#Err try not to spread around my recordings too much

[takadanobaba]

Jin Norizuki’s Birthday PriZoom 7/18/2021

Oh the things I do for Jin Norizuki

That was SUCH an experience. I had a lot of fun!! 

Main takeaway is that I am now acutely aware of when to YO in a song

(Okay so this is my first time attending a prizoom (or even any kinpri screening outside of Luna’s sss rabbit sessions!) so this is all entirely new to me and I can’t really compare it to much, but I figured that it’d be good to write up a report of sorts to fill in for Luna in a way!)

The prizooms are also accessible to everyone and don’t require any Japanese info confirmation!! If you’re interested in attending please go and support kinpri!!!

(Note: I think about Jin wayyyy too much and interpret them as nonbinary, so I use they/them pronouns for Jin. It’s just automatic for me at this point and feels weird otherwise haha so I’ll be doing that in this)

Jin is my all time favorite character and love of my life who I’m extremely delusional about so when a prizoom was announced for their birthday I went INSANE because I didn’t expect Jin’s birthday to be acknowledged AT ALL given how they’re usually excluded/treated like a side character (+ kinpri’s been putting out little to no content lately anyways....haha....). I was waiting in anticipation ever since it was announced (around June 6th) and even put in a time-off request for my work the day of its announcement just so I could attend!!!! ........ You can imagine my frustration at kinpri waiting until the very last minute to put out details about Jin’s prizoom ^^;

💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 

Also!! I’m a complete ~ foreigner ~ and managed to get tickets perfectly fine with my American credit card (and putting in some very obviously Not-An-Actual-Resident-Of-Japan address info...)! So if anyone’s curious about attending a prizoom but worried about region-locking, it’s possible! Very possible! If you’re interested in it, please go! You don’t need to have a Japanese phone number/credit card/address/etc. to purchase PriZoom tickets on RakutenTicket! It’s such an experience! If you need any help buying tickets then I’d be more than happy to assist!! Please support the PriZoom screenings and help increase the demand for more kinpri content!!!!!!!!!!!! I will personally become a living prizoom advertisement

(Also if any kinpri staff find this: I’m sorry for not respecting rules this time but I just wanted to provide a detailed account of the prizoom event and encourage participation for other foreign fans! I won’t do this again!!!)

💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 

I only attended the first and third showings (consisting of the first movie and Over the Sunshine!) because I wanted to see the new/not currently archived content (the second/pride the hero showing’s bonus was just Jin’s birthday video by Joji which I already revisit little too much ahaha). I also went to the chat-only rooms because I wasn’t very confident that I wouldn’t be awkward with my nonexistent cheering experience and intent to just observe what its like (despite knowing that the cheering rooms are more fun based on what Luna said haha). That, and I was planning on using the EXTREMELY OBNOXIOUS soundboard of ABSOLUTE CHAOS for everything since I have issues with voice dysphoria and figured it’d be good to stick to the room with that normalized as the one and only cheering method so participating would be a little less annoying to others, since we’d all have the same idea ^^;

I’m more active on twitter and follow/am mutuals with pretty much anybody who likes Jin enough to post about them, so it was cool seeing almost everyone there! At least half of them tweeted about this being their first prizoom haha. Jin’s birthday was also promoted as a good introduction to prizooms since the first showing was set at a price point of 718 yen instead of the usual 1,760 yen? So, lots of first timers attending! I guess most people had the same thought process as me about the whole insecure-about-not-being-used-to-proper-cheering/using-their-mic thing? Because most of my twitter following ended up in the chat-only rooms with me! Fun!

Also interesting how most people chose the male voice option for the cheering soundboard feature since there’s actually only 2 men who love Jin like that (I’m included in that number!!) in the Jin-obsessed twitter circle. I guess it was because it sounds kinda Joji-ish? and therefore fitting for an event dedicated to Jin! What with them being meant for each other and all.... Plus being Joji is just a fun way to play off having issues about using your own voice (I... project onto Joji a lot.)

👆 👆 👆

Okay I actually typed up all of the above during the second showing (since I wasn’t occupied attending that one) and everyone had the same train of thought and was definitely being Joji. You know that one “song” in Over the Sunshine- Glorious Schwarz- consisting of Joji just going wild infodumping for 3.5 minutes? Yeah EVERYONE who selected the male voice option was spamming 「おれもー！」/ “ME TOO!!!” during that (including me!). So it was like:

“I weighed 4646 grams at birth! ☆” 

“MMMMEMEEMEMMT MEE ME MEEE EMME ME   ME TOO M M ME TOO”

SO OBNOXIOUS. I LOVE IT. EVERYONE SHARING THE SAME BRAINCELL. THE JOJI BRAINCELL.

💙

The highlight of the prizoom  (in my opinion) was when some guy repeatedly hit よっ！/ YO! to the music in the first movie, which then led to everyone having a collective ~ Realization ~ 

After that happened, everybody joined in and started YO!-ing along in the other lives. Beautiful.

(Blurred recording of Dramatic Love and Showcase Night just so YO!u can see what I mean.)

(I only did those two to test screen recording after failing to archive the first Jin bonus while using the soundboard feature in the first showing, initially I didn’t intend to record anything but the bonuses and will not be doing that anymore. If you attend, don’t be like me or worse!!!! Please!! I’ll delete these if needed/after a few weeks. Also just wanted to mention that Koi no Royal Straight Flush is up there in Kinpri’s Most YO!-able songs)

I love this soundboard feature. Sounds like hell. Prizooms are truely a new form of art because of it. Amazing how cheering screenings have evolved over a pandemic. Music feels empty to me without the YO!s now. After this I ended up listening to the entire kinpri discography so I could determine the YO!ability of each song. Not sure if every prizoom is like that? But I really want to go to more showings just for the community experience! I’m morbidly curious as to how many people would try to YO! to Platonic Sword. I considered going to Rei’s because they’re showing Shiny Rose Stars, but I probably won’t though since money and sleep are things (They really should make tickets no more than 1,000 yen.... they’re zoom meetings with audio problems....THE AUDIO ISSUES ARE FUN THOUGH! YOU CAN SPAM “GANBATTE” WITH EVERYONE!!) Plus while I do like every kinpri character, none of the street boys are really my favorites and going to every showing regardless of character would be a lot. I assumed that I was only going to try attending Joji’s until they announced that they were gonna do something for Jin!! So if you want to see what it’s like PLEASE get tickets and experience it for yourself!! It’s so much more fun participating !!!! Relying on 1-2 people to post event summaries isn’t exactly consistent coverage of every prizoom either!

\ よっ！/      \ よっ！/      \ よっ！/

So much of this is a community experience that you just have to see for yourself! It’s really cool seeing people go all out for their favorites and just going wild. Notable participants include:

- Two separate people just working out the entire time (one of them doing “Prism Exercise” meaning very high effort full-body cheering and dancing? It was really impressive seeing them go all-out for such a long time!)

- Two (2!) Ai cosplayers!!! One attending the prizoom with a Jin cosplayer!!

- The lady who cosplayed Jin in their cute green pre-retirement prism star outfit WITH A HUGE JIN PUPPET IN THE SAME STYLE AS THE SHUFFLE PUPPETS IN THE STAGEPLAY!!!

- That one person who just had a Minato fish head on the entire time (?!)

- A Victoria cosplayer who showed off a really nice!! drawing of Jin they did during the participant showcase at the end of the screenings

- The person with a REALLY CUTE!!!!! homemade Jin plushie!!

- Two people who attended with 3D/vtuber style models of the Go Go Glorious! (YMT29 subunit) members: Noel Tokyo and Mikado Shibuya (who also had a model of Ai!)

- A really cute Joji vtuber model!

💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 💙

The bonuses were Jin’s birthday video from 2016 and a birthday message of sorts from Jin!

I actually didn’t manage to properly archive the first one as intended because things went horribly wrong so I ended up with nothing but just a terrible (said affectionately) little recording of the soundboard I linked earlier. But whatever I shouldn’t be doing that anyways. Hopefully kinpri includes that and the other prizoom bonuses in something later.... the thought of any content being stuck as lost media terrifies me. I don’t have a good enough memory or a high enough Japanese proficiency level to type it out but it wasn’t particularly analyzable or anything (telling that to myself to make me feel better about losing it). Just the usual Jin being dramatic and going on an evil monologue. Jin being evil ASMR. I lovingly burned another one of Jin’s evil laughs into my mind too so there’s that.

For the 3rd showing bonus however I did not fail though it’s arguably the less interesting bonus of the two since it’s unvoiced. I really love Jin’s voice. Big sexy. Actual dialogue is pretty similar to each other from what I’ve gathered (ending with one of Jin’s cute little アーーーッハッハッハッ！！！！！’s (the text effect for the unvoiced bonus was an appreciated detail!). 

(I’m not very confident in my ability to provide a good translation so I’ll just not embarrass myself)

“ AAAaAAaHAHAAHAAa ~ ! ! ! ! ! ! ! “

💙

Yes Jin I’ll support you in the future-!!! ヾ(>▽ <、 )

I’ll never not be obsessed but it’d still be nice to have more substantial content to gush about and do that with.... Kinpri come back and release an anime continuation.... give me the Jin plot development....kinpri come back my happiness is a little too reliant on you

After the showings you get an email asking for feedback which is cool! I’ve been waiting to complain about how 法月 is written as Noriduki instead of Norizuki for the longest time but I never had a chance until now haha. Makes it so painful for me to buy Jin merch. Also begged for an anime continuation. I wonder how much they take into account feedback? I guess I’ll see when/if they start writing Jin’s name how it’s supposed to be.

ANYWAYS

IF YOU WANT TO GO TO A PRIZOOM, DO IT!

Prism shows really are best experienced with a community!!! If you like kinpri it’s a GREAT OPPORTUNITY to experience what a cheering screening is like with the Japanese fanbase from the comfort of your very own home which is most likely nowhere near Japan!! Everyone should experience prism shows!!!! I have no regrets and I’m still so hyped from the prism sparkle!!!

ANYBODY CAN ATTEND AND BUY TICKETS EVEN WITHOUT JAPANESE INFORMATION!!!

 \\   GLORIOUS SCHWARZ!   //

[f0xwrite]

@stricklakeetal

The first of the snippets from WIPs (as promised!) I haven't been able to write since my mom passed, so I'm not sure if or when I'll ever get any of these done, but I thought I'd share some unfinished ideas!

This one is still in a dialogue-heavy format. I’ve tried to fill in context in parenthesis. For context, in this story, most of the babies that were taken from the cradlestone are being cared for by goblins at the old Janus headquarters, all overseen by Walter, but some are housed at the Lake residence.

***

(Douxie is walking out of a record store, humming a soft tune, when his phone rings. He answers. )

“Mr. Casperian.” Strickler's gruff voice floated out from the receiver. “I hope you don’t mind, but I got your number from Jim.”

“Uh, yeah, no it’s fine.” The wizard scratched the back of his head, raising a brow. “Who is this?”

“I’m Jim’s--an ally of the Trollhunter’s. Waltolomew Stricklander. ”

“Ah, yes, Merlin mentioned you a few times.”

“Good, then you’ll recall that I am in possession of all of the familiars—err, human children—who were formerly housed within the Darklands.”

“Oh that’s right! You’re the one with Dr. Lake. How’s that going for you?”

“Er—well, that’s the thing. It’s—we’ve run into a bit of a conundrum.”

“Conundrum?”

“It would be best if you saw it in person. Do you know where Jim lives?”

“Yeah I do, actually." He scratched the back of his neck as he spoke. “What’s going on again?”

“Waaalt, it’s not just those two.”Douxie heard another voice through the receiver.

“I have to go,” Walter’s voice was grave, “Erm, the faster you can get here, the better. We need a wizard.”

“Right then, you got it.”

(Later, at the Lake residence Douxie opens the door and his jaw drops. There are babies flying everywhere, and magic spells being cast to and fro, bouncing off of every wall. In the middle of it all, a haggard Walter and Barbara are trying to reign in the chaos. Douxie inquires about the Trollhunters, who could be there in a moments notice with Claire’s shadow magic.)

“Claire, Jim, and Toby are on vacation with the Nunez’s in the mountains.” Barbara explained.

“Young Atlas needs a break. They all do,” the changeling admonished. “I know Claire could be in and out quickly, but it would be best if we didn’t interrupt them. ”

“What on earth is going on with these babies?!” Barbara yelped as she barely dodged a ball of light being thrown her way. A crash sounded from the kitchen, and with a resigned huff, she strode off to discover its source.

“They’ve been exposed to Morgana’s magic for too long,” Douxie explained. “Creatures like that, like changelings,” he gestured towards Walter, “are naturally more inclined towards magic.”

“How do we keep them under control?” Walter’s voice was desperate. “This house, and the entire Janus base will be destroyed!”

“I don’t know!” Douxie exclaimed, “I’m not used to dealing with magic users this young. I’ve never even seen it. They have no idea what they are doing.”

“You were Merlin’s protege,” Walter growled as he tried to grab two babies that had landed on his horns. “Figure it out!”

“Waaaahh!” NotEnrique screamed from another room.

“Fire! Fire! Baby on fire!” Barbara came running down the hallway towards Walter, who grabbed the child before the flames could spread up the little one’s arms to burn her.

The baby itself giggled as the flames danced around Walter’s clawed and heat-resistant fingertips, seemingly unharmed. He sighed as the charred diaper fell away.

“This is madness!” Douxie held out his arm, and in a flash of blue, put out the flame. Grimacing, he pulled his phone from his pocket, running through his list of contacts. “We need back-up!”

Diaper-less, a stream of yellow came bounding out from between the baby’s legs, promptly splashing Walter’s face.

“Ugh,” he blinked and sputtered as he tried to clear the urine away, “and here I thought Battle of Marengo was hard.”

“Buh, buh, buh--” the baby tried to imitate him as he held it at arms length.

“Hello, Zoe, lovelet, I have an address I just texted to you, can you, uh--” Douxie held the phone to his face , trying to grab a different baby's leg as it floated by, "--do you mind popping by? There's a bit of a situation."

“What situation?” came her voice from the other end

The child escaped the Wizard’s grasp, babbling gleefully while wearing a tricorne.

“Waltolomew Jr, get over here this instant!” Barbara went chasing after the baby with outstretched arms.

“It’s a bit hard to explain…” Douxie’s voice trailed off as three other babies crawled after the doctor, sparks flying out from behind their knees like toy race cars.

“It’s mutiny, I tell ya!” NotEnrique came scurrying into the room, body covered in roots and flowers. “they’ve been savin’ it all for the big day! Oi, Jazz Hands, you mind givin’ me some help here?”

“I’m a little busy at the moment.” Douxie said as he fiddled with the gauntlet. “C’mon, c’mon...” he grumbled to the mechanism. “Ah! There.”

Geometric shapes of light appeared along the floor, bursting out and upward in a cacophony of blue. The babies who were airborne dropped to the ground, and Douxie watched as Walter lunched to catch two or three with his wings.

A thud upstairs indicated that another baby had dropped, followed by a piercing wail.

“Hold this,” Barbara said, seeming to appear out of nowhere, and Douxie found himself with a sudden armful of Walt Jr. as the doctor bounded up the staircase, NotEnrique went scurrying up behind her, shedding petals and brambles in his wake.

“Ah, hello mate,” Douxie quirked a brow as he looked down to the child in his arms, “so you’re the chip off the old rock here.”

(Douxie tries to cast a few spells with some success. For a few moments, the chaos stops and all of the floating babies come back to the floor. Strickler filters back into the room.)

He heard Walter snort, and then yelp as the first baby lit itself on fire again. The children nestled in his wing began to cry at the sudden flash of light.

“I thought you put a stop to this.” Walter growled as he held the baby away again.

“There are limits to my powers,” Douxie asserted, “I’ve got the airborne babies under control, but the other one’s will take longer. “

The changeling grabbed a crystal from a pouch along his loincloth and held it to the baby’s chest, cradling the child in his arms while the others remained in his wing. He muttered something that sounded low and quick, like snapping coals, and extinguished the baby once more. Not seconds later, a different baby with bows in it’s hair shot a beam of frost towards Walter’s head, covering his hair and horns in snow. Uttering, he tried to shake it away.

“They all have different abilities,” Douxie remarked in wonder as he stepped closer to the changeling. “We have fire, frost, earth--” the lights flickered above them, “--electricity,” he added, “and who knows what else? Heaven help us if one of them is in tune with Shadowmancy.”

“Shadow magic I can deal with, to a degree,” Walter’s golden eyes fell on the boy, “I am a creature of shadow, after all. It’s the others I can’t handle.”

Douxie laughed, something wry and time-worn passing across his gaze. “You’re not made of shadow magic, pal.”

“Come again?” his wings tensed.

“You may have been exposed to it in the Darklands, but the creation of life...that requires light.”

Walter stared at him for a long moment, gaze flickering in the dim.

“Shadow magic is what Gunmar was using to create his mindless drones, you’re not that.” Douxie went on. “I may not be as all-knowing as Merlin, but I know that much.”

“Forgive me for having a hard time believing you.” A baby was pulling in his tusks. Gently, he patted it back down. “But I have known nothing else.”

“You’ll see one day,” Douxie offered pale and knowing smile. “I don’t doubt it.”

It was then that Barbara came back onto the scene, hair completely unraveled and soaked, toweling her face.

“Oh dear,” Walter quirked a brow.

“She’s in the bathtub, living it up.” Barbara sneered. “Imagine a baby with a super-soaker.” Water still dripped from her arms. “NotEnrique’s entertaining her for now. I had to change twice.”

The sound of a motorcycle entering the driveway caught their collective attention, and Barbara gave Walter a curious look.

“That’ll be Zoe,” Douxie explained as he headed for the door. The moment he opened it, the power went out, and with the sun setting, the house became shrouded with darkness.

“Fuzzbuckets,” the wizard moaned through the burbles and gurgles and wails.

(Zoe walks up, fascinated to know what the heck could be going on. There’s some light banter, then Douxie introduces them to Walter and Barbara, who are surrounded by babies.)

“Remember the Trollhunter?” Douxie gestured to the couple. “Well, these are his parents.”

Walter tensed, “Er, well, I’m not actually Jim’s--” his words trailed off when Barbara put an arm on his shoulder.

“It’s okay, honey.”

Looking between the two of them, Zoe cocked a brow. “Well, there’s a story." It was well known that changelings couldn’t reproduced and equally known that they didn’t pursue relationships with...well, anyone.

“One we don’t have time to unpack, I’m afraid.” Walter said, curling a wing into a makeshift hammock before adding three or four babies to it.

.......

(And that’s all I had! Obviously there would have been a resolution, and I remember planning to have Steve show up at some point, but I hope you enjoyed the concept! Forgive any typos. Will post more int he next couple of days)

[writing-is-my-guilty-pleasure]

Patient || Kylo Ren/Ben Solo x Reader ~ Part 4

A/N: Part 4! Thanks for everyone’s patience (lol) with this part - Uni has been incredibly time consuming and I’ve just been too tired to write anything - so I’m trying to write a few things in advance on my Christmas holiday! I think there should only be one or two more parts in this series, and feedback is always welcome :)

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 

Main Masterlist

Star Wars Masterlist

“What’s your reason?” Your eyes flickered up to meet Kylo’s after he spoke, trying to make sense of his question as your eyes unintentionally trailed over his face.

“My reason for what, Sir?” You eventually replied as you gave up trying to figure out what he was talking about. Why did he have to speak so cryptically? “You’re going to have to give me more than that – it could mean anything knowing you.” You smiled cheekily at him from your position at the end of his bed; this time he’d called you with a deep gash stretching up the side of his left leg. It looked incredibly painful, and you couldn’t comprehend how he was purposefully putting himself through this much pain just to see you – at least, that’s what you hoped he was doing, otherwise you were completely misreading this whole situation.

“You reason for joining the First Order.” Kylo spoke bluntly. “You’ve been fixing me up for months now, and yet I feel like we are still strangers to each other.” If you hadn’t just averted your gaze back to his leg, you might have noticed the corners of his lips twitch up into the slightest shadow of a smile – but it was gone as quickly as it came.

“Oh! Oh, right, of course.” You smiled. “Well, my father was the Chief Medical Officer when he was in the First Order, and on his breaks he’d always try and teach me as much as he could about medicine before my mother caught him teaching me things that were too gory or troubling for my ‘young eyes’.” You huffed out a laugh at the thought of your parents. “So I joined because I wanted to be a Doctor and to hopefully be the Chief Medical Officer myself one day – I love my father and I’d be proud to follow in his footsteps and be as half as successful as he was.”

“And I wouldn’t say we’re strangers – I mean I’m pretty familiar with your body by now.” Your eyes widened at the realisation of what you said, and you continued in slight panic. “Not like that! I didn’t mean it to sound like that at all, Sir, oh dear.” You sighed, deflated. “I look like such an idiot now.” You muttered under your breath, as you returned your efforts to applying some soothing balm to Kylo’s wound, and preparing the equipment you’d need to give him stitches.

“It’s alright.” Kylo peered down at his leg to try and see what you were doing. “I’m used to your tongue-tied manner of speaking by now.” You raised your eyebrows in surprise.

You let out a giggle at his attempt at a mild joke, and the rest of your visit was spent in friendly silence, dispersed with the occasional small talk.

 “Y/N!” You jerked upright in your seat, blinking rapidly as you came to your senses, the memory of one of your favourite interactions with Kylo fading from your mind. Yasmyn was staring at you in slight concern. “Are you alright? I’ve been trying to get your attention for a minute now.”

“Oh yes, sorry!” You sighed, running a hand through your hair distractedly. “I’m fine thanks, just a bit tired I guess.” You adjusted yourself on Yasmyn’s bed; the two of you were having your weekly girl’s night – or as girly as it could get aboard the ship.

“Something on your mind?” Yasmyn asked sympathetically as she finished braiding her long, dark hair. “Or someone?” She grinned at you, wiggling her eyebrows. “Maybe someone tall, dark and mysterious?”

“I wasn’t thinking about Kylo.” You chided firmly, trying not to let your blush be too visible. At least once every girl’s night the topic of Kylo Ren would be brought up, as Yasmyn was always eager to hear about what the you and Kylo had shared with each other, because ‘even though he’s practically the leader of our fleet, nobody knows anything about him, and the gossip on this ship is so dry, your relationship with Kylo is the only thing I have going right now’.

“I never said you were thinking about Kylo.” Yasmyn grinned triumphantly. “I only said you might be thinking about someone tall, dark and mysterious. I never said it was Kylo, Y/N. I never said-” She was cut off as you threw a pillow at her face in retaliation.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Another two months had gone by since Kylo’s incident with the ‘scavenger girl’ – although it was never too easy to tell the time in space, and you had gone from being someone relatively quiet and unknown except to those you worked with, to someone whose name was slowly being passed around the entire ship. This wasn’t your fault – you hated having more attention than was necessary – no, the only person you could blame for this sort of attention was none other than Kylo Ren.

Over these two months, he’d managed to amass a mysterious amounts of injuries – when you compared the sheer amount of times you’d been called in to the times he was off the ship or in training, you were finding it harder and harder to believe that Kylo wasn’t getting all these injuries on purpose. But try as you might, you couldn’t really complain about it, as every time that you were called to assist Kylo, the more you got to know him, and the more you opened up to him.

But the closer the two of you grew, the more the rumours started to spread around the ship; and they were very clearly not in your favour. Because the more you were sent to assist Kylo, the more your co-workers noticed, and the nosier they all got; every time you returned from a trip to Kylo’s room you were crowded with questions from those closer to you, and judgemental and resentful glances from everyone else.

By now, whether because of these rumours or not, you’d got a reputation for yourself, and had even been personally called by other high-ranking officers to personally assist them – if you were good enough for Kylo Ren, then you were good enough for them. And that was actually how you got yourself into the situation that you were currently in. You were currently attending a very important meeting regarding a mission that would put quite a lot of Stormtroopers at risk, so you had also brought various medical records and lists of all the medical equipment on-board the ship. You had also had to evaluate the percentages of how many soldiers would either die or be seriously injured, so the rest of the medical team could prepare the right amount of equipment.

When the meeting was originally arranged, it was supposed to be attended by the Chief Medical Officer, however he was needed elsewhere; he had an emergency surgery that he needed to attend, and he trusted you out of all the other medics to cover for him. Possibly because he knew Kylo…favoured you over everyone else.

“So,” General Hux spoke up, finally starting the meeting. “The attack on the rebel base will begin with at least a quarter of the soldiers on-board, as we currently only have a rough estimate of just how many rebel soldiers are hiding out in that base.” You nodded, typing out quick notes on your personal padd for later.

“We’ll most likely be sending about one third or our forces down to begin with – enough to scare the rebel forces and if needed we can send in reinforcements.” Hux moved tiny digital figures about on a screen, illustrating where each group of the forces would be positioned to attack the base. “The rest of the fleet will be on standby in case a new strategy is required and a temporary retreat is needed. I would hope that our forces aren’t pathetic enough for us to even consider retreating.” He turned abruptly, eyeing you haughtily. “Do we have sufficient medical supplies for the foreseeable casualties?”

You looked up nervously from your padd – you’d been making rough notes about this most recent plan so you could report back to your boss and he could begin to prepare everything.

“Yes, General Hux, I do believe that we have enough supplies.” You pulled yourself together, trying not to ‘um’ and ‘err’ your way through your sentence. “But of course, I will send all the necessary figures to my superior as I do not have full access to all our equipment, and in the case that there are any supplies we may be short on.” You added as an afterthought – if there was anything that needed to be ordered you didn’t want the responsibility to be solely yours. “One third of the forces was it? And the rest on standby…” You re-capped while scribbling down extra notes. “And my superior sends his most sincere apologies that he could not be here instead of me.”

“No matter.” General Hux waved away your apology indifferently. “As long as all information gets relayed I could not care less who is here in his stead.” And with that, he continued with explaining the various stages of the attack.

Then, just as you were retreating slightly back into the mass of officers crowded around the main screen, you heard someone speak under their breath; ‘Well, it won’t be long until she does have authority to all our medical supplies, considering she’s been sleeping her way to the top with Ren. And then who knows how irresponsibly she’d use our supplies.”

You stop where you stand, feeling a flush creep up your face, turning it bright red in embarrassment. You could see those nearest to you glancing in your direction with obvious distain and disapproval, as if they were imagining a future where you were in some ways their superior. You could hear whispers on every side, many of them agreeing with the nameless whisperer, and you finally opened your mouth to defend yourself, when-

“I hope you’re not insinuating that I, the descendant of Darth Vader, would be capable of behaving like a common whore on my ship.” Kylo’s cold, slightly robotic voice echoed loudly across the room, silencing everyone, including General Hux. Nobody dared to speak, and you stood frozen in a mix of fear and embarrassment. “Because that’s certainly what it sounded like, Lieutenant Kendell.” At this, a few people subtly turned their heads in the direction of the offending statement, and you turned to see a relatively weedy looking man visibly shrink away from Kylo.

“I- of course, no sir, I didn’t mean to offend you-” You watched him backtrack, stammering over his response as Kylo simply stood, watching him. “I-I simply wish to see our forces grow and thrive, and was only remarking that this medic would not be our best way of seeing this happen – I mean she may be far too inexperienced for such a role-”

“So you assume she is using me to gain status? Her family name far outranks yours in any case, Lieutenant, so such foolish thoughts are unnecessary.” Kylo interrupted, and the room seemed to grow darker. “You assumed that I would succumb to any such advances?” He took one single step towards the unfortunate Lieutenant. “You forget your place, Lieutenant. It would be wise not to do so again in the future. It would be unfortunate to lose a member of our staff because of such a foolish mistake.” With this threat hanging in the air, he turned, cape flowing dramatically behind him, to face Hux, who continued his speech.

As everyone began to settle down, you couldn’t help but let your mind wander as you replayed the conflict. You weren’t hurt by Kylo’s behaviour, more confused that he would go out of his way to seemingly defend your honour – you assumed he wouldn’t want people to know that the two of you were even relatively acquainted. You mulled over your thoughts, confusion fogging your mind as you absentmindedly followed suite and exited the room amidst the other officers, heading back to the med-wing.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Later that day, after you’d relayed all information back to your boss, and sent him the notes you’d made, you finally made the journey back to your room. Luckily, it was your day off tomorrow, so you could afford to have a nice, relaxing shower that would hopefully clear your mind of the stresses of the day.

Eventually, when you’d got out of the shower and put on less formal clothes, (not quite pyjamas – these were your own clothes so your evening consisted of leggings and an oversized shirt) you just so happened to check your padd for any messages from Yas, when you saw a message in your inbox that was unread. Upon checking it, your blood ran cold – it had been sent 8 minutes ago, and it was from Kylo himself. Not another officer messaging on his behalf, but from Kylo himself.

You sat bolt upright from where you had been reclining in bed, and double checked the message. It was from Kylo alright, and it had been sent-

“Eight minutes ago?!” You shrieked, hurriedly scrambling to your feet, shoving your feet in your usual uniformed shoes, pulling on a long cardigan and rushing out of your room. It took you longer than eight minutes to get to Kylo’s chambers, but it was a decent enough amount of delay from the time the message was sent to when you actually saw it, that Kylo would be sure to notice that you were eight minutes later than you should have been. He didn’t even set a time; he had simply requested your presence in his chamber, but the underlying message was that your presence was to be requested immediately.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

About fifteen minutes later, you skidded to a halt outside Kylo’s chambers, having run most of the way there. You frantically tried to catch your breath as you smoothed your hair, trying to appear as though you hadn’t spent the last fifteen minutes worrying that your lungs were going to explode. You introduced yourself to the guards outside Kylo’s room, and no sooner than you spoke the door slid open, one of the guards gesturing for you to go through.

“You’re late.” Kylo stated after the door had closed behind you. He was standing at his window, back to you, helmet off.

“My apologies, Sir.” You began, taking a few cautious steps forwards. “I was…well, occupied at the time that you sent the message. Believe me, I would have come sooner if I had seen your request sooner-”

“Occupied?” Kylo turned to face you, his expression impassive as ever; his interrupting statement, rather than question lingering in the air. “I was under the impression that once your shift was over you no longer need to be occupied.”

“Um...” You flushed slightly, subconsciously running a hand through your damp hair. “Occupied…in my shower?” You avoided his burning stare. There was silence for a moment, as if Kylo was trying to determine whether or not he believed you without delving too deep into your mind.

“You are excused of your tardiness this time.” He eventually spoke, and you relaxed slightly.

“If I may, Sir, why did you want me here?” You ventured, rocking back and forth on your heels as you glanced around the (now) familiar room. “If it’s to do with the comments made in the meeting earlier, I apologise if I’ve done anything to-to damage your reputation-”

“If anyone was going to ruin my reputation, it would not be you.” He cut in coolly. “You are not exactly in a position to do so.” He gestured to a chair set out in front of his desk. “Sit. We have much to discuss.” You did as he said, shifting around on the surprisingly soft seat, trying to get comfortable. He too, sat down in a chair he seemingly pulled out of the shadows of his room.

“If you think it is better for not to…run into each other more often, Sir, I understand that.” You started, leaning forwards in your seat. “I feel like rumours about-” you paused, unsure if you could refer to whatever the two of you were as ‘us’, but decided to go with it anyway. “Us, have been following me for almost a week now and it could ruin any chance I have of becoming Chief Medical Officer because everyone thinks I just sleep around and haven’t earned my place because of my family name.” You continued in frustration. “And it doesn’t help that, no offence, you seem to acquire a range of injuries from who knows where, and nobody else seems to want to take up the job because they’re convinced we’re having an affair or something – I’m lucky my boss is sympathetic towards me otherwise I could have lost my job or been demoted by now.” The words seemed to tumble from your lips, unending.

“You think my situation is any better?” Kylo stood, beginning to pace around the room. “I have the power of the Force, I can easily tell what people are thinking, and they do little to conceal their thoughts in my presence.” He spun on his heel, his bulking form towering over you. “I will not be taken for a fool by those pathetic enough to believe such rumours. I will not let them defile my name and my presence, or yours-” he cut himself off as his voice grew louder in anger. You stood as well, anxiously wringing your hands.

“I appreciate that, Sir.” You said quietly. “I know what’s on the line for you, and I’m sorry that it got this far. Maybe it would be better for a different medic to attend to your many injuries.” You felt more dejected than you probably should – after all this was a professional relationship.

“That won’t be necessary. While I am sure your co-workers are capable at doing their job, I know that you are most familiar with what antidotes work with my body and what do not.” Kylo dismissed your suggestion.

“Well what do you suggest?” You asked, a hint of exasperation in your tone. “While I do enjoy your company, Sir, I don’t want our meetings to affect your image.” There was a pause as Kylo took in your words.

“No. I will not be bullied by my insubordinates.” You heard him say, almost to himself. “We shouldn’t even be having this conversation; I don’t need to please the rest of the fleet – I just need them to win me this fight against the rebellion.” He strode to stand in front of you, and you gazed up at him. “I should not have to change my behaviour for them, and neither should you.” You opened your mouth in protest.

“But Sir, I-”

“You are under my protection. If there is anyone giving you trouble, you will report it straight to me.” He stood tall, not like that was hard for him to do, and you swallowed heavily, in awe of the sheer power he radiated. “That is an order. Do you understand?” His voice grew quieter at the end of his sentence; but he was no less grand.

“Yes, Sir.” You replied, suddenly finding it difficult to speak clearly, a smile visible on your face for the first time that day. “Thank you, Sir.”

“I think we’re past the use of such formalities, considering that today you’ve been accused of sleeping your way to power and I have been accused of doing such with someone of a lower station.” He said smoothly, his face as clear of emotion as ever.

“How else should I address you?” You asked, slightly flustered. (And slightly stung by the ‘lower station’ jab but it was the truth.) This must be one of the most bizarre days of my life, you thought to yourself, mind racing.

“You strike me as an intelligent woman, Officer Y/N; surely you do not need me to spell it out for you. Obviously the usual title when others are present.” He said, now walking you towards his door, hands behind his back, his form looming over yours. “Just because I allowed you to address me as such in private, I must remind you I will not be as lenient when we are in public.” He said placidly.

You nodded in acknowledgement. Kylo it is then – that was the only less formal title that you could think of. “Of course. I wouldn't dream of doing any such thing, Kylo.” You saw the left corner of his mouth twitch ever so slightly at your words as he opened the door, allowing you to step through. “I do hope you don't over-exert yourself in training, or do anything to worsen your injuries.” You called as you started to walk back down the corridor. “It would be a shame to meet again so prematurely.” For one of the most feared men in the galaxy, he isn’t nearly as subtle as he thinks, your smile widening as you walk back in the direction of your room, and you could have sworn you heard a chuckle echo down the corridor behind you.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Taglist: @ah-callie​

(also tagging @joscelyn02​ - just in case you wanted to know when the next part was out :) )

[fandom-necromancer]

Alcohol induced Bravery

This was prompted by the amazing @headfulloffantasy! I hope you enjoy, I had my fun!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900

Nines startled as out of nowhere Gavin jumped in his view and slammed his fist on the table. He looked up at the grinning man. ‘Tonight, we’re going out drinking!’ ‘Drinking?’ ‘Yes!’ Nines leaned back against his chair in confusion but smiled at his partner’s excited face. ‘Gavin, I will need more information. May I ask why?’ ‘Of course!’ Gavin happily planted his ass on the table, completely ignoring that it was neither of their breaks and Nines had been about to finally finish that report. ‘You are as of now three-hundred-eighty-five days stuck with me.’ Nines frowned. ‘And fifteen hours, four minutes and thirty-seven seconds, to be exact. Why does this matter?’ ‘You broke the record’, Gavin smiled leaning forwards. ‘You have endured the asshole detective longer than anyone else.’ Nines chuckled to himself. ‘Well, maybe that’s because I actually enjoy your company?’ ‘Yeah, sorry, but you won’t beat Tina’s record there. But: You are the first one of my partners I actually enjoy the company of, so… Yeah, congrats, you got that title too. But now back to the subject: are you free tonight?’ ‘Sure. Didn’t have anything planned in the first place’, he lied, cancelling games night with the Andersons the very second Gavin had asked. Connor would understand. ‘Nice! Then we’ll meet at eight. I’ll send you the address later!’

It was one of the nicer bars in Detroit, Nines realised, as he stepped out of the taxi that had brought him here. Advertised as android-friendly with experimental thirium drinks it had quickly become a hot-spot for both species. Nines watched two women in stylish clothing exit, one blushed red, one blue. Both seemed intoxicated but happy and a very own blue blush spread over Nines cheeks as he saw them kiss. Of course, android-human couples used this spot too. He would simply try to focus on Gavin, not to make it too obvious. If only he could find- ‘Hey, tin-can!’ A hand on his shoulder made him turn around to the human. ‘Wow, Nines, looking good!’ Nines smiled awkwardly, taking in the human. Oh, it wouldn’t be difficult to keep his attention on him, but if that could keep him from flushing blue…

‘You look good yourself’, he muttered flattered at him and lowered his head. ‘Yeah, thought to leave the old leather jacket at home and try something a bit fancier. Should we go in? I made sure they have a table for us.’ Gavin smiled at him and Nines followed him closely. The man had indeed exchanged hoodie, dark jeans and leather jacket for beige pants and a light blue shirt. The fairer colours looked weird, but not out of place for him. Nines liked it. He liked it a lot. Gavin had folded up his sleeves accentuating his muscles nicely and the pants looked just a little bit tighter than what he wore at work. Nines noticed too late, he had been still staring at Gavin when they had sat down, and the man asked him what to drink.

‘Nines? Hey, Nines!’ Gavin snapped his fingers in front of the android’s face, grinning. Had he bluescreened or something? He had been absentmindedly stared at him all the way to their table. Ah, likely just a bit overwhelmed and caught off guard. Hank had told him Nines didn’t go out much. ‘Hey, anything of this sounds good to you?’ He pushed over the menu, already turned to the pages that had the thirium drinks. He smiled as Nines looked first at him, then at the card. Gavin used the time to really look at the other, too. He hadn’t been lying when he had said Nines looked good. Hell, he looked perfect. He always did. But this time he had chosen an expensive looking white coat with black accents. Now he shrugged out of it and revealed a soft looking black turtleneck that wrapped tightly around his body and fit his black trousers perfectly. Shit, Gavin should stop. They were work partners and friends. If the toaster wanted anything more, he could speak up. Gavin wouldn’t dare endangering what they had by asking himself.

‘I don’t know what anything of this is’, Nines said instead. ‘I guess it will simulate the effect alcohol has on humans. But I never drank something like this.’ Gavin shrugged. ‘Just try it. If you don’t like it, pick something else. I have your back, if something goes wrong, I’ll get you home and call Connor to look you over.’ Nines nodded to himself a few times, still indecisive. ‘You don’t have to drink anything, too. If that worries you’, Gavin quickly supplied. ‘I’m just here for a fun time to celebrate it.’ ‘No, I think I’ll try it.’ Nines closed the menu and put it back in the stand on the table. ‘Just one thing’, he added as an afterthought. ‘Should I drink too much and pass out from this… Don’t you dare drawing on me!’ Gavin laughed. ‘I don’t think we’ll get there today, but sure. No drawing!’

-

‘And then… And then he…’ Gavin was trying hard to tell the story without laughing at the ending Nines eagerly awaited. ‘He just left! Like… Went to Fowler. “Transfer me to a different precinct! If not, I’ll hand in my batch!” Funniest shit to witness.’ Nines had his chin rested on his arm that was planted on the table. He was sure that if someone pulled the table out from under him, he would simply collapse and lie on the ground until someone had the courtesy to lift him up again. However that thirium-alcohol worked, he was feeling it. He was warm, everything around him was muffled and dulled, while his mind managed to hyper focus on only one thing: Gavin Reed’s lips. Moving. Telling him how he lost the partners before him. In his opinion, none of the reasons listed where valid. Yes, Gavin could be annoying, lost his temper easily and wasn’t the best at compromising. But he was funny, intelligent, didn’t need to compromise because his approach most likely was the best one anyways and oh, he was so much more cute than annoying. Nines smiled at the memory of Gavin throwing a tantrum over his lost pen he was sure someone had maliciously stolen while it sat in his full coffee cup because the dumbass had mistaken it for the empty one.

While Gavin laughed, Nines’ eyes strayed further up to his eyes. These deep, grey, sparkling eyes with just the faintest emerald rim. The tiny creases around them as he laughed, true and honestly. He wiped the tears away with his hand, directing Nines to his scar and from there to his tough-guy scruff. As if the man could hide his soft side from him that way. ‘No, for real, my previous partners were assholes. I mean some could have been okay to work with, but nah… Glad to have you.’ Nines sighed, the words hitting where it counted. Somehow, he was sure the rising warmth in his body wasn’t – or at least not just solely – from the alcohol.

Gavin watched the android closely. He had meant what he had said. Nines was the best partner one could wish for: patient and understanding, determined enough to be convincing, but never pressed his opinions on others. He knew to read a person and understood when he needed time for himself and when he needed help. He was a true friend. A constant in his life Gavin hadn’t even known he needed. He wanted. And was that… Was the idiot flushing? Wow. He hadn’t even known an android could do that. ‘I… I’m glad to have you, too’, Nines whispered slowly, shily looking up at him. ‘I… I wanted to thank you for this. It’s nice.’ ‘What is nice?’, Gavin asked, feeling giddy about what the android was telling him. Nines looked to the side. ‘All of this. The bar. Celebrating something. Spending more time with you. Outside of work I mean.’ Gavin grinned. ‘Yeah, Nines, I like it too. We could do this more often.’ ‘How often?’, the android asked. How did he sound so hopeful? Maybe it was the alcohol, but Gavin leaned back and smirked. ‘However often you want.’ He saw Nines swallowing. Then he looked at him more seriously than the situation should allow. ‘I like you Gavin.’ ‘Hey, tin-can, me too’, Gavin shrugged swirling his glass in his hand. ‘I like you a lot.’ Oh-oh. ‘Err… I… I like you a lot, too.’ Now Gavin was the one blushing as he felt his ears warm up. Nines nodded. ‘I think I… I think I love you, Gavin.’ And with how shy and hopeful the damn android looked at him, what else could Gavin say? ‘Damn, love you too, Nines.’

Nines grinned and hobbled a bit closer on the bench of the booth. ‘Err… Would you mind if we… Can I kiss you?’ ‘Man, I thought you would never ask!’

[what-is-your-plan-today]

CSI Rogers and Barnes: The Serious Cereal Serial Killer Episode 16: Is This Thing Rolling...

Co-written with @icanfeelastormbrewing​

Part 2

Warnings: Bad Language words.

Please read Part 1 first.

“I’m not trying that on, you seen the price tag?” Bucky glared at Katie who narrowed he eyes as she held up the Midnight Blue Soho Double Breasted wool suit.

“You are so trying it on Barnes, you’ll look amazing in it.” She insisted. “Trust me, Sam will love it”

“Sam can wear it if he loves it.” Bucky shook his head. “Doll face, it’s almost five hundred bucks!”

“It’s a Paul Smith” she shrugged “You want quality, you gotta pay. Trust me, a good suit is an investment Bucky.”

Bucky considered this for a moment before he cocked his head and a teasing grin spread across his face “Yeah, I suppose. And I can always use it for the next wedding.”

“You’re not getting married in that.” Katie shook her head. “You need a tux.”

“I’m not getting married, you are.” He looked at her and she rolled her eyes, well used to his constant teasing about he and Steve’s future by now.

“Just try on the goddamned suit.”

“Cranky much?” he mumbled.

“May I remind you that I am hungover and you dragged me out here to help you but you keep bitching about everything I suggest. I should be dying on my sofa indulging in indecent amounts of sugar.” Kate narrowed he eyes at him.

“Technically it’s not your sofa. You might have moved in, but…”

“Err, it belongs to Steve and he belongs to me, ergo it’s mine.”

“You know I could argue against that but if I ask him he will probably say of course I’m hers with that stupid goofy smile on his dumb face.”

Katie smirked “Exactly.” She thrust the suit at him “Go. Try. NOW!”

Bucky took the suit “Vicious.”

Leaving Katie glaring at his back he headed into the changing room and quickly stripped before pulling on the suit. And, in all fairness, he had to hand it to Katie, it was smart, probably the nicest one he has ever worn to be fair. It felt good, decent quality and was tailored exceptionally well. Dare he admit it, he looked pretty damned good. He opened the cubicle door and walked out of the changing room to get Stark’s opinion, finding her stood not far away looking at something on her phone, frowning.

“You ok?” he asked, and she nodded, not raising her head, her eyes fixed on the screen.

“Yeah was just looking at some photos that Tony put of the bachelor party on facebook…” she took a breath and looked at Bucky “How did Steve really get that black eye? I can tell he is lying to me.”

Ah, crap… should have seen that one coming Barnes.

He let out a sigh “Ask him”

“I did, and now I’m asking you.”

He groaned, knowing full well he wasn’t going to get out of this. Fuck you, Steve, fuck you.

“Fine, I’ll tell you if you promise not to freak out.” He looked at Katie who nodded.

“Promise”

“Why don’t I believe you? And if you say anything to Steve I’ll bug your bedroom and post the recordings on my Instastories”

“I said I wouldn’t flip out at you.” She looked at him “That’s all I’m promising, but seeing as we’re making threats, James,  if you don’t tell me I’ll also post a video. The one I got of you singing into a wooden spoon the other morning to The Sound Of Music”

Bucky felt his mouth drop open in horror. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me bitch.” She shook her head “It will go under the caption of Bucky Von Crapp, seeing as you sounded like a strangled cat.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, as he began to recall the events of the previous night.

“Be your bachelor party next.” Bucky grinned at Steve as they stood at the bar in the compound.

Steve rolled his eyes “Just don’t.”

“Come on punk, you know it ain’t that far-fetched.” Bucky grinned and turned to order their drinks. Just as he was paying he heard Steve muttering to the side of him.

“You gotta be shitting me.”

Frowning he turned to look at Steve, whose jaw was twitching. His nostrils flared as he’s glared at something, or someone. Bucky followed his eyeline and saw a tall, slim, dark haired man dressed in a white button down and black slacks, stood with a group of other guys.

“Am I supposed to know who that is?” he turned back to Steve, a puzzled expression on his face.

“I wish I didn’t know who it is. It’s Ward.” Steve replied simply.

Bucky’s frown deepened as he looked back at the man, then turned once more to Steve “As in Stark’s douchebag ex Ward?”

“In the flesh.”

Bucky took the beer from the bartender with a thanks and looked Ward over again “He looks like a dick.”

Besides him Steve picked up his beer, “If it looks like a dick…” at that point Ward let out a huge laugh, “And sounds like a dick…”

Bucky snorted and watched as a slim, bottle blonde woman in a tight skirt and very revealing top approached Ward. Ward smiled and looped an arm round her, giving her a kiss.

“Wait…is that who he did the dirty on Stark with?” Bucky looked at Steve.

The Captain nodded.

“Talk about a down grade.” Bucky shook his head “She ain’t a patch on your girl Stevie.”

“I know, thanks pal.” Steve gave a small smile then sighed “If Tony sees him….” He glanced around for the man in question to see him stood with a few other members of the Batchelor Party, looking the other way.

“Why is he even in here? I thought Pepper vetoed him after the incident on the karaoke night?” Bucky asked.

“She did. But Happy isn’t working is he? He’s over there drinking with Tony, and Pepper aint here either so… “ Steve took a breath and frowned “I don’t get it, why would he want to come here anyway? And how would he know he’d get in…unless…he found out about the party somehow…”

“Probably just a coincidence.” Bucky offered.

“I don’t believe in coincidences Buck.” Steve looked at him. Bucky held his gaze for a moment before he turned back in Ward’s direction and took a deep breath as he saw the man in question’s eyes flick towards them. A sly grin spread across Ward’s face and he said something to the woman who nodded as he began to head towards them.

“Well, looks like we’re about to find out.” Bucky muttered. Steve turned to him, followed his gaze and the rolled his eyes, turning back to the bar.

Ward stopped at the other side of the bar, placing his order before he remarked. “Rogers.”

Steve didn’t even look at him when he replied “What are you doing here Ward?”

“Same as you, having a good time with some friends.” He gestured back to the group he had been with “ I see it’s Tony’s bachelor party. Pepper, I presume?”

Steve continued to ignore him.

“Give him my regards.”

At that, Steve turned his head in Ward’s direction just long enough to shoot him a filthy look before he picked up his drink.

“Come on Rogers, you still bitter at me?”

Steve swallowed a mouthful of his beer “Bitter isn’t exactly the word I would use” his voice was flat, unemotional, and Bucky knew that was far more dangerous than when he displayed out and out anger.

Time to step in.

“Look, jack ass…” Bucky pulled himself up to his full height and glared at Ward. “Why don’t you go and talk to Tony yourself. Sure he’d be thrilled to see you after what you did to his sister.”

Ward looked down at Bucky, there was a few inches height difference but it didn’t bother the Sergeant in the slightest. He knew if it came to it he could handle his own.

“And you are?” Ward raised his eyebrows.

“Barnes. Sergeant James Barnes.”

“That’s quite a mouthful Sergeant.” Ward mused. “And, speaking of mouthfuls. How’s Katie doing Rogers?”

Steve gripped his beer bottle tighter, an action Bucky saw in the corner of his eye. “Don’t you even mention her name asshole.”

“Are you ever gonna man up and ask her out?” Ward shook his head and at that Steve turned to face him.

“I’m warning you. Stop talking about her.”

At his words a smirk spread across Ward’s face. “Oh my god, you finally did…you two are…you’re together.”

Steve simply stared at him as Bucky grinned, unable to stop himself from speaking the childish insult that had cropped into his head.

“Well I know which one of you got the short straw, I mean you didn’t exactly trade Stark in for a better model did you? Certainly not from the looks of your poor man’s Dolly Parton over there anyway.”

To his delight the smug grin on Ward’s face slipped and a flash of anger was noticeable in his eyes.

Steve lay his a hand on Bucky’s shoulder “Leave it pal, he’s not worth it.”  But it was too late, Ward has bitten back, rising to Bucky’s jibe.

“Don’t you dare talk about my fiancé that way.”

And at that Steve snorted “Fiancé? Seriously?”

Ward glared at him “You got something to say Rogers?”

“Nothing at all.” Steve chuckled. “I wish her luck, she’s gonna need it.” With that he picked up his bottle “Come on Buck.”

Steve turned to go and Bucky looked Ward up and down one more time, smirking, before he to made to follow Steve.

Crisis averted.

“Hey, Rogers? She’s a good fuck isn’t she?”

Crisis re-emerging.

Steve stopped, his shoulders tense and he took a deep breath, but didn’t turn round.

“Does she still do that thing with her nose? You know, just as she’s about to come? That little twich?” Ward continued, letting out a little groan “Man even thinking about that now does things to me…I kinda miss it.”

At that Steve spun around, blazing with anger ready to go for Ward but he was too late. Bucky had already shoved the asshole hard in the chest.

“You’re really starting to piss me off.” He growled as Ward stumbled back a few steps. Bucky clocked that some of his friends were now walking towards them, and was distracted slightly when Ward shoved him back. Bucky then spotted the swing that was coming his way and ducked. Unfortunately Steve, who was stood behind him, took the punch straight to the left side of his face. The Captain staggered a few steps backwards before he righted himself and then drew his right fist back and smacked it straight into Ward’s nose. Ward dropped to the floor, blood billowing down his shirt as Steve shook his fist out, flexing his fingers.

Bucky blinked as Ward lay on the floor, the force of Steve’s punch knocking him out cold and he turned to his friend, raising an eyebrow a little “I had him on the ropes.”

“I know you did.” Steve looked at his friend before he sighed “Suppose we better call 911 so they can get him on a gurney…”

Katie blinked as Bucky finished his tale. “So it was Ward?”

Bucky nodded “You understand why he didn’t want to tell you now, yeah?”

“I guess so” she bit her lip.

“I gotta ask, what the fuck did you ever see in him?” Bucky shook his head “Tony’s right, the guy is a shitweasel.”

She snorted “Trust me, I have no idea.”

Silence fell between the two of them and Bucky took a deep breath “You’re not mad are you?”

“Mad? No, I just think you’re a pussy for dodging the punch and letting Stevie take it Barnes.” She teased, smiling at him.

He shrugged “First time for everything.”

“Suppose I’ll have to thank you both for defending my honour.” She smiled, before her smile turned into a dirty smirk “But your thanks will be a little less physical than Steve’s.”

Bucky groaned “Gross.” He then looked at her, narrowing his eyes “You promised not to tell him I told you.”

“No I promised not to go mad.” She stated.

Bucky looked at her, contemplating her words before he realised that was in fact what she had said. He let out a growl of frustration and shook his head “Whatever.”

At that point they both heard a low whistle and turned to see Sam striding through the men’s boutique towards them.

“Well look at you sergeant Barnes, you’re gonna kill all the ladies”  Sam grinned, raising his hand and extending his finger and thumb in a gun motion “Pew pew!”

Katie turned to Bucky, smiling “Told you he was gonna love it.”

Bucky rolled his eyes before he smirked and turned to Sam “Not the ladies I’m after.” And with that he gave him a quick peck on the lips.

“Aww you two are so cute.” Katie clapped her hands together.

“Piss off Stark” Bucky shot back.

“Now who’s cranky?” she laughed “I tell you you’re cute and you get all pissy!”

Bucky shook his head “I’m gonna get out of this suit.”

“Need any help.” Sam quipped and Katie arched an eyebrow.

“Guess I’ll be right there at the opposite side of the store, pretending I don’t know you two.”

“Now you know how I feel around you and Stevie.” Bucky looked at her.

Katie laughed “You know, the 4 of us should go out again soon.”

“Yeah, but without the element of surprise this time.” Sam shot her and Bucky an accusatory look

“Well it’s all out in the open now. But I kinda miss the sneaking around…it was a little exciting.” Katie shrugged.

“Seriously?” Sam looked at her and she snorted.

“No, it was hell.” And then she grinned “Although the secret sex was good.”

“Tell me more girl.” Sam wiggled his eyebrows and Bucky shook his head.

“Trust me you don’t want to know”

“Oh, trust me I do.”

“And on that note, now I’m really gonna go get changed.” Bucky nodded towards the changing rooms “Then we can drop you home so you can die on the sofa.”

“Actually I need you to drop me off at Momma Rogers’” she said.

“Oooh you having lunch at Sarah’s?” Bucky smiled, knowing full well that he’d end up with an invite when he dropped her off.

“Yup, and I can’t wait.” She said, “I need food. My stomach feels like its eating itself.”

***** Steve walked into his Ma’s, stamping his feet on the mat, ridding his boots of the light dusting of snow he’d picked up since getting out of the car.

“Ma?” he gave a shout as he unwrapped the scarf from round his neck and began to undo his thick, blue quilted Canada Goose jacket. She emerged out of the kitchen into the hall and beamed at him, but her smile slipped and she nodded to his face.

“I thought the days of you coming home with a black eye were well behind you.” She stared at him “What the hell did you do?”

“Things got a bit messy at Tony���s stag party” he shrugged as his mom gently reached up to cup his cheek, tilting his face round so she can see it better. “Don’t fuss ma.”

“Shut up Steven.” Sarah’s voice was as stern as her face “I’m your mother and I’ll fuss if I want to.”

Steve rolled his eyes as her hand dropped back to her side. “Has Star seen this?”

“We live together. Of course she has.”

“Hmm, bet she didn’t like it either.” Sarah shot back “Good job you’re a fast healer. That would look a right mess in the wedding photos next week.”

“He came off worse, trust me.” Steve shrugged off her comment.

“You’re a Captain in the NYPD Steven, fancy brawling in a bar like some school kid.” His mother shook her head.

“I know ma, but…well it had to be done, and I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.” He urged, hoping she would take the hint and drop it but of course she didn’t.

“What do you mean it had to be done?” she pressed and Steve knew he wasn’t going to be able to fob her off so decided to tell her the truth.

“Ward showed up last night at the compound. He was saying vile things about Katie. Really vile”

“So you punched him?” Sarah deadpanned.

“No, I mean yes, after he took a swing at Bucky…look, it’s really not a big deal.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes “I really don’t like that boy. Tony isn’t particularly fond of him either.”

“That’s because he’s a prick.” Steve shrugged.

“Language Steven. But yes, he is a prick. Now, let me get you some tea.”

Steve followed her into the kitchen and she filled the kettle and Steve started rummaging in the fridge for a snack.

“You know it’s funny his name is Grant.”

Steve emerged with a piece of pie that he had found and looked at her “What do you mean?” He took a bite of the pie which turned out to be cherry. It was good.

“I mean you both share the name and couldn’t be more different from one another.” His mother mused.

Steve swallowed his food. “Well, not all the ladies called Sarah are as pretty as you…or make as good a pie as you.”

Sarah smiled at her son, shaking her head. “Shut up Stevie.”

He chuckled “What you making for lunch?” he asked as he checked his watch to see it was almost 1. Kate had text him about 15 minutes ago to say they were leaving the store in Brooklyn City centre so she shouldn’t be far off.

“I take it that means you’re staying then?” Sarah turned to look at him and he grinned, as she shook her head, smiling to herself “Oh, and where is Star by the way?”

“She’s gone shopping with Bucky for a suit. Told her to meet me here if that’s ok? She shouldn’t be long.”

“Of course it’s ok. You’re always welcome here, you know that.”

Steve smiled, swallowed the last of his pie and took a deep breath. He knew that he didn’t have long to do what he needed to do before Katie arrived so he had to do it now. “Er, Ma, before she gets here, I err, I wanted to talk to you.” He said, his hand gently rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yeah?” she asked, not looking at him as she reached for 2 mugs in the cupboard.

“Yeah…” god his palms were sweaty, this shouldn’t be as nerve wracking as it was, it’s his mom…

Sarah turned to face him, a mug still in her right hand and she frowned at the expression on his face. “What is it son? What’s wrong?

“Nothing’s wrong. Quite the opposite actually.” He took another deep, shaky breath and smiled at his mom. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these last few days especially, and, well, with Katie living with me for the past few months it’s kinda hit home just how good it feels, ya know? And I want it all the time…so before I came here, I went to ask Tony for his blessing to ask Katie to marry me.” At his words he watched the mug slip from his mother’s fingers and it hit the tiled floor and smashed. He had expected her to react in some way but not quite like that. “Ma you ok?” He watched as she brought a trembling hand to her mouth.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m ok Stevie…it’s just…” she blinked “I’ve been waiting for this day to arrive for so long.”

Steve couldn’t resist teasing her “I didn’t say he had given his blessing.”

His mom looked at him, arching an eyebrow “Would it make a difference to you if he hadn’t?”

“Not really.” He shrugged, smiling softly.

“But he has right?” Sarah looked at him “Because I know Howard and Maria would be as happy as I am right now.”

Steve smiled softly. “Yeah. He did. Long Story, but…let’s just say I know Howard would be happy too. But don’t get too excited, she hasn’t said yes yet.”

Sarah scoffed “Oh hush, like she’s gonna say no!”

He smiled softly before he looked at his feet before he glanced back at his mother “So, Ma, I was…I was wondering if I could have you ring?”

Sarah smiled, her eyes shining as she gave a nod “Of course you can son.” She walked towards him and cupped his face “It’s been waiting for you for years.”

Steve smiled, the lump that he had earlier felt in his throat in Tony’s study was back again as he looked at his mom. “You know, there was a time I thought I’d ask you for it for Peggy.”

Sarah shook her head and with a simply shrug stated “I always knew it would be Star’s”

The sentiment hit Steve like a tonne of bricks. First Howard, now his mom. The man he had long since come to regard as a father and his mother had both spotted what he had failed to see for almost a decade.

“Ma…” he managed to choke out, his eyes filling and Sarah smiled.

“I know son. And it makes me so happy to know you’re happy too. Finally.” She leaned up to give him a huge and kissed his cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

She left the kitchen leaving Steve to his own thoughts. He’d had a few doubts, not about marrying Katie, but whether or not it was too soon, but that fact that neither Tony nor his mother had commented on the fact that they’d only technically been together for 3 months. In reality they’d been with one another for much longer, having been best friends and dare he say it, completely and utterly blind to what was in front of them. There wasn’t a woman in the world that would ever come close. He smiled to himself, suddenly his eye didn’t hurt anymore. After speaking to Tony and his ma, and most importantly Howard’s message he felt like he was living his life how he should be. He had everything he has ever wanted, and more.

Sarah walked back into the room and handed him a black velvet ring box. He opened it, smiling as he took in the ring which sat nestled in the ruby red silk inside of the box. It was a large oval shaped diamond, with a pave set slim band. It was delicate enough to suit his girl but also big enough to be flashy, which he knew she wouldn’t care about but he did. There was something in his ego that wanted Katie to have a decent rock on her finger. But the main thing about it was the sentiment. This had belonged to his great-grandmother, then his grandmother, and now his mother, passed down the Roger’s side of the family for generations until it reached his Pa. He looked at his mom, his eyes straying to her ring finger where she still wore her simple wedding band having stopped wearing her engagement ring some 5 years or so after his father had died. When he had asked her why, she’d sighed and simply said that on what would have been their 10th wedding anniversary seeing it had made her sad as it reminded her of the day his father proposed. He hadn’t pushed her to explain, he understood.

“You know it was pretty unheard of to have a diamond that big back when your great-grandfather bought but, well, you know the Rogers side had some connections so to speak.” She said and Steve snorted. He had a feeling if he dug far enough back into his father’s side of the family he would uncover all sorts of Irish-Italian mob members, which was the reason he had never bothered.

“I forgot how pretty it is” Steve smiled “It’s been years since I last saw it. But I remember how I used to play with it when I was little and you held me in your arms when I was sick.” Sarah smiled fondly “Yes you used to like to roll it around my finger.”

“It was soothing.” Steve said, his eyes on the ring as it sparkled in the light of the kitchen. “I liked how it shone under the light.”

“Maybe one day your kids will do the same to Star.” Sarah said, a little suggestion in her tone and Steve looked at her.

“I’d like that Ma.” He confirmed and she took a deep breath.

“Well, I hope it happens soon.” The looked at him pointedly “I’m getting old Steve and I want to be able to run around after my grandkids.”

“Behave!” Steve laughed, shutting the box as he looked at her, smirking “There’s plenty of life in the old dog yet.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes at him “Cheeky.”

At that point they were interrupted by the bell ringing followed by the opening of the door and Katie’s voice drifted up the hallway. “You’re such an ass Barnes, I ain’t rung the bell at this house for 9 and a half years!”

His best friend’s laugh hit his ears “ I like the sound it makes.”

Steve glanced at his mom, panic flooding his system as he curled his hand around the box.

“I’ll go see them in…buy you some time.” She nodded. As she walked out of the kitchen he heard her greeting Katie as he hastily stashed the ring box in his coat pocket where it was hanging on the chair back

“Oh, err…” he heard his mom stop and Bucky spoke.

“Sorry, Mrs R, this is…”

“I know who he is James, Sam worked with Steve long before you came back from Russia. I just didn’t know he was your Sam.”

“Sure am, Mrs Rogers. Nice to see you again.

At that point Katie walked into the Kitchen, pulling off her hat and her scarf, her cheeks pink from the cold. Steve smiled and opened his arms. “Hey sweetheart, you feeling better?”

She stepped into his embrace, taking the soft kiss he offered “Much, be even better still when I’ve eaten.”

He smiled and looked up at Bucky as Katie stepped back to take off her coat. “Get a suit, jerk?”

Bucky dropped his jacket onto a chair “Yeah and a pair of shiny shoes your girl insists are in fashion.”

Katie rolled her eyes “He looks good in it right Sam?”

“He sure does but…”

“Don’t say it Sam!” Bucky warned, and Steve had a feeling he knew what was coming next. And sure enough…

“He looks better out of it.”

Katie looked at Steve “See what I’ve had to put up with? Had to pretend I didn’t know em.”

“Welcome to the grossed out by another couple club, doll face.” Bucky looked at her and she rolled her eyes as Sarah laughed.

“They can’t still be that bad James.”

“The tales I could tell you about these two from the last week or so alone are NOT suitable for a Mom’s ears Mrs R.”

“Shut up Bucky.” Katie and Steve shot back in synergy.

“And they do that. Talk at the same time, say the same thing…” Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, it’s kinda freaky.” Sam nodded in agreement.

“You can shut up too Sam.” Steve looked at him.

“Hey don’t look at me. I do what he does…” he pointed to Bucky “only slower.”

Bucky glanced around, spotted the smashed mug on the tiles and pointed to it “What happened there?”

Steve looked at the mug, recalling the reason why it had smashed and was desperately trying to think of an excuse when his mom came to the rescue.

“Oh, I was making a tea and along came Stevie with his black eye and my mug slipped.”  She looked at Bucky “By the way, James, Steve says you were involved too. Seems like the pair of you are back to being troublesome teenagers again.” She looked at Sam “I’d keep an eye on your boyfriend Sam. He needs to be put in check some times.”

Steve and Katie share a glance at Sarah’s use of the word boyfriend. It was a term Bucky hadn’t actually used when referring to Sam.

“He’s not my, we’re not…” Bucky trailed off as Sam glared at him.

“Well this is awkward.” He mumbled as Sarah narrowed her eyes

“You can’t lie to me James Barnes. You love this young man.”

And just like that Steve found himself smirking at the fact that someone was ripping into Bucky’s and not his relationship for a change

**** Of course Sarah wouldn’t dream of allowing Bucky and Sam to leave without being fed so the 5 of them ate lunch and then before the two men headed off to spend the rest of the afternoon together. As usual, Sarah insisted that Katie and Steve leave her to clear up so they retired to the living room and curled up on the sofa. The fire was on, giving the room a cosy, warm feel and Katie was sitting snuggled up to Steve, curled under a blanket.

After about 10 minutes her attention turned from the TV to his face. Steve could feel her eyes on him and he turned to face her as she sat up and her fingers gently caressed his eye and cheekbone.

“Does it hurt?” she asked him quietly.

“It did, not anymore.” He replied honestly.

“Good, close your eyes.” She instructed. Steve arched an eyebrow at her but did as he was told. She kisses his eyelid and around his bruise tenderly, her breath warm on his skin “Really Stevie” she took  his face in both her hands and tiled it left, then right “ I’m so jealous of your eyelashes”

He laughed and opened his eyes, his hand running up the outside of her arm where it rest over her shoulder.

“Thank you.” She looked at him

“For what, doll?”

“For punching Ward.”

Steve looked at her, shaking his head “Fucking Bucky.”

“That’s Sam’s job” Katie said making him chuckle a little “Don’t be mad at him, I pushed him into telling me.”

“Should have figured you would.” He shrugged.

“Why’s that?”

“Because you can be persistent when you want to be sweetheart.” He smiled gently. “And you’re welcome. I’d do it again in a shot, you have no idea how good it felt.”

“My hero.” She smiled, “Guess not all superheroes wear capes, huh? Mind you, I’m not sure Superman would go around punching Lois Lane’s ex…”

“For the record, Superman does wear a cape, but that aside, even Superheroes have bad days doll.” Steve shrugged.

“You know, that’s a kid’s bedtime story.” She looked at him and he shot her a cheeky grin.

“I can read it to you tonight if you like?”

“How about you read it to me now Captain?” she arched an eyebrow as he looked down at her. Grinning he sat back against the cushions and pat his leg, gesturing with his head.

“Come here Doll.”

Katie moved so she was straddling him, her hands smoothed up his chest to his shoulder and his fell to her hips. Both of them threw a glance to the door of the room, conscious Sarah was in the kitchen, but there was no sign of her, Steve could hear her humming to a song vaguely in the kitchen and knew she would be in there for a while. He leaned up, pressing his lips to Katie’s, his hands moving and splaying on her back, pulling her closer.

Somehow it felt different to him. It was the first kiss they’d shard since he asked Tony and his ma those two important questions and it was almost like there was more to it, even though he never thought that would be possible. It struck him that the decision he had come to about asking her to share the rest of his life with her meant he would never kiss anyone else but her again but he didn’t care he didn’t want to.

He pushed up against her and she let out a soft sigh at the contact and rocked her hips slightly. An involuntary grunt slipped from his lips and the kiss grew frantic, for the moment the pair of them forgetting where they were until they heard a plate clatter in the kitchen. Both paused, their eyes opening as they looked at one another before they let out a soft laugh each, the ridiculousness of the situation not passing them by. Both in their 30s, acting like a pair of teenagers.

“How long has it been since you made out with a girl in here?” Katie teased.

Steve hesitated, in all honesty he had no idea. It had been a long time. “Erm, maybe 20 years, a little less?” he shrugged and Katie frowned.

“What, you mean you and Peggy didn’t…”

Steve shook his head “It wasn’t really something she would have done. She was too…proper I suppose is the word.”

Katie cocked her head to one side as if she was considering something before she shrugged “Her loss.”

“Can we not talk about her doll?” Steve said gently. He really didn’t want to think about anything like that. His hands moves and slid up and down the outside of her thighs and he smiled “It’s you and me now. No Peggy, no Ward…and I intend on keeping it that way till the end of the line.”

Katie smiled and her hands moved up to cup his cheeks, fingers scratching in his beard. “I love you Captain.”

Steve leaned up pressing his lips to hers gently before he pulled back, sliding his nose along hers as he whispered to her softly “Love you too doll.”

[moonice20408]

The Curious Disappearance of C. Cullen

Word Count: 3818

Read on Ao3 Read on FF.net

“This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved we’re investigating the disappearance of C. Cullen, as part of our new investigation!”

“New investigation?”

“Are vampires real?”

Shane groaned. “Oh no. No no no. Absolutely not. Nope.”

Ryan let out a laugh. “What, you don’t believe in vampires?”

“No Ryan, I do not.” Shane shook his head. “And you know what, I think I might believe in them even less than ghosts!”

“Oh wow.” Ryan laughed again. “Why are vampires so much more unbelievable than ghosts?”

“Because Ryan. They’re stupid! That’s why!” He slammed his hand onto the desk with some force. “If vampires were real, we’d know about it.”

“Well what if it’s like in the movies and they’re all just living in secret?”

“Oh, c’mon. There are cameras everywhere nowadays. You don’t think we’d have caught some guy just munching on another guys neck till he drops dead at some point? Then turn into a bat and fly away.”

“Well you’d just say it was fake if we did.”

Shane paused for a second then shrugged. “Yeah, that’s probably true.”

Ryan shook his head, then faced the camera. “So, this episode of Supernatural is a going to be a little different.”

“How so Ryan?”

“Well… we’re not going anywhere. There’s no location footage this week guys.”

“Yeah, this week we just thought, ‘you know what, not feeling it.’” Shane relaxed back in his chair. “We’re gonna sit back and take it easy.”

Ryan ignored him. “The reason being, well two reasons actually. One being that, at least I figure, if they were real, vampires aren’t, err… trapped, shall we say, to one place. Therefore, if they were real, they’d still be free to leave a place. So, we’d get there-”

“And we’d be talking to no one.” Shane interrupted.

“Exactly.”

“Imagine that.” Shane continued. “Going to a supernatural hotspot, just talking to the air…”

“Would you-”

“Wouldn’t want that! Would we?” He threw his hands up in the air. Ryan just stared forward, looking into the camera with an unimpressed look. “Wouldn’t we just look dumb! Just yelling into an empty room, expecting a response.”

“Erm, excuse me, we’ve gotten plenty of responses!” Ryan defended.

“Pffft.” Shane waved his hand.

“You know what, I’m just going to continue.” Ryan said matter-of-factly.

“Please.”

“The other reason we’re staying here, is that this case is from England. And we just couldn’t find time that worked for us, as well as crew members to do a quick trip to another country.” Shane nodded with Ryan. “I did look around the location, y’know on Google, and err, it’s just a bunch of offices now, so…”

“Not as exciting as our last trip there.” Both of them shook their heads.

“Now,” Ryan straightened out the file in front of him, before looking to the camera. “I am going to admit, right off the bat…” He quickly peered to Shane. “See what I did there?”

Shane nodded.

“Vampire… Bat…”

“No, I got it Ryan. That was a good one.”

“Thank you.” Ryan smiled while Shane rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I have to admit, I, err… I’m already prepared for some… criticism, shall we say.”

“What, because vampires aren’t real?” Shane said sarcastically.

“No. Well, I guess that’s part of the debate isn’t it?”

Shane sighed and shook his head, looking straight to the camera.

Ryan continued. “What I mean is, that this is case we’re investigating, is one of the oldest cases we will have covered so far on the show.”

“Oh really? Interesting.” Shane said, genuinely intrigued. “What’s the oldest so far? Witch trials right, gotta be.”

“Err, well that’s the oldest full episode, I think. But there’s some of the ancient alien stuff we looked at-”

“Oh right, yeah.”

“But the Salem witch trials were 1690s. But the case today dates back, roughly, to the 1640s.”

“Wow. That’s pretty old Ryan.”

“Yeah, which is part of the problem. Because it’s as old as it is, the erm, documentation of it is… It’s not great.”

Shane let out a small laugh. “So, what you’re saying is, you’ve got shit.”

“No! No… It’s just we, meaning our tremendous research team, we’re usually able to get multiple accounts on stuff, and can cross reference information, you know, so we can put together a more valid case.”

“So, you’re telling me, that before the videos even started, this case has no credibility and is crumbling through your fingers as we speak?”

Ryan sighed. “Look, I feel that what we have is defiantly something. I just want to make it clear; it’s just not as backed up as our usual content. You know we try to keep it as honest as we can here. So, I figured, I’d be upfront about this, before people start yelling at me through the comments. Obviously, I’m not going to put together an episode if there’s absolutely nothing, cause that’s… that’s just telling a made-up story off the internet isn’t it?”

“Hmm,” Shane nodded. “Okay. Alright. I will reserve my judgement for the end.”

Ryan laughed. “I doubt that, but anyway, let’s get into it.

- - -

“Legends of vampires can be dated back millennia, and stories told of them are found globally. Many ancient cultures had tales centred around the nocturnal undead, reanimated corpses spreading disease to the living, or blood drinking spirits all that hold similar characteristics to the modern idea of what a vampire is.

The idea of blood drinking became very ingrained into the lore of vampires. It was once believed that the blood of a living person, contained that person’s life force, and to drink it would allow another creature to absorb that life force. Some even thought that by drinking a person’s blood, that the drinker would also gain the characteristics of that person, allowing the vampire to better disguise themselves amongst the rest of society.

The word ‘vampire’ itself only came into use in the mid-18th century, from fast spreading tales told in Transylvania, and was later further popularised due to Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, which was published in 1897. It’s Stoker who is credited for defining the modern vampire, after combining multiple myths together for his book.

In most folklores, vampires were believed to be the revenants of evil beings, or an unrested deceased person who had committed unforgivable sins in their life, but it became a common belief that a living person themselves could become a vampire by being bitten. The belief in some parts of the world became to extensive that it led to mass hysteria, which resulted in many people being sentenced to death, usually by burning.”

- - -

“What’s interesting to me,” Shane started.

“Yeah?”

“Is just how wholeheartedly people, back in the day, believed in this stuff!”

“Yeah. I did come across something, and can I just say, the historical research in this case was very interesting… Like, go look up vampire history guys.” Ryan pointed at the camera. “But anyway, in, err, Greece I think it was, was that after three years, they would dig up dead bodies and they’d be examined.”

“To see if they’d become vampires?”

“Basically.” Ryan nodded. “And if they hadn’t decayed to standard, or whatever, then they’d be ‘dealt with accordingly’” He said, adding air quotations.

“Who decides,” Shane snickered. “Who decides what a suitable decomposition is?” They both laughed. “Were they just like, ‘hmm, no, too much meat left on ‘im’”

“‘toss him in the fire!’” Ryan added.

“‘Into the pit’,” Shane mimicked throwing something over his shoulder. “‘Bring in the next decayed body!’”

“It’s like a line at the doctor’s office.” They both chuckled.

- - -

“Now, back to the case at hand. In early the 1950s, construction workers in London were working to fix up a number of buildings that were destroyed by bombs during World War Two. In one particular location, the damage caused actually led to the discovery of a basement-like room, that had been previously built over, remaining hidden for centuries. Upon further investigation, it was determined that this room was originally part of an Anglican church that was destroyed during the Great Fire in 1666, and was never rebuild.

Inside this room, many historical artefacts were found, but some of the most interesting, at least to me, were a journal and a stack of documents, that belonged to a previous pastor of the church. It is worth noting that the year 1640 is written on the first page of this journal, but it is up for debate for how long this journal was kept. The documents that were recovered, have been since entitled the ‘Crusades of Evil’.

Unfortunately, over time a lot of the writing on these pages has become too faded to accurately read. But enough can be made out to get a good sense of what they’re about. In short, the pastor of the church would lead hunts for all manner of unholy creatures. Almost all of them resulting in the execution of people who were thought to be these creatures. These documents contain the information about the accused, which was essentially just a name and location, if that, as well as what they were accused of doing/being, and the method of execution. Most of the documents found were signed a S.C. Cullen. But, thanks to the journal that was found with these papers, we know that the man in question was named Samuel Cullen.”

- - -

 “No middle name?” Shane asked.

“Err, no this guy didn’t write his whole name. Unfortunately.”

“And am I correct in assuming that the unknown ‘C’ initial is perhaps the same as our missing person’s?”

“It is certainly believed that the initials do come from the same name, yes.”

“Interesting…” Shane paused for a moment. “You know… just to switch subjects here,” He huffed a laugh, “And I want this on record, this guy already seems like an asshole… I’m very against the whole idea of burning innocent people to death…”

“Oh good, I’m glad.” Ryan said sarcastically.

“But, I gotta say… Crusades Against Evil! Sounds like a badass movie!”

Ryan chuckled. “To be honest, when I first read that… I did think it sounded like some kind of shooter video game.”

“Oh! Like Doom! You ever play that?” He mimed holding up a gun, and pointing it around the room. “Vampires just popping up, like bangbangbangbangbang!” He ‘aimed’ at Ryan. “Kaboom.”

Ryan just raised his eye brow. “You done?”

“Yeah.” Shane sighed, smiling to himself.

- - -

“Not much is known about Samuel Cullen, other than the fact he was the church pastor during the 1630s and early 1640s at the very least, according to the papers found. And the journal that was found, was unfortunately in an even worse condition than the documents. That being said, one legible section did make reference to a son, and if you were paying attention, you’d have noticed I said most of the documents were signed by Samuel. Some however, were signed C. Cullen. Which has led many conclude that this C. Cullen was the pastor’s son. But when efforts were made to find out more about this man, researchers came up empty handed, and found almost nothing. Not even a first name.”

- - -

“Not even a name?” Shane said loudly.

“I know.”

“So I take it that it was Samuel naming his son after himself?”

“Err, yeah. At least that’s what most people think. Which, honestly, I think is a fair conclusion to make.”

Shane nodded in agreement. “That’s kind of sad, that we’ll never know this guy’s name.” Ryan hummed in agreement, and there was a brief moment of silence. “I bet it was Clive.”

Ryan laughed. “Clive?”

“I dunno man, first name I thought of.” Shane shrugged.

“You thought of Clive before, like, Christopher? A much more common name.”

“Aaa, this is an uncommon guy though, Ryan.”

Ryan shook his head, not commenting.

- - -

“As I said, Samuel seemed to be very enthusiastic about the hunts he led, given the number of documents signed by him. His son however, only seemed to have taken charge in two of these crusades. And if it is to be assumed that the documents were kept in any sort of order, then that would mean, these two accounts from the son were much further apart in time, than that of Samuel’s. It’s also worth mentioning, that C. Cullen’s papers were noticeably longer in length, even if too faded to fully read. But this does suggest the man was, perhaps, more detailed in his telling of what happened, or even maybe had more compelling evidence of what he believed to be a supernatural creature. Researches involved believe the most likely scenario is that Samuel put his son in charge of the church and of the hunts, when he was old enough, as the son’s involvement doesn’t seem to be much later. But that his son was much more hesitant at doing the job at hand. Therefore, leading Samuel to decide to take over once again, possibly to save his own or his family’s reputation.

One document in particular sparked interest, when upon further inspection, it appeared to be written by both Samuel and his son. When comparing the handwriting, it was concluded that it was mostly written by the son. Starting with what seemed to be a description on a group of people living underground. This most likely meaning the sewage system at the time. Bible verses can also be found, such as Leviticus 17:10-14, which quotes ‘And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people.’. But the account of the raid itself, as well as what is assumed to be the execution details, was written, and signed by Samuel. And no evidence of C. Cullen can be found after this point in time.

Which begs the question, what happened during this crusade that meant C. Cullen was unable to complete his own documentation? Was it a conscious decision to leave for good? And, what became of him?

- - -

“See,” Shane started, “I know where you’re going with that that question…”

“Yeah?”

“And I don’t like it…” He sighed.

- - -

“One theory as to why he vanished, is that it during this aforementioned raid, someone fought back against him, and he was killed in self-defence. As mentioned, this attack was written to be on a group of people. Consequently, it seems pretty likely that this group would fight back, given the chance. So perhaps C. Cullen met his match, and ultimate end in this way. Similarly, could it be that he was killed accidentally? Many historians agree that these types of hunts for supernatural beings, would have involved a large number of people. Could it be, that in amidst the chaos and disorder of the crowds, undoubtedly fuelled by fear, that C. Cullen was killed. Perhaps being trampled, or being mistaken for someone else.”

- - -

“Personally,” Ryan started, “I’m not sure I think that’s likely.”

“Of course you don’t, it’s a logical assumption.”

“Oh what, you don’t think, if we were in some crazed mob, I wouldn’t recognise you?” Ryan raised an eyebrow. “And I’d just accidentally kill you cause I was so caught up in the madness?”

“Okay one, you couldn’t kill me no matter how hard you tried.” Ryan made a sound to interrupt, but Shane continued before he could. “And two, hysteria does things to people man. You’re not thinking straight.”

“I just think that the leader of this raid, would be the most recognisable person out of everyone there. I imagine they’d have had him up on a little stage while they all crowded round for instructions before they set off. They’d all of had a pretty good look at the guy, and I’m sure he’d have just been a well-known guy at the time. The trampling, or self-defence I could kinda understand, but I can’t see how someone could’ve just like, grabbed him, and I don’t know, beat him to death or whatever.”

Shane just shrugged.

“Plus, again, he’s probably the most relevant person there.” Ryan added. “So, you’d like to think someone would have noticed his death and there’d be evidence of that.”

“It’s the 1600s, Ryan! What kind of evidence do you want? It’s not like they were running round taking photos or anything.”

“Well, there could be some sort of documentation of it. Newspaper article perhaps?” Ryan suggested.

“I don’t think many newspapers would’ve survived that long… Were newspapers even a thing at this point?”

“You know, honestly I don’t know.”

“And this is the 1600s, how many people were reading?”

“Hmm…” Ryan sighed. “Okay, you got me with that one.”

- - -

“The most commonly accepted theory is that C. Cullen simply ran away. As I said, it is widely believed that he was more hesitant about conducting these crusades in the first place, so is it possible that he used the attack as a cover to escape? Many believe so. Perhaps being in charge of the crusade in question granted him more protection in the event, and perhaps he wasn’t involved in the attack at all. He was simply waiting for news on whether it was successful or not. Is it possible that he hung back, and made his escape while the crowds fought without him? And that no one realised he was gone until afterwards. That being said, some have their doubts about this. Afterall, if C. Cullen was indeed so much more humane than his father, would he really cause an attack on other people, just for his own benefit? And would he be one to watch from the side-lines, while others risked their own life?”

- - -

“Okay…” Shane said.

“What?”

“I mean, obviously, I don’t believe for a second that there were actually vampires involved in any of this… But back in the day, people did quite truly believe that they were real. So, I can’t imagine it would have been difficult to get a crowd all riled up, and then send them off. Especially if the leader of it all also truly believed in the… in the cause, I guess. And I think, that if this guy did use the attack as a cover, and if he was as good of a person as everyone thinks, then he at least thought they were really vampires.”

“That’s fair.” Ryan agreed. “And if you think about it, bible verses were only found in his accounts. So that leads me to think that he at least had like, I dunno, God in mind or whatever.”

“It’s kinda strange to, like, imagine yourself living like that. If you’re taking the bible that seriously, and know it well enough to quote like that, it’s gonna be hard, cause it has a lot of contrasting points. I mean, I can’t say I’ve read the bible, but just from what I’ve seen online. It seems like it’s a bit all over the place!”

“Oh yeah, I agree. I mean, this quote again,” Ryan shuffled through his papers, “I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people’. I can understand that perhaps that could be interpreted to mean killing vampires is okay… But then in the same book you have ‘thou shall not kill’.”

“You know Ryan, I like it when we argee on this stuff.”

Ryan laughed. “Well, we’ll see what you’re saying after this last theory.”

Shane let out a loud sign.

- - -

“I’m sure you all can guess what this final theory is. But some people actually entertain the idea that C. Cullen was correct in his quest. And that he truly found a coven of vampires living underground in London. He was attacked, and transformed into a vampire himself, and he is still out there today.”

- - -

Shane let out a long and loud groan. Leaning back on his chair, and covering his eyes with his hands.

Ryan giggled. “What, you don’t like this one?”

“No.” Shane replied in pained voice.

“Well you’ll be glad to know, neither do I.”

“Oh really. I’d of thought this one was right up your street.”

“What? You seriously think I’d believe in vampires?”

Shane shook his head. “You are so genuinely terrified of ghosts, it’s really not so outlandish to think you’d believe in anything like this.”

“No, no. I’m gonna put vampires in the same category as I put witches. I think a lot of innocent people were unnecessarily killed. And in all honestly, I think Samuel Cullen here, knew what he was doing. I think it was a case of him wanting to maintain a reputation, and as with the second theory, his son just took off and left to live an honest life somewhere.” Ryan nodded.

“I dunno…”

Ryan exaggerated a gasp. “Do you think it was vampires?” He laughed.

Shane chuckled. “Absolutely not. But I mean, I’ll put the whole vampire thing down to mass hysteria, you know, like those people in France!”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “I was so desperately trying to avoid you bringing that up.” He muttered.

“They danced till they died Ryan!” He looked to the camera. “Look it up! Anyway… Mass hysteria, plus, like I think I said this about the witches, but, general boredom can cause a lot of crazy behaviour. But with this C. Cullen guy… he probably just died. It’s not like they were medically advanced. People would get some sort of disease and the local doctor would give them cocaine or some shit. And it’s just a case of crappy documentation.”

Ryan laughed. “You don’t think he managed to get away and just move somewhere else? Probably chance his name?”

“I mean, that’s a possibility.”

“I just… I think there’s something just not sitting well with me, that this guys own father, never seems to mention a death. And that he just seemed to vanish and no one noticed.”

“Well maybe he did mention it, it’s just part of the journal that was unreadable.”

“Maybe…” Ryan said, unsatisfied.

“I guess we’ll never know…”

Ryan sighed. “I hate it when you say that.”

“I know…” Shane nodded, chuckling slightly. “I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it. It was four hundred years ago, he’s defiantly dead now anyway.”

Ryan nodded and hummed. “Well on that note!” The two laughed. “Hey, do you think if a vampire died, that it could still become a ghost?”

“Okay…” Shane stood up and walked off camera.

“Where are you going?”

“Away from you!”

“It was just a question.”

Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed it. Please let me know what you think!

[fordanoia]

I Think I Saw You [Ch 4: Downstairs]

Fandom: Gravity Falls || CW: Swearing, Brief horror-style description, “Life or Death” Scare  || Stan comes to Gravity Falls upon receiving a postcard from Ford, but he can’t find him and he has to figure out what’s going on. || Ao3 || Fic Tag

Prologue || Ch 1 || Ch 2 || Ch 3 || Ch 4 || - || -

______(~3.9k words)______

Stan ran, the sound of feet pounding and shouting echoing off of stone walls following after him.

He entered a circular room lit by torches, several sepia-toned corridors stretching out all around him. He paused, turning around in the middle of the room and glancing over for any differences between all the paths that looked like every single path he'd seen tonight.

A gunshot rang out, and as Stan ducked it flew past him, breaking a chunk of stone away from the wall. 

Cursing, he glanced back down the hallway with figures in the distance coming after him before picking a random path and sprinting down it.

He took sharp turn after sharp turn, trying to lose them. After one turn, the hallway turned to carved stone and hardened dirt, a dug out tunnel with wooden beams spread out along the way to support it and stop it from caving in.

A dim blue light came from the end of the tunnel and as he got close he could see a figure in a long trench coat pass by at the end of it.

Already, Stan was at the end of the tunnel and whipping around the corner. “Fo-!” He skidded to a stop as Ford, who'd only been a couple feet around the corner, jumped away in time before Stan ran right into him.

Ford whipped around to look at him, a sharp look on his eyes and everything about him askew and honestly, just looking a lot worse than the last time Stan had seen him. 

“Hey. So, heads up," Stan said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder, "they’re after us.”

“Who- No.” Ford’s face scrunched up momentarily, before quickly hardening again. “No, I am not doing this again.” 

Ford moved back as Stan got out of eye sight from the tunnel. 

“Not doing it? Great, I want that option too then.” Stan gestured outwards with both arms, momentarily peeking back down the tunnel. “So, how are we doing the ‘not doing it’ option?”

Ford scowled at him. 

“I know I make some hilarious jokes, but I’m being serious when I say I really goddamn want that option, alright. I want out of here.” Stan said, emphasizing the last bit. “Tonight’s been...” 

Falling towards pit spikes, hacksaws cutting through and hitting bone, and way too many people that knew him. (Not to mention how Ford kept leaving him behind, and even when he was around...)

“Tonight’s just been bad, alright.” Stan said. “So can we ditch on finding this thing or not, Sixer?” Ford had been the one to insist he had to be down here, and if he was tired too maybe that meant they could get out of here already. 

Ford paused a moment before evenly asking. “What exactly are we looking for?”

“The- You were the one that said we needed to come down here in the first place to find the thing.” The only reason they were even down here in this mini hell was because of Ford.

“Sure.” Ford said in blatant suspicion and disregard. “So, what is it then?” 

“What is this? A friggin’ pop quiz? Some machine thing. Again,” Stan pointed at him, “you were the one that said we needed it and, oh by the way, you still haven’t even told me what it looked like or what it's for!”

“I know I’m not looking for ‘some machine thing.’” Ford said firmly.

Stan turned around in a frustrated circle to keep himself from just screaming at this point. “What the hell are we doing under the museum then?!”

“This isn’t even under the museum, and I wouldn’t be looking for anything here.”

“Jeez, okay. Where are we then, huh? You tell me. Come on, Ford. Where are we? What are we actually doing?” He questioned.

Ford shifted on his feet and glanced aside in concentration.

“What? You said we aren’t under the museum so if we’re not under the museum then where are we? We can’t be nowhere.”

“I didn’t say this was nowhere.” He argued back, visibly uncomfortable and still not looking at Stan.

“Great. Great, I’m glad we can agree on that." Stan fired back sarcastically, not caring anymore about keeping his voice down to keep from getting caught. He was so goddamn tired of running around like this without understanding anything that was going on. "So, come on then. Where are we? Better yet - What's going on, Ford?” Heasked insistently. “Tell me what’s actually going on here!”

“You-!” Ford snatched Stan by the front of his jacket, a hostile expression on his face that Stan immediately recognized. The last time when Ford had looked at him like that he’d had no problem telling him what he thought, but this time his words stopped almost immediately. The one accusatory word still burned in the air though, backed up by some unspoken damnation.

Ford’s face twisted in frustration, and just as quickly as he’d grabbed Stan out of nowhere, he’d already let him go again. He stepped backwards, moving several feet away from Stan.

Stan took a step forward, half thinking for a moment that Ford was gonna just go off again and after that too. “What the hell was that?!”

“This couldn’t be the museum underground anyhow because it’s under my house.” Ford said, attempting and failing to sound neutral.

“Okay, so now this is your house again, I don’t actually care." Stan said, hands waving to emphasize. "I want to know what’s going on! What is with you?” He asked. “Why are you acting like I did something? All I’ve done has been avoid getting shot for the past fifteen minutes, Ford!” 

Ford stayed decisively quiet this time, brow furrowed as he he evenly stared back at Stan.

“If I did something, then just-” Stan ground on his teeth. He didn’t even know what he did, why Ford kept... 

“Just tell me what I did! I know you’re dying to anyway so just do it already! What did I screw up this time, Ford?” Stan took a couple steps forward.

Whenever Stan took a step forward, Ford took a measured step backwards to keep the distance.

Stan stopped, fists at his side, and even still Ford just... wouldn't say anything. He just watched him with a wary expression.

“Why am I even down here with you when you keep ditching me?” He finally asked.

Ford finally broke his silence, but he didn't get far. "I-"

The cavernous room around them cracked loudly, stone splitting apart and throwing them both off balance. The crashing noises and sputtering of machinery came quickly after it, as huge pieces of metal fell to the ground. Stan caught onto a wooden beam for support, scratching his hand on rough wood as he stumbled for balance before it could happen again.

The sound of familiar static, made him glance back over at Ford. 

Ford was half fallen onto the ground, bracing himself up by his arms and one foot sunk into freshly dug dirt. Looking pissed off, he opened his mouth to yell to Stan, but the only thing that came out was a loud static.

All at once, the floor underneath Stan’s feet was gone and he clutched his nails into the wooden beam, but it just fell with him as he plunged into the darkness, the sound of static from above quickly fading.

____________

Stan jerked awake in a sweat, encased in way too many blankets that were smothering him. He kicked himself out of the cocoon of blankets for cold air as he woke up. 

Gray light streamed in from the small window, casting the whole room in gray, the fire in front of him long since burned down to ash and black embers. It had to almost be afternoon by this point.

His mind slowly turned away from the nightmare and into reality which- hell, which wasn’t that great either.

Stan rubbed his face with his hands and slowly pushed himself off the ground. He took a shower to wash off the sweat and changed, happy to let the majority of the nightmare fade from memory. 

It felt like it had lasted forever and honestly had been a lot more draining than how a nightmare usually went for him. Of course, it’s not exactly like he had a lot of fun stuff on his mind lately, so it wasn’t that weird, he guessed.

On his way to the kitchen, he picked up the two way radio again. He held it in front of his face, the radio still off. 

He sighed, placing it on the counter, his hand staying on top of it for a long moment before he finally turned it on again. The white static filling the kitchen reminding him of falling.

Stan put his hands out. “So, you got anything or am I gonna have to break out a woogie board to hear from you?” (Not a ghost.) “Err- a flashlight. I know you can mess with lights.”

He waited, eventually lowering his hands again as nothing answered him. 

“Maybe...” Maybe Ford just needed more time then he’d be able to talk, maybe he’d be able to do morse code fine on a smaller light, maybe he just was past the point of being able to talk at all.

“You know, maybe something’s downstairs that can help.” Stan finally said, clipping the radio back at his hip again.

He ate through a couple bites of canned brown meat for breakfast, the sound of static making him lose his appetite really quick. Of course, he could just turn it off, but- but if Ford had a spare second where he could talk and Stan had the radio off then he’d miss it. Stan was pretty happy with his dumb luck, but he also had ridiculously bad luck too that bit him in the butt as much as possible.

Stan walked back to the back room, flicking on the light and standing in front of that stupid, metal door again.

“For the record,” he started casually, “if I can’t get this open, I’m just breaking through your floor or the wall here.” Man, did some property damage sound really good right now. He was pretty sure he'd seen an ax at some point. 

“If you didn’t want property damage you should have given me a key or something.” 

Stan paused for a moment, an idea crossing his mind because he did have one code. It was stupid though. 

Then again, if he was just gonna press random buttons to see what worked then why not try the one he’d used in his dream. What was it going to do anyways? Make a bomb go off?

He didn't remember most of the conversation he'd had during the dream in front of the door, before the dream went south into nightmare territory, but he sure as hell remembered the stupid code from it. 

“Alright,” he muttered, pressing the last button, “open... sesame.”

A hiss of air came from behind the door, and Stan startled, taking a step back as the door slowly swung open.

The thick metal door gently stopped with a gentle thump as it hit the wall, and in front of Stan was a wooden platform. 

Stan stepped inside and glanced down the uniform planks leading downwards, dimly lit and leading right to a metal grate door.

Just like that. It was open.

“Ha!!” He bounded down the stops, excited. “Now that’s what I-” 

The static suddenly came to life, and a scrambling sound, causing him to stumble to a step where he was, putting a hand out on the wall to stop himself.

“What-?” He paused. “What is it?”

There was nothing along the walls besides- well, he spotted a greasy hand mark with six fingers, but that was it. Even if it did turn out to be some secret entrance, he'd check it back out later. 

"Ford?" He waited, with a frown. He took a step backwards then forwards again, but there wasn't another sound this time so Stan continued downstairs.

At the bottom of the steps, he came face to face with an elevator. He pressed the call button and waited as he heard the grind of gears bringing the platform up.

The doors opened with a ding and Stan stepped inside. “Okay, well, I’m just gonna go- uh.”

The small elevator didn't have a lot in it, but it had one more button than he was expecting. “Okay, so you had two whole secret floors. So which one-”

He got cut off by the radio, once again coming to life and this time very loud, but he heard a hint of Ford’s voice. Ford could talk, not a lot, but he could!

Stan left that to deal with later though because as good as it was, he still couldn't understand Ford at all.

“Okay, let me try this.” He said, putting a hand out. “Speak up when I’m over the right floor.”

He hovered his finger over the ‘3’ first and the static started to scramble with a sort of higher pitched tone.

“See? Easy.” Stan said, pressing the button. 

The static fluctuated harshly as the elevator started winding downwards.

“Relax,” he said, “I meant easy as far as talking like this can get right now.”

There was a gentle beep as he reached the bottom floor and the doors opened, low red light spilling into the elevator with him.

In front of him was a small room lined with all kinds of machines and tubes and switches. He slowly walked past them all, looking at them as he went. There were so many gizmos and monitors, few of which had any kind of label of course, and it quickly got confusing what any of them actually did.

Then he saw past a clear observation glass and into a cavernous room with a massive triangular structure looming high. There was a circular hole punched through the middle of it and wires going from it to some metal rings in the middle of the floor. 

“Okay. Okay.” Stan said. “So, what the hell is that?”

He wasn’t surprised to hear nothing answer him this time though. He hadn't really been expecting an answer because whatever that answer was it was probably really complicated and nerdy.

“Jeez.” He stepped through the side door, the air dropping several degrees and making a chill go up his spine. Without the heat from all the machines running, it was freezing this far underground. 

He slowly walked towards one of the metal rings on the floor, feeling out of his depth. It wasn't like he didn't know Ford worked on stuff like this, there'd been loads of gizmos upstairs, but this was different. It was big and he didn't know what it did, but if it needed all the stuff from the other room to work then it was for something huge.

The radio quietly fluctuated strangely, and Stan paused where he was at, but the sound continued. 

He waited for it to stop or for Ford to speak up, but after a while it just sounded like actual interference. 

Stan glanced back at the huge centerpiece in the room. 

Stan took an experimental step backwards, the noise disappearing, and then forward again only for it to return again. 

As he took slow steps towards the machine, the interference got louder and gradually began to sound more corrupted until he was in arms reach of where the structure was bolted down into a support column. 

After a while it started to sound like... chatter bleeding through. All kinds of noises that ran over and under and through each other, and amidst all of it he could hear what had to be voices. Then what sounded like a peal of unnatural laughter.

Stan stepped back, keeping his eye on the structure with a weird feeling that he couldn’t place. Okay, well - it was creeped out. The feeling was 'creeped the hell out.' The thing about though was that it was also giving him more ideas about what this thing was, and maybe even about Ford.

If he could hear- well, he wasn’t really sure he should be calling these voices ‘people’ - but if he could hear them, then what if this had something to do with what or wherever Ford was at. He could hear both of them through the radio so maybe it was the same place.

Ignoring the interference now, Stan walked around the huge room looking for anything else that stuck out, but he quickly gave up because the only thing else around was a couple of work tables with power tools on them.

“Alright,” he said, walking back through the control room. “Ford, what-”

The static fluctuated sudden and sharply, and Stan stopped where he was at, near one of the several machines.

He paused, looking to his right and the static flared up with a high pitched noise when Stan put his hand over the top of the panel of a screen, some buttons, and a large lever.

His heart rate picked up and he looked down, slowly hovering his hand over everything there, waiting for noise when he heard a light bulb shatter to his left.

Stan pulled his hand back sharply, looking around. “Jeez! So, we're shattering lights again?" He asked. "We're back to shattering light bulbs like they don't make sharp shards of glass go everywhere? Great. You know there's other ways to get attention with..." 

He noticed a blinking light in a familiar pattern then. Where the elevator was set back and away from everything, the light bulb beside it was flashing. Three short. Three long. Then over again.

A bulb right near his head buzzed with electricity then burnt out and the radio at his hip screamed, a haywire noise. 

He winced and turned the volume down slightly.

All the lights near him from the blinking and whirring machines started to flicker in a line towards the panel he was already beside. 

Stan glanced in confusion between the two sets of lights, the ones right where he was at, then the one all the way back again at the elevator signalling even faster now for help. The lights beside him stopped for just a moment, then the elevator light burnt out, and they resumed again pointing him back to that panel.

The radio blared, the staticky noise coming out more intense and higher pitched than he’d heard it in the car, missing the smallest hint of resemblance to Ford’s voice; and it finally clicked.

Stan took the radio off of his hip and hit the off switch on it, cutting off the static shredding over itself, leaving the room in a near silence aside from the quiet buzz of electricity and whirring fans.

There was something here besides Ford. 

Stan turned, walking back towards the elevator, ignoring the insistently flashing lights pointing in the opposite direction. 

The lights that had kept burning out whenever they’d started flashing in morse code, that had been stopping Ford every time he tried to send a message. 

Stan pushed the button to open the elevator doors again and got inside. “That thing has been talking all over you since yesterday, hasn’t it?” He asked

The light bulb inside the elevator weakly flickered.

He let out a slow breath, still thinking and running back through everything that had happened yesterday. It made sense when he thought it had just been a spirit, and even less as Ford, but with Ford and something else both trying to use the lights it made a lot more sense why Stan kept getting mixed signals. 

As long as this thing was around, he had virtually zero chance of reliably getting to talk with Ford. It hadn’t been around during the drive back to the shack thoug so there had to be some windows of opportunity here. Problem was Stan didn’t know when those were. 

“Alright,” Stan said, “then you talk over it too, Ford, and when it’s gone I’ll be able to actually hear you.” 

There wasn’t a response, but at this point he knew he couldn’t really get anything right now. Not with that thing hanging around too.

“I’m just gonna start calling it bastard since that’s all I know about it.”

The light bulb in the elevator burnt out, and Stan smiled slightly. 

“Oh, hey there bastard. Glad to see you're on board with your nickname." He said with a self satisfied smile, pressing the button for the second floor.

He actually didn't know how much they could se

In all seriousness, this bastard was a huge roadblock, but there had to be something important on this other floor. Maybe something that would help him actually figure out what was going on.

The elevator dinged and this time it stopped in front of a fancy, wooden door that looked like it belonged inside of an old library instead of several feet underground some shack in the woods.

A hint of light spilled out from the cracks around the door frame, and when Stan turned the golden knob it was to a fully lit room and he blinked as he stepped inside the room that was a blur of colors, adjusting his eyes to the sudden change in light.

When he was able to see, his heart stopped in his chest. A string somewhere behind his ribs snapping and the corner of his eyes burned.

“No.”

It was an eclectic mess, but at the back of the room in front of a desk chair was a figure on the ground in a wrinkled, white shirt and dark pants. 

Ford, laid out on his back and looking as though he’d fallen and never gotten back up or even moved. 

Stan’s legs buckled underneath him and he blindly reached for the door, but it only swung further open when his hand hit it and Stan was in the middle of a huge void that had somehow gotten inside him and was eating him from the inside out. 

“No.”

His body weight shifted forward and he broke into a sprint down the room, dropping onto the floor beside Ford’s body and pulling himself closer to him from where Stan had landed. 

He grabbed onto Ford’s shoulders, hands locking into a harsh, white knuckled grip on him.

Where Ford’s face was resting on the ground, the lens of his glasses was cracked. His face was gaunt and pale, the purple circles under his eyes sticking out against the too white skin. 

Stan had been yelling Ford’s name all over the house, he could have heard him. Stan had shouted loud enough, even this far down he would have been able to hear him. If he was- If Ford had just been down here this entire time...

“Ford-” Stan’s voice cut out, his throat tensing up too much to let anything else out, not even air.

Slowly, Stan leaned down and pressed his ear against Ford’s chest, listening. 

A silent second passed by, then another. Then he heard it. A weak thump.

A rush of air left Stan’s lungs. He listened to that same thump repeat itself again after another moment, and a couple more times as the world righted itself again. 

Stan lifted his head back up, and shook his brother. “Ford. Hey, Stanford. Up and- Hell, never mind. Hospital time, let's go." 

Stan stopped trying to wake him, because there were a lot of obvious reasons why that wasn’t happening right now, and instead moved to pick him up from the ground. He put his hands underneath Ford’s body and leaned against the spiral staircase to lift Ford with him as he stood back up.

Adjusting his hold so he wouldn’t drop him, Stan took off back to the elevator.

[yourdeepestfathoms]

Olly Olly Oxenfree (part one)

An fic based on the indie horror game, OXENFREE!

or: Joan and Cathy are step-sisters and fuck shit up for everyone, the AU

Also it’s super dialogue heavy I’m so sorry-

also also- Cathy has a beanie

TW: Underage drinking and one (1) weed brownie that’s vaguely mentioned

———————

Ask A Man About A Dog

“It used to be a military base! Well...it used to be a ranching thing, then it turned into a military thing, then it became a bird thing and museum and- whatever! Henry Fonda found a station here for a bit. Unless that’s wrong...”

“Who’s Henry Fonda?”

“And around Christmas time, this little breakfast place used to sell these AMAZING polar bear sugar cookies! MAN, those were good! But then they had to go and change the recipe and ruin it.... Joan, hey? Still with us?”

Joan blinked and looked up from the wine-dark waves lapping at the side of the ferry. She turned, feeling the sensation of pins and needles spreading up her arm thanks to how long she had been leaning against the guard rail, and faced the two girls standing a few feet away from her.

The first was familiar- she was around her height, pale, and had her hair done up in magnificent spacebuns that just screamed that her personality was eccentric. She was grinning like a mischievous gremlin- or maybe a raccoon, to be more realistic, however “monkey” jumped out at Joan, too.

The second was less familiar- very tall, dark skin, and her hair done in a way that would make Joan’s head hurt if she attempted it with her own. At first glances, this girl gave off a bookish appearance, but she seems more extroverted than Joan had been expecting, probably because of the beanie she was wearing (it was most likely just there because of the cold). Still, the image of an owl still remained.

“Yeah, sorry,” She finally said, learning how to speak and enunciate again. She pulled her grey coat closer around her. “My mind drifted for a second.”

Anne scanned her for a moment. Despite being outlandish and wild, she still worried over her friends when she thought something was wrong. That’s one of the many things Joan liked about her.

After the frisk with her eyes, she nodded, then wheeled around on her heels so she would be facing the other two.

“So, you’re all moved in?” She asked.

“Uh— not- not really.” The second girl answered. “I just got in this morning.”

“And how did her mum meet your mum again?” Anne continued with the questioning.

The girl laughed slightly. “They met on vacation in Scotland. She got lost in a— actually, I’m not even gonna tell this story.”

“Uhh, yes, please don’t,” Joan jumped back in. “We don’t need to relive their meet-cute anymore than we have to.”

The waves of the ocean jars the boat slightly. Joan doesn’t miss the way the dark-skinned girl clenches one hand on the guard rail. Anne, however, doesn’t even stumble as she makes her way to the deck to look out on the nearby island.

“And you guys just met tonight?” She asked.

“Yeah,” The girl swiveled around to keep Anne in her sights. “I was, umm... Out of school and the time just had never worked out, so...”

“And what does that make you, then?”

Joan and the girl exchange looks, blinking. They both turn back to Anne, whose eyebrows are raised in interest. That gremlin side of her was coming out strong.

“A, uh...” The girl uses her free hand to scratch her head. “A second cousin?”

“She’s my step-sister.” Joan said cooly. Out of the corner of her eye she sees the girl smile at her slightly.

“Oh yeah,” Anne laughed. “I forgot that was even a thing!”

Once again Joan and the girl give each other glances. Joan notes how she seems more relaxed after her step-sister statement, which makes her oddly happy.

“Well, you seem cool!” Anne began again, “Cool girl, cool hat...you get a cool new sibling living right in your house!” She smirks, “Sharing your toothbrush...wearing your clothes...”

“No, that’s-” Joan’s voice falters. She hears the girl snort into her hand. “That’s the weird part. Don’t make it weird, Anne! Getting a new sister isn’t like- like getting a puppy or something.”

“No, yeah, it’s been totally bizarre.” The girl said. “But, for the record,” She looks at Joan, “I don’t consider you to be a pet.”

Those words are left awkwardly hanging in the air before the waves seem to wash them away with another bob to the boat. The girl clenches her hand on the railing again, and uses the other to straighten her beanie, which the wind had been trying to rip right off of her head.

“So...” She started. “How did you two meet?”

“Oh, from way back when! Like, Paleozoic! Grade school era!” Anne said enthusiastically. “Young enough that I’ve seen her naked in a bathtub and it wasn’t sexual at all. I mean, we both looked like little skinned potato blobs-”

“Ahhh, Anne!!” Joan squealed. She could feel her ears flaming red. The girl at her side gave a laugh. “Why are you even talking about that?!”

“It’s humorous!” Anne giggled. Before she could go on and possibly embarrass Joan again, a voice on the ferry’s loudspeaker speaks up.

“PASSENGERS, WE WILL BE ARRIVING SOON. CHECK UNDER YOUR SEAT TO MAKE SURE YOU HAVEN’T LEFT ANY OF YOUR PERSONAL BELONGINGS.”

And, as it did so, Anne repeated the speech in a bored, stoic voice.

“How do you-?” Joan tilted her head.

“It’s a recording. They always play it.” Anne tells her before she could even finish. “Oh!” A new idea has already popped into her head. “We should get a picture! All of us!”

“Sure, why not.” Joan shrugged. “Come on, Cath.”

The girl nodded and finally pried her hand loose from the guard rail. They both walked over to Anne, who held up her phone and snapped a photo of all of them.

“There, great!” Anne beamed. “Also...it’s Catherine, right?”

“Yeah,” The girl nodded. “But just call me Cathy.”

“Cool! Oh, hey, Joan! You brought the radio, right?”

“Of course,” Joan said, then pulled a small, portable radio out of her pocket. “What’s it for, exactly?” She craned her head around to look at Cathy, “She sent me around twenty messages in all caps to bring this thing.”

Cathy laughed.

“You’ll see,” Anne said. “Trust me, it’ll be cool!”

A horn blares as the mist rolling over the ocean in its own waves of white parted so they could see an island coming up. The ferry begins to slow before coming to a halt at the docks. Anne eagerly bounced off, followed by Joan and Cathy.

“Smell the clean air, boys and girls! Err- Girls! This ain’t city livin’.” Anne said, “So, the others should be up and around the bend and...”

“Actually-” Cathy started abruptly. “I don’t mean to break us up already but- Anne, can I have a moment with Joan?”

“Uhh-” Anne blinked. “Really? I-”

“Is something wrong?” Joan looked up at Cathy- it was only then that she realized how tall the older girl really was. “What is it?”

“Nothing’s wrong, nothing’s wrong,” Cathy said, sensing her worry. “It’ll take, like, two minutes. Super fast.”

“I really don’t want to go up by myself-”

“No, I need to hear this, Anne. We’ll meet you up ahead, okay?” Joan said.

Anne’s mouth hung half open for a moment before she blinked and scratched her head.

“Umm- Alright. This is a weird way to start out...splitting up...” She said as she began walking away. Soon, she was out of sight, shrouded by the dark fog, and only the sound of the waves lapping the rocky shore was left behind.

But only for a moment.

“Listen,” Cathy started. She looked sheepish. “I just wanted to catch you ahead of time and say you’ve been...cool...about everything. And I guess just for me I’ve- you know, I’ve never moved around anywhere, and getting a new family during it all feels like I’m skipping the training wheels.” She pauses, then hurried to continue, thinking that that was a bad place to stop. “Not that it’s bad it anything! You and your mum have been great.”

“Eh, we’ll make do.” Joan said, shrugging her shoulders to try and mask her own anxiety with the whole thing. “Lemons, lemonade- however that goes.”

“An optimist.” Cathy said bitterly. “Oh, Christ.” She laughed. Joan laughs, too.

It feels nice to laugh with a sister.

“Oh, and thanks for setting up the attic for me. It’s cool how it’s like a little bedroom!”

(It feels nice to laugh with a sister again)

“That was, uhh-”

A pang of pain stabs right into Joan’s heart, wrenching it until it was mush in her chest. She glances wryly at the dark ocean water nearby and then can’t pry her eyes away. If she squints, she swore she could see a flailing figure...

“Joan?”

Cathy’s voice cut through the roaring waves in her ears.

“That was Maria’s room.” Joan whispered.

Breathe. She told herself, Like mum taught you. In five, hold three, out five... Breathe.

“There, uh-” She found her voice again. “There wasn’t that much to set up.”

Cathy’s hands, which had been on Joan’s shoulders to steady her, pulled back. They clench as she seemed to internally cringe for what she had accidentally made her new step-sister say.

“Oh. Oh, man. I’m so sorry.” She said. “I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“It’s okay,” Joan said quickly, “You didn’t know.”

An awkward silence came between them. Instead of looking at the other, they both were scanning the island.

The only thing on the “bottom level” of the island was the docks, some cars, a bookstore, and a large tunnel that was closed off. Once the sisters decided to head back to Anne, they walked up some stone steps planted into the earth and onto the “second level”, where a stone statue of a wave and bird, an antique store, and a café stood. They passed these buildings and met up with Anne after a short hike up a small hill.

“Hello, kids!” Anne chirped, seemingly over her temporary exile. “Listen, the others should be close, so let’s hurry it up. And, as we hightail it, I’ll give you a speed-read of Edward’s Island!” She pauses, then leaned in, whispering, “That’s where we’re at.”

“I know.”

“We got that.”

“Good! Good!” Anne trotted the rest of the way up the hill. “This is a tourist trap with shops and a beach! Nobody lives here except for some geriatric named Mrs. Lee. But, with God as my witness, I will never mention her or any other old person tonight ever again! We are here to drink and be stupid.”

It seemed that their first “stupid act” was using a dumpster to jump a fence because Anne went on to tell them they were not allowed there after dark.

The three of them made their way down a mountainside path, chatting idly and getting to know each other better on Cathy’s part, before a slick, honey-laced voice chimed through the air.

“Reginald! I hear you over there!”

“H-hey, guys!” Anne smiles sheepishly, hopping down from a ledge to get down.

Two more girls now stood before them. One was significantly older than all of them. She had dark skin and curly brown hair that framed her unblemished face perfectly. The other girl was younger than Joan, with brown hair dyed pink at the tips and eyes like a kitten.

“Hey,” Joan waved slightly.

“We started a fire down at the beach.” Said the older girl. “But Kitty here wanted to play beach nanny.”

“I just wanted to make sure they got here before it was completely dark.” The younger girl said.

The older chuckled then looked over at the stranger in the group of three. “Who are you?”

“I’m Cathy.”

“That’s Cathy.” Anne said helpfully. “She’s Joan’s new, fresh-as-a-daisy step-sister! Cathy, that’s Katherine and Catherine. Confusing, right? Three girls with the same name! Except this little one goes by Kitty- she’s my cousin, actually- and the tall one goes by Catalina. Because she’s Spanish...or something.”

“Wait wait wait- Step-sister?” Catalina said. Joan just barely managed to bite back a groan of annoyance at her upcoming attitude. “How does that even work?”

“Her mum married my mum, so...law.” Joan said.

“Well, this is happening, now. This is a thing that is happening.” Catalina said, exasperated. She began walking down the path that led to the beach. “Where’s everybody else?”

“Maud had that thing and then Jane Parker-”

“We’re it.” Joan said for Anne.

“What.” Catalina momentarily swiveled her head around to analyze the whole group. Then, she gave a biting laugh. “Oh my god! It’s just Anne, Joan, and the new step-sister!”

“Yeah, we took the last ferry.” Anne said.

“Aren’t you guys friends?”

Everyone looked at Cathy. Then they exchanged scattered glances.

Catalina began leading again, marching her way down to the beach.

“I’m friends with Kitty,” She said. The younger girl gave a gleeful smile at that. “And I’m downgrading Anne to a creepy neighbor.”

“I’ll take it!” Anne said.

“And I just met you.”

“Hey!” Joan barked, “What about me?”

“What about you?”

Joan clenched her jaw, then sighed. She feels Cathy gently nudge her in a friendly way and give her a warm smile as if to say, “I’m your friend.”

Joan smiles back.

The five teenagers get down to the beach, where there was, in fact, a bonfire set up, along with some towels and a cooler. Joan hopes nobody saw the way she nervously glanced at the water.

“So... what’s the thing to do here?” Cathy asked, scanning the area.

“Whatever,” Kitty shrugged. She plops herself down by the fire and smiled at Catalina when she joined her.

“Hey, where does that old woman live?” Cathy asked another question.

“You mean Maggie Lee? She’s dead.” Catalina answered.

“What?” Anne snapped her head over to her.

“Yup. Keeled over three days ago. It was all over the news.” Catalina said. “And to answer your previous question, Cathy, the ‘thing to do’ is lay on the beach and drink until you can’t remember where your are.”

“And,” Kitty piped up, steering the topic away from very illegal underage drinking. “Sometimes play Truth or Slap!”

“Yeah!” Anne perked up. “Let’s play that! We can inaugurate Cathy. Ease her into the festivities.”

“Truth or Slap?” Joan asked stupidly, which prompts Anne to began to explain how it was like Truth or Dare except you just ask questions and get slapped if you’re lying about your answer.

“It’s a good getting to know each other game!” Anne concluded. “I’ll go first!” She turns to Joan with a smirk, “Joan!”

“Uh oh,” Cathy laughed.

“Lay it on me.” Joan smirked back.

“Okay. Kiss, Screw, Kill: Me, Kitty, and Catalina!”

“What?!” Kitty yelped.

“No!” Catalina barked.

“Calm down! Besides, I can’t include Cathy! They’re siblings!”

“Okay, okay... I’d probably marry you, Anne. I’ve known you the longest. Not a lot of surprises!” Joan said.

“Ha! Stay-at-home-wife!”

“Then I’d screw Catalina. Obviously.”

Anne laughed loudly. “‘Obviously’! Not gonna call her out on that?”

“No, I believe her.” Catalina said. “Look at me.”

“And that means you would smother poor little Kitty with a pillow,” Anne said, clutching her heart with one hand and wiping away an imaginary tear with the other.

“Oh shit- Sorry, Kit! It just worked out that way, I swear!” Joan said.

“It’s fine,” Kitty shrugged before snuggling up closer to Catalina’s side.

“So, Joan’s turn now?” Cathy asked.

“Right,” Anne nodded.

“Okay...Uhh...Kitty! Have you ever...peed in a swimming pool?”

Both Anne and Cathy erupt into laughter. Catalina snorts and shook her head, clearly not surprised. Kitty wrinkled her nose.

“Ugh, no!”

“Nice question,” Catalina snickered. “I wanna go now. Joan. You got a new sister. Pretty exciting. I’m sure Cathy is pretty excited, too. Or maybe ‘excited’ isn’t the word. Maybe a little unsure...overwhelmed...”

“No, I’m- I’m fine. I’m fine.” Cathy said.

“Yeah, see, she’s-” Joan shook her head. “What’s the question?”

Catalina took a sip of the beer she’s holding, then looked Joan directly into the eye and asked, “Why’d your mum finally decide to get married?”

Joan’s heart twisted.

“Just so Cathy can hear it from you.”

Kitty and Anne immediately began giving each other anxious looks. Cathy appears to be a little shocked until she calms her expression.

“Catalina, I don’t care why her mum-”

“You know why.” Joan said. Her eyes are dark, just like the nearby water. Just like the water on that- “Maria- died and it broke everything and she just needed someone there to try and pick up the pieces. The end.”

(Water roars in her ears- water rushes down her throat- water chokes her and holds her and consumes her until- until- until-)

(She’s screaming so loud SO LOUD WHY WON’T ANYONE HELP WHY IS SHE SLIPPING AWAY SOMEBODY HELP-)

“Well, now you know, Cathy. Don’t die and everything will be fine.” Catalina said.

Once again, there was a tense silence. Anne breaks it by saying she wanted to go check out the nearby caves, which Cathy and Joan agree to.

One quick hop over a fence (and a weed brownie eaten by Anne) later, the three of them find themselves inside of a large cave with three small rock piles set up.

“So, what you gotta do is stand right here and tune your radio until you find a ‘signal’.” Anne explained. “That’s why we brought it.”

Joan nodded and took the radio out. She began to rotate the little dial around, mainly getting plain static for a few minutes before a strange sound cut through the white noise.

Well, there was that and an ominous blue flickering from a crevice in the cave wall.

“Holy crap!” Cathy yelped.

“It worked!” Anne cried. “That was so cool! Do it again!”

Joan nodded and walked over to the next pile, tuning in her radio. Once again, the thing sputters loudly and the nearby light flashes.

“This is so cool!” Cathy exclaimed.

“I know!” Joan beamed excitedly at her.

“Do the last one, Jo!”

“I will! I will!”

And she does.

And, like the last two times, the sound returns, but this time more garbled and grating.

“Agh-” Cathy winced. She sees Joan press a hand to her ear. “It sounds so...”

“It sounds, agh-” Joan’s temples pulsate. She pulls her hand back, surprised to see no blood because she swore her eardrums ruptured. “It sounds, like...painful.”

A sound returns- however, this one was different, like a staticky moaning noise. Almost...human.

“There’s something in there.” Cathy said, walking over to the crack in the cave wall.

“Yeah, I see it, too.” Joan agreed.

“I’m gonna go check it out.” Cathy suddenly said. A moment later, she’s gone.

“Wh- That’s such a bad idea!” Anne cried.

“Cathy! Wait up!”

“WAIT UP?!” Anne looked at Joan like she was insane.

“I’ll be fine,” Joan assured her friend. “Wait here.”

With that, she slips in through the crack.

Immediately, the feeling of claustrophobia embraces her as the passageway was a lot longer than she had been expecting. She shuffles awkwardly through the tight space, feeling the cold, biting stone chafe into either sides of her. She could barely even breathe completely because the rock pressed against her chest, almost like it was trying to suffocate and trap her.

Right as she was about to panic, or maybe turn back, Joan pops out and into a large tunnel. It’s lit up by bioluminescent moss, but it’s far too bright, even with the glowing plants...

“Cathy?” She called out as she began to walk down the passageway. “Cathy, where are you?!”

No answer.

Not even an echo.

Chills ran up and down Joan’s spine. The feeling of eyes bearing down on her followed her through every twist and turn she took in that cave, but whenever she turned around, there was nobody there.

“Cathy?” Joan said again, this time more frantic. “Cathy, are you okay? Can you, like, scream or something?”

Nothing.

“Cathy?”

A shadow stretches across the jagged, rocky ground.

“Cathy!”

“AH!!”

Cathy leapt backwards as Joan just about charged her like an angry (but fuzzy) little lamb. She put a hand on her chest, reintroducing her lungs to oxygen as Joan tears strips off of her.

“What were you thinking?!” Joan barked. “I was so worried! I thought you, like- like died or something! Do you know what that would have done to me? How would I explain that to mum? Your mum- my mum- both!!”

“Okay, okay, I get it! You’re mad!” Cathy held her hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. I just- I thought I heard something down here. A voice.”

Like that, Joan’s rage vanishes. Cathy wished she had led in with the whole voice thing.

“A voice?” Joan tilted her head like a confused puppy (or a lamb).

“Yeah.” Cathy turned and began walking further into the cave. “It was so...weird...”

Cathy’s voice trailed and died off as she and her sister ducked under an overhand and passed into a large cavern filled with huge crystals. An underground lake day in the middle, glistening in an unknown light source. The only ruddy-looking thing in that beautiful space was a rusty locker on the opposite of the shore.

“Oh my god,” Joan whispered.

“Holy- Joan,” Cathy grabbed and shook Joan’s elbow frantically. “Do you see that?!”

Joan blinked and looked up. It didn’t take long for her to realize what ‘that’ was.

A floating triangle.

A fucking floating, spinning triangle in the middle of the air.

“It- it must be some kind of...reflection...a rainbow...” Cathy was at a loss for words. “Those-those are things, right? Cave...triangle rainbows.”

“Sure,” Joan said slowly. “Let’s go with that.”

“I think this may be caused by when you ‘tuned in’ back at the beach.” Cathy said. “Maybe try it again?”

Joan glanced up at her, then nodded and took out her radio. She began to twist the dial until the triangle in the air shuddered and started to pulsate. A small, iridescent line stretched out from one of the tips.

“Oh- my god.” Cathy whispered. “Is this— are you— is this— YOU? Are you doing this?”

“Uhh- I-I think?” Joan stammered before tuning in again.

The line grew longer until it formed a second triangle. Joan felt a beating against her brain, almost like a second pulse that wasn’t hers and, by the way Cathy winced at her side, her sister felt it, too.

“I can’t even, like— what is— what?!”

“I-I know! I know!” Joan cried. She tuned in one last time and-

-and the triangle was complete.

Within the glowing shape, all there was was murky green. It was shuddering in the air, pulsating visible red vibrations.

“What the...”

“...hell...” Cathy finished for her sister.

̵̥͍̮̯̙́̈́́͆͋ ̵̧̬͓̆̈́̒͋“̶̼̈́̎̏H̵͖̓̒̅ͅę̴̥̥͇̌͊̏l̴̲̟̼̜̭͝l̸̛̜̩̖͚̜͝ő̷̞̎̓.̶̪̭͕̊̔̒ ̶̡̧̮̿D̸͓̍ȩ̵̻̰̖̲͐͋̄̈́͝å̴̲̽͝͝ͅṟ̵̟̐̀͗̽̕.̸̢̘͕͔̲̄͂͛ ̶͚̥͉̤̊̎̌͑͠T̶̪̏ê̶̢̯̩̻l̶̛̉̎͜ĺ̶͈̻̯̱̓̈́̕̚ ̴͎͍̆̀̐̍̀è̸̛̥̀̈́̈́v̶̩̯̯͠e̷̮͌̕͜r̷̤̍̉͝y̵̠̰̙͔̏ọ̵̠̠͗ͅn̶̢̯̥̎͜e̶̻̘̰̯̳̾̌́͝ ̸̛̘̪̬̤ȟ̴̨̢͎̺͆e̸̢̺̹͆̎ͅl̷̢̜͝ĺ̵̞͖̬͙̃͆̋͜͝ö̸̬́̊̄.̴͓̱̝͚̗̔̀”̶̰̝̠͓͋̂̐ Spoke an unknown garbled voice. It sounded as if snippets from radio programs were ripped out of their channels and used to form the words. There were tons of people talking at once, tons of voices. And, when it- they- speak, the pounding in Joan’s brain beat in time with each word.

“H-hello?” Joan said. She glances anxiously at Cathy, who is stunned into silence.

̵̨̠͍̄͛ ̶̱͆̀̾͂̂“̵͕̃͝S̴̟̰̊͌̕͜l̶̥̬̃̿ë̷͇́̏̈́̇́e̷͍͎͚̎p̷͕̼̠͂̾̀̑ȳ̸̦́ ̶̩̔͋̃t̵̬̞͉͍͆̐̓͘ĭ̶̢͓͇̇̉̎͝ṃ̴̡͕̔̏̎̑͜͝ḛ̵̙͉̘̿̃̀͊̓ ̴̢̫͈̟̓̒͠ͅg̵̣͂̿ͅą̵̞̙̺̈́̇̿l̴̥̰͇̠̇̃.̸͔̏ ̸̟̗̺̋͛́̑̕E̶͙̙̫̠̮̾̄v̷̗̯̯͙́͒͛͛̑ē̵̢̧͉̻͌͝ȑ̸̨̖͜ỵ̷͕̳̮͒́͊̑̔t̵̬̩̭̤͖̓̍̍͋h̷̙̤̼͑̾͜ï̸̻͇͊͜n̵͎̈́g̸̢̤̻̝̕͜ ̵̡̛̼͉̒͝f̶̙̌͠i̷̯͂n̷̗̪͆e̷̩̪̫̺̒̿̔ͅ.̴̗͒́͜ ̵̨̛̟̻̄̓͝͠H̷̢̳̪̣̓̋ő̷̧p̴̧͕͕̗̯̂e̷̘̬̯̿̀͗ ̸̲͍̟̞̱̈́̌͊͝t̷̫͆̈́͆̓̆h̶̩͎̠̜̎̐͝i̶̠̳͒͗̔̽ǹ̸̹̻̣͍̀̽̚g̵̯͇̗̋s̷̢̡̞̖̾̀̕ ̴̳̲̾͋̏a̸̡̼͍̓̑r̶̫̪̮͖̾̍͋̂̇e̶͖̯͖̹̓̌́ͅ ̵̭̪͔̬̟͐͌̒̈̕s̶̭͇̞̬͐͑͂a̶̖͎̣̓̆͆̽͠m̸̫̙̺̈́ḙ̵̢̥͖̓͂͐̀̚͜.̸̢͓̖̓̋͊ ̴̭̞͓̺̱̔̾͒̾D̴̳͚̅͊́͒ŏ̵͖̫̥͚́̐͆n̵̢͔̭̬̂’̴͇̼̔͑t̶̫͑ ̴̛̹̹ḱ̵̡͎̄n̴͖̓̔͝ő̷̺͓̬̺͌̍w̸̡̥̖̼͋̽̌ ̸̱͓̞̀̈́͌͗̚ḯ̵̫̫̘f̸̡̫̝̖͊̈ ̸̗̠͉̖̹͊̎͝ļ̵̱͗̃͐͆͘e̴̡̡̲̬̙̓̄̑͝ȃ̷͓̜̈ͅv̷̡̠͇̠̀e̴̯̯̞̜̖̕ ̴̢̬̮͂̐̈́͘̚i̷̩̰͇̐̌͒s̴̬̥̫̤̒ ̸̘̝̬͑͜p̸̦̺̕ọ̶̟͕̞̱̈͠s̵̢͙̩͈̩͒̕s̵̼̍̈́̑͘i̴͚̠̖̯͗̓͝b̵͔̰̆͝l̷̨͍̝̻̍́͑̊͗ȩ̶̞̻͗́͋͘.̶̡͕͚̱̭̌͝”̷̩̳̼͍̓̀͠͠ Said the voices.

“This...is insane.” Cathy breathed out. Her hand takes Joan’s and squeezes it tightly, reassuringly.

̴̫̲̦̬̐̓̍̕ ̴͎̓̏̀̄͝“̵̝̬̝͖̩͊̂L̴̠͚̐̑̅̿͝ī̶͇̦͌͑s̷̤͈̩̈́͗̇̇̽t̷̨̺̰̄̌̇͘ͅe̵͙͊̃n̶̟̝͙̎̋̒̾̈́.̴̯̝̋̈̍͝ ̸̨̦͍̰͇̅̽B̵̗͙̝͋̍͜ò̶̙̺͙b̴͚̯̻̄͊̔͠ ̷̙̫̲̣̙̈́̑͊̚͝t̸̞̬̜̰̉̐͝ä̴̝̥̗́̎i̸̡̔̎l̷̝͇̳̩̮̓.̶͙̭͓̏́ ̷̻̣͓̽̓̋͒S̶̖͂̄h̵͕̘͗ă̴̗̱̤͙͙̆̒͝v̴͙͓͉̗̎͊ͅė̷̟̪̦ ̵̻̙̱̠̿̈́̈́ṯ̵̥͗́́͘͜ã̴̼̰͚̞̕͝ȋ̴̲̝̘͖̟̉͌̀ľ̷̪̜͕̜͍̈́̐͋͠.̴̢͎̼͛̓͜͠ ̵̛̘̉̅͠Ṩ̷̝̉̍l̵̝̘̞̼͛͌̈́͊ẹ̵̐̂̍͆͗e̵̥̔̅̏̓́͜p̶͈̜͈͍̂̌͜y̸̟̖͔̣̕ ̸͎͙̖̞͗̈̍̚t̸̗̤̻̏ỉ̴͔̅̇m̷̨͖̠̍ͅḛ̵̛ͅ ̸̡̱̰̲͕̋̉̾̾g̷͈̀͠a̴̛̛̠̒l̵͖̹̅̌͝.̴͉̥̫͖͆͑̅͜”̷͉͑̉͆͠ ̵̞̦̥̄̓͂̀ Said the voices. “̴̢̰̗̯̎́̀̔͒͜Ỉ̶͙͔̖̃ś̶̖̫̣̥̿̔̎.̵̲͊̽͝ ̷̻̭̯̬͍͐̕͘L̷̮̜͖̯̀é̸̬̬̓͗ͅå̶̖͔̈v̷̳̖͖̈́e̸̖̪̿̏͝.̴͎͍̫̪̿ͅ ̵̢͔̥̗̥̀̀̊̽͝P̷̖̞͐ọ̶̏̾̕s̶̖͒͒̍̆š̵̝̭͓̌̏i̵̖͂b̴̛̜͂̀͝l̸̖̑͑͋͛e̵͓͓͑͑̐.̶̥̟̦̳̆̓͠”̶̱̇͊̍

Joan swallowed thickly. She could taste blood on her tongue. Her brain is being turned to mush inside of her head.

“Umm...” She looks at Cathy unsurely. Her sister is pale and visibly in pain. There’s a thin line of blood trickling out of her right ear. “M-maybe?”

̶̳̠̮̦͈̏̃͝ ̵̧̤̠̥̳̽̾̇̚“̴̘̽̏̆B̶̧̗̹̤̻̏̕o̶͖͈̟͗̊̂͐b̵͉̙̝̯̜̾͆̈́ ̶̢̈́͊͘ẗ̸͚́a̶̮͋i̸̥͐͒̅̀̈l̵̞̓̄̕ͅ.̴̟̻̯̤̘́̌ ̸̥̱̉L̶̨̻̗͐͒e̷̜͔̎͒̂̅́á̵̩̤v̸͎͍̮̟͍̒̄̓è̷̼̜̓͐ ̵̡͆́͝c̸̻̹̺̬͐̀̑͋̓h̶̟̤̊̋i̸͙̲͎̞͒̈́̈́l̴͕̞̗̦̍d̴͓̹̿̽̑̕͠r̸̦̍͠ȇ̷͇ṉ̵̨̬͇̽͆͝.̴̣̩̯͇̦̏̔̅ ̴̪̖͓̖̿͊̚M̸̱͛͐͘ý̶̢̛̙̳͍̑̍͘ ̴̯̣̄͌m̷̖̟̜̬̺͌̄͆͌͘õ̴̰̜̹͌̈́͜t̷͎̾͊̇h̶̗̗̬̅̿̉͗͐ę̸̳̤̞͎͝r̶̞̝̲̩̤̽ŝ̸̞.̷̨̩̻͇̤̌ ̸̨̣͔͕͙̂̒W̸̱̤̮̹̜̉̈́̃͝ȋ̵̺̪̽l̶͔̞͈̺̐̐̉̿l̴̤̭̈́̒͐͌͝ ̸̡̤̉̿s̷̹̘͆̈́́̂͝e̴̢͇̹̭̭͑e̷̘͓͛̑͝ ̶̀́̚͜t̷̗͔̔͛̂̈́̚h̶̼̖͌̍è̵̲̲̞̼͖̀̓͝m̴̗̣͗́̄̕͜ͅ ̸̣̞͎̑̏s̷̻͐̈́̕ỏ̴̜͚͔o̸̪̜̓͋͋̕n̸̢̲̖͙͚̊̿͝.̷̮̈͂”̵͙̘̝͎̤̉̿͐͝ ̶̪͙̟͖͐̋̉̆̆

The ground began to shake. The triangle shudders harder. Cracks shoot through all the crystals and they crack and break into razor sharp shards. The pulse in Joan’s head turned into roaring, painful white noise.

“JOAN!!” Cathy shrieks.

A force seems to be ripping them apart.

“CATHY!!”

Her vision distorts. The feeling of phantom water rushes down through her eye sockets- she’s underwater.

Joan is underwater.

And down with her is debris.

Debris falling at an agonizingly slow rate.

She screams.

Bubbles explode from her lips.

A chunk of metal falls down, down, down.

The spray of bubbles turn red.

As Joan is cut in two by the debris.

She just barely feels it slice into her belly when-

“̷̝̋̈́Ḃ̷̩̒͋̍ō̵̱̖͔͙̄̓̊̅b̸̡̤̀̈́ ̵̪͕̮̌̏̈́͛̃t̵̰̪̬͕̹̕ȁ̷̘̌͆į̴͚̹̿̕l̵̡̗̬͈̗̎͑̿͐̚.̶̧̉͗̅̏ ̷̠̋͝S̸̢̗͙̞̔̈́h̴̙͉̥͚̑̊̾͝a̵̺̖̼̲̲͊̀̈́v̷̫̲̖͙̓e̸̼͑͂͐̑͌ ̵͔̬̑ť̵̛̖͘a̶̡̫̭͌͋̿͐͘ḭ̶͕̀̔͒l̴̡̩̮̲̩̑.̴̨̛͍͙́̀”̵̭̤͍̠̄́̐

-all goes black.

[hurt-care]

Yes! Snow boy! I am always up for this brooding lovely man ;) Enjoy and thanks for the prompts, anons <3

-

The castle was abuzz with activity as the allies of House Stark continued to arrive after the battle, joining in the call to help plan for the coming winter. Across all of Winterfell and the surrounding lands, preparations were underway. Every minute of Jon Snow's every day was occupied with some sort of new problem or dispute between allied houses or some other detail that fell under the Lord of Winterfell's purview. Since defeating Ramsey Bolton, he'd been going non-stop, moving from the battlefield to the battle at home. Jon had never fully appreciated all that his father had done when he was head of the Stark homestead. Now, he knew all too well the endless work that was involved.

And, it seemed to be catching up with him. He woke to a scratchy, dry throat and an ache in his head. At first, he excused it as an effect of too much mead before bed, but two hours later as he sat at his desk with maps and letters spread about, he could no longer call it a hangover. He could only assume it was the beginning of a cold.

By mid-day, there was a growing heaviness to his face as congestion began to gather and the dryness in his throat was now an ache. He pinched his fingers across the bridge of his nose and tried to concentrate on the papers, but it was no use. It was as if his eyes refused to properly focus. Standing up, he shook out his limbs and went down to the yard for a walk. There was always some task to see to there.

A light dusting of snow was falling as he left the warmth of the house for the courtyard. His lungs tingled at the introduction of the cold and his nasal passages prickled, irritated by the dry and chilly air. He twitched his nose irritably and rubbed at it with gloved fingers.

“Jon! I was just coming to talk to you.”

A voice distracted him from his nose and he looked up to see his sister, Sansa, striding towards him.

“There's a problem in the stables with one of the horses. The groom wants to have the Maester look at it, but I said that there were bigger things for the Maester to deal with than a sick horse.”

Jon cleared his throat with a small cough and then spoke.

“We will need all the healthy animals we can manage, come winter,” he said. His voice was a little hoarse and he coughed again, trying to clear it.

Sansa glared at him for a moment but then her face softened.

“I'll talk to the Maester, then,” she said. “Are you okay? You look tired.”

“I am tired,” he confessed. “But I'm fine. There's things to be done. I'll see you at supper.”

She bid him farewell and went off towards the Maester's chambers while Jon continued on, pausing to check in on the work of the blacksmiths and the training of several young squires. A cold shiver was running through him now, making his teeth chatter a little. He would return to his papers, he decided. Winter had not yet reached the cozy expanse of his father's office.

Someone had neglected to add more wood to the fireplace that morning and now it was burning down to embers. Jon leaned over the hearth, tossing sticks into the ash and poking at the pile to reignite the flames. The damp wood released smoke as the moisture evaporated and the room filled with the fragrant scent of burning. The hot, ashy air was not welcome in Jon's already burdened sinuses and he found himself turning away from the hearth, eyes squinting and watering from the smoke and the intense tickle in his nose. He pressed a fur-lined sleeve to his nose and bent forward, sneezing forcefully.

Hurhhh-TSCHOOO!

He sniffled and straightened back up, waving the smoke away from around him, coughing and coughing until he was red in the face. The fire danced into life, cracking comfortingly and lighting the room with its glow. He tossed the poker back in its place and sunk into the desk chair with a heavy sigh.

“Sir?”

A serving woman stood expectantly in the door that Jon had neglected to close.

“Mhm?” Jon murmured, not looking up from his papers. He could feel his nose dribbling down his lip and he wiped it surreptitiously with his sleeve.

“Would you like some hot drink sent up? I heard you coughing earlier, my lord.”

He looked up with a weary smile at the young woman.

“That would be very kind. If the cook recalls the brew that Lady Catelyn used to make the children...the hot apple wine? That would be very welcome.”

Though the Lady of Winterfell had never shown Jon any affection, he had fond memories of the sweet, warm drink after hours of sparring with Rob in the courtyard.

The girl in the door bowed and left to fetch the wine while Jon turned back to his papers. His eyes still felt blurred as he stared at the latest correspondence from the South and the Wall. He was trying to get through a passage in a book from the Maester's records that detailed the last winter to come to the Seven Kingdoms when the girl returned, bearing a steaming cup and a small plate.

“The wine,” she said, putting the cup down at this side. “And ginger root with salt. The cook said to chew on it.”

Jon nodded, familiar with the remedy for a cough.

“Thank you,” he said hoarsely, picking up the cup and taking a sip of the familiar, soothing brew. It warmed him from the inside, coating his aching throat as he drank. He bid the girl shut the door on her way out and he sat, leaning back in his chair, cradling the warm cup between his chilled fingers. His thoughts drifted to the feather mattress and fur throws back in his chambers and he felt an ache of longing to be there, cozied up and at rest.

His eyes were drifting closed on their own and he set down the cup as not to spill it. Sleep took its grip on him and he dozed off, head lolling back over the top of the armchair as he snored congestedly.

A knock on the door roused him and he snorted awake, choking on his own post-nasal drip and dissolving into a fit of painful coughs. Getting them under control, he swallowed hard (wincing at the increased ache in his throat) and called “come in” as confidently as he could with his hoarse voice.

Sansa opened to door and stood, staring at him.

“Did you not hear the dinner bells?” she asked.

“Err...coming,” Jon said, shuffling his papers to look like he was cleaning up. “Send my apologies. I'll be down shortly.”

He stacked up his books and papers while Sansa watched from the door, unmoving.

“I said go on ahead,” he rasped. “I will be—behhh...hehh'TSCHHH!”

He snapped forward with an unexpectedly harsh sneeze, which he caught in the crook of his shoulder by turning his head.

“Jon,” Sansa's concerned voice said from the door. “You're unwell. You looked it earlier and now you sound it too.”

Jon sniffled and cleared his throat. “I am perfectly fine. Send word ahead for me, please.”

She did not move.

“I will send word that you'll be taking dinner in your chambers,” she said insistently. “And I will bring it up.”

“I will eat with the rest of you,” Jon replied, standing up. “Let's go.”

He regretted his stubbornness almost instantly. His beleaguered respiratory system strained with each breath as he followed Sansa down to the Great Hall and by the time he reached his seat at the centre of the head table, he was snotty-nosed and wheezing. He wiped his nose gently with his sleeve and then picked up his goblet, taking a swig of the spiced wine.

There was a press of a hand against leg under the table and he glanced down to see Sansa holding a small white handkerchief. He took it with a grateful glimpse at her and pressed it briefly under his nose, careful to shield the watching eyes of Winterfell's many inhabitants.

Eating the mutton and bread was a task. Each bite had to be accompanied by a swig of wine to allow him to swallow. He only managed a little before pushing back his plate, but the wine was enough to go to his head. Eyelids drooping, he gazed distractedly across the room, watching a torch on the far wall dance with flames.

“Jon?” Sansa's voice broke his stupor.

“Mhm?” he asked wearily.

“Lord Greymond wants a word,” she said, flicking her eyes to the spot opposite Jon where the old man stood looking at him with a puzzled expression.

“You must forgive me, Lord Greymond,” Jon apologized. “I'm afraid I had a poor sleep last night. What do you need?”

The man launched into a lengthy explanation of the crops he'd agreed to transport to Winterfell for the stores they'd been preparing for the long winter to come. Jon felt himself fading out, unable to concentrate on the man's words. His nose was prickling too, high and deep in his nostrils. He parted his lips, breathing through his mouth with shallow inhalations, trying to ignore the tingling.

It was to no avail. He furrowed his brows and managed to choke out a “please excuse me” before he raised his arm to his nose and shielded his face.

Hhehhh-tsgGSHHHH!

He sneezed with a deep, congested sound and snorted thickly. His lips parted again and he gasped in a rattling breath, launching forward once more.

Ehh-tsgCHGHHHH!

The sneezes scraped at his tender throat and sent congestion rushing into his nose, forcing him to snort it back again to keep a decent appearance in front of so many.

“I think, Lord Greymond, that your suggestions sound quite satisfactory,” Sansa's voice said from Jon's side while Jon busied himself with pressing her handkerchief to his nose, turning away from view as he did so. Her hand pressed against his back comfortingly. “I think it is clear,” she continued, “that my brother is not feeling well and will retire shortly.”

Jon swallowed with a wince and turned back to Lord Greymond with a wan smile.

“Apologies,” he rasped. “I believe Lady Sansa is correct. I should see the Maester and then to bed with me. We'll talk more tomorrow, Lord Greymond.”

The old man bowed in thanks and headed away.

“What did I say before?” Sansa hissed. “You look awful.”

“I'm well aware,” Jon replied miserably. His head was beginning to throb. He could not remember a time in recent memory when he'd felt this dreadful. Even the cold he'd caught not long after arriving at the Wall seemed like a petty sniffle compared to this. He took a wheezy breath and coughed hard into his sleeve.

“Your chambers, then,” Sansa said forcefully. “I'll have some hot drink and remedies brought up.”

Jon stood shakily, feeling like the furs around his shoulders weighed twice what they normally did. He headed off towards his rooms, coughing as he made his way down the damp and cold halls. When he reached his chambers, the fire was out, having been left to burn down to the embers by servants who had not expected him back this early.

Shivering, he shrugged out of his cloak and belts and kicked off his boots, hurrying to climb under the heavy furs on his bed. His feet felt frozen at the toes and his whole body trembled against the cold while his nose dribbled freely down his lip. The cold air hurt his sore respiratory passages and he pulled up the furs, creating a tent over his nose and mouth to keep his own hot breath contained.

It didn't last long. He needed to sneeze again and he didn't want to soil the blankets. Raising Sansa's handkerchief, he rolled over and pressed his nose into the folds, sneezing fittishly.

Ehh-sgHHT! Nghh-TSCHH! TsCHHH!

The door to his chambers swung open and Sansa stepped inside with a serving girl behind her.

“You sound awful,” she said sympathetically. “It's like ice in here. Mary will get the fire lit. We've brought some of that lemon tea with honey for you and the Maester will make up a plaster for your chest.”

Jon blew his nose noisily into the handkerchief and groaned.

“A plaster?” he rasped between the chattering of his teeth.

“Yes,” Sansa said. “You can barely breathe. It'll help.”

She sat down at his bedside and helped him to partially sit up, gathering the furs around him to keep him warm. She handed him the mug of tea and then reached a palm up, pushing back his black curls to feel his brow.

“Fever,” she said, frowning.

“I'm frozen,” Jon countered.

“No wonder. You'd be shivering in a room half as cold as this one with your brow burning like that.”

Jon took a sip of the tea and swallowed, letting it soothe his achy throat. Across the room, the serving girl got the fire built and lit with a candle, sending the warm glow of flames across the dark room.

“Thank you,” Sansa said. “Will you fetch the plaster from the Maester? It should be ready.”

The girl nodded and left the brother and sister alone.

“Are you warming up?” Sansa asked.

“Mostly,” Jon replied, cupping the mug of tea between his hands and inhaling the steam from it. “Can you see if there's a pair of wool stockings in my trunk? My toes are frozen.”

Sansa dug in the chest, coming up with a knit pair that had a few darned holes but looked suitable enough.

“It's going to be cold for a moment,” she said, flipping back the furs at the end of the bed. Jon resisted the urge to pull his feet back from the cold air. She tugged the socks on over the ones already on his feet and settled the furs back in place.

“There,” she said. “Now we'll get you comfortable and you should sleep. Your eye shadows nearly match your hair.”

Jon sniffled and gave her a half-smile.

“Thank you,” he said hoarsely. “I don't think I realized how ill I was getting. It sort of hit all at once.”

He looked up at her, thinking about how the sight of her as an almost grown, confident woman was so different than the girl he'd parted ways with those few years ago. They'd both endured so much, and somehow they'd both made it back home. There was still more harrowing challenges to face, that was certain, but being back with some of his family was heartening. He thought of Rickon, so young and so innocent, lost as a pawn in a brutal battle. With a heavy sigh, he sank against the pillows and coughed into his shoulder.

“Shh,” Sansa soothed, pulling the furs up to his chin.

The serving girl returned with a bowl of thick yellowish goop, a bowl of steaming water, and a few pieces of torn linen.

“Thank you, Mary,” Sansa said, taking the bowl. “We'll call if we need anything further.”

Jon watched the girl leave with a glassy, fevered stare and then turned his gaze to Sansa who was stirring the fragrant mix of mustard seed. She dipped the linen into the water and wrung it out before spreading a thin layer of the yellow paste onto it.

“Okay, it's warm, don't worry,” she said, pulling back the furs and parting Jon's shirt a little. She reached down and was about to press the plaster onto his chest when she noticed his stab wound.

“Jon!” she said, staring at it. He tugged his shirt closed.

“It's healed,” he said. “I'll explain later.”

She frowned at him but did not ask any more. She opened his shirt again and pressed the warm compress to his chest, closing his shirt over it and pulling the blankets back up. Jon coughed harshly but the plaster was beginning to work at loosening the congestion already and he took a rattling breath and forced it ought with another ragged cough.

He lay back into the pillows, breathing shallowly through his mouth. His nose was dribbling down his lip again and Sansa pressed a bit of scrap linen against it to wipe it away. Though he was grateful, the touch was irritating to his rapidly reddening nostrils and he felt the intense prickle of an impending sneeze. He shielded his nose with a hand just in time.

Ehh-TscGSHHT!

Sansa sighed in sympathy and found the handkerchief among the blankets, pressing it into his free hand. He cleared his nose with a wet blow and sighed, closing his eyes.

“Sleep now,” Sansa said, tucking a stray curl off his brow. “I'll stay a while and get the plaster off one it cools.”

Jon murmured something in an attempt to argue, but sleep and the fever had too powerful a grip on him. He slid off into fevered dreams, waking every so often to feel a compress against his face, and then he'd fall back into sleep.

When he surfaced from the grip of exhaustion and fever, he opened his eyes, feeling sweat pouring from his face and the bubble of congestion popping in his nose just long enough to allow him a breath through both nostrils. Sansa was still at the bedside, dozing lightly in the chair with her red hair hanging down over her face. Jon felt his mouth turn up into a grateful smile before he closed his eyes once more, falling into a more peaceful rest as the morning sun rose outside.

[rowansparrow]

Rex x Reader Commission PART THREE

I swear up and down I already posted this but apparently Tumblr ate it so here it is again! The final part of my commission for @hyperboa

Tag List: @elenawrit @igotanaddixon @hyperboa @clonemutual

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True to his word, Rex tried to come by your apartment as much as possible, even if it was only for a few minutes. As the due date inched ever closer, Rex had begun formulating strategies for how best to get you to the hospital – or rather, not, given you were having a clone’s child and if that got out it would be a disaster – and the best solution he had come up with thus far involved two of his men.

“You’ve met Fives.” Rex explained to you one day in your kitchen over breakfast. “I’d trust him with my life. He knows about you, obviously, and if I’m off planet or otherwise indisposed when you go into labor, Fives is going to bring Kix – Kix is my medic, we can trust him too – and they’ll help you.”

“You expect me to have our daughter here?” You asked him, incredulous. “Why not go to an actual hospital?”

“Y/N, we can’t risk that.” Rex shook his head. “I know what they’ll do to me and you, but I can’t imagine what will happen to her.” He blanched at the thought. “I don’t want the longnecks getting their hands on my daughter.”

You nodded seriously, knowing he was referring to the Kaminoans, the species that created the clone army. “Alright… so this Kix, he has experience with childbirth?” You asked hopefully.

“He’s dealt with pregnant civilians in the field before.” Rex nodded. “He’ll take care of you, I promise. And I’ll be there with you as soon as I possibly can.” Rex added.

The plan had helped reassure you, because as the months went on, it truly did make you nervous not having any sort of backup around the house to help you if you went into childbirth. It’s not like Rex was right there beside you all the time.

In the final weeks of your pregnancy, you took off work, confined mostly to your apartment. The only thing keeping you sane was converting the spare room of your apartment into a nursery, hanging up a little mobile you’d made yourself of tiny model republic starfighters, and a little clone helmet you’d crafted out of flimsi. You worried that might be a bit too forward, but you could always wave it off as patriotism, if anyone asked.

That’s where you were, sitting in the chair next to the crib in your completed nursery, singing softly to yourself and to your unborn child, when your water broke.

The contractions had been off and on the past few days, but that wasn’t entirely unusual. You knew it was common for women in their first pregnancies to have false contractions. Now, that didn’t necessarily mean you were going into labor yet, but once your water broke, you knew it was for real.

“Oh. Oh kriff.” You cursed quietly, pushing yourself to your feet. A contraction hit you like a wave, stronger than the ones you had felt in the past few days, and you paused for a moment, catching your breath. “Oh, hang in there, baby girl. We’re gonna call your Papa.” You whispered out loud, shuffling into the kitchen and grabbing your commlink off the counter. You called Rex first, focusing on your breathing so you didn’t panic or pass out.

The commlink rang for several minutes, long enough for another contraction to ripple through you, before you gave up and switched tactics, instead calling the second comm channel Rex had given you: ARC Trooper Fives.

He answered almost immediately.

“Y/N?” He asked, his voice already concerned. “Is it-?”

“Yes.” You answered breathlessly, clutching your stomach as you winced again. The contractions were getting worse. “Baby’s coming.”

An unholy string of curses, followed by the abrupt sound of armor being jostled together. “Ah, alright, err – stay calm, Ma’am.” Fives sputtered anxiously. “I’ll call Kix, did you try – Kriff, Rex is in a briefing. I’ll see if I can get a message through to him, maybe get him out in time. Don’t panic.” He told you, sounding rather panicked himself. “Kix and I will be there soon.”

“Alright, thank you Fives. Please hurry.” You hung up, taking the commlink with you as you made your way back to the bedroom, grabbing the towels you’d had prepared on the chair next to the bed for the past several weeks. You also headed to the kitchen, hoping to get a basin of warm water ready for Kix as well, before he arrived.

Another contraction hit you as you grabbed a bowl, and you dropped it in surprise, shattered pieces flying across your kitchen floor. “Sithspit,” You muttered, starting to bend over to try and clean them up, when the aftershocks of the contraction hit you again, and you gasped, clutching your stomach.

As if on cue, the door opened, and Fives and another soldier marched through the door, dressed in civilian clothing.

“Y/N!” Fives squawked, quickly offering his arms for support. “What are you doing, you should be in bed!”

“Fives, clean up this mess and get me a bowl of warm water.” The second clone, Kix, ordered quickly, taking you from Fives’s grip and helping you back to the bedroom. “I’m Kix, ma’am. I’m the lead medic for the 501st.” He introduced himself hurriedly, spreading out sterile sheets he’d brought with him and helping you lay back on the bed. “How’re you feeling?”

“Scared.” You answered truthfully. Kix opened his pack, rifling through his bag and coming up with a small syringe.

“This will help with the pain.” He promised, carefully injecting it into your arm. “It’ll help relax your muscles too, make it easier for me to get the fetus out.” He explained. “Now, I just want you to do whatever your body tells you, okay? It knows what to do, you just tell me if anything feels wrong, and remember to breathe.” He checked the chrono on the bedside table. “Right. This is your first child, so it will probably take its sweet time. I’d get comfortable if I were you.” He told you, closing the door to give you some privacy before hiking up your tunic and working your leggings off. “Fives can get you anything you need – I won’t let anyone in but Rex, ma’am.” He reassured you yet again.

You nodded, taking a few deep breaths. “Okay… okay.” You exhaled slowly, nodding yet again. Kix chuckled softly, patting your knee in a small gesture of kindness.

“Don’t worry, ma’am. This will all be over before you know it, and you’ll be able to meet your…”

“Daughter.” You supplied, smiling nervously at Kix.

“Right. You’ll be able to meet your daughter in person.” He turned toward the door. “I’m going to get what I need from Fives, and see if he got in touch with the Captain yet. Your contractions are about eight minutes apart right now, and you’ll start going into labor once they get to be about five minutes apart.”

You nodded again, and Kix stepped out of the room.

~

The next few hours were a whirlwind. Kix kept carefully feeding you ice chips and patting your flushed face down with a cool washcloth as contraction after contraction ripped through you. Fives, as far as you knew, was waiting in the living room.

“Where’s Rex?” You panted after one of your worst contractions yet had subsided.

“He’s stuck in a briefing. He can’t leave without it being suspicious.” Kix supplied, staying very calm throughout everything. “He’ll be here as soon as he -.”

You cut him off midsentence as you cried out, another painful contraction searing through your body. You heard a commotion outside the bedroom door, followed by a voice.

“Kix won’t let me back there, sir, I don’t know if-.”

The bedroom door thundered open, and Rex strode into the room, face flushed and still in full armor.

“Sir, I thought we agreed we’d dress as civilians to avoid suspicion.” Kix frowned, looking his Captain up and down.

“There was no time.” Rex snapped, kneeling next to you. “How are you?”

“Better now.” You promised, smiling weakly up at him. “We’re gonna meet our daughter soon.”

Rex nodded, grinning shakily as he took your hand.

“Alright, this is it.” Kix announced, getting ready. “Big push on three.”

Kix counted off, and you squeezed Rex’s hand in your bone-crushing grip, to the point where you visibly saw Rex wince.

“Alright, keep going.” Rex coached, looking between you and Kix for instruction, patting your hand gently as he held it. “Another big push, one, two, three!”

You cried out again, and Rex lifted his other hand to stroke through your sweaty hair.

“I know, love. I know. You’re doing amazing, you’re almost there.” He promised, looking back at Kix. “One more, one more. One, two -.”

This time, instead of three, you heard it. The most beautiful sound in all the galaxy. A soft, quiet cry of an infant baby.

“Got her.” Kix called from the foot of the bed, working quickly to clean both you and the baby, taking care of you both.

“Rex?” You asked, looking anxiously up at him.

Rex didn’t answer, focused on Kix at the foot of the bed. He was still busy with the baby, brow furrowed as he inspected her closely. “Kix?” Rex prompted. Kix smiled, pulling the sheets down to help cover you up a little better as he wrapped your daughter up in a blanket.

“Congratulations sir, and to you, Ma’am.” Kix told you both. “You’ve got a healthy, beautiful little girl here.”

Fives poked his head in, peering around the edge of the door. “Can I come in now?” He asked, keeping his voice low. Rex nodded, allowing the ARC Trooper to step fully into the room. If you weren’t so exhausted, you would’ve laughed at the priceless look on the war veteran’s face when he saw Elora.

“Little gods, she’s perfect!” Fives whispered, looking over Kix’s shoulder. “Can I hold her?”

“Absolutely not.” Rex shook his head, reaching for the baby. Kix chuckled.

“Might want to take off some of your armor first, sir.” Kix informed him. Rex let go of your hand, stripping out of the top half of his armor in record time, nudging it off to the side as he once again tried to reach for his daughter. This time, Kix obliged him, settling the baby girl carefully into Rex’s waiting arms. “Watch her head.” Kix cautioned Rex, nodding to him. “Fives and I will clean things up while you three get acquainted.” He smiled, nudging Fives back out of the room.

Rex was breathless, staring down at the tiny baby in his arms. When he looked up at you again, he had tears in his eyes. “Y/N, she’s so beautiful.” He whispered, a tear rolling down his cheek. “She’s so beautiful.”

He shifted his grip, carefully passing Elora over to you, wrapping his arms around you from behind so he could hold the both of you. Rex was right, Elora was gorgeous. Soft, caramel colored skin, and bright, honey colored eyes blinking sleepily up at both of them. Rex’s eyes.

“She looks like you.” You told Rex, smiling up at him. Rex chuckled, wiping at his eyes.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever been happy to hear somebody looked like me.” He whispered, brushing his fingers across the soft down on the baby’s head. “I love you, Y/N.” He smiled down at Elora. “And I love you too, my beautiful little girl.”

You leaned into your Captain, letting Elora wrap her tiny hand around your finger as she drifted off to sleep. All was well.

~

[ikesenhell]

Through the Tide

The Measurement of Time: Chapter 6. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTES: This whole story does not make much sense without the context from To Honor And Protect! Please go back and read that before you proceed with TMOT. Tagging @ikemenprincessnaga at request.

Uesugi lifted the torch higher, both of them peering down the long tunnel.

“A sewer, maybe?” She suggested, her voice carrying.

“I don’t think so.”

She paused as if meaning to come up with another reason for its existence, then just shook her head. “Come on. Let’s check this place out. I’ve never seen it on a map before.”

It was impossible to be quiet in the echoing stillness. Their feet crunched over the crumbling stone pavement. Water ran in freezing rivulets down the walls and pooled underfoot. No matter how far they walked, it always seemed they were just behind an infinite, choking darkness.

Then they found the second torch.

This one was strange. It linked to a fine wire that stretched down the tunnel, disappearing in the inky black. Uesugi fixed it with a skeptical eye. “What do you think this contraption does?”

“Honestly?” Sasuke inspected it as best he could. “It looks sort of like the wiring in the Trinity Islands.”

“So…” She stared at it. “I’d put that as a hard pass, then.”

“I’m not certain. We could use the light.”

Silence. She inhaled hard and shut her eyes before tapping the flame to the new torch. And--woosh. The fire snapped the wiring, a spark crackling along its length into the dark, and the next moment, they were washed in searing light. As one they recoiled. When their eyes finally adjusted…

“Ocean preserve me,” Uesugi gasped. “What the devil is this?”

It was no mere hallway. The pathway broadened, and before them was a circular room. No--a town square. A struggling tree hung limp in a still-running fountain. Shop fronts circled it, locked tight. Roads forked out from its center, spreading off in different avenues in each direction.

“Is this a city?” Sasuke asked, hardly believing his eyes. “A whole city?”

“Under our city?” Uesugi took tentative steps forward, observing every nook and cranny with warranted suspicion. “When was this built? Who built it? Was this done legally?”

He rapped his hand against the tree and stared upward. “Uesugi? What do you think is above us right now?”

“Right now? Err, I’m not certain.” A pause. “Maybe…”

“Do you think it’s the market circle?”

The implication hung heavy on them. As one, they turned around, reading off the signs surrounding them and matching them bit by bit to the mental map of the city above.

“Holy shit,” she muttered. “It’s a duplicate.”

Sasuke peeled off his glasses and cleaned them, struggling to make sense of this. “It wouldn’t be possible for this to get built after the city was placed on top. It had to preexist it. When was the City built?”

“We’re not sure. Long before recorded history. We’re not even sure who enchanted the docks.”

“That can’t be possible. This is too advanced to predate recorded history.”

“Yeah, no shit,” she snapped. “You’re telling me?”

“My apologies.”

There was no need for the torch anymore. She doused it in the fountain and set it on the stones by the tree, drawing her sword instead. “How do you think these lights even work?”

“I’ve not the faintest idea, but I’d love to study it.”

“Maybe after we’re done.”

Fair enough. They took a side street, working their way past long-abandoned houses that imitated the ones above. Not everything was perfect, but it was close enough to be eerie. No howling wind, no crashing waves, no familiar cawing birds greeted them here--just the silent patter of their feet reverberating off stones and the sightless eyes of windows.

“I’ve a wonder,” she whispered. “Maybe this was for protection from the winters? They can be incredibly harsh.”

That was true. “But you’d think no one would forget this was here, then.”

“Who knows? We forgot all about who enchanted the docks. I’d assume it was fair game. Maybe something about the first invasion meant this knowledge was lost.” Uesugi paused. “And I’ve a second thought.”

“What’s that?”

“If this matches the city above… where is the palace?”

That was a fair question. As a unit, they took the corresponding side street and wound their way up the long avenue, passing dead gardens and empty market stalls, abandoned parks and unprotected guardhouses. There it was. Where above ground there was the towering marble and golden spires, here there was just a massive obsidian gate. Uesugi tested it with her fist and it gave way, creaking open at her touch.

“Well.” She swallowed. “Let’s go in, then.”

The light was blue here, a thin trail of it illuminating the hallways. Sasuke played his hands along it and discovered it was cool to the touch, a thin pane of glass separating him from it. Uesugi’s blonde hair shone like ice. There was the broad entry hall, black and white marble in intricate designs laid out before them. But where the doorway to the royal chamber was--well, there was just a massive black barrier.

Sasuke approached it hesitantly. At its core was a large orange device, cogs whirring and clicking, powered by a massive blue crystal. Bits of casing that once protected it littered the stairwell. The longer he stared at it, the less it made sense. It was so clearly out of place with the rest of the architecture that it clearly was added later, but…

“Why?” Uesugi questioned for him. “And the door. It looks like it’s been damaged.”

“...from the inside,” Sasuke added. “Like something was trying to get out.”

As if on cue, a harsh, metallic bang echoed deep inside the palace. He drew his weapon and went back to back with Uesugi, frantically scanning the chamber. Nothing was amiss.

“What do you think is in there?” She asked. “Is this why it was forgotten?”

“Doesn’t feel likely,” he whispered back. “But I’ll save my hypothesis for later. I suspect we should vacate the premises unless we receive reinforcements.”

“Great idea.”

As quickly as they dared, they slipped from the palace and locked the gate, sprinting double-time back to the ladder in the well. Odd. Where once there was a shaft of light, now nothing shone.

“Fuck.” Uesugi took the ladder two rungs at a time before banging her fist against the doorway between them and the outside. How was it repaired? “Toyotomi-Akechi! Aria, do you hear me!”

“I hear you,” came the muffled response. “How the hell did you fix this thing?”

“We didn’t!” Uesugi yelled back. “So get us out!”

“Right. Clear the way, if you would.”

She dropped down the ladder and stepped aside. Only a moment later, a fierce, earth-rocking explosion collided with the barrier--

And nothing happened.

“What the actual fuck,” Toyotomi-Akechi muttered.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s--” A pause. “It isn’t moving.”

Sasuke didn’t need to be told. He swirled around, keeping a keen eye on the tunnel they’d come from. “So it was a trap.”

“So it would seem.” Uesugi banged her fist against the barrier ineffectively. “Damnit. Damnit!”

“Do…” Toyotomi-Akechi paused. “Do you need me to grab the others?”

“I don’t know. See if you can get it open. In the meantime, we’ll look for another route out.”

“Do you think there’ll be one?” Sasuke questioned.

“There has to be.” She slipped off the ladder and braced herself against the wall, clearly calming herself. “No one makes an underground anything and only one way out. That’s pure idiocy.”

She was right. He blinked up against the water still dripping through the slats of the barrier, considering. “Isn’t there a chance that the person who trapped us here also knows the other exits?”

“Gee, Sarutobi. That’s a great line of questioning and all, but I’d rather we exhaust our options before sorting that one out.”

Fair. He squared his shoulders and nodded. “Then let’s give it a shot.”

---

They wandered the paths of the city several times over, but no other options presented themselves. By the time they returned to their entryway, it was silent and dark. No more rain dripped through the cracks.

“They probably are looking for other options,” Uesugi sighed. “Fair enough. Let’s figure out what to do for the night.”

There was logic to that. Sasuke worked his hands over the hilt of his sword and considered their situation. “There are two things we haven’t done yet.”

“And what is that?”

“Well, one,” he lifted a finger. “We haven’t tried going that way, the opposite direction of the light.” And he gestured into the dank reaches of the tunnel. “And second, we haven’t tried getting in past that door.”

Uesugi almost laughed. “Yeah, that seems like a terrible idea if I’m honest.”

“It’s an idea.”

“Whoever put it there clearly didn’t want that… whatever… getting out.”

“I know. But it is still an option.”

“Not much of one.” Still, she shouldered her cloak and nodded at him. “We can try that way, though. Lead the way, Sarutobi.”

It was fortunate that they hadn’t gotten rid of the spare torch. Lighting it once more, they took the long, dark route in the other direction. Where the underground city was warm and dry, it soon became cold and wet, the freezing air leeching into their bones.

“Are you warm enough?” She asked suddenly.

“No, though my body temperature is stable enough to prevent hypothermia in current conditions.” Sasuke paused, examining the ceiling. “Where do you think we are?”

“If I had to guess? The docks.”

“So we’re likely under the ocean,” he mused. “How much further do you think this goes?”

“Sasuke.” She gasped, pointing forward. “Look at that.”

Just ahead, instead of the billowing dark they’d grown used to, was a faint shimmer. It was almost imperceptible at first. The closer and closer they walked, the more familiar it became. Above them was the sweeping, rolling tide, separated from them by a massive glass wall. Far up in the inky waters was the night sky, ships bobbing up and down.

“How have we never known about this?” Uesugi asked aloud. “Never, not in a million years. I’ve gone swimming here. I never saw this.”

“Perhaps it is also enchanted? It feels probable.”

“Do you think--” She paused, then rushed forward. “We’ve never had clear maps of where to anchor off the Trinity Islands, nor was there ever a dock. Do you think--?”

“This was the way to get there?” The thought rested heavy in his chest. If only Kaiea were here. She would be far more useful than he. “It seems incredibly likely, though it begs the question again of why we’ve lost that knowledge. The Trinity Islands aren’t large.”

“They aren’t.”  

She tilted her head back to soak it all in. Sasuke watched her, watched as the dark water rippled over her sharp features, watched as her green and blue eyes flashed and sparkled as if she, too, belonged in its depths. All at once it struck him how beautiful she was. Even as the muscles in her shoulders worked and tensed, rolling back to release the stress she held there, he wondered at the hard-won strength there. The Queen and her family were the heirs of the ocean, for certain, but Uesugi looked as if she were made of it, too.

For one fragile, long moment, Sasuke realized that for all the understanding he had of the Queen’s bloodline and inherent magic, he couldn’t peel apart the layers of the woman before him, and he was suddenly so fond of her it squeezed his heart.

“Well.” She turned to him, her face calmer than he’d ever seen it. “No way but forward, hmm?”

“You’re right.” He stepped to her side and adjusted her cloak over her shoulders, covering the ridges of her muscles to keep them warm. “No way but forward, Miss Uesugi.”

She fixed him with a sly sideways smile and brushed forward into the tunnel--and he followed, watching the sway of her blonde braid the whole way, wondering where it would lead him.

[styledeficit]

2 May - 7 May weeknotes

Monday 2 May

“Do you want a hi-vis?” “I, err… I’m sorry?” “A hi-vis. Do you want one? I’ve got one in the back.”

It’s a bank holiday. I’ve done a bunch of non-work stuff: finished knitting a pair of socks, repotted some plants, planted some seeds, been to the supermarket, made a vegan cottage pie. Instead of going for a proper walk I’m doing my civic duty today so I don’t have to do it tomorrow; I’m litter picking at the time when most people are having their tea so I can avoid most people.

As there’s less traffic, I’ve been to the side of the road without a pavement and picked up the cans and coffee cups. I’m crossing back, waiting for a car to drive past when it stops and the driver says “Do you want a hi-vis?”. It’s so unexpected I’m lost for words. He means a hi-vis vest, obviously.  

In the end I say “Err, thanks! But it’s fine. I don’t usually hang out in the middle of the road, really. But it’s a really kind offer. Thank you!”

It was a kind offer. People can be really kind. 

I wish I hadn’t used so many words and spoken with so many exclamation marks though. 

Tuesday 3 may

Nondescript day. Headache, like a ring around my head, just above my eyes. 

In the wood I walked past two people I’ve seen before. They walk together and they both have dogs. When they saw me, I heard one ask the other if they should put a lead on their dog. The other replied “no, she’s fine.” I don’t know if they meant me or the dog. 

There were swallows in the field, flying low to the ground. I think they’re swallows, anyway.

I’ve finally worked out the purple flowers in the hedgerows are honesty. Hadn’t realised they’re the same plants that have flat, oval, papery, translucent seed pods. And the small white starry flowers that aren’t wood anemones or wild garlic are greater stitchwort.

Wednesday 4 May

Woke up bang on 4am. Back to sleep and straight into an anxiety dream in which I missed a meeting and set off a catastrophic chain of events.

Thursday 5 May

Kid on the train: “I haven’t seen the floor of my room in 4 years”. Later she says “My aunt dresses like she's 18 and it’s really concerning.” I feel as young as she is and as old as her aunt simultaneously – whatever age her aunt may be. That said, she’s probably 25.

We go for lunch together at work, to the magic street that only reveals itself to certain people. I’m sure if I go back alone it’ll be nothing but office blocks. The man that takes our order and brings our food is full of smiles, but the good kind. Two shops over, another man sits outside a cafe with a box of records, and plays them to the street.

Friday 6 May

The dandelion clocks are ticking. Not really, but they are out, standing proud and fluffy above the grass, waiting for the breeze. Buttercups are out too – and the cow parsley. Actually, there’s cow parsley everywhere. I also saw euphorbia in the wood – I didn’t think that should be there? If not, then it fits the theory. I have a feeling that this wood attracts new plants in, instead of trying to spread itself out. 

I chat to a man and his dog. He asks, “you just out for a mornin’ stroll?” I take a conversational shortcut and say yes, but people think I’m weird because I don’t have a dog. He says “I don’t think you’re weird darlin’, it’s everyone else I’m worried about.”

Saturday 7 May

It rained this week, but not as much as they said it would. We’re cranking through the water from the water butt. The ground is so dry. 

We pack up and head off to see friends for the weekend. 

[bexinthecity05]

Settling for Contrasts (Pt.3) (Louisa x Spiros)

part one

part two

This seems a little dark to start with ... but never fear it’ll get a tiny bit lighter later on...

She had managed to not cry all the way home, even after she had crept out of Hugh’s house surreptitiously and made her way across town whilst the world of Corfu was beginning to come to life. The rising sun hurt her eyes, and her stomach squeezed with every laden step. A heaviness settled on her chest. She hated herself. Despised herself more than she’d even done before. Her head throbbed both from the aggressive sex, and the burgeoning hangover setting in. 

How could she ever look anyone in the eye again after this? Let alone Spiros. Oh and of course Hugh! Now she’d have to break it off or commit. She wasn’t sure which she wanted. No one said anything when she skulked sheepishly into the kitchen. She pulled her jacket tighter around her, mumbled ‘good morning’ and retreated to her bedroom without waiting for a reply, though she was sure she heard a girlish snigger. 

Louisa washed and redressed in record time, ignoring the marks from the night before that mottled her skin like unwelcomed reminders. But when she caught site of her puffy face, her breath caught. She looked a state and when she touched the back of her head, she winced. She could still feel where he pulled on her hair and a tear slipped down her cheek. She let it drip down. Everywhere ached, not just from where Hugh had laid his hands, but also from everywhere Spiros hadn’t. Her chest ached with forbidden love and her stomach hurt from self hatred. 

When she was sure she wouldn’t have a breakdown she smoothed her hands over her trousers and descended the stairs. Margo had gone, presumably to work. And Gerry was off... God knows where. Only Leslie and Larry were left. Her two little sloths. Leslie sat rigid on the patio, a gun barrel between his legs and he pushed a tube up and down it. Larry held pages of his manuscript in one hand, a pencil in the other. It was warm out on the patio but Louisa shivered. Lugaretzia stuck her head out.

“You want breakfast?” She said. The thought of food literally turned her stomach and she declined. She walked to the wall that stopped her family from plummeting to their deaths every day and thrust her hands into her pockets. She took a deep breath, and just for a moment she began to feel normal.

“Oh! Spiros stopped by this morning, said to tell you he was checking in,” Leslie said without looking up. Then he stopped shoving the bar down the barrel and looked up. “He hasn’t been around much the past few months. I wonder what’s the matter with him.”

Larry dropped his pencil loudly. “Oh for God’s sake!” 

Why were his siblings so bloody clueless and obtuse?! Louisa’s jaw fell open and her heart pounded against her ribs.

“Right...” she said. Larry watched her face crumble in the subtlest of ways and inwardly cursed all this turmoil. She played with her lower lip, trying desperately to keep composure. She wanted to run back into the house but forced herself to remain put. To breathe through it. The pain would end once again, soon. But it didn’t. It got stronger and stronger until it began to consume her. Her headache was but a drop in the ocean compared to this.

Larry stood up, tilting his head to her to follow him. When had he become the pillar of stability? Her shoulder to cry on? Not that he minded, but she certainly felt it unfair that she was relying on him more and more.

“What’s wrong?” he asked in a low tone when they had gone thirty or so feet from the house. She closed her eyes.

“Nothing,” she said when she reopened them. She looked more composed, stronger, but Larry knew she was incredibly brittle these days.

She wouldn’t acquiesce that she wasn’t fine so Larry sighed and put a hand to his hip.

“Okay, how’s Hugh?” he said. It was somewhat innocent but also pointed. He wanted her to be happy but right now it didn’t look like he was making her happy.

“He’s fine,” she said and Larry nodded slowly like he hadn’t believed her.

“So... are we going to talk about you staying out all night?” he said, raising an eyebrow. He really had become like the parent. Her eyes met his and she suddenly burst into tears. Larry’s eyes widened; well he hadn’t been expecting that. She fell into his arms like she had done before, to his choruses of, “what’s wrong?”

“Hugh and I... slept together,” she choked against his shoulder. Larry almost grinned. Almost. 

“Well there’s nothing wrong with that,” he gently reminded her, holding her at arms length. She looked horrified that this entire conversation was even happening. “It’s perfectly normal.” 

“Maybe for you, but certainly not for me!” she chided. The moment was done and she was back to the parent. She swiped at her face and he regarded her sadly.

“If Hugh makes you happy then I’ll not say another word but ... if this is just a desperate attempt to get over Spiros, please don’t. It’s not worth... this,” he said.

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

“As much as I loved the other night, I really do prefer days like these,” Hugh said. He was sat on the picnic blanket opposite Louisa, who smiled with relief.

“Me too, I’m not sure what came over me the other night,” she admitted, looking at her hands. He handed her a glass of orange juice. 

“No alcohol today,” he smiled and she took it, sipping delicately. “I really do still love you Louisa. And I was thrilled when you agreed to meet me.”

She was working hard on pushing away Spiros. He hadn’t been to see her in a week and she certainly couldn’t go to his house. She missed him.

“I-” she started. “I want to love you again Hugh, I really do. I just... need time.”

When she saw his crestfallen face she said, “this is helping though,” spreading her arm across the picnic. He grinned and she so yearned for him to be the one her heart belonged to. He leaned in to touch her face and just as she was about to meet him for a kiss, animated Greek chatter split their little bubble in two.

Two young children, no older than Gerry came barreling out of the brush. Louisa opened her mouth to speak, startled by their sudden presence but the bushes parted and Spiros appeared. His face was jubilant and happy until he saw the couple. Louisa’s eyes went to the two children and back to his face. 

Hugh said ‘hello’ to the little boy and girl in Greek. Both chimed it back to him. Louisa however couldn’t force her mouth to say anything.

Spiros’ eyes burned into hers until it became too uncomfortable for her to maintain and she looked at the ground, blinking back tears.

“Spiros,” Hugh said in that clipped tone that hardly ever hid his disdain.

“Hugh,” Spiros said, (in his accent it sounded like ‘who’). “Louisa.” 

Louisa didn’t say anything, just brushed at the skirt on her dress.

“So the rumours are true, the olive man is back,” Spiros raised an eyebrow. Even after almost a year it was painfully obvious how much the two men hated each other.

“So it appears,” Hugh said and Louisa felt the familiar anger beginning to bubble up. They were grown men for God’s sake! The two children looked from their father to these two strangers. Louisa couldn’t fail to notice how much like him they were. The thought split her in two.

“I’d love to stay and ... err how you say, ‘chat’ all day, but I have stuff,” Spiros said. When Louisa looked in his eyes she saw they were startlingly hard. 

“Don’t let us keep you,” Hugh said.  Spiros tugged on his jacket and Louisa begged herself to say something but he was already pulling his children away, guiding them down the path.

“Pappy, who were they?” the little boy asked.

“No one,” Spiros said gruffly. That hurt Louisa more than it should. Hugh however looked positively seething.

“God I’d forgotten about him!” he muttered but her heart was still her in mouth. “Louisa?” he said and she jerked her head back to him. “Are you okay?”

She wondered whether she should tell him about Spiros, but when she opened her mouth, she found she couldn’t. So she smiled instead.

“I’m fine,” she said as he took her hand and kissed it.

“I really do wish you and Spiros could get along,” she said once her heart had stopped pounding in her throat.

“Spiros is... he’s a bit of an.... well we’ll never get on, my angel. I’m sorry I know he’s your friend. But he and I will never be friends, Louisa.” Hugh said, dropping her hand and leaning onto his elbows. She looked at some bird on a tree branch for a long moment. Were Spiros and she still friends? she thought. Right now she didn’t think so.

“He’s spoiled the mood, hasn’t he?” Hugh said, sitting back up. He was watching the hill that Spiros had descended down with a glare. She dusted something imaginary off of her knee.

“Hugh,” she started. “let’s not spoil this.”

That seemed to break the spell and he turned to her with a smile. She leaned over and kissed him, desperately wanting to feel sparks, or something other than the hollowness.

[shirlleycoyle]

My Life as a Meme: ‘I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This’ Revisited

In November 2007, an entirely contextless video of me being punched in the face went viral. You might have seen it. It still does the rounds every couple of months, often when something notably bad happens that warrants a response of disbelief. In these strange times, it’s managed to remain endlessly prescient.

For the uninitiated, the video in question is an 11-second clip in which, aged 16, I appear wearing a dressing gown cord around my head, a chain necklace, some children’s sunglasses and a black T-shirt. I sit down and address the camera, ostensibly about to tell the viewer what I was thinking. I am immediately interrupted by my friend Tim, who appears stage left and lamps me. Rather than react in pain or anger, I err more towards disappointment and dismay, bewildered that something like this could happen. “Ah fuck. I can’t believe you’ve done this,” I said. End scene.

It’s been nearly 14 years since I uploaded the original video and to this day it still prompts questions. Who was the guy who got punched? Why did he get punched? Who punched him? What was he thinking? Why did he react that way? Why did he leave YouTube?

In recent years I’ve come to appreciate and even enjoy its bizarre status as an enduring piece of internet history, but my relationship with the clip in the decade that followed its inexorable rise hasn’t always been easy. To understand why, it’s useful to remember that the internet in 2007 was, for better or worse, a very different place.

Having spent the best part of my school years filming stupid skits with mates instead of studying, there was something semi-appealing about the prospect of being able to put videos online to share with friends. It began in mid-2003, when myself and a group of friends would have been in our early teens. Inspired by the likes of Jackass and Bam Margera’s CKY movies, our impressionable young selves set about ignoring all relevant safety warnings, hurling ourselves out of trees, riding scooters into curbs, and racing tyres down hills on skateboards.

At the age of 14 or so, I had envisaged cutting the footage into a chaotic feature-length video of “stunts.” I’d probably have soundtracked it with music from the Tony Hawk games, alongside countless other homemade skate videos people made circa 2003 that probably featured a mix of Ace of Spades or Guerilla Radio. I still have a box full of VHS-C tapes kicking around somewhere, which can only be viewed on one of those absolutely insane VHS adapters. Having not watched any of it in well over a decade, I can safely say that the content contained within those tapes is unequivocally shit.

All of a sudden you're everywhere and it's out of your control. You either try to fight it and get destroyed, or embrace it and try to cash in.

Looking back, the whole endeavour was entirely aimless, but aside from coming away with mild head injuries from time to time it was an innocuous way to spend my childhood. At the very least it also means I have a bizarre, tangible record of my youth that I’ll be able to laugh at one day when I’m old and wizened.

By summer 2004, we had started filming on Mini-DV, which opened up a whole new world of editing possibilities. Plugging a video camera into a computer and capturing footage directly to editing software is pretty much a given for today’s generation of content creators, but back in the early 2000s, this was revolutionary.

We’d eventually gravitate away from ‘stunts’ towards more structured skits and sketches. Nothing was ever scripted per se, but we’d usually start out with a rough idea of something and see how it played out.

There was an ambitiously misguided 'silent horror' short, soundtracked by Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, in which someone chopped off ‘my cock’ (a banana) with a garden shear. We considered this to be the absolute pinnacle of comedy.

There was an ill-advised 'Ballers' skit in which we ventured out in sports gear to make a mock training video taking the piss out of a guy at school who fancied himself as a bit of a gangster; this painfully middle-class white kid who listened to rap metal and liked basketball. He obviously never saw it and there's no question that we looked like idiots filming it at the local park. It’s probably quite offensive in hindsight.

The author at the Bristol Climate Change Protests in September 2019. Image: Shanya Buultjens

There was a James Bond 'spoof' that involved misquoting portions of dialogue from that scene in GoldenEye where Q gives Bond an exploding pen. It was funny to about three people. One of them was my mum.

One time a mate of mine fell out of a tree when he tried to swing from a branch. He landed on his back and ended up coughing up blood. He didn’t go to the hospital even though he probably should have. He’s now a doctor and a father.

Mercifully, none of this stuff ever made it online, but I did sell a couple of DVDs to people at school who rightly/probably/hopefully never watched them. In an ideal world, I'd own the only copies. I'm also fully aware that writing about this now only makes it more likely that one of the four people that still have a copy will dig theirs out. Please do not do that.

In 2005 and 2006, YouTube was very much in its infancy. This was the time when clips were limited to about 100mb and you could only upload about 30 seconds worth of footage at a time, which basically made it perfect for bursts of frenetic, inane content. As the platform grew, it became a dumping ground for skits and footage that we’d accumulated over the preceding years. Much of it went completely unnoticed until late 2007, at which point things started to get a bit weird.

The truth is that, nearly a decade and a half later, I’m still processing it.

The clip that people have come to know started out as an aimless skit filmed in Summer 2006. We hadn’t planned anything, least of all me being punched. In the footage building up to the event, I pushed Tim off the chair, he fell and hit his head on a filing cabinet off-camera. Rather than react to Tim, I sat down and proceeded to ad lib something that I’d venture to guess would have been considerably less funny than the act of violence that followed. Unprompted, Tim upsided me and I reacted with an inexplicable, completely incredulous response, which has followed me online ever since.

The footage sat on a tape until July 2007 when I decided to upload a brief segment under an ambiguous title. Fast forward to November and the video had somehow blown up, had its comments section relentlessly spammed, been ripped countless times and had offensive Wiki pages written about it. I also received a few direct messages which could at best have been described as ‘worrying’ and at worst ‘threatening,’ which was nice.

To this day, I’m none the wiser as to how it blew up in the way it did. I originally uploaded the video under the title ‘ ___________’ but the video somehow found its way onto 4chan where it spread like wildfire. The earliest mirrored link I could find was from January 2008, by which time it had been re-uploaded by multiple accounts, the most prominent of which had already clocked up almost double the number of views compared to my original upload.

At the time, going viral wasn't really comparable to any other experience and it certainly wasn't something I could discuss in solidarity with my friends. All of a sudden you're everywhere and it's out of your control. You either try to fight it and get destroyed, or embrace it and try to cash in. After yanking down several other videos on my YouTube channel, I opted for the latter.

When the video blew up, I got a call from a friend who informed me that the video had made the front page of Break.com. I peripherally knew what that meant: they offered a buyout scheme for videos that made the front page, which meant that I could make some money from it.

As it transpired, this wasn’t such a great idea. After signing a release form with some pretty appalling terms, over the following months I had several unnerving interactions with researchers for various TV shows looking to license the clip. Each offered far more favourable terms than those of Break. One of them harassed a bunch of my mates on Facebook. I think he even offered to pay one of them for my contact details.

By that point, it was all too apparent that I had completely fucked it. Break had the rights and I couldn't do anything with it even if I wanted to. At just 18 years old, I had sold out. In the short term, I used the money to buy a TV, which was great, but I soon started to get the creeping feeling that this was a decision that would come to haunt me. At that point, it was easier to disassociate myself from the clip, abandon YouTube, and move on with my life.

And yet, for the best part of 14 years the questions have kept coming: no, it wasn’t staged or scripted, it wasn’t a set-up, I didn’t know it was coming and, yes, it hurt. It was also very funny, which is presumably why I felt the need to upload it in isolation in the first place. Incidentally, Tim and I are still friends and contrary to some of the absolutely insane comments people leave on YouTube I can confirm that neither of us are in prison, the punch wasn’t a reaction to some sort of disagreement and he’s a lovely bloke.

To be clear, the lack of context wasn’t a deliberate choice to add intrigue either. I’d never even considered the possibility that anyone outside my circle of friends would see it. To me it was just another daft clip that a few mates would find funny.

Around the time I’d started to make peace with the issues around ownership, in 2018 it came to my attention that Break had shut down and its owner Defy Media had gone bust. The site was subsequently purchased by Yeah1 Network, but to this day I have no clarity whatsoever on my legal rights to the video. Any attempts to receive guidance have either turned up dead ends, or led to suggestions that I speak to IP lawyers, whom I have neither the means nor the time to deal with. Incidentally, if anyone has any insights in that area, I’d love to hear them.

Having said this, there’s something quite empowering in taking something embarrassing and admitting to it before someone else can point it out to you—a bit like taking ownership of an amusing surname. I’ll leave it to you to figure out what gags can be made from the name ‘Weedon,’ but I learned quite early on that if you make the jokes yourself and beat others to it, no one can fucking touch you. It’s much easier nowadays to hold my hands up and admit that I shouldn’t have sold the rights, make a joke of it and move on. At the very least, it makes for a good anecdote at parties.

As I suspect is probably the case for old content creators, if you can even call us that, the real story about I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This isn’t in how it’s aged and endured, or even how it’s impacted my life. For me, it’s tied up in issues of rights, ownership, and monetisation. As mercenary as it might be, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t regret missing out on a slice of the pie when it came to YouTubers being able to monetise their content sooner. On the one hand, that's probably a very cynical view for something that was created by a bunch of teenagers who were fooling around making videos for fun in the noughties, but on the other, that's just the world we live in now.

Perhaps the strangest thing about my experience with it nowadays is the way people engage with it on a day-to-day basis. The comments vary from young people discovering its origins for the first time, surprised to discover that it is in fact a 14 year old video and not a recent creation filmed for Vine or TikTok. At the other end of the spectrum are those who are incredulous that someone with a video that has 9.2 million views and an account that’s amassed over 15,000 followers without really trying would step away from the platform and not want to make content.

The truth is that, nearly a decade and a half later, I’m still processing it. I love seeing how it’s been re-interpreted in modern mediums and that positive association has made it easier to accept. Charles Cornell turned it into a sad song. It got sampled in a KIll The Noise track. I had a nice interaction with The Sidemen about it. Will Smith even featured it in an insane Instagram post during the pandemic. I DM’d him to say thanks and he obviously didn’t reply.

To that end, a small group of us have recently started work on a film project exploring the nature of the meme, how it grew, its impact on my life and my relationship with the internet at large. In doing so, the hope is that, while answering some of the burning questions that other people still seem to have, I’ll ultimately be able to make peace with the whole thing.

@Twotafkap

My Life as a Meme: ‘I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This’ Revisited syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[saiyukisecretsanta-blog]

When Morning Breaks

For @junkerfox by @imaginarydragonling (imaginary_dragonling on AO3)

Surprise! I hope you like this gift!

Title: When Morning Breaks Pairing/Characters: Sha Gojyo & Cho Hakkai; Sha Gojyo & Genjo Sanzo Genre: Outer Space AU; Astronaut AU Rating: Teen & Up Warnings: Some foul language Optional: Playlist on Spotify

“Home Command, come in, Home Command.” Gojyo counted to three before pressing the intercom button again. The signal at mission control back on earth should have alerted someone that he wanted to talk by now. “Home Command, come in, Home Command.” Gojyo didn’t know what the signal was, but he hoped it was a big flashing red alarm. With sirens. And whistles. “Home Command, come in—“

“WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY?!”

“Ohhh, so you are alive and listening!” Gojyo couldn’t help the grin spreading across his face at the rage in his flight director’s voice. Genjo Sanzo sounded like he was several notches above his usual eight on the irritability scale.

Excellent.

“I was beginning to think that you were all dead…” Gojyo said. “And I’d come home to the zombie apocalypse and have to shoot you all to survive.”

“If you were here, I’d put a bullet through your brain.”

“Whew, woke up on the wrong side of bed did we? Or haven’t you had your morning cigarette yet, eh Sanzo?”

“That’s Genjo to you, Sha. And none of your goddamned business!”

“Yes sir, Genjo Sanzo-sama.” Gojyo raised his hand in a mock salute even though Sanzo couldn’t see him.

“You’re such a shithead, Sha. And you’re late. Where’s your status report?”

“Well, somebody didn’t pick up when I called.” Gojyo tucked his hands behind his head and kicked off from the control panel wall.

“I had other matters to attend to. I’m not your babysitter.” Gojyo smiled at the aggravation in Sanzo’s voice.

“Sorry. I forgot how busy you must be, running a whole mission control center by yourself.”

“Piss off!”

Gojyo laughed. “What’s been happening back there? You’re crankier than usual these days.”

“Never you mind.”

“Must be something big then.” Gojyo braced his hands against the wall to halt his momentum. He flipped over and kicked off again with practiced ease. “Come on. What’s been happening down there? Share the gossip will ya?”

Silence from Sanzo, and Gojyo was eyeing the intercom button again when Sanzo’s voice crackled in his ear, “Is your newslink working?”

Gojyo twisted his head to scan the panel of lights and switches that made up the control system of his spacecraft. He spotted the green light on the bulb after a moment of searching. “Yeah…”

“Read the damned news yourself.”

“Aww, come on Sanzo. Maybe I just want to hear your voice.” Flip. Kick. Float. “It gets lonely up here, ya know?”

“Disgusting. I better not be in any of your perverted fantasies.”

“Oh, would you like to know? Let’s see, there was last night when—”

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!”

Gojyo cackled. “C’mon Sanzo… It’s so fucking boring up here. Humour me with a story.”

“Go read a book then. Isn’t the ship library full of them?”

“They’re all so boooringggg. Nothing but audio films about human nature and the histories of war. Not even a cartoon porno among the lot of them. Whoever stocked this baby up must have been an old geezer.”

“Hmph, sounds educational. Maybe you could learn a thing or two and fill that empty head of yours.”

“Hey, my head is plenty full. I’ve got all these fantasies about you in here.”

Gojyo grinned and did two more laps between the walls of the control compartment while Sanzo ranted about kicking his ass and shooting him when he got back to earth.

Gojyo waited until he heard Sanzo drawing deep calming breaths and the tell tale drag of a cigarette before Gojyo drawled, “So, I guess that’s a ‘no’ on the story then?”

There was the shattering of a cup and the clatter of files and papers hitting the floor from Sanzo’s end of the line. Gojyo reminded himself to get something nice for housekeeping and janitorial services when he got back as he listened to Sanzo redecorate his office.

“Just give me your damned report,” Sanzo grit out after he had finally finished cussing out Gojyo.

Gojyo rated Sanzo at a nine point five and figured he had pushed him enough. “Righto, Sanzo-sama~~”

“Oh, this will be the last time we talk for awhile.”

That made Gojyo sit up. Although ‘up’ was a relative term when one was floating in zero gravity. “You going on vacation or something, Cherry-chan? I know you don’t have a girlfriend, so it can’t be that you’re getting married and going on your honeymoon…”

“Shut up. It’s none of your business.”

“I disagree. You’re leaving me for someone else and you won’t even tell me what she looks like? Does she have a big rack?”

“…”

“Is she prettier than me?”

“…”

“It’s actually a boyfriend isn’t it.”

“I SAID IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, YOU PERVERTED COCKROACH!”

“Sanzo, we’re friends, right? You know you can tell me if you got demoted—”

“If you must know,” and Gojyo could clearly visualize the vein throbbing at Sanzo’s temple, “I have to go oversee a training mission.”

“Wow wow, Mr-High-and-Mighty supervising a training mission? Don’t you have subordinates for that?”

“None that are competent, clearly.”

“What’s wrong with this guy?”

“He’s a promising candidate, but apparently can be quite the handful.”

“That’s what they said about me and look how I turned out!”

“All the more reason for me to nip this in the bud and beat some sense into him now. You’re a lost cause.”

“Oh stop. You’re making me blush. Sounds like the little monkey is about the get some training. You should hand him over to me when I get back. I could give him some tips.”

“Not a fucking chance. He’s stupid enough to believe what you say too.”

“Aww, he sounds adorable. I can’t wait to meet him.”

Gojyo thought he heard Sanzo mutter ‘over my dead body’ under his breath, and decided to switch gears to more pertinent matters.

“So, who’s your replacement going to be? Not some brown-nosing intern right? I need a professional here.”

A pause before, “You’ll see soon enough, Gojyo. I gotta go. They keep calling me about the twerp. It’s annoying. Your new flight controller will check in with you at the usual time tomorrow. Don’t be late.”

“Naww, you’re going to leave me hanging, Sanzo? After all the pictures of the moon I took for you…

“You’re letting a chick take over right? Please tell me it’s a chick, Sanzo. Sanzo? Sanzoooooo!”

Gojyo knew when to give up. Sanzo was probably long gone and Gojyo wasn’t feeling like enough of an ass today to annoy anyone else at mission control. He had had enough fun winding up Sanzo to last him a while. Gojyo blinked. He was going to miss him.

Space was boring. It was quiet, empty, cold. Gojyo worked out, ate, attended to bodily functions. He even started on an audio book, a Chinese classic. He got through about five minutes of it before he gave up and shut it off. Gojyo blasted music from the speakers and waited for sleep to claim him.

Alarms were blaring. White and then red. White and red. White. Red. She was white. The water was red. The tub was full. Red. The water was spilling over. Red. Pooling around his ankles. Red. Soaking his pants. Red. The water was cold. Shouts. Screams. The scent of copper was overpowering. He couldn’t breathe—

Gojyo’s eyes snapped open, gasping for breath. His ears were ringing, but it was just the ship’s intercom begging to be answered.

Someone was trying to reach him.

Gojyo ripped his sleeping bag open, was waylaid by the tangle of straps anchoring him to the sleeping alcove before he freed himself and kicked off the wall to shoot the ten feet or so across the main hub to get to the control compartment. His shoulder slammed into the wall as he flipped the switch to open his coms channel.

“What the everloving fuck is the emergency Sanzo?! If the ship’s not headed towards a collision course I’m gonna roast your ass!”

Silence. Though, he was sure that there was someone there because he heard their sharp intake of surprise, could almost hear the gears turning in their head at his less than courteous response. Odd, Sanzo never hesitated to give Gojyo a piece of his mind.

“My apologies.” Gojyo froze. That wasn’t Sanzo. The voice was male, but the tone and timbre of it was all wrong. Unless Sanzo has caught a head cold that made his voice higher in register, milder… sadder? “Did I wake you, Mr. Sha?”

“Err…no, no, I was awake at umm I mean it’s already six-oh-six…oh fucking hell that’s early.”

“Do you not rise at oh-five-hundred hours everyday, Mr Sha?” The way the voice said it, Gojyo didn’t know if he was supposed to be ashamed for not being up at the crack of dawn or reassure the voice that the notes he had on Gojyo’s schedule were, in fact, correct.

“Oh-five—? Oh no, fuck no. I mean, I know check in is supposed to be at six, but Sanzo never cared. Heck, he’d murder me if I called at six before he had a chance to read his paper. Much better to wait til eight when he’s got at least two cups of coffee and half a pack of cigarettes in him.”

“You check in late because you’re afraid the flight director will murder you in space? All the way from earth?”

Gojyo didn’t know if he should be insulted or amused. “Hey, the man’s a demon. If there’s something he wants, he’d move heaven and hell to get it.”

“Ah. Yes. I suppose that is rather like him. I still have to log your report though.” There’s a delicate pause. “Could you…?”

“Oh shit man, sure. Here’re my specs.”

Gojyo recited the figures and the man dutifully recorded his dictation, thanking Gojyo when they were done. He sounded young, definitely not much older than Gojyo, if at all. But he was competent. He hadn’t asked Gojyo to repeat himself, hadn’t hesitated on some of the more intricate readings, and Gojyo got the sense that he had been perfectly and thoroughly understood. Not an intern then. Gojyo wracked his brain trying to place him. Who had he known that was this calm, cool, and polite?

Too polite.

“Well, I think that is all. I will let you go and perhaps you will be able to catch up on those hours of interrupted sleep, Mr Sha.” The voice sounded contrite. Or amused?

“You gotta go huh?”

“Yes, I suppose I should withdraw.” The voice was soft, apologetic. “Good morning, Mr. Sha.”

Something stirred in Gojyo.

“Hey wait.”

“Yes?”

Gojyo let out the breath he had been holding, “You my new flight controller?”

“Yes, I suppose I am.”

“Aww, shucks,” Gojyo huffed a laugh. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, you seem nice and all, but I was really hoping Sanzo would do the world a favour and get a chick on the line for me.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. We’re a bit short staffed at the moment. But if you really mind, perhaps I can ask Sanzo to—“

“Nah man, it’s fine.” Gojyo located his headset and put it on. “I was only kidding. You gotta learn to live a little. Anyway, I know this isn’t the most exciting job, and I know I’m not the easiest person to work with, but I guess, what I’m really trying to say is…nice to meet you.

“I don’t know who you pissed off to get stuck with this post, but beggars and lonely astronauts can’t be choosers and I’m just happy to meet ya.”

Silence, and Gojyo wondered if he had said too much. He had a tendency to come on strong. But then the voice said, “Thank you, Mr Sha. That’s very kind of you to say.”

“It’s Gojyo. Just call me Gojyo.”

“Alright, Gojyo-san.”

“Say, what’s your name?”

More silence. And then, “Hakkai.”

Gojyo smiled. “See ya around, Hakkai.”

The line went dead and Gojyo checked the time. Four minutes to oh-eight-hundred hours. Not that it mattered. Gojyo found that time held little meaning in space where there was no sunrise or sunset. Gojyo sighed. He let the monotone droning of the narrator from the audio book he had abandoned yesterday lull him back to sleep.

“Let’s play twenty questions.” The words slipped out before he could stop himself.

He had just finished giving Hakkai his report, and Hakkai had just wished him good morning. Hakkai always hung up after wishing him good morning. Just like he had the day before. And the day before that.

“I beg your pardon?” Hakkai sounded surprised.

Gojyo tried to play it cool. “Twenty questions? Y’know… It’s a guessing game. Or a getting to know you game.” He hadn’t meant to say that. So much for playing it cool. “Whatever. I’m bored, man.”

“Hmm, I see.” Gojyo floated with baited breath as he waited for Hakkai’s response. “How do you play it?”

Gojyo’s elbows banged against the wall. When he had finished swearing, “You’ve never heard of twenty questions?! What about I spy? Truth or dare?”

“I can’t say I’m familiar with any of those.”

“… That settles it. This isn’t just about boredom anymore. Y’need an education.”

“I do?”

“Yup. Here, I’ll start. I’m thinking of something. You have twenty questions to guess it. Go.”

“Umm, what colour is it?”

“Black.”

“Is it cold?”

“Yep.”

“Is it space?”

“Gee whiz, you’re good at this.”

“Ha ha ha, thank you, Gojyo-san.”

“Beginner’s luck. Your turn. Got something?”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose I do.”

“Boxers or briefs?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you wear boxers or briefs?”

“How is this supposed to help you win?”

“What makes you think this isn’t winning?”

“…”

“Is your silence an invitation to find out for myself?”

“You do know that this is recorded right?”

“Sanzo’s the only one who would listen to this. He wouldn’t care.”

“How do you know?”

“You’re right. He would care. He’d be furious. I’m wearing boxers by the way. Black with little red hearts. Wanna see?”

“Gojyo-san!”

“Alright, alright. Well, boxers or briefs?”

“Umm…”

“Oh, I know! You go commando like Sanzo!”

“What?!”

“Yeah, didn’t you know? Do you want to know how I know?”

“…no, I don’t think I do.”

“Aww, I love that story. I tell it all the time at parties. Or to anyone who will listen to me really. Hmm, maybe that’s why Sanzo stopped assigning other people as my flight controller. You can tell our Great Leader I told you all about it… Hakkai? You still there?”

Gojyo somersaulted and looked at the panel. The intercom light was still on. For one long moment, Gojyo thought that maybe he had gone too far, that Hakkai had simply gotten up and walked away. It wouldn’t be the first time it happened to Gojyo.

But then—

Hakkai’s laugh rang in his ears. It was a melodic sound, delightful, genuine.

“Do you do this with all your flight controllers?”

“Only the ones I like.”

“Oh, really?”

“Oh, really!”

When they had both stopped chuckling, a comfortable silence fell between them, broken only when Hakkai, soft and serious, said, “Briefs.”

They played twenty questions everyday. Sometimes Gojyo won. Hakkai won more. Even when Gojyo tried real hard. Before he knew it, a month had passed, and winning or losing didn’t matter so much anymore.

“What do you do for fun?”

“Fun?”

“Hobbies. Y’know, things you do in your free time.”

“Oh! I cook, clean, do the laundry—”

“Hold up. Seriously? You sound like an old lady.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“N-no… Are you an old lady?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m about the same age as you.”

“How do you know how old I am?”

“It’s in your file.”

“Oh… Oh right. … What else does my file say?”

“Sha Gojyo. One hundred and eighty four centimeters, seventy-five point three kilo—”

“Skip the boring stuff, man. What does it say under the personality evaluation and comments section?”

“Lecherous. Simpleton. Pain in the ass… I don’t think I should repeat the rest.”

“… Sanzo wrote that didn’t he?”

Hakkai was easy to talk to. Gojyo found himself looking forward to their chats after they were done recording the status of Gojyo’s ship. Waking up at oh-five-hundred hours didn’t seem so abominable anymore. Gojyo almost looked forward to it.

“I’ve been thinking about your question.”

“What question?”

“About my hobbies. Something I would do for fun.”

“Oh. Did you come up with something?”

“Gardening. I think I would have liked to take up gardening.”

“What do you mean you ‘would have liked to?’ Don’t you have a garden?”

“… No, I don’t.”

“Hmm, well, something to work towards I guess.”

“Perhaps.”

“Don’t you have a hobby now? What do you do when you’re not working or sleeping?”

“I… I’ve started practicing tai chi?”

“… You’re really an old lady at heart aren’t you…”

“Ha ha ha. I suppose I am.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Don’t what?”

“Take up gardening. If that’s what you really want to do. Just do it. Give it a try. If it brings you happiness, who cares what some fucker up in the sky says.”

“I sail.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I sail. You told me your hobby, I’m telling you mine. Fair’s fair.”

“Oh, thank you. That’s a nice hobby, Gojyo-san.”

“Have you sailed before?”

“No, I can’t say I have.”

“Shit man, you haven’t lived then. Sailing… It’s an adventure. Wind in the sails and sun on your back. And my boat, oh… This baby I’m in right now might be newer and shinier, but she’s got nothin’ on my girl…”

“He.”

“…huh?”

“He’s got nothing on your girl.”

“You calling my spaceship a ‘he?’”

“Trust me. It’s a he.”

“Alright, man. It’s a he.”

Those were good days.

After two months of talking to him daily, Gojyo thought he knew the man pretty well. Gojyo could at least tell when Hakkai was being honest and when he was hiding. From what, Gojyo didn’t know. There was more to Hakkai than met the eye. Or the ear, for that matter. However, it wasn’t his place to pry. But sometimes, it made him wonder.

Especially on the bad days.

“It’s raining, isn’t it.”

“Ha ha ha. Wow, Gojyo-san. How did you know?”

“Sanzo hates the rain. He gets grumpy and closes in on himself. Becomes even more of a crab ass. You’re like him in that sense.”

“I’m a crab ass?”

“No, but you also shut everyone else out.”

“I’m sorry. That was rude of me. Whatever you’re dealing with is your business, man. I’m just… Eighteen months is a long time to be alone. It’s in the job description, and you talk to all these shrinks before you go, but you’re never quite prepared, y’know? What am I saying, of course you don’t know. I hope you never know either. It’s like prison. Not that I’m wishing that on you either, but, sometimes, I feel like I’m going crazy. Or like my mind is just going. It’s like a never ending journey. Alone. I think that’s the worse part. I think I could handle it if I wasn’t alone. Sorry. Give me a minute, I think one of the food packets got loose. Some days… I just wish I never woke up.”

Time wound on. Six weeks. Five weeks. Four weeks before he could dock at the International Space Station and shuttle back to earth. Gojyo felt his spirits lift. Hakkai must have sensed it too, because he was back to his cheerful self and seemed determined to keep things that way.

“What’s the first thing you want to do when you get back?”

“You planning a surprise party for me?”

“Hahaha. I can’t tell you if it’s a surprise.”

“Fine… I would have a smoke. Drink beer. Pick up chicks and definitely shag someone.”

“That’s quite the list.”

“Gotta have things to look forward to, y’know… Otherwise, what’s the point of living?”

<hr>

“You should come by sometime. I’ll be down by the docks. Look for the biggest whitest yacht in the bay. My sailboat will be right next to it, with the scuffed up hull and red sails.”

“Isn’t that painting yourself poorly?”

“Nah man, my boat—she’s a babe. What really matters is what’s under the hood. She’s got heart and she’s got soul. She’d never go down. Not without a fight.”

“I see.”

“You’ll come right? For a day trip at the very least. You’ve gotta experience the sea at least once. It’s warm and slow and rough and you’ll never know what you’re gonna get next.

“Not like space. One short struggle with the G-forces, then it’s over. Rest of the time you’re just floating, feeling your body rot away. Space has got nothin’ on the sea.”

“Why did you become an astronaut then?”

“I dunno, because people told me I couldn’t be. Why did you become a flight controller?”

“It’s something to pass the time.”

“Shit, man. That’s depressing.”

“Oh, is it? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Nah, man, it’s cool. Just…you sound like you’re on your deathbed.”

“Oh. Right.”

Gojyo twitched.

“You’re not, are ya?”

“What?”

“Dying…”

The silence was deafening. Gojyo was about to ram his fist into the intercom button when Hakkai spoke, “Gojyo-san, I want you to know that—“

Alarms wailed and the warning lights around Gojyo flashed orange and red.

“FUCK!” Gojyo punched the alarm button, muting the sirens overhead even as he stared at the screens on the control panels.

“Gojyo-san! What’s going on?”

“You tell me! I— Shit! Micro asteroids. Coming in hot! They’re going to shred right through me!”

“Bank starboard! Full blast on aft thrusters.”

The window of space that had been relatively static throughout his journey spun and wobbled with disorientating speed. There was no time to think. Hakkai directed him with laser precision and Gojyo’s acted, timing burns and bursts of speed to maneuver his ship away from the asteroids that were hurtling towards him. The spaceship whined and rattled in protest.

“Push it. You need more speed.”

“I’m already pushing it to the max! Any more and I’m going to blow this baby apart.”

“Reroute power from the side thrusters to the pod blasters. You’ll get more speed that way.”

“Are you crazy?! Did you hear the part about blasting apart?!”

“Do it. Jeep can take it. Trust me.”

Sweat beaded on his forehead and the hard knot in his stomach made him want to hurl. Gojyo could feel the ship shuddering around him, the impact of asteroid bodies reverberating through the metal and the control stick he was wrestling with.

In the madness and rush of adrenaline, Hakkai’s voice in his ear was tranquil. A bell that chimed into the void, pure and true. A beacon that promised a way out of this nightmare. Gojyo trusted him.

Gojyo survived.

“How did you know?”

“The calculations on my screen indicated that—”

Gojyo shook his head. “Not that. How did you know where to get more power from. And that it wouldn’t tear the ship to pieces.”

A beat of silence, and then, “I knew. I’m the one who designed him.”

The questions came then, welling up like a spring, beating down like torrential rain. But Gojyo held back the flood and let Hakkai speak.

“It wasn’t just me. My sister was involved too. It was a joint effort.”

Gojyo could hear it then—the smile in Hakkai’s voice, the utmost fondness with which he spoke about her, the shadow that chased his every word and mention of her. It stained everything.

“You know, she wanted to call him Hakuryuu—the White Dragon. I liked Jeep better. She pouted at me for days.” Hakkai laughed.

It was the saddest sound Gojyo had ever heard.

“I owe you a beer.”

“Gojyo, I told you, it’s quite alright—“

“Hakkai, it’s the least I can do. I mean, you saved my life and shit. How about the day I get back to earth, I’ll take you out. My treat.

“Sanzo can come too if it makes you feel better. Though if he’s coming, it’ll be his treat. He’s the one with the corporate card.”

“Gojyo, thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me. But I’m afraid I will have to decline.”

“What? Why man? If you’ve got a girl, she can come too. We can all just go out as friends to celebrate you saving my sorry ass.”

“Ha ha ha.”

“C’mon… What’s holding you back? Are you sick or something?”

“…Something like that.”

“Oh shit. I mean… I’m sorry man. We don’t have to go out if you don’t feel like it. Is it…is it serious?”

“Hmm, the prognosis is quite bleek.”

“Shit. But you can get better right? You’re going for treatment or something?”

“After a fashion.”

“Fuck man, what are you doing sitting behind a desk then? I know you’re dedicated and all that, but if I were you, I’d be out there living, doing whatever—whoever—the fuck I wanted, no fucks given. I’ll take care of your baby for you. I promise to bring her—him—home safely.”

“Ahahaha, I’m sure you will. Or rather, Jeep will take care of you.”

“Hey, that works for me too. So go on. Tell Sanzo you quit. Go live your life man.”

“I wouldn’t know where to go if I left.”

“Don’t you have friends? Family? You could go visit them. Hey, go see your sis! Crash at her place. Maybe introduce us. What do ya say?”

“Ha ha ha, she’s not very good company these days I’m afraid. Quiet. Doesn’t say much.”

“Bet ya I could get her to talk.”

“Ha ha ha. You don’t know my sister. What makes you think you could do that?”

“I got you to open up didn’t I?”

“…”

“Is that a challenge? I like a challenge.”

“You would lose, Gojyo-san.”

“Such negativity! Give me one good reason why I wouldn’t succeed.”

“She’s dead.”

“Well, shit.”

<hr>

Conversation fizzled out, and Hakkai hung up soon after that. Sleep eluded Gojyo, and the next morning found Gojyo huddled by the control panels, impatient for the red numbers in the timepiece to change to the hour when Hakkai would greet him with a ‘Good morning, Gojyo’ as was their custom. Gojyo couldn’t wait.

“Hey, Hakkai. About yesterday, I—”

“Come in, Jovian Exploration and Evaluation Pod, this is the Houtou Space Research Organization. Can you hear me?”

Gojyo paused in shock. He had another week before he was due to dock at the International Space Station where Jeep would be handed off to astronauts from Tenjiku. He had assumed that Hakkai would walk him through the docking process. Or at least be with him right up until the handoff moment. He was supposed to have another week. It was too early.

“Come in, Jovian Exploration and Evaluation Pod. Is Sha Gojyo there?”

If he hadn’t already been suspended weightless, Gojyo would have collapsed as another shock hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. Because he recognized that voice.

“Jien?”

The silence seemed to stretch on forever before the voice on the other end answered, “Gojyo! So it is you! I saw your name on the log but I couldn’t be sure. It’s so good to hear from you! How’re ya doing kid?”

“I’m fine.”

“Whew, you’ve been on quite the adventure! I always knew you’d go far. You’ve gone the furthest that any man ever has! How does it feel—”

“Where’s Hakkai?”

“Uhh…Hakkai?”

“Yeah, the guy who’s been my flight controller for the past three months.”

“Umm…” The sound of papers being shuffled crackled harsh in Gojyo’s ears. “Genjo Sanzo?”

“No, not him. The other guy. The second one. The nice one.” The one who laughed when he should cry. The one who pretended that nothing was wrong when his world was falling apart. The one who smiled when his heart was breaking. Gojyo had never seen Hakkai smile. Didn’t even know what Hakkai looked like. But it didn’t matter. You couldn’t see broken hearts either.

“Hmm, the only person listed here as a flight controller is Genjo Sanzo. Are ya sure—”

“Listen, Jien. It’s not that I’m not happy to see you, or hear you, so to speak, but why are you here? Isn’t this kind of ahead of schedule? Did something happen at Keiun?”

“Oh, yes, about that… I don’t know either. This was all rather sudden. We weren’t expecting you for another week at least. But we got the call yesterday. The big bosses talked and, well, here we are.

“I guess there must have been some emergency over at your base? I got the brief this morning and dialed in as I was instructed.

“This is quite the coincidence isn’t it? I mean, I knew you were on this mission, but there are other flight controllers, and I was already assigned to our guy on the station.

“But hey! Now I get to walk you through the docking procedure, just like I taught you how to drive. Remember that? Man, you were such a punk back then. I hope you fly your ship better than you drive. Especially after the micro asteroid field you guys went through. Man, that was a close call. Your engineers did a good job with the ship. Seems like she’s quite the trooper.”

“He.”

“Sorry?”

“It’s a he… the ship…. Nevermind.”

“Uhh, ok… Oh! Did you hear about the explosion? I mean, it was months ago but…”

Gojyo tuned Jien out. He was glad to hear from him, but the incessant chatter felt jarring, wrong somehow. It was like an itch that he couldn’t scratch, and Gojyo suddenly wished for the vast emptiness of space and the silence of his thoughts.

“…the sentencing is gonna happen really soon. Someone’s gonna go to jail. I mean, it was a catastrophe.”

“Huh? Oh, right. Listen Jien, I’m gonna go. Gotta make sure stuff up here is ship shape when I hand him off to you.”

“Oh, is there anything you need help with? I can pull up the schematics—”

“No. Jeep’s fine. I just have my shit all over the place. I’m gonna start cleaning up. I’ll talk to you later, alright?”

Gojyo hung up before Jien could protest. Gojyo pushed himself towards the fore windows where he could see the Earth and the moon approaching, small blue-green and white orbs that would only grow with each passing day. He was closer to home and other human beings than he had ever been in eighteen long lonely months.

He had never felt more alone.

It was good to hear from Jien. It really was. Gojyo just found that he didn’t have much to say. So Gojyo listened to Jien describe his life in Tenjiku. Their Research Director was a genius, but he sounded like an asshole. Jien talked about the team of people he now worked with. The guy he supported was actual royalty. He talked about him a lot.

“He kind of reminds me of you.”

“Devilishly handsome and a smartass?”

Jien laughed, full throated and hearty. Gojyo’s lips quirked up in a smile.

“Ayy, I won’t deny he looks a bit like you… But no, that’s not what I meant.” Gojyo waited. “You’re both stronger than you look, but more fragile too… I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

“Hey, what happened with mom… It wasn’t your fault.”

“I could have done more.”

“You did enough. Look where we both ended up! Not bad for a couple of orphans they said would never amount to anything.”

“There was no stopping you. Not when you had your heart set on something.”

“You didn’t do so badly yourself. This Kou guy sounds like a real dream to work with…”

“Hey, Gojyo?”

“Yeah?”

“If you have some time off, you can always come visit, you know?”

“Yeah… Maybe I will.”

Docking was easy. Jien walked him through it and Gojyo piloted Jeep into place without a hitch. Just before entering the airlock tunnel, Gojyo paused at the threshold, his bag of meager belongings slung over his shoulder.

“I’ll see you back on earth, buddy.”

Gojyo patted Jeep’s hull and stepped out of the ship.

The guy who greeted Gojyo was shorter than him, with long dark red hair like fire and serious violet eyes. He nodded and floated to the side, allowing Gojyo to enter the station unimpeded.

“Thank you~~” Gojyo said as he moved past him.

The station felt enormous, alien after the familiarity of Jeep’s white walls. Music echoed down the curved corridor, the electric guitar riff a stirring anthem of defiance. Gojyo grinned.

“You Kougaiji?”

“Yes. Are you Dokugakuji’s brother, Sha Gojyo?”

“Yep, that’s me. How long you staying up here?”

“I have three more months before the next astronaut arrives. Someone from the Western Space Coalition. You’re not coming back, are you?”

“Me? Fuck no. I’ve had enough of space to last me a lifetime.”

Gojyo made his way towards the pod that would shuttle him back down to earth.

Jien talked over the com to both of them as Kougaiji helped strap Gojyo into the seat of the pod that would take him back down to earth. When Kougaiji had double checked his harness, Gojyo held out his hand.

“It was nice meeting you, Kougaiji. I know my brother likes to nag, but he’s got your back and he’s looking out you.”

Kougaiji’s eyes widened, the seriousness of his expression lifting to let something softer shine through for the first time. Gojyo smiled.

“Hey, Jien. Take care of Prince-sama here and keep him company. I guess I’ll see both of you again soon.”

Gojyo laughed as Jien spluttered into the com and he kept the grin on his face as he hurtled through the atmosphere. He was going home!

He wondered if he would find anyone waiting for him.

He was looking, for everything he couldn’t see.

He was listening, for something he will never hear.

He’s waiting, for nothing.

The cigarettes were stale. The beer tasted flat. The conversations were trivial, as were the people he chatted up.

Gojyo tried to enjoy himself. He really did. It was his party after all. Or at least, his return and the success of the mission had been used as an excuse for the employees of Keiun Space and Aeronautics Institute to let loose and drink the night away. Gojyo plastered a smile on his face, tried to listen to the chick with the ponytail who was bouncing in front of him as she told him about her six cats.

Gojyo’s eyes scanned the crowd, gaze drifting over the party goers packed in the hall. The attendees weren’t just people from mission control. Engineering, R&D, even corporate administration had been invited, and turnout was high.

A flash of gold caught his eye. Gojyo excused himself from ponytail girl and made his way through the crowd. But by the time he had pushed through the throng of people, Sanzo had disappeared. Gojyo swiped another flute of champagne from the nearest waiter and downed it in one gulp.

“Do you have a last name?”

“Umm, no. Can’t you look him up with just the name I gave you?”

“He’s not in the system of current employees. I could check the archives, but I need a full name for that.”

“Couldn’t you just look again? He works here. I spoke to him barely two weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry, Gojyo. I’ve checked twice and his name doesn’t come up anywhere. I’m sorry…”

“Hey, it’s ok… No, don’t cry. It’s my bad… I must have misheard. I can still come and pick you up at eight? Yeah? Ok… I’ll see you then. Oh, one last favour. Could you please be a dear and give me a list of everyone who worked on the JEEP project…”

No one has seen him.

No one has heard of him.

No one knows.

The list was useless. Even Google failed. He was a ghost. A memory. A dream.

Gojyo refused to believe that.

After a week of hanging around mission control, ignoring the raised eyebrows and curious stares while he tried to catch more than two seconds of Sanzo’s attention, Gojyo had had enough.

He marched into Sanzo’s office armed with newspaper, coffee, and Sanzo’s favourite brand of cigarettes one morning. Sanzo only raised an eyebrow and glowered as Gojyo slammed the offerings on his desk before kicking the door shut and locking it behind him.

“Hakkai? As in Eight Prohibitions? Never heard of him. What kind of idiot would think that’s a real name.”

“Maybe the idiot who was abandoned by his assigned flight controller.”

“Whatever. It’s clearly a pseudonym.”

“You let the guy take over for you. Surely you must know his real name.”

“If you want to know, ask him yourself.”

“And how, pray tell, am I supposed to do that when I don’t know who he is?”

“Not my problem.”

“Seriously?! Maybe I should just go up to every single person in this facility and ask them—”

“Haven’t you done that already? How’s that working out for you.”

Gojyo slumped into his chair, head cradled in his hands. He missed the way Sanzo’s eyes flicked up from scanning the newspaper spread out in front of him, deep purple gaze regarding Gojyo over wireframe glasses.

“At least…tell me that he’s ok?”

“Sorry, I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Come on, Sanzo!”

“Look, why are you so fixated on finding him? You should be enjoying your time off. Sailing around the world or whatever. Stop wasting your time.”

“I can use my time however I want. And I’m not fixated, alright? The guy saved my life.”

“He did his job.”

“Is it too much to want to know who he is, so that I can thank him in person?”

“He must really want your thanks if he went through all that trouble of making sure you knew his name.”

“Gods, can’t— Can’t you just tell me? I just want to know that he’s ok. I won’t even try to contact him. I swear on my mother’s grave.”

“…”

“…”

“Maybe, he doesn’t want to be known.”

The day was hot and the sun beat down on him without mercy. His neck and shoulders were already starting to sting. If he wasn’t careful, the skin would burn and peel.

Time for a break anyway.

Gojyo secured the last bit of rigging and reached for his bottle of water, dumping the warming liquid on his head. It was cool against his skin and the water that dripped from his recently shorn hair tickling his bare shoulders.

Gojyo turned and made his way to the shaded part of his deck. The docks were quiet, deserted. Even the gulls were silent, unwilling to waste their energy caterwauling in the stifling heat.

Movement. There was someone walking along the boards, prowling between the luxury yachts moored around him. The figure was tall, of medium build, dressed in a white collared shirt and loose dress pants, walking purposefully between the boats, turning to look at each one of them as he passed. His stride was slow, languid, and his form shimmered in the heat like a mirage.

Gojyo groaned. Another rich bastard shopping for a new toy to impress a new girlfriend or fulfill some empty romantic notion of the sea. It was odd that this one was alone, but Gojyo wasn’t keen on making small talk with anyone who was loaded enough to buy their own yacht for the sole purpose of being able to say they owned it.

The man was heading his way, and sunlight glinted off the man’s glasses as his head turned towards Gojyo. Gojyo cursed, turned his deck chair very pointedly away from the docks and the approaching stranger, and flopped down into it. Gojyo closed his eyes, pulled his bandana over his eyes and reclined, tucking his hands behind his head.

With any luck, rich bastard would get the hint and leave him alone. He really didn’t feel like talking today.

Coolness. A shadow had fallen over him, or the sun had become hidden behind a rogue cloud in the blue cloudless sky. Gojyo opened his eyes and looked up into the face hovering above him. Rich bastard had a pretty face he’d give him that.

“This boat’s not for sale. If ya want to ask about the yacht, you’re outta luck, buddy.”

Bastard smiled. Shit. He had a nice smile too.

“Hard as it may be for you to believe, I don’t want your money.” He was younger than Gojyo had first thought. He looked to be around Gojyo’s age, not yet old enough to find owning his own yacht an attractive way of flaunting his personal wealth. Rich bastard’s son then. “Look, buddy. She’s not for sale and no amount of cash is gonna convince me to take you and your friends’ drunken asses for a joyride.”

The man withdrew, but only to look up and down Gojyo’s boat, like he was thinking about how much his baby was worth so that he could offer it—and maybe some—to Gojyo to tempt him. The nerve of him.

“Hey! I told you, she’s not for sale. Why don’t you take your daddy’s credit card and go fuck off to your own piece of sunshine? You take one step onto her, you touch this boat and I will personally haul you to the police station and report you for private property infringement.”

“What if I had an invitation?”

Gojyo’s protests died in his throat. Because that voice. That voice. He knew that voice.

Gojyo sat up slowly, afraid that if he moved too fast, the image before him would waver, disappear like a illusion, and he would wake up alone to the rocking of his boat and the lonely cry of the seagulls.

“Ha… Hakkai?”

And the smile on the man’s face said it all. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and Gojyo found himself staring at startling green eyes, deep as the lonely sea and just as secretive, just as sad.

“Good morning, Gojyo.”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

Hakkai told him the whole story. How he and his sister had been engineers. Their experiment had gone wrong. There was an accident, a whole lab had been reduced to rubble. He had been careless, too ambitious, too proud. His sister and a thousand people had died because of him. There was an extensive investigation. Sanzo had been involved, had confronted him about it, and advocated for him at the trial. He let him work at flight control while decisions were made and judgements were deliberated. The sentencing hearing came sooner than expected.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.”

“I tried to find you. I looked for you, asked after you. No one knew who you were. Is Hakkai even your real name?”

“No, I’m sorry. It’s Cho Gonou. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Gojyo wasn’t mad. He’s not hurt that Cho Gonou didn’t trust him enough to tell him his name. Gojyo understood abandonment, the feeling when the world has been ripped away from you, when you are left with nothing but yourself, your sins and shortcomings.

Gojyo fought—still fights. It was exhausting. Cho Gonou fought too, and if he needed a respite and had chosen to hide, faceless, behind the name of Hakkai, Gojyo understood.

“So, what are you going to do now?”

The sun hung low on the horizon, warm rays hitting the red sails of Gojyo’s sailboat and bathing them in crimson.

Gonou shrugged, a simple up and down motion. Gonou was smiling, but his eyes looked towards the ocean, lost.

“You can come sailing with me. I could use an extra pair of hands.”

Red captured green. “These?” Gonou held up his hands—smooth, unblemished, beautiful. “I wouldn’t know what to do with them.”

Gojyo grinned. “I’ll walk you through it. It’s not Jeep, but she’s got the same spirit.”

“She?”

“She. Definitely she.”

“Are you sure you want me, Cho Gonou, mass murderer and wanted criminal, at the helm of your beloved boat, manning your rudder?”

“You’re right. I don’t trust Cho Gonou. This invitation is for Hakkai.”

“I think I can manage that.”

THE END

[greywindys]

Title: 1998

Rating: pg-13

Summary: It’s been days since he’s come out of his coma and Stuart can’t quite get the lingering memory or the man responsible for bringing him out of it (and putting him in it) to leave his mind. Unsure of his own intentions in doing so, he seeks him out again.

Warnings: language, 2Doc (I’m being forreal here), very vague allusions to trauma

Author note: This is a very late fic for D-Day. I was thinking about how vague ROTO’s account of 2D’s recruitment into the band is and wanted to expand on that a little bit. Like, sure, Murdoc saw him after he woke up from the coma but as far as I know he had never heard him play or sing  or even speak at that point so how did he really know that he wanted him in the band? Also, 2D was 20 at the time and presentably still in contact with (living with? idt he went to college?) his parents so there’s now way Murdoc just took him from the crash site and all of sudden they’re at Kong like, there had to have been some in between there. I’m also unclear on how long 2D’s coma was, but I’m assuming it was at least a few months + all the legal matters so in this fic I’m assuming it’s about a year before they actually have a conversation. So anyhow, I’m playing around with some ideas under the cut.

When Stuart was young, he had a fascination with extreme weather. Whenever it would storm, he would spend the duration of the time seated enthusiastically by the window the window in the living room, watching and waiting, hoping to witness something, anything, big. As he grew older, he grew fixated on tornados. Perhaps, he thought, it was because he had never witnessed one in person and was left to only imagine what it felt like from the fuzzy tapes his father had recorded for him off of the television, or maybe it was because the thought of standing in the presence of something so powerful and living to tell about it. Stuart liked to imagine what it would be like to stand right in the center of a tornado and see the funnel from the inside.

His mother tells him the idea is completely ‘mental,’that tornadoes aren’t so common in Crawley, so why bother dreaming about it. But Stuart’s researched tornado alley, and he disagrees. And he continues to learn about them anyways. He buys himself a book on meteorology, and then another on storm chasing. Then he begins to practice looking at the sky as a way to predict weather patterns, and he hopes.

He’s looking at the sky - a very cloudy sky - and hoping the evening he meets Murdoc.

Technically, they’ve met before. Stuart’s daily migraines serve as a reminder of that. Tonight, however, is the first time they’ve spoken alone and he isn’t entirely sure what to expect or what even compelled him to seek the other man out in the first place. His parents weren’t much help either. His father was skeptical and his mother was just happy to have her boy back. So Stuart was left as the deciding vote as to if or how he should thank him, and it comes down to his memories of the way Murdoc looked at him and the way Stuart can’t seem to get his face out of his mind that makes him want to know him.  

He finds him loitering around one of the bus stops in town looking shifty and guarded. It looks like he’s wearing the same clothes he had on the day of the second crash, and as he lifts his foot to stamp out a cigarette, he notices that at least one of his shoes is on the brink of losing its sole. But his eyes are still as vibrant and expressive as Stuart remembers them, and he sees a certain level of excitement in them when he turns to see him.

“Hello,” Stuart says with a wave. “It’s...it’s Murdoc, right?”

“Good memory. So maybe you’re not as brain dead as the doctor said.” Murdoc lights himself a second cigarette and takes a drag. “And you. You’re, uh...what was it..Stephen?”

“Stuart. Or just Stu,” he replies. “So, uh, I don’t feel like I ever got to thank you properly for, uh-”

“Hurling you through the windshield?” Murdoc chuckles.

“Well, not exactly…it’s less about that and more about me waking up from my coma.”

Murdoc appears to be receptive to this. “You’ve got that right I mean, if it weren’t for me who knows when you would’ve woken up. You could have been dead.”

Stuart doesn’t like to think about himself dying but he nods anyways. “Yeah, so, uh, we don’t really have the money to give you a big reward or anything but I thought we could do something that you want to do, or I dunno…walk around. My mum gave me some money…”

Murdoc doubles over in laughter at this.

“Or...maybe not,” Stuart says, unsure of how to interpret his reaction.

Murdoc shakes his head as he tries to compose himself. “No, that’s fine..it’s just...wow.” He looks up, a devious grin on his face. “I think...I think I would like that.”

They head further into town from there. Murdoc is interested in pubs and Stuart attempts to make a mental list of places they could go but it’s difficult to think and match the other’s brisk and confident pace at the same time. Internally, he wonders how someone as disheveled and dirty looking as Murdoc grew to be so sure of himself that he could walk around in a town he didn’t know like he knew exactly where he was going when really, Stuart knows he has no idea.

They eventually settle on a place near the city bank.

Murdoc makes himself at home and is already discussing the different beers available on tap with the bartender before Stuart is even able to pick his seat. “So, going by the sound of your offer, I’m assuming the drinks are on you then?” he asks.

“Yeah. Well, and my mum too.” He wonders what else to say. It isn’t like he can remember any of their time together nor does he have a memory to reminisce over with him, and somehow, asking about what it was like having to carry him around everywhere doesn’t seem like the best conversation starter.  Thankfully, Murdoc unknowingly alleviates his burden of indecision for him.

“So have you given any more thought to my offer?”

“Offer?” Stuart remembers him mouthing something to him as he drove him to his parents, but nothing of what was actually said. That first day was so hazy.

“The band! My band.” Murdoc is more animated now. “You play the keyboard, and I need a keyboardist. We’ll have to see about your skill level but you’ve got the perfect look for it.”

“Me? You don’t think I look, well...a bit odd?”

“No way, mate. You look brilliant. Unforgettable.”

Unforgettable. Inside, Stuart notices his heart start to beat a little faster.

“All the birds will flock to you,” Murdoc continues. “And me too, of course. See, watch this.” He leans over to the couple next to them and motions towards him. “I’ve got a question for you lot. You see my friend, Stanley, here?”

“It’s Stuart,” Stuart says.

Murdoc ignores him. “Whatever. Anyways, when you look Stuart over here, what would you think he does for a living?”

The couple goes through a few guesses. An artist, a circus performer and a wannabe punk. The man thinks his hair is fake and his girlfriend remarks that she likes his hair but that overall, he looks “interesting.”

“So he’s not someone you would forget?” Murdoc asks.

They both answer no and Murdoc shoos them away promptly afterwards.

“And that’s what I’m looking for - longevity, an impact.”

Stuart isn’t sure. He had never considered being part of a band. He knew he got a certain level of enjoyment out of playing demonstrations for families at his uncle’s store, but for a living? Murdoc had asked two people but what everyone else?

“I don’t know. It’s not something I’ve ever thought about before.” As he notices Murdoc’s face start to fall he add. “I’m still thinking about it. And no matter what, I’m going to talk to my uncle about giving you some of our keyboards. He’s still a little ticked but I think he’ll understand.”

Murdoc studies him for a moment before turning back to his drink, swirling it around in his glass, a pensive look on his face “So then, not trying to be rude but...then why are we here? What exactly is this?”

“What’s what?”

Murdoc rolls his eyes and waves his arms around as if to motion towards the rest of the room. “All of this. The drinks, this night, why you even rung me up in the first place? To be frank, I thought it was because you wanted in, but that doesn’t sound like it’s the case.”

“Uh...well, I wanted to say thank you.” Stuart knows he’s going to have to expand on this. “And I guess...I don’t know. It’s just...it’s a funny thing when you spend so much time with someone without ever knowing them, you know? But I want to know you.” That sounds so dumb, his brain tells him. “So I guess I just wanted to...talk?”

Murdoc’s eyes widen in surprise at this and then he averts his gaze and mulls over Stuart’s response. The response was benign enough, silly even, Stuart thinks so he doesn’t know why Murdoc seems so thrown off.

“Alright,” he says after a while. “Okay...I can work with that.”

Stuart wastes no time. “So are you from around here? Do you live close?”

Murdoc hesitates to answer this. “I..err, you could say that I float around, just waiting for my big break, trying to spread my demos around. They’ve got to get to a label at some point, y’know? There’s got to be some label executive out there that isn’t completely deaf.”  He signals for the bartender to refill his glass. “Your parents didn’t tell you much about me or the court case did they?”

“No. I guess they didn’t, but I never really asked either. I figured I’d talk to you.” Stuart pauses to order a drink for himself. “So when you say you float around...where’s home from here after tonight?”

“Does it matter?” he responds. “Besides, that’s not what’s important right now.”

He steers the conversation towards Stuart from there, and Stuart happily obliges. He finds himself telling Murdoc about his job, the regular customers, the fairgrounds where he works during the summer. Then he broaches the topic of music and Murdoc turns in his seat a little more so that they’re facing each other. It’s the first time Stuart notices the red hue of his left eye.

It’s easier to talk to Murdoc than he anticipated. They talk about their favorite bands, a conversation that lasts for a significant amount of time. Murdoc tells Stuart about the various cover bands he’s been a part of and this one time he stole a £5000 worth of wedding gifts from a wedding where he was assigned to play. Stuart follows up with a story about the time he almost broke his wrist after jumping too far off his bed while singing along to The Human League. Murdoc laughs at this. It’s a laugh that Stuart has quickly come to cherish in a sense, considering how glum and suspicious he looked earlier in the evening.

“You’re a crackpot, I gotta say,” Murdoc says, wiping his eyes as they wander out of the pub in search of the next stop.

“Yeah, my classmates always said I was weird but I learned to sing  a lot of songs that way, while I was jumping on my bed,” he replies, grabbing the other man’s shoulder to steer him away from a trash can he’s about to collide with. “Careful,” he says. He almost adds in a comment about Murdoc’s alcohol intake that night but decides against it because he doesn’t want to sound uncool. “Maybe we should, grab something to eat,” he says instead.

“Are you kidding? You proposed a pub crawl and we’ve only crawled to one place.”

Stuart decides not to argue with him so they continue walking, or in Murdoc’s case, stumbling, towards their next destination. Murdoc fills the time by attempting to list all the pubs in England that have gotten him the most drunk, and Stuart spends splits the time trying to be engaged and also trying to make sure the other man doesn’t end up doing a faceplant on the sidewalk.

About a block before the next pub they a solitary street busker. The sound of the guitar grabs Murdoc’s attention immediately.

“Oi, old man,” he says without bothering to wait until the song is finished. “You take requests?”

The busker nods. “There’s not a song I haven’t been able to play yet. Old, new, underground, mainstream, whatever you want to hear.”

Murdoc turns to Stuart and grins. “What kinds of night does it feel like?” He only gives him a moment to answer, a chance that Stuart isn’t able to take in time, before turning back to the busker to say, “He’s paying, so I figured he deserves the courtesy.” He turns back to Stuart. “So, uh, St-”

“Stuart,” Stuart says.”

“Right. Stuart. How do feel about the classics? I mean, you can’t really go wrong with the classics.”

“Don’t you want to get to the next place?”

“There’ll be time for that, the night’s just started. ‘Sides, I want to show you my Bowie impression.”

“You do Bowie impressions?” the busker asks.

“Yeah. Did it at a lot of weddings, the crowd loved it but the pay was shit.”

At this point, Stuart notices a small crowd gathering around, and he can’t decide whether he wants to pull Murdoc away before he humiliates himself or let him have his fun. He settles on the latter as the busker launches into an acoustic version of “Under Pressure.” If he sees Murdoc start to fall, he would just have to rely on his reaction time to try to catch him. In the meantime he would enjoy the music.

He soon finds himself clapping along and holding back laughter as he watches Murdoc various attempts at dance moves and remembering the lyrics. Who knew if Murdoc was actually a competent wedding singer, Stuart wasn’t going to judge him based on one drunken performance. At the very least, from the crowd of people gathering, he was entertaining.

It’s not long before other passing party goers start to sing along, too. When the busker switches to a song by The Clash, Stuart feels the urge to join.

“Now this next one, you might not know so well,” the busker says, but as he strums out a few chords it becomes clear that he is being facetious. Stuart immediately recognizes it as “Hey Jude.”

This time, he sings along with the crowd. It’s a famous enough song that everyone seems to know it, and after awhile he feels comfortable enough to really start to sing. As they approach the bridge, he begins to imagine himself elsewhere.

“Hey, Jude, don't make it bad,

Take a sad song and make it better,

Remember to let her under your skin..”

He’s closes his eyes in anticipation.

“...Then you'll begin to make it better..”

He seese himself back in his room, jumping on his bed.

“Better, better..”

...Then all of sudden his bed is a stage.

better, better…”

And then he lets out the best McCartney impersonation that he can muster. It doesn’t register that he is one of the only ones still singing until he hears someone cheer. The he sees Murdoc staring at him, dumbstruck. Even as the rest of the crowd moves on the with the song, he remains frozen and it makes Stuart feel frozen too, unsure of how to interpret his reaction. Hoping he didn’t scare him or something, he smiles and waves to him. This seems to break Murdoc’s spell and he’s soon frantically beckoning him over.

“Have..have you always sounded like that?” He asks once Stuart is within earshot.

“It’s like I said. I play for the kids at the shop and I sing in my room. That was fun too...you don’t think I sounded too bad? I wasn’t expecting everyone to just drop out like that.” The more he thinks about it, the more he feels like he likes how the the crowd cheered.

“Bad? Can you even hear yourself? You nailed it!” Murdoc is looking at him with a level of amazement that Stuart is not used to. It reminds him of the day he fell out of the tree and the wonder he felt thinking he could touch the clouds from where he was sitting. He had been so engrossed he hardly noticed the branch giving way. That’s the way Murdoc is looking at him, like he’s the clouds his eleven year old self was trying to touch. It makes him nervous, but in a good way. He likens it to the way he felt the first time he went on a date with a girl but he pushes that thought away immediately. Murdoc isn’t a girl he has a crush on, he’s just...Murdoc. He decides not to think about it any further.

“Yeah...I guess...I guess I did,” he finally responds.

“You know what this calls for? I’d say it calls for another round.” Murdoc begins to charge ahead but stops when he realizes he doesn’t know where he’s going. He turns back to Stuart and asks, “So, uh, where to next?”

Their dynamic changes after that. Murdoc still walks out in front of him like he’s the one leading but his attention is far focused on Stuart than it was at the beginning of the night. He rambles on about his band, how seamlessly they would work together. Stuart’s hypothetical role has also change. He’s not just the keyboardist now, but the front man.

They only make it to one other place before Murdoc is struggling to stay upright. Stuart allows him to lean on his shoulder as they walk.

“Mmm. You got the next place lined up then?” He asks, his breath warm against Stuart’s neck.

“No,” he answers. “I think we should probably think about heading back.”

“Wha? ‘S not that late.”

“Look at the leaves.” Stuart says. He doesn’t think Murdoc is in any state to comprehend this but he goes on anyways. “See how they look all inside out like that. When there’s a storm coming, the wind does that. And I don’t know about you, but my house is a little while away and I don’t want to get caught in it.”

Murdoc sniffs. “Okay, Mr. Weather Reporter. Whatever.”

“I did like to read about the weather when I was younger. I used to want to be one of those uh, people who chase storms and hunt down tornadoes. I still really want to see one but there aren’t that many tornadoes around here. There are more than you would expect but they’re still rare. It’s tornado season right now.”

“Blah, blah.” Murdoc lifts his head off of his shoulder to look at him and Stuart can see how unfocused his eyes are. “So you’re dipping out on me early then. That’s fine.”

“No, I…” Stuart trails off as it dawns on him how little he’s managed to learn about Murdoc throughout the course of the night. Sure, he had heard a vivid collection of stories about Murdoc’s past jobs, his music taste, his various sexual escapades and his ultimate goal of forming a band but it was basic information - his home, his family, his exact age - that was still missing. It meant Stuart had no way of knowing he would be okay after he left him. Right now, he could barely even stand without his support.

“Do you...have somewhere to stay tonight?” He asks.

“Who, me? I’ll be here, there, anywhere…”

“You’ll get along alright on your own?” Stuart persists. He’s doesn’t know why he’s asking anything when he’s already made up his mind.

“Let me tell you this, mate, I’ve never felt more..more ALIVE in my life.” As if to prove a point, Murdoc pulls away from him and tries to run ahead of him. He doesn’t make it far before Stuart has to grab him again to keep him from stumbling into oncoming traffic.

“It’s okay,” he says, even though Murdoc didn’t apologize for anything. “I’m going home. Or well, you and I are going home. My parents let my friend stay the night all the time. This will be fine.” It sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself.

It’s an eventful commute back. Unruly, Stuart thinks as he guides Murdoc away from trying to convince a  group of teenagers to give him their cigarettes. As they sit on the subway, Murdoc prattles on to anyone with earshot about how famous he’s going to be. Then there’s a frantic moment when they get to their stop where Stuart has to pull him up from the gap after he fails to “mind it.” By the time they arrive home, Stuart feels like he’s just finished a grueling obstacle course like the ones he used to have to do in gym class.

However, the inside only present an entirely new set of obstacles. Once Stuart manages to find his keys and unlock the door - all with one hand, too - he finds himself having to guide both of them through the dark in search of the lightswitch. All the while, Murdoc fidgets and stumbles next to him, occasionally burying his head into his shoulder and pulling at his jacket in an attempt to steady himself. It is very distracting.

“So, look, Stefan-”

“Stuart.”

“Stuart. Yeah. So, you’re joining my band, right?”

At this point, Stuart is feeling a perplexing mix of worry, admiration and pity. Questions float through his head as he guides Murdoc down to the basement where his room is. What was the point of answering if his answer would be forgotten in the morning? Did Murdoc even know where he was right now? Who was Murdoc? How could he allow himself to get to such a state when Stuart was still essentially a stranger to him? Was it because he trusted him?

“Um...maybe?” He finally answers. “Yeah? Maybe yeah?” Stuart doesn’t know where his hesitation comes from. Chances are they’d play together and fizzle out like most bands did. If he hadn’t spent the time with Murdoc that he did, he might have even written him off as a loser. Still something about the way he looked at him, the way that he spoke makes Stuart believe in him.

His response seems to be good enough for Murdoc and he smiles at him, a hint of disbelief in his eyes. “You mean that? You’ll do great. We’re going to be great.” His attention is diverted when he sees Stuart’s bed. “You mind if I lay down for a bit?”

“Actually I was going to get some blankets for you over here…” Stuart tries to steer him towards the couch on the other end of his room but Murdoc is able to break away from him and flops down on the mattress with a relaxed sigh.

“Soft..” he murmurs.

Stuart kneels down beside him and awkwardly begins to turn him so that he’s laying on his side.

“It’s just like I was saying,” Murdoc continues. “And just like the crowd was saying.” He rests his hand on Stuart’s cheek. “You’ve got something and with me at the wheel we’re going to be unstoppable.”

Unconsciously, Stuart finds himself leaning into his touch until he feels Murdoc’s nose against his. They’re so close now, close enough that he can see the creases in his skin and what looks to faded bruises under his left eye and along his neck. He has so many questions, but they’re still so close and he feels his heart beating faster and faster.

Suddenly, as if he’s read Stuart’s deepest, most secret thoughts, Murdoc pulls him down closer and then they’re kissing; or at least, he thinks they might be kissing. Murdoc’s aim is poor and he lands on the corner of his mouth so maybe, Stuart thinks, he was aiming for his cheek. Nevertheless he leans in anyways, tilting his head so that they properly aligned, blushing as the other begins to move with him.

The moment is brief, however, and soon Murdoc is laughing again.

“You’ve been waiting for that one, eh?” He chuckles.

Stuart is mortified.

“Well,” he says with a hiccup. “Get used to it. You’ll have birds lined up for miles.” He hold his hands wide apart as to indicate that the space between them is a mile. Then he adds, “And I’ll some too, more, actually.”

Before he can properly react, he’s nearly assailed by the jagged edge of Murdoc’s fingernail as he clumsily points his finger towards his face.

“Dents,” he says, a lopsided grin on his face.

Stuart furrows his brow in confusion. “Dents?”

“Two dents. In your face. That’s what you look like. But I...” He pats him on the cheek. “But I like it.”

Stuart feels his face turning red again.

“Can I call you that?” Murdoc continues, yawning. “Two-dents?”

Stuart gulps, still unable to fully comprehend if and how the last five minutes even happened or if he hallucinated it.  “Yeah...yeah. Okay.”

Murdoc rolls over so he’s laying on his stomach and yawns again. “Y’know, I have some songs. Songs I wrote.” He nuzzles his head into the pillow. “I can bring them over…. You sing them.”

He’s far too out of it to really know what he was saying or what they just did, Stuart decides and the light snores that follow soon after only substantiate his presumption. For himself, it was just the opposite. He felt aware, painfully aware, of everything that had just happened and now he was stuck with Murdoc, who he hardly knew but who seemed to know him, passed out in his bed. He can’t bring himself to wake Murdoc up but he also doesn’t want to leave him, not now and not tomorrow. Not ever? He wonders, but that’s too big a question to ask himself now. Instead, he pulls one of his pillows of the bed, sets it on the floor and sits.

Outside, he hears the rumble of thunder and the shrill whistle the wind. It sounds bad, bad enough that Stuart thinks that if he were to go upstairs to gaze out the window, he might finally see his tornado. But there weren’t many tornadoes in Crawley, there wasn’t really much of anything in Crawley. Stuart looks back to Murdoc sleeping soundly on the bed.

The next day, he asks to see the songs.

The end.

Also there was no reason for the “Hey Jude” song selection other than the “WAHHH” part sounding like the “WAHHHH” part of M1A1. I know nothing about classic rock.