#// do we wanna transition to them heading back to the safehouse soon? doesn't have to be next post

[typhoonvash]

"Lame?! You opening a bakery means I can bum around and eat all your leftover donuts at the end of the day... and mayyybe sneak one fresh at the start of the day when you're still sleepy enough not to notice," Vash dares himself to do something that he's never allowed himself to do before: dream. His entire life has been stained with repentance and guilt—even once Knives was gone, it never made up for the thousands of lives lost because of his stupid actions 400 years ago. Ish.

The only dreams he's ever allowed himself are the ones he has for other people. Maybe that's what this is; it's not his dream, but it is Wolfwood's. This idea, this concept of an 'after' for him is worth protecting with his life—not that he plans on dying anytime soon. There's too much to do for Vash to die now, but if it's him or a future for Wolfwood, then...

Stop thinking like that, idiot.

Ah, so the Wolfwood in his head still exists, even as the real Wolfwood sits in front of him now. Perhaps, at some point, the little voice stopped being Wolfwood and became his own instead. It's probably not worth thinking about it right now.

"You are good at makin' stuff," Vash settles down now the other way, laying his head on Wolfwood's thighs. Comfy. "A lot more creative than you think you are. Always focused on improving, dedicated to perfection..."

Vash rubs his cheek against one, satisfied with Wolfwood's warmth and the slight give of the muscle as he lays on it. When he's done, the Plant settles the back of his head into the crease between his legs, eyes trained on the beautiful man above him. The dumbest man alive, falling in love with Vash the Stampede, and Vash can't be more grateful.

"That's my Nic. My Wolfwood. My partner, my honey, my beloved companion, my boyfriend, my everything, my..."

It's easy to fall back into the relationship they had before everything happened. Sweet, a little goofy, devoted, just... them. They have so much to talk about—so much that it could take days just to get through, maybe even weeks—but all Vash wants right now is to get home, take a shower, and hold Wolfwood as close as he possibly can.

"... My beau, my pookie... hmm, there are definitely more..."

Vash already knows the answer to that one, so he doesn’t need to dignify that with an answer. If anything, Vash ought to be more impressed that he hasn’t fought anyone else either. Petty is the most he can reach for when he can’t in good conscience retaliate to Vash’s protective incredulity. 

And then some.

Wolfwood sighs heavily, determined to take the hail of anxious questions in stride. In a way, it’s nice to be lectured instead of the other way around. It’s good. Good that Vash has something to focus on instead of his newfound doom and gloom, even if it means fixating on perceived self-neglect on Wolfwood’s part. He lets Vash fret all he wants.

Two hundred years, plenty worse for wear. He isn't a scientist. He doesn't know if he can fix Vash's erratic power surges. He just knows Vash doesn't have to figure it out or hide from it alone anymore.

“Oh, I was lookin’ to get started on self-care sometime this week or the next,” Wolfwood drawls lazily. He was in no particular rush to do anything but find Vash, and he’s accomplished that. The satisfaction of gazing back into Vash’s eyes, tinted a pretty shade of violet as they are like night blooms, is worth more than all the sleepless nights leading up to their reunion. There’s a certain thrill in their proximity and the frenzied ions in the air, like a two-step along the edge of a cliff in the middle of a burgeoning storm.

Zap!

Straight to his heart, that particular jolt of energy. Purple clings to the edges of his vision and he swears for a split second he can see the brilliant curving and angled Plant lines on Vash's skin, clear as day, and gone as quickly in the blink of an eye. Power: undeniably Plant, undeniably Vash. 

Something else, too.

He'd go so far as to call it love, except it's not his. Vash's love. Tender, sweet, like everything he's ever convinced himself he didn't deserve. The way Vash is looking at him, he isn't hallucinating. 

“Of course, ya damn idiot. And given a chance to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a damn fuckin’ thing,” Wolfwood assures patiently. He leans his face fully into Vash’s hand, never once breaking eye contact from beneath his fringe of messy, dark bangs. 

Funny, when he thought of the future, he never really considered picturing himself in it. 

“I dunno,” Nicholas says slowly, taking a moment to really think about what he wants. Something that didn't involve the utter violence so much of his life was mired in. “Would be nice to just make stuff fer once.”

Woodwork was too personal. He had no desire to make his hobby into a profitable craft. 

“Somethin’ lame, I guess. Like openin’ a bakery.”

[tabletopwhumper]

Fallout- Part IIII

Johnny wakes up to his life in shambles. TW for loss, grief, debilitating injury, and coping in unhealthy ways

Part I ll Part II II Part III

"...that the borders of Salish-Sidhe and other safe havens have been closed until further notice.  The sudden onset of The Fade has had astounding repercussions not only socially but economically as well. Stock in various companies, including Saeder Krupp, have plummeted into..."  

The droning of the holovid seeps into his consciousness, establishing itself as the soundtrack to the darkness where Aces' dreams had once been as he struggles to wake up. His eyes ache beneath the weight of his eyelids. And despite his best efforts he can’t quite pry them open.

The swish-click of a maglock and the pleasant chime of a hospital room door disrupts the endless narration from the holo. Gritting his teeth, Aces bears down… and manages to open his right eye. Blurred forms erupt from a blaze of searing light. But no amount of effort can get his left eyelid to move. 

"Welcome back, John.  Take your time... no need to rush a thing."  

"Uhhh... ahhhye..."  The words stick in his mouth and refuse to form.

Come the fuck on… what's going on?? This is wrong. Why the fuck…

"Anesthesia is a hell of a thing, huh?  Don't worry, it'll be winding down soon.  Until then we will be hooking you up to an ARAC device."

ARAC?? What the hell do I need an AR-assisted comm device? I can talk just fucking fine!

"Buhh..fhhk."  

"Yeah... sorry about that.  We're still making adaptations to… aw shit.  When did you come in again?"  The doctor flips through virtual screens.  "Ah.  Yeah...  Lets just say there have been some recent regressions in the field of medicine as far as bio-essential transfiguration goes."

...The Fade. That's what the news has been talking about off and on.  Something flipped the "magic switch."

"What the actual fuck."  It takes a moment for John to realize that his voice isn't just in his head anymore.

"There's the neural connection!  Alright, the ARAC is ready to rock, if you want to mess with the settings feel free. I'm going to go get Dr. Keiler and we'll start going over your recovery plan."

Aces steadies his breathing and focuses on the nurse as best as his borked vision will allow. "Get my commlink."

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

As the nurse files out Aces huffs out an aggravated breath. Audio receptors off. Visual receptors off. He's had enough of his motionless limbs and the chittering of machines as constantly shifting medical staff filter in and out. He's got enough to do trying to figure out what the hell landed him here.

"Call cannot be connected, number disabled."

Still nothing.  Gotta be another one...

"Contact - Alley Cat - Connecting."

Come on come on come on...

"Call cannot be connected, number disabled."

That's the last of them. He has cycled through every burner, every bug out number, every fake SIN, every safehouse.  Absolutely zero sign of Alison.

This isn't right.  None of this is right.  I've gotta be missing something.  There has to be a...

"Alert - you currently have a visitor."

Aces flies out of VR. The transition rocks his already tender neurons and a small case of dumpshock makes his head spin. Through the vertigo he can easily see the figure silhouetted against white walls…

Fuck.  Not the Merrick I was hoping for, but...

"Jordan, holy shit man..."

"Hey brother!"  The gaunter-than-usual biker saunters over and drops a hand on Aces' shoulder.  "How you holding up?"

"Long road ahead. Hey, have you gotten a hold of Ali..." He doesn't complete the sentence as dread sinks through his gut. His wife’s absence takes on new and horrible implications at the rigid set of Jordan's jaw, eyes suddenly glassy… John silently wishes for a way to not have asked at all, to have not said a goddamn thing.

"Yeah, listen… I didn't wanna tell you over the holo-"

"Then fuckin don't..."

Jordan swallows and takes a shuddering breath. "She’s gone."

“Gone? Like, she took off? The fuck does gone mean?” 

Jordan’s lips press together into a thin line, clearly pained by the entire conversation. Deep down John knows full well what the older man is telling him but he can’t possibly-

“Ali’s dead.”

Johnny can’t… He cannot fathom this, thoughts flailing without anchor as his inner voice struggles to coalesce. He feels as if he’s unraveling and nothing makes sense as Jordan spells out the details of what he knows. She thought they were dead. Falling back into the shadows. Magic going poof. No contact for months. An hour ticks by as Jordan recounts everything that's happening at home with Tim and the kids.

Sam. Miri. Safe. 

It feels as if he's watching a trid from far away, as if this is happening to some poor unfortunate bastard on screen and he's just along for the ride. John can't bring himself to speak again until Jordan gets up to leave.

"K... keep the kids s...s.s.safe.  Don't... I can't... see them.  Not yet.  Just..."

"I got you, man. Just... let us know."

John can’t dive back into VR fast enough, drawn by the promise of absolute blackness in his own isolation chamber. He's eager to be away from a world that is too heavy for his soul to bear. But silence does nothing to cease the agony in his own mind.

Set sleep mode on.  Twenty.... twenty three hours.

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

Gone.  

Gone.

That's the word of the day.  The ten million yen answer.  Magic, short-term memory, the ability to walk on my own...   

Alison.

The ache flares again as a desperate pain in his chest. 'Gone' is the mantra at the core of his brain, an inescapable rot taking over his VR feed. What time he is awake he spends wondering if there's even a point. 

The kids... they have Tim and Jordan and Teaghan.  And honestly I'm not sure if I could even look at their faces without thinking of her. 

I'll get over it.  I have to...  it's what we do.  We get shot in the head, our lives crumble to dust. The god damned family curse.

VR offers an escape from the sterile environment and immobility but offers its own unique sort of hell as he imagines how things might have been, what he might have done differently. Better security? Moved them out of the city? 

But hindsight is always a bitch. Best to focus on what is. And the fact is that Alison Merrick is dead, crushed beneath a building in Chicago. Some macabre part of him wonders if they ever recovered her body. It’s been months since the cleanup crews wrapped up. The thought of his wife, what was left of his wife, laid out on a slab, nameless, only to be tossed in an incinerator…

Despite the despair coloring every thought Johnny knows he has to get out. He has to go back to meatspace.  His own mind has become a toxic environment.

"...as ARES, along with other corporations and engineering firms battle tooth-and-nail to secure mining contracts for known dragon lairs and what once were mythical deposits of ore, now regular minerals, in hopes that this lapse is momentary and will reverse itself in time."

"Well Diane, if it is, I certainly wouldn't want to be caught stealing cookies when the parents wake back up!" 

The manufactured laughter erupting from the talking heads is irritating, but much better than the alternative at this point. John idly reaches up and scratches at the bandages wrapped around his head.

Oh shit, I can move my hands.

He begins the process of trashing junk mail and scrolling through hospital messages on the in-room AR board.  Apparently the electro-stim rehab has been making good advances, for what that's worth.  Finally the board is clear; no communication incoming or outgoing.  

The silence, he realizes, is killing him.

I should be doing something.  I need to be doing something...  All that shit Jordan said can't be the whole of it.  I gotta start digging.  I OWE it to her... She's been through this level of shit before.  Hell, remember Hong Kong?  

Remembering the precedent ignites an ember of hope in his chest. Plans begin to form, things to set in motion.

Come on you dumbass... get out there, get digging. As much as I love Jordan, he's a fucking lugnut.  He couldn't see a hidden message if he had god damned decoder vision. He said she talked to Watts…

Determination solidifies in his chest. It's time to make some calls.

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

Watts answers almost immediately. And though the decker’s response is quick, the message itself is not promising. I’m so sorry brother. Three files accompany the message. Only three. Despite his disappointment John wastes no time and opens the file dated right after Everett-

Oh Jesus, Ali… The breath falls out of his lungs and John pauses the video before it begins to play. His wife looks haggard. She’s pale, dark bags beneath her eyes contrasting with her pallid skin and a crimson gash decorates her brow. But the worst are the dark bruises around her neck. Deep angry imprints of an aggressor's hands paint the entirety of her throat, as if someone had tried to wring the life from her. 

What the fuck happened??

John takes a steadying breath to refocus before playing the call.

"Heya Ali-whoa!! What the hell happened to you?!" Watts' voice comes through. "You look like the wrong end of a dragon."

"Yeah." Her voice is low and raspy enough that John has to increase the volume on his commlink. "For sure been better."

"Do I wanna know?"

"What's the word out of Everett Meadows?"

"Uuuuuh, not a lot that I've seen. Gang on gang violence or something? I figured it had to be somebody carving out some new-" But Watts' voice trails as Ali shakes her head. She presses her lips together for a moment, glassy eyes focused on something off screen, before heaving out a deep breath. 

"J.…. Aces is dead." John's heart shatters. He doesn't miss the way she stumbles over his name. Nor does he miss the way her voice waivers and cracks for reasons beyond her injuries. "Jordan is… I don't know."

"What?? Jesus, what the fuck-?!" 

She shakes her head as tears gather, quickly recapping information John already has: Crimson Mask getting loose in their neighborhood. He and Jordan had been dosed. He'd been shot in the head. Ali's request to get in touch with the Ancients gives him pause. He knew the Merricks and the Ancients had history, but that hatchet has been buried for years.  

"Yeah, yeah, I can look into it," Watts' voice comes through, though his words lack their usual swagger. "Anything else?"

Ali runs a hand down her face. She's quiet for a moment, considering. "Causality reports," she rasps, crossing her arms. She seems to shrink at the very thought. "I need to know who's still breathin and who's…. not."

"Are…” Watts’ question dies in his throat as hesitates. “Are the kids…?"

Only now do her tears break loose as Alison clenches her eyes shut. “I don’t know,” she croaks, angrily wiping her face as she struggles to rebuild crumbling walls. “I didn’t see. But I need to find out. Me and Stop-Gap-”

“Wait, Gap’s in on this?”

“Yeah. He got wind of the shit show. Pulled some strings to send in an extraction team.” Something shifts then. Ali’s listless fidgeting stills, her tormented gaze turning hard. Gone is the heartbroken woman scrambling for news and in her place is a stranger. For years Johnny had wondered how the impulsive, painfully transparent, woman he loved had ever managed a career in the shadows. But looking at her now, eyes utterly devoid of anything other than fierce rage, provides the answer. It’s a side of her he’s never truly seen but it adds to the agony in his heart. “Gap’s got a lead on who the fuck did this. And they sure as fuck won’t get to do it again.” It’s silent for a moment as Ali takes a shuddering breath. “I’ll be in touch. Contact me as soon as you have anything.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

As the call ends John is left with a sour feeling in his gut and more questions than he’d had to begin with. How had Gap gotten Ali out of Everett? Who the fuck had tried to wring the life from her? Who released that shit into their neighborhood? And why?

The next file is a data drop sent by Watts, a Knight Errant summary report on the Everett incident. Considering the nature of the file it is surprisingly unhelpful and possesses no relevant information for him. Aces purses his lips together, frustrated at the lack of intel. 

The last file is another call to Watts dated weeks after the first and John feels the tiny thread of hope begin to wither. Ali’s face appears, her wounds from the previous call completely healed but somehow appearing more sickly. Her face is almost gaunt, the bags beneath her eyes only having deepend after weeks in the shadows and there’s a hollow sort of exhaustion emanating from her.

“Heya boss,” Watts’ voice comes through. “How goes it?”

Ali huffs a quiet chuckle with no real amusement behind it. “Boss? Me?”

“Well, way I see it, I'm working for you these days.” The decker’s voice sounds as rough as Ali looks. “Been combing through these KE files. I THINK they’re casualty reports and detainee dossiers. But the security is out of this fuckin world. Like…. almost corpo levels of security. I’ve been getting nowhere.”

A frown pulls at Ali’s brow as she considers. “Can you forward them to me? We’ve got a decker and she’s pretty good.”

“Yeah, no prob. I’ll take any help I can get."

“Careful what you wish for. You might have more help than you know what to do with soon.” 

“Oooookaaaaay….?”

Ali pulls a hand through her already messy locks. “We’ve got one more job. Long story, but the big bad behind all this shit is squatting at some corporate headquarters in Chicago.”

“Final showdown? Very nice.”

“Yeah, if I have my way it’ll be VERY fucking final.” Her words are laced with righteous wrath, but there’s a heaviness too that Aces can’t quite place. Exhaustion? Heartache? Probably a good mix of both. “Our extraction plan puts us in Seattle the day after. Plan is to put this fucker in the ground, then start handling shit on a local level. I want this Crimson Mask shit GONE.”

“I fucking hear that. When should I expect you? I’ve already got Fatback crawling up my ass about a jail break.”

“No later than Monday. If you don’t hear from me or Gap by then it means we ain’t coming.”

“Like-”

“Like we went down with the ship, yeah. And if that fucking happens I need you to keep digging. Find out who made it, see if my-” Her voice breaks. “If my kids are still out there. If Tim made it. Teaghan, Jens, ANY of them. Find out what happened to my family. Make sure they’re okay.” As she speaks Johnny realizes with a creeping sort of horror that the heaviness he’s seeing isn’t heartache. It’s resignation. Ali has utterly resigned herself to her fate and doesn’t expect to survive the coming fight.

“Yeah. Of course. You know I will.”

Ali nods once, satisfied with Watts’ answer as she sets her jaw and sits back. “Thanks Watts. I mean it. I’ll… we’ll see you soon.”

The call ends and John sits rooted in silence, grief rising to drown him again.

God dammit Ali. God fucking dammit.

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

The smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol fill the tiny safehouse as a myriad of screens illuminate the disheveled figure within. One trembling hand reaches across the desk to grasp a bottle of pills. Carelessly he downs a few with a mouthful of cheap liquor.

"J... Aces is dead."

It's the hundredth time John has watched the first of the two recordings Watts sent. But every time he hears her voice, hears the way she stumbles over his name and the despair coloring her words, the gaping wound in his soul deepens.

Ali's dead.

The fast acting drugs begin to smooth his tremors and quiet the humming in the back of his synth-skull. Several days of beard growth on the organic side itch like crazy but he shrugs it off and keeps meticulously typing. There have to be more answers somewhere. Weeks of chasing leads, only to find himself at one dead-end after another. The whole thing reeks of corporate coverup and the thought ignites rage smoldering quietly at the back of his mind. But nobody can wipe all the evidence. And the few breadcrumbs he’s been able to dig up all lead to Chicago.

The shit capital of the world. Just another cycle of the world shitting on my bloodline. The further I get from those poor kids the better. 

Thinking of his children brings a painful pang to his chest but he forces it aside. They're better off. He can't… John swallows around the lump in his throat. He can't be the father that they need right now. He can't be the father they deserve when some still unnamed sons of bitches are still roaming around with Alison’s blood on their hands.

"Hey, Grigori, this is Blackjack.  I need an enhanced street view, 21:30 to 23:00, at the coordinates from the last feed.  Pay is coming down the pipeline from the last one.  I find what I need and you'll get what you want."

Johnny cracks his knuckles and takes a long drag from his cigarette. He's absolutely certain he will find who is responsible for this.  And he has a bullet waiting for whoever it is.