#(here's the exact body shape/build/what have you my blaze has)

[prim3dsins]

{Source}

[thatsadorbsyo]

Lucas - Threads

((this post references the events of the fall, a mission in the heartless ffxiv roleplay campaign. quoted sections were written by @way-to-the-future. cw: character death. art credit: papa ibra tall, seamstress of the stars, wool tapestry, 1970s.))

“I admire how much warmth you give. Like a furnace. Like you've got a blaze rolling at your heart, and you let it all out through your skin. I see it in your eyes, the way they glow when the lamplight hits it just right.”

I’ve got nothing but white static in my head when I try to remember the Rovers’ faces, and if that isn’t creepy as fuck, I don’t know what is. I can’t recall a single thing about them. No noses, no mouths, not a sliver of kohl smudged under an eye or a lock of hair curling out from under a helmet. It’s easier to hate them when I can’t see any facets of their identity, but I don’t wanna fall prey to this lazy fallacy, either. There must have been real men under all that armor. One of many, sure, but individuals all -- just like I had been, once upon a time. So why don’t I remember?

My memory is unfortunately selfish and selective. It picks up the threads of the things closest to my heart and weaves the best story it can with the loose ends. So here’s the stupid little details that stuck with me, where more pertinent information might have been written instead:

I can still tell you with absolute clarity the exact gem tones of the light reflecting off of Cheche’s upturned face, when the Allagan facility erupted in spells and gunfire all around us. Sapphire blues, emerald greens, and amethyst purples against her shining black scales at every obsidian facet, like a raven feather catching the light.

I can map with exacting precision the arc of Castor’s white braid when he whipped his head around at the commotion, taking the tactical measure of our situation the way only a forged-in-the-blood knight like him can. Even after turning away from him, I could still feel the bulwark of Castor behind me, a solid presence that I didn’t need to see to be able to sense, like an extension of my arm, a phantom limb.

To turn around and suddenly find them both gone, ushered down a different corridor in all the clusterfuck of our allies splintering when the Rovers betrayed us?

It felt like amputation.

If I could, I would keep them both in my heart, keep them like puppets suspended by vermilion strings that extend from their every joint to the cavernous arches of my beating muscle. With threads that absorb the shock of my mortal body and every twin hammer of blood, so that all my loves can feel is the gentle warmth of my fire, the spark of creation that burns in me to keep them, cradle them, shelter them close and alive.

Keep them, and I guess, in so doing, preserve them exactly as I want them to be. Is that fair? It doesn’t seem so, does it? I may love them, but they aren’t mine. They aren’t toys or dolls; not mine to keep. See, Castor has taught me that to love someone is to swap my puppeteer’s strings for the Spinner’s threads, and let them weave their own way through my story. Cheche has shown me that the beauty in anything -- in anyone -- is that they might evaporate at any moment. But if I let them, they both might even decide, all on their own, to stay with me for as long as they can. A stronger path, freely chosen and written in royal blue and bright fern green, threading in a perfect braid around my brilliant gold.

No, I couldn’t keep them -- and in the moment of amputation, it didn’t fucking matter anyway, because they’d already gone beyond my reach. My heart was alone, but still it burned for them; burned fit to melt straight through the iced Malbolge of all the hells, a judgement which I still believed must have been waiting for me just beyond the next door of this Allagan tomb, to welcome me to the justice that I'm owed for my crimes. This door, or the next door. The next one.

Amputation wouldn’t stop me. Hell wouldn’t stop me. I would have burned through that whole building like a live coal, if that was what it had taken to find the exit and bring us all back home.

“It's hardly poetic, love. I'm just telling you exactly how you are. How anyone could see you. Even if they weren't a poet. Maybe even if they didn't care for you like I do. Just, if they - stopped to watch you.”

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but I had a brother once, before I torched the evidence of the life I used to live. Augustin looked so much like me even when we were young, but moreso now than ever before. We have the same bronze eyes, the same nose; I’ve grown into the size of our chin with time. He’s a beefier motherfucker than I am, and he’d always preferred braids, but even still you’d be hard pressed to tell us apart if you stood us back to back. Where do you think is he now?

Does he wonder what’s become of my punk ass? Surely the reports tell the truth about how I left. They wouldn’t keep secrets, not from a... fuck, he’s probably a Centurio now, isn’t he?

Shit... I bet he is. He always wanted to follow Mom’s path, even though every day that passes causes me to doubt her just a little bit more. I’ve learned too much about family not to begin questioning her motives for doing what she did, but I guess that’s neither here nor there.

But it was Augustin who first taught me how to shoot, you know? He took me behind our home and put a gunblade in my hands, adjusting my twiggy little twelve-turn limbs into the approximate shape of proper posture even when the weight of it threatened to topple me over like a top-heavy weed. He drilled firearm etiquette into me until I could recite its tenets by memory. For such a little bitch, he molded me into a decent shot.

I haven’t felt that kind of brotherly guidance in a long time, but I think I felt Augustin’s ghost behind me when I stood shoulder to shoulder with Sister Lux in that facility, fighting our way out.

Do you remember that door, the one I had thought stood between me and the hells? It was really just another hungry bulkhead between us and freedom; a sun and moon puzzle that should have been, might have been harder to solve if I couldn’t feel the juxtaposition of her fire right next to me. Sun and moon. Astral and umbral. It was so simple; this was a test. I had let my aether lay fallow, and in order to progress I had to reach inside and drag all the burning potential straight out of my mouth. Furious, destructive, so obscenely fucking alive.

Hungry, that’s the key word. The door had to feed -- on us. I don’t know how, or why, but somehow she and I put our hands to the door at the same time and knew exactly what to do. It was time for me to shit or get off the proverbial pot, and all she had to do was correct my posture a little bit, just like old times in the backyard with my brother and a weapon I didn’t know how to hold.

I picked up my brass and ruby cudgel, and she told me how to feel the fire of my aether and let it simmer in controlled brilliance, and how to sit back and watch, patient and observant, as an umbral reckoning blazed all the way up into my nose, through my nostrils, eventually bubbling out in an oozing black ichor like tar. Until we were both painted with blood and the door finally gave way after growing fat on our offerings. Freedom, and not a moment too soon.

It’s funny. It’s funny in that way where I have to laugh to keep from considering all of the circumstantial leaps that had to happen to get me there, in that moment, with that exact mentor and the tools available to me. Did you know that I bought my thaumaturge focus the same day -- at the same damn merchant stall -- that I bought the bracelet that Lux still wears? The cudgel was a leap of faith (I thought maybe, someday, I would use it), and the bracelet was a tithe for her attention, but I gotta fucking wonder if that wasn’t the Spinner herself cinching an amethyst purple thread, until two distant ends of a rich black fabric pleated and bunched together, suddenly close, in a moment of coordinated function.

Like this had been the plan all along.

“They treat you differently because of it. Everyone on this ship - they know they can talk to you, Lucas. That you'll hear them.”

I started this mission as an empty vessel, asking everyone I came across to pour their faith into me so that I might taste it and gradually build a competence in teasing apart the flavors of the gods. The truth is that I was searching for the one most likely to offer me forgiveness, or at the very least the god who might hand me a penitence that I felt like I could swallow. I thought I deserved it, you see. That’s how all this started. On bad days, I still do.

Asking about faith isn’t just a window to the spiritual soul -- it’s also a mainline straight into the source of everyone’s irreconcilable fucking damage. Picking your god is a perilous choice, but mostly because it ultimately determines what kind of personality malfunction you’re going to have down the road. I already know why I’m awful: Delusions of grandeur and megalomania, with a curious tendency to self-flagellate. I’m the smartest, most impressive architect you’ll ever meet. I’m the greasiest, grimiest hunk of motor oil in the gutter.

The only way to reach the middle road between glorifying and hating myself, I’ve found, is to count the threads that wrap themselves around my ribs when I recount the conversations that I’ve had on the Salemtaza’s Voyage.

Here’s a taste: I’ve got Caelrin in deep ochre around my midriff where my abs are just starting to take shape. Ignera sits in flaming orange around the hollow of my throat, slapping my hand away every time I try to choke on my own self-loathing. Captain Kharn wraps in garnet around my face, shielding me from unwanted eyes when I don’t feel quite how I should in my skin. W'kana and W'buki in yellow and black, swaddling me so tight around the chest I fear for my next fucking breath. Reinette, a gentle evening blue curling in petals around my fingertips. Rizzo, a shining onyx black stitching up my lungs telling me to breathe, just breathe, don’t stop breathing until it gets easier.

More even than that. Staelufre in neon magenta, Fugetsu in an unknowable shade of grey, Killian in sunset orange, Strelec in obscuring maroon, Hikari in daisy yellow, Camille in cloudy crimson, Jancis in healing olive, Lune in jumpsuit orange, Jeanne in oil-slick purple, Hanako in fresh lavender, even Kat, yeah, even her, in that same royal blue as Castor.

Nathaniel threading in loops around every one of my fingers in a dazzling gold that fades into the electric yellow of potent aethersand.

I could go on. I could list twice as many names and colors as I already have, and I must ask myself: How do I carry them all? How could I possibly hold them all, without attaching them directly to my meat, my bones, this hideous and imprecise flesh that rightly should be cogs and metal? All that thread would just gum up the whole works, wouldn’t it? Maybe it’s better that I am man, then, and not machine.

For all my flaws, I can still stretch my arms and accommodate all these dangling ends.

“They see it in you, in the way you carry yourself. You're curious. Empathetic. You want to understand people, not just love them or hate them or think nothing of them at all.”

Sui tried to warn me about all this, back at the pumpkin patch at Cloudtop. It was raining, weighing down all my sashes on my brand new armor, and Sui had laughed when the skies parted to reveal the sun setting in a field of rose gold and the softest lavender. It seems like she and I can never properly talk if we aren’t both looking at the sky, like this is the only way we can perceive each other. Never head on -- only in the periphery. Or maybe it’s just easier to talk about certain things when you aren’t looking someone in the eye. Maybe it’s that.

She was so startled by the questions I needed to ask her, like she hadn’t thought it was possible that anyone had been watching her reaction to Nathaniel’s speech, like she didn’t think anyone would have noticed that she was upset. Is she so used to passing under the radar?

But I’ll give her credit. Sui tried to warn me that my friends would die. I watched the sunset fizzle out on the horizon from its soft pastels into a creeping ceruleum and a deeper indigo while she told me every horror that had befallen her family before, and what she knew would happen to us again. Sui could feel the same threads of fate starting to twine around our edges, and she wanted me to be prepared. I listened. I let those fibers stitch themselves into my lungs in the golden rose of a cloudless twilight sky.

I just never thought it would come down on us so quickly, and with such brutal force. I’ve never had to pray for another person before, and out of nowhere I found it necessary to summon the script to beg for twelve of my friends’ lives.

The truth is that I never learned how, and I’ve been too afraid to seek the answer. I know how to make wishes; I know how to toss gold coins into a running fountain and watch the sunlight flicker off the scattered mess of them along the bottom of the pool. But I don’t know how to pray.

I know who I would ask. It was Tieve who introduced me to Gridania, and if Sui and I speak most openly under a yawning sky, you might say that Tieve and I communicate best among the trees, under a cathedral of roots. The memory of the hearer’s chapel is stitched in bark brown and moss green bracelets around my wrists, reminding me that while I may have been invited to someone’s sacred space, I have to mind my boundaries, too. I am not the infallible creator of my own conceit, but nor am I outcast from Spoken kindness and community. To know temperance is to know yourself, to dig into the well of your Spoken dignity and grant the same to others.

I still have this embroidered Gridanian sachet of wood chips and herbs that she gave me, telling me it was for luck, and I didn’t know back then how much I would come to rely on Nymeia for hope. That I would need to believe that she’s writing me into a greater tapestry, that I need that grandeur to feel like my dumbass mistakes have meaning and purpose. And even with Tieve beyond my reach, it occurred to me that she might have already given me everything I needed to weave my own prayer. A level head. A god. A talisman.

I’m just fumbling through this. We all are, but I made my own prayer by pulling that sachet out of my pocket and spinning it over and over in my hands as I remembered the names of those our enemies had taken from us. Who better to beg than the god of fate? Keep their lines anchored to me. Keep them in the tapestry. Keep them safe.

“It's the most noble thing about you. It's - It's more than just what you do, it's who you are. It's what I love about you.”

I recite their names:

Aidan, the hound with apologetic eyes who slinks around the edges the crowd until someone notices him, at which point he deflects attention from himself with a self-deprecating joke straight out of my own fucking toolbox. He could be a brother to me, if he let himself be; if he told me the truth about who he is and where he’s been. I can smell it on him. The stench of ceruleum doesn’t fade as quickly as any of us would like, but I wait for him to tell me on his own terms. Aidan weaves around the periphery of my eyelids in a shadowy kohl black.

Izar, the mercurial seer who obscures themselves in riddles like a smug sphinx playing at being a whimsical faerie. They have never passed up the opportunity to toy with me like a blind white kitten with an oversized brown moth, but the teeth of their humor has never once felt like a cage to me. They are kind, and curious, and helpful even as they delight in your confusion. They dangle at my elbow in marble white, furiously tickling my arm like a loose hair caught in a sleeve.

Adhi, the wandering sage of Dalmasca who the gods had to gift with such big fuzzy ears so that she could better capture every single story that ever came her way. I don’t know how to even begin to thank her for what she’s done for me; she’s returned things to me that by all means should have been my birthright but were taken from me before I was even aware that they were being stolen. Her thread spirals in a shell around my ear in an entire spectrum of colors, one for every tale she carries with her.

Still, there’s more: Tieve, the witch of the wolves (mossy green); Percy, the son of a shadow (cobalt blue); Bride, the bashful goldsmith (periwinkle blue); Swozbhar, the towering cook (mint green); Valeriaux, the scarred philanthropist (leather brown); Silya and Livia, the sunniest Fists I’ve ever met (pale pink and soft teal); Farid, the most visibly haunted man I know (muted purple); and Iron Deer, the entrepreneurial engineer (metallic steel) -- all of them familiar faces, all of them colleagues, all of them threaded through the chambers of the same priceless Heart that gives our mission purpose.

The same Heart that we traded away just to get them back.

You know what? Fuck it. I’ll string them all to my own heart. I’ll suspend them all in cocoons deep in the burning hearth of me -- I will fight my way out of this facility that wants desperately to become our tomb -- until those that still live can crawl back out, fragile but alive and free to keep fighting for whatever comes next.

But one of them is gone, beyond the veil and permanently out of my reach. Just like Sui tried to warn me about, and all of Tieve’s lucky charms were not enough to protect me from this single ungentle truth. The Spinner does not stop the march of destruction -- she merely directs it. She cuts the threads of our fallen friends when they begin to fray and weaves new ones in their place; a different color, a fresh fate.

One of them is gone, their thread knotted off in a sudden stop on the tapestry of our story. But who?

Who did we lose?

“I've seen it. I've heard it. I've bloody felt it. Everyone I speak to says the same. Every one of them knows what a great heart you have.”

Percy and I first met at that bonfire by the chocobo stables. I was shivering, fresh off the fucking ship and completely unprepared for the weather, and he stood next to me and promised me everything I could ever possibly want, if only I made a promise in return to be a loyal friend to the Family. I was so desperate for a place to belong, I would have signed anything, done anything -- what had mattered was that he would have me. In this brave new world, I had people looking out for me. A place to call home. Structure. An institutionalized, freshly liberated fuckhead like me desperately needed structure.

So what if it came with a little price? The list of my sins is long, and breaking and entering is pretty far down at the bottom. Bar brawls are inconsequential, when you’ve already essentially aided and abetted war crimes. So, I’m wanted by both House Desrosiers and House Beaumarchais for stealing a thing or two from their daughters’ manse. So fucking what. Percy and I -- There are bonds that can only be forged at three in the morning, sitting on a crows’ perch halfway across the city under the moonlight, doing pre-job surveillance on some fart-sniffing nobles through their window. I’m not saying we kissed. I’m not saying we didn’t, either.

This is what I’m thinking about, when I look down at Percy’s lifeless face, drained of the rosy pink that always sat on his cheeks during those cold-ass stakeouts, huddled together at the shoulders for warmth. If I touched him now, he would be so cold, so unnaturally fucking cold, so I don’t. I can’t bring myself to touch him; to do anything but stare with my mouth half-open and a sob dying somewhere between my sternum and my throat, turning into just another burning pit to fizzle and die in my stomach.

Except it doesn’t have the good sense to die. It turns to steam, turns to pressure, backs up the entire clockwork machine that keeps me chugging along, and it must be vented or else I’m going to fucking explode, but I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. It stutters inside me like a hitched gear. The whine seems to come from my chest, high-pitched, like a kettle about to scream. Is that me? Am I screaming? I don’t know myself. I am not me, in this moment. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know who is on the cot below me, whose silver close-cropped hair sits on this head, whose too-round spectacles reflect the light in the room too thoroughly for me to be able to see if their dead fucking eyes are open or closed. I don’t know which is more terrifying.

I leave. I run. My boots scream against the floor of the ship, clap against the dirt outside, and I don’t stop running until I can drop to my knees and bellow to the impassive clouds. This is my fault. Judgement rings in my head in a cacophony of voices. My fault. My fault he’s dead.

What am I doing here? What have I done?

Percy’s line, cobalt blue, is so cleanly snipped from my fabric that all I can do is finger the empty spot where it might have kept going. Maybe one day we could have found compromise; a future where the three of us could get along without jealousy, without miscommunication or hurt feelings. I’ll never fucking know.

I have always thought of myself in big terms. I am man, I am machine, I am god. I’m the architect of my own form, and I have crafted myself in my own image. Nothing makes me feel more powerful than looking in the mirror and seeing my face look back at me; the face that I sculpted, the body that I shaped. The people that I’ve been in the past are not dead, but rather they have been stitched into my organs. The girl that I was lives in my marrow and feeds my blood, and I am never alone in the cathedral of my body. I am holy. I am enduring. I will move beyond the ghosts at my heels and continue forging a forward path, with those I love woven into the never-ending project that I call my self.

But even a god looks puny as shit, crying into the dirt over a fallen friend. I need to feel this. I need how small this makes me, how insignificant I am in this moment. I gotta remember how crippled it makes me feel. This humility -- it needs to be sown into me, too. So I don’t make the same mistake again. It’s the least I can do.

I can’t forget. I won’t forget his face.

“What a precious, precious thing we've gained.”

[gongju-juice]

5. Once Upon a Southern Night

Crescent City

Warnings: Mentions of slavery and Confederacy

New Orleans. Hot and humid as home. Sister city to Mobile. Walking down the steamy streets, it smelled like spicy seasoning and margaritas—sounded like jazz beats and rushing crowds. 

This year, Ash Wednesday fell incredibly late; March 10 to be exact. You never thought you would find yourself stumbling through New Orleans in the middle of Fat Tuesday—half-naked dancers screaming at your boyfriend from parade floats and indiscreet tourists flashing themselves as your family walked by. It was the most humiliating experience you ever felt, and all you could do is curse the Lost Cause soldiers who started the damn holiday in your home city in the first place.

The hospital was located smack in the middle of the old French Quarter where colonial buildings towered above the people, decorated in royal colored beads and winding lights. Nobody could drive the car through the crowd, so you had to get there by walking. You held your mom’s hand with your left, Jasper’s hand with your right.

“It’s never like this at home,” you explained to Jasper with a nervous laugh. “Did you know that the New Orleans mayor has to get permission from Mobile’s mayor every year to practice Mardi Gras?”

He looked down at you with his burning eyes. Since becoming aware of your family’s secret, he’d hardened himself to this emotionless being whose only concern was your safety. You were not allowed to leave his side, and when you had to go to the bathroom, he stood right outside the door like some long lost puppy.

“Something tells me they wouldn’t care whether or not they got permission anyway,” Emmett cackled. “New Orleans is wild.”

“Yeah, and you keep your eyes on the ground, sir,” Rosalie said, punching the side of his arm. The reverberating echo sounded like cracking glass.

The hospital was in very good shape on the outside despite being closed indefinitely for the past seventeen years. According to your mom, immediately after you were born, the place had been completely shut down and abandoned. 

There were pictures of all kinds of historic events hung in antique gold frames on the walls: naval ships on fire at the Battle of Galveston, slaves picking fresh cotton on a South Carolinian plantation, Jefferson Davis’s inauguration in Montgomery, Alabama.

And in the middle of the lobby were a series of three grand portraits of Texas Majors. And at the end: Jasper Whitlock, Houston native, (1845-1863), died during a surprise Union attack in an evacuation order. There he was in his fine uniform, a cowboy hat over his honey curls. He looked so recognizable. . .so familiar in those white gloves—

He touched your side, and you looked around. The others were gone from sight, but you knew they could still hear everything where you were. 

“If I could go back in time, if I could start all over again, I would do so in a heartbeat. I’m not proud of my past, Y/N. Not when I was human, nor when I changed. And I. . .I know I have no right to ask for your forgiveness but I—”

There was venom glistening in his eyes. Vampires couldn’t cry. It was one of the things Rosalie said she missed most about being a human. But looking at Jasper now, he looked like he was on the very verge of doing the possible. He fell to his knees.

“I’m so sorry for it all. I’m so sorry for what I did. I never. . .I never did some of the things my comrades did, but that doesn’t make me any less guilty. I still killed people. I killed people for the wrong reason, Y/N. I was a monster, and I can never wipe that blood off my ledger.”

You cradled his face in your hands. “We all have our past, Jas. You might’ve made mistakes, you might’ve done bad things, but you’re not the same person you used to be. It was a different time and era, and frankly, you growing from what you’ve suffered and experienced makes me love you even more.”

“But I was evil. There was evil in my heart, and I thought I was doing right. I convinced myself I was fighting for my neighbors—for my way of life. But the truth is, that way of life was wrong. Whether it was enslaving African Americans or newborns, I still felt all of their pain. It was so much, so much death and heartache,” he insisted, holding on to your wrists like they were the only thing they could hold him upright. “And I’m not worthy to be your man.”

“You damn right, you aren’t,” a feminine voice snapped behind you.

You turned around to face a black woman, just about her early twenties, menacing at Jasper by your side. She had a thick, kinky head of natural textured hair, and she was very well built—like she could run a marathon and beat everyone in the race. And her eyes were a mesmerizing shade of hazel that stood out against her skin.

“Who—who are you?” you asked, your voice trembling and barely above a whisper. The Cullens appeared from the shadows, surprised and slightly on edge that someone was in the hospital that they did not know about.

“My name used to be Ava Lafayette,” she explained, glancing you up down like you were nothing more than a roach. “We used to be—we are sisters.”

“How do I? I feel like we’ve met before.” Jasper touched his head, his fingernails digging into his skin like he was in severe pain. You hugged his waist, trying to comfort him but there wasn’t much you could do for the ailment of a vampire. Carlisle held him upright with his steady hands.

“That’s because we have, Major. You had a mission to gather all male, able-bodied volunteers from Mobile when you stumbled across the Lafayette plantation. I was a house slave of that household, of Preston Lafayette Sr.’s household. And he is also my father.”

You reeled back in horror. “So. . .does that mean? Preston Lafayette II is my brother???!”

She shook her head. “Nope, not this time. He’s my brother. Your father’s name was James. He was a full-blooded slave who lived on a neighboring plantation about thirty miles north.”

“But how is this possible?” your mother demanded, holding your arm. “She was born right here seventeen years ago. My husband and I adopted her. She was a baby!”

Ava glared at her, her eyes brightening inhumanely blue. “How are you skeletons still standing and breathing? It’s the work of the witches. The rule of supernatural order. Except in this case, Y/N is an exception.”

“. . .What?”

Ava suddenly waved her hand, and the air around you transformed into a place that was not the hospital. You were in the middle of a hot, blazing field, there were little black children running around carrying cracked buckets of water. Horses whinnied at the swarming flies, and poorly abused men and women sang in the fields.

“Massah completely forgot about Mama after I was born. About six years later when she had enough cloth to make her own wedding dress, she and James jumped the broom. You were born a couple of months later, right around the time Preston Jr. himself was born.

The two of you were inseparable. You played in the fields together when you weren’t in the Big House secretly learning lessons with Missus. He taught you how to ride his horse, Midnight, and you showed him how to gather berries by the river where the girls washed the laundry.

The two of you fell in love, and although you’d gotten much too old to be running around, Preston loved you to pieces. He begged Massah to let you in the house with all the fair-skinned servants. So, Massah took it one step further. He gave you to him for his nineteenth birthday.

The night of the party, however, Major Whitlock and some of his men came riding up to the front steps. They invited him in for dinner, and Preston had no choice but to join since his father was much too old to serve and he had no other male siblings. 

He had to leave you behind, but not before finding out you were expecting’. It wasn’t uncommon for those kinds of things to happen back then, but it was still big news. Preston was devastated. He never believed in slavery anyhow, but he was afraid Missus would sell you if she knew about the baby. He was supposed to be getting married to Miss Abigail Mae Shepherd, and it would not be good news to hear about a half-negro baby in the plantation.

Unfortunately, Preston was right. While he was gone, Mama was furious. Missus had made arrangements for you to be sold up to a whore house in Charleston the next week. But see the thing about Mama—she was no ordinary slave. She was a witch who’d given up her magic in order to be with a human, James. 

She sought help from her friends, but they would not help her. So, with no other choice, she decided to cast the forbidden spell.

She ignored the laws of time, erased your memories, and de-aged you in order to send you to the year (----), when you were ‘born.’ This hospital was never real, just an illusion that came with the spell. She intended for some human to adopt you so you could grow up as a normal child in the 21st century, but instead you were adopted by a white vampire.”

The illusion melted away, and once again you were in the dusty hospital.

“You don’t know the pain and suffering I went through while you were enjoying the amenities of the future. Mama, after breaking the most sacred forbidden spell of the witches, was sentenced to death by all of the North American clans. They allowed Missus to have her hanged, and then she turned her rage onto me.

I eventually ran to New Orleans to escape the Lafayettes and find the truth of our supernatural background. There, the witches accepted me, albeit begrudgingly, and taught me how to use my power. I knew I’d eventually find you, one year or another, but I didn’t expect it would take nearly two centuries to do so.”

Your heart was broken. Your whole life—as tragic as it was—was built with that man who was chasing after you now. He was the father to your unborn child, the child that would never be born. You’d grown up together, known each other inside and out. But you’d completely forgotten him and now he was coming back—and for what reason?

“So. . .witches. . .are they immortal?” Carlisle asked.

“Precisely—if they choose to enable their powers and stay that way. Only a witch can kill a witch. We witches created the first vampires in the world as a part of our Goddess’s order. The werewolves and shapeshifters and La Push were created some time before that as well.”

“But why is Preston trying to come for Y/N? I thought you said he was against slavery? If he really loves her, why didn’t he just tell her the whole truth in the first place?” Your mom demanded.

Ava's eyes turned back hazel, and a chair appeared behind her. “Because he wants to completely ruin Jasper. He blames Jasper for making him leave, and he blames Jasper for all the wars he fought with Maria in the South. And the little devil has allied herself with his cause, for no one wants to see him suffer more than she does.”

You felt Jasper tense beside you. None of this was his fault, he was just doing what he was ordered. But Preston was focusing all his energy on completely destroying your bond with him. Earlier, Jasper explained that you were his mate. Perhaps, this was a revenge plot?

“But why would he think I’d willingly fall into his arms like we’re still in love? It was over a century ago, and I don’t remember any of it!” you shouted.

“That man died in 1863 when he was turned. Since that day, he’s been stuck in the past—eternally bound to the promise to return back to you. No matter what you say, he’s always going to after you. That’s what he told his mother, and the next day she signed your papers.”

Jasper wrapped a protective arm around your middle. “That won’t happen. He won’t take her away from me. And as for Maria, I know her better than anyone else in this world. I’m not scared if it comes to a fight.”

“Why can’t I see anything anymore?” Alice cried. “And why can’t the witches help?”

“Because once a witch is aware of what they are, vampires can no longer turn them or use their gifts on them. Maria and Preston have also probably enlisted the help of witches or wolves to cover their tracks. And as for the witches. . .they have completely shunned Y/N from society. In fact, they’d probably be more willing to kill her than help, but because of me, they’re holding their preference of the law at bay.”

Edward, frustrated at the lack of his telepathic abilities, said, “So we’re going in blind, the witches won’t help—isn’t this a Volturi level threat?”

Ava sighed. “The Volturi is completely submissive to the witches. If they come near a witch family or steps within a mile radius of even the city of New Orleans, the entire vampire race will be completely wiped out. Sorry, but they won’t be much help in this fight.”

You pressed your hand to your chest, finding it suddenly hard to breathe. Immediately, Jasper caught you as you wobbled on your feet from the lack of oxygen. His scent comforted you, but you felt the distance between the two of you more than ever. At one point, you were pledged to another man; the same man after his life now.

“So what can we do?” your mother and Esme pleaded. “How can we save her? They’re bringing their newborn armies after us, the seven of us won’t be enough!”

Ava twirled a ball of light in her fingers thoughtfully. You realized that despite the fact she was biracial, she looked so similar to you. You shared the same round nose and shape of lips. 

“I really hate you more than anything, if I’m being honest. Your mom favored you and sent you away, leaving me in the dust and without a mother in a time when I didn’t understand a bit of what magic was or that the supernatural even existed,” she admitted. “But you’re still my sister, and you’re the only family I’ve got left. I’m going to try to get some of my friends to come to our side, but that’s no guarantee. Sadly, Helen of Troy is still pinned for being the start of war.”

“And we have some friends of our own,” Carlisle said. “And we’ll try to convince the shapeshifters to help too. If we could lure them back to La Push, that would mean infringing on werewolf territory and it would give them no choice but to defend Y/N.”

Jasper held you tighter, and his eyes darkened. “I don’t care what I have to do. Preston has been sorely mistaken, and now we have an old score to settle. Y/N and I are in love now, and we always will be. What happened in 1863 will stay in 1863, and I will be the one to make sure that happens.”

You snuggled into his chest, closing your eyes. You prayed to God—the Goddess or whoever—that you and your family would end up okay. You prayed for the baby that was never born, the baby that was never loved, and you prayed for your biological mother’s tortured soul. But lastly, and more importantly, you prayed for Jasper.

Don’t you like watching Jasper ride his hOnSe??

Part Three   Part Four

[fuyumiworld]

The EℓyXiOn : Chapter 2 : Snow Blaze

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

Snow brings a special quality with it,the

power to stop life as you know it dead in its

tracks

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

BERLIN. 05:07

Fuyumi had a total of 365 days to try to forget the exact shade of red that was Kris’s blood, Tao’s blood, even Althea’s blood when the assassins dug out the Tree’s essence from the slight women’s heart, but when the bartender pours her a complimentary glass of red wine after Fuyumi stumbles through the door with bloodshot eyes, it’s like a day hasn’t passed since she saw three of her closest friends, some of her only friends, die, and she could do nothing to stop it.

“Don’t want it,” she says lowly, pushing the glass back. If this wasn’t her normal bartender, Fuyumi might have thrown the glass to the ground. It’s for the better she doesn’t. Then, it really would look no different from the bloodbath that had occurred a year ago.

“You look rough,” says the bartender, his voice fuzzy with exhaustion. It’s too late—or just too early—for anyone to sensibly be here, but the bar is open twenty-four hours, closed only on Tuesdays, and with the crowd around Berlin, it’s never empty.

Fuyumi makes up only a handful of guests remaining, and she is by far the soberest. “It’s a rough day,” she admits, and before the bartender can start doing that magical thing of his that tempts Fuyumi to spill every single one of her secrets, confess every one of her sins, she gets off the barstool. “I think I’m just going to turn in. Let you have an easy one until dawn.”

“Take a shot for the road! It’s fucking freezing out there.”

“It’s fine, I got this.” Fuyumi pops on a fuzzy hunter’s hat, which protects her head, exposed now more than ever thanks to the short layered haircut she got in order fit in better with the Berliners. “And I have that bottle of whisky you recommended back at my place.”

The bartender grins. “That’s my girl.”

“Gute Nacht,” Fuyumi chimes as she steps out the bar and into the dark.

It’s louder outside than in the bar. Berlin loathes sleep. A light always burns, a building always churns out the thud of music, voices caught in the distance, carrying on a wind. For how sprawled out the city is, a beat carries across its veins, keeping the whole place alive.

Fuyumi has spent nights like these joining the nocturnal crowd. She wanders block by block, walking long distances that could be felt in her joints the next day. Every time she runs into someone on these predawn explorations, she wonders if it’s them.

Almost four million people in one city, and not once has Fuyumi ever seen a glimpse of one of the Guardians. She has scrutinized faces, trying to draw details onto them that aren’t there. A map of facial moles; a jaw sculpted finer than a statue’s; lips as downy as the pillows she hoards on her bed.

Today, the thought of EXO becomes more painful than ever. She can’t bare another walk spent on hoping, longing for a family She once took for granted.

She goes home to a shabby upstairs apartment, swinging the key around her finger on the five-minute walk over from the bar. It’s freezing outside, but lucky for Fuyumi, she has always liked the cold.

Not that she can do much with it anymore. Once, with the furrow of her brow, or the quirk of her lips, Fuyumi would be able to cast a layer of frost across every surface in sight, but ever since she was ripped away from her friends,since their last mission, she can barely drop the temperature around her to sub-zero with a heavy sigh.

At least she can still chill her whisky glass with touch alone. As soon as she’s back in her apartment, She grabs the first clean glass in her cabinet and carries it while rummaging for the whisky bottle she always places just a toe out of reach, so she’d be less tempted to knock an extra glass back at the end of the night. By the time she brings it down from the shelf, frost lattices the glass, a filigree of stark white outmatching the carven designs.

She pours two fingers worth of liquid fire and plops down onto the couch. The TV setup that came with the apartment is powered off. Usually she finds no need for its programs, but she wants them tonight. Left to her thoughts, and she’ll be seeing red all over again.

She turns on the TV and looks for a soccer match to watch. It’s a sport she has come to enjoy while stuck on this planet.

A channel broadcasts the German women’s national team’s friendly match with Nigeria from earlier in the week. She has already heard the score and a highlight reel from chatter around her, which it makes it all that more comforting to watch.

she tries to relax into her seat and simply watch as the ball darts across the field.

It has only been a minute of playtime, when she looks over the scoreboard broadcasted on the corner of her screen. Germany vs Nigeria.

Nigeria…

Could one of the Guardians be there?

She throws her head back and groans. It turns out soccer isn’t safe for her mind either. Matches between different countries always makes her question whether she is in the right place. What if Junmyeon has made a home in Argentina? What if Baekhyun is part of the South African crowd, cheering obnoxiously louder than the rest?

And if that isn’t the question on her mind—thewhere—then the other is: is she trying hard enough to find her family?

Watching the players sweat and fight and hit the grass hard enough to bruise reminds of every single battle Fuyumi has waged and defended. Every sweat-soaked, blood-drenched, frost-ridden fight he has carried out as a member of EXO. Back to back with Bronte, dealing out punches as Noa holds back her enemy, using Junmyeon’s conjured water as supply to feed her own war path of ice and fury.

All of it is scar tissue now, but she picks at it every so often, indulging in the pain of memories. She’d reopen any wound if it meant being back with EXO.

Then why has she stayed here this whole time? Since appearing in Germany’s largest city, she has never made any attempt to step beyond the country’s borders. she has searched Berlin’s streets, its bars, its museums and railways for EXO, but has stretched no further.

Around 7.7 billion people in this world, gathered together in countries and provinces and villages. How is she to know where eight people fit into that jigsaw of civilization?

she brings her head back down to watch the game.

The match has been erased from the TV screen. All color has leeched out from the picture, and so have shapes and solid sound. Though the remote rests out of her grasp, the channel has seemed to change over to something strange—something she has never seen broadcasted before.

The screen is made up of numbers, words, flickering pixels of black and white, pumping like a heartbeat. The newfound light strobes across the darkened room. Fuyumi’s face is painted in streaks of white one moment, before falling into true darkness the next.

Then, all at once, the screen freezes. While it has gone still, the room hums with new life, an energy that raises the hair along Fuyumi’s arms.

Through petrified streaks of black and white cutting through the screen, barely seeable through static, is a series of numbers.

She rips a page out of a nearby book and searches for a pen. By the time she finds one beneath the coffee table, she’s afraid to look back at the screen, in case the haphazard numbers have vanished.

They’re still there, and she drops to her knees right in front of the screen in order to make them out as clearly as possible. she copies them down onto the ripped page, digging the pen’s tip so it threatens to split the paper.

Once she is certain she has them written correctly, copied over in bold so they overpower the printed words of the damaged book, she lowers the pen and paper.

She stretches her hand towards the screen to see if it will move under her touch. The closer she gets, the louder the hum grows around her. Louder, louder, LOUD—

Electricity lances up her arm, so jarring she yelps and tumbles onto her backside. The power is snuffed out from the TV, and the screen goes dark, taking all light with it.

Seated in the dark, shaking from the bolt of electricity that ran up and down her body, using her spinal cord like a conduit, an incredulous laugh leaves her chest. “Bronte,” She murmurs. “It’s you.”

It has to be. Who else has such a striking power? Who else has a knack for the impossible?

Fuyumi has no idea how Bronte found her. She has no idea where the thunder Guardian is leading her, but she will follow. She would follow her blind, would follow her numb.

And though Fuyumi has gotten used to the cold, once loved it like another brother even, this burst of heat coursing through her body is something she treasures more.

[twinkletoes-rp]

Wolf’s Rain Ch. 7 - While You Were Sleeping (Backstories)

(Can also read on FFN | AO3 | Previous )

--

Toboe doesn't remember a time he wasn't on the streets.

He doesn't remember his parents, if he even had any (and yeah, he knows that sounds weird, but hear him out). He doesn't remember being a baby or growing up. Hell, he doesn't even know his own birthday or remember celebrating it at all. He does know he's around seventeen or eighteen years old, just based on his height and body's development and other things he knows from other humans (and he met a doctor once who helped him figure it out, examined him in lieu of pay and told him what she found (though she also found it curious as all hell that he didn't have any medical records, wasn't even in the system; he'd made an excuse and bolted after that, of course)). He makes what little money he can by helping his 'neighbors' (really anyone around the city he can help) with any chores, errands, babysitting, or anything they'll have him do, really. He spends his nights where he can, always alone and always just...being.

He knows it's strange, all of it. He supposes it should fill him with a sense of loneliness or purposelessness, maybe both, but he literally doesn’t know anything else. For him, it's...normal. Every day is the same.

Except, apparently, today.

Something's been nagging at him all day. Ever since he woke up – before that, technically, since a nightmare he can't remember jolted him awake hours before sunrise, a name (Tsukino? Natsume?) on his lips – he's felt a kind of...pull in his chest. It's like it wants him to go somewhere, do something, find someone, but he doesn't know the answers to any of those questions. He wishes he did. Maybe, if he could just start with one answer, he'd find the others soon after, and then... Well...maybe he wasn't fully truthful before. Maybe he does feel listless and futureless at times. He doesn't know who he is - so how can he know where he's going, if he's going to end up anywhere? If he could just find this one thing...maybe things would finally start changing.

He's been trying to follow the pull all day, feeling it get stronger at points, weaker at others. The strong ones, he does his best to follow, but the second he thinks he's close, it fades again. It's like whatever he's following is sentient, keeps moving, like it's playing a game – or even, perhaps, it doesn't know it's pulling at him at all? Finally, he decides to take a break when it rains for a several minute stretch, following the dirty, wet scent and sad sounds to an adorable homeless kitten he finds in a cardboard box. He picks up the tiny thing ever so carefully, no more than a month old at most, and holds it to his chest, where it can be warm and safe and dry for at least a few minutes. Once the rain stops and it's purring happily against his chest, half asleep, Toboe very gently slips it back into the nest of mostly-clean rags he’d just finished building. He feels guilty for leaving it here, where it might never be found and adopted like it deserves, so he carries its box out to a canopied section of the main road. That way, it'll have a much better chance.

Smiling softly as he pets it one more time, he doubles back the way he came. After all, his break's over, and the just-remembered pull in his chest is stronger now than it's been all day. He speeds up, steps light and fluid, the pull getting almost painful the farther he goes—

Toboe stops dead. There's someone else at the opening of the alleyway, right in front of him. He's far away, but Toboe can still make him out well enough. A good few heads taller than Toboe, lean, well-muscled, very tan skin, silver hair with a small sprig pulled back in a ponytail. There's an X-shaped scar on his chest. He looks just as confused as Toboe is. A few times in the span of moments, Toboe considers turning tail and leaving like he was never there. He's sure the other man will do the same. After all, they're strangers. He's never even seen this guy before.

But something, some inborn instinct he wouldn't disobey if his life depended on it, is telling him to wait, to look, to trust—

And then they lock eyes.

Instantly, all at once, memories flood into Toboe's head, and he's sure it must be happening to this man, too. Memories of...of him, of this man, of—of another world, their life together before this one, friends, a pack, a journey, a purpose...and dying, him and this man, brutally, just short of reaching their goal. Hot tears are blazing trail after trail down his face, the other man's, too, there's no stopping them, and before he knows it, he's back on Earth, in his own head, and though he stumbles, he's more than quick to right himself.

Tsume's name is a happy, broken cry on his lips as he bolts for the other man faster than he ever has, his feet scarcely even touching the ground, and when they're finally together again, Toboe swears he will never let him go. His arms are wrapped so tightly around Tsume's middle, he's surprised the man can even breathe, curling his fists in his familiar leather jacket as much as he can, burying his face in his chest while his entire body wracks with free-flowing tears and harsh sobs. He can hear Tsume's heart beating in his ear, his body's warm, he's safe and alive... After everything they've been through, this is the most cathartic moment he's had in what feels like centuries.

"I missed you, Tsume...!" he sobs into Tsume's chest a good few minutes later, the first chance he gets back the smallest semblance of control. "I-I didn't even know who you were...but I...I still missed you...!" He laughs at himself, more of a sob, really, but he's so happy, if still so totally confused. "I-it doesn't make any sense...!"

Tsume is quieter, of course, more into feeling and smelling and knowing his closest friend is here, curled protectively against his chest, safe and alive. There's a deep, reassuring, altogether adoring rumble in Tsume's chest, felt and heard, as he allows himself this moment to bury his face in Toboe's hair. He needs this, and he knows Toboe won't judge him.

Indeed, Toboe just smiles wider and holds on tighter, squeezing his eyes shut as more tears fall. He's learned to read him well enough to know what he's not saying. Toboe turns into his chest, angles up a little more till it's his neck, and breathes him in.

Collectively, they think, He's okay...

--

“We would find him stuffing his face.”

Hige stiffens at that sarcastic, edging familiar tone, clutching the paper grocery bags in his arms to his chest as he turns around. “Hey, I paid for these fair and square, so if you’ve got a problem, you can—!”

He stops short, blinking. It’s a ratty-looking little kid and…well, some kind of leather enthusiast, if not a prostitute or something. If his hands were free, Hige’d be scratching his head right now. “Uh…can I help you two?”

The boy steps forward, a kind of desperation in his expression that, for whatever reason, makes Hige’s stomach twist. “Hige, it’s us! Don’t you remember?”

The man puts his hand out to stop the boy from getting any closer. The kid looks up at him, confused and concerned, but understanding, too. The silver one’s eyes never leave Hige. It’s starting to weird him out. Hell, this whole thing is. Does he really think he’d hurt a runt like him? He has some standards, thank you. “Uh, sorry, but…should I?” Hige takes a small step back, ready to turn tail and run if he has to. “More importantly, how exactly do you know my name? You’re not some kind o’ stalkers, are ya?”

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t remember me,” the man demands suddenly – well, okay, maybe it’s a little softer than that, more of a firm request, but still – and Hige and the boy both give him looks.

“Hey, isn’t that a little weird, Mr. Leather Fetish?”

“Yeah, don’t freak him out.”

“I know how it sounds, all right?” the older growls, glancing at them both before settling on Hige again, crossing his arms over his chest. He takes a breath and sighs roughly, his voice calmer when he speaks up again. “But just hear me out. You’ve felt a kind of tug in your chest all day, right? It’s varied in strength, but right now, I’m guessing it’s pretty damn strong. Maybe even got pretty painful just before we showed up?”

Eyes widening, Hige goes still, discerning. Alarm bells sound in the back of his head. Where is this coming from? Why…how does this guy know that? A flash of fearful anger shoots down his spine. “Okay, now that’s creepy.” He wants to drop his bags in favor of running, even fighting, but he just bought all this, and he’s still hungry, damn it. This weird feeling in his chest’s been driving him crazy, so he figured, after trying to follow it didn’t work out, he’d eat it away. “What the hell kind of game are you playing?”

Hige’s watching his every move like a hawk, so the older man is careful to go slowly in raising his hands and shaking his head. “I’m not trying to play anything. I’m trying to get you to remember.”

It’s Hige’s turn to growl this time. “Remember what, damn it?!”

“Just do what I said, and it should all make sense.”

Hige couldn’t look more unimpressed if he tried. “‘Should?’”

The other shrugs and sets his hands on his hips, sighing again. Kiba would be better at this than he would. Hell, even Toboe. “It’s not an exact science, okay? Just humor me and do it.”

The kid beside him nods eagerly. “I want you to remember, too, Hige!” He looks away, almost shy, before coming back, hopeful and soft, smile matching. “I want…I want to be a pack again...”

And, well, Hige doesn’t know what to say to that. What does that even mean? But back to what the other one said. Hige opens his mouth to ask why he should, they’re strangers. But at the same time, he doesn’t know…something inside him is…

Balancing one of his bags on his bent leg for a moment, he takes the time to scratch his head. He’ll take the risk of dropping it if it means time to think. Despite his misgivings, something’s telling him to listen to these guys, and if they really have been feeling the same things he has all day, then maybe…?

Finally, he sighs loudly, long-sufferingly. So, all he has to do is look ‘em in the eyes, right?

He starts with the older one, just like he asked, even if part of him still feels like this is some freaky pseudo-science bullsh—

Amber meets gold, and suddenly, memories hit him like a freight train. Another world, another life, friends and a dangerous journey and a purpose…a nice flower smell, flower girl—a she-half-wolf who was…his mate (Blue…?!), some humans, and he—he betrayed his pack without meaning to, did his best to make it right—and then, in the end…!

He’s shaking, more and more as the seconds pass, eyes wide and teary and unseeing, face pale. The contents of one of his bags spills at his feet. Then, his eyes snap to the worried-looking boy’s, and he can’t keep the tears back now. No way in hell. His tremors worsen, heart pounding a mile a minute in his chest, breathing choked by the tears that burn down his face, and by the time the memories’ assault is over, he’s surprised he’s still standing.

But he doesn’t question it, and he’s certainly not gonna waste it. He lunges toward them immediately, second bag long forgotten. “Tsume! Toboe!”

A tearful Toboe all too happily follows suit and throws his arms around Hige’s middle with a cry of his name, while Tsume is content to catch the two idiots when Hige’s momentum inevitably brings them into his arms. His smile is as wide and bright as theirs, tears smarting at the corners of his eyes. They stay like that, holding each other, for a long few moments, just taking each other in.

Thank Paradise…

When they finally separate, Hige has more questions than his mouth can hold, and he can’t get enough of touching them, one hand moving over Tsume’s shoulder while the other ruffles Toboe’s hair. “Have you found Kiba yet? Is he okay? Are you guys?” Turning to Toboe, he circles his arms around his shoulders and drops his forehead to rest on his with a heavy sigh of relief and an affectionate nuzzle. The youngest closes one eye and grins joyfully as he returns it, a little laugh coming through. “Geez, runt… Don’t you dare do that to us again!”

Toboe hugs him around the chest, a tiny pout on his lips even as he chuckles. “H-hey, I’m taller this time around, older, too! Don’t start that ‘runt’ stuff again!”

Hige’s response is a headlock and a noogie, making Toboe squawk. “Sorry, kid, but you’ll always be our runt! No changin’ that! It’s practically law!” He laughs, and Toboe, holding on to his arms, sighs resignedly.

Tsume watches them with a soft smile on his face. “To answer your questions, we’re both fine. We haven’t found Kiba yet, though. We actually just found each other an hour or so ago and went looking for you two right after. I’m guessing you haven’t seen him either, then? And what about you?” He looks Hige over once, twice. He must think Hige doesn’t notice the way he avoids looking anywhere near his neck. “Are you okay?”

Hige nods. “Just fine. But if we’ve all been feeling this, I’m sure that means he has, too, so maybe he’s already looking for us. Maybe all of us being together’ll make the pull stronger somehow? In any case, hopefully it’ll be easier to find each other this way.” Moving back to his fallen bags, he looks back at them over his shoulder. “We should bring this stuff, too, at least what we can. No use starting a journey without food, right?” He chuckles. “Plus, knowing that one track-minded idiot, he’s probably been surviving on moonlight alone for Paradise knows how long...”

--

“He-hey! Look what the cat dragged in! Looks like he listened to my advice from last time even without his memories!”

Kiba stops at the knowing, amused tone, particularly those last words, turning on his heel halfway to look at three young men behind him. A spike of…something shoots through him at seeing them, like a breath of familiarity or a hiss of something he should remember, but he can’t place it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m just passing through and not really in the mood to fight, so if you’ll excuse me…”

He starts turning back, makes it a few steps, and then—

“You’re going to Paradise, aren’t you?”

Kiba stops on a dime, shoulders hunching. How…how could he…? He turns back to the oldest, eyes wide, then narrowed. “How do you know that? What’s it to you anyway?”

“We’re on our way there, too.” Golden eyes also narrow meaningfully. “And in the last world, we traveled together as a pack.”

Kiba’s heart pounds for what feels like the first time in…he can’t remember how long. Something about this is…speaking to him…but why? He’s always been looking for Paradise, for as long as he can remember, but it hasn’t always been just that. It’s been something more, too, though he’s never known what it could be. But looking at them… Could they be it, the missing piece…?

His gaze moves over them slowly, carefully, lips drawn in a thin line. “How do I know I can trust what you’re saying?”

“Look in our eyes,” the youngest offers hopefully, taking a few steps forward before the oldest sets a firm, protective hand on his shoulder, watching Kiba closely. Why does this feel almost familiar, too? “I know how it sounds, but it’s—it’s how you get your memories back. Please?” His face is so earnest that it makes Kiba want to give him everything in the world and more. It’s an odd, new, yet almost familiar feeling, one he doesn’t quite understand. “Just try it and see! For us?”

He raises an eyebrow at the others, who nod and shrug from oldest down. The one carrying the food is the one who speaks up, eyes closed serenely. “It sounds weird, I know, but the kid’s right.” He opens one eye and rubs leisurely under his nose. “What’d’ya really have to lose anyway?”

Kiba considers. Well...he does have a point. Turning toward them all the way, planting his feet, Kiba sighs lightly through his nose. He’ll start with the little one, the one doing funny things to his heart. “All right. Have it your way.”

Honestly? It hits harder than he thought it would, each member of the pack in different ways, and by the end, he’s on his knees, clutching his head, hands fisted in his hair, breathing hard as tears stream down his face. In the end, though, he looks up at them again once it’s over. They’re worried, hate hurting him like this, necessary or not. Toboe looks like he’d be at his side already if it weren’t for Tsume’s protective hand on his shoulder, cautious eyes watching Kiba closely.

Once he’s calmed down, Kiba sniffs and uses his sleeve to dry his eyes and face as much as he can, then moves to stand on somewhat shaky legs. Taking a deep breath, he looks over at them again. The beam that slowly blooms on his face is the brightest thing any of them has ever seen, so much that it steals their breath. “Hey, guys…”

That’s their cue. Toboe and Hige throw themselves forward. “Kiba!”

The force of their hug nearly knocks him flat, but he steadies them, holding them close and nuzzling them and laughing, a few more tears falling for each of them. The younger two are filling him in on their lives here and reunions, and he’s listening all too happily, so very fond and relieved. All the same, his eyes drift to their last packmate after a good few seconds. The older wolf is still standing apart from them, still watching him closely.

Tsume blinks, though, when Kiba opens an arm for him, leading the other two to follow, toothy grins lighting their faces. A light blush colors his cheeks, but then he sighs with a smile and runs headlong into the embrace, throwing his arms around all of them and letting himself nuzzle in.

Finally…!

Their pack is complete again.

Their journey restarts here.

And they will make it to Paradise this time.

No matter what.

[booyaxboy]

Thoughts on The Surge

If you ask any Dark Souls fan what that game was missing, somewhere on list someone is boud to say “robots”. Action/RPG title The Surge attempts to tackle this exact issue. Released in 2017 The Surge is the second attempt by Deck 13 to make its mark on a relatively new genre.

WHAT IS IT?

In the simplest terms The Surge is a “Soulslike” or an Action/RPG title with an emphasis on timing and the conservation of precious resources against relentless foes, each more devious than the last. Where The Surge blazes a new trail is the added layer of having to target and sever specific limbs off enemies in order to collect their sweet sweet loot. Like all Souls-likes defeating an enemy rewards the player with currency that can exchanged for upgrades to their character or gear with ever increasing cost, known here as “scrap”. Engaging with the limb targeting system will also reward the player with new gear and upgrade materials. The system is simple: decapitating an enemy wearing a helmet will reward the player with said helmet, if the player doesn’t already own it. If that piece is already part of your collection than the player is rewarded in upgrade materials that correspond to that particular body part. If the arms are targeted there is the added bonus of collecting a new weapon or weapon upgrade materials. Each part (head,body, arms, legs and weapons) uses their own unique material so there is no worry of overlap, and any farmer of materials can be focuses with no worries of a random drop not given you what you need. There are also many enemies that may not have armor equipped, these areas can be stuck for bonus damage bring the fight to a quicker close. The system even extends to non-human enemy types, as different parts of the robot enemies can be targeted and broken to slow them down or reduce their offensive vocabulary.

The Surge is also visually distinct from the Souls games that inspired it. This adventure trades the Souls medieval fantasy swords and sorcery setting for a high tech future of robots and exo suits. The story begins with a man named Warren who signs up for a new job with tech giant CREO. Warren begins the game bound to a wheelchair but thanks to the exo suit technology of his new position is able to walk again. The player takes control after the surgery to graft the exosuit to Warren’s body goes very, very wrong. Instead of being put under for the operation the automated process begins with Warren fully conscious and what could only be described as pure torture plays out. Screws and bolts are drilled directly into his body, including his head, until Warren eventually passes out. The game begins in earnest an unknown amount of time later when Warren awakes in junkyard with most of the CREO facility in ruins. From here its up to the player to survive against malfunctioning robots, exosuit wearing psychos, and a militaristic security force trying to keep Warren from unraveling the secret of what CREO was really up to.

THE NEGATIVES

The biggest issue that I had was, funnily enough, with the mechanics of the combat. Not the controls or the UI elements, but with the invisible numbers behind the scenes. Back when I first tried Dark Souls I got a grip on the flow of combat fairly early. After leaving the initial tutorial area I wandered, like many into the nearby graveyard. Unlike the enemies in the tutorial zone that felt in line with my stats, the skeletons in the graveyard were taking whole chunks of my health with a single attack with I did barely any damage at all. I had come into Souls knowing its reputation for difficulty, but this initial outing led me to think that difficulty came from a lopsided power curve opposed to any form of elegant design. I eventually figured out by watching a Let’s Play that I was heading the wrong way, and would go on to become a fan of the series. The surge is this first feeling of lopsided stats, but through the whole game. No enemy save the small drones is more than 2 hits away from taking Warren down. But said drones are never alone, and should a hit land they present a very real threat of stun locking the player until a heavier hitting baddie finishes the job. The amount of times I was one-shot but a scrub level enemy was absurd, and the amount of ambushes that occur mean there will be many a loading screen between being able to learn what you did wrong and being able to execute what you learned. Unlike in Souls when each level up gave the player a slight boost in defense, The Surge’s upgrades are tied to a plug-in system. Health and stamina boost, healing items, and this game’s version of a ranged attack are all mapped to one of a limited number of slots, and limited in effectiveness by the players power level. They system works and brings something new to the table (more on that later) but having any kind of survivability meant loading up on health boosters and heals, leaving little to no room from anything else not related to being able to tank 3 hits at a time. I can see advance players being able to do without the boosters, and a no damage run is definitely possible, but for a newcomer learning the games patterns and traps it was choice between limiting add-on to health or getting very familiar with the games loading screen.

Other smaller issues are present as well. The game takes place entirely in the CREO complex, as such doesn’t have a lot of diversity when it comes to environments. Warren moves from on ruined concrete structure to a darkened factory and back again. Literally back again, close to a full third of the game takes place backtracking through a single manufacturing complex at different points of the story. Each of the locations is also honeycombed with identical maintenance tunnels, that can keep the player running in circles if they are not careful. Adding to the confusion is a lack of general direction with level design. While most times it works fine just working through the path of least resistance, there were two spots in particular where I had to look up what my next move should be, due in combination of a lack of signaling that I should return to a previous zone and the level’s labyrinthian design preventing the game from presenting a clear goal. The visuals area to area are so similar it prompted by wife to ask, after three evenings in a row, if I had made any progress at all as what was on screen now was so similar to what was there all week, despite my location in the game being two zones later.

The sameness of the environment also bleeds into the enemy roster. An overwhelming majority of the foes in Warren’s way are other humans in different armor types with one of a limited type of weapons. Most of the games later half has Warren facing off with the CREO security force, all wearing identical armor and weapons. One new heavy variant is introduced in the second to last area, but that is also a de-powered copy of boss from just minutes before that area. They are also flanked drones, but even those are just palette swaps of enemies seen through the whole game. The truly imaginative designs come in the games last area with two new types of enemy. Both are based on nanomachines: one a shape shifting blob and the other another humanoid, but one that can change his armor locations and weapon type on the fly. Of course the earlier statements of difficulty by numbers holds true, and I never bothered engaging any blobs that weren’t immediately outside a safe room due to the myriad of ways an encounter could go south.

THE POSITIVES

If it seems like I’m down on this game I’m not, it’s just kinda like that friend you only want around occasionally because he gets really aggressive for no reason, makes every one else really uncomfortable and once in a while breaks something, but mostly he’s a good time.

The general feel of combat is the games strongest point. Weapons, even those in the same class, feel distinct thanks to variations of moveset. Animations and sounds create a visceral portrait of the future that had me looking for the next fight. The aforementioned upgrade system allows for a wide range of experiments without worrying about being locked into a build, if the player is competent enough to shed some of the health upgrades. Even in the face of the blandness of the levels, the intricate design of each on a wireframe level was very cool. Following the path forward would eventual cut back into itself, unveiling a shortcut back to the level’s safe room. If a player got the layout down then no destination was more than a minute or so away, despite a level being hours long from start to end.

An undeniable win was the games approach to boss battles. Each fight could be approached is classic video game style, hit the guy till the bar goes away, or in a new way unique to each fight. Fighting a bibedial machine not unlike the big thing from Robocop I was able to trick its own homing missiles to hit the boss instead. A late game example was being able to trick a boss into damaging the environment around us to prevent reinforcements from joining the fight.

THE SUMMARY

The Surge was worth the time I put into it at the end. I can’t say it was worth the money, as I got the game for free through Xbox’s Game Pass program. It presented a new wrinkle in the Souls-genre and unlike the studio’s last outing, Lords of the Fallen, kept me interested enough to see it through to credits. The game presents a challenge for those looking for one, and the number of options presented to the player makes the road to success feel like your own despite the limited number of actual options. Fights are tense, enemies are readable if overpowered, but no challenge ever feels impossible despite seeming unfair.

Overall: Positive

[+] Intense, gritty combat is always engaging

[+] Criss crossing level design makes every shortcut a welcome sight, and keeps whats around the next corner a mystery.

[+] Limb targeting for loot makes farming player driven without the worry of random drops.

[+] Boss battles are unique and memorable

[-] Enemies and environments lack distinguishing features, leaving a feeling of sameness past the game’s second area.

[-] Most of the games challenge comes from over powerful enemies, even basic units can kill in a single hit.

[-] Conveyance of the next objective is not always clear, often going objectives are found by following the path of least resistance as opposed to being presented as a goal.

[thesouthernpansy]

sacred geometry (2/?)

stanford pines/bill cipher chapter 2/? ford arrives at backupsmore university ready to put his head down and get lost in his classwork. his new roommate seems to have come prepared to haul him back out, again. that, and eat uncooked blocks of ramen. (it’s a college au, let’s crack some books!) don’t want to risk breaking the post by adding a link, but this story is also on ao3, same title, username thesouthernpansy ~

“’No more than two hours to complete’ my foot.” Ford quotes the physics manual with venom as he stalks out of the lab, doubling back briefly to shuck his gloves and slam them into the specialized waste receptacle. His lab partner follows him out, more subdued, wrangling the school-issued goggles over his glasses with some difficulty.

“'No more than two hours to complete' my foot.” Ford quotes the physics manual with venom as he stalks out of the lab, doubling back briefly to shuck his gloves and slam them into the specialized waste receptacle. His lab partner follows him out, more subdued, wrangling the school-issued goggles over his glasses with some difficulty.

“All's well that ends well, right? We got it to precipitate in the end.”

Ford takes in a sharp breath through his nose. “I suppose. Still, it shouldn't have been like pulling teeth and you know it, Fiddleford. The equipment in this place is a disgrace.”

“Can't even figure why the stock room is still holding on to all those thermometers if they all have air bubbles in the mercury,” agrees Fiddleford thoughtfully.

“Exactly! And how are we supposed to blaze a trail of scientific progress when we're working from texts that are barely a paleographic step past cuneiform tablets?”

Fiddleford shrugs a shoulder, pats Ford absently on the arm. “Good thing we're geniuses, huh?”

“Good thing,” agrees Ford, feeling the ire start to drain from him. He offers Fiddleford a small smile. “I'm fairly sure the Bunsen burner would have blown up in my face if you hadn't been here.”

“That wiring was a nightmare.” Fiddleford shakes his head, drops his labcoat into the designated bin. Ford follows suit, collecting his bag from the hook by the door as he passes it. They leave side by side in a tired, victorious silence.

Fiddleford McGucket was the first unexpected spot of good luck in Ford's otherwise disappointing college experience. They'd met weeks before the official start of classes, sitting for many of the same exemption exams that would allow them to skip the tedious introductory courses their majors otherwise required. There hadn't been time for much more than cursory introductions back then, but their test scores saw them thrown together in several of their classes after that, both of them inclined to gravitate towards a familiar face when the time came to choose partners for their inevitable labs.

And, as it turns out, Ford and Fiddleford are an exceptional compliment to one another intellectually. Ford is good with concepts, at ease with proofs and equations and long stretches of silence lost in his own mental map of even the most complicated and abstruse theories. Fiddleford excels in the tangible, mechanics and practical applications, the translation of the abstract into something he can hold in his hands.

Plus, speaking of hands. Ford is nearly certain Fiddleford had noticed his abnormality during their first meeting, but it hadn't actually come up until much later, when Ford's cursing as he struggled with a pair of latex gloves had made it obvious and unignorable. Fiddleford had looked over, frowned a little. Then he handed Ford the jar of sodium bisulfate he was struggling to open.

“How about a little help? I'd bet you dollars to donuts you could get a better grip on this than I can.”

That, Ford recalls, was the exact moment he'd started to consider Fiddleford a friend. He isn't sure he's ever truly had one, before. At least, not one that wasn't related to him, and that is a train of thought he refuses to follow any further.

Late autumn darkness has fully set across the campus by the time they step outside, chill and brittle and already heavy with the smell of coming frost. Ford digs his chin into the collar of his coat and squints up at the sky.

“Headed back to the dorms?” Fiddleford asks.

“The observatory, actually,” says Ford.

“Sure is a good night for it,” says Fiddleford amicably. “I didn't think it was still open this time of night, though.”

Ford clears his throat. “It isn't, technically. Professor Neilson loaned me the keys. I have, uh, there's a personal project I've been working on.”

The expression that jumps onto Fiddleford's face is excited and puzzlingly sly.

“You taking a girl up there?” he asks, nudging Ford with his elbow.

Ford startles, sputtering. “I am most certainly not.”

“Plenty of girls would find it real romantic,” Fiddleford tells him. He probably means it to be encouraging.

“No doubt they would find it much less romantic to be ignored for an hour while I take astronomical readings.” It comes out with more bite than intended, Ford's hands clenching into fists in his coat pockets. He can't explain why Fiddleford's assumption has thrown him so badly, but his whole body is prickling suddenly with nervous energy.

To his credit, Fiddleford doesn't seem thrown in the least.

“Maybe she'd surprise you,” he suggests. “Won't know until you try.”

“There's no girl, Fiddleford,” insists Ford.

“Okay, okay,” laughs Fiddleford. “My mistake, never mind.”

Ford expects him to elaborate, wishes he would, but nothing else comes. It gnaws at Ford, itchy and awkward in the way so many subtleties of everyday human interactions tend to do.

“Do I—have I been acting like there's someone?”

Fiddleford glances at him sideways, smirks. It's all but audible confirmation.

“There's been a little extra pep in your step. I'm not about to force you to talk about it if you don't want to.”

“I wouldn't know what to say,” says Ford honestly.

“Girls can be like that, sometimes,” sighs Fiddleford a little wistfully, and this time Ford lets the assumption slide. They're technically still having the same conversation, but Ford feels like he's holding onto his half of it by his fingernails.

The domed roof of Dithery Observatory is a welcome lifeline, cresting just above the concrete silhouette of the library. Ford peels away with a hasty farewell and a genial dismissal of his friend's 'if you ever want to talk about it'. What he wants is the silent, impassive company of a refracting telescope, the still peace of an empty space to himself, a vast spread of stars ready to spill its mysteries to the brilliant mind capable of cracking it open.

Clutching his borrowed ring of keys, Ford half-jogs the remaining distance to his destination. The metal teeth bite into his palm; it's grounding, a completed circuit between his body and his racing brain. He counts out his steps as he slows, the even cadence, no room for any extra pep, whatever that's even supposed to be.

Ford crosses the courtyard, and stops.

Even in the dim yellowy glow of the observatory's single ancient doorlight, it's clear that the door is open. Just an inch or so, like the last person in had tried to slam it shut behind themselves without knowing about the way the deadbolt sticks. Not Professor Neilson, then, not anyone Ford can think of who ought to have the authority to close the building for the night. Ford's thoughts list out the possibilities: vandals, some kind of fraternity-born prank, an illicit rendezvous like Fiddleford had been alluding to. The prospect of such misuse puts steel in Ford's spine as he goes in, making sure to shut and lock the door properly behind him.

“Hello?” he calls, rounding up the stairs. “Who's there?”

Ford finds no signs of life as he makes it to the main observation deck. At first, the same seems to hold here as well. Then something in the instruments booth catches his eye. Through the window comes a brief, muted light, like someone clicking a flashlight on and off very quickly. A shape comes into view, unexpected and familiar, ugly sunglasses and artfully swept hair.

“Bill?”

“Hiya, roomie!” Bill saunters over, waving both hands in greeting. “Here for a little late-night stargazing?”

“What are you doing here?” asks Ford.

“What are you doing here?” Bill fires back.

“I'm allowed to be here,” replies Ford, feeling stunned.

Bill's hand goes to his chest in mock-outrage. “Well I never! I see how it is. You're allowed to scope the cosmos at unreasonable hours, but I'm not? Just because you're Mr. Science? That sounds like an unfair double standard to me, and I won't stand for it!”

“No, that's not—” Ford interrupts himself with laughter. “The door was supposed to be locked.”

“Ohhh,” says Bill, rocking back on the balls of his feet. “Oh boy, is somebody in trouble?”

“Possibly. It wouldn't be you, if you were worried about that.”

"I wasn't." Bill fires Ford a shit-eating grin when he looks over. Maybe it would be irritating, under different circumstances, but as it stands Ford is too overcome by the absurd coincidence of the situation to be anything but relieved. Of everyone who could have taken advantage of the unlocked door, it was Bill, who just wanted to look at the stars. It feels significant in a way Ford can't quite put his finger on, yet.

"Good to know." Ford leaves his things in a heap by the telescope platform, bends to retrieve a notebook and his leather-bound journal. Bill doesn't move other than to cock his head to one side, his gaze a palpable thing, expecting and exacting. He's waiting for something, that part is clear enough. If he didn't seem so fundamentally like he's never required anyone's permission to do anything in his life, Ford would assume he's waiting to be asked to stay.

For all his earlier eagerness for solitude, Ford finds that he doesn't mind the idea of that at all.

He looks up. adjusting his glasses. Bill looks back.

"Would you like to stay?" asks Ford.

"Fordsy, I thought you'd never ask!" Bill swoops closer, circling Ford to hover by his elbow. He hooks his chin over Ford's shoulder, tiptoed, angling for a peek at the books in Ford's hands. "Come on, let's see this exciting secret science business you're supposed to be here doing."

"Why do you sound like you don't believe me?" asks Ford, a little defensive. Bill leans into him, radiating a lazy line of warmth that settles in the hollow of Ford's chest.

"Psh, I believe you."

Ford can feel Bill's breath against his neck when Bill talks, little puffs of heat.

"That's not the point," Bill asserts, jabbing a finger into Ford's arm for emphasis. "Aren't we all paying schmucks in this for-profit institution? Supposed to be here, not supposed to be here--what a crock! Who decides this stuff anyway?"

"The head of the astronomy department?" offers Ford.

Bill barks a laugh, slaps a hand against Ford's back hard enough to make him stumble forward.

"Got yourself friends in high places, huh?"

"I didn't mean it like that," says Ford hastily.

"No, no, you're very impressive," says Bill, leering. "I'm very impressed."

It's a strange fractal of self-awareness, Ford overly aware of Bill's hand still pressed between his shoulder blades, aware of his own awareness like an itch, like the damp cuff of a woolen sweater, just the wrong side of comfortable. The full shape of it spirals away from him, down and down, no bright thread of logic to pick out and aid his tugging it apart. Just the twist of it in his gut, the awareness, the itch.

"I'm starting to regret asking you to stay," he says, and means it--not for the right reasons, the reasons he'd like there to be, something he could note and measure and cite. No proper scientist would take a simple feeling as proof of anything, as if Ford even knew what he might posit it to prove.

Bill cackles gleefully. "Too late! It's vampire rules, now, smart guy, you can't get rid of me that easy! Now make with the science already."

"All right, all right," chuckles Ford. He takes a heavily notated scrap of paper from his journal and unfolds it. "Wait here a minute."

"Not my strong suit," says Bill. "What am I waiting for?"

Ford gestures with the paper. "I have to set the telescope's relays to the optimal optical configuration for the current atmospheric condition."

"On it!" Before Ford can fully process the words, Bill snatches the paper out of his hand and dashes for the instrument booth.

"I--Bill, wait! You know how to adjust the relays?" Professor Neilson hadn't entrusted Ford with the keys to the observatory so he could let someone else loose on the building's intricate, frankly fussy control system. Sagan forbid if Bill breaks something--

Bill spins to face him, laughing, his awayward momentum unbroken. "What, like it's hard?"

It's not the reassurance Ford hoped for. "It is if you don't know what you're doing!"

"Luckily for you, Fordsy, I always know what I'm doing." Bill fires a finger-gun in Ford's direction, and the door to the booth slams shut.

Above him, Dithery's massive telescope shudders to life, the overtaxed, undermaintained structure creaking and popping its familiar protests as it eases into position. Ford holds his breath. Slowly, in playful fits and spurts that strike Ford as far too internally consistent to be accidental, it tilts up, swings sideways, right and right, then too far right, and left again. It pauses, just briefly, dips downward and bobs back up--like a bow, and under his anxiousness ignites a giddy relief that has Ford laughing into his hand.

By the time the telescope grinds to a halt, relief is too small a word for what Ford is feeling. He's impressed. He glances at his watch, at the stars visible though the slotted dome, compares what he sees to the table penned across the center fold of his journal. He does this because he's a scientist, and a scientist always verifies his data, even when he's been there dozens of times before, looking at the same graceful angle of glass and steel aimed at the same swatch of sky and knowing through the sheer power of familiarity that Bill has positioned the telescope perfectly.

It's a little, Ford thinks, like being in the lab with Fiddleford, the rare rush of knowing that his present company can be trusted to be competent, to keep up with whatever wild strides Ford has decided must be taken. Absently, he rubs at a spot on the side of his neck. A little, but not really.

Ford is smiling as he sets to his next task; he takes a thick packet from his bag and kneels to spread it out next to the telescope platform, several separate sheets of paper taped together to form a meticulously plotted chart of the visible night sky that takes up a considerable portion of the floor. He flips his journal open to the relevant page and leaves it where he can see it as a reference.

"Wow, graph paper? Really?" Bill appears at the edge of Ford's chart, peering down. "And here I was thinking you couldn't possibly get any nerdier than the Star Trek socks."

Ford doesn't respond beyond a laugh; any implications of his nerdiness have long since stopped carrying a sting from most people, and in the meantime Bill is looking over the chart with enough keen, genuine interest to suggest maybe there hadn't been much of a sting intended to begin with.

"This must've taken you a while." Crouching closer, Bill gestures towards the thick colored lines that curve across the visible pages of Ford's journal. "What do these measure?"

Ford's heart does a strange sort of kick-flip in his chest, excitement tempered by nerves. He fumbles with his ancillary notebook, briefly forgets the page he's looking for, then nearly smacks Bill in the face with it in his eagerness to show him.

"Watch the nose, smart guy, I like this one."

"Sorry," says Ford quickly, the surge of embarrassment he feels less important than the present opportunity to share his research with an interested party. He adjusts his glasses, points to the block of complex equations he'd inadvertently used as a weapon. "You see, these are functions--"

"Duh," sighs Bill. "That's not what I asked."

"Right," says Ford, hesitating. Past experience tells him this is the part where Bill's eyes start to glaze over with disinterest or derision, where their respective senses of enthusiasm shift suddenly into perfect inverse proportions of one other. It's happened often enough before--not recently, Ford has always been a quick study in aversion--so he doesn't understand the odd nerves that shallow his lungs now, the prickling sensation that the outcome of this conversation matters somehow. He hesitates, and Bill seems to pick up on it like a hound on a scent.

"Getting shy on me, Fordsy? Is it weird? Are you abusing the confidence of an authority figure for strange and unsavory perversions of the scientific method?"

“For--? Sweet Turing, Bill, what exactly do you think I'm doing, here?”

“That scandalized act won't work on me,” Bill tsks, “I know you.”

Ford bristles at the assertion, starts to protest; this chance interaction is the longest one they've had to date beyond the boundaries of their shared room, and those have been few enough on their own. They resemble friends, perhaps, in the way that Venus resembles a star to the untrained eye, but it goes no deeper than that. Ford can't name a single class Bill is enrolled in, what books he's read, where he comes from.

And yet, he thinks, at least Bill didn't assume he'd come here to impress a girl.

“What do you know about ley lines?”

[neonthewrite]

Vanguard (Trust AU)

(So I guess it’s just a given that I’ll forget to crosspost stuff if I don’t post them at the same time. That’s okay, though. Here is another glimpse into the unlife of Colfax as a vampire.)

 Colfax has lived a really long time. As one of the founding members of the Vanguard, he might seem like just another enforcer, but he's really .... not. At all. And the Vanguard doesn't like it when vampires make a spectacle of things, because secrecy.

Colfax happens to be really good at bringing the drama in these situations.

Reading time approx. 5-10 minutes; Some violence described

Vampire Trust AU co-created with @creatorofuniverses , with more stories available on @alittleblogoftrust

~~~

Year: 2008 Colfax adjusted the collar of his shirt, an attempt to make the tie more comfortable. As with most brand new clothes, that was a tough task. The whole suit was fresh from the tailor, ready for him to go and carry out a task he wasn’t fond of. He’d have loved to ignore the messages, but this was critical and he was the nearest Vanguard enforcer.

Someone was drawing attention. A spree killer, the media was saying. It was spreading information faster than the Vanguard could control what was getting out. That would not do.

After seeing some of the photos his sister had sent him, it was a marvel people weren’t already whispering about vampires. Disbelief had worked for so long, but now, it was harder than ever to keep people’s noses out of it. Photoshop was powerful, but so were conspiracy theories.

Colfax adjusted the cuffs of his jacket next, a frown fainter than starlight on his face. He’d tracked their quarry to the unassuming little neighborhood of quiet shops and a dive bar or two. The edge of downtown was only blocks away, but here, the hunting ground was near perfect.

He looked like he could be waiting for an event. Standing at a corner by a homey little coffee shop, Colfax wasn’t hiding. In fact, he was as obvious as he could be without making a scene. Haloed by a street lamp, passersby gave him a wide berth.

He was willing to wait there past the last call if he had to. The vampire making a name for themself in this city was in the pub across the street--an old business that held on while the shops around it changed faces every decade or so.

The place was on the police’s list of suspect places, and in fact most nights they’d had a man undercover to watch for any patterns. There had been three deaths within a mile, though not all victims could be placed there. If Colfax were to guess, the pub was the place to spot lone prey on the move without drawing too much attention. Even across the street, he’d already noted three people walking alone on the same block within easy view.

He wasn’t left watching people go by for as long as he expected. Before midnight even approached, Colfax spotted a young woman passing the pub with a pair of friends. When they continued down the block, she waved a goodbye to them. She’d parked nearby, so she said, and would see them tomorrow. Innocent, noisy, and brazen against the night. She may as well have worn a sign declaring her a free meal.

Any other time, it might be Colfax taking her up on that challenge. The most danger she’d face would be lightheadedness for a few days, perhaps a harsh dehydration headache.

If she fell victim to the other one, she would become famous, but not in a way most young people wanted.

By the time she was snatched into an alley mere steps from her car, Colfax wasn’t standing under the streetlight anymore. He arrived at the alley in time to see a flicker of motion as a door closed. Just across from the pub’s back door, an unoccupied building waited, locked up and perfect for waiting out prey like a trap door spider.

Ah. Clever.

A locked door didn’t mean all that much to Colfax. He followed into the abandoned building, a part of him awakening to relish the chase. His target might be another vampire, but a hunt is a hunt. Halls and offices stood in place of a jungle, and he followed unerringly after the faint sounds of movement.

The other vampire didn’t make things difficult for him. Doubtless they expected no one to have noticed the woman disappearing from the street. Doubtless, they had allowed themselves to become arrogant after weeks and weeks of the same without any retribution.

Hunting in the same place wasn’t a problem. In fact, it was still fairly common among the stubborn ones who didn’t want to move around too often. Vampires could claim their territory if they were willing to stand up for it, and the hunting in their radius was good enough.

Making a name for oneself? That was frowned upon.

Colfax stalked his quarry past several spacious office rooms filled with old cabinets and furniture that had been collecting dust for years. Chairs and trash bins stacked high in some areas, like misshapen pillars distracting the eye and hiding strange shadows.

Luckily, Colfax could see quite well in the dark.

He followed the sounds to what might once have been a conference room. His nose wrinkled slightly as he approached the door. A lot of blood had shed in that room, and so far none of it fresh. It was the vampire’s lair, without a doubt, and the young woman might be facing the end of her life soon.

Colfax rounded the threshold of the door without an attempt at further stealth. Once he found the other vampire, he didn’t need to hide. He wasn’t the one in trouble.

The lair was about what he’d have expected. A long table lay on its side, blocking off the view of the back third of the room. In front of it, the old carpet was stained over and over with the death blows of many people that had then been found all over the city. Dull blades piled in the corner, machetes and cleavers for what purpose Colfax wished he wasn’t privy to.

Really, it was just so over the top and needlessly flashy.

Colfax adjusted his lapel while the stunned vampire blinked at him. Already the troublemaker had the young woman entranced and staring helplessly up at him. His lips were parted and his fangs were showing, but he’d yet to break her skin. She only sported a bruise on her arm, shaped like the vice-like grip that dragged her away.

Credit to the upstart, he recognized what Colfax was and snarled. “Let me guess,” he hissed. “Vanguard?”

Colfax didn’t deign to give him a quick answer, and instead fiddled with the cuffs of his jacket again. Once he’d assured they were neat and even and his opponent was annoyed, his gaze flickered up again. “Vanguard,” he confirmed. “You’ve drawn notice.”

The vampire grinned, smugness and pride the only emotions he had room for. “Yeah? Here to give me a certificate? Maybe a trophy?”

“A warning,” Colfax answered. Already he was bored, and he had a feeling he knew exactly where this conversation would go. The vampire would resist him, and get arrogant, and he’d have to get dramatic. “The single warning you are allowed to cease your high-profile killings and allow the growing media interest to peter out before you quietly leave town and establish roots elsewhere.”

The vampire sneered. “The Vanguard hasn’t done much for the past three hundred or so years,” he pointed out. “I’ve been at this for nearly seven hundred, you poor brute. It isn’t what it once was, no matter what they might have told you when they signed you on as a new suit. I will do as I please.”

There it was. The exact sort of thing he could expect from a hotshot like this. Plenty of age behind him, a lot of experience, and the hubris to go with it.

Luckily, for his dramatics’ sake, precious few could surprise him with their age.

“Your warning has been given,” he declared. “Without promise of cooperation, I am at liberty to pass judgment. Should you request it, I can be swift.”

The other vampire actually let his claimed prize drop to the floor. She landed in a seated position, still staring up at him. Despite the harsh impact, she didn’t make a single sound of pain.

“Back off, enforcer,” the vampire warned. “I don’t care what you tell your masters about this, that you couldn’t find me, or you couldn’t keep up. If we have to fight, I won’t go easy. This is my town.”

Colfax side-eyed the woman on the floor. The poor girl was probably going to have some wild nightmares after all this, hypnosis or not. When he met the other vampire’s gaze again, he tugged on his hypnotic ability, just for a moment. “My masters,” he echoed, neutral in tone yet somehow as derisive as could be.

Vampire hypnotism wasn’t the easiest ability to master for most. Some could take centuries to effectively enthrall their victims, and decades of unlife were required at minimum for the ability to appear at all. It was a tricky defense, and took a lot of practice. Only the most practiced or the geniuses among their numbers could hope to turn it on one of their own kind.

Colfax happened to be both.

The other vampire’s eyes widened, and he lurched to the side with uncanny speed. He aimed to reach the door and find a better hiding place, perhaps, but Colfax could match his speed; he fed regularly, too.

His body slammed into the other’s with enough force to send them both flying against the door frame. The metal squealed and bowed in the middle, and Colfax latched a hand on the man’s shoulder just above the collarbone. Both of them had their fangs bared. Colfax’s eyes blazed with quiet anger, the other with loud rage.

“Seven hundred years,” Colfax said, as he leaned his free arm over the other vampire’s chest. “So Edward and Isabella had gotten married. Did you also attend the wedding? The coronation? What other fantastic things have you done in this long life?”

“Enough to last,” his opponent hissed. A kick with enough speed and power behind it to break cement came swift and unguarded at his ribs. Colfax’s bones didn’t yield, but he stumbled back anyway.

He followed the other vampire into the hall, leaving behind the hypnotized young woman. She was safe, and had been the moment Colfax stepped in. He let the other dart around a corner ahead, anticipating an ambush.

Indeed, as he came to the corner, a heavy shape dropped from above, barreling Colfax against the opposite wall. Drywall cracked as the man pinned him with a snarl, and Colfax opted not to fight back. Nonchalance would go a lot farther here than any defiance he could offer. The other’s snarl only became more pronounced.

Keyed up on bloodlust and adrenaline, the other vampire hissed in his face. “I was having a nice evening, enforcer,” he complained. “I think I’ll make my biggest spectacle yet tonight. I’d like to see the Vanguard try to cover me up after this.”

It was just too easy.

“I’ll oblige you,” Colfax spat back, once again meeting that gaze and giving a yank of his hypnotic influence.

As the man faltered, Colfax pushed back against him, grasping the front of his shirt and hoisting him up easily. As the vampire flew backwards in his abrupt toss, he struck the corner of the hallway and something snapped while the wall splintered. A screech echoed in both directions down the hallway, only exciting Colfax’s instincts further. He was upon his quarry before the other vampire even landed on the ground.

With his spine broken, the hotshot could only lie there as Colfax lurked over him. Behind his pain and anger, new fear lurked in his undead heart. Centuries weren’t easy to build up, but he might as well be fresh to his abilities compared to Colfax.

“You don’t even know how to brag about your age,” Colfax spat with contempt. “Allow me to demonstrate.” He stomped downwards on the man’s ribs to prompt a breathy howl, then squatted down.

“A thousand years ago, I watched the English skirmish with the Danes.” He grasped the man’s arm as it flailed at him, snapping both bones in it. “A thousand years before that, I heard news that Ovid had been banished from Rome.”

The man tried to sit up and twist away, and Colfax settled with a simple, straight hook to the face to leave the vampire leaning dazed against the wall. “I wasn’t done. A thousand years further and King David was building his promised land. He knew about our kind, you know. Someone like you thought to make sure of it.”

Vampires don’t strictly need to breathe, but the other was panting with open fear now. He tried to scoot away only for Colfax to grab the front of his shirt again. He pulled him close to meet his eyes one last time. “A thousand further still and my name already meant something. I could go on, but it seems you understand. You’ll be a spectacle, but not for the public. The Vanguard accepts your example. Congratulations.”

After so much teasing and pain, the other didn’t have the energy to resist. Colfax leaned forward and snapped as quick as a viper, opening the artery at the side of the vampire’s neck. All without taking a single drink of the dead blood flowing slowly there. A final insult.

He leaned back, spitting into a handkerchief and wiping away the remaining blood while the other vampire slowly and painfully ran out of stored energy to sustain his unlife. It was no stake to the heart, but that was a hunter’s method.

Colfax left him there as he stood and wandered back towards the conference room. He sent Gwen a quick text with the address of the building; she would likely have it razed and rebuilt. She liked projects like that to cover up a scandal and reinvigorate an area at the same time.

The young woman was unconscious when he found her. After a check that he wasn’t completely covered in blood that might get her in more trouble, he hoisted her up easily and carried her back out of the place she’d almost died.

He knew an officer to call to patrol the area and happen to find her and get her home. For unwittingly aiding the Vanguard, she’d earned a modicum of special treatment.

It was the least he could do. 

[razieltwelve]

World Shepherd (Final Effect)

The Council of Ancients, the ruling body of the restored Cetran Union, had never been able to agree on whether the Dia-Farron were complete idiots and madmen or geniuses of the highest order. 

On one hand, they owed the Dia-Farron their lives. It was the Dia-Farron who had worked out how to repair the damaged Ark ships that had been found centuries ago, floating in the vastness of space, one last, desperate attempt by the Cetra to survive the onslaught of the Grimm. Millions of Cetra had been aboard those ships, their lives maintained by special stasis pods. Yet critical systems had been damaged. Awakening them safely should have been impossible. The Dia-Farron had found a way, and so the Cetra lived on, their cities rebuilt, their worlds resettled.

But the Dia-Farron were also the people who built gigantic engines of war and destruction because they thought blowing up entire solar systems was cool. And the less the Cetra said about that ridiculous plan to build a giant transforming robot the size of a planet, the better. Especially since they’d actually built the damn thing. Admittedly, though, it was kind of cool.

Nevertheless, when the Dia-Farron Council of Awesomeness requested a meeting, and with the official backing of the Empress of the Arendelle Empire no less, they had no choice but to agree to an audience. Naturally, they would be having that audience on a Cetran world, and the Dia-Farron delegate would be asked to hand over any and all weapons of death and destruction (including miniaturised death rays, net guns, and neural bombs) prior to the meeting.

X     X     X

“Welcome, Tarran of the Dia-Farron, the Council of Ancients welcomes you.”

Tarran eyed the Council dubiously. He really shouldn’t even be here, but he’d lost that damn bet to Luxa. “It is an honour to be here, Esteemed Council.” His hamster peeked out of his shirt pocket and gave a quiet squeak of agreement.

The Council spent another few moments staring at him. It was probably an attempt to intimidate him. It would have worked on most people too. The Council meeting room was an ornate chamber on the home world of the Cetra. Like much of their architecture, it hadn’t been built. It had been grown, a group of trees coaxed into the correct shape through the innate bond between Cetrans and all forms of life. Even the frescoes and other decorations had been grown, a testament to their skills.

Honestly, Tarran would have just gotten a bunch of robots or the eranthem to do it. It would have been quicker and cheaper but just as good. Then again, that was one of the differences between the so-called Children of Remnant and the Cetra. 

“Have you had a chance to review the information I forwarded prior to my arrival?” Tarran asked.

“We have.” Ifalna was one of the science advisors of the Council. She was incredibly intelligent, and Tarran thought she was one of the few Cetra who wouldn’t be out of place in a Dia-Farron lab. “It was… troubling.”

“These Reapers are abominations,” one of the other councillors muttered. “I trust they are being dealt with appropriately?”

Tarran sniggered. It was a point of amusement that as epic as the Cetra could be when threatening people - and they had that down to an art form - they weren’t particularly good at slaughtering things. Correction: the vast majority of Cetra were gentle, peace-loving folk who wanted nothing more than to shape their planets and the life on them. Only a small percentage of Cetrans were mentally suited to warfare, which was one of the reasons they’d struggled so mightily against the Grimm. Of course, the Cetra who’d ended up on Remnant before being wiped out by the Grimm there had been some of the most trigger-happy, which probably explained a few things. After all, most people descended from Remnant had at least some Cetran blood in them, even if it was incredibly dilute.

“Yes, yes, they’re tasting Imperial and Alliance plasma as we speak. Actually, we’re in the process of sending a System Processor over there. There are a lot of Reapers, and… who knows? Maybe we’ll find a use for all of the corpses.”

“A System Processor?” The same councillor shivered. “Is that truly necessary?”

“Meh. It’s easier that tractor beaming everything to clean up.” Tarran chuckled. “Anyway, have you gotten to the part where we talk about the state of their planets?”

“Yes.” Ifalna spoke again. “It was… most troubling. They have settled so many worlds and charted even more, yet not a single planet in that other galaxy appears to be a Living World. That is… unprecedented.”

“Yes,” Tarran said. “And annoying.”

“Still,” Ifalna continued. “It is perhaps to be expected. The distance between galaxies would make it very difficult for any seeds from our galaxy to reach theirs.” She paused. “But there may be other complications. What if seeds have reached that other galaxy, but they haven’t taken?”

“Indeed.” Tarran smiled. Ifalna was arguably the single best researcher in the galaxy when it came to the Planetary Lifecycle. “It could be possible that certain conditions - conditions that we are not presently aware of - are interfering with the growth of seeds and the establishment of Living Worlds in the other galaxy. Therefore, we would like to make a request, one that comes with the full knowledge and backing of her Imperial Majesty Averia VII.”

There was a moment of silence at his proclamation. He couldn’t blame them. The Cetran Union controlled roughly one hundred worlds, but their territory had been given to them by the Empire and the Alliance as part of a treaty, in recognition of the aid they had given Remnant in ages long past. Their citizens were able to move freely in both Imperial and Alliance space, and the Empire and Alliance were obligated to defend them should a threat arise. As such, most young Cetra considered themselves as something akin to dual or even triple citizens. A request from the empress herself was a grave matter, worthy of the deepest consideration and deliberation.

“Continue,” the Head of the Council murmured. He was an old Cetran - more than fifteen hundred years old - but he was a shrewd politician. It was he who had instituted efforts to draw the Cetrans even closer to their allies.

Tarran smiled and discretely activated a recording device. He wanted to have this on tape. “We would ask that a World Shepherd be dispatched to the other galaxy.”

There was uproar. Absolute uproar. Someone might even have thrown a pen at his head.

“Silence!” the Head of the Council bellowed. “I will have silence!” He took a deep breath, eyes blazing, and waited for the Council to subside. “You understand that this is a very… big request.”

Tarran nodded. The Cetrans were an exceptionally long-lived race. Indeed, they routinely lived longer than a thousand years. However, they had few children, and their population grew slowly. Each individual Cetran was thus incredibly valuable to their race, which perhaps explained their aversion to conflict unless given no choice. There were perhaps one or two Cetrans per planet who qualified as World Shepherds. Maybe less.

“We understand,” Tarran said. “But we have to be sure. As much as our science has advanced, as good as we have become at seeding worlds and aiding the growth of those seeds, we are not able to interact with the Lifestream as the Cetra do. You can speak to a Lifestream, you can become one with a Lifestream. We cannot. And to ensure the best possible chance for seeds to grow in the other galaxy, we need a World Shepherd.”

They paused to consider his words. He hoped they would agree. World Shepherds were the Cetrans most sensitive to Aura and the Lifestream. They required centuries of training, but they could interact with the Lifestream in ways that made even other Cetra look like nothing more than bumbling children. A World Shepherd could accelerate the growth of a seed at an unbelievable rate, leading to the creation of a new Lifestream in a matter of days instead of years or decades.

Even amongst the august members of the Council, only one of them was a World Shepherd: Ifalna.

“We would need assurances as to their safety,” the Head of the Council said at last. “You understand… we have so few of them. The loss or injury of even one would be completely unacceptable.”

“We understand.” Tarran nodded. “The World Shepherd would be under the care and supervision of Fleet Admiral Claire Lightning Averia Sigrid Yun-Farron.”

That got murmurs of agreement. The bearer of Saviour was well known to the Cetra, and she was held in high esteem for her honour, skill in warfare, and overwhelming might.

“Furthermore, they would be housed on the Fury of Gary and would not leave that vessel without a full escort of Imperial Guard, Imperial Berserkers, and Imperial Marines.”

“I see.” The Head of the Council folded his hands together. “In that case, we can agree to dispatch a single World Shepherd to the other galaxy. The matter before us now is to choose which of our World Shepherds we will send.”

“Send my daughter,” Ifalna said, inclining her head in apology to her senior. “She is young but capable, and she is ready. Moreover, she has worked with the bearer of Saviour before. She will handle this well.”

“I see. Then it decided.” The Head of the Council turned his attention back to Tarran. “I trust you have appropriate transportation prepared? The destroyer you arrived in is less secure than we would like.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. I do.” Tarran grinned. “It should be getting here right about… now.”

At that exact instant, the flagship of the Dia-Farron Science Fleet, the Space Station/Fortress Lunille appeared over the Cetran home world. It was tens of thousands of kilometres of interlocking structures and general awesomeness that was home to enough firepower to take on an entire fleet and win. Normally, it would be stationed around Lumina Prime, one of six titanic space stations designed to protect the most sacred of all Dia-Farron research worlds from harm. 

“Well,” the Head of the Council said at last. “It’s nice to see you’re taking this seriously.”

[sammy-moo]

Bad Things

Characters: Sam x Reader, Dean, Reader’s boyfriend

Prompt: Day Seventeen, a song that you often hear on the radio

Words: 2,219

Warnings: Flangst, violence/abuse

A/N: This is the second part to Dreaming Alone. I was really tempted to make it full angst, either way I regret nothing.>:D But if you’d like to be tagged let me know!

Dean frowned when he noticed the coffee pot was empty. Usually Sam was the first one awake. He'd jog and make coffee, but today none of that seemed to been done. With a sigh Dean made his way to his brother's room. Sam was curled up and holding a pillow closely to him. Dean quickly and quietly left the doorway, and headed for the library. Dean found Sam's laptop and opened it up. 

He rubbed his face and pulled out his phone; deciding to call your phone. His heart dropped when it went to the voicemail. Someone else's voice went through the motions and he ended the call. He made quick work of trying to find you. Part of him hoped you'd be around the area they last saw you. But there was also a chance you ventured out further, which he didn't want to think of that. With no luck he quickly found a photo in his phone. It would work perfectly. 

Sam was tiredly heading down the hall and towards the kitchen. When Dean heard him coming by he quickly exited the browser and shut the laptop. 

Sam stopped in the doorway rubbing his face. His eyes were bloodshot and he still looked exhausted even though he just woke up. 

"Find a case," he asked yawning. 

Dean gulped a bit before adjusting in his seat, "Yeah. Missing person's case.... Seems a bit fishy. So get you some coffee, food, whatever you need and we'll head out." 

Sam nodded and headed for the kitchen. 

Dean quickly headed for his room to gather what they'd need. 

You slowly opened your eyes to find your boyfriend walking past the kitchen. He was grumbling under his breath. After blinking a few times and adjusting to the light, you decided to push yourself up off the cold floor. A yelp escaped as pain surged it's way up your arm; the broken bones in your hand jolting and crying in pain from the use. Tears fell down your face as you got to your feet, shaking. Your boyfriend growled and moved you away from the fridge to open it. 

"If you aren't going to make any food then get out of my way. Or better yet get out of the kitchen." 

You flinched and hurried out and towards the bathroom. Once in the safety of the locked room you peeled away your clothes. Your body throbbed as your muscles ached. Brusies and cuts decorated your body in all shapes and sizes. Every part of you seemed to cry in pain from the movements you were making. You climbed into the warm water of the shower, enjoying the small time of privacy you could get. 

Dean had his bag over his shoulder and headed for the kitchen to see Sam ready to go. He was drinking an Irish coffee. The only way he knew was the fact his brother forgot to put the alcohol away afterwards. A sigh escaped him as he took the cup from his brother. 

"What the hell Dean? I was drinking that!" 

"You don't need to be getting wasted this early. We have a case. I need you focused." 

"I am focused. I will be. I'm fine." 

"No you aren't. You don't think I haven't noticed that the past 3 and a half months have been hell for you? You cry yourself to sleep and wake up with bloodshot eyes. Even when we're invested in a case you aren't fully there. I'd rather her life be at risk than deal with you during a case like this. Damn it Sam, you need her. I'm pretty sure she needs you too." 

Sam's jaw clenched, tears forming at his eyes. He gulped and fought the urge to sob right then and there. 

"You have no idea what you're talking about Dean. Besides, this is what's best." 

"What's best? Damn it Sam.... You said you could handle it and then as soon as it happened you turned her away. You left her.... How is that what's best?" 

"It's keeping her safe. Keeping her alive Dean! I wouldn't expect you to understand. We're leaving her be and that's final." 

Dean sighed, "Fine. Let's go." 

The two brothers headed out of the bunker in their fed suits and into the car. Dean didn't let off the gas as he spead to the location of the town they left you in. 

You stepped out of the shower and wrapped yourself in the towel. Quickly, you made your way into the bedroom. You were getting dressed when your boyfriend came into the room. 

"I don't get a little show?" 

"I have errands to run," you said simply. 

He frowned and gripped your face, "You're staying home today. The doctor can wait. Your hand is fine." 

You just stood there completely blank. Fear was settled in your entire body. All you could do was simply nod. 

Dean asked the motel managers and anyone he could think of. None of them saw you. Dean sighed and the two climbed back into the car. 

"Do you think you can check the traffic cameras and any cameras in the nearby towns?" 

Sam's brows furrowed, "Uh yeah. Just head to that dinner we saw so I can pull it all up." 

Dean nodded and did like his brother asked. Sam quickly got to work on his laptop. 

Sam checked a few days back to the time Dean said the person went missing. He had no idea who he was looking for, which frustrated him. Until he figured it out. He saw you getting into a car with a man. There was a cast on your hand, causing his jaw to clench. 

His eyes darted from over the screen to his brother, "Seriously? You brought me here telling me it was a hunt...." 

"It is. We're hunting her down." 

"No we aren't Dean. We're going to leave and go find monsters to deal with."  

Dean sighed, "Sam you love her. I would give anything to have Lisa back. But I can't. I messed up and look how it ended up. I regret letting anything happen to her. It was because I left. Don't you get that?" 

Sam gulped at the memory, feeling his throat closing. Tears burned at his eyes; his heart aching. 

"Even if I wanted to Dean she has a boyfriend.... It's clear she's moved on. She doesn't need me anymore." 

Dean sighed and flipped the computer around. He got the plate and town he needed. Quickly shutting it, he grabbed it and stood up. 

"Sam come on. If you aren't going to get her, I at least wanna make sure she's alright." 

Things seemed to be fine. He had just had small fits of anger. But those moments were well past gone. His small fits of anger had melted into rage. You didn't know what set him off, but all you knew is you wanted out. You quickly grabbed your phone and hurried for the door. All you wanted was fresh air. Something outside of the confines of the apartment. You were feeling trapped- prisoned. 

However he grabbed you and pulled you back, shutting the door. He threw your phone to the wall busting it. Tears fell down your face. That phone held the memories of you and Sam. Though your boyfriend never knew that. If he had, he would've destroyed it long ago. The last bit of Sam you had was now broken and gone. A sob escaped as you pleaded for him to stop. He didn't care. He slammed you into the wall. 

"You don't get to leave without my permission! I don't need you whoring it up out there!" 

Punches were thrown your way, leaving you shaking. You headed for the kitchen. Part of you hoped you'd find something to use as defense, the other just wanted away from him. Even still, he knew what you were doing. And suddenly the kitchen seemed like the worse idea in the world. 

Knees were thrown into the mix. Your ribs ached as your lungs felt like they were on fire. He slammed your head causing a gash to open up. Blood pooled onto the surface and fell down your skin. Tears began to mix in the crimson liquid. 

Sam and Dean found their way to the apartment complex after the call with the police station. Dean lead the way in, having been the one to make the call. Sounds of slamming and shouting could be heard, but not pinpointed to the exact place yet. Dean approached the door and knocked. Shuffling was heard from beyond the door and soon your boyfriend answered it. 

"Can I help you," he spat out angrily. 

Sam's face fell upon the sight of him. 

Dean cleared his throat and held up his badge, "FBI. Agent Bruce and Banner. We need to have a word with Y/N. We've been informed she lives here." 

Your boyfriend huffed, "She doesn't live here." 

Sam's stomach dropped in worry. Millions of possibilities clouded his mind. Had you moved on? Had you been kidnapped? 

Dean's brow shot up, "Well just a few days ago she was still here. Any idea where she went?" 

He shrugged, "Didn't tell me. Don't care." 

Your boyfriends lies were soon realized when they heard faint sobs. Your breathing shook as you breathed in to let out another cry. Every part of you throbbed as your lungs were blazing. You were dizzy and couldn't tell up from down. 

Dean quickly walked in with Sam following. Your boyfriend was beyond vexed now and tried to shove them out. 

Sam quickly moved and hurried for the room your cries were coming from. Dean on the other hand slammed the man into the wall. 

Sam's eyes widened at the sight of you as he hurried over, "Y/N!" 

You sobbed and blinked hard, trying to focus on him. He was kneeling down beside you, worry written all over his face. 

"F- fuck.... Hang on okay? We're getting you out of here...." 

You cried out in pain when Sam gently lifted you up into his arms. He easily held you in one arm as the other brushed your hair from your wound. Sam hurried towards the door with you in his arms. 

Dean noticed your condition and his jaw clenched. Dean decked him in the face and left. He called and left a tip to the police as he left. 

Sam laid you gently into the backseast, "Y/N hang on..... We're gonna get you to the hospital.... Please hang on...." 

However it was too late. You blacked out and Sam choked on the sob that he had been holding back.

Dean quickly climbed into the car, rushing the three of you to the hospital. He clutched the steeringwheel as the flashbacks played through his head. He quickly parked and hurried after Sam into the building. 

Sam was shaking as he held you. Even when the nurses tried to seperate him from you, he stood his ground. 

"Please.... I don't wanna leave her," he begged. 

It took Dean stepping in for Sam to wait. Dean sat impatiently tapping his foot. Sam couldn't stop pacing. Once the doctor gave him the okay, he hurried into your room. 

The sound of your heartbeat filled his ears and he sighed with relief. Even though he was told you'd be okay, he wanted to see for himself. 

Sam pulled a chair beside your bed, tears fell down his face as he gently grabbed your hand. He cradled it in his large hands, kissing your knuckles. His eyes flicked over to your injured hand and frowned. All of the marks on your body were from your boyfriend. They were all added to the marks you'd already had from hunting. His heart began to ache. 

"I'm so sorry.... This is my fault.... If I didn't push you away.... I was scared- a coward... Please forgive me.... Y/N, I need you. I want you.... I don't want to lose you... Not again..." 

Sam sighed when you didn't respond. Then again you wouldn't for awhile. You were unconscious. You would be for awhile. Your body took a lot before the point of exhaustion took over. Now you were under pain medication. You were able to sleep peacefully. And even though you were in a hospital bed, it was far warmer than a floor. Sam placed another small kiss to your hand as he rested his forehead against it. 

Sam let more tears out. This time they were ones of joy. He found you. You were going to be okay, and they saved you. Sam saved you. And he actually had you back. 

You groaned and stirred from your sleep. Your body screamed from the slight movements you bad. 

Sam looked up, his hazel eyes on you. He drew a breath in as he watched you blink tightly. 

You groaned from the light and Dean turned it down when he stepped in. 

A small smile spread across the other Winchester's face. 

You blinked a few times and slowly looked to Sam. You were still groggy and tired; the medicine taking full effect. You blinked again, thinking it was all a dream- that Sam wasn't real. When he didn't disappear your eyes began to water. 

"Sam?" 

Tagging: @sleepywinchester, @kinkystevesgirl, @timeforsmut, @goldenangelbloodcastiel, @because-imma-lady-assface, @growningupgeek, @keelzythe2nd, @abbessolute, @foreverafangirlimages (tagging you since you wanted a part two hun! ^_^)

[itsworn]

A Very Hot 1971 Hemi Cuda

Greetings Ghoulz! When we finally finished the Phantom ’Cuda, I had a moment where I thought Graveyard Carz had peaked. We resurrected the raced, wrecked, and rusted. Returning to the world one of its 108 1971 440+6-bbl, 3.54 Dana, shaker hood, Tor Red, four-speed ’Cudas. Particularly, one that had been completely written off by this aforementioned world. It felt great! But I admit there was this sinking feeling, spurred by the question, “What if that was the biggest challenge we’ll ever face?” One good ’Cuda deserves another.

In the unaired pilot for Graveyard Carz we had an animated cemetery for fallen cars — literally buried and marked with headstones. If that existed in real life, the car I’m about to introduce would definitely be in it. I could imagine — considering the rarity, value, and near mythical status of this car — an appropriate epitaph would read: “1971 Hemi ’Cuda, 1 of 48. Born May 19, 1971 – Died May 20, 1999. ‘Only The Good Die Young.’” Who knows, with today’s technology maybe a streaming MP3 version of the same song by Billy Joel could play through a hidden speaker when you walked by. While I greatly respect and admire “The Piano Man,” or B.J. as I like to call him (not to his face and not ’cause I’m afraid of him), I’d prefer an epitaph from Oscar Goldman: “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic car. Better … stronger … faster.”

For more details on the tragedy that befell this car, you can watch season 8 episode 13 of Graveyard Carz on Velocity or Motor Trend On Demand and hear the story from the man who lived it, Wendall Malmberg. In very short summary: Wendall and a friend were in his shop with the ‘Cuda and several other cars when a spark ignited some gas fumes from a leaking car. The resulting explosion engulfed the building in flames. Wendall and his friend were lucky to make it out alive. Graveyard Carz gets another shot at the title. Wendall, in a stroke of genius and mercy, didn’t let the insurance company total his Hemi ’Cuda. He wanted to bring it back to life one day and he chose Graveyard Carz to make that dream a reality. The fire was in 1999, so he’s been waiting 19 years for this. I can tell you that it’ll be a long restoration process, but Wendall knows it’ll be worth the wait. Having combed over the Elephant ’Cuda in excruciating detail, I can give you my thoughts on the approach we intend to take. But as with all journeys, the navigation can change when you encounter unexpected surprises along the way. So the plan I’m going to lay out here might be dramatically overhauled when this car comes back from the dipper. Specifically, we’ll have a better idea of the condition of inner structures, rockers, and framerails.

Running down the Big Fish:

● 1971 “R” code Hemi ’Cuda Hardtop ● Automatic with console ● B5 Blue exterior ● Black leather bucket seats ● No vinyl top ● 4.10 Dana axle package ● SPD 519 ● Power steering ● Black billboard decals ● Left and right outside painted racing mirrors ● Turn signal indicators

“Is it numbers buddy?” said in a high-pitched, annoyingly familiar voice. When authenticating a car I check the fender tag, dash VIN, upper cowl numbers, core support, engine, and transmission number to see if they match, i.e. all started life together on the same car. Miraculously, all of these numbers not only survived the fire, but are also matching — that’s rarely heard of on a Hemi car, especially a ’71 Hemi ’Cuda. This is amazing when you consider that a dash VIN plate is a very thin metal and at the epicenter of the blazing heat. Fortunately, most intuitively, Wendall had the notion when he first bought the car that the broadcast sheet should be prized and protected — clearly a man after my own heart. So he had it under lock and key in his safe at home. Take note, my Ghoulz at home. Take note! When you look under the hood you can see that the bolt-on items were destroyed. Fortunately, these melted parts made of plastic, rubber, aluminum, etc., aren’t tied to a specific vehicle, meaning no VINs to worry about. Parts will just need to be date-coded correct when replacing. Nonetheless, the engine and transmission weren’t damaged — another miracle, if you ask me. Knowing that the basic engine, heads, and transmission are able to be rebuilt and restored is some of the best news a car owner can get. It means that this Hemi ’Cuda is 100 percent numbers matching! All of you know how rare that is, but that rarity is compounded greatly when we consider the trauma this car has been through. I know I said it twice already but I want to drive this point home — miracle!

Well, it ain’t all sunshine and roses. The Hemi ’Cuda’s body has seen better days to be sure. When sheetmetal is heated, it warps. That fact of physics is no different here. The fenders, hood, roof skin, doorskins, and quarter-panels will certainly need to be replaced. Nonetheless, it’s shocking to me, considering the other damage, that the inner structure is in phenomenal shape. In addition, the front inner fenders, cowl, firewall, front rails, rockers, main floor, rear step wells, under seat pan, inner and outer wheelhouses, trunk floor, trunk floor extensions, rear framerails, and rear body panel all appear to be usable. In fact, I don’t see any damage. Again, I am reserving final judgment until we get the car back from the dip tank, but it’s very promising.

Sometimes, it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Fire isn’t friendly to interiors. Let’s face facts: If it’s rubber, plastic, pot metal, aluminum, or fabric it’s toast. Fortunately though, we can save the more structural components of the interior, such as the seat frames and tracks, dash frame, glovebox door, lightbar, metal interior garnish moldings, and in a twist of irony, the ashtray. For a car like this, it makes sense to use as many original parts as possible. The investment of time is well worth it. As for the numerous items that cannot be restored, like the center console and “standard” instrument panel, I’ve some amazing vendors I rely on for almost all of my restorations. Like my friend Tony “he thinks he knows more about Mopars than me” D’Agostino and OER, a division of Classic Industries.

Don’t miss the train. With the miraculous survival of the original engine, transmission, and 4.10 Dana, the drivetrain will be restored to the Hamtramck assembly plant’s specifications, including the suspension, as the leafsprings, transmission crossmember, front suspension, K-member, et al., all appear to be very restorable. The factory 15×7 Rally Wheels survived the flames. The center caps and trim rings, however, didn’t make it. You can probably guess how the F60-15 Polyglas tires turned out. Surprisingly though, the original space-saver rim is good, go figure.

The glass is definitely half empty. The original glass, date codes and all, were broken by the firefighters. It’s sad, but they did an amazing job controlling the fire, and if they didn’t do what they did, we may not have as much as we do of this car. Speaking of which, the stainless steel windshield trim and drip troughs look salvageable. However, anything pot metal or plastic, like the L31 fender-mounted turn signal indicators, grille, headlight bezels, taillight housings and bezels, side marker lenses, park lenses, etc. are beyond repair. Just as an interesting aside, the damage to the roof was also fire-suppression related. The firefighters had to stand on the roof to suppress the fire in the building. Again, let me reiterate, although it’s tragic to have more damage done to this beautiful car, if the firefighters didn’t perform as they did we may not have as much as we do. So even though the car guy in me wants to weep for Wendall and curse the small losses, I will not sleep under the blanket of fire safety that the firefighters provide and then question the manner in which they provide it. Jack Nicholson … A Few Good Men. We bandy about the word “survivor” when referring to a car that has never needed the gentle touch of the restoration technician nor the heavy hand of the amateur auto aficionado in his home-based shop, but when we think about what that means, we’re talking about a car that’s cared for and kept from lot to garage. Driven and used, but protected and maintained throughout its life. When we consider Wendall’s ultra-rare Hemi ’Cuda, sitting in his shop with its gorgeous B5 blue paint, black billboard stripes, and stunning shaker hoodscoop cared for, protected, and well maintained. Then, in a moment, this cherished car is lost in an explosive inferno. But Wendall’s passion and love for this car isn’t gone. It grows. He keeps it, cares for it, and holds on hope for its return. When this car is restored, brought out of the ashes, and given new life, it’ll be a true “survivor” car.

When I look back at some of the cars we’ve restored or even built, I have to laugh at the similarities. We built/restored a ’71 ’Cuda to be an homage to the ’Cudas in my friend Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm films. It wasn’t an exact replica, but one that paid homage to the cars used in his inimitable film franchise. We called it the “Phantasm ’Cuda.” We built a very special O.E. on the outside, modern Mopar muscle on the inside, ’Cuda to reveal at SEMA 2016. Considering the original name for the Hemi was “Firepower” and this was the first ’71 ’Cuda to sport the new Mopar 392 Crate Hemi (it was even blessed by Mopar President Pietro Gorlier when he visited my shop — just saying), we decided to call this car the “Firepower ’Cuda.” And, of course, we have the ’Cuda that started it all. The ’71 ’Cuda that no one believed we could restore — the hurdle car that kicked off the Graveyard Carz TV series. The “one and only” to me, but 1 of 108 to the rest of the world, we call the “Phantom ’Cuda.” I find it odd that some of the most significant cars we’ve done have been ’71 ’Cudas. Stranger still that we only give these cars special monikers. Even weirder that two out of three of those names happen to begin with a “Ph” — but all with an “ef” sound (phonetically speaking). Well, it’s going to get stranger.

We gave this new hurdle car a name too. Given that it burst into flames and will soon rise out of the ashes reborn, we’ve continued our oddly coincidental naming scheme of ’71 ’Cudas and call this the “Phoenix ’Cuda.” Stay tuned to Graveyard Carz in the coming seasons on Velocity and Motor Trend On Demand. This car is rarer than the “Phantom” with only 1 of 48 ever made. Unlike the other moniker ’Cudas, it’s completely numbers matching. And it’s endured far more trauma than being wrecked in a ditch. After the “Phantom,” I wondered if we’d ever have a car with the trifecta of being ultra-rare, incredibly challenging to restore, and having a compelling story. Well, I guess when the restoration tech is ready, the car appears.

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