#Run It Back

[fishwikipedia]

[sami-uso]

[wejustvibing]

[asthedeathoflight]

Run It Back, pt. 3

I got an ask bothering me for more run it back and while I have not managed to write more since last time (😬) I had in fact already finished chapter 3. So. Be the change you wanna see in the world guys. But also be careful what you wish for guys because um. This one is a lot. General warning for violence/police brutality.

- - -

She really tries. She makes arguments that don’t work, appeals that don’t land, says things so venomous she can’t even care if they worked because she can see in Ajax’s eyes that there isn’t anywhere for them to go even if they get home. She cries and screams and pleads and watches in silence and one time she even makes it all the way up into the Bizzies loft until one of them leans in close to her and says, “What you got a boyfriend or something? Or, like, a girlfriend or something?” before she has to close her eyes and start all over. 

None of it works. She watches, and watches, and leaves Ajax over, and over. Until she can’t do it anymore. 

She hears Ajax scream for them to run for, what, the tenth time? The fifteenth? It’s hard to remember how many times she’s done this when it’s on replay in her mind nonstop. And she can’t go. Some rope inside her that she didn’t know she was nearing the end of snaps taut. Swan reaches out for her and Rembrandt can only stare back as Mercy yanks on her other arm and drags her away. 

There are sirens down the block. This whole thing must be a setup. What do they think Ajax did? What will they write on the paperwork when they book her? The cop looks up from his radio and sees that she isn’t running. What will they write on Rembrandt’s?

He makes to walk towards her but Ajax lunges after him and hauls him back towards her. “No, don’t fucking look at her,” she snarls, “Look at me, asshole, I’m not fucking done with you.”

There’s not much she can do to him one-handed but this guy’s not really a fighter. Rembrandt just stands there watching as Ajax slams him against the bench again and kicks his feet out from under him.

This should be the part where Ajax calls it a win and leaves him gasping for breath in the street. But there’s nowhere for her to go. She twists his arm up behind his back and shoves him down over the back of the bench so he can’t get enough leverage to pull free. When she looks up and sees Rembrandt still just fucking standing there, something vital breaks in her expression. 

“Rembrandt, you gotta go.” Rembrandt has heard a lot of Ajax with hurt in her voice these past few - hours? days? weeks? - but this Ajax sounds like she’s been cracked open. She doesn’t bother saying “I’ll be alright.” They both know she won’t be.  “C’mon. For me. You gotta go.”

Rembrandt hears the crunch of leaves beneath heavy boots. There’s another cop on the scene. He comes towards her with both his arms outstretched - to placate her? To catch her if she runs? Rembrandt already knows she won’t be running. There’s nowhere to run to, except back into the arms of another fucking Ajax who will end up right here all over again. 

“Hey, Miss,” he says, “Easy, easy. I don’t wanna hurt you.”

Idiot. Like he’s even a blip on her radar. 

“Leave her alone!” Ajax shouts, “She didn’t fucking do anything!”

She sounds desperate. The new cop can hear it. He’s grinning.

And Ajax looks from him, to Rembrandt, and Rembrandt has seen more of Ajax looking gutted than she would ever care to but this time cuts to the bone. There’s nothing in the world Rembrandt could say to her that would hurt worse than this. Than having to watch. Rembrandt would know. 

“Big fucking man picking on someone who can’t fight back!” As if Ajax herself is not currently someone who can’t fight back. “Bet you can’t even throw a punch, fucking rookie nobody scared of a fight!”

The cop Ajax is holding down takes her momentary distraction to surge back up to his feet. He knocks her backwards but she can’t back off him to regroup so she’s still in arm’s reach when he turns on her. 

“Do you ever shut up?” he spits. He grabs her arms and shakes her and something about that movement makes Ajax freeze up long enough for him to slam her against the backrest. Ajax’s skull hits the metal with a crack that’s too loud and the park is quiet for a heartbeat too long. 

The new cop reaches out and catches Rembrandt by the wrist but she can’t really find it in herself to care. Her heart is too far outside her body, watching Ajax push herself back to her feet to kick the cop in the shin spitefully, ineffectively. 

He clocks her in the temple again. She shakes her head like she’s trying to get her vision to focus. There’s blood streaming from a cut by her eyebrow. He’s got her blood on his hands. 

Ajax regains enough awareness of her surroundings to realize the other cop is holding both of Rembrandt’s wrists in one hand, reaching for a set of cuffs with the other. He looks a little spooked that she isn’t moving. He’s not being as rough with her as he could be.  Ajax doesn’t seem to appreciate this. 

“No,” she says, and she can’t seem to take in enough of a breath to scream. “No, no, nonono, please, you have to let her go.”

The click of the cuffs lights the spark of panic in her again. She lashes out at the cop near her again but she’s losing coordination and he grabs her wrist before she can hit him. 

Ajax is saying Please, please, please, over and over. Rembrandt doesn't know what she's asking for. She doesn't know if Ajax knows. Her anger is collapsing into fear, now, and Ajax has always been the most dangerous when she's afraid. 

The cop hits her again, and again. She doesn't seem to register it. He kicks her feet out from under her, but she gets back up. The cop holding Rembrandt hasn't gotten any less nervous. 

People are always misjudging how strong Ajax is. She gets the cop again, kicks his legs out from under him and he hits the ground hard. He climbs back to his feet, blood dripping from his nose and mouth. 

“Need some help?” the other cop calls over to him. He shifts on his feet. 

“Crazy bitch won't stay down,” he growls. 

Of course not. Not in any universe. 

Rembrandt hears a click. It’s a familiar click. She can’t place it. 

“Hey girlie,” the cop holding her hollers. “Give it a rest. I’ll even let you guys cuddle in holding if you play nice.”

And Ajax freezes. This is a different kind of freezing than she does when she sees the cop the first time. It’s not a predator locking into the hunt. Ajax goes so still that Rembrandt places the click without having to turn around to look.

Ajax looks at the cop, and at the gun that Rembrandt doesn’t want to see, and then she looks at Rembrandt. 

Every scrap of defiance in her evaporates. She looks as hurt and bewildered now as she does when Rembrandt goes for the jugular to get her out of the park. Her face settles, at last, into betrayal. 

Rembrandt can hear her quiet, broken, why? without Ajax moving a muscle. Why didn’t you run? Why are you letting them do this to me? 

Ajax just watches mutely as the cop twists her arm behind her back, turns her around so he can get her other wrist into a cuff with it. 

Ajax doesn’t understand that it’s too late for Rembrandt to run, it’s always too late, the moment they get to the park it’s already too late. But as Ajax stares back at her Rembrandt can’t swallow past the idea that this is worse. Ajax twitches a little bit when the cop finally uncuffs her from the bench to drag her over to where there must be a cruiser waiting behind them. Rembrandt hasn’t turned around to check this whole time. 

Rembrandt isn’t supposed to be here. She’s not supposed to see this. The specter of defeat Rembrandt has seen in flashes across Ajax’s face has closed its jaws around her now. 

Rembrandt has seen a lot, but she can’t watch this. 

Rembrandt closes her eyes and prays for once that the dark, weightless moment doesn’t end. She’s tired. She doesn’t want to wake up. But in that shapeless darkness the lonely animal of Rembrandt’s body can’t resist reaching, searching, needing to feel the proof of her next chance. As Ajax materializes under her, Rembrandt turns away from the subway car and tucks her head into Ajax’s neck, nestling closer into her body. The train rumbles, the Warriors murmur to each other in blissful ignorance of what’s coming for them, and Rembrandt just stays there for a long time. 

- - -

Okay thanks so much for reading guys hope you're having a good time I'm gonna go finish chapter four now I promise

[moppynoko]

[meowsalah]

[azpiiicueta]

[leclercskiesahead]

Eyes only for each other

[sucka99]

[flyhighisco]

3 goals in extra time? i’ve seen that before 👀

[syrupoison]

[asthedeathoflight]

Run It Back pt. 1

Hello everybody. I am of the opinion that every stage play is kind of already a time loop. However. They can always afford to be MORE of a timeloop. Welcome to Rembrandt's horrible terrible no good very bad night that just will not stop happening.

-----

Afterwards, Rembrandt goes down to the water. The sun glints off the gentle waves. It all looks the same. It shouldn’t. Everything is different now. Rembrandt leaves her shoes on the sand, rolls her jeans up past her knees.

The water is achingly cold. She starts to feel numb almost immediately. It’s not enough. It runs up over her ankles and it’s still not enough. 

She takes another step into the water. She wishes she’d stopped Fox from getting off the fucking train. Keeps walking. It’s starting to soak the cuffs of her jeans. She doesn’t care. She wishes she’d stopped Ajax from talking to that fucking cop. It’s getting harder to walk now, with the water pushing against her thighs. 

It’s dark, and cold, and empty, and as Rembrandt stares out into it she can only see herself. She watches a wave form a few dozen feet out. She’s too tired to get out of the way. She wishes they’d never gone to the Bronx at all. 

The sunlight dances on the foam at the crest of the wave. 

She wishes-

The train rumbles beneath her feet like a living animal. Her body feels numb, like she’s been in one position so long she can no longer tell what that position is. Rembrandt stirs just a little, trying to feel out the boundaries of her body. She feels another body against hers, she’s leaning on someone’s shoulder, she remembers this, she’s-

“Hey,” Ajax whispers to her. “Wake up.”

She opens her eyes, and there’s the train. There’s Fox looking out the window. There’s Ajax, looking down at her with the beginnings of a smile in her eyes. 

Rembrandt sits up straighter, looking around the car. That really is Fox at the window. That’s Swan, without the hole she tore in her jeans running from the Turnbull ACs. 

The world feels like an optical illusion. She remembers getting on the train,sitting down next to Ajax,letting the familiar sounds of the Warriors bantering around her fade into background noise as she closed her eyes. But right under that, she remembers the gunshot. She remembers running. 

She shakes her head a little, but that just makes her dizzy. “Where are we?” she asks. 

“Um,” Ajax says, looking around. 

“Just crossed the river into the Bronx,” Cleon answers from where she’s sitting across from them. “Have a nice nap?”

It had been, actually. Rembrandt remembers that she woke up a little woozy at first, but she’d felt bright and awake and quick on her feet by the time they got to the meeting. The blood is turning to ice in her veins. Something is wrong. 

Cleon is looking concerned now. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Rembrandt says, and doesn’t quite hear herself. 

Everything feels like it’s in slow motion, or like she’s underwater. The scene before her keeps drifting in and out of deja vu. Swan is staring stonily at the other wall, blocking out all the chatter around her. That’s familiar. That’s in focus, in both her memories. But Ajax ducks into her frame of vision, looking worried, and that isn’t right. She can still sort of see Ajax leaning back in her seat, laughing at whatever Rembrandt said when she woke up the first time. 

She bumps Ajax with her shoulder. “Had a bad dream,” she says. 

The train is pulling into their stop. Swan springs out of her chair. “We’re here,” she announces to the car. 

Ajax gets up and gives Rembrandt a hand to pull her out of her seat. 

They step out onto the platform. Rembrandt looks up at the night sky, grey clouds glowing with city lights. The afterimage of blood stains it red. If it was a bad dream, she’s still having it. 

Rembrandt is shaking by the time they make it to the park. She can’t help it. She’s not really cold or anxious, but there’s an electric current in her limbs and she can’t calm it down. They see the crowd in the distance. Rembrandt hears the gun. She can’t do this. 

When Rembrandt stops walking, Ajax bumps into her. 

“Hey,” she says, worried, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Rembrandt shakes her head and immediately feels seasick. “It’s nothing,” she insists. 

She stares at the ground and tries to focus on breathing. She hears Cleon say, “Okay,” and knows she and Ajax must have been having some silent conversation over her head. 

Ajax reaches down to take her hand, and then they’re walking in the opposite direction from the meeting. 

Rembrandt looks up in confusion. “Where-”

“Hey, hey, shh,” Ajax says, “It’s cool. They’ll tell us what happened after.” 

Ajax leads her to sit down on the steps of a building on the edge of the park. Rembrandt remembers a beat too late that she was supposed to say, “Don’t fucking shush me.”

Rembrandt blinks at the trees, the streetlights, Ajax crouching down in front of her. Now that she’s diverged from the phantom memories completely, it’s easier to focus on the present. Ajax looks really worried. 

“I’m fine,” Rembrandt breathes, “I told you, it was just a weird dream.”

“Okay,” Ajax agrees, not sounding convinced. 

Rembrandt huffs out a laugh. “Fuck you,” she says, “You just wanted to skip the meeting.”

Ajax laughs and sits down next to her. “Maybe.”

Rembrandt nudges her with her shoulder. “Look at us,” she says, “We’re in the Bronx.”

Ajax exhales. “I was expecting… more.”

“More?”

“I dunno. It’s really not that different from Brooklyn, is it?”

Rembrandt rolls her eyes. “How are you a small-town girl in the biggest city in the country?”

“Hey!” Ajax says in mock-offense, “I’ve never been out of Brooklyn! This is big for me!”

“Oh, sorry,” Rembrandt says, dripping with sarcasm, “I forgot I was a world traveler. I’ve been to New Jersey.”

Ajax tries to shove her, but Rembrandt is ready for it, so she manages to stay upright. Ajax is laughing despite herself, and Rembrandt is laughing too. The deja vu feeling isn't as bad now. That other version of tonight seems overexposed, the colors too vivid and the sequence of events improbable. It really does seem like a bad dream, now. In the amber light of the streetlamps, Rembrandt can’t even piece the events into a coherent narrative. 

She breathes out. 

“Thank you,” Rembrandt says, “For staying with me.”

Ajax raises an eyebrow at her. “Like I can trust you off on your own.” 

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Ajax says, “Sure. You’re welcome.”

She sits back on her hands, absently scanning the perimeter of the park. Rembrandt tries to imagine that it could always be like this. This was Cyrus’ dream, right? The two of them in their crew vests on a block in the Bronx, unafraid. 

As they sit and watch, a quartet of men in matching hand-knit sweaters appear and make their way towards the meeting. Bizzies, says a voice in Rembrandt’s brain. She tries to shrug it off. One of them locks eyes with Ajax. After a moment, he nods. She nods back. 

Cyrus hasn’t even spoken yet, but here’s peace, already starting. The voice speaks up. It hasn’t happened yet. 

No, no “yet.” Wait it out. Breathe through it. It’s just the same as every other time Rembrandt has ever been convinced everything is about to go horribly wrong.

It hasn’t happened yet, but it will. Rembrandt inhales, exhales, feels the roughness of the concrete under her. Leans closer to Ajax. 

“Aw,” Ajax says, “Are you cold?”

Yes. No. She’ll warm up soon, when she has to run. Rembrandt nods. Ajax puts an arm around her. They wait there, Rembrandt trying to melt into Ajax so she doesn’t have to deal with whatever the fuck is going wrong in her brain.

Rembrandt feels the countdown in her mind. She can see the other her, on the edge of the crowd, watching Cleon watch Cyrus, starting to understand that tonight means something. She can feel the future bearing down on her. 

It’s not real. It’s some sort of fucking hallucination. It’s nerves. Rembrandt closes her eyes. She wraps her arm around Ajax’s shoulder under her jacket.

She hears the gunshot. 

Rembrandt nearly falls over when Ajax leaps to her feet. It was just as loud, this time. Maybe louder. Ajax looks back at her. 

“Get the fuck up,” she says, “That came from the meeting, fuck, we gotta go.”

Rembrandt doesn’t move. 

“What the fuck,” Ajax hisses, “Get up.”

She grabs Rembrandt’s arm and hauls her to her feet. Rembrandt doesn’t want to go, but Ajax is moving, and fuck Rembrandt is not going to be left alone on this fucking corner. 

So Rembrandt runs. 

The crowd has imploded. They need to get out of there. The cops are going to show up soon. They need to find the others. Rembrandt tries to remember what happened the first time. The noise of both sets of memories is deafening. Ajax stops at the edge of the crowd. Why isn’t she moving? They need to run, they need to get to the gate, Cochise told them they needed to get to the gate. They're on a different side of the park. Rembrandt can't figure out what direction the cemetery is from here.

Someone on the edge of the crowd turns around and sees them. He looks desperate, hungry. Ajax sees him seeing her, but her face is still all confusion, she doesn’t know, she wasn’t there, how could she think he’d blame her?

Ajax doesn’t know. He stalks forward, lunges to grab her by the arm. 

“Hey, what the fuck?!” Ajax barks, but she’s off balance, she’s not prepared, because she wasn’t there. 

“Warrior,” the man roars, and heads turn at that. Rembrandt sees Ajax, now, seeing them see her. She sees Ajax as she was - will be? - looking at the cop. She knows what Ajax looks like staring down a fight she won’t win. 

“Rembrandt,” Ajax says loudly, not looking at her. If Ajax looks at her, they’ll see her. “Run.”

Rembrandt can’t leave her again. She can’t watch this again. They should’ve stayed with the others. The other night was better than this.

Everything is so wrong. She wishes-

And the train is rumbling beneath her feet. 

Ajax is smiling at her again. There’s a third groove on the record. Rembrandt sits up. She feels the drum beat of the other nights. “Okay,” she says. 

“Okay?” Ajax is still smiling, amused. 

Rembrandt doesn’t look at her. She doesn’t want to see the cop. 

She gets out of her seat. She wants to ask, “Are we almost there?”, but she knows. 

She stomps her feet a little bit to wake them up. 

Okay. She gets the picture. It’s game time. 

Rembrandt stays at the edge of the crowd. She braces herself for the gunshot. She takes Ajax by the hand, and she runs.

-----

I think this thing is gonna be eight chapters long? I've already got two more written. We shall see how it goes. Also I'm experimenting with this whole posting directly on tumblr thing bc it looks fun.

[peppoco]

howdy, i’m jem/bugs (๑･̑◡･̑๑)

queer nigerian artist and DID system

she/her and it/its. plural they/them only please

literal goat. demon critter

bisexual aromantic girlthing

i draw furries and animate sometimes. hoping to publish a graphic novel !!! you can usually find me obsessively reblogging elliott from stardew valley but i have other interests i swear i like bluey and blues clues and snoopy and moomin and rottmnt but if you want more of what i like it’s on my carrd

we might tag posts with who’s fronting but for the most part, please just address all of us as jem or bugs :]

asks and requests always open, i wanna try and interact more here

basic dni applies, basically don’t be a jerk and we’re good. terfs and pro-shits fuck off and die. do not involve me in system discourse or i’ll kill you. pro-israel blogs can fuck right off.

feel free to tell me if i reblogged a post from someone gross

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tags guide under the cut

#peppoco.png = art and animation

#peppoco.mp4 = just animation

#peppoco.txt = just my text posts

#peppoco’s archive = makeshift save folder

#peppoco.fave = favorites

#peppoco.exe = vent tag (rare. will also just use #vent cw

#we just got a letter = inbox asks. also under #peppoco.inbox

#it’s a queuesmas miracle = queue tag maybe. but i don’t queue

#run it back = reblogs of art (bumps)

original character tags:

#Bibbysitting = Apollei, Peris, and Daize, girls in a polycule raising a demon

#LAG0M0RPH-4 = Constantine, Bonnibel, Elvira; bunny sisters surviving an apocalypse

#A Foxtrot Away = Foxtrot the live stuffed animal toy fox and Bolide the star guiding them back home to his person

#Vinyl and Marbles = Vinyl the bat and Marbles the cat who get into mischief on their home island

#peppoco’s OCs = other ocs like for D&D or other miscellaneous things

[imisseveryoneiveevermet]

[tvmusiclife]

nwsl screenwriters were doing sooooo good with this final!!! now who tf wrote in "pinoe goes down in the 3'"