#I was too good at my job and ended up freezing to death for science

[legends-live-in-memories]

Do You Believe in Magic?

AYO second day in a row can you believe it? I come with more content.

Fics Masterlist

Wallynette Oneshot 3.1K words (no warnings apply) Summary: “What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?”

without further ado:

“That’s ridiculous!” He was pacing back and forth, arms waving in the air to compliment his theatrics. “Magic shouldn’t be able to do that, it defies all logic!”

“That’s the point! Magic exists outside of logical reasoning!” The shorter girl was equally as furious, standing in place and growing redder by the minute.

“Nothing exists outside of logical reasoning! Everything can easily be explained with science.” The redhead had paused his pacing to stare down the noirette before him. He was uncaring of his volume, ignorant to how his voice echoed in the large cave. “Your Lucky Charm is nothing more than transdimensional materialisation. An already pre-existing object is broken down into subatomic particles and rearranged at your location.”

“Are you really trying to tell me how my own Lucky Charm works?” She had sounded absolutely livid at the assumption. And Dick had to agree with her. Wally was in no position to tell her how her own powers worked. Before he could interject the screaming match between his two best friends, she was going off again. “And are you really trying to tell me that somewhere in the world existed a red and black-spotted doughnut just waiting to be used? That when Antibug was around a ladybug patterned flamethrower was just lying somewhere?”

“Oh please, there are plenty of flamethrowers all over the world and they probably only appeared ladybug themed due to shifts in light refraction.” He had stopped waving his arms around and crossed them in front of his chest. He was standing in her space now, leering over her trying to be imposing. “Simple fact is magic. Isn’t. Real.”

“You can run faster than the speed of sound! If you really think it was your precious science that saved you after willingly striking yourself with lightning in hopes of tapping into a cross-dimensional ‘speed-force,’ then you’re dumber than I thought.” She had gotten even closer now, pressing a finger into his chest and pushing him back.

“Are they still at this?” Kaldur had walked up beside Dick with two soda cans, silently offering him one. His voice sounded tired, visibly annoyed at the constant bickering.

“An hour and counting,” he sighs. The sounds of their bickering slowly faded into background noise. “For today at least. But they’ve been butting heads ever since she’s joined the team. Kinda exhausting.”

Marinette, a.k.a Ladybug, had joined the team after Wonder Woman deemed Paris officially safe from any more magical mayhem. While the rest of Paris’s heroes chose to retire and preserve the rest of their teen years, Marinette did not have that option. Magical Guardian and all. The JLE welcomed her with open arms and Wonder Woman decided to introduce her to the Team. She got along great with M'gann, the two could almost always be found baking or exchanging recipes in the cave’s kitchen and they, plus Artemis, went on frequent shopping trips. Conner saw her as a little sister, which was unexpected but it probably had to do with the fact she was a whole foot shorter and he had natural instincts to protect those who looked meek. She was anything but meek but first impressions were a damning thing sometimes. Marinette was Kaldur’s biggest supporter, always ready to back him up when it came to tough Team related decisions, something born from her own experience as a leader. The two understood each other the best. She also related to Dick on the importance of secret identities and while the Team still only knows him as Robin, she was the only one who never pestered him on it, respecting the lengths he would go to for the sake of anonymity.

Wally was the only one the newest member clashed with. Magic skeptic, meet magic connoisseur. Unstoppable force, meet immovable object. They almost never agreed on anything. Every time the two were left alone for more than two minutes it evolved into a screaming match. Wally was insistent on pushing all of Marinette’s buttons and she was always eager to defend herself and magic as a whole. Her rather short fuse didn’t make matters any better. It hadn’t affected missions, arguments reserved for the safety of the cave, but it was only a matter of time before that became an actual issue. He voiced as much to Kaldur who agreed with only a contemplative nod.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s moments like these where Kaldur hated when Robin was right. At least he was on another mission with Batman so he didn’t have to bear witness to this fiasco.

The Team was currently in Louisiana investigating the disappearance of Dr. Kent Nelson, better known as Dr. Fate, the Sorcerer Supreme. And Wally was being argumentative with Marinette while simultaneously trying to impress M'gann. It had put Artemis on edge and she kept taking jabs at him whenever an opportunity arose. And even when one didn’t.

They had just barely escaped the pit above lava, standing above the cool platform.

“Don’t worry, Megalicious,” Wally had moved to support M'gann, throwing an arm above her shoulders, drawing her into his side. “I’ve got you.”

“Enough!” Artemis had cut in between the two of them, pushing Wally away from the Martian, her frustration palpable even from where Kaldur was standing. “Your little ‘Impress Megan at all costs’ game nearly got us all barbecued.”

“When did this become my fault?”

“When you lied to that whatever it was and called yourself a true believer.”

“Wally, you don’t believe?” M'gann sounded hurt at that. Wally looked across the room, before coming to a silent conclusion.

“Fine, fine! I lied about believing in magic. But magic is the real lie, a major load.”

“I can’t believe you’re still on that.” Marinette, who had remained silent before, finally entered the conversation, ready to defend her craft. “We just fell over five hundred feet below ground into an almost fiery death and you still don’t believe it? Was the magically appearing Tower not enough? Or the fact that our feet are not being scorched right now?”

Wanting to put an end to this conversation, Kaldur said his piece.

“Wally, I have studied for a year at the Conservatory of Sorcery in Atlantis.” He had crouched down, rubbing the surface of the floor. “The mystic arts created the skin icons that power my water bearers.”

“Dude, have you ever heard of bioelectricity? Hey in primitive cultures fire was once considered magical too. Today it’s all just a bunch of tricks.”

“What I do is not a trick. Do you really think destroying the Eiffel Tower, and putting it back in place is just some trick? Or how about when an old akuma was able to control the weather and created a volcano in the middle of Paris? Were those all tricks too? Were the casualties just results of things that don’t exist?” Marinette was becoming increasingly agitated as her rant went on. M'gann moved to comfort her, embracing her slightly.

“Don’t put words in my mouth! I never said the lives lost weren’t real! It was tragic, yeah, but that was due to real scientific explanations.”

“Science can’t bring people back from the dead.” Her voice was more subdued and sombre and her shoulders were curling into her body. The atmosphere was increasingly getting more depressing so Kaldur grabbed onto the latch, hoping that making progress into the mission would revive the Team’s energy.

He ignored Wally’s protests about heat backdrafts and came face first to a rush of frigid air.    

“Do you ever get tired of being wrong?” Artemis was rather smug as she threw a smirk over her shoulder. Kaldur just wished the rest of the mission wouldn’t be like this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Artemis was going to tear her hair out. Or probably Wally’s. Yeah, she was going to tear Wally’s hair out. It had been a week since the Dr. Fate mission and he still hasn't apologized to Marinette. His refusal to believe in magic was not only screwing up the team dynamics but it was forcing Marinette’s hand, pushing her to dig up trauma, to try and prove to him that magic is real. Artemis didn’t understand why it was so important to her that Wally believed in magic but it was and that was enough for Artemis to stand by her friend.

The two haven’t even spoken to each other since the mission and it was painfully obvious that Marinette was avoiding him. Valid, but still aggravating when it put everyone on the team on edge. Artemis wasn’t one to play peacemaker, leaving that to Kaldur and Marinette, but since this ongoing conflict involved the Parasian, and Kaldur had his hands full with a mission in Atlantis, someone had to step up and that person was her. Wonderful.  

She had tracked Wally in the medical facility, tinkering with some of the equipment and taking inventory of their supplies, a job Red Tornado routinely asks him to do. She skipped any greeting and just started plucking items out of his hands. Ignoring his protests, she kept going until his hands were empty then grabbed his wrist, pulling him into the training room and shoving him into the center ring.

“Shut up and stay,” was all she said, crossing her arms and freezing him with a glare. She wasn’t in the mood for any of his gimmicks tonight. The sound of the zetatubes announcing the Ladybug designation alerted her to Marinette’s return from Paris. Time for the next part of her plan.

“Don’t move,” she said as she turned to retrieve the other person for her plan. A firm ‘I mean it’ was tossed over her shoulder as she left.

Collecting Marinette was easier said than done. Artemis was headstrong on a good day, she will admit, but now as a woman on a mission she was down right intimidating and she knew it. Marinette took one look at her expression and bolted for the zetatube she just stepped out of. Artemis was having none of that and was able to grab the much shorter girl before she could get any further. While Artemis was mentally applauding herself she was also begrudgingly impressed with how difficult it was to hold the girl. Dragging her to the training deck was becoming more trouble than it was probably worth.

Artemis could pinpoint the exact moment Marinette’s eyes landed on the speedster because her efforts doubled and she almost escaped Artemis’s grasp. She dropped her gracelessly on the floor and moved to block the exit before either could do anything.

“Neither of you are leaving until you work out your issues,” she was huffing from exhaustion, both mental and physical. “Whether that means punching the shit out of each other or talking it out like normal people: I don’t care. But no one leaves this room until you two stop screwing with the team dynamics.”

She left no room for arguments and turned to stand outside the exit, giving them some semblance of privacy. If they didn’t work out their issues here, Artemis’s plan B involved Connor tossing them into the far end of the coastline. Hopefully, Wally and Marinette were reasonable enough it wouldn’t have to come to that.

Oh, who was she kidding?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wally stared at Artemis’s retreating figure and then at a very interesting spot on the cave wall. He felt like an asshole all week and, after his experience with the helmet of Fate, he knew he would have to be the one to mend the ever growing gap between him and Marinette. Still, he couldn’t face her yet. Every time he looked at her, or saw her hastily leave any room he was in, his mind flashed to those haunting words she had said.

Science can’t bring people back from the dead.

He knew that. He knew there were harsh limitations on what science can and can’t do. Magic shouldn’t have been any different. And he thought he understood what she had to deal with during her time in Paris but he was wrong. He was so painfully wrong that it took his body being overtaken by a mystic ‘Lord of Order’ for him to really comprehend that. He just… He just couldn’t wrap his head around someone so young being entrusted with so much power. Magic was inexplicable. It defied reason and was unpredictable so he never understood how someone as self-assured as Marinette could put her faith in something that unreliable. So he lashed out at her. Then he did it again. And again so much so that he can’t remember ever having a civil conversation with her.

He messed up and he knew it but the shame he felt in the past week was too much for him to handle and he couldn’t bring himself to speak.

“Look,” his head snapped to the sound of her voice. She wasn’t looking at him, holding herself for comfort. “I’m sorry for ignoring you, I didn’t realise it was affecting the rest of the team.”

No. no no nonono.

She shouldn’t be apologizing. She had nothing to apologize for and Wally is the ass in this situation not her so why is she apologizing? He needs to fix this. Fast.

“You don’t need to apologize,” such a terrible start, Wallace. Congratulations. “I was the one who pushed your buttons and called magic a big trick.”

She had lifted her head slightly but her gaze still wasn’t focused on him, rather she was looking beyond him just above his shoulder. He took a step closer and when she hadn’t made a break for the exit, he took that as a good sign.

“Listen, Marinette,” her eyes dart to and away from him in an instant. He didn’t let that stop him though. “All those times, times when I called magic fake or belittled its legitimacy, I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I was just trying to wrap my head around its absurdity.”

“It doesn’t matter what you were trying to do,” she finally locked her gaze on him and the pain swimming in her eyes was going to burn him alive. “You still hurt me. You took everything I did, everything I’ve learned and lost and loved and called it a hoax, you called it unreal, and you doubted everything I’ve ever accomplished. I have memories I may never recover from because of magic, scars that will never heal from something you didn’t want to believe in.”

There were unshed tears in her eyes and Wally wanted to brush them away. He didn’t, but fighting the urge was herculean of him. He didn’t get the chance to respond, though, but he wouldn’t dare interrupt her.

“Did you ever realise how those arguments affected me? I used to look up to you, Kid Flash, before joining the team.” He never knew that. Why didn’t he know that? “You were always so cheerful and the media framed you as someone who believed in the impossible. That was something I needed back in Paris. Because there was nothing more impossible to me than ever getting a chance to defeat Hawkmoth.”

She was openly crying now, her cheeks blotchy and eyes red. Wally didn’t know what to say so he took a chance and opened his arms to her. A silent invitation, a quiet apology. Whatever this little spitfire needed from him. He would willingly give it.

She took the offer and crashed her face into his chest, hands grabbing fistfuls of his shirt. He wrapped his arms snuggly around her, almost crushing her to his chest.

“I needed someone who believed in the impossible to believe in me.” Her sobs were heartbreaking. Wally could only caress her on the back in a futile attempt to comfort her. “That someone was you but then you had no problem looking me in the eye and saying you don’t believe in magic. How could you?”

“I am so sorry, Marinette.” He could never apologize enough. He was willing to dedicate his life making it up to her. He was silently praying to gods he also didn’t believe in that she would let him try. Before she could say anything, and he felt the hitch in her shoulders as she was taking steadying breaths to do so, he continued.

“I never knew what I—Kid Flash— meant to you. I only argued against magic so much because I didn’t want to believe that something that unpredictable was the only thing keeping someone like you safe. I heard all the stories; Wonder Woman loved to gush and brag about her mother’s successor, but I could never believe that someone could do such incredible things by magic alone. It was mind boggling.”

Wally felt more than heard the faint gasp at his confession. He pulled her off his chest, holding her a short distance by her shoulders, so that he could look into her eyes.

“I’m really sorry; I don’t think I can ever tell you how sorry I am.” She needed to know how genuine he was. He may clown around a lot but he was absolutely serious in this moment. He hoped she could see the sincerity in his eyes.

“I—,” she cut herself off, and Wally could see her growing frustrated with her own loss of words. She opened her mouth to speak again but she was interrupted.

“OH just kiss already!” Artemis’s rough voice echoed in the room and Wally’s gaze flashed to where her back was facing them by the entrance. She looked uncomfortable standing there but clearly she had an agenda she was seeing through. He didn’t pay her any more attention as he focused back on the increasingly red girl still within his grasps. The hurt that was previously in her eyes was quickly replaced with embarrassment and she couldn’t look Wally in the eyes.

He felt a sudden rush of confidence at her demeanor and hoped he wasn’t about to make the second biggest mistake of his life. He bent his head slightly, casting a smirk at the small girl.

“Well, if that’s what the people want,” he pulled her closer to him then, her mousy ‘eep’ sounding adorable in response. He cupped her chin between two fingers, tilting her head up. “May I?”

She didn’t speak but her answering nod and slow closing of her eyes encouraged him to close the distance between them.

Wally’s been struck by lightning before but it doesn’t compare to the feeling of her lips on his. Her lips tasted like slowly drying tears and her favourite vanilla lip balm. The kiss wasn’t perfect, her lips were slightly chapped, as were his, and their noses bumped into each other, but it was the best kiss of his life.

They broke away from the kiss but neither moved far from each other. They stayed like that for who knows how long. Staring intently at each other, committing the other’s face to memory. And as Wally stared at her tear streaked face and into her slightly red and puffy eyes, he came to a single conclusion.

He definitely believed in magic.

[qhazomb]

thinking about a thingvrai scenario talked about/brainstormed with anons on my other blog, in which thingrey’s tiny base form almost freezes to death while gordon’s off busy doing the staged fight with his monster body. i like it so much i think i’m gonna include it in the fic when i finally get around to it. basically it goes, gordon hides thingrey’s base form in his spare glasses case, and then sticks the case in a bag by his room’s space heater (the central heating for the outpost went out, and bubby’s been unable to fix it due to... thingrey stealing all the tools and spare parts to try and build his ship. oops). during the staged fight, that heater dies, and thingrey’s tiny base form starts getting way too cold. thingrey gets frantic, and tries to think of a stealthy way to communicate to gordon that “hey your room’s space heater died and now i’m kinda freezing? to death? please hurry this up?” he can’t just come out and say it since, y’know, he’s in the middle of a big fight with the rest of the science team. in the end, tries spitting out a single icy-coloured sweet voice orb in gordon’s direction as a way to give him a hint, just before his boss form dies. gordon doesn’t understand what that meant, but thankfully he makes a b-line for his room to check up on what’s left of thingrey anyway (and because he’s fucking exhausted and needs a goddamn nap). when he gets to his room and finds it’s a freezer, his heart stops. he grabs his bag and digs thingrey out of it, and the lil’ guy’s practically a popsicle. gordon curses himself, thinking he’s just fucked up, letting the guy who saved his life earlier die, and tries all he can to warm him back up. rubs his hands together and holds thingrey in them, tries blowing hot breath on him, digs around in his bag to see if he’s got some of those little hand warmers. he ends up holding the tiny alien against his chest, under his shirt and coat, while curled up under the heavy blankets on his bed. get himself warm as he can and hold thingrey in the center of all that warmth. he ends up falling asleep from the previously mentioned exhaustion, just as the central heating finally gets fixed and kicks on. when thingrey wakes up, he’s very surprised he did. he kind of... started having big doubts as the cold started draining him- thoughts that gordon was purposely letting him freeze to death creeping in. because, honestly, every single other sapient creature he’d met before always wanted to kill him once they found out what he was, so why would this one be any different? he let his guard down, didn’t reign his dumb emotions in like he should, let himself get attached, and now he’s fucking dead. good job, idiot. at least, that’s what his last thoughts were before passing out. so when he wakes up not to cold silence, but to a blanket of warmth and the sound of a relaxed heart beat and breathing as he’s still being held to gordon’s slowly rising and falling chest, he’s honestly stunned. and then incredibly relieved and happy. his squirming ends up waking gordon back up a little, and then gordon wakes up a lot when thingrey can’t help but sing out all the things he’s feeling. the sweet voice hits gordon square in the chest and gordon feels all those emotions second-hand. surprise relief happy grateful happy grateful happy love love love. gordon is of course relieved too. and makes a point to keep the glasses case with thingrey in it on his person at all times, while they’re still stuck in antarctica. he’s a much more reliable space heater, heh.

[gaeilgeoirgay]

SpideyTorch Week Day Three Alternate Universe

For Day Three, I chose an alternate universe in which our favourite couple are the villains! This one is a bit darker than usual, and there’s a mild instance of torture, that isn’t explicitly described near the end, so do watch out for that

Ao3 Link 

@spideytorchweek

 they don’t question our violence

“Hello, Spidey. Nice of you to swing by.” Comes a mocking voice from behind him. Peter almost swears, his Spidey Sense hadn’t even warned him, the traitor! Clearly it doesn’t think of Morning Star as a threat despite the fact Johnny has tried to kill him on several occasions. Maybe. To be fair, the Dock Incident was Peter’s fault and Morning Star hasn’t attempted murder in ten months, coinciding with the new depths of their relationship.

And it’s not like Peter is a complete angel either. The Wolf Spider is a name synonymous with death and blood- at least Morning Star tends to stick with arson. Peter is a mercenary, it’s not like he can judge his pyromaniac boyfriend.

“Hi, starlight. I have a job for us, and we get to explode the place afterwards.” Peter says, turning around to smile at Johnny, who perks up at the idea. He lets his flames fizzle out and lands next to Peter, who gratefully accepts the kiss he’s given. It’s freezing right now, and even the slightest bit of warmth makes a difference to Peter’s non-regulating self. There’s also the fact he’s kissing Johnny. That’s a big factor.

He turns fully around to kiss Johnny properly, taking care with his fangs so his venom doesn’t enter Johnny’s bloodstream. He rather likes his boyfriend and he doesn’t want to kill him. Johnny eventually pulls back to smile brightly at Peter.

“What’s the job, Fangs? I like the sound of it already.” He says. Peter beckons him up onto the vent protruding from the building they’re on, hopping up himself to swing his legs childishly. Johnny joins him, feet tapping impatiently.

“I met Remy Le Beau downtown a few days ago. He mentioned that there’ve been a few disappearances lately, mainly mutant children living on the streets that don’t appear on official records. I did some digging and it turns out there’s a lab set up in the Bronx that’s been experimenting on mutant kids.” Peter explains, scowling now. “Officially, it’s a gene lab where volunteers donate samples to be studied for cures to various diseases. There’s about twenty kids there now from what I can tell. Remy can’t blow it to hell himself without attracting attention to Xavier but if we free the kids and then happen to torch it, people won’t question our violence.” He finishes.

Johnny is frowning now too. “What excuse are we giving for the attack though?” He asks and Peter laughs. “That’s the best bit. We’re not giving an excuse, we’re telling everyone they were experimenting on children. Their encryptions are ridiculously bad and there’s already been a call for an inquiry into them by S.I. They’re subsidised by Oscorp and it’ll damage their stocks once it gets out that not only did they block the investigation, they funded the lab too.” He explains and Johnny grins.

“Two birds with one stone. Save the kids and piss off Green Goblin. I’m down.” He says and Peter stands. Johnny does too and Peter challenges him to a race across the city. They may be supervillains but they can still have fun.

The building is near deserted when they get there, other than a few dedicated workers and the overnight security guards. The employees aren’t aware of where their samples come from, only the top scientists know about the mutants and the security guards were never told they were guarding people instead of chemicals so they’ve agreed to leave them mostly alone.

Johnny silently melts a window on the top floor and they sneak into the building, avoiding the admittedly meagre defences.

 They soon find a bright red door labelled DANGER and according to the blueprints that Peter acquired, the kids should be behind it.

They crumple easily under Peter’s enhanced strength and Johnny groans at the display. “I love it when you break metal with your bare hands.” He whispers and Peter smothers a laugh. They step over the ruined doors to find the kids in chains.

“Oh I can’t wait to set this place on fire.” Johnny growls harshly and Peter shushes him. There’s a computer terminal by the door so he plugs in a device he built himself that will copy the information on the mainframe to his personal store while deleting every other existing copy. He’ll probably delete his own copy once he goes through it, but he’d prefer to know if some sort of power-killing virus was made before he gets hit with it. Probably by Ross, may he die in agony.

The two of them set to work on the chains, Peter snapping them and Johnny turning them to molten slag. The kids are utterly silent, even when the two villains are reassuring them softly and Peter vows to hunt down every last disgrace to science that was involved in the lab.

Finally, the last chain clatters to the floor and all the kids are free. Remy had promised them assistance from two X-men who would be able to get the kids out of the lab so Peter and Johnny could get to burning it down.

They herd the kids to the window they broke in through and are met by the dark form of Archangel. The mutant’s normally pure white wings are covered in dark metal to blend in with the night but he’s still gentle with the children and they seem a bit less scared to see someone who’s so obviously like them.

Peter watches one little girl with red, scaly wings looking in awe between herself and the hero and smiles. He glances at Johnny and a thought comes to him. He wants that. Him and Johnny, with a kid each, maybe one girl and one boy or two of the same gender.

Hmm. That’s something to consider later. For now, he watches Archangel fly the kids one-by-one to a nearby safehouse where Nightcrawler is waiting to bring the kids to Xavier’s mansion the next morning. They deserve a good nights rest before moving somewhere completely different to everything they’ve ever known.

Archangel returns after the last child has been delivered to Nightcrawler and perches on the windowsill, regarding Peter and Johnny with a slight measure of respect.

“I met Nightcrawler in a mutant fighting ring. Neither of us wanted to be there but we never got the chance to escape. I got hurt and Mystique spirited him away but we never knew what happened to the ring. These kids though, they’re not gonna have that.” He plucks a metal feather from the edge of his wings, the edges razor sharp.

“Hurt those monsters and hurt them well. Maybe some of the more sheltered mutants at home won’t understand but I do. Slit their throats with that and leave them to choke. It’s more than they deserve.” Archangel says solemnly, rage glinting in his eyes. Peter exchanges looks with Johnny and then grins.

“Maybe heroes can’t be caught torturing people but there’s a reason I walk the other side of the line. We won’t make it quick.” Peter promises and Archangel returns the smile. Peter has no doubt that any scientists he and Johnny fail to find will turn up with mysterious wounds soon enough.

Archangel flies off to join Nightcrawler and Wolf Spider and Morning Star stalk back into the labs. The head scientists have been staying in a penthouse apartment above the labs while they run their tests and that’s their destination.

The elevator lets them up after a few key strokes from the Spider and they emerge into a wide-open space, the complete opposite of the small room the kids had been chained in. There are doors off of the main room and the Spider quickly matches them up with what he found in their database.

The third door to the right should belong to Henry Lawson, the torturer in chief. Morning Star melts the lock and they slip into his room silently. The bastard is sleeping peacefully in his bed but it won’t be long before that changes.

Morning Star fingers the metal feather Archangel gave them and slowly starts to heat it up. It’s made of strong stuff and even though the metal is glowing red it’s not metal. It serves as a rude wake-up call when it’s pressed to Lawson’s jaw.

He squeals like a stuck pig and the Spider thanks God for soundproofing. They’re nowhere near done with Lawson just yet.

An hour later, Lawson is thoroughly deceased and they move onto their next target. All six die painfully and Wolf Spider takes a twisted pleasure in it. Still, they have a job to do and they can’t spend as much time on their other targets as they did on Lawson.

Johnny plants his favourite explosives and Peter carelessly pulls the fire alarm. They find a good vantage point on the building across from the lab and wait until the last heat signature leaves the building and emergency services are seconds from the scene to trigger the bombs.

Johnny floats in front of the lab for a few seconds before he unleashes a torrent of flames into the already-blazing building. It only feeds the raging fire and Peter knows it will take quite some time to put it out, Not his problem. He’s too busy planning their next hits on the scientists that hadn’t lived above the lab.

Johnny lands on the roof next to him with a sharp exhale and Peter drapes himself over his back. “Twelve people left on the list, starlight. I vote we eat, have a fantastic night in bed and then brutally murder them all. Their dirty secrets are set to be released to the public in four and a half hours, just in time for the news cycle.” Peter says, tracing letters on Johnny’s back.

“You give the best presents, my Spider. I can’t wait to hunt.” Morning Star replies.

[skin-slave]

(same anon afraid of death) thank you so much for taking the time to answer... The thing is, it's not the physical things that bother me. I'm not squeamish around dead things (I used to volunteer at a wildlife rescue/rehab facility where we'd freeze any animals who didn't make it or had to be euthanized, and feed them to others later on). I was raised Agnostic, though, and I've never had anything to comfort me like... "when I die I'll go to heaven" or anything like that. That's the part that keeps me up at night...

Hello again, anon!!! I def get that. I avoided spiritual stuff bc that's usually a boundary/touchy subject. If it helps...

Not wanting a xtian afterlife was a big part of my fear. I was raised with it as a small child and it sounded awful. Part of what helped me with that was researching other beliefs. Some of them were really nice, and telling myself that they could happen, instead of the things I didn't want, helped. Imo, afterlife beliefs are supposed to be a comfort. Even if it's just an idea, rather than a belief, it can be nice to absorb.

I'm atheist. Anti-theist sometimes. Def agnostic. (I don't see any proof. I oppose what popular, destructive, and at-odds religions do/have done, esp to their own followers. And I resent god models, personally. Maybe there's stuff out there... I've experienced things I don't understand scientifically, that aren't necessarily evidence of stuff... but they could be... Idk, and I haven't shut the door on it completely.)

What is comforting to me at this point in my life is the knowledge that, while I matter, I'm a small part of a cosmic whole. My existence matters bc I impact everyone I interact with. But what I do doesn't contribute to some monolithic good or evil that will impact my postmortem fate, or anyone else's. My existence is inherently neutral, part of chain reactions that don't have an end and therefore don't have a final value.

My atoms used to be beautiful, amazing things. When I'm done with them, they'll go on to be other beautiful, amazing things. I know that, absolutely, bc I've chosen a death plan that will let me decay. My skeleton will be preserved, and I'll be used to further science. That's awesome. A mix of everything I want. 😁

I choose to believe that my consciousness and thoughts will disappear. It's nice to know that those wonderful things that my body will become won't have pieces of me to influence or change them. They'll find their own happiness and meaning. That makes me feel good.

Plus, if the intangible things that make me, me, dissipate, I won't be aware of it. It won't be painful or upsetting. To paraphrase Mark Twain, I've already not existed for billions of years before my birth. It wasn't good or bad. I wasn't there to experience it. As far as I know, that's how it will be when I'm gone.

And I try not to take it too seriously, which is counterintuitive and took time to get comfortable with, but is so freeing. If I wanna think about having fun as a ghost today, I'll imagine myself haunting TF out of a soda machine or something. (WoooooOOOoooo we're out of RooooOOOooo Beeeeerrrrr!) I don't have to pin everything to that thought. I can just play with it when I want. If I wanna imagine a version of hell that's full of rock concerts and beer tents, I can have a laugh about it. Who cares? Chances are, that stuff won't happen.

Chances are, nothing will happen. I'll just stop existing and physical processes will send my raw materials out into the world.

Chances are, if something does happen, it'll be something completely unknowable. The afterlife models we've come up with are variations on a handful of themes. Out of infinite possibilities, the odds that we just happened to get it right are as close to zero as it gets.

As much as I don't like not knowing and not being in control, it's ok. Kinda like walking into a gallery at an art museum. What's in there? Idk. It wasn't my job to set it up. Am I gonna sit on a bench outside and worry about it? Nah. I'm tempted to sometimes, but that wouldn't do anything but upset me, prob for no reason. Better to consider it an adventure and just go in when it's my turn. 😊

If it helps, there are a lot of agnostic theists, agnostic animists, etc. You don't have to be completely sure to find comfort in something. Even if it's just an aspect of it. If imagining a heaven, or reincarnation, or literally anything, helps you live better, go for it! 🤗🤗🤗

(Also, I worked at a nature center and we froze critters too! Usually so we could have a volunteer from the community college examine them to see if they seemed sick or injured. We didn't have any carnivores in captivity, so they just got dumped on the back 9 or thrown away. Working with animals is a great experience. I'm glad you had it!)

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #330

“and i don't want ya  /  and i don't need ya  /  don't bother to resist, or i'll beat ya  /  it's not your fault that you're always wrong  /  the weak ones are there to justify the strong”

If you have a job, do you like it? I'm unemployed. Do you like any kinds of fruit? Well of course. Are you waiting for something right now? Covid and this headache to fuck off, May for my tattoo, to be paid to take some pictures again... What is your favorite kind of animal? Kind, not the actual animal itself? In that case, social species, usually mammals. What kind of Dippin' Dots do you like? Holy shit, I haven't had that in like a damn decade or something. I don't know, I barely remember the taste. Who is the most badass woman that you can think of? My mom. My mother is a fucking warrior. Do you have a Pinterest account? Yeah. I get a lot of photography ideas from there, as well as base pictures to make Mark icons, haha. If you were to write a book, what would it be about? The stories I and my friends have weaved in RP. Have you ever seen the television show The Munsters? AHHHHH YES!!!!! Mom loves that show, so I used to watch it with her growing up. Have you ever written one of those 'Roses are red...' valentines? I don't think so. Would you/have you spent more than $200 on any one person for a holiday? I haven't, but I would for certain people. Do you have a favorite Robin Williams movie? Probably Night at the Museum. Thoughts on Slender Man? Have you even heard of him? I think it's a cool creepypasta; he does look pretty unnerving with his height and especially lack of a face. The movie was good too, btw. Do you know what the Tardis is? I think almost everyone does in this generation, haha. Doctor Who ain't no joke to a whole lot of people. Are there any children's shows that you'd watch today if they were on? Sure, like Pokemon or Avatar: The Last Airbender, among others. I wouldn't at all be opposed to watching The Lion Guard, either. I actually want to, with my whole TLK love. I'm not embarrassed to watch "kids" shows or movies at all. What would you call yourself the King or Queen of? Having not an ounce of knowledge on how to love things in moderation/avoid total obsession with things, haha. If I paid for you to take karate lessons, would you? No, especially not now with my legs. Do you read more fiction or non-fiction? Almost solely fiction. What modern technology are you especially grateful for? Laptops, ig. Do you have a favorite science topic? Genetics. Very fascinating stuff. Have you ever read any Sherlock Holmes stories? No. What is the saddest movie that you've ever seen? Either Johnny Got His Gun or Boy in the Striped Pajamas. What's your most popular post? On what? If Facebook, I don't really know. Possibly my "coming out" one or a lovey-dovey essay when Sara and I were together. On Tumblr, it's definitely the gif I made of Mark and Chica (his dog) with I think over 10k notes. Manga or anime? Anime. I don't read manga, though I've been tempted with Deadman Wonderland since the show only had one season and ends on a ginormous cliffhanger, but there's more story to be had. A card game that you're good at? None, really. A popular book you haven't read yet? To Kill a Mockingbird. I feel like every school student has read it at some point. Favorite Mean Girls quote? I don't know any. It's a fine movie, but I've never understood the hype. Name your top 3 albums from your favorite band/artist. Black Rain, Ozzmosis, and... then I can't choose. I love so, so many very dearly. Name your top 5 music videos. I don't really watch music videos, so I definitely can't name five. My #1 favorite is probably "Wrong Side of Heaven" by Five Finger Death Punch; I absolutely cannot watch it without crying. What are you most passionate about? How did this passion develop? Animals. I was born simply adoring animals and have always wanted to protect them and their environment. Do you like monkeys? Do you believe in evolution? Yes and yes. We've literally watched it in action. What embarrasses you the most in front of other people? Discussing RP if you're not involved in it. I'm terrified of people thinking I'm weird. Have you considered running for president? Absolutely not. Which famous person would you like to be BFFs with? I'd say Mark, but I'd be way too interested in dating him instead of being just friends, haha... So with that said, maybe Bindi Irwin? Would you ever go skinny dipping with the last person who commented you? Lyndsey would be that person, so no. She's a great friend of mine, but realistically I'd probably only ever - if ever - do that with the company of my s/o. Are you still friends with the last person who broke your trust? No. How long did your last relationship last? Around two years. Have you ever been banned from anywhere? Online, yes, as a little kid on the Animal Planet forum, haha... Has anyone kissed you when you weren't expecting it? Yeah, Juan. Did you like it? It was a sweet moment, but I didn't want it. Does your dad smoke? Like a chimney. Is your mom over 50? Yeah. Are you currently listening to anything? Yeah, kinda hooked on "The Horrible People" by Manson. I've found a lot of great music lately. Would you ever consider getting breast implants? No, but once (if...) I lose all the weight I want, it's going to be a moderate priority to get a breast lift. I've hated my body way too fucking long and am dying to be satisfied with it again, and with how much weight I need to lose, I would essentially have grandma tits. :x Do you know anyone who is bisexual? Me, haha. Among some friends. Who would you tell, or who did you tell when you lost your virginity? That's not something I'd just go to tell someone afterwards for no reason... I'd only ever mention having lost my virginity if I was actually asked or if it was relevant to a conversation. Is there something you have been trying to learn lately? I'm really trying to practice opposite action and behavioral activation, among other things I've learned in group therapy. When you think about your future career, do you envision yourself becoming the head honcho or CEO? If not, why not? Well, I want to be my own boss as a freelance photographer. In any other job, I definitely wouldn't want that. Too much responsibility and leadership skills. Can you think of a time when you seriously misjudged a music artist based on their name? I don't think so? Have you ever kissed someone that you didn’t really want to kiss (not assault, just indifference)? Why did you go along with it and how did you feel after? Yes, Tyler. I felt like I was "supposed to." I felt really uncomfortable afterwards. If you have to wake up early for something, what time is just TOO early for you to be there and be presentable and sentient? Have you ever had to be somewhere that early? Probably like, 5:00. No. Have the majority of your romantic relationships started with a physical attraction or a deeper connection? Always an emotional connection. Did you ever write a fan letter to a celebrity? How about submit something to a magazine? No to both. What hair color is the most attractive on the opposite sex? Of natural colors, black, but I like unnaturally dyed hair most. Where do you like to go to when you are stressed? On a carride, so long as I'm controlling the music nice and loud and not talking. Where do you go to get your hair cut/dyed? To a family friend's little salon/small business. Why do you want the career that you want? Because I adore art and think it's pretty darn magical that you can freeze a moment forever to not just remember in your head, but actually see. Have you ever watched iCarly? Yeah, I enjoyed it when I was younger. What was your favorite class during your sophomore year of high school? Art. Do you wear bandanas in your hair? No. Have you ever been on a blind date? No, not interested. How many living grandparents do you still have? None. Have you ever worked in an office? No. Who does the grocery shopping in your house? Mom. Have you ever stayed in a hotel without your parents or older relatives? No. Did you have an Easy-Bake oven when you were little? Sure did. Have you ever seen a donkey? Yeah. Have you ever made out in a hot tub? Pretty sure no. Do you always flush the toilet after you use it? Yes. What were the last words you said to your dad? Probably "bye, love you." Have you cuddled with someone you weren’t dating? Nah. Who has the ability to hurt you the most emotionally? JASON. Are you a really understanding person? Yeah, very. Are you the type of person that enjoys getting hugs? Yes. When’s the last time you wore a wig? For a witch costume many years ago. Why were you last hospitalized? Suicide attempt. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without food? At least 12 hours, but I think I almost went a day once back when recovery started and my appetite was non-existent. What was the last name of your third grade teacher? Mrs. Britt. How was the last chicken you ate cooked? They were chicken tenders. What is your favorite kind of chip? Hot crunchy Cheetos. What grade did you have your first boyfriend? 7th. Have you ever been told that you’ve lost weight? Yeah, back when I actually WAS losing loads of weight. >> Do you have the same political views as your parents? Some things, but definitely not all. Does anyone call you babe/baby? No. Have you ever made a significant other cry? Sadly. If you could make your lips bigger, would you? Maybe just a teeeeny bit. Are you one to sneak food into movie theaters? Yep. Fuck them prices. Are you prone to illness? Definitely not. What races do you usually date? History says Caucasian, but I have no actual preference. I'll date any race. What’s your cup size? C. Ever flirted with a teacher? Yikes, no thanks. Who was the main cook of your Thanksgiving meal last year? My older sister made the most stuff. Have you ever been dumped really harshly? Well, considering it literally traumatized me... Do you have any ex’s you can’t stand anymore? No. Are you more of a phone or a computer person? Computer, definitely. When was the last time you made a sandwich? What did you put on it? Yesterday for lunch. Ham, American cheese, and mustard. Have you ever made friends with someone that you didn’t expect to get along with? Yeah. Do you own any accessories with your name on? No. What brand of eyeliner do you use? I pay no attention to this. Have you ever been sexually harassed? No. Have you ever sent a naughty text message? Suggestive ones, yes. How long have you had your pets? Roman, around two years. Venus, around three or four years. Who was the last person to tell you that they love you, other than family? Sara. Has one of your friends ever tried to hook you up with someone? Colleen tried obnoxiously hard to push Girt and me together. We all went out to eat pizza once just as friends hanging out, and this bitch prefaced an uncomfortable and nosy question to him with an even more uncomfortable "because I'm trying to get you in her pants...", and that, my friends, was the closest occasion I've ever come to slapping someone right across the face. I looked at her in absolute disgust, and Girt was clearly thinking "what the actual fuck" as well. I do not miss her feral mouth. Are you good at staring contests? No. Eye contact is very difficult for me to maintain. Do you like peanut butter? I love peanut butter. When was the last time you had to present something to your class? In this mandatory but entirely pointless entry class at my last college, we all had to do like this PowerPoint introducing ourselves. I hated it. Who was the last person that told you they missed you? I think my friend Chelsea. What store is your favorite shirt from? It's not a real store, but rather an online brand: Cloak. Mark is one of the owners/creators so I obviously support them intensely. Have you ever fell off your bed while you were sleeping? No, thankfully. Do you have something you’re supposed to tell someone, but you haven’t yet? No. What type of food do you never really eat? Vegetables, oops. Have you ever cut someone else’s hair? No. Do you like going to weddings? Not really, if I'm being honest. I'm only interested in photographing weddings for the only the couple pictures and pay, really. I'm not big on formal events. What’s your favorite flavor squash? I don’t like squash. Do you or anyone in your house have a severe allergy? No. Who was the last guest in your house and what were they staying for? Our landlord/family friend, just to hang out for a little bit and chat with Mom. What fad were you actually into? Hm. What was the last spontaneous thing you did? I'm not a very spontaneous person, so I really don't know.

[tvmoviechristmas]

Holly & Ivy (Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, 2020)

We could be broke together. Living our dreams.

Starring: Janel Parrish, Marisol Nichols, Jeremy Jordan, Sadie Coleman

Plot Synopsis: A contractor helps a woman renovate a house so she can adopt a sick neighbor's two children. (x)

In My Humble Opinion: Early on in the movie, the female lead goes around to a bunch of libraries hoping to interview for a children’s librarian position. She’s not able to get it because a bunch of the libraries are gong under hiring freezes. One librarian notes that with her Masters in Library Sciences she should be able to get a data management job. And I was like, “Oh! I know about that! My friend, Rachel, who is a real children’s librarian told me about how she learned about that kind of stuff when she offered to help me fix my archive!” 

So like any intrepid made-for-TV Christmas movie blogger, I decided to ask my friend, Rachel, a real librarian about Holly & Ivy to see if it handled this fake librarian content well. Thankfully, my real librarian friend had also watched the movie too which made this “interview” possible (I say this very loosely, it was mainly a freewheeling text conversation that I edited for clarity). Questions are italicized. Answers are not.

How many books are in your car?

I don’t have a car.

If you had a car, how many books would be in it?

Going by how many books I have in my apartment that currently do not fit on my bookshelf: 13. No wait, 14.

Hiring freezes are a problem for children’s librarians?

All librarians, since the majority of a library’s budget is through government funding.

Have you made 3-D snowflakes as a librarian?

I make 3-D snowflakes with the kids at the library every year. Seeing that made me feel like a big huge Hallmark stereotype. Also making 3D snowflakes is fun and easy and I recommend it if anyone has scrap paper or construction paper for crafts.

Are the Trixie Belden books really discontinued? I remember reading them as a kid.

According to Wikipedia, they were out of print for a number of years, which does happen to many books even ones which were once considered popular, but the publisher did release some new editions in the early 2000s, but not all of them. So I guess so. [The library I work at] has e-book copies.

Can you quote children’s authors off the top of your head?

I can’t quote children’s authors on command and do not ask me to.

As a librarian, would you date Jeremy Jordan’s character?

Yeah he’s cute, and I got a good dude vibe. He seemed very self-aware.

How do you feel about home improvement projects?

I once lived in a house where the previous owner had done a lot of home DIY themselves which led to a light switch like six feet up because that was where he ran out of wire. I recommend you do it only if you know what you are doing and have the right supplies. I admire those who can.

Overall, did you like the movie?

It was fine but too sad and that ending was very sudden. I knew it couldn’t wrap up before we knew if she was deemed capable of taking care of the kids but to time jump and kind of gloss over the mom’s death was like a choice. The romance was solid but boring.

Any other commentary on the library content?

Libraries are important! Please highlight how they need funding so that qualified passionate people who genuinely care about library services aren’t unemployed because of budget reasons. Defund the police and fund schools and libraries and community programs! That’s what you should take away from this Hallmark Christmas movie. 

Thank you for your expertise.

So there you have it. A real librarian’s thoughts on this Hallmark Movies & Mysteries original movie. Because I know that’s what everyone’s top concern is when watching a Hallmark Movies & Mysteries original movie.... the authenticity of the librarian content. You’re welcome. Support your local library!

Watch If: You have elves in your home, if your tree trimming requires choreography or if you have been interested in gingerbread houses since you were six.

Skip If: You don’t have an overwhelming passion for building furniture, if you have no problem borrowing things from strangers or if have burned water.

Final Rating: ★ ★ (★) ☆ ☆

If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page! You can also donate money to kbange@gmail.com through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!

[dustinjohnson1981]

my first post

This is my first and maybe only post. I don’t know what to do anymore, I’ve been homeless for 3 months and it doesn’t seem like anyone cares. I’ve tried reaching out for help with shelters, churches, and even government programs and haven’t been able to get any assistance. Shelters won’t help cause I have an 11 year old pit bull dog that I’ve had since she was a few months old. She’s the sweetest dog you will ever meet, but because she’s a pit bull, there’s that stigma that she’s aggressive, which she isn’t. I’m no saint, and I’m not here to try and lead anyone on to thinking that I am, but I am a good person. I’m just an ordinary person, trying to get through this hell we call life. I have a couple people I call friends, but in reality, we’re more acquaintances that have just known each other for like the past 16 years. Maybe I’m just too different from the rest of humanity, but I would do just about anything to help a friend out if they were in my position, but my “friends” don’t want anything to do with me. I feel like I’m a burden and think I would be better off dead. I definitely don’t have any reason, any purpose for living, I’m just a waste of human existence. I’m not really into religion, at least definitely not the go to church every week type, and lately, about all my faith in God is me cursing at him for making me homeless, if God is even real. So of course religious people jump at me for those comments saying it’s the Devil, not God. I’m like, ok, if it’s the Devil, and he was one of God’s angels, why does he allow the Devil to exist still? God is suppose to be all powerful, all knowing, all loving, but he lets humanity suffer here on Earth. Religion will say I was created in the image of God, and that he already knows everything that is going to happen before it happens, so first, it’s like what in the hell was God smoking when he created me the way I am and then knew I was going to end up homeless and contemplating suicide. I never asked to be born, to be raised in an abusive family. I am thankful that at 39 now, I had the common sense to tell myself when I was 8 years old I will never have a wife of children of my own, so that way I won’t risk repeating the cycle of abuse. I feel like whether it is God, or just bad genes in science talk, I definitely got the short end of the straw. Being 5′5 sucks for height when women seem to want tall guys. And I definitely don’t have the skills for social interactions, probably why I’ve never had a girlfriend. I always end up in the friend zone. I compare my attributes to that of Danny DeVito in the movie, Twins, with Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you haven’t seen that movie, I recommend watching it, it’s a good movie. I wonder where I went wrong in life to end up homeless. I grew up being good with numbers, so always thought I was going to be an accountant, but was never good at anything else in school and really hated going. Tried my luck in college and that was a complete waste of time, can’t write 3-5 page essays for English, so was never able to finish my AA degree. I was always a fan of WWE wrestling growing up and that was like my dream to be a wrestler, but again, being short and untalented and uncharismatic, that was never going to happen. I can say I at least tried for it though, trained for almost 2 years before getting a minor tear in my shoulder.  I have no real skill set when it comes to work, I’ve spent my entire life working in warehouses through staffing agencies. Not being good is an understatement when it comes to job interviews. No matter how much I try and prepare for the questions, I always just freeze up like a deer in headlights. I hate working in warehouses to begin with, companies just treat employees like slaves, especially if you’re through an agency. They literally need no reason to end your assignment, so if they just look at you and decide they don’t like you, you aren’t going to last very long, that or they’re going to have you do the lowest type of work they have and force you to want to quit. They make you work 12 hour shifts days a week and only want to pay you minimum wage or slightly above that while as a company they make millions of dollars. And they do this to employees year round, regardless of weather conditions. So during summer, when it’s 102 degrees outside and your in a truck loading or unloading, it’s going to be like 110-115 degrees inside that truck and same in winter times, when it’s cold outside, it’s even worse inside, especially if you’re on a forklift, cause now you’re driving up and down lanes pulling pallets and you’re feeling the freezing wind as you drive. So I haven’t worked in about 2 weeks now and not sure when my next assignment will come, or if I’ll even take it. Obviously I need to so I can have money for food for my dog and myself, but it’s so depressing that I have nothing to show for my life. I’m in and out of motels these 3 months of being homeless, my checks barely cover the cost for a week at a motel. So my other bills don’t get paid, or if they do, their constantly being late. Having around $45,000 in bills/debts ain’t fun neither. I don’t even know why I made an account here and am writing this, I doubt anyone will read this and even less likely I will get any help. I’ve heard of Tumblr, but never really knew what it was. I only just found out after watching the Netflix documentary on Elisa Lam. When I have friends that won’t help, family that put me in this situation, why would complete strangers want to help me. I’ve tried GoFundMe and have had absolutely no luck there, I feel like you have to have a huge friend base on social media for that site to work. You post to your friends who share to others and so on and hopefully get people to help whatever the cause that person posted about, so for me, that just was a waste of time. Same with Twitter and TikTok, people respond how they feel bad for me but I can’t get anyone to want to help me with finding a job and a place to live. I can’t rent anyways, as I found out in December after applying to several places and being rejected, my grandmother put something called a judgment on my background so when apartments run a check and that pops up, they immediately decline my application. And renting a room isn’t an option neither as people don’t want my dog. I just feel hopeless and defeated in life and don’t see a reason to go on. I was just reading about the horrific car pile up accident in the Fort Worth, TX area the other day and feel bad for all those people, but at the same time, wish I was one of the six that died so that I could be gone from this world. Same if I could, I would gladly trade places with a child that’s dying from cancer or even if it was for one more day, trade with an someone’s parent, so that they could have that one extra day to tell that parent how much they love them before the parent passes. To be unloved in life, to feel completely invisible and unnoticeable to everyone around is one of the worse feelings I think you can have, and that’s how I feel everyday of my life. I don’t know why I keep hoping my life is going to get better, reality is it only ever gets worse by each passing day. And I don’t fear suicide or death in general, for me, it’s the pain I’ll endure in those final moments that scare the hell out of me. Like slitting my wrist or throat and bleeding out, or drowning. All the things that probable flash through your mind as your body reacts and obviously goes into fight or flight mode and tries to survive. Even jumping off a building or a bridge and watching yourself fall to your death, the panic you probable feel of how much pain you will feel when you hit the ground or get hit by a truck, or taking a gun and pulling the trigger, hoping that the bullet goes through exactly the way needed so that you hopefully don’t feel a thing as you fall to the floor dead. To me, it’s the process of dying that’s scary, not death itself. Death itself is mercy, I no longer will feel any pain, physical, emotional, psychological or any other way. Just nothingness, much how I feel my life is. 

[floriswrite]

Even stilled when Lauriam held a red rose out to him. "I thought you couldn't make these anymore."

"I cannot. I visited the World of an old friend and they were kind enough to let me take one." Lauriam explained.

Even slowly took the rose from him. "An old friend?"

"A World I saved long ago."

"Would you take me there some time?" Even questioned and brought the rose up to his face to smell it. It felt too real in his fingers.

"He's trying to get better about guests, so I should be able to manage that." Lauriam gave a small nod. "We should put it in water."

"He?" Even felt his stomach tighten. Had Lauriam given him someone else's token of affection? "I could freeze it."

"The prince of the World. Apparently Organization XIII tried to give him trouble years ago. From what Belle said it sounds like Dilan's Nobody was there." Lauriam stepped a little closer to him. "Save your magic, Even."

“Belle?” Even questioned and looked away. “/You/ told me to work on my magic, Lauriam.” 

“I do not believe they have gotten married by this point in time.” Lauriam explained and reached up a hand to place on Even’s cheek and draw his attention back to him. “A touch too honest of a memory, is all. It was an ill chosen gift.” 

“Right, the whole past future matter.” Even frowned down at Lauriam. “You want it back?” 

“Right.” Lauriam gave a small nod. “No. It is yours. But I should have thought it through better. My intention is to build foundation on who we are now. To give you a gift that is so thoroughly Marluxia was ill chosen.” Lauriam swallowed and withdrew his hand. “But I found I could not help myself.” 

Even grabbed his hand and held it awkwardly before him. “Once then. For old times sake.” 

“You’ve never been one to stop at once.” Lauriam whispered. “Perhaps I should take it back.” 

“Experiments need proper testing.” Even whispered back and leaned down. “No, you said it is mine. Perhaps we could use it as... closure.” 

“Closure?” Lauriam hummed. “We’d need to set it on fire afterwards.” 

“How did you die?” 

“Exhaustion, mostly. Desperation. Sora would have done such a lovely job if only his rage had been directed properly. But it does not matter now. Pieces are back where they are meant to be.” 

“It has been... odd, getting to actually know Riku.” 

“Seeing Ienzo socialize, you mean.” Lauriam laughed a little. 

“Yes.” Even sighed. “So. Fire.” 

“Full closure.” Lauriam nodded. “And then, we go on a date. Just us. No cloud of Vexen and Marluxia.” 

“Do you forgive yourself then?”

“Oh, never.” Lauriam shook his head a little. “But I don’t have to forgive myself to move on. So let’s set up our little experiment.” 

“Set up?” 

“Fire, Even, Fire. Unless you learned fire magic after Esuna?” 

“...Don’t make fun of your elders, Lauriam.” 

Lauriam hummed and turned away. “Only you.” And then he smirked over his shoulder. “Besides, I’ve technically existed longer than you.” 

“You’re terrible.” Even laughed. 

“You knew that already.” Lauriam laughed back. “Fire. I have no idea how to work your lab, Even. I am much more used to synthesis.” 

“Right. The Moogle like you.” Even walked past him. “I’ll teach you how to work a Bunsen Burner. Actual science.”

“There is plenty of science behind synthesis.” 

“There is more magic than science.” 

“One and the same at the core.” Lauriam held a finger up to silence Even’s next complaint. “Are you a scientist or a mage? You are both, Even.” 

Even heaved a sigh. “You are correct, but my original point still stands.” 

“Science. Yes. Show away.” 

Even lead Lauriam over to a table with said Bunsen Burner along with various flasks and test tubes. “Lauriam?” 

“Hmm?” 

“You truly want to forget?” 

“I never said forget. I want to move on. I want to feel like I am living my life. Not a shadow of Marluxia’s.” Lauriam sighed. “I recognize that the division between Vexen and Even was slim. That Vexen allowed you a moral slip that this life does not. But I am not Marluxia, and I refuse to act as if I am.” 

“Okay.” Even gave a small nod and finally coated the rose he held in ice. “A date?” 

“We can go wherever you like.” 

“Where- where would you have gone before?” 

Lauriam stared at him, eyes slightly wide. “Even you know my home world is destroyed.” 

“You can travel to other Worlds I-” Even heaved a sigh. “No. Of course you would want to stay in familiar territory. I’m sorry.” 

“Tact has never been one of your strong suits.” Lauriam gave him a small smile. “There’s a few Worlds I have not explored fully yet. I thought we could just walk around and find somewhere nice.” 

“That would be nice.” Even agreed. He set the rose to the side and turned the flame on. “Tell me about back then. Your thought process.” 

“Vexen had shown that he could not be loyal to me. Axel wanted to prove he could be. I was foolish enough to believe that Axel’s motives and mine would work together.” Lauriam explained softly. “I think about it frequently, Even. What would have happened if I had never told Axel the truth. That mission was not supposed to have causalities.” 

“You blame yourself and not Lea.” 

“The more I learn about Axel and Lea the more I understand he has always followed his heart. Axel’s loyalty, just like Vexen’s, was never Marluxia’s to hold.” Lauriam picked up the ice covered rose. “But more than anything else. I regret not doing it myself. Deep down I did not expect Axel to go through with it. I was not aware of how strong his conviction to Saix was, nor how much he wanted to see Roxas again.” 

“I forgave you.” Even stated. He had never truly cared about the politics. He had been mad with Marluxia because that castle should have been Vexen’s. But the more he heard about what happened after the more it sounded like a trap. Like they were sent to slaughter. 

“I know.” Lauriam sighed and held the icy petals over the open flame. “How did it feel? I remember the feel of death. That feel of unraveling. Of your emptiness finally being set free. Of your soul leaving.” 

“Dreadful.” Even whispered and watched as normal fire tried to melt magic ice. Their plan might have had a hole in it. But that might have been the point. They could never let go. “I remember the smell, mostly. I remember feeling betrayed. I remember Sora looking confused. And who could blame him?” Even placed a hand to his chest. “I remember being worried. And then Axel did have the Riku Replica kill Zexion...” 

“Vexen’s dying thoughts were Zexion?” 

“Even’s had been Ienzo.” Even’s voice was small. “In the end I should be thankful, but the scars make it challenging.” 

“Understandable.” Lauriam drew the flower away from the flame. “Perhaps we could put it in the freezer instead.” 

“Not working?” 

“Not in any capacity that is satisfying.” Lauriam turned the flower, a small bit of ice was gone, but the point was for their to be flames. 

Even turned the fire off. “Soak it in water and put it in the freezer it is. Do I only get that date after it is gone?” 

“It does sound like this experiment will need to be picked up tomorrow. But I think you still deserve a date today.” Lauriam hummed a little. “For talking.” 

“Good.” Even smiled and took the flower from him. “Tell me about the World you want to go to.” 

“It’s called San Fransokyo. It’s a very technologically based world. Tall buildings. Curious transit system. And apparently it’s own team of heros.” Lauriam leaned against the table while he watched Even. 

“I think some version of the Riku Replica went there. I tried to keep track of where the vessels got to.” Even waved a hand at him. “But at the same time did not truly care.” 

“Where do your loyalties lay these days?” 

“They’ve always been to Lord Ansem and Ienzo. /My/ king and prince.” Even dismissed his magic and turned the sink on. The rose only looked sad as he ran it under water. The freezer would only make it an awkward chunk of flower. Nothing of the intricate designs Vexen had practiced only to impress Marluxia. But that was for the best. 

“Right.” Lauriam looked away. “And me?” 

“What about you?” 

“Are you loyal to me, Even? Can I finally hold your loyalty?” 

Even looked at Lauriam’s fragile expression for only a second. “We’ll see after our date.” 

“Fair.” Lauriam let out a heavy breath. “My loyalty has never been to you, after all.” 

“No, you are only loyal to yourself.” 

“No, I once had many people I was loyal to. But times change. Marluxia’s loyalty was Larxene. I sent her to her death as well. You are far from the only death that is heavy on my heart, Even.” 

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Even questioned as he turned off the sink and walked the dripping red rose over to the freezer. He’d put a note on it later. Ienzo would ask. 

“No. Not at all.” Lauriam shook his head. “Only stating facts and reminders.” 

“A reminder to never forgive yourself.” 

“That is correct.” 

Even sighed and closed the freezer. “I understand.” He walked back over to Lauriam and placed his hands on the table behind him, pinning him in place. “I want dinner and dessert.”

“Of course, Even.” Lauriam gave him a small smile. “Anything you want.” 

“I want you to forgive yourself.” 

“Anything but that.” Lauriam turned his head away. 

“Then I want ice cream.” 

“That I can manage.”

[swallowthewhale]

A killervibe writing prompt: Cisco and Caitlin on a 2nd date?

It’s not Kamilla that Cisco meets at the bar and asks on a date. It takes 53 tries and a time loop to get their first date right. This is their second date.

Read on AO3

I've been searching and searching for you

Cisco can hardly believe that she agreed to go on a second date with him, after the disaster of their first date. Well, the 52 disasters of their first date followed by being extraordinarily late on the 53rd time loop. But she’s still there when he shows up to Jitters, breathless, reading on her tablet with a cup of coffee already on the table in front of her. She raises an eyebrow when he apologizes with a vague explanation of a work emergency, but smiles, sets aside her tablet and asks instead about the science he’d mentioned when they met. Cisco admits he's more of a tech nerd, and he’s hit a bit of a dead end with the bio side of the project. That’s when her eyes light up, she casually informs him that she has degrees in biochemistry and bioengineering, and Cisco falls completely in love.

So maybe it’s not actually too much of a surprise that Caitlin agrees to a second date.

They meet at the Museum of Science on a Saturday morning, Cisco’s phone set to do-not-disturb and a strongly worded text sent to the rest of Team Flash that he is only to be interrupted if the world is ending. Which, the likelihood of that is higher than it should be, since the world seems to be on the verge of ending every other Tuesday.

Caitlin’s there when he arrives, sitting on the ledge outside the building in a nice pair of jeans and a pretty blouse. He guides her in, waves them through the ticket line with his season pass, and waits gleefully for her to spot the reason he’d suggested the museum.

It’s worth the secrecy. Her eyes light up as she grabs his arm with both hands. “Cisco! The genome exhibit is this weekend!” She shakes him gently. “Did you know?”

He grins at her. “Hmmm, the genome exhibit?” he teases, starting to walk in that direction. “I thought you would like the touch tanks.”

She wrinkles her nose at him, but she’s smiling, and her hand stays tucked into his elbow, Caitlin’s quiet demeanor fading away into excitement as she narrates their way through the exhibit. Cisco mostly lets her talk, intercepting with questions to keep her going.

He loves hearing her talk, loves the glee of spotting some new information she hadn’t heard before, loves the breadth and depth of the intelligence hiding behind a bartender who makes a mean Shirley Temple.

They get lunch at the museum cafe, heads bent together as they discuss the various ways metahuman genomes might differ, the possibility of a metahuman genome project, and how the metahuman treatment could work.

When there’s finally a lull, Cisco casually asks, “So, Dr. Snow, how’d a genius with two Ph.D.s end up bartending?”

Her face pinches and she pokes at her salad. “I used to work at Tannhauser Industries.” She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “Then the particle accelerator exploded.”

Cisco swallows hard, forcing himself to fold his hands in his lap.

“My fiancee died in the explosion, he was working at Star Labs, and I was there for the launch, too. I was… affected.” Their eyes meet. Caitlin’s flash blue and she reaches out to touch Cisco’s fork. It ices over. She looks away.

“You’re a meta,” Cisco says softly.

“I didn’t have very good control at first. I would wake up surrounded by snow in the morning, or the pipes would burst because all the water would freeze in the shower. When I went to my mom for help, her assistant tried to trap me, to study me. I lost control and… he had third-degree burns. I don’t think he’ll ever fully recover.”

Cisco reaches out slowly to cover her hand with his. “Caitlin.”

She looks up, startled.

“I get it.”

Caitlin smiles bitterly and tries to tug her hand away. “No-”

He holds it firmly. “I’m Vibe.”

Caitlin blinks at him. “You-”

“Yeah,” he smiles wryly at her. “I found out I was a meta when I started having visions of my death in an aborted timeline. I promise, I get it.”

Her eyebrows raise. “Aborted timeline?” She looks down at his hand on hers. The one that had just frozen his fork solid. “Okay, yeah. Well, I ran, went underground, left behind my job, my career, everything. I felt like I had lost my whole life in the explosion.” She exhales shakily. “I never thought I might have a chance to get that kind of life back.”

“What kind of life?”

Caitlin shrugs. “You know, a fulfilling job, a husband, a family.” She peers up at him shyly. “Maybe there’s more hope than I thought.”

Cisco beams at her. “Well, I think that calls for some celebration. Ice cream?”

Caitlin laughs. “Sounds perfect.”

[lixuagi]

The Cure for Death - chapter 2

In this chapter: MC fullfills her dream and at the same time her nightmares become way too real. 

I try to move my limbs, only to find them immobilized. -Don’t get too excited, you might hurt yourself.- the individual sneers above me. Their teeth are sharp. To say their anatomy is interesting would be to underestimate it. The more I focus, the more details I notice. Their lips are thin, their face symmetrical, their body tall and slender. They look, judging by their uniform, like they’re a doctor. I begin to realize I’m not dead, but I’m still too weak to react. I let them examine my eyes, which are opened wide by long fingers covered with black latex gloves. They smell of disinfectant. -Hm. That’s interesting. You’re not infected. Well, that’s a relief.- I let them finish their examinations before I ask: -Can you release me?- -Oh, of course.- the doctor smiles in a far from reassuring way as they loosen the wrist and ankle straps. I immediately sit down, lifting my back from the freezing tabletop. -What happened? Where am I? Where’s Selasi? - I look around, agitated.

There are dozens of people in white coats running back and forth, labored. Some are bent over tables similar to the one where I am, intent on tinkering with naked bodies, others are rummaging through medicines, noisily tinkling the flasks containing them. The large room is damp, with its rocky walls lit by torches. In the air hovers the penetrating odour of disinfectant, which, however, cannot totally cover a more bitter and nauseating smell, already imprinted in my mind: that of death. -Calm down, young patient.- The strange doctor who welcomed me when I woke up brings my attention back to themselves, taking my face in one hand and turning it to look at it from all angles. As they press my cheeks, preventing me from speaking, I feel their abnormally icy touch on my skin, even through their gloves. I shiver, but I blame the equally glacial and ghostly environment. I try to slow my breathing, as the doctor is not at all reassuring, nor do they try to be. -As much as I would have liked to operate on you, the man who brought you here made me change my mind.- Those words paralyze me instantly, while the individual notes something in a notebook with nonchalance. I hope it was a way to express the love they have for their profession, even if it was verbalized in a rather absurd way. I’ve got to get courageous. I have to make them understand that I need answers. -Please!– I exclaim, weakly grabbing a flap of his gown. Their face turns unnaturally, I’m surprised that they didn’t hear their vertebrae creak, given the rigidity and rapidity of the gesture. The ruby look goes from my face to my hand, but the wide, sharp smile does not leave them. I breathe deeply, as my voice trembles. -Where am I? Please answer me…- I look at them with supplicating eyes, but my confusion almost seems to amuse the doctor. -You’re in my clinic, Miss…- they check their notebook, where I imagine they’ve collected all my data. -MC Alnazar.- To hear my full name is strangely pleasant. Asra gave me his last name, since apparently, when he found me, I wasn’t able to tell him mine. In fact, I don’t remember much about my parents. I have some vague images of a ship, of the ocean, but they are so blurry that I wonder if they were real times or just fantasies created to fill something I preferred not to leave empty. -My friend, Selasi. He is sick… I tried to cure him, but I don’t know if…- the doctor puts their hand on my forehead, despite their silence something I told him led them to believe me feverish. However, that’s not the case. -This Selasi…what is he sick of?- they ask me with apathetic tone. -I think it’s the Red Plague, his eyes were totally red! I’m fine, I don’t need to be here. There are certainly people more needy to receive such accurate treatments, for example Selasi himself…doctor, could you do something for him?- the ambiguous figure seems almost proud that I considered their analysis “accurate”. -We’re already overwhelmed with patients. Which is pointless, since they’ll all end up the same…- they mumble to themselves, but they go on before letting me understand. -The man was perfectly healthy. Although I suspect a slight schizophrenia, since he was babbling nonsense.- I breathe out a sigh of relief. Then, I did it! I saved him! This news invigorates me instantly. I’d love to jump for joy, but I quickly recompose myself, clearing my voice. –What was he blathering on?- -He was talking about a supposed “miraculous magic.” He said it was you who saved him. Tell me…- they bend slightly towards me, their stature towers over my tiny figure. I try not to be intimidated. I might be in the right place at the right time. -I’m a person of science, not the first to believe certain rumors…but are they true?- Their grin is wider than ever, and their sharp teeth are all too evident. I consider the answer. They peer at me like a vulture would at a beast in the middle of the desert, to make sure it is dead and can be devoured. As creepy as they are, they’re still a doctor first. My whole existence has reason to make people better through my gift. Offering it to the world, especially in times of need, is the right thing to do. -Yes, it’s true.- -Prove it to me.- they instantaneously talk back. -You mean…here?- I jerk when they grab me by the shoulders, pushing me in front of a patient stuck on a steel table, in the same condition I was in before. At least I wasn’t naked. -I…I’m not sure I– -Are you lying? If so, don’t waste my time and get out.- Their grip is getting tighter, in a not-so-sheer threat. I wonder if they’d really let me go. -No, I’m not lying! But I’ve never cured a Red Plague patient before without it making me faint, and that’s why I’m here.- -No problem, then.- they grab a scalpel from a nearby tray. My heart stops, for a second I’m afraid they’ll stab me. Then they lower the blade on the patient, making a painful but not excessively deep incision in the abdomen. –Quaestor Valdemar, what are you doing?- A nurse rushes to the scene, alarmed by the wounded man’s desperate cry. –Oh, my…!- I exclaim, in disbelief. What kind of doctor, or rather Quaestor, would do such a thing? The purpose of medicine is to alleviate pain, not to cause more suffering! I immediately put my hand on the wound. Fortunately, I don’t need much energy, and both Valdemar and the nurse watch the cut heal before their incredulous eyes. The patient sighs, relieved from the pain and the blood loss. -It’s…incredible!- exclaims the young assistant, handing me a cloth to wipe the blood off. I accept it with pleasure, offering him a smile a little embarrassed. The boy is tall, his body resembles that of the Quaestor, but his shoulders are a bit wider and he is much more…human, I would say. Externally and internally. His grey irises admire me with enthusiasm, partly covered with tufts of red hair. I can tell from the dark circles under his eyes that this is a really stressful job. I look away from his face, which seems to have distracted me quite a bit. The nurse notices and his pale face turns pink. -Ahem! I didn’t want to embarrass you… I’m Julian Devorak.- he’s trying to offer me a hand, but then he withdraws it, deciding that maybe it was better for me not to come into contact with the liquids that may cover his uniform gloves. He holds it out to me again and I finally shake it. -Mc Aln– I’m interrupted by an abrupt tugging that forces me to turn on my heels. I bring my palms to my chest, I was so immersed to introduce myself that I forgot about the Quaestor, who seems to look at me severely. They don’t seem to appreciate any kind of distraction at work. I understand, how could I think about such a futile thing when people are dying around me? -Come.- Valdemar commands, now facing their back to me and beginning to take long steps through the clinic. I turn one last time towards Julian, pretending an expression of terror to which he mouthes “Good luck!”. It doesn’t occur to me that the doctor has stopped their march, and by the time I realize it it’s too late to stop, as I slam against their back. -I’m sorry, really, I don’t know what’s gotten into me…- God, I’ve never been so careless. I can hear their tongue clicking, I would say condescending, as they hiss: -You’re very distracted. It’s not ideal.- they press their hand on my side, pushing me in front of them, over a little wooden door. There are many others, each with a metal plate with a number engraved on it. On this one, it just says “office”. I am now in a cramped little room, there is barely enough space for a desk and a shelf, both full of notes and volumes, but all perfectly stacked and organized. Valdemar beckons me to sit on the only stool present, and I obey, preferring to keep quiet for now. -Well, that fool wasn’t lying. You really have a gift. It’s interesting, to say the least…- as they talk they put their hands together, otherwise motionless in front of me. -You know, I could almost decide to hire you, but you’d take away potential experiments.- I mean…are they saying they don’t want me to heal people so they can…study them? Their dedication to science is admirable, but their ethics are nonexistent. I try not to let my disbelief slip through. I want this job. -Please, Quaestor. This… I feel it’s where I belong. I’ll do more than just healing. I’ll even do some research, so there may be no need for dissections. I suppose it’s not pleasant… - I try to imply, maybe it’s just a misunderstanding and they’re not as sadistic as it sounds. -Oh, it’s far from being unpleasant to me. I find nothing more beautiful than the warmth of a vital organ under my fingers.- I am speechless, obviously they want to test me, see if I have a strong enough stomach for the job. Or maybe it’s a strange sense of humor, I’ve heard that many doctors joke with these things so as not to make the situation sadder. I decide to humour them briefly to get to the heart of the matter, and I force a giggle. -Hehe, yeah, nothing could be nicer…But doctor, I need this place. I’m not doing it for money, I don’t need anything but necessities. I want to help you, with my whole being.–With your whole being?- There’s no malice in their voice, actually there’s nothing, but the look with which they scan my body from head to toe combined with their strange way of giving voice to thoughts is enough to make me feel molested. I nod, carrying my hands to my lap as if to conceal my nudity, although not even vaguely exposed. They pretend to think about it, tilting their face and that strange horned headdress with it, but they seem to have already calculated everything. -In fact, the Countess has instructed me to put an end to the plague. So I suppose you could be of use to me.- I stand up, and if their figure didn’t upset me so much I’d embrace them. -Thank you, thank you!- I express my gratitude with multiple bows, but I am stopped by a raise of their hand. -One of these cells will be yours. Congratulations, Number 100.- Ah, I guess we’re all numbered. It’s a little sad, but otherwise it would be impossible to remember each one of our names. -But be careful. Nothing goes unnoticed. I won’t tolerate distractions like today’s. They’re very unprofessional and inefficient. And those who slow me down… can be considered discarded. - I swallow. I hope they’re not seriously that strict and it’s just a mask to intimidate newbies. I barely bend my lips up. –All clear.- -Now wait for me here. In the meantime, take off your clothes.- I open my eyes wide. Then, I wasn’t wrong! They really are a creep! Think, MC. If you refuse, you might miss this chance, and it’ll probably never happen again. But if you accept… heavens forbid. I don’t want to think about it. –But, like…completely?- I whisper. I thought it would’ve happened with the love of my life. I’ve never given myself to anyone, I’ve always waited to meet someone who would make me feel totally comfortable, one day. All my integrity, my idea of love… is now being shattered like this? Is it my destiny to sacrifice something so important to fulfill my dreams? My heartbeat accelerates, while panic takes hold of me. The Quaestor raises an eyebrow, puzzled. Then he shakes his head, without giving me any answer, and leaves the office, locking himself behind the door. What a nasty being. But I have to do it. I owe it to those children. Maybe they’re the ones to decide my fate, and they’ve establishehd that I must pay for what I’ve done. That’s right. My eyes get all shiny while unbuttoning my pristine shirt. Asra’s face appears in my mind, his amulet still around my neck. What would he think of me? Probably that I’m disgusting. Giving myself away for a job. But he wouldn’t understand. I take off my garment, then my shoes. The more skin I show, the more tears run down my face. I think back to Julian’s hasty presentation. He seems like a nice, caring guy. I wonder if he could imagine what’s about to happen to the sweet girl he admired for her healing powers? I unbutton my pants and shakily fold them on the stool. Now I’m only wearing underwear and the necklace. Just in case, I put it in my bag, which now lies on the freezing ground. Since the doctor has decided to leave me the benefit of the doubt, I prefer for now to at least keep my bra and panties on, in a futile attempt to feel vaguely protected. I’m rubbing my arms, indulging in the agitation. You must, you must. It’s the best thing for everyone. I can hear the door creaking. There they are, they’re back. The high shadow of Valdemar stretches out on me, while I can’t look at them or stop crying nor shaking. -If that’s what you want…Please know that I’ve never… I don’t…- I hiccup, but all I get in response is silence. -I’ve never done anything like that…-I cover my chest with my hands, rubbing my knees together. -There’s always a first time.- declares the barren voice of my persecutor. Then I really didn’t misunderstand. My crying is silent, but I try to suffocate the sobs, waiting for them to move. I flinch when I hear something brushing against me, and I can’t suppress a small gasp. But it’s not hands. It’s… fabric. -What are you crying for? I thought you were excited. Did you change your mind?- I shake my head, clenching my eyelids. -No, I didn’t. Don’t worry.- -Then you must be one of those people who cry when they’re happy, I guess. Or maybe you’re suffering of hysteria.- How can they think I could be happy right now? They’re going to abuse me! They’re a monster, but I already know that. –Would you like a hand?- -N-no, I really don’t know where to start…take the lead. Just, please. Be nice…- -If this mere thing scares you so much, I wonder how you’ll be able to stand the sight of dead bodies.- I hate to admit it, but they might be right. I have to be strong. I can hear them sighing. -I’ll try to be as fast as I can. It’s standard procedure. But you’ll have to get used to it. As soon as you come in, you’ll have to do it every day. It’s essential and I demand it, like any other behavior deemed necessary under my guidance.- Every…day? No, that’s impossible. Is this really what I deserve? Maybe I never woke up, and for my sin I went to hell. I died, and this is the world the Devil sewed me into. There’s no other explanation. -Now raise a leg, No. 100. – I let out a sob, but I obey. Something slightly rough runs over my calf, surrounding it. –What are you doing…?- I squint my eyes, still tarnished with tears, and find the Quaestor kneeling before me. -I’ll show you how to wear the uniform properly one and only one time. I repeat, once. I want you to watch, though, it is important, or you will not be sufficiently protected from the pestilence. First of all, these pants.- when I realize, my legs give way, and I also fall to my knees, abandoning myself to a hysterical cry. I really just made a fool of myself. If they’re still hiring me after this, I can consider myself extremely lucky. –Oh dear, you sure are an emotional human being. It might encourage patients to tell us about their symptoms. I know empathy is an enviable quality. Not for me, but as long as it doesn’t get in the way, I guess…- are they trying to comfort me? -I’ll let you vent this time, but I don’t want it to happen again during work hours.- -You’re telling me… that you still want to hire me as a nurse?- I raise my head to finally look them in the eye. I even forget that I’m half-naked. -My dear, you may have just walked in here, but you’re already the most useful one. A talent like yours could come in handy.- I don’t care about their grin, their sadism, their inhumanity, as they dab my tears with a clean handkerchief, the relief I feel makes Valdemar seem like the most benevolent creature in the world. -Thank you.- My smile is trembling, but my heart is already calmer. -It’s in my best interest that my employees are in the best possible condition to care for the patients after all. Let’s get back to the uniform. Now, the apron… -

.

When the Quaestor walks me out of the office, we get face-to-face with Julian. –No. 069, do you have any relevant news? -The look of the red-haired boy dashes from me to his superior. He notices my shiny puffy eyes and red cheeks. He frowns, worried, then an impatient scoff from the doctor brings him back to his duties. –I’ve only got the list with the most recent patients data. So far, they have no features in common. Age, ethnicity, previous psychophysical state, nothing is shared equally by the sick. Neither is the mortality rate lower in young people…- I can read his torn down expression even behind the surgical mask, which I am now wearing too. -How many are currently hospitalized here?- I ask. Earlier, Valdemar mentioned the Countess of Vesuvia, Nadia Satrinava, wife of Count Lucio Morgasson. A woman in power is not to be underestimated, but I am surprised that she is forced to take the reins of such an important task as eradicating the Plague alone. I don’t personally know the Count, of course, but Asra has dealt with him a few times as a guest at his sumptuous birthday parties. On the occasion of this special day, the gates of the palace are opened wide to the people, or so the flyers distributed in every angle of Vesuvia claimed, but those who cannot afford a lavish costume and a beaded mask are automatically discarded from the event. Asra, however, loves the dances and especially the food from the buffet, so he attends the party annually, always trying to take me with him. I have always refused, dancing is not my forte and certain things require a confidence that I do not possess. Obviously the celebration stopped taking place when the Plague forced everyone to shut themselves indoors.

-Hundreds arrive every day, but we can do little at the moment except administer sedatives or painkillers.- answers Julian. -Oh, but as of today, not anymore! Isn’t it true, No. 100? The presence of the Questor is ice cold behind me, and I can only nod my head, still embarrassed by the uniform gaffe. -I thought there were 87 of us, doctors and nurses.- Comments the younger medic, perplexed. -As of yesterday, 86, since No. 29 has been eliminated. Anyhow, this way, it’ll be easier for everyone to appeal to her. She could make up for… unpleasant mishaps, such as a perforated artery, crushed rib cages…- while listing every possible case of macabre inconvenience, Valdemar has a strange expression on their face, like the one of a child thinking about his favorite dish. When I get goosebumps, this time I don’t blame the cold of the dungeons. Noticing my discomfort, Julian allows himself to interrupt their dark fantasies. -I didn’t know Alex was sick.- -Oh, he was just at the beginning of the infection. I couldn’t risk him compromising other people’s health…so I took care of him.- I admit I’m not in a position to judge, but I can only ask: -Did you…- -Yes, exactly. I sent him home.- I breathe a sigh of relief, for a moment I feared the worst. But apparently it’s not over. -He’ll be back here soon as a patient, and on his deathbed, he’ll be studied. Isn’t that noble?- The only thing Valdemar seems to be excited about is the idea of vivisection. I wonder if it happens often, to hospitalize their own employees. I hope not, because now I’m part of the medical staff too. I wonder if they ever feels sorry. They might be able to detach themselves emotionally with a stranger, but with a colleague I think it’s more difficult. After all, coworkers chat every day, they help each other. For me it is inevitable that a strictly professional relationship will sooner or later lead to a friendship, even if it is weak. Does this job really change one so much and so quickly? This situation has been going on for just over two years, has it really been able to change an individual’s soul in this way? Or was it already like this? -No more futile chatter, it’s time to return to our splendid duty, don’t you think? - Valdemar’s feline eyes are watching us. I realize that the whole uniform, from boots to gown, fits me perfectly. Could it be that they took my measurements while I was unconscious? Heavens, I don’t think they were even thinking of hiring me yet. Do they do that to everyone? Or maybe one look it’s all it takes for them to know a lot more about me than I could ever imagine. If Julian told me the boss could read minds, I’d believe it, and I wouldn’t even be that surprised. Speaking of Julian, he’s taking a step forward by my side. -I could take care of her training if you agree, Quaestor.- the doctor shakes his head in response, calmly and satisfactorily inhaling the putrid air of the little hospital. -I’m afraid I’m going to have to deny you this chance you’ve certainly been yearning for, No. 069. I myself want to observe her techniques, and who could be a better teacher than me in medical matter? Be reasonable, 069, you would be futile. Even if I didn’t want to take this responsibility, I’d assign the task to someone more deserving.- wow, they could’ve just said no. The two of them exchange an icy stare, there’s no good blood between them at all. The whole surrounding atmosphere is full of tension, but I suppose that’s normal. It’s a very stressful situation for everyone. Julian stands still, looking down. His fists tighten, then he releases them with a sigh. –Understood.- He murmurs resigned, then turns around and goes back to work. Following his trajectory with my gaze I notice something new in the room: a low stone well, open. –Watch carefully.- -Ah!- I yeIp and cover my mouth with my hands, jolting at the unexpected closeness of Valdemar’s face, leaning behind me to whisper in my ear. I then remain motionless, obeying the command, and to my horror I notice that a bloody and lifeless body is thrown into the well. Death is everywhere here. I’ve never seen it like this before, so close. The procedure is done quietly in front of the other patients, but no one pays attention to it, all so busy being tormented by their own unbearable pain. A little boy with vermilion sclerae seems to be the exception, and as he watches the well swallow one corpse after another he realizes that he will soon end up the same way. He grabs his hair, crouching on the icy ground. Valdemar murmurs something, but I take the liberty of not listening to them, running to the young boy to kneel in front of him, his preadolescent face twisted into a desperate expression. I take his face in my hands, bringing his attention to me. Some nurse turns to look at us. -Hey, hey. Shh. It’s okay. I’m here to help you.- I let him rest his head on my chest while he sobs incomprehensible gibberish. Between those confused words, I can distinguish a specific cry saying “I don’t want to die” and I could swear I’m hearing my heart break in two. I run my fingers through his dusty hair, feeling protected by the mask, but even if I didn’t have it I would do the same thing. I take advantage of the contact to concentrate my light and understand how advanced the stage of the disease is. I close my eyelids and let the noises around us cancel each other out. Once again, the compromised particles are in the blood, but luckily they haven’t attacked the organs yet. He will certainly be easier than Selasi to heal, plus now my magic knows where to go and recognizes the enemy. I hold the boy close to me, rocking him gently, while I happily feel his symptoms go away. The light pervades his body, absorbing the malaise. Within a minute, or even less, it’s all over, and when I open my eyes again I have many more fixared on me, first of all those of the cured kid. -How do you feel? -I ask him, smiling kindly. It would be understandable if he was confused or exhausted. -I…-He puts his head down to take a look at his body, then raises it back up to me, then back down again, incredulous. I feel a hand on my back, turning around, I notice it’s Julian’s. -You’re unbelievable, MC!- he exclaims, quickly examining the sclere of the boy, now of a normal whitish hue. Everyone cheers me enthusiastically, surprised by my skill. Between the voices I hear “it’s a miracle” “she’s the cure!” and I turn red like a pepper, while trying to ignore my incoming migraine. Then, suddenly, an icy silence invades the room. Everyone is silent. The only sound that echoes on the rock walls is the ticking of a pair of soles hitting the stone coming closer. -Admirable, really, No. 100. But, you see… I’m the one in charge here. And I don’t think I ordered you to treat this orphan.- I recognize Valdemar’s voice at once, and I realize I made a mistake. I stand up slowly. -But the boy was suffering and…- -Little, incompetent fool…-the breath stops in my throat when the Quaestor’s squeeze wraps around my shoulders, tearing me away from Julian’s delicate touch. -You and your stupid, superfluous feelings. I knew you weren’t so clever, but I still overestimated you.- A rare warmth pervades my chest. It’s anger. -I’m going to ask you to think about it anyway. Do you think it’s right to privilege the health of a young brat? How do you think everyone else feels now? Or maybe they didn’t pity you enough, since they weren’t whining like babies. But I can assure you that there are people who deserved to be saved more than a useless infant to society. There are soldiers, officials, even other doctors here. Isn’t that enough for you?- I bite my lip. It’s so easy to make me feel guilty. The Quaestor’s words, hard as they are, are true. Everyone deserves to live equally. I don’t know what to say, and that encourages them to persevere in reproach. -Yeah, that’s what I thought. The goodness you so-called tender-hearted people show is false. There’s always an ulterior motive behind it, you never pause to think about your actions and that causes more harm than anything else.- It costs me a lot of effort not to cry. I feel humiliated and frustrated, but tears would give him even more reason. -From now on, I demand that you do what I tell you, nothing else. You’re clearly not capable of making objective decisions. Go to your office, in the meantime… take him away- they point at the boy with a wave of their hand. I instantly become pallid with fear.

 .

Notes: summary of this long ass chapter: Julian good, dr.Vivisexy bad. I’m sorry for this angst but this will be very obviously a slow burn (ohhh yeeeeaaah that’s the stuff) and also uhhh space for character development i guess

I need Julian for a higher purpose so i hope you don’t mind the presence of pretty bird boi (i certainly dont,,,,,, i do be kinda loving him doe..,,). As always, thank you for reading! Opinions are always appreciated!!!! (please dont insult/harshly criticize me though, i could and WILL cry)

[shirtlesssammy]

7x11: Adventures in Babysitting

Then:

Cas is dead, and we continue to salute those brave souls that continued to watch this show live without him. Also, Bobby is now dead and I really hate season 7 on so many levels. (Natasha: I survived through pure denial.)

Now:

Knife-wielding Ishim Dude sits at a cafe watching a couple outside. When the couple walks off, he pays the waitress, Marlene, and runs out, chasing them. He tracks them through parked semi-trucks. Suddenly Marlene is there. She drugged him. She flashes snake eyes and pointy teeth before knocking him out. 

Week One

Sam and Dean are at Rufus’s cabin drinking beer and watching TV. All they can really summon the strength to do after Bobby’s death. 

Week Two

Dean’s REALLY drinking and he’s trying to decipher the numbers Bobby wrote on Sam’s hand right before he died. 

Week Three

They’re deep into tracking Dick Roman.

For Dean and Pen Caps in his Mouth Science:

Sam wonders if they should tell other hunters that Bobby’s gone. Dean wants nothing to do with that. Bobby’s phone rings. Dean wants nothing to do with that. Sam answers. A young girl is on the other end looking for Bobby. She tells Sam that her dad told her to contact Bobby Singer specifically. She hangs up when Sam tells her Bobby isn’t there. Sam wants to track the girl. Dean gets pissy because they’re waiting on Frank to get back to them on Bobby’s numbers. 

The brothers separate. 

Sam tracks down the residence where the girl’s phone number was registered. Sam tells the girl, Krissy, that Bobby is dead. It seems that Krissy’s dad is a “salesman” and has been gone for five days without calling. Sam sees flashes of his childhood in Krissy’s apartment. 

He roots through Krissy’s dad’s stuff until he finds the dude’s murder board in the back of the closet. He has a start on where the guy disappeared. 

Dean, meanwhile, pulls up to Frank’s hideaway. It’s completely gutted. But Frank is there, guns ready. 

He thinks Dean’s a Leviathan, but Dean proves he’s human by bleeding real red human blood. Dean makes Frank prove he’s not a monster either. They head to an RV in a shed where Frank has set up his new surveillance shop. Dean is livid that Frank hasn’t got back to him. Frank has lost track of time and doesn’t see the big deal (and yet is paranoid beyond words..). Frank admits that he thinks the number is incomplete. 

He ran a probability program to complete the number and found that they’re coordinates to a field in Wisconsin. 

Roman Enterprises recently purchased the land. Time to survey the place.

Sam heads to the morgue to view a dead body, drained of blood with bite marks on his leg and neck. The coroner suggests a vampire attack. Sam doesn’t see the humor. 

Sam and Dean reconnect and Dean tells Sam about the field in Wisconsin. He also tells Sam that Dick’s at a Ted conference. He read it on the Huffington Post. Sam wonders when Dean started reading. And I WaNt tO sEt YOu On FirE SamUEl. 

Dean and Frank head to the field to check things out. 

For Dean in Costume Science:

Frank notices lots of Roman surveillance cameras and decides they should hack those cameras. 

Sam calls and leaves a sleeping Dean a message that the missing hunter was hunting a Vetala. They feed slow so Krissy’s dad might still be alive. 

Sam then heads to where Krissy’s dad was last and talks to Marlene. She sends him to talk to the woman outside. He asks her about Krissy’s dad. She tells him that she’s never seen the guy, and then in a lower tone tells Sam that “it’s not safe here.” She leads Sam away. She tells him she’ll talk to him in private, so they head for the canyon privacy of two parked semi-trailers. When the waitress comes out, fangs a-blazing, Sally turns out to be a vetala too. Together, they take Sam out.

For A Tiny Bit of Shirtless Sammy Science:

Dean wakes up to Frank settled in front of his surveillance monitors. Apparently Dean slept sitting up in a half-lit trailer for 36 hours??? DEAN BBY. Dean stares blearily at the video. Roman Corp. is planning on building something new in that field. Dean’s less than impressed at their progress, and Frank fires off some advice. “Quit.” It’s either that, or burn himself into nothing chasing after Dick Roman. “Decide to be fine ‘til the end of the week. Make yourself smile because you're alive and that's your job. Then do it again the next week.” Look, I know this episode is in our hate watch week, but I’ve always been particularly fond of this exchange. SO GOOD and SO SAD. Krissy interrupts this moment to call Dean and tell him that Sam’s now missing too.

Sam wakes up tied to a chair. There are bodies in the room (the SMELL, people, come on clean up your meals) and Lee Chambers is tied up next to him. 

Sam tells him that Krissy contacted him. Lee fills him in. The vetala have fed on him three times already and he’s incredibly weakened. One more time and he’s dead. 

Dean heads into the Chambers’ house like an angry cloud. He tries to shoo Krissy away as he investigates, but Krissy won’t allow any of that. She let Sam take the lead in the investigation while she hung back to be “normal,” but now she’s all-in. 

She demands to be brought along on the hunt and tells Dean that she memorized all her dad’s case notes and then destroyed them. He NEEDS her. In the car later, she tries to talk to him. Dean’s not into light conversation. “I'm a fun guy. I'm actually awesome. Okay? But right now, I'm not in the mood.” Dean then threatens to drop her off at a MALL. Hello, child of my generation. Dean speculates that Sam and Lee were bested by the vetala because they both thought the monster was a loner. Dean knows better from a Sammy-at-Stanford hunt experience where he learned that they hunt in pairs. 

The revelation that Sam went to college stuns Krissy. Dean goes into dad mode, suggesting that she could go to college as well… 

Sally the vetala chats with her trussed up prey before bending her head to Lee’s neck. Sam baits Sally away from Lee, telling her that he enjoyed hunting vetala in the past. Sally rewards him with a big ol’ chomp, sparing Lee for a little while longer. 

At the truck stop, Dean and Krissy compete to see who’s the biggest tough guy. Krissy hasn’t ACTUALLY hunted any monsters yet, but she’s totally ready. She spots Marlene, the blond vetala, climbing into a truck and driving it away. They tail the truck to the vetala feeding ground. 

Dean celebrates by asking for a fist bump. Krissy calls him a “dweeb.” (Me: creaks rocker and asks if anyone actually uses the word dweeb anymore.) Dean continues to be my favorite because when Krissy finally accedes to a fist bump, he cuffs her wrist to the steering wheel. She’s going to stay in the car where it’s safe! He heads off with her lock pick safely in hand. (But let’s be real, that car’s gotta be brimming with weaponry and picks, right?)

The vetala are merrily feeding on Sam and Lee when Dean arrives. There’s a scuffle, quickly interrupted by Krissy storming in and heading straight for her dad. Sally grabs hold of Krissy and promises to release her if Dean lets Marlene free. 

There’s a standoff. 

Marlene moves in to kill Lee, and Krissy pleads with Dean for help. Dean freezes as he watches Krissy plead, and I imagine that he’s replaying some choice flashbacks to his own sorry childhood. Krissy twists suddenly and kills Sally with a knife she had hidden on her person. Marlene is quick to follow, killed by a newly freed Sam. 

Later at a hospital, Lee’s grateful but Dean’s instantly on edge. “Don't thank us. Quit. Your daughter's 14 years old. She's already a hunter with a kill under her belt. I'm not trying to be a dick, but what do you think that does to her life span? She could still be a regular kid.” He tells Lee that family’s a good enough reason to get out of hunting for good, no matter what tragedy first instigated it. 

Outside, Krissy implies that the Chambers family may be giving up hunting and that college could be in her future after all. We get some Dean smiles and it feels like sunshine in this dark time. 

In the car, Sam and Dean talk. Neither of them are doing okay, but they’re still alive and fighting. While Sam settles down to sleep, Dean smiles as he tries to take Frank’s advice to just get through it day by day. Just like that, all the sunshine is gone. Oh, Dean Bean.

All Quotes Hunt in Pairs:

Gwyneth Paltrow is not a Leviathan

You think it's easy to see this deep into what's real and also be bipolar with delusional ideation? 

Decide to be fine ‘til the end of the week. Make yourself smile because you're alive and that's your job. Then do it again the next week

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[bombshellsandbluebells]

The 100 Fic: Malware (1/3)

Summary: Just a few months into Spacekru’s stay in space, the Ring begins to malfunction and life support systems start failing. Spacekru needs to learn to work together quickly if they want to live. If they don’t, the very place that had been their salvation just might kill them.

Relationships: Canon relationships hinted at; Spacekru focus

Other tags: space thriller, the ark is not safe, incorrect space science probably

because why finish my wips when I can start a NEW fic because I’m terrible at that

(read on ao3)

Part I: Program Failure

Two months after they arrive in space, the lights flicker off without warning, and the Ring plunges into sudden darkness. Even the emergency light strips running along the hallway floors fail. Without the lights, and with only the darkness of space coming in through the windows, the Ring falls into a darkness so complete and impenetrable it seems to seep into the residents’ very skin.

Inside the room that hosts the algae farm, Monty, Harper, and Murphy halt. Harper, halfway through cleaning the filter inside the algae tank, freezes, afraid to damage it accidentally. Murphy waves a hand in front of his own face; it’s impossible to see, even just inches away from his eyes.

“Well, that’s not good,” he mutters and hears Monty’s answering snort from somewhere to his left.

“I hope they don’t stay off for long,” Harper says, her annoyance almost palpable. “I can’t move.”

“Neither can we,” Murphy says. “I can’t see a damn thing. I’d run into a wall if I tried.”

“You’re not stuck with your hand in the algae tank,” she snaps. She’s gotten used to digging around in it, but it’s far less enjoyable when she can’t see or move. The algae floats gently in the water, occasionally brushing up against her hand; without her sight, the sensation is startling every time. The hair on the back of her neck stands on end. She tries to carefully pull it free, but it bumps up against something and she falls still immediately, filled with panic. This is their only food source; she can’t risk it.

It’s as if Monty knows that Murphy is opening his mouth for a comeback – and in all likelihood, he does, considering Murphy and Harper’s daily arguments have become almost routine at this point – because he quickly interjects. “I’m sure Raven’s going to fix it now.”

“How the hell is she going to get there?” Murphy asks. No one answers him for a moment. The visual of Raven stumbling blindly down the hallway, running into walls and tripping over hidden obstacles, is all too easy to picture.

“Surely someone has a light of some sort,” Harper offers slowly, then shrugs, despite the fact that no one can see it. The other two hum in agreement. Neither of them sound very convinced.

But there’s nothing they can do to help – there’s nothing they can do at all but wait.

The silence that falls between the three is uncomfortable, made even worse by the utter darkness. Murphy fumbles with his jacket sleeve just for something to do, and the shuffling of the fabric is loud in the quiet room. The sudden blindness is irritating enough, but the ever-present tension between him and his current company grows worse without a job to focus on. He’s sure Harper and Monty’s silence is only because of his presence in the room; they’d probably have preferred to be trapped without him around. He can’t say he blames them; he still doesn’t really get along with either of them on the best days, and there’s no one he really wants to get trapped in the dark with other than Emori – who, incidentally, is the only one here he absolutely trusts not to jump him with his back turned.

“How much light does the algae need?” he asks, partially due to real worry, but mostly just to break the silence.

“More than this,” Monty answers. “But it can handle not having any for a little bit. I’ll start getting worried if they stay off for a couple hours.”

No one has to say they hope it doesn’t take that long, but Harper mutters, “They better not,” under her breath anyway.

Luckily, it doesn’t. After forty minutes of stilted conversation – topics ranging from how much they miss real food to what might be happening in the bunker – the lights flicker back on. The three of them blink into the sudden brightness, their eyes re-adjusting slowly.

Harper carefully pulls her hand free from the filter and out of the tank. The skin is pruny from the water. She shakes it dry.

“Well, that sucked,” Murphy voices, and the other two murmur their agreement. “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again.”

--

Bellamy is mending a pair of pants when the lights fail a second time. In the sudden darkness, he loses track of the needle and pricks his finger, then swears at the unexpected jolt of pain. Blindly, he drops the pants on the table in front of him and pulls his hand away, not wanting to get blood on the fabric, even if the wound is small and barely bleeding. It’s hard enough to wash clothing on the Ring; it’s nearly impossible to remove stains.

He’s sitting in what’s generally become known as the common area, where the seven of them sporadically gather during free time or for meals. Unfortunately, he’d been the only one present when the lights went out, and loneliness is quick to settle in beside the darkness.

For a few minutes, Bellamy waits in silence and weighs his options. Then, with a sigh, he pushes himself out of his seat and stumbles forward. He walks carefully towards where he believes the door to be, hands outstretched in front of him to avoid a concussion. The cold metal of the Ark walls brushes against his outstretched palms, and he feels along it until he finds the door.

He keeps his right hand on the wall as he makes his way through the hallway, trailing it along the walls so he has some sense of where he is. The darkness in the Ring is terrifying; Bellamy doesn’t think that he’s ever experienced a darkness so absolute before. There had always been some source of light aboard the Ark no matter the time, and even Earth at night had the moon and stars. This utter blackness is completely new and horrible; it makes him feel vulnerable and powerless.

After a few months aboard the Ring, he’s managed to form a complete mental map of the place. He’d never known Go-Sci Ring well when he lived on the Ark, since there had never been much reason for him to go there, so he’d made a habit of walking the halls and taking note of the place that would be their home for the next five years.

After all, supplies and resources are the difference between survival and death. It was crucial they take note of what they had available to them, and, if Bellamy was going to keep all of them alive until they could reach Earth again, it was important that he knew every inch of their new home. Survival is a team sport, of course – he knows it doesn’t lie entirely on his shoulders, but he can’t help feel responsible for the people he convinced to head back into space with him. It had been his idea to go get Raven that had landed them all here.

And he can’t let anything happen to anyone – not after – well. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts and knock the guilt away. It clings stubbornly anyways, as it always does.

Memorizing the Ring seems to be coming in handy now, at least. For the most part, he can remember which hallways to take even if he can’t see them – but it’s still slow going. At one point, he realizes he must have gone too far without turning and has to double back until he locates the hallway he needs with his hand.

Eventually, there is light up ahead, standing out like a beacon. As the shapes of the walls begin to take shape, Bellamy quickens his pace towards the light.

The system control room is lit by a multitude of computer screens. It’s a dim light, but it seems bright in the darkness. Raven stands in front of the screens, illuminated by the glow, eyes trained on the lines and lines of code scrolling by, her brow wrinkled with concentration, hands hovering hesitantly over the keys. She doesn’t look up as he enters the room.

“How’d you get here so fast?” he asks, because he’s amazed one of them made it here without hurting themselves, let alone two of them.

Raven waves a hand distractedly to her left where a tablet sits on the table beside her. “I always keep it with me. It took me too long to find this room last time. It’d be better if we had flashlights, but it works.” She worries at her lip with her teeth, eyes narrowing at something hidden within the code. All of it looks like nonsense to Bellamy.

He comes to stand beside her and studies her out of the corner of his eyes. It’s easy to read the exhaustion and stress lining her face, and he wishes he could help her carry the burden of repairing the Ring somehow. Monty can help her with the machinery, especially now that his hands are healed, but Raven’s the only one who can understand the various computer systems keeping everything running. Her time with ALIE had some benefits, at least.

“Any idea what’s wrong?”

Raven doesn’t reply, but he gets his answer in the way her face hardens.

Without warning, she slams a hand against the table beside her; the resulting bang echoes loudly through the room. Bellamy jumps, startled.

Raven breathes heavily. “I can’t read code the way I used to,” she admits quietly, like a dirty secret, voice straining between clenched teeth. “There’s whole sections I can’t even understand.”

It’s a lot like forgetting how to speak a foreign language you once knew, Raven thinks – like when her abuelita died and her mother stopped speaking Spanish completely and the words gradually faded from her mind, bit by bit, every year. She still has some of the vocab, and she can remember the basic structure, but she can’t speak it fluently like she could when she had the chip. Every day she seems to forget a little more.

“If I still had ALIE in my head,” she starts.

“You’d be dead,” Bellamy interrupts. It’s a simple answer, as if it isn’t the complicated thing she’s made it out to be – as if she doesn’t spend hours debating if the threat of death due to ALIE’s code was worth the knowledge it gave her.

Back on Earth, she hadn’t thought so. Anything was worth not dying, right? But here in space, when their very lives might depend on it, ALIE’s code seems so much more tempting; she almost feels regretful for destroying it.

“But I’d know what’s happening.” She wants to cry. Or scream. Her frustration grows inside her like a wild animal, vicious and untamed.

“That’s not worth your life, Raven.”

“If the Ark is malfunctioning, it might cost everyone their lives,” she snaps. She wants to be angry at something besides herself; Bellamy’s just an easy target.

He doesn’t take it to heart. Instead, he places a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and Raven can’t help but think Bellamy is a better friend than she is. She feels guilty for that too.

“You’ll figure it out.” His voice rings with certainty. She wishes she could believe him, but optimism grows harder and harder for her to grasp, disappearing beneath the pile of problems the Ark throws at them. She’d promised them safety on the Ring, but she’s terrified she won’t be able to deliver. After escaping Grounders and Mountain Men and Praimfiya, is her incompetence going to be what kills her friends?

After almost an hour, the lights flicker back on by themselves, just as they had the last time, and Raven isn’t any closer to understanding why.

--

The third time almost goes completely unnoticed. It’s what passes for nighttime aboard the Ring, and, in a rare occasion, all seven occupants are asleep at the same time. The malfunction might have been missed entirely if the heating hadn’t shut off as well.

It grows very cold over the next few hours.

Harper wakes with a start, the clicking sound of her chattering teeth hitting her ears before she’s fully aware of herself. Her body is shaking with the cold, and she grabs at their blankets, curling herself under them in search of warmth. It takes her a moment to register the weight on the other end of the bed shifting as Monty goes to stand, but as she does, she reaches blindly towards him.

“Why’s it so cold?” she asks groggily, teeth still clicking together.

“I think the heating shut off again,” he replies softly.

Sudden light fills the room. Harper squeezes her eyes shut against it and rubs a hand over her face. Even her skin feels icy. Slowly, she opens her eyes again, blinking as they adjust. Monty’s holding an emergency flashlight in his hand – one of the few they’d managed to find after the second malfunction – and he’s pulling on his jacket.

“I’m going to go help Raven. Go back to sleep.”

“I’ll try,” she says, knowing it will likely be useless until it warms up a bit more. Luckily, they’d all stockpiled extra blankets in their rooms after the first few nights onboard the Ring when all the programs had been finicky and the heating unit had struggled. She piles all of them on top of herself and hopes that Monty and Raven can figure things out quickly.

By morning – or at least, what feels like it might be morning, though it’s hard to tell without any light at all – Harper gives up trying to sleep. She’s done little more than shiver for the past several hours, and, even if she can’t help the others, getting up and moving might warm her body up more than lying here will.

They don’t have another light in their room, so she uses the walls to find her way in the dark, wandering aimlessly with nothing but a prayer to help her find where Raven and Monty are. She gets lucky – as she turns a corner, she sees two figures illuminated by their own flashlight. Emori and Murphy stare back at her in confusion. Murphy looks even grumpier than normal, his hair a wild mess and his face wrinkled with a deep frown. Emori beside him is bundled in several blankets, nearly hidden away entirely beneath the fabric, her eyes and nose the only part of her exposed. She’s still shivering.

“Do you know what the fuck is happening?” Murphy asks.

Harper shakes her head. She wishes she had thought to bring a blanket like Emori. Her teeth are still chattering. “Monty went to go help Raven. I’m trying to find them.”

Murphy glances at her empty hands and raises an eyebrow. “How were you going to find them without a light?”

Like usual, it’s taken Murphy very little time to make her want to hit him. She’s starting to think it’s his only real talent. “Monty took ours. But I didn’t want to just stay in the room.”

“We can all go find them,” Emori says, though it’s hard to understand her with how violently her teeth are chattering. Murphy wraps an arm around her and rubs at the giant mass of blankets where her shoulder might be. She leans into it. Harper can’t help but stare; it’s almost sweet – or it would be, she thinks, if it was anyone but Murphy.

They make an awkward traveling party. The only sound accompanying them are their footsteps and the chattering of teeth, all three too unsure of their company to speak much. Uncomfortable as it is, Harper’s grateful for it. She has a hard time stomaching Murphy on his best days, and he’s clearly pissed off. The cold is bad enough; it’s a relief to not be forced to suffer Murphy’s stupid comments along with it.

Eventually, they hear talking in the distance and follow the sound into the only other area of the Ring with any light. Inside they find the others. Raven, with a blanket slung over her shoulders like a cape, is typing furiously at the keyboards of one of the computers, looking frazzled and angry. Her hair is loose for once, and Harper finds it an odd sight; she can’t recall ever seeing it loose from its ponytail before.

Monty hovers at Raven’s shoulder, wrapped in his own blanket and clutching the ends close to keep any air from burrowing into the cracks. His head is bent low, watching the lines of code appear on the monitor as Raven types.

Bellamy stands beside them both, without a blanket of his own and clearly suffering for it, absentmindedly rubbing his hands up and down his arms to try and warm them. Echo is also there, standing apart from the others and away from the light, tucked into the shadows of the room. She’s clearly handling the cold the best of all of them; she wears the cloak she had first arrived in when she’d come to save them before Praimfiya and it seems to provide enough warmth for her, as she’s not shivering or moving to warm herself up. Harper wonders if it’s because she grew up in a land known for its ice and snow, or if she’s just good at hiding her discomfort.

“Hey,” Bellamy says as he turns to watch them enter. “What are you guys doing up?”

“It’s fucking freezing,” Murphy snaps. “How the hell are we supposed to sleep like this?”

“I’m working on it,” Raven snaps back, not even turning to look at him. “If you’re not going to be any help, leave the room.”

Murphy raises his hands in surrender, even if she can’t see them, and takes the hint. He takes a seat on one of the chairs and slouches low in it, keeping his mouth blissfully shut.

Harper goes immediately to Monty, and he automatically raises an arm with half of the blanket for her to duck under with him, nestling close to his side as much for heat as for comfort. He smiles at her; it looks strained. “Any progress?” Her heart sinks into her stomach as he shakes his head. Raven grunts out a sound that might also be a no, though it’s hard to tell. It could as easily be a reaction to what she’s reading.

“Raven has a bit of an idea what’s happening, though,” Bellamy says, in an obvious and unsuccessful ploy to get their spirits up. In the dim light, Harper can make out the dark circles carved under his eyes and the wrinkles in his brow she swears hadn’t been there before the Ring. He goes back to rubbing furiously at his arms.

“Care to share with us?” Murphy asks.

“Actually trying to concentrate,” Raven mutters.

“You want me to drag him out of the room?” Harper whispers to her, only partly joking. If he’s distracting Raven, she won’t hesitate to kick him out – or find some other way to shut him up. Knocking him out for a few hours just might help improve everyone’s mood.

Raven’s concentration on the code breaks just long enough for her to smile at Harper.

“Oh,” Bellamy says suddenly in surprise, drawing Harper’s attention. “Thanks.” She turns in time to see him accepting one of Emori’s blankets from her. Harper wonders just how many she has on her; there seem to still be at least two left.

“You looked cold,” Emori explains, shrugging, the movement nearly masked beneath her layers. Then, she moves back to Murphy’s side, pulling up a chair beside him.

Harper keeps watching her for a moment, thrown by the gesture. She doesn’t know Emori well, but it was hard to trust anyone who was close with a person like Murphy.

“Dammit!” Raven’s sudden shout makes all of them flinch. A wordless groan of frustration bursts from her mouth, and she scrubs aggressively at her face, dragging a hand back through her hair roughly. There’s a beat of silence. Then, she turns her chair around to face the room.

“It’s like a power surge,” she explains. “There’s some program running that’s taking up a lot of power – only I can’t figure out what it is or how to shut it off. And it’s not exactly a power surge because if the lights were just blowing out, they’d stay off until I fixed them. But they come back on shortly after whatever program it is stops running. It’s like –“ She breaks off with an agitated sigh, fumbling for words. “It’s like the Ark’s intentionally shutting the lights and the heat off to divert power to this other function.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Monty says slowly, face scrunched up in thought.

“You’re telling me,” Raven mutters.

“Mind sharing with the class?” Murphy asks, eyeing them and the computers behind them warily.

“Well,” Monty says slowly. “The Ark shouldn’t be able to process something like that.” He turns to Raven. “Right?”

“No. At least, I didn’t think it could – but I’m a mechanic, not a programmer. I never worked on the computer systems. But that level of programming – no, the Ark shouldn’t be able to do that.”

“I’m still lost,” Bellamy says after a moment. “What do you mean the Ark shouldn’t be able to do this?”

“It – “ Raven hesitates, trying to find the words. She glances at Monty and looks relieved when he takes over.

“If what Raven thinks is happening is true, that means that the Ark computer system is currently deciding which programs to shut off to divert power to another function. But no one would have ever programmed it to shut off the lights and heat, no matter what else the computer needed to do. So the fact that it’s doing that means the Ark itself is making a decision of which programs to turn off.”

“It can think?” a quiet, terrified voice asks. The rest of the room startles and turns at once towards Echo, as if they’d all forgotten she was there at all. What little they can see of her face in the shadows of the room looks pale, eyes blown wide with terror. She chances a glance towards the computer screens, shifting her stance slightly towards something more defensive.

“Well, that’s just it – it shouldn’t be able to. Some computers can, just not this one.” Echo doesn’t look very reassured. Neither do any of the others. They eye the screens with suspicion. “Someone must have programmed it this way before they left,” Monty concludes, looking at Raven.

She shrugs. “I guess. Maybe if they thought they were all going to be on Earth and needed it to still run some program, they’d tell it it’s okay to turn off life-support systems.”

“Life-support systems?” Emori asks, panicked.

Raven waves a hand at her that’s less comforting than it’s meant to be. “We’re fine. As long as none of us freeze, it’s not life-threatening yet.”

“What about oxygen though?” Murphy asks. “That’s life-threatening.”

“I don’t know,” Raven snaps. “It’s not like I can predict what’s going to break down next.”

“Oh, real fucking great.”

“You want to get up here and do better?” Raven nearly yells. “Be my fucking guest, Murphy.”

“Alright, alright, stop,” Bellamy steps between them. The blanket tumbles from his shoulders. “Right now it’s just the lights and heat, right?”

Raven nods stiffly. “Right now,” she agrees.

“So we’re in no danger of dying just yet,” Bellamy concludes.

“Extreme cold is dangerous,” Echo argues. “And none of you sky people are built for it.”

“And the algae needs light and heat to survive; without that we’re dead too,” Monty adds.

“Okay. But the last two times the lights came back on automatically. So we just wait it out.”

“We could build a fire,” Echo suggests, as Monty shakes his head at Bellamy’s suggestion.

“Too much heat fluctuation will still kill the algae,” he argues. “This can’t keep happening.”

A high-pitched, nearly hysterical laugh draws all eyes to Murphy. He’s hunched over with his head in his hands. “I’m going to starve to death anyways,” he snorts, unaware of the eyes on him. “Should’ve stayed in the fucking lighthouse.”

Emori crowds closer to him, whispering something in his ear. He shakes his head slightly, but it doesn’t seem to improve his mood.

Not that anyone feels in the highest of spirits. Monty’s prediction seems to clog the air, making it harder to breathe.

“No, we’re not,” Raven says finally, resolute. She turns back to the screens and resumes digging through the code. “I won’t let us.”

--

No one sleeps much that night. In the morning, they’re all still huddled in blankets in the Earth Monitoring Systems room, Echo alone in her corner, Murphy and Emori wrapped around each other near the door, Harper drifting off in her own blanket cocoon, Monty passed out in a chair, and Bellamy trying not to fall asleep on his feet as he stands dutifully at Raven’s side.

“I’M THE FUCKING BEST!”

Raven’s shout makes them all jump. Murphy knocks his head on the wall with a loud bang. Monty falls out of his chair. Echo sits up with a knife in her hands.

“You’re what?” Monty asks groggily as he pulls himself up.

Raven spins to look at them all. The pride on her face nearly masks the exhaustion. “I know what’s happening,” she tell them, voice giddy.

“Well don’t leave us hanging,” Murphy says, rubbing at his head.

“The Ring is shutting off the lights and heat to divert power to the satellite. It keeps trying to send a message to Earth.”

“Why?” Bellamy asks.

Raven shrugs. “Not sure. I don’t even know what the message is. I think maybe the Ark tried to get in contact with Earth before they left, and the computer systems just keep trying to send the message. I’m not sure why it’s turning off life-support systems to do it, but that’s what’s happening. And we can stop it.”

The room, as one, exhales a breath of pure relief.

“It’s a little complicated, though,” Raven adds. “There’s some kind of block keeping me from turning off the satellite or stopping the message from sending, and I don’t know enough programming language to get around it. But I have another solution. We can manually disconnect the Satellite. If the Ark can’t access it, it should hopefully stop trying to send the message until I can figure out how to stop it completely.”

“How do we do that?” Harper asks.

“Spacewalking.” She turns to look at Bellamy hopefully. “But I need someone to come with me.”

“Of course,” he tells her, as if surprised she even had to ask.

--

They all gather in front of the airlock to see Raven and Bellamy off.

Raven dresses herself with easy, practiced motions, then helps Bellamy pull his suit and SAFER pack on, quickly walking him through how to use it. She fits their helmets on, raps on Bellamy’s just to see him jump, then gives him a grin and motions for the airlock. He follows her into it and Monty closes the doors behind them.

“Alright,” Raven starts, her voice coming in through the radio as she secures Bellamy’s tether onto his suit. “Monty, we’ll be able to talk to you the whole time we’re out there. This should be a fairly easy fix.” She reaches for her own. “Bellamy, we’re going to –“

The doors to the airlock fly open without warning. 

Within seconds, Bellamy and Raven are gone.

[cherryplasmids]

☆ still my dove ☆

pairing: sandor clegane x reader fandom: game of thrones—season 8 anon request: Sandor x Reader where they’re involved in some sort of battle or they’re attacked by some bastards and the reader is greatly injured, losing an arm or a leg? “What use am I to you now?” notes: mentions of blood and violence and death.  — I am in no way an expert on disability. I don’t know the science behind having a leg chopped off or anything. I do not mean to offend anyone.

—check out my other works; masterlist

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

         The heavy bodies of four wights that struggled to desperately end your life, suddenly vanished, leaving your arms to drop at your sides. Besides immediately confusion—how in the actual fuck did they just disappear—soreness filled your body and you could finally breathe; inhale without fearing it would be your last.

After the initial shock, people began yelling out names or screaming in pain or crying when they stumbled upon dead loved ones or maybe all of the above. You wanted to feel emotional agony because you are certain you’ve lost someone in the battle but the exhaustion overwhelmed you, silencing any type of feeling besides content. Even when you heard your name being yelled, you just lied there waiting for someone to find you while thinking of a downing cold ale, kissing Sandor because you know your tall, brute lover survived, and sleeping for three days.

Whoever shouted for you came close and quieted down. Despite all the smoke in the air, temporarily disrupting your vision, Necalli’s distinct appearance captures your attention. He leans over, placing his hands on his knees and begins panting. His face is covered in a thick coat of blood and ash with streaks of sweat on his cheeks. Armor no longer rested on his chest or shoulders, instead, the thin olive tunic dangled loosely off his collarbones. Thankfully, you couldn’t find any major wounds, just little scratches decorating his tanned flesh.

“Y/N,” Obvious relief spilled out of him. He drops down to his knees and removes his Unsullied combat helmet which immediately makes you sad.

“I’m sorry about your friends.” You pointed at the helmet. “They nor the Dothraki should have died first. That’s just disrespectful.”

“Perhaps we were taken for granted.” He shrugs even though sorrow fills his eyes. “But we do what she asks of us with no question. If her intent was for us to die, I think we did a good job.”

It’s a poor attempt of a joke but you crack a smile anyway. “Is Grey Worm—”

“Alive, searching for Missandei. I looked for you as soon as the battle was over.”

You lift a hand up to touch his cheek. “Thank you, raqiros.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Good...I think? Just lightheaded.” You stop for a moment, pausing in order to take a deep breath. “Tired, really damn tired.”

Necalli doesn’t speak and looks you over, assessing your condition. He moves your head side to side, wiping away blood from your warm cheeks. You’re delirious to his ministrations because the exhaustion hits you. Hard. Like a sudden rainstorm or the Sept of Baelor blowing up.

Sleep; it’s alluring and the best idea you’ve had in ages. You just need uninterrupted sleep..forever. You, Sandor and the comfy beds filled with cozy furs that Winterfell had in abundance. Necalli is keeping you from fulfilling that desire. He needs to stop worrying—you’re completely and utterly fine, just exhausted. Nothing more and nothing less.

But then he starts shouting causing your ears to start ringing. You close your eyes and push your hands to close anymore sound from going into your ears. He’s screaming bloody murder for what? He needs to leave now because he’s being extremely rude now.

Despite his incessant screaming, sleep calls out to you—sending soft murmurs of delicate yearning. Your eyes close even further, darkening the outside light from penetrating your eyelids. It feels warm.

It doesn’t last long because you begin involuntarily shaking—violently as if you’ve basked in ice cold water. Eyes snapping shut, you see Necalli shaking you, his face filled with the utmost concern and worry.

“Necalli?” Then you feel a jolt in your lower region, shocking you into an upright position. There are so many people crowding you, all shouting incoherent nonsense. Sansa is there, tears spilling, and head shaking. Everything is suffocating, too hectic for you to focus until you notice her eyes shooting back and forth from your own gaze to your legs.

So, you look.

Blood gushes from your left leg, dark red, almost black, but that isn’t the worst part about it.

It was gone.

Your left fucking leg from the knee down wasn’t there—just empty space where the shin should be. Your mouth opens up, but nothing comes out—or maybe it did but you couldn’t tell because of the high volume ringing in your ears.

The pain hits you now, shooting through your body like fire. Somehow, at the same time, it felt like ice and electricity replaced your veins, throbbing at rapid a pace that seemed to quicken your heart rate. It makes you reel, sending you back to your previous lying position, head thudding against the wet dirt which is the worst thing you could have possibly done. An explosion of blinding whiteness blows up in your head and the last thing you could remember is watching Sandor race towards you before your consciousness simply vanishes into darkness.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ─── 

          Beric’s death struck sorrow in Sandor. After all, the two men have spent many hours together, trying to survive all the obstacles life has thrown at them. They prevailed together, came to the North together, fought alongside each other, and buried comrades together. Although Sandor’s never been one for sentiment, there’s a bit of nostalgia coursing through him as his eyes wander out to the vastness of the North. Beric, an oddball, surrounded himself with other oddballs like Thoros, made Sandor feel welcomed. Not a hound—a brother who’s destiny is to survive. He’s not heartbroken, far from it, but he is sad.

Originally, he just drank a cups of ale in Beric’s honor. However, once he couldn’t find you among the dead or the living, he became inconsolable.

Three days after the battle, he still cannot find you. No one is telling him anything on account of you and Sandor not necessarily being in a relationship. If he specifically asked for you, people would be suspicious and Sandor was not the type to have his personal business under scrutiny by any means. Instead of sacrificing his pride and ask for aid, he helplessly searched for you throughout Winterfell. Every nook and cranny searched and stripped to find you. Three days worth of panic and innocent bystanders being shoved or yelled at and silent tears at night when he’s alone.

It registers after the fourth day that you might not be here. The sudden realization of your clingy self not being there to annoy him, jump on his back, or to play with his fingers when you’re nervous, suddenly slaps him so hard in the face, he physically caught whiplash.

Sandor’s thoughts increasingly became a jumbled mess as he kept drinking with his sight becoming a tad bit hazy. Tipsy is not the word to describe him at the moment. He’s intoxicated and smells like he took a bath in alcohol—not at all how he usually is. Nothing about him is normal anymore, well, as normal as he tried to be. Everything is different; the morning light disrupted by ash polluting the air, the frostiness of the North seems warmer, fewer people roaming around, even the ale tastes different. It’s dreary, dark, and depressing. And the only way he can combat that heartbreak is to drink until he’s dead.

He’s got nothing to live for anymore. He’s done his duty of protecting the Stark girls and without you around, he doesn’t see a future because he planned it with you. The brown cottage with cobble steps and yellow flowers planted beside it that you wanted to live in with him was a far fetched dream that is impossible to realize without you. All the little plans of being farmers and florists and chefs and any other random idea you had would never come true. He did not have the heart to continue, to move on without you because you were everything. How can he move on when you took his heart with you to wherever the fuck you ended up at.

That’s when he knew he could never be happy. The stars would never align for him to set him up with a good life. The one chance he did, the village had been slaughtered and the second time an opportunity came, you were taken from him.

Life’s a cruel joke and Sandor’s been the butt end of the joke since childhood.

So, he takes another gulp of ale, only to find the cup empty. He reaches over to the beer barrel to pour more but nothing comes out of the tap. Just one push of the barrel sends it over. Nothing sloshes inside of it. It’s empty.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

            Something slams heavily against the wall, but Sandor’s eyes are crusted shut. He can’t tell what the noise is and doesn’t want to. The massive pounding in his head makes him feel heavy as if his brain weighs a ton. It’s a heat stroke combined with a migraine, the frigidness of Winterfell doing nothing to cool him down.

Then he’s shaking. A second party is forcefully kicking him but he’s immune, numb. Kicking and stomping, loud slams, gibberish—nothing can shake him out of the thick haze and rut he’s succumbed to.

“Fuck off,” Vomit is on his tongue and it makes him gag.

Whoever is disturbing him speak again, more gibberish followed by another kick to his side. After that, they stop. Instead, freezing water with chunks of ice crashes down on his face, sending his body to jolt forward into a sitting position.

“Fuckin’ hell!”

“It’s about time you woke up.”

Sandor whips his head up despite the throb in his brain to find Arya standing over him, arms crossed over her chest with her eyebrows raised—unamused and certainly unimpressed. Light illuminates her tense silhouette which means it’s still daylight. He’s been sleeping for a few hours instead of a few days like he thought.

“Fuck you,”

She taps her foot and moves to sit on an ale barrel. “You’ve got some nerve.”

Sandor pushes himself to sit against the nearest wall, grunting the entire time. He can’t think straight without pushing his limits, can’t talk without feeling like he licked a shag carpet. Breathing heavily and eyes closed, he takes his time to calm down or else he’ll attack the younger girl. She might beat him, though. After all, he is intoxicated beyond belief.

“All this time you’ve been drinking your arse off for the fun of it and—”

Sandor shakes his head, brain sloshing around in his skull. “Dead,”

“What?”

“She’s dead.”

“Who—” Arya stops herself, sighing deeply before rubbing her forehead. “Y/N?”

“There’s not..nothing left.”

The young Stark girl gets down on her knees, leaning forward to meet his gaze. “You idiot!” Sandor’s eyes flare up in anger. She’s pissed too.  “While you’ve been here feeling sorry for yourself, mourning over her for no reason, she’ been screaming day and night about missing you.”

His eyes perk up, his body physically straightening as her words finally have some clarity. “She’s alive?”

Arya rolls her eyes and stands up. “Yes, been asking for you.”

Scrambling to get up, Sandor stumbles and trips over his own feet several times before standing properly, but his feet don’t have stability. Suddenly, he tilts backward, falls back and hits his head on a wooden barrel. It smashes and ale seeps out.

Arya remains unimpressed at the sight, offering no help to the groaning and probably concussed Hound. “Shower and sober up or she’ll have your head for smelling like an alehouse.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

            By the time Sandor sobers up, takes a shower, and actually attempts to groom a bit, it’s the next night. He didn’t think it would take him that long, obviously underestimating how fucked up he was. The hours leading up to the very moment he entered the makeshift hospital wing in the castle was filled with extreme anxiousness. It’s been five, almost six days, since the battle—fours days he deemed you dead. All the nasty thoughts of his lonely future remained in his head. Surely you wouldn’t want to be with him after he left you to deal with your injuries alone.

He assumed they were horrific since Arya refused to speak about them and even got a little teary-eyed mentioning it. Did you look like him now? Scarred flesh and ugliness tainting your features? No, no matter what happened to your face, he would still love you. It couldn’t be that. When Arya’s eyes got misty and somewhat pitiful, it reminded him of how she used to look when he brought up a specific topic on one of their adventures years ago. For the life of him, though, he couldn’t remember the subject.

When he reaches the wing, there are three Unsullied men guarding your door. They glare at him as he approaches. He expects them to part but they remain still, speaks held up high with their hands tightening their grips. He’s feeling particularly nasty at the moment and opens his mouth to swear but is cut short by your room door opening and swinging shut.

Necalli, your best friend, looks tired with bags under his eyes and terrible posture. His head is low even when one of the Unsullied guards speak to him. It’s in Valyrian, a language Sandor never heard of until the Targaryen girl invaded Westeros. You know it, though. You gave him cute nicknames and compliment him using that language. He never knows what you’re saying, but the little smile on your lips makes it okay.

“Sandor,” Necalli’s accented voice calls out to him, removing him from his memories. The tanned man looked a little pale but he smiled up at him anyway. He didn’t think the Unsullied were allowed to smile. “It’s really great to see you.”

He grunts and nods.

“Y/N has been in and out of sleep. She is awake now but might fall asleep on you. Just don’t do anything that causes her heart to quicken.” The sly bastard winks at him talk Valyrian to the guards before all four Unsullied members leave the wing.

As soon as he sees their bodies turning at the end of the hall, he pushes the door open. Firewood and lavender waft throughout the room, reminding him of his smell and your body scent mixing together. His boots noisily alert you of a new presence and before you can call out, Sandor is standing a few feet away from your bed.

Your breath hitches and hands tighten around the snow-white sheets.

“What—” You audibly gulp. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you were dead.”

“Well, I’m not. Off you go.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t want you here.” Your voice is tight, eyes filled with terror.

Visibly caught off guard, Sandor takes a step back at your words. Not even a week ago were you declaring your love for him, begging for him to fuck you, preparing all these future plans with him. Now you’re telling him to leave as if that hadn’t happened? Had he done something wrong? Why do you look terrified?

“What the fuck do ya mean?” He snaps at her, anger taking ahold of him.

You match his ferocity. “Are you deaf now? I said get the fuck out!”

Sandor stares at you for a long time, causing you to shift. He always does that to you when he knows there’s an underlying issue. And you’ve just outed yourself out by swearing at him, something you rarely ever do.

“The Stark girl told me you were hurt.” Again, he stares, searching for something. “I don’t see anything.���

His lingering eyes sends anxiety through your body and you feel panic welling up in your throat. Again, you tighten your hands around the sheet, bringing it up toward your body.

“Please, Sandor, just go.”

Your whispered words do nothing to ease the giant man and he moves toward you. Your eyes shut when he gets near you, attempting to hold back the tears threatening to cascade downward. Each shuffle, creak, and any other movements cause you to tense up because Sandor will inevitably find out what’s wrong. Of course, it terrified you.

He kneels down beside you and gently tugs the sheet out of your hands. You whisper in disagreement and for a moment, he stops. Eyes intense, you could feel his stare at you and eventually, you relent, completely releasing the sheet.

Agonizingly slow, Sandor peels the cloth off of you, bare flesh gaining goosebumps. He stops when he reaches your knees. Realization stuns him, causing him to release the sheet.

Tears slip out underneath your closed eyelids. Before you know it, you’re sobbing and shaking.

Sandor feels his heartbreak at the sight of you completely and utterly devastated. He understands now. Why you didn’t send someone to get him, why he wasn’t by your side. You’d rather have him think you’re dead than in this condition.

“Oh, Sandor,” He leans forward, tugging you into his chest and you awkwardly grab onto him, twisting your body enough to be practically on him.

“I love you.”

Somehow you cry harder, chest heaving. You shake your head at his words and look up, eyes shining with tears with absolute sorrow leaking.

“What use am I to you now?”

“Listen to me, dove.” Voice gruff and stern, he pulls you further to him. “Nothing has changed. You’ll still be annoying and clingy and will still jump on my back. We will get that cottage with yellow flowers and cobblestone steps.” You cry even more. “Everything is the same. Legs or no legs, you’ll still be my dove.”

He pulls you into him again, smelling your lavender scented hair and lets you soak his shirt in tears. You try to talk but he hushes you, knowing that you’ll need sleep soon. So, he climbs onto the bed. Like routine, you curl up to his side and grip onto his shoulders. It’s silent after that, just you two together with bodies pressed against each other and breathes mingling—thinking about life together away from all the deaths and injuries and wars. Sandor kisses your head and you know you’re safe and absolutely loved at that moment.

────── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ────── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ──────

word count: 3,034 published: may 16, 2019 edited: n/a

[welcometothelairofthebitchking]

And when you drown (take your demons with you) Ch.1

a homeless peter fanfic  AO3 link

summary: After two years of living in the streets, Peter Parker Sympathizes with thieves.Spiderman still stops them.(And yet, it's the sight of his unmasked self , the scrawny homeless kid in an oversized jacket, that sends gang members running.)

Or

Go out Bruce, they said. It will be fun, they said. Nothing bad’s gonna happen, they said.Well, they got one thing right. Because this? This isn’t bad, this is a disaster.(It's a good kind of disaster though)

A/N so I got bored and decided to copy my story here. enjoy

Go out Bruce, they said. It will be fun, they said. Nothing bad’s gonna happen, they said.

Well, they got one thing right. Because this? This isn’t bad, this is a disaster.

Why? Well for starters, Bruce is running, which itself is an awful thing because Bruce isn’t much of the running type (He prefers sciencing, thank you very much.) But that’s not even the worst part, because not only is he forced to run, he is also being chased, and not in the fun ‘playing tag’ sense of the word either, but in the ‘we’re-a-group-of-villains with-questionable-senses-of-fashion-and-we-wanna-kill-you’ sort of way.

If this was a movie, now would be the time when the frame froze and the famous ‘Yep, that’s me, you’re probably wondering how I got into this mess’ line came up. Unfortunately, this isn’t a movie, which means that Bruce doesn’t have the fortune of time freezing while he does a flashback and has to in fact do it all while running for dear life.

‘Yep, that’s me,’ Bruce thinks bitterly while he passes one of the security cameras on the street, glaring hard and hoping the avengers are watching this right now so they can feel the sheer loathing in his gaze. Very unlikely, but pretending makes him feel better. ‘Let me tell you how I got into this freaking mess.’

“Come on Bruce,” Tony says as he pushes the unwilling scientist toward the elevator, the doors already opening to let him in, “You can’t just lock yourself in your lab all the time! Go out and have some fun, feed the ducks or something, use your hours of freedom to escape this terrible ‘organic-food’ zone and buy some greasy snacks.” He leans down, whispering in his ear, “And then try to sneak some in for me without Cap noticing as well, would you? He keeps confiscating my junk food. Says I have to eat healthy,” He mutters, making an over-exaggerated disgusted face, “But he won’t think to search you. So just go to a supermarket or something and get me some snacks, Okay?”

“But Tony…” Bruce tries to protest, “What if…”

“Nothing’s gonna happen,” Tony says impatiently, rushing him forward, “you’re just going to supermarket and back, what are the chances of someone attacking you?”

Well, judging by the group of villain currently chasing Bruce, he’d say the chances are rather high.

“Oh my god,” he moans as he runs for- well, not his life, but the life of those around him. The men following him have already pulled out what he’s 99 percent sure are guns, and he’s still in the middle of a crowded street with people stupid enough to stand and gape at him instead of running for their lives, because, hello, Hulk here!

After this is over, Bruce is going to kill Tony, and he isn’t even going to Hulk out; Oh no, he’s going to chock him with his bare hands. 

(Or maybe he’ll just sit on him and eat all the junk food by himself while Tony cries and begs on the floor. That seems like a good plan as well. )

The first shot snaps him out of his thoughts, and he has to fight down both panic and the green beast as he takes a sharp turn into one of the darker alleys around. Bruce is by no means a physical man –well, at least, his calmer, not-green self isn’t- and he knows better than to try and run from a bunch of obviously trained men with guns in a public place where not only can they easily shoot him and hit the target, but can also miss and hurt the innocents around. Besides, he’s already beginning to tire, his breath coming in short, quick pants and his knees shaking under his weight. He won’t be able to run for much longer.

So, the scientist does the reasonable thing and tries to get as far away from the public as he can before he’s cornered. There’s no hope of making it to the avengers before the men catch up to him since he panicked and ran in the opposite direction of the tower when he first spotted the group and is now pretty far from home; so the best he can hope for is losing his tails when he runs in the maze of the backstreets and narrow alleys of NY, and sinks deeper and deeper into the darker and more questionable parts of the city.

By the time he remembers that he’s an unfamiliar with this districts as the ones he’s trying to lose, it’s already too late to turn around, and he’s trapped in a dark and dirty dead-end with nowhere to go and footsteps that keep getting closer and closer.

He takes a step back, and flinches when his back his the wall. He takes a quick look around, desperately searching for an escape route. By the looks of things, he’s out of luck. The only things in the alley are a couple of torn trash bags and a half-blind street cat that screeches and runs away as soon as it sees Bruce; so unless he starts throwing rotten fruit and empty tin cans at his pursuers, there’s nothing of use. He’s officially cornered and there’s nowhere to go and nowhere to hide, and by this point his skin is more green than white, and he no longer can fight back the panic that’s spreadi-

Suddenly out of nowhere, a hand shots out and covers his mouth, another grabbing his arm and dragging him back. He struggles, trying to bite the hand, but his kidnapper just groans and shoves him in a tight spot before following himself. “Be quiet,” the kidnapper –is it a guy? Bruce isn’t sure. The voice is far too high to be a man’s, but the body pressing him into the wall clearly lacks the curves of a woman’s- hisses at him, still not removing the hand from his mouth, “Do you want them to find us?!”

The high pitched voice surprises Bruce, helps him fight down the green showing up on his skin and shocks him enough that he stops struggling. He takes a deep breath, leaning back on the wall and examining his surroundings as he hears the footsteps run past and then stop. He turns his head at the direction of the sound, keeping his breath as he peeks from the opening in the wall and sees the men searching for him.

Bruce notices that he’s still in the same dead-end, hidden in a small, narrow space between two of the walls. It’s a pretty good hiding place, if a little crowded. It’s only just big enough for him and his mysterious kidnapper to squeeze into and its entrance is hidden from sight due to the slightly tilted brick wall at the end of the alley and the way the trash bags are placed.

The men look around for a while, seemingly confused with his disappearance. Bruce notices his rescuer –because it’s probably rude to keep calling him a kidnaper when the guy has just saved his butt- crouch down and pick up a tin cane from the ground. He’s about to hiss at him to stay still before someone notices them when the guy lifts his arms and throws the tin so far it lands about twenty meters away from the wall. The men snap to attention at that, one of them shouting orders in a strange language as they go running back the way they came.

They stay still for a while, listening for the footsteps to fade, and then the mysterious guy jumps back, exiting the hiding place easily and then turning to give the scientist a hand (Who, to his embarrassment, has far more trouble getting past the tight gap). Bruce follows the guy out with a gasp, panic still clutching at every fiber of his being and skin still colored with a tinge of green, but much more under control than a moment ago. He puts his hands on the wall, catching his breath and focusing on calming himself. That was close. He’s never leaving the tower to get Tony snacks again.

“Dr. Banner!” The stranger exclaims, his voice snapping the other out of his thoughts, “You’re Dr. Banner, right? Sir I’m such a huge fan! Your work on Gamma radiations was truly fantastic! The theo-“

Bruce stops listening, staring in shock at the guy as he keeps ranting about his work and how amazing his last new paper on god-knows-what was. Any other time, he’d be pleased to see someone who appreciates his achievements more than his part-time job as a green beast; but right now he’s too busy staring at the kid who just saved his life. 

He’s young. Certainly no older than fifteen and maybe even younger. He’s much too short and far too thin for it to be healthy, and is clad in dirty and baggy clothes. Bruce knows for a fact that he’s much stronger than his small figure suggests, considering he was being dragged around by the same tiny teenager only minutes ago, but he can’t help but notice how fragile and small he looks. It’s hard not to, especially when the kid is swimming in a jacket three sizes too big for him and has a deep, nasty bruise on his jaw.

The guy stops mid-sentence when he notices Bruce staring, a light blush covering his cheeks, “Oh my go- I didn’t hurt you, did I? I didn’t mean to push you around like that, I was- I was just trying to get you to safety and I didn’t stop to think it through! I’m glad that you didn’t hulk out on me though- Not that I don’t like hulk, I mean he’s cool, but I don’t like being smashed to death, you know? And anyway you seem so much nicer and smarter and- god I’m rambling again, aren’t I?“ He stops to take a deep breath, sticking out a hand with a shy smile, “It’s an honor to meet you Dr. Banner. I’m Peter.”

Bruce only stares some more, still too shocked after everything to react. The kid’s face falls when Bruce doesn’t say anything, and he snatches his hand back as if burned. “I’m such an idiot.” He mumbles to himself, trying to hide his dirty hand in his pocket, then louder he says “Sorry sir I just got excited and forgot about the-“ He shrugs, looking embarrassed as he plays with a lock of his long hair. “Just- just follow me. I’ll take you to the main street.”

He half turns to go, face red and eyes cast downward.

“Bruce Banner,” Bruce says automatically.

The kid blinks, “What?”

“That’s- Um, that’s my name,” the scientist stutters, pointing to himself. “Though you already know that… anyway, It’s- Um, It’s nice to meet you Peter. And- and I’m glad Hulk didn’t smash you too. ” He adds, holding out a hand.

Peter’s whole face lights up, his brown eyes widening with joy. He grabs the offered hand and shacks it enthusiastically, smiling all the while.

“Thank you Dr. Banner,” He says happily, “I’m so-“ a loud ‘clank’ from the other side of the wall cuts him off, and Peter freezes, stealing a glance at where the noise came from.

“Follow me Dr. Banner.” He whispers lowly, all traces of lightheartedness gone, “It’s dangerous to wander around here for long. Stay close to me and I’ll take you back to the avengers’ tower.”

With that, he turns to go, hesitating only a second before he grabs onto Bruce’s arm and drags him along.

Peter drags him through narrow streets and dim passages alike, passing dank alleys full of shady people who stare at them unnervingly as they pass. Bruce feels panic once again began to fill his chest when they pass a particularly dark path crowded by shadows hiding in the corner.

Bruce can say in a glance that this is much worse than the other places they passed in the way. The whole alley smells of alcohol and drugs, and the air is thick with the metallic scent of blood and the taste of vomit. He has to watch where he steps as to not put his put his foot inside the suspicious puddles on the ground, and also keep his mind away from trying to guess the contents the said puddles hold.

All around the place, there are men and women sprawled on the ground. They’re badly dressed and dirty, and all thin and pale; but there’s something different about them, something that sets off alarm bells in Bruce’s already frantic mind and warns him that these are not like the other homeless people they came across in the way, but something darker, something fouler.   

These aren’t men looking for a place to stay the night, but thieves and dealers instead, and not the sort that gets involved with crime because they have to either. They are the kind that likes spreading fear and inflicting pain, the kind that takes pride in cruelty and enjoys being wicked.

Bruce knows he must seem like easy bait with his well-worn but expensive shoes –curtesy of Tony- and clearly new coat, and is expecting one of them to jump out with a knife and threaten him any second now. It almost does happen, with people who get close enough for him to see the flash of greed and hatred in their eyes, and Bruce has to bite his lip to keep calm and not let his other half come out.

But the weird thing is, it never gets to that stage because as soon as they catch sight of peter, they quickly scrambles back to the shadows, muttering things like ‘Thought this wasn’t his district’ or ‘What the fuck is the brat doing here?’ under their breath.

Peter doesn’t react in any unusual way, and only turns to give him a small apologetic smile before quickening their pace; but Bruce can’t help but stare as this small teenager with his oversized dirty clothes and kind brown eyes scares off thugs three time his size with nothing but a look.

He doesn’t get what about Peter scares them so. The teenager looks more non-threating than even Bruce and the scientist’s been told he looks like a soft giant teddy beer. Now, he knows all about not judging a book by its cover and all that, but it’s just… the kid is so small and thin, it’s ridiculous that anyone would see him as a threat, let alone be scared of him. He looks like a normal teenager, if dressed in old and torn clothes that are far too large for his skinny frame and with hair that is a little too long and disheveled. He’s clearly a homeless kid, running from CPS most likely, and it concerns Bruce greatly to see him find his way through the maze of the dark backstreets of NY like he knows it. Like its home. Yeah, the bruises on his skin and the thinness of his arms are worrisome, but perhaps the most heartbreaking thing is the kid is too young to have any business in such shady parts of the city, and he still walks like he belongs.

“We’re here!” Peter’s cheerful voice announces and Bruce looks up to see that they’ve reached the main street while he was lost in thoughts. “Well, it was an honor Dr. Banner, I mean really, how many people can say that they ran into the Bruce Banner while hiding from the co-“ He cuts himself off with a cough, looking away from the scientist, “anyway, we’re, Um, we’re here.” He repeats awkwardly.

“Oh, Um, ye-yeah,” Bruce stutters, feeling just as awkward, “Peter, I- I don’t know how to- how to thank you but you really- Um, here,” He reaches into his pocket and takes out his wallet clumsily, holding it out to the boy, “Here. Take it. It’s nearly empty because I didn’t think I’d need much for a snack run but- Here. Think of it as my way of- of saying thank you.”

The boy takes a step back, holding up his hands. “Dr. Banner, sir! I can’t accept that! That’s too much! And anyway, I didn’t do much other than to shove you into a gap in the wall and then drag you through one of the worst districts of NY so...” He shrugs, a light blush covering the tips of his ears as the he shuffles his feet in embarrassment.

“But-“

He shacks his head firmly, “I can’t accept your money Dr. Banner.”  

“Then what about something else? like…” Bruce says desperately, looking around for anything he can give to the teen, when he notices the bag of snacks he’s still clutching in his hand. He blinks at it, as if not expecting something as normal as a bag of snacks to still be here after the surreal morning he’s just had. “Here,” He says blankly, holding up the bag of food. “It’s not very healthy but…” He shrugs helplessly.

The kid tiptoes toward him and slowly takes the bag, cautiously peeking inside. His face lights up when he sees the snacks and he quickly clutches it to his chest and takes a step back, as if afraid Bruce might try to snatch it back.

“Thank you sir,” He says with a hesitate smile, and Bruce finds himself smiling back.

“You're welcome.” He says to him, thankfully not tripping over the simple words and making a fool of himself again. Seriously, after this day he wouldn’t blame the kid if he decides that Bruce isn’t cool enough and finds a new scientist to geek over. “But are you sure that’s all you need? Maybe if you come with me to tower… Tony would be happy to reward you properly.”

But the kid is already walking away, going backwards as to not turn his back to the scientist and still hanging to the bag of food for dear life, but he smiles and this time his smile is brighter, livelier.

“There’s no need Sir!” He shouts, “Just if you end up with any extra food you didn’t need… well give me a call!”

Bruce is ninety percent sure the kid is joking, but that doesn’t stop the sudden ache in his heart as he thinks of the boy’s skinny arms and hollow cheeks. “But how do I find you?!” He shouts after the boy.

This time, there’s a laugh before the answer comes, “Just get lost in the backstreets again, I’ll find you!”

And with that, Peter is gone.

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

All the Days Ahead, Chapter 5: All The Fear And Fire Of The End Of The World

Mal x Simon, Firefly. Simon POV. Also on AO3. Ch 1-4 on my blog.

All those years of study, training, perfecting his skills...what good are they if he can’t save the man he loves? 

Simon is up to his wrists in Mal’s blood when the love of his life stops breathing.

The supplies on board are rudimentary. Even with Mal’s begrudging acquiescence to Simon’s requests the last few months, even with careful additions of whatever they've been able to scavenge during other jobs, they’re nothing like what Simon would have access to at an Alliance hospital. He can’t track Mal’s antibodies this way, or transfuse him quickly and easily. 

He’s going to have to rig a transfusion soon, easy or not. Mal lost far too much blood before they brought him back to Serenity. But that, like potential infection, is a secondary issue. In this moment, Mal isn’t breathing, and Simon can’t even use an intensive lungscan to pinpoint the origin of the problem. 

“Simon?” Inara asks from behind him. 

“He’s not breathing,” Simon says as he steels himself to begin chest compressions. “Stand back, please.”

“But--you got the bullet out. You said the weave was working.” She moves toward the doorway, giving him room. Her hands clasped tightly together aren’t joined in prayer anymore but to stop herself from rushing over where she doesn’t belong. 

“It is. And yes, the bullet’s out, but it did a lot of damage.” Simon leans in, his ear above Mal’s chest, and listens. Silence.

“Ta ma de!” he snaps out, beginning compressions. Mal’s heart should be louder than usual as the stitches tried to mend his broken skin--not difficult to hear. 

Kaylee and Zoe watch from outside the room as Simon counts out his efforts, breathing air into Mal’s lungs and pausing for a response. 

Again.

“One, two, three,” he repeats into the brittle silence of the room, palms to Mal’s heart, lips to Mal’s lips.

They have only had five months together as a couple, months spent living openly on the ship as more than a confusing crush of limbs and heat in the darkness. They’ve still been sliding past definitions, outright talk of feelings, though Simon doesn’t need to hear Mal say anything to understand his own. 

He spent so much of his life attempting to live up to expectations, and then trying to resist them to save River...he barely had time to live, before. But he has never been happier than he is on Serenity, as a fugitive with a pirate by his side. 

Simon ignores the sound of the others nearing the infirmary, drawn together the way families are during a crisis. The voices swirling beyond him are mild irritants, flies on a dusty backmoon planet. 

He will fix it. He has to fix it. He is a doctor, damn it--he is meant to heal. All those years of study, training, perfecting his skills...what good are they if he can’t save the man he loves? 

He reaches for a syringe to shock Mal’s heart into waking back up, gives it a moment to enter his bloodstream before he tries again. 

One, two, three. Air to the lungs, a prayer to the sky. Hands above the heart. Careful with compressions, the weave is still fragile.

Simon listens again, thinks maybe he hears a wheezing hint of lungs expanding. Another second and he knows he’s grasping at nothing. 

It cannot end this way. 

He gives up on prayers and looks down at Mal’s unsettlingly peaceful face, directing his demands to the man in question instead. 

“Malcolm Reynolds, I will never forgive you if you die on me. I will curse you to the outer moons and you will not rest again in whatever afterlife the galaxy has planned for you. Dong-ma?”  

Simon doesn’t realize that he has slipped into Chinese, or that he is dripping sweat onto Mal’s bare chest as he tries to force color back into him, desperate enough to bruise. All he is aware of is the one square foot of space where Mal’s heart is without its beat. 

“Come back, damn it. Don’t leave me here without you. Come back!” 

It’s that last hard push that does it, somehow--Simon doesn’t know why. While medicine is a science, not everything can be explained, certainly not the shaky line between life and death. And even the best doctors learn they’re unable to save every patient. 

He can’t claim that his love for Mal, his need for Mal, meant the difference between life and death...but Mal rejoins the world of the living, and Simon feels his own heart contract with relief and joy so intense it hurts.

“Xie-xie.” Simon sags downward, resting his hands on either side of the bed. The sound of Mal’s ragged breath is such a beautiful thing. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he adds in English, his voice a whisper. 

Simon couldn’t have said who he was thanking in that moment--though his reasons are different, he is as skeptical of religion as Mal. But he is grateful, in every language he knows, for the rise and fall of Mal’s chest. For the pulse he can see jumping along his throat, and the way his eyes are hazy but focused enough to stare at him.

“Hey,” Mal rasps. His eyebrows furrow at the grin Simon can feel stretch across his face. “Hey, where’d you go?”

Simon shook his head. “I didn’t go anywhere, but you almost did. Don’t do that again.”

“Just fell asleep for a minute. Man’s allowed to get...tired.”

His color is returning, though Simon’s fingers on his wrist find a pulse less steady than he’d like.

“You scared the living go-se out of me. I almost lost you.”

“It’s okay. I’m right here.” His voice softens, taking in the entirety of Simon’s appearance. “You really had your hands full with this one, huh? You’d think you’d be used to bullets by now, doc.”

“Bullets I can handle. Your heart stopped beating. Losing you--I don’t want to have to handle that.”

Though the others are still outside the infirmary, none of them enter. With Mal conscious again, the worst of the danger has passed--but the two men form an intimate tableau. It turns the crew into an audience, witnesses to their reunion. 

“Don’t talk crazy, you’re not gonna lose me.”

“You can’t promise that,” Simon argues, straightening up to take a deep breath. “The life you lead...we lead...it’s nothing but risk, and danger.”

“And wacky fun.”

“Gorram it, Mal. I’m not joking. You know how many times I’ve had to patch you up since we met? Do you?”

Mal blinks up at him, cautious of the brittle way Simon’s standing. “Can’t reckon I do.”

“Nineteen. Everything from a wrist fracture when your punch landed wrong, to that idiot swordfight of yours. So don’t talk to me like I’m the one who’s overreacting!”

Simon kisses him before he can respond, his mouth careful but desperate, just a second of contact. Reassurance and heat.

“I love you,” he says, and Mal’s eyes widen before they narrow. “I don’t care if you don’t want to hear it, because it makes things messy. I love you, and I want the rest of my life to be with you--preferably a life that lasts longer than the next few hours, if you can do me the kindness of staying alive.”

“I-” Mal swallows down a vague panicked sensation that tastes like pennies. “Simon, what’re you gettin’ at, exactly?”

“I’m trying to tell you that you’re too important to me to go running off and getting shot!” Simon’s relief has faded into frustration, as he watches Mal look bewildered by his intensity. 

His survival in this moment can’t keep Simon from picturing the next job-gone-wrong, the next bar fight. That future feels inevitable, and it scares him. He has to speak his mind. 

“I know we’ve been avoiding the complicated feelings side of this, this relationship. But I wouldn’t be with you, if I didn’t want it to mean something. And I think you’re the same way.”

“Well, yeah.”

He laughs at the simplicity of Mal’s answer. Well, yeah, he thinks. The Malcolm Reynolds version of a love confession.

“Why I fell for such a yu bun duh adrenaline-chasing sky pirate, I’ll never understand,” Simon mutters, as he reaches for Mal’s hand and holds on. “But I did. I love you, and I don’t ever want to go through this again.”

Mal’s nodding and about to agree, as though he can honestly control who decides to shoot at him--until his tongue freezes. It’s in good company, with the rest of him. He has to take a deep breath. “What did you just say?”

Simon's smile fades, to match the seriousness of the moment. They could die any day, right? Given that, holding back would make him the idiot in this situation. And he has always been smart.

“I said, marry me.”

[reactionaryhistorian]

Tom Corbett Space Cadet. Doomed Cargo.

My list insists that Part one of this story is missing. However, Old Time Radio Downloads has it so maybe it has been found since the list was made. We will soon be coming up to a few stories which do have missing parts which will be interesting. We start off with Captain Strong and Corbett testing a new rocket type. The designer Franklin insists that they dive into the atmosphere with engines on full power. Strong is horrified stating that this that will lead to their deaths. Franklin insists and pulls rank stating that Strong was told to perform any tests he requested. When they do so the tail of the rocket breaks off leading to a crash in which they are almost killed. However, Franklin is delighted. He states that the tail was the only part of the rocket not made of a new Vanadium alloy. This means that the test is a success and thus this alloy will soon be used to build all Rockets. However, the only large deposits of Vanadium in the solar system is on Io. Mines will have to be set up there immediately. Then we shift to two individuals who have been listening in on some sort of spy device, Walt and Lamar. Walt states he will make a fortune out of this. Lamar asks him how. Walt says that when the government mines the vanadium he will arrange for Walt to ship it to earth. He says he has influence that guarantees this. Then him and Lamar will execute an unstated plan. We shift to the new vanadium mines on Io. Captain strong and Corbett and escorting the first ship back to earth. To their horror the cargo ship captain plots a course passing right by the sun. They protest that this would lead to a high chance of disaster. Once again, however, rank is pulled and Captain Strong is threatened with court martialing if he does not obey. On the way back the Cargo ship disappears apparently being destroyed by the heat of the sun. Things go from bad to worse when they get back home. Commander Arkwright Informs them that the disappearance of the Vanadium cargo into the sun has been very upsetting for the government and they are insisting they both be court martialed! Corbett and Strong are confined for trial. However, suspicious vanadium begins appearing on the market. It becomes clear that the ship was not lost. Rather the entire dangerous route was just a cover so that they could escape with the cargo whilst making it look like it had been lost. Captain Strong and Corbett are immediately released and the Polaris crew head out to catch the hijackers. There is a fair amount of running around in space trying to track down the hijackers base. It turns out they are hiding on the dark side of Mercury, one of the coldest places in the solar system. The crew of the Polaris almost freeze to death when Walt uses an anti-electronic device to covertly knock out the heating units of their suits. However, they successfully (and rather anticlimacticly) lure the two hijackers out and arrest them. Thoughts This should have been a good story. Instead it fell into the same trap as Pursuit of Danger. The feeling one gets is of one thing happening after another without much binding it all together. The initial crash has nothing to do with the rest of the plot. The ending is also a bit of a letdown as the criminals are taken down very easily. And in between the story has something of the feel of one thing after another without much binding it. Thus, whilst it was fun to listen to it it all felt a bit pointless once finished. This annoys me because this story had such potential. With the threat of court martial we get a challenge of a sort that we haven’t seen before and not one that can be defeated in a fight. With the hints of the villain having connections in government you have the potential of a unique adversary with high up connections. There seems to be a common theme throughout the story of authorities being less reliable than they should be and how to deal with this. Twice in the story Captain Strong is given orders that he knows to be dangerous but nonetheless obeys. And the fact that it is Captain Strong, who up till now has been the authority figure of the story, who deals with this is in itself interesting. But so little is done with it. We never get any discussion of whether Captain Strong should have obeyed these orders. The government connections that Walt apparently has never amount to anything . And bafflingly the court martial threat is dropped without any action from our cast immediately after it is raised. Almost the very next scene after Commander Arkwright tells Tom and Strong they are to go on trial he summons them again and informs them that vanadium is appearing on the market and all charges are being dropped. What was the point of that? If these issues had been properly thought through it could have made for an excellent story. So how about a rewrite. The first half of the story is mostly the same. Perhaps, more attention is brought to the fact that some stupid orders are being given and Captain Strong gives the boys a talk about the neccesity of generally obeying but occasionally disobeying orders. But when the extra vanadium appears on the market, the higher ups are reluctant to take this as evidence sufficient to clear Tom and Strong. This is due to the fact that several of said higher ups are the connections that Walt mentioned. (They thought they were simply giving him a lucrative shipping contract in return for a kickback and had no idea he intended to hijack the vessel. Now they are in a complete panic over how much trouble they will be in if the truth comes to light and are desperate for a scapegoat.) Roger and Astro are determined to help their friends. They realise the only way would be to track down the hijackers. They find evidence that their the base must be on Mercury. However, to their horror when they present this to the authorities they are brushed off. The investigation is considered complete and Roger and Astro are strictly forbidden from making any further investigation inquiry. Initially Roger is frightened of disobeying orders due to the huge amount of trouble he got into for doing in Hide and Seek (OK my rewrite is extending to the previous story. Sue me). But he considers what Strong said to him earlier and comes to the conclusion that whilst there are times when orders must be obeyed there are also occasions where it is one's duty not to. Him and Astro head to Venus and track down the pirates. Since they are only two of them it feels like more of a proper fight. The truth is exposed and the corrupt officials are arrested. Voila! A version of the same basic story with a consistent theme and properly holding together. World building. We get a look at the inner workings of the economy. As past episodes have shown it contains a significant private sector but this episode demonstrates that the Public sector is also large. The mining is run by the Solar alliance although apparently not a government monopoly. One of the Villains states that “You couldn’t organise a mining exhibition to Io before the government does. Those solar alliance babies move fast” implying that it wouldn’t be illegal for a private corporation to mine there but they would be unlikely to be able to compete with the resources the government can throw at the operation. We also get to see a bit of apparent corruption. Walt is able to get Lamar the mining transportation job through unnamed connections and the way Captain Strong and Corbett are made scapegoats for the ships disappearance also doesn’t speak too well of the government. Honestly I think I already have a better feel for how the Solar Alliance economy is run than all of Star Trek gives you for the federation. Admittedly, that is easier to do without being very vague with the details when you are simply transposing something very like your own economic system into the future than if you are trying to convince people that communism is actually working. Mercury is presented as having one side pememently facing the sun and one side facing away with a small inhabited twilight zone in between. This was a common idea in science fiction at the time. Overall Rating. 6/10. I give it a slightly higher rating than Pursuit of Danger even though its problems are very similar. This is because I only really became dissatisfied with Doomed Cargo after I had finished it whilst Pursuit of Danger was unable to keep my interest even while I was listening. Next Time “ Interplanetary Space Tournament Part 1” Edit. Wrong again. That is a missing episode. Next time Ice Caves of Pluto.