tube. But somehow, as Neela helps Abby raise the railings of the bed ready for transport, she knows he's going to come out of this.

He always does.

[irelise]

Who is your favorite character - Alex or Yassen? And how do you feel this informs your characterization of one or both of them?

Thanks for this ask Valaks, just the type of meta I like!

I will say Yassen is my favourite hands down because I have a Type and Yassen’s character archetype hits all my guilty pleasures. Even before RR and all the delicious whump, Yassen already felt like a character with layers from what little we saw of him - a stone-cold professional but also one with a sense of humour; someone at the top of his field who also doesn’t particularly like his job or his employers and is just thinking of retirement; a hired killer who is purely, unabashedly in it for the money, no complex motives, no dithering over morals - yet he still had enough humanity to speak of love for a man fourteen years dead who had betrayed him, and have compassion and love for Alex who was thrown into the world of espionage far too young. That “I love you” at the end of Eagle Strike gets me every time ;_;

Then came RR: I really enjoy stories about agency (or lack thereof) and Yassen is a fascinating study of that, so a lot of my fic tends to place him in situations where he’s not entirely in control. Canon-wise, It’s easy to say that RR is the story of how he got whumped into being an assassin against his will and on some level that’s true - but he chose to join Malagosto; maybe at first he wanted to simply learn enough skills to survive, but by the time of his graduation assignment he was ready to kill, and it was only down to chance that he got cold feet at the last second. At the end of RR he consciously chose to become an assassin out of spite - (I have my own thoughts about how much sense that makes), but regardless, by that point I don’t think it’s fair to say that Yassen is purely a victim of circumstances with no agency of his own. By the time the main Alex Rider canon rolls around he’s done many unforgivable, irredeemable things under his own will.

...Having said that, I do still think that even as a fully-fledged Scorpia operative Yassen is still bound in a lot of ways, which is such a delightful contrast for me because of the way his lethality is emphasised. Here we’ve got Yassen, the most dangerous person in the room, capable of killing someone a hundred different ways without even needing a conventional weapon, but when we get a glimpse of his introspection in present-day Stormbreaker when faced with Alex, this is what we see:

“The two of them looked at each other, both of them trapped in different ways, on opposite sides of the glass.”

It’s tragic in a way that hits all my buttons - Yassen sacrifices all his morals, betrays his parents’ memory, turns his back on his own happiness (let’s not forget one of the last times when he felt pure happiness was when he decided not to complete his graduation assignment in New York and he felt like he won a battle against his own darker impulses) - and what does he get in return? A never-ending fight to prove himself the best at a profession he doesn’t even like, a lonely life destined for an premature ending, and all with Scorpia’s watchful, controlling eye in the background.

Oh dear god this reply is getting away from me. Um. I’ll leave the Eagle Strike meta for another day and just say that Yassen’s a character of very sharp contrasts - just look at the sheer range of his characterisations in fic and general fanon - and it’s interesting to poke at that. The aspect of his characterisation that rises to the forefront of each story can be completely different depending on his age, who he’s interacting with, the setting of the story, or even just what I’m in the mood to write. Canon-based AUs are particularly interesting for me just because there’s so much potential for the course of Yassen’s life - and the core of his personality - to shift completely if certain key events had changed; someday I still really want to write that MI6!Yassen fic...

Characterisation-wise I think I tend to focus on the contrast between how Yassen presents himself (controlled and graceful, deadly competence, dubious morals), with some sort of vulnerability below the surface, whether it’s something in the plot/setting (eg his precarious situation in Scorpia - I do adore your headcanon that he’s a tool Scorpia is slowly but surely trying to dispose of while wringing as much use out of him as they can), or an emotional weak spot (Alex).

Speaking of Alex, since this is already way too long, putting discussion of Alex below cut!

Alex, by contrast, I used to not be terribly interested in. Maybe it was because I was very young when I read the books, or maybe because of AH’s own writing which tends to focus more on the action and gadgets and plot than take time exploring the nuances in Alex’s characterisation. Compared to Yassen, Alex has several very strong key traits that tend to stay relatively constant when I write him: leans more to the serious side most of the time rather than pure unbridled chaos; smart mouth that he cannot and will not keep shut especially when some idiot is monologuing at him; independent and resourceful but somewhat impulsive; understimulated by “normal” life ever since Stormbreaker - which leads him into trouble, especially when combined with the fact that I do headcanon Alex as someone with a strong drive to do good and who refuses to turn a blind eye when there’s someone he can help or something he can make right.

Of course, since he’s fourteen, sometimes Alex’s intervention just makes things worse...

It’s only more recently thanks to the lovely writers and meta from the fandom that I started taking more of an interest in Alex - specifically, what happens as Alex gets older? I enjoy coming of age fic with Alex: those times where he suddenly realises he’s no longer a child spy, or the times he realises the moral views he held when he was fourteen are insufficient for navigating the murky world of intelligence - those situations where there’s no clear “bad guy”, or those times when strategic sacrifices need to be made...

I also very much enjoy adult Alex fics - just how does MI6 deal with an agent like Alex? Alex, who has a distrust of authority (MI6 in particular), who’s perfectly willing to disregard all mission parameters if he decides the circumstances call for it, who nevertheless is so effective that Jones makes the decision to keep using him - but will all of that backfire one day?

And what about Alex himself, working in intelligence without a patriotic bone in his body, with the black mark of Scorpia on his record? Alex who’s now an adult with adult coworkers and had hopes for finally fitting into a proper social circle again, only it turns out he still can’t connect with them and is as lonely as he was at fourteen? Alex, who keeps finding himself being compared to John and Ian Rider, the family that he had never really known yet condemned him to this life with no input from Alex himself?

Basically I think there’s bits and pieces of Alex’s characterisation I’m more interested in over others - and the main thing I find interesting about him is the circumstances he’s in: the government-sanctioned abuse and blackmail, the way he grows up a child in an adult’s world. So correspondingly my fic tends to focus on that rather than, say, light-hearted slice of life shenanigans around London or anything to do with Brooklands or family fic, although I’ll gladly read those from other writers! And since Yassen is my favourite over Alex, I think it would be rare indeed that I write an Alex-centric fic where Yassen doesn’t play a role at all.

[set-phasers-to-whump]

i never knew how much it would hurt to feel (this building collapse on top of me)

prompt: buried

whumpee: shawn spencer

fandom: psych

hi and welcome to my very first psych fic! i finished the show a couple weeks ago and finally get to write it! since this is my first fic there is a high chance the characterization is not the best and i do apologize but as i write more it will improve! i hope you like this anyway! (first part of the title is from some kind of disaster by all time low)

Shawn and Gus are poking their way through a falling-down, long-deserted office building on the outskirts of town, looking for clues about the latest murder case that they’ve gotten themselves assigned to. Gus pokes his head through a doorway and immediately recoils with a yelp, hands scrabbling frantically at his face. 

“Spiders!” he shouts, and Shawn shines the beam of his flashlight on Gus’ face. 

“Spider webs,” he says, reaching out to brush them away. “Ooh wait, what’s this - a giant tarantula on the back of your head?”

Gus slaps his hand away, brushes his own hand across the back of his head to confirm that there isn’t really a giant tarantula lurking there, and frowns at Shawn. “If we don’t find any clues soon -”

“C’mon, man, you know it’s a process. This building has two more floors we haven’t even seen yet.”

“Two more floors that look like they might collapse at any second.”

Shawn can’t argue with that, especially when the next step he takes makes his foot sink a couple inches into a rotting floorboard. He gingerly pulls it out and prepares to concede to Gus about the top two floors of the building. 

“Okay, fine, we don’t have to go up -”

The ending of that sentence is drowned out by a horrific crashing noise, and before Shawn has time to process what’s happening, what feels like several tons of stuff is falling down on top of him in the single most painful event of his entire life. He screams, and dust and pieces of who-knows-what fill his mouth and he coughs and his chest burns and he can’t quite breathe right because something is pushing down on him and everything is dark - 

Ah. That would be because his eyes are closed, Shawn realizes, in a moment of blinding clarity. He opens his eyes, blinking rapidly in the dust, and sees...a whole lot of junk. Chunks of plaster and concrete and wood surround him in a sort of enclave, and if he looks out across his body he can see what’s causing the issue with his breathing - a very large, very heavy piece of concrete, probably some kind of support beam. Excellent, Shawn thinks. Being buried alive in a mountain of old office is exactly how I wanted to spend my day. 

He’s trying to distract himself from the pain with this line of thinking, which is half-working. If he can just not focus on how much it hurts for a few moments, until he can make his hands cooperate and grab his phone, or until he has enough air in his lungs to call out to Gus - 

Gus! Shawn is trapped in his own personal bubble of debris, and Gus isn’t here. Which means he’s somewhere else, maybe hurt even worse than Shawn is, or maybe even dead, but Gus isn’t allowed to die, not like this, not - 

“Shawn!”

Thank god you’re alive, buddy, Shawn thinks at Gus’ voice, and then he thinks, oh man, I actually have to yell back to Gus so he doesn’t think I’m dead. He takes as deep a breath as his constricted lungs will allow, which hurts like absolute hell, and shouts, as loudly as he can, “Gus!” 

“Shawn!” he hears Gus yell again, as he tries to ride out the wave of pain burning through his entire chest. Don’t make me yell again, he thinks, forcing himself not to cough despite the large amount of dust that has gotten into his mouth, because he thinks the pain of that might actually kill him. 

Fortunately, he doesn’t have to yell again - he hears shifting noises and knows that Gus is getting closer. He tries to think of a way to let Gus know exactly where he is without opening his mouth again, and then realizes that one of his arms disappears underneath the rubble currently boxing him in. His hand doesn’t feel like it’s buried, though, so he thinks that it must be on the outside, and maybe Gus can see it. He concentrates very hard and wiggles his fingers, taps them on the ground, and hopes that Gus is as close as he sounds. 

And he is. A few seconds of wiggling and tapping pass, and then Shawn feels Gus’ hand touch his own. “Shawn?”

Shawn curls his fingers into the best approximation of a thumbs-up that he can manage. 

“Okay, um, don’t move,” Gus says. Got it, Shawn thinks. Don’t exactly have anywhere to go. “I’m gonna...I’m gonna get you out of there.”

This seems like a pretty good plan to Shawn, except for one thing. He shuts his eyes and prepares himself to speak again. 

“911,” he whispers, and hopes that Gus can hear him. 

“Oh. Right,” Gus says, and Shawn hears the sounds of him dialing, and then explaining that his best friend is buried under debris in an abandoned office building on the edge of town.

“They say it’ll be about twenty minutes,” Gus informs him. “You’re not buried very deep, so I’m gonna try and get you out before then, okay?”

Shawn gives him another thumbs-up, mildly surprised by Gus’...lack of panicking. Not that he’s complaining, because honestly he’s pretty close to panicking himself, and at least one of them needs to remain sane at all times. 

He lies there and listens to the sounds of rubble moving and Gus making various noises of effort to indicate the very difficult work he is doing. All the while, though, he’s talking to Shawn about, talking how stupid this idea was in the first place, and how he could be at work earning money to pay for the new TV in the Psych office instead, and about a million other little things that Shawn would ordinarily groan at and find some way to change the subject.

Now, though, he’s content to listen to Gus and distract himself from the fact that he feels like he’s been run over by a truck carrying a mobile home and then had the mobile home dropped on top of him for good measure. 

It doesn’t actually take that long for Gus to mostly unbury him. There’s still some rubble surrounding him, but apart from the giant concrete thing lying across his chest, he’s basically free. He gives Gus the best smile he can muster in his current situation and wheezes out, “hey.”

“Hey,” Gus replies, checking his watch. “Help should be here in about seven minutes, if that lady at 911 dispatch was telling the truth.”

Shawn nods as best as he can, then experimentally moves his freed arms to the concrete currently crushing his chest. 

“Don’t do that,” Gus warns. “The 911 lady said it would be too heavy and that trying to move it by ourselves might hurt you worse.”

But it hurts, Shawn thinks, petulantly, and this must show on his face because Gus says, “don’t give me that look, Shawn. She said if that beam was gonna crush you, it would have already, so you just have to wait.”

He really doesn’t want to wait. Maybe this beam isn’t going to crush him to death, but it’s making it very difficult to breathe, which in turn is making it very difficult to stay calm, which is then making it harder to breathe - 

He needs to relax. Maybe if he closes his eyes for a few seconds...yeah. That sounds nice. He lets his eyes slip closed and tries to take a calming breath that does approximately nothing. But not two seconds later, his eyes are snapping back open.

“‘Ow,” Shawn mutters, as loudly as he can, as Gus smacks him across the cheek with a surprisingly strong hand. 

“Don’t you dare pass out on me, Shawn.”

“Won’t,” he promises, reluctantly keeping his eyes open. How much longer do I have to keep my eyes open for, exactly? he wonders. 

“When’s...help?”

Gus anxiously checks the time, as though he hadn’t just anxiously checked the time like two seconds ago. “The lady said twenty minutes. It’s been fifteen.”

Five minutes...he can make it five more minutes. Right?

“Talk...to me.”

“I was talking to you, Shawn. Until you decided to almost pass out on me!”

Shawn slowly shakes his head. “Wasn’t gonna.”

Gus shakes his head in return, like he doesn’t believe it, which is fair. But he keeps talking anyway. Shawn wonders whether it’s even possible for Gus to run out of boring things to say to keep people awake. 

True to the 911 lady’s word, exactly five minutes later, help arrives in the form of a firetruck and ambulance. The paramedics immediately get to work on Shawn. In other circumstances, he’d maybe try and fight them on the whole precautionary c-collar situation, but they also give him drugs and an oxygen mask, and both of those things feel absolutely wonderful, so he decides to shut up and let them do what they need to do - namely, free him from his concrete prison. 

Even with the drugs in his system, it hurts, which is surprising considering they’re removing the thing that’s hurting him. But it hurts almost as bad as the initial collapse of the building on top of him had, and it hurts more than actually being pinned under it had. He screams for all of two seconds of intense pain, and then the weight is completely gone and the pain stops and he falls silent with an “oh” of pleased surprise. 

The move onto a backboard and into the back of the ambulance hurts, too, but far less in comparison. Shawn makes it through both of those events with only minor wincing and whimpering, and soon enough they’re on the way to the hospital, and Gus is talking to Jules on the phone, and the only source of pain at all is the iron grip that Gus is keeping on his hand.

aaa thanks sm for reading! hope the characterization wasn’t too abysmal and i hope you enjoyed :) i plan to write plenty more psych whump in the future so if thats what you enjoy you’re in luck!!!

[thwip--thwip]

Hey, I was looking for some new reading material and wondered if you could give me some recs? Please and thank you sm!

ho BOY anon, COULD I! I’ve got over 2,000 bookmarks on AO3 - what are we looking for? I’m going to assume IronDad, or at the very least Peter Parker-centric; short or long? MJ or Gwen Stacy? Angst, fluff, whump? Sorry this took a minute; I went into the vault for you and pulled out some rare gems:

LONG FICS

In the Home by @captainkirkk | 68k

The Avengers have been infected, turned violent and aggressive against their will. And Peter, the only one unaffected, is trapped inside the Tower with six feral teammates.

“Natasha,” Peter says cautiously, “what happened here? Steve attacked me, and if there was ever a sign that something was wrong, it’s having the embodiment of Truth, Justice, and the American Way throw you across the room—”

Natasha comes closer, her stride controlled. Nothing necessarily out of the ordinary, but there’s something in her face, in her eyes—

Natasha lunges across the space, and slams into Peter, hard.

This just…hoo. A classic if I’ve ever seen one. There’s going to be plenty of aloneintherain on this list because she’s the bomb dot com and its no secret I’m in love. we Stan in this house; this might be my favorite Spidey fic ever written.

POW Avengers by Punny_Puck |122k

Tony Stark is thrown into a new Nazi POW camp. It’s his fifth–or sixth–and he’d really like to make it to his fiftieth escape attempt this time. But Stalag III isn’t like any of the other POW camps he’s been in. He suddenly finds himself facing an impossible task: Getting two-hundred and fifty men out of the camp in one massive escape attempt. And dammit if he’s not going to make it work.

Very impressive, very lengthy and detailed historical AU set in WWII. This one is more Tony than Peter, and quite a fair bit of Loki (this author does a great job with all the different POV’s, that’s why it’s so long!). Nice and juicy!

5 Times Peter Fell & Tony Caught Him, and The 1 Time He Didn’t by eva7673 | 35k

Peter has a nasty habit of falling. And Tony, bless him, will catch him every. single. time. Until the day he can’t.

I love this series with all of my heart, but especially this first fic! It’s the perfect amount of whump and IronDad, and oh man, that last time? GETS me. Eva definitely put in so much work on this series, and it SHOWS!

Twelve Days of Peter Parker by @upcamethesun | 27k

In each of the twelve days leading up to Christmas, Tony runs into one Peter Parker — for better or for worse.

In other words, an excuse for this author to write gratuitous Peter fluff/angst/nonsense with a Christmas theme, because ���tis the season.

This fic is so cute I Die. Perfect bit of holiday nonsense! I read it every year lol. It’s got everything you’re looking for and more, to scratch the itch you didn’t know you had. 

ever in your favor by @iron–spider | 153k

Peter startles awake when someone shakes him.

“Sorry, honey,” May says. Peter blinks a couple times and she comes into focus, her hair pulled back from her face. She’s trying not to look a certain way, but he can see it in her eyes anyway. She clears her throat, keeps talking. “But it’s…” She glances away, wets her lips. “You gotta get ready.”

He remembers what day it is, and his heart beats like a drum at someone’s execution. But he tries to put on a mask, make it all seem normal. It’s everything but, despite the fact that he’s been dealing with reaping day since he was born, between himself, Ben and May. That fear that one of them could be taken away. Sent to surefire slaughter. But now Ben is gone, taken despite never having his name drawn from a bowl, and May’s finally safe. Now Peter’s name is in there alone. The last Parker sitting on the chopping block. He doesn’t know how to be. He doesn’t know what normal is, when the Hunger Games are looming on the horizon.

I mean…how could I possibly do a fic rec list without this on it? Iron–spider’s latest masterwork, and it truly is a masterwork. The Hunger Games AU your soul has been crying out for, and quite possibly the greatest AU to ever live. Do yourself a favor and get settled in - you’re in for a ride.

Magazineverse by @copperbadge | 56k

Heroes In Manhattan: From Captain America’s Hidden Talents To The Truth About The Hulk, We Debunk The Myths And Expose The Daily Lives Of The Avengers.

Avengers-centric, takes place post-2012. The Avengers team we deserve! The whole series is amazing, and I definitely didn’t see the twist coming (SO original, and you totally got me. Well played.)

MEDIUM FICS

devil in a sunday hat by @captainkirkk | 14k

Peter wishes he hadn’t gotten out of bed that morning. Then, maybe, he wouldn’t be reduced to this—limp-crawling through the rabbit burrows that is Oscorp Tower, a monster of a man on his heels, bloody and bruised and choking on a panic attack.

This series really speaks to Peter, and his experience as a street-level hero. I don’t think I’ve ever not cried reading this series - it’s really beautiful. Aloneintherain always manages to capture how much weight and anxiety sits on Peter’s shoulders - and how dire his consequences can really be.

5 things that change for Peter after the end of the world by @iron–spider | 14k

…and one thing that always remains the same.

(SPOILERS FOR INFINITY WAR)

Peter knows he’s different now.

The first three months were like a bubble. He didn’t think about the newness of his old life, he didn’t think about the state of the world now that it had been saved—he just worried. Worried about Tony and Steve recovering. Worried about May worrying about him. Worried about everything in general—he didn’t allow himself specifics because specifics didn’t make sense, not yet. He just focused on his routine, kept it normal, the same schedule every day so he didn’t throw himself off.

It felt like the bubble popped when the party ended, and everything became clearer. The differences in who he is now were highlighted, like there was a spotlight on his every move, like everybody could see the invisible scars the world-ending experience left on him.

The first thing he notices is the sleeping. Or lack thereof.

(a follow up to my story “the rattle of their hearts” from Peter’s POV. You can read this one without having read the original, but it would make more sense if you have read it!)

Everyone knows Rattle, and if you don’t, definitely read the first fic in this series! But this second one is really special to me (and MJ never fails to make me laugh out loud, every time). Peter’s PTSD is dealt with intimately in this fic, and I love it to bits.

the conspiracy kids by @tempestaurora | 13k

WHO IS SPIDER-MAN?

The screen showed Peter Parker, sixteen years old and determined to prove the identity of Spider-Man over the course of the three-part documentary he was making, unknowing that it would become viral within days of the first part being released. Behind the camera, way off screen, was Harley Keener, Tony Stark’s other prodigy child, grinning like crazy as Peter started the documentary. Only a few people knew what was to come, and those few people were about to have a great few weeks.

“My name is Peter Parker, and with the help of my friends, Ned Leeds, Harley Keener, and my Aunt, May Parker, who provided me with a lot of red yarn for this project, we’re going to uncover the identity of Spider-Man.”

OR

“what if peter just decided to fuck with everyone who didn’t know he was spider man and make a documentary about him trying to uncover the Truth.”

Looking for a fun, Peter-and-Harley-being-ridiculous-teenagers fic? This is the One For You. I can see it all in my head, and it never fails to make me laugh. Delightful piece of fluff and probably the best social-media-esque fic I’ve read.

Primary Reason Tony Stark Would Throw Down With An Anti-Vaxxer In The Street by @caraminha | 12k

Prompt from my Tumblr: Have you heard of tetanus? I’m studying it for school and it’s got lots of angst potential - it causes severe, seizure like muscle spasms which can break the patient’s bones, but they’re conscious and fully aware of what’s happening. It also causes fever and lockjaw, and difficulty breathing. I’d love to see an angst fic where Peter has bad tetanus and Tony and co are looking after him whilst his symptoms get worse and worse.

Looking for some Peter!whump? This fic is so sweet. Tony is Dad. What more do you need?

SHORT FICS

Come Together by @captainkirkk | 1.8k

From the ground, Tony squints at Thanos and the young heroes the villain is chasing through the city. “Are they…” Tony begins.

Steve, being lifted onto a gurney by starstruck paramedics, laughs a little. “Leading the man who almost destroyed the Earth in a wild goose chase?” In the sky, Johnny Storm sticks his tongue out at Thanos, ducking and weaving out of the villain’s grasp. “Yeah. I think they are.”

Didn’t I promise she’d be on here a billion and one times? All of her stuff is so good, for every fandom. Go READ this queen who’s been killing the game for years. This fic is such a sweet one, an Endgame fic before Peter was even in the MCU. It’s perfect.

Only Road by @garamonder | 2.8k

A rare breather between fighting should have been a relief for the Avengers. Instead, one small comment triggers a confrontation Peter had been avoiding for months.

Oh wow this one…this dialogue between Peter and Tony is incredible. One of my favorite things in a fic is a good argument, especially one where Peter has a distinct and mature point. 

Every Penny and More by Princessfbi | 1.2k

She forced herself to inhale air and hold it before releasing it from her lips. She grounded herself in the cheap vinyl in a crappy diner that she wasn’t sure she was ever going to be able to look at the same way again. She thought of the life Peter would have if she said yes because she knew that’s what all of this was about: Tony asking her permission to let him do this.

May and Tony co-parenting Peter is…oh, be still my heart. This is such a sweet little fic of something that definitely happened off-screen :’)

5 Times Spider-Man Saved An Avengers’ Ass (and the 1 Time They Saved Him) by TunaFishChris | 7.2k

What it says on the tin.

Going through an angsty Spider-Man phase. I regret nothing.

YES give me Peter x Avengers team! Peter gets a great moment with each of the Avengers, proving himself a capable hero (and getting assistance when he needs it the most :’) baby makes some friends!). Really cute, a fun little romp.

unbearable loss by @iron–spider | 1.6k

“Peter…he was so afraid, Pep,” Tony says, his voice breaking. “He…he just lunged for me, he was so afraid, he wanted—he needed someone to be there for him. And I tried, I tried—I held him, I told him he was alright, which was a—goddamn lie, and the only fucking thing that came out of my mouth. The last thing I said to him.” He shakes his head, swallowing hard. “The last thing I said to him was a lie.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Pepper says, quietly.

“I do,” Tony says. “He trusted me. That kid trusted me, and I failed him every possible way I could have. I couldn’t save him, I couldn’t—he died in my arms and I couldn’t do one single solitary thing about it. And I couldn’t—me, the human fucking chatterbox—I just stared at him. He was dying, turning to fucking dust and apologizing to me and I just stared at him, like a moron.”

This fic Fucks. Me. Up. Iron–spider’s Tony angst is unparalleled. It hurts me every time, and the dialogue between him and Pepper is just…it’ll get you. 

yesterday, I saw a change by @captainkirkk | 6.8k

Inspired by prompt: ‘Peter is unmasked on live television, and everyone goes berserk—you’ve already heard this one but here’s the twist—he’s wide-eyed, staring into the camera, frightened, but not because of his own safety. The first thing that comes out of his mouth is, “Someone please, please protect my Aunt May.” And the entirety of New York cries out simultaneously. Heroes and neighbours and fellow students rain down on the Parker house, ready to defend her.’

This is - surprise! - a May Parker fic. This fic will move you. You will probably cry. I love it with all my heart. If I ever need a refresher on who May is and how she feels - how New York feels, about Spiderman - this is my go-to.

Hope that gave you some new stuff to check out! I have more, do I ever have more. Enjoy & remember to leave comments for all of these wonderful writers!!!

[bluejayblueskies]

shattered glass

Part 28 of Whumptober 2020

Fandom: The Magnus Archives Characters: Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood Tags: Whump, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Eye Trauma, Blood/Gore, Hurt/Comfort

Read on Ao3

Jonah’s dead, when the dust finally clears and the eyes on Jon’s skin finally wink closed and he reduces, once again, from the Archivist to Jonathan Sims—or, at least, as close as he can get anymore. Jonah’s eyes—eyes that have stolen so many bodies that didn’t belong to them and that have, for so long, watched suffering with sickening indifference—are now reduced to ash, crumbling under the gaze of the monster they created. Jon thinks he should probably be more surprised when the dust settles on a world unchanged, that he Knows has not noticed the loss of such a small man as Jonah Magnus. But he always knew, in the end. That killing Jonah wouldn’t change anything. But it had felt…

 It had felt like a final retribution for everything lost. For Sasha, and Tim, and a world full of those who had had even less of a choice in their transformation and consumption than Jon.

 Martin, at least, will be glad to finally see Jonah dead, Jon thinks as he sighs and turns away from the broken man who thought himself a king. Martin, who was used by Jonah just as much as he had been. Martin, who had sacrificed so much to bring about every step on their way here, every small victory dwarfed by immeasurable pain and loss. Martin, who…

 Who is slumped against the wall, blood running in twin trickles from the corners of his eyes, and who is lying very, very still.

 “Oh, god,” Jon says, and his voice cracks around the words. Then, he’s kneeling on the ground, one hand pressed against Martin’s face and the other against the side of his neck, feeling desperately for a pulse. “Oh, god, Martin, I- I didn’t—”

 A heartbeat flutters against Jon’s fingers, faint but there. Relief floods through him, nearly eliciting a giddy laugh before it’s overshadowed almost immediately by guilt.

 “I did this,” he says, barely audible to his own ears. When… when had it been? When he’d compelled every last half-truth out of Jonah, and the foundations of the Panopticon had started to tremble under their weight? When he’d begun to incant, knowing that in this place of fear, favor and fortune and loyalty meant nothing to that which only wished to witness a world suffer? When the room had begun to crumble and fracture under the strain of a thousand eyes, and he had begun to fracture as well, his body becoming a mirror for that which looked upon him and through him and burned the Sight out of a man who thought himself immortal and protected, up here in his ivory tower.

 How long had Martin been here, hurting and broken and alone because of Jon, before he’d finally thought to look?

 It makes Jon sick to think of it. He allows himself one more moment of nauseating guilt before he pushes it all down, deep within, and focuses on the heartbeat.

 “It… it’s okay,” Jon says, even as it’s not, even as a thumb gently pushes one of Martin’s eyelids up to reveal nothing but slick red. His hand jerks away like’s he’s been burned. “It… it’s going to be—”

 A slight intake of breath is the only warning Jon gets before Martin coughs, once, a wet and broken sound that has terror curling in Jon’s stomach again, heavy and ice cold.

 “Martin!” Jon says, and his hand goes to support the back of Martin’s head even as the cough subsides into ragged breathing, hindered by the rattle of liquid in lungs. “God, Martin, I- I’m so sorry, I- can you, can you breathe? It- it’s okay, I- I’ve got you. You’re going to be okay.”

 Martin’s eyelids twitch, like they’re trying very hard to open but are glued in place, and it seems to take Martin several agonizing tries before he manages to say, in a hoarse voice barely louder than a whisper, “Jon?”

 “Yes, I- I’m here.” Jon tries to stay calm, tries to smile reassuringly, even though Martin won’t be able to see it. That thought shatters through his resolve like a bullet through glass, and a small, hitched sob escapes him.

 Martin’s forehead crumples in concern, and he moves as if to sit up, but the effort draws a small cry of pain from him. “No, don’t- just, just don’t move,” Jon says, at the same time as Martin says, “Is- what’s going on?”

 It’s quiet for a moment, an excruciating silence that coats Jon’s tongue with acid the longer he fails to fill it. Then, in the manner of someone who is preparing themselves for a tragedy they already know has befallen them, Martin says, “My… my eyes. They’re- they’re gone, aren’t they. That’s why I- why I can’t—”

 He breaks off, breaths beginning to come in labored bursts, and Jon brings a hand to Martin’s cheek again and tries, despite the lack of it within himself, to restore calm to an increasingly panicked man. The guilt emerges yet again, sharper and more cutting than before, and Jon can’t quite keep it from his voice when he says, “Yes. I… I just, I didn’t… I turned around and you were…”

 A small, hiccupping laugh turns abruptly into another cough. “Of- of course,” Martin says, once the coughs have subsided. “I- I looked, of course I looked, I- I wanted to see the, the moment that smug look was—” He coughs again, and Jon’s hand rubs large, soothing circles on his back. “Knew I shouldn’t have,” Martin croaks. “Stupid. But… but when I saw the, the fear in his face, it- well, it didn’t make it worth it, but… you know.” He takes a moment to breathe, to let some of the tension leave his chest. “He’s… he’s dead?”

 “Yes,” Jon says quietly. Then, because it feels necessary: “But, Martin, you should- you should know that the world, it’s- it’s not—”

 “It’s not any better?” The small frown that finds its way to Martin’s lips is unsurprised. “Yeah, I- I know. I‘ve known for a while, actually. You’re- you’re not as subtle as you think you are, Jon. All those hints, about how removing one person from the equation doesn’t change anything—yeah, I- I got it.”

 “Martin, I- I’m so sorry.” Jon looks at the ground, his stomach twisting. “I wasn’t careful enough, I- I hurt you—”

 “No, Jon, it’s not your fault,” Martin says, conviction giving strength to his voice.

 “But I did hurt you,” Jon says. “Accident or not, it- it was my doing.”

 Martin draws in a shuddering breath, and slowly raises a hand, skimming it up Jon’s arm until it comes to rest on the side of his neck, fingers pushing into the hair at the base of his scalp and a thumb brushing lightly against his jawline. “Maybe,” Martin says, in a voice that leaves no room for protest. “Maybe not. Either way, I- I won’t let you blame yourself for this. That’s not- that’s not going to help.”

 “Martin,” Jon says in a voice just shy of breaking, “tell me what you want me to do. Tell- tell me how to help.”

 Martin’s eyelids twitch again, a long-ingrained instinct still making itself known, and a ripple of pain flashes across Martin’s face. His breath hitches in his chest, and the fingers carding through Jon’s hair curl and stiffen as they’re overcome with a wave of agony that Jon knows, despite Martin’s protestations, is his burden to bear. In a voice tight with pain, Martin says, “Just- just hold me? Please? Just- just for a bit.”

 “Oh, Martin,” Jon says, and he folds Martin into his arms. He grips the back of Martin’s jacket tightly, and Martin buries his face in the crook of Jon’s neck, and they both breathe in the scent of iron and salt.

 Martin’s chest is shaking slightly, and though Jon can’t feel the wet slide of tears against his neck, he knows that Martin’s crying. “It… it hurts,” Martin says, barely more than a whisper, like a secret told only to himself.

 Jon holds Martin tighter, and tries very hard not to Know what it feels like to have sight removed by that which craves it. The memory of melted nerves as that which was not meant to do so observes all that has ever been in the space of a blink comes to him anyway, in a prickle, in a shudder, in a screaming wave of agony and terror and pleading for respite that carves a deep, aching hole within him.

 “I know,” he says, and wishes so desperately it were a lie.

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

Steve’s Ending: What the Fuck Just Happened?

                            ************WARNING*********** 

BIG-ASS ESSAY WITH SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME AHOY

I have been largely out of the fandom sphere for a spell because of personal stuff that went down and then subsequent Endgame anxiety (I’m sorry, I really will get to some BW asks as soon as I’m done reeling from this film), but I wanted to get out some thoughts about Endgame while they are fresh in my mind. I have seen Endgame twice since its release. I saw it Friday morning, debriefed with my beta @pitchforkcentral86, and then turned around and bought tickets for an evening showing the same day. Why? Because I had to process Steve’s last scene. I had to see it twice just to comprehend what the hell happened and then try to interpret it. I went through several hypotheses and waves of accompanying emotion and then came to a tentative personal conclusion about what the hell Steve’s ending is to me.  But first I had to ask— Is this a true happy ending? Is this lazy writing? Is this a character assassination? Is this a legitimate choice Steve would make? Some combination of the above? So, here go my hypotheses—

Hypothesis 1: This is a legitimate happy ending for Steve and his timeline.

If you only look at the images shown to us and don’t devote much thought to the implications of Steve’s choice for other people in the world, it might appear to be a beautiful ending. After a decade-and-a-half of compass-gazing and pining for the good old days of segregation and boiled food, Steve gets what he wants. He gets the person who is — surprise! — “the love of his life.” This plays into the ongoing narrative that Steve has never been able to find contentment in the modern world or with modern people (some of whom he refers to as “family,” interestingly enough). This hypothesis also assumes that he can only be happy if he is with one woman, because he assumes shared life experience is a prerequisite for partnership, which means that he has essentially preemptively foreclosed on any relationship with anyone who is not Peggy.  Since Bucky’s name has barely even entered Steve’s consciousness lately, except to emotionally whump his past self into not choking him to death, even their friendship seems to be a question in the last two films in this series.

So if we take the arc of these films into consideration, including the last two films, he has apparently resigned himself to a position of “Peggy is my only viable romantic relationship, and she is dead, and I am incomplete as long as this is true.” When you write this thesis for Steve Rogers, which is a sad thesis indeed, this ending might seem like a relief for him. (It could also be argued that it is terribly lacking in resiliency and flexibility and is naive, at best, in terms of what is love versus infatuation versus idealization.) Problematic in this happy ending scenario: The writers clearly did not consider the second and third order effects of this decision. They just needed to tie up Steve’s timeline and get Chris Evans out of the franchise, and this was a way to do it that resonates at face value. Man out of time gets put back in his time. Gets love. Quote: “It was beautiful.” Ignore all of the following and more: -There will now be two Steve Rogers in this timeline. -One of them will presumably be with Peggy Carter for at least a good chunk of time, unless things went south. -Peggy Carter is the director of SHIELD. Her close associates are undoubtedly known to them as a result. -Thus, Steve Rogers probably could not just stay hidden in the pantry. SHIELD would want to debrief him. They would want to know how the hell he got there. Questions would get asked. This could not remain a secret forever. -Is Steve Rogers going to sit out history? Hang on the couch while the world burns, shield unused? -Is Steve Rogers, knowing that Bucky is alive, going to leave him to rot with Hydra? -Even if they made some sort of arrangement beforehand, like Bucky saying it’s okay, don’t come get me, would they both sit well with continuing to let him kill all of the innocents he killed? -If Steve did go get Bucky, he would likely find him some time in the span of however many years he’s in the past. The future would be completely changed. -If he intervened and found Bucky, Sam Wilson would not be Falcon because TWS would not happen. This version of Bucky would not exist. This end scene could not happen. -Thus, this does not seem to be something that Steve chose to do during his life with Peggy. (Debunked-ish, along with other “Back to the Future” science hereafter, below) Which brings me to my second hypothesis about this ending. Hypothesis 2: This was thought out, but it represents writers Markus and McFeely’s disconnect from the character they built. This is where the “there is no way in hell Steve would sit on the couch where the world burns, where Bucky suffers with Hydra etc.” argument comes in. This taints the ending in a particularly sour way, because they have labored so hard to build an image of Steve as someone who would wreck the world to save Bucky Barnes from harm and stop at nothing to prevent serious harm in the world where he could. It’s what he wanted in the first place! It’s where we all started in TFA! The Steve we know and love would want to go to Korea. To Vietnam. He would want to stop the Khmer Rouge and all the bad shit he could intervene with. Right? And his ass would try to save Bucky, especially knowing exactly where he’s kept! Right?? He would keep going and going until he was worn down into a nub of nothingness. Right??? Which meanders me to— Hypothesis 3: This was a decision that Steve Rogers made that is plausible for his character and was deliberate on the part of the writers. Second and third order effects included. This may be a stretch, but I think it could be argued on the grounds of good becomes great, bad becomes worse. Steve does nothing by half measures, an intrinsic trait that is amplified by his transformation. I have always argued that Steve has a very real selfish streak, or else he never would have tried to enlist in the Army so many times knowing he is absolutely unqualified to serve. Serving in his original condition would have put so many lives at risk, and others would have had to pick up his slack, because he would have been next to physically useless in combat as small Steve. But he would not accept reality, and he would not accept a “lesser” form of helping because it had to be the way that served his ego and his sense of rightness and justness for himself, consequences to other soldiers and the mission be damned. It was myopic and self-serving. And if good becomes great and bad becomes worse, maybe this is a form of that. Maybe he and Bucky agreed (because they were clearly in cahoots with that final scene business) that he would not intervene and rescue him, because then there would be no Falcon, or simply on the principle that the timeline must remain as undisturbed as possible. And maybe this one time, Steve didn’t say “fuck you, Bucky” and do what was right. Maybe Steve Rogers was done. Fucking done. Maybe he realized that what he first wanted at the beginning of TFA is not tenable. That he can’t fight forever. That he, like Tony, needs to rest, and that he can’t do that in the modern world. Which is interesting, because he essentially becomes Tony Stark v1.0 in the end, only caring about himself and his own. And Tony Stark becomes Steve Rogers, making the ultimate sacrifice for mankind. So Steve enjoys a life with Peggy while the world burns because he just can’t do it anymore. He’s paid his dues and he’s done being Captain America or Nomad or anyone else. (Wonder how she likes that version of Steve...?) Though how he could possibly say “It was beautiful” is utterly beyond me. I can’t fit that into this hypothesis, unless he has compartmentalized so hard and so well that he has forgotten about Bucky’s existence completely. And if he has, this is a very sad ending for his character.

There are probably many other hypotheses out there. They just didn’t percolate through my mind yet.

Which brings me to some things @pitchforkcentral86 brought up:

Why was Tony Stark’s arc so perfectly completed, so beautifully closed — truly, even I shed a tear — when we have to sit here writing stupid billion word theses on a nearly defunct blog site, grasping for straws, scratching our heads, wondering what the fuck just happened to Steve Rogers? It’s like getting to know somebody for eight years, being told the same stories about their behavior, learning their values system, their truths… and then being thrown a parting image that can only make sense if  a) the writers cannot be trusted — and maybe could not be trusted this whole time, or b) the character is actually not the person we thought he was.

Is either of these what we want to be left with as we close this phase of the MCU? Either the writers failed or Steve Rogers is not the person we love? And do we really not get to see Bucky and Steve’s friendship arc get closed in a meaningful way after building its depth for three movies? Are we really supposed to count a cheap recycling of a TFA line and some shimmery-eyed SebStan woobieface (TM) and some secret time travel hook-up conspiring off-camera (AS THEIR ENTIRE RELATIONSHIP HAS BEEN SINCE CIVIL WAR, PRESUMABLY, OFF-FUCKING-CAMERA) as “closure”? So, what do I think? I think this was lazy, crap writing, and I think Markus and McFeely thought we wouldn’t consider the timey-wimey implications too much. I think they know this character, and I don’t think they figured this would assassinate his character. I think they just really, really needed to tie this story up in a superficially pretty bow, and they couldn’t kill off both Tony and Steve, so they needed to give him something that took him out of the franchise. And that scene at the end with Peggy was aesthetically BEAUTIFUL. I smiled the first time, ear to ear, until my brain kicked in two minutes later and realized what it meant. They have been building up to this forever, kindling Steggy pretty much every movie. We Stucky people are all like yeah, yeah, Peggy, so sad, but the films have been consistent all along about saying a) Steve is a man out of time, and b) he loves Peggy Carter. (However you wanted to interpret that love... until the support group, where the interpretation is made for us). Support group side note: First, I squeed that Steve was running a support group in what I’m pretty sure is a VA auditorium. And on one hand, I loved the super chill gay Russo cameo and Steve’s untroubled reaction. Three cheers for the first openly gay character in the MCU [eyeroll]. But also, it felt like a total concession, like okay all you Stucky idiots we’ve been queer baiting over the years, we are gonna drop an A-bomb your little kingdom, but look, at least Steve isn’t a homophobe! See? He’s cool with the gays and so are we. Thanks for playing. Maybe you’ll get a REAL queer character in the next phase of the MCU! (If you even stick around after the shit we’ve just pulled.) But this laziness is problematic, because it feels terrible and discrepant. Intended or not, it does have serious implications for the timeline and/or the character, and the final scene existing the way it is potentially means at least one of two things: 1. Time doesn’t work the way we think it does. (In other words, what if there is a world where time travel Steve did all these good things like free Bucky, end the Vietnam War early, etc.?) However, since he is here on this bench with Bucky and Sam, dropping off this shield, this is implausible. If he just disappeared for good and Bucky explained the situation with a tiny, knowing smile, then it would be possible that he started an alternate reality where he did all these very Steve-congruent things and freed Bucky in that timeline, which would not affect this one. Wouldn’t that be nice? I could live with that. Just disappear into the sunset and we can write fics to fill in all the gaps of his Steve-ness. His core character is retained. Hooray. 

But if he started an alternate timeline, he would not be here with Bucky and Sam like this in the original timeline as an old man, which suggests that he jumped back in the same timeline. Unless they invented technology to jump between timelines. Or Dr. Strange jumped him back to this bench just to drop the shield off and high five with Sam and then is going to take him back any second or some dumb shit that has no basis in anything we have seen on screen (see @pitchforkcentral86’s point above about grasping for bullshit just to make sense of this). Or it means that— 2. Steve did not do anything and did not give a fuck about it. Both of these are terrible. Terrible. I would rather have had Steve die than have this ending. And this has nothing to do with Stucky for me, because Stucky is mostly just a fun fandom thing for me. I don’t mind that he ended up with Peggy per se. It’s the implication that he didn’t save his friend, knowing EXACTLY — geographically and historically — where he was, not only saving Bucky but also all the innocent people Bucky would kill. OR I hate the implication that the smug motherfucker let Bucky rot — perhaps per their agreement, maybe he kept a promise, whatever — and he had the gall to call it “beautiful.” And this is after Markus and McFeely slaved for three movies to convince us that these are best fucking friends from childhood who are with each other “‘til the end of the line.” At the very least, even if they are not going to be physically together, friends do not let friends suffer for decades at the hands of Hydra, and if they do, they do not fucking enjoy themselves while it’s happening. If this is the Steve they are leaving us with, I do not want him. And I kind of don’t know what to do now.

Am I missing something? Please tell me I am. I’m desperate for a way to make sense of this. Truly.

OKAY, EDIT: 

@koubashii  very kindly sent me a message reminding me that Bruce spent quite a bit of time belaboring on the point that changing the past doesn’t change the future. She reminded me that Nebula killing her past self didn’t obliterate her from existence. I did forget about all this. So I can’t use Sam and Bucky Prime’s existence in their current form as evidence that Steve did nothing, if he went back in time. Point taken. THANK YOU!! 

(Edit: As far as I can gather from some research from actual astrophysicists and not MCU Bruce Banner, this “changing the past doesn’t change the future” stuff is just one small theory and does not appear to be the prevailing theory. However, this is the quantum realm, so we can make up all sorts of silly rules about infinite possibilities, infinite realities, yada yada, because nobody understands quantum physics except Hank Pym. Comic book science wins again!)

So, if he’s creating a separate timeline, let’s say he rescued Bucky early. Is there another Bucky running around with him? (New fun theory to make the pain better: He danced with Peggy, had a good time, went to find Bucky, married HIM, and that’s why he doesn’t want to talk about it with Sam. THERE. Fixed it.) 

But this still suggests that he broke off into an alternate timeline, one that did not disturb the current one. So if he went off into this entirely new timeline, how did he bounce into this old one? Pym particles? Sure. Fine. Comic science Whatever. Maybe he gets some. Did he just drop in by the lake and pop a squat on the bench right before Bucky told Sam to look? Sure. Was he there the whole time? Perhaps. Fine. Who the hell knows. 

So, one possible explanation is that there IS an alternate timeline where Steve did the right thing. And he jumped back here because Pym particles. His character’s integrity is potentially saved and who the fuck knows who he ended up with in the end. Let your imaginations run wild. It’s too late for Bucky Prime to get saved, poor Bucky. At least he has Sam and their upcoming Disney spinoff series, which sounds like a fucking joke when I write it (but srsly I’m dying and cannot wait). 

And there are still problematic things with this narrative for me, such as the idea that Steve’s entire happiness hinges on one woman he barely knew, largely because she didn’t scoff at him when he was smol and I will be DAMNED if Peggy kept his picture on her desk, and there is no effing way that she would even have her back to the door, but whatever. And I still hate that Steve and Bucky’s relationship arc was treated so horribly by these last two films. NO HOMO, indeed. Just in case we got the wrong idea from the intensity of the relationship that the MCU created for us. I will be posting more on this later. 

AND STILL — we should not have to work SO HARD for this kind of "meh” explanation. You should not need a group effort to make sense of your character’s ending, after so much wallowing in despair. And this might still reek of bullshit to many of you. I need to percolate more. 

Pym particles and Wakandan Vibranium trauma-healing brain magic — quick and dirty shortcuts for real character development. Thanks, MCU. Consider my brain exploded.

[gumnut-logic]

Rescue Number Five

Title: Rescue Number Five

Author: Gumnut

28 - 29 Aug 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: He just wanted ice cream.

Word count: 2741

Spoilers & warnings: Plotless Virgil whump, I’m sorry :D

Timeline: Standalone

Author’s note: This is for @melmac78 for her birfday and for inadvertently inspiring it with this comment regarding my brain fry of late – ‘no need to collapse for it... save the fainting bit for Virgil stories. 😊’ Many thanks to @vegetacide for adding the ice cream to this and also for her wonderful support while I sob all over fandom with my woes :D (In fact, you’ve all been lovely regarding my whimpering, thank you ever so much for being such a wonderful fandom to play in). The only downside is that this fic reflects my current lack of brain and is little more than a scene with very little purpose other than to play with the above two prompt points :D I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

Rescue number five.

In twelve hours.

Non-stop.

Thunderbird Two hovered above a parkland in the middle of a city, right next to a stadium.

It was hot. The middle of the Australian summer. Midday.

The stadium was on fire.

A eucalypt stood at the entrance, its leaves alight and burning fiercely. The local MFS were well into the conflagration, but there was a serviceman stranded high up in one of the huge lights far above the grandstand.

That was why he was here.

Scott was on his way over. He wasn’t really needed, but he had ranted about those last twelve hours and claimed Virgil needed back up.

Virgil needed sleep.

He was hot, sweaty and he stunk. Hot weather was the theme for the southern hemisphere and today’s array of rescues. One on each major southern continent, bar Antarctica, one in New Zealand, just for a little backyard fun and this was the second one in Australia. Good old burn your ass off Australian summer, now thirty percent hotter thanks to climate change.

Antarctica was looking more attractive by the second.

But then give that continent another fifty years of that climate change and it might be positively balmy.

But, yes, stadium, on fire.

Rescuing someone from a high point in a relatively open area was no difficulty. Virgil swung himself and a harness out underneath his beautiful ‘bird and snagged the man from his perch. No injuries. Actually, the man was quite happy. Kept babbling on about meeting International Rescue and doing a great fanboy interpretation.

Usually, Virgil would have smiled graciously and let the man babble. But today, his head was aching and, to be honest, maybe Scott was right. Maybe he did need back up.

So this fan didn’t get much of a smile, just a few polite words from a very tired man.

He must have picked up on it, because his expression became concerned as Virgil helped him unstrap the harness once they were safely aboard Two.

“You okay, man?”

“I’m good. Are you sure you are uninjured?”

The guy shrugged. “I’m fine, thanks to you. Say, can I get your autograph? You are Virgil Tracy, aren’t you?”

“Uh, yeah, um, I guess.”

He got a good stare for that intellectual response.

“I’m sorry, sir, it has been a long day. I will land Thunderbird Two and we can get you seen to.”

“I’m fine, Mr Tracy.” Another frown. “But I’m not sure you are. You’re looking kinda pale.”

He so didn’t have time for this. Turning away, he didn’t answer, simply leading the rescuee to the cockpit. He made sure the man was strapped in and then took Two out of her hover and banked to land in a clearing outside the stadium.

Her landing gear clunked onto the lawn as smooth as ever and his ‘bird came to a rest.

Virgil let himself sink just that little more into his seat in sympathy.

The briefest of moments and then he was up and hustling the rescuee onto the hatch and lowering it onto the grass.

As always, a crowd had gathered at the sight of the great green Thunderbird, and Virgil had to beckon over the emergency services to assist the man protesting his health.

Another moment and Virgil was free of him and raising the hatch to shut the world out.

He technically could go home now, but...stadium, on fire.

It took two hours to put it out.

By the time the last of the smouldering was killed off, it was obvious that it was deliberately lit. Some asshole had lit a fire that had injured children.

Virgil was glad he had been called in because he had managed to save those children. A school group had been trapped and it had taken Virgil’s exo-suit to get them out. There were burns, tears and screaming, but they were all alive.

And the fire was out.

God, he was hot.

He didn’t have his fire suit with him. It was a forty-degree Celsius day and, well, fire was hot. He was currently standing waiting to report to the fire chief. Scott had arrived halfway through the rescue and was fielding the media on the other side of the park. Scott hated the media, but he had more patience at this moment than Virgil.

More of everything.

His exo-suit was heavy.

His shoulders were aching. In fact, all his joints were aching. There had been a point there where a roof had collapsed on him, but since it was the second roof today, he shook it off.

He just wanted to go home.

The fire chief was still talking to someone else.

He could interrupt.

“John, can we do a delayed incident report? I’m really tired.”

“Virgil?” He could hear the frown in John’s voice. It was an out of character request. Virgil was always pedantic about onsite communications in large multi-service incidents. “You okay?”

“I’m hot, tired and I haven’t had a chance to pee for the last five hours. Can I go home now?” There was an itch under his baldric that he knew he wouldn’t be able to reach. He could swear, but if he started, he didn’t think he could stop and extreme profanity wasn’t a role model thing.

“I will compile a report for the Adelaide Metropolitan Fire Service. You are officially free to go, Virgil.”

Thank god. “Great. Launch in five.”

He turned away from the huddle of fire specialists and took a step in the direction of his ‘bird. Every joint creaked.

His eyes passed a pink trailer.

Pink? His brain immediately delivered Lady Penelope as a first thought, but no, it was an ice cream truck.

Ice cream.

Cold, creamy, probably with chocolate, ice cream.

He needed ice cream.

If his sight narrowed to that pink truck, it was only because he was so hot and in need of the cool touch of iced confectionery.

Cool.

To be cool.

He was halfway there when the truck doubled. Wha-?

He stopped, his suit wheezing.

“Virgil?” John’s voice sounded worried. “Virgil, respond.”

“Uh?” He tried to raise his hand to his head, but it was trapped in the claw of his suit. It took a moment of thought to work out why.

“Virgil! I’m contacting Scott.”

Why? What for? He screwed up his eyes. God, now he was dizzy. So damned hot.

He needed some ice cream.

Ice cream.

A step and he was wobbling. He flung out an arm, attempting to keep his balance, but his arm was a giant claw and instead, it took him over.

The ground was hard.

His suit was heavy.

It hurt.

Too much.

He didn’t hear two brothers yelling his name.

-o-o-o-

Scott hated the press.

They always wanted the dirt, not the facts, the gossip, not the truth. It took everything to not explode in front of them.

“Mr Tracy, was International Rescue needed at this incident because the MFS just couldn’t meet the need?”

“International Rescue is available to assist in any extreme circumstance. This was such a circumstance and is not reflective on the efficiency of your fire service. Without your fire service many lives would have been lost today.”

“But why were you needed if the MFS could do the job?”

“An extra helping hand never hurts.”

“Thunderbird One?” John’s voice cut over the cacophony of reporters. “Thunderbird Two needs your assistance.”

The press immediately caught onto that with various versions of ‘what’s happening?’ and ‘where’s Virgil Tracy?’ popping up amongst the crowd.

He ignored them all. There was something in John’s voice.

He excused himself and, to the sound of their protests, turned away from the media and strode purposefully in the direction of the green bulk of TB2 in the distance.

“John, report.”

“Virgil...I’m not happy with his vitals. His heartrate is up, his body temperature is high and I’m not getting a very coherent response from him.”

Doing the obvious math in his head, Scott broke into a run. “Where is he?”

“He’s still wearing his suit. Approximately fifty metres at your one o’clock.” John swore. “He’s down and not responding.”

Shit.

A moment and Scott could see his brother, face down on the grass. Several people were milling around him, but no one was actually doing anything.

Scott’s grimy uniform got twin streaks of green as he slid to his knees beside his brother. “Virgil?” The exo-suit was heavy and Scott was hard put to turn him over. Virgil was pale and limp, his forehead resting against the plexiglass of his helmet. “Virgil?!”

“John, give me the numbers.”

His brother ranted off Virgil’s vitals. Overheating? Exhaustion? Hidden injury? Goddamnit, Virgil!

“Sc-t?”

Pale eyelashes were blinking ever so slowly.

“Virgil, are you injured?”

“Huh?” His brother attempted to sit up and frowned when he couldn’t. “Wha’ happen’d?” Another blink. “Hot.”

The sun was beating down on them. They needed to get into the shade. A crowd was gathering. They needed to get out of here.

“Ice cream. Wan’ ice cream.” Virgil frowned and rolled over, got his knees under him, pushed himself to his feet and wavered...

Scott leapt up and caught him before he could fall on his face again. “Virg, what the hell?”

“Want ice cream.” His eyes were glazed and it was obvious his brother wasn’t thinking straight.

“C’mon, we’ll get you back to Two and you can have as much ice cream as you like when we get home.”

“Want ice cream now.” A claw swung around and Scott had to back out of the way. Shit.

“Hey, hey, Virg, wouldn’t it be easier to get ice cream without the suit on?” The eyes of the crowd were on both of them. This could go from bad to very bad very quickly.

“Suit?”

Scott took a step closer to his brother. “C’mon, Virg, I’ll help you out.” He reached towards the suit controls, his fingers dancing over the release.

His brother gasped as the suit came free. Without the leg supports, its entire weight would be on his arms.

“Let it go, Virgil.” Scott grabbed the shoulder supports, taking some of the strain. “Let it go and we can get some ice cream.”

“Ice cream?” His brother let go.

The suit fell one way, Virgil the other. It was only some fancy footwork on Scott’s part that enabled him to catch his brother.

The crowd scampered backwards as the suit hit the ground.

Virgil groaned as Scott caught him, stumbling, attempting to stay upright and failing. Scott was hard put to keep both of them on their feet. “Virg, we need to get you into the shade.”

“Need ice cream.” He attempted to push past Scott, but nearly ended up on his face again.

Scott hung onto him. “Virgil!” His brother was heavy and his struggling didn’t help.

“Ice cream. Need to cool down.”

“We can cool you down on Two.”

“Ice cream. Please, Scott, need ice cream. Too hot.” He tried to wrench himself free, but his knees gave way, Scott stumbled and they both went down, Scott barely managing to catch his brother before he face-planted in the grass.

“God, Virg.” If this was heatstroke, which Scott was pretty sure it was, it could become life threatening.

“Sir?” An ice cream was held out, a young woman offering it.

Scott had never been more grateful for an offering in his life. “Thank you, ma’am. Virg, look, some ice cream.” He held it where his brother could see it, offering it like a parent to a distraught child.

“Ice cream?” On his hands and knees Virgil looked up hopefully, his eyes still glazed. Scott reached over, unclipped his helmet and gently tugged it off. Virgil’s eyes closed as the heat of the day touched his skin. “Sc-t?”

Virgil collapsed before Scott could catch him, slumping onto his side.

The ice cream was hurriedly passed back to the woman. “John, vitals!” Virgil’s skin was hot to the touch. Scott didn’t hesitate, hooking his hands under Virgil’s arms and dragging him into the shade of the nearest tree.

The crowd followed.

The numbers John threw at him were even worse than before. “You need one of the ambulance crews, Scott. I’m contacting them now.”

Scott couldn’t help but agree. Deft hands hurriedly started removing Virgil’s baldric and paraphernalia. By the time several paramedics reached them, he was unzipping his uniform, hurriedly yanking off the heavily padded material and exposing his black undershirt.

Efficient words were exchanged. Virgil’s boots were removed, socks, and with a further yank, his uniform pants.

The sounds of phone camera’s taking pictures hurt. “John.” He spat his brother’s name over comms almost under his breath. “Privacy protocol, fifty metre radius.”

“FAB.”

The advantages of an AI on the team were many. As Scott attended his brother, he knew Eos was all around them, slipping into phones and cameras, silently stealing away any and all photographs of their prone family member.

During all of this, Virgil did not stir at all.

The paramedics were efficient and within minutes, his brother was prepped for transport to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, little more than a kilometre away.

With a word to John to secure the Thunderbirds, Scott climbed into the back of an ambulance with his brother.

-o-o-o-

He was floating.

In ice cream.

Floating in ice cream?

He frowned. That couldn’t be right.

Could it?

His skin was cool, but not cold. Not cold enough.

Not ice cream.

He startled awake to the sounds of a busy hospital, his hands splashing in water?

“Hey, hey, Virgil, it’s okay. You’re safe.”

“Scott?” Ow, ow, ow, headache. What the hell? “What?” He squeezed his eyes shut, a hand rubbing a medicated smelling liquid onto his face. Ugh. A number of blinks as his brain came online and he realised he was floating in a tub of that same medical smelling stuff.

“I am so glad you are finally awake.”

More blinking and his eldest brother’s blue eyes came into focus. “What the hell happened?”

“Heatstroke, my dear little brother.”

Dear, little brother? His brain was just functioning enough to realise he was in shit deeper than the bath he was lying in. “What did I do?” A cough and he cleared his throat.

Scott handed him a cup with a plastic straw. “Drink. You need it.”

Short, sharp, caring but ominous. “What the hell did I do?”

“What do you remember?”

Another blink and he forced his brain back. “Work. Lots of work.”

“Would it hurt you to call in your brothers for help?”

“It was only one rescue!”

“It was five!”

“It just happened! People needed help. I helped!”

“You nearly killed yourself!”

Virgil stared at his brother. “What?”

“You overheated. You worked too hard. You know the symptoms. Why didn’t you stop?”

“I...” A frown. “I didn’t realise...”

“When was the last time you ate?”

“I...” Another frown. God, his head hurt.

“Exactly.”

“Um...”

“Why do you do this, Virgil?”

He stared at his brother. Scott was scared. Shit. What did he do? “What did I do?”

His brother mirrored his frown. “Virgil?”

“I’m sorry.” Whatever he did, he was sorry to have caused that expression on his brother’s face.

“Sorry is not enough!”

“Mr Tracy!”

Virgil jumped as a woman in white appeared at the end of his...bath, and rounded on Scott. “Your brother is ill. Please save your reprimands for later.”

Virgil blinked as a series of emotions rippled across Scott’s profile before he turned back to face him. His brother didn’t acknowledge the woman, simply turning his back to her. It was so unlike Scott to be that impolite that Virgil had the urge to climb out of the bath to comfort him.

“Scott, it’s going to be okay.” He reached out a wet hand and grabbed tense fingers, gripping them as if to massage the stress away. Fluid dripped on blue uniform.

“Yes, it will. And you will take better care of yourself.”

“Okay.” A slow blink and his eyelids were hard to open again. Scott was still staring at him with those worried elder brother eyes. “Where’s my ‘bird?”

“Where you left it. John has her secured.”

“Good.” It would be so easy to just go back to sleep.

“Go back to sleep, Virgil.”

“Uh-hmm.”

“You can rest now.”

“Mmm...” A frown. “Scott?’

“Yes, Virgil?”

“ Umm...can I have some ice cream?”

-o-o-o-

[izzyovercoffee]

Prompt number: 27. "Can you wait for me?”  Fandom: Fallout 4 Rating: PG? Warnings/Tags: mention of violence but nothing explicit or major Summary: Piper feels like she just can’t catch a break, right up until she does. Notes: Deacon’s in here. B)

##. he’s my nondisclosure agreement

Piper was having a bad day. 

Sure, it was normal to have days that are bad, out in the Commonwealth. Normal to venture forth through the gates into the world to hunt down the slightest inkling to her very, very sensitive investigative… uh, senses. Normal to come back empty handed and angry to all hell.

But Piper, she'd had enough of normal. Had her fill of it, even. Had it up to here of the kind of normal that left her at the end of the day twice as mad because anger was a great alternative to crushed, and she didn't want to entertain going through the motions of feeling crushed in open view of anyone and everyone.

The public sure would LOVE to see a crushed loudmouth reporter. LOVE to see her brokenhearted and on the verge of shutting herself away forever.

So she picked anger. Anger was a good motivator. She found it could be freeing, even, especially from the cage of her insecurities, and her loneliness, and her writer's block.

“Piper!” Nat’s voice broke through Piper’s surly mood. 

“Heyy, kiddo…” She dragged out the hey just a little too long for normal, and Nat’s eyes narrowed. Busted. 

Nat hopped off the box she used to accost and bully the people of the market to buy their newspaper and stepped a little closer to Piper.

“Your boyfriend's here,” Nat near-whispered. 

Piper sputtered. “H-what? I don't…who?”

Nat said nothing else, just stared up at her from her judgmental position. “I'm going to get ramen,” she announced, at a louder volume. “Can I have some caps, please?”

Piper blinked down at her sister, thrown by the sudden change in demeanor, and dug out the handful she'd need for a bowl, maybe two.

“Thanks,” Nat said, and then much quieter: “He's been waiting for you,” and gave the door to their home a meaningful glance.

“Did he say what he wanted?”

Nat leveled a very, very unimpressed glare in Piper’s direction, and set off.

So much for spending her bad day alone and in peace.

How was her hair? Her hat? Her trenchcoat? She quickly patted down her coat, her hat, and didn’t bother touching her hair. What she needed, what she really needed, was a bath. 

That was, at least, her excuse. Her prepared I-need-to-go-sorry phrase she’d throw down the second she stepped through the door. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. She’s not nervous for no reason at all, all of a sudden, or anything. He’s not---it’s not. Like that. Or anything.

Did she ever get around to improving her poker face?

“Hey!” He said from his position lounging on her couch, head tilted back with his sunglasses neatly over his eyes. He angled to look at her as she stood just inside of her home. She leaned forward to pull the metal sad-excuse-for-a-door closed. 

“John,” she said and, after a beat, locked the door.

“Piper,” he replied with an easy smile. “You look thrilled to see me here.”

So she couldn’t help wearing her expressions on her sleeve. It was part of her charm, her indelible mystique, her … ah hell, who was she kidding?

“No offense, John, but I’ve had a really long day,” she said as she turned around, and leaned her back against the door. “I was hoping I could spend it, you know, alone.” She didn’t move, just bent her arms and slowly tugged her gloves off, finger by finger to loosen the grip the leather had on her skin and ease off the otherwise impossible to remove protection for her hands. 

He watched her---or she assumed he did, with his chin tilted in her general direction and his sunglasses still blocking his eyes. 

“Sure, sure,” he said. “I get that, but, you know, I got this crazy gut feeling today, almost like I was shot through the head by intuition, and I thought---hell, I better check up on my friend, the crazy reporter with the worst timing.” 

She gripped both gloves in a single palm, and as she looked from the uninvited guest on her couch to the wrinkled, worn leather in her hand, she briefly considered hurling the gloves across the room and shooting them. She didn’t, because they were a very nice pair of gloves and she had no desire to replace them any time soon, but the impulse was there. Instead of following it, she gently placed her gloves atop the filing cabinet directly to her right---left of the door when looking at it, and in between the steps to the door and her couch. 

Next came her newscap, which she pulled off her head in a way that lacked elegance and was mostly all anger, and squeezed the canvas in her bare hands with an unsubtle show of her frustration. 

“Fuck you,” she said and chucked her hat across the room. It slapped the far wall with a faint, soft fwap, and fell to the ground. 

“You were really building up for that one, huh.”

“What the hell do you want, John?”

Both his arms stretched out lazily over the top edge of her couch, his head still tilted back over the back edge and against the wall, his legs extended in a sprawl that suggested he might just fall asleep there. His hands raised at his wrists. 

“Whoa, whoa,” he said, too casually and without any emphasis behind it. “I’m just here to help you today.” 

“Yeah?” Piper asked. “Where were you about two hours ago when I needed the help?”

He shifted in his seat---on her couch. Took a breath, as if buying time, or thinking on the right thing to say. 

“You know what? I’m suddenly not up to feeling like beating around the bush,” he said, softly, as if hit with an unexpected wave of exhaustion. “I covered you dragging Ms. Covena’s body from the Fens Way station. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Piper took the steps down to the ‘ground’ floor of her home, on the level as the couch, the printing press, several filing cabinets and her sleeping bag at the far end of the room. Her heart puttered angrily in her chest, the anger a farce in the face of her overwhelming grief of the moment. 

“She died before I got there,” she said. “If I hadn’t---”

“Hey, Piper, question,” he interjected. “Have you considered, maybe, oh, I don’t know, that she was trying to set you up?” 

Piper liked to think she had some sense not to be exceptionally revealing, but her surprise had her whip her head around to look at him. “What?”

“Listen,” he shifted, again, and sat up a little straighter, brought his hands into his lap, as he looked back at her. “I don’t know what you were meeting with her for, but I do know she had racked up a pretty heavy debt to a nice big group of smiley gunners, and it was just about … oh, last I checked, around the same?” His head nodded side to side in consideration. “About? As the price they put on your head.” 

She frowned. Obviously, she knew better than to just trust what some compulsive liar tells her, but all the pieces she found around Ms. Covena’s body sure built up a stink of set up, and it didn’t help that Gunners rained down some ugly hellfire once they realized she’d sprung the trap. How she managed to drag the woman’s body out of there, and then managed to make a run for it, she didn’t know.

What she did know was that she felt grimy, and now foolish, and that grief dispersed in confusion and the void of frustration left behind. 

“So you’re here to, what?” she asked. “Rub it in?” 

“Have I ever?” he asked, seriously.

She remained quiet. No, he hadn’t. Granted, he didn’t come around often, but … no. he never did.

Another beat of silence stretched between them before he patted the couch beside himself. She hesitated, and shook her head. “Give me a second,” she said, and worked the buttons of her coat. She pulled it off, and crossed the room to hang up the coat on a hook. She still felt a little dusty, but not as bad without the majority of the dirt-catcher she wore off her shoulders. 

And then she collapsed onto the couch beside him with a whump, and leaned up against him. His arm went around her shoulders, as if to secure her in place.

He was warm, and he actually smelled good, which was more than she could say for herself. 

“Why do you always find things out before I do?” she asked.

“I didn’t.” He yawned, and hell---maybe he really was tired, instead of playing at it. “I found out after I saw you drag her out. Overheard it when I was, uh, taking potshots to spook off your tail.” He paused. “I did say you’re welcome, right?” 

“I heard you the first time,” she said, but didn’t thank him. He’d be waiting a nice long time before she got around to it. And, okay, sure, maybe it was a little petty to withhold thanks for a genuine favor, but she wouldn’t put it past him to hold it over her head later. “And I didn’t ask for the help.”

“Oh, here we go again,” he drawled in that weird… accent she couldn’t place, and removed his arm from around her shoulders. “I’m not gonna ask for your permission to help you out every time, Piper.”

She remembered some folks talked about a weird Diamond City guard that talked like he was from out west, from real, actual, caravaners that’d come from way out at the other end of this wasted strip of land---but if that was the case, that raised a whole lot more questions than answers.

“I don’t want your help.”

“Fair.”

That surprised her. She was expecting an argument, even gearing up for it---but then again she also felt the sheer threat of exhaustion waiting for her, so maybe she was just trying to stave off passing out with irritation.

“Fair?” 

“A----nyway,” he dragged out the ‘a’ of anyway as he rose up to his feet in a smooth motion that looked like it took absolutely no effort at all, and Piper once again revised the thought that he may well actually be tired. “I better get a move on. People to go, places to see.” 

Piper stared at him. That wasn’t … Was that… wait, what? 

“That’s it?” she asked. 

“What’s it?” 

As he turned to look at her, she caught the slightest glimpse of bright eyes before the sunglasses hid them again. The stark overhead lighting worked against her there, throwing his face in dark shadow when he did look down at her. 

“Why come here?” She frowned. “Why bother me?” 

“Just making sure our favorite neighborhood reporter’s still kicking,” he said, a soft smile pulling up into a smirk. 

He took a step towards the door, and paused. “Oh, hold on.” Made a show of patting down his pockets, except the getup he wore didn’t have pockets in all the places he touched. “Where did I put it…”

“You know, it’s the funniest thing,” he said, and pulled out a holodisk from one of his actual pockets. The foil on the side looked scraped, beaten, but otherwise it still looked whole and usable. “I just found this lying around, didn’t know what to make of it. I didn’t get a chance to read what’s on it, but today feels like one of those rare days, when the stars align and everything makes sense.”

He set it down on the arm of the couch beside him, unlocked the door, and stepped outside. 

Piper watched him go. 

“Shit,” she said. Stared at the holotape. “Don’t tell me…”

She grabbed the thing, hopped off the couch, slotted it into the terminal she kept by the couch, and---

Oh, shit.

Weeks worth of information spilled out across the display. Information that, on a quick read-through, confirmed all her suspicions, backed up her assumptions, supported---

It was everything she’d hoped to get with the meeting that went south quick. And, suddenly, her bad day wasn’t as bad as it could be. 

And she hadn’t thanked him.

“Fuck,” she said. “Now I feel like an asshole.” 

“It’s what you deserve,” said Nat as she came through the door, two bowls of ramen in hand. “Your boyfriend already paid for my ramen. You looked mad, so I got you some.”

Piper wanted to snap, or cry, or somewhere in between. But her little sister? Didn’t deserve that, and she had it on good general experience that John was long, long gone. So she did the next best thing.

“Thanks,” she said, and joined Nat at the table.

She needed to eat, and to sleep. And maybe catch a bath.

The story could wait.

[whump-my-dear-watson]

Febuwhump day 24 “Blood Lust”

Title: Erratic Actions

Author: whump-my-dear-watson

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Characters: Reid, JJ, Prentiss, Garcia, Alvez, Lewis, Rossi, Simmons

Episode setting: Sometime in Season 13 or 14 Warnings: captured, blood, torture, stabbed, restrained, so much blood, shot, character death,

Word Count: 4,600

A/N: This is basically if I had a chance to write an episode, this would be it. Literally. Also, this is me just making up for lack of overall MGG this season. If you can’t do gore, please don’t read! This gets pretty dark pretty fast. There are a lot of jumps in perspective in this one, I am not really good with that, so this is pretty choppy. 

“This Unsub is erratic. No method to his madness,” said Rossi directing his words to the group of police officers in front of them.

“This is what we call a spree killer, but a deviation.” entered Luke.

“Most spree killers kill hard and fast, with a gun or a bomb, but this killer takes his time, slowly bleeding his victims out.” JJ said, giving it off to Reid.

“Victimology of this unsub is random, leading us to believe that he just takes victims of opportunity. That means anyone could be a target.”

Tara took over, “We suggest that you inform schools and colleges to always walk with another person, and we urge families to have the whereabouts of their children at all time.”

“Children have not been targeted just yet, but that doesn't mean that they won’t be.” Emily wrapped up.

Emily turned to the team. “Rossi, you and Luke go and interview the first victims family, Tara, Matt, check out the latest crime scene,  Reid you interview the second victims family, JJ and I will handle the press and set up here at the station.” The team nodded their agreement and headed in their separate ways.

Reid hardly ever drove, typically he was always with someone who would drive, but today he was on his own. He contemplated driving himself, he definitely could, but he chose against it. He could use the fresh air, and the second's victims house was only 2.3 miles away from the station. Spencer tightened his strap on his satchel and pushed his way through the doors. His long strides brought him closer to his destination in no time, the repetitive motion of walking calmed him down, always had. He took in his surroundings and for a moment just closed his eyes, he forgot about the mystery, forgot about his pain, the unsub, it was just him and nature. The sun resting on his shoulders reflecting off his wavy hair. Reid’s gaze fell upon a white aging house in the distance, a quarter mile away he calculated.

Before his mind could make any other statistics he felt a flat pain on the side of his head, as his body crumpled to the floor his eyelids fluttered open and shut, just before becoming fully enveloped in the growing darkness he saw a hooded figure standing over his defenseless body.

Reid was awoken by the sound of a saw being sharpened, the course metal rubbing against each other sent a pain into his head.

Reid released a breath that he wasn’t aware that he was even holding, he groggily attempted to move his hands, only to be greeted with a tug on his wrists, looking down he observed his bindings, they were rope. Obviously, this Unsub is no master killer, but a killer none the less. Furrowing his brow he looked up trying to take in his surroundings, he was in some kind of barn, it looked unused. He lay horizontal on a wooden table, it’s coarseness already making him feel uncomfortable. The bulb hanging above his head lit up the room but brought back many unwarranted memories of his capture by Tobias all those years ago. Reid blinked his eyes shut and pushed away the memory, being stuck in his past would not help his now.

Reid kept his eyes closed for a moment if he focused on what he heard he might get a better idea on where he was. How long he was out he didn’t know, but he guessed that he couldn’t be too far away from where he was taken. His thoughts were hijacked by an unsavory voice, it was deep and scratchy, no doubt had been upon this world for many years.

“You’re up,” the figure stepped into Reid’s view, “Good.”

Reid gulped at the man came closer, his sweat now soaking through his collar. “Why, why am I here?” he said, his voice soft and timid. The Unsub sauntered closer to Reid, a grin plastered on his sleep-deprived face.

“You’re here because you’re going to help me.”

“Help you with what?”

“With my hobby. I just took it up recently, I can’t believe what I have been missing out on. You’re my next project.” The words the Unsub spoke sent shivers down Reid’s spine, as optimistic as he tried to be he could not stop the ever growing speed of his racing heart. Reid relaxed his neck onto the wooden table, it would make no sense to wear himself out by trying to keep himself upright. His head still throbbed from the hit earlier, and he didn’t know what he could do. His gun was gone, he was literally tied down, and he could feel another wave of unconsciousness coming upon him. He was in trouble.

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

“Hey, Emily, did Spence get anywhere with the second victims family?” asked JJ approaching her friend.

Prentiss’ face contorted into confusion as she processed what JJ had just asked her. “I thought he had called you. I haven’t heard from him since this morning. Do you think he’s okay?”

JJ nodded hesitantly, “I’m sure he’s fine. Just forgot to check in. I’ll give him a quick call,” she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, speed-dialing Spence, after she reached voicemail she turned to Prentiss, a worried look in her eyes. “He’s not answering.”

Emily jumped into action “JJ, call Garcia, see if she can track Reid’s phone, I’ll contact the rest of the team, maybe one of them as heard from him.”

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

A cold splash of water brought Reid out of unconsciousness, his heart racing twice the speed it should he took a big breath, his body assumed he was drowning, but his mind was all too aware that this was just his wake up call, things were going to get much worse off for him.

Sputtering and shaking his head to get some of the drips of water off of him he looked up, his field of vision was restrained to what he could see above him, and if he strained his neck, a few feet lower on either side. Because of this hindering fact, he wasn’t aware of the knife until it penetrated his skin. The sharp pain of the blade shot through his body enforcing a loud gasp to cross his lips. Reid could feel his own hot blood ooze out of the gaping hole in his leg, the pain was immense and unrelenting, it would not let him think of anything else. Just pain. The Unsub came into Reid’s view, holding the knife that still dripped with his blood.

“Please, you don’t have to do this. I’ve done nothing wrong to you,” Reid pleaded.

The Unsub took a moment to reply.

        “I know nothing about you. And I want it to stay that way. You’re not here for me to get to know, you’re here to fill my need.” Reid’s whole body shook as the Unsub placed the knife down and picked up a saw from a nearby shelf, the battered condition of the rigid edges led Reid to believe that the saw had been used many a time before.

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

“Okay, thanks Garcia,” JJ hung up the phone and looked Prentiss in the eyes. “Garcia pinged his phone, it has his location about a quarter mile from the 2nd victims family’s house. Apparently, he never arrived.” Prentiss nodded solemnly and checked her phone, the exact location was sent to her from Garcia.

“Tell the others to meet us there.” Upon arriving at the scene the team saw Reid’s phone and satchel lying abandoned on the sidewalk.

“Kid,” Rossi said, shaking his head in despair.

“Do you think it was the same Unsub? It’s his MO, taking someone random in the neighborhood and leaving their phones and bags,” said Tara.

Luke shook his head yes, “We have to assume that. And if this is the same Unsub, does he know Reid is an Agent? And if he doesn’t, what would he do if he found out?”

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

Reid inched himself away from the unsub as best he could in his binds, but the man just approached him calm as ever. He set his saw on top of Reid’s arm and it just rested there for a moment, unmoving. The Unsub seemed to relish in the fear that lay in his victim's eyes.

“Please, you can let me go. I’m sorry about all the things that happened to you.” Reid said, barely in focus, trying not only to talk himself out of this situation but also distract himself from the continuous pain that pulsed from his bleeding leg.

At his words, the Unsub shifted his weight. “How do you know that something happened to me?” Reid steadied his breathing as he considered his answer.

“I am a Doctor. I study human behavior. I know that someone that does... does the things that you do, they do it because they’re hurting. And I’m sorry. I know hurt too,”

At this, the Unsub’s demeanor completely changed. “You know nothing of my pain!” He shouted above Reid’s scream as he dug his saw into his arm drawing a rough red line of blood through his shirt sleeve.

Reid closed his eyes biting down on his lip to stifle the scream that the next swipe up the saw brought up, tears stained his face as he refused to voice his pain. It was the only thing that he had left. The Unsub wanted him to scream, so that was exactly what he wasn’t going to give him. The Unsub was hastily hacking away at Reid’s arm, not enough to sever it, but enough for him to wish that it was gone. Reid took in a big breath and let another one out. If he couldn’t put any pressure on the wound then the least that he could do was control his breathing. Reid suppressed a sob as the Unsub uttered the words he dreaded.

“Now we shouldn’t let your arm have all the fun,” In a swift movement the Unsub slashed at Reid’s chest, tearing through his cardigan and a layer of skin. Logically, Reid knew that by the speed of the Unsub’s movement and the level pain that he inflicted the wounds were only about an inch thick, but he felt as if his body were being torn in half.

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

“If this is really the same Unsub than we have to assume that he’ll stick to his own time table. So far he has kept his victims for 24 hours, bleeding them out through a series of cuts,” Rossi froze for a moment, unable to stop thinking about his friend in that position.

“It’s already been at least 8 hours. We need to find the Unsub before...” JJ couldn’t finish her sentence.

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

The Unsub set the saw down next to Reid on the table if he wasn’t so tired he might have thought to try to use it to break his binds, but his body was worn. And his mind was soon to follow. The Unsub picked up a machete looking tool that hung menacingly on the wall and brought it over to Reid’s face. His smile made Reid sick, but maybe that was also lack of blood that had him nauseous.

The Unsub took the blade and traced it along Reid’s face, outlining his jawline and temple, barely breaking the skin, just leaving a faint hardly noticeably line behind it. Reid recognized this as psychological torture, and he wouldn’t give the Unsub the satisfaction of a reaction. He just closed his eyes and tried his best to ignore.

The Unsub trailed the machete down to Reid’s abdomen and pointed the tip of the blade just right to not hit any necessary organs, not just yet. The Unsub raised his weapon and with a swift downwards motions he embedded the machete into Reid’s side. Reid couldn’t help but let out a loud gasp, another set of tears ran down his face, his breathing rate became more unstable and unsteady, a soft almost suppressed yelp escaped his lips, and the Unsub seemed to like his reaction, because he left the machete in him, which kept most of the blood inside his body.

How much time had passed since the initial abduction Reid could only guess, and he knew he only had twenty-four hours. His vision would come and go, enveloped in black as he passed out from pain, and unable to look away from the loose light bulb that hung directly above him was turning his vision spotty.

Brought back to attention to the unsub by the movement of the blade inside him he could barely get out a weak, “Please,” before the unsub ruthlessly yanked his weapon from Reid’s body, releasing another wave of blood and pain.

“Please,”

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

“Okay. Let’s talk about what we do know. We know that the Unsub hardly takes anyone outside the neighborhood, that means he probably lives in the area, right?” offered Luke.

“And the fact that he is slowly killing his victims, and keeping them awake for the torture, confirms two things, that he’s a sadist and that he is somewhere where surrounding people couldn’t hear any screams,” said Tara as she handed out coffee to her team.

“Hey, Garcia, is there any home owned land with at least 25 acres  in this 10-mile radius?” Emily said on speaker. 

“Yes, there are 3 that I can see here, one owned by a farm, which is active, might not have luck there, another one was just inherited to a young family, and the last one is owned by a Jacob Hall, looks like he’s a single male, white, 40s to 50s...”

“Just like our profile! Garcia can you-” started Matt.

“Address already in your phones.”

“Thanks, Garcia,” said Prentiss as the team rushed through the door of the station.

“Emily? Bring him back home.” Prentiss could hear Garcia’s voice breaking over the phone, which almost brought out the sob stuck in her own voice, but there was no time for that.

“We will,”

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

Dying didn’t seem a bad option now. If he was dead the pain would go away. And Mauve, he could be with Mauve again. As the delirium from the pain took over his rational mind he gave in to his innermost thoughts. Why should he hold on? Hold onto this world that only seemed to bring him pain? He had died before. For a moment. Revived by CPR by a man that died soon after. He was young then. Full of hope of rescue.

But you can only survive so long on pain and sadness. You can only see so many friends die in front of you, leave you behind. There is only so much one can take before they break. Why did he refuse to break? Why did he stay in the field, after everything he had gone through? Why not just leave now. No pain. No hurt. No pressure. The relief seemed so close, he could almost taste it. Reid closed his eyes and smiled at the thought of reuniting with Mauve. But there were voices telling him to hold on, it wasn’t Mauve's voice, it was a voice he had grown accustomed too, a voice that he had known for over a decade, his best friend Jennifer, and Penelope, Emily was there too, and Rossi. Then he heard it, a voice that he hadn’t heard in a while. “Hang in there kid. I’m here.” Derek Morgan’s calming voice faded from Reid’s delirious mind as he was brought back to his painful reality with a jolt from a slap. That mark was sure to leave his face red, Reid thought to himself, but then again he was probably all covered in red already.

“Hey. Stay awake. I want you to see this next part.” the Unsub now was holding a smaller knife standing over Reid’s bindings.

Reid could only shake his head, he was so worn he could no longer even tremble with terror. All Reid wanted to do was go to sleep. And maybe take a cold bath. His forehead dripped with sweat and blood and his wounds seemed to radiate heat.

The Unsub took Reid’s wrist into his own meaty hands and delicately started making a small slit, getting more aggressive and rougher with each stroke. Reid turned his head away from the Unsub, digging his face into the table, if he wasn’t looking, it wasn’t happening. That mentality didn’t last long as the pain made him only able to think about one thing.

Oh, how Reid wished that he wasn’t tied up. Then at least he would be able to wipe the blood that was dripping agonizingly slow down his face. His time was almost up. Reid could feel it. This was the end. He held on, for his team, but as he lay bleeding out on the table in a barn in the middle of no-where Wisconsin he realized that he was completely and utterly alone.

No one but his above average IQ to consider, no one but the murderer in front of him to see him take his last breath. The unsub took out his knife that he used first, and stood gleefully in front of Reid, his last stroke would be with the same weapon as his first stroke. Reid wondered for a bit if this was intentional, why he was thinking of such minuscule matters was only to distract him from his impending doom. Reid shut his eyes for what he assumed to be the last time. How he longed to see his team and his mother for the last time. He had faith in them, he had faith in the system, but after a lifetime of mystery and hurt, he had learned to never expect relief.

“Thanks for playing, boy,” The Unsub rose his weapon high above his head.

“FBI! Drop your weapon!” Prentiss shouted as the team burst through the old barn doors.

Reid looked up at his friends, and a smile of relief washed over him. They were here. Even if he died now, at least it would be with his family. The Unsub regarded the hoard of Agents that surrounded him, guns pointed. He glanced down at Reid, still bound by ropes on the wooden table, holes seeping blood from everywhere it seemed. All he wanted to do was see them bleed. See them all bleed. In a split second the unsub made his decision, with a wicked smirk he tilted the blade towards Reid’s heart and started to plunge.

In a moment the team rushed towards the Unsub and Reid, careful to not hit their friend they let loose on the Unsub, filling him with bullets. His downward aim already in motion he fell forward with the knife still on route to Reid’s heart. Reid gathered the information and processed, if he rotated to the right he would have more of a chance of making it out of here alive.

The knife again pierced his skin and the Unsub’s body lay atop Reid and it. JJ and Rossi rushed to him, ripping the Unsub away. JJ untied Reid and Rossi immediately put pressure on the deepest open wounds that he could find.

“Spence,” JJ’s eyes filled with tears as she saw her friend lay so weak and drained. Reid could barely look them in the eyes he was so tired, the latest stab wound taking the last bit he had left in him.

As his mind drifted off he mumbled a small, “Mauve,”

JJ’s brow furrowed as she held on tightly to Reid’s hand, for support but also to help his bleeding wrist.

“Spencer, you have to stay with us, okay? I’m sorry you can’t go with Mauve. Please, Spence, don’t leave me.” JJ was unable to stop the wave of tears that streamed down her face. “Don’t leave us. Think about your godchildren, Henry, Spence you promised him you would make it to his birthday next week. You can’t go.”

Wiping her face she rested her other hand on his heaving shoulder.

“You can’t go,”

“Don’t take the knife out!” Tara called out as she approached the wounded man. “That’s the only thing keeping him alive right now, it’s blocking the majority of the blood from coming out.” The others nodded in understanding as they all stood around Reid.

“Medics are on their way, is he conscious?” Emily inquired.

“I don’t-I don’t think so,” JJ said with uncertainty in her voice that made everyone feel unsettled.

“We can’t move him until they arrive,” said Luke.

“Is there anything we can do?” asked Matt.

“Try to stop some of the bleeding, and pray to God that they arrive in time,” said Rossi.

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

The sound of sirens blaring in his ears awoke Reid with a start, his vision was blurry and he could only see out of one eye, the other wrapped in a bandage. After blinking profusely to try to clear his head he looked around him. He was strapped to a stretcher in an ambulance, JJ was still holding his hand as an EMT applied more bandages to his body, a paramedic just inserted an IV into him, and whatever was in it wasn’t quite taking the edge off.

“Spence, you’re awake!” JJ cried with joy. He gave her a weak smile that morphed into a grimace as another wave of pain hit him.

“Sir we need to give you a transfusion as soon as possible, you lost a lot of blood. Do you know what blood type you are?” Reid nodded shakily, but his voice didn’t seem to work. JJ saw him struggling and gave the Paramedic the knowledge that she needed. Reid’s pulse was thready, breathing erratic, and concentration at none, but he couldn’t help but feel at ease knowing that his best friend was right beside him.

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

The next time Reid awoke he was surrounded by his team, some of them sleeping on the couch, some on the chairs, some slumped against the wall. The dim light of his hospital room led him to believe it had to be late night or early morning.

Sleeping upright in a chair inches from his hospital bed rested a head-to-toe in color, Garcia. She jolted awake from some six sense, sensing that he was up.

“Garcia? What are you doing here? Are we still in-”

“Wisconsin? Yes. They couldn’t transfer you in the,” she gestured at his patched-up body, “state that you were in. I flew down. I couldn’t let my boy genius be in a hospital without a proper gift-bag!” she grabbed a bright pink bag at her feet and shook it with excitement.

“But that can be for later, now, you just need to tell me how you are.”

Reid shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve been better. What happened, exactly?”

“After the medics came they, uh,  pumped you full of blood, then you had to get emergency surgery for the...multiple stab wounds you acquired.” she shook her head at tears were starting to form in her eyes. “I just, can’t believe we almost lost you. Again. You have been in a coma for 2 days after the surgery, and honestly, the doctors didn’t know if you’d make it.”

Reid took in the information as he stared out at the rest of his slumbering team. “You mean they all stayed here, for me?”

“Spencer, none of us are going to let you out of our site again!” she said with a laugh, that must have been more than a whisper because JJ was soon awake and at his side, in no time the whole team was, showering him with love that was so absent from the barn he came from.

As hurt and pain-ridden he was, Reid couldn’t help but feel like the most blessed person in the entire world.

[veneataur]

Prompt: Kidnapped (day 7)

Fandom: Salvation

Title: A New Start

A/N: This was supposed to be a humorous story but I was watching the last couple episodes of season 2 and I got mad about some things that happened. This is not an ‘everbody is friends’ story. I don’t want to spoil anything and this isn’t intended to absolve some characters of their actions. Pretty much everyone’s done something illegal by this point in the series, but I do have some questions about the actions of certain characters.

Oh, and I think I forgot the whump. So, perhaps light emotional whump? Sorry, I got caught up in my frustration. Maybe I need to ease up on my re-watching of the show.

“Darius, give it back to me,” Harris says, storming into the Treehouse where Darius is examining some plans on his desk with Liam.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Harris.” Darius doesn’t look up.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Now give me back my phone. I don’t even want to know why you’ve taken it or how you got it.”

“How do you even know I’m the one who has it?”

“Who else would take it? And I tracked it here. Now give it back to me. I have a lot of meetings to be in today and I can’t afford to delay getting to the Pentagon anymore.”

“Fine.” Darius sighs but takes Harris’ phone from the drawer on his desk and hands it over. Harris examines it briefly, noting that nothing looks out of the ordinary on the outside. It even unlocks to his fingerprint.

“Are there going to be any surprises on here?”

“How am I supposed to know what sort of emails and texts you get during the day,” Darius says, shrugging his shoulders.

“I’d better not find that you messed with anything.”

“Just some upgrades. Nothing harmful. I promise.”

Harris doesn’t completely believe Darius but lets it go for now because he really does have meetings to get to. His first inkling that the upgrades were not upgrades comes when he gets out of his second meeting of the morning and checks his email on the way back to his office. Before he has a chance to check the string of emails that pop up the hallway is filled with the lyrics from “I’m Too Sexy for my Shirt” and his screen is plastered with images Claire took. He doesn’t know how Darius got those photos but he knows that it’s Darius to blame. While the lyrics are still sounding, because he can’t figure out how to turn them off, he quickly dials Darius and dashes to his office, ignoring the snickering around him.

“Darius, what the hell.”

“I’m busy working on plans, Harris. I’m afraid I don’t have time to talk. Enjoy your upgrades,” Darius says a smirk in his voice and hangs up the phone. Harris sighs and glares at his phone, which has now stopped making noise but his background has been replaced with the posed shirtless image of him.

“Damn it, Darius.”

He shuts off his phone to save him any further surprises, calling his secretary to let her know that his phone is broken and will be off for the rest of the day. Then he gets to work, sorting through his emails, responding to what’s necessary, and completing reports.

Then, “I’m a Barbie Girl” sounds loudly through the office just as his secretary walks through. Grace is calling and even as he answers the call, the song continues.

“Harris? Where are you? What is that noise,” Grace asks.

“Just a gift from Darius,” Harris says with a grimace. He sees the secretary leave out of the corner of his eye and the door close, but not before he hears even more laughing.

“He got to your phone, too?”

“I don’t even know how he got a hold of it. Wait.” Harris pauses. “He got to yours as well?”

“Yes. Yesterday. It’s still acting up, but don’t worry the worst of it will only last for the day.”

“A day? Do you know what chaos his upgrades have already caused?”

“I can imagine. And don’t try getting him to take care of it. He’ll just say that he’s busy,” Grace says.

“Yeah, I got that sense when I called him earlier. Do you know why he did this? Is this just him being bored and pulling a prank?”

“No. He never said anything.”

“Well, after work I’m going over to question him. He can’t just do this. You’re welcome to come if you’d like.”

“Five o’clock work?”

“A quarter after. I’ll drive us over.” Harris ends the call after that and tries to go back to work. His phone wreaks havoc with those attempts. It goes off randomly, plays tunes ranging from “Wild Thing” to “Row, Row, Row your boat.” The early afternoon is spent going from “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” on repeat to his phone flashing as though it were a disco ball.

Rather than be embarrassed by his phone, he leaves it in his office when he goes to his next meeting. His secretary comes in halfway through, his phone in hand as it blares out “I’m Too Sexy for my Body.”

“You have to do something with it, sir. It won’t stop. It’s disrupting the offices.”

He thanks her, embarrassment clear as he tries to hide the phone. She leaves quickly.

“My phone has had a malfunction,” he tells the generals he’s meeting with. “I apologize for the noise and disruption.”

“Can you simply shut it off,” one of the generals asks with barely hidden irritation.

“I’ve tried. I’ve been in touch with tech support and they don’t have a solution,” Harris adds when there’s a collective sigh of irritation. “I’ll be going to see Mr. Tanz after work today to get him to find a solution.”

“Surely the phone will simply go dead soon.”

“It’s still at near a full charge. I don’t know what’s going on with it. I’m very sorry about the disruptions.”

The meeting doesn’t last long after that, especially when “The Ketchup Song” begins blaring. The generals leave quicker than the song can restart and Harris finds himself sitting at an empty table with the urge to throw his phone across the room. He won’t give Darius that satisfaction, whatever the man’s plan is in sabotaging his and Grace’s phones.

Mid-afternoon finds him back in his office, trying to work but he can’t take the racket and tries to call Darius. He gets TESS reading nursery rhymes. Because it’s better than the songs and disco lights, he lets it go on speaker. It works until his phone screams and he nearly falls out of his chair, cursing Darius all the way. Then, the Hamster Dance begins with his phone running the antiquated animation. It takes several rounds, but Harris blocks the tone out and is able to get back to work. Until the song changes and a routine quickly develops. The song repeats for a random period of time; he has timed the segments and there’s no rhyme or reason behind how long it repeats except that it’s just slightly longer than the time it takes for Harris to adjust to the tune and block it out.

By a quarter to five, he’s cursing Darius and calls Grace to meet with her early. She’s ready as her phone has apparently taken a turn for the worse again and is now blaring out “I am a gummi bear” in a variety of languages, particularly Russian.

“What the hell, Darius,” they say in near unison as they exit the elevator to the Treehouse. Darius is still at work at his drafting table. He sets his pen aside and looks up at them as they enter, hands intertwined and resting comfortably in his lap. He has an expectant look on his face.

“Do you know how much trouble you caused today with your little prank,” Harris asks.

“And for the last two days with me,” Grace says.

“What do you think you were doing? This could’ve caused a major incident.”

“Please, I planned for such occurrences. Nothing but some meetings went on with either of you today and yesterday,” Darius says.

“Why, Darius? Was this just some little prank of yours,” Harris asks.

“No, it was a plot to disrupt your lives.” Darius has a stern look.

“Disrupt our lives, why,” Grace asks.

“To get you here. Both of you.”

“You could’ve just asked nicely,” Harris says.

“Just like you nicely made sure that Liam and Alycia were taken care of when the world was coming to an end? Those two sacrificed a lot including their personal safety to protect this world and you leave them to die?” Darius is standing as his voice rises in clear anger.

“And don’t forget the lack of plans for Darius,” Liam says, stepping out of the kitchen with Alycia.

“You two were supposed to go downstairs,” Darius says.

“We knew what you were up to and someone has to stand up for you, too,” Alycia says. “You were going to leave him to die when he was helpless. You two were damn lucky that he woke up when he did or you would’ve been responsible for his death.”

Harris huffs, running a hand across his mouth as he thinks. “What did you expect us to do? There were limited spaces and those were for personnel and immediate family.”

“You two got married, damn it,” Liam yells. “You got married just so you could save Grace and Zoe. Surely something could’ve been done for Darius. I mean he was tortured a couple times to save this planet, he spent his life savings to build technology that would save us, he was fucking willing to die to save everyone. He’s given this planet everything and you two left him out to die.”

“Okay. So, what are we supposed to do now,” Grace asks. “What do you expect us to do? What’s done is done.”

“Yes, what’s done is done,” Darius says in a calculated tone. “Tanz Industries will continue to work with the government on the issue of the space object, but all other ventures are done. Effective immediately. Klarissa sent the paperwork over just after you left.”

“Darius?” There’s a bit of fear in Grace’s question.

“And, we’re done. I’m done with the two of you. I know what the situation was and I can understand the difficulties and the need to put your daughter first but you don’t leave two of the most important scientists on the outside and keep my respect. They have more than earned a space and would’ve been more valuable than any politician you stuck down there,” Darius says emphatically.

“We’re done, too,” Alycia says. “We talked about it. You don’t leave Darius Tanz out either.”

“Darius,” Grace says, tears ready to fall.

“You made your choice, Grace. Please leave before I ask my new head of security to escort you out and if either of you wish to get in touch with me, make sure you contact Klarissa first. I wish you two the happiest of lives together.” He forces as much sincerity into that as possible. He does mean it, on some level, but he still does feel for Grace.

Harris nods stoically and Grace mutters an okay before they turn to leave. At the elevator, Harris asks about the phones.

“TESS,” Darius says, hands in his pockets and a forced smile on his face.

“As you wish, Darius.” Both of the phones make a loud explosive noise and vibrate more than usual before returning to normal service. There are no thanks or goodbyes as the two leave, but when the elevator doors close on them, the three in the Treehouse let out a collective breath.

“Are you sure about cutting off everything with the government,” Liam asks. “They were your biggest income.”

“You two are far more important than contracts and money. And besides, Tanz Industries has far more credibility than the US government. I have governments and organizations across the world wanting to work with me. Money won’t be an issue. Manpower will be. And if you two are still available, you have a place here as department heads with shares in the company.”

“Yeah, of course,” Alycia says. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to go and I’d rather work with family than not.”

“Me, too. What’s our first project,” Liam asks.

“Taking a break,” Darius says.

“What? We’ve been working on plans all day. You were working with us on uses for the nanotech.”

“Yes, and it will be here when we get back. I think we’ve earned a vacation. Somewhere warm and distinctly non-US?”

“I can’t,” Alycia says. “All of my information was leaked. I’m a target outside of here.”

“No, you’re not. I went to the President. I told him of your work to save the planet.”

“And he agreed?”

“After I threatened to go public with how he treated the two of you and myself, for extra measure. The minor incidents are still on your record, but the major ones that were arrestable offenses are gone. From any government. You’re free to travel and you have a brand new passport.”

“Darius… I… Thanks. Thank you.”

“It’s the least I could do for all you did to protect the planet. And you deserve to have a home and a country. You can become a US citizen, even, if you wish. The paperwork just needs your signature.”

Alycia is quiet for a moment as she gets her emotions under control.

“So, where’re we going,” she finally asks, smiling as she looks up at Darius and Liam.

“I’d thought the Mediterranean might be a nice change. The islands are beautiful from what I’ve been told.”

“Sounds good.”

“Liam?”

“A trip out of the country with my boss and best friend? I’m in.”

“Let’s consider us colleagues. You’ve still got some things to learn, but both of you done enough and learned enough to be considered equals.”

[veliseraptor]

Do you have a Loki redemption fic rec list??

you know, I was sure I had one, but while I do have a recs list for fic with Loki living with the Avengers, I do not actually have one for Loki redemption fic, and this is a serious oversight that I am going to correct right now. 

I should note that almost everything I read has at least shades of Loki redemption, so for the purposes of this list I’m sticking with a relatively strict definition of fic that actually shows/focuses on the arc (rather than starting off with a good!Loki or working from an earlier point where Loki’s already better off (i.e. pre-Thor or AU of Thor setting with less fuckups).

Truthfully by Salazar Falcon. One of my earliest long-form Loki-redemption fics, and I still love it a lot. It’s definitely not canon compliant through The Avengers, and it has a sad lack of Natasha and Clint both, but there is one of my favorite tropes of all time: Loki in therapy is a major plot point. Also some quality Loki whump. 

Ask Me No Questions by Alex51324. I’ve recced this one before, but it’s a good one, so that’s fair. Features a Loki who has been bound to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, and is living with the Avengers. That whole “speaking only the truth” thing is more inconvenient than you’d even think. 

those yesterdays bleeding through by wnnbdarklord. Okay, this is stretching the definition a little (maybe, I think it counts), but TIME LOOPS and it’s just. A great one. Loki gets the chance to start over during the events of The Dark World. And over. And over. And over.

Maybe You (and your sad blue eyes) by alby_mangroves. I’m super picky about my soulmate AUs, and okay, I was predisposed to like this one because Steve/Loki (and also beautiful art), but it truly was a gorgeous and unique take on the trope that did a whole lot for me. And uses the trope to coax Loki into changing course.

Compromised by kashinoha. Loki gets pneumonia. Oddly, this leads to some progress.

The Hangman’s Hands by Mercurie. This one is long, and plotty, and a lot of ouch. But it does wind up with Loki (eventually) figuring himself out. In some of the worst ways possible. (Seriously. The last few chapters of this fic hurt real bad.)

Bargaining by proantagonist. This is one of the defining Loki redemption fics in the whole fandom, and also features one of my other favorite tropes: time travel. Specifically back in time in an attempt to correct one’s own timeline. Thor dies, and Loki goes back to the beginning to try to fix it. 

No Such Liberty by Xparrot. This is the other one, probably, of the “iconic redemption fics” in the Loki fandom, and boy is it good: dense and plotty and long and immensely rewarding.

The lines, here are written by dfotw. Another soulmate AU with Steve/Loki. The connection changes things. Slowly.

Understanding the Storm by Lizardbeth. A post Avengers AU featuring a Loki who’s been more directly manipulated by Thanos than I usually go for, but it does a lot of great work with Loki’s family relationships and his lingering issues.

SOME WIPS

On Shadow’s Edge by Morestel. After Odin dies, Loki is freed from prison. That’s when the real work begins. I’m really excited to see where this one goes.

Beneath by ninepen. It’s long. Seriously, I’m talking “over a million words and still in progress”, and it’s the definition of “slow-build”, but it’s immensely rewarding because of that. It sort of teases Jane/Loki, but hasn’t gone there yet - mostly just features a lot of them pushing back and forth and some really great OCs.

I know no I by mostfacinorous. I don’t even know that I have a pithy summary of this one - there’s a lot going on in it and it’s all great. Loki crash lands on Earth, more or less - and things get more complicated from there.

The Lullaby Singer by TheOtherOdinson. The fic where instead of sending Thor, Odin goes to drag Loki back to Asgard himself during The Avengers. Lots of good, meaty Odin and Loki interaction, and quality Asgard politics as well. (I love Aesir politics. I really do.)

AND IF I’M ALLOWED TO REC MY OWN FIC*

Remember This Cold by Lise. This series is about a lot of things, but it’s also about a severely unintentional (at least initially) redemption arc for Loki. 

we’re not friends, we’re strangers with memories by Lise (sort of). I mean. Not sure how much you can call this thing a redemption arc, but...it’s a thing, certainly, and it does work Loki around to a) recognizing his own culpability and b) giving him a fresh start. Loki ends up living with Clint in an attempt to provoke him into killing him. It doesn’t work that way.

Life in Reverse by Lise (WIP). We’re getting there, anyway. Working Loki slowly around, though this one is more about improving Loki’s state of mind than atoning for bad deeds, per se. But honestly I think that’s a requirement of a good redemption arc. Healing of the self is just as important as atoning for anything else.

Road to Nowhere by Lise. Thor and Loki’s excellent road trip to rescue Frigga. I’m not sure how much this counts, because it only just starts Loki on the road to redemption, but I’m putting it down anyway.

*there are a lot I didn’t include here because I realized that they sort of…start, or gesture toward, the beginning of an arc, but don’t complete it.

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

2016 Fanfiction Round-Up

Copied this fanfic round-up from @veliseraptor​ because I’m always a sucker for this kind of thing and I pretty much always do some kind of fic retrospective. Also I’m only doing this on AO3, not counting FFN.

Total Year-Long Wordcount: The unfortunate thing about my inability to finish stuff in a reasonable time frame means that there’s probably a big difference between how much I wrote last year and how much I actually posted. On the other hand, something like half of “the kindness of strangers” was written prior to this year and I’m still counting everything I posted, so whatever. Adding it all up, I posted 67,504 words on AO3 (minus “adventures of tiny Loki and Thor”), but my dubiously accurate 2016 document contains 97,000 words, so...my actual wordcount for the year is probably around 85,000.

This year I wrote and posted: 16 fics, of which 3 have more than one chapter, and 53 new “adventures of tiny Loki and Thor” posts 

Overall Thoughts

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted? I didn’t set a word-count goal of any kind, so...I don’t know? I’d say I did okay, although now that I’m looking at it, I feel like I should have finished/posted even more short fics than I did, which is...not a super helpful way to look at things.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? Maybe the “I got pissed about Hydra Cap” one, considering I sure didn’t see that asinine “twist” coming. I also didn’t really expect I’d write so many Avengers Academy fics, although maybe I should have. Of course, those are still both Marvel. Probably the only really out-there fic was flailing in the deep, for @markiplier‘s Slime Rancher and Subnautica videos. 

What’s your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? Overall, I think I’d have to say under bright stars burning--I struggled a lot with that one too, partly because it was so different from anything I’d written before (taking place over a long period of time, with two characters gradually developing a relationship, and a somewhat more meandering plot than normal because of that; plus most of it was set in the past, requiring a lot more research than usual), and I spent a lot of the writing process sure I was producing absolute garbage, but I ended up being really satisfied with it. I think it has a good arc, with vignettes that work well individually, and based on the comments, I think I did a good job writing Steve’s voice, using gradually maturing word/style choices for different life stages, and showing how he and Loki fit well together. I don’t know, I just like it a lot. 

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? Taking the plunge and committing to one of my long-term WIPs (the kindness of strangers) for Marvel Big Bang, I suppose. I learned, uh, that trying to wrestle a story I wrote in disconnected chunks over 2+ years is agonizing but more or less possible? 

From my past year of writing, what was��.

My most popular story of this year: Not counting the adventures of tiny Loki and Thor, my fic with the most kudos was the state of my head (228), followed by “under bright stars burning” (178), Metal Gear Widow (137), and “the kindness of strangers” (131). By comments, it’s pretty much the same but in a different order: “the kindness of strangers” (58 comment threads), “under bright stars burning” (32), and “the state of my head” (16). If you go by percentage of kudos to hits, it’s “the state of my head” (13%), “the kindness of strangers” (12%), I’m your national anthem (12%), and “under bright stars burning” (10%). Also I’m sure that’s way more than anyone wanted to know. 

Most fun story to write: Maybe “the state of my head”; I got inspired by a prompt, it all came together quickly, and I knocked it out in a weekend. Writing from Tony’s POV was fun, too. “flailing in the deep” was another one where I got to be funny.

Story with the single sexiest moment: Literally the only semi-explicit sex scene (by which I mean, I didn’t fade to black but I also didn’t describe specific body parts) I’ve ever written was for let your colors bleed and blend with mine (Crimson Peak, Thomas/Edith) and that was right at the end of 2015 so it doesn’t quite count. Otherwise there’s a kissing scene in “under bright stars burning” but it’s...not very sexy...

Most “Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story:  uhhhhh. well, “the kindness of strangers” probably has the most/nastiest Loki whump I’ve posted on AO3 thus far, to the point that I think a few readers were surprised, so I suppose there’s that??

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: I hadn’t really written Steve before “under bright stars burning” and that ended up being a reasonably long fic all from his POV, at different points throughout his life, so writing that one definitely gave me a better sense of him as a character. 

Hardest story to write: Gonna have to go with “the kindness of strangers,” which should be obvious to anyone who noticed me screaming about Marvel Big Bang for the last several months. 

Biggest Disappointment: I’m not great with deadlines, as everyone probably knows, so pretty much every time I sign up for anything with a deadline, I end up causing myself a lot of stress and just barely squeaking in under the wire, often with less of a story than I originally planned, or actually a little bit after the deadline in one way or another. I’ve often been especially bad about this with Yuletide, posting an unfinished placeholder on the deadline and then getting it actually done before reveals; way back in 2011, I never did get it done and they had to send it out for a pinch hit the night before reveals, and I still feel bad about that (and keep intending to go back to the fic I was trying to write). This year I got caught doing it again and although I did end up posting a complete story, I’m definitely not happy with it because it’s like...one third of the story I meant to write. I still intend to finish it, but the fact that I didn’t is frustrating. 

Biggest Surprise: Nothing comes to mind.

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: I’ve written exactly two Marvel-related fics that aren’t about Loki, and they’re both about Steve, one where he’s progressive and mad at the whole world, and another where Avengers Academy Steve realizes he’s on the aro/ace spectrum. That probably says something.

Favorite Opening Line(s):

At this point, Tony is running almost entirely on adrenaline and good old-fashioned Stark bravado (patent pending), so he’s pretty much prepared for things to go completely to shit at any second. The particular variety of shit remains to be seen, but honestly, shit is shit and he’s mostly just banking on JARVIS deploying the new suit before Loki switches from talking to shooting. (the state of my head)

“What the fuck is this?” (I’m your national anthem)

Dorian was worried about the Inquisitor. This was hardly unusual, to be fair; in fact it was so far from being a new state of affairs that when Dorian wondered briefly what it would be like to live without at least a vague background worry for Elden, he came up blank. (another year)

For as long as Gamora has known him, Thanos has been a collector, entirely unmatched. He has been so for much longer than that, in fact; Gamora herself and all her siblings are proof. (the kindness of strangers)

Favorite Line(s) from Anywhere:

“I wouldn’t say nervous,” he hedges. Nervously. (the weight of it all)

“I’ve never stood for any of that shit, and I’m sure as hell not going to let anybody pretend Captain America stands for it either. That’s not—I won’t give more power to that kind of hatefulness. If people want to be bigots, fine, that’s on them, but they do not get to use this symbol to spread and validate their hate.” (I’m your national anthem)

There’s about five seconds of resounding silence, during which Loki shivers and barely seems to be breathing and Tony keeps rubbing his shoulder because apparently this is his life now, and then Barton says, “What the fuck, Stark?” (the state of my head)

Loki growls under his breath and makes a sharp gesture that sends another robot flying. “End program,” he snaps, and glowers at Natasha again. “Did you have a point, or did you simply wish to drag me back to the infatuated horde slavering for my brother’s return?” Natasha tilts her head. Whatever else you could say about Loki (and there’s a lot), he sure has a fancier vocabulary than most people she knows. (getting the gang together)

He is a being of countless interwoven myths and stories, the precise intersection of which seems to shift every time he tries to examine it, and eventually he stops trying, because he is no longer sure that it is relevant to what he is doing here. One thing, in all this, is constant: always, he is Loki, and he knows more than almost anyone that identity is malleable, that facts and truth are not always perfectly interchangeable. (we could be heroes)

“I see,” Loki says. He does, actually; he has studied and used enough magic to know that some laws of reality simply are, immutable no matter the power of the one seeking to change them. This knowledge does nothing to make him feel any less weary, and for a moment he thinks the weight of all this really will crush him, that he lacks the strength to do anything but sink into the dust of this barren realm and sleep there forever. (in death’s other kingdom)

haha so it turns out I liked a bunch of lines in this year’s long fics so I’m just gonna...list those separately at the bottom...

Top 5 Scenes from Anywhere You Would Choose to Have Illustrated: 

"under bright stars burning,” Steve and Loki hanging out on Coney Island, especially the bit where they’re sitting on the boardwalk railing watching the beach with the Wonder Wheel behind them

ditto, the kissing scene :3

anything?? those are the only two scenes that really come to mind in a “oh man I wish someone would draw this, it would be super cute” way, but 1) “the kindness of strangers” already has a bunch of awesome art from @neurovicky, which is amazing, and 2) I am thrilled with literally any fanart of my fics

Fic-writing goals for 2017:

continue writing at least a little bit every day

continue to post at least one new short fic to AO3 each month (last year I said “even if it’s a new ‘adventures of tiny Loki and Thor’ or ‘Custom figures’ chapter” but I managed even without that, I think, barely, so I should be able to do it again

continue to try focusing on fucking finishing some of the many, many, many fics languishing on my WIP list, especially the shorter ones that I really should have written and posted months or even years ago

more specific fic goals:

finish “the kindness of strangers” part III

finish the rest of my Yuletide fic haha whoops

New Year’s Resolution fic because my actual Yuletide fic was late, more whoops

that damn Stoki Week fic I started back in June

“Avengers Academy: Friendship Is Magic”

finish the rest of always gold to me

shit, I should get back to winter in our bones

and work on a followup to “under bright stars burning”

I don’t knowwww there are so many others

Favorite lines from “under bright stars burning” because sure why not, please note these are all very spoilery if you want to read the fic and haven’t:

“You would [like Thor],” Loki says, like it’s a law of the universe. “Thor is…bright, and boisterous, and everyone loves him, even when they are displeased with him. He is impossible to ignore. And I am…not him.”

He darts a glance toward Steve and then away, studying the shoreline, and Steve is suddenly struck by how beautiful Loki is. He’s noticed before, but not quite like this, with the breeze ruffling Loki’s hair and the sun highlighting those fine, sharp features Steve is always itching to draw. He doesn’t just want to draw Loki now, though; mostly he’s wondering what it would be like to kiss him.

Steve sighs, shoulders slumping, and gives up on the attempt at a smile. “It’s my mom. She…working in the TB ward finally caught up to her.” He swallows hard around the lump in his throat, which seems to be growing sharp points with every word. “The funeral was today.”

Loki gives him a look that somehow combines concern with profound skepticism.

Steve nods, his gut twisting uneasily as more threads of the nightmare come into focus, connect, begin to compose a larger picture. The golden prince in the red cape, blinding and bright, with a shadow no one ever notices. Cheers and thunderous applause (but not for the shadow, never for the shadow). His hand turning blue and ridged in the monster’s grip, and horror freezing the breath in his lungs more effectively than the glacial cold. A glowing blue box radiates cold and his hands turn blue as he touches it monster monster monster and revulsion is so thick in his throat he thinks he’ll choke on it. Rage and terror, rage and terror, no more than another stolen relic, claimed to love me, tell me tell me tell me, never wanted never loved never real and fear again. A corona of golden light. A spear and a throne and plans plans plans he will do it he will show them he is right, is worthy (is nothing but the monster parents tell their children about at night)—

Desert. Blood on the sand. A bridge. Battle, galaxies hanging suspended overhead. An explosion that sends him flying, his grip on the spear the only thing holding him above the abyss, but he has no reason to hold on and so he lets go and falls falls falls—

Bucky falls and Steve can’t catch him. Schmidt takes off with the Tesseract and Steve can’t stop him. Instead he sits at the Valkyrie’s controls and makes a date with Peggy that they both know he won’t make and tries not to think that even as Captain America, all he can do is fail the people he cares about, over and over again. Tries, fruitlessly, not to spend his last moments wishing he had more time with any of them, and then he sends the Valkyrie into the water.

And then Loki moves, quick as thought, already inside Steve’s guard, and Steve has no time or space to block him (and barely the space of a breath for a rush of horrified betrayal) before the tip of his scepter is pressed to Steve’s heart. Everything else disappears in a blaze of consuming blue light.

He is drowning in pain and anger, and then (no, Loki) despair overwhelms everything else, and he opens his hand, and he falls.

Under other circumstances, Loki thinks he might be impressed with his captors’ efficiency. They are expending no apparent effort and still grinding him down, and he does not want to think what it means, that this all must be in preparation for something—or that perhaps it is not, and he truly does not know which thought is worse.

He knows Thanos is too powerful. To think otherwise comes near to blasphemy.

It is fitting, he supposes, that the monster should destroy everything that was once good in its life, even this. Steve does not deserve this, does not deserve to suffer for unknowingly befriending a monster and finding himself inevitably drawn into the monster’s fate, but he will, and Loki can almost feel his spine bending under the weight of his own despair.

Favorite lines from “the kindness of strangers” because ditto, and ditto on spoilers:

This is truth: Thanos is patient like Death is patient, with the calm surety that the universe will bow to his will in the end no matter how long it takes.

Gamora was never nice except when it suited her, even before; was already hard, and fierce in her defense of anything she considered hers, and so once Thanos had broken and remade her, she had something left of herself, harder even than the shell he made her create.

She is a daughter of Thanos, by necessity and unyielding determination (and by something she refuses to call desperation, even in her own mind), but she is also the last surviving member of the Zehoberei race. This second identity is not one she considers often; at best it is not useful to the life she leads now, and at worst it is dangerous, but it still exists, always, alongside anything else Thanos might make of her—a kind of sacred responsibility, almost, even if she has little time or patience for religion or superstition. And the last survivor of the Zehoberei, in the name of all the unknown dead that she alone carries, burns with quiet rage at the idea of Thanos gaining the power to wipe out another race.

“I would take you for a Valkyrie,” he says, quiet and hoarse, “but if that were so you would not come to me, for I cannot succeed even at dying and I know Valhalla is barred to me.”

Yes, she is afraid of Thanos, afraid down to her marrow, and any thinking being should be as well, and perhaps everything else she tells herself—everything else she holds close as evidence that she does not belong to him—is merely an excuse for her own cowardice.

But the truth that matters the most in this case is simple: her reasons have not changed, and they far outweigh her pity for Loki (and her desire to prove to herself that she is not a coward). Whether they are still good reasons or merely excuses to salve what remains of her conscience is immaterial.

This is another truth: Gamora does not like to think in terms of what she can and cannot do. It is too much like helplessness, to look too long at the choices she is denied, and she learned a long time ago that helplessness is a short step away from death or worse. Instead she assesses situations and finds choices to make, and then she chooses, and she does not regret or look back—even when the choices are impossible or effectively meaningless. There is always, always a choice of some kind to be made, and to choose is to regain some measure of control over the situation, no matter how small. If she chooses, she cannot be forced one way or the other, and therefore she is not helpless.

“Soon,” Thanos tells her, his expression satisfied, and something unpleasant curls in Gamora’s stomach, the same mingling of fear and relief she feels whenever Thanos is pleased.

The titan smiles down at him, something both paternal and predatory in his gaze.

Slowly the blankness in his expression is replaced by something just as sharp and feral as the first time Gamora laid eyes on him, only now it is more wary, more focused, both more and less desperate. ... Every now and then, Thanos tells Loki that he is pleased with his progress, and Loki smiles to hear it, and his smile is like a brittle blade.

And for a long moment that freezes the blood in her veins like shards of ice, all she can think is I have failed. She has not done enough, and Terra is going to fall like her world did so long ago, all because she was so determined to wait for the right moment.

“It’s really not that complicated,” Romanoff says, and then: “I’ve got red in my ledger. I want to wipe it out.” There is…a cadence to it, something he knows, not the words but the sense of…something practiced, repeated, held close…

“Because look, he busted up a town because of a fight with his brother, singlehandedly destroyed a SHIELD installation, took out a guy’s eyeball, and threatened a freaking Holocaust survivor. Even if he doesn’t want to be this Thanos’s tool, he’s still a tool in general.”

“Gentlemen,” Fury snaps, “if you’re going to have a pissing contest, do it on your own time. I’m not asking you to like each other or the God of Crazy, I’m asking if you’ll put on your big boy pants for five seconds, do what’s necessary, and work together.”

[gumnut-logic]

Favourite Character Meme

From @the-lady-razorsharp

Rules: Name your ten favorite characters in any fandom, then tag ten friends to do the same.

Okay...

Jim, John, Jack, John, Michael, John, Tony, and Virgil. Hmm, that’s not ten, but these are the only ones up there on a pretty much equal standing.

Jim Kirk - Star Trek: The Original Series & The Alternate Original Series. This is my original fandom. This is where is all started. The first fandom I encountered way back in 1986 (and yes, I am halfway through my lifespan, told you I never grew up :D ). He was in my first fanfic (which will never see the light of the internet because omigod bad - though you can see my second one - Goodbye, Spock - both of which were physically printed in my local club’s fanzine all those years ago). My history with ST is a little different to some. I entered through the James Blish books as at the time the show was not being shown on TV at all, videos were scarce and expensive and ST was not trendy, not at least until ST:TNG came to play a few years later (well, try four years, it took forever for anything to get onto this side of the planet back then). Fortunately there were books in libraries and I was an avid reader (and as a budding librarian, I had my ways :D ). So due to this, William Shatner wasn’t in the equation when I first met Jim Kirk. In fact, when I first saw ST:TMP I stared at the screen and asked what TJ Hooker was doing in the captain’s chair?! 

Jim Kirk is your typical hero. Sacrifices himself to save the day, has great friends who would do the same for him, and a honkin’ great big starship to back him up. What’s not to like? :D

John Crichton - Farscape In the early 2000s before the new Battlestar Galactica changed sci-fi storytelling for good, Farscape was at the forefront. It bent the rules that BG later broke completely and that single astronaut stranded on the other side of galaxy found himself in a world nothing like the safe Star Trek he probably grew up with.

John Crichton is a geek, but a geek with spine and a good set of leather pants, long black jacket and a big gun to match. At heart he was a gentle scientist, but he was forced to adapt and kick ass. But through everything something in him stayed true and the world around him which at first found him simply a weak oddity eventually mapped itself to him. His weaknesses became his strengths, his associates of suspect motivations became his loyal friends and together they took on the universe.

And the leather, c’mon...

Jack O’Neill - Stargate SG-1 Oh, poor Jack. Stargate fandom was where I truly waded into fandom. I started really writing here back in 2003 (yes, I’ve been on FF.net that long). I met some fantastic friends through Stargate that had both me and them travelling thousands of miles to meet each other. It was also where I learnt to whump. As I said, poor Jack :D i wrote my first novel length fic in Stargate all 75,000 words of it. Took three months, most written by hand as I couldn’t type fast enough - by the time I finished it, I could touch type. 

Jack is the only character I can claim to still be older than me, just (it was a momentous year when I passed Jim Kirk’s age of 34, our characters are forever young, we are not). He is the goofy colonel, typical tough guy with a soft heart, but will of steel who always did what he thought was right, willing to make the necessary sacrifices just like Jim Kirk, and again with the team who would all do the same for him.

John Sheridan - Babylon 5 Okay, I admit it, I was a Scarecrow and Mrs King fan long before Bab 5 was even dreamt up. but the beard in season 4 that did it :D I’ve never written in this fandom, basically because it is pretty much a closed loop story and the actual show did a pretty good job of  venturing where fandom would have gone anyway :D

John was another military type with a strong moral backbone (would you believe that I’m not a military type, but all these guys seem to be - what that says about me, I don’t know :D ). Again he is soft around the edges hence the whole Delenn storyline. Maybe for me it is a combination of kickass, doing what is right and squishy insides :D

Michael Knight - Knight Rider I loved Knight Rider as a kid and in 2004 when I discovered the tiny little KR writing fandom online, I instantly fell in love. Real Life at the time was a bit of a challenge and KR was a haven for me. I wrote a lot of KR fanfic and it and the people I met in that fandom still hold a special place in my heart. Michael and Kitt saw me through some tough stuff and I returned the tough onto poor Michael. If I was feeling awful, he got it. I used my writing as a vent zone and managed to create something out of it. This was also the fandom that introduced me to RP. And yes, I RP’d Michael Knight, you can find my long abandoned journal here. I also managed a bunch of other characters including a several hundred year old version of KITT.

I really should say Michael and Kitt, because just like Kirk and Spock, one character isn’t much without the other. A hothead ex-cop who, once again, has a moral core to stand up for the small guy and drives a smart car, literally. The both of them together are quite capable of kicking ass. A not so typical buddy cop show with so many writing possibilities. I built up my writing skills in this fandom and eventually started writing original works (which were all brought to a grinding halt by the event of motherhood in 2008, thus followed the lack of writing for the following 10 years...until a month ago).

John Sheppard - Stargate Atlantis I’m mentioning this John because I fell into SGA quite hard about three years ago, but with the exception of one unfinished attempt at fic (which you can find on FF.net), i haven’t really written anything in this fandom. I like a bit of John and Rodney interaction and because I know SG-1 so well, and John is really just a younger version of Jack in many ways, it was inevitable.

John is military (again ::sigh:: ), but not military. He breaks the mold and tends to be just outside what he should be. Again a softy, not as confident or as steely as Jack O’Neill, but with his own code and strengths.

Tony Stark - Marvel Cinematic Universe Well, in all that writing desert, this is where I have been. There is enough fic in that massive fandom to keep an addict fed for years, literally, I’ve tried it. I have never written any Avengers fic. There is no need to, and really with young children, a job and a small business there really wasn’t time.

Tony Stark is a geek with money. He has troubles, he’s socially messed up in places, but under it all he does his best. He cares, sometimes too much, and is willing to step up to do what is necessary. He is far from perfect and he screws up big time, but he continues to try. There is also a load of angst and whump attached to this poor character, even in canon. (I think the last movie sent me into shock, I really shouldn’t have seen it while recovering from appendicitis, it hurt). And he is not a soldier, he has made that perfectly clear.

Virgil Tracy - Thunderbirds Are Go And here we are today. About a month a go this fandom hit me like freight train and in the process revived my writing skills, created this journal and drew me back into fandom. I still don’t have time to write, but somehow I have.

Out of all the characters above, Virgil is the most different. He has an artistic side which I can understand, being an artist myself (no, I don’t play the piano or any other instrument, unfortunately). He’s a softy, he’s kind, a bit of a dork, he’s calm (much unlike all of the above), he has four brothers he would do anything for, is certainly well built for a cgi character...and he drives a big honkin’ aerotank :D Pairing him up with Scott leads to interesting conversations and the whumpfactor...I’m so sorry, Virgil. But I think at the core of it is the hero again. The Tracy boys go out to save people. There are no guns, no animosity, they are just trying to help because they care. And who couldn’t fall in love with that?

I’m not going to tag anyone, but feel free. it is an interesting way to share info about yourself :D