#AS IF red bull would ever let them ''fight'' on equal footing & with the actual same odds like come on

[dhufflebee]

everyone going "omg rbr lestappen will never be brocedes 2.0" yeah that's because it would be martian 2k24 edition instead, bffr i beg you why do y'all want that

[zmediaoutlet]

in support of Texas relief, @doilycoffin donated $100, and requested Liam & Cordell Walker. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post.

(read on AO3)

One of Liam's earliest memories is the time Cordell dropped him on his head. Not actually accurate at all to the way it went but that's how it's told in the family mythology. He was really little, three maybe or four—for some reason that part's indeterminate—and Cordell was climbing the stable and playing adventurer, or maybe just showing off and the adventurer part was a good excuse. Liam was following Cordell around like he always did and he tried to climb up, too, on the fence that kept in the horses when they were let out for their run, and Cordell told him no and that he was too little but Liam was determined to try. Cordell climbed back down and tried to steady him where he'd made it up to the top rung of the fence, and Liam lost his balance anyway, and fell straight backwards and landed headfirst on the dirt. There was a little rock and then a lot of blood, and then stitches, and Mama fussing and their dad ripping Cordi a new one—Liam doesn't even remember that it hurt—but the part that sticks it as a memory is how they all rode together in the truck back and forth from the doctor and Cordell held his hand in the backseat and he was crying, the whole way home, a silent seeping kind of crying that made his face a shiny mess. Liam thinks about that weirdly often. Cordi looking out the window and crying.

When the story gets retold for new friends, or the kids, or Cordell's buddies from the Rangers come around for coffee and Mama's pecan pie, they tell it that Cordell's so clumsy he dropped his baby brother on his head. Liam sort of hates it, every time. Cordell laughs and does the aw shucks routine he's so good at, relaxed with his beer and shrugging embarrassed apology. When Liam was about to head off to college, his eighteenth birthday dinner, Daddy told the story again as a kind of miracle survival, and Liam got up from the table real fast and went out onto the porch, annoyed for some reason beyond measure. It was Cordi who got up and came after him and said, a little cautious, "What's up, Stinker?" and Liam said to him, mad, "Why don't you ever tell people it was me? I was the one climbing up after you. It's not like you did it on purpose."

Cordell just blinked at him. "What does it matter?" he said. "You were the baby and I was a dumbass kid. So what?" He hooked his arm around Liam's neck and he smelled like sweat and Old Spice and that laundry detergent Emily bought that wasn't anything like the one they used at home. Liam pushed at his side but didn't try hard to get away. Not that it would've worked. "It's how we figured out how hard that head was, right? Come on. Mama's gonna wonder if you didn't like the brisket."

Liam let himself be dragged back into the house, and Cordi pushed him down into his chair right between him and Emily, and Emily smiled at him easy, and passed him the potatoes. "One month 'til the dorms," she said, very quiet so no one else could hear under Cordell telling some awful lie about Liam having gas, and Liam laughed, surprised, and it just happened that it was the same time everyone else laughed so that was okay. He always liked Emily. Cordell punched his thigh lightly on his other side, and gave him a warmer more real smile, and Liam dropped it, and he didn't complain about the story again.

*

Seven years between them. Liam always wondered if he was an accident, even if Mama said that with Cordell going to school she was ready to have another baby around the house. Cordell was always the one who was getting into trouble. Rambunctious, loud, falling headfirst into things and getting dragged out covered in mud. Liam learned from his example what not to do. Do not: run along the bleachers at the football stadium and vault the handrails until your foot gets caught and you fall and snap your wrist clean in two. Do not: get caught drinking beer with your high school girlfriend behind the horsebarn, and make Daddy give the most mortifying sex talk in the world afterward. Do not: make friends with the most delinquent-ass kid in the whole hill country and wind up explaining every other week why, really, he wasn't that bad, give him a chance—

Somehow even then he was the golden child. Not the best grades, not the most obedient. That wasn't what their dad cared about. Cordell was good on a horse, good on his feet. Respectful when it mattered and devil-may-care when it didn't. In high school he was the quarterback, of course he was, and Liam was right there in the stands with their parents every Friday night, cheering his lungs out. Weirdly boastful with his fourth-grade friends: his older brother was the star of the football team. His older brother could ride a bull for ten seconds and get off hardly winded. Bookish, kind of short, he needed the borrowed glory of Cordell's success to be proud of. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it got him pushed over on the soccer field while some bigger boy went, gawd, William, who cares?

Liam never got in trouble. Never broke a bone. After bringing Cordell back from the hospital with a fresh new cast on his ankle and a dopey slightly-drugged smile on his face, Mama settled him in bed with Liam's help and turned off the light and then, in the kitchen, sighed and said, "Liam, you are a real relief to the mind, do you know that?" He was proud of that, too, in that moment. It wasn't until later that it nagged at him. A therapist asked him, much later in a sleek Manhattan office that smelled faintly of sage, "Do you think your predilection for being contrarian results from that time?" He went home annoyed with her, and was more annoyed when he told Bret the story and Bret didn't even turn around from the carbonara he was making and said, "Babe, you're the most contrary person I know."

He wasn't. He didn't—think he was. He… was, he realized, after a week of sitting with it, and a week after that it made sense. He didn't pick fights, and he didn't make waves. His rebellion was quiet. His hard head, forcing him to make his own space in the world. Not able to live up to Cordell and knowing instinctively that it would be awful even to try—and so taking the opposite turn, every time. It was better than being compared, even if he knew there was no chance but to be compared.

He studied hard. He read, all the time. He liked math and literature equally and did equally well in both. He hated P.E. but he did what he could there, too, and he learned to ride even if he didn't actually love horses the way the rest of the family did, and when Daddy asked if he wanted to join up with the little league baseball Liam asked to play soccer, instead, and Daddy frowned but Mama said, "Why not, I've seen enough boys drop foul balls for a lifetime." So, soccer, and most of his games were during the day or on Saturday mornings, but Cordi came to a lot of them anyway, and when Liam's team won Cordi would jump down onto the field and grab him up by the waist and crow David Beckham, right here! Little David Beckham for sale! Liam would struggle and then he'd be slung headfirst over Cordell's shoulder like a potato sack and his face would get so red from laughing that it hurt.

*

On September 12, 2001, Mama and Daddy were gone from the house when Liam got home from school and he was glad for it. That was a Wednesday. He was in sixth grade. The teachers weren't even trying to hold normal lessons and everyone was talking about what had happened the day before. Melissa Kettering was out that day and the rumor was that her dad had been on a business trip in New York. Liam had raised his hand and asked the social studies teacher if there was going to be a war, like there was after Pearl Harbor, and she sat down on her desk and shook her head and didn't answer.

He was trying to read his book for English when the phone rang. Cordell, calling from his apartment in town. Hey, buddy, he said, over the line, and Liam sat down on the floor by the phone table and closed his eyes, unaccountably almost about to cry. Is Daddy there? Liam told him he was home alone. Lucky, Cordi said, you can totally throw a rager, and Liam didn't laugh, and neither did Cordell, even though he always laughed at his own stupid jokes. Hey, um. I shouldn't—I don't know if I should tell you this but I've gotta tell someone, and Em's in class, and I just have to—I did something, and I need to—

He interrupted himself and Liam could hear him breathing over the line. He didn't want Cordell to say anything. If he didn't say anything then Liam could pretend that he was going to tell a story about some party they'd gone to at Emily's sorority, or that Hoyt had come back into town and they'd seen a show at ACL, or that he was gonna come stay that weekend, and maybe he and Liam would go riding. Anything but what he was about to say. Liam could hear it, in his head. He could hear it like it had already been said and it was echoing, now, inside, like a verse from a song he'd always, always remember.

Cordell graduated from the Marine boot camp on a Saturday in the middle of December. Liam went along even if he wasn't allowed to attend the actual ceremony and Daddy complained about the cost of the plane tickets until Mama told him to shut up. Liam sat between them on the flight and it was the first time he was ever in the air. Over the top of Mama's crossword book he watched the clouds go by over New Mexico, Arizona, with complete wonder. San Diego, then, different to Austin—palm trees, and the air so wet, and even the parking lot at their hotel smelling like warm flowers.

Mama gave him fifty dollars before they left for the graduation. They were bringing Cordell back, after, because they got one night with him before they had to give him back to the military. "Order a pizza," she said, "at 4:30 exactly, and we should get back at the same time the pizza comes so we can all eat together." Liam watched American Pie on the hotel tv while he waited, something he would never have been allowed at home. He made the call when he was supposed to, and when the girl on the phone asked him what toppings his mind went completely blank because he was never allowed to make that decision. Cordi liked ham and pineapple and none of the rest of them did. Liam ordered it with extra pineapple.

When a knock came on the hotel room door Liam jumped up to open it, cash in hand. The one holding the pizzas was Cordell, grinning at him with Mama and Daddy standing behind. "Pizza delivery," Cordell said, and Liam crashed into him for a hug so hard that Cordi almost dropped the boxes and said whoa, Stinker, soft and laughing.

His hair was cut off, an inch on top and shorter on the sides, so he looked like those pictures of their grandpa when he was in Korea. He was skinny, too, which Liam didn't get, because he thought boot camp was all about building up muscles. "Mostly running," Cordi said. He was tired, dark circles under his eyes. He was stretched out on one bed with his strange starched blue pants and the awful khaki shirt that made him look washed-out pale even if he'd been running around San Diego for thirteen weeks, and Mama was sat next to him squeezing his arm like he'd evaporate if she looked away for a minute, and even Daddy was hovering. Proud but worried. Liam sat by Cordell's boots and tugged on the laces, wanting to ask more questions but not daring to.

Cordi fell asleep before six o'clock. Daddy turned on the television real quiet to the news. More stuff about the invasion. Liam hoped it'd be all over by the time Cordi got there. Mama boxed up the remaining pizza, shaking her head. "Don't know why you picked pineapple, kiddo," she said, and Liam shrugged, sitting at the table, watching Cordell's face, turned away a little on the pillow. Liam wanted to shake him awake but of course he didn't. For his whole life, after, he gets a little sick to his stomach when he smells pineapple.

While Cordell was in Afghanistan Mama and Daddy had Emily over to the house a lot. She was sweet. Respectful of Mama, calling her ma'am half the time, and charming to their dad even though Liam knew that she and Daddy probably disagreed on more than things than not. She liked that Liam played soccer and asked if he ever watched the Premiere League. Liam didn't even know what that was. She helped Mama cook supper and went out and took pictures of the horses which made Daddy smile, and one time when Liam went outside after dinner to read she was there crying, on the porch, quiet with her hand over her mouth, and Liam hung back and didn't know what to say. "Sorry," she said, dashing at her cheeks with the heel of her hand. She licked her lips and nodded at his book, sniffing. "That's a good one. You should read the sequel, too." He did, and told her about it, and she smiled like a sunrise, the way she always did, and he felt like—he didn't even know, what he felt like.

Liam was the best man at their wedding. He felt and looked ridiculous. Fifteen in a tux and he didn't know how to tie a bow-tie, but Cordi didn't either, so Daddy had to do it for both of them, grumbling the whole time that they should've learned this by now. "Not a lot of bowties in Kandahar, Daddy," Cordell said, winking at Liam, and Liam—blushed. Ridiculous, and embarrassing, the way the whole affair and the lead-up had felt, but Cordell didn't seem to care or notice, so—there was Liam, blushing in a bowtie.

Cordell had only been back for a year and somehow things were off. He was serving the rest of his contract out in the reserves but he wasn't finishing up his degree like he'd told Mama he would. He'd entered the training program for the state troopers and was set up to be a highway cop, of all things. He'd rented a house in Austin with Emily and they lived together the whole year before the wedding—an argument with Daddy about that one, which Liam listened to from the hallway with his heart pounding—and they weren't even going to be married in the church because Emily didn't want a wedding mass and, Liam suspected, Cordell didn't either. Daddy lost that argument, too.

The wedding was tiny. Liam the best man, Geri the maid of honor. Emily's aunt that raised her on one side and Daddy and Mama on the other, and a handful of Cordell and Emily's friends making up the numbers in the little rented hall. Afterward they had a bigger barbecue out at the ranch and in front of the crowd Emily fed Cordell a dainty forkful of the lemon cake and Cordell responded by dotting a tiny bit of frosting on her nose and kissing it off, and Mama's best friend Sue-Ellen sighed and said to Mama, where Liam could hear, "Well, Abilene, maybe they're atheists but I daresay you raised that boy right every other way," and Mama said something dry back but Liam was watching how Cordell cupped Emily's cheek in his hand, smiling down at her like she hung the moon, and he thought, yeah. Yeah, Cordell was just about perfect, wasn't he.

"High school in the fall, right?" Emily's aunt said, later. "Emily says you play soccer. Going to try out for the team?"

Cordell and Emily were dancing, swaying in the grass, the bonfire leaping up behind them. His hand still on her cheek. "I'm quitting soccer," Liam said, without even realizing he was going to. "I'm going to try out for wrestling, instead."

*

He figured out he was gay relatively early. His friends at school got hold of a Playboy in fifth grade and didn't really know what to do with it beyond blustering. This was before anyone but nerds was on the internet, and Liam was a nerd but did a decent job of hiding it. Scott beckoned Liam over while they were waiting for the buses and showed him the top of the magazine, the bold logo and the girl with her boobs pushing up out of her bra—the group of them snickering, saying how hot she was—and that they were going to look at it at Scott's house later if Liam wanted to come over—and Liam said, "No, my mom's making me go to the store with her." The lie came out effortlessly.

They did have a computer at home, and dial-up internet it had been very, very hard to argue Daddy into. He hardly knew how to find anything but he did some careful searches while Daddy was out with the horses and Mama was cooking, singing bad over the stove like she tended to. Made Liam's face hot to see some of what he was seeing. Hoyt came over, once, while Cordi was away in the war, and he helped Liam and Mama dig out a bunch of tomatoes that hadn't grown in right, and afterward they sat on the porch drinking lemonade while Mama asked Hoyt all about the oil field he said he'd been working in and Liam watched how Hoyt's legs sprawled out on the porch, how his jeans hugged up against his calf muscle and how the sweat had made his white shirt nearly transparent, and he had to sit very careful on the bench with his knees drawn up to hide the effect it had on him.

When Cordell came home from Afghanistan they threw a huge party. Everyone came, Daddy's friends and Mama's, and Emily and their friends from college, and even Hoyt, magicked up out of somewhere (for the promise of free beer, Daddy said), and then Liam, the youngest person there, watching from the corner of the porch as always. Cordi was very tan and finally bulky with muscle and his hair had grown out, just a little, from that military buzz, and he barely detached himself from Emily the whole time, his arm always around her shoulders or hers around his waist, and when they did step apart his eyes followed her and she watched him right back, smiling at the most random times. Liam was fourteen and a little more aware of the world and he wondered abruptly if they'd had sex yet. Cordi had only been home one day and he'd slept at the ranch and not at Emily's apartment. How would they have found the time?

He was chewing his thumbnail over it when a sweaty weight crashed down on his shoulders, arms trapping his in. Hoyt. "Hey there, Stinker," Hoyt said, and Liam shrugged fretfully and said, "Don't call me that," and Hoyt laughed at him but stood up and ruffled Liam's hair completely backwards instead.

"Still pretty shrimpy," he said. He was grinning, like he had some big secret. "You planning on growing up anytime soon, champ?"

"Don't you have a sketchy job to get to?" Liam said, annoyed. He tried to fix his hair and gave it up as a lost cause the second Hoyt's grin got bigger. Asshole.

Hoyt sipped his beer. Twenty-one—he was allowed, although Liam had noticed that Mama was being a little free with handing out drinks to Emily's college friends. "Glad big bro's home, I bet," Hoyt said.

Liam didn't dignify that with a response. Hoyt laughed, under his breath, and held out the beer for Liam to take, which he did because he didn't know what else to do. "Go on," Hoyt said, nodding at it. "I won't tell your mama. Not fair that everyone else gets to celebrate while little Liam's sober. And boring."

"I'm not boring," Liam said, although he knew he was because half the kids at school clearly thought so. He took a sip of the beer, anyway, not knowing if Hoyt would snatch it away. Nasty, and he made a face that made Hoyt hoot, and then he took a bigger gulp, determined at least to get something out of it.

"There he goes," Hoyt said, weirdly delighted, and he clapped Liam on the shoulder the same way he would Cordi when they were in high school, and the bit of warm in Liam's belly went lower. "That's a welcome home."

Liam kept the beer, curled against his chest. He felt dumb holding it and also weirdly adult. "He's not even here," he said. Sort of scoffing. "Doesn't matter."

Hoyt curled his arm around Liam's shoulders again and ignored how he went stiff, and nodded out at the party. Music playing from a radio Daddy had set up on a truck-bed. Emily and Cordell, dancing in the firelight. Same as it would be for the wedding reception a year from then, although of course Liam didn't know that at the time. "Aw, he's here," Hoyt said. He squeezed Liam's shoulders. He smelled strange, like—skunk, and Mama's compost bin. It was gross but also kind of appealing and Liam shifted, hoping his dumb body wouldn't react. "He's just with his girl, and who could blame him. No call for getting jealous."

He wasn't jealous. Not—exactly. That night after Mama and Daddy went to bed the party kept on, and Liam went to his room and watched from the dark window, the bonfire still going and all the college kids still going, too. When he finally fell asleep he had a strange, blurry dream about Hoyt—building a bonfire together, and Hoyt smiling at him and being a jackass and then touching his face, the same way Cordell touched Emily's face, and then Hoyt touching his stomach, low—and then the dream shifted, the weird way dreams shift, and it was Cordell, touching his stomach, and smiling at him, and leaning in close—with his hair longer like it was before he enlisted—but wearing for some reason the dumb khaki shirt of his uniform—and then Cordell's hand—

When he woke up he was soaked and it was bright morning. He washed his underwear out in the sink, feeling like his head was screwed on to someone else's body, and then he hid the underwear in the hamper, and showered, and tried not to think about it. He had that dream or one like it on and off for years, until he finally lost his virginity to Michael in college and it went away. He never told his therapist about it, or Bret, or anyone. He could rationalize it but he couldn't ever acknowledge it out loud because of what it—felt like, to think about it. To make it real in a place that wasn't just his stupid, crazy, dreaming head.

He had the dream again the night before he came out to his parents. January 2nd, trying out his new year's resolution of honesty. He figured in a ruthless sort of way that if his parents kicked him out or hated him or tried to change him then at least he had early acceptance at UT for the fall and a full scholarship and it was just eight months where his life would be completely over.

Cordell was at home on the ranch and Liam figured that's what triggered it. A couple days of vacation, since he'd worked over Christmas, and he and Emily and baby Stella had stayed up for ringing in the new year, and everyone had taken turns kissing Stella's forehead when midnight struck. Liam had been allowed a glass of champagne, Mama not even fussing about it since it was a holiday and the house was full—so he had two glasses—and when he went to bed he could still hear Cordell laughing from the front room, telling Daddy some story about a bust on the highway, something about stolen Santa suits, something light.

He dreamed they were swimming, up at the lake, and Cordell was naked. Laughing, that same too-loud booming laugh, but just because he was happy and not like he was making fun. Being kind to Liam. Holding him from behind with his arms around Liam's chest, their legs slipping together in the water. Liam could imagine what it would be like for a man to do something to him, he'd seen porn by that point, and he'd seen Cordell naked too because of the vagaries of living in an old house without a lock on the bathroom door, but somehow there was still a disconnect in his head. He was turned on beyond belief but nothing—happened, just the vagueness of Cordell behind him. His big hands.

Mama took Emily and the baby in to town, that day, for shopping. Daddy said they'd just bought half of Macy's and Mama shushed him so Daddy was up at the barn, checking over the new foal. Liam sat on the porch with a cup of coffee and watched birds come to the new feeder Mama had got from Emily and he tried to rehearse it, in his head. What to say. He'd seen it in movies but it didn't feel possible to come out of his mouth.

Cordell sat by him, on the bench swing. "Since when do you drink coffee?" he said. Then, less casual: "Is that my mug?"

"Yes," Liam said, and didn't protest when Cordell took it out of his hands. He rubbed his palms on his jeans. He had a hard time talking to Cordi after he had one of those dreams and so it was a relief that most of the time Cordell wasn't around, that he was in town at the house he shared with his wife. With his wife, Liam reminded himself, as though that could help. Another thing to make Liam different. Wrestling instead of football, reading books instead of riding, and now—this, on top of everything.

"Whatever's going on," Cordell said. Liam blinked, came back to the world. The cold, and the swing barely rocking from how Cordi had set his boot on the porch and pushed, and Cordell looking at him very steadily. "You know you can tell me, right?"

Liam swallowed. "Even if it's—" Bad is what came to his mouth and he shook his head. He prayed about this, he resolved. It's not bad. "Weird?"

"If it weren't weird you probably wouldn't be being so weird about it," Cordi said, frank, and Liam shoved his shoulder. The dream dissipated just like that. How could he possibly be crushing on his brother when his brother is this much of a jerk. Cordell swayed, grinning, letting Liam push him even if Cordell outweighed him then by fifty pounds, but then he set his hand on the back of Liam's neck, more serious. "Whatever it is. We can figure it out."

Liam licked his lips, and nodded. He knew then that was going to tell Cordell the one secret, if not the whole of it, before they left the porch that morning, and Cordi would—back him up, with Mama and Daddy, even if he didn't get it. "Give me back the coffee," he said, and Cordell raised his eyebrows but passed it back, so Liam could take a gulp. The caffeine probably wouldn't help but maybe it wouldn't hurt, and it felt nice to hold the mug. "Promise you won't freak," Liam said then, even if he was—mostly, ninety percent, pretty sure—and Cordell said, immediately, "I promise," and Liam believed him. That was the thing, with Cordell, in those days. It was easy to believe him.

*

It's Mama who calls, when Emily dies. Liam's already in bed because he's got court in the morning and Bret shoves at his shoulder, says, "Oh my god answer it and then change your ringtone, I hate that song," and Liam's still fuzzy from sleep and doesn't quite process that there's no good reason Mama would be calling him after nine o'clock in Texas because she always thought that was bad manners, it had been drilled into him all his life, and he says, mumbly, still waking up, "Hey, Mama," and there's a sharp intake of breath on the other side of the line before she says, Honey, I'm sorry, but I have real bad news.

He flies out the next day. Bret tries to dissuade him. "There's nothing you can do right now," he says, as though that's the point. JFK to Austin-Bergstrom is four and a half hours and he spends the whole time with his chest this weird achy knot. It doesn't feel real but it is. He texted Mama his flight plan and she says that Daddy will pick him up at the airport, and when he gets into the truck Daddy shakes his head and says, "Good to see you, son," but without any truth to it. Liam doesn't take it personally.

Cordell's not at the ranch when they get there but the kids are. "Hi, Uncle Liam," Stella says, remarkably clear, until he hugs her, and then she curls his hands into his shirt and cries silently, her shoulders shaking. August doesn't get up from the couch, sitting there with one arm crossed over his chest and the other over his mouth, and he looks—Liam's always shocked by it—so exactly like his mother. Stella's a copy of her grandmother, to the point that Mama set her prom picture side by side with Stella's first dance photo and the only real difference was the dress—but Auggie always took after Emily, from coloring to temperament to those long straight eyebrows, that mouth that curves up into a wide, easy smile. Not smiling now, and not for a while, and when Stella pulls away and wipes her eyes Liam sits down next to Auggie and sets his hand on the back of his neck and Auggie just folds over, quiet, like whatever was holding him up just isn't there anymore.

"Where is he?" Liam asks Mama, in the kitchen later. The sun's going down. It hasn't even been twenty-four hours.

Mama's eyes are red-rimmed. "Where do you think?" she says.

Liam takes the truck. Lady Bird Lake is officially closed at night but of course that makes no difference. He parks and walks, up to the lookout, and Cordell doesn't hear him coming. He's sitting on the steps to the gazebo, his elbows braced on his knees. The light hitting his hair. Long again. Liam doesn't know how he's always skirting regs and getting away with it, except of course Cordi gets away with everything. Golden child.

He regrets the thought as soon as he has it. "Cordi," he says, and Cordell looks up in complete surprise. Liam smiles at him, as much as he can, and comes and sits on the step. He tries to think of what to say and can't come up with anything.

"Aren't you in court tomorrow?" Cordell says, after they sit there for thirty seconds. His voice sounds thick and distant.

Liam shakes his head. "Today," he says, and Cordell nods and huffs and says, "Right," and then looks down at his hands again. They're twisted together, his thumb rubbing hard and repeatedly at the mount of his other palm. Liam reaches over and puts his hand over the knot of Cordell's fingers and Cordell's jaw flexes but he lets Liam do it. "I'm sorry," Liam says.

"Everyone is," Cordell says, halfway bitter. Liam squeezes his hands and Cordell makes a rough low noise, some sound Liam has never heard him make. "Jesus. They won't let me go in to work."

"Of course they won't," Liam says, and Cordell pulls his hands away, pushes them into his hair. "Cordi, they have to—they're going to be looking for who did it and it has to be by the books so it'll stick. They're not going to risk screwing it up."

"I just want to—" Cordell cuts himself off but Liam can imagine what goes there. He touches Cordell's back instead and the muscle flinches. Set to fly off the handle any second. Fight or flight, but Cordell never used to run from anything and Liam can't imagine he's going to start now.

He stands up. "Wrestle me," he says.

Cordell looks up. "What?"

Genuine surprise. At least it's not misery. "Come on," Liam says. "See if you can pin me." These jeans are nice, were a gift from Bret, but he'll sacrifice them. He holds out a hand and Cordell lets himself be pulled upright, and it's a shock like it always is when Liam's been too long away, how much taller Cordi still is. Liam always was the shrimp. He pushes Cordell's chest, lightly, and Cordell slaps his hands away. "Cordi," Liam says, coaxing, and pulls at Cordell's wrist. "Let me take your mind off it."

Stupid thing to say and he knows it as soon as he says it. Cordell gives him an ugly look and shoves him for real. "Take my mind off it?" he says, while Liam's staggering backwards. Liam sets his boots in the dirt and braces, and when Cordell pushes him again Liam grapples, and they are wrestling, then. It's sloppy, bad holds, both of them in too-slick boots for this ground. Liam manages to swing Cordell around and get his back on the ground but Cordi's always been stronger and shoves him off, and then they're just—flat-out scrambling, Liam's hand sinking into a patch of mud and both of them breathing hard, Cordell twisting out of his grip and getting an arm over his chest, tight, before Liam eels over and flips them—gets Cordell on his back on the dirt—his leg over Cordell's—and then Cordi drops his head back against the ground and taps out, panting.

"You been practicing?" Cordell says. His eyes are closed.

Liam sits up, says, "Class at my gym." Cordi nods and Liam gets off him, kneels next to him in the dirt. The gazebo's bright and the skyline's pretty, on the other side of the lake. Liam looks at that instead of at his brother, so he won't have to see the tears seeping down Cordell's temples, wetting his hair.

"It's not okay," Liam says. He sets a hand on Cordell's chest. At the DA's office in Manhattan he's comforted widows, widowers, orphans. Some of them seeking justice but most of them knowing it won't really be found. Cordell, he thinks, is one of the latter type, but Liam tries out the lines he's learned anyway. "It's not okay and it's not fair. I can't pretend I know what you're going through but I'm sorry." He swallows, his throat trying to close without his say-so. "Jesus. I'm so sorry, Cordi."

"Yeah," Cordell says, rough, and grips Liam's wrist. When Liam looks down Cordell's eyes are still closed. They stay there for a while, by the lake, long past when it's uncomfortable.

When they finally get up, Liam's knees creak like an old man's but Cordell doesn't make the joke he should. He leaves Cordell's truck and drives them both back into town, and gets drive-through Whataburger that Cordell picks at instead of eating, and says, "Do you want to go back to the ranch?" and isn't surprised when Cordell shakes his head, no. They get a hotel instead, two queens and a respectable mini-bar, and Liam calls Mama from next to the ice machine in the hall and says that he's got Cordell, and they're fine, and they'll be back in the morning. She clearly wants to object but doesn't know how and Liam hangs up before she can figure it out.

He gets back, with the ice. Cordell's sitting on the end of the bed watching the news like it's the Superbowl. "I was thinking about the funeral," Cordell says, when the door closes behind Liam. "I have to plan the funeral and I don't even have her body."

Liam sets the bucket on the bar and sits on the other bed. "We'll help," Liam says. Cordell's cheek sucks in on one side. "You don't have to do any of this alone."

"Yeah," Cordell says, remote, and Liam looks at him. Weird hollowness in his stomach and he realizes only after a second why: it's the first time, all his life, that he can remember Cordell lying to him.

*

The Rodeo Kings operation is supposed to be quick. Three months, is the estimate: to get in, to learn the operation, to get out. They need an agent who can be convincingly skilled as a traveling rider, who knows a ranch operation, who can act. There's a depressingly short list and one name at the top of it. Everyone thinks it's a bad idea except for Graves, and Cordell.

"It'll give me something to think about that's not this," Cordell says, when Liam's trying to talk him out of it. They're on the back patio of his and Emily's house in town. The kids are still staying out at the ranch. It's two weeks after the funeral and they haven't gone back to school. Cordell hasn't shaved in a few days and the sound as he scratches his jaw is loud. There's no music playing from the kitchen window, like there used to be. The plants out here are already dying. Liam wants to grip Cordell's shoulders, get in his face and yell, but doesn't dare to. He gets a deep sigh, instead, and Cordell flipping a poker chip between his fingers like a restless card shark, and then a smile, fake as fake. "Anyway, who do you know who can ride a bull better than me?"

"No one," Liam says, and Cordell nods, like damn straight, and in the morning Liam goes in to the Travis County DA and announces he'd like to transfer offices, due to a family emergency that's going to keep him here in Texas, and it's only afterward when some calls are made and the paperwork's signed that he calls Bret, back in Manhattan, and leaves a voicemail that he's going to be staying a lot longer than he thought.

It isn't three months. As the operation drags on, Liam sweet-talks his way into being one of the assistant attorneys on the case and he tries to alleviate how Graves is getting more and more suspicious. Cordell's old partner James gets promoted to captain, six months in, and he vouches for Cordell, too, not that it seems to matter either way. Cordell's the one who's embedded with the rodeo and he'll either finish the job or he won't. They don't have another agent to send in, not without compromising the work that's been done so far, and nothing else will do but to wait.

The kids ask Liam for updates every week when he comes for dinner at the ranch. "I can't tell you everything," he says, like he does every time, and Daddy's quiet at the head of the table, and Mama quieter on the opposite side. Cordell has a rendezvous every Monday when the rodeo takes the day off with a burner cell phone and an agent waiting impatiently for his call, and his reports are terse: still trying to get them to trust me. They're suspicious of newcomers. The ring seems really tight and I can't figure out an opening. Give me time. He's allowed to call Liam the same day and Liam answers every unknown number on Mondays, giving hope to spam callers nationwide. Cordell usually sounds tired but he still calls and they have a dumb, simple conversation—about how the Rangers beat the Angels, how he's breaking in some new boots and has a blister the size of Indiana, how he's craving, inexplicably, sushi. "Sushi?" Liam asks, trying to imagine when Cordell ever tried it, and Cordi says, with rare humor, "Hey, I'm not a big fancy New York lawyer but I've had my share of raw fish," and when Liam hands the phone over to the kids they lean over the speakerphone and talk over the top of each other about a class project Stella did, and a history paper Auggie got an A+ on, and Liam watches with his hand over his mouth for the moment when Cordell has to interrupt and say, tired-sounding still, "Sorry, guys, I have to go," and the goodbyes have to be quick, and then that's it, for another week.

The first time Liam sees him when he's Duke it's a shock to the system. Seven months in and the reporting agent says that Walker missed his check-in. Walker—that's what they all call him, even when Liam's in the room with them. There's a small frenzy in the operation office. Graves calls for Cordell's head, predictably at this point. James, trying again to calm her down, but looking a little like he agrees. Liam leaves the office unnoticed and walks outside to feel cold air on his face and feel less—how he feels—and there's a text, on his phone, from an unknown number. The Alibi, Driskill ST, thirty minutes. Come alone.

Ridiculously illicit. Liam takes off his suit-jacket and tie and ruffles his hair into something unprofessional and goes. It's hard to park—Monday night football—and inside is the opposite of his scene but he finds a seat at the bar. A girl in a too-tight orange t-shirt gives him a once-over and he smiles tightly, ignores her, drinks a watery beer, and almost exactly on the thirty-minute mark someone sits down next to him and it's—not his brother.

Duke Culpepper was the fake name they picked. Originally from Texas but had some misdemeanors that made Texas unfriendly so he'd been hiding out in Tucson for a few years, working the rodeo there. Not dangerous but willing to get up to something that was, and he looks the part. He smells like sweat and horse manure and hay and some shitty, awful aftershave, and there's a bruise on his jaw like someone suckerpunched him, and he doesn't look at Liam but smiles sweet at the bartender and says, with a fake low drawl, "Darlin', I wouldn't mind a shot of bourbon, when you have a chance."

Jesus, Liam thinks. The bartender has an expression like Cordell slid a hand down the front of her jeans and made her the happiest woman alive—the shot takes about ten seconds to arrive, when Liam's been waiting for a second beer for five minutes. Cordell knocks it back in one motion and says, "Again, and—" and he turns, like he noticed Liam for the first time, "another round for my friend, here. We're celebratin'."

She blinks, notices Liam's empty glass. While the next round's being prepared Liam raises his eyebrows and plays his part. "What are we celebrating?"

"Got a new job," Cordell says—but no—it's Duke, who's saying it, Duke who's drawling lazy and has his hat cocked at an off-angle and who's got a bandana tied around his wrist which for some goddamn reason is working the whole, hot-ass look.

"Congrats," the bartender says, and Duke grins wide and winks at her and downs the second shot, letting out a little whoop. "Another?"

"Better make it a double this time, sweetheart," Duke says, and Liam puts his hand on the warm lean stretch of thigh knocking against his under the bar and squeezes, very lightly, a warning, and sees Cordell's eyes tighten just slightly, and sees how his shoulders round out, like he's ready to get in a fight. Cordell takes a deep breath and toasts the bartender, but turns to look at Liam, face a grinning glad mask. "Got a new girl, too. Real pretty."

The bartender's disappointment would be funny, any other time. "Your lucky day, then, huh?" Liam says. Cordell's knee presses hard into his under the bar. "Girl got a name?"

"Miss Twyla Jean," Cordell says, almost crooning it, and Liam raises his eyebrows—he thought they had embarrassing Texas names—and then Cordell downs the double-shot, grimacing at the sting, and then says, much quieter so that only Liam can hear: "All it took was me making it eleven seconds on a bull and she took me straight to bed."

Liam takes a deep breath. Cordell's jaw flexes, in the silence, and he puts the empty shot glass on the bar. "Thanks for celebrating with me," he says, and slides off the barstool, backwards. He grips Liam's shoulder so hard that it actually hurts. "Gotta get back. Job won't do itself."

"Godspeed," Liam says, toasting with his beer, and Cordell gives him a tight smile and tugs his cap and walks out of the bar, taking with him the smell of the stables and his too-tight jeans and this sensation under Liam's gut that's murky and dangerous, unsettled. His shoulder hurts. It's only after he's written down Twyla Jean's name and texted it to James, and gone home to the apartment where Bret's still bitching about the décor, and taken a shower, and pressed his forehead against the cold tile, that he realizes that Cordell was wearing a fucking Texas Rangers cap. The absolute bastard.

*

The night he hears from Cordell again he has a fight with Bret. The same fight, worked over the same way. Bret hates Texas. He hates being away from his friends. He hates the politics and the food and how Liam's always with his family. He doesn't want to go to family dinner at the ranch because he's sure Liam's dad hates him. "He doesn't hate you," Liam says, for the fifth time, but to be honest he's not sure. Daddy never seems to like Bret that much, either. Cordi's never met him and Liam wonders, like he's wondered many times, if they'd get along, at all. Wonders if that'd be a dealbreaker and then wonders, washing dishes while Bret watches MSNBC in chilly silence, if the fact that he's wondering if it would be a dealbreaker makes it a dealbreaker, after all.

The text comes as a relief. Annunziata's. He dresses down more carefully than the first time. It's a weird spot, on the outskirts of town where it feels less like Austin than like a suburb. Karaoke and Italian food and mostly-fake cowboys slapping their knees to the absolutely horrific song being sung—very suburb. And there, at a table right by what passes for a stage: Cordell. But, no: Duke, Duke Culpepper, with his arm slung around the shoulders of Twyla Jean and his lips on her ear, grinning, wild. It catches Liam's breath like it did the first time. Duke, confident in his body and happy and having a good time, easy. Hot. Jesus, Liam doesn't get how it's so hot.

He waits in the backroom and watches Cordell shoves his face into the water. It's disturbing how panicked he is, once he's Cordell again and not Duke. "You have to," he's saying—babbling—"You have to tell them, they're going to kill people, you can't let them go through with it—" but of course that's not either of their decision and Liam can't help. It's awful, an awful awful feeling. His big brother looking to him for an answer he can't give. Cordell pushes his hair back from his face and puts his hat back on and looks miserable but he goes back, he sits right back down with that girl and lets her slide her hand down his thigh up the inseam of his jeans and Liam watches from the corner of the bar, where he won't be seen, drinking a beer he doesn't want, seeing his brother be someone who's not his brother. Maybe someone his brother could have been. They're going to sleep together, tonight. Liam knows it. They've been fucking for three months. Is it easy, he wonders. It shouldn't be, for Cordell, but maybe for Duke it is.

He goes home to Bret and wakes him up, and apologizes for the earlier fight, and kisses him, and gets Bret on his belly, and fucks him that way, a little hard, kissing the back of his neck, making Bret gasp and flinch and groan, delighted. "Where did that come from," Bret says, lazy and satisfied, and when he falls asleep Liam takes a shower and then only then calls James, from the hall outside their apartment door, leaning with his forehead against the wall. The bank location has been obvious since Cordell reported about Twyla Jean; the only thing that wasn't certain was the time. It'll be fine, James says, firm, and hangs up on Liam to coordinate with the rest of the team now that Agent Walker has finally come back in from the cold, and Liam stands there with his eyes closed in the hall and thinks, yes. Yes, it'll be fine.

After the bank—after the clean-up—Graves debriefs Cordell for a long time. It borders on unlawful interrogation at a certain point but Liam doesn't dare intervene when she's this furious—he can't risk being taken off the case. It takes James making a call to her supervisor at the field office, who then calls her and pulls her out of the room, for Cordell to be given a reprieve, and Liam goes in to the conference room and finds Cordell still in the stupid black hoodie stained with Crystal West's blood, his head in his hands, breathing with his mouth open like he can't get enough air.

"Cordi," Liam says, and Cordell shakes his head. Liam licks his lips and checks the hall. No one's guarding them—they wouldn't, because Walker's one of their own—and he says, "Get up." Cordell looks up at him, finally. "Come on, quick before she gets back. Come with me."

Cordell follows him. Down the hall, left to go through the atrium instead of the bullpen, then through the glass doors to the hall to, at last, the men's room, and Cordell stands in the middle of the tile blinking until Liam nods at the sinks and says, "Do it."

He's sloppier about it, this time. His hair hangs dripping in front of his face. He pushes it off his forehead and looks up at himself, in the mirror, panting a little. Water drips off his nose.

Liam brings him paper towels and he dries his face. "You should take that off," Liam says, and Cordell looks down at his clothes like he has no idea what he's wearing and only just realized, and tears off the hoodie in an awkward tangle. Underneath his t-shirt is black so Liam can't tell if it's stained. The big silver cross swings from his neck.

"What happened," Cordell says. A croak.

"Graves didn't tell you?" Liam says, and then bites his tongue. Obviously not. "Clint and Crystal are both dead. Clint at the bank. Crystal crashed the car. They think she passed out. Blood loss." Cordell nods, tight, looking away. These are his friends, Liam reminds himself. These are the people he knew, the only people he really talked to, for almost a year. "Two more people died at the bank. Twyla wasn't there and we don't have information to tie her to the job. I don't know where Jaxon is but we have people looking. They're still trying to recover the stolen money."

"Graves did tell me that much," Cordell says, and turns around, leaning his ass against the sink. It's slowly draining, behind him. "I think she wants to arrest me since she can't arrest them."

"I think so, too," Liam says, and Cordell smiles a little. He looks like he hasn't slept all year. "You did your job. It's over."

"It's not over," Cordell says, immediately. He drags his hand through his hair. "Graves made that clear. The money's still missing and Twyla and Jax are in the wind."

"And Duke's being sent to jail," Liam says. "So his part in the Rodeo Kings gang is over."

Cordell wipes his fingers over his mouth. He's still wearing that bandana around his wrist. Liam wants to take it off of him. Throw it away, burn it. "Duke Culpepper, common criminal," Cordell says, drawling it a little.

"Never liked him anyway," Liam says, and Cordell smiles, dropping his head. Liam touches his shoulder, grips his neck. "Hey. Means you get to come home. The kids will be over the moon."

"Yeah," Cordell says. He brackets a loose hand around Liam's wrist and nods. "Yeah. Can't wait."

His smile faded, as soon as Liam said it. Liam thinks about that, for that whole night, and for the whole next day, after, when James tells him that Cordell put in for one week's leave. "You talked to him?" Liam says, and James shakes his head, says, "He called Connie. I think he still doesn't even know I'm the captain."

He tells Mama and Daddy that Cordell will be home next Wednesday. Stella's frowning, not eating her dinner. "I saw that bank robbery on the news," she says. Auggie's big-eyed, watching, next to her. "Was that Dad's big case?"

"It was," Liam says, and Auggie's eyes get bigger. "But there's a debriefing period. We need to make sure his undercover identity doesn't have any loose ends that'll tie him back to his real one."

Daddy's eyes narrow and Mama's quiet. Liam got pretty good at lying, over the years, but he never was quite able to fool them.

He calls Cordell the next day. "Tell me where you are," he says, and Cordell doesn't answer for a long moment, letting the silence stretch out over the cell line. Liam considers it a victory that he even answered the phone.

He has a room at the Fairmont, on the fifteenth floor. Liam knocks and it's a minute before the door opens. Cordell's in bare feet, jeans, an ACL t-shirt. Liam follows him in and the room is—nicer than Liam's current apartment, that's for sure. King bed, outstanding view. "Wow," Liam says, and Cordell says, "Better than the Super 8 in Kermit," sort of sarcastic, and then sits down on the bed like he can't stand up anymore.

Liam doesn't sit. He doesn't think he's really invited, even if Cordell let him in the door. "I told them next Wednesday," he said. "Mom and Dad, and the kids. A week. Do you think that'll be enough time?"

"Honestly?" Cordell says, and doesn't elaborate.

There's a table, with four chairs, like a dining area. On it a box, like one of the evidence boxes from the office. Liam walks over and tips back the lid and: there's Duke Culpepper. The striped shirt he wore when Liam met him at Annunziata's. That was—god, only three days ago. A plastic bottle of aftershave. The cross necklace. The gun. Liam picks it up and checks the revolving chamber—that one bullet, still ready. It makes him nauseous just like it did the first time.

"I know you're probably not okay," Liam says. Understatement, he thinks, of the century. He closes the box and pushes it away, toward the center of the table. When he turns around Cordell's holding the beer in one hand and playing with a poker chip, in the other. "I know you're going to need some time. But when you're done, we need you back. The kids, and Mom and Dad. And me."

"C'mon, you don't need anybody, Stinker," Cordell says, with the barest thread of levity. "You climb right up to the top of the barn all by yourself, when no one's around to stop you."

Liam pauses, confused by the subject change. Surprised, then. "You were there for that?" he says, and Cordell shrugs, one corner of his mouth lifting.

When Liam was eleven, and Cordell was at college, and the world hadn't yet turned over on its head. It was early August and his school hadn't started, and Daddy and Mama had gone over to the feed store to pick up a truckload for the horses. He was bored, and tired of reading, and he'd gone out to the barn and looked up at it and thought about how Cordell had done it, at his age or maybe even younger, and if Cordell could then Liam could, too, if he set his mind to it. It wasn't even all that hard, once he was looking careful for the places to set his feet. He sat down on the top of the barn and looked out over the ranch—and further, over the where the road into the ranch pushed out into the hills, down toward the town. He wondered how far he could really see, to the horizon.

"Swung by to pick up my football stuff," Cordell says, now. "Em parked on the other side of the house and I didn't think anyone was home, until I looked out the back. You were up there just—taller than anything." He shrugs. "See? Didn't need my help after all."

"I wouldn't have climbed it if you hadn't dropped me on my head," Liam says, and Cordell snorts, shakes his head. Liam bites the inside of his cheek and crouches, and Cordell's forced to look at him or be ridiculous and so Cordell looks at him. Liam reaches out and gets his hand, the hand with the poker chip, and squeezes it, and Cordell swallows and squeezes back. The edges of the plastic bite into Liam's hand. "Come back," he says.

Cordell takes a deep breath. "I will," he says. "I promise, Liam."

Liam stands up and hugs him, around the shoulders, and walks out of the room. He takes the elevator back to the lobby and steps out into the sunshine, and takes a deep breath, and calls Bret to arrange lunch. Cordell's promises.  Fifty-fifty, anymore, that it ends up being true. Liam decides to believe him. He's hardheaded. He might as well be hardheaded and optimistic about it.

[pomegranate-belle]

For some reason I just really want you to write a fluffy frankfoggy short fic.

Adglkfgs I tried my best. How can Frank be so soft and also so not built for fluff??? How???

—

The thing about Frank Castle is... Ok, no, there are a lot of fucking Things About Frank Castle and most of them are mummified in police tape and clustered with red flags and hazard signs. But the biggest, most important Thing About Frank Castle is that somehow none of the rest of that seems to matter once he fixes those dark, soulful eyes on you, because once that happens you‘re Extremely Fucked. It had happened to Karen almost immediately. It had happened to Matt and he couldn’t even see the dark, soulful eyes. Hell, it had happened to Brett — who had consequently buried his burgeoning positive feelings so deep that they only welled up on the few occasions he was sloshed enough to cry over Castle climbing back into an ambulance that was about to explode to save his life.

Foggy had, to his own general relief, been the last bastion of sanity in the face of Frank Castle’s siren call. Key word being had. He’s pretty sure letting Castle convalesce in his bed and guilt him into dog-sitting is going to damage his thusfar spotless record.

“Thanks,” Castle says. “You’re good people, counselor.”

His face at this particular moment is more fucked up than Matt’s has ever been, even counting that time he got sliced and diced by a ninja — swollen and cut up and mottled with bruises — but Castle still somehow looks pretty. Soft and earnest with eyes so full they could drown you. Fucker.

“Just try not to kill anyone while you’re here,” Foggy mutters as he turns toward the door, because he can be just as petty as anyone else.

“Hey.”

It’s not said angrily or accusingly — just a low call for attention — but it cuts right through Foggy’s train of thought about finding where he stashed his spare comforter.

“What, Castle?” he asks, glancing back at the murderer tucked into his bed, blankets up to his chin like a kid.

“Bed’s pretty damn big, counselor. Probably room for two.”

Foggy starts about five different sentences before he finally finds his voice.

“Good night, Castle!”

And then he scurries out the door and slams it shut, heart pounding, because what the fuck? What. The fuck.

—

Foggy tosses and turns on his uncomfortable couch well into the night, and wakes to the smells and sounds of sizzling bacon. His first delirious thought is that Matt’s broken into his apartment to cook him an apology breakfast for fighting that mugger while tipsy last week. That’s the level of fucked up weird his life has become. When he realizes the even more fucked up weird truth — a literal actual murderous vigilante who he let into his apartment of his own free will because he is a complete sucker is cooking him breakfast — he throws an arm over his eyes and groans. Max the pit bull takes this as his cue to sidle up to the couch with a jingle and rest his chin on Foggy’s belly.

“Morning, sunshine,” says Castle, and the slightly-mocking pet name is bizarre enough coming from him without adding in the fact that it’s a phrase Foggy himself has used about a million times.

He decides to set the fluttery feeling in his gut aside for a minute and strokes Max’s head before gently pushing him off and sitting up.

“Why are you making breakfast?”

“Most important meal of the day,” is Castle’s nonchalant reply. “Thought you were all educated and shit, counselor, you don’t even know that?”

“Yes, I know breakfast is the—” Foggy sighs and stands, shuffling a hand through his own hair to put it in some kind of order. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Excuse me for being surprised that the Punisher is a morning-after breakfast kind of guy.”

Castle coughs.

“We do something last night I forgot about? I know most people think I’m a little—” he waves the spatula in his hand in a circle near his head in lieu of saying crazy— “but I’m pretty god damn sure I’d remember that.”

Foggy’s face flashes hot.

“No! No one— nothing was done! At all!” he insists too-loudly. “I didn’t mean it like that!”

The worst thing is, he really didn’t; it’s the sort of wording he uses around Matt or Karen — comfortable, teasing, just toeing the line of flirting. And from either of them he’d be able to laugh at the equally-teasing reply. But there’s something about Castle’s low voice, about the look in his eye, that makes it all a little too much to handle.

“Figured a lawyer would be more think before you speak,” comments Castle as he slides the last pancake onto a stack and then settles the bacon next to it.

The food’s all situated on a massive serving plate Foggy had forgotten he even had. And of course Castle carries it all to the table one-handed, with a stack of two plates, cups, knives, and forks balanced in the other hand. Foggy’s too speechless at the ridiculousness of it all to offer to help verbally, but he does manage to get out the syrup, the butter, and the orange juice, so good for him.

—

“I don’t get you,” Castle says, when they’ve whittled the food down to two pancakes and three slices of bacon.

“... What?”

“Red was easy. You’re the tough one. Can’t get a good read on you,” Castle elaborates, pointing the tines of his fork at Foggy from across the table.

Foggy laughs, disbelieving.

“I am literally the least mysterious person I know,” he protests, shoving another bite of pancake in his mouth. “I’m a complete open book.”

“And that’s what’s so god damn weird about you, Nelson. People just ain’t like that, you know, not really.”

To get out of answering, Foggy shrugs and feeds a little piece of bacon to Max. It sets Castle off on a long rant about proper canine nutrition that lasts for the rest of breakfast. Afterwards, Foggy manages a decent tactical retreat under the guise of washing the dishes. Eventually, though, he’s gotta go in to work. He’s really, really not looking forward to Matt’s super nose sniffing out his current company. It can only end one of two ways: with smug pronouncements of Foggy’s hypocrisy, or with worried scolding. Possibly both, now Foggy comes to think of it. Still, work is work, and Matt’s gonna find out about Foggy’s misguided good deed eventually.

“I’m heading out,” he calls over his shoulder from the front door of the apartment. “Just, you know, try not to die please.”

There’s a jingle of tags and Max’s heavy body is pressed against the side of Foggy’s leg. He makes the mistake of looking down into a pair of puppy dog eyes possibly more powerful than Matt’s, and can’t resist kneeling down to give Max some goodbye snuggles. It takes several minutes to convince himself to leave, but at last Foggy’s got a hand on the doorknob again.

Until there’s a heavy grip on his shoulder that makes him jump half a foot in the air.

“Jesus Christ, dude,” he gasps in complaint as Castle turns him around. “How can you be so silent when you’re—”

The rest doesn’t come out, because Frank Castle the literal actual Punisher is pressing a kiss to Foggy’s forehead. All Foggy’s brain can do in the face of a reality that bizarre is short out.

“Take care of yourself out there, counselor.”

“Right,” Foggy says numbly. “Right, yeah. Sure thing.”

Castle lets go and steps back, grabbing Max lightly by the collar to stop him from bounding our the door. Foggy can’t think of a response to make, so he just turns and leaves — into the hallway and down the stairs — heart racing and mind still spinning with questions.

[invaderzia1]

The Worst is Yet To Come (Jean Kirschstein x Fem!Reader) (Part 5)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 |

hey hey hey whats up sorry this has taken so long, i was struggling on the end but I finally feel good about it

9 more days of torture passed since I learned (Y/n) had been meeting with another guy. Everyday I watched her walk out that door I knew she was getting farther away from me. I was loosing her to someone else, I was loosing the love of my life. My thoughts had become more dangerous and toxic, I couldn’t be alone with them any more. All I wanted to do was cry and drink, throw myself into a disoriented state where I could relive my old life. The only way I could be happy.

It had been decided that I was to stay with Eren until I was able to properly care for myself. I felt like a child, but I knew it was for the best. I had packed up a good portion of my clothes and valuables, leaving behind our apartment. It hurt, no longer could I curl up to a picture frame of us while I drank myself asleep. But it’s what had to be done.

Currently, Mikasa, Sasha, Connie, Eren, Historia, and I were all watching some movies. It had been a while most of us had hung out like this, especially without (Y/n) with us. It was ever present over us how weird it felt. Mikasa and Historia has taken over the main couch, laying out onto it. Sasha and Connie were cuddled on the ground with each other. Me and Eren had ourselves on the side couch, sitting comfortably on it. For the first time in a few week, my mind didn’t feel plagued with horrible thoughts of what had happened, rather I was able to enjoy the presence of my friends. It was nice.

“So have you seen that Porco guy yet?” Connie asked, stuffing his face with popcorn as he did.

“Yeah, she introduced us to him the other day.” Mikasa said, putting her phone down. “There’s something off with him, I can’t place it.”

“Yeah!!” Sasha exclaimed, throwing her hand up excitedly. “He seemed like an asshole too. I don’t know what she sees in him.”

I just sighed, not letting my depressive thoughts get the better of me. “Are you just saying that cuz I’m here or because you really didn’t like him? I’d rather you not pass judgement on someone just because you think it’ll make me feel better.”

Sasha whipped around, staring me into my eyes. “No! There’s something really weird about him and I don’t like it.”

I placed my hands up defensively, waving her excitement off.

“What about you guys? Have y’all seen him?” Connie questioned Eren and Historia.

Eren shook his head, disinterested in the conversation. Historia nodded however, catching Connie’s attention.

“Yeah? What did you think? Is he a dick like everyone is saying?”

“He just seemed disinterested in everyone who wasn’t (Y/n), as if we didn’t matter to him. If he was trying to make a good impression of us than he did a pisspoor job at it.” Historia replied, shrugging her shoulders.

Suddenly, Historia’s phone let off a loud buzz, startling a good portion of us. She reached into her pocket and answered it, scurrying out of the living room into one of the empty room. We all just shrugged it off as we continued to enjoy the movie.

After a couple minutes of uninterrupted peace and relaxation, a loud thud was heard, as if someone had just called from the apartment upstairs down to erens, followed by a faint red light from under the door frame where Historia was. A few muffled voices were heard from the room as everyone suspiciously turned to look at it.

Eren nudged me not so gently with his foot, making me turn to him. His panicked expression told me everything I needed to know. Ymir and Armin must be back. I nodded at him.

“Would you two know what’s going on in there?” Mikasa not so gently put, annoyed by this sudden development.

“Maybe Historia dropped a book or something.” Eren joked, shrugging his shoulders.

Mikasa didn’t like this joke however, narrowing her eyes at him. “Eren, what’s going on?”

Everyone’s eyes were on us, trying to figure out what was going on. We had been able to bullshit a reason Armin just disappeared, something about Erwin needing him for a conference or someshit. But we knew we weren’t going to be able to bull shit this. Especially with anymore loud mouth causing a scene in the next room over.

“Historia, you can come out!!” Eren yelled. “I guess it’s time to let you guys in on this.”

The door opened pretty quickly, Historia shuffling out first followed by Armin and lastly Ymir. Everyone was a little apprehensive around Ymir, past interactions with her coming to mind. Mikasa’s eyes glazed over them before turning to me.

“Good to see you guys again.” Ymir announced, making herself at home on Eren couch.

“Hmmmph, what are you doing here?” Connie asked, practically spitting his words at her.

“Oh come on, can’t I spend time with my favorite mortals and half demon.”

“I don’t know, seems like Jean and Eren were about the explain what was going on, however.”

“Oh this should be fun.” Ymir smirked.

I was getting pretty feed up with this back and forth, not finding Ymir and Connie’s conversation as entertaining as I would’ve. I slammed my hand down onto the coffee table in front of me, bringing the attention back to me.

“Fuck it, you want to know?” I exclaimed, my jaw clenching in anger as I spoke. “I asked Ymir here to help find some sort of way we can help (Y/n), she wanted to take Armin to Hell with her in order to research better.”

Everyone was taken aback by my words, shocked by how much they had been left out of the loop. However, they were quickly brought back when Mikasa slapped my face. Then she slapped Eren’s followed by Armins. All three of us nursed our red cheeks, staring up at her in shock.

“MIKASA WHAT THE HELL???” Eren yelled out.

“Why didn’t any of you tell us? Are you idiots?” Mikasa’s eyes were angry, her usual stoic mood gone in favor for this fiery anger. Her fist was clenched by her side, her knuckles white.

“We couldn’t, you would’ve tried to stop us. I needed to make sure I was doing anything I could to help (Y/n).” I spat back, not caring that Mikasa could and will kick my ass.

“But how can you trust Ymir so blindly?”

“Ouch. Hurting my feelings here, Mika.” Ymir said, interjecting her sly comment in between our argument.

Mikasa shot a glare at Ymir before continuing her tirade. “You could’ve gotten Armin hurt down there, who knows what could’ve happened.”

My jaw clenched even harder as I ground my teeth together, I knew Mikasa was just worried but I couldn’t take her scolding me over this.

“Guy, stop fighting.” Armin exclaimed, jumping in between Mikasa and I. “I went on my own accord, I wanted to help Jean as much as I could.”

Mikasa eyes stared down at Armin, softening slightly as she did. Her fist unclenched as she took a breath, calming herself down. She crossed her arms and turned away from us, taking a seat in the lounge chair on the opposite side of the main couch. I released a sigh of relief, calming my nerves ever slightly. Everyone else seemingly did the same, taking seats around the living room and staring up at Ymir and I.

“Anyone else got any stupid questions before I start or can I get into what we found?” Ymir asked, running a hand through her hair, pushing it out of her face.

Nobody said anything, just staring up at her. Ymir sighed, rolling her eyes at everyone. She put her free arm around Historia, spreading herself out on the couch. Her jet black eyes scanned everyone’s face before settling in mine.

“Alright, lets get started then.” Her voice went for snarky to serious, preparing the rest of the room for what was to come. “So, bad news first, there’s no immediate fix to this.”

“What does that mean?” Eren jumped in, cutting Ymir off before she could continue.

“How about you let me explain before jumping in.” She glared. “Now, what I was going to say was there’s no simple solution to this.”

I stared back at her, waiting for her continue.

“There is some good news.” Armin nervously jumped in, turning attention from Ymir to him. “While there is no simple way to go about this, there is a way to fix this.”

I felt my heart leap from my chest, hope filling inside of me. My eyes widened as I sat up to listen more attentively. I couldn’t hide my excitement.

“W-What do we have to do?” I exclaimed. I could feel everyone’s eyes boring into me, I didn’t care about them.

“Well, there are two ways we can go about it. Though, they will be difficult and there’s no way to know if they will actually work.”

“I don’t care, I still need to try them. I can’t give up on her so easily.” I stood up in excitement, getting overworked by this new hope. I felt a pillow smash into my face, breaking me of my excitement.

“Sit down and let us explain this first.” Ymir yelled, snarling her sharp teeth at me.

Grumbling to myself, I reluctantly say down. I stared down Ymir and Armin as they began, bouncing my foot up and down impatiently.

“Okay... lets start with the first one, since it’s the least assine one.” Armin cleared his throat before speaking. “Well, we need travel to Hell and perform this ritual where Jean has to climb to the highest peak of the highest mountain in Hell, while carrying this medallion, then he has to bury it and wait for a bolt of lightning to strike that exact spot, at which point-“ Armin caught the collective look of uneasiness, stoping his explanation. “-oh... yeah, this one is pretty convoluted.”

“You think?” Eren replied, sarcastically.

Armin’s face went red in embarrassment, rubbing the back of his head nervously. I shot Eren an annoyed look, but was as equally unimpressed by that method. It didn’t sound like he was even half way through with that and while I would try it, I wasn’t happy about it.

“Well,” Ymir started, “If you didn’t like that one you probably won’t like this next one.”

Ymir gave Armin a look, cuing him into continuing. He cleared his throat and, with less vigor than before, continued.

“Well, the next way is to get the demon to break the contract.”

Oh, that seems simple, I thought.

Everyone else must’ve had that same thought, as they exchanged a similar look, before looking back to Armin. Armin must’ve knew how confused everyone is.

“Why are you all looking at me like that?” Armin stuttered out.

“Is that... all we have to do?” Sasha cautiously asked, quirking an eyebrow up.

“Well... for the most part.”

Everyone looked at each other again. My mind was blank, that couldn’t be hard to do. Why had they opened with the other one?

“Okay, it’s not that easy.” Ymir said, running her fingers through her hair. “First of all, it needs to take place in Hell, and only Hell to be valid. Secondly, these assholes take their contracts seriously, especially this one. If they are able to keep you fuckers out of their hair, they will use everything they can to do so.”

“We just need to attack them enough for them to attack us, it won’t be that hard.” Eren added, matter-of-factly.

“They won’t, they said they wouldn’t hurt you so they will not attack you. They can have other factions attack you or they could kill (Y/n). It’s simple as that.” Ymir shot back.

My eyes widened, the thought of harm coming to (Y/n) and it being my fault again was too much. There was no way I would be able to handle that again.

Everything was quiet again, everyone too startled to speak. There was no way this would be easy, but nobody wanted to give up. We all looked up at Ymir, who sighed to herself and ran her fingers through her hair yet again.

“So you really want to go through with this.” Her eyes glazed over everyone in the room, stopping at mine for a brief second. “Fine, you have two days to get packed.”

[apriki]

WARS OF THE STARS

So ya homegirl finally saw the last jedi and oh, there are THOUGHTS to be HAD below the cut for spoiler purposes but guys. GUYS.

I LOVED IT

I LOVED IT 

IT WAS WEIRD AND AMBITIOUS AND OVERTHREW THE CONVENTIONS OF THE STAR WARS UNIVERSE IN A WAY FORCE AWAKENS SPECIFICALLY DIDN’T AND I LOOOVVVED IT

when luke threw the lightsaber over his shoulder at the very start i was like OHHHHH YES BITCH...... ITS FUCKIN ON

‘this isn’t going to go how you think’ INDEED

my heart siezed when i saw leia ugh.... and this film treated her with the gravitas she deserved and i loved that 

POE IS A COCKY FLYBOY BUT OKAY THE HUX SCENE WAS LEGITIMATELY FUNNY and domhnall gleeson is having THE MOST FUN 

ROSE’S SISTERRR and i feel like this film took pains to show a more diverse range of people in the resistance and also in the background on the star destroyers? and i really loved that

snoke’s red room of pain lmaoooooooooo. and his mara jade bodyguards

snoke forcing kylo to take his helmet off because he knows kylo needs it to disconnect shut the fuck up

kylo tantrum™ and him wrecking the mask because snoke shattered its meaning to him but also YOU DON’T GET TO WEAR THE MASK IN THIS MOVIE, KYLO. A BITCH IS GONNA BE OUT HERE VULNERABLE AS FUCK

the timeline of this movie was... odd? i feel like we were meant to think rey was with luke for weeks but the rebellion plot was suuuuuper super fast. i employed some mental time dilation to make sense of it lmao

KYLO NOT BEING ABLE TO TAKE THE SHOT AND KILL LEIA

EMO SON LOVES HIS MOM 2K17

holy SHIT i really thought they were going to kill leia off 20 MINUTES IN for a hot minute there

but then she FORCED HER WAY BACK INTO THE SHIP? SUCK ON THAT DUDEBROS WHO SAID SHE WASN’T STRONG WITH THE FORCE LIKE DIE

SPACE LAURA DERN

We Need To Talk About Rey And Kylo’s Sense8 Plot

THAT FIRST SCENE WHERE SHE DIDN’T HESITATE, BITCH

and he FELT IT. HE FELT THAT BLASTER

THEIR FACES when they force felt each other what the guuud FUCK

kylo: you will lead me to skywalker

rey: i think the fuck not

‘i don’t see where you are... only you’

BI.......TCH

THE REST OF THE WORLD FADED AWAY AND THEY WERE STUCK WITH ONE ANOTHER

luke’s sad hermit routine lmfao

luke: the jedi weren’t shit really

me: absolutely fair and true

when rey was like ‘please take this lightsaber and all the responsibility that comes with it’ and luke was like ‘this bitch empty YEET’

porgs are whatever. i wouldve eaten that one on the stick lmao chewbacca is a softie

am i the only one who like doesn’t remember the millenium falcon’s dice in the mirror lmao

sidenote like, adam driver’s voice. right? right?

KYLO CALLING HIMSELF A MONSTER WAS WHAT MADE REY START TO BELIEVE HE WASN’T? WHAT KIND OF BYRONIC NONSENSE......

‘i’d really rather not do this right now’ / ‘yeah me either’

I CACKLED. 

THESE TWO SHIT KIDS WITH A SENSE8 CONNECTION THEY DON’T WANT DROPPING IN ON EACH OTHER’S NARRATIVES

I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS MOVIE IS REAL.

i heard that kylo ren had a sixpack. that kylo ren is shredded

DON’T YOU HAVE LIKE, A COWL OR SOMETHING?????????????????????

MAZ KANATA IS LIVING HER OWN ACTION FILM SHE DOESN’T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR BULLSHIT

loved the casino world that was so obviously based on monaco and dipping into the muddy waters of arms dealing and showing how deep the fight between tyranny and freedom runs in the galaxy. it can get quite baroque with the skywalkers and their drama and i felt like it was a smart smart move to have finn team up with rose to see how exploitation and cruelty don’t always have to be in the form of sith lords or first orders

this movie is so busy dismantling the ideas of heroes and villains. it’s just people making choices and that’s the point and it’s TRRRUUUUUUE

benicio del toro is the new era boba fett and i love HE

poe getting SLAPPED and BLASTERED like multiple times lmaoooooooo like i like him well enough but bitch listen to your betters!

i kind of loved that finn and rose went off on this grand plan to save the resistance and it.... didn’t work. like everything they kept trying just DID NOT WORK but there was still hope at the end? friends it was beautiful

YOU’RE NOT ALONE

KYLO SLIDING OUT INTO THE CORRIDOR IS UHHHHHH THE STRAIGHT UP BEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN

HE’S A SIXTEEN YEAR OLD LINKIN PARK FANATIC AND I LOVE

rey in the rain

the first time she’s ever felt it?

and then the world goes QUIET AGAIN

WHAT KIND OF WOLFGANG AND KALA BULL SHIT

and okay the end of this scene where kylo pulls his hand away

AND WIPES OFF

THE RAIN

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

CANNOT

I CANNOT.

WHAT IS THIS AGE OF INNOCENCE FUCKING BUFFONERY SCREAAAMM

‘did he tell you what happened?’

and like, kylo could just say it himself

but he knows rey wouldn’t believe him 

and luke fucking LIED

‘THAT SKYWALKER BLOOD’

me two years ago: what’s an adam driver

me now: (laughing nervously) what the f

‘why does the force keep connecting us?’ BITCH ME TOO LMFAO 

the way the world STOPS ALL AROUND THEM

oh my god the flashbacks

like i feel like we got more than enough of this alluded to in force awakens but some people need it in black and white i guess and HERE THE FUCK IT IS

‘and the last thing i saw were the eyes of a frightened boy whose master had failed him’

and okay WOW @ ME EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO HAS CONTINUALLY SAID HAN, LEIA AND LUKE DIDN’T FAIL KYLOHE LITERALLY TRIED TO MURDER HIM

look.

i am the most stoic bitch in a movie theatre. like shit does not phase me but i fucking teared UP my face just CRUMPLED LIKE UGHHHHH

AND ADAM’S DRIVER’S STUPID FUCKING FACE AND HIS DUMB EYES

HIS PARENTS SENT HIM AWAY BECAUSE THEY WERE AFRAID OF HIM AND HIS UNCLE TRIED TO FUCKING MURDER HIM

‘YOU WERE WRONG TO THINK HIS HEART HAD DECIDED!’

and THIS is what’s at the heart of the last jedi - dismantling the myth of the hero. there are no heroes, only people, and luke is the embodiment of thatto rey he’s a myth but to kylo he was a man and that’s how he stumbled but he stumbled because he believed his OWN myth i’m just..... dying slowly

THEIR HANDS TOUCHING

THEIR FINGERS

FUCK OFF

THE ELECTRICITY

I FEEL THE CONFLICT IN HIM

REY CRYING AND KYLO TEARING UP

GOODBYE BITCHES I’M FUCKIN OUTTA HEEEYYYYA

rey: i saw you at my side

kylo: well i saw YOU at MY side

me: fellas,

REY BLASTING OFF RIGHT INTO THE HEART OF THE ENEMY CAUSE SHE BELIEVES SHE CAN SAVE BEN’S SOUL

REY GOING INTO THE DARKNESS AND NOT BEING AFRAID

AND TRYING TO SEE HER PARENTS BUT ONLY SEEING HERSELF

snoke claiming that he mainpulated rey and kylo looks up in FURY because he realises he was manipulating him too

LIKE HE ALWAYS KNEW

BUT HERE IT IS IN BLACK AND WHITE

his fingers twitching 

the saber moving

me in my seat: boy he bout to DO IT

AND KILLS

HIS

TRUE

ENEMY

i SCREAMED

well i didn’t scream because i was in a theatre but i screamed on the inside. i would watch kylo or ANY character kill every person who ever manipulated abused used them and HOW oh my GOD 

HE COULDN’T KILL REY AND HE KILLED SNOKE INSTEAD.

HE COULDN’T KILL LEIA AND HE COULDN’T KILL REY

JUST A BOY IN A MASK

THE EYES OF A FRIGHTENED BOY

like he just wants someone to to TRUST and they all keep FAILING for all his talk to rey of her constantly looking for parental figures like all he fucking wants is to belong to something??

it’s whatever.

like i can but i also can’t believe we actually got this character so shaped and formed by abuse and manipulation KILLING HIS ABUSER. like KNEELING IN FRONT OF SNOKE and being beaten down and down and FINDING THE STRENGTH TO KILL HIM ANYWAY

the conflict of this series is happening in the galaxy but it’s also happening in ben solo’s heart and that’s just about enough for me to mcFREAKING lose it

THE WAY REY CONSISTENTLY CALLS HIM BEN.’

BEN. BENJY. BENJO BOY

REY AND KYLO FIGHTING

BACK TO BACK

BACK! TO BACK!

REY WITH THE CROSSGUARD SABER KYLO WITH ANAKIN’S SABER

KILLING THOSE RED DUDES MAYBE THE KNIGHTS OF REN? THE SLOW MO

FIGHTING TOGETHER................. 

POETRY

I DIED

I FUCKING STRAIGHT UP ASCENDED

REY CALLING HIM BEN AND HIM FLINCHING

EVERY

SINGLE

TIME

‘you’re nothing to the story - but not to me’

LOOK,

LISTEN,

I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS MOVIE IS REEEEAAALLLL

when kylo asked rey to join him i swear to god i heard the opening synth of carly rae jepsen’s ‘run away with me’

FORCE FIGHTING FOR THE SABER

DARKNESS AND LIGHT TO MEET IT

BUT ALSO DARKNESS IN HER AND LIGHT IN HIM

THE BALANCE

THE BALANCE!!

THEY’RE EQUALS THEY’RE SO EQUAL THEY FUCKING

TORE

THE SABER

APART

i seriously thought this was going to be the film’s climax but there was like 40 more minutes after this ksadjfkdsfj

LAURA DERN AND LEIA wow that was some BUSINESS 

and leia explaining to poe about doing the right thing vs. looking like a hero MY GOD this film is on another level. how the fuck did it both take star wars to town over like its most fundamental conventions but still feel true to the series and respectful and genuine? I AM... AGOG

LAURA FUCKING DERN LIGHTSPEEDING INTO A SPEED DESTROYER HOLLLLYY SHIT

and the no sound CRACKING APART of the cruiser the LIGHT 

this movie was shot so beautifully thanks disneymarvelfox conglomerate

honestly i’m still astounded that a film so rooted in nostalgia, nearly dependent on it in a way, firmly and deeply embedded a ‘let the past die’ moral through its narrative. LIKE, WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF BLOCKBUSTER???????? but i loved it, i loved that luke and kylo were both so determined to bury the past and rey was equally determined to dig it up. because how can you have balance without it? 

the whole hoth version 2 snow planet was beautiful and the BURGUNDIES the contrast i love an aesthetic!

(tastes red substance hesitantly) ‘Salt.’

i want a crystal wolf

LMFAO YODA JUST BEING A FUCKING TROLL WHAT THE HELL

they couldn’t phone ewan mcgregor for a yung hot jesus obi wan cameo? i’d be into it

LUKE’S FOOT NOT SHOWING A RED PRINT THAT’S WHEN I KNEW HE WASN’T THERE

kylo: .........i’ll destroy the girl

luke: no you wont

kylo: yeah no i wont u right u right

LUKE AND LEIA OH MY GODDDD the GRAVITAS of mark and carrie!!! it was so beautiful

when kylo gave an order and hux repeated it super loud and kylo GAVE HIM THE WILDEST SIDE EYE I FUCKING CHOOOOKEKEKKEKEKED

i’m glad somewhere along the way they realised hux is like the biggest joke character lmfao

bye phasma

finn’s storyline really god sidelined this movie huh? i loved rose a LOT and i loved them together but did we need the poe plot like really

all the scenes with the og trio have been so layered and beautiful you can 

though i thought luke died in the fire and it was his force ghost not him like force astral projecting lmao

LUKE WALKING OUT OF THE RED SMOKE FROM THE GUNFIRE DDDAMMMMNN

‘do you think you got him????????’ KDBFKSHDFKHDS

ooof that final confrontation scene though

damn right you should apologise luke lmfao

SEE YA, KID

kylo’s anger in the last third is just wooooof like he thinks he can destroy every person and every remnant that rejected him but he’s just running on his own anger until he realises luke isn’t really there and there’s nothing else for him to fight

OOOOF

THE BINARY SUNSET

that GOT me i was verklempt

rey and poe meeting was cute

i hope they’re not setting up a love triangle cause like that shit is tiiirrreeeedddd

i like finn and rey and also finn and rose like im happy to go down whatever road they take

THAT FINAL SCENE

SNOKE WAS WAY FUCKING DEAD BUT THEY WERE

STILL

CONNECTED

HIM BENEATH HER ABOVE

YES BITCH LOOK AT EACH OTHER

and shutting the door but like the FALCON

I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S GONNA BE TWO MORE YEARS

is the fucking novelization out yet?

or the script?

i want to swim in this movie god stay tuned as my thoughts #develop and #grow

[terryblount]

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey – Review

I never understood why people would say that a game “won them over”, or that they hated a game when they started playing, but then they grew to love it. I am more much more binary when it comes to my opinion of what I play. Either I like something or I don’t, and it has never taken more than twenty minutes to make up my mind. That is, until I reviewed Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey.

After playing for about an hour, I had originally vowed to write an utterly scathing opinion piece on this trash. I hated it, and such a poorly-made game deserved to be thrown to the wolves. Still, in the back of my mind I knew I was missing something which made me pick it up one more time just for the sake of being objective. To my absolute surprise, I now find myself… a little obsessed, really.

Monkey see, monkey do.  The green orb at the bottom is a general indication of your current character’s overall vitality, including thirst, hunger and sleep.

I still don’t think Ancestors is a masterpiece, and I will mention some of the lamentable (but inexcusable) booby-traps that Panache Digital Games have stumbled into. However despite the cryptic nature of the gameplay, I eventually found an interesting and refreshingly original rendition of the survival genre here once I was willing to dig deep enough.

A monkey’s tale

Be honest, we all bolted upright like a dog hearing its food bowl at the mention of Patrice Désilets’s name. He’s the guy who left Ubisoft from the Assassin’s Creed and Prince of Persia franchises and founded Panache Digital Games to make Ancestors.

Unlike Patrice’s previous undertakings though, Ancestors is not an action RPG. This is a purebred survival and crafting game set in prehistoric Africa where our forefathers first walked the jungle.

The game opens with an exhilarating cut scene of fearsome animals like crocodiles, razor-beaked birds and sabre-toothed cats ravaging one another as just another day in prehistoric Africa. The message is clear; this is a hostile and dangerous world for the early humanoids. Yes, the word is ‘humanoid’ and not a monkey or a gorilla as people who don’t know their evolution keep saying on YouTube!

As someone who lives in Africa, I can attest this happens every day… when you go on safari

I took on the role of an alpha female as part of a clan that have settled at the foot of the waterfall, and I was instantly impressed with the world that the developers have set their game in. The vast, lush jungle (complete with day/night cycle) was enormous filled with gigantic trees, lakes and rocky cliffs probably rendered to scale. It is all yours to explore, to look for food and for gathering resources.

Unfortunately, the camera handles like it was being held by a an ADD 5-year-old chugging Red Bull. If it’s not bobbing like a cork or veering off, the player is constantly staring up our early ancestors’ arses. Throughout my entire playthrough, I felt like I always had to fight a bit with the game to aim the camera where I needed it to go. It felt like Ancestors was training me to be a primate proctologist.

I started following the first and only objective that the game will ever give you: Find and rescue the clan’s lost baby. These early humans possessed a heightened sense of smell, hearing and vision which the player can use to identify most of their surroundings. After locating the baby, I slid down a tree with all the dexterity of a seasoned primate and proceeded towards the objective marker.

Son, please don’t run off again while your mother and I mate in front of you, okay?

Mistakes were made

The little guy was hiding underneath a rock and I gave him a piggyback ride back to the nest just like the monkeys I saw on BBC the other day. It was then, once I returned to the nest, that I experienced exactly what about 95% of all day one players ran into: Absolutely no indication of what to do next. No further objective markers, no tutorials and no stats meters. Bugger-all.

Suddenly I appreciated the true gravity of these words in the opening scene

I get that this experience of the unknown was meant to replicate the situation of our actual ancestors, but it is all just too much too soon and the game punishes you severely for getting it wrong. Every now and then I like a game that doesn’t hold your hand, but it needs to happen more organically and logically through the gameplay. I cannot say that is the case here.

This is even more bizarre when you consider Ancestors actually lets you adjust how much on-screen info you want before starting your new lineage (or clan). Why even bother if players who stipulate they prefer some help are not going to be assisted anyway? No wonder so many people were put off.

I would be equally happy for discovering this egg if I knew what it was for. Also, notice how dark this game is? I wish they had gone for a more vibrant colour scheme.

Okay, I thought, my overgrown chimpanzee must want food, right? There is a green orb at the bottom of the screen that was beginning to fill with red, which means it has to eat or drink I’m guessing. Either that or it is preparing to fling poop at something. I spotted some berries hanging from a bush and followed the prompt to gorge myself on the red fruit.

Big mistake. Turns out the berries give you an upset stomach, meaning the humanoid looked like it was REALLY about to fling poop everywhere. Here Ancestors also committed one of the Seven Deadly Sins of gaming: It makes the screen go all wobbly and wonky to simulate the ape’s churning gut.

In fact, whenever you get poisoned, high off mushrooms, cold, frightened, or for no particular reason, Ancestors simply loves to make your screen go bonkers. I HATE it when games do this since this is a hopelessly outdated way of simulating a characters experiencing trauma. Too many other games have found better ways of conveying these situations to the player.

The only thing I could see around the nest was more berries, so I broadened my search to find some primordial antacid. It was then with my poor visibility that I missed a jump, causing my already suffering alpha female to plummet off a high branch and break a bone when she hit the ground. So now my clan leader is both sick and limping. The human race is really off to a rocky start.

I finally figured out that water helps with the stomach problems at least, so I waded deeper into the river to settle in for some drinking… which is when a green mamba locked its venomous fangs on the ape’s arm from behind a tree. Now I can add poisoning to my list of woes, and the screen looked like vomit at this point making it really hard to see anything.

“No,” I said as I hit exit, “no, no, no. Screw this. Maybe the human race was meant to go extinct. You’ll thank me later mother earth.” I left the game, and didn’t play again for a day as I plotted my review vendetta.

Let’s do the monkey

Before I munched on those deadly dingleberries, I did some exploring around the settlement and noticed a variety of interactions and crafting options that I did not quite understand (because the stupid game failed to explain them). Perhaps the answer lay here. Perhaps there was something more beneath this horrid first impression and the developers’ pathetic attempts to help you in their game.

It was at this point that I stumbled upon a streamer by the name of TagBackTV on YouTube. If my attempt at playing Ancestors was a patient in the head injury ward doing a cowbell solo, he played like a symphonic orchestra conducted by Hans Zimmer. This guy had evolved the hunched little clan of simians into a bipedal army holding hunting expeditions through the Savannah wielding stone tools and weapons.

According to my friends, this is still pretty much how I cook today. Seriously though, bashing the leaves with a rock makes a medicinal paste.

Confident that it could be done I spent hours on Reddit, watched instructional videos and finally summoned the courage to try again. This time, Ancestors felt like a completely different game. Now I was watching my clan grow and survive because I was teaching them to adapt and become smarter. Suddenly, it was 2:30 in the morning and JUST ONE MORE GENERATION AND I PROMISE I WILL GO TO BED.

Like all good survival games, Ancestors has this internal rhythm and momentum for the player to fall into. Once you learn a set of basic gameplay mechanics, you gain the confidence and knowhow to apply them in more complex tasks. In other words, once you understand the law of the jungle, it becomes a place of exploration and opportunity rather than one big death trap.

See, the aim of the game in Ancestors is to help your little clan of humanoids survive the harsh landscape of prehistoric Africa by building up their neuron cells. In other words, the player must give the early humans bigger brains, which in turn makes each successive generation (the babies) smarter and more capable in their environment.

Ancestor’s version of a ‘tech tree’. The white orb in the middle is how much neuronal energy you have to make links to other neurons. More babies makes you gather neuronal energy much faster.

In the opening sections, players will mostly learn the ABCs of just getting around the jungle, what to eat and avoid, and how to keep a keen eye out for predators. While the latter becomes annoying at times, the developers have programmed their AI really well since they can sneak up on you completely silently. I needed to change my underwear a few times after a crocodile lunged at me out of the water, or a sabre-toothed cat suddenly jumped out of the undergrowth.

Example of an upgrade as you develop the brain of the apes

After those neurons have been developed and you have passed through a few generations, you find that you can eat even the most poisonous foods and kill even the most intimidating predators with a self-made spear. Players will learn how to use stone tools not just to make weapons, but also to grind plants into paste for making medicinal products.

After every major evolution the distant descendants of the clan you started off with will find themselves in a new environment. From the jungle the player will eventually move to grass planes, the arid savannah, and even the sea shore. Again, these environments are HUGE and each one presents a unique set of challenges which is a great way to keep the repetitive gameplay fresh and engaging.

Staying in touch with your roots

The survival genre is an exciting area to explore for gamers these days. Games like Subnautica, the comeback of No Man’s Sky, and now Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey show that studios have a unique confidence here to turn some interesting concepts into games. As a community we should consider supporting these flawed but ambitious projects so that they can evolve into bigger and more refined products, and Ancestors is no exception.

That’s what you get for attacking my clan. Oh crap… did I just cause cats to go extinct!?

Do try this game if you have the means or the time, but make sure you do a substantial amount of background research before you click that icon. While the developers were morons for not easing the players into this complex experience, all gamers should try their hand at witnessing the very birth of our species.

Big world to explore

Vast and engaging skill tree

Rewarding exploration

Interesting concept

Decisions matter

Needs more player guidance

Frustrating camera

Screen distortion effects

Mediocre graphics

Can be repetitive at times

        Play time: About 27 hours total. Most players should reach the final stage of evolution between 35 – 40 hours

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an Xbox One Controller

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