#Alma Drill

[simspaghetti]

Do is officially an adult, and like Amy, he's also having a midlife crisis! 🫠

[romijuli]

“Bluh bluh bluh they’re canceling school because of the eclipse this wouldn’t have happened back in MY day” yeah buddy they’re canceling school because it’s supposed to hit right when schools let out and the buses aren’t driving in near-darkness at 3 fucking PM. Like bro what do you want them to do here.

[spacenutspod]

SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 125 *Discovery of the Most Distant Spiral Galaxy Astronomers have identified the most distant spiral galaxy ever seen, named REBELS 25. This galaxy, observed as it was 13.1 billion years ago, challenges current models of galaxy formation with its orderly spiral structure, despite being from an era when the universe was just 700 million years old. The discovery, made using the ALMA radio telescope in Chile, offers new insights into the early universe and the evolution of galaxies. *Record-Breaking Mantle Rock Recovery Scientists have achieved a groundbreaking recovery of rocks from Earth's mantle, the planet's largest component. The 1268-meter-long section of mantle rock, retrieved from the Atlantic's mid-ocean ridge, provides new insights into the mantle's role in Earth's geological processes. The findings, published in Science, reveal unexpected levels of melting and composition, offering clues to the origins of life and volcanic activity. *Launch of ESA's Hera Asteroid Mission The European Space Agency's Hera mission has launched from Cape Canaveral, just ahead of Hurricane Milton. Hera will conduct a detailed study of the Didymos asteroid system, following NASA's successful Dart mission. The mission aims to enhance our understanding of asteroid deflection techniques, which could be crucial for planetary defense. The Science Report A new, highly transmissible Covid-19 variant, XEC, has been detected in Australia. The variant, a recombinant of two Omicron subvariants, is spreading rapidly and has been reported in 29 countries. A consumer advocacy group reveals that car manufacturers are collecting and sharing extensive data from vehicles, raising privacy concerns. A study finds that deactivating Facebook can improve well-being but may reduce political knowledge. AMD's new AI chips set new standards for processing speed, outperforming competitors with their advanced capabilities. www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com www.bitesz.com 🌏 Get Our Exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ www.bitesz.com/nordvpn. Enjoy incredible discounts and bonuses! Plus, it’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌ Check out our newest sponsor - Old Glory - Iconic Music and Sports Merch. Well worth a look.... Become a supporter of this Podcast and access commercial-free episodes plus bonuses: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-with-stuart-gary--2458531/support. 00:00:00 - This is spacetime series 27, episode 125 for broadcast on the 16 October 2024 00:00:47 - Astronomers have discovered the most distant spiral galaxy ever seen 00:03:14 - Scientists have recovered long section of rocks that originated in the Earths mantle 00:11:26 - NASA spacecraft to study asteroid Dimorphos and its tiny moon Didymos 00:13:56 - More than 35,000 asteroids pose a threat to Earth 00:18:45 - Hera will take two years to reach the asteroid system after launch 00:24:32 - New highly transmissible variant of the Covid-19 virus has been detected in Australia 00:27:29 - New study finds deactivating Facebook accounts reduces political knowledge 00:31:05 -  spacetime is available every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through various podcasting platforms

[pinkhelados]

miguel x wife!reader ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´ω`ﾟ)ﾟ｡

includes: fem!reader, latina!reader, miggle being a simp, p in v sex, praise kink, very slight dacryphilia, not edited! Criticism is welcome!

Miguel swore to you that he’s never make you cry. “Te lo juro, mi alma. Te hare la mujer más feliz del universo. No sentirás tristeza cuando estes en mis brazos.” He remembered saying and he meant it, what kind of a man would make a woman as beautiful as you cry? Miguel was a man of his word, after all.

Well, until now.

Miguel found himself balls deep in your pussy with his talons digging into the fat of your hips. He didn’t want to hurt you, but he just couldn’t help himself when your weeping cunt tightened around his girthy cock like a vice. “Fuck,” He groaned. “Eres- eres tan bonita,” Miguel said with each thrust. His chocolate rown hues stared lovingly into your pretty eyes. Those same pretty eyes that had fat tears of pleasure rolling down your skin as he pushed his dick further into your creamy pussy. “Too good, it’s too good,” You hiccuped. More tears dribbled down your cheeks which were quickly kissed away by your tender husband.

“Good, pretty girl,” You heard him grunt, his thrusts becoming sloppily. He was trying so hard not to cream inside that little cunt of yours. The same man who swore to you on your wedding night that he’d never want to see you weep was getting off on your tears. “Look at your pretty pussy, nena. It’s sucking me in,” He said between breaths, mesmerized by the sticky strings of arousal connecting you every time his hips pulled back. How could you be so pretty? “My wife, my perfect wife. I love you, baby.” Miguel was babbling and his head was churning out thoughts by the second. He could only focus on making you cum.

Slap, slap, slap.

“Miguel! Miguel! Mmngh~!” Saliva dripped down your chin and more gloopy tears spilled from your gorgeous eyes. Each thrust was a kiss to your sweetspot, pussy dripping sweet nectar which left a ring around the base on Miguel’s cock. “Te amo, cariño,” You squealed just as the knot in your tummy tightened as well as your legs around his waist. You were close, and Miguel would stop at nothing until he felt your cunt flutter around him. Despite drilling into your hole, his eyes were soft as he brushed your hair away from your eyes. He was drenched in passion with sweat sticking to his tan skin.

“M’ gonna cum~ C-Can’t hold it,” You whispered and you saw a switch in your husband flip.

Miguel’s talons retreated into his fingers and with strenght, he flipped you over on your stomach and went haywire. Kneading your ass, he whimpered as he chased so desperately after the pleasure. “Close- Cum- cum with me! Nena~” His plush lips fell open and his load filled your womb just as your own sticky fluids ran down the skin of your thighs. Your soaked pussy fluttered and a loud call of his name rang out. “Oh..oh god.”

Spent, Miguel flipped over next to you with labored breaths. His strong arms came around your waist and pulled you on top of his chest. “Miggy,” you purred and kissed his lips. The dim room lighting glinted of the glossy skin of your lover and you swore that your heartbeat had become impossibly fast. The two lovers panted heavily in each other’s arms, waiting for their energy to return so that they could do at all over again.

[cod-fishing]

Thinking about Price being possessive over his boys. Not romantically or sexually (he likes to tell himself), but any time Soap starts chatting about some bear he met in a bar during leave, or Gaz mentions a girl who gave him her number, he can feel himself bristle. He tries to bury it, but it only gets worse after Las Almas, their bonds forged in far too much blood, and he struggles to bite down discouragement for any connection outside their little family.

When soap and ghost finally get together, he can’t figure out which of them he wants to throttle, but the sensation is intense nonetheless. Enough that he can’t stop himself from ordering them to his office and dressing them down so meticulously his old drill Sargent would be proud. They both look defiant. At perfect attention, military perfect in their stance, but fire in both of their eyes. It’s only when Soap, jaw clenched, demands if Price is going to transfer them that the Captain falters.

He sits heavy into his chair, and orders his boys at ease.

“I could never let go of either of you,” he finds himself gritting out through cigar smoke and choking emotions, far too unfiltered, “I just don’t want you boys to get hurt.”

He sees them soften, understanding. Not expecting a real answer, Price asks them their intentions with one another. He doesn’t want either of them to hurt the other, and while he knows they both have hearts of gold, they’ve got a lot of thorns as well. But they talk, and Soap is his usual genuine self and Ghost- Simon, really - is more honest and open than Price has seen him be ever, so…

He says okay. But keep me updated, he says. The good and the bad. They nod, and he assumes he’ll have to pry information out of them, and they move on.

Miraculously, they do keep him updated. Soap comes knocking one day, and Price asks about those reports he sent him off with and Soap says, aye, captain, got those for you, but ah…can I tell you something sweet Ghost did for me today? He’s bursting with joy when Price looks at him properly, and how can he say no to that?

Ghost, too, comes in one day, and asks to speak with the captain. Need some advice, sir. Johnny wants to take me home to his family for the holidays and I’m feeling real conflicted, he says. And they talk it out, fingers playing with the rims of their whiskey glasses. Price gets this feeling in his chest, likes he wants to reach out and trace his fingers somewhere else, but he ignores it.

It keeps happening that way, Price getting deeper and deeper in their relationship. He knows everything about the two together - almost everything. Ghost is on a solo mission one day and soap is moping, and so price pulls him into his office with the intention of getting him plastered and making him go to bed.

Instead, Johnny gets talkative. He should have known.

“God, Price, you wouldn’t believe the things he can do with his mouth. His fingers, too, lord knows where he learned it, but it’s like he took a fucking class on making me cum just from the teasing alone.”

“You’ve heard his voice captain, I mean no wonder I was creaming my pants to be with him so bad, and boy was I right. Downright evil how good it sounds during and early morning shag.”

And, even worse than all that, somehow…

“Well you know me, I like to be the best. So I told him we should start training my throat, so I can actually take his monster cock, the bastard. Did pass out the first time but we’ve been taking it slowly but surely ever since.”

And Price just…he should shut him up, but instead, he just takes it. Just lets the lad ramble about his love, like some lass back at home pinning for her deployed soldier. He hates it, he hates it, he tells himself. But he takes it for Johnny, and for Simon, and for the trust they have put in him.

And when he fists his cock in his quarters later that night, aching from being hard for so long, he can’t help but picture all those filthy things Soap told him.

Maybe, all this time, he was just jealous.

[the-ace-with-spades]

(I adore fics where Johnny’s family loves Ghost from day one, but, you know…angst)

Soap and Ghost had been together for almost two years. They never name the relationship, really, but it's serious and they both know it.

Thing is, Johnny's seen Ghost's face a total of four times, counting Las Almas.

Well, he sees parts of it regularly, more than others. Ghost will either roll the balaclava up when they're reading together in bed or when they're eating. Sometimes, when Soap wants to go out and Ghost indulges him, he goes in public in just either a face mask or a gaiter and Soap can see his short wavy blonde hair sticking all over the place and 

The four times he had seen Simon’s face in it’s whole — obviously, Las Almas; one time when he was unconscious and bleeding from a head wound and Johnny had to check; one time when they took a shower together, Simon stayed with his back toward him through most of it, but when they finished, he let Johnny dry off his hair; one time, when Johnny asked him to see him for his birthday presents, a few minutes after midnight.

Johnny wasn’t sure why exactly Simon didn’t want to show him his face. It wasn’t a trust thing — he trusted Johnny with more than his own life — and it wasn’t like he was ugly — he was downright sinful. He never drilled the topic because he didn’t care, if SImon wasn’t ready, then he wasn’t ready, but if he had to guess, it was all to do with identity and being seen. No one knew his face — people could know his name, Simon “Ghost” Riley, but they wouldn’t know the man behind the mask. Wouldn’t know the people behind Simon “Ghost” Riley.

(Johnny wasn’t completely off on the assumption — Simon didn’t want anyone to know his face because faceless people weren’t missed. Faceless graves — like his own — didn’t have people to leave behind, and faceless soldiers didn’t have loved ones to find and he was both. No one could get hurt if he remained faceless. Or at least that’s what he’d been telling himself.)

And Johnny is okay with that — if Simon never showe him his face again, he’d still love him all the same. Johnny’s family? Not so much.

They’re supposed to be in Glasgow for five days total, leaving after Boxing Day. Johnny gives them all a warning, that Ghost is a bit shy and doesn’t like showing his face, he’ll most likely stay covered the whole time, he might be wearing a balaclava, or a mask, he probably won't eat at the table.

When they arrive at his parents house, it almost seems like everyone forgot. Like everyone thought it'd be more mild or that Johnny was exaggerating.

There are looks. There is silence. People can't stop staring.

His mam takes one look at Simon’s balaclava once they enter the living room and looks funny at them. “Ah thooght Ah tauld ye boays tae strip doon.”

“Mam, lea him alane,” he tries but he can tell that Simon is getting tense and his mam is getting tense.

His mam, who is usually the sweetest person ever, is uncharacteristically quiet and curt whenever Simon is around. Simon doesn't really know how to make it better — Johnny's never seen him so silent outside of stealth missions, he just stands there like a sore thumb, not making anything less awkward. He didn't expect him to — Simon's social skills are lacking and he loves him that way — but he expected his own family to not make such a big deal out of that mask.

His da is stern and silent, which is as disapproving as he gets. His sisters are a bit weirded out, but mostly focused on teasing Johnny, even making fun of the mask. With a stupid grin, his older sister asks, “Does he keep it oan in bed?”

Johnny doesn't say anything to that, even though his face feels red. His sisters stop laughing.

“He does?” When Johnny tries to step out of the room and avoid the conversation, his sister’s tone changes. “Hae ye e’en seen his face?”

“O’ coorse Ah hae,” he spits out. He doesn’t specify it was only four times — he doesn’t think it’d help. “And ‘s a bonnie ane, alricht.”

It doesn’t save the situation and his sisters are also weirded out and wary from then on.

 The kids do not care — they ask maybe two questions, tilts their head as Simon explains and that’s it — and Johnny breathes a little easier as soon as his nieces push Simon outside to help them build a snowman.

The judgment doesn’t stop. Johnny’s blood boils any time it shows and even though Simon says it’s all fine, he can’t stop feeling angry about this. They just can’t get past the mask.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are difficult to Simon and Johnny knows it. He’s given him the option to omit the family dinner on both those days if he’s not feeling alright enough to spend those days in crowdy house filled with a flock of loud and cheery people of all ages.

Simon knows this. He also knows that if he says he wants to stay at Johnny’s flat for the time being, Johnny is going to insist he doesn’t have to go either, that he’d prefer to stay in with him and not go for the Christmas dinner. Which he also knows is bullshit — Johnny loves Christmas, loves spenidng time with his family, that was basically why he kept on insisting Simon couldn’t stay alone at the base for Christmas another year in a row. It was the main reason why he agreed to go with Johnny in the first place, he was pretty sure if he didn’t go with him, Johnny would insist he stays, too. 

So Simon stays in for Christmas Eve — or rather goes to a pub while Soap spends the day with his parents — but insists they go to Christmas dinner. 

His family is disappointed to see him there, to the point the usual manuevering around politeness and disapproving go onto a backburner.

“John said yer nae a fan o’ Christmas,” Johnny’s mum says to him pointedly.

“That’s right.”

“And yet ye’r ’ere,” she notes.

Johnny is far away from the earshot and he doesn’t want to lie to her so he admits, “If I didn’t come, Johnny would insist on keepin’ me company.”

“How come ye dinnae try to hae a bit mair cheer fur th' holidays then? Put a bit mair effort in for ma baby.” 

Johnny notices and soon enough, he’s next to him, their arms brushing, Johnny’s hand on the small of his back. “Lea him alane, mam.”

“It’s fine,” he says even though it’s not fine. They deserve an explanation, even just to know what they son is getting himself into. “My family was murdered on Christmas Eve. I’m—I’m trying.”

The silence falls over the room — Johnny’s mum, dad, his sister, all present, not looking at them. Simon closes his eyes, tries to breathe.

Johnny rubs his back. “Let’s gae home.”

“I’m not ruining Christmas for you, Johnny,” he says. Before Johnny can deny it — and he knows he’d try — he tries to placate, “Let’s just have ourselves a minute to calm down.”

Maybe it’s the way his voice is perfectly levelled or the way his hand trembles as he squeezes Johnny’s, but he lets him leave the room.

He steps outside — to the backyard. Sits down on the step to the garden and lets the snow soak through his jeans and the top o his balaclava.

The kids come outside, tripping over Simon’s legs. They were all oblivious to the trails and errors of Simon’s integration into the family, so they approach him as always

“Whit's wrang?”

There’s just something so innocent in having a six-year-old girl covered from head to toe in pink and glitter worry about you. Simon would never admit it in front of Johnny, but he finds the accent cute.

Simon takes off the mask.

The kids all look at him and look at him, a bit unsure maybe a bit fearful — it can be a scary sight, he admits, the elongated, jagged smile that sticks to him no matter the mood, makes him more crazy than he already is — but only one of Johnny’s niece keeps her eyes on Simon’s face. 

Shily, she asks, “Does it hurt?”

“No,” he replies. When she smiles, he smiles back.

Not anymore.

This is Johnny’s family. Simon can deny it all he wants, but Johnny’s seen him as family, as someone he’d leave behind, and it hadn’t been unrequited. He can’t hide behind a mask forever and maybe this was the kick he needed.

He steps back inside when his hands turn numb. He doesn’t put the mask back on.

Johnny’s eyes widen. “Simon?”

Simon just—smiles. He can feel the scars pulling on the corners of his mouth, the stiffer skin, but he’s not faceless. He’s not been faceless for a while.

Edit (29/03/24): This is now a WIP for a minimum 15k fic, titled don't shoot me, santa, that will have 4 chapters and will be posted (hopefully) later in the year

[lifemod17]

THIS IS NOT A DRILL:

Angel Of Small Death And The Codeine Scene is back!!!

Madrid won so hard tonight!!!

🎥: jacquelineartcrz | instagram story

Alma Festival, Barcelona || 06/30/2024

[gamerbearmira]

Now no one gets the apron

This title will make more sense if you read it I SWEAR

Very sad, I'm in the mood for angst today 😛😛 and who doesn't love some Mamabuela. Seriously, it has been a hot MINUTE you know I had to hook y'all up 💪💪💪

Anyway, sadness, mean words that weren't meant to be said. You guys know the drill 🤥

eh ge ie

—————

Isabela and Mirabel tugged at the apron. Their late mothers apron. They were gonna help their abuela in the kitchen, but they both wanted to wear their mothers apron.

"You wore it last time, it's my turn!" Mirabel said, her small hands gripping the blue apron with surprising strength. Isabela, now 14, was pulling it back in her direction.

"You always get to wear it! It's my turn!" Isabela seethed, tugging at the apron. By this point, the commotion had gather some attention from other family members, who peaked into hallway by Julieta's room where they were arguing in front of. Luisa seemed distressed, trting to find ways to break them apart without causing more tension.

"H—Hey, maybe we should calm down, I mean I'm sure you guys can-" Luisa was cut off by Isabela who shot her a look.

"No! She wore it already! I want to wear it this time!" Isabela argued and Miravel stomped her foot, pulling the apron again.

"My gift is closer anyway, that's why I wear it more!" She said. She wasn't really wrong, her gift was essentially Julieta's.

Alma by this point had exited the kitchen and began walking up the stairs. She had knew this was going to happen, it wasn't the first time. Last time Luisa and Mirabel had faught with it. She should've expected it.

"Girls, what is going on?" Alma asked, and the two stopped, though still held the apron, looking towards Alma.

"She won't let me wear the apron this time!" Isabela said, pointing to Mirabel who pouted again.

"It's not like she wanted to wear it anyway! She wasn't even thinking about it until I came out of the room with it!" Mirabel said and Isabela didn't like that answer.

"Give it!" She said yelled, her voice raising and she used her vines to pull back, cacti sprouting in a nearby pot. Mirabel quickly noticed, yanking back. Alma, nor anybody had any time to react before a loud tearing sound ripped through the room. The ribbon that went around the back had tore, now in Mirabel's hands while Isabela held the other, larger part, the two girls having fell to the floor.

There was silence before Isabela stood, her eyes glassy. "Look what you did! You ripped it!"

Mirabel looked offended, stepoing forward. "I ripped it? Your stupid vines pulled too hard!"

Alma decided to finally physically step in. But before she could fully even get a sentence out, Isabela had shoved in finger into Mirabel's chest, not to hurt her, but more out of anger.

"Why do you even care?! You didn't know her!" She screamed and Mirabel blinked. Bruno and Alma had stepped forward at this point, and Dolores took Luisa and Camilo and pulled them back. "You stole her gift!"

"Isabela, that's enough—" Alma had been cut off once more, not that she could formulate any words after Isabela's.

"It's all your fault she's dead anyway! If she wasn't pregnant with you, her and papá would've been able to move out of the way!" Isabela screamed, tears spilling from her eyes.

Casita was quiet. No one spoke a word, and everyone's eyes were on the two girls; mostly Isabela. She finally seemed to process what she said and her hands flew to her mouth and she stepped back, looking at Mirabel, who had begun to cry. Her lip quivered and tears began to spill out of her eyes as Isabela's words hit her like a freight train.

Thunder crashed as Pepa finally processed what her eldest niece said to her youngest and Mirabel threw the ribbon to the ground, running to her room.

"Mirabel, wait, I didn't mean—" Isabela words were drowned out by another crash of thunder and Mirabel's face twisted into one of pure sadness and guilt. Guilt that Isabela had never intended to make Mirabel feel, especially not for their parents death.

"Keep the stupid apron then!" She wailed, slamming the door to her room. There was more silence, aside from the now pouring rain and Isabela's faint crying.

Pepa had quickly taken to running to the other side of the house to Mirabel's room, Luisa and Camilo on her heels. Bruno seemed conflicted, glacing between Isabela and his mamá, Alma, before turning and walking back into his room, clearly in the verge of tears at the reminder of the death of his and Pepa's sister.

Felíx had quickly followed after him, Dolores by his side. That left Alma and Isabela in the hallway, alone. Casita was quiet, not even move a single tile or floorboard. Alma's face was that of disappointment, and maybe even confusion as she looked at Isabela, who was crying, soaking wet from Pepa's storm.

"I...I didn't mean to say that, Abuela, I...I waan't trying to..." Isabela wasn't even focused on the apron anymore, she didn't care. She had hurt Mirabel her youngest sister who was a miracle from God Himself. And she just blamed the death of their parents on her, knowing full well that it wasn't even remotely her fault.

She looked up at Alma, who was just staring at her. Her gaze shifted to Mirabel's room, where loud crying and soft voices could be heard. Alma rubbed her eyes, and Isabela wasn't sure if she was crying or wiping the rain from Pepa's rain away.

"Abuela? Wh—What do I do? I didn't mean to...to say those things, I swear!" Isabela said between her hitched breathing, hiccuping softly. Alma looked up at Isabela, her gaze conflicted, more than Bruno's.

"Just...go to your room, Isabela. We'll talk about this later. It's not a good time for anyone right now," Alma said, her voice low. Isabela opened her mouth to protest, to say she wanted to run into her youngest hermana's room and apologize. But the look in Alma's eyes told her everything, and she quiet nodded.

"Ok Abuela," Isabela said softly, dragging her feet to her room. The door shut quietly and Alma leaned against the railing, doing her best to hold back her tears and control her emotions. She had to. She couldn't break down. Not right now.

—————

OK. Isabela didn’t mean it, I promise she apologizes. She loves Mirabel’s and does not blame her 😭 it’s just one of those moments where you’re arguing and say something you don’t mean.

Everybody was hurt in this situation 🙏

[brookesophelias]

think about how

each five total time i read The Hunger Games Trilogy, the more times I THINK "WE WERE ROBBED" when it comes to Haymitch Abernathy & Gale Hawthorne.

IMAGINE

Gale Hawthorne: the resourceful hunter who thought his 42 slips would give him so much more than... well, nothing. (his family is still wanting, the girl he's crushing on doesn’t see him like that. HE'S A COAL MINER JUST LIKE HIS FATHER TO KEEP HIS MUM ALIVE).

of course, Gale's angry because the Capitol says all he has to is play The Game & he'll be full. But he never gets to play. He has all this anger at his government, for the sickness he sees. so much that it blinds him & all he yearns for is revenge. REVENGE is the only thing that lights him up these days!

he has no empathy for Victors—as he's unaware Haymitch doesn't allow anyone clean or cook for him, doesn't understand Haymitch sleeps with a knife every night for 25 years, & gets through the days drunk because he knows every tribute District 12 lost, the all 49 tributes he fought—when they have all the money & food he ever could dream & don’t do anything with it.

(Gale never knew Peeta's mother beat him for throwing bread to Katniss, doesn't realise Mrs. Undersee's maiden name is Donner).

so when Katniss wants to run into the woods with everyone AND Gale, Gale's (only?) sees "Loverboy," "the Mayor's daughter," as well as the single town Victor who trips on live TV like a drunken idiot.

therefore,when Alma Coin lures Gale into making Rebel weapons, he's enthralled. He is finally doing something useful with his skills & IT'S AGAINST SNOW? sounds awesome!!

it's not his fault President Coin wants to usurp Snow & is using anti-Hunger Games rebellions to do so. it's not his fault Primrose Everdeen is dead.

ok, but there’s Haymitch: resident Quell Victor who begrudgingly lets Hazelle in his Victor’s Village house. Hazelle, with her young children & whose son is pretending to be Katniss' cousin?

i mean (honest) gale/katniss is a major damage to the star-crossed lovers angle

is it because he could see young Gale in himself? where Gale is skilled in building & planning & hunting, Haymitch knows methods & truly making something from for nothing

does Haymitch look at Gale's broken body after Thread whipped him & know that the younger man is already more than physically broken without even stepping foot in the Games?

does Haymitch just wish he could drill into Gale Hawthorne's cocky head that being angry at the Capitol is great motivation, just not how he's going about it.

Haymitch would probably give a month's worth of his winnings for life to Gale, just to hug the younger man and tell him: i see you, your effort, your determination to stop suffering?

the thing is: Gale believes he'd be able to survive the arena and still be himself & Haymitch knows that nobody can do that—not Maysilee; not even Peeta.

in all reality, Gale was just a kid that hungered for more than he received in return.

[kyoonnyoon]

i am desperate for more feral-little-gremlin!soap content.

so here is one of my HC situations for exactly that.

preview:

no doubt his brief-yet-bitter experience with guerrilla warfare in las almas got him thinking about new ways to tinker and toy around with literally anything he can find around base to make new explodey things.

for the first few weeks after they rtb’ed from the whole “graves, shepherd, and hassan situationᵗᵐ,” the gang noticed soap acting unusually distant. he wouldn’t hang around the rec during downtime as much, wouldn’t stick around to chat with his fellow soldiers in the mess for longer than necessary, etc.

gaz noticed immediately—he actually thought he was the first to notice soap’s strange behavior—and mentioned his concerns to price. upon keeping an eye out on soap for a few days, price seemed to agree. however, soap did well during drills and training recruits, still worked out in the gym and sparred with his teammates, continued to banter with ghost and gaz whenever he had the chance… nothing particularly worrying about his behavior triggered price’s “fatherly instincts” to initiate a one-on-one chat with the scot, so he settled for keeping soap’s overall condition in his periphery for the time being.

after all, there were more pressing issues to attend to. like the complaints he received from several soldiers regarding missing materials. nothing too serious—half empty detergent bottles that were otherwise full, match boxes, some shoelaces, a desk chair (?)—but it was certainly an interesting mystery to sniff out. for now, price orders ghost to check in with his sergeant. just in case.

it only took ghost a few hours after debrief and rest—the entire 141 squad nearly collapsed in the debriefing room before they stumbled along (first to medical, then to their respective rooms)—to notice the shift in johnny’s schedule. he said nothing, simply observed his sergeant’s eagerness when excusing himself off to his room with a quirk of his eyebrow.

…so of course he began tailing the scot, curiosity getting the better of him. at first, he thought johnny might be struggling with what he’d been through in las almas, needing time to recover alone with his thoughts. that was… until he watched his sergeant whip a straw from the mess from his pocket and use it as a makeshift hose to siphon detergent from the bottles in the laundry into a cup he also pocketed at some point during lunch.

baffled, ghost continued to trail the scot—he was privy to several more strange acts of minor theft—until johnny, seemingly satisfied with his haul, nearly 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘥 along to his room before 𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 (a bit maniacally, ghost thinks) and shutting the door behind him.

at a loss, ghost simply leans back against the hallway wall and blinks at the ceiling as if it held all the answers. it didn’t. price 𝘥𝘪𝘥 tell him to check in with his sergeant at some point, so he allows himself a moment of blissful silence before he stalks over to johnny’s door and knocks.

“aye! jus’ a sec,” ghost hears a bit of shuffling, objects being moved around, something dropping to the floor—“fuckin’ shite,”—more shuffling, stilted footsteps headed toward the door, and finally the door opens just a crack to allow johnny’s head to poke through.

ghost raises an eyebrow and looks down on his sergeant without a word, opting to wait him out.

“ah, LT,” the scot carefully maneuvers around the door, closes it, then stands at attention in the hallway for his lieutenant. ghost can’t help but notice that johnny is trying to make the movements to block his bedroom door as subtle as possible, but he’s been there, done that plenty of times to recognize johnny’s attempts for what they really are. his sergeant merely blinks up at him, an almost shit-eating grin wavering on his lips as he tries—and fails—to curb the obvious excitement that shines brightly in his eyes, “wha’ can i do ya for?”

ghost simply graces his subordinate with an unamused stare, “open the door, sergeant.”

johnny hesitates for a split second, seemingly weighing his options, then enthusiastically hauls his lieutenant through the door before locking it behind them both.

ghost is rather proud of the fact that he can school his outward reactions to almost any situation with relative ease. he, however, cannot stop his eyes from nearly bugging out from behind his balaclava (of which he was grateful still sat snuggly over his face to obscure the rest of his sheer disbelief).

bombs. everywhere. mousetrap triggers, pringle can pipe bombs (?), mini molotovs made with shooter bottles… and johnny in the middle of the chaos looking like a proud father of a newborn babe.

ghost supposed he was, in some way, a proud father, having put together all the materials he niffled and nicked from different places on base to make these things.

what a dangerous little fucker.

“fuckin’ hell.”

“ain’t they beautiful, LT? ‘been messin’ ‘bout with anything i can get my hands on, jus’ like in las almas.” the scot sighed happily, “really learned a thing or two, an’ i wanted to try my hand at makin’ somethin’ new.”

as johnny buzzed around, pointing to the various contraptions and pouring his little heart out about what each one was for and what kind of destruction they dealt, ghost couldn’t help but realize that johnny is one hell of a safety hazard. a genius, yes. but a safety hazard, nonetheless (he is secretly excited to watch johnny detonate his creations, knowing full well the scot will scream and howl with unbridled joy—and maybe shake ghost for a reaction he will hold back with his arms crossed over his chest, a slightly fond sigh, and an exasperated tilt of his head).

[simspaghetti]

Eduardo & Monroe are aging up on the same day, so it's time for a joint birthday party! 🎉

[naavispider]

Merciless, part 3

Part 1, Part 2, AO3 link (incomplete)

Fireworks fizzed and soared inside Mercer’s chest as he put the phone down. He had not expected that, especially so soon after Ardmore’s reassurances that Quaritch would need to be pacified. He tried to calm his thumping heartbeat, but it was no mean feat. The boy…. The boy, all to himself! Finally, a chance to prove himself after the catastrophic embarrassment that was TAP’s ending. 

No more mindless overseeing of drilling operations. He’d be heading back to the base in the Western Frontier in two days, taking the kid with him. Thoughts about preparing the base and the medical team swirled around him as he anxiously bounced his pen against the file he was reading. It would be more difficult this time, having only one subject and without his second in command. He pushed away the thoughts of Alma Cortez before he could start to dwell on them. 

“Do you think he wants to know you like, at all?” Fike asked, ever sensitive. 

“Hell if I know Fike.”

“As if he was with Sully’s kids,” interjected Zdinarsk, who was leaning casually against a wooden pillar. The squad was supposed to be enjoying their downtime, but instead felt it necessary to congregate around the Colonel and air all their questions that unfortunately Quaritch couldn’t answer. “What are the goddamn chances of that?”

“D’you think Sully like… adopted him?”

“Shut up Fike!” Brown grunted. 

“They definitely got their claws in deep,” Z-dog mused, shaking her head. 

“Yeah, well,” Quaritch felt his voice darken. “We’ll see if there ain’t anything we can do about that.”

“What are you gonna do with him?” asked Ja. 

“It’s not up to me. We can probably help each other out, but Ardmore’s calling the shots.”

“Do you think he’ll open up to you?” questioned Lyle, who was resting his elbows on his knees, a look of great concentration on his face. 

Quaritch let out a long sigh. “Maybe. Given time.”

They both knew that time wasn’t something they had endless amounts of. 

“I better go check on him,” Quaritch said suddenly. Ardmore had had him in that machine again today. The kid obviously hadn’t revealed anything new because there was no way the squad would be sitting around on their asses if he had. Something deep down was starting to worry Quaritch though. If yesterday’s efforts were anything to go by, the boy - Spider - wasn’t giving up soon. Quaritch had to hand it to Spider, he admired the shit out of him for that. But he knew they were entering dangerous territory with Ardmore. There was only so much crap she’d take before cutting her losses with the kid, and now that Mercer was snooping around, an uncomfortable feeling was starting to settle in his bones. 

“Do you want me to come with you?” Lyle offered.

Quaritch waved him off, heaving himself to his feet and making the journey across the city’s vast compound. 

Fifteen minutes later, his heavy boots were thudding down the familiar row of cells, approaching the one his boy was in. His heart was starting to thunder in his chest; he didn’t know why the kid had such an effect on him, and he didn’t like it one bit. As he got to the right cell, the first thing that struck him was that Spider’s name was missing from the electronic display. Quaritch frowned, stepping forward to see inside. 

What he saw made his heart stop for a second. 

It was empty. 

The cell was empty; vacant and unoccupied. 

Something was wrong, he knew it. If Spider was still being interrogated then his name would still be on the door. In fact, there was nothing left of Spider’s presence here at all. The fucking cleaners had been in and all. 

Where was Spider?

Without wasting a second, he barged into the adjacent observation room, only to find it empty as well. His heart in his mouth, he sprinted back down the long corridor and made it to the command centre in record time. 

“Colonel-“ one of the clerks stuttered upon seeing him. 

He was quickly silenced by Quaritch’s glare of fury and no one else dared say a thing as he found the door to Ardmore’s office and flung it open without so much as a knock. 

“Where is he?” he demanded, upon seeing the General sat calmly at her desk, glasses on and reading a file. 

“Colonel,” she said, looking completely unsurprised to see him. 

“Don’t play with me Ardmore. Where’s Spider?” 

Lesser men that Ardmore would have cowered under the glare Quaritch cast at her. 

“He was becoming… a distraction. He’s been removed from Bridgehead while you focus on your mission.”

Quaritch was ready to pick her up by the front of her uniform and slam her so hard down on the desk that she’d be forced to answer. His fingers twitched. His lip curled up into the beginning of an animalistic snarl. 

“Once your mission is completed, the boy will be returned to base. Your mission last week cost us dearly. Four recombinants dead in less than twenty minutes. Billions of dollars down the drain.” She rose to her feet, and although she didn’t nearly compare to Quaritch in height, he could feel her power. She stepped around the desk, silently letting him know that she wasn’t afraid of him. “You want that boy? Bring me Jake Sully.”

Quaritch’s mind was racing at a hundred miles an hour. He could attack her right now. He could kill her, even. Force her to give the kid back. But what would that do? Get him court-martialed and risk the RDA taking it out on Spider. He dominated her physically - he was so ready to use his strength - but logistically, she had him by the balls. If he attacked her now, he’d probably never see Spider again. 

She was asking him to catch Jake Sully. He could do that. He was capable. This is what he wanted. His chest heaved with the effort of not reacting. 

The seconds ticked by, and eventually he levelled his voice enough to reply. “Where. Is. The boy?”

Ardmore raised her chin, eyes narrowing slightly. Still, she showed no signs of fear. 

“He’s being taken to a separate base. One of our facilities close to the Western Frontier.”

The next word felt like poison on his lips. “Mercer?”

She nodded, sending Quaritch’s heart plummeting a hundred miles into the floor. 

He had to reason with her. “The kid knows where Sully is. How can I find him without the boy?”

“The boy won’t talk. You and I have both seen it. You’ll have to think of other means. I have two samsons with pilots at your disposal, ready and waiting. I suggest you get out to Sully's last known location, and track him back from there. I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

Fury and fear were coursing through Quaritch’s veins in equal measure. He was frozen, trying to work out what to do. What was the best thing for Spider? What was the best thing for himself and his squad? 

Ardmore smiled up at him, before sighing and moving back around the desk to take her seat. “I’m sorry it’s come to this, Colonel. But rest assured that as soon as Jake Sully is off the playing field we can talk about the boy.”

“You know what Mercer will do to him?”

She registered the tone of his voice, and levelled him with a flat look. “That is no longer your concern.”

*********

Spider hissed as he was shoved into a new, whiter cell. “How long you gonna leave me in this one for then?” he jeered as the two soldiers who’d marched him in retreated. He was putting on a show, but inside he was scared. He thought he’d had the worst of the RDA’s treatment when they strapped him into that demon machine for the third time. Now, he’d been flown leagues across Pandora with no explanation of where they were going or why. They had touched down in the forest, which explained why Spider was now nursing a sprained wrist from attempting to run, but he’d been wrestled inside a much stranger, more clinical appearing base than anywhere he’d seen at Bridgehead. He supposed he should be thankful they hadn’t taken him out here to shoot him. Everyone they passed inside wore labcoats and carried holotablets around their necks, pressing themselves back against the walls in alarm when Spider and his entourage passed. In some of the rooms there looked like machines Spider had just been strapped to. In others, tanks and botanicals. He recognised the deadly Txumtsä’wll plant growing in a sealed terrarium and wondered what the hell the RDA was doing with a plant so toxic it could take out any Na’vi with just a single drop of poison. 

“Don’t touch me, asshole!” he hissed at the soldier who pushed him on. 

The whole place felt different to Bridgehead in a very non-reassuring way. He leaned his head back against the confines of his latest prison, closing his eyes and trying to lock out the harshness of the overhead lights.

Even the brightest optimist could tell this little outing wasn’t for a release party. And where was Quaritch in all this? Spider hadn’t seen him since he’d thrown Mercer out of the holding cells. For whatever reason, his father’s clone had been furious and refused to explain why. Spider thought back over his conversation with the strange Mercer figure. He hadn’t thought anything of it at the time - plenty of sky people had oggled him since he arrived - but now he wondered if that conversation didn’t have anything to do with his current predicament. 

If you’re not going to talk, then you’re useless to him and them. They won’t keep you around for long.

The crisp-shirted RDA schmuck had also been keen to impress upon Spider that unless he gave them what they wanted, Quaritch would have no choice but to ‘terminate’ him. Was he here under Quaritch’s orders?

After a short while of waiting anxiously, the sound of footsteps outside the glass door alerted Spider to another’s presence. He jumped to his feet immediately. There, just as he had suspected, was the well dressed, oily haired RDA leader who’d visited him yesterday. 

“Hello Miles.”

“Why are we here? Where is this?” He took a step closer to the glass, his body pumping with adrenaline. 

John Mercer smiled in that ugly way of his. In all of Spider's life, he had never seen a smile as chilling as Mercer’s. 

“We are in a facility to the West of Bridgehead. Fifty clicks away from the city.”

Spider blanched - he couldn’t help himself. Fifty clicks? That was over a week away on foot. 

“I’m waiting for the why,” Spider stressed. 

“Welcome to Kinglor Base, Miles. This is a specialist facility built purely for scientific research. You may have seen some of our tech on the way in.”

“Research on what?” Spider hissed. A sinking feeling was making its way through his stomach, clenching his intestines in a tight, cold fist. 

Mercer looked at him like he couldn’t wait to answer. Like he was feeding off Spider’s fear. “On you.”

[caffstrink]

Have you ever thought about what kindof musical themes would be associated with your OCs? Like, what their theme tune or leitmotif might be played on, that kind of thing?

First off im so sorry for not replying earlier ive kept this in my drafts for like a year

Rubs my hand evily like a little hungry fly YEEEESSS YESSSS YESSSSSSSSSS

Honestly tho i dont rly have much (if any) musical knowledge to be able to use precise or specific terms for musical theory stuff or the right name for certain instruments, so overall i can only try describe the ~vibe~ for what each character/setting would be, also since i was given the opportunity to talk about the topic ill just go ham and talk way more than what was asked bc honestly what are the chances of being asked about this in the future? Hashtag yolo 2012

This is gonna get long so i apologize in advance to those who dont care. ill try to clump characters together by emojis, first emoji for setting/universe and second for character

👼💖For cupid/arisu i imagine music box notes, happy pop and "sparkly" over-the-top cheery music like magical girl anime openings, one of the main musical inspirations for her and a song i like to listen to when i draw her is pururin and dokuro-chan's op

👼💚Levia-tan/himari would also have the music box motif but in lower notes, a song much more subtle than cupid's but slowly building up energy over time until it's ready to snap.

🍄🐐 Juandice would be folk music, but often getting off-key as to give an unsettling tone. A song i think that enclapsulates his vibe perfectly is AJJ's A Song Dedicated To The Memory Of Stormy The Rabbit (ive been meaning to do a juan animatic to this song for a while now but i never get around to it)

🍄⛪ father rot id like it to be very unsettling off-key strings. Maybe a little bit of carnival sounding music but very very faintly. Kinda giving you a vibe the guy isnt good news but at the same time there's something unnatural about him it just makes you curious

🪐🛸 ak-47 happy cheery chiptune music, voice synthesizers (aka vocaloids etc) and breakcore, something like Anamanaguchi, METAROOM, pinocchio-p's older music (hello there earthling, nina, loney ufo)

🪐🍀 clovers is a tough one, i can imagine it being a song structured in three parts where the first is the normal theme, something more old school sounding like DS soundfont. Think pokemon BW's soundtrack. The second part is a more raw, loud, incomprehensible type of music like Shinsei Kamattechan, specifically Ikareta NEET. Third part would be a much quieter, sadder version of the first part melody. Think of how Snowy during genocide route in Undertale.

😈🗡 Alma would be metal instruments, specifically guitar riffs

😈🍥 carol would be trash metal/grunge, bass

😈🏥 cirrus would be either drums or piano. I like Unreasonable Behavior from offgame and Alone In Town from silent hill as examples

😈🦇 fontini would be music box and intense sounding music. At the price of oblivion from homestuck is a good example

😈🦟 dominic would be spanish guitar.

😈⚡paloma indie rock/acid rock guitar

😈⚔ rouxinol.. im not sure. Something very intense and intimidating sounding, but i dont know instruments that much. For now i can just say in my mind it sounds like something out of carpenter bruts music

😈💎 lyre would be a specific genre of pop that idk the name. Venus by lady gaga, heavun by hemlock springs, glorious by muse.

👿🐦 corbin would be among "instruments that arent instruments" like industrial noise music. Music that sounds like it was composed entirely out of regular warehouse tools. Dentist drills included

This isnt all of my ocs but if theyre not included then its bc i dont have much in mind musically for them

[papaver-decervicatus]

Cat/Mouse/Den: Pt. 5, Royally Caught

While tied down in a cartel interrogation room, König is forced to his mental breaking point when a certain sniper makes an appearance. Is she a rat, or here to chew him free...?

CW: Obsession, stalking, canon typical violence, intrusive thoughts, unsanitary wound care, graphic mentions of sex trafficking victims, abusive language, mentions of sexual violence.

Author's note: Please notice that warning have indeed changed for this chapter! Nothing happens in the story, but many hard themes come up as intrusive thoughts. Please be weary of these and feel no obligation in reading if doing so would make you uncomfortable!

Ahhh, well well well... it's finally here. Originally the concept of this chapter came from this YouTube Video as inspiration, specifically Labyrinth by OOMPH! And it sort of... wrote itself? The title is supposed to be a play on the phrase "Royally Fucked" because I did not feel like using a swear as a title. Anyways, you'll notice from my headcanons on König that I believe working as an insertions specialist for human trafficking seriously fucked him up. I also believe that he typically does not act out violently against women. So... what happens when he thinks Mouse is doing the very thing he hates so much? Well, you will have to see!

This chapter requires some suspension of disbelief, but the inspo was taken from the El Sin Nombre mission in MWii. Mouse is in the cartel house, undercover at a party and in an attempt to take out her target she saw an interesting video feed....

I must admit, this chapter has my favorite single or one off lines. I am really proud of it, please enjoy! But be warned, this is unabashedly horny/desperate/angsty/and the pining goes fucking nuclear. Have fun!

Also, if youre into the fake interrogation thing, then next chapter stays good for you, especially if you want mouse in the hot seat...

❣️Cura ut Veleas ~ Caedis 🥀 PREV | Pt. 5, Royally Caught | 4.2k words | König POV | NEXT

König did not expect his Friday night to end up with him locked in a storage container turned jail cell in Mexico. 

Yet here he is. 

At some point while raiding the Cartel Mansion in Las Almas, or more appropriately, trying to open an exterior wall so that KorTac could raid it, he had been shot with a tranquilizer gun. The shot didn’t knock him out entirely, the dosage was probably not completely calibrated to his weight, but it was enough to slow his escape down. He got about two miles out before men in an armored Jeep jumped him. 

And he woke up, here, about three hours ago. 

Two hours ago he broke his thumbs in an effort to get out of his cuffs, but someone must’ve caught his plan because immediately afterward two masked cartel members came into his cell and stuck a syringe into his arm. When he awoke for the second time, there was a durable cord keeping his wrists together instead. Feeling around he could tell that the rope had been burned into itself, creating a lack of weak spots for him to abuse in escape efforts. 

His legs were in a similar position, chorded down thick and heavy to the legs of the rusty metal chair he was in. He was still in most of his combat outfit, save his vest, weapons, and any tools he had on him when he was captured. 

They’d kept the hood on his face and they hadn’t removed his helmet. This, to König, showed an extraordinarily eerie amount of understanding for his position within KorTac. None of his comrades would recognize him by his face, and judging by the multitude of cameras in the room, he was intended to be… recognizable. 

At first, anyways. 

This cell was, unfortunately, familiar to him. The layout of the cot, the chair, the metal table, the haphazardly soldered-in door and door frame, the holes drilled into the sides of the metal container, and even the rudimentary sink and toilet combo was something he’d become viscerally acquainted with. 

This was a typical Al Qatala human trafficking cell, specifically designed so that multiple humans could be chained up in one space without sacrificing the capacity for good camera angles. Typically, these were set up in storage containers twice the size of this one, but he doesn’t really have any room to be complaining about getting put into a non-standard torture chamber. 

His specialty was cracking these when he was with the Austrian Special Forces. His real calling in life, his one true hatred. 

Fall on the sword you forge, he thinks. The understanding of what will become of him in short order is horrifying. He’s one of the few people on the face of the planet who’s seen this exact routine played out for other prisoners of war, usually at the behest of desperate governments seeking his expertise in getting their soldiers out of such dire confines. He wrote the book on what happens in these situations, when it happens, and where the person ends up. 

They never end up alive. Prisoners of war are different from sex trafficking victims. In some terrible way, it’s almost better to be the prior because at least then you don’t have to live the rest of your life after what’s happened to you. Death is a shitty kind of freedom, but it’s freedom nonetheless. 

Of his 86 consults, only seven were successfully rescued. 

Two of those died in trauma surgery. 

The last five had been in custody for less than 24 hours, he had personally rescued that group. To his knowledge, they’d all recovered decently well. Their mental health, however, could be a different story. Not like he was allowed to ask.

He’s going over every possible route of escape when he’s shocked out of his plans. 

The door directly in front of him opens, and his dark cell erupts with sickeningly bright, white light. His eyes strain trying to adjust to the intrusion as he takes in the form. 

A silhouette stands in front of him, all soft edges of black, arms braced on either side of the door frame. The backlighting gives the figure an almost angelic quality, a soft and fuzzy etherealness blends outlines and light. It’s the telltale curves of a woman, of soft thighs, of ample hips, of a woman’s bust. Little strands of fluorescence peek through a crown of hair on her head. 

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this, meine majestät.” The cruel Angel hums, voice like forbidden fruit any man could be forgiven for falling for. 

“Maus?” He calls out, desperate and confused and ready to shatter. 

“Quiet as a.” She calls back, composed as if entrenched in amber and equally as unmoved by his predicament. 

He’s always wanted to get his teeth around her pretty neck. He’s always desired to have his hands around her waist. He’s always hoped to be able to pound down into her quaking form. He’s been desperate to have her underneath him since their very first chance encounter. These feelings have been constant since he heard her beautiful voice, but suddenly they’re not the same. 

Now he wants all those things, but instead of their motivation being love, it is bloodlust. 

And intense bloodlust at that. 

He’s never wanted to kill a woman, he finds it despicable that women more or less get turned into cattle during war. He’s sure that Freud would have something to say about his neurotic insistence on not harming the fairer sex even with his typical caliber of violence, but he’s never once cared to self-examine that. His entire military career, in fact, was dedicated to saving women and children from the horrors of a very male, very sexual world. Insertions specialist, yes, but specifically for human trafficking situations. 

Looking into his wartime paramour's eyes, the intensity of hellfire overcomes him. His entire world crashes around him. He’s breathing in debris and dust as comes to the terrible conclusion that this entire time, it’s been her that has been perpetuating the injustice he so hates. That it’s been the thing he’s romanticized that’s been the fall of Rome. That it’s his savior that’s really been the perpetrator all along. 

Perhaps the devil was once an angel, but to see his Angel for the demon she is? It breaks his heart into gory chunks of splintered bitterness and hacked arteries where once love pumped. 

Never in his life has he ever wanted to kill a woman, never in his life he had loved a woman so completely either. 

Those two ‘never’s die loudly and crudely in his chest as he recounts how to kill her most painfully in his own mind. 

For her now obvious position perpetuating his most loathed evil? For tricking him into loving her? For both and neither? He doesn’t know. He’s about two seconds away from frothing at the mouth like a rabid animal that’ll break its bones escaping a trap. He’s got nothing in his brain, just white-hot anger from the tips of his combat boots to the tips of his ears. 

Not even the outfit, or more appropriately the lack thereof, that she’s wearing can dissuade his anger. In any other circumstance, to see her in a black draped silk dress with hip-high slits on both sides and a full set of harness garters holding up sheer pantyhose would make him go feral. It would make him kneel, it would give him all the power to break out of these bindings on his own with no help and slam her down into the metal floor and have her right here. He has the desire to do all these things right now, but for all the wrong reasons. 

She’s taking something out from beneath her left breast as he recounts every thought he’s ever had about her and how foolish they’ve all been. He thinks that the only consolation he may ever receive for this betrayal is if he can crush her windpipe in between his teeth. 

“If you can get your teeth around it, it’s yours.” He remembers her saying to him in one of her flirtations during their secret radio romances. 

The phrase echoes rough and screeching in his head as he thrashes against the metal chair and restraints. He doesn’t formulate any words, he can’t, she doesn’t even deserve them, as she takes the lighter and cigarette she’s produced from her brassiere to her mouth. Her expression is unconcerned when she takes the flip-top lighter (that has a fucking crown carved into it, the audacity, his teeth clench and voice roars at the implication she’s been planning this for a long time) and its little flicker of brimstone to the end of the cancer stick. 

She takes a short drag and holds it between two perfectly manicured fingers. She’s gotten a little lipstick on the filter. 

“You don’t smoke.” That is all he manages to spit out. The only thought he can think of. Nothing makes sense and he’s liable to maul her to death over it. Her tongue darts quickly and sinfully across the filter, her eyes never leaving his. She tosses her stare towards him playfully, her hips swing wide as she waltzes closer to him. 

“No,” she says, as she takes another step towards him. Even in those ridiculously tall, faux leather heels meeting the tips of his combat boots, she doesn’t particularly dwarf his size. She's got the tips of her shoes to the tips of his, her stance is wide to accommodate the positioning. The edges of the stockings on her legs disrupt in wave-like patterns where they collide with the rough edges of his tac pants. He looks and thinks about how if his clothes were a little thinner he may be able to feel her warmth. He wonders just how long it would take her corpse to go ice cold, because she clearly does not deserve to be alive. He forces himself to look up at her and he thinks about clawing out her eyes. 

“But you do.” 

She reaches her hand towards his hood and strokes his cheek through the fabric. He snarls and snaps his head away from her, reeling from the touch he’s so deplorably yearned for. Her placid expression drops entirely as she sees his reaction. 

If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that his perfect little Mouse looked heartbroken over his refusal of her blandishments. 

He wants to rip her still-beating heart out of her chest for the sheer nerve to display that sort of emotiveness to him. That she acted like there was something there when there very clearly wasn’t. That she lied so thoroughly to him. 

That she made him love her when now he can see she never loved him back. 

She takes a shuddering breath in and makes a concerted effort to put her expression back into place, to impose some sort of divine rule back over her features. It’s strange to see her trying so hard when she’s obviously been such a good actor for so very long. 

“I just need some information, darling. No need to be so skittish, I brought you creature comforts for your cooperation.” She purrs, flicking some ash from the cigarette. “I know you could use a smoke right now, handsome.” 

The bile in his stomach flips at the pet names he would usually kill for. Pet names he’s never had until this moment. His two addictions lay in front of him, together, wrapped up in black silk, and the only thing he can think about is how much he wants to tear it all to shreds. 

Her hand follows his cheek to where it’s escaped her grasp. He is powerless to stop her as she rolls up his mask. 

To his surprise, she stops rolling it up just high enough to expose his mouth and leaves the bunched cloth on the bridge of his nose. He wants to scream at the tenderness of the action, she’s giving him as much of his well-loved privacy and solitude as she can while bringing him, an active prisoner of war, a fucking cigarette while wearing the sexiest thing he’s ever seen. 

The cruelty of it all had found the border of divinity and reality and ripped it open like C4 explodes plywood doors. There must be a God, and he must be in hell. 

She gets dangerously close, close enough for him to bite, and her hand with the cigarette makes contact with his jaw. Her sharp, black, fake nails trail from close to his ear, down to his mouth at a tantalizingly languid pace. She bends down and puts her lips a hair's breadth away from his ear and he is about to actually bite her neck to kill-

“I’m trying to get you out. Play along.” She whispers and flips the cigarette into his mouth. 

He takes a long drag. 

He feels the relief of nicotine in his lungs. 

He closes his eyes. 

He thinks about what she said. 

He doesn’t quite believe her as she takes the cigarette out of his mouth before he has to fumble to exhale around it. Her thumb traces the outline of his thin, scarred lips. Her eyes bore into his from above. 

She puts it back into his mouth. 

He takes a long drag. 

She takes it out of his mouth and puts it into hers. She takes a shorter drag. He doesn’t miss the way that she keeps all the smoke in her cheeks, not actually smoking it at all. A little taste of non flavored-wax sticks to his mouth from the lipstick and he wonders if she can taste his mouth too…

The takes the lipstick-stained tube out of her lips, taps it clean, and puts it back into his. 

He takes a long drag. 

She takes it back out of his mouth and wipes at his lips with the pad of her thumb. His brain is too busy switching between wanting to bite her thumb off and wanting to suck on it like a dog for him to decide what to do before the obtrusive digit has been taken away. 

“Sorry, big guy. Got some lipstick on you.” 

She retreats from his form and goes to sit on the metal table slightly adjacent to the chair he’s strapped to. She puts the still-lit cigarette to rest in an ashtray next to her hip. She also puts the flip-top lighter down. On the bottom of the lighter, he sees some engraving, but he can’t make it out from how far away it is. 

She crosses her legs on the edge of the table and the black silk she’s wearing all but flees off of the expanse of her now exposed thigh. She taps her fingers slowly on the metal, the pitter patter of plastic-press-on-nails on metal goes in time with his heartbeat. 

“Who are you with?” She asks, and he laughs. She knows. 

“Nein.” He responds. Is he refusing her, or this little game? He doesn’t know. She seems to understand, though, when she leans into his personal space and he has to fight the urge to look down her lack of dress and perfect tits-

“That’s no way to act after I got you a present, now is it?” She hums at the pulse point between utter cruelty and complete levity. He tests the restraints keeping his hands tied and sighs at the realization that they are still tighter than he can manage to worm out of effectively.

“I will not repeat what you already know.” He bites out. 

“Clever boy,” she smiles and he can’t help but think and hope that maybe this cruel Angel is being genuine, maybe she really does want to get him out of here. He murders the hope in his brain the second he recognizes what it is. “So tell me, what were you doing here?”

“You know.” 

“I’m afraid I do.” Her lips tense into a thin line and she looks down at her watch. She begins to swing the foot of her raised leg idly and-

She puts her foot onto the back of his chair right on his shoulder and oh my god her cunt is right next to my mou-

“Audio just cut out. I’m undercover here. Site goes dark for 2 minutes or less in 30 seconds. I’m going to pretend to interrogate you for a little while after we come back online to sell it. And then I’m out.” She warns, voice low and quick. 

Once again, he has to fight every electric cell in his body to not lunge at her and rip her clothes to tatters (and maybe her, the jury’s still out on her trustworthiness) as he breathes in the smell of fresh nylons and her cunt like a fucking dog. Not making eye contact with her panties is also a losing game, and it’s one he seriously wishes he had decided against playing because it’s a sheer black lacy pair, because of course it is, and he can very nearly make out the curves of her sex through it. 

“How do I know how to trust you?” He spits and blood flows out of his brain when he sees a tiny, minuscule amount of his saliva landing on her clothed cunt. He snaps his gaze back to her face. She looks rather smug and pleased with herself, he scolds his inner monologue when he dares to notice just how hungry her beautiful eyes look... He wants to wipe the smile off her face, through a kiss or through slicing it off with a knife, he’s not sure yet. 

“You don’t.” She shrugs and somehow scoots even the littlest bit closer to him. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here, if I was I’d have brought a little more stopping power.” Stopping power? What is she talking about? Her beautiful features soothe themselves into a giggle and Gott, she’s very pretty with eyeliner and lipstick on, the little vixen. I want to ruin it. 

“I’m surprised you haven’t noticed it. Put your cheek against my thigh.” She laughs. 

Even if it’s a trick, König decides that if he’s going to die anywhere, it might as well be in between Mouse’s thighs in mere milliseconds. The throbbing in his pants also suggests that he’s probably forgiven her by now as well. He leans his cheek and feels cool metal hit it. He whips his head to look and tucked into her garter is a sizable knife. 

When he looks back to her eyes he notices dumbly that she must be able to tell how desperately he’s in love with her because she’s smiling something wicked down at him. Angels aren’t supposed to be cruel, but he’s forgiven anything and everything she’d ever done wrong in exchange for the expanse of her thigh and the promise of a knife. 

“If you can get your teeth around it, it’s yours.” She says with a smile like absolution. His mind alights with a terrible test of faith for her, with a truly awful proving method to try her loyalty to his rescue. He turns his mouth to the knife, and instead of taking it in his teeth, he takes her flesh in his teeth. 

She whimpers as he teeth attempt to gain purchase through the nylon of her stockings. He gnaws at them until he makes a little opening, and through it, he punches down his teeth until he’s sure he will leave a mark, but not draw blood. 

“Does that include you, mein Mäuschen?” He purrs into her now-exposed flesh. He peers up at her and he revels in the shock on her face. She shudders at his words and attention and something worse than pride finds a home in his hollow but newly hopeful chest. 

She doesn’t move her leg away and he hums in satisfaction at the gesture. Instead, she looks worryingly down at her watch. 

“You have 1 minute. Take the knife, keep it in your mouth under your hood, and give me 30 minutes to get out of here before you escape.” She says instead of responding. 

While realistically he knows that she doesn’t really have an option in leaving him, that it would be too dangerous to leave together, that they are still technically enemies even on neutral ground- he can’t help but be disappointed that his Angel intends on leaving without him. Even more so that she doesn’t seem to want to answer him when she made the rules in the first place. 

“Why are you helping me?” He asks, hoping for some clarity, for some tell-tale sign that this isn’t some weird horny fever dream he’s made up in his own little hell, worried that she will drag him back down from heaven and reveal that this, too, was part of the ploy to destroy whatever of him remained. 

“Because I know you’d do the same for me.” 

She says it without question but instead questions the motive. She says it like someone prays, like believing in the possibility of salvation but not quite sure how to get there. She says it like a guardian angel takes missions, unsure of her exact purpose but faithful in her understanding that there is one. 

The deep cavern of his obsession temporarily closed and covered by the implication of her treachery, widens and deepens impossibly as he smiles into the knife on her thigh. It’s just a knife, but she believes in him enough to offer her only protection to him, and she believes that it is all he will need to make it back to her on the field. 

He plucks the knife from her garter with his teeth. He tries to memorize her smell, her taste, the feel of her soft and plush skin on his cheek. It’s an intoxicating experience he isn’t quick to squander, but the implied hope that when not if he can get out of this she will be there waiting for him? That makes ending this warm-up worth it if it means he can get to the game and maybe, finally, win the prize. 

She retracts her foot from his shoulder and lets down his hood from his face. She leans in terribly close and whispers, “After 20 yards, take your first left outside the second retaining wall. There’s only two guards there, it’s your best shot.” He hums in affirmation and adoration and she sits back into her position on the table. She looks at her watch and gives a curt nod: the game is back on. 

She takes the cigarette back and draws the smoke into her cheeks and lets it flow out like a deadman’s soul floats to heaven, somehow rushed and languid all at once.

“We’ve been having quite the time trying to figure out your-“ he completely zones out whatever she’s saying in favor of watching the mark his mouth gifted her turn darker as the seconds draw on. It’s not like he could respond even if he wanted to, that would risk the knife she’s so lovingly gifted him into his lap and ruining the whole escape (and worse, endangering her.)

So, instead, he stares at her like the goddess she is. He burns the curve of her stomach between her hips behind his eyelids, he imagines resting his head there and kissing the smooth skin. He savors the way her ass flattens ever-so-slightly where it meets the metal table she’s sitting on, he thinks about holding her up by her ass alone and the plush yet firm give of her flesh. He drinks in the sight of her cleavage heaving when she emotes after a particularly loud question, he hopes what little he can’t see is the same type of perfect as the rest of it. Every once in a while he lets out a quiet huff around the blade in his mouth, in a vague response to something she’s said. Mouse gets “angry” in response, she even slaps him once or twice. 

He doesn’t mind. It’s all a waiting game, after all. 

König is many things, and a competitor is first and foremost. 

If Mouse knows where he’s staring for the duration of their play date of an interrogation, she doesn’t mention anything. With one last stinging (and dizzying…) strike to the cheek, she all but yells “Fine! Let’s see if you’re so tough after 8 hours alone in this hell hole.”

When she turns to walk out of the door she came in, König feels a part of his heart leave with her. He breathes harshly over the outline of the metal in his teeth as he admires the confident sway of her hips. He bites harder on the metal when she tosses a sympathetic look back to him and blows a fucking kiss. 

Sitting, alone in the dark of the converted storage container, he spends the most excruciating thirty minutes of his life occupied only with her phantom touch and his depraved fantasies. 

“Because I know you’d do the same for me.” Echoes in his head in time with his heartbeat, in time with his imaginary minstrations on her form, in time with what he is sure will be the death of him. 

That and so much more, he thinks when he finally, finally, manages to rid himself of his binds with the knife his Engel so graciously snuck him, 27 minutes after she leaves when some cartel member comes to check up on him.

König loses himself in the beautiful catharsis of stabbing the man who comes to fetch him so violently, that the blade to the knife literally snaps off somewhere in his bowels. He loots the cadaver for his gun and ammunition as well as another knife. He feels awful to leave one of her gifts discarded in the abdomen of some filthy cretin of a man, but he recognizes he really does not have much of a say in the matter when he hears the footfalls of his fellow cartel members rushing towards his location.

With one last sigh and a wayward glance to assure himself that he really did get his mouth around her and this wasn’t some dream, he prays in the form of bullets as he guns down anyone stupid enough to get in his way to escape. 

Be safe, my darling Maus. I will be back for you. 

I promise.

taglist! @kneelingshadowsalomegshadowsalome @sprout-ficsout-fics @bucca2cca2 @dead-cipher @gallowsjoker @lostagoodcigar @berryjuicyyy @haisebo @crowbird

[runningw-thewolves]

List of Random Crap I Associate with Fenrir

(Y’all know the drill by now.)

- The Bathroom from Saw 1

- The Human Pincushion Trap from Saw 4

- RAGE metal (as in metal that makes you think “Who hurt you?” e.g. “Slaughterhouse” by Motionless in White)

- Reaction memes (I’ve included a few examples so you know what I mean)

- Watching a character getting a verbal smack down they had coming for the past hour (e.g. Mirabel telling Alma that Alma is the reason the miracle is dying)

- Being edgy for the fun of it (but not the obnoxious, bigoted kind)

- Deadpan and sarcastic humour

- “I don’t want a life lesson! I just want an ice cream…” (cause we all know what it’s like to go through the wringer - btw, that quote is from Bluey)

- Squidward being done with everyone’s bullshit (just picture it; Fenrir hears about Odin and his dad fighting again and is just like “Well, of course they are.”)

- That TikTok sound of “Ooh, fancy pants rich McGee over here, fuck you”

- Airplane! (The spoof movie. Especially Nelson’s character (the “Don’t call me Shirley” guy))

- Being kind to yourself cause the world can be very cruel sometimes and there are days where you just wanna stay in bed

- “I have myself a good cry, dust myself off, then continue. The show must go on!” (Another Bluey quote, this time courtesy of Chilli)

- That “I’m a bad bitch, you can’t kill me!” Vine

[foap-enjoyer]

Hostage | Kidnapping | Held at gunpoint

Held at gunpoint.

'After surviving a deadly explosive, Soap and Rudy must navigate themselves out of a collapsing building. The thing is, they're not as alone as they think they are.'

Triggers for this prompt: Blood, explosions, breathing issues. Ships for this prompt: Implied Ghoap, implied AleRudy, semi-implied SoapRudy.

Word count: Around 4000, a lot longer than my usual ones.

Read it here, on AO3: Ouch. - Chapter 3 - Tsukuyomi_Ravioli - Call of Duty (Video Games) [Archive of Our Own]

~

Mexico had really grown on Soap. Las Almas had especially grown on Soap.

It only made sense. He may have not grown up in this city like his friends, Alejandro and Rodolfo, but he had spent countless nights here helping to defend it. He’d seen what his friends do to defend it too, on the daily. He’d seen the love and adoration in their eyes, the protectiveness of a nurturing mother to a young child. It made it impossible to not root for the city besides them. 

141 often came back to the city as a squad. It was almost like a holiday for them, except they weren’t on vacation and were there to help out Los Vaqueros with menial tasks. Price called it training, Soap called it a paid holiday. 

Today, however, it was more like a paid nightmare.

It had started off normal enough, though. Nice cup of coffee, bickering with Gaz, joking with Ghost, a usual morning for 141. 

Los Vaqueros were great hosts. It helped that the leaders of said group of ‘cowboys’ were their personal friends, of course. Rudy was always in charge of their accommodation each time they visited, and he never skipped on pleasantries. He loved to spoil the Brits like they were his own children, which Soap couldn’t refuse, of course. Who didn’t like to be spoiled?

They got their own little apartment for the four of them, on base. One of the best, actually, a spacious nice little home with four bedrooms, two en-suites and a fully-functional kitchen and living room. Where they got the funds for these kinds of things, Soap had no idea, but he wasn’t about to complain. 

Though he might’ve, only for the fact that Price and Ghost got dibs on an en-suite. Rude.

Anyway.

Usually, their day consisted of running drills alongside Los Vaqueros’ soldiers. Or more specifically, Gaz and Soap would run drills and get all sweaty and irritated while Price sunbathed and Ghost read a book off to the side, safely tucked in the shade. 

Alejandro and Rodolfo, for the most part, would either supervise or be off doing other things themselves. They weren’t instructors, after all. They were leaders, and as it turns out, leaders do a lot of paperwork.

Sometimes though, they would all pack into a truck together. Him, Gaz, and Rudy in the back like ‘children’ while Price, Ghost and Alejandro sat up front like ‘adults’. If Soap was being honest, it was slightly humiliating to be crunched between the Staff-Sergeant and the Sergeant-Major like some forgotten middle child, but he enjoyed it. Purely because it got them out of drills.

During these days, they would go around Las Almas. Usually they had a specific thing in mind. An elderly shop owner asking for assistance, a woman with a lost dog. Turns out Los Vaqueros did a lot more than just being soldiers. They were caretakers. Helpers. Protectors.

Sometimes, though, there would be actual issues. Soap enjoyed those days more than he should’ve.

Today was one of those days. A patrol of Los Vaqueros had noted strange activity in a set of abandoned buildings off of the south-side of the spacious city. Old, ex-apartment buildings nestled within the town. They claimed they had seen figures going in and out over a few nights now, and Alejandro wanted to check it out himself. 

So, he’d brought Rudy, being that the man was his second-in-command, and had been gracious enough to let 141 tag along. There were no complaints on their end. Running drills got incredibly boring after a while, of course.

When they arrived, they were greeted with three, huge buildings, standing in a sad little row. Old, worn, and just about done-in entirely. Moss, vines- anything that could grow had grown, sneaking through the windows and into cracks of the concrete walls. 

It was sort of beautiful, in a way.

“Soap, Rudy, you two can check that first building.” Alejandro had instructed, “Ghost, Price, that second one. Me and Garrick will check the third one. Once we’re all done we meet up here, alright?”

Strange, slightly unusual duos, but Soap didn’t mind it. Rudy was a nice guy, one of the sweetest people he’d ever met. He had no qualms on his side, and by the smile the Sergeant-Major shot him in turn from the other side of their squad’s little circle, he didn’t seem to have any issues either. This was just a simple little recon mission, after all.

Why would there be any issues?

~

Soap really, really should learn to shut his mouth sometimes.

The building had been normal, to begin with. Sure, it creaked under their feet as they advanced, checking each and every room, but it held strong. It was almost like visiting his grandparent’s house, the familiar grunt of the worn-down stairs as they advanced upwards sounding incredibly similar to when he would attempt to tiptoe downstairs for a snack late at night, as a young child.

Soap led the way, and Rudy followed closely on his heels. Turns out the other man preferred to follow, not lead, even if he was, technically, a rank above Soap. If they were going off of Mexico’s military ranking, at least.

“Helps me see a situation clearer.” He explained from behind him, tucked into his shadow, flashlight beaming out as he pointed it down the corridor where they had just come from. “That makes sense, right?”

“No, yeah, I getcha, mate.” He nodded, turning them down another corridor. There were no windows down this route, nestled between heaps of rooms. “I’m the same, ‘cept sometimes it’s nice to lead, yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

Something about his tone sounded off, but Soap ignored it for now, moving deeper. “You seen anything yet?”

“Negative.” Rudy huffed, coughing slightly at the thin layer of dust surrounding them. “This place is old as fuck.”

“You said it.” He laughed. There was no way, beyond some teenagers, or maybe even some squatters, that anyone had been here for a long, long time. Maybe the soldiers who had claimed they had seen someone suspicious had simply been mistaken. “No ones been in here for years.”

The next room they came to still had the door on its frame, which was unusual.

What was more unusual was that, when Soap pressed down on the handle, the door wouldn't budge.

“Locked?” Rudy asked over his shoulder, his breath ghosting by his ear.

“No, something’s behind it.” He grunted as he shoved his body into the frame. Something shifted on the other side, ever so slightly. “I can feel it.”

“Odd…” Rudy hummed, “Together?”

So, together, they worked to jostle whatever it was behind the door enough to slip inside. It turned out to be a chair, placed there by a human. 

“If someone put this here, then that means they must still be around, right?”

“Sí.” Rudy wandered around the room like a sniffer-dog. Eventually, he found what he was looking for. Or at least, he found something. He gestured Soap over from where he was standing on the other side of the large room. “Look.”

A tiny hole. Big enough for someone to wiggle through. “Think the person who put that chair is down there?”

Rudy shrugged, kneeling down to peer inside. “Probably.”

Soap turned as Rudy worked, viewing the rest of the room. It was huge. One wall of the room was covered head-to-toe in windows, and the other with beautiful graffiti from previous explorers. Names, pictures, hell, was that a pokemon he could see?

“Fuck!” Rudy spat, jumping up violently before beginning to sprint over to where Soap stood. “It’s filled with fucking explosives, get down-!”

His face collided harshly with concrete as he was shoved forwards by Rodolfo- instinctively, he raised his hands, pressing down against his neck and ears just as the explosives detonated. 

A deafening roar filled the air as the explosion reverberated through the building, the sheer power of the shockwave being enough to shake the once-steady ground beneath them. Glass shattered from the surrounding windows, sharp crystal-like daggers raining down onto him where he lay. 

It cut into his skin, his clothes- anywhere it could make purchase with his body, it did. He could feel it in his hair, his arms, his neck. Around him stunk of gunpowder, of dust. Of blood.

“Rudy?” He coughed, wheezing. He needed to find Rudy.

Pushing himself upwards with shaky hands, he ignored the way the glass stung against his flesh, how it ripped open the palms of his hands. Blinking away crystals of the stuff that clung to his lashes like glitter, he peered around at the carnage surrounding him. 

Not that he could see a lot of it. A thick, brown and black dust coated everything. Every wall, every floor. Every surface. Rodolfo couldn’t be far from here, right? He’d practically been on top of Soap when the explosion hit… How far could one body travel before they disappeared beyond view? 

He hoped Rudy was still alive.

Now on his knees, he shuffled through his kit, bloodied fingers finding his military-grade flashlight, flicking it on, a smear of blood left behind by the action. The light did little to cut the air, but it was the best he had.

Gathering himself finally to his feet, his eyes rolled to the back of his head as agony spread throughout his spine, running up and down and sending him crashing to the floor with a yelp. The flashlight fell from his hand, rolling across the dusty floor and out of view. Fuck.

“Rudy?” He gasped, “Rudy, fuck-” Where was everyone else? He knew that they had seen their building blow up, they had to be rushing to their aid, right? Had Rudy been found by them?

Desperation clawed at him like a feral animal. Even if the rest of 141 and Los Vaqueros had seen them go down, it didn’t change the fact that he was still in the building. A building that, by the looks of things, was very close to collapse. Rudy was, no doubt, still here with him. Rodolfo wouldn’t leave him here, which made it fairly obvious he was still lost in the fray of brick and debris, same as him. 

He didn’t have time to ponder on what had caused such horrific agony in his back. He was a soldier, dammit, he’d been through worse, and he would continue to go through worse. This was simply one of those moments. He couldn’t just sit there and wail, waiting like a petrified child for their mother to come to their aid. He needed to get up, find Rodolfo, and get the fuck out of here.

Beginning once more to force himself upwards, he quickly became well-acquainted with how suffocating the smog was around him. It was making breathing feel like an Olympic sport at this point. He could feel pieces of debris in his lungs, rattling each and every breath to enter and leave him. At least this time, he was able to stay on his feet. 

He could hear an alarm distantly, screeching and echoing into the silence.

It was weird how that worked. Something as devastating as an explosion, in a large building especially, and yet, the world was quiet. As if waiting on bated breath.

He too, was waiting on bated breath. Except in his case, the outcome relied entirely on him. 

His hand found a crumbling wall, and he pushed himself forward into the smoke.

~

It didn’t take him long to find Rodolfo, actually. He just had to follow the path of destruction the man’s body had made.

“Rudy.” He rasped, falling onto his knees in front of him.

There was blood everywhere, he wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Or who it was coming from, actually. They were both dead on their feet; the sight was gruesome. His hands reached up to grab Rudy’s cheeks, holding his head up from where it rested awkwardly against the destroyed wall behind him. Unconsciously, his thumbs began to move, rhythmic across the torn skin. He wasn’t sure if it was to soothe him, or Rodolfo. 

He was certain the man had broken several bones, just looking at him. His chest was caved awkwardly, and his nose was certainly broken. His body had been through the ringer, but he was breathing. That, to him, was all that mattered. 

Besides them getting the fuck out of here. 

He still hadn’t heard any news from his comm-line. He’d tried radioing during his search, but he couldn’t connect to the outside, let alone Rodolfo himself. Either his radio was jammed, or this whole building was blocking the signal. Which was just peachy. 

Or maybe, just maybe, all three buildings had explosives buried inside them. That was enough to twist his gut uncomfortably.

Rudy groaned, stirred slightly. His eyelashes fluttered, causing the dust around them to swirl. 

“Rudy.” He shook his worried thoughts away, clutched closer, staring at the man’s half-lidded eyes, a hint of brown behind paled features. They weren’t focused on anything. He wasn’t waking up, at least anytime soon. Soap was on his own for this. 

“Fuck, okay.” He let go of the man, setting his head gently back down before rolling onto the back of his heels, ignoring the pain that striked up his back like a snake, simply letting out a soft hiss. “Okay, okay. I got this.” 

He just had to find an exit- how hard could that be?

Taking a deep breath, which he quickly regretted, of course, he looked around them. He knew there was a corridor that ran between rooms, as all buildings had. Maybe that was still intact…

It didn’t change the fact that he’d have to drag Rodolfo’s unconscious ass with him; and with the amount of pain he was already in, he didn’t know if he had it in him to do that.

But, as always, he had no choice. So, gritting his teeth, he forced himself to his feet. 

He leant down just enough to hook his fingers into the shoulder-straps on Rudy’s tac-vest, tugging the man forward until  he was free from his neat little slot into the broken wall. 

His muscles screamed in protest as he dragged Rodolfo, and himself, in a way, through the debris-filled building. Each step he took echoed into the silence around them hauntingly- where had the alarms gone from before? 

Rudy was limp below him, his feet leaving a trail atop the dust behind them as they ventured through the corridors. He made the occasional grunt, or groan, but otherwise, was deathly quiet. It scared him. 

Though, he supposed, at least the silence was nice. It made it easier to hear for anything else, right? Made it easier to tell if they were alone. At least, he hoped.

Not that he expected the culprit of these explosives to be wandering around in its debris like a damn dumbass. He expected it to just be him, Rudy, and some tumbling pieces of rock. The place was abandoned, when they’d gone in, after all. Maybe some poor old squatter or two had gotten trapped in the fray, but he could leave that to rescue services. He was a soldier, not a firefighter, after all.

Though he supposed the only difference at this point was the gun he carried.

Or did carry- where the fuck was his gun?

Leaning Rudy down onto his legs, bloodied head pressed against his knees, he fumbled his hands across his vest, searching for his holster. 

When he found it, his fingers wrapped around nothing but air. Great. How much equipment had he lost today now? He wondered how much that would cost him. It wasn’t like this stuff was dirt cheap after all.

Guess he was a fireman after all.

Resigning himself to his new job, he continued dragging his friend down the corridor to safety.

~

Okay, so scratch that previous thought. 

The culprits were most definitely running around this place like scattered rats.

He didn’t know how many, or where they were, but he could hear their voices echoed in the remains around him. Murmured Spanish, whispers, laughter, jokes, words he couldn’t make out. Rudy was still unconscious in his arms, helpless. He still didn’t have a gun, defenceless. Not to mention the building was still wobbling around them, threatening to come down atop them with every step he took.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Had they seen them come in here? Had they set those bombs off? Had this been a trap laid out for Los Vaqueros that he had just, like his usual self, gotten messed up in? Or was this cartel related? A personal hit on him? Or Rudy?

Was Graves back to haunt him once more?

He had so many questions, yet so little time. He knew it would only be so long before they caught on his trail in the dust, so long before he would finally come eye-to-eye with these madmen stupid enough to come back into a destroyed building to hunt down two measly soldiers. 

Especially when one was already halfway into the golden gates. It was pathetic, really.

Rodolfo just had to take this moment to stir, of course, because why wouldn’t he?

He groaned loudly in the silence, his head shaking back and forth as he came to. Soap was tempted to shove a hand in the man’s mouth to shut him up, but he thought against it, instead dragging them both into the nearest room. Better to hunker down and hide rather than keep going at this point. 

Even if he was worried about the building collapsing on them, it didn’t overrule the fact they were being hunted like vermin in the crumbling walls.

He could hear voices getting closer, footsteps beginning to echo throughout the building that weren’t his own as he settled him and Rudy down under a nearby surviving desk. This room must have been an office. Had to have been. At least it worked as a hiding spot.

Rudy blinked, brown eyes half-glazed with confusion as he peered around them both, taking in their huddled space. He had to have a concussion, no doubt. That’s why it had been so difficult to wake him. “So-ap?”

He pressed a finger to his own lips, and Rudy fell silent in understanding, still incredibly confused. He could tell by the man’s furrowed brows, and how his lips pursed, thinking. 

Soap prayed he kept his thoughts to his own mind, because the voices were now just outside their room. Loud and abrasive.

“You sure you heard something down this way?”

“Definitely, man, I’m telling you!”

“I don’t think I quite believe you, Andres.”

“No, no, he’s right, look.”

They must have spotted the trail left in their wake. He prayed to a God he no longer believed in that they’d go the opposite way. Rudy’s legs must have disturbed his own footprints a little, right? Maybe it would be impossible to tell which way they went.

“They’re nearby, that’s for sure.” One murmured, Andres, he believed. “Split up?”

“Yeah.”

“Wait-” The third called out, worried, “What about the others?”

“The other soldiers?”

“Yeah. In the other buildings. You guys saw ‘em too, right?”

“Course we did, Camila. We find these two fuckers then we go for them, alright?”

“That’s a stupid plan, Barto. One of them was the Ghost! Even I know who that is!”

Maybe they’d just argue forever. Soap hoped they would. If they were right, and his Spanish was correct, the others were fine. Only this building had explosives in; they hadn’t expected the soldiers to split up, thank the stars for Alejandro.

It meant rescue could very much be around the corner. He just had to hold on. Just had to keep Rudy alive. That wasn’t so much to ask for, he supposed.

~

It was Camila who found them.

Her gun was the first thing he saw, actually.

She was a young woman- in fact, Soap would prefer to say young girl. She was no woman, she didn’t look a day past thirteen, yet she had tattoos, piercings, and a mean yet frantic look about her. 

The muzzle of her gun aimed directly at his head, before swapping down to where Rudy’s lay against his chest, before back up at him. “Guys!” She called out, “I found them!”

The two boys had rushed over only seconds later. Men, actually. They were very much men, unlike their young counterpart. 

Balto had a cruel smile stretched across his lips. “Looks like only one of you made it, hmm?”

Rudy was still breathing, he’d just fallen unconscious again, and yet this man thought…  Yeah, you know what? Soap could work with that.

Pushing Rudy away from him, he held in a wince as the man flopped onto the cold floor, practically corpse-like, save from the faintest of breathing. If he could make them think he was dead, they wouldn’t shoot him. 

He could save Rodolfo, at least. He could die peacefully then.

The sudden movement startled Camila, who backed up, gun still held in a tight, white knuckled grip. Balto simply grinned, and the other one, Andres, well he simply watched, tight-lipped. They all had their hands on their guns, holstered or not. 

His mouth dried uncomfortably, but he forced his voice out. “Are you the pricks that did this?”

Balto chuckled, gesturing to Rodolfo. Andres moved, grabbing the soldier and tugging his body out of the way, dumping him across the room. Soap’s eyes followed frantically, as much as he tried not to show it.

Now he was alone, trapped under a desk, with a gun at his face and help far, far away. Great.

“Are you Sergeant Mactavish?”

He snarled. “What’s it to you?”

Balto shrugged, “Nothing. We don’t want you. We’re looking for an ‘Alejandro Vargas’. You know him? Is he here?”

“Why the fuck would I tell you that?”

His gun unholstered easily, aiming directly onto Soap’s forehead. “Do you not want to live, little boy?” He laughed, before nodding at the lump that was Rudy in the corner behind him, “Or do you want to join Mr Parra over there?”

He swallowed harshly. “He’s here.”

“Good.” The man purred. “Get him up. Let’s go meet him, shall we?”

~

Leaving Rodolfo behind left a bad taste in his mouth. 

The man was barely hanging on, with injuries Soap didn’t know the full extent of, and now he had no one to watch over him, in some dusty room in the middle of a collapsing building. 

He’ll be okay, he’ll be okay.

“Move it, gringo.” A shove to his back had pain flaring up his spine. Fuck. He hissed, and the hands returned, shoving him again. “That hurt, sweetheart?”

Fucking sweetheart. Really? Two could play at that game. “Nope.” He popped his lips on the p, grinning. He’d turn around to face the person who dared pet-name him, but his neck was in so much pain he worried it’d snap clean off. “Thanks for the concern, though, love.”

The cock of a gun silenced him. Unfunny, all-too-serious bastards.

“What exactly are you going to do, once we find Alejandro?” He asked aloud as he walked, or more stumbled down corridor after corridor towards the presumed exit. “You want an autograph or something?”

Another shove. Pain once more turned his legs to jelly. He grunted. “Fine, fine, I’ll shut up.”

“But you don’t.” Balto huffed, “Just shut the fuck up. Why would we tell you what we want with him?”

He bit his tongue before his big mouth said something he’d regret, an insult resting heavily against his closed lips. He wasn’t about to get shot for something so stupid. Not when they clearly didn’t need him. 

Not when he was the only person who knew Rodolfo was still alive.

“Good boy.”

Light came sooner than he’d expected from a massive hole in the building’s exterior wall. He squeezed his eyes shut, head pounding. Blunt nails on the back of his neck steadied him as he stumbled forward, scratching at his skin to keep ahold of him. The cold metal of a gun pressed against his temple. His shoes touched grass as he was hauled out fully into the open. 

“Soap!” 

He wheezed, fumbling to right his legs under him, blinking back waves of agony as he fought to simply see. When had seeing become so damn hard? 

“Ah, Captain Price!” Balto called out from beside him, “Glad to finally meet you! I’ve heard a lot of good things”

“Where’s Rodolfo!” That was Alejandro snarling like a feral beast. Soap was trying his best to blink away the harshness of the sun, and his efforts rewarded him with a blurred, far away view of the Los Vaqueros. Price was next to him, and next to him was Ghost. Next to him, Gaz.

“I swear to God, if you fuckers-”

“He’s dead.” Balto shrugged, grinning. Soap gulped at the look that tore through Alejandro’s face at the news. Like his whole world had come crashing down beneath him. “Didn’t survive the explosion. I thought you trained your men better than that, compadre?” 

“We are not friends.”

“Ah, but we were once, weren’t we Colonel?” 

Great, more lore. More drama. Soap could barely keep track of what was going on five minutes ago, let alone now.

“I will hang you.” Alejandro threatened coldly, “I’ll tear you limb from fucking limb, Balto-”

“What?” The man fluttered his eyelashes innocently. Soap felt the hand adjust against his neck. “It wasn’t me who killed him!”

“Soap.” Price barked out, disregarding the arguing men, “You alright, son?”

He wet his lips. His voice was hoarse and raspy, and he wasn’t even sure Price heard him from all the way across. “I’m fine.”

Hands tightened against his neck, choking him. He spluttered, coughing. “But he won’t be unless I get what I want.”

“And what do you want, exactly?” That was Ghost this time. His voice was deep and threatening. At least, to everyone else. Soap knew the man was a big softie at heart. Especially for him.

“Alejandro. They pay big money for you, in America, you know that?”

“Unfortunately.” Alejandro’s eyes darkened.

The hand loosened just enough for him to catch a breath. “So?” Balto’s voice curled against his cheek, waiting. The gun was on his other cheek, muzzle pressed into the dusty flesh. “What’ll it be?”

There was silence, for a moment. 

It felt, almost, like a cowboy standoff from an old Western. He swore he could almost hear the tell-tale music in the background. The thudding of horse-hooves, the slow-mo sound of the first gunshot-

Balto dropped dead right beside him.

The hand holding him meant that he, too, was dragged downwards, awkwardly flopping against the grassy floor as bullets rang out around him. His back ached horribly, and he was reminded all too clearly of the initial explosion as he clutched at his neck with shaking hands. 

At least this time there was no glass.

If he had half the mind, he might’ve grabbed the fallen gun and joined in himself, but before he could even begin to think about that, the moment was over, and the field was silent.

“Rudy-!”

Rudy?

Soap blinked open his eyes. 

Yeah that was Rudy alright.

Sure enough, at the mouth of the hole blown into the building was none other than Rodolfo Parra, smoking gun in hand and blood streaming down past his broken nose onto his goofily grinning teeth, staining white red. Very much alive, contrary to popular belief. 

Of course Soap knew that. But he was still just as relieved to see the man as anyone else. 

Except maybe Alejandro. The way the Colonel practically teleported over to his Sergeant was a little unnerving, if he was honest.

“You alright, love?” 

Ghost had teleported almost as quickly to his own side, a worried hand on his shoulder, squeezing softly. Concerned brown eyes stared through his soul; gloved hands moved to touch his bloodied, dusty head, searching for any trace of a gunshot wound. Any trace of inflicted injury beyond what was already fucked up.

Was he alright? 

Was he alright? 

Did Ghost really just ask that? 

He sighed grumpily. "What do you think?"

Ghost laughed, "I think you'll live."

~

This one was one of the hardest prompts to complete. I HATED writing the majority of this, which is unusual. It's been my least favourite so far haha.

Though I'd like to come back to it, I think it was just writers block. Since I always enjoy writing Rudy (sorry Soap, I just prefer writing Rudy lmao)