#this is somewhere else they were transported to the computers

[ceaseless-watchers-special-girl]

MAHTIN

MAHHHHHTIIIIIINNNN

OH GOOD GOD THERE'S THREE VOICES IT'S JON MARTIN AND JONAH WE WERE RIGHT WE ALL KNEW IT

[little-boyyyy-blog]

back to america

jessie fleming x reader

when jessie makes the to move to portland, you were the only thing on her mind. yet still somehow. you make the biggest move of your relationship.

“i missed you.” the brunette girl you had missed so passionately whispered against the soft skin of your neck. your arms going and wrapping over jessie’s shoulders as you kept the door open with your foot.

“i missed you more jay”

there was a few bags behind the girl; knowing the the rest were getting flown out later in time. jessie and you had spent months (years) going back and forth over the idea of her making the move back to the states from west london. she had always fallen homesick, missing being so close to her parents and longtime girlfriend.

even while at ucla; jessie causally saw her family and friends. either making the trip up to london, ontario on school breaks or her family flying down on their long weekends to spend time with their girl. jessie and her family were thick as thieves. and she’d been telling anyone who asked that, that very reason was why she wanted to come back.

but she had also missed you. and she had just started subconsciously thinking of you as family.

but long distance had been extremely hard on you as a pair. and after you secured a job that was somewhere you felt like settling down at; at least for a while. you started not being able to take off nearly as much time as you could while finishing your masters and working a small restaurant job.

so once she did decide on coming back to the states, she wasted no time in coming home. and by that she meant you. and your high rise apartment that she loved dearly.

“there’s never been a longer plane ride a day in my life.”

jessie and you had met in a shared 3rd year kinetics and transport in material engineering class. it was one of the hardest classes you both had to face in the first 3 years at ucla. that was until you both had ended up in a group of 6 for your midterm final.

you had obviously known who jessie was, everyone did at ucla. but you also knew you had no chance at the gorgeous girl; subsequently leading to never letting you set yourself up for failure by even starting a conversation.

keeping your head down and your eyes away from the soccer stars vicinity allowed you to miraculously never end up in a position to gain a further crush on her. for three years at that! but once you were placed in the same group as her for your midterm, there was absolutely no point in trying.

“do you think anyone else is actually going to show up for this?” presley asked, is hands on his hips as he looked out the door. “it’s only 5:51, just sit down and relax”

he turned and squinted his eyes, causing you to crack a laugh from your friend. “i hate you.”

“no you don’t.”

“i showed up?” presley’s friend piped off; looking up from his computer to now watch the door. “we knew you would canonn, thank you for being early.” presley rolled his eyes before looking back out into the hall. “oo! jenny is here!”

“jenny?” you questioned.

“short blonde who sits front row? always has a question no matter the situation or subject?”

“ah jenny..” you mumbled. well let’s hope she’s useful. or at least more useful than you and some good ole google.

as the time ticked on further until 6’o clock; you found yourself letting out a small sigh of relief. as frustrating as it may be to have to carry the weight of one person in a group you couldn’t help but find a positive of jessie not being there. you didn’t have to face her. that gorgeous gorgeous face.

it was a matter of time. you knew you’d have to come face to face with the brunette who didn’t even know you existed; but you had felt a small amount of relief at it not being today.

but even without the girl your group started hitting the ground running; you working on your computer as the others gave you the information to type down onto the shared slides. the group had been mostly focused on creating an easily accessible but slightly complex introduction to a prototype for the project.

“-i am so sorry! is this group 3 for dr. kimmich’s class?” your eyes shot up from your computer, only to lock with your forever-far away crush. you knew your lips parted, no words coming out but parted as you stared at the beautiful girl. “yes it is! glad you could join us!” presley shot up from his seat, is coffee in hand as he quickly made his way to the brunette.

the last open seat was placed directly infront of you, so as presley ushered the girl in. you were shitting bricks.

the group picked up right where it left off. and jessie ended up being more useful than anyone else. she was insanely good at any engineering class it seemed; but you had never seen it first hand until now.

you could have caught many flies with the way your lips stayed parted and your eyes fixated on the soccer player. her hair was in a messy bun, wearing a ucla soccer shirt an a pair of grey sweats. she looked other-worldly.

you loved how bright her smile was and how her eyebrows furrowed inwards when she didn’t completely understand something. presley has landed multiple kicks to your shin, giving you the crazy eyes and mumbling under his breath everytime for you to stop staring.

you never really could.

“come on, let’s get your stuff inside” you pulled away from her embrace, stealing a peck from her lips and pushing her off to the side. stuggling but managing to pick up the few (four) duffle bags off of the ground and bringing them into your apartment.

“you say let’s and then bring them all in yourself”

“don’t want my pretty girl to hurt herself”

pushing through your bedroom door and placing them on the foot of your bed. jessie found her way behind you; wrapping her arms around your torso as you quickly unzipped one of her bags.

you were prepared to unpack her things, wanting to set up home base for her to make her feel more peaceful with the big change. and you shamelessly knew she’d find a way to wrap her arms around you as you did such. you both had spent 100’s of trips doing the small motions; and this one felt better as you knew it would one of the last.

pulling out all of her shirts and shorts as she laid kisses on the inside of your neck; whispering her ‘i miss you’s’ on the soft skin. having to resist your girlfriend as she continued even through your groans and teasing comments about her being a horny boy.

actually; that probably was one of the traits of jessie’s. she could easily be found herself getting lost in your neck any second possible; even in very public settings or terrible timed events.

“mm jess, get some hangers please” you pushed her away from you, you hand pressing against her hip and tapping for her to move. “fine.” she placed another soft kiss to your neck before scurrying off.

a small smile coming across your face as you continued pulling out her clothes. laying out the shirts flat on the bed and unfolding her pants/sweats only to refold them in a way that would make hanging them up on the hangers easier.

“where did your clothes go?” jessie questioned as she came out of the closet, arms filled with hangers.

of course she noticed right away.

“they are packed up” you rolled your eyes at your girlfriend, she had never been known for her abilities to pick up on subtle details. but she had to pick on this one?

“going on a trip? for what? a month?” she joked; sighing deeply as you grabbed the hangers out of her hands and started hanging up her shirts. a small smile coming across your lips as you caught the end of a portland jersey inbetween your fingertips. “more so months.”

portland has always loved their canadians; and jessie was absolutely no exception to that. so when she got the offer, there was absolutely no way she was going to decline it.

and trust, you understood why portland loved canadians so much. just look at yours?!

“baby what’s going on? there’s a lot of things missing?”

you swallowed your heartbeat down, feeling the anxiety of the impending implications coming faster than expected. you had secretly prayed that she wouldn’t have started questioning things until maybe a few days in.

you had cleared out space in your shower caddie for her own products, a little space on your bedside table for her things to take up. you had even set up an extra key ring by your door for her to be able to hang her keys up on; a brand new key to your apartment occupied it currently. one that she didn’t even know existed.

you watched as her head started looking through the room, her eyes going from the closet to you, to the bathroom door, the nightstand, under the bed, and moving to go to your armoire.

you placed your hand on the soft skin of her forearm, drawing her attention back to you; stopping her from moving around the room to see what else is missing.

taking a deep breath before you even looked at the brunette-girl eyes. “i love you jess, i have since our first group project junior year..” her right arm going around your waist, holding you as your hand gripped on the other girls forearm.

“..you’ve chased ever dream you’ve ever wanted and truthfully got them. making them more and your own in the process. you’ve shown me incredible elegance and composure in some of the hardest times of our relationship and i truly don’t see myself living this life with anyone else..” jessie’s grip found its way to somehow thighten; holding you almost flush against her as you stared up into her eyes.

your eyes watered at the look of complete awe she happened to hold in her beautiful face, incomparable to any 7 wonder or model you’ve ever seen. “..you’ve made the biggest move; the riskiest move of your career to come and make us work. and i would hate myself for not at least asking. so. will you move in with me?”

her smile reflected the same one you given her the day you said yes to her when she asked you on your first date. her hands now both coming up to hold your face as she looked at you; as if she was completely infatuated with you now.

“no way did you just ask me that?”

growing slightly shy at her gaze , you feel your own cheeks heat up in the hold of the girls rough palms. one of your own hands coming up and lightly clasping around her left wrist. a small nod coming from you as you felt embarrassment start to creep up. the lack of anwser made your brain run wild. “if you feel like it’s too soon or too much change at one time i completely un-“

“too soon? i tried countless times to have you move to england with me. i had hoped to quietly make myself at home but this is even better.” she shook her head at your self doubt. almost in amazement that you could even imagine something of the sort. “yes y/n. id love to move in with you.”

“really?”

“i can’t believe you’re re asking me that. im absolutely fucking sure.” her lips coming down to silence any response you could think of. and let’s just say those clothes did get folded and hung up. just happened to be the next morning.

[animatedglittergraphics-n-more]

RIP, AIM: Remembering how we used to talk on the internet

A eulogy for AOL Instant Messenger, and how it changed the way we talk about games and everything else By Luke Winkie published December 15, 2017

Do you remember all the souls you've lost to the internet? Those incidental friendships, forged in IRC clients, Newgrounds forums, 40-man Ragnaros wipes, scattered across the globe when the web was young? They came into your life and played Fall Out Boy over Ventrilo. They came into your life and disappeared forever. Do you remember when snapping a selfie required a frustrating tangle of mechanical coercion, but it was worth it to show them your face? When real-life names were rarefied information shared exclusively through digital blood pacts? AIM shut down today, and the only thing I can think about is how all of those people still exist somewhere, perhaps exploring the same pit in their stomach that I am.

AIM belongs to all of us. As a pioneering force of internet communication, anyone born in the early '90s or late '80s has spent some time on the platform. As a 26-year old, I'm crucially aware that my appreciation for the prodigal instant messenger is colored by a nostalgia that has nothing to do with the service itself. It was simply the medium of choice to grouse about homework, The Decemberists, girls I liked, and the rest of my random bullshit. 

But I do believe that there's a special union between AIM and people who grew up playing games, or at least came of age on the internet with people who played games. The early millennium revolutions in online multiplayer pitted us together and asked us to collaborate, so of course we carried those early internet accords to their logical extremes—talking all night in lonely chat boxes about what's cool, what sucks, and how easy it is to relate. In 2017, the web feels less like something I approach for those connections, and more like an overwhelming ennui that I'm constantly trying to outrun. Boston's Kyle Seeley nailed that feeling perfectly with 2015's Emily is Away, and this year's sequel Emily is Away Too—both of which transport you back to the spongy leather office chairs of your parents' computer room.

"AIM was primarily for one-on-one conversations between teenagers. That's how I used AIM, to have a very intimate conversation with another person. Now we have texting and Facebook messenger, but you can use those wherever you are," he says. "You can use those at a concert or while driving. But when you were using AIM, you were sitting down at a computer to talk to people. You had their undivided attention." 

Emily is Away tributes AIM in the only way anyone can—spinning a yarn of disentranced high-school drama that eventually mounts into something deeply sad. The way Seeley presents an old Windows XP desktop, with the hilariously temperamental tastes of your idiot friends revealing themselves in their bios and away messages (until one day they stop logging on entirely) is immediately resonant. We've all had our Emilys. "When you have a conversation on the phone, you spend 10 minutes making small talk," says Seeley. "On AIM you talk to someone for hours. Like eight hours, 10 hours straight. You get all the small talk out of the way in the first hour, and then you're talking about these big teenager questions. Who am I? Who do I want to be? I think AIM was really good at that."

It was always difficult for me to articulate the intimacy I felt with my internet friends to my parents. There were the obvious, mechanical mistranslations; I begged my mother for early exits from countless family dinners that consistently managed to interfere with my guild's crucial Molten Core attempts. But beyond that, there was a certain shame in feeling loved and valued by people I only knew by username. A latent fear that those who did not understand might consider that affection to be false, or even sinister. That's different now, as social media has flattened out our offline/online dichotomy, but if you were on AIM, you probably remember how once upon a time those bonds felt illegal.

Years ago Nina Freeman, level designer at Fullbright and one of the foremost thinkers on love and technology, launched a flat-out covert campaign to get close with one of those friends. She spent months locked in the holy matrimony of Final Fantasy XI and nightly AIM treatises with a boy named Glenn from New York City. Eventually they met, but not before Freeman satisfied her aunt, (who she was staying with) with a fabricated narrative—Glenn was no longer a dude from the internet, now he was just an old family friend who happened to move east. "I was still in high school," says Freeman. "We made up that whole story."

That secrecy is immediately familiar to me. AIM was surreptitious, clandestine. A service that belonged to teenagers, sequestered from leering ears and concerned authority figures. As Freeman notes, a screen name was one of the few commodities a young person could fully own. A domain, an aesthetic, a communication channel you could control. It was rare to feel fully untethered from your parents, so you guarded that sliver of liberty with your life.

"I wouldn't hand out [my username] lightly," explains Freeman. "I'd only really do it with people I felt close enough with. It seems sort intimate. It was a 'thing' to add someone on AIM. The expectation would be that if we're adding each other, we're going to chat regularly.… It had a weight to it."

Cecilia D'Anastasio, senior reporter at Kotaku (and a friend of mine) went a step further. As an 11-year-old, she was already griefing in the multiplayer Flash games she shared with her friends over AIM. I don't think anything sums up the juvenile euphoria of instant messaging quite like using that power to cheat in stakes-free freeware.

"One of the Flash games I discovered was basically Pictionary, but online and with a chat room. One player would etch out an image in a Microsoft Paint-like interface while the chat would dutifully guess at what it could possibly be. It was very wholesome," says D'Anastasio. "That's why my friend June and I were passionate about cheating. We'd join a game on the same team. Over AIM, we'd tell each other what we were assigned to draw, instructing whoever was guessing to wait a solid ten seconds before revealing the answer. It was a riot. We always won."

Over the past decade or so AIM has slowly been replaced with services that de-emphasize traditional internet patois. Gchat and Twitter are all full of real names and faces instead of coded handles and custom-colored text, and logging in to most platforms scarcely takes more than a click on a Facebook icon. For the most part, this is a good thing. Anonymity is one of the scourges of online culture—a de facto institution that continues to cause a lot of people pain. Personally though, I can't help but feel like we've lost something along the way. There was a certain sublimity in typing from behind the guise of a username. It gave way to a feeling that your AIM conversations existed in some sort of permissive, alternative reality, the ideal spot to work up the nerve for swollen 3 am confessions. In 2017 there is no such thing as "IRL" anymore; your internet presence is permanently married to your day-to-day existence. Everyone on earth spends their waking hours waging wars and making peace with strangers they will never meet. It is overwhelming and insoluble, and there are moments where I wish I could get outside again.

I'm not the only person that feels this way, and there are some people working to restore the parts of the mid-aughts internet that worked. When I interviewed Jason Citron, CEO of Discord, earlier this year, he affirmed a deep appreciation for AIM, and believed that perhaps the online infrastructure might soon swing back in that direction. "When you zoom out and think about the internet and how communication is trending, there's definitely a trend to more live experiences," he said. "The internet has done so much to connect people asynchronously, so I think there's something more macro happening that Discord is taking part in. It's like we're bringing it back to how it used to be."

He's right. One of the things that's made Discord successful is how separated it feels from the rest of the internet. When you join an ultra-specific channel—for niche Hearthstone formats or fan-favorite Persona characters—it's like you're uncovering a league of obsessives that are ready to welcome you with open arms. The true solidarity of dorkiness. It's funny, but by holding back on cosmopolitan design choices (like Facebook integration or a required photo-reel), Cintron stumbled into a scheme that evokes the furtive splendor that made AIM special. This is something Nina Freeman found when she started up a Discord channel to support her growing Twitch following. "It quickly became a community, and now I have a bunch of newer online friends. I'm already cracking up at myself as I'm wondering what they look like, or what they do in real life," says Freeman. "It definitely has a similar appeal." 

If Discord doesn't quite meet your personal instant messaging standards, Citron tells me that, if enough people in the community request it, he'd consider implementing the low-res AIM chimes into the service. You know, door creak, door slam, those disruptive MIDI twinkles. "To this day, that sound still triggers my desire to hop online," he says.  

Kyle Seeley is doing something similar. Yesterday he released a piece of DLC for Emily is Away Too that reskins Steam Chat to look exactly like AIM circa 2006. He spared no expense; you can change your text color, drop in vintage, blocky emoticons, and create your own custom profile so you can tell the world that Warped Tour will never die. "It's a farewell to AIM," he says. As one gaming's foremost nostalgia artists, it'd be wrong if he didn't say goodbye.

Now the AIM generation is old enough to both intellectualize their wistfulness, and use the lessons they learned from the service to create for the today's teenagers. To facilitate affection and respect on the internet, to show them what it looks like. We were the first to taste love on the web, at a time when those feelings had no context or guidance, and I hope that AIM helped create a baseline for young people and the midnight communion with those across the screen. The liberation that comes with knowing that the internet friendships you cherish are just as valid and wonderful as you think they are—these stories matter, because they help light that path. Lord knows I needed it, and I'm sure you did too.

Luke Winkie

Contributing Writer

Luke Winkie is a freelance journalist and contributor to many publications, including PC Gamer, The New York Times, Gawker, Slate, and Mel Magazine. In between bouts of writing about Hearthstone, World of Warcraft and Twitch culture here on PC Gamer, Luke also publishes the newsletter On Posting. As a self-described "chronic poster," Luke has "spent hours deep-scrolling through surreptitious Likes tabs to uncover the root of intra-publication beef and broken down quote-tweet animosity like it’s Super Bowl tape." When he graduated from journalism school, he had no idea how bad it was going to get.

[alpaca-clouds]

What Mutual Aid can look like

If you grow up in modern society, there is a good chance you will only ever associate anarchism with violence and rebellion. This ignores though the core principle of anarchism. Like one of the things, that anarchism is build around: Mutual Aid.

And guess what: That kinda is something that human society for the longest time has been build around. (See also what I wrote a few weeks ago about gift societies before money was a thing.)

Mutual Aid is just, what it sounds like: Helping each other in ways we can help. Which can mean a lot of different things, because different people have different abilities to help.

You know, one of the things I liked about the early pandemic with the lockdown and what not was, that people rediscovered Mutual Aid, because a lot of people did not only need it, but also had the time to do it.

And what we really need to learn is, that Mutual Aid does not mean that everyone does exactly the same for each other (in terms of workload). Because some people just have more capacities than other people. And that is okay.

Too often Mutual Aid when discussed in media kinda only focuses on financial aid. And do not get me wrong: Helping someone to cover essencial costs is absolutely 100% a form of Mutual Aid. But... This is still very much caught within the capitalist thinking. And it can be so much more. So... Let me talk what else Mutual Aid can be:

Cooking for each other/for your neighboors. Maybe you have this old guy in the neighboorhood who just cannot properly cook for himself, because he just cannot stand for long enough to do it. Or maybe there is this single mom with two kids who works long hours and just does not have the energy to properly cook afterwards. And you might be cooking either way. So maybe you can cook for them, too?

Something we saw in the pandemic a lot: Going grocery shopping for your friends or neighbours. People were unable to go shopping because they themselves got infected with COVID or were immuno compromised? Folks went shopping for them. Why not keep it up? Covid is not over. Also, that old lady downstairs might have issues carrying her own groceries.

Repairing all sorts of things for other people. Be it their broken computer, their broken bike or car, or be it fixing that hole in their clothing. You have the skills to fix it? Why not fix it for them then, instead of forcing them to either buy new stuff or have it fixed for a ton of money.

Or one thing my roommate will always do for me: Cut my hair. That, too, is mutual aid. I need that hair cut. She will do it for me. That, too, is mutual aid.

Or if you are skilled in sowing, maybe actually sew clothes for people who cannot afford proper ones (aka clothing that is not gonna fall apart after a year)? That, too, is mutual aid.

And there is this friend who needs to go somewhere but does not have a car and the place is not easily reachable with other modes of transportation? Yeah, driving them is another form of Mutual Aid.

I could go on and on about this, babysitting, petsitting, helping someone clean, borrowing tools and so on... I think you get the idea, though. Mutual aid is... surprisingly easy. And most people already give it out on a pretty regular basis.

Because, again: People are actually pretty darn decent. We usually do things for each other because doing things for each other actually feels kinda good.

So... yeah. Maybe think about that. And think about how great society would be if more people were doing this.

[hopefully-inspiring-persona]

(I apologize in advance I didn’t have the energy to type my thoughts so I used dictation and tried to edit as best I could. Also I’m so sorry for the length haha)

I know the fandom has been theorizing the fears being based off of desire Since like the second or third episode if not the first, so I might be behind on the game, but the latest episode really just had all of this click for me and all of the implications of what the entities being based off of desires mean, and I think Jon and Martin are permanently facets of the fears now and have fundamentally changed how they function.

I know we’ve all kind of been like “how the fuck are Jon, Martin, and Jonah (I’m assuming it’s Jonah) in the computer” and at first, I thought that maybe they got transported through the somewhere else and maybe they grabbed Jonah somehow when they did so or one of the entities gravitated towards Jonah in the TMAGP universe. Up until this point, I vaguely assumed that the Jon and Martin that are in Freddie are our Jon and Martin (Jonah being from protocol universe), now I’m heavily leaning towards Jon and Martin might not actually be in the computers. It could also be that our Jon and Martin grabbed this universe’s version of all three voices to use.

in the latest statement, needle guy (I can’t remember name, very excited for him to come back at some point) was talking about how he feeds off of the fear of his victims but also he knows that what he does is out of genuine love, and that he wants to cuddle and be with his victim. And thinking about how all of the previous statements functioned and how a lot of them did include some fear, but it was a lot of love and desire that really took centerstage over any true torture or horrid end.

And that got me thinking about the series one finale. The whole reason Jon was able to get through the Apocalypse was through his love for Martin. Jon and Martin got through everything the fears threw at them through their love and their devotion and their desire to try and fix things. And now desire and love is one of the core aspects of how these entities feed and commit and spread their terror. Jon and Martin fundamentally changed how the fears functioned through their love specifically. The fears were released into the Multiverse through their act of love, and through that sacrifice and the fact that Martin was so devoted to Jon and loved Jon so thoroughly that he would be betraying himself to do what he asked of him.

So yea I think Jon and Martin are fundamentally tied into the fear entity now. They were taken from their universe and transported to the somewhere else through their deaths, and became facets of the fear entities, and changed them so completely (the fears also probably effecting Jon and Martin like S5 Jon was acting in return). Maybe even the entities aren’t against one another they work with each other more now they’re more intelligent. All the statements as of late the fears have felt more targeted they it feels more intelligent. It feels like it has the same thought behind it as the web did. I had a really hard time with the violin statement because a lot of its aspect kind of gave Web vibes, but it ended up being more towards slaughter or voyeurism.

Even with needle guy, he is a mixture of so many different fears. And the way he was talking about his love, and how he was talking about his victim really reminded me of how Jon and Martin felt but in a really fucked up avatar way, which is really what led me to these thoughts. It feels like they’re really all mixed together and it’s all connected through a love or desire, and it has that obsession twisted. Sometimes it does more good for the victim than it does bad, but also still has that tinge of darkness.

I genuinely have no idea if the fears will even function in the same way that we know them. Because already they feel kind of familiar but also it’s really hard to pinpoint one specific fear for each statement. I think it really became more like colors through their tampering, and instead of hating each other they loved each other and they actively tried to blend with each other when given an opportunity to.

So yeah, I’m really excited for less animalistic fears and way more thought out and malicious shit happening across the board. I still don’t fucking know how they’re in the computer but also part of me feels like they’re not in the computer, but also the computers definitely have some kind of personality that is reminiscent of the original Jon and Martin so I have no fucking clue. Alice talking to the computer like Martin talks to the tape recorders is genuinely a significant plot point I feel and I guess we just have to sit and wait to figure out how this all plays out because we’re literally only at episode six lol. 

(on a sidenote, while writing this, I also had the thought that maybe the watcher crown is still in effect, and that Jon and Martin do still have a slight bit of control over the fears and that’s why it feels intelligent? I definitely don’t think it’s the Jon and Martin we know I feel like they are beyond their original consciousness lol. But there’s still that little bit of humanity in them I guess. Like their version of morals is heavily influenced by the fears view of reality, but also, they still have a bit of their original thought process, and so that all mixed together kind of has this more benevolent, yet still malicious version of the entity. Like a monkeys paw almost. Chester and Noris could be the original subconscious of Jon and Martin that is a byproduct of their power over the entity and the reason Jonah is there is because of their strong emotional connection/recognition right before the merge which caused this reality’s Jonah who is probably just as connected to the watcher as he was in our series to become forcefully put into the computer or something)

On a second less long tangent, I love how we were wishy-washy about maybe the entities being about desire, and then Jonny decided in this latest episode to bash us over the head with “ITS ABOUT LOVE AND ABOUT FEAR” lol

[gggoldfinch]

Hatchetknife

Richard B. Riddick x OFC (or reader)

(disclaimer: photo found on pinterest ^ )

A/N: I’ve been gripped by the most manic and inexplicable riddick brainrot ever and needed to get this out of my system or I’d deadass explode ‼️I usually don't write oneshots like this so it was a nice breath of fresh air actually. Hopefully now this sexy bald bitch will leave my poor brain alone so I can do something else other than binge watching vin diesel movies

warnings: original female character (descriptions vague enough to be reader insert), possibly a little ooc, very brief discussion of SA (in a non-threatening manner), minor violence & injury, explicit language, forced proximity, only one bed, explicit sexual content, smut, oral sex, praise kink, scent kink, size kink, light choking, biting, pet names. MINORS DNI

word count: 12,114

{AO3 Link}

summary: A low-profile merc masquerading as a man has her ship (and life) invaded by an unlikely guest. She gets found out, and things progress interestingly.

***

There's a ship that's been sitting idle in the upper-east Storage B-Port for weeks now; Riddick knows this. He also knows he hasn't been this incapacitated in a while. It's a hard thing to admit to himself, but he can feel the exhaustion creeping in. He hasn't slept in over 72 hours, and has been fighting and running for most of that time. He's out of his element— stuck in the heart of a congested city-planet rather than out in the wilderness of some uninhabited backwater planet. He's bleeding from somewhere— his side, maybe. His nose is broken, too, and there must be some sort of nerve damage too, because he can't scent who's coming after him anymore. He lost his goggles somewhere during this most recent scuffle, too, so all the neon signs are like miniature suns searing his retinas.

There's an idle ship gathering dust in Storage B-Port. He recalls it looking like a good model, some custom parts. It'll be easy to hijack. It'll be easy to leave this planet and his merc pursuers in the dust.

———————————————————————

Everyone has their own way of surviving in this nightmare of a universe. Some kill, some are killed. That's just something each and every person has to come to terms with while they draw breath. While not exactly thriving, this one particular individual has found their own way to survive. Some may call her a mercenary, and they wouldn't necessarily be wrong— but she prefers to call herself a mere gun for hire. It's easy to make a living when you have a thick head and nothing to lose, going from one job to another with little in the way of possessions and even less in the way of social relationships. She goes where the proverbial wind takes her, planet-hopping and working odd jobs. Sometimes the jobs entail hunting dangerous quarry, but more often than not she's hired for non-violent jobs running security for personnel protection or transport. Honestly, the only jobs she turns down outright are those having anything remotely to do with the Necromongers. Sure it isn't ideal, but it's better than living in the slums of the over-crowded metroplanet where she'd grown up.

It's a risky job, no doubt, made no less difficult by her deliberate choice to fly solo. Solo is safe. Solo, she don't have to worry about crewmates stealing or betraying her, or worse, taking advantage of her. Barely an adult when she'd begun her life hopping between merc crews, she'd learned early that being on her own is better, safer. No— she keeps to herself with nothing but the ship's computer system for company. And, when the occasion rises where she does have to venture out into civilization again—to find a job or stock up on supplies—she takes heavy precautions.

Strong from years of fighting and labor, her body can shoulder the burdensome weight of armor; broad shoulders and sturdy bones make her intimidating and capable. Years worth of mismatched armor plates make up her regular uniform, both metal alloys and plastic prints. Some pieces were taken off fallen quarry—or former crewmates—some purchased responsibly. Each plate has a little story she can recall, fondly or not. When worn all together, her form is virtually unrecognizable, and more importantly, masculine. The crown mantle is her helmet: sturdy, sleek, black, with a visor capable of internal screen display. The vocal distorter programmed into it deepens her voice to a disguised pitch. The suit of armor isn't entirely comfortable, but it's a requirement for her safety.

"Hatchet!"

She swivels her helmeted head, looking in the direction from which she hears her codename. She hadn't been calling herself anything when she'd assumed this masculine persona. Her various employers just began calling her a shortened version of her ship's name—the Hatchetknife—and it just ended up sticking within the merc circle she floats in. No one knows her true identity, as far as she's aware. If they do, no problems have arisen from it yet.

A man approaches her, stocky and shorter than her. He's been her employer for the past several weeks, paying her to be a glorified bodyguard for his uppity son, on probation for yatta yatta yatta. She'd tuned out the rest once she'd heard the price of the paycheck. 350 thousand units just to  babysit an alcoholic man-child for a month while he's on probation. She couldn't pass it up.

Her employer holds out a datapad, the blue screen alight with money transfer information. She's about to receive her payment and get the fuck off this stuffed metroplanet. Maybe she can finally replace some of the older parts on the Hatchetknife with this payment.

"Don't be a stranger, now," the man says amicably once the digital paperwork has been filled. She receives a notification ping on the screen of her visor, indicating the payment has gone through successfully.  

She inclines her concealed head, thanks him for the business, and turns tail to leg it back to the ship. The thing has been docked in storage for nearly a full month cycle now— long enough for the ticket expense to be a bit of a blow to her newly acquired units. It doesn't matter; this planet will be long behind her in only a matter of a few short hours. She's been idle, been on this polluted and overpopulated planet for too long.

And she'll be damned if a little blood on the exterior hatchpad of her ship is going to deter her from getting out of dodge in a timely manner. It's a handprint, maybe a couple, smeared all along the white panelling of the cargo bay door's control console. The cargo bay door is locked up tight though, so she's not particularly worried that any ne'er-do-wells have tried breaking into her sturdy old ship. It's a good model, she tells herself. It has a security system that would alert her of suspicious activity through the link between her helmet and the ship's mainframe. Sure, someone clearly tried to get in, but there's no sign the bay door had been opened recently.

She pays her exorbitantly priced docking ticket and opens the bay door herself. She remains completely oblivious to the other trail of blood, smeared up the side of the ship and leading to the secondary hatch. She doesn't notice the cut wires either, spraying pathetic little sparks instead of warning signals to her security system. To be fair, she doesn't notice much of anything—doesn't even remove her armor or helmet—in her haste to take off. She just charges through the cargo bay, vaults the ladder to the upper deck, and wedges herself behind the control console.

It feels like home, being behind the console. More of a home than she's ever really had, at least. She exhales against the interior of her helmet. Her reflection gleams in the bare windshield, the sleek black glass and metal of her high-tech helmet staring back. Gloved fingers press buttons and flip switches, igniting holoscreens and a rainbow of lights. Meters and regulators all seem to be in check despite the ship's extended idleness, and the hyperdrive kickstarts with a comforting purr. She has to take the ship up and out of the atmosphere before kicking it into warp speed, lest the planet's nasty police force pick a fight with her. Fog and flames lick the nose of the Hatchetknife as it accelerates upward, breaking through the upper atmosphere at a smooth 15 kilometers per second, and an even 75 degree angle. Only then does she crank the hyperdrive and watch as the countless stars warp around the nose of the ship.

She plots an aimless course, avoiding setting a firm destination until she can get her hands on another potential job lead. Upon throwing it into autopilot, the ship's automated computer system welcomes her back on board. Hatchet, it calls her. Not even her own ship uses her true name anymore.

Her boots are heavy as they tramp out of the cockpit. Reinforced steel and acid-resistant soles, these boots are. They're her favorites. They make a robust thump thump as she walks into the narrow hallway of the Hatchetknife. Here resides her bunk, and across from that is the kitchenette and table where she eats and works and sometimes sleeps. It's barely wide enough to fit two people standing shoulder-to-shoulder. She's used to close-quarters; it's almost comforting, like a womb. The hatch and ladder down to the cargo bay gapes at the end of the hall, and this is what she beelines for once acclimating herself with the interior of her ship again. Her bunk looks awfully inviting, but first on the agenda is to shuck off all the armor.

Boots bracketed on either side of the ladder and gloved hands holding tight to the side-rails, she slides down until landing on the grate panels of the cargo bay floor. This area is vastly larger than her living quarters— it has to be, in the event she has to transport sizable goods or heavy machinery. A armory case for her weapons and uniform sits bolted against the side wall, its grate doors barely revealing the contents. She opens the thing up, removing the machine gun strapped to her back to place it on its rightful hooks.

She hooks her thumbs under the seal of her helmet and disables the suctioned airlock. Just as she's preparing to lift the burdensome thing from her head, something collides with her right side, knocking her clean off her feet. It takes only a few frantic moments to realize it's a human being— a male attacker. Her deactivated helmet collides with the metal flooring at an odd angle, instantly disabling the visor's screen as a result of some internal damage. The force of the tackle and impact against the floor has the breath drawn from her lungs in a violent, rattling wheeze. The muscles over her ribs convulse and tighten, sending a shock of panic and pain and adrenaline through her system. With little time to think, no weapon handy, and no opportunity to scan the stranger, she starts thrashing. Amidst the scuffle and blow to her head, she can't quite see clearly, only able to make out a blur of squirting blood. The blood isn't her own— she's sure she would feel it if she'd been shanked in any of her armor's vulnerable spots.

She thrusts a gauntleted arm upwards in the direction she thinks the intruder's head is. Her metal-sheathed wrist collides with something and the oppressive weight above her slumps over to the side.

Hatchet scrambles up to her knees and tears the nearest gun from off the rack. She spins, points the weapon at the stranger's head, and... doesn't shoot.

Sprawled on the cold metal floor is a man. A large man. Bald-headed and covered in blood she knows she hadn't drawn from him herself. It's old blood, old wounds— maybe hours, maybe days. Despite the vaguely stunned look about him from being hit in the head, he wears a wry little smile upon his full mouth, lips and nose bloody from what looks like a previous beating. His eyes glint in a peculiar fashion, almost like feline eyeshine, silvery and shifting.

He holds his hands out by his head placatingly, palms facing upward. Then, he grins. "Okay, okay. You got me." His voice is deep and smooth like rolling thunder. It's almost startlingly in its intensity.

"Who the fuck are you? What are you doing on my ship!? What do you want?" she barks into the voice modulator, keeping the hardy submachine gun trained on him.

"Got a pretty nice ship here, don't you think?" he rumbles out.

"Fuck you!"

He chuckles at that, although the action looks like it pains him. The blood, she realizes, is oozing from a substantial stab wound on his left flank, just below the contour of his shapely pectoral muscle. She swallows thickly, choking down the apprehensive lump in her throat. Still a little off-kilter from the blow to her helmet, she shakily rises to her feet, steady finger not leaving the trigger once. The man clenches his silvery eyes shut, sucking in a substantial breath only to groan it all out again. One broad, tan hand shifts to press against the wound on his side, the other remaining innocently idle.  

Without prompting, Hatchet's line of sight raises to the secondary hatch within the cargo hold. There it is: a smear of blood and sparking wires. That's where he'd gotten in. Must be a determined fella—let alone smart—to have hacked the ship's security system to override the locking mechanism and find which wires would send out a warning signal before they even had the chance to. She looks back to him, curiously tilting her head to the side in observation of him.

"What the fuck do you think is supposed to happen now?" she grits out. The voice modulator gives it an extra bit of bite.

The man laughs, blood staining his straight teeth. "I dunno. Thought you might hand over your ship."

"Hand over my— Do you have a fucking head injury?"

He laughs again and she kicks his calf roughly.

"What about this is funny? Please, illuminate it for me. Because all I see some fucking stowaway who has a gun to his head and a nasty stab in his side. You're not getting my ship, pal. You'll be lucky if I let you see tomorrow."

"Bad timing," he murmurs, voice thick with strain and sardonic amusement. His expression slackens, the crease between his thin brows flattening out gradually.

"What?"

She kicks his leg again; he's unresponsive. Unconscious, actually, judging by the sudden lack of tension in his face and limbs. She drops the gun-wielding hand to her side and lets out a high-pitched wail of frustration.

She's not a cold blooded murderer. Sure, she's had to take a life or two throughout her days, but then again, who hasn't in this line of work. Those times were different— kill or be killed. This is... this is an injured, apparently unarmed guy on her cargo bay floor. Yes, he'd broken in, but maybe he has a valid excuse. She's had to break into places to survive before, it's really not that unusual. And despite all the shit she's been through, deep down Hatchet has a bleeding heart. She'd be pressed to admit it, of course. The sight of the stranger, wounded and unconscious, male as he may be, pulls at her tender and guarded heartstrings.

Fucking hell. She can only hope that someday in the future, if she's ever in time of need, that some stranger will treat her with kindness.

The man is heavy. Not deceptively so, as his height and build imply a great amount of mass, but hell if she's not winded by the time she drags him over to the cargo lift. The small elevator is usually for objects and not people, but it's the only way she can get his dead-weight ass to the upper level where the only cot and good light source are. She hasn't taken her armor off, and at this point she doesn't think she's going to. Certainly not with a strange man aboard, unconscious or not.

Upon both arriving at the upper level, it takes a great amount of effort to haul the man over to the bunk. The space is barely big enough to comfortably hold Hatchet, and she's nowhere near the size of this beast of a man. The cot creaks as she lowers him onto it, his boots scraping the wall as she crams him into the broom closet sized space. Flicking on the overhead light, it illuminates him with white fluorescence. It's only then does she realize he's not entirely unconscious; somewhere in there, he's aware enough to wince at the light coming on. She squints at him for a long moment, scrutinizing the situation. He doesn't show any other sign of cognizance besides for that averse reaction to the bright light beating down on his eyelids. When she decides it had only been some sort of odd reflex, she goes to retrieve the medical supplies from an aptly labeled storage cabinet.

Modesty be damned, she has to remove his shirt. It's barely holding itself together, anyway, and she has replacements to dress him in after she's patched him up. She feels hot under all her armor and layers, nervous as she stares down at the stranger's bare chest. Christ, he's build like a tank. It's intimidating, actually, once she chokes down the insidious feeling of attraction that prickles her skin and bubbles in her abdomen. Anyway—  upon closer inspection, the wound on his side is largely superficial. The extensive bruising along his ribs, however, indicates some unknown level of internal damage. It may only be deep-tissue bruising, or his ribs could be broken. She can't be too sure either way, and makes sure to properly bandage up his torso regardless, though only after disinfecting and stitching up the gash.

His nose is broken, that much is obvious. However, it looks as though it's already been set, so all she has to do is clean the blood, disinfect the small cut on the bridge, and properly bandage it. He has a nice face, apart from the bandaged nose. She can't really describe his features. Harsh, but soft at the same time. She huffs against the interior of the helmet at the thought, crossing her arms and leaning back.

She has stationed herself at the table across from the bunk, cautiously watching over the stranger through the deactivated visor of her mask. Hot and stuffy and heavy as the armor may be, she won't risk taking it off just yet. She doesn't quite have a plan yet as to how this is going to unfold. She'd chosen to spare his life, yes, but that isn't to say she won't protect herself to the nth degree if the need arises going forward. She doesn't want him out of her sight—especially considering her unprofessional lack of manacles—which means she can't program a route into the ship right now. The task would've been made simple if he hadn't gone and broken the screen display mechanism in her helmet. She can't even scan him in this state, to gather his identity or vitals status. She hadn't realized how dependent she'd grown on the visor display until now, having worn the damn thing for weeks straight at this point.

It takes a couple of hours by her count for the stranger to rouse again. He's disoriented at first, but soon grows aware of her shielded gaze burning into him from the other side of the narrow living area. He shifts in the cot, turning onto his wounded side to better assess the situation. He doesn't seem threatened—or particularly threatening—at the moment.

"Rise and shine," Hatchet speaks into the voice modulator.

She kicks a boot up onto the edge of the cot from where she sits barely three feet away. She tells herself it's a show of dominance, to plant her boot right beside the stranger's head, but in reality she probably just looks stupid. The man just looks at her with those silvery eyes, squinting under the bright overhead light. She doesn't shut it off.

"Now here's the deal—"

"How many people you got on this ship?" He cuts her off, tone both aloof and detached despite the situation. He breaks into an odd little grin, then twists his head to scent the pillow. "You hiding a lady somewhere? Fella like you sure wouldn't smell this sweet."

Hatchet's face crumples under the cover of secrecy. She has to school her perturbed reaction for the sake of her anonymity. What the hell kind of guy is she dealing with here, exactly? Not only must she refrain from showing any physical reaction, she shouldn't verbally address it, either.

"Now here's the deal," she repeats. "I spared you once— even did you the favor of patching you up. But, it's not gonna happen again if you try something funny."

The man tucks his chin to his chest to look down at the bandaged wounds, holding a curious hand to his side. She can't quite interpret his expression perfectly, but she thinks he seems vaguely impressed by her medical treatment of him.

"I'm going to take you to the nearest inhabited planet and dump your freeloading ass off at the first dock I come across. You aren't going to resist or complain. I'm doing you this favor— clearly you were on the run from someone dangerous, and I got you out of dodge. I don't expect payment, but I'd be mighty grateful if you didn't do anything violent or stupid." Hatchet kicks the bunk when his eyes slip shut again. "Hey! Are you listening to me?"

He does appear to fall unconscious again, but she can't be totally sure he isn't just fucking with her. Irritated, she sucks her teeth and curses him out, kicking off the bunk to stomp off into the cockpit. Forget keeping him in sight, he can suffocate for all she cares. There's a shotgun under the control console, anyway.

She seals the cockpit door shut behind her. Only then does she feel safe to remove her helmet. Once again she's greeted by her reflection in the windshield, though this time it's her own face that stares back. It's a tired and sweaty face, with hair matted flat to the scalp from the tight interior of the helmet. She needs a nice long shower—that much is obvious—but now isn't the time. Finally breathing fresh, unfiltered air again, she gulps it down greedily and deposits herself in the pilot's seat. The autopilot had taken itself out of hyperdrive some time ago, and now the Hatchetknife careens at a steady pace through open space. The stars are magnificent, as always. The endless, unfathomable sight almost makes her forget her burdensome stowaway.

Hatchet pulls coordinates for the nearest inhabited planet. She expands the view on the holoscreen projected across the console. The information, illuminated in a fluorescent blue, scrawls across the screen just fast enough for her to barely be able to read it in time. Her eagerness to be rid of the stowaway slowly melts into a nauseating apprehension. Apparently, according to the data, the nearest planet for several lightyears just happens to be crawling with Necromongers. Fucking Necromongers. If there's anything Hatchet hates, it's violent religious cults that double as armies. She avoids well-paying jobs on the off-chance that those psychos might catch a whiff of her— she's sure as hell not landing her ship in a hive of those wasps.

"Fucking shit!" She kicks the console.

There goes the plan to drop this motherfucker off. It'll take days at the very least to make it to the next viable planet. She tosses her head back and groans loud, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes until they come away leaving splotches in her vision. Venting her frustration, she kicks her heel against the console twice more.

———————————————————————

If Hatchet learns anything during her time in close proximity with the man, it's that, 1. he's a shockingly fast healer; 2. he doesn't like bright lights; and 3. he's quite sharp-witted despite the meathead look about him. In the few days that follow the unexpected detour, she avoids him as best she can in such cramped quarters. They only interact on the occasions when she checks up on his wounds or gives him MRE meals throughout the day—  always outfitted in her armor, of course. He only takes power-naps, never a full sleep, and reacts tensely to loud and sudden noises. He's smug and facetious when he speaks, and brooding when he doesn't. He's like a storm in every aspect of the description: thunderous voice, eyes like lightning, and a stormy personality to match. Despite Hatchet's aloofness, the man has found a way to wheedle himself under her skin. Once he was stable enough to stand on his own, nothing could stop him from getting up and wandering around the ship, hiding in the shadowed areas like a predator stalking its prey, much to Hatchet's chagrin. He makes little quips and witty comments in that deep voice when she's least prepared for them, and he stares at her with those glimmering eyes like he can see right through her disguise. Sometimes, she worries he does. He's like a fucking ghost the way he soundlessly moves around the small ship. That's more unnerving than his appearance, she thinks.

It's all getting rather frustrating. At first she'd been pissed that a man had the audacity to impose himself upon her time, energy, and ship. Now, she can't help but feel a strange tug of loneliness when they aren't in the same room. It's upsetting how the mind perceives human connection. She doesn't even know his name, yet the thought of being on her own again seems... well, lonely.

It does help that he's easy on the eyes, too. She finds herself locked away in the cockpit more and more frequently, brooding long and hard over the increasingly frequent thoughts of how fucking fine the man is. That soft yet masculine face, those thick arms and sturdy torso. The deep, intense tenor of his voice alone is enough to make her weak in the knees. And those eerie, glowing eyes, which watch her every movement like a hawk. Oh, for fucksake...

Hell, in all honesty she might as well be swimming in her armor with the way she sweats when he stands close and talks real smooth. She's afraid she's making it a little too obvious, actually. That carefully crafted persona is slipping through her fingers and all because she's a little hot under the collar about this stowaway she'd sworn to dump like a box of rocks come first chance. It came to a point approximately three simulated days into their time together when she couldn't stand the sight of him shirtless anymore; she ended up handing over one of her spare XL tanks, which still managed to look small on his burly frame. There's a sort of undeniable animal magnetism about him which is almost a little distressing in its intensity. What a fickle thing her trust in others is— and how tragically simple it was for her to get comfortable with the situation.

She doesn't insist on taking her bunk back from the healing man. While he rests his battered body on the cot, she kicks back at the well-worn table every night cycle, sprawled across the bench seat with a flimsy pillow beneath her helmeted head. This way she can keep the stowaway within her line of sight. Once his intimidating nature is overlooked, he is surprisingly amicable and seems rather appreciative of all her efforts. He hasn't tried to attack her, or otherwise threaten her person, which she takes as a sign he'd heard and accepted her deal before passing out on that very first day. In fact, he only ever deliberately menaces her when standing over her shoulder, or appearing out of nowhere. Or when he belligerently thumps his fist over wall panels to deactivate overhead lights he finds irksome.

Hatchet, though she herself is nameless to an extent, finds his lack of proffered identity a little frazzling. Though she's come to accept his presence as a whole, it would make her a lot more comfortable if she had a name and background to put to the face. Which brings her to the locked cockpit, wherein she works tediously to repair the screen and scanning mechanism in her helmet. With her tongue poked out from between her lips and one boot up on the console, she takes the helm apart and repairs it with a notable proficiency, then puts it all back together again. The screen automatically powers on when she activates the airlock seal, illuminating her field of view with digital notifications and vital statuses.

She catches him unaware, aiming her visor at him for long enough to scan his facial features and biometrics. Identification data scrawls across the screen before her eyes, her blood pressure spikes. Under the guise of piloting the ship, she locks herself in the cockpit again and feverishly scrolls through mugshots and bounty reward data.

Holy shit. She's been harboring the infamous convict Richard B. Riddick.

Her jaw clenches, muscle twitching against the interior padding of the helmet as she absorbs the newfound information. She should've known. She should have known. Those eyes— she'd heard the merc legends about those eyes.

But fuck... for a guy who'd spent half his life in the slam, he's certainly been affable within these restrictive quarters, mingling with a complete stranger, no less. It's hard to reconcile what she reads on the screen with the man she's been interacting with for the past few artificial cycles. She yanks the helmet from over her head, roughly scrubbing her palms over her face.

When she returns from the cockpit, nerves gathered to the extent they can be, she finds the man halfway through shaving his tan scalp. She stands at the mouth of the living area, the girth of her armor nearly taking up the entire doorframe. Richard B. Riddick, her reserved and shockingly mannered stowaway, sits at the metal table with a compact mirror and razor— a feeble weapon which she now knows could be used against her in all sorts of ways if she were to get on his bad side. Does he even have a good side to be on? She hopes he does, and hopes she's on it. Largely without thinking, one of her hands flutters up to her touch throat as images of it being brutally slit flicker through her mind.

She sits down across from him, folding her hands on the tabletop. He doesn't pause his grooming, doesn't even glance up. His eyeshine remains trained on the little mirror as he meticulously scrapes the stubble from his head with help from what looks like motor gel, no doubt nicked from the cargo bay below. Hatchet purses her mouth into a nervous line beneath the safety of her helm. She can't help but silently observe the flex of his muscles as he moves, every innocuous gesture striking a flustered chord within her. She swallows against the tightness constricting her throat.

"How are you feeling?" She hopes the modulator eliminates the shakiness she feels in her voice.

Logically, she has nothing to be afraid of. Unless this guy is prone to switching demeanor on a dime—which she has no reason to believe he does, based on what she's seen so far—why wouldn't this passive companionship continue? If anything, Hatchet is more afraid of how he will react to knowing she knows his identity now. Either he's been assuming she has known this entire time and just doesn't care, or knows she's been blissfully ignorant and has taken advantage of the anonymity.

He finally spares a glance at her across the table. His jaw visibly twitches, then one corner of his mouth quirks upward. He returns to shaving his head.

"Better. Thanks." He sniffs, sounding indifferent.

"You... uh. Want anything to eat?"

"Naw."

Hatchet exhales, both relieved and oddly disappointed. The storage compartment for the MREs is right beside him, meaning she would've had to stand right over him to retrieve anything.

"You got any goggles laying around?" His deep voice brings her out of her mind. "Been looking but..." he sucks his teeth.

Her brows raise confoundedly. "Goggles?"

"Yeah, you know. Goggles."

Fuck, he must think she's an idiot. She fumbles for words. "Uh. I'm not sure, probably not. I usually just wear the helmet when I need to shield my eyes. Why do you need them?"

He snaps the compact mirror shut and sets down the razor, using the bloody tank he's arrived in to wipe the remaining gel from his scalp. It looks like he'd shaved his beard recently, too, if the dark shadow on his jaw has anything to say about it. Setting the tank down, no more than a scrap rag at this point, he inhales deeply and briefly sinks his teeth into his plump lower lip. Hatchet bites her cheek hard enough for it to hurt, deliberately keeping her gaze from his mouth.

"I wouldn't need them if you didn't keep turning on all the lights," he replies. A hint of dry amusement hides within his flat tone.

"I wouldn't have to turn on the lights if you didn't hide in the shadows all the time," she retaliates. Riddick chuckles like deep, rolling thunder. Hatchet's pulse jumps; fear, arousal. "I'll keep it in mind not to turn them all on. I know your eyes are sensitive to light," she continues.

He suddenly pins her with a suspicious, scrupulous glare. She realizes her mistake and backtracks, sweating bullets beneath her armor.

"I mean, you squint a lot. And you make your way around in the dark better than in the light. I shouldn't have assumed." She's babbling. She can't keep a lid on it.

If he suspects what she knows, he doesn't let on. He cocks his head to the side, eyes glimmering as they trace the contours of her hefty armor. His gaze stops on her visor, right where her eyes should be. Somehow, she feels like they're making direct eye contact.

A questioning smile graces his handsome face. "Do you ever take that damn helmet off? Or do you live in the thing."

Hatchet's face falls beneath the shield of the visor. Her pulse thumps in her throat; a part of her thinks he can sense it. Her demeanor becomes prickly, unchecked. "Why do you care? You're a stowaway on my ship— what is it your business how I eat, sleep, shit—"

"Fuck?" He raises a thin brow, tickled by his own addendum. Meanwhile, Hatchet flushes a fiery shade of red beneath the helm in question. Then, he huffs a short little laugh— more a harsh exhale than anything. "I have to say, your little getup had me convinced at first. But, I know you ain't a man."

Hatchet's heart skips a beat. She disguises her anxiety with derision. "Disappointed?"

"Not in the slightest, sweetheart." A white canine glints when he flashes that oddly charming smile.

That combination—a quaint pet name and that devastating smile—has her feeling lightheaded and confined within her suit. Her hands slip from the tabletop to clench into fists in her lap. He appears upsettingly smug about his little revelation.

"How'd you figure it out?"

His nostrils flare; he takes a deep breath. "Thought I smelled a woman my first night in the bunk. My nose was all fucked up, but... eventually I figured out that sweet smell was coming from you and not some phantom scent hanging around. I give you credit, you had me going for a little while."

Her brow twinges. What a strange man.

She's faced with an internal conflict. She could deny the accusation, but something tells her that won't work in the slightest. She could keep the helmet  and armor on until they part ways, but really what's the point, seeing as he already knows she's a woman; he looks strong enough to pry the armor right off her body anyway. The most logical choice she can make is to take the discovery in stride and go back to living comfortably, with the addition of a slightly threatening guest who does one-armed push-ups in the hallway and lurks around dark corners. The jig is up. He's just that good. Her choice is practically made up for her.

Hatchet's hands raise, slow and tentative, and she maintains what feels a lot like eye contact with Riddick. Her gloved thumbs hook up under the seal, disabling the airlock and visor screen. Air hisses out from the seam at her throat, loosening the helmet's grip on her head. Somewhat dubiously, she lifts the burdensome metal and glass dome from over her head. It comes to rest in her lap as she shakes out her sweat-dampened hair and takes a deep breath of fresh air.

They look at each other's faces for the first time, unencumbered. The visor distorts perception a tiny bit, so it's almost like seeing him for the first time. A permeable scent of sweat and metal lingers between the both of them, despite both having showered recently in the ship's minuscule wash room. She can also smell the motor gel he'd used to shave his head (so strange— must be a leftover trick from the slam, she thinks). The woman is overcome with a bout of anxiety and shyness upon revealing her true face, and flushes under his heavy gaze. She resists the submissive urge to tuck her chin to her chest and avert real eye contact.

"Well... I guess you know who I am, now." She clears her throat; she hasn't heard her unfiltered voice in ages. Her jig may be up— but she still has something of a trump card on him, too. Sure, he might kill her for it, but this entire conversation is toeing the line of life-threatening risk to begin with. She musters courage to utter her next words; "Just like... how I know who you are now, Richard B. Riddick. Thought I wouldn't do a facial recognition scan?"

Hatchet squares her shoulders and raises her chin by a fraction, feigning confidence. He can probably smell her fear. The man inclines his head, brows raised as a chuckle rolls in like a storm. He almost looks impressed with her mediocre detective work.

He smiles that wolfish smile, showing teeth and smile lines. "So, you think you know who I am now, huh? You afraid of the big bad monster now?"

One corner of Hatchet's mouth quirks downward. "Should I be?"

"If you're smart you would be." He levels her stare with that inhuman eyeshine.

"I only fear true monsters. Men who kill for pleasure and nothing more. I read the files on you. You don't kill unarmed women— children. You don't rape them."

It isn't phrased as a question, but he replies regardless; "Naw."

It's actually kind of relieving that he looks a bit offended by the idea. "Then you aren't a true monster. You do what you have to to survive. We all do out here. I can't fault you for killing people trying to kill you. I won't fault you for anything you had to do in the slam."

There's more she would like to say—to tell him he'd been dealt a really shitty hand—but that feels too intrusive for the context of their relationship. She doesn't want to risk angering him by coming off as pitying.

Riddick narrows his naturally suspicious gaze at the woman. He doesn't touch her previous soapbox comment. "So... that mean you're gonna try to turn me in for a payday?"

"Fucking— Jesus, dude," she guffaws incredulously. "Why the fuck would I turn you in after I did so much to save your ass? You're worth more dead than alive, you know. If I wanted to, I could've."

The big man shrugs. "Who knows. Every other merc would."

"Well I'm not every other merc, am I?" She leans back, crossing her arms over her chestplate.

"Naw, definitely not."

If she'd been any less observant, she may have missed the glimmer of flirtation in his tone and demeanor— in his eyeshine. Stifling heat rises like a kettle boiling, tinting her face a noticeable hue. She can only hope she looks disheveled and sweaty enough for it to pass as an exacerbated flush. Abruptly, she stands from the table, wringing her hands in an uncontrollable combination of nerves and bashfulness. The helmet is dumped onto the tabletop, rolling towards the seated man.

"I'll uh—" Her voice cracks; she clears her throat. "I'll look for those goggles for you."

"Good talk," he calls after her as she hastily turns on her heel.

She pauses her stride, mind running a mile a minute to find a way to gain some sort of traction and authority amidst this interaction. She shifts halfway to turn back and face him.

"Hm. Yes, good talk... Richard."

His uproarious laughter follows her down into the cargo bay where she quickly disappears.

———————————————————————

Riddick is both a complicated human and a very simple man. On one hand, a selfish part of him wants nothing more than to take control of this cramped little vessel and fly it fuck-knows where. It's clear to him that this ship and its pilot are a package deal, which brings him to a sort of moral crossroads. On the other hand, this woman—this merc—has been undeservingly kind to him, more so than anyone he can remember. She has a point, too. He'd been dangerously incapacitated for a short while, in which time she could have easily gone and ghosted him or handed him over to some other scummy mercs. But she hadn't. This lone woman, mistrustful enough of others to go so far as to masquerade as a man, had saved his hide and given him shelter and transport, all out of the kindness of her heart. She isn't threatening or outwardly malicious; he doesn't know how the hell she's survived this long out here. Perhaps her assumed persona has gotten her this far after all, amongst the masses less perceptive than himself.

Fuck. Merc or not, he can't just ghost her now.

And besides— he's a man, and she's a woman. Simple as that.

Even suited up to the jaw in armor and reeking of sweat, her newly revealed face stirs something all-too familiar within him. Hell, her scent alone is enough to get him off. Riddick doesn't even have to know what the rest of her looks like to know he wants to fuck her. And she doesn't seem all too averse to the idea of him, either, based on the subtle changes observable in her posture and scent. His senses are too keen to miss the physical and vocal cues she tries so hard to hide with that modulator and beneath the suit of armor. He knows hot and bothered when he sees it; and it's a fucking ego-boost.

After their little conversation, she'd grown more comfortable— if that's the appropriate word for the scenario. He'd revealed her identity and she responded by completely forgoing the suit of armor. Not that he's curious or anything, but he finds himself asking more about her. She shares that she is called "Hatchet," which he thinks is a little entertaining given her rather docile nature. He also learns that she's been in the mercenary business since her early teenage years, which almost always spells trouble for young women— hence why she'd taken up the persona of a more masculine, faceless merc, rather than be perceived as lesser-than by her professional peers. She's funny too, he pleasantly discovers, when not restrained by that helmet.

He's surprised when she comes up to him a few cycles following their conversation. She's dressed in a tank like his (which he realizes is hers) and a mechanic's jumpsuit, the top of which rests tied around her supple hips. He eyes up her body with a brashness that usually intimidates even the most battle hardened of men. She doesn't even flinch— she grows shy, instead. He stands by his previous statement in which he'd wanted to fuck her without knowing what her body looked like, but he's certainly not complaining now in getting to see her without the bully armor to conceal her curves and soft shape. Even the light musculature of her arms and width of her shoulders is hot.

She holds something as she approaches from the cargo bay ladder, and he quickly deduces it is non-threatening. She sidles up to the table where he has been parking himself at more frequently lately. She wears a sweet expression halfway between anticipatory and nervous— not much different than usual.

"Hey, dollface," Riddick greets.

He cocks his head to the side as he looks up at her, observing her through the purplish hue of his shine-job eyes. He quickly discovered that playfully teasing the young woman almost always earns a flurry of entertaining responses; namely flustered yammering and a red flush which trails all the way down to her full breasts. The pet names come easily, oddly enough. She blushes as expected and leans a hip against the table edge. While toying with the object in her hands, she glances between it and him.

"I uh. I found a pair of goggles, since you'd been asking."

She holds her flat palm out towards him, displaying a set of simple black welding goggles. They're essentially like the pairs he usually sports: midsized circular lenses, held in place by a thick plastic compound. Riddick takes the proffered eyewear and tests the weight in his own palm. The strap is a fabric material rather than a continuation of the flexible plastic, but still appears sturdy. He pulls them over his head, lowering the lenses over his eyes. They block out the Iight sufficiently, subduing the vibrant hue of his altered vision.

He scans the woman through the shades, smiling appreciatively. "Thanks, sweetheart. You're a real peach."

Hatchet releases a breathy chuckle. "Yeah, sure. No problem... Richard."

She doesn't use fluffy little names on him like he's begun doing for her. When she does refer to him, she only calls him by his first name. Which, given the fact virtually no one else does, feels like a more powerful naming. It's humanization in its rawest form. She shifts to sit down across from him. Neither of them can ignore the way their ankles tangle together beneath the table, hefty boots knocking into one another. Riddick watches her throat bob as she swallows. He raises the goggles and leaves them perched on his knit brow.

"Okay, so, I've been thinking," she begins, somewhat hesitantly. "Here's the deal— I'll take you wherever you want to go, so long as you don't, you know, kill me in my sleep and steal my ride or something. I think that's only fair since I didn't do the same to you when you were incapacitated. Also, I guess it goes without saying that I'm not gonna tell anyone about this encounter or your whereabouts. If you don't trust my good will, just think how negatively it would affect my life if it got out among the wrong crowd that I've been in cahoots with an escaped convict."

Riddick barks out an abrupt laugh. "In cahoots, huh?"

Hatchet blanches, her jaw opening and shutting several times before she gathers her words. "W-Well, I'm willingly harboring a fugitive, aren't I? I haven't booted you out the airlock yet— so yes, we're in cahoots."

The man's laughter tapers into a light chuckle. He perches his chin on his fist in a way that makes Hatchet tense with bashfulness. A muscle in his thick forearm flexes, drawing her curious eye. Lately, she's been daydreaming about those strapping arms. She's been catching herself daydreaming about the rest of him, as well.

Her eyes dart back to his silvery ones, clearing her throat. "Well, what do you think of my deal?"

Riddick tilts his head, unable to resist smiling. "Sounds good."

The woman blinks at him, big doe eyes wide as she picks apart his reaction. "Ah... uh. Okay, cool." She drums the tabletop with both hands, fidgeting under his heavy stare.

She pushes to her feet suddenly, and Riddick launches up after her. Instantly he crowds her in the tight space, his large frame taking up a majority of her vision. She startles, automatically pressing her hands flat to his built chest. This draws a rumbling chuckle from him as he gazes down at the flustered woman.

Hatchet's heart rate quickens, the muscle thumping wildly in her chest. That pulse begins its mortifying throb between her thighs, too— a desperate, hot desire which boils up without her expressed permission. It's not an entirely unwelcome feeling, but it's certainly indicative of her poor self-control given the situation. She has no clue if this dangerous convict is about to crush her head like a clump of dirt, or if he's going to make a move on her. Those are the only two explanations for his startling proximity to her.

Nervously, her eyes raise to meet his. She finds his head bowed towards her.

"Uh."

"Why don't you ever sleep in your bunk?" he asks, derailing her frazzled train of thought. "Don't you need your beauty rest, sweetheart?"

"O-Oh? Where are you supposed to go if I take back my bunk?"

He hums and sways his shaven head. "We can share."

Brain unable to catch up with what he's offering, she defaults to thinking in a blunt, literal sense. "W-We can't both fit. It's too narrow."

He steps forward and she steps back, only to realize he's effectively backed her against a wall. One of his beefy arms rises, forearm and fist resting on the wall beside her head. He leans further into her space, smiling as he takes a deep breath of her scent. Fuzzy butterflies explode in her abdomen; she goes weak in the knees.

"Oh really? 'Cuz I got a few positions in mind that we can fit into," he purrs. Hatchet lets out a surprised little noise and he ducks closer. "Aw, don't get all shy on me now, babygirl."

"I'm— I—" she stammers.

Her eyes flick between his own and his lips. That now-familiar eyeshine glimmers with heated desire as he carefully observes her. He leans in real slow— torturously slow. The tip of his nose brushes against hers and she shudders. Riddick's breath is hot as is fans across her face. She finds herself panting heavy through parted lips, her chest rising and falling rapidly against his steady one. Her chin ducks low, shyly averting his advance to where he has to chase her lips.

His full lips are shockingly soft when they do finally graze hers— his mouth gentle and curious at first while he tentatively pecks her. The few kisses he lavishes upon her lips are short and teasing, serving only to rile her up further. The heartbeat at her core prompts her thighs to clench; the action doesn't go unnoticed. One of his broad hands clamps over her upper arm, effectively pinning her in place against the wall. The shared kiss grows more frenetic with each passing second. His other hand slides rather possessively up the length of her back, coming to tangle in the hair at the base of her skull. He uses it as leverage to tilt her head back— a move which earns a quiet gasp and unintentional whimper through her parted lips. With a small self-satisfied grin, Riddick takes the invitation to claim her open mouth, exploring teeth and tongue with his own.  

Hatchet can barely catch her breath— especially not when Riddick slips his tongue past her lips. The pulse between her thighs grows increasingly unbearable and she squirms desperately in his tight hold. That hand holding her arm in a vise grip shifts instead to press against her shoulder blade, pinning her to his broad chest. Her own hands find the courage to come up, fingers taking liberty to slip beneath the hem of his borrowed shirt. His tanned skin is warm and pulled taut over an ample amount of muscle. Her hands are cold—they always are while in space—which results in a string of tangible shivers as she drags her fingers up his sides. The thin fabric of the grey tank bunches up around her wrists as her hands continue their exploration upward. Her right hand is careful to avoid irritating the stitched wound over his left-side ribs. Instead it glides to his smooth chest, squeezing a generous handful of his pec.

He chuckles into her mouth and she swallows the deep noise with fervor. Without warning, he crouches and drops his large hands to her ass, hoisting her up with ease. Her legs clamp around his waist on instinct, canting her hips to shamelessly grind her throbbing core against his hard stomach. Her hands continue to grope his muscled chest and arms, appreciative of his powerful physique. All the while, mouths slot together in feverish kisses.

Riddick pivots on his heel and effortlessly pitches forward at the waist, dropping the woman clinging to him down onto the cot. There's little give to the canvas fabric bunk, but it's certainly more comfortable than a metal tabletop. Not that Riddick particularly cares; he's already swimming in visions of bending her over the table, anyway. Only when he deposits her on the bunk and crouches over her does Hatchet release him from her clinging grasp. Her hands barely leave his chest long enough to yank the tank up over his head, relying on his aptitude to fully rid himself of the thing while she continues her impromptu anatomy lesson. While she latches her mouth onto the pulse point of his throat, he plucks the goggles from his brow and flings them aside. They clatter down somewhere unimportant.

Wordlessly, there lingers between them a mutual agreement that this is consensual. This is needed. This has been building up for a while now.

Riddick's broad hands engulf Hatchet's soft waist, squeezing her affectionately. His fingers push upward, skirting along the hem of her own shirt. She parts her mouth from his neck only long enough to allow him to tug the garment up over her head, hastily followed by the discarding of her sports bra, too. His palms are rough with calluses against her sensitive flesh, and unrelenting when they come up to squeeze her bared breasts. The topless woman licks up the column of his throat to just below his right ear, tasting sweat and skin as she suckles the sweet spot. Her fingers dig into his biceps, keeping him in place as she straddles him. She smiles against his hot skin when he groans. His weathered hands explore her torso, sliding from her chest to her back, then down to grasp her waist tightly.

"Fuck, come on," Riddick grunts into her hair. His hands slip lower to her ass, yanking impatiently at the fabric of her jumpsuit bottoms. "Pants."

It takes no effort for him to lift and flip her onto her back again, taking pride in the surprised expression she wears. Her limbs and eyelids feel heavy as she undoes the tied sleeves around her hips, helping him shuffle off her slate grey jumpsuit. She doesn't even realize he's also slipped off her underwear until she feels the cool air of the ship against her bare core. Fuck, all her constant worrying over her appearance, and in the moment she isn't even concerned. She just needs to feel good with him.

Despite this minor revelation, Hatchet briefly feels a tad in over her head as the burly man holds her down by the hips and leans over her. He eclipses the dim overhead light, his eyes shining magnificently. Those nocturnal eyes are growing on her at a frightening rate.

"Richard," she whispers. One hand reaches up to touch his face, petting his cheek before skating over the stubbly crown of his head. "Fuck, Rich."

He drops his head and growls against her hot, bare skin. The sound rumbles beneath her palm where it presses over his heart. That's a new one— Rich. He's never been called that before. He doesn’t dislike it, mainly because it comes from her.

Riddick leaves a trail of hot, wet kisses down her neck and across her chest. His fingers press into her supple flesh of her hips hard enough for it to dimple under the force. He continues downward, laving his hot tongue over her pebbled nipples, teasing his teeth against her delicate skin. With her head thrown back and eyes squeezed shut, she remains ignorant to the garland of lovebites he leaves across her skin, decorating her chest with the constellations of the open universe. His lips follow the line of fine hair down the middle of her stomach, until finally stopping just above the curly thatch at her mons. He shifts his attention, choosing to nip at the skin of her inner thighs. He kneels on the floor and roughly yanks her to the end of the cot for better leverage, earning a surprised yelp from the woman. In the same moment, he tucks his thumbs around the underside of her knees and hoists her legs over his broad shoulders. Her ankles automatically lock overtop his shoulder blades.

Hatchet shudders with delicious anticipation. Her big eyes shoot open and head cranes, meeting his silver gaze from where he has positioned himself between her thick thighs. Without much civility or warning, the man stuffs his shaven head into the tight crevice of her thighs. She is suddenly relieved that he'd taken the bandage off his nose almost immediately after gathering his bearings all those days ago, because now he puts the prominent feature to good use against her swollen clit.

A wanton moan claws out from Hatchet's throat as she throws her head back against the rigid cot. Riddick's breath is hot against her cunt, tongue skilled as he works it into her most sensitive area. Two fingers pry her labia apart to get at a more effective angle. Her hands dart to clamp down on either side of his head, her nails digging crescents into his nude scalp. Panting and squirming, she uses her iron grip on his head to grind up against his big nose. He groans low against her core, the vibrations on his tongue adding to her pleasure. Her thighs squeeze against his flushed ears, and for a moment the thought she may suffocate him flashes through her mind. That worry is ejected out into space when his tanned hands come around to grip her where her thighs meet her hips, dragging her even more securely against him.

Her eyes roll back, body wracked with uncontrollable spasms as Riddick brings her increasingly closer to her peak. His nose is replaced by a skillful thumb, rubbing firm circles around her clit. He continues lapping at her cunt, groaning and taking intermittent gasps for air. Just as she feels that hot coil tightening in her lower abdomen, sees white light flickering beneath her lids, he does the unthinkable. He pulls away. Hatchet whines at the sudden neglect and desperately claws at his head in an attempt for him to continue, leaving red stripes on his stubbly scalp.

"I'm sorry, did I interrupt something?" he asks lowly, smugness dripping from his tongue. That isn't the only thing dripping from his tongue; his nose, mouth, and chin are coated in her arousal.

Hatchet laughs breathlessly. "Fuck off."

She welcomes him with open arms when he crawls up over her again, accepting his lips as he presses down to kiss her. She can taste her own wetness on his mouth, but is largely distracted by his hips slotting between hers and grinding down.

He pulls back for a moment, leveling her with an entertained but mildly miffed eyebrow raise. "You got protection?"

Hatchet has to take a moment to catch her breath in order to answer. "Don't worry, I got that fancy implant. Unless you're riddled with some horrible penitentiary disease?" She smiles brightly, the corners of her eyes crinkling with playfulness.

Her hands cup his face when he returns a dazzling smile. "Me? Who do you take me for? A convict?"

She curls against him when he ducks his face to the crook of her neck, warm and blushing as they both laugh. Unabashed, laughing together. It feels bizarrely intimate, and so completely foreign to the both of them. When the brief chuckles taper off and the weight of the scenario sinks back in, Hatchet wriggles her hips against his, attempting to stimulate some friction. The rough fabric of his cargo pants sparks a little something, but nothing spectacular. Catching on to her renewed desperation, Riddick presses weight against her hips, teasing her with his clothed erection. She mewls softly, grinding up against him.

A calloused hand slides up the length of her body to her neck, first two fingers and thumb pressing lightly against either pulse-point. He squeezes just hard enough for her to squirm with an intoxicating faintness, but light enough for it not to harm her. She swallows hard, feeling the pressure of his palm against her larynx. It would be child's play for him to fully wrap his hand around her throat and squeeze the life out of her. This flirtation with death is not only exhilarating, but it's something she'd never considered as enjoyable before now.

She's too busy with panting against the hand around her throat to realize he'd slipped his other one down towards the apex of her thighs. That is, not until there comes a delicious and unexpected pressure against her swollen clit. She jolts from the sudden stimulation. The moan that slips unbidden from her lips is loud and breathy, and she arches up into his devilish touch. His thumb rubs concentrated circles around the sensitive bundle of nerves, the middle finger sliding lower to tease her slit. Meanwhile, he drops his head to press against her temple, lips leaving sloppy kisses on her cheek.

Riddick groans, rutting against her soft thigh. He drags his lips against her cheek, bottom teeth scraping her skin. A tingly shudder ripples through her body.

"You want it, babygirl?" he growls in her ear. "Tell me you want it."

Hatchet whines when his thick finger breaches her entrance, sliding in easily with the wetness of her arousal. Her toes curl and back arches when that searching finger strokes that hidden sweet spot, her entire body overcome with a delicious shudder.

"Fuck," she pants, "Please. I want it."

The hand at her throat inches upward to clasp her jaw, angling her head for him to effectively whisper in her ear. "Want what, sweetheart? Use your words."

Another finger is stuffed into her pussy; she pants and squeezes around them. An embarrassed flush heats her chest and face at being made to speak her desire aloud. In some little act of defiance, she merely continues huffing and rutting against his hand. Punishment for her disobedience comes swift however, arriving in the form of the ceased stimulation. Riddick sucks his teeth and shakes his head in mock disappointment.

"So stubborn," he tsks.

Fuck— that rich, buttery voice sends a desperate throb straight to her neglected clit. She sobs out a pathetic whine, making a futile attempt to force his hand to continue its work.

"Please. Okay, okay. Please, please. I want you, I need you. Fuck me, please, Richard," she begs, voice coming out ragged.

He brings his lips to the corner of her mouth and smiles into the kiss he places there. "Good girl," he purrs.

Hatchet squirms under him, clit pulsing with an immediate flush of blood at the praise. "Say that again," she pants, sliding her hand over the back of his thick neck. "Please, please, Rich. Say that again. I'm— Hah."

She can feel the fond chuckle under her palm as it rumbles in his chest. He wrestles with the button and zipper of his cargo pants while keeping himself aloft with one arm. "My girl. Good girl."

Each kiss steals her breath away, dizzying her with butterflies and anticipation. It takes a hurried moment of effort, but Riddick manages to shuck his trousers and boxers, leaving them in a pile on the floor with the rest of their discarded clothes. Perched on his knees between the woman's spread thighs, he greedily admires the sight of her laid out before him. There's something particularly special about this woman. She's managed to weasel her way into his frigid heart, and he can't find it in himself to complain. She's sweet, and kind, and sure fucking hot. She too watches him greedily as muscles flex in his arms. He plants his hands on her bent knees, dragging them down the length of her soft thighs. Fingers sink into the fat of her hips, dragging her closer.

One glance at his proud erection is enough to draw a flustered whimper from Hatchet's lips; his dick is thick, befitting of the rest of him. She thrusts an arm up over her face, if only to hide the embarrassed blush which splotches her skin. The big man lowers himself over her once more and gently pushes her arm away, murmuring about her shyness. The weight of his cock resting on her belly makes her squirm, which he seems to enjoy greatly, much to her impatient desperation. He slots his plush lips with hers while his left hand slips around her right thigh, encouraging it up. Her knee brushes the bruised wound over his ribs, but he doesn't seem to care all that much as he pins the long limb tightly against him.

In the space between them, he fists his dick and pumps once, twice. He holds Hatchet's lidded gaze with those intense eyes of his, drinking in the dazed sight of her. He drags the cockhead through the wetness of her arousal, teasing her swollen clit before aligning himself properly. His throaty groan mingles with her gasped noises as he slowly presses into her, sheathing himself within her hot cunt. It's a snug fit, lax as she may be. He bottoms out painfully slow, taking his sweet time in stuffing her full of himself. That hand returns to her throat and gently squeezes while he holds himself aloft with the other arm.

Hatchet sucks her teeth against the slight sting of his size. The discomfort quickly fades into a satisfyingly tense pressure once Riddick gets a steady rhythm going. With her leg hiked up over his side, he continually pulls out almost all the way before plunging back into her, driving her down into the stiff cot with each powerful thrust. She shudders with each drag of his thick cock against her inner walls— with every gentle squeeze of his broad hand around her throat.

"Fuck, babygirl. You feel good," he grunts out. "Such a good girl for me. Real pretty." Riddick groans through clenched teeth when her cunt spasms particularly hard around him. His words are like a match to her gasoline.

The hand at her throat shifts away in an attempt to touch as much of her skin as possible— caressing her breast, tangling in her hair, touching her lips, squeezing her waist and hip. It's almost like a compulsion to feel every part of her warm body, to get lost in her skin and pretty noises. Hatchet's hands perform their own exploration; she can't get enough of wrapping her fingers around his biceps and broad shoulders, her breath panting hard against his collarbones as she clings to him. The middle two fingers of his wandering hand come down on her clit again, sparking electric spasms throughout her writhing body. Those fingers rub circles against her sensitive bud, and every so often slip lower to stroke around the spot where they join together.

An especially rough drag and thrust has the tip of cock kissing that sweet spot within her. She cries out and he repeats the motion with an exact precision. He continues hammering into her at that perfect angle, grunting and shuddering with each of her clenches and moans. Light blooms beneath Hatchet's eyelids, that hot pressure coiling up in her belly once more. The combination of internal and external stimulation is enough for her to see stars and arch into the man like her life depends on it.

Nearly animalistic in his frenzy, Riddick can't control himself when his teeth sink into the woman's shoulder. It feels right.

Hatchet cries out at the sharp feeling of his bite, shock mixing with odd delight. He doesn't use enough force to break the skin, but his teeth leave a sting nonetheless. In retaliation, her nails sink into his muscular back and drag downward to his sides, leaving crisscrossing stripes across his tan skin. Somewhere in the back of her mind she recognizes that she may have torn one of his stitches, but he doesn't make any indication of it bothering him. That delicious tension deep in her belly increases almost unbearably; she bucks up into his fingers on her clit, grinding against the hilt of his cock stuffed in her. His mouth latches onto the slope of her neck and bites again, licking the minimal damage each time he retracts his pearly teeth.

Her orgasm comes suddenly, like fireworks. She spasms around him as she comes, back arching up against his hard front as she cries out. Riddick continues pounding into her— continues rubbing her clit through her shuddering orgasm. The sounds of their sex seem awfully loud in the quiet confines of her small ship.

"There we go. Good girl," he murmurs into her throat.

He pushes up on his supporting arm, putting a bit of space between himself and the spent woman. She twitches and pants beneath him, cunt contracting around his continued thrusts. Her nails haven't yet retracted from his sides, clinging as though grasping for purchase. Riddick sits upright with her legs slung around his hips. One hand wipes over his head to clear away beads of sweat, before both come down to clutch her hips.

"Fuck... Where do you want it, sweetheart?" He punctuates with a harsh snap of his hips, plunging deep into her.

Hatchet's wrists demurely cross above her head. Her breaths come in short, exhausted puffs as she wriggles against him. Overstimulation is beginning to fray at her edges, but the feeling of being so full of him overrides the discomfort. She can barely think straight enough to give him a proper response— fucked thoroughly out of her mind.

"Richard—" She groans low in her throat. He's practically rearranging her guts. Tears prick at her eyes. "Fuck. Inside. Please, just— ugh, inside."

He makes a noise halfway between a grunt and a chuckle. "Sounds good to me, baby." She doesn't have to open her eyes to know the smug, cocky, sexy bastard is grinning. "Nngh, fuck."

Riddick's head tilts back, shuddering violently. He groans loud and holds her steady with his fingers dug into her hips. She feels his hot release spill into her, coating her insides as he ceases his relentless pounding. She's overly sensitive from the intensity of her own orgasm, so his sudden stillness comes as a relief for her tender parts. His chest heaves, fingers twitching.

After an extended moment of basking in the bliss of his finish, Riddick slumps forward. While he's careful not to crush the woman, he does rest a bit of his weight atop her. Sweat-slicked skin meets sweat-slicked skin as they recover together, lounging in the afterglow. He remains partially sheathed within her, allowing a minimal amount of his seed to trickle out around his length.

Amidst tenderly petting Riddick's back, Hatchet nearly gets lost to the grips of sleep. That is, at least until his rumbling voice stirs her again.

"I think you needed that." He noses her throat, inhaling deeply. She cants her hips without thinking, then grunts softly at the feeling of him still buried within her.

"Oh?" she chuckles quietly, "Is that right?"

She smoothes her palm over the back of his head, then traces her fingertips up and down his neck and shoulders. He hums against her clammy, flushed skin. Sentimentally isn't even remotely his forte, but this intimacy feels surprisingly good. Odd and unfamiliar, but pleasant. He feels safe to relax in her hold, resting a little bit more of his weight against her capable form.

"Yep. You're a little uptight."

Briefly pressing his lips to the bite-shaped bruises on her shoulder, he lifts his head. She cracks an eye open to peer at him, then sighs wistfully. He really does have a beautiful face. She caresses his cheek.

"And hey, would you look at that. We fit." He grins wide and smug and raises a brow, referring back to the conversation which started this whole affair.

Hatchet drops her head to the cot and closes her eyes again, laughing heartily. "Fuck you, Richard."

[lapinaraoflimbo]

A bit of an introduction for BABBAL (name may be subject to change). Detailing a bit of the formation of the wound and the founding of Hell. Around 1,500 words.

The thing clattered along down the road on what should have been legs but were certainly not. Bony appendages, opened and sharp like teeth. Only they moved. They were bones, no doubt about it. But somewhere in the bloated worm of flesh that made up the spine of the thing there were muscles.

It’s the kind of thing that gave the place its name. “hell”. Like it was some twisted idea from a god obsessed with suffering. But it wasn’t suffering that made hell so unnerving to the humans that visited it- it was the lack of suffering. Sure, there were bloated moving corpses. Legs with too many joints and bodies that had to break their bones just to move. Some bodies were just rolls of fat, moving from some force of the muscles hidden inside of them. Others were pure skeletons, barely held together by tendons so the body dangled and fell over with the slightest push.

If you came to the corpse as a new human, Hell was the first place you came to. The researchers had their stations set up, with supply and transportation ships visiting semi-regularly, but access to them was denied to almost everyone by the scientific committee. The skin of the dead elder god was just that- skin. It was the rot that sustained life. It was the rot that people needed. The rot was inside, and the only way to get inside was from the wound, the broken skin torn open in that short and climactic war where humanity won with a single shot from their super weapon.

There weren’t many who wanted to go there. It’s not like the rest of the universe was a bad place by any means. Food and power was abundant. Political problems came and went. There was always somewhere else to go, always a way to get there. Technology was advanced, bodies were made from scratch, perfectly tailored to needs, robotic bodies were there for those who wanted them. Infinite sources of art, constantly streaming out of each planet and galaxy, with the best of the best being sorted out to stand on top. They were the kinds of things you would be lucky to experience in your lifetime. Art of such high quality and profundity that in the entire lifetime of a planet you may only get one like it. And yet there they were- thousands upon thousands of them like they were a common weed growing out of the fabric of the universe.

When the Elder God awoke, there was no uncertainty about what would happen. A weapon had been built, powered by an array of suns. All of their power being stored for a single, decisive shot. It had to be like that, the scientists theorized. The elder god was unknown. Any chance it had to fight back could cripple the weapons and so it was ended, with a big flash and nothing more.

There was a question of what to do with the body. It was large: the size of a planet. Cursory tests showed that complex technology broke down around it. Scans of the body were little use, and spaceships malfunctioned before even getting close to it. The body was left to rot in the dead of space while the high science committees of all the worlds came to discuss and exchange their ideas and theories.

Had they been given time, maybe they would have found a way to deal with the rotting corpse, but it wasn’t long before people started to express a desire. What desire that couldn’t say. It was there, a deep primal yearning inside of them. They wanted to explore the body themselves. They wanted to go down, see for themselves what it really was. They wanted proof that the corpse was different.

Of course, no committee or ethical research group would ever condone such a brash disregard of safety. Death they could handle. Death they had known how to handle for eons. Recreate the body, the mind. Form the memories inside of a computer and re-create those memories in the flesh. Science had found the human soul, a measurable disturbance in the universe when memories were recreated. The committees would send people to die often, as long as they had the expenses to recreate the bodies. But the soul was different. No one could be recreated without their soul, and the corpse’s effect on the soul was still unknown.

The people went anyways. It was not scientists that first touched down onto the corpse. It wasn’t anyone in particular. The first ship to touch down was a small crew, no more than a thousand people on board. A collection from a nearby galaxy who all decided on their own to visit the corpse. Without telling anyone, they all found themselves traveling along the same paths across the universe. Each group started off as one or two, and grew to be dozens, which grew to be a hundred, which grew into the thousand that eventually made it to the planet.

Rarely in all of space and time was there ever a ship full of people who detested each other as much as the people on this ship. There was no discernible pattern to the people drawn to the corpse. There were on board so many conflicting opinions that it felt as every member of the human race had somehow found representation in such a small sample size. Some came to the corpse in hopes of escaping the law, others because they saw the ability to create the first truly unbreakable law. Some where hoping to escape to a more primitive space, others believed that the corpse would help to create such advanced technology it would shatter the universe as it stood, others saw a place where they could finally unleash their cruelty- unbound by the petty restrictions of morality, yet others saw in that empty rotting body a kindness that they had been searching for all their lifetimes.

The ship made it to the corpse with no problems. It was an old ship, fitted with archaic propulsion systems. The ship itself was created as a novelty- created for historical re-enactments of ancient space battles- and it was this ancient propulsion that helped it land inside of the festering wound, at that time still burning from the force and heat of the super weapon impact.

It only took a few days for the people on board that first ship to scatter. Once they had found that the climate of the wound could support life they scattered. Each of them so set in what they wanted from the rot that drew them in they didn’t even think to let anyone else come with them lest the ruin the personal utopia they had in mind.

More ships came, in time. A researcher had boarded that first ship, going against the authority and orders of the central science committees, and he set up a radio relay. Archaic technology, by the standards of the rest of the universe, but a form of technology that was able to pierce the rot of the corpse. I didn’t take long before his signals were found, and eventually the wound was opened for research- the scientific committees declaring it to not be a threat to the soul.

But none of them had that same force of conviction as those first settlers. Some of them had ideas of what they wanted, some of them didn’t. Idle curiosity drove more people than cared to admit it. There was a hesitancy in everyone at first, but the rot welcomed them and gave them what they were searching for- even if they didn’t realize what it was they were searching for.

And so, Hell was founded in time, The abominations settled down, right at the entrance to the wound, and they welcomed everyone in heartily. They were the most human, out of all of the diasporic groups living in the wound. Their appearance was unsettling, and their bodies grotesque mockeries of the human body. But they lived as most humans did. They ate to live, they had to sleep, they got sick and they felt things. So it was no surprise that they became the ones to welcome in the humans.

Hell was a friendly place, for those who would let it be friendly. And for those who wouldn’t they could always turn around and leave or take off deeper into the wound where somewhere- somewhere among the rot and the uncertainty- they would be able to find others who felt the same way they did. The rot welcomed everyone in, and it always gave them what they wanted. Because the rot, if it could be claimed by any eldritch being, came from humanity.

[asirensrambles]

No One Told You the War Was Over

Overwatch has been shut down, and its bases are slowly being decommissioned.  As Head of Base Operations, you get the joy of being the last man standing waiting for final inspection.  And waiting. And waiting.

This verse continues here

Although Overwatch was disbanded, you had never been formally let go.  Personnel and essential supplies were moved out over the course of a month after Overwatch's fall.  You were the last person left behind as Head of Base Operations.  They told you an inspector would be out to make sure the base had been properly disbanded.

But the inspector never came.

You didn't suspect anything for the first week, or the second.  By a month though, you began to wonder when, or if, this inspector was ever coming.  Once the next scheduled supply shipment came in though, you realized something wasn't right.  The supply shipments were automated and run by low intelligence omnics.   If they were still delivering to the base, it must still by in the system somewhere.  You went to the main computer terminal and pulled up the Overwatch administrative database, and scrolled to where your base was listed.  You looked at the status, and everything clicked.

The base was listed as disbanded, but the status had never been changed to inactive.  You started laughing, mainly because you didn't know what else to do.  What should you do?  Probably contact the number you were left with by the jackbooted thug that had overseen the disbandment of the base, but that left a bad taste in your mouth.  A tiny spark of an idea flared up in the back of you mind.  You ruthlessly tried to stamp it out before it could catch, but it was too late.  The idea burned like a signal fire, pointing down the path you should take.

You didn't contact anyone.  Instead, you took full inventory of the entire base.  Food, ammunition, medical supplies, storage space, accommodations, supplies, everything.  You figured out which parts of the base to seal off and clear out to minimize the amount of square footage to maintain.  There were still a lot of bots left around that had been meant to help with the final dismantling.   You cannibalized a couple to figure out how to reprogram them to help you out.  You started by sealing of all the sleeping quarters and all but one hangar bay.  That was the delivery bay, and it also served to store all the useful equipment from the other bays.

In between moving supplies around and sealing off rooms, you also did an astonishing amount of cooking.  Food supplies had been delivered for fifty people for a month.  There was no way you could go through all that, and you couldn't bear to let it go to waste.  You found yourself teaching yourself how to dehydrate fruits, can vegetables, make meals that could be deep frozen and thawed later, and actually drying meat.  Most of the food was able to be saved, but not all of it it.  You made sure to adjust the food delivery quantity down to five before the next delivery.  Any lower would have been too suspicious.  Even dropping it to five was risky.  You were on eggshells after dropping it until the next delivery arrived.  You left the munitions quantity the same.  No harm in stockpiling arms a little.

The first couple months passed in a blur.  You rushed around inventorying everything you found, sealing off most of the base, cooking and preserving food en masse, and finding a viable place to start a weapons vault.  Without the bots, there was no way you could have done it.  They kept the place clean, fixed minor repairs, and carried far heavier loads than you would have been able to manage.  You got into a solid routine after a while.  Supply transport came in, get it unloaded and on it's way as fast as possible.  Portion out the food you would actually need for the month, cook or preserve the rest.  Once that was taken care of, get the munitions sorted out and stored properly.  Interspersed was cleaning the unsealed parts of the base and familiarizing yourself with the various weaponry you were stockpiling.  

It made sense to you to actually know how to use the stuff you were hoarding.  Through training manuals and archived training footage, you managed to get a pretty decent grasp on most of the weaponry in your arsenal.  You also read  through old mission reports.  Some of them were hilarious, the nonsense that went on, and the same author's disregard for having to write reports.  Others were sobering and dark as they reported immense casualties.  The words and numbers, cold and detached, probably to help the author get through writing it.  

You passed a large amount of time in this way, losing count of how long it had been.  Then one delivery day, you froze in the middle of your post shipment routine.  What were you doing?  In the middle of the hangar bay, you sank to the floor and stared at the room around you.  Months ago, it had made so much sense to keep the base up and running.  Keep it functional, just in case the United Nations realized they'd made a mistake and brought Overwatch back together.  That wasn't going to happen.  You watched the news at least once a week to keep up with the world.  The whole thing was a disaster, and people still wanted to blame Overwatch for it.

What else would you do though?

After you took the job with Overwatch, your life outside of it vanished.  Layered so deep in NDA's, it was impossible to talk to friends about your job, and eventually you drifted apart.  Your parents disapproved of your job choice from the beginning and cut off contact.  The people you'd met at work and friends you'd made were scattered across the world, relocations courtesy of the UN.  More like scattering the ashes of a fire so it couldn't be rekindled.  

There was no life for you outside of Overwatch anymore.  This was it.  Maybe...maybe you could find others?  Other people who hadn't given up on what Overwatch stood for, who couldn't let it go.  Agents who still had a personal mission, regardless of what the higher ups might tell them.  Those people needed help, they needed support, resources.  You had resources in spades, and could get more if need be.

This new plan seemed to inject electricity into your veins.  Jumping up, there was new energy as you got the transport supplies unloaded as quickly as possible.  Your fingers itched with the desire to type away at the keyboards of the control room.  They wanted to be tearing through databases to find agent contact information, putting out messages to Blackwatch drops.  It wouldn't be easy, but you were going to do it.  You were going to find the people who were still trying to help, who couldn't help but reach out their hands.  Once you found them, you would be the best damn support home base they'd ever known.

With a new sense of purpose and a plan, you marched to the control room and got to work.

[the-firebird69]

So we're talking about the boat and he said just in case the seats will be there but it's his idea just have people put the seats on take other stuff out it's quite a ruckus out there and they're doing it fast and we saw ships out there before and they were retrofitting it a little bit with similar stuff but in the main area but now he says you go in and you get movie theater seats somewhere and we have a ton of them and you just take everything out and throw them in and it is much better it's the way to go even if you have to go all the way across the Gulf you'd never make it if it was just rooms with people laying all over the damn place it's so disorganized it's evil people get really sick from laying down on the floor it's too cold it's steel and I found out the hard way I had to chills and I'm healthy most of the time and our friend is too and he did that once too so it's really cold and he didn't do it for too long I remember too it said wow that is some cold steel and that was it now we are moving out a lot of people and it is really the morlock who are moving their own and they are going they're going fast and they needed these chairs it'll seat about a thousand instead of 500 and comfortably instead of a miserable absolutely girls trip just to Tampa and it takes around 2 hours no they're saying 1 hour and a lot of it is going out of the harbor which they might speed up and it's not a bad thing it'll blow out all that crap so we might give them temporary permission and they're loading up all of these chairs right now they said it's about half and it's a lot it'll take about an hour but they'll have them all in and they're laying it out right now and they put down spray paint believe it or not and they just put a little Dot and it's really easy and boy it's going to be nice what a great idea my grand nephew had you bolt them down he saw that the seats are in groups and he said well he just remembered it from the haircut place and here we go it's going to be much easier trip for everybody and they do about 20 trips in a day it's not that many but a lot of people need it cuz they don't have transportation and I'm going to start running buses school buses believe it or not he said it too you'll never find enough for those buses but you want to charter those for the higher ups and they said okay and they went ahead and started chartering all these buses there's really only about 30 of them and he said everybody else is going to go in the school bus but they come back and forth but still it's only 40 people a bus ride so that's like 1200 people times 10 or something still 10,000 people with this it's a lot but really if you have to wait you're going to be in trouble so they have the school buses and it's labeled and then they're labeled as to which one you go on and we're going to use schools and we're going to use other places and we have to get the hell out of here too apparently at some point we might have to go on the same bus that's going to be a joy and he says depending on what's happening he might have to go in there with us and bring what he can I guess he has some documents that are important he's got his cable box LOL his computer doesn't really work that great it doesn't really have a ton of stuff TV is going to break soon I cannot bring the e-bike nobody can and we do have rules you have to have cash and you have to have a credit card and she has that and we have goals and all that but he doesn't want to do that and if we can all help it we're not really taking control that well and minority or not it seems to be Max and foreigners and his people are in there and you can't tell there are some big fellows okay and it could be his people in Max and they're very dangerous and a friend knows it so to all I wish you the best and I feel bad that this happened you seemingly won't either and it's a grudge match but these people need business and we got to get the hell out of here shortly

Mac daddy

And some people worry about him and we do but he doesn't seem to be too worried and he went to China and is surrounded by Chinese and we do get that they did take care of him and helped him I have to attach that they were right on it and they're very fastidious people but these masks are tough and big and it looks like in movies that China doesn't even do that well there are others but we do know that the odds are not so good but he says is going to he says it's like you have to move I will but doesn't want it I guess he can find some place somehow I know putting a dress somewhere at a post office box and something like that you probably find a place but it's really not normal for this to happen and he can change his address later yes in case is what he said and we were already retrofitting but didn't have that idea and put TV in each room and this TVs everywhere so people are bringing their TV and donating and the ones that have a certain catv and please call and ask we'd be happy to inform you if it's compatible or not we want you to call first but we do want to donation and you'll be noted as someone who donated to the cause and it is great this idea is not bad okay it's going to help us and it's educational and we're putting big TVs in all of the departure temporary stay areas. It'll be nice it'll tell us what it tells people what to do and it's coded so we are going to have a much better time and we have places to go

Trump

I am helping a bit to get this out but he doesn't want to get hurt and these people and he knows that and a lot of people fall under delusion and they wish for things to happen and just doesn't seem to be and we know he likes to keep it straight and people don't want him to is just a nightmare you think you might be okay with foreigners we don't have a great place for them to go for him to go and it's kind of deteriorating there and foreigners are noting that and they might come and help right now it's not a great help but we're leaving anyways so we wish everyone the best please follow our instructions and protocol we wish to get out of here intact and not cause much trouble. If you are taking the cruise ship there's room for one bag about 3 ft by 2 ft roughly it's the largest bag and almost sets of luggage you can put it right in front of you yes that's where most people put it it's very organized and it helps it's also a safety issue it won't go flying all over the place and we don't have to sort it and the same thing happens and it's very convenient we have food and drink and when you're taking a trip to Tampa we have one lunch it's a soda and a sandwich and could you bring snacks yes please bring snacks and drinks and please deposit all the trash into the receptacle and yeah I'm nervous this is helping me out that people would help out and I want to help out and this is doing it we have about half of all of the cruise ships fitted out and we have four and we're going to look at the troop transport to see what kind of shape the engines are in and he he seems to remember that they move it around and they keep it running and it wasn't there all the time and we do know that but we're going to make sure and check the insides out I have a report and it looks good and damn good and it has bunks and everything and we do have patrols out there if anyone has a fast boat we do need patrols to watch out for crabs and sharks and other so please record into duty if you want to help with this relocation effort otherwise we do need supplies for the boat trip all of it needs to be new and store-bought today if you would please this is not a pantry type deal we need canned soup a large ones or preferable if you have the small ones that's good oodles of noodles please no our friend are suggesting meets raviolis chef boyardee and we agree the big cans would be great and as many as you can get those give you sustenance believe it or not he survived doing it in his legs felt better at night we do need oranges and bananas juices would be great we need refrigerators and big ones that you can shut and lock or latch we can put a makeshift latch on there but we need a big double like York type and we need a bunch of them. Those donations will be accepted from now until a few days from now but within the hour or two would be perfect but all day and all night for the food and and other things perishables too we need a lot of bottled water mostly we need purified water we don't accept the spring water anymore it was getting people sick. And any brand of purified water as well as long as it's new and please don't clean out the shelves we don't have that much room but if you come on board we'd welcome donations and we can go to your car and pit and pull it out with a forklift or push cart and we'll handle that part of it so remember even the snacks for yourself even sandwiches and things but nothing that's perishable to be donated we need canned food and bottled water except for a fruit that we need a lot of fruit for people need that energy and potassium now we also need Dramamine if you have some or can get some thank you very much we do appreciate your help and all racism and anybody else caught up in it but mostly it's us

Terry c

We do see this and we're doing it all over Florida soon the world will have all these movie theater chairs we are bringing them in in trucks right now it's a great idea and we really needed it and he said we can use them on Battlestar Galactica after you just have to put seat belts but it's probably true now we're figuring out very funny Chris but we are fitting them out and we are getting ready for a large scale evacuation right now we have 40,000 calls it's the people going around causing trouble

Bja

Haha okay I was laughing and then my husband said Robert Shaker says get out so I guess they're leaving

Hera

Hehe boy it's a funny day but no

Robert shaker

Hey there suddenly the good guy again no but your people yeah and yeah we need them out of here this place is a damn nightmare

Daniel

We have to leave too pretty soon maybe so it's nice these ships will be around and available so we probably won't make sure the service and we'll put a call in every once in awhile make sure to check the oil at each port and other things you have to do and they have to stock up on that stuff he's asking Terry and he's asking Trump and it's good it's going to get stuff and buy it and stockpile it on shore and someone on the board but there's a lot of parts filters and things that need to be changed quite often says they've been doing it and it needs an oil changes it says at night you can do those every night they have to change out all the oil and so they're going to start doing it and yeah it's running kind of black but you can't do it now and this is only going to be a few but no it's probably going to be a bunch so we're looking at the transport in Tampa they're saying it's fine and they're going through the engine and they're getting the they're doing it tune up and they're going to get it going it only hold a couple hundred but that's a couple hundred more people and we're getting the school buses going and we're checking them all changing the oil on all of them and fueling up believe it or not is going on now we're not evacuated but they are and it's a huge number that's going to be these buses will help and it will make it work otherwise no they're doing it downstairs there's about 300 buses in Port Charlotte and punta Gorda for school buses and 30 tour buses that's a lot the school buses will hold 50 which is $15,000 people each trip and the tour buses which is 1500 and that's not bad and the ship's hold all five ships like 4,200 people and it's it's less and takes a lot longer but they do leave and then the planes will hold we probably can get $10,000 an hour and this ain't no it's 20,000 so really we're only up to about 40,000 an hour maximum that means moving it and you really need to get your own transportation now

Mac daddy

I was in the above Terry cheesman and you can see it that whole thing I'm pointing it out for hours to look at it it's a brief instructions on what to do and we need donations of certain things if you call up we have a better list but this is what we need right now

Terry c

[funnysideolife]

THE WORLD IS NOT GOING TO CHANGE IN A DAY AND THOSE WHO WANT TO CHANGE It R EITHER SELFISH BUT DEFINITELY FOOLISH.

Long back I read in Berns & Berns ,I hope the name is correct of that European history book.How factories were started by various companies like EAST INDIA COMPANY etc

.The east provided raw material esp india -cotton and that was given to individual workers in their Homes in England and elsewhere . The worker processed the raw material at home and then company people collected it from individual workers.The workers meanwhile lived a happy organic life with their families and we're happy lot for additional sum of money.

Than as time passed workers were asked to assemble under a shed or enclosed location and concept of worker going out of their house and working at a place owed by these companies, trading with the east,a rudimentary form of capitalism ,hence started in Europe.

Capitalism would have been worse had it not been socialist movements to check them ,esp Marxian spectre that haunted Europe and America.

Did any body got punished in 2008 ,economic crisis in US, few were made scapegoats ,the real culprits infact got bailed out.

Mr Dimon ,like his peers, is quite used to the office job of a boss ,so employees ,should be visible for adhoc meetings with their facial expressions .

I think so online jobs have to evolve to give workers more freedom and flexibility which is the mother of creativity ,ofcourse manners and etiquettes have to evolve and so does online quality of work.

The billion dollar question is will the capitalist think about the workers and evolve software platforms which make effective online jobs ,or they r just not interested .

I do remember Andrew Tanunbaum an expert in computer networks who was the firm believer that communication will defeat transportation one day.

Yes it has ,communication today has increased million fold vis a vis transportation.

[escaping-consciousness]

Of course, I can’t rely on anyone.

I don’t know if my bf will be able to get a job and KEEP it long enough before I completely deplete my savings. I struggle to save what $150 every check, but it won’t stay there. I’ve had to take it out to compensate for him or our roommates when they were unemployed. I’ll probably have to do it again to keep his car from being repoed, because unemployment may deny his claim. A bill needs to be paid and I just shit out money that could’ve gone to new computer equipment, clothes that actually fit me, therapy, or a course for a certification to get a better paying job. I could use it to move. I can’t do shit though. My hands are tied because I’m working all the time.

I can’t even do anything for myself because there’s no money left for me. I refrain from using what I can keep in the savings account .

I’m too tired and depressed to focus on my hobbies and skills. I need books to study, and I want to invest in freelancing, I just don’t have the support or the time. When I want yo get in the zone, it’s time to cook or go to bed so I can get up for work. When it’s the weekend, we have chores to catch up on. My money is gone by the time we finish groceries.

I don’t even have kids or my own pet. I have literally NOTHING except the my personal bills. The only good thing is that my bills are finally being paid on time. I can do my part. I know the economy is tough but I’ve gone too long without the things that could change my life or make me happy.

I don’t know what to do.

I feel alone and exhausted. I have a hard time seeing the positives in my situation. Yes, I’m alive, but I’m miserable. I just exist and I can’t make myself happy without compromising the security of having somewhere to live and paying things on time.

When I ask for help, there’s excuses from family or they’re trying to bail out cousins that don’t deserve the money because they refuse to work or get help. My mom has nothing to give. She ended up putting me in debt because she didn’t have enough to help me like she promised. She was too trusting and was just too busy helping her friend, her brother, or my brothers. None of them paid her back or even kept their end of the deal, but I did. I still get little financially help, even though forced to break my back for everyone else.

I can’t go home. Even if I did, there wouldn’t be room for me living back at mom’s. They’re struggling just as much and I’ll just be their taco to work because neither my brother or cousin have their own cars nor will they take public transportation or carpool with coworkers. Mom will emotionally cling to me because of how unhappy she is. If I go home, I’ll purposely OD.

Even if I left my bf, I’d be a burden to my friends. I can’t live alone because i simply can’t afford the rent. I make too much for assistance. I don’t have the skills. I can draw, but AI is fucking up the industry. I don’t have an audience for commissions. I’m not pretty or in shape enough for sex work. Something will happen to me if I ever go homeles.

A lot of this is so mean to think but I just don’t care,

I’m so demotivated by my circumstances but I wish that I didn’t wake up the next morning. I feel like I worked hard for nothing. People telling me “I’m doing great” have no idea how much pain I’m in and it seems like they don’t care either way. Nobody checks up on me. They just ask my parents about me, rather than call or message me.

I wish I didn’t need to be alive. I’m tired of being strong for everybody just so I can be there for them to lean on. I’m tired as bc I want to quit.

I don’t know why I’m sven here anymore.

I’m so unhappy and I can’t escape my life.

[astaroth1357]

Demon Brothers as Roommates

Intro:

So, the MC has left the Devildom and, of course, everybody is quite sad… But this time around, they have a little trick up their sleeve. With just a bit of magic (and training thanks to Solomon) the MC can now summon one of their favorite demon boys up to the human world with them! There's just, uh, one problem though… After being summoned to their side, their beloved demon now refuses to leave it.

Alright MC, enjoy your new demonic roommate!!

Lucifer

Apparently Lucifer is on sabbatical… And yes, he does appreciate that irony in that.

Lucifer actually has a surprising amount of human world money stashed away in alias accounts (because this man renting a cheap motel on business trips? Let's be real) so he uses that wealth to get them a place befitting his standards… which are high.

Spacious apartments in nice areas that would make even the upper middle-class shit their pants? Congrats, MC, that's where you're staying now!

Even with all that money, though, Lucifer CANNOT sit idle for a second. The guy is used to working all his life and just sitting around would drive him insane!

Expect him to still be running some Devildom affairs long-distance style while doing something else on the side, probably stock market stuff tbh.

Is going to want to pay for and provide everything himself but will respect the MC if they still want to work and split the bills (not to a ridiculous degree, though, like half-and-half because that would mean getting three jobs at least).

A lot of trips and vacations too, especially if the MC likes to travel. It’s a good excuse to relax while also technically doing something so he doesn’t lose his mind doing nothing in particular.

He is going to be that strict roommate who expects you not to be a slob and isn't afraid to say so. Regularly scheduled cleaning/organization days are mandatory because hygiene is important. Take some pride in yourself and wash up, MC. That kind of thing.

Also going to have short-fuse for… antics. If you want to prank him, do so at your own risk because he may prank back (and that’s not nearly as fun as it sounds, trust me.)

Mammon

Yeah so, living with Mammon is like the inverse of Lucifer. Prepare to be poooor.

Man has no human money, are you kidding me? Even if he did, he wouldn’t keep it for very long. Couples budgeting is a MUST if you’re looking to survive.

The apartment is going to be whatever the MC can more or less afford on their own with Mammon shoved in somewhere like a cheap lamp… Don’t expect a lot of room.

However, Mammon is great at the hustle. Man can work multiple jobs and actually be pretty dang good at them. For the most part, anyway. He may occasionally trip up and get himself fired, but he bounces back quick.

If the MC isn’t so moral he can also uh… “find” some extra money lying around too. Just be careful when playing with fire, right?

Even if they’re poor as shit, Mammon is still a blast to be around. The guy knows how to have fun on and off of a budget. Lots of “window shopping” (getting kicked out of stores for goofing off), nightclubs, amusement parks, and cheap fun. They’ll never be without a story to tell or a smile on their face!

He IS pretty slobbish though. He’s not going to remember to clean up after himself unless told, but he’s also not going to be bothered if they don’t do the same thing. A weekly cleaning day is going to be ideal unless they don’t mind living in a pigsty...

Prank waaaaars!! The kind of guy to get them both water guns and have a war in the middle of the apartment complex. Good luck getting any rest with Mammon around.

Leviathan 

Whelp, your room is now his room, quite literally MC. You had to pick the shut-in…

The guy isn’t exactly poor but what human money he does have is all wrapped up in his many interests… Merch interests specifically. 

Thankfully, he won’t take up too much space. Put him in a room with a desk, bed (or bathtub), TV, and computer and he’s good to go! 

He’s not going to be a complete bum, thankfully. There’s no way that they can get him to leave the apartment, but he can run small online stores (usually anime themed) or become a streamer. Probably enough to help pay the bills, but not much more.

If they don’t mind having a literally permanent housemate, then being with Levi has its own kind fun. Lots of anime marathons, movie nights, and game nights. Really, it’s just like how he was in the House, but now transported to the human world.

Is probably going to want a pet goldfish, snake ,or lizard so prepare to house Henry 3.0.

When he does leave the apartment, it’s to take the MC to conventions, concerts, or anime stores. He always manages to get just enough money for these trips, but never says where the money comes from… Best not to ask. Could be black market for they know...

… He’s a shut-in. He’s a shut-in roommate. Hygiene isn’t exactly his main concern. If they ask him to, he’ll make sure to clean up after himself, but he may need a reminder.

Can have a fun side, but just don’t mess with his stuff too much. He doesn’t need a Mammon 2.0 around too...

Satan

He's either hatching a plan for world domination or adopting 10 cats… One or the other.

About as poor as Mammon at first, but threat not. He won’t be for very long. Satan is intelligent beyond his years (or equivalent his years maybe?) so he’ll probably net himself several degrees within a couple semesters like a certified prodigy.

At that point, there really isn’t much to worry about (aside from student loans, join our pain Satan) but he can sell himself just fine and probably get some high paying job like a lawyer or doctor or whatever… I’m not jealous…

They’ll start out in a pretty modest place, but there will be upgrades fairly quickly when he starts racking it in so Satan’s a fairly decent choice as a roommate.

He does still have that nasty habit of breaking things when he’s pissed off, but that can be subverted by getting a pet! Just hold up whatever cat you own when he’s about to rampage then declare that he’s scaring/upsetting them and he’ll stop in his tracks. Works every time!

Probably going to be the most domestic out of the brothers. He enjoys cooking (and ain’t half bad at it either), shopping is a practical necessity, he’ll take care your pets like they were his own flesh and blood, etc.

There will even to be points where he’s in bed reading in the middle of the night with tea and reading glasses like some kind of grandma so take that image for what you will.

Satan is the prankster of the household, but he does his pranks more as a way to give grief to his enemies rather than for funsies. Be warned, if you poke this bear he will retaliate for sweet, sweet revenge and he has centuries worth of pranks behind him. Good luck.

Asmodeus 

It's a new party every night, sweetie, get used to it!

Asmo is the only other brother who has some amount of money to offer from his own trips to the human world, but it's just a modest amount.

Is totally willing to work to help pay for a nice place. He wants a building nice enough to host parties!

Would go back to modeling and maybe dip his toe into acting from time to time… He gets a lot of gigs (this IS the Avatar of Lust after all) so they won't be strapped for cash. Which is good, because Asmo is a very "business by day, but party every night" kind of person. 

Do know that his shopping is NOT going to slow down either. Keep an eye on the budget.

He’s also going to make friends wherever he goes so he’s going to want for them all to hang out at least somewhat regularly.

That being said, he can tone it down some if the MC so desires, just know that they can’t keep him cooped up in the apartment for too long or he’ll start getting antsy. You can’t keep this stallion locked up, MC, he needs to run free!!

Being with Asmo is going to be like having a free pass to whatever gathering the MC wants to go to, at least. He could even get them into red carpet events with just his sheer charisma, charm, and er-… “charms.” Who doesn’t want to meet their favorite actress or singer, eh?

But oh, sweetie, please don’t prank him! Life is too short to waste on silly games (he also just genuinely just doesn’t enjoy being messed with so best not do it).

Beelzebub 

Brave choice, MC, but quick question. How in the world are you going to pay your food bills???

Beel is a real sweetheart through and through but his stomach is NOT. That thing will eat them out of house and home! (Maybe even literally!!) Both of them are going to have to work and probably some pretty looong hours (cause he’s got no money either).

Honestly, Beel would be best as a personal trainer in the human world. He’s a pretty decent combination of tough but genuinely kind and motivating. (The fact that he’s pretty easy on the eyes would help out a lot too).

But the MC won’t have to worry about Beel sneaking off with someone just looking for some “quality time.” He’d take his job seriously, though he’s not particularly versed in what the human body can’t handle so only the really dedicated (or masochistic) would stick with him anyway.

“Good work last week, April! You did so well that we’re going to go from 500 pushups to a thousand! … I can see you’re worried, but I believe in you.”

But hey, he can deadlift well over 2,000 pounds without breaking a sweat so who has the balls to argue with him, anyway?

Trying out every restaurant in town would be a must. He’d even plan out vacations for them with the sole purpose of travelling the globe and tasting the different flavors. Food trips!!

He's neat enough since he used to tidy up a lot for Belphie so no need to worry about him picking up after himself (except for the occasional pile of wrappers. Toss those out unless you want ants)

I mean, you can prank Beel if you want. He'll be pretty good-natured about it as long as it stays harmless. Just don't ruin any of his food, got it?

Belphegor 

So… Belphie makes for some excellent décor! Really he is great at laying around and looking fantastic just… he’s not that great at much else...

Realistically, choosing Belphie as a roommate is kind like having a high maintenance pet. He’s good for love and cuddles, but he’s not going to be helping with the bills or anything unless they whine incessantly about it.

If the MC can make enough for the both of them, then it should be fine. They won’t get upset and he won’t be crabby but if not… Oh boy.

Regular job Belphie is a needy Belphie. He’ll come back from whatever job he’s working, likely a night shift, and demand attention or cuddles right then and there. He needs to recharge those batteries, after all...

If he isn’t working then he's at his happiest. He can even pull off being a “househusband” of sorts. He’s not going to go above and beyond the call of duty, but he can keep the place clean, get a basic meal on the table (provided someone teaches him some human recipes), and get groceries if he needs to… You know, basic domestic shit.

They’re going to have to come to terms with the fact that, at some level, Belphie just doesn’t believe in “common curtesy” or “human decency.” If some neighbors are being too noisy for his liking, he will troll them to oblivion and beyond. He may even get sued for it if he takes it too far, so the MC will have to keep an eye on him…

He’s the House’s #2 prankster, but unlike Satan he doesn’t need any malice to be a little shit. The MC will be pranked and it will be at the most unexpected times. Be warned...

Check out my Masterlist for more!

[whoacanada]

‘Wishful Thinking‘

Summary: Every NHL champion gets a single brush with ice magic. When Jack takes his first cup with the Falconers, he accidentally undoes the wish that brought him back from the brink of death in 2009, and Bitty becomes hell-bent on lifting the cup himself for a chance to set things right.

A/N: Finally posting some concepts I’ve played around with that aren’t 100% complete massive fics, but still pretty solid, just little things that might be enjoyed. Yet another cup-wish-gone-wrong-au with monkey-paw components. Also inspired by discord convos about canon!Jack meeting an older, veteran NHL!Bitty and having a lot of feelings. Also mentor/father-in-law!Bob trying to help Bitty navigate the NHL. There’s more to this floating around but this is the meat of it

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Bob can sense when it happens. A shift of something monumental that he’s only felt on a handful of occasions his entire life. A quick glance across the ice finds a number of the celebrating Falconers looking around curiously, unsure of the sensation; for so many, it’s their first brush with ice magic. A pleasant novelty. The vets, though, they look to each other.

Bob turns and doesn’t have to look far to find his son, one hand clasped around the cup, the other around Eric Bittle’s waist, smiling from ear to ear. Something about the moment is wrong, but Bob can’t quite determine why as he’s overcome with a wave of nausea. The stadium lights are too bright and he blinks hard, face scrunching, trying to force whatever wrongness he’s feeling out of himself.

Someone’s made a wish.

The moment passes. Bob’s vision clears. There, veiled in a shower of blue and gold confetti, is Eric; alone at center ice, face twisted in confusion as he looks around for the man who only moments earlier had been in his arms.

“You take the cup, you get one real wish,” the decades old, bourbon-lacquered voice of his first coach reminds him. “But only the one. Can be something small, like an empty cab in the rain, or it can be something big. World changing, even. The one thing, the most important thing — ”

“No,” Bob breathes. “Please, no.”

“— You never use your wish on another player.”

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They don’t know exactly what Jack wished for, but the next time Bitty’s blades touch the ice, it’s as if he’s stepped into the body of a new man. No more slurs. No more targeted chirps. He’s just one of the boys.

He plays. He wins. Then, the offers start to come.

NHL teams looking for fast wingers, team players, leadership material; not one of them mentions diversity, or Eric’s status as the first out NCAA hockey captain. No one cares. No one remembers Jack, and no one cares about Eric.

The best and worst case scenarios rolled into one. If this is the reality Jack unknowingly traded his existence for, Bitty has no choice but to walk through the door his partner opened.

Bitty swallows, trying to force the words out on one of his now nightly calls with the man who would have been his father-in-law in another world, if the shared connection between them hadn’t been interred in a Montréal cemetery almost a decade prior.

“I think . . . I think he wished for acceptance.”

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“No one remembers anymore.”

Eric scuffs his skate against this ice, building up a small pile of shavings before scattering them again, focusing on the soft white as if somehow he’ll be able to transport himself bodily to somewhere cool and quiet. Jackson Hole. Banff. Tremblant. Anywhere but here. Anywhen but now.

“Saw Tater last week at a press junket. Blank stares all around. Some days, most days, I wake up and I don’t know how I got here. I can go without thinking of him.”

Weeks. Eric doesn’t say aloud. Months. Those hideous mornings when he wakes up beside a warm body and forgets they aren’t him. They aren’t supposed to be him. Was there ever even a him.

Jack. Eric mouths silently, just to remind himself. His name is Jack.

The details always slip. The universe constantly trying to correct the fallacy of Eric Bittle remembering a man who died before they technically ever met. Faded photographs and corrupted memory cards. Selfies that used to have two people in frame. Vlog posts with cosmic ADR, swapping Jack’s name for someone else’s like a hastily rewritten script. Eventually, even Eric’s memories turn traitor. First times lost to reshoots and post-production magic. Blue eyes are brown. Black hair is blonde. Jack becomes Phillip. Eric’s first love recast. In desperation, he pulls a page from Memento, finds a tattoo parlor and has ‘Jack Laurent Zimmermann’ inked in dark, unmistakable letters on his inner thigh. Adds a cup, the Falconers’ crest, and the date they lost everything. It works well enough until the name fades; there are still days where a hook up will ask why Eric has a championship tattoo for a team he never played with.

Now, all he has is Bob.

“That’s why I’m here.” Bob reminds. “That’s why we talk.”

“But what happens if we don’t.”

Bob’s familiar assurances rumble through the phone. Constant. Refusing to acknowledge the harsh realities of the passing of time. The ever-present doomsday clock moving them both toward disaster — Bob aging, Eric aging out. He’s good, but he isn’t great, and the only offers coming his way are single-season contracts with teams that haven’t sniffed a championship in years. One day very soon, there will be no more chances for Eric to undo what’s been done. No more favors to ask of teammates that have long since forgotten a world where Jack Zimmermann was a college graduate and a rookie MVP. Not just an addict. Not just dead at nineteen.

Eric listens to Bob ramble, asks him to tell him a story, to tell him about the Jack that Eric never really got to know. The Jack he can barely remember. A man that Eric has dedicated his entire life to honoring, to bringing back — from where he cannot fathom — and Bob obliges in a soft tone Eric imagines is not dissimilar from how he must have spoken to his son as a child.

Eric ignores his teammates rushing around him — tossing chirps and gentle insults about his ‘Sugar Daddy’ — and focuses on the accented voice in his ear; grasping desperately at the memory of a man who doesn’t exist. Pretending. Hoping.

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Across the ice, Eric sees Kent Parson watching him. When they lock eyes, the aging star glides toward him, under a guise of one amicable captain greeting another. He’s pushing 37, and while the years of competitive play are starting to show, he’s just as viciously handsome as the day they first met. At least, Eric thinks he is. He can’t imagine a life where Kent Parson strolled onto a college campus and played beer pong at a frat party, but there’s a folder of old photos on Eric’s computer. Jack is in none of them, but there’s one of himself and Kent. Smiling.

Eric can’t recall why the image bothers him so much.

Parson used his wish years ago on something that he’s never bothered to share — and Eric’s far too much a gentleman to ask a man who was once a rival what he wasted his golden ticket on — but now, he’s slowing down, and this is supposed to be his farewell season. Going out with a bang, riding the high of his fifth cup win. He’s worked hard, and he deserves to shove the Penguins back down into obscurity for another season. Deserves it far more than Eric, with his selfish, single-mindedness that’s ruined god knows how many careers in the last decade between his own ruthlessness and Bob’s meddling.

Except. . . this is also likely Eric’s last season. His last chance to undo the great tragedy of his life, and Parson knows it.

“How you feeling, Peaches? You ready?”

Eric hates the nickname in the same way he hates when his father calls him ‘Champ’.

Eric fights his own shame because he wants to be honest, say, ‘No, I’m not ready, I’ll never be ready,’ but Eric can’t ask for what he wants, anymore. He wants the Aces to balk on a power play. He wants Parson to flub a pass and throw the game —  he even knows the man would probably do it, too — but Eric needs to come by a win honestly. They learned the hard way in 2022 when Eric hands were wrapped around the cup, wishing, praying, crying, pleading . . .

Clear eyes, full hearts, or some such bullshit.

Cheaters don’t get wishes.

“I can’t remember, anymore,” Eric admits as they square up across the face-off circle, the resigned terror of an inescapable end creeping upon him like the burn of an old injury ignored for far too long. “Kent. Please.” Parson leans down, rests his stick against the ice, and holds Eric’s gaze as if to say, I’m here. Trust me. Just play.

The puck drops.

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There’s someone watching him, young, handsome with dark hair and the kind of bright blue eyes that scream ‘notice me’ with all of the biological bluntness of neon plumage and a mating dance. The man weaves through the crowd, unnoticed by Eric’s teammates, and comes close enough that Eric can’t help but assume familiarity. He must be a fan, the way he’s flushed and excitable.

Eric’s drunk enough on the moment that he’s happy to indulge his baser instincts. He also literally can’t remember the last time he brought company home and if there’s ever been a night to get laid, it’s this one.

“Crisse, look at you, Bits.”

The man is caught between being awestruck and simply struck, reaching out to touch Eric’s arm but not quite making contact, like his depth perception is the tiniest bit off. He drops Eric’s old nickname so easily, so earnestly, that for a moment Eric thinks they might already know each other — but that’s impossible. Eric would remember someone so handsome, so very much his type.

“Only my friends call me ‘Bitty’.” Eric cautions, raising his half-empty champagne bottle in a mock toast and flashing his best ‘you’re coming home with me tonight’ smile. “But I’m more than happy to to get acquainted with you, Sugar.”

Eric isn’t usually this forward, this unrestrained. Tonight, it doesn’t matter, he’s celebrating: another championship, the end of a career, a life well lived. It’s to be expected. What isn’t expected is how the man’s relieved smile falters; as if Eric’s unbridled joy is somehow misplaced.

“Bitty? It’s me.”

“And ‘me’ is called . . . ?”

On very few occasions in Eric’s life has he been able to witness true devastation first-hand; and those instances were related to deaths, hockey losses, or blackout morning afters.

“Jack.” The man says softly, face slack with surprise. “It’s. . . Jack. Bitty, you know me.”

“If we’ve met before, I’m sorry,” Eric apologizes, hating to see the kid look so defeated. “I meet so many people — ”

Over Jack’s shoulder, Eric catches sight of Bob Zimmermann and waves, delighting in the way Bob’s face lights up when he catches sight of Eric, practically going supernova when he notices Jack as well, crossing the ice like a man possessed; Bob moves to pull them both into a hug but Eric’s new friend holds up a defensive hand and Bob stops mid-gesture.

It’s extremely apparent something is off, and between the reporters, the confetti, the champagne, and the fans, Eric is missing all of the context clues.

“Just won my last cup,” Eric singsongs, gesturing with the bottle between his mentor and the man Eric would very much like to fuck — who look very similar now that Eric can see them side by side. “Everyone’s super excited, right? Yeah? So, what’s going on. Did someone die?”

“No.” Bob says quickly, eyes flicking between Jack and Eric warily. “No. Not . . . that.”

“Severely injured?”

“. . . Non.”

“Okay, then, we should be celebrating!” Eric throws his arms wide and nearly clocks a passing teammate. “No more party pooping, Bobbert. Speaking, this is my new friend, Jack. Jack, Bob, Bob, Jack. Though, I’m getting the feeling you two might know each other. Or might be . . . related.” Eric gasps and smacks his free palm against his forehead. “Oh my god, the Tremblant retreat? Is that where I know you from? Listen, I was fucked up on pain meds that whole weekend, I am so sorry if we’ve already met.”

Despite Eric’s continued attempts at clarifying their shared mystery past, Jack keeps looking at Bob with that same wounded expression and it’s really killing Eric’s buzz.

“Bob.” Eric redirects. “Help me, here. Cutie’s nervous.”

“Eric, this is my, ah, well,” Bob’s smile is so forced, so tense, it looks more like a grimace. “Well, this is my son, Jack.”

There is only one ‘Jack’ Eric has ever known in relation to Bob Zimmermann, and he is not someone to be mentioned in polite conversation.

“Your son?” Eric echoes slowly. “Your son, Jack.”

Bob realizes what Eric’s tiptoeing around and casts a furtive glance toward the younger man, lifting two fingers to his cheek conspiratorially to imply ‘it’s a long story, not meant for public ears’. Eric knows how to play along.

“Wow, okay, did not expect that, but now that you’re saying it, I can one-hundred-percent tell. You have the same, well, everything.”

Eric takes Jack’s hand for an obligatory shake, not missing the way Jack’s features twist up into something caught between flattery and misery, before staring down his pseudo-mentor.

“My question is this, where have you’ve been hiding him — because how long have I know you, Bobby? Shame.”

“I’ve been . . . away.”

Jack’s tone is weighted with context Eric absolutely does not possess, but can definitely read into. Given the age difference and Alicia’s conspicuous lack of attendance this evening, Jack’s definitely a love child from some 90s Zimmergroupie. Or, original Jack didn’t actually OD and Bob spirited away his kid to keep away the prying eyes of the public; but that wouldn’t explain the age difference or the shared name.

Oh, Bobbert.

“Couldn’t wheel him out too soon,” Bob jokes, but Eric can tell the man’s heart isn’t in it, reinforcing Eric’s suspicion.

“Well, I’m happy you did,” Eric says graciously, trying to smooth over the awkwardness. “He’s very handsome, when he isn’t doing this Eeyore impression.”

“Just like his father,” Bob says reflexively —  defensively —  as Jack goes pink. “Eric, will you excuse us for a moment? Back in five minutes, tops.”

Eric offers a gracious wave, gaze lingering on Jack’s retreating back — and backside, bless — watching Bob rest a firm hand on his son’s neck, gripping tightly to lean in and furiously whisper something. As Eric watches, Jack looks back over his shoulder; it’s not the fond glance of a potential paramour. Regret, maybe? Grief, definitely.

He must be as disappointed to be cock-blocked by his father as Eric is.

Across the ice, Kent Parson has rushed Jack, gathering him into a crushing embrace that the younger man returns easily —  burying his face against Parson’s pads; pulling back only when Parson grabs Jack’s shoulders to push him away, taking a long look at him, holding his face between his hands briefly before pulling Jack back into his arms.

They don’t just look like old friends, it’s a reunion of desperation, like the videos his mother sends of soldiers coming home from war, but before Eric can think better of it, a teammate fists a hand in the collar of Eric’s sweater and pulls — away from Bob’s forlorn love child and forgotten first meetings — and the night goes on.  

Bob doesn’t return. Neither does Jack.

Eric doesn’t even notice.

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[aza-writes]

Blood Red : Chapter 5

Do we have a deal?

Hell's Kitchen : 2016

Alessandra's POV

I arrive at a large, luxurious apartment building at 6:52. I look at the text to double-check the address. The apartment building is on the corner of a large group of buildings. It was completely made out of windows and was perfectly symmetrical. It towered over the buildings it was attached to. It was gorgeous. There was even a doorman.

As I walk in I noticed how many security guards there were. One by the front desk, two by the elevator, and one right on the inside of the door. Makes sense that Mr. Fisk would want to live somewhere secure, Dreykov always had at least two Widows with him at all times when he went out places. The world is a very dangerous place for important people.

I walk over to the front desk, trying to decide if I use my American accent or not. The man at the front desk smiles at me. "How may I help you?"

"Alice here for Mr. Fisk." A fake name is the best bet. Like I said, technically I'm dead.

The man checks his computer, then back up at me. "Of course ma'am, the elevator is set to arrive at his apartment."

I nod and walk to the elevator. As soon as the door closes the elevator starts to move. I look straight ahead at the door, trying to imagine what might be at this dinner. A giant table filled with mobsters? That would be cool. Maybe it's a trick to kill me? Nah, if they wanted to kill me they would've done it earlier. Before I can come up with any other scenarios, the doors open to a spacious apartment. Windows decorated two walls and the other two were painted white. The kitchen and the rest of the furniture are black, similar to my apartment but obviously ten times bigger.

I walk off the elevator and look around a bit. Wesley approaches me, this guy is fucking everywhere.

"Please join Mr. Fisk in the dining room." He was annoyed. I don't blame him, I'm not happy about seeing him either. He leads me to the dining table, Mr. Fisk is already sitting down on one side of the table. I side opposite of him, never breaking eye contact.

Mr. Fisk breaks eye contact first to look at Wesley. "Thank you, Wesley, you may leave now." Wesley nods. Finally, I don't have to see him anymore for the day. Mr. Fisk turns to look back at me. "I had Wesley choose the meal for tonight, I'm not very good at planning meals." He smiles at me like he was trying to get me to open up. The smile was incredibly awkward and very faint. I mean, A for the effort I guess.

At exactly 7:00 the meal was brought out. It was some Italian dish, I'm not sure what though. I wait for Mr. Fisk to take the first bite not only to make sure that it's not poison but because it shows respect if you let the host take the first bite.

Although the food was incredible, I was more impressed with the wine. I'm not a fan of red wine, the kind I was allowed in Russia was never made well; either too sweet or almost sour to the point it was deemed undrinkable. But this wine, it was magnificent. It complimented the meal perfectly. Maybe Wesley wasn't as useless as I thought.

Mr. Fisk cleared his throat, grabbing my attention. "I brought you here today to discuss your contract. There are several things we need to go over before we are officially in business together." I nod as a servant brings him a folder. He opens it and slides it over to me. "You will be paid $5,000 a month along with $1,000 a kill." I look up at him, keeping my stoic expression. That was extremely hard to do though. $5,000 plus $1,000 for each kill with a hit list growing every day. "Of course, all expenses will be taken care of. Apartment, undercover equipment, clothes, transportation, and whatever else you may need." I tilt my chin up, freaking out on the inside. I don't want him to see through me. "Do we have a deal?"

I smile softly. "It would be my honor to kill for you."

Mr. Fisk nods and raises his glass toward me. "To the future of Union Allied and the Bloody Widow."

I raise my glass and keep my small smile, trying to keep my composure. "Long live the empire."

And with that, we drink.

• • • • • •

I arrived back at my apartment about a quarter til 10 a little tipsy and extremely enthusiastic about tomorrow. My goal is to start at the top of the list and work my way down. Some kills might take longer but it'll all be worth it in the end. I get money and to kill with no consequences again. I'll be protected by Mr. Fisk and through Fisk, I get money and blood.

When I open the door to my apartment I see a present on my coffee table. It's black with a wine red bow on it. There's an envelope sitting on top of it with a wax seal with the letters "U.A." on it.

I open the envelope first to reveal a small note that reads "Open the closet next to the kitchen - F". I assumed that was a closet, besides that has been locked the whole time. I'm confused until I open the present. It's a dark, crimson-red key. I walk over to the closet and unlock the door slowly. When I open I audibly gasp. It's a full training room. Ballet bars, point shoes, punching bags, knives, guns, swords, and more. They're a touchscreen keypad next to the door that controls the room. I feel like a kid in a candy store.

I walk over to the control keypad just to familiarize myself with the room when I notice the bright red button all it said was "suit." Holy shit, do I get a new suit? I get my goofy grin back on my face as I pushed it. I look over to the full-length mirrors on the wall on the opposite side of the room as they started to move. The two mirrors in the middle started to slide out. The secret mirrors uncovered a wall of four suits. The first suit was almost an exact copy of my suit when I was part of the black widow program, the only difference was that the widow symbol was black instead of red. It had the same tight fabric that moved like a second skin. The second one is closer to tactical gear. There was a large chest plate, the pants were a bit baggier, and much more padding. It was very different from anything the Red Room would send out, probably Mr. Fisk's design. The third was again, identical to my original white Black Widow suit that we wore whenever we were sent to a location with a lot of snow. Again, the Black Widow symbol was black instead of red. The last one was another new design. It was for colder climates. The jacket was thicker and so was the pants, but not as thick as the second suit. These also weren't thick from padding, but to stay warm. All had a matching masks, night vision goggles, and boots. It was quite beautiful, all of the suits were gorgeous. This whole room was a dream. A Red Room that I could control.

I spend about an hour in my training room, just admiring everything. It was almost 1 in the morning when I finally went to bed. I was too excited to sleep, too excited to kill again.

• • • • • •

Matt Murdock's POV

I waited for 4 hours. 4 hours of just listening, trying to find the person who committed such a gruesome murder. Hell, even if I didn't find the actual person I wanted to at least find a suspect or a lead or something. All I got was rumors and gossip, nothing useful. All lies. I needed to find this killer before they kill again.

• • • • • •

Masterlists

[good-from-all-sides]

Surface

The sun. Sky. Grass. Trees. Nothing has changed, everything is the same. As if nothing had happened, nothing happened. But something must have happened to this world in several thousand years of sleep, right? The on-board computer could not deceive. Same way?.. The sun still burns my eyes, it is still bright, just as warm. The sky is still blue, can you sleep? It seems that all that you feel now is childish joy that the on-board computer was mistaken and now everything is fine, your friends are now having fun, your parents are now alive and well, and your beloved cat is now sleeping somewhere. As if nothing had happened. This pleasant sensation in the chest, this inexplicable lump of something warm, so warms the soul. Joy because the sky is blue because the wind rushes past you, joy because you are not the only person on earth. After all, there is definitely someone right now who, like you, enjoy everything. This is hope, isn't it? Even after many years have passed, you believe that you are not alone in this cursed, but such a familiar world. Wow, you smile! Having touched your lips with your fingers, you could not even think that at last someday you will feel heavenly again, that your soul is already taking off into the sky. I think the on-board computer will be very glad to you. It's so good here. Youth is hard to forget. But you can change everything. Then why did he say take the gun? This is the only thing that worries you right now, someone should attack? Monsters? Maybe something else? Anxiety, as you well know this concept, this feeling. Dark thoughts fill your mind again, making your head ache. With the pistol in your right hand, you scanned the area once more and headed straight where your eyes were looking. You must find at least someone. Preferably alive and similar to you. You are welcome. Anyone. It looks like you've been walking straight for ages, but it's only been thirty minutes. You, of course, are not complaining, but you are so impatient to tell someone your story, your life, tell about all your experiences, you want to hug someone so that your soul is warm. I want it so, I want it so- "guys, I think we're late .." Can not be. You abruptly stopped your quick steps, listening to the conversation of strangers. You were standing behind several large trees. It’s scary that I haven’t heard other voices for so long, for eternity I have only heard my own and virtual voice of your ship. Someone's quiet and gentle voice was heard very close, so calm. The on-board computer was faulty; there must be someone here. Someone is alive. How good. The night is getting stronger, I can't deal with it “Don't worry, the holiday will last for a long time! Custard Cookie will understand us, because we helped our friends with the transportation of food for the holiday! " And that boyish voice was so cheerful, so vaguely familiar, like your former classmate. That's who he reminded you of. He had almost the same voice. Could it be- Carefully peering out from behind a large trunk of a green tree, the unimaginable was happening before your eyes. Don't be surprised if you stumble upon a 4.7-foot-high living cookie, okay? Remembering the words of your guide, you seem to have forgotten how to breathe. Panic gripped you. Misunderstanding. Anxiety. Did he tell the truth? Once again, these fears and dark thoughts haunt you. Usually anxious people are sure that there are enemies around. If you think so, anxiety is always associated with insecurity and chaos. In anxiety, a person feels that everything is bad, that something needs to be done, but what exactly to do? Unclear. Because of this, you pressed even more against the trunk of the tree, trying to breathe evenly so that these non-humans would not notice you. Heart beats with unbearable speed, hands are freezing like corpses. Is it because they are not like you? Or are you not like everyone else? Home, that's what first came to mind. You urgently need to run home. A sharp jerk and your senses have sharpened hundreds of times. While these cookies are exploringwhere

you have been, you have already been far away. Some more. A little and you're at home.

You're back! I missed you very much. Found someone? How do you like the locals? Why are you crying? Was it not I who warned you about the surface world? No, no, no, do not be afraid, now you are with me, I will protect you.

English is not my first language, I apologize for the mistakes.

[whump-a-la-mode]

Villian-Sicle

A drabble I couldn’t get out of my head. Villain puts themself in a harrowing situation-- with the only way out being to trust hero. I’m open to continuing this if anyone is interested ^^

CW//Superhero whump, villain whumpee, environmental whump (kinda), implied hypothermia, hospital setting

Villain should have known.

It was a risk, they did know that much. The few henchmen they still had among their ranks had warned them, worrying and puttering about like nervous schoolchildren. The heroes had grown ever closer in their pursuit, with scarcely a day going where one of them wasn’t seen in the nearby city.

The only thing keeping them away, for the moment, was secrecy. Villain’s base was embedded into a nearby mountain, settled into a worn Cold War era bunker that had been hewn from the rough limestone. Every last one of their henchmen had had the same advice for them: “Let’s just lay low for a bit, boss. They can’t sniff around here forever, we have enough supplies to last a month, at least, I made sure.”

Would such a plan of action have been wise? Certainly. Even now, villain couldn’t help themself from dreaming of a week or two, laid up on the couch, watching TV and reorganizing their armory.

Impulse had gotten the better of them, however, as it always seemed to do. The Serum had been transported to a nearby hospital on a specially chartered plane. The pilot and crew would be staying in the city for the night, while the Serum stayed in the hospital, housed safely in the freezing cold temperatures that it required to stay fresh. It was a short opportunity, so short that they would miss it if they so much as blinked. Once the dawn rose, their prize would be whisked away, never to be seen again. They couldn’t miss it.

They would be in and out, Villain promised their henchmen. A few hours, if even that. No risk at all. What would a bunch of white-coat nerds do to stop them? Yell out some facts and figures?

It was supposed to be a quick job.

It was very much not a quick job.

Villain’s hot breath burned against their own face as they tore through the bright, sterile-lit hallway. The tiles beneath their feet couldn’t have possibly muffled their footsteps any less. Instead, their movements were broadcasted to everyone in the building, and, probably, in the entire city, with how much this damn hall echoed.

They had entered the building through a back entrance, just twenty minutes ago. Or maybe it had been more like fifteen, or thirty, or... they had been running for so long. They didn’t know anymore.

Their powers crept from them at the very thought, weaving out into the world around with invisible tendrils of information. One latched onto a computer, politely informing them that they had been running for their life for exactly twenty three minutes and 32.34 seconds.

Great! The joys of technopathy. Villain couldn’t defend themself, but they could find out the time. Fantastic.

Before them, a fork in the hallway appeared, almost too quickly for them to react. With a split second decision based on nothing, they tore to the left, nearly tripping over their own feet with the motion. A few seconds later, their pursuers performed the same action.

Villain kept running.

When they had gone in through the back entrance, the hospital had seemed nearly dead. Motion-activated lights sat dead as the emergency room staff chugged their way through their third round of coffee. It was perfect. They crept through the back storage room, and began making their way to the cold storage.

It was perfect, until Hero stepped out around the corner. It was perfect, until Villain found out that the Heroes had assigned themselves to provide an overnight guard for the Serum.

Of course they had been.

Villain nearly slammed into an empty gurney, narrowly darting around it. The Heroes on their tail swore.

It was a miracle they hadn’t been shot yet, in all truth. That would have been too merciful. No, the Heroes had to hunt them like prey. Like the beasts there were.

In nature, most predators can be classified as ambush predators. Creeping in the bushes, the tall grasses, waiting for their prey to turn its head. However, some predators had a different approach. Endurance predators. Chasing their prey until they grew too tired to go on any longer. It was a common method among social predators-- wolves, notably.

Wolves. That was what their pursuers were acting like.

Villain considered swearing under their breath, but decided quickly against it. They didn’t have the air. Neither did they have the air to keep running like this for much longer.

In their chest, they could feel their heart as it struggled to beat itself free from their ribs. Their lungs struggled to bring in any air, gasping every shallower with each breath.

They couldn’t keep going. Even with the enhanced physical prowess that the simple virtue of having powers gave them, they couldn’t keep going. At this rate, they would collapse at any moment, succumbing to their predators’ jaws.

Another gurney was dodged, and another turn made. They couldn’t feel their legs. They had to stop. With another quick reach of their powers, they found their current location on the hospital’s floorplan.

Nowhere near a single exit.

They were fucked. The windows weren’t much of an option either-- they were on the fourth floor, by now. But, it was either that, or being caught, or...

Or getting what they came for.

In the distance, a few doors ahead, they saw it. It was nearly unbelievable-- a mirage of water in the desert.

A door, simply labelled “Cold Storage.”

The last of their strength was quickly spent on advancing just a few more steps and slamming their body into the door, quickly gaining them access. They slammed the steel door behind them, clicking the lock into place as quickly as they could.

Outside, fists beat at the metal. A smile grew across Villain’s face. Their pursuers had been just a second too late.

Villain collapsed. There was little other way to describe the ungrateful way in which they fell to the ground, a heap of limbs and unwashed hair. They were safe, at least for the moment.

A cursory moment of curiosity led them to seek the temperature value being read by the thermometer on the wall. -20 degrees Fahrenheit. Why did that seem off...

-60 degrees. That’s what the Serum had to be kept at.

Shit. They glanced again at the floor plan. There was more than one Cold Storage.

Shit shit shit.

More banging on the door. Villain sat up, still gasping for breath. This time, however, the air being gulped into their lungs burned for its cold, rather than its heat. They wrapped their arms around their chest, reminding themself with a prick of nervousness that they were wearing little more than a light sweatshirt.

The influence of their powers searched the room, twisting along the walls and among the shelves lining them, searching for whatever was keeping the place so damn cold. They found nothing but a vent-- the cold air was being pumped in from somewhere else. Somewhere too far away for them to reach.

They gulped.

Someone yelled outside the door, followed by a weapon of some sort striking the handle. It didn’t budge.

A shiver rippled along their spine. They hugged themself as tight as they could, but it didn’t change the fact that the feeling in their fingertips was already beginning to fade.

From outside, a laugh. A voice. That stupid, stupid voice. Hero’s voice:

“You’re going to catch your death in there. Open the damn door, we’re not gonna hurt you.”

Likely story.

Villain lowered their head, closing their eyes and trying to pretend that their teeth weren’t already chattering.