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imjustthemechanic · 4 years ago

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The Price of a Soul

Part 1/? - Agent Russel

I am absolutely going to regret starting to post this, but here goes.

An AU: a Russian agent slips Agent Carter a letter that seems to contain a clue to the location of the Valkyrie crash site. What is Peggy willing to sacrifice in order to bring Steve’s body home? Her job? Her reputation? Maybe even her life? And what will she do when she learns what her Soviet source already knew - that Captain America isn’t a corpse after all?

Peggy was not at all happy about the situation, but at the same time, she knew she had nobody to blame for it but herself.

After all, she was the one who’d broken Dottie Underwood out of prison and then lost track of her. That made it, technically, Peggy’s fault that the woman had robbed the Toucan Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, making off with some two hundred thousand dollars. Now the mafia was looking for Dottie, along with dozens of corrupt police officers all over the country, all of them getting in Peggy’s way, alternately threatening her, trying to bribe her, and ignoring her… and as if that weren’t enough, now the bloody FBI had gotten involved.

All things considered, Peggy was very tempted to call in to work with a headache. The main reason she did not was because half the people involved in this fiasco already considered her a potential criminal and she didn’t want to give their theories any support. But there wasn’t exactly a spring in her step as she opened the door marked Auerbach Theatrical Agency and stepped inside.

It was a sunny morning in Los Angeles, and light was pouring through the big window into the middle of the room, where a blonde in a pink cardigan was kneeling on the floor doing a scene from MacBeth.

“The Thane of Fife had a wife!” the woman lamented, in a shockingly obnoxious mockery of a Scottish accent. She mimed thrusting her hands under a stream of water and rubbing them together to wash them. “Where is she now?”

“Good morning, Rose,” said Peggy, to the woman behind the desk.

“Good morning, Peggy,” Rose replied with a sigh. The SSR had gone out of its way to make the supposed ‘theatrical agency’ nearly impossible to find, and yet hopefuls still showed up quite regularly. When Peggy had left the previous evening, there’d been a pair of young East Asian men, twins, juggling knives. One of the blades was still embedded in the wall where its owner had thrown it. Now there was this would-be Shakespearean.

“What, will this hand never be clean?” the blonde went on, refusing to break character. “No more of that, my Lord, no more of that! You mar all with this starting!”

“Well, if anyone needs me, I’ll be upstairs waiting for my ten o’clock,” said Peggy. FBI Agent Russel, here to offer his ‘assistance’ apprehending Ms. Dorothy Underwood – and to keep an eye on SSR Agent Carter to make sure she wasn’t involved in any criminal activities. They might have at least tried to be subtle about it.

“I’ll let you know when he arrives,” said Rose.

Peggy turned to head upstairs, when a new voice said, “Agent Carter?”

She turned around. The blonde was standing now. She was quite small, shorter than Peggy, dressed in a mid-calf beige skirt, and the pink cardigan was over a matching blouse with a single tasteful string of pearls. Her makeup was quite dramatic, with deep red lipstick in a similar shade to Peggy’s own. Her purse was also bright red, and she reached into it and pulled out a little leather billfold which she opened to reveal a red and silver FBI badge.

“I’m Agent Nadine Russel,” she said.

Peggy should not have been startled – she really should not. She was thoroughly sick of everyone she met being surprised that SSR Agent Carter was a woman, and this Agent Russel probably felt the same… but it took her a moment to regain a neutral expression regardless. She looked at Rose.

Rose shook her head. Apparently the woman had simply walked in and started doing Shakespeare.

“I’m sorry,” said Russel with a smile. “But she asked me if I were here to audition and I couldn’t resist.”

“To be fair, she’s not one of the worst we’ve had,” Rose put in.

Russel stepped forward to shake Peggy’s hand.

“I apologize as well,” Peggy said, as she accepted the gesture. “I wasn’t aware the FBI employed female agents.” It made sense, though… if they wanted to send somebody who could tail Peggy anywhere, a man would not do. They would know from her history that she could get away from them easily.

“That’s how they like it,” said Russel with a nod. Her accent was educated American, non-regional. Peggy could not have begun to make a guess where she came from. “Let’s go upstairs, and we can talk.”

In the upstairs offices, the other employees of the Strategic Scientific Reserve were already getting on with the day’s work. Director Daniel Sousa was having a conversation with Agent Sato when Peggy and Russel arrived, and Peggy waited a moment until she knew the men had seen her before interrupting.

“I’m sorry, Daniel,” she said, “but Agent Russel wants to discuss the Underwood case with me somewhere private. May we use your office?”

Daniel was just as surprised to find that Agent Russel was a woman as Peggy had been, and while there was a part of Peggy that thought he, too, really ought to know better, another part was just glad she wasn’t the only one. “Of course,” he said. “Go right in. Ben, let’s go to your desk.”

Benjiro Sato nodded, and the two men got out of the way. Inside, Peggy sat down in Daniel’s chair, leaving Russel to take the one opposite. It was not intentional on Peggy’s part – she merely entered the room first – but she decided not to change the situation. It would help to remind Russel, who after all was not exactly an ally, that she was on her home turf here and the other woman was not.

Russel didn’t seem to mind. She pulled her chair closer to the desk and took a leather-bound folio out of her briefcase. “This is the most important information we have on Miss Barynova,” she said. “I was going through it again on my way here…”

“Barynova?” Peggy interrupted, a chill running up her spine. “You mean Dorothy Underwood?” In all her own work on and with the woman, she had never encountered anything that might be her real name… only a series of aliases, with ‘Dorothy Underwood’ merely being the one they’d placed on the ‘most wanted’ list.

“Oh, yes, I beg your pardon, her name is Olga Barynova,” said Russel. “At least, according to sources at the CIA that I’m apparently not allowed to speak to directly.”

The CIA as well? There were entirely too many acronyms involved in this, Peggy thought crossly. The more organizations got interested, the more bureaucracy, the more paperwork, the less communication, and the less chance of them ever finding their target. “I see,” said Peggy. At least that was new information. She wasn’t surprised the CIA hadn’t shared it with her, but she was a bit surprised they’d been able to find it out. Her impression of them in peacetime was not good. Perhaps the information could serve Peggy at some point in the future.

“Anyway, as I was saying.” Russel took out a notebook and sat back to balance it on her knee. “I was looking through our information and realized that for all you’re the one who first encountered her, nobody has apparently interviewed you about your history with Miss Barynova, which…” She paused, perhaps searching for words, and settled on the tactful, “seems like an oversight.”

“It is, rather, isn’t it?” Peggy asked. She remained calm on the outside, but inside her mind was scrambling. Russel was about to ask her to tell the story. Peggy didn’t want to incriminate herself because that would only slow down the whole process of catching Dottie and lead to a lot of sidetracks. But she didn’t want to tell too many lies, because lies could be checked, and whatever she said was going to have to be self-consistent.

“Maybe you’d like to tell me what happened?” Russel suggested.

“I would very much like to,” Peggy lied. “To the best of my knowledge, Miss Un… Miss Barynova came to America in the employ of a man named Fenhoff, who claimed he needed her help with something to do with undermining democracy… I’m not sure of the details. What he actually wanted from her was help in a plan to take personal revenge on Howard Stark…”

The first half of the story was easy enough to tell… the half in which Peggy had been purely trying to catch this woman and hadn’t been complicit in her presence. The second half, the part that took place here in Los Angeles, was far more difficult.

“When I left New York she was locked up,” Peggy said. “The next time I heard about her, she’d escaped and had been sighted here in California.”

So far, Russel had been listening, making notes, but not interrupting. Now she suddenly asked, “what do you think brought her here?”

Now it was time to lie. “Quite honestly, I think she was following me,” Peggy replied. “When she was arrested at the bank she had taken some trouble to look like me. I think I may be the only person who ever really tried to get inside her head, and that seems to have impressed her.” Perhaps Peggy was tooting her own horn there, but she did get the idea that Dottie was somewhat obsessed with her, and that was her best guess at why.

Russel nodded. “We’re not used to people trying to get inside our heads,” she observed, tapping the side of her own. “Men tend to assume there’s nothing much going on in there.”

“They do, don’t they?” said Peggy, not amused at all. Of course, Russel was doing the same thing with Peggy now, trying to get inside her head… and she was perfectly well aware that Peggy knew that was what she was doing. This could turn into a dangerous game indeed, and a distraction Peggy did not need right now. “Unfortunately, during Miss Barynova’s stay in California I was far too concerned with Agnes Cully and the problems at Isodyne to really have time to pursue her. By the time I turned my attention to that she was long gone.”

“Do you think she has a long-term goal?” asked Russel.

“I can’t say, honestly,” Peggy replied, and that was the entire truth. “Sometimes it starts to seem like she’s up to something fiendishly clever and I’m only seeing the tiniest corner of it… other times I think she’s doing all this just for the fun of it. I do know she doesn’t want to go back to the USSR.”

“No… we have some idea what happens to Russian agents who outlive their usefulness,” said Russel. “Besides, we’d much rather have her here in the States where we can pick her brains.”

“I doubt you’ll get much from her – nobody else ever has,” said Peggy.

Russel nodded. “What did you do when you first heard about the Toucan heist?” she asked.

The two women talked for most of the morning, and while Peggy wasn’t sure what Russel thought of her, her impression of the other woman was of somebody intensely focused. That was not good from her point of view. The reason she’d been dreading meeting the FBI agent was because she’d thought he’d be a pain in the arse to get rid of – but she’d never doubted she’d be able to do it. Russel was another matter entirely. She would not be avoided by going into the powder room, would not be scared off by a mention of ‘ladies’ troubles’. Nor had she been asking a list of routine questions. She’d let Peggy lead the way, while she inscrutably wrote notes, keeping her thoughts to herself but attentive and interested.

Nadine Russel was an equal, and the most annoying thing about the situation was that if it weren’t for the situation that had set them up as rivals, she and Peggy would probably have got along like a house on fire.

Finally, around lunch time, Russel checked her watch and closed her notebook. “Thank you for your time, Agent Carter,” she said. “I’ve got some more interviews I need to do today, but I will definitely check in with you again. If you need to contact me, you can do so at this number.” She held out a blank business card, with the phone number written on it in tidy black ink.

“Thank you, Agent Russel, I hope I was helpful,” Peggy replied.

They shook hands again, and Russel took her red purse and her leather folio, and left.

Once she was gone, Peggy sat back down in Daniel’s chair and pushed her hands into her hair. Bloody hell, she didn’t need this right now. She did not.

There was a rap on the door. “Peggy?” Daniel asked, sticking his head into the room.

“Sorry, Daniel,” she said, and got to her feet with a sigh. “You may have your office back.”

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m better than I might be, but worse than I’d hoped,” Peggy said, and that much was entirely honest. “It would be a gift if I could just tell her the truth, but that would create far more problems than it would solve.”

There was a moment of silence. Peggy and Daniel both knew that ‘more problems’ would involve them getting in deserved trouble for laws they absolutely had broken. The problem was that there was nobody else they trusted to handle things like Dottie. The police were corrupt, and the government and big business was, half the time, the problem, and they definitely weren’t going to let the mafia deal with it. That left only so many options.

“Well, better get back to work,” said Daniel.

“Yes, back to work,” Peggy agreed.

She returned to her desk and dropped her purse on it heavily. The world was such a mess. During the war it had been so clear who were the good guys, and who the bad. Now it had become ever so much more complicated.

#fanfic #captain america #agent carter #peggy carter #steve rogers #steggy #fix it fic

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cdelphiki · 5 years ago

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There Are Worse Ways to Spend Christmas

Honestly, holiday travel was the worst, in Tim’s opinion. The absolute worst thing on the face of the planet, and an all around terrible way to spend time right around Christmas.

Between crowded airports, snobby entitled irate passengers, and frequent weather cancellations, traveling during December was probably the worst thing ever.

And yes, that was very much exaggerating, because Tim’s mind immediately supplied several things that had happened that year that beat flying near Christmas in the ‘terrible’ category, but he just wasn’t in a good mood, so he was going to be dramatic about it.

Bruce wanted the lot of them to meet up at the cabin in Colorado to have a nice, quiet Christmas with just the family. Which, on paper, sounded nice. Christmas with all the kids plus Alfred and Bruce, far away from Gotham and the social engagements they’d be expected to attend otherwise sounded incredibly relaxing.

But that was before Tim processed that he’d have to fly with Damian, commercial, to Colorado to meet up with everyone else.

Why?

Because his family hated him, obviously.

The private plane was currently in Japan, where Bruce and Alfred were finishing up a series of meetings at the Tokyo office, and since it would be bringing them to Colorado that day, it was unavailable to bring Damian and Tim, the only two left in Gotham so close to Christmas, to Colorado. Stupid school lasting until the Friday right before Christmas Eve, which was on a Monday that year, meant they couldn’t have just left early to allow the jet to bring them all.

No.

Tim Drake and Damian Wayne had to fly commercial. On Christmas Eve eve.

First class, of course, but on small little regional jets, first class was a paltry comparison to the comfort to which they were accustomed. And the whole “unaccompanied minor” thing was really grating at Tim’s nerves. Because Damian wasn’t unaccompanied. Tim was right there. He was 16, and according to the airline’s policy, that made Damian accompanied. But that didn’t stop the stupid flight attendants from being extra attentive.

At least they were being left relatively alone during their layover in Chicago.

Which was how Tim found himself curled up into one of the kind-of comfortable waiting chairs near their gate, playing a game on his iPad, completely ignoring his little brother. It was the most peace he’d had all day. He could still see Damian over his knees. Kind of. Saw his spiky hair in the next seat over, at least, so he wasn’t being entirely neglectful.

But Damian wasn’t bothering him. Wasn’t trying to pick a fight or release his frustrations on Tim, so Tim was going to enjoy every single second of it.

Then, of course, the gate agent had to ruin the entire night.

“Attention passengers, Flight 1029 to Aspen has been delayed,” she announced over the speaker, and Tim couldn’t make out the rest of her announcement over the loud chorus of groans from everyone around them. Because the flight was supposed to begin boarding in about 10 minutes.

His phone buzzed with a notification from the American Airlines app, which informed him that it was delayed by three hours.

“This is ridiculous,” Damian pouted, hitting Tim’s legs with his coat as he slung it off himself to stand, “the third weather delay today. You would think airlines would be used to flying in the snow. It’s not like it doesn’t happen every year.”

“It’s one of those dumb named storms,” Tim said, scrolling through the weather report in Aspen to see if in three hours it would be any better, “it’s basically a blizzard.”

“That does not change my opinion,” Damian drawled, rolling his eyes as he stared out the window directly behind Tim.

“So because hurricanes happen every year, pilots should know how to fly through those? Get real, Damian.”

“Tt. It’s just snow.”

“Snow and wind and zero visibility,” Tim said, flipping to the Hilton app to reserve a room at the airport’s hotel. The weather report wasn’t looking good, and he had a feeling that the flight would be outright cancelled. If that happened, he wanted a room in the airport. He’d rather not deal with crowded shuttles to an off-site hotel once the airport finally cancelled all the flights to the areas being assaulted by Winter-storm Fisher.

Seriously, why the hell did they name snowstorms now?

Tim reserved the room under Bruce’s name, because it would be impossible otherwise to get a room for a 10 and 16 year old. The hotel really didn’t need to know that Bruce wasn’t even in the country and wouldn’t be staying with them.

“Damian?” one of the gate agents said, as she approached the two of them in the waiting area, “So the flight has been delayed by-”

“Yes, three hours. We are aware,” Damian snapped, “As I keep telling you people, I do not require your hovering. My father did not request the unaccompanied minor service, so I do not see why you are providing it anyway.”

“We are just ensuring that-”

“I don’t care,” Damian said, waving a hand at the woman as he turned to gaze out the window again.

Tim just shrugged at the slightly flustered woman and offered a simple, “Sorry. We’re tracking though, thanks.”

“Tt. I am never flying commercial again.”

“Bold declaration for 10,” Tim said, just before he sighed and sat up. It was nearing 6pm. They should probably go grab dinner while they had the time, on the off chance that the flight actually did happen.

“I am a Wayne, if I want to fly exclusively by private jet, there is literally nothing stopping me.”

“Except Bruce hogging it,” Tim said, shoving his iPad and headphones into his carry-on. For the first time, he was so glad Alfred had convinced them to pack into carry-ons instead of with checked luggage. He enjoyed the freedom and ease of traveling with just a simple messenger bag to carry around, but knowing that they had their clothes and toothbrushes with them was a relief. They wouldn’t be buying ridiculous Chicago themed clothing tonight in one of the overpriced gift shops.

“What are you doing?” Damian asked, eyeing Tim as he slipped his boots back on and tied them.

Instead of answering, Tim asked, “Chili’s or the Macaroni Grill?” as he stood to his feet, attaching his coat to the top of his luggage.

Damian straightened up a bit, to Tim’s amusement, at the prospect of food and shuffled to gather up his items as well. “The Macaroni Grill,” he finally said, making a face at the suggestion of Chili’s.

Dinner went a lot smoother than Tim was expecting. In fact, the entire day until that point had gone smoother than he expected. Even with leaving for the airport at 5am and spending nearly every moment since together, the two of them really hadn’t fought much. Every once in a while Damian would make a scathing remark, but would then be quiet for at least half an hour after he did so.

It was nice.

“Why’re you being so good,” Tim asked over their pasta. They still had a little over two hours until boarding. Perhaps he shouldn’t be looking this gift horse in the mouth, but he was genuinely curious.

“I know how to behave in public, Drake,” Damian drawled, pushing around the last bits of his dinner on his plate before taking a sip of his soda.

Aside from the fact that Damian did not know how to behave in public, that really didn’t answer anything.

“Besides,” Damian continued, “our every move is being watched here, and Father told me if we get arrested by security for any reason he’s holding me personally responsible.”

“He did not,” Tim said, grinning wide.

Damian scowled at Tim and snapped, “That was not a challenge, Drake. I will inform Father if you sabotage our travel for the express purpose of getting me grounded.”

Tim just laughed and said, “Unlike you, I’m not a demon, I wouldn’t do that,” just as his phone started buzzing in his pocket.

When he pulled it out, he saw Bruce’s face staring at him. “Speak of the devil,” Tim muttered as he slid to accept the call, “Hey Bruce.”

“I see your flight has been delayed again. How are you two holding up?”

“Let me talk to him,” Damian said, reaching out for the phone.

Tim swatted Damian’s hand away and said, “We’re fine. Annoyed, but we went ahead and got dinner. I know we were supposed to eat together there, but you know.”

“We had to land in Seattle and won’t attempt again until morning, anyway. Dick and Jason got in just before it started to snow, and Steph and Cass are still in the air, but I don’t think the flight will make it to Aspen. So most of us won’t get there until tomorrow, anyway.”

“Yeah, I’m expecting American Airlines to just cancel to try again tomorrow,” Tim said, taking one last bite of his food, “so I booked us a hotel tonight just in case.”

“Let me know if you have trouble checking in. The storm is moving across the country toward you, I would not be surprised if O’Hare cancels flights tomorrow as the storm passes over you there.”

“Great,” Tim said dramatically, leaning back in his chair. Damian was just glaring at him expectantly, “Damian wants to talk to you.”

“Okay. Stay safe and just be patient. Delays and cancellations are better than plane crashes.”

“Yeah, thanks for that thought,” Tim said just as he handed the phone off to Damian.

“Father, I refuse to fly commercial ever again, this method of travel is-” Damian started, then paused and listened with a pinched face, “Yes, but- No. No.”

Tim tried his best not to look too amused as Damian went from smug and entitled to adequately chagrined as he listened silently to Bruce for a full minute. Bruce must have lectured him pretty hard.

“Fine. But I will not fly commercial at Christmas. This holiday is ridiculous and the number of people in this airport is unacceptable. Yes, Father. I will. Goodbye.”

“Sounds like you will be flying commercial again,” Tim said in amusement as he took his phone back and pulled a $100 out of his wallet to give to the waitress to cover their meal and her tip.

“Shut up, Drake,” Damian mumbled as he dragged his suitcase behind him in the most pout-filled way Tim had ever seen.

And that’s how the rest of the evening went. Silently as Damian pouted. As their departure time came and went without so much as a boarding call, Damian began getting antsy.

“This is the fourth time they’ve delayed us by 15 minutes,” he exclaimed after yet another announcement over the PA system, “this is unacceptable.”

“You know they’re going to cancel the flight, right?” Tim said, turning the page in a book he’d picked up in the airport bookstore, “We’ll probably sit here another 30 minutes while they continue deluding themselves about not cancelling a flight on Christmas Eve eve.”

Damian let out an angry growl, which just sounded like a child throwing a tantrum, and flung himself down on the chair next to Tim. “I hate this.”

“Take a nap,” Tim said as he pulled his coat out from the chair under him to let Damian use it as a pillow, “I’ll wake you when they decide what they’re doing.”

“I will not take a nap,” Damian pouted, “I’m not tired, just frustrated.”

“You’ve been awake since 4am, you’re tired.”

“So have you.”

“Yeah,” Tim said patiently, “but I took a nap after lunch, so.”

“I will not take a nap,” Damian repeated, aggressively grabbing Tim’s coat to lay against.

“That’s fine,” Tim hummed, trying not to smile as he continued reading.

“And Christmas Eve eve is not a thing,” Damian mumbled, burrowing himself down into Tim’s coat with his own wrapped around him, “stop being ridiculous.”

“Of course it’s a thing,” Tim said, lifting his feet up onto his suitcase so he could get settled back a little more comfortably, “It’s what today is.”

“Hmph.”

It took another 45 minutes, but finally the flight was outright cancelled. By that point, everyone was too exhausted to put up too much of a fuss, and the groans heard around the gate were more out of obligation than actual anger. Tim had heard several people all around him make arrangements for the night already, so this was clearly no surprise to anyone.

Tim took his time using the hotel’s app to “check in” before he began gathering up his things. He put his boots on and shoved his book and tablet back in his bag before he finally nudged Damian.

“Okay, Demon, nap’s over.”

“I was not napping,” Damian mumbled, rubbing at his eyes as he sat up.

Tim grinned and liberated his coat out from under Damian. “No you’re right you were just resting your eyes.”

“Shut up, Drake.”

Checking in was remarkably easy. When Tim told the person at the desk that ‘his dad had checked in on the app,’ he was easily handed a couple keys to the room without a single question.

Tim took his time in the shower as Damian lay on one of the two beds in their room, watching the news report. When Tim finally emerged from the bathroom, Damian said, “Much of Colorado is without power right now, and the storm is expected to hit the midwest just as hard.”

“Well isn’t that just dandy,” Tim said as he dried off his hair, “you packed a toothbrush and stuff, right?”

“Yes, Drake, I am not incompetent.”

“Right, whatever. Take a shower if you’re going to, I’m going to sleep. The flight is scheduled for 8 so we need to get out of here absolutely no later than 7, preferably earlier. We’ll have to pass through security again.”

“I hate everything you just said.”

Sighing, Tim set his phone to wake him at 5:45 while he listened to Damian slam the bathroom door.

Being responsible for little children was just so fun.

Next thing Tim knew, his alarm was going off. He sat up to find Damian already awake and watching the Weather Channel on mute. It took blinking for a minute before he could make out the numerous notifications on his phone, but the one he had wanted to find the least was another delay notification.

Now the flight wasn’t going to attempt until 10.

“The storm hit early,” Damian said, glaring at the television as if it were responsible for everything going wrong in their travel.

“Well do you want to sleep in longer or get breakfast?” Tim asked, rubbing at his face. He’d enjoy sleeping more, but he had slept for a good 6 hours. It was certainly more than he was used to.

“Breakfast,” Damian said simply, “I was waiting for you to wake up so we could order room service.”

“We could go get something. There’s time now.”

“Look outside. I’d rather stay here where it’s warm and dry.”

“Right,” Tim said, picking up the room service menu. After he called in their order, he looked at the weather report for the day and went ahead and extended their stay one night. If this storm cancelled all flights leaving Chicago, it would be much more difficult to get a room. Bruce honestly wouldn’t care about spending the money unnecessarily if their flight really did take off at 10.

But of course, it didn’t. At just past 8, they received the notice that the flight was cancelled.

Bruce called again, within minutes of Tim getting the text, to check up on them and assure them that the family wouldn’t do Christmas until Tim and Damian made it to Aspen.

“I’ll come pick you up myself,” Bruce said over speaker, “The weather should be fine tomorrow, I’ll head to the airport and get you boys, okay?”

“Tt,” Damian pouted from where he lay on his bed, arms crossed and glaring at the ceiling, “If you ever suggest I travel alone with Drake again, I will return to Mother.”

“Ouch,” Tim said, “he’d rather live in a ninja death cult than travel with me.”

“Damian,” Bruce sighed, “I’m sorry, but we’ll extend our vacation out until after the New Year, okay? I’ll make it up to you.”

“He’s pretending to ignore you,” Tim said, grinning at the scathing look Damian shot his way for the comment, “he’ll get over it.”

“The pilot wants me to turn my phone off, so I’ll text you when we land. How about we all FaceTime tonight, okay?”

Tim nodded. “Yeah, that’ll be good. Dick wanted us to watch The Polar Express tonight, we can always just do it while facetiming. I’m sure I can find a copy somewhere around here.

“Okay, Merry Christmas, boys. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“I can’t believe it’s Christmas Eve and I’m stuck in a snowstorm with you,” Damian said once Bruce had hung up, still glaring up at the ceiling.

Shrugging, Tim said, “There’s worse company.”

“Doubtful.”

“Don’t worry. Santa will still deliver your presents to the cabin tonight.”

That finally made Damian sit up, but only to throw a pillow at Tim. “Santa’s not real, Drake.”

“Now you’re ruining my Christmas,” Tim said, laughing, as he caught the pillow, “You’re probably on the naughty list, anyway.”

“Tt.”

“You’re not exactly good,” Tim continued, having fun now at Damian’s expense.

“Shut up, Drake,” Damian snapped, throwing another pillow at Tim.

“Or nice.”

“Shut up!”

“Actually, yeah,” Tim said, laying back on the bed, “there’s no way you’re not on the naughty list, now that I think about it.”

At that, Damian got up from his bed and stormed over to the bathroom, slamming the door as he went. Tim jumped at the loudness of it, then frowned.

He hadn’t meant to push the brat that far. He’d just been teasing. Having fun. Sometimes, Tim forgot for as much as Damian could dish it out, he couldn’t take teasing. At all.

It was easy to forget. Especially when they went a few days without fighting.

‘Help,’ Tim texted Dick, ‘made D mad. Probably crying in bathroom. What do?’

The response was almost instant. ‘You made Damian cry?! Tim, why??’

Tim sighed and responded with, ’I mean, maybe? I haven’t tried to listen in on him or anything. He might just be pouting.’

‘Did you try talking to him?’

‘Why would I do that?’ Tim asked, smiling at himself because he already knew what Dick’s response to that would be.

‘You want to fix it but you don’t want to talk to him.’ And Tim could just see the flat stare Dick would have while delivering that sentence. Hear the deadpan in his voice.

Tim snorted. ‘Precisely. Glad you understand.’

‘Tim.’

‘Yeah, fine. Good big brother, coming up.’

After another minute, Tim finally got up and trudged over to the bathroom door. When he knocked, he could tell something was pressed up against the door, and was willing to bet his entire salary that it was pint sized and 10-years-old.

“Hey D? I was just teasing, you know.”

“Go away, Drake,” Damian hissed from the other side of the door.

So he wasn’t crying, at least. That’s good.

“Uh yep, nope. Can’t,” Tim said, sitting down on the floor outside the door, “The room isn’t big enough.”

Tim could just barely hear Damian’s signature ’tt’ in response.

“I wasn’t trying to upset you,” Tim offered, unsure of where to start. Or how to even do this. He’d been the little brother being talked down, never the older brother doing the talking down.

“Weren’t you?” Damian drawled.

“No, I wasn’t,” Tim said, resting his head back against the door, “I was just teasing you, that’s what brothers do to each other. They tease. You should know, you tease me constantly.”

“I do not tease you.”

Tim rolled his eyes and said, “No, of course not. You just make fun of me in hopes of getting a rise out of me. That’s totally not the definition of tease.”

“Then you admit you were trying to upset me.”

“Fine. I’m sorry, Damian,” Tim said tiredly, and perhaps a little too flippantly in his tone, “I shouldn’t have said that stuff, okay? You’re probably on Santa’s nice list. He’ll bring you presents tonight.”

“Shut up, Drake,” Damian snapped, banging something against the door. His elbow, perhaps. “I do not care about that ridiculous tradition.”

“If you aren’t upset about me saying you’re on the naughty list, then why are you upset?”

“I have been very good the past couple days,” Damian nearly shouted, “and the past year. I have worked so hard to behave myself and be what you and everyone in Father’s family would consider good. But at every turn, everyone, especially you, completely ignores all my actions and efforts and writes me off as a ‘bad person.’ I am sick of it.”

Tim blinked and ran a hand through his hair. “I wasn’t… writing you off,” he said lamely, “I was just teasing you about Santa. I know you’ve been good.”

“Then why would you say I’m not?” Damian demanded.

“It was just a joke,” Tim said, a bit more forcefully this time, “it’s just what you do at Christmas with kids. You tease them about Santa and being on the naughty list. Did the league not do Santa?”

Damian huffed out an annoyed breath and said, “The league didn’t do Christmas. So no, we didn’t ‘do Santa.’”

“You… didn’t do Christmas?” Tim said, in almost a whisper. He really wasn’t sure if Damian could even hear him. “So wait,” he added, much louder, “is this your first Christmas then?”

“Yes,” Damian bit out before slamming his head back against the door. At least, Tim as pretty sure that’s what Damian hit the door with.

“Does Bruce know this?”

After a long moment, Damian sighed and said, in a much calmer tone, “Maybe. I do not know what Father knows.”

“You should have told him,” Tim said softly, like he was talking to a victim as Robin, “He would have cancelled his meetings in Japan, I bet.”

“I don’t see how it would have mattered. It was my first Christmas here, regardless of everything, and he still left me with you.”

“Well,” Tim said, “In his defense, we were supposed to see him yesterday, so this isn’t entirely his fault.”

“I guess,” Damian said, softer than Tim had ever heard the child’s voice be.

The two of them sat there for another few minutes while Tim just frowned at the closet door in front of him. The annoying closet door that was actually a full sized mirror. So basically, Tim was staring back at himself, looking right at the terrible person he was. That he’d been over the past couple days.

Thinking back over their travel time, Damian really had been good. He’d been trying really hard to keep it that way, even when Tim teased and poked at him, or just flat out ignored him. And all because he didn’t want Bruce angry with him over his behavior. Which, usually wasn’t an issue for Damian. He never seemed to care when Bruce threatened him with grounding.

And Tim had barely acknowledged the effort.

Was Damian just trying to stay on Bruce’s good side because it was Christmas? Because he wanted a happy Christmas, just like how the holiday was always depicted in media?

Damian was only 10, after all, and all he had to go on was television.

Tim felt the bathroom door open behind him and leaned forward a bit to prevent from falling back. Damian stood in the doorway and glared at Tim using the mirror before saying, half-heartedly, “Move, Drake.”

“So if you’ve never celebrated Christmas before,” Tim said slowly as he got to his feet, “that means you’ve never done a Christmas movie marathon.”

“Thankfully,” the little brat drawled as he pushed past Tim into the bedroom.

“What Christmas movies have you already seen?” Tim asked, completely ignoring Damian’s likely feigned disinterest.

Flopping down dramatically onto his bed, Damian said, “What part of ‘first Christmas’ don’t you understand?”

“So you’ve never seen any Christmas movies?” Tim asked in exaggerated horror.

Damian just shrugged.

“Frosty the Snowman?” Tim asked, and when Damian shook his head, he said, “Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer? How the Grinch Stole Christmas?”

“No, Tim,” Damian exasperated, “none of them.”

“Oh my god,” Tim said, “Okay. That’s what we’re doing today. Starting with The Year Without a Santa.”

“Whatever.”

After a quick trip to one of the shops in the airport to purchase candy canes and a ridiculous amount of candy and cookies, because no Christmas movie marathon would be complete without a coma-inducing amount of sugar, Tim started up a playlist of all his favorite Christmas movies on his laptop.

Four movies into the marathon, Damian said from where he lay beside Tim on the bed, “These are ridiculous, you know?”

“I know, isn’t it great?” Tim said, opening another bag of Oreos for them to devour. Alfred would have a heart-attack if he knew they skipped lunch and were going to skip dinner in favor of cookies. Store bought cookies.

“I suppose,” Damian said as he took a couple cookies from the bag between them, “there are worse ways to spend Christmas Eve.”

Tim didn’t even have to look to know Damian was smiling as the opening scene to Elf began to play.

Yes. There were much worse ways to spend Christmas Eve.

Cross posted from AO3.

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mizugachi · 4 years ago

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Hi!! I'm here as promised! Could you do 9 + 8 + 18 please? Thanks!!

@alphabees-writes

After I-don’t-know-how-long, it’s finally here! Thank you for prompting me this, I really enjoyed writing it.

I never did camping/summer camp in its classical form, so linguistic camp is what you get, something I actually know, I hope you’ll still enjoy it :)

_________________________

Camp!au + exes + “ this can’t be real. I feel like I’m having a fever dream. “

Read it on AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/25331935

Kurt was counting the days. In a couple of days, he was flying to France, his dream country, for a three-weeks summer camp, studying this beautiful language and learning about the amazing French culture. He was going to be part of a French family, in Nice, on the French Riviera, and he just couldn’t wait. He had looked up pictures of the region: it was stunningly beautiful.

He had always wanted to go on a language study vacation and he had been saving up for two years for this, working extra shifts with his dad at the shop. Blaine, his boyfriend, had complained a bit about it, arguing that Kurt was putting their relationship aside. It was easy to say for him, his parents were loaded and could offer him whatever he wanted. Kurt’s dad couldn’t just take 2500$ out of his pocket.

His luggage was already packed and he had spent the last month reviewing his French lessons, watching French TV shows and movies and listening to French music. He was so ready for this.

____________________________

The first thing he heard when he landed at the airport was the sound of the cicadas. They were everywhere and it was deafening. But it was so south of France and exotic and he loved it already, his heart busting with excitement. He met the supervisors who told him and the kids who shared the same flight that other participants were to be expected on another flight in a few hours and, in the meantime, they would be taken to their host family. Kurt couldn’t wait to meet them.

His host family lived in a typical south of France house, with ocher roof and light-colored walls, on the hill overlooking the city. They were a middle-aged couple, Marie and Laurent, who had two children, Enzo and Léa, and were very friendly, welcoming Kurt warmly. Their house even had a swimming pool, something Kurt rarely saw in Ohio, with a splendid view on the Mediterranean Sea. Kurt thought he was living a dream.

The mother, Marie, told him he was going to share his bedroom with another boy in his study group and Kurt was both excited and anxious to meet him. What if he was a complete homophobe? Kurt wasn’t planning on divulging anything too personal but his bullying in high school when he wasn’t even out was still a fresh memory in his mind.

He didn’t have to wait for long. Laurent went to pick his roommate up at the airport and he came back forty minutes later, while Marie and the children were getting to know Kurt, asking him several questions, all in French. They spoke a bit of English but Kurt wanted his trip to be as immersive as possible and, he had to admit it, he took pride in his accent when Marie and the children complimented him on it. Laurent joined them on the terrace with the boy and Kurt froze when he saw him.

It was none other than Sebastian Smythe, his former show choir rival and ex-boyfriend.

He must have committed a horrible crime in his past life to have such bad karma. Out of all the participants in the camp and out of all the summer camps offered to young Americans, he had to be travelling with the same agency, at the same dates and to the same destination and have his ex as a roommate? Kurt wanted to cry. He might have been dating Blaine for a few months now, but he was not over Sebastian. Sebastian who was his first everything, his first boyfriend, his first love, his first heartbreak. Things with him had ended quite badly when Sebastian made it clear he wasn’t into long, exclusive and romantic relationship by cheating on him with some name-less guy he hooked up with at Scandals during their junior year. Kurt had since been trying to avoid him at all costs, even transferring back from Dalton to McKinley while Karofsky was still there. The heartbreak was too much and thank god for Rachel and Mercedes who were there to pick up his shattered heart.

He was as handsome as ever, all slender, tanned freckled skin and green eyes, in a striped short-sleeved polo shirt with a popped collar and chino beige shorts, and it made Kurt’s heart ache. Oh, he was so not over him.

Sebastian’s eyes widened and he stood still when he recognized Kurt as well, and awkwardness settled between them. Their host family must had sensed something, because everyone fell silent while Kurt and Sebastian entered a starring contest. It was Marie who broke the silence first after a few tensed seconds.

“Bienvenue, Sebastian!” she said, standing up from her chair to greet him. “Did you have a good trip?”

She went to give him la bise, kissing him in the air once on each cheek and pulling Sebastian out of his trance. Kurt had been taken aback by the familiarity of the gesture but Sebastian kissed Marie like he had made French greetings all his life — and he probably had, he lived in France for a few years, Kurt remembered, and he wondered suddenly why Sebastian would go on a French study vacation if he was already fluent.

After greeting the children, Sebastian went up to Kurt and smirked at him and, god helped him, Kurt wanted nothing more but to rip that smirk off his face.

“Hey, Kurt,” he said. “Long time no see.”

Kurt couldn’t process what he was saying in French and stared dumbfounded at him. No way he was going to spend three weeks of his dream vacation with his ex-boyfriend.

“This can’t be real. I feel like I’m having a fever dream,” he said, his voice shaky.

Sebastian’s smile only widened and Kurt didn’t understand how he could pretend to be so casual about their unexpected reunion. Laurent came up to them and tried to make small talk to break the awkwardness.

“Do you guys know each other?” he asked.

“You could say that,” Sebastian answered, still looking at Kurt with his everlasting smugness.

Kurt finally pulled himself together and shot his best bitch look to Sebastian, not wanting for him to see how much he wrecked him in the past — and still did today — even though he just spent the last minute looking at Sebastian incredulously.

“Yeah, we have a slight history, we went to the same high school at some point,” Kurt said, crossing his arms on his chest.

“Well, that’s great!” Laurent said. “Your supervisors told us you have a group meeting at the beach tonight so that you could get to know the others traveling with you, but you two already know each other! You can share some high school memory!”

Kurt was certain he didn’t want to share some high school memory with Sebastian but didn’t say anything. His dream had suddenly turned into a nightmare. ____________________________

The supervisors had lit a portable barbecue on the beach and provided marshmallows for everyone. Kurt was a bit sad they were not allowed to light a bonfire on the beach but it made sense: causing a wildfire would be a terrible start for the holiday. They were thirty or so kids who decided to ditch the traditional summer camp for a more studious one, and Kurt made small talk with almost everyone, coming from all over the USA.

When he went up to the barbecue to roast his marshmallows, Sebastian chose this moment to talk to him. Kurt had tried to ignore him as best as he could back at the house, given the fact that they were going to share a room for three weeks, but Sebastian was intended on speaking with him.

“You won’t be able to avoid me for the whole trip, Kurt,” he said, roasting his marshmallows next to him.

“What are you even doing here, Sebastian?” he snapped, refusing to look at him. “You are fluent in French.”

“My mom wanted me to do something for the summer before college,” Sebastian answered. “And since sleeping in a tent with no bathroom and doing outdoors stuff is not my cup of tea, I thought, why not go back to France? Nice has awesome gay clubs and they allow you to drink at 18. Wanna come?”

“No, thanks,” Kurt said though gritted teeth.

He didn’t need to see his ex-boyfriend hitting on some handsome French boys. Clearly, unlike him, Sebastian had closure on their relationship.

“Your loss,” Sebastian smirked. “Though I have to admit, I’m quite sad we ended it up last year. You aged like a fine wine. Makes me wonder why I ended it. Heard you’re with Blaine now.”

He had only said five sentences to Kurt since they met again and, yet, he was already on his nerves. Kurt lost it and turned to him, his eyes glazing with anger.

“I ended it because you are a selfish little bitch who thinks with his dick!” he shouted, not caring if someone might hear him. “How could you do that to me?”

“Sorry, babe,” Sebastian said, and he didn’t seem sorry in the least. “But you knew what you were getting into with me. I don’t do romance, remember? I want to know what the world has to offer before I settle.”

“You didn’t have to rub it in my face! I can’t believe I was stupid enough to fall in love with you!” Kurt spat.

His confession stopped Sebastian dead in his tracks and he looked at Kurt like he was seeing him for the first time.

“W-what?” he stuttered. “You were in love with me?”

“Like you didn’t know! You’re such an ass, you know that? You haven’t changed a bit, you’re still as irritating, selfish and obnoxious as ever!”

Kurt shot him his best glare but his expression softened when he saw the look of utter shock on Sebastian’s face. He really looked like he was clueless about Kurt’s feelings for him and too caught out by his confession to snark back at him. Kurt prided himself on being able to make Sebastian Smythe shut up every now and then.

“Seriously, Kurt. I didn’t know,” he said, astonished.

“Well, that wouldn’t have changed anything, right?” Kurt mumbled, anger leaving his voice. “Your cold heart wouldn’t care.”

Sebastian seemed hurt, but he didn’t say anything. Kurt huffed and took his marshmallow stick and went off, leaving Sebastian alone by the fire. He rejoined two girls he sympathized with and sat next to them, staring at the sea to forget about Sebastian.

It was going to be a long vacation.

#kurtbastian #writing #me #otp: i call him mine #prompted #alphabees-writes #camp!au #exes #i don't know how to post long stuff on tumblr

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bbq-hawks-wings · 5 years ago

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I sincerely hope Keigo and Touya didn't meet at the HPSC. Other than finding it unlikely-ish, I don't want Touya intruding on Hawks' backstory in that way. He may already be in it, sorta. But I personally don't like that one. Anyways, had a thought that if they were to meet. Where exactly is that building now? Tokyo? At least if they moved Hawks from Kyushu to Honshu, he'd be closer to the Todoroki's. Its not like they let Hawks live in his old home right? Not with the state of that place.

“I’m hesitant to agree with Keigo and Touya being physically present for the Takami theif capture. Why would Endeavor take a child to a whole other island while on duty, and boom. Now the world knows about Todoroki Touya and I don’t think they do. But Keigo speaks of Endeavor as if he saw his flames shinning personally. Maybe not on TV as I previously thought? If that parent never came home, just the footage and knowing Endeavor stopped him could be considered being saved. You can be a shinning light just from giving hope or relief too right? It’s like respite.

Back to the other ask, Hawks being in Honshu could kinda explain why he knows Standard Japanese. Sure he’d learn anyways from hearing people who speak it, but also from being in a region that speaks it. Uses it more than Hakata dialect, despite slipping into it sometimes. I wonder if he chose Kyushu for his agency to return to a place he couldn’t grow up in? To be further from the HC? Tokyo too crowded? I mean there’s already so many big name heroes in the other regions. Honshu mostly I’m sure. That’s like half of the top ten. And there’s U.A. Hawks is the only one in Kyushu. Which is also the most distant from other places by both location and language. As if Hawks wasn’t alone and cut off enough already. Though logically it makes sense. Sent four asks, sorry!“

Anon- he-HEY! Anon. Anonanonanoanonaonanon. Look at me. For the past month the overwhelming bulk of my human interaction has been limited to a single toddler who currently only seems to ask for snacks and thinks pulling my hair/climbing all over me is just the best thing in the world.

Don’t you dare apologize about having a detailed discussion about this otherwise pointless thing I am still nonetheless passionate for, personally cannot shut up about, and have almost no one in my immediate circle with whom to talk about it.

This is a lot to cover so I’ll put the rest under the cut and try to break down your argument point by point to respond.

1. You feel like Touya entering Keigo’s story in the way that theory outlines doesn’t feel quite right - either from an emotional standpoint or otherwise.

On this point I would agree, not so much because it has anything to do with Keigo but moreso what it means for Dabi and the way his story has been built up against Endeavor up to this point. Dabi has been built up as a result of Endeavor’s abysmal failure as a hero and a father. While I would certainly argue at this point Dabi has accrued his own hefty laundry list of sins to account for, for him to be “solely” responsible for his own demise doesn’t gel cleanly with the narrative setup so far.

2. Potentially moving Keigo’s location during childhood/training would put him in closer proximity to the Todoroki’s.

This feels pretty plausible, and I would also be inclined to agree but again probably for different reasons.

A. His previous home was likely at least not conducive to the strict training he was about to go through as you mentioned.

B. For a long-time ward like that it’s probably easier on the organization, family, and child if he lived closer to headquarters where resources were more readily available due to already-present demand (i.e. other trainees).

C. I hesitate to weigh in on the language aspect as I don’t know enough about Japanese dialects, and these in particular, to comment much. I know that some Japanese dialects are so different from standard that even native speakers can have trouble understanding them. Standard Japanese is more than likely used in most media and entertainment across the country, though, (just like standard American English is where I am), so I probably wouldn’t say that’s how he knows it; but it would contribute to him being able to switch more smoothly between. Those introduced to and enforced to speak a specific way in specific circumstances (especially when young) can easily be trained to immediately respond instantly in whatever assigned speech pattern - often naturally doing so after a few short years of practice. It’s code-switching, though the fact that he more naturally falls into the Hakata dialect when comfortable or excitable enough to slip may actually reinforce the idea that he was located in a place where his relaxed, informal speech was Hakata (like at home) and switched to standard when working/training.

For those who aren’t as familiar with Japan’s geography, Kyushu is the southernmost island of Japan, and Honshu is the largest, main island where most of the big-name cities like Tokyo and Kyoto are located. UA Academy is located in the fictional city of Musutafu, Japan which is meant to be close to Tokyo. For the purpose of the argument, we’ll just consider those relevant regions Tokyo-adjacent. We actually don’t have much information as to the official location headquarters for the Hero Public Safety Commission, but just for a common point of reference we can probably assume it’s Tokyo-adjacent as well.

3. Speculation about Endeavor’s role in Keigo’s training/saving him.

This one gets fuzzy because there’s important gaps we’re missing. We know for certain that Keigo saved a street-crossing’s worth of people from a high speed multi-car pileup accident; we have solid evidence to believe that Endeavor and Keigo met face-to-face (even just a glance) when he was a child; we know Endeavor specifically stopped some thief with familial ties of some kind to Keigo, and we know that Endeavor in particular inspired Keigo to be a hero.

What’s fuzzy is the order and timing of these events. In the flashback to Keigo saving those strangers it’s unclear if he was immediately identified as the person who saved them (aside from the description of “a kid”). He was eventually discovered, but “Find this wonder child, quickly!” means there was some amount of searching involved.

It’s unknown if the “thief Takami” was an immediate family member or even just Keigo himself. Given his age at the time, it’s at least suspect that a child that small would single-handedly draw the attention of a top hero without due cause, though with his quirk and given the fact that he was already so adept at using it (which we’ve seen in the series comes from practice) it’s not out of the question to believe that this thief was using Keigo as an accessory to whatever theft was taking place and thus drew Endeavor’s attention.

It’s possible Keigo never met Endeavor face-to-face. It’s possible that Thief Takami directly or indirectly caused the accident either in an altercation with Endeavor or while committing a crime - at which point Keigo swooped in and saved the day. In either case, Endeavor may have been the one to find/recognize Keigo as the hero prodigy or by taking custody of the thief inadvertently revealed Keigo’s identity to the HPSC. While he may have more or less recruited Keigo himself at that point, more than likely in the reporting of the incident, the “wonder child” was rediscovered.

It’s also possible that a string of coincidences and misconceptions led to Endeavor becoming Hawks’ personal inspiration as a hero in a similar way All Might was to Deku - a kid beaten and battered by society with a heart for others has a chance meeting with the hero he admires for specific, intangible reasons to be told from the horse’s mouth “you too can be a hero.” Assuming this, in Keigo’s case it’s tragic in the grand scheme of things as it was a matter of displayed aptitude rather than the spirit of the action that was recognized in Keigo during a time where Endeavor sought mere ability in a youth for his own narcissism to the point of torturing his own young children to attempt to pry it out of them. In other words, while a tiny child like Keigo was still aspiring to ideals over results he associated those qualities with a man who did not embody them and thus subjected himself to a lifetime of coercion under false pretenses even despite the fact his own intentions were pure.

Linking back up to point #1, I feel like that’s more in line with the story Horikoshi is setting up; but we won’t know until we have more information. At this point, I think almost - if not all - our questions will be answered soon. It’s just a matter of being patient for the drip-drip-drip trickle of information we get chapter by chapter every week.

#spoiler!hawks #spoiler!dabi #let's talk hawks

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shelbyfm · 5 years ago

Text

sorry this is late babes ! i got busier than i thought i was going to so without further ado i’ll put the cliff notes version of sy shelby’s starling existence under the cut and you know what to do from there ! 🖤 but if you’re gonna slide into my dms do it on scarlet bc that’s where i am on mobile !

jack gilinsky. cismale. he/his. ／ josiah shelby just pulled up blasting st tropez by post malone — that song is so them ! you know, for a twenty - four year old center fielder for the los angeles dodgers, i’ve heard they’re really -abrasive, but that they make up for it by being so +audacious. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say the creak of a well - worn leather glove, shotgunning another cheap beer just to feel alive, and the taste of copper on your tongue. here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble !

. ⊹ ┈ › 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐒 .

NAME : josiah david shelby .

BREAKDOWN : josiah ( god supports , heals ) david ( beloved )

NICKNAMES : sy , jd , josie ( finn only tbh ) , shelbz , shel-bay , bay .

AGE : twenty - four .

BIRTHDAY : november twenty - third .

ZODIAC : scorpio & sagittarius cusp .

GENDER : male .

PRONOUNS : he / him .

NATIONALITY : american .

ETHNICITY : english , french , italian .

HOGWARTS HOUSE : hufflepuff .

MBTI : estp ( the persuader )

INSPIRATIONS : lucas scott ( one tree hill ) , adam parrish ( the raven cycle ) , nick miller ( new girl ) , ron swanson and andy dwyer ( parks & rec ) , adam groff ( sex education ) .

HOBBIES / SPECIAL SKILLS : baseball , procrastination , midnight snacks , getting the last word , saucy brow lifts , sleeping in , running away from his problems , hitting first and asking questions later , developing newer and more creative defense mechanisms .

VICES ; acerbic , brash , careless , cataclysmic , defiant , duplicitous , destructive , greedy , ignorant , meddlesome , narcissistic , obnoxious , provocative , reckless , selfish , troublesome , vain , volatile , wanton .

VIRTUES : athletic , challenging , charismatic , curious , debonair , forthright , fun - loving , intrepid , invulnerable , jocular , loves his sister so much he could die , loyal , passionate , playful , protective , witty .

PINTEREST : xx

˚ . ⊹ ┈ › 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 .

sy was born poorer than poor and spent his formative years watching his grandmother do her very best to keep the dust from coating everything in their ramshackle little trailer in oklahoma .

his mother wasn’t around much . after running away to chase after one band or another and coming home with her waistline significantly thickened , she didn’t much take to motherhood , not when running off to the nearest dive bar or casino to spend whatever meager paycheck she could scrounge up was just so tempting .

in fact , sy’s memories of her are often fleeting . she was a whirlwind of a woman , beautiful despite the hard life she led , but in and out the door too fast for him to ever really get to know her . and after some of his grandmother’s jewelry ended up in the pawn shop twenty miles up the road she didn’t come around the house anymore when she found the locks changed .

sy’s grandmother , affectionately known as nan , did her best to raise her grandson better than she had raised her daughter . though truth be told , the practice wasn’t much different , his mother had just been a bit of a bad seed .

religion and discipline were a staple and so every sunday found the pair walking to the church in their parish to give thanks and receive the blessing , a tradition that sy hasn’t kept up with since her death but i’m getting ahead of myself .

his nan made a modest living for where they lived , she wasn’t spoiling the boy but it was enough to put food on the table and get them to and from where they needed to go .

he had a few close friends in the neighborhood and they usually got together in the evenings to play whatever games they could , sometimes soccer with a ball that looked like you could put your foot through it , or basketball on the single hoop with no net that was somehow still standing in the local “ park ” . summers were spent walking down to the pond that passed for a swimming hole to get some sort of relief from the heat .

he picked up a job at one of the local motor shops to help with the bills , though his nan insisted he spend his time working on his schoolwork first . he’d still slip a portion of what he came home with into her purse when she wasn’t looking .

he played sports in school , their community doing what they could to scrounge up funds for a ramshackle team for each sport . he primarily ran track and cross country ( in a uniform that looked like it was straight out of an 80′s movie and felt like it too ) . he was a decent hurdler and the fact that he usually walked everywhere he needed to get gave his stamina a certain edge on the kids who were better off . but his true passion was baseball . sy could write poetry about the diamond , and most of the assignments he managed to turn in involved the sport somehow . ( he almost got caught cheating once when he turned in a paper that wasn’t about it but he’s always been lucky af )

their school team wasn’t anything special . they played with heart and had fun doing it but they were never going to make it to state with nothing short of a miracle even though it was clear sy ( and a couple of his buddies ) had the potential to be more than just has - beens who got stuck living in their hometown for the rest of their lives . during sy’s eighth grade year , his junior high team made a pretty valiant push and made it to the regional championship but they were simply out - spent by some of the other teams and came home disappointed .

someone must have recognized sy though , because a few weeks later a letter arrived from one of the elite baseball camps in the country stating that he had been sponsored to attend for the summer . his friends were excited for him and it was probably the best summer of his life , but tensions rapidly grew sour when he returned home , after all , none of them had been granted such an opportunity and they wondered what made him so special where they weren’t .

it certainly didn’t help that he got home and noticed their trailer was a little refurbished , they had a new ( ish ) television and a cable antenna on the roof without the pieces of foil sy had stuck to it at an attempt for better service . and then little gifts started to arrive here and there , new cleats , a better glove , all things with the sheen of wealth attached to them and all in the name of this new sponsor he seemed to have attracted . it didn’t go over well with his friends and he could see the jealous glint in their eyes which led sy to hide away the new treasures , or take them out back and absolutely destroy that gleam that came with new gear .

high school was not a time he wanted to spend ostracized , especially when everyone in town always looked back on it like it was the golden time of their youth before they settled down into the daily grind of adulthood . he was nothing short of angry and miserable , his loneliness that festered into rage finding a nice outlet in smashing his fists into the noses of whoever crossed his path or looked at him wrong .

it was around that time that a girl showed up on his doorstep , all knees and elbows and with a big smile insisting she was his sister . judging from the own sparkly state of her attire , sy managed to put two and two together as to just who his new sponsor was and promptly shut the door in her face . ( the fact that his mother had suddenly come out of the woodwork and ran into him around town on occasion to ask for money was another clue . she could sniff out money anywhere )

finnley buchanan was a revelation to him . persistent to the extent of climbing in through his window to press her point home until sy was forced to accept that this nonsense story she was spinning about his father and her mother had a certain ring of truth to it . he didn’t want a new family , he was content in his small town with his nan and his friends and everything would go back to normal just as soon as he tossed all his shiny new stuff in the trash .

his nan wasn’t having it , plain and simple . she wasn’t going to force him to reconcile with a father he had never known , but she certainly wasn’t going to allow him to pass up an opportunity to get out of their tiny little town . and so sy kept going to those baseball camps every year , and after keeping in touch with his new sister to a point where he was forced to accept the unlimited texting plan she forced upon him just so his nan would stop good naturedly grumbling about the amount of time he spent tying up their landline .

he’d spend a few weeks a year with her family , a holiday here and there , his eyes almost falling out of his eyes the first time he walked into a house with an honest to god foyer . he didn’t exactly see eye to eye with his new - found father and step mother and they didn’t seem to want to get to know him much beyond tossing money at a problem to solve it ( not that he allowed them to really know him )

he didn’t even accept their money for college , stubbornly insisting on getting in on his own merit . and thus shipped himself of to north carolina upon accepting a scholarship . the guitar skills he’d picked up in his lazy weeks spent with the buchanans and his classic good looks made him immensely popular which didn’t bode well for the state of his ego as we know it . between classes he managed to further perfect the art of binge drinking and beer pong and with his scholarship only covering tuition and board , he found himself employing his fists at night to earn some cash for incidentals . something that very nearly got him kicked out of school when he showed up to practice with a split lip and bruised knuckles a few times too many .

but luck was on his side and he was drafted after his sophomore year before they could start a more thorough investigation into his extra - extra - curriculars .

sy spent about a year working his way around the farm system of the minors while they tried to refine his issues before getting called up to play for the baltimore orioles . he played for them for about a year but after a run - in with one of the batting coaches that was rather hush hush he was unceremoniously traded to the los angeles dodgers .

˚ . ⊹ ┈ › 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 .

being a cusp baby, he kind of bounces back and forth between his moods . most of the time he’s all jokes and sarcasm . but catch him at the right time and he can be broody AF .

he is a lot smarter than he looks , but that’s an incredibly well kept secret because on the outside he is a Professional Idiot.

makes the worst decisions i have ever seen anyone make ever . highly impulsive and should never be allowed to give someone any sort of advice .

unless you’re asking what to put in your solo cup or if you’re craving a midnight snack . then he is 10 / 10 your guy .

he is incredibly loyal , so long as it serves his purpose . because at the end of the day he’s still an impulsive idiot and that devil on his shoulder made the angel tap out years ago .

bought his nan a new house with his signing bonus and sent her money to take care of her with what he had but since her death he’s doing his best to spend it on the dumbest shit possible and acting out in one way or another because he’s still a child .

tldr : he’s a piece of shit

˚ . ⊹ ┈ › 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 .

just going to add a little disclaimer that i am the biggest hoe for anything angsty and painful . i also love love love when people slide into my dms with a hc or two .

𝐞𝐱 - 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 ; for whatever reason there was a huge falling out and now things are just super awkward . half the time at parties they’re just on opposite sides of the room mean mugging each other until booze and tempers flare .

𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 ; these two were never supposed to be a thing . in fact , before this past summer they hardly ever spoke and when they did the discourse wasn’t exactly pleasant . but there’s a fine line between love and hate and all it took was a couple of drinks before the dynamic took a turn .

𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐬 ; i’d sell my soul for something that’s just angsty and messy . maybe they were at the point of saying the l word .

𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 ; all that sneaking around , taking the back doors in and out of places . meeting up in darkened corners 👌 👌 👌 that’s that shit i do like

𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 ; i’m such a sucker for a good bromance or two where the gc is just filled with memes and dragging each other up and down the wall . but at the end of the day they’re you’re boys and no one else can talk shit about them but you

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐬 ; a fwb here and there , the odd one night stand , someone who you just look at and want to punch them in the face for some inexplicable reason , an unrequited crush ( on either side )

#i think i just wrote the longest cliffs notes edition known to mankind #excess:intro

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thefederalistfreestyle · 6 years ago

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You Can Star In ‘Hamilton’ And Still Fear For Your Life As A Black Man (HuffPo):

Carvens Lissaint is tired of having to prove he belongs in his own building. He’s a 6 foot 3, 29-year-old black man, raised in Harlem, and he lives in a new upscale glass residential tower in downtown Brooklyn. He moved there in September, the same month he landed a starring role in “Hamilton” on Broadway, one of the biggest hits in musical theater history. But again and again — five times in all, by his count — the rotating cast of security desk attendants treats him like an outsider.

“I come here with some Trader Joe’s groceries, about to cook my wife some dinner, and they’re like, ‘I’m sorry, deliveries are downstairs. You have to call up,’” he said. “They just see a black guy wearing Beats headphones, sweats and a hoodie. … I’m like, ’I live here. These are my keys.’”

[. . .]

Lissaint always struggled with traditional academics, knowing he wanted to be a performance artist. He enrolled in community college ― mainly to have a dorm to sleep in ― and flunked out after his first year. He wanted to be an artist and had already found some success as a spoken-word poet, despite his dad’s repeated warnings to ignore poetry and “get a job that pays the bills.” His dad went so far as to forbid him to attend poetry slams in high school, but Lissaint competed anyway and won the acclaimed New York Knicks Poetry Slam in 2007 at 18 years old. He won several more in the next two years and eventually began coaching slam teams and mentoring young poets.

Poetry wouldn’t pay the bills, though, at least not yet. He crashed on friends’ couches or rode the subway all night for about three years after community college. He would perform on the train to scrape together enough cash to see his favorite Broadway show, “In the Heights,” again and again. The musical, written by “Hamilton” playwright Lin Manuel Miranda, opened on Broadway in 2008, also at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, also starring Jackson, one of Lissaint’s heroes.

“In the Heights” is a love letter to Washington Heights, a Hispanic neighborhood in upper Manhattan. Lissaint was transfixed. He saw the play 13 times. Sometimes his friends would give him a ticket, knowing how much he loved it. “Chris Jackson is the reason I started acting,” he said. “I was a young black kid from upper Manhattan. To see a musical about Washington Heights and see a black dude onstage, that was inspiring.”

At 20, Lissaint had another terrifying encounter with the police. He was riding in a car with three black friends to an arts party in New Jersey, where people were playing guitar and rapping and making music together. A policeman pulled them over for allegedly making a turn that was too wide. The cop forced them out of the car and searched it, claiming there was a scent of burned marijuana in it, though Lissaint insists none of them had smoked or had any drugs on them. His friend Miles was angry at the injustice of the situation and started cussing, which prompted the policeman to call for backup, and five more squad cars showed up with dogs, Lissaint recalled. The officers approached Lissaint and his friends with guns drawn, though he and his friends were unarmed.

Lissaint had a sick feeling he could die that night. “I was sitting there, like, yo, they could kill us,” he said. “They could kill us right now, and we can do nothing about it.”

He was homeless for two and a half years before he started auditioning at conservatories, hoping one of them might see his potential and give him a scholarship. He got a callback from Juilliard in 2010. New York University’s acting program had accepted him, but he couldn’t get into the main school with his academic record. Ultimately, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan gave him a full ride and helped him with living costs, and he was able to enroll.

It was there that he began to understand that high art was generally considered to be art created by white people ― and that black people’s art forms and aesthetics aren’t as valued pedagogically or considered worth investigating in the theater and academic worlds.

“A teacher would say, ‘Bring in a piece of high text,’ and I would bring in a spoken-word poem or a rap. And they’d say, ‘No, we mean high art, like Shakespeare,’” Lissaint said. “Voice and speech teachers told me, ‘You should stop doing spoken-word poetry, it’s inspiring your regionalism and your dialect too much. We’re afraid you’ll never be able to work in the American theater because of your speech, because you do that rap thing.’”

[. . .]

I asked Lissaint what’s like to go from being homeless and sleeping on friends’ couches to having this fancy apartment. “My wife was trying to get me a gift, and she asked me what I want,” he said. “I’ll tell you exactly what I want.”

He leaped from the couch, crossed to the wall and started flipping the light switch on and off, creating a strobe effect in the living room. “You see that? The lights work!” he shouted, his voice becoming louder and more performative. “That’s dope to me! I don’t need much! That is dope! You see this? The lights are on! I don’t need much!”

Instead of buying things, Lissaint has decided to use his new Broadway money and platform to make a five-track album and a book of poetry about racism and violence against black bodies. He realized while he was in grad school that performing art solely for entertainment’s sake wasn’t going to fulfill him. “I’m sitting in class doing Shakespeare monologues, and Trayvon [Martin] just got killed, and we see a Black Lives Matter march pass by our rehearsal. And I’m like, what am I doing in here?” he said.

Lissaint’s new projects, both called “Target Practice,” draw from his experiences and reflect on stories like that of Philando Castile, a black man who was pulled over by police in Minnesota and fatally shot in front of his girlfriend and her child in 2016. The poems pulse with outrage at the white ruling class, even implicating his Broadway audience.

[. . .]

He referred to an incident on July 4, when he posted a photo on Instagram of an 1852 speech by Frederick Douglass about “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro” and the fact that Americans were celebrating freedom while keeping African men enslaved. Douglass’ speech, one of the most damning pieces of oratory in American history, condemns the display of patriotism on Independence Day as “hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”

Lissaint now has 11,000 followers, and a white woman who described herself as a “Hamilton” fan commented on his post, “This would definitely make sense to an African American male in the 1800s. Not so much to an African American male who makes his money in 2018 singing in a play based on American history. You are very talented and one of my favorite actors in the play. This post, however, is offsetting.”

Lissaint points much of his poetry at people like her who seem oblivious to ongoing racial oppression in this country. “There are ’Hamilton’ fans who don’t like black people,” he told me matter-of-factly.

He said white people after the show will demand that he pose with their kids or yank him around for pictures like he’s a prop, instead of just asking him. One woman in Houston grabbed the “Hamilton” backpack on his body and twisted it around to show it to her friend, without ever acknowledging the man wearing it. “When you’re an artist, people feel like they own you,” he said. And when you’re a black artist ― “that has deeply rooted implications.”

[. . .]

Performing for an audience black and brown high school kids is his favorite thing to do; it gives him a special kind of energy onstage. He said he hopes that seeing “Hamilton” can do the same thing for the next generation that “In the Heights” did for him as a young black man. [. . .]

read the entire amazing article & get tix to his book release [x]

#hamilton #carvens lissaint #racism #police brutality #broadway company #diversity #huffpo #interview #in the heights

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lorenzobane · 7 years ago

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Regional Flora

(On AO3 Here)

In retrospect, Sam really shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was when he was the first person T’Challa asks to hang out with socially.

He’s in New York, working with Tony and Steve on setting up the Avengers again. Sam is tagging along, mostly to make sure that Tony and Steve don’t kill each other, but also because being in New York, and being bankrolled by Tony Stark is basically his childhood dream.

He’s gone to Broadway at least 11 times in two weeks. Steve is somewhere between amused and bemused.

Still, when T’Challa comes sidling up to him after a meeting, surrounded by stunningly beautiful women holding large spears, he wonders if he’s going to die. What he doesn’t expect is–

“So, you like the theater, Mr. Wilson?”

“Um,” Sam says, trying to make his brain work faster. “Yes?”

“Wonderful,” he continues, his smile is so disarming, “would you care to join me tonight? Nakia is busy in Oakland and I confess I am… Curious about western theater.”

Sam nods, feeling completely out of his element but T’Challa looks thrilled. “I will pick you up at six, I would also like to have dinner.”

Looking back it’s logical, T’Challa is not used to being surrounded by white people, not even close to used to being a minority. And Tony, and Steve, who do try their best, have their white alpha male tendencies that make them discount anyone else in the room. T’Challa doesn’t let them, his quiet charisma rips through both their showboating, but he has to work for it.

Sam, for his part, is actually really excited to have other black people around him. He knows it’s different, they’re from Wakanda, they don’t have the same relationship to whiteness that he does. They feel like fish out of water, in a different culture where they are a minority. Sam sometimes feels like he’s a drowning fish, being pushed under oppressive waves just when he gets his head up.

They do have fun at the theater. Sam is once again shocked (and he shouldn’t have been) by the depth of T’Challa’s sensitivity and warmth. He tears up during the play without shame and comments on the beauty of it. Sam is just amazed that this strong man, this leader, a pillar of his community, has the generosity of spirit to tear up when he sees something beautiful. It makes him wonder what Wakanda is like, to create people like T’Challa.

Sam is not remotely surprised when T’Challa invites him to Wakanda with him. Steve watches him in barely concealed jealousy as he gets loaded up into the Wakandan ship. He knows that Steve is desperately curious about Bucky, and Sam has promised to check in on him.

“I hope you will like Wakanda,” T’Challa says, clapping his shoulder and sitting next to him. “Soon we will invite the rest of your friends too. We just thought we should start small, with the council.”

Sam laughed, “I’m sure I will, man. And they’ll be fine, I love making ‘em jealous. Y’all are cool, what’s the food situation out there?”

Spicy, apparently. Sam spent the entire first dinner crying while the Queen-Mother stared at him and the Princess laughs (”my god, man! Call me Shuri. Princess makes me feel ridiculous.”)

T’Challa takes it in stride and ignores it, Sam is more grateful than he can possibly say.

“I would like for you to join me at the council meeting tomorrow,” he says, lapping up his spicy curry without blinking.

“Yeah, man. Sure,” Sam manages to choke out, “anything I should be aware of?”

T’Challa leans back and thinks, “The Jabari tribe, which has been isolated for centuries, has recently rejoined our council. M’Baku, the tribe leader, he is a bit… Tempestuous. Be wary of him.”

Sam nods and swallows down some milk, cooling the burn.

Sam loves Wakanda. The bright colors, the architecture, the people milling about, surrounded by technology and tradition and food and music. He almost can’t believe a place like this exists.

He is able to walk around a bit, before the council meeting the next day. Nakia, the King’s girlfriend, decides to join him. Upon meeting her, he immediately realizes he was wrong, she is hardly just the King’s girlfriend. Nakia is amazing, and Sam is half in love with her.

“You must try this,” she says, dragging him to a street vendor selling meat. “It will blow you away.”

And damn, it did. It was some of the best meat he’s ever had.

“So, how’s California treating you?”

Nakia laughs a little under her breath, “it is hard, to be away so long. I was a spy before, I am used to leaving… This time though, it feels a little harder. Besides, the water in America is not as good of quality, I can not drink the tap water. It is very difficult.”

Sam chokes on a laugh but nods understandingly. He presumes she’s referring to constantly having to leave T’Challa, who spends most of his time in his country while she is in the United States. When he saw them walking together, he assumed she would be regal to the point of not relatable, the type of woman who is a queen. Maybe a non-murderous Lady Macbeth.

And she is all those things, fierce, intelligent, but so unbelievably kind and loyal, Sam is honestly blown away. And when T’Challa and her are together, he gets the benefit of watching them both melt. The respect and love in their eyes, in their words, in the way they trust each other so completely, is honestly mind-blowing. Sam doesn’t know if he’s ever seen a love like theirs. It is beautiful, but honestly… It makes him a little lonely.

“We must get going,” she says, pulling Sam out of his thoughts, “the meeting will start soon.”

Sam had been expecting a boardroom table for the meeting, high backs and a huge table separating everyone. He’s pleasantly surprised by a huge, regal room, with several chairs in the center that are cozy and close. The other members are already there, looking at him with judgment.

“The last American we had here,” a woman began, Sam assumes she is a tribe leader, “he tried to lay waste to our way of life. He tried to destroy our traditions. And yet, you allow another one inside our borders.”

T’Challa is calm. “We can not judge all Americans based on N'Jadaka. He was struggling with… Other things. Sam is a model of America, a good soldier, and a good man. Bast has blessed us with his company.”

Sam shifts uncomfortably, and can’t help blurting out, “listen, I’m not trying to cause any trouble. I’m just–”

“Please stop,” a voice cuts in, it’s deep and draws Sam’s eyes. Sitting in a chair, thighs spread wide, is a really really hot guy. Sam stared at him for longer than appropriate and wondered again if there is something in the water. Okoye, Nakia, T’Challa… They were all gorgeous. But this guy… Something about him.

“M’Baku,” T’Challa says, and that catches Sam’s attention. This guy is the loose cannon that T’Challa warned him about. “Let him speak for himself.”

M’Baku rolls his eyes and leans back in his chair, Sam’s mouth goes a little dry at the movement but forces himself to focus.

“All I want is to experience this great land. Wakanda is amazing and filled with such wonderful people, I could not be more honored that I am the first guest formally recognized on this soil. You can trust me.”

The council is quiet for a moment before they seem to make eye contact. Sam can’t breathe, but apparently, he passed some type of test, because they move on to other items on the agenda without looking at him again. He can’t help but sigh in relief and look for an exit.

He makes eye contact with Okoye who nods and gestures to the door, and he starts out.

“So, Sam Wilson,” a voice interrupts him once he’s outside the chamber. “The first American to be invited formally to our country. Their country. The Jabari did not invite you.”

Sam turns slowly to face M’Baku. He has to look up slightly, M’Baku has five inches on him and more than that in general heft. Sam is a man built to fly, but M’Baku looks like he could shake the earth.

“I’m sorry to hear that man,” Sam says, shaking his head ruefully, “but I’m here now, aren’t I? Sorry, ya lost, flyboy.”

“Flyboy?” M’Baku says, tilting his head to the side slightly, and it is unfairly adorable. “I thought it was you who… Can fly.”

Sam chuckles, “I am, but don’t worry your pretty head about it. Just an American expression.”

M’Baku looks even more calculating now. “Pretty?”

Sam kind of wants to shoot himself. Instead, he splutters out uselessly,“I have to go. Shuri… The Princess is expecting me.”

He hears the rolling sound of M’Baku’s laughter as he walks away briskly, his face burning. He’s not here to flirt with tribe leaders, especially ones who are not trusted by your friend. Because it violates the bro-code and he and T’Challa are totally bros. So. Whatever.

He should have known that wasn’t the end of it. M’Baku just starts appearing after that. When Sam is doing his morning runs, when he’s wandering the shops, when he’s on art history tours given by 21-year-old kids. He’s there, giving snarky, but devastatingly intelligent insight on everything Wakanda has to offer.

At first, Sam tries to avoid him, desperate to not cause too much trouble. Then T’Challa, who is much more observant that Sam gave him credit for, simply said one day, “M’Baku is a man of honor. I am glad he has taken to you so well.”

Sam cocked his head to the side, “no, man. I’m not disobeying you or whatever. He just keeps appearing everywhere. I know you don’t trust him–”

T’Challa looks down, hiding a smile, “Sam. It is okay. M’Baku is difficult, surely. But he is a good man. With a good heart. And so are you.”

“Listen, I don’t know what you think–”

“I know in America,” T’Challa cuts him off, “there are certain thoughts and assumptions about life partners. About masculinity and what that means. It is different here, Sam. M’Baku has never loved women.”

“He…” Sam is at a loss, “but… He?”

T’Challa shrugs, “Bast and hanuman see hearts, and goodness, and honor. They are not concerned with trivialities of gender.”

And that had been the end of that, apparently. Now, Sam doesn’t know what to do.

M’Baku is apparently more than fair game, and there is nothing cultural stopping him. Now that he knows that he takes to looking around at the other people in town more, and he notices how many women are holding hands, and how many young men are playing footsie, and how many old men are walking in the park. It’s a little dizzying, to be surrounded by so much love and acceptance.

The other problem is M’Baku himself. He’s… Sam is not sure where he stands with him. Some days, Sam is sure they are flirting, walking next to the flower market while M’Baku makes him laugh and mocks him for loving the bright flora so much.

Some days, he’s sure M’Baku thinks he’s an idiot. On those days he’s cold, and difficult to read. It’s hard to keep his head on straight.

In the meantime, he observes Nakia and T’Challa again. Their easy camaraderie, their deep love. He can tell that they are best friends as well as lovers, holding hands so softly as they walk through the gardens of the palace. He sighs to himself.

“American minds aren’t meant to think so much.”

Sam turns around and smiles, M’Baku is standing behind him holding flowers from the market. Sam is particularly fond of them, though he’s sure no one knows, he’s never bought them. He just spends extra long looking at them.

“These… They are for you,” M’Baku said, curtly.

“For me, man? Why? Why these?”

M’Baku shrugged, “they are your favorite. You always make us stop and stand for so long when the shop has them. So here. Maybe now you’ll stop dragging me all the way there just to look at them.”

Sam can’t help the grin that spreads across his face. “Thank you, M’Baku. That was really nice of you.”

“Pah,” M’Baku says, using his hands to physically push Sam’s sentiment away, “it is a matter of practicality.”

“Sure,” Sam agrees with amusement.

“I…” M’Baku starts, “I have to go.”

Sam watches in confusion as M’Baku practically sprints away from him.

“He likes you, you know,” Shuri says, her eyes are still hyperfocused on his wings. She’s offered “a few minor improvements” that Sam is sure will make Tony nut.

“Who?” Sam asks, playing dumb.

She looks up for a moment and narrows her eyes, “don’t play stupid, Sam. My brother and I have been talking about it.”

“I… What? T’Challa…” Sam splutters, completely betrayed.

Shuri shakes her head. “Stop being stupid, Sam Wilson. He has given you flowers. What more are you waiting for!”

“I don’t know,” Sam asks sarcastically, “emotional availability.”

Shuri rolls her eyes, “he is emotionally available to you. You are just stubborn.”

“Is it so wrong for me to want him to actually say something? In words?”

Shuri slaps him upside the head, “you’re a fool. He doesn’t use his words. He uses actions. He showed you he cared with the flowers, and now he’s waiting for your action.”

Sam stares at her for a. moment, amazed that he’s so stupid, before presses a kiss to her forehead and runs out of her lab screaming, “you’re a god damn genius.”

He finds M’Baku easily, though something tells him that if he didn’t want to be found Sam would never find him. He is sitting on a chair in a small restaurant sipping on mint tea. Sam slides in next to him.

He takes a moment to bask in this, he’s never felt so instantly comfortable with anyone. He somehow just knows that M’Baku will always be there to back him up, loyally and kindly, with wisdom and honor.

He also takes a moment to realize that now that he’s here, he doesn’t know what to do.

“I liked your flowers,” Sam blurted out.

“So you mentioned,” M’Baku replied calmly, taking another drink of his tea.

“Why are you down here so much?” Sam can’t help but ask, “your tribe. They’re all in the mountains.”

M’Baku looks at him for a long moment, before taking another sip of tea. “I think you know why.”

“Do you… Do you want… Do you want to maybe go on a date? With me?” Sam asks, finally at his wit’s end.

M’Baku laughs, and it stings. Sam turns away to face the crowd again, gearing up to leave, when a hand grabs his wrist.

“Sam Wilson,” M’Baku says softly, “we have been on a dozen “dates,” He puts the word in quotes. “I did that for you. Because of your American culture.”

“Oh…” Sam says, totally caught off guard. “So… What do you want to do?”

M’Baku’s grin turns dark and dirty before he leans over slightly to kiss Sam right in the middle of a busy shop. It’s powerful and forceful and Sam barely manages to hang on while M’Baku proved that he’s a plunderer at heart.

“That,” M’Baku says pulling back slightly and licking his lips,” is what I want to do.”

Sam nods, a smile pulling at his face, “yeah. I want that too.”

#Black Panther #The Avengers #Sam Wilson #T'Challa #M'Baku #Nakia #SaM'Baku #Sam Wilson x M'Baku #T'Kia #Falcon #Me: that's it no more rarepairs #Also me: So... Sam and M'Baku....

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qqueenofhades · 7 years ago

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the tangled web of fate we weave: xiii

yes i finished it after getting Extremely Distracted last night, and tumblr even appears to have fixed its issues with wonky symbols in text posts. it’s a christmas miracle.

part xii/AO3.

Garcia Flynn has spent the last two years – well, he hasn’t had a single permanent address, a stopover longer than a few months, any phone that wasn’t a burner, a consistent identity or nationality, a less than fifty percent chance that someone will appear with a semi-automatic weapon to finish the job, or a fully legal exit from any of a dozen countries. So really, draw your own conclusions. On the run seems almost hilarious in its understatement; he vaguely recalls that the literary device is called litotes. Completely undersell something for sharper rhetorical effect, usually by presenting it as the negative or opposite of the truth, the kind of sassy and contrary thing that appeals to him. You call Chernobyl just a little industrial fire. Or Rittenhouse really not that bad. Or Garcia Flynn a sensible, well-adjusted man who has a full idea of what he’s doing and everything under control. There, you see? Irony.

Flynn has a full half-dozen fake identities under his belt by now, an assortment of dollars, loonies, euros, pounds, and pesos in reserve depending on where he’s going, and has lived in shitty hotel rooms for so long that he has forgotten there is any other kind of human domicile. It’s better not to ask how he’s getting the money. The NSA doesn’t exactly offer severance pay, and while he has a few accounts in Croatia, they are under his real name and if Rittenhouse knows the first damn thing about their business, they are just waiting for him to try to access them. They’re probably frozen anyway. And while Flynn is perfectly willing to mug someone in an alley if need be, this does not generate any substantial or sustainable income. So he owns one computer, firewalled and encrypted and IP-randomized up the wazoo, a computer that God Himself could not hack (Flynn has made sure of this by running monthly attempts on it himself). This computer is configured to access the Deep Web, otherwise known as the Dark Web, where at least seventy-five percent of the world’s high-level organized crime takes place, a murky cyber underworld and the lifeblood of the black market. Every few weeks, Flynn logs on, performs a few tasks for someone whose real name or employment he will never know, and one to three business days later (good to know that crime syndicates are reliable about their payroll processing) a large amount of money turns up in one of the corresponding fake identities’ offshore bank account. Never the same one twice in a row, or on too consistent a schedule. Flynn likes to think that he hasn’t taken jobs for anyone truly terrible, that it’s the usual petty exchange of knockoff prescription drugs, corporate sabotage, data ransomware, and insurance scams, but he doesn’t know for sure.

And yet. Morally questionable or not, black-hat hacking has enabled him to keep a roof (even a terrible motel one) over his head, eat regularly, change his identities as needed, and track Rittenhouse across multiple countries and continents, so he’s going to keep doing it. For obvious reasons, he cannot return to either Philadelphia or West Point. D.C., where there must be the highest concentration of them, is also out. He can’t go at them directly, so he has to come at them from angles and pincer movements, feints and probes, a subtle, surreptitious game. Try to pin down just how far their influence extends, and how deeply it’s entrenched. It would be impossible for an entire task force with all the money and time in the world. For one man, it’s beyond that. And yet. Garcia Flynn is doing it anyway.

His first port of call was Bavaria, in Germany, seeing if Rittenhouse shared any connections or resources with the Illuminati, founded in 1780 for similar aims but (supposedly) quickly repressed. If you ask your bog-standard conspiracy theorist, they’ll claim the Illuminati are still alive and kicking, and Flynn wanted to figure out if they just subsumed their operations into Rittenhouse. So Dr. Alexander Kovac went to some regional archives and libraries, looking for stuff on Adam Weishaupt and his disciples, any contacts they might have had with David Rittenhouse and his. He found a few things that seemed to suggest this was possible, but Germany has, for obvious reasons, cracked down hard on these kinds of groups post-WWII. It is no longer the ideal environment for Rittenhouse to flourish, even if they probably have a few tendrils planted near Angela Merkel and the EU. Europe might be the birthplace of this kind of thinking, but America has realized it to its fullest potential.

After that, Flynn went to the Caribbean, since he guessed that most of their money has to be moving through the same havens as his. The Caymans, he thinks. But he can’t get physically near it, if there was anything to get close to, without setting off alarm bells, and even his hacking attempts have to be careful. He did enjoy sleeping on the beach beneath the tropical stars, but the news that a hurricane was on the way, plus seeing the same man wander casually past him a few too many times, felt like his cue to leave. Where, he wasn’t quite sure. He wanted to go back to California, wanted like crazy, but he didn’t dare.

Thus, he went to Ottawa instead. It was an unpleasant shock to go from the sunny Caribbean to Canada in winter, but there are bigger problems at stake. Canada obviously has close ties to America, so Flynn could pick up on some things by inference, intercept bits of useful intelligence here and there, and it was close enough to the border that he could nip over a few times and prowl around upstate New York (very, very carefully). The black site in West Point still seems to be in operation, and Flynn made every possible effort to hear about it if Lucy ever returned there, if there is any whisper that Rittenhouse has gotten their hooks into her again. If he did hear anything – well, to hell with subterfuge or delicacy. He would in fact just crash in and pull her out, even if it meant blowing the whole operation, and he’s relieved for any number of reasons that he has not had to. It’s a good thing she did not come along. He could never have been this flexible and this relentless if he had to keep one eye on her and teach her how to live this way. This isn’t a job to learn on.

(A very good thing.)

(Very good.)

(Very.)

Ultimately, however, Flynn’s Canadian sojourn ended up concluding the same thing as Germany: that Canada was not the right place for Rittenhouse to think it worthwhile expanding their foothold. Too nice, probably, and they don’t have the same sense of American imperialism and exceptionalism, don’t fit into Rittenhouse’s patriotic-fascist grand design. So then it was the question of the time machine, which he has been putting off in the hope it was just some sort of trick (even if he has very good reason to know it’s not). Connor Mason has been generously bankrolled to build it, according to Emma, and while Flynn will kill the bitch if he ever sees her again, she’s not lying about that. How much more do they still need to get done to make it a viable operational threat? Where are they getting their engineers, their machinery, their tech? Is Mason himself in Rittenhouse? He has to be. No way they’d outsource that little job to just anyone. Does Mason owe his entire fortune, all his well-publicized accomplishments, to these people? How much else has he done for them?

Flynn still cannot return outright to the Bay Area without sending up too many smoke signals. He has to be strategic. Finally, he lucks into a tip that Connor Mason is taking his team to London for a week in February, bringing the whole circus. As London is obviously also where Emma said she wanted to go, where Rittenhouse was supposedly trying for a new foothold, the coincidence is perfect and self-explanatory. London calling? London calling.

Thus, Flynn picks up from where he has been living in a log cabin in Vermont for the last two months (it’s practically home, he feels an odd pang at leaving it), and takes a flight out of JFK on the Canadian passport that gives his name as Gabriel Ashe. It’s a Commonwealth country, he’ll get less scrutiny entering the UK that way, especially since the passport is only mostly legit. If he blows this, he could find himself out on his ass and in even more hot water, but his luck has held thus far. He has to trust that it will.

On the flight, Flynn supposes that he knows very well what sins he is being punished for by getting stuck in the middle seat, and thinks about Lorena Kovac. About seven months ago, on a lonely, late night, he gave into a moment of weakness and emailed her from his untrackable computer. He hasn’t really spoken to her in several years, and didn’t know what he was going to achieve by getting in touch again. He didn’t say anything about where he was or what he was doing, just that he hoped she was well. He knows it probably confused and hurt Lorena, since he gave her no explanation for dropping out of her life in the first place, and he’s sorry for it. But he wanted – he wanted something, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. Just to be sure he didn’t dream a real life, perhaps. The one where they met for coffee on sunny mornings in Dubrovnik, looked over the glittering Adriatic Sea, and did not talk about war.

Lorena’s reply, three days later, was polite and to the point. She also hoped that he was well. She was doing fine – better than fine,. She has recently had a baby girl, Iris. She and Iris’ father – a childhood friend of Flynn’s, an old schoolmate, Luka – are engaged, and they are very happy. A summer wedding is planned. She wishes Flynn the best in his life, and remains fond of him. She hopes he is at peace. She is.

Reading it felt, for Flynn, like being punched in the chest. Somehow it never occurred to him that Lorena would also move on with her life, that since her feelings for him never turned into the relationship she was hoping for, she would tidily shut the door and walk away. And Luka – he’s a doctor, he’s a great guy, he and Flynn have known each other forever, he and Lorena will have a wonderful life. A baby girl named Iris. The ghost of a smiling child floated into Flynn’s head and has never entirely left. It hurt in a way he can’t articulate. It still does. He loved Lorena, in some unformed, tentative, unrealized way, even if Lucy was already between them, somehow, from the start. He knows why Lorena has written the letter as she did, with the tone of wishing an old flame well, even if they were never officially together. She has made it clear that as far as she and her life are concerned, the wound is no longer open, the space has been filled. Perhaps this put them out of danger from Rittenhouse, but Flynn can’t risk writing back. Lorena will probably wonder why she even bothered, and go to her child and future husband, and live. He wants that, God, he wants that, he does. And yet.

That was the night he finally broke a little, under the strain, the effort, the loneliness. He feels corroded, rusted and deformed and darkened, and he was no saint to start with. He is fighting for something, not just against, but he’s not sure he can see it anymore. It was a strange and highly colored dream, and he’s losing the impossible kernel of faith, or fate, that has driven him thus far. It’s too much. It’s too much.

Someone found his hideout the next day, and Flynn killed him. It’s not clear whether he needed to. It was probably just a lost backpacker stumbling on a place that looked inhabited in the woods. Probably. But Flynn shot him anyway and buried him five miles away from the nearest cell phone signal. It’s not the first man he’s killed on this journey, and by far not the first he’s killed in his life. But it was the first one he killed while the man was defenseless, on his knees, and begging that he just wanted to see his mother again.

(It’s a good thing Lorena is with a man, not a monster.)

(A very good thing.)

(Very good.)

(Very.)

The flight finally lands in London, Flynn just makes it through customs with the bogus Gabriel Ashe passport (the customs officer is a little dubious, but the queue is very long and he smiles as unthreateningly as possible) and heads into the City. He has guessed the approximate location of the hotel that Mason Industries is staying at – it’ll be somewhere fancy – but he can’t be completely sure. There are a lot of upmarket hotels in London, after all, and he needs to be careful about which member of the squad he snipes off. He needs someone well-placed on the project, who can answer his questions, and someone who is conveniently clueless about the fact that Mason is in it deep with Rittenhouse, who is so blessedly fortunate as to never have heard the name “Rittenhouse” in their life. Flynn has a few ideas, but he is willing to be flexible. See what comes up, as it were.

The law is almost a ridiculous concept to Flynn now, has had no bearing on his actions whatsoever for months and months. And so he does not care that he has flagrantly illegal methods of tapping into the vast network of data, of closed-circuit television and cell phone signals and open wifi hotspots and all the other stuff that you can access with just a little effort. He narrows it down to Covent Garden, wanders around until he has visual. Yes, it’s him. One of Mason’s engineers. Due to Flynn’s extensive scrutiny of the employee lists, he can identify him as Rufus Carlin. He looks to be on a date. That’s unfortunate.

Flynn takes a better grip on his gun inside his jacket pocket, and strolls forward for a chat.

“I’m sorry?” Rufus repeats, when Mysterious European Gunman makes another brusque motion. Is he a Bond villain? Is this the start of a heist film where Rufus and Jiya race through London, Paris, Madrid, Budapest, and Rome, trying to stop him before he can launch a nuke from his secret Swiss Alps base? (Rufus should wonder what it says that he has this fantasy all ready to go, but better for all concerned that it remain a fantasy – he is not an action hero). “How do you know my name? What is – do you think you can just – ”

“Let’s just agree I know more than you do, Rufus.” A flash of a shark-like white smile, which (amazingly) does nothing to make him feel more confident. “Sorry to interrupt your date.”

“It’s – ” Rufus starts into his well-worn spiel that it’s not a date, until he realizes that a) they are getting sidetracked, and b) this is not Douche von Douchebag’s business anyway. “Well then? How about you not interrupt it? And just let me go? Look, I’ve got some money. Is this a robbery? You want that? You can have it, man. Seriously”

He makes a motion as if to go for his wallet, thinking that at least he wasn’t dumb enough to bring his passport out – as long as he doesn’t need to spend his time here tied up in the consulate getting a new one, Jerkface McGee here can have the rest. Cancel his credit cards and whatever else, it’s not worth his life. But the man shakes his head. “I don’t want your money. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”

Rufus hesitates. The dude does have a gun and it’s clear just to look at him that he’s not afraid to use it, and who knows what he has in the other jacket pocket – a detonator for a bomb? Damn, and one of the things he was looking forward to on this trip was a lessened risk of being shot for walking down the street while black. “Can I just – can I just tell Jiya that – ”

“Sorry,” the man says pleasantly. “Can’t have her calling anyone. Come on.”

With that, he takes Rufus by the jacket sleeve and walks him briskly out, into the plaza and up toward Leicester Square. Rufus keeps twisting vainly over his shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of Jiya – great, there goes that entire successful day, she’s gonna think he ditched her on purpose like an asshole, or he’s just the world’s most inattentive doofus who couldn’t bother to wait for her before running back for a nap. Yes, he has more problems on his hands, but that one stings. “Hey,” he says. “Can I call you back? You know, meet for coffee tomorrow, if this is really what you – ”

“Do you think I’m an idiot, Rufus?”

“No… sir?”

“Good.” Sir Shithead keeps walking. Rufus wants to ask him to let go of his sleeve, but he has a feeling that wouldn’t go anywhere good. They make their way up into the maze of side streets and closes that branch off the major thoroughfares in London, toward a tea shop – wait, really, the guy is going to abduct him in broad daylight and then buy him an Earl Grey? Is this the most British kidnapping in existence? His accent isn’t British, though. Rufus is confused enough not to struggle (besides, he also can’t see that going anywhere good) as they reach the shop, Herr Horrible orders a small black coffee, and does not offer to get Rufus anything (he just had his latte, but still). Rufus asks for a Coke just as the man is about to pay, though, which means that he is obliged to buy it. As they sit down at a corner table barely large enough to fit him, the Red Baron raises an eyebrow. “Well?”

“Well what?” Rufus snaps. “Like I’m the one who needs to explain myself here?”

“I just want answers.” The man – Rufus is enjoying coming up with new disparaging nicknames for him, since it’s the only satisfaction he is getting out of this, but he would like an actual one – sounds impatient. “Do that, you can be back on your way in ten, fifteen minutes, tell the girl that you just got lost. You want to cooperate or not?”

Rufus holds out as long as he dares. Then he says, “How do you know my name?”

“You work for Mason Industries. Yes?”

Oh brother, Rufus thinks. Not another throw-his-weight-around military white boy coming to ask probing questions. This one is almost making him miss Wyatt. “Yeah, so?”

“Does Emma Whitmore still work there?”

“She transferred? About a year and a half ago? She still works there, yeah, but I think she took a job at one of the other offices. Here, maybe?”

“Where?” the man demands. “Where?”

Rufus stalls. It’s pretty clear from the look on the Teutonic Terror’s face that it’s bad news for Emma if he catches up to her. He and Emma have never been buddy-buddy, but they’ve worked together for a while, he’s done the calculations responsible for sending her through time, and he doesn’t want that on his head. He is relieved that it is the truth as he says, “I don’t know. We haven’t exactly been keeping up with Christmas cards.”

The man stares at him narrowly. “Do you know if she’s planning to rejoin the main office?”

“I don’t know,” Rufus repeats. “Maybe you should have kidnapped the HR manager.”

For half a moment, a sardonic but genuinely amused smile flickers across the hard lines of the other man’s face. Then it’s all back to business. “Fine,” he says. “How close is the time machine to being done?”

“I – ?” Rufus stares at him. “I – what are you talking about?”

“You’re a smart man, Rufus. Don’t act like an idiot.��

There is a silence long enough to turn very uncomfortable. They stare at each other over the rickety table. Rufus feels as if his odds of flipping it and launching the hot coffee into the man’s face are very slim, but he has to fight down an urge to do just that. Instead of answering, he says, “I’m guessing you and Wyatt Logan know each other?”

Something brief and inscrutable appears, then disappears, in the man’s guarded gaze. “We were acquainted in the past,” he says noncommittally. “Answer the question, please.”

“This is going to get me into trouble.”

“I honestly don’t care if it does or not.”

“Yeah, well. I do.”

“You’d care about something more if you knew why I was asking. And if you have to make me do it a third time – ”

“Jeez.” Rufus raises his hands. “Scorched-earth everything with you, isn’t it? Look. We’ve progressed to running more extensive tests, but it’s still very buggy. One of the lead engineers just got out of an eight-month coma. It’s not out of any sort of beta.”

“When do you think it will be?”

“What are you, some kind of corporate spy? Government whistleblower?” Mason has, for obvious reasons, wanted to keep this project strictly under wraps, and Rufus has definitely already breached several paragraphs of his organizational NDA by talking this much. “Shoot me if you want, but you’re not going to make me turn on – ”

That mirthless smile pays a visit to the corner of In Soviet Russia’s mouth. “I don’t have to shoot you,” he points out. “The girl you were with. I got a nice look at her face. From my examination of the employee directory, I think that is… Jiya, yes? Jiya Marri?”

That rocks Rufus onto his heels and all further smart remarks out of his mouth. “You son of a bitch,” he says, low and hard. “Stay away from her.”

“Do your part, Rufus, and neither of you ever have to see me again.” The man shrugs. “A little answer. Very easy.”

Rufus chews his tongue. Whatever he says, he has a feeling that it isn’t just an academic interest, that he could be directly responsible for setting off a barrel of nitroglycerin in the middle of Connor’s life – in everyone’s. Finally he says, “Again, like I said. It’s in beta. There is no expected timescale of completion when we’re talking about something this. The Mothership runs better, but we – ”

“The Mothership?” The man leans forward with an intent, wolfish expression. “What’s that?”

Shit. Rufus wants to bite his tongue off. He says reluctantly, “The main machine is called the Mothership. There’s a backup called the Lifeboat, but it’s designed just for short-term use, in the event of something going wrong with the Mothership’s crew and a rescue squad being sent to pull them out. That one’s really in beta.”

“Two time machines.” The man taps his fingers on the table, thinking hard. “And either of these, how do they run? Can you visit moments in your own lifetime?”

That is a weirdly specific question. Rufus almost wonders if he’s a crazy UFO fan, or something like that. Or maybe he’s clung onto a time machine as a solution for the big steaming heap of cow poop that his life appears to be – go back and change all your bad choices, that kind of thing. “No,” he says. “That’s not possible. You can’t travel on your own timeline. The ones that’ve tried, you – you don’t want to know what happened to them. The universe doesn’t like it, it’s not like Harry Potter with two versions of you running around.”

For some reason, that answer disturbs his interlocutor (yeah, he’s disturbed now, finally some equality). Rufus wants to demand how the hell he knows this, where he’s got his information and what he is planning to do. There is a final pause until the man makes up his mind. “Give me your access card to Mason Industries,” he says. “Your ID, your key card, whatever I need to get in. You can say you lost them.”

“I just happened to lose my ID?”

“Or I can rob you,” the man points out. “Yes, I think it might be better if we do that. I will take your money after all. London is an expensive city, why not?”

“I can’t let you into Mason Industries. I can’t – ”

“You’re here in London for the whole week. The entire team is. That is much neater, I don’t need to kill anyone to get in. You can tell Jiya that you were robbed, she will feel very sorry for you. A happy ending. You don’t report it to anyone and you don’t say anything about losing the card until you get back.”

“To what, a giant bomb crater where Mason Industries used to be?”

“Oh, no.” The man shakes his head. “I don’t want to destroy it. I just need information. Now. You give me your ID card, the cash in your wallet, and anything else a robber might take. I will let you keep your phone. Hurry up, Rufus. Jiya must be looking for you.”

Rufus has never wanted to kill anyone with a stare more than he has wanted to kill this idiot, but he can’t think what else to do. Slowly, he fumbles out his Mason Industries ID and key card on its lanyard, jerks the cash envelope out, and shoves it over the table. It’s not even his money, but still. He feels the betrayal on a soul-deep level, the one thing he hates most. What a way to repay Connor, after everything he has done for him. Rufus feels tainted and unhappy and used. “There,” he snaps. “Take it. Are we done?”

“You tell me.” The man shrugs, pocketing the card and cash. “Actually, I have changed my mind. A robber would take your phone. Give it to me, I will mail it back in a few weeks.”

“I – ” Rufus clutches his phone like his firstborn child. Like any proper millennial, he cannot function more than a few hours without it. “Like I’m going to believe that?”

“Phone. Now.”

Rufus grits his teeth, thinks that he can hopefully report it as stolen and freeze it before the bastard has time to mine all its data, and drops it into his hand. King Kraptacular, of course, makes sure to ask him for the passcode, makes Rufus do it to demonstrate that it is in fact the right one, and then finally stands up with a mocking grin. “It’s been good to do business with you,” he says, touching two fingers to his hat. “Enjoy your trip to London, Rufus.”

And with that, leaving Rufus sitting there completely gobsmacked, he goes.

Wyatt Logan has no idea how to find a man whose entire professional value lies in his ability to completely fucking disappear at will, but by God, that is not going to stop him trying.

He can’t exactly drive up to NSA headquarters and demand to consult their personnel files, especially for ex-personnel that, as far as Wyatt knows, still have a standing arrest warrant. He did try the old phone number for Flynn, but he was not surprised at all when the cool female robot voice told him that this number was not in service. He’s tried to think if anyone in the intelligence branch of things owes him a favor, or might feel bad for him because his wife is probably dead and would be willing to kick some rocks. The possibility of the quest has galvanized Wyatt like a direct intravenous hit of caffeine; he hasn’t slept more than three hours at one time since this started. It’s been four days, and he has barely focused on the fact that for all intents and purposes, the cops are looking for a body. That’s not it, that’s not what happened. Jess is alive somehow, somewhere. She’s alive.

In the course of this, Wyatt has also been managing to convince himself that Flynn is not as bad as he remembers. Sure, he was an abrasive jackass with zero interpersonal skills and an amazing ability to make everything ten times more difficult than it needs to be, but to be fair, when they actually met face-to-face, Flynn had just been shot twice and was freshly out of emergency surgery. That might put a damper on anyone’s sunny disposition, and Wyatt is painfully aware that his own behavior has been no basket of roses. Maybe it’s just because he’s so lonely, he’s so desperately lonely and so terrified that this in fact the one mistake he cannot take back or get around, but he’s already half-made Flynn into a friend in his head. Grumpy, but essentially good-hearted. Definitely willing to lend an old pal (even in a very loose sense of the word) a hand. It’ll work out. It has to.

No one ever said that this was the most realistic appraisal of the situation, but at least it’s kept Wyatt from eating bark off trees, and after his feverish hours of work, he’s decided that the best angle he has into the whole thing is Mason Industries. However, that is going to piss off Rittenhouse something wild; the whole scene in the car was very clear at instructing him that he had better never come near that place again. If Wyatt is trying to be clandestine, this is not the way to do it. The only other person he can still contact (hopefully) is not guaranteed special access either, and it could once more put her in danger. But she’s also the only human being on the planet who might know where Flynn is, or at least want to see him again too. And really. Wyatt has nothing left to lose.

He takes out his phone, and dials.

It rings once, then twice, then again. Just as he thinks it’s not going to be answered, it is. “Hello?” She sounds confused and tenuous. “Is this – Wyatt?”

“Hi.” Wyatt blows out an unsteady breath. He was the one who told her to call him if she was ever scared, if she needed anything, and now here he is, practically ready to beg. “Lucy. I – I know it’s been a while since we talked. I’m sorry to just call you out of the blue.”

“No, of course,” Lucy says. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Are you okay?”

Wyatt was fondly supposing that he didn’t sound like that much of a wreck, but he appears to have been disabused of that along with everything else. “Actually,” he says, swallowing hard as his voice catches. “Actually. . . since you ask, I’m. . . I’ve been better. A lot better. I’m sorry again, I know this may not be something you want to talk about, but have you – have you seen Flynn recently? Garcia Flynn?” As if there can be another.

There’s a marked silence. Then Lucy says, “No. I haven’t seen him for almost two years.”

Wyatt can feel his fragile, giddy optimism heading for a crash as fast as it went up, but he still refuses to let this be the end of the road. “So you – you don’t know where he is these days, or what he’s doing, or – ?”

“No,” Lucy says. “I have no idea. Wyatt, what’s – what’s going on?”

Wyatt stares at the ceiling, trying to formulate the words. The idea of speaking it aloud is still unbearable, and it’s bad enough for Lucy that he called her like this, he doesn’t need to start unloading his flaming trainwreck of emotional baggage onto her. He tries to keep his voice as calm as it would be at a briefing for his superiors. Tells her, as succinctly as he can, what’s happened, and why he’s looking for Flynn.

Lucy makes shocked and sympathetic noises, which Wyatt appreciates, but he knows he still does not deserve her pity. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “Is there anything else I can do? Do you have – have family in town, or anything?”

“Family?” Wyatt laughs, bone-dry. “My family? Nah. Grandpa Sherwin died a few years ago. Jess’s family has – they’re in town, they’ve been with the cops. I get the feeling that they think I should be at the station more, that I wasn’t there for her when she was alive and now I’m not there for her when she’s – ”

He stops. He can’t bear the fact that he almost said it, that it seemed so terribly possible. It feels like there’s a boulder wedged in his throat, and he rubs his hand over his eyes, trying to collect himself. “Anyway,” he manages. “I told them that I was – that I was working on something, and – this is my fault, I know it is. But if it’s not just some local scumbag, if it’s more – if it’s them – ”

Lucy doesn’t answer immediately. He can hear what she must be thinking – that he’s got a lot of nerve strolling into her life again, dumping a sob story about his wife on her, and assuming she will return to something that must hurt her as well, that she will unearth what must be some not-very-well-buried bodies and contend once more with the ghosts. She would be justified in any or all of it, and he tries to steady himself for her telling him to take a hike. There might still be some other way to track down Flynn, though it gets much narrower and more impossible if so. But when there’s nothing else but this –

“Okay,” Lucy says, quiet and level and cool as stone. “What do you need?”

This is not the wisest idea Lucy has ever had, not by a long shot. She should be unnerved, perhaps (but again, that is the whole point) at how greatly not-wise it is. And yet. She’s not.

It feels like something has changed in her, turned as sharply as a key, and she’s not even sure what. Just in that moment of finally accepting that Flynn was gone (the way that Wyatt is desperate not to do with Jessica, but it is not for Lucy to decide that before its time) it was like she woke up, somehow. There was never any chance that she was going to sit around and languish on a couch and weep. She got right on with her life, professionally and personally, and she’s done fine with it. And yet, after her visit to her mother’s the other day, when she’s gotten even fewer answers than she has questions, when she realized that she’s lived like she’s sleepwalking, determined that things are normal, not to rock the boat, to make everyone else’s lives easier and safer, pushing herself further and further away –

She doesn’t know what, but she’s sick of it, she’s angry, she’s tired, and she’s not willing to do it anymore. So suddenly, when Wyatt Logan calls out of the clear blue sky, says his wife is missing, and hints that he thinks Rittenhouse has something to do with it, Lucy’s game.

She drives to her mom’s house when she knows that Carol will be out for a doctor’s appointment, goes upstairs, and gets the gun out of the box. Takes the ammunition as well, hurries down to her car feeling properly scandalous – she has never done something like this, it doesn’t even feel like her. She’s licensed the gun in the state of California, she’s allowed to carry it, but she still puts it in the glovebox and locks it. Her hands are shaking, but she clenches them, and they stop. Then she drives back to Stanford, finishes her day, and waits.

It’s around five o’clock when there’s a knock on her office door, and she stands up to open it. Has guessed who it is, but it’s still a small shock to see him in person. He doesn’t look that great, with a missing wife and a long drive under his belt, but he manages a wan smile and offers his hand. “Hey, Lucy.”

Lucy pauses, then reaches out and hugs him. She doesn’t know why, other than that he looks like he could use it, and Wyatt goes briefly stiff, then awkwardly hugs her back. They step apart after a moment, and he clears his throat. “I – so. . . how. . . how are you?”

“Fine.” The word almost lives on her lips these days. “It’s not going to cause you any problems with the cops or Jessica’s family if you came up here, is it?”

“Them?” Wyatt laughs bitterly. “They’ve never exactly been my biggest fans, and honestly, I’m not sure I blame them anymore. Her stepdad almost didn’t attend the wedding – he’s a son of a bitch anyway, but. . . yeah. I told them I was working on something to get her back, and that’s not a lie. Told them to call if the cops – ” He stops. “Well, if anything came up.”

Lucy supposes this is his business, and what they are proposing is going to take enough attention and concentration that they don’t need any more distractions. Wyatt waits as she finishes up a few things, turns off the lights, and grabs her purse. They have a few hours to kill, so they get a quick dinner and try to catch up. The conversation isn’t exactly bountiful, and it’s hard to be sure what the dynamic here should be. Old friends? Not exactly friends, but they did trust each other in a tight spot, and they’re not strangers. Heist partners preparing for the night’s action? Some of that is true, but still. Should she be comforting him, offering to talk him through his problems? She is not a trained psychiatrist, and she gets the sense that Wyatt’s problems are a lot more than she’s reasonably prepared to take any kind of crack at, but there’s also value to be had in just talking to someone who cares. She doesn’t get the feeling there’s a whole lot of that in his life, really. Especially not now.

In any case, it’s getting later, and it’s time to put their plan (such as it is) into action. There is a solid chance that this night ends with both of them arrested, but (who is she and what has she done with Lucy Preston) the idea almost exhilarates her. They drop off her car at home, and Wyatt glances at the house. “All that space just for you?”

“I – no. We – live together. My boy – boyfriend and I.” Lucy feels like a high schooler about to blush at saying the word, given how awkward it feels on her tongue. “Noah.”

“That was – ” Wyatt gives her a funny look. “Wait, was that the doctor at the hospital when Flynn was shot?”

“Yeah. We dated a couple years before that, and I… we got back together about a year ago.” Lucy goes around the side of Wyatt’s truck and climbs in, hoping that none of the neighbors are peering out their windows and will feel like telling Noah about it later. Suburbanites are in fact horrible gossips, apparently. But this way, they streamline their operations, Noah will hopefully just think she’s out for a walk or whatever when he gets home, and it’s just easier to do this in one car. “He works in Oakland now.”

Wyatt glances at her, but doesn’t say anything, as if well aware that he has no stones to throw at anyone else’s relationship choices. He starts the truck and they pull out, heading down the street and back toward the freeway. Here goes nothing.

They are, of course, not going to do this like total savages and/or jailbirds if at all avoidable, and pull into the Mason Industries parking lot when, as planned, it has almost cleared out for the day. There are in fact almost no cars there, which might either make things easier or much more complicated, and Wyatt considers it with a furrowed brow. “Technically, we’re still going to have to break in,” he says. “Let me take the lead, all right? I’ve got a lot less to lose if I’m popped for B&E, but I’m guessing Stanford would be less impressed.”

“I don’t care,” Lucy says, startling herself. She leans forward and checks that the zipped gun case is still in her purse; she took it out of the glovebox before leaving her car. “We’re going to save your wife, all right? We’re going to save your wife and I don’t care if we have to step on Rittenhouse’s toes to do it. I’m tired of waiting and worrying if they’re coming after me again one day. Maybe it’s time we found out.”

And with that, as Wyatt is still blinking, Lucy pushes open the truck door and steps down into the blurry blue evening. She unzips the case and checks that the gun is loaded, but that the safety is on and there’s no risk of it discharging automatically. Her hands are almost practiced at this, though she has obviously never been in a real situation of possibly having to use it and doesn’t know that she ever wants there to be a first. Obviously, they are not going to blaze in and hold a lab full of terrified scientists (or even the lab’s night crew) hostage, but Wyatt wants to talk to Connor Mason, and Lucy intends to see that he does. If that involves a little hardball, even though ‘hardball’ is far from a five-foot-five history professor’s skill set, fine.

They cross the parking lot and head for the visitor’s entrance, which is still open. They push the glass doors open and stroll down to the reception area, where the poor receptionist is just switching off her computer and preparing to go home. At the sight of them, she looks up with a start. “I’m sorry, we’re just about to – there aren’t any more appointments scheduled, I’m sorry, I was just about to lock the building, sir, ma’am, so – ”

“Hi,” Lucy says, smiling sweetly. “We’d like to talk to Connor Mason.”

The receptionist goggles at her. “Ma’am, I’m sorry, this is past business hours. Besides, Mr. Mason is out of the country until next week. Obviously, he’s a very important and busy man, you can’t just expect to walk in off the street and expect to see him – ”

“Fine.” Wyatt steps up next to Lucy. “Who else is here?”

The receptionist’s eyes whiz back and forth between them. She is obviously getting the sense that they are neither a pair of IT professionals late for an appointment, or a couple of starstruck fans wandering off the street and trying to cadge a meeting with their idol for a viral video. She makes a move as if to reach for a security button under the desk, but Wyatt says, “I wouldn’t, ma’am.”

The receptionist glances at Lucy, clearly hoping for some female solidarity here. Normally, that is 100% Lucy’s bag otherwise, but tonight, alas, principles have to be sacrificed in more ways than one. “Tammy,” she says, glancing at the ID badge around the receptionist’s neck. “How about we just borrow that for a few minutes? You sit here and we’ll be right back.”

“I’m going to call security,” Tammy the receptionist warns them. “You need to – ”

“I wouldn’t,” Wyatt repeats. “What you’re going to do is switch off the security cameras, or at least scramble them for a few minutes. We don’t want to hurt you, ma’am, we don’t want to hurt you at all. But we need some answers, and we won’t leave until we have them.”

“I told you. Mr. Mason isn’t here.” Tammy’s face is white. “I couldn’t bring you to talk to him even if I wanted to. I don’t know what you want. Please, I have two children, I – ”

“Calm down,” Lucy says gently. “We’re not here to hurt you, like he said. But even if Mason isn’t here, there has to be someone else we can speak with.”

“No, they’re – it’s a team trip, all the project leads and main engineers went to London, it’s only a few part-timers here, and they’re gone for the night. I don’t want to lose my job, I – ”

“Yeah?” Wyatt says roughly. “Well, I really didn’t want to lose my wife. So I guess it’s going to be hard knocks for everybody, isn’t it? How about his office? Can you take us to his office? Probably won’t be able to get into his computer, but there have to be some paper files. Your boss know anything about Rittenhouse? Probably does, doesn’t he? Since he’s in it?”

Tammy flinches as if she’s been slapped. “Sir – ” She looks appealingly back at Lucy. “Please, it’s – you don’t know, you – ”

“I think you should take us to Connor Mason’s office,” Lucy says, gently but relentlessly. “I really think you should.”

Tammy hesitates.

Lucy reaches into her purse, and draws out what’s in her hand just enough to be seen.

Tammy blanches, and Wyatt blinks again, as if he had no idea she was carrying until now and is impressed (and slightly turned on) despite himself. Lucy shakes her head minutely at him when he opens his mouth as if to ask, and they wait until Tammy, fingers trembling, takes her key card, swipes it, and enters a few things clearly intended to put a five-minute freeze on the relevant cameras. Then she clicks around the desk, beckons them with a very tight nod, and starts to walk, as Lucy realizes she can’t let her get too far ahead of them, and jogs to catch up. She takes firm hold of Tammy’s wrist, and the other woman jerks as if it’s a handcuff. Lucy has never had anyone look at her with that much fear and revulsion before, and she isn’t sure she likes it. And yet, there is an unmistakable frisson of power that is, in a sick way, kind of appealing. Oh God, she isn’t a psycho, is she? She’s not. She’s not.

They walk down a glass corridor that overlooks a vast, dim steel warehouse, banked with computers and consoles on every side. It looks kind of like NASA launch headquarters, an impression reinforced by the sight of the large white plasteel eyeball sitting on struts in the middle of the expanse. It’s banded with blue blinking lights, increasing its resemblance to a UFO even more, and Lucy suddenly thinks that she might know exactly what that is. There has, obviously, still been a kernel of doubt in her mind – Emma was convinced that Mason Industries was building a time machine and she was test-piloting it, yes, but Emma was crazy. This, though. It could somehow be a film prop that Mason Industries is building for some bizarre reason rather than a set dresser in Hollywood, but Lucy doesn’t think so.

Wyatt, who has no clue (probably for the best) that time travel enters into this anywhere, is totally befuddled, but Lucy once more shakes her head at him. They complete the traverse to the doors of important-looking offices – Connor Mason, Anthony Bruhl, a couple others – and Tammy swipes her key card to open Connor’s. One of them is going to have to watch her while the other ransacks for useful intel. Otherwise she will run away and raise the alarm, and then they’re definitely getting arrested. Or worse.

With Tammy still firmly in hand, Lucy ventures over the threshold. She has no idea how they’re supposed to shake down Mason’s office in five minutes or less for some convenient Rittenhouse papers that he might just happen to have in some carelessly unsecured file cabinet. Wyatt, however, clearly doesn’t care if they’re secured or not. He takes a small crowbar out of his jacket and advances in after the women, looking around as if to decide where he needs to start smashing. Lucy appears to be on Tammy-minding duty, but she hopes Wyatt doesn’t leave too much of a mess. There’s no guarantee how long the cameras stay off. Or did they actually even go off in the first place? Maybe they should have worn balaclavas like proper robbers. Wyatt’s right, Stanford will not be enthused, and –

Just then, all the remaining blinking lights in the room, and along the hall, go dark. Wyatt, who was about to start bashing the bejesus out of Connor Mason’s file cabinets, stops with a startled curse, and Lucy thinks that this must be it, Tammy tricked them and the emergency protocol is kicking in. But if so, you’d expect klaxons and flashing lights, not just silent darkness. What the hell? Power just shut down at eight o’clock every night? But from what little Lucy can make out of Tammy’s face in the red emergency backups that are just flickering on, she is as startled as they are. Wasn’t expecting that.

Lucy looks down into the launch area, which she can see from Mason’s magisterial God’s eye view of his kingdom, and her heart skips a beat. She can just see a dark figure wending through the shadows, making its way purposefully toward the time machine (as it has to be). There’s someone else here, someone else broke in, shut down the lights and surveillance with a lot more skill than their clumsy receptionist kidnapping, and is making for its – for his? – target like a homing pigeon. No way to tell if it’s bad news or worse.

“Wyatt?” Lucy hisses. “Wyatt!”

Wyatt, who has clearly been about to decide if he should just smash some shit anyway for the stress relief, looks over with a start and follows her pointing finger down to the interloper on the operations floor. He stashes the crowbar hastily back in his jacket and pulls out his gun instead, then strides out of the office and toward the metal stairs that open into the warehouse. Lucy hurries after him, Tammy bumping in her wake like a kite on the end of a string, then pushes her down to hide behind a computer bank, which the receptionist does only too gladly. If she can somehow call 911 from there, well, that’s another problem. Lucy wants to have her hands free in case Wyatt needs any help.

She reaches in, pulls out the gun, and switches the safety off. Can in fact feel the difference, the way it comes alive, and advances at Wyatt’s side in recon stance. They’re just on the other side of the time machine from the intruder, and Lucy and Wyatt flatten themselves stealthily against it, guns in hand. They exchange a look, trying to decide if they need to actually fire. Not in a warehouse full of priceless technology, not when they’ve already illegally entered, not when they don’t know who the other person or what they want, but –

They can hear footsteps. They need to make a decision.

They throw themselves out from behind the time machine and come around, raising their guns at the intruder, who – even faster than them – has already done the same. Lucy has an indistinct impression of unusual height, and a merciless stare in the low, hellish light, and then, all the blood draining out of her head, her heart, her world. It can’t be, it can’t, and yet. All along, there was really no one else it could be.

She can’t get enough air into her lungs, and isn’t sure she will again. Her strangled whisper sounds as loud as a shout.

“Flynn?”

#lucy x flynn #garcy #garcy ff #timeless ff #the tangled web of fate we weave

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eternal-dannation · 7 years ago

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people keep @-ing me to write erotica i’m so sorry

A Helping Hand

Brad Viper aimed down his sights and squeezed, releasing a barrage of fury down the shooting range.

Rattatattatattattat!

The bullets ejaculated from the tip of the long, hard, and very masculine gun Brad handled manfully in his rough and large hands. Being an armyman is so fucking cool, he thought to himself. We get to indulge in the most violent aspects of our masculinity and are rewarded for it. I’m so glad that army recruiter was at my extremely middle class high school.

“Fuck you!!!” he screamed at the target dummies as he unleashed another hail of bullets.

“Hell yeah Viper! That’s hot!” shouted one of his fellow army mates, a private by the name of Dick Major. Dick was from New York, and while Brad wouldn’t admit it out loud, he secretly wanted to impress the big city boy. Dick had been all over, whereas Brad had never left his home town in Kansas before joining the army.

“Yeah, you like that? You fucking like that??” Brad shouted back, fondling the rifle.

“I love it brother! I love how you handle that rifle baby!”

“Save the bedroom talk for ISIS you dumb motherfuckers!” Drill Sgt. Collin Bushwack screamed at them, presumably in a very army-way based on this author’s knowledge of the army from seeing Forrest Gump a couple of times. “Take your tight little bodies to the showers, and then give me 50!”

That night, Brad flopped into his bunk, tired but feeling good about his role in upholding the US global hegemony. He couldn’t wait to be deployed to a region that the US had helped destabilize for decades in order to advance their own goals and global standing and continue the proud tradition of Americans shooting at brown people. With a satisfied sigh, he pulled out a photo Angelina Jolie and unzipped his pants for his nightly jerk-off session. But to his horror, he realized that all the rope climbs, all the gun shooting, all the other difficult army stuff he had done that day, had destroyed his grip strength. He ineffectually batted at his rock hard cock, but was unable to find release.

“Viper! You good man?” Dick had heard his friend’s soft cries of distress and had crawled over to his bunk.

Brad tried to hide his erection but his shitty hands were incapable of doing the job. “It’s ah…”

Brad could feel his face flush beet red with embarrassment.

“Hey man, it’s all good, we’ve all been there,” Dick said, eyeing Brad’s girthy 7-inch cock. “Here, let me help you with that.”

“Are...are you sure? Is this ok?”

“Listen, Brad, I know our bodies are hard and sexy, but that doesn’t mean our emotions have to be too. It’s ok to ask for help. There’s nothing wrong with that. This is what Band of Brothers was about.”

Gently, Dick reached around Brad’s huddled body and grasped his throbbing member.

“Oh!” Brad gasped in pleasure, at the feel of Dick’s hand, which was both rough and calloused, but so, so tender.

Dick started moving his hand slowly up and down Brad’s thick schlong, gradually building up speed until his hand was a blur, moving faster than the US government coming up with an excuse to invade when they hear a country has oil. Brad groaned in pleasure as Dick nibbled on his ear.

“You like that, Viper? You like the way my hand makes you feel?”

“God, yes, yes, make me your little slut!”

The pleasure was too much for Brad. Like US sanctions against a communist country, he came hard, fast, and with little regard for others. The orgasm was so powerful he thought he might have blacked out for a second. Dick’s hand withdrew, and Brad could hear him licking the cum off his fingers. God, that was so hot, he thought.

“Get some rest,” Dick whispered, kissing the back of Brad’s neck. But Brad had already fallen into a deep, restful sleep.

The next morning, Brad woke up, still thinking about the best orgasm of his life. He was berated by Sgt. Bushwack for his cum-covered sheets, but that couldn’t dampen his mood. He couldn’t wait to find Dick today and go off into some quiet corner and suck him off. But as he went about his morning army stuff, he didn’t see his friend. Growing worried, he asked around, but not only had no one seen the handsome young private, but no one seemed to even know who he was talking about. Finally, concern mounting, he asked Sgt. Bushwack what had happened to his friend.

“What in the goddamn? There’s no Private Major in this corps! Have you lose your damn mind private?!”

A chill ran down Brad’s spine. Plot twist. This was a ghost story the whole time.

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oneinathousandwords-blog · 7 years ago

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The Sacred Blood-Lines ~ A Yu-Gi-Oh! Reader’s Request Fanfiction ~ Chapter 7

An inbetween-ish feeling sorta chapter. Nothing major really happens, but actually, some things kind of are. This is where I depart from canon and impose more of my own wonderful feelings and thoughts onto the characters . . . and so here we are. We’re on the roller-coaster, and it’s beginning the descent into the climax! Here we go again with my canon/American/Japanese switch-up of honorifics and names.

“Nii-sama, your orders have been carried out to the letter.“ Mokuba smiled up at his brother in the pre-dawn lights of the KaibaCorp rooftop hangar. Kaiba’s Blue-Eyes White Dragon jet was being fueled for the journey ahead. It was flashy, but they would be taking a different mode of transportation out of Denmark when they had to leave. It would, hopefully, be a brief distraction for their enemies.

“Well done.“ Kaiba slipped his pendant from his chest, giving it to Mokuba. He didn’t want to leave it behind, but he would have too. It contained a computer chip that acted as a password for all of his systems. Mokuba would be taking control of the company in his absence. He would need his key.

Mokuba took it reverently, looking up at his brother with a touch of sadness. “You should take mine.“ He said impetuously, slinging it from around his neck. “It’s not like I could wear two anyway.“

Kaiba hesitated for a moment, surprised by his brother’s tender generosity. “Alright.“ He took the slender string in his hands, pulling it over his head. It settled against his chest, cold and currently unfamiliar.

A fresh breeze ran over the roof, sending their coats flapping into the wind. Shivering, Mokuba drew into him for a moment, and Kaiba easily laid a hand on his shoulder.

The bang of the door closing alerted Kaiba to someone’s ascent to the roof. He turned, expecting it to be Yugi or Mahad. However, it was Ishizu’s dark hair and deep blue eyes that greeted him. The very tip of the sun was spreading over the horizon as she came to them.

“Seto. I trust you slept well.“ She bowed, her delicate voice gently accented with the country of her birth.

“Well enough.“ This was a lie. His dreams had been full of ancient pyramids and bloody sand. Horrors from a life he hadn’t even lived were stalking him through the regions of time, imprinted into his genetic code.

Her wise eyes, filled with a knowledge beyond her years, peered deep into Kaiba’s soul, passing over his pale face and tired eyes. She knew he was lying, and he knew she knew. “Nightmares pass with the sun’s rising, though they may return with its fall. But all things pass with time, even the burdens of others that you insist on bearing.“

Seto Kaiba stiffened. “You act like I chose what happened to me last night.“

Heart pounding, eyes wide, gasping for breath, clutching the sheets for his very life - he was dying - no, another had been dying. The sights and sounds of a war long over still scraped across his brain. He hadn’t gotten back to sleep after that.

Ishizu shook her head. “You will understand, once the darkness passes. Then it will all become clear. Until then, I will say no more.“ She spread her hands away from her body, letting the faint warmth of the sun run over her dark skin. “It is so very cold here, even in the middle of the day. But dawn is no different then my home.“

Mokuba smiled, pulling out from the shelter of his brother. “No matter where we are in the world, the sun will always come up in the morning!“

Kaiba just grit his teeth, already annoyed. He hated Ishizu’s know-it-all attitude and how she wasn’t afraid to hold it above everyone else, but wouldn’t explain anything in real words when asked about it directly. “What are you talking about? If you have something to say, than say it!“

“If I do, you’ll simply dismiss my words - as usual.“ Her voice was just as chilling as his own. Kaiba got the feeling that she wasn’t entirely fond of him sometimes, either. “But I will tell you what I meant, nevertheless. You must explore who you were many thousands of years ago, and understand the heart of his pain and distress if you want to be free of the pain that he passed on to you. It is not your burden to have, but it is still buried within your heart. You must find it, and leave it behind. You will never be free until you do.“

“I am free.“ Kaiba insisted, his voice a growl.

“And I am telling you that you are not!“ Raised voice, flashing eyes - the two got along as well as oil and water when it came to their ancient lives. “You are not free, and you never have been, so you have never understood what that means!“ Ishizu’s fist clenched defiantly at her side, and she turned to face Kaiba head-on.

Mokuba looked between the two adults, his first instinct to cringe away like a child. But something sterner and older rose up inside him, and he said what he had to in a defiant tone. “Nii-sama, she’s right.“

“What?“ Kaiba turned to him, his eyes full of pain from the blow in his only soft spot.

Mokuba looked away, but he didn’t stop talking. “I don’t know if what she said about always being imprisoned is right, but . . . for a really long time now, things haven’t been right with you. I don’t know what’s wrong. But please, I want you to stop - “ he hesitated, searching for the words he needed. “I need you to stop being sick!“

Kaiba closed his eyes, trying to ward off their words, trying to go back to what he had been before his night of ancient dreams. But he couldn’t, and he wouldn’t. Who he was needed to go forward. Backwards would destroy him. Backwards would mean pain. Backwards meant nothing but darkness.

“I’m not changing anything. But if these dreams continue - “ A promise, a lie, a vow, an oath, a deception, all words that fell from his lips. Did he mean them? “ - I’ll consider your suggestion.“

Ishizu stared at him for a moment, then nodded, her eyes sliding closed. “Well done. You have passed.“

“It was a test?“ Mokuba asked.

“A test of worthiness. No matter who he is, or was, this still isn’t something that can be given away lightly.“ Ishizu slipped a flat wrap of cloth from her sleeve, handing it to Kaiba. “In order to unlock the full powers of these cards, it will not be enough to discover your own powers. You will have to restore both yours and their memories of the past. They are like you, in a way. They once lived upon the earth with your past self, the Priest Seto. However, as monster spirits, these memories have faded.“ She hesitated. “Well, for some of them, anyway. You will understand once you are able to call their spirits here. But these cards will aid you upon your quest. They will be able to bring the power of your White Dragon to this world much easier than you can by yourself. Honor them, and they will serve you well.“

Kaiba snorted, accepting the cards, but not unwrapping them. “I don’t care about their memories or helping the spirits of the dead. If these a valuable cards, I’ll use them as I see fit. They’re my servants.“ But her words sparked his curiosity, and he pulled the white cloth away from them.

He saw the backs of the cards first. They were stiff, like they had just come out of a pack. They probably had never been used before. He turned the stack over, to see their fronts.

Pain. Searing pain. Thousands of years of torture so subtle that he had never even known it existed.

Blue eyes, white hair. A gentle smile, open arms. A name, Otome, Maiden, but that wasn’t the word that crept to his lips.

“Kisara.“

I intended this to only be one chapter, but I guess this rooftop thing is going to go one for one more. Tbh, I have no idea how long this series will even last. At least 30 chapters, and probably much more. You haven’t even met all the OCs yet, and their stories will take time to tell.

The inclusion of the ‘With Eyes of Blue’ cards wasn’t really thought out. :D I just did it - because I must have my Kaiba-kun building beautiful bromance with my lovely card-crushes Protector and Sage. I just . . . and Kisara . . . I . . . .yesssss . . . *blush* . . . I love them all. All of them. And Kaiba. I just can’t help it.

I mean, look at these boys.

I’m sorry. I’m such a fangirl, lol. OK, don’t forget to reblog so all of your followers can read this too (you know, if you liked this. If you didn’t, that’s cool too.) Keep in mind that it is reader request, so you can ask for anything non-ship-related.

Anything.

And I mean anything.

Right, this is long enough, so have a great and blessed and happy day, and links to previous chapters below!

Chapter 1 can be found here.

Chapter 5 can be found here.

Chapter 6 can be found here.

Also, please let me know what you think of my writing. Is there something I can improve on (I know I suck at ending chapters and stuff)? Constructive criticism appreciated!

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pianosamurai · 7 years ago

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Asia Trip Part 3: Tu Lan + The Trip to Hanoi

Truth be told, we were on the fence about doing this second tour, even though it was just a 1-day trip. We were a little fuzzy on the specifics - would it be similar to Hang En? Too similar? Did we want to potentially tarnish the fun we had on the first tour, with a potentially mediocre experience the next day?

We overcame the over-thinking and went ahead with the tour, which ended up being (of course) the absolutely right thing to do. It was an even earlier pickup than the first tour, and we had the same breakfast we did the first morning at Ho Khanh’s Homestay - fried noodle with eggs, tea and some fresh mango. I realize now that I forgot to highlight our host Duc, who was the nephew of Ho Khanh and managed the entire homestay. He was a great and had an awesome energy (regardless of whatever time we saw him). I especially appreciated the conversation after we found the massive spider the first morning.

Amanda: “Good morning Duc! So we found a huge spider in our room.”

Duc (smiling): “Ooooooh...really? You okay?”

Amanda: “Oh yeah we’re fine, but I figured you should know.”

Duc (laughing nervously): “Hahahah...yeah....it’s okay! He friendly!”

And then 5 minutes later:

Duc: “Was the spider inside the room? Or outside the room?”

Amanda: “Inside the room, on the window.”

Duc: “Oooooh.....hahaha okay!”

We were picked up by another Oxalis tour guide that morning named Vu, in what I believe I was a nice Toyota RAV4. Expecting another small bus to show up with a bunch of other tourists, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that we were actually the only people on the tour that day. We were driving about an hour away, to a different cave system in a completely different area. Tu Lan is not a national park, but it was equally inspiring as the park in Phong Nha.

Along the drive, we took a highway that Vu told us was running along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and then he proceeded to dive into some Vietnam War trivia. That was one thing I was curious about, to hear their perspective and see how they react to foreigners, and Americans in particular. Granted, as tourists they were only going to give us so much information, but the way that Tha put it the day before, “For a while, the older Vietnamese generation was angry at Americans. But after a while, we decided to change our minds. And we said, okay, we should be friendly with Americans now.” In these smaller towns, tourism has actually been well-received, as it has provided lots of jobs and opportunities for the local people. I only hope that the goodwill that we experienced during our time there will remain, and grow into the future.

Just before we arrived at the headquarters in Tu Lan, we encountered a very muddy stretch of the road that had actually handicapped an Oxalis van, carrying a few tour guides (including Tha) who were going to the headquarters for a training session. Apparently a bridge had been in place previously, but over the years it had started to deteriorate until it was finally taken down to make way for a new bridge to be constructed. But at that moment, we were between bridges - bring on the mud. The van eventually managed to squirm its way up the little slope leading back to the main road. More on this mud zone later.

There was some light drizzle on and off throughout the day (hence the mud), but obviously not enough to deter the tour from happening. We made it to the headquarters, where we got situated and received an abbreviated safety briefing from Vu (”you guys know all this stuff already, so we’re good”). And then the three of us started trekking towards the caves.

For any cinephiles who are reading this, much of the recent King Kong movie “Skull Island” was filmed in this region. While that was generally used as a selling point on the Oxalis website, Vu seemed only mildly amused by the connection (”I haven’t even seen the movie!”). I actually did see the movie, and while I wasn’t nearly geeking out over being on location where they shot the film, it was pretty fun to imagine a huge gorilla and a huge dinosaur battling amongst the hills and rivers around us.

But humongous creatures aside, it was clear why the filmmakers were attracted to this area. It had a sense of mystery and wonder that kept me intrigued the whole day. I’m sure the vibe would have been completely different in the summer, with blue skies and sun, but I’m happy that we experienced this place in the exact state that we found it.

A long, flat walk amongst rice and peanut fields (and a whole lot of water buffalo) led us to our first river and then eventually our first cave. The caves we explored on this day were nowhere near the magnitude or scope of Hang En, but they still had plenty to offer. If anything, it made me want to go watch the Planet Earth “Caves” episode again, which I’m sure I had not nearly appreciated enough the first time.

As the day went on, I grew more and more thankful that we hadn’t decided to pull the plug on the tour. This experience was so different than Hang En - not just the setting, or the caves. The fact that it was just me, Amanda and Vu (and an occasional porter or chef) gave us the chance to really appreciate the solitude and the majesty of the Tu Lan area. Rather than a handful of tour guides shepherding a group of random assorted tourists, it just felt like a few buddies taking a walk through the jungle, stopping at times to admire crazy stalactite formations, local cows that crept up to within a couple feet of our trail, or super dark cave ladders like this one:

(dub step analogy ahead): This small section of the trip could have been considered the Build, if our lunch campsite was the Drop (sorry). We had to climb down that (clearly) not well-lit ladder, which led to a dark cave within the river that we canoed down for a few minutes before being spit out at this beautiful little nook:

The campsite was at the far end of this little lake, and we relaxed for a bit while the sky tried to figure out if it wanted to rain, or just seem threatening. Again, lunch was a delicious combo of spring roll/bánh mì fixings (assembly required). Another highlight of this day was having an uninterrupted opportunity to talk with and learn about Vu, our guide. He was from the city of Hue, where his parents had owned a coffee shop. After school, he decided to move to Phong Nha to escape the hustle of the big city. Naturally, he said the instant coffee that was more easily found in these rural areas didn’t really get the job done for him (”I drink 6 cups a day, and feel nothing”). He told us about his first experiences with Oxalis, when he was the only applicant who didn’t speak English, but he was a good enough swimmer that they brought him on for training. The caving experts that train the guides are all based in the UK, which explained Vu’s fairly consistent British accent. When asked what country he would most like to visit (he had never left Vietnam), he replied “America” without too much hesitation. Why? “Because you can make money there.”

After lunch, we took a slightly more perilous route back down to the main trail, up and over a steep hill complete with spiky, slippery rocks. Thankfully nobody got themselves hurt - just very muddy. As we found flat ground again and reached our final river crossing (heading back to the headquarters), I paused for a few seconds, mid-river, letting the water wash the mud out of my shoes and feet. I tried to breathe slowly and let the moment sink in, and not just take this last wet river crossing for granted. People may wonder (especially the locals) why city dwellers from halfway around the world would pay money to walk around in the jungle, through the mud, over hills with sharp rocks, getting sweatier and dirtier by the minute. An easy answer would be “to feel alive”. But I think more than that, it was “to remember what life is, and what it can be”. In a place such as New York City, it’s very easy to get wrapped up in your day-to-day life, and oftentimes global happenings outside of the five boroughs only register as a blip on your News App. The day that I started to travel more frequently for music, my relationship to New York City - and the world as a whole - changed dramatically. To put oneself in a situation such as this river, this jungle trek - I looked at it as a self-inflicted reminder, to stay humble, and to always appreciate the lifestyles and customs of other people around the world. Just because they do things differently than us, doesn't mean that they aren’t as passionate about life and invested in what they do. And that’s something I can always respect.

A return to headquarters was capped off with a most-welcome hot shower at a stall that was set up about 50 yards from the main building. At this point, my trusty New Balance sneakers had, sadly, started to kick the bucket. The tread had started to peel off the bottoms of the shoes, and I could almost hear them yelling, “Come on man, give us a break!” So I donated them to Vietnam, and Vu said he would keep them at the headquarters, just in case somebody with huge feet showed up one day and needed to borrow a pair for their own excursion.

Although had I known what was coming up next, I might have held onto them a little while longer. Remember the muddy stretch of road that we passed in the morning? As we approached it on our return to Phong Nha, we were held up by a couple of people who were helping to guide a vehicle coming up from the opposite way. Turns out, that vehicle was a big tractor with BIG wheels. We all had the same thought instantly, fearing that the BIG wheels had left some DEEP grooves in the mud, and if our RAV4 managed to slip into those grooves, we might get stuck.

Well guess what - that’s exactly what happened. Despite our driver’s best efforts, we were squirming along the muddy decline, trying to drive in between those grooves without falling into them. But everyone knew the moment that the wheels slipped, and we were just stuck. Long story short, the Oxalis van that needed rescuing in the morning came to our aid, and a coalition of myself, Vu, Tha and the van driver managed to push the RAV4 from behind, eventually giving it enough leverage to snarl out of the grooves, nearly drive off the side of the road, and then finally clamber back up the incline on the other side. All the effects of the hot shower were completely erased by the splattering and the (slowly drying) mud cakes covering my feet and sandals. But after the initial discomfort, I thought - why not? I spent the whole day trekking through mud, so it only seemed appropriate (in hindsight) that I would re-muddy myself with a few Vietnamese dudes, shoving a car out of a ditch. It was like an added authentic bonus to the tour that Oxalis had been keeping a surprise. (Although I’m sure they aren’t trying to make a habit out of this.)

We eventually made it back to Phong Nha, where we gathered ourselves at a chic little restaurant on the main strip near our bus stop. In my scheduling madness, I had booked a sleeper bus from Phong Nha to Hanoi, which was an 8-9 hour drive. This way, we could get to our final destination by midday the following day, and also didn’t have to worry about a hotel for that evening. Dinner was surprisingly good (didn’t expect that I would be eating wood-fired pizza in Vietnam), and then when the bus finally showed up, we entered what would be one of the more hilarious nights of our trip - and maybe our lives?

Hilarious could be the wrong word - maybe strange, special, a little nerve-wracking? Some combination of all those things. I have no photos of this bus, but Amanda summed it up the best halfway through the drive, when she half mumbled to me, “If I just pretend like I’m on the Knight Bus from the Harry Potter movie, I’m good.”

Facing the back of the bus from the front, there were three rows of double-decker bunks. Not 180-degree flat bunks, but more like the passenger seat of a car, folded as far back as it can go. Add a little plastic case surrounding the bottom and sides of the chair (imagine the material from a Fisher-Price jungle gym), and that’s what the sleeping situation was like. They were most definitely one-shooters, so Amanda and I found neighboring bunks.

Once we got going, it became quickly apparent that the bus drivers (there were two that alternated during the drive) were not too interested in the notion that people were trying to sleep. Honking, speeding, swerving, revving, spitting out the window - all was fair game. In hindsight it was hilarious - I mean, what more was I expecting at $14 a ticket for an overnight bus ride? - but at the time, there were a few moments where I had to question whether or not I had made the right decision.

Regardless, we made it to Hanoi somewhat alive, and after a brief stop to gather our bearings at a nearby hostel, we embarked on Phase 2 of our journey that day - to Cat Ba Island!

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dvbermingham · 5 years ago

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Chapter 2 Ebi

I was in my trousers, shirting hanging by the door with my coat. Ready to go. My eating habits were such that I often find myself gorging, hand to mouth, without a moment’s warning, so I preferred not to put on my shirt until it was absolutely necessary. I didn’t necessarily have control over it, like a nervous tic I only realized I my mouth was so full of food my jaw was starting to hurt, and I would seriously consider spitting out that semi-digested puke-ball in failure. Incidentally, found this tic abated for several days after visiting Fishy Smells.

I waited for the cell to buzz, picking the hairs around my gut. I had lost considerable weight since my days of private investigating. Even so, I felt little pride in the particular ways my flesh hung off my body. The lighting could be better. My apartment came with flood lights, backups upon backups, like the previous tenant panicked during the recent recession and bought up all the lightbulbs he could, fearing long stints in darkness.

The cell went off, a blocked number. A soft voice speaking in a brusque accent summoned me down. I stuffed the phone in my pocket, covered my torso with what I felt was an appropriate number of layers, checked my laces, and left the apartment.

We traveled by limousine, rain coming down in sheets. The driver had wipers on lazy. I don’t know how he saw a thing, but he moved through the city streets carefully, calmly, no particular sense of urgency. I couldn’t tell where we were headed through the rain splatter and the fog on the windows, so I asked the driver but got a cold croak and and nothing more.

After a while what seemed like deliberately circuitous tooling we pulled over and waited by the awning of a nice apartment building, brick and stone and who knows how high. A doorman in his gold and black gatekeeping uniform was standing behind the glass and wrought iron doors out of the rain. Behind him, a young man with a slick haircut, gray suit, sitting in the foyer. I noted his posture and was sure to correct my own.

The driver handed me a business card. The name on it said Chef Matsuzaka. It had a phone number and a symbol I recognized as the same letter above Fishy Smell.

I went out and introduced myself. Right away, I knew this guy was not thrilled. I tried not to take it personally. It might not have been just me though. It might have been the whole week, a lot of different stuff I had no control over piling on. We got in. He kept his distance, as much distance as you can inside a moderately commodious limousine. After a few minutes, he sighed impatiently, breaking the silence.

“You are…Mr. Mastiff, I presume?”

“That’s right. You can call me Lou or Louie. Whatever you like.”

“An appropriate name for a bodyguard. Ordinarily I would be somewhat satisfied with this pairing, but I’m afraid your reputation precedes you.”

“Reputation?”

“Well you didn’t exactly excel in your previous assignment.” He brushed his hands over his suit pants, annoyed by some kind of blemish.

“I…had some…” I felt my hand reaching for my pockets, “I felt like…that was a doomed… kind of…thing.“

“Don’t stress, Mr. Mastiff. This is a dangerous industry. Mercury poisoning, immaculately honed blades, weapons-grade wasabi: in my world these are merely the hazards of the kitchen. Much like the succulent maitake mushroom grows from a primeval fungal substrate, the humble, elegant nigiri can only manifest out of the perilous sushi underworld. Might I guess…you did not quite realize what you’ve gotten yourself into?”

“I don’t usually.”

“I suppose that might have contributed to that fateful lapse in attention that as you say doomed our old friend Takuto. But things have changed. This will not be like your old job. You are with me and I am not Takuto. I don’t have a death wish. So now that you’re in it, I will explain to you what the situation is.”

“I just guard the bodies. That’s really the whole situation as it pertains to me. At least that’s what Alonso tells me.”

He paused for a moment. “That may be. That may be.” There was a long silence. The car continued its meandering through the streets, the rain incessant, the traffic getting lighter, the turns more frequent.

“You know,” he finally said, still staring out the at the dreary city, “I said before that I am not Takuto, that I don’t have a death wish. I take it back. I am Takuto. I am his double, his replacement. A new set of limbs, head, torso, and a complete set of testicles, all belonging to Boss Senju. That means my friend, you also belong to Boss Senju. Together we are nothing more than the corporeal stand-in for some gear as part of a relentless machine beneath the city.”

“That’s more like what I meant, yes.”

“And I take it back. I do have a death wish. Why else would I be in this business?”

“Okay.”

“How about you? Can I rely on you to also have a death wish?”

“A wish to die?”

“Yes.”

“Um. Yeah, I can get behind that.”

“Okay, great. We’re done with lesson one.”

“Sorry, can you give me a quick summary of lesson one?”

“The second lesson is this: Boss Senju, whom you’ve already met, is old. This may not come as a surprise, but trust me, when I say old, I mean old. Older than you might think. Mythologically old. But he’s fierce — he clings to life like a cornered scorpion. As life fades around him, as the walls close in, he is becoming increasingly hostile to his council. He senses the end is near. We are all within striking distance, so keep back and check the exits.”

“Got it.”

“Third.”

“Okay.”

“Third. The people who retired Takuto were as much your bosses as he was. If anyone is to retire me, you should not consider them your bosses. Got it?”

“So who is my boss?”

“Senju didn’t appreciate Takuto’s services any longer. He may have for a while, or else Takuto never would have lasted as long as he did. Nonetheless, there was a change in management, a change in authority. It remains to be seen whether he appreciates me. He doesn’t particularly like Americans, and he especially despises the east coast. Sushi is mostly a Pacific coast endeavor. That means, in Senju’s eyes, no one off the west coast will have the authority to speak on the country’s sushi affairs. I don’t really care. I’m a chef by training, not a politician. I don’t need more headaches. The west coast is overwhelming. The fish boats…don’t even get me started. Real pirate-types. Seven fingers total and can still bulls-eye a sardine with a gutting knife from thirty yards out. I’m fine with that kind of look in the kitchen but on a boat, out in the open waters, it’s a totally different story.”

“I can’t really swim, in case that’s part of the job. Alonso already knows.”

“He’ll leave us alone, if we keep out of his way, is what I’m saying. So just stay back, keep your eyes on the exits. Okay?”

“Of course.”

“I’m sorry,” said Matsuzaka, breathing a little heavier. “I’m just a little nervous.”

“You don’t have to be, Mr. Matsuzaka. I’ve learned a lot from my weeks on this job, and I have a great record from earlier in my career.”

He eyed me again, squinting a little, like he could smell the odor of the lie that had just came out of my mouth. Truth is, my career hadn’t been going quite as planned. Aside from the botched A traditional chain of promotion doesn’t usually go from cop to P.I. to bodyguard. At this rate I’ll be a parking lot security guard in six months. Also having let my previous Body get street surgery didn’t give me much of a negotiating stance.

“Tonight’s dinner is very important. It only happens twice a year. All twelve regional bosses and Boss Senju will be present. Senju will make a speech. It remains to be seen how the bosses will react. Since I’m new to the group, I haven’t been involved in their private discussions and strategizings. I’m going to have to think on my toes. It also just so happens that, unknown to most of the world, there is a cosmological aberration taking place this evening that has already caused the sun to set fifteen minutes earlier than usual, and may cause other distressing changes to the environment. That’s not something you need to worry about. Just thought you might be interested.

I wasn’t quite sure if he posed that last thing he said as a question, so I kept to my training and stiffened my chin. Luckily, just then the car pulled over and the driver unlocked the doors.

Matsuzaka turned toward me and said, “Okay, let’s get out of there alive!”

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sage-nebula · 7 years ago

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If you don't mind me asking, do you you usually do research when writing fanfiction for something and how much do you usually do?

I’m sorry it has taken me so long to answer this! I’ve been swept up in other things.

The amount of research I do depends on a number of factors: The fandom I’m writing for, the exact piece of fanfiction I’m writing, et cetera.

For instance, when it comes to my Yu-Gi-Oh! fics, I put a ridiculous amount of research into them. Not only do I want to make sure that most of what I write is time period appropriate (YGO takes place in the mid-to-late ‘90s, so although their technology is far advanced for that time period in many different areas due to Takahashi’s laziness plot necessity, I like to tie my stories to the time period to make them feel realistic when possible), but I also want to make sure that what I’m writing is accurate to the setting, which is Japan. I’m American, and as an American who was born and raised here, I tend to think of things through an American lens first. But when I’m writing Japanese characters who live in Japan, their experiences are not going to be the same as mine. Their school system is different, their holidays are different, their criminal justice system is different. To write all of that from an American perspective … well, maybe many American readers wouldn’t bat an eye, but it wouldn’t be very true to the characters.

So when I write my YGO fics, I tend to put quite a bit of research into them. Whispers in the Dark, which I consider to be my magnum opus, had a ridiculous amount of research put into it. I usually put these details in the notes at the start of each chapter, but I not only did things like look up currency conversion rates for the exact month and year that the story was taking place in (because of course I think of prices in USD first, but they use JPY, so I need to reflect that), or listen to a lot of Japanese rock bands that were active and somewhat popular in the late ‘90s (and particularly 1996) to figure out which one Jounouchi would like enough to wear a band t-shirt of in chapter fourteen (Siam Shade is a real life band that was active in that time period whose discography I’m 100% confident he would love, so yes, that logo on his t-shirt was mentioned for a reason), but I also spent weeks researching the Japanese criminal justice system (and particularly arrest and interrogation procedures in Japan) to make sure that I portrayed it as accurately as possible when Jounouchi was arrested and interrogated in chapter thirteen. I not only read through academic journals and articles on the subject, but I also read informally published articles written by lawyers and attorneys, as well as first-person accounts from people who had been arrested in Japan and went through the interrogation process themselves (multiple first-person accounts, at that). That’s not to say that my depiction was still 100% accurate, because again, I’ve never been arrested in Japan myself (and hopefully that doesn’t happen; since my good friend Yume is the one who is providing the opportunity for me to go to Japan myself in August, I’m counting on her to keep me from doing anything that would get me arrested while I’m there). But I read literally every piece of credible information I could find to portray the experience as realistically as possible. Of course it’s fiction (and fanfiction at that) so it doesn’t have to be completely cut and dry accurate, but I wanted it to be as real as possible, while still being interesting.

So when it comes to my YGO fics, I put in a lot of research, because there is a lot about Japanese culture and life in Japan that I just don’t know off-hand, and since YGO takes place in real life Japan (albeit back in the late ‘90s, and with a modern fantasy twist), I want to make sure I put in due diligence to make it as accurate as possible.

With that said, that’s YGO. Pokémon is a little different. Pokémon is a modern fantasy series as well, but it places much heavier emphasis on the fantasy aspect than YGO does. YGO is a modern fantasy in the sense that it takes place in our world with a dash of magic. Pokémon is a modern fantasy in the sense that it has a lot of modernized (and in some cases futuristic!) technology, but it takes place in a world separate from our own. There is some overlap, there are a lot of similarities; the primary regions are all based on real life places (four of them on Japan, two of them on American states, and one of them on France), they do have real life animals in addition to pokémon, some of the technology is the same, and so on and so forth. But nonetheless, the regions are still very clearly meant to be their own countries. Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh are all very clearly based on Japan, but they’re not Japan. They’re Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh. They’re all independent regions, with their own governments, their own cultures, their own laws, rather than being united under one federal government. Unova is based on New York, but it’s not New York, just as Alola is based on Hawaii, but it’s not Hawaii, and so on and so forth. Yes, of course the inspiration is there, we can pull things from these real life areas and incorporate them into the cultures, but at the end of the day, nothing that happens in the Pokémon world would happen in these real life places, and the cultures themselves are markedly different in many ways (not the least of which being that there seems to be one common language across all of the regions, regardless of the fact that our real life languages do exist there as well—and there really has to be, because otherwise there’s no way an eleven-year-old child could move from Kanto to Alola and not encounter a single language barrier. A lingua franca has to exist, and that’s just not something we have in real life—or at least, not to the extent they do).

I say all of this because this means that I have to put in considerably less research when writing my Pokémon fics. There’s no set year in which the Pokémon stories take place, because time barely seems to work in that universe (particularly with regards to the anime). It’s an entirely separate world from ours, so even if I tried to research the real world to incorporate things into my fics, there’s not a whole lot of research I can do because that’s a fictional universe. Instead of reading up on a criminal justice system, I instead get to look at what little information we’re provided in canon, and then create based on that. My YGO fics require a lot of research; my Pokémon fics require a lot of creation. I can still research some things (To Devour the Sun will require more research into alchemy, although the alchemy I’m featuring in that story is more along the lines of magical alchemy, a la Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, so even then the research is more into the philosophical side of alchemy rather than the hard scientific side), and of course it’s always neat to incorporate some real world details in there, but a fantasy world means that you have a lot more freedom to just create. Pokémon fics don’t require as much research as YGO ones do.

And you can get the idea from there. To be fair, even with my YGO fics sometimes I can just have fun. If I’m just writing a small, fluffy scene between Yuugi and Jounouchi, that’s not going to require research. But part of the reason why Legacy has been on such a hold is because I need to do a lot of research into geography in order to place the temples in our real world, and I have a real block on that, which is making things hard. I’ll figure it out, but … yeah, it’ll take a lot of time. Sometimes, research can really hold things up.

But that said, I do think it’s important. Particularly if you ever want to write original fiction, you need to know what you’re talking about. Even if you’re writing fiction, if you reference something in the real world (like, say, CPR), you need to show a base knowledge of how that works, or else your readers—at least, those who know better—will notice, and it’ll pull them out of the story. You never want to be known as the person who takes “artistic license” with everything. Rather, I’d much rather take pride in having “Shown Their Work” on my future TV Tropes page once I’m a published author of original fiction. That’s the dream. Research may be hard, but depending on what you write, I find it to be very, very important.

At least, that’s my take on it.

#decadeoldtiger #yeah i am that person who spent something like 6 hours listening to different '90s Japanese rock bands #just so i could have one line about a logo on Jounouchi's t-shirt #i did that. i was that intense #i don't regret it

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whosdavidphillips · 7 years ago

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My Trip to Iraq

2016-May-18

A blog about my travel to Iraq - Written by David Phillips

The journey to;

I flew from Winnipeg to Toronto at 10:45am on Wednesday May 18th, 2016. This is such a great time of the day to fly. You don’t need to wake up early, the airport is never too busy, and I had time to spend with the family in the morning, helping get the kids fed, dressed and ready for daycare. I hugged everyone extra hard. While I was sure I would be safe on my journey and return home in one piece, certainly the risks were higher than an average work trip or day in the field. I looked deep into Chantelle’s eyes. “I love you” I said, “I’ll come home to you, don’t worry”. With that they were off to daycare and work and I rushed back inside the house to get ready. I chose to travel with back packs. A day pack that was crammed with everything I'd need for an overseas flight and a 70L hiking pack, filled to the brim with rolled up shirts. Enough for 11 days. I hopped in a cab and headed to the airport nice and early. Avoiding as much stress on this part of my journey as I could.

The flight to Toronto was uneventful. I chatted with the person beside me who had his cottage roof go up in flames over the weekend. Not from the recent wildfires that were running rampant in Southeast Manitoba and Northwest Ontario, but from a few young, drunk neighbors shooting fireworks off at 1:00 in the morning. None of that seemed to matter. I wanted to be polite, but I didn't care, I was focused on the trip ahead. I was starting to wonder if I'd made the stupidest decision of my life. Feeling like I should maybe back out. Could I back out? I felt like I had no choice at this point. On an airplane, paid for by my company, about to board an intercontinental flight. I was stuck.

In Toronto I picked up my bag and waited for Rene. This gave me a chance to move some items around. Things I realized I didn’t need to take on the plane, and things I had in my checked luggage that I suddenly thought I might want. Rene arrived. He had far less equipment then I thought he would have. But everything was there, all the test instruments and hand tools we needed to test the Bio-safety cabinets. We line up to check in. No automated service with Austrian Air, in Toronto, we had to wait in this huge line. Finally we see the attendant for check in.

“Mr Phillips, you are traveling with Mr. Soetens?”

'Yes”, I reply, “I believe we are sitting together”?

“No, I'm sorry, there's a problem with your seats” the attendant says. I’m worried. What could that mean? Would one of us have to stay back? Would I have to navigate Vienna airport by myself? Rene knows some dutch which I was counting on for getting around.

“You’ve both been upgraded to business class”....

I couldn't keep the smile from jumping off the sides of my face. My dad has flown enough overseas for me to know, this is the only way to go! Priority lines and first class service all the way to Vienna.

We board first, priority service. The seats are amazing. A full cockpit with tables and lamps, plug ins of every kind. The seat is customizable in many ways, lumbar support, head support, full recline, and of course, full recline into a wonderfully comfortable bed. We’re offered a hot cloth and champagne as the rest of the plane boards. People scoff as they get on the plane. So many people. It was a huge plane. I don’t know what type it is. Huge. And Full. While everyone gets seated and the safety movie is showing, a chef, an actual chef, with the white fluffy hat and apron comes to take a few orders. First supper, atlantic salmon with all the trimmings and to compliment, I order a nice glass of white wine. He also takes our breakfast order, the menu is full of options. Eggs bendict, whole wheat pancakes, fruit, yogurts, eggs done any way you want, it goes on and on. I make my order and sit back to relax. It’s late for my body clock, but there are so many good movies to watch! I’m almost too excited to sleep! I finally convert my chair into a full bed and nod off. It feels like I just closed my eyes when I get a gentle rub on my shoulder. “Sir, it’s breakfast time, we’ll be landing in one hour” the attendant tells me. I sit my chair up and breakfast arrives, hot and fresh. This is the life….

We land in Vienna and navigate to the nearest washroom to freshen up. Funny how something as simple as a washroom, is so much different in another country. All the “things” are there, sink, toilet, mirror, ect, but everything is different! I got a good tip from my folks who fly internationally often. Change of socks and underwear, and all the toiletries to freshen up. I meet back up with Rene and I manage to make our way through the dutch signage to our gate for our Erbil flight. Plenty of time to spare. I Look around the boarding area. “So who else is crazy enough to go to Iraq” I wonder? There are several very well dressed business men. Nationals I assume. Several women with small children and babies. Families. All in all, no one looked crazy. The flight is half full. Erbil Iraq is part of the Kurdistan region and we have been informed that it is much more secure and stable than the rest of Iraq. It’s a fairly normal flight, although long, and we are in coach, which takes a bit of adjustment after the flight we had previously been on. We land in Erbil and pick up our bags; for some reason have to put them through a scanner on the way out! Our equipment sets off all kinds of red flags, as usual. The security guard asks “what's in the black case”. It’s one of those Pelican hard cases that’s waterproof and expensive. The kind that you know is holding something fancy. He wants it opened. We comply. He looks inside,

“what is this?” He asks in broken English.

Rene: “it's a photometer”.

Iraqi security guard, “yes, a photometer”.... He looked like he was embarrassed, as if he should have known that. Without further ado he clears the box and we’re off. We meet our security rep who greets and briefs us on a the security situation in Erbil. The trip is planned out very carefully by our hosts from the US. A certain level of security is provided at each location as soon as we enter Iraq.

“Erbil has very very good security” he says in his Iraqi accent, “safe here”. We start driving toward our hotel. The 5-star Divan, Erbil. As we are driving, we notice walls everywhere. Every community is gated and surrounded by walls. Some are sheet metal, some are stone, brick, concrete. There are a lot of buildings in the middle of construction. Cranes hang idle over tall cement structures. The skeletons of the buildings.

“There’s lots of construction here” Rene comments.

“Yes, last year we are building many buildings,” our local national security rep says “this year is stopped. No money. This year is not good year for Kurdistan. We cross our fingers and hope that next year will be better”.

We arrive at the front of our hotel entrance. It's gorgeous from the outside. Beautiful stone, gold trim, fountains, very luxurious looking. But as everything else is, it is surrounded by thick, tall concrete walls. We drive up to the front entrance of the gate. There’s a security shack and many guards. There's a heavy steel wall that comes up from the ground about 3 feet. The wall is above the bumper of our SUV, it’s clearly designed to stop anyone from forcefully driving in, I’d bet it would even stop a tank. The security rep knows the guards. We pull up, “Salam” he says. He speaks to them briefly and we are let through. The metal knee wall is lowered into the ground and we start to drive toward the front doors. Down from the entrance gate is a guard, hiding in bushes, watching us come in. He has a large assault rifle, in hand, ready to be used. He watches us carefully as we pass. As we pull up, vallets help us out and take our luggage. Metal detectors at the front entrance give us a second assurance of security. We check in and view our rooms. They are beautiful. If you ever find yourself in Erbil, I recommend the Divan hotel! We eat at the buffet, $50 American dollars each, but it’s well worth it. We eat and sleep well that night. Heading to Baghdad the next morning. Rene and I make a plan to meet around 10:00 local time. 10:05 rolls around so I knock on his door, he’s still sleeping! 13 hours worth of sleeping for him and he’s caught up and ready to roll!!!

Arrival in Baghdad;

The plane from Erbil to Baghdad is only an hour. It's an older plane, no features, just a tray in the seat back. We were given the exit aisle row because “we’re taller”, the booking agent said. The plane was barely half full, I start to wonder… Is it only crazies on this plane? Everyone looks at you with shifty eyes. “Because we are Canadian”? Or because they are wondering just how crazy we are?! Two white guys, one old, one young, heading to Baghdad Iraq. On the plane I review for a third or fourth time the BIAP (Baghdad International Airport) entry document prepared by Garda World . This extremely thorough document describing exactly the process for airport entry off the plane, through immigration and finally through customs. It has photos of the people who will meet us in the airport. The pilot announces that we are starting the decent. We are high in the sky still and start to go into a controlled downward spiral. I start looking out the window, as if I would be able to spot incoming small arms fire, something that has been a problem in the recent past. The Iraqi security force is able to keep a small area surrounding the airport secure, so the idea is the plane flies in at or near cruising altitude, gets inside that small bubble and then spirals downward within the bubble to land. It’s a bit rough, you get a bit disoriented. Looking around, it looks like it was just us who were feeling off, everyone else seemed to be used to this kind of decent. We drop into the airport, hot and heavy. The plane parks on the taxiway and a bus comes out to pick us up. It's crammed. Standing room only. We arrive at the arrivals terminal and debark. As soon as we walk in the door, I see one of the Garda world BIAP workers is there, holding a sign with our name on it. He greets us, in English and leads us to the appropriate immigration line. He explains, “we will go through this line, present our visas and he will meet us on the other side”. When it's our turn, we present our passports. The officer glances through the pages to see where else we’ve been. Mine’s mostly empty, Rene’s is mostly full! They look at both of our visas long and hard. The officer takes my passport into a side office. He's there for a while. I’m nervous and disorented. Is this really happening? I am really trying to get into Baghdad? Finally he comes back, stamps the passport and we are on our way. We meet up with staff from the ministry of Agriculture. They are they to assist in explaining our equipment to customs. We line up and scan the bags and boxes. As usual, the aerosol generator and air compressor box and the photometer box bring the scanning line to a halt. “Sir, open this” one of the customs agents say. “What is this”? He asks.

Rene comments “this is a test instrument”.

“Test instrument?”, the Iraqi agent mumbles to himself, “ok”.

And with that, we were sent on our way! Easy. Rene commented to me that, it was the easiest customs entry he has ever had. It's harder to get out of the Toronto airport flying regionally then it was for us to enter Baghdad Iraq. Our BIAP hosts leads us to a special pick up spot. Most people are not allowed to drive up to the airport. They must take a bus to a “meeting area” outside of the final and most secure BIAP check points. Our security team drives right up to us with a white Toyota Land Cruiser that has been modified to be a certified B6 armored vehicle. A guy with a strong Scottish accent gets out.

“Good day gents” he says right away. “I’m Paul, your expat team leader. If you want to give me your bags and hop into the back of the vehicle, I’ll give you a bit of a security briefing and we’ll be off”. It's hot, bright. The driver opens the doors for us, I immediately notice the two body armor vests on the floor between the seats. We jump in, the air conditioning is powerful! Paul explains right away, “I'm not going to make you wear the body armor gents, but if you’d like, or you feel uncomfortable, you can put it on at any time”. Holy shit, I’m thinking…… What the hell are we doing here…

“Okay gents, what we’re going to do is give you gents a bit of a briefing, then head out of here and go directly into the international zone, the IZ. We’ll take you gents on a bit of a tour of the IZ and then we’ll drop you off at Dojo’s where you’ll meet Sean, my operations manager and he’ll take you from there, okay gents?”. He’s done this before…..

Paul continues, “ Now, basic security briefing here gents. The road from the BIAP to the IZ is pretty safe now. There's quite a lot of checkpoints, you’ll need your passport on you and they may want to search the vehicle. Just listen to my instructions and follow what I say. There's a medical kit in the back and I am a certified field medic. If anything happens, get as low as you can in the car and we’ll drive drive drive. If something happens to this vehicle, either my chariot vehicle at the back or the alpha vehicle at the front will pull alongside. Listen to my instructions on which side to exit, stay low, one foot on the ground and next up into the vehicle ya, and we’ll drive drive drive. If I push this button (he motions to a special button near the dash) that will signal the GW operations room that we need help and they, will send a strike force to our location. Okay gents, any questions? Are ya ready to go?”. We nod, and with that we were off. I’ll admit, there’s a bit of grin on my face that I try to hide…. This is cool….. Really cool….. Who does this kind of stuff?!

On the way to the IZ, Paul explains the road from the BIAP to the IZ, called the Irish road, used to be the most dangerous road in the world. Snipers would set up along the road and shoot cars containing westerners on a regular basis. IEDs along the roadside were commonplace. He says, that's all changed now, now it might be the safest road in the world. We pass our first check stop. A considerable amount of soldiers are milling about, all carrying AK-47’s. There are three or four army hummers with urban camouflage paint and large guns mounted on the top at various positions around the check stop. Our driver, who is a local national, flashes his IZ pass and we get waved on. I notice as we are driving, there are elevated cement turrets all over along the road. Some manned, with guns on tripods sticking out, some empty. We pass a large armored personnel carrier with several guns of varying sizes sticking out from different positions. A large, real deal, army tank sits by the side of the road, poised and ready to blow something big to oblivion. Another check stop. More turrets. And again, another check stop. This time we pull into a bay and turn off the car. An IED sniffing dog makes a pass around our three vehicle convoy. We are cleared to go and head into the IZ. Things feel a little more relaxed in the IZ. It’s basically a large area, probably 20 or 30 square city blocks. It backs against the ancient Euphrates river and has 6 entry points by road. All entry points are highly guarded, typically with at least two different guard stations on the way in. Iraqi security guards as well as Iraqi special forces man multiple stations on the same entry point. They don’t trust each other’s security screening. Very large, thick concrete walls surround the entire IZ upto the river. We pass various palaces, they are beautiful. These are the palaces that Saddam built while he was still in power. He spared no expense. We pass the Iraqi Prime Minister's office, British and Australian embassies. We take a drive past the US embassy. It's massive. Would be at least 4 or 5 city blocks together. It took about 3 or 4 minutes to drive from one end of the embassy to the other. “It's the biggest embassy in the world gents” Paul tells us. There are regular looking buildings in the IZ too. Every building, palace, office is surrounded by yet another fence, sometimes sheet metal, sometimes chain link with barbed wire. We also pass a hospital, “that’s where we’ll take you if you need a doctor gents”, Paul tells us. “it’s a good one, where ever we are, we’ll try to make it back here if you need medical care. You’ll be safe there.” We drive on a bit more, not many people around. Some vehicles, stray dogs, but for the most part, it’s quiet in the IZ. “Alright gents, I’ll take ya to Dojo’s”, Paul says.

We arrive at this battered metal gate with several vehicles out front. I notice what looks like a small guard shack, there's a guard there with an Ak-47. Not slung over his shoulder, but in his hands, ready to use if needed. Sean comes out to greet us. He is the Garda World operations commander. He is the one who calls the shots with our security team. Another British bloke. He has a gentle but serious face. White hair. He's checks us in and shows us around. The dojo’s compound is really nice on the inside, you’d never know it looking at it from the street. Green grass and local vegetation in the front court yard. Several well furnished sitting areas. We pass a nice court yard with a sitting area outside. He shows us the restaurant, it's a few 4 x 4 posts with a 2 x 4 frame and a tin roof. Plexi glass walls. It has nice flooring and several wood tables. There are large air conditioners stationed all over the place. It's hot. Next we cross the road into the remainder of the Dojo's compound, It’s split on both sides of the road we came in on. We see the gym, it’s a typical military type gym, weights, a treadmill, chin up bar and a punching bag. We view the meeting room and finally the pool. The pool area is lovely, wooden and tile deck, 2 lounge chairs, large trees surrounding. Sean takes us back across to the other side and to our rooms. Inside our residence building there's a nice pool table and dartboard. I open my room. It's older, outdated carpet and an older looking twin bed. It's Iraq! This is a 4 star hotel (for real, check trip advisor)! We drop our luggage and the body armor we’ve been given to hold onto. Sean tells us, “let’s meet at half two in the front and I’ll give you a quick security briefing. We drop our bags and stretch a bit. There’s a sense of calm, of safety. Not many people are able to stay in the safe confines of the IZ, let alone at a hotel with an armed guard at the front. We head out to meet Sean. He gives us a general security briefing, detailing extraction procedures should we need to flee dojo’s for safer ground. The Garda World compound is literally a 2 minute drive, at normal speeds from Dojo's. Sean tells us to freshen up and head to the briefing room for 15:45.

The detailed brief we received was from someone called “the RAM”. Risk Assessment Manager. This person knows as much as there is to know about the area and the people. It is his job to review the latest developments and make appropriate recommendations regarding safety, and the risk of tracking to the proposed area. We get a history of Iraq, information about the different religious groups, namely the Shi’a and the Sunni, and we get a lot of details about the breach of the IZ compound which happened on April 30. I’d been reading so much about this breach. It was a really big deal. A “million man march” swarmed the IZ check point gates and forced their way in. Many of these people were related to the guards. What could they do? They certainly wouldn't be shooting family members. The breach caught everyone in the IZ off guard, no one had any idea it was about to take place. These protestors broke into the PMs office and parliament buildings. They were upset at the current government's inability to bring change and their efforts to keep the IZ and themselves safe while the rest of Baghdadian’s and Iraqi’s were dying in terrorist attacks. People literally wandered the IZ with a free pass. We would later hear from one of the semi-permanent residences of Dojo that they just suddenly noticed a large number of people walking past the Dojo’s entrance, with no idea what was going on! The breach and other similar demonstrations/ actions were mostly organized by Moqtada Sadr. The RAM mentioned at the end of this presentation the high unlikelihood of something like that happening again. He chuckled a bit, It was embarrassing to the Iraqi government, showed weakness. The government just wouldn’t allow it…..

18:15…. I’m mostly unpacked, snapping photos of myself wearing body armor and letting my family and friends know I arrived. There’s wifi and I have an international package on my phone, it has good reception. Iraq is on ATZ time, 9 hours ahead of Winnipeg. Someone knocks at the door. It's John, one of the Garda World team leaders, an equal to Paul who led us from the airport. He’s british as well! He has also knocked on Rene’s door, who’s right beside me, and Rene is in the hallway as well.

“Guys, I just want to let you know about a bit of a situation that is developing”, he says in his strong Scottish accent. “A few protesters are starting to gather at one of the check points. It's probably nothing, but if things get worse, we’ll extract you to the Garda world HQ. If you could, please pack a day bag with your personal items and have it ready”.

“A few protesters”, I comment to Rene and John, “that doesn’t sound too bad”.

“Well it's a few hundred”, John shares. But it's far less than it was last time, so we think things will be under control”. With that he's off and we get a few things packed up. About 15 minutes later, Sean arrives at our door to fill us in. He's told us the numbers have increased. Probably a thousand people. But they haven't breached the IZ yet. We are to continue to wait and see how things unfold. I let my wife know what's up via a text. I start to notice some banging noise. It sort of sounds like someone opening and closing the doors over and over again upstairs. I’m relaxed, but things are starting to get a little tense. I’m not going to overreact though. Another knock at the door. It's Rene. “Come outside a moment” he says. We exit the residence building and the noises become clear as day. “BOOM”. “Rat-tat-tat-tat”. “BOOM, BOOM”. It reminds me of a very active thunderstorm with someone shooting off fireworks at the same time. But it's not a thunder storm. It's explosions and the sound of automatic rifles shooting off. I can’t believe my ears. I sit down in the courtyard and listen. It continues with intensity. Non stop explosions (I assumed grenades) and automatic weapons. I call Chantelle. She's panicky before I even say anything. “I called your parents” she says “I could hardly tell them what was happening”.

“See if you can hear this love,” I say and hold the phone up into the air. I hold it there for about 10 seconds as the explosions and guns fire continue. As I am doing this, a semi distressed looking Sean, the ops commander, comes bursting around the corning. “Okay boys, we’re gonna go, get your things, grab your body armor.”

I’m sitting outside still. Up until that moment, I had continued to feel fairly relaxed, that quickly ended. “I gotta go babe, we’re gonna go”. She already knew what that meant. We were being extracted to the ultra secure Garda world compound.

“Okay babe be safe” she says “I love you”.

I frantically grab my body armor and bag, already packed up with everything, and Rene and I quickly make our way to the armored car already running and waiting for us, doors open. We hop in and go. I can’t remember if there was any conversation in the car. I kept looking for signs of the action. We arrive at Garda in what feels like seconds. “Okay boys, follow me” Sean says. We head passed several of the toughest looking guys I’ve ever seen. Some with rifles, some with handguns on their hips. We are taken to the GW operations command room and are seated very comfortably in front of a TV.. Cricket is playing. Rene and I look at each other and laugh a bit. “Hell of a first day” the Ops Commander says. We’re joined by a couple of British fellows who are also there working and under the protection of Garda World. We chat and talk about cricket, eat some supper and watch more TV. Things seem to be calming down outside. The Ops Commander brings out a bottle of gin.

“At times like this, I think a gin and tonic is in order” he says. One of the Brits pours everyone a stiff Gin and tonic. It's nice. Takes the edge off the situation. We are constantly trying to find out whether the IZ had been breached. I’m searching Twitter and Iraqi news. Twitter is full of photos of protectors inside the IZ but with no real way of knowing whether they were current. Around 22:00 we return to dojo’s. “No movements tomorrow guys” Sean says “there's a city wide curfew in effect and the IZ has been completely locked down and sealed”. We’ll reassess tomorrow for movements on Sunday. It's Friday today. That's significant. Friday is the start of the Muslim weekend. They gather for special prayers and often afterwards congregate in public areas. The specific one of interest is Tahrir square, near check point 1 of the IZ. Protestors are easily able to cross a bridge from there and head towards the IZ. Rene and I make a plan to meet for breakfast and call it a night. That's day one in Baghdad.

Day two is spent relaxing, there's nothing else we can do. We are not allowed to travel outside the IZ for work and we are not allowed to leave Dojo’s compound. We hit the pool late morning. It's wonderful. Hot whether +38C, cool water. Rene and I read and chat for a few hours. We head in for lunch and do it all over again in the afternoon. When we’re not at the pool, i’m catching up on work. Rene's watching TV. Sean arrives at some point in the early evening and tells us we will be allowed to go to the CVL (central veterinary lab) tomorrow. This is good news. We prepare our equipment. The CVL houses the majority of our work. I take some time to review the GW reconnaissance info package. GW will not travel anywhere without first sending a reconnaissance team to get a lay of the land and an assessment of both the security measures in place, and the ability of the facility to defend itself. Each night, I had been setting my alarm at 3:00 AM to wake up and video call the kids before they went off to daycare. Rene and I hit the hay in good time. Pick up is at 08:30.

Day three. We load the armored Toyota Land Cruiser with our equipment, and the security team helps us into our body armor. I was a bit surprised that we were going to be wearing body armor while traveling, but maybe I shouldn’t have been. John takes us out on this trip, he's the ex pat and security detail leader. We have three vehicles. An alpha vehicle in the front, us in the middle and the chariot vehicle bringing up the rear. They are all B60 armor Toyota Land Cruisers. We get another briefing. He talks about the potential for another protest to start today. We will only allow 4 hours at this site. We need to be back at Dojo's should any protests start later in the day. We start driving, John explains to us the traffic rules… “There are no rules”, he says. “Everyone does what they want and drives where they want. There is one working traffic light in Baghdad.” I watch as the alpha vehicle skillfully pulls into traffic. He takes command of the road, he angles himself so as to block the flow for us and the chariot vehicle to enter. It's incredible to see. Cars everywhere, no order, no rules. People squeeze 4 cars into 3 painted lanes. Somehow though, we navigate through unscathed. At one point a large van tries to cut us off, I watch John shoot the driver the meanest, dirtiest look I have ever seen. If looks could kill, this car would have exploded. The driver of the van stops and signals us in, as if he had a choice. People stare at us as we drive. I’m sure we draw all kinds of attention. Not sure that's a good thing. I ask John what the locals drive. “Do those who can afford an armor car buy them”?

“No he says, it's actually illegal for nationals to own armored vehicles”.

That seems off. These people, if they had the means to afford it, still couldn't get safe vehicles to travel in? I'm starting to see the bigger picture here. That cause for the protests. They aren't allowed in the ultra safe IZ, they aren't allowed to own armored cars. They have to shop at markets and use cafes which carry the highest risks of bombings.

We arrive at the CVL and are greeted by the director, Basem. He is very happy to have us. He insists on us going into his office. I’ll later learn that this is common and is a sign of mutual respect, an office meeting prior to any work. It's large and very nice, couches and chairs run along each side leading up toward his desk. He offers coffee, tea and cookies. Something I read before coming to Iraq was that you must never refuse an offer outright. Iraqis are very generous people and it would be rude to do so. “You come to my house for dinner tonight” he says.

“Well we’ll see how the day goes, our security team will only let us out for 4 hours today” Rene says. In fact we should get working soon”. The power cuts out. This happens all the time in Iraq. The power grids can't handle the load. Only the IZ is safe from the rolling power outages. No one panics, it's normal! It comes back on about 15 seconds later. With that, we get started. No less than 15 lab staff join us to watch. People are taking pictures of everything we do. I write in my notebook “Scanlaf Mars 1200”, the name of the bio cabinet we are testing. Someone pops in and takes a picture of that! This continues throughout. We continue testing, Rene talks about proper lab techniques and bio cabinet use. We start to push our time there. I can see John is starting to get worried. He’s pacing a bit and getting antsy.

“It's time to go” he sternly tells me in his Scottish accent. I frantically start packing up equipment, not sure what to expect outside of the secure lab compound. We rush. The director wants us to stay for lunch. “What kind of wine do you prefer Mr. David” he asks.

“Well, red I suppose, but Basem, our security force is telling us, we must go, we have to listen to them, they are the boss “. I tell our contact.

Rene and I get back into the body armor and load the vehicle. We get moving quickly. John points out groups of people starting to gather together. “This is the kind of thing we watch for” he says. We get back to Dojo's in good time and go for lunch. It's about 13:30 when we are back. After lunch we realize….. It's hot….. we better head to the pool! What choice do we have really?!!! No protests end up taking place. This is a good thing, it means we'll be allowed out the next day.

Day 4. We return to the CVL and get working right away. Taking the same drive twice in a row, you really start to take notice of the city along this route. There are many beautiful large homes, several large buildings. Ministry building we are told. We pass a market, it’s what you’d expect, things just scattered about everywhere. Old parts salvaged from cars and trucks. A lot of places sell air conditioners. For the most part, the buildings we see are intact, not blown to bits with debris everywhere as you see on the news. But, it’s clear, the people are tired, distressed. Some people move frantically, as if their actions may help guard their life. Some people lazily swagger through the markets, as if they don’t have a worry about what might happen. This is life in Iraq for many. And for many, it’s a great city with many things to offer. The staff at the CVL seem like they are happy. They have a good job in a secure facility. There are men and women working side by side. Everyone is so friendly. One Iraqi lady takes a shine to me. She reminds me of the “large” jolly Nun in Sister Act, but a middle eastern version. At one point in the day she asks if I’m married, I think she’s trying to set me up with her daughter! I chuckle! She wants a picture of us! Rene and I work away hard and fast. Anything that can be done off site is left, such as reporting. We want to maximize our time there and we work efficiently. We split up at one point with the equipment. Are we letting our guard down? We don’t think so. The facility is safe and there are a couple GW guards for each of us. Things go well, we do more than we were assigned to do. Everyone is happy. Basem has a gift for us before we go. A traditional Iraqi scarf. “when you’re fishing you put it on your back “ he says and shows us how to hold the scarf and wear it. He folds it corner to corner and drapes it over Rene’s shoulders like a cape.

“And when it's hot you put it on your head. Very good for keeping your warm in cold Canada.” He takes the “cape” off of Rene’s shoulders and drapes it in the same way over his head. One of the younger lab workers whom I hit it off with helps put my scarf on my head in the way you’d commonly see Middle Eastern headscarves worn wrapped around men’s heads. We’re honoured. We return to Dojo’s around 14:40 and head for lunch. “I guess we better hit the pool again Rene” I say.

Day 5 we travel to Al Nahrain medical college. It's located in a mostly Sha’i area of town. While the school is well protected, sha’i areas are very dangerous to be in. We pull up to security and are denied entry. We must wait for some director to come down and let us in. “maybe 5 to 10 minutes” the local national team rep says. Paul turns to us and says “that's half an hour in Iraqi terms”. We wait. And wait. We start to get nervous. We are sitting in a three vehicle, armored convoy on the side of a busy roadway. It's a hospital as well as school so cars are pulling up and dropping people off continually. We start to get really worried, any of these cars could have a UVIED (under vehicle improvised explosive device). Sitting in one place for too long can be very dangerous. Anyone driving by, or who sees us could call someone about “VIP’s in armored cars” on the side of the road. The phone rings for the ops commander, Paul. Just at the same moment, local national team leader, who is our representative to the Iraqis comes to the door of our SUV. The escort is here. We are good to go, we can enter. Thank goodness. We find out a day later that the phone call was the operations Center telling us to get the hell out of there. They track all the vehicles with gps while we are away and they had seen that we were just sitting on the side of the road for too long. They wanted us to evacuate the area immediately. I'm glad we gained entry to the college though. We go through and test the equipment there, total failures. Nothing is working right. We tour the campus, it's beautiful. Life is present. Young adults are everywhere. Kids with stethoscopes, people in lab jackets. Baghdad is not in ruins, it's alive and thriving. At least in this location. We drive home and get lunch. At this point, we are on a roll, it's +44C, time to hit the pool :)

Day 6, if things go well, our last day of work. We travel to the holy city of Karbala. Driving on the highway seemed a bit risky. There are cars and large trucks everywhere. But we sail safely through and into the medical labs. The landscape was beautiful. Sort of a desert tundra. No areas of just sand, the way this area is portrayed on “Three Kings”. There are palm trees and small shrubs everywhere. Lots of people on the side of the road, cleaning and selling Carp. Kids, ahead of every check stop, selling water. At one point we see a small shack/ booth set up on the side of the road with raw meat carcases hanging up for sale. Just sitting there, in the heat of the sun…. We easily gain entry to the hospital. It’s a secure site but it is also a public hospital. We go in through the back entrance and park. We have to head through a very busy lab area. Women in full black and brown Burka’s everywhere. We squeeze through un-scathed. The unit we test there is damaged beyond repair. The staff has used a propane burner inside for sterilizing their inoculation loops, a big no no in a bio cabinet. They have melted the airflow probe, something critical for operation. I do everything I can, but I can‘t pass the unit or even get it working. We pack up and start to head home. We are called into the hospital director's office. Again, we don’t have too much of a choice, we must go. We are served chia, a traditional Iraqi sweet tea. They talk about touring us around Karbala, to some of the Holy sites. We’d love to see this while we were there, but our security team immediately declines on our behalf. They want us to go to another hospital to check another unit. We want to. After all, we are there to help. While we have charged a good amount for this trip, we are there to help, not make money. Our team again, declines. Maybe they are right. Would someone be there to kidnap us? Who knows. Probably not, but best be safe. My neck is killing me. 4 hours of driving wearing body armor will do that to you! On our drive home, we are quiet, looking at the sites of the roadway. Suddenly we hear a very loud BANG. I jump, Rene jumps, the vehicles swerves slightly and we look out the windshield to see whats happening. Our ex pat security lead didn’t jump, he grabbed his rifle and is ready to use it. The driver too, driving with one hand on the wheel and one hand on his rifle which still sits between the center console and his seat. We all look out the window trying to asses what’s happened… The truck driving beside us has blown a tire. The ex pat leader puts his gun down. “That’ll wake you up gents, nothing to worry about”. I’m done…. I’m tired, exhausted. In Iraq, you must always be alert. Always on. You must be watching, listening, thinking at all times, even sleeping is only half relaxing. It’s time to get out of Baghdad. This is the one and only day, I don’t hit the pool. Rene goes. But there is too much work for me to do. Either way, I am happy, we depart Baghdad tomorrow. We get the last two tickets on the plane.

Leaving Baghdad;

We have an early pick up. 06:15. Body armor, 3 cars again. Heavy security check points. We see humvees and tanks everywhere. Soldiers and sandbags, turrets outfitted with guns on tripods. Very heavily armed. Things are at a high alert level after the second breach of the IZ while we were there. At one point we have to leave the vehicles. The doors are left open, trunk and hood are opened also. Dogs come around to check for explosives. We get back in. At the next checkpoint we have to take our bags to an x ray scanner. They go through and we get back in the car. The airport is still a 10 minute drive away but they want to stop anyone dangerous from getting even close to the BIAP. It's smooth sailing after this. We chose to use the vip terminal which has really comfortable seats and breakfast. They take our luggage and put it through. They escort us to the gate and we get to bypass the lines. VIP’s!! It's nice. We board and land in Erbil again, about 60 minutes later. We have a long 5 hour layover. There one shop to sit at. After security, there is again just one cafe to sit down at. The time goes slowly. Finally we board the plane and head for Vienna. 4 hours. Once we arrive we drop our carry on luggage at the airport hotel and Rene and I head to downtown Vienna. We wander the downtown area looking at old buildings. It's wonderful. We are relaxed. We can let our guard down a bit. We have schnitzel and beers outdoors. It's so peaceful and safe in public. While we never felt unsafe in Iraq, there is certain calm about being back in normal civilization. We take the second last train of the night back and hit the hay. The next morning breakfast is incredible. Anything you could want. We board the plane for Toronto. It's a 9 hour flight. We are at the very back of the plane. I guess you can't complain when you switch flights 24 hours before it departs. I'm just happy to get getting home. Period. And two days early at that. After Toronto, 2 and a half more flight hours and i’ll be home. I can’t wait to see the kids! I can wait to hold Chantelle.

What An experience. I almost miss it already. I think I might want to go back….

David Phillips

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