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luxaofhesperides · 1 year ago

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Ghostlight!

"You came?" "You called."

Danny in trouble, Duke to the rescue! (Or it can be reversed!) Maybe they've been online friends or met in person once and bonded over both having all these unexpected powers. Slightly angst.

There was never a point when Danny thought he would need the panic button Duke gave him.

It was a sweet gesture, a way for Duke to show that he cared for Danny and wanted him to be safe. Never mind that Danny can take care of himself, heals quickly from most wounds, and has been the protector, not the protected, ever since the Accident. If it makes Duke feel better, than Danny was more than happy to keep it on him as a token of affection.

The cultists, however, caught him off guard.

Danny would be embarrassed about being nabbed off the streets so easily if the people who took him weren’t cultists lead by the daughter of a GIW agent, one who disapproved of the scientific approach the GIW took towards ectoplasmic entities and had turned to mystic arts as a way to defy her father. Which, usually, Danny would be all for striking out against the strict expectations of parents and their unwillingness to listen to their kids in any serious manner, but not this time. Not when it ends with him slowly waking up after they chloroformed him, curled up in some magic circle, surrounded by black candles and blue flame, and something in the air that smells of blood blossoms.

There are voices speaking, but he can’t make out what they’re saying over the pounding in his head, his heartbeat stuttering in his chest with each gasping breath he takes.

Whatever they’re doing, whatever’s got him bound in the circle, makes his blood feel like its been lit aflame, agony coursing through his veins. He tries to grit his teeth and bare it, but it doesn’t become any more manageable.

No, it gets worse the longer he’s awake.

Danny tries to move, tries to get to his feet, but all he can do is curl up tighter, a sob forcing its way out of his throat.

“I know you’ve got some connection to Phantom,” he hears someone say, both by his ear and so far away he can barely make out the words. Danny whines, trying to insist that they’re wrong, he’s got nothing to do with phantom, but the voice continues. “Come on, cooperate with us and this will end sooner for you. You can’t lie about this; you wouldn’t be feeling anything if there was no connection.”

A hand brushes against his forehead, burning hot, and Danny turns his face towards the ground trying to move away from it.

“I knew ghosts had to have some tie to the living world. And a living anchor would make the ghost stronger… If only dad would listen to me.” The voice sighs, and the words help him put the pieces together and realize this is the daughter of the GIW agent that came closest to finding him when he first ran to Gotham.

It’s been close to a year since then. He thought they’d stopped looking.

Really, he should have known better.

The hand leaves his forehead and he hears the leader bark out an order. Voices surround him, chanting, as they rise out of the dark.

A red glow begins to fall on everything, enough that Danny can see it through his barely open eyes. A shudder runs through him, and he feels his transformation try to begin.

NO, he thinks desperately. He tries to force it down but it fights against him. It’s agony, pain on a molecular level, the feeling of dying over and over and over again.

NO, he thinks, STOP I DON’T WANT TO DIE SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME.

And then, unbidden, a single word rising in his mind. Duke.

Duke will help him if he knows Danny needs help. Duke has been kind and welcoming and helped Danny find his footing in Gotham, never judging and always quietly offering a hand in support. He’s the person Danny’s closest to in Gotham, someone dear to him, a light in the dark.

He gave Danny a panic button.

Contrary to popular thought, Danny isn’t an idiot. He knows Duke is the Signal. A few too many incidents where Duke had disappeared and the Signal appeared to save him tipped him off. It didn’t help that Duke acted the same in and out of costume, and he always, always grabbed Danny first at the elbow, then slid his hand down to his wrist.

Besides, who else gives panic buttons to their friends? Danny would have done the same to Sam and Tucker if they weren’t always attached at the hip. He’s a (former) teenage vigilante too, he knows how being involved in this kind of thing invites trouble into the rest of his life.

Duke can help him. He’s a hero. He’s saved Danny before.

He’s his friend. Danny trusts (wants to trust, so badly) that Duke will help him even when he’s not fully human, fully alive.

With trembling hands, he reaches into his jacket, to the panic button. It’s a simple necklace with an unassuming metal rectangle dangling off of it. It’s flat and thin, but the top gives way to a button that Danny clicks three times in quick succession.

He waits a moment, trying to breathe through the pain, and clicks it three times again.

Please hurry, Duke, he thinks, hand falling limply to the ground.

“Let’s try this, instead,” the leader says, and the chanting falls to a quiet murmur to give way to her voice as she begins reciting something.

It starts at his feet. They cramp up suddenly, then pain crackles up his bones like lightning, digging deep into him. It feels as if a thousand knives dig into his abdomen, cutting in deep and twisting.

Danny chokes on his breath, then screams, trying futilely to scramble away. All it does is make him writhe on the ground, back arching enough that he can feel the strain of it on his spine, but it doesn’t matter because he’s forcing down his transformation again, smothering Phantom as much as he can.

His breath mists out before him. His fingers go numb, frost spreading across the floor.

Tears slip down his face as Danny pants for breath.

It hurts. It hurts like nothing has ever hurt before, but he refuses to give in. If they find out he’s Phantom, they’ll only do worse.

Please, he thinks again, deliriously.

As if hearing him, a window shatters above him and the cultists break off in screams.

Forcing his eyes open, Danny squints through he tears and watches as the shadows around them rise up, roiling, and crash against the cultists. The force of it knocks them down, leaving them to claw desperately at their faces as the shadows cover their nose and mouths, cutting off their air. The leader is yelling, rage clear in her voice, shooting out magic spells at the Signal.

The Signal is usually a friendly figure. He’s safe, something whose meer presence makes people feel safe. His smile means everything’s alright and when it’s directed to Danny, he feels like nothing bad can ever happen to him again.

The Signal isn’t smiling now.

He’s furious, expressionless and stone cold, bashing away the spells with shadows or light, advancing on the leader like an avenging angel come to deliver justice.

He takes her out with hard hits, striking methodically. It’s not quick. She doesn’t get the kindness of being knocked out; no, he snaps a wrist, breaks her nose, slams her down on the ground and cuts off her air with a knee until her struggles die off and she’s left limp on the floor.

When he rises, surrounded by shadows still moving restlessly, illuminated only by the flicker blue flames of the candles, he should look terrifying.

All Danny feels is relief so sharp it worries him that his chest was cleaved in half without him noticing until now. He shivers against the floor, too weak to reach out to the Signal.

It’s a good thing he doesn’t have to.

The Signal picks him up with careful hands, checking him over for injuries.

“Duke,” Danny murmurs, slurring a bit. The torture is definitely at fault for it, but the sudden absence of all that pain doesn’t help him sound any more coherent. “You came.”

“You called,” Duke says, “Of course I came. I’ve been looking for you for hours. You never showed up for our study date and I know you always try to reach out if you can’t make it. I’m just sorry I didn’t find you sooner.”

“S’okay, ‘m not mad. Was scared, but you made it better. The panic button…”

“It’s how I found you. I’m so glad you were wearing it today.”

Danny tries to smile, but the most he can manage is a twitch of his lips before his head tips forward to rest against Duke’s armored shoulder. “I always wear it.”

Duke’s grip on him tightens for a moment, then he begins walking, taking Danny away from the magic circles and the prone bodies of the cultists who had watched him be tortured and decided to keep going. Danny shudders again, his entire body aching. His transformation is still fighting to come out, but it’s not as strong anymore.

“Let’s get out of here,” Duke says into his ear. “I’ll take you to the hospital.”

“No! No hospitals, please. I can’t let them know… they’ll find me…”

Duke shushes him soothingly, tucking him more securely against his chest. “Alright, Danny. No hospitals. But I am going to call Batman for a pick up to get you to one of the people we trust for medical care.”

“But Batman doesn’t work in the day.” Danny’s too exhausted to sound confused, but it must go through anyways. Duke laughs lowly, and the sound helps unwind the last of his nerves coiled up tight in fear.

“Danny, it’s well into the night. You were gone for hours. Longest hours of my life.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles,

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault. Hang on, Batman’s nearly here.”

In any other circumstance, Danny would be excited to meet another hero. Especially Batman, one of the original heroes of the modern age. But all he wants is to go somewhere safe so he can curl up and cry, then sleep for three days before he pretends to be a normal human again. Ideally, he’d stay with Duke until he felt safe again, but he doesn’t want to take Duke away from the city that needs him.

His ears perk up a bit when he hears the smooth rumble of an engine stop in front of them. A door opens with a click without Duke needing to grab the handle, and then Danny is carefully being deposited in the back seat.

“Wait,” he says, trying to grab for Duke’s arm only to have his fingers fumble and grab nothing. Duke doesn’t move away, though, and instead grabs Danny’s seeking hand. “Stay? Please? I just—” his voice shudders, cracks, fractures apart. “I just want to feel safe.”

There’s a pause, a stillness in the air, before Duke says, “Okay. I’ll stay.” And then he’s sliding into the backseat, pulling Danny in to lean against him, curl into his embrace.

“Signal,” Batman’s low, gravelly voice says. There’s something in his tone that makes Danny tense up, prepared to take off, and his transformation pushes at his skin, ready to come out.

“He knows who I am, B,” Duke replies. “He’s trustworthy. Besides, just because he knows me doesn’t mean he knows you.”

“We will be discussing this later,” Batman says, dark promise in his voice. It’s just how he talks, Danny’s sure, too used to years of making himself the scariest thing in the dark. That doesn’t change the fact that Batman can be terrifying, and Danny can’t imagine he’ll take kindly to the fact that Danny knows Duke’s identity.

Fear slithers up his spine, and he can’t stop the transformation this time. The rings of white light flash over his body in a second, leaving Phantom in his place.

Danny lets go of his legs first, glad to be free from their aching weight, and without a body made of flesh and bone, the hurt begins to fade away until it’s just an unpleasant memory.

“What—” Duke starts to say just as Batman says, “Signal—”

They must have some sort of silent exchange. There’s only a heavy tension in the car and the barely audible rumble of the engine as they drive towards their destination, whatever it may be. Danny sinks into Duke some more, sighing in relief as a hand comes up to card through his wispy white hair.

“Danny,” Duke says, “What’s this?”

“It’s why they hurt me,” he mumbles against Duke’s chest. “It’s why they keep hunting me down. I want them to leave me alone. I’m tired.”

Embarrassingly, his voice cracks on the last word and more tears fall down his cheeks. He hears Duke move, and then hands, bare and gloveless, wipe his tears away with a gentleness that makes his heart ache.

“They won’t be able to hurt you again. You’ll be safe from now on, Danny, I swear it.”

“S’okay if I get hurt,” he says, “It always happens. Promise to save me if this happens again?”

“I’ll do whatever I can to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But if it does, then I promise to always save you. I gave you that panic button, didn’t I? As long as you keep it, I’ll always find you.”

“You’re a good person, Duke,” Danny says, voice falling quieter as his exhaustion catches up to him. “I’m glad I met you.”

He thinks he feels a soft touch to the top of his head. A kiss, maybe, though it’s not likely. But he wants comfort, and he’s endured a lot a pain so he allows himself to hope and be delusional. With the warm that spreads through him from Duke’s soft kiss to his head, Danny gives in to the siren call of slumber.

“Get some sleep, Danny,” Duke says, voice hushed. “I’ll stay with you as long as you need.”

I know, he doesn’t say, too tired to open his mouth again, You’re always here. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

He falls asleep easily after that. There’s nothing in the world that can hurt him while he’s in Duke’s arms. He’s never been safer.

#ghostlights #dc x dp #dp x dc #dcxdp #dpxdc #dp x dc fanfic #dc x dp fic #prompt fill #my writing #didnt quite get into it but duke and danny bond after always being in the library together!! they decide to study together and grow close #danny def has a crush but hes stressing out abt too much to think much on it.duke is crushing HARD and flirts with him as both duke & signa #anyways danny has mentioned that he's running away from people who want to hurt him and is safe in gotham for now #hes absolutely going to have to answer a lot of questions after he wakes up in the batcave with duke asleep on a chair next to him #batman in that car ride worried abt the identity breach and then mentally practicing his shovel talk bc he knows duke and danny are gonna #end up together. they're just acting soooo close and enamoured and kinda like him and (literally so many options. all of them ig)#danny is going to wake up. freak out. be interrogated. be given protection. and get a date all before alfred manages to get him to eat #good for him :)#thanks for the prompt!!

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toxintouch · 1 month ago

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yk how in veres likes on his character sheet it says he like cooking (badly)…… WHY HAS NO ONE DONE A FIC ABOUT THAT YET‼️⁉️⁉️ THAT SHOULD NOTTT BE A WASTED OPPORTUNITY. i’m not even joking im ab to send this to so many people because i can’t let this go to waste 😞

Here u are anon! For the record, you are completely free to send this prompt around wherever you’d like! It was such a fun idea, I’d love to see more takes on it. ^^

Warnings: Vere talking Innuendos? Innuendos. So many, and I don’t guarantee that they are funny lol. Just a general silly vibe and imo: absolutely tooth rotting fluff.

‧₊˚ ⋅ 𓐐𓎩 ‧₊˚ ⋅SOUS CHEF ‧₊˚♡₊˚

You find yourself wandering through Lowtown during the lunch hour, trying to decide what sounds like a good meal.

Your mouth waters at the scents being carried on the breeze, a plethora of pleasant aromas wafting out of the eateries nestled inside the Amaryllis District, so fragrant that you can smell them all the way down on the bustling streets of Lowtown as long as you stay downwind.

However, if there’s one nice thing about knowing Leander it's that you also know you don’t have to go that far (or spend that much) for a delicious lunch.

Near enough to the Wet Wick, there’s a series of side streets that make up an eclectic amalgamation of Lowtown and the Amaryllis District, and in it: a small and inconspicuous eatery. The menu changes often, though you aren’t sure if that’s out of innovation or necessity, but the food is always filling and reasonably priced.

You follow the winding streets, getting lost for a brief moment before correcting your course, traveling until you see colorful chipped girih tiles and wide, clean windows. You let yourself into the shop, the now familiar sound of hinges in need of an oiling welcoming you.

There’s an assortment of goods on display–jars of honey and spiced fruit and loaves of braided bread with seeds–all kept safely locked away beneath an enchanted pane of glass.

Looking around, though, you don’t see anyone selling said fantastic wares.

You call out, expecting the shop keep or her wife to come running but instead you hear…silence.

Followed by a loud metallic clatter.

You freeze, unsure what to do, what the threat is–if there’s even a threat?–but before you can make up your mind, you’re greeted by a most unexpected sight.

Vere comes out of the kitchen area, his hair swept into an artfully stunning up-do that reveals the long line of his neck and clavicle, blemished only by the heavy collar locked around his throat.

He’s wearing a weighty linen apron over his clothing, presumably to protect his outfit, though–his long gossamer sleeves are completely discordant with the notion, making you think that maybe the apron is more of an aesthetic choice.

“What’s this–? A mouse? In my kitchen?” Vere asks playfully as you continue to stare, dumbfounded. He wields a spatula in his hand like a weapon–swatching it into his off-hand like a riding crop with a decisive snap.

“Where is–?”

“–The shop keep? Wherever she pleases–the shop’s closed on Mondays.”

(You really don’t like the way he’s watching you… Or the way he keeps inching closer…)

You take a step backwards, your eyes never leaving his. “Oh,” you say, bandaged hands reaching blindly behind you. “I didn’t realize. The door was unlocked, so…” You trail off.

You find the doorknob at last. You attempt to turn it only to find that it won’t budge.

“Was it?”

Vere saunters up to you, tail swaying behind him. You manage to tear your eyes away from his predator stare to search for possible exits, though you know for a fact you won’t be fast enough. You look back and he’s already in your space, crowding you against the entryway.

(He smells really good, actually. Like leather and spice and the subtle cling of perfume and incense. And beneath that, something–earthy–animalistic, but in a way that’s intoxicating as opposed to unpleasant.)

“I was just about to make myself a snack–how nice that a snack came to me.”

“Stop playing around.” You try to steel yourself and inject the perfect amount of scolding into your voice while combating his heated stare. “I know you’re just fucking with me to try and get a reaction; you and I both know you’re not going to eat me.”

If he was, he would have done it by now. Sometime within the weeks you’ve known him. …Probably.

Unless he just likes to play with his food.

“I didn’t realize you knew me so well,” he says, looking amused. “Perhaps I didn’t plan to, but now I simply can’t resist. You look so absolutely delectable, how could I possibly contain myself?”

You don’t get the chance to reply. Vere’s countenance changes suddenly–you watch his ears flatten a second before you hear the screaming whistle of a teapot. His ears twitch in annoyance at the sound, his perfectly sculpted face showing a sour sneer. He gives you a sideways glance, calculating.

“Then again. I find myself in need of a sous chef. Congratulations on your promotion. Come along now.” He hooks a finger into your cloak and pulls you easily into the kitchen. (To be fair, you don’t struggle. Anyone would want to see where this is going, right?)

He releases you once you’ve crossed over the threshold, waving his fingers uncaringly towards a second apron affixed to a hook on the wall as he beelines to remove a glass teapot from the stove and stifle the noise. He moves quickly as you watch, casually throwing aside the spatula in his hand in favor of an ornate silver teaspoon. He measures a vibrantly colored tea into the inlaid steeping container of the equally ornate teapot and takes a pleased inhale as the tea’s fragrance blooms, humming as he flips over a delicate hourglass to keep track of the steeping time.

There’s silence for a moment–

Him watching the teapot and you watching him.

“Well?” He asks, without looking up. You’ve seen this look before, you think – this pensive, almost lonesome look that makes your heart ache against all better judgment. “Staying or going?”

He grins when you put on the apron. You search his face for some sincerity, but he’s all sharp teeth and tall ears, covering any glimpses of deeper emotion with a sheen of smugness. He circles you once you have the apron on, taking in the image.

“Mm, don’t you just look adorable. Very domesticated.”

You’re pretty sure that the word he’s looking for is domestic. But of course, he knows what he said and he meant to say it. You decide that he’s probably betting on your correction, already armed with a witty retort. You smooth the apron down while pointedly looking away, deciding that you won’t give him the satisfaction. You hear him chuckle.

Since you’re avoiding looking at Vere, you look around the kitchen for the first time.

It’s a spacious workspace–moreso than the storefront, even. There’s a large iron stove unlike anything you’ve ever seen, covered with magical runes and dials, with a large hearth built into the belly of it. A plethora of pots and pans have been placed on the burners, left to sizzle and pop in the red hot heat.

Oil is singing from the heated, shallow basins but you don’t see anything cooking inside.

There’s a slab of meat diced into neat squares and a heaping bowl of lumpy batter set to the side of the stove top.

“What are you making?” You ask, trying to make sense of the scene.

“Panko crusted fish filet. And there’s a pasta in the oven. For dessert, I was thinking–” he gives you a sly look, one that makes your ears feel warm, “hmm, well. I just had a much better idea in regards to dessert.” He makes a show of licking his fangs, the movements of his tongue slow and sensual.

You think you tied your apron too tight; your airway is feeling a little constricted. It seems to be getting worse the longer you watch.

You clear your throat, tearing your eyes away. More ingredients, most partially prepared, and a host of dirtied pots and pans greet you. You turn your back to him as you explore, fully engrossed in all of the views that the mess of a kitchen has to offer. You’re almost afraid to ask: “So, what am I here to help with?”

“Oh?” You don’t hear Vere come up next to you, but you feel him brushing up against you. “Does my darling sous chef require…instruction? A guiding hand, so to speak?” You freeze, feeling his breath against your ear, shivers running down your spine at his light and teasing chuckle.

But then he’s breezing past you, making a wide dramatic gesture toward the large tome perched surreptitiously on the counter. “Lucky for you, I’ve a recipe.” His tail wags swishes elegantly behind him as he beams with pride.

His tail knocks the whisk out of the mystery batter beside the fish filet but he takes no notice.

Vere hops gracefully up onto the counter, reaching for the batter. He does an impressive twist in order to grab hold of another whisk and you take the time to appreciate that. Then, with Vere occupied and seemingly ignoring you, you take a look at the recipe book.

The text is old and withered with the occasional dash of sprawling spidery script painting the margins. (Said writing is utterly illegible–you’re actually not sure if it’s in a language you can read, though if you squint you think you can see something that looks like the word ‘cake’.) The page it’s opened to is ripped in half, rendering precious steps of the recipe lost to time. You spot a mysterious bite mark piercing through the corner of the leather cover.

And can’t stop yourself from surreptitiously glancing over at Vere. He’s moved on from the batter (which looks as lumpy as it did a minute ago) and is now eating skewers of raw fish with his nails.

“You’re not supposed to eat while you cook,” you say, the time worn words out of your mouth before you can examine your personal stance on them.

“Says who? Some limp dick? No shame in indulging, pet.”

“You’re not even gonna have anything left to cook,” you warn.

“Hum, sounds like my sous chef should get to work covering them in batter instead of just standing there before I eat them all.”

You roll your eyes, but follow through with instructions. The space is unfamiliar and your movements are slow and unsure with Vere looming over you from his perch on high, watching.

One of the pans of oil gives an ominous pop. “Hmm, sounds like it’s hot enough,” says Vere. “Move over.”

“Is that safe?”

“For me,” Vere says simply. “And it’s faster. Now stand further back or you'll get splattered–and not in the fun way.” Idly, he tosses a batter covered filet into the shallow pan. The resulting hiss makes you both cringe.

As if on queue, the hourglass for the tea gives a gentle chime, lighting up with a golden glow. (You’re beginning to wonder how this humble shop can afford all these magical items, but then again this is the city of secrets. You’re probably better off not knowing.) Vere’s ears perk up, pleased. He tosses the remaining fillets in the pan without a fuss, setting lids on top of each to contain the oil, acting as if doing so is going to stop any potential disaster.

Main course forgotten, he moves on to digging something out from inside one of the many cupboards. “Be a dear and cut this for me, will you?” He hands you a delicate peach before heading to the tea pot, stirring the contents and adding what must be a priceless amount of honey.

The peach in your hand is overripe but still vibrant–amazing, as you haven’t seen fresh fruit at all since you came to Eridia. Your mouth waters anew as you remember what led you here in the first place–your quest for a meal–and you’re almost tempted to take a bite, follow Vere’s advice and sink your teeth in.

“My, my. I’m almost jealous. I thought you only looked at me like that.”

Vere shushes the denial from your lips, bossing you around regarding how he wants the peach sliced before shooing you out of his way and finishing his remaining tea preparations,with the look of an artist at work. The tea is a warm oolong color, made only more alluring once the infusion of peach is complete.

It’s refreshing, too, once Vere serves it to you over ice.

You can almost ignore the great plumes of smoke coming from the oven.

Vere cooks how others might enjoy a leisurely stroll.

Which is to say, he seems to be having fun, but you’re not convinced he intends on really going anywhere. Still, there’s a rhythm to it–a dance, though he leads you in expected loops and turns, changes the tune at a moment's notice. He’ll get bored of the task at hand and find some new spice to peruse, demand you taste test an ingredient or give your opinion on a dizzying new flavor he’s concocted.

(He manages to convince you to sample a bit of cucumber soup from the cold box. You retch, proclaiming it salty, downing another glass of delicious peach oolong–

“I can still taste it in the back of my throat…!”–and he cackles wildly.)

Thick locks of hair are falling out of his up-do by the time he’s satisfied, framing his face and bringing your attention, again to the inviting line of his clavicle. He tosses his loose hair over his shoulder, preening.

The recipe book is basically ruined, and the pasta is null and void, but some of the fillets look mildly edible. The artful garnish is beautiful, at least. The kale and orange slices really bring out the crispy burnt bits. Vere seems to enjoy plating the food a great deal, humming and rearranging and circling the display until he deems it arranged to perfection.

He’s elegant when he takes a bite, biting down with a crunch. His tail goes very still for a moment, then shivers microscopically as he chews. He swallows in a manner that you can only describe as dignified, dabbing his lips with a napkin. You wait in anticipation, but Vere says nothing for a long time. Then, he quietly takes the old recipe book and throws it away.

Thankfully, he doesn’t insist on you trying it too.

You end up snacking on some of the pre-made goods, drinking the remaining tea and lounging at one of the shop’s cozy little tables. The mood is light and easy, and the view is magnificent. Outside, there’s nothing but trash littered streets and urchins, but inside…the afternoon glow coming from the window illuminates Vere like a sunset, painting him in dazzling shades of gold and red and bronze.

Vere hums, peering at you pointedly through his sooty lashes. “So, dessert?”

You can’t imagine the look that comes across your face–whatever it is, it makes Vere laugh.

“What are you giving me that look for? My intentions are pure.” His voice is a masterclass in syrupy false-innocence. “As clean as Leander’s bed sheets after–”

“Please don’t finish that sentence and give me any mental images,” you beg. “I have to sleep there tonight, I’d rather not know.”

“Ignorance is bliss.” Vere agrees, closing his eyes and appearing to bask in the sun for a moment. His face does something that you don’t quite catch–some hidden expression–but then, he’s smiling easily. He must really be relaxed if he can still smile seconds after thinking about Leander. You’re still admiring him when the shadows against the walls flicker, and suddenly he isn’t sitting next to you any more.

Instead, he’s returning from the kitchen, a tray in hand.

He sets it down in front of you, revealing an assortment of strawberries and an ornate silver porringer of what appears to be melted chocolate. Vere sets it down on the table, plucking the small dessert spoon from the chocolate once he’s seated across from you again.

“Occasionally, life does offer up something sweet to savor–only for those willing to go out and take it.” His tongue darts out to lick the chocolate off the spoon in his hand. He maintains eye contact as his tongue laves across the basin and–embarrassingly–you think you get a little lightheaded from the intensity with which your blood rushes to your face. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes tell you that he know exactly where your mind has gone.

Setting the spoon down, Vere instead picks up a bare strawberry, leaning in closer to press it gently to your mouth.

The chocolate is overly bitter–a little burnt, perhaps, but you can’t find it in yourself to care when you’re tasting the remnants of it on Vere’s lips.

(Before leaving, you plop a few coins down on the counter as payment. You brought enough to cover your food…but definitely not enough to cover the mess in the kitchen. There’s really nothing you can do about that.

You hope you don’t get blacklisted. You’d like to come back next Monday.)

Hope you enjoyed if you made it this far! ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

#Hmm! I think they should become cooking buddies I say; I think they should make this a weekly thing #which is my way of saying ‘my bad if this was too much time spent on the set up etc and not enough on the cooking oops ahaha’#this is not how u make panko btw this is some amalgamation of panko and tempura batter don’t ask #The owner & her wife know that Vere does this btw there is a whole thing happening behind the scenes #the number of grease fires Vere has started. Is not zero.#SLICE OF LIFE IS SO HARD TO WRITE FOR ME ATM OMG??#but I hope it was a fun time #i now crave…angst lmao #touchstarved game fanfic #vere x mc #vere x reader #toxintouch: {pick} prompt {your poison}#i feel so caught up on writing now wow time to SLEEP #no good title for this one i will keep thinking?? i;ll just name it whatever in the morning lol #not that ppl need my permission to share prompts #we are all living in the same fandom biome we must share our resources to thrive #i messed around with the formatting a little :) i think it is kinda cute #toxintouch writing

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rainsleeper · 2 months ago

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woo i posted (once in a lifetime occurence)

cringetober 2024 day 7: crossover

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asterroses · 2 months ago

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more ppl need to play pillars of eternity tbh . it truly is a game of all time and a very excellent one at that

#it is soooo good . trust me #i should continue my deadfire replay . . . . my pillars of eternity 1 is kinda broken rn #[well . by broken i mean it only reads my autosaves . which is honestly kinda hard to play w]#dannie.txt #what prompted this is me suddenly missing aloth and vicious

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paperultra · 1 year ago

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prometheus.

Pairing: OPLA!Nami x Fem!Reader Word Count: 2,717 words Warnings: Swearing, alcohol use

mesmeric (adjective): appealing; drawing attention limerence (noun): the state of being infatuated with another person

The first time you see her, you think that perhaps you’ve had way too much to drink.

The tavern is crowded, loud, filthy, the countertops tacky with spilled booze, the music too sharp and the air too humid. Sweat covers your forehead the way condensation coats the outside of your glass; the drink inside sloshes over the top as your crewmates push and shove you around in your seat, their clamoring for more beer drowning out any semblance of a thought in your head.

Noise. Drunkenness. Celebration. It's everything a pirate could want after a successful raid.

You just want to go to sleep.

“Mind if I sit here?” The voice of your ship’s first mate cuts through the fog.

“Sure,” you mumble. Truth be told, you wouldn’t mind if a rabid grizzly took the neighboring stool right now. “You can have the rest of my drink, too.”

She laughs. You’ve never known the first mate to laugh, so you use what little of your strength is left to turn your head and look over at her.

Everything else in the crowded, loud, filthy tavern ceases to exist.

Sitting in the seat right next to you is the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen. She smiles at you, and it’s the kind of smile that follows hearty laughter, the kind that makes a person’s face glow and crinkles the corners of their eyes. Roughly chopped hair frames her face like untamed fire and her gaze feels like the ocean on a sunny day. She has freckles.

Your grip tightens on your glass. Mouth dry, you open it to speak, to apologize and ask if you could buy her a drink or several, but nothing comes out.

“Are you guys celebrating something?” the girl asks. “You sure filled up the place pretty quick.”

When she speaks, the chaos around the two of you rushes back into your ears. Blinking, you look around and pause at the sight of your captain and the shipwright sparring on top of one of the tables. Embarrassment flashes hotly through you as you glance back at the girl. (She’s still there.)

“Yeah,” you answer. “Treasure.”

Her eyebrows raise. “Oh? That’s definitely worth celebrating.” She slides her bottle over to clink it against your glass, then brings it to her lips; your heart thuds as she meets your eye from the corner of hers. “Tell me about it.”

You finish the rest of your cocktail and tell her.

When dawn broke this morning, the first mate had recognized another pirate ship sailing in the same direction as your own. She alerted the captain, who, itching to settle a personal score of which you had no details, ordered the crew to tail it. The rest of the morning and the entire afternoon was spent in a bloody chase-and-attack. Ultimately, your crew prevailed, and upon pillaging the other ship laid claim to a large pile of gold and silver.

You, being only one position removed from a lowly cabin girl, spent most of the time serving as cannon fodder. You don’t tell her that. The details are a bit foggy, anyway.

“That’s amazing. I’ve heard of you guys before, but I never thought I’d ever run into the whole crew,” the girl exclaims once you’re done recalling. “What’s your Jolly Roger look like again?”

“It’s …” All of a sudden, you draw a blank. Shit. “Um … oh, it has violet crossbones and a crack straight down the skull. I … I think …” You frown. “I should check.”

The girl grabs your shoulder and chuckles as you attempt to teeter off the stool, keeping you in place. Her firm grasp burns against your skin.

“I think you’re a little too drunk to wander off right now,” she chides while you steady yourself against the counter, your head going fuzzy for more than one reason. “You’re definitely right, anyway. I remember what it looks like now.”

“Okay.” The next thing you know, she’s standing up, letting go of your shoulder. You frown. “Where … where’re you going?”

“Just going to the bathroom. Watch my drink for me?”

She winks. You assure her that you will, but you break your promise the moment you make it, eyes fixed instead on the back of the girl’s head until the bright fire of her hair is finally lost in the crowd.

She never comes back.

(It’s almost dawn when your crew stumbles back to the ship, loose-limbed and completely exhausted. And as you drag yourself into your hammock, only partially sobered up, you think you hear somebody shriek that half the raid’s treasure is gone.)

(You just turn over and go to sleep.)

—

The second time you see her, it’s by accident.

You’re in town to buy candles and rope with the cabin girl, having been relegated to babysitting duty once again, but she somehow managed to slip away while you were walking through the market. You’ve been going in circles for the past half-hour trying to locate the damn kid.

“Genie!” You narrowly avoid a stack of cages with chickens in them – the cook will probably get some, you figure – and cup your hands around your mouth, pushing against the flow of foot traffic. “Genie, you little brat –”

Someone bumps your shoulder as they pass by. You feel a weight leave the belt loop of your pants.

The money.

Fuck.

Whipping around, you spot a flash of navy-blue polka dots just as they disappear into the throng of people. Genie gets shoved to the back of your mind as you immediately set off in pursuit.

“Hey! Get back here!”

Nobody else seems to care as you squeeze in between bodies and boxes, jumping over stray dogs and shouting after the thief. It’s your fault, after all. You were thoughtless with how you carried the money.

(Or maybe they can tell you’re a small-time pirate, greedy and violent, and have concluded that you got what you deserved. You are not a person to be feared and certainly not one to step aside for.)

After what seems to be an eternity, you manage to break out of the crowd, promptly stumbling over a broken brick in the road. Sweat drips down your back and sticks to your blouse as you catch a glimpse of polka dots vanishing into a nearby alleyway.

You’re screwed if the captain finds out you got robbed.

Sprinting into the alley, you leap at the thief, grabbing them by the collar of their shirt just as they begin to scale the wall.

“Oi,” you snarl, spinning them around, “who the hell do you think you –"

A face that you thought you’d never see again stares back at you, and the rest of your sentence breaks off in your throat.

The girl from the tavern takes the opportunity to knee you in the stomach and twist away. But you’re stronger, and you’ve felt worse; instinctively, you move behind her and wrap an arm around her neck, holding tight while your other hand slips behind to prevent her from headbutting you. Her hands shoot up and her nails dig painfully into your skin.

“Let go of me!” she orders through gritted teeth, kicking at you.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” you say, thoughts running a thousand miles a minute. “Just give me back my money.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even know you.”

You grit your teeth. There’s no doubt in your mind, and you know that there’s no doubt in hers. “You ran away after taking my bag.”

“I didn’t take anything. You started yelling and chasing after me out of nowhere.”

“Why would you run if you didn’t take it?”

“You’re a pirate,” she hisses. “Of course I would run.”

“How do you know I’m a pirate?” you ask.

The girl stills for a mere second. It’s enough to feel her inhale against your chest, your nose nearly pressed against the cap that she’d tucked her orange hair underneath.

“I can just tell,” she mutters. Her tone is so bitter, so hateful that you can taste it. “All pirates are the same.”

Your arms begin to bleed.

You open your mouth to protest. You want to argue that she’s wrong – you aren’t the same, you’re not bloodthirsty or greedy like your captain, your first instinct isn’t to hurt people to get what you want.

But to say that now, with your arm around her throat, unwilling to let go under the pretense of demanding money that isn’t even yours to begin with? Even you recognize the hypocrisy. That bitterness and hatred is directed at you too.

You let go of her, jaw clenched.

“Sorry,” you mutter. You release her and step away. She steps back as well, eyeing you warily, and the muffled sound of coins clinking together reaches your ears. You don’t so much as direct your gaze towards the source. “I must’ve mixed you up with the thief somehow.”

She scoffs. “Yeah.”

(So she’s committing to the bit until the very end.)

You take one last look at her. Her stony expression, so different from the smiling, pleasant one you can only recall through a haze from three months ago, sinks into your memory and settles there with purpose.

“Have a nice day,” you say.

You turn on your heel, fingers brushing over the trail of bloody crescents she had left on your arm, and leave the alleyway for good.

—

The third time you see her, you know it’s fate.

You’re at a different tavern, on a different island, for a different reason. The patrons are elderly and sparse in number, and they like to brag about how they can still drink you under the table. There’s no music and the countertops are kept clean.

When they walk in, it’s almost the end of your shift – you’re sweeping underneath the corner table for the second time and hear them before you turn around.

“Ah, great! I’m starving.”

“You ate just before we disembarked.”

“And I’ll eat afterwards too!”

You suppress a snort, dragging your broom around the table’s base. Grey will be happy with these customers, for sure. More dishes bring more work, but they also bring more beri.

A girl speaks next. “If you have the money for twenty servings of meat, go right ahead, Luffy.”

Your grip tightens around the broom handle until your knuckles crack.

The crumbs on the floor completely forgotten, you turn around, slowly, carefully, and fire fills your vision once again.

It stares back at you, eyes wide, lips parted. Her fingers twitch at her sides.

Fate, surely.

“Hello!” says the boy on her right, the one in an odd straw hat. “We’re here to eat.”

You take in a breath.

“Hi,” you rasp, heart squeezing in your chest, making itself known for the first time in a year. “You can take a seat anywhere.”

The girl nods, the movement deliberate and cautious. Three of the people with her furrow their brows at you, but the straw hat simply jaunts to a table in the center and sits down, prompting them to break their gazes and follow behind him.

You finish sweeping to collect yourself, then head over with a notepad and a pen.

“What can I get for you guys?”

They each give you their drink of choice. The straw hat then rattles off a number of dishes, seeming to have completely forgotten the girl’s earlier warning, and you note them down the best you can.

“Okay.” You repeat the order, receiving satisfied grunts upon reciting it correctly. “Anything else?”

The blond-haired man shoots you a crooked smirk. “Just your wonderful presence, miss,” he tells you with a wink.

You stand awkwardly.

“… Thank you,” you reply after some time, not sure how else to respond. “My shift ends soon, though.”

The green-haired man and the guy in the bandana do little to hide their snorts. The blond-haired man clears his throat, murmuring a soft ‘oh, how unfortunate’ with a disappointed smile, and says that they’ll make do with the wonderful drinks and meals that are sure to come.

Well, that’s that.

You begin to head to the kitchen when the girl’s voice rings out behind you, halting you in your steps.

“When’s the end of your shift?”

You don’t dare to look over your shoulder. “In thirty minutes.”

“Do you mind waiting around for a little while afterward?” she asks, and it’s a question, not an order.

“I don’t mind,” you say. It’s the answer you would’ve given either way.

—

The girl’s name is Nami. Wave. You wonder if she knows the violence with which she’d crashed into the tiny island of your life.

She sits across from you at the table in the corner, just far enough away from her comrades to not be eavesdropped on, though you suspect they’ll try their best. She cocks her head to the side and her eyes narrow at you.

“The eyepatch is new,” she finally says.

“It came with my resignation.”

“You left your crew?”

“Yeah.”

You avert your gaze. A frown graces Nami’s face.

“What brought you here?” The suspicion in her tone is almost imperceptible, but it’s there.

“This is my hometown. I came back about two months ago to save up for the time being.”

“Save up for what?”

“I don’t know. Another adventure, I guess.” You chew the inside of your cheek. “Can I ask you a question now?”

“Depends on what it is.”

“Why did you talk to me at the bar?”

“Because you seemed like a soft touch,” Nami replies.

Ouch. That stings your pride a bit. The fact that she had known that from the very beginning makes you wonder what else she knows.

“Why did you steal from me in Wolftown?”

“Because I knew you were a pirate.” She leans forward in her chair, arms crossed over the table. “Why did you let me go?”

You swallow.

“I … wanted to prove you wrong,” you tell her. Tracing a long scratch on the table, you don’t tell her that you’ve thought about her words every morning while at sea, the disgust that fell so easily from her tongue, or that they fell from your own as you clutched your eye socket and spat at your captain’s feet. “But you ended up being right in the end.”

“… Oh,” Nami says.

She shifts in her seat. Her attention turns briefly to the group of men still sitting at their table – they are watching, not even trying to be subtle – and she worries her lower lip, contemplative, before turning back to you.

“Not all pirates … are the same,” she admits softly. “I was wrong.”

Your eyebrows pinch together. You sit quietly while she speaks with a strange conviction.

“There are good ones. Not a lot, but some. Maybe you were one of them.”

You glance at her friends. Understanding dawns upon you, and it’s envy and gladness all at the same time.

“I don’t think I was,” you finally say. “But I’m happy you found some.”

She huffs out a laugh. It’s clear and present and genuine. “They found me. I didn’t have a choice.”

You grin, cheeks warming under the sun of her smile and hands folded on the edge of the table as the two of you chuckle together.

“Nami.” Her name burns your lips and washes over them once the amusement dies down. “Can I buy you a drink?”

Surprise flickers across Nami’s face.

She blinks once, not speaking for a moment, and you realize that you’ve made a mistake for the umpteenth time. However, just when you’re about to backtrack and leave the tavern never to return, the girl reaches out across the table towards you.

(Three years from now, you will stand on the deck of the Thousand Sunny, and Nami will tell you that she thought about you everyday after the incident in the alleyway. And you will laugh, and kiss her, and say that you’ve thought about her every day since the night she robbed your old pirate ship. The pains of the past will only be a faint scar.)

(But for now, you sit across from each other and smile.)

“Sure,” she murmurs. “I’d like that.”

#aesthetic words prompt list #opla #one piece #nami x reader #opla nami #nami #one piece live action #opla fanfiction #one piece fanfiction #reader insert #fluff #fem!reader #nami: give me your money #reader: cash or credit #man she's kinda hard to write for !! worth it though. love me some all-consuming pining

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forwhump · 5 months ago

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a/n; this one’s pretty fucked up :-; more rape & more murder but it’s a story about a sex slave & a weapon so that’s just kinda what you get ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ my bad !

tw/cw: rape, noncon, mutilation, dismemberment, decapitation, murder, grievous bodily harm, misgendering, transphobia, psychological torture, urine, gore, bodily fluids

living weapon whumpee, multiple whumpers, revenge, military

There has not been a time, since his creation, that Silas has been above ground.

Everything that’s been done to him, everything that he’s done, it’s happened hundreds of feet below the ground in the concrete labyrinth of the district. Every surgery, every slaughter, every field test.

Even the fuckin’ field tests. The field tests are training exercises, combat training, but they don’t trust Silas above ground to participate in them. They’re probably right not to. They’re smarter, sometimes, than Silas will ever give them credit for.

Within the labyrinth there are these arenas, these massive, open spaces made up to look like a world Silas has never seen. There’s a number of them, made to look like different practical terrain; forests and deserts and small villages and mountains and cities. It would be impossible for Silas to fathom if he ever had the time or the means to sit and try and fathom it. He’d almost think he left the district were it not for the concrete sky, hundreds of feet above his head.

He didn’t always mind the field tests. It was a chance to stretch his legs. The enemy was always played by military recruits, young and green. Silas isn’t sure if they know what they’re getting into when they enter the arena, if they are briefed on exactly what Silas is, but none of them ever walk out again. Their grieving families will bury a flag and a handful of teeth on Silas’ most generous day.

Barbarity is encouraged. Bloodshed is lauded. It’s always a slaughter, but it’s expected of him. It’s always been a good way to blow off some steam, even if he never walks away unscathed. He gets to use his hands.

But the rules had changed since they’d taken Wren from him.

The rules have been the same for every field test so far — kill or be killed. The recruits get weapons and machinery and supplies and dogs; Silas doesn’t even get a shirt. He gets a pair of prison grey joggers and his own two hands. Kill or be killed.

They didn’t tell him they’d added civilians.

He doesn’t realize that anything’s wrong for an entire three days. He soldiers through the rainforest arena and kills recruits with tooth and talon. When the lights get shut down for the third night, nighttime in the wilderness, Silas has become that thing the field tests always stoke to life in him; Silas isn’t human anymore. It slides under his skin, that feral, rabid thing, and it rips limbs from screaming bodies, it peels skin back with his teeth. When the lights get shut down for the third night, Silas’ hair is glued to his back and his throat with the thick layer of blood that crusts his skin. None of it is his own. Not a single recruit had gotten a single shot in yet. It was going exceptionally well. Silas should have been suspicious.

He should’ve fuckin’ known. He should’ve done better. He should’ve been faster. When he finally sees Wren again, his Wren, bathed in the flickering firelight of the enemy camp, all the human parts of him are reignited with a screaming rage and a sort of guilt that makes Silas feel heavy. He should’ve known something was wrong. He should’ve been here three days ago.

The surviving soldiers are set up around the fire, cocky and comfortable. Wren’s in the dirt at their feet.

Fuck, Silas had missed him. Silas had missed him in a big, impossible way, and he can’t even be happy to see him because Silas wishes more than anything that Wren was not here. Wren would be safer almost anywhere but here.

He’s dressed like a child and his hair is down, grimy and matted, pooling in the dirt around him. He’s face down, limp, and Silas has to blink red mist from his vision. Before he’s close enough to stop it, one of the soldiers stands, pulls his belt, and pisses in Wren’s hair.

Wren doesn’t move or moan or otherwise react in any way. He’s still limp — he’s so still, actually, almost unnaturally still, and Silas is — he can’t be too late, Wren can’t be —

Another soldier stands, some blond puke, and he turns Wren onto his side with his foot before he boots him in the stomach.

Weakly, Wren groans. Weakly, softly, but he groans. He isn’t dead.

Silas is gonna cause a fuckin’ bloodbath.

“Stop passing out on us,” the blond groans. “You got a long night ahead of you, girl.”

Wren doesn’t make another sound and the recruit kicks him again, so hard he’s forced onto his back. He groans softly.

A soldier with a shock of red hair spits in the dirt next to him as he stands. “I know how to wake her up.” His grin glints in the firelight and the blond laughs. He spits again as he takes a handful of Wren’s hair, coiling it around his fist, hauling him across the dirt and a safe distance away from the bonfire. He whistles back over his shoulder at the other recruits, watching him with varying degrees of obvious humour. “C’mere. Hold her open for me. Hold her down when she starts fighting and I’ll let you have a turn when I’m done.”

No.

How can this keep happening? How can this be somebody’s life?

There’s something casual, something genuinely amused in the way the recruits laugh between themselves as they splay their hands over Wren’s skin, as they hold his limp body into the dirt and he whimpers. The redhead tugs his belt free before he kneels between Wren’s legs, shoving the frilly hem of his little dress up and around his ribcage. He settles over him, his knuckles white against the purpling bruise of Wren’s skin. His answering groan is loud and low and satisfied.

Silas can hear when Wren regains consciousness because of how horribly and primally he screams.

All of the recruits laugh, but it’s the blond that coos, pleased, “there she is.”

When Silas breaks the tree line it’s his shadow that gives him away. One of the soldiers, holding one of Wren’s thighs, looks up, distracted, and the double take he does would be comical if Silas weren’t out for blood. He jumps to his feet, fumbles for his gun, green and unprepared. He cries, “what the fuck is that?”

Silas grins, but it isn’t nice.

The rest of the recruits look up in militant unison but react quickly with varying degrees of unrestrained horror. Almost every one of them scrambles to their feet and for their weapons. Except, of course, the redheaded puke knelt between Wren’s thighs. He stills, a picture of cruelty.

Silas cracks his knuckles.

Wren’s head lolls against the dirt and he finds Silas through the idiot cavalry. This’ll be easy; the recruits are always just as evil as the soldiers — a requirement of them, apparently — but they aren’t nearly as dangerous. They aren’t trained, polished, quick in the way the soldiers are, they aren’t used to Silas the same. This will be embarrassing for them.

Wren looks up at Silas with huge, wet eyes and the way the relief crests across his face would probably make Silas cry if he were capable of it.

“What the hell is that thing?” The recruits are shouting. “Who are you? Back up! Back the fuck up!”

Silas barely hears them. To Wren, he says, “I’m sorry I’m late.”

Wren tips his head back as he sobs.

The redhead looks down at him quickly as he hisses, “what the fuck is that?”

He folds an arm over his face and his chest hitches as he cries into the grime.

The recruit tries to grab him, to pry his arm from his face, hisses something else like “look at me when I’m talking to you. What the fuck is going on?”, but Silas is across the camp in a second and he takes his ginger head in both hands. The recruit flails, pulls away from Wren, and as soon as he does Silas turns, trying to shield his Wren from the splatter with his bulk. He crushes the redhead’s skull between his hands.

The noise it makes is like a crack of lightning.

The sort of silence that’s close behind unrecoverable trauma settles over the camp and Silas grins so widely something clicks in his jaw. He’s merciful — the recruits won’t have to live with this for long.

“What are you?” The blond asks, and his voice is thin.

Silas cracks his neck. “Does it matter?”

A different recruit swallows so thickly that Silas can hear it. But he’s trying to be brave, so he says, “back up, freak.”

Silas does not, in fact, back up. The blond is standing close and he doesn’t react quick enough when Silas grabs him by the collar — he panics, flailing as Silas lifts him clean off the ground. It kind of wakes up the recruits, who lift guns and take aim, but what’s the worst they can do to him? Really?

It’s one of the worst things about these men, about this place. It’s one of the reasons Silas hates them so viscerally it’s become interwoven into his DNA. Silas, in a way, gets off easy — Silas just gets shot, and he can take a fuckin’ bullet. It’s the least he can do. Wren isn’t so lucky. They aren’t afraid of Wren. He’s small and he can’t fight back the way Silas can. What’s the worst thing they can do to a fuckin’ machine? They’ll shut him down, and he’ll begin again. Wren is vulnerable.

He pries a handgun from the blond’s flailing grip hands and forces the barrel down the back of his throat. He grabs at Silas’ wrist, frantic, and Silas grins at him as he pulls the trigger.

He bursts into blood and viscera and the other recruits explode into shouting and panic. “Get back!” The brave one shouts, and he makes the grievous mistake of getting too close. Not within reaching distance, but still too close. “Get the fuck back!”

“What are you gonna do?” Silas asks, raising his eyebrows. “Shoot me?” The recruit lifts his gun, a threat, and Silas grins at him. “Tell you what. Let me do you one better,” and he points the gun down, firing a round into his own foot. It crackles with a pain that the simmering rage quickly dissolves.

The soldier gapes, hesitating, and he only hesitates for half a moment but it’s a full moment too long. Silas raises the gun again. “Now it’s your turn,” he says, and unloads three rounds between his eyes.

He drops to the dirt and another recruit steps over him quickly, into Silas’ personal space.

Silas doesn’t take kindly to that.

He takes him by the jaw and wrenches his mouth open. As he tries to scream around Silas’ hands, Silas hooks his fingers behind each row of his teeth and rips his face in half through the middle. His throat is still working as Silas pushes his body out of the way with the side of his foot.

“What the fuck?” A recruit cries, standing too close, splattered with blood that isn’t his own. Silas reaches out to him with his free hand and tears out his windpipe with bloody fingers. As he chokes, Silas breaks his nose back into his brain with the base of his gun. His eyes are rolled back into his head when he dies.

There are four surviving recruits, and they try to scatter. Silas lets them try, because he enjoys the panic, but he doesn’t let them get very far. Eight rounds, one for each knee. There are cries of pain and noises of impact and Silas laughs loudly.

He weaves his way across the camp slowly, tauntingly, and he kills them one at a time. He crushes both hands and the throat of the first recruit; he removes both hands and the throat from the second. The third is decapitated, and not quickly or cleanly; Silas removes his head with force, and the way his skin splits is like wet paper.

The last recruit had pissed in Wren’s hair.

Silas approaches him with the unhurried stalk of a predator. The recruit trembles, trying to scramble away from Silas, but he’d been shot in both knees and he’d fallen hard, the bones of his calf poking out from his flesh in opposite directions.

“That’s gotta hurt,” Silas says.

“Please,” he’s begging, and his voice is trembling, “please, please, don’t — don’t —“

Silas brings his foot down on his fractured leg as hard as he can. Puts all of his brawn and bulk into it.

The recruit tips his head back against the dirt and screams at the concrete sky.

Silas lets him scream. Who gives a fuck? He crouches next to him and takes his left arm by the elbow. The soldier screams again, tries to pull out of his grip, and Silas rips his arm out from the socket of his shoulder.

He shrieks at a pitch that Silas finds kind of irritating and he reaches across the recruit to grab his other arm and pull him over onto his stomach, face down in the dirt. He breaks his right arm off at the elbow.

He screams again and he’s screaming still when Silas stands to toe him back onto his back. As the recruit screams, Silas shoves down the waistband of his joggers, pulls out his dick, and pisses in his mouth. It’s only fair.

He flails with what’s left of his right arm and chokes in panic. It makes Silas grin. When he snaps his waistband back into place the recruit stares up at him with a look that Silas has come to recognize as resigned hatred. It never gets old. Weak and wet, he drawls, “they told us we didn’t have to worry about her dog.”

Silas raises his eyebrows. “They lied.”

The recruit chokes out a sound that would probably be a laugh if all the blood in his body weren’t seeping into the earth beneath him. “C’mon, man,” he tries. “Don’t — don’t. Please. Come on.”

Silas lifts the gun.

The recruit inhales quickly. “Please. Come on. Please.”

“Eat shit,” Silas tells him sincerely, and he empties the gun into his face.

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fruitgoat · 5 months ago

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Mapping/Routing the CTA

I'm still blaming @copperbadge for all of this.

As I am taking this trip in my mind, I have chosen to ignore a lot of the challenges the physical world brings. Like road construction, neighborhood block parties, day of the week, trains that only stop there once a day in the opposite direction, buses that only run a few hours a day, the actual passage of time, etc. This trip should not be attempted in the Real World – every route and stop apparently still exists, but you might need to wait hours if not days for the correct bus/train. For the Extra Bonus Points of LOLs and Nostalgia I have included sections of the Metra (Milwaukee Districts North and West and South Shore Electric), Big Bus Tours, and the Water Taxi.

Again, do NOT try this route in Real Time. Yet. My ADHD brain may or may not get back to you in a few days on how long it would actually take just so we can all laugh at the idea of getting lost and being forced to sneak around and spend the night in a mattress store at the Golf Mill Shopping Center or whatever. (Actually, that’s a hell of a meetcute. I… I might need to go write something now….)

Starting at Linden.

Ride Purple Line to Howard. Transfer to Yellow Line.

Ride Yellow Line to Dempster-Skokie. (Resist the muscle memory to catch the bus all the way to Deerfield. I really hated that commute.)

Bus to Morton Grove Metra.

Ride (MN) Metra to Mayfair.

Walk to Blue Line (Montrose). Ride Blue Line to O’Hare.

Stretch legs and bathroom break. Refill water bottle. Refuel if needed.

Ride Blue Line back to Harlem. Bus to Fullerton.

Walk around my old neighborhood. (I think the walk to Caputo’s is worth it, but maybe don’t buy any fresh squid if you’re getting back on the train.)

Ride (MW) Metra from Mont Clare to Grand/Cicero.

Bus to Blue Line (Montrose). Ride Blue Line to Forest Park.

Bus to Green Line (Harlem/Lake). Ride Green Line to Cottage Grove. (I’m stopping along the way to visit family, get something to eat, and maybe nap while charging my electronics.)

Bus to Green Line (Ashland/63rd). Ride Green Line to Garfield.

Walk to Red Line (Garfield). Ride Red Line to Dan Ryan. Hang Around Like An Idiot. Ride Red Line to Lake.

Transfer to Pink Line. Ride Pink Line to Cermak/54th, then back to Cicero.

Bus to Midway. (Unhydrate. Rehydrate.) Ride Orange Line to Halsted. Walk to River. Or I think there’s a bus that’s just not showing up at the moment.

Water Taxi to West Loop.

Walk to Willis Tower. (Bonus point for each instance of calling it Sears Tower.) Tour Bus to Museum Campus.

Metra Electric back to Millennium Park Station.

Walk to Washington/Wabash. Ride Brown Line to Kimball.

Ride Brown Line back to State/Lake. (Stop at Fullerton if it’s morning. Walk to Orange and order the pancake flight and watch them fresh squeeze your citrus juice. Walk to Molly’s if you like cupcakes. Double Extra Bonus points if you pointedly reminisce about the Meatloaf Bakery when you pass where it was. Crash a wedding at my old apartment building if you’re really bored. I really miss my neighborhood at the moment.)

Transfer to Red Line. Ride Red Line to Howard. (I’m going to stop at Granville for the Memories. This was my first address in Chicago – even if I technically wasn’t supposed to receive mail because I wasn’t on the lease.)

#this is not the route my protagonists will travel in my new novel #but it's kinda close #i really miss chicago #but it's just like so far from my ocean #and the lake is NOT the same #i also really miss my ocean #I think some novel drafting is in my future #writing is hard yo #please feel free to take the take the writing prompt and run with it #new trope: there were only 27 beds

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compacflt · 1 year ago

Note

For the requests/open inbox, this may not be the lane you're looking for, but you made a throw a way mention in a response to the ask about Ice's enforcement of DADT that Bradley and Ice probably got into it at one point about Ice being totally okay with DADT as a policy (which I love your read on Ice being like, 'yeah, nobody should ask and nobody should tell. what's the problem here?') I would love to see that argument go down. Or honestly, just any Ice and Bradley interaction after the reconciliation that suits your fancy. I find that dynamic in your world super interesting. Bradley sees him as a father, Ice sees him as the person whose father I killed. I love the drama.

Five times Ice was so obviously Rooster’s dad + one time he explicitly wasn’t.

[Carole. 1994.]

He’s such a nervous man. Usually that’s not the word people associate with him. Nervous? Never! But he is. Carole Bradshaw’s more a religious woman than a spiritual one. She’s never put any stock into “chockras” or “ouras” or whatever the other girls her age were fooling around with in the late sixties and early seventies. But she does believe that you can understand a person just by looking at him or her, and when she looks at Tom Kazansky, she sees a little anxious creature, shivering in the cold, like one of those tiny spindly dogs who always needs a sweater. Maybe it’s her southern maternal instincts, something primal and animalistic inside her, I need to take care of you—and when he nudges her with a nervous shivering shoulder and whispers, “Can I bum a smoke?” —she reaches down to take his hand and says, “I only have one left. We’ll have to share.”

She knows she makes him nervous. His ears are red, and so’s the back of his neck. It’s early on a Saturday morning, and the church is crowded, and he’s self-conscious about the fact that she’s holding his hand. Good. It’s so rare she gets to make a man nervous anymore. She waves to Bradley, proud in his little striped button-down and his little blue bow-tie, where he’s lined-up with all the other aspiring pianists against the stage along the far wall, under the bare postmodern crucifix. The recital isn’t going to start for another five, ten minutes, and it’s organized by age, so Bradley’s somewhere in the middle. If Tom Kazansky needs a smoke, Carole Bradshaw will bum him a smoke.

They exit out the side door, and the low murmuring of the other proud parents in the church fades to the quiet of the alley. Birds chirping nearby. The sound of a latecoming car on gravel somewhere far away. Her cigarette and the flick of his lighter, her eyes on his mouth and his puff of smoke—it’s lit. He takes a drag, closes his eyes, then passes it to her. “Sorry to make you share,” she says, and she’s watching the red flush creep up the side of his throat with a silent pleasure. When she takes her own pull, she looks down to see that the filter’s gone the sweet red-pink of her old lipstick. Kind of like a kiss, sharing a cigarette.

“That’s okay,” he says. Nervous spindly little dog. “Uh, what’s he playing?”

“Beethoven. ‘Für Elise.’” Then, before he can think to judge, she goes on quickly: “It’s more complicated than you’d think. Goes up and down and all over the place.”

“It’s a good song,” Tom Kazansky says, “though I don’t know too much about piano.” He pauses. “I’m learning a little German, though. I think it’s E-leez-ah. She must’ve been an alright girl if Beethoven wrote a song for her.”

Carole Bradshaw doesn’t know what to say to that. So she says this instead: “Thank you for coming. It made Bradley—well, over the moon, I guess.”

Tom Kazansky smiles shyly. “Sorry Maverick couldn’t come. I know he wanted to.”

Of course he brings up Pete Mitchell. Drags her back into reality. “He’s in Washington again, isn’t he?”

“Correct.” He reaches out for the cigarette; she gives it to him. “TOPGUN’s biggest advocate. I keep telling him he should go into politics. I just talked to him yesterday—he told me he went to the Natural History Smithsonian on Wednesday—he bought Bradley a dinosaur picture book, I think. Does Bradley like dinosaurs?”

Carole Bradshaw shrugs. What nine-year-old boy doesn’t like dinosaurs, but… “He’s more into sea life these days. Whales, sharks, fish.”

“Some fish used to be dinosaurs, they think,” says Tom Kazansky, clearly just trying to fill the silence. Ears red, lips red. Smoke out of his mouth like a fire-breathing dragon.

Carole Bradshaw doesn’t know how much dinosaur history she actually believes. So she says, “It’s still really nice of you to come. You know, Bradley—Bradley thinks of you and Maverick as his—well, his fathers, I s’pose. So it’s nice for you to be here.”

She watches his reaction—just nervousness. Straight anxiety. He doesn’t meet her eyes, like she’s just kicked him in the ribs. He does not want to be Bradley’s father.

She says, “You don’t have to sign any papers, Tom. You don’t have to put a kid seat in your car. I’m just saying. Don’t worry about it.”

He says, “I can hear the kids starting inside—we should probably go back in.”

So Carole Bradshaw drops the cigarette butt to the ground and steps on it with the bottom of her flat. They go inside, and wait for a kindergartener to finish an overly simple “Canon in D” to take their seats again. She takes his hand. He lets her. After another half-hour, Bradley sits down on the bench in front of the hand-me-down Steinway and busts out “Für Elise” without a single missed note. It still shocks her, sometimes, to watch him play—it still shocks her, sometimes, that she is the mother of all that talent. And now maybe Tom Kazansky is the father of all that talent. How did that happen?

At the end of the recital, Tom Kazansky lets go of her hand. She knew he would. Knew his fatherhood is only temporary. But he lets go of her hand to accept Bradley’s great-big hug in the parking lot: “Gosling, that was so good.” Bradley’s proud smile is missing a few teeth. It makes Tom Kazansky laugh.

And after he drops them off at home, and peels away with a wave and a smile, Carole Bradshaw lights another cigarette from the half-full pack she’d brought with her to the recital and brings Bradley out to the backyard so he can play and she can watch him. But before she lets him go, she looks down at him and says flatly, “If kids at school ask you about Uncle Tom and Uncle Pete—you need to tell them they’re just friends.”

And in his eyes, she can see the confusion of a little boy who hadn’t been aware that Tom Kazansky and Pete Mitchell were anything other than just friends—the confusion of a little boy learning about duplicity for the first time in his life.

“Okay,” he says, so she lets him go.

—

[Maverick. 1998.]

“Don’t go easy on him,” Maverick hollers breathlessly over his shoulder, fishing around in the ice chest in the sand for two cans of Coors; “He just joined the J.R.O.T.C.; don’t go easy on him; he’s tougher than all your squadrons combined; beat him into the dirt…”

“Thanks, Uncle Mav,” shouts Bradley from across the volleyball court, where he’s getting initiated into one of the volleyball teams of younger fighter pilots.

Maverick flashes him a thumbs-up and finds his T-shirt on the first bleacher bench, pulls it on with one hand, and then hops up the rest of the benches to sit with Ice, who’s got his CVN-65 ballcap on and a book open in his lap and is offering informal career advice to one of the other lieutenants: “Yeah, so, in my opinion, it’s all down to what you think you can stomach… If you want me to look over your C.V., I can totally do that—I think I’m free Monday at around thirteen-hundred, if you want to stop in to talk. Not a problem. Not a problem. Alright. See you later.” He watches the lieutenant go, then lolls his head over to look at Maverick, who’s tossing an ice-cold can of Coors up and down. “Hey. Good game. —Coors, Mav? This is an insult.” But he takes the offered can anyway, looking out onto the court, where Bradley—fourteen and just entering his beanpole phase of evolution—is currently spiking the ball. “Cool.” It’s a nice summer Saturday, a casual opportunity for the officers of Miramar to socialize with their families (Ice is wearing a golf shirt and jeans), and by now pretty much everyone knows that Maverick Mitchell’s raising his friend’s kid and that he and Captain Kazansky are good friends, so this is pretty nice. Not much to hide.

“C’mon,” Maverick says, popping open his own can, “you and I were having a scintillating conversation, a few minutes ago.” He’s hunting around for the sunscreen so the tops of his feet don’t burn to ashes in the sun.

“Scintillating. That’s a big word for you. Wow.”

“You’re rubbing off on me, Sir Reads-a-lot—”

“See, that’s funny,” Ice interjects, “because I seem to recall, before you so-rudely interrupted me to go play volleyball with the kids, I was telling you that it’s really not that interesting. It’s actually, Maverick, quite boring.”

“Well, I’m intrigued now. Go on. Finish it off, I wanna know.”

Ice slaps his book shut and gives the long tired sigh of a man who is very self-conscious about the fact that he’s about to turn forty. He pops the tab on his can of Coors and huffs in exasperation when it foams all over his hand. “I mean it, my family history’s really not that interesting. Typical eastern-European immigrant shitshow. U.S. officials change one letter in our last name and everyone loses their goddamn minds… Actually, that story might be apocryphal, I keep forgetting which former Soviet Socialist Republic I’m actually from, I just can’t remember, all the borders got redrawn so many times, one of ‘em…”

Maverick smiles and pulls his TOPGUN ballcap back down onto his head, tugs the brim down low over his eyes so he can tip his head back and not go blind from the summer sunshine. He’d thought Ice would be reluctant to share his family history, but it turns out that most people are just afraid to ask him, and he’s actually pretty eager to talk, if you just ask. Maybe over-eager. He’s rambling. Maverick cuts him off: “Yeah, you do have a left curve to you, don’t you. Genetic.”

The dirty joke strikes Ice dumb for a second, but then he forges ahead, wisely choosing not to engage. He keeps going, oblivious to the fact that Maverick’s not really listening… “Anyway, my grandfather was Jewish, but he died literally the second he stepped foot in America, so it doesn’t count…my grandmother was Orthodox, crazy story how they ended up together; actually, that story’s probably apocryphal, too…she’s the one who raised me, pretty much. I told you that. She brought my dad out to Southern California when he was a little kid, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed, So-Cal’s not exactly the Mecca of Orthodox churches or anything, so he wasn’t very religious at all… My mom was from Milwaukee, I think. Or maybe Minneappolis. Some kinda Protestant. Forget which kind. The preachy kind. But then she died and I didn’t have to go to church anymore, so I didn’t.”

“You just never believed?” Maverick mumbles, half-joking.

“Nah. I mean, I always had too many questions no one wanted to answer. For instance: okay, say you’re bad. Say you commit sin…”

“I’ve never sinned, sir. You’re talking hypothetically.”

“Right. Me, neither. Hypothetically speaking. So you go to Hell. Well, the devil’s there, too, ‘cause he’s a sinner, too. But why’s he want to punish you? What does he get out of it? You’re both in the same boat!”

“Probably a sexual thing,” says Maverick, watching the purple-green imprints of the sun dance around behind his eyelids. “He probably gets off on it. The devil, I mean.”

Ice laughs and laughs. “Sure. Try saying that in front of my mom and see if you survived. I learned pretty early on that they don’t want you to be too curious. So I kept all my questions to myself.” He’s also joking, not taking this super seriously, but that’s a pretty in-character answer. “What about you, Mav?”

“If I’ve told you my family’s history once, I’ve told you a thousand times…” That’s a joke. Maverick’s the one who doesn’t like talking about his family history. Ice hasn’t heard any of it, and for good reason. Maybe someday he’ll tell him about it. “Later. But, remember, I used to be Southern Baptist? Jesus, I was serious into that shit, Ice.”

Ice snorts. “Yeah, right. You.”

“Not joking. I had about eighty girlfriends between fourteen and eighteen, but that’s the most pious I’ve ever been. Lotsa loopholes to make my relationships biblical. Was thinking about being a youth pastor. —I’m not joking. It was my whole personality, for a while. Most of my childhood, anyway.”

Ice is still laughing in disbelief. “Oh, yeah? And then what happened?”

Maverick smiles. “…Got hooked on sinning.”

“…Yeah,” Ice replies, and Maverick can hear the nervous smirk in his voice, “I guess I’d know a little something about that.”

And normally that would be the end of the conversation. But Maverick’s feeling a little sun-drunk, a little giddy, and he’ll never, ever, ever grow out of instigating stupid arguments with Ice just for the fun of it. From beneath the brim of his ballcap he mutters, “…You think Carole’s brainwashing her kid?”

Ice huffs a laugh, and says through a lazy yawn, “I’m not militant in my atheism, no.” But he, also, will never, ever, ever grow out of instigating stupid arguments with Maverick just for the fun of it, and his curiosity’s clearly been piqued. He stews in it for a second before he snaps, “Do you think Carole’s brainwashing her kid?”

“I’m just saying she has him readin’ outta the Bible, like, five times a day. She sends him to church camp. Does something to a kid.” He has no dog in this fight, but this is fun.

“And what did it do to you?” Ice says, reaching down to shove his shoulder good-naturedly. “Weren’t you just telling me not five seconds ago how you used to be the perfect model of Christian charity?” Maverick mumbles a retort sleepily; Ice pushes on through it: “Bradley’s a human being. Either he grows out of it like you did, or he doesn’t, in which case, whatever, land of the free. That’s the First Amendment. You swore an oath to the Constitution. Maybe you should read it.”

“I’ve read it. I’m not Congress, shithead. How’s it go, you want me to cite it to you directly, ‘Congress shall make no law…’ actually, I don’t know what comes after that. Got me there.”

“Don’t call me shithead, dipshit. And whatever. Good thing he’s Carole’s kid and not yours, then. He’s got a mom who wants him to go to church. It’s up to him if he wants to listen to her or not. That’s growing up.”

Maverick tips up the brim of his ballcap to look at him, sprawled out in the bleachers very unprofessionally for the CO of this entire volleyball court, and snaps back, “Well, he’s a little bit my kid. The same way he’s a little bit your kid.”

Ice just flicks his sunglasses down onto his nose and purses his lips and neither confirms nor denies this allegation.

They watch the game together for a while, Ice’s toes pressed against Maverick’s lower back discreetly, trying to work their way under Maverick’s T-shirt. Until one of the young pilots approaches a few minutes later: “Sir!” / “What’s that kid’s call sign again?” Ice mumbles to Maverick, prodding him with his foot. / “Hooker.” / “No shit.” / “Sir!” says Hooker again. / “Which one of us, kid?” says Maverick. / “Captain Kazansky, sir. We’ve got a spot opening up. Wanna play?”

Maverick looks up at Ice expectantly. Ice sighs and harrumphs and waffles for a minute— “I’m too old for this shit.”

“Sir,” says Maverick, “it’s not a competition, but if it were, I’d be winning.”

Lighting the fire of competition under Ice like that is always a good strategy. He rolls his eyes, but immediately stands and tugs off his shirt and rolls up the cuffs of his jeans; “I’ll only play if I can play with the kid.”

So Maverick watches the teams get scrambled again with a smile, and sits up to watch Ice join Bradley in the sand. Bradley’s only just now taller than Ice, and Ice clearly isn’t used to having to reach up to curl an arm around his shoulders to strategize, his eyes narrowed like an eagle’s, staring down the competition. Maverick can read his lips from across the pitch: Alright, kid, I’ve been watching for a while, and I think I know these guys’ strengths and weaknesses…okay, here’s what we’re gonna do… And the game begins when Bradley spikes the ball.

Ice won’t always be this fun, this down-to-earth, this human. The admiralty and the guilt and the grief of the years to come will strip it all away from him, bring him back to the cold, remove him from his own humanity. And maybe, even if it isn’t conscious, Maverick can recognize that, right now, watching Ice dive into the sand with a laugh: this summer sunshine is only temporary. It’s gonna have to end at some point. So he doesn’t take it for granted. He keeps his eyes open and watches and tries to commit it to memory.

And after the game, Ice and Bradley come over so Ice can finish his beer and put his shirt and his baseball cap back on, and Maverick can make fun of them for losing. And: “What were you guys talking about for so long before the game?” Bradley asks Maverick with a grin.

“Whether or not your mom’s brainwashing you,” Maverick says.

“Oh!” Bradley says mildly. “…No, I don’t think so!”

“Oh, that’s a great start,” Ice laughs. “You would’ve made a great Soviet. No, I don’t think I’m getting brainwashed. Hey, by the way, Gosling, if you want a beer, Maverick and I won’t tell anyone.”

“Aw, really?” whispers Bradley. “Thanks, Uncle Ice!” And he races down the bleachers towards the ice chest in the sand.

Maverick watches Ice watch him go, fingers still pinching the brim of his CVN-65 ballcap, clearly worrying about something the way Ice always is.

Then he looks down at Maverick, stares openly for a minute, and says, “You don’t think we’re teaching him to rebel too much, do you?”

—

[Bradley. 2000.]

“Kiddo! You’re here early!” It was Uncle Ice, walking through his own front door, catching a glimpse of Bradley watching the Astros-Nats game on the TV. He was still in uniform, but smiling wide, and he set his bag down near the couch and leaned over to ruffle Bradley’s hair goodnaturedly.

“Practice ended early today.”

“Oh, okay. Cool. Maverick should be home soon, still at work—your mom’ll be here in about an hour—she told me to put the chicken breasts in the oven, but you know me, every time I use this oven I set off the fire alarm, so you oughta help me with that…”

“And,” Bradley said, watching Uncle Ice wash his hands in the kitchen sink, “I got here early because I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh, sure!” chirped Uncle Ice. Then he paused, sensing a trap. “What about?”

“Advice,” Bradley mumbled. He took a deep breath, and stood to follow Uncle Ice into the kitchen “I was just—I was just curious. If you had any advice for me joining the Navy. You know, with me being gay, and all. How do I—I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It’s kinda been weighing on me. Do you have any advice?”

Uncle Ice was still drying his hands off on a kitchen towel. Rubbing them red and raw. And when he raised his head to speak, there was something dull and startled in his eyes: “I don’t, um—no, I don’t—I don’t know anything about that. —You should ask Uncle Maverick about that.”

“I did,” Bradley said desperately, because he had. Yes, he’d gone to Uncle Mav first. “He—he told me to talk to you.”

“…Oh,” said Uncle Ice, now standing in front of a shelf to return one of his books to it. This surprised him. Maybe hurt him a little. “No. I—I, I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“But—”

“And there are probably better people to ask than me or Maverick. I—I don’t know—that’s not really my…I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

Uncle Ice swallowed, put the book back on the shelf, then clasped his hands together and set them on the shelf, too, as if leaning over his captain’s desk to chastise someone. He blinked for a long moment. Clearly shifting gears. Becoming someone else so easily. Why couldn’t Bradley do that? “But I can tell you this,” he said, and his voice had gone grave and dim, “and I know you and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on politics—but I can tell you this, professionally, because I respect you, and I care about you, a lot—you’re going to have to keep it a secret.”

Dismayed, Bradley said, “Why?”

“Why’s a funny question to ask about something like this,” said Uncle Ice curtly. He shrugged. “Why? Because it’s the law. That’s why.”

Bradley swung his bat at the hornets’ nest. This was always dangerous with Uncle Ice. “It shouldn’t be a law. Don’t you think?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think. It’s the law. And we get paid to enforce the law, internationally speaking. And the military doesn’t work if personnel refuse to follow the rules in broad daylight. So.” He trailed his fingertip along the spines of all his precious books, then eventually found a different one, started flipping through it absentmindedly. “And even if it weren’t the law, it’d still get enforced extrajudicially. You know what that means?” He did that, when he was intentionally being cruel; used big words that Bradley didn’t know to make himself sound smarter. “It means outside the law. The way people talk to you. The way people respect you or don’t respect you. And this business, the one you want to go into, is all about respect. Being a pilot is kind of like being a knight: you have to be noble, you have to be honorable, you have to respect your service and your adversaries and yourself. And because I respect you, and because I care about you a lot, I’m just telling you the truth—you’re going to have to keep it a secret.”

Bradley blinked. There was something crushing and overwhelming about the truth—maybe the fact that it was the truth, maybe the fact that he hated the fact that it was the truth. It made sense. But it also meant his future was unspeakably bleak. He tried to speak over the lump in his throat when he said, “Yeah. That’s what Maverick told me, too.” And what he’d wanted to hear from Uncle Ice was that Uncle Mav was telling a lie.

Something went soft and slightly wounded in Uncle Ice’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” Uncle Ice said gently. “I wish I could give you better advice than that. But that’s all I know. I don’t know any more than that.”

“Don’t you want to know more than that?”

“No.”

And thus did the generational gap widen into a chasm.

—

[February 2003.]

Dear SN Bradshaw, / Please call/email/write me back when you get a chance. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[August 2003.]

Dear AN Bradshaw, / I hope you’re doing all right. I hope at some point you and I can get in touch to talk. Please let me know if there is some other address I should be sending my letters to. I am not sure if they are finding you. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[May 2004.]

Dear AN Bradshaw, / I wanted to congratulate you on your acceptance to college. Yours is a very good AE program & you should feel very proud. Please let me know if there’s anything you might need as you prepare to start your first year. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[August 2010.]

Dear LT Bradshaw, / I wanted to let you know that I’ll be at NAS Oceana for a conference from December 6-9. I understand that’s your neck of the woods—would you be interested in having dinner with me on either that Tuesday or Wednesday night? I would love to hear how you’ve been doing. You can reach my secretary at the number below. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[October 2014.]

Dear LT Bradshaw, / We Maverick and I want to wish you a Happy Birthday 30th Birthday. We heard you are deployed out in the Atlantic now—we hope you will be able to enjoy the enclosed gift card when you make it back to terra firma. Our updated personal cell numbers are below. / HAPPY BIRTHDAY! FROM UNCLE MAVERICK & Uncle Iceman.

…

“Haven’t heard back from the kid yet.”

“…You think we ever will?”

The longest silence.

—

[Pacific Air Type Commander Beau Simpson. 2016.]

You could see it in the way they held themselves. An utmost similarity. Aristocratic propriety. Maybe a little sense of entitlement: look how hard we’ve worked to be here. All three of them had it. More accurately: Captain Mitchell and Admiral Kazansky both had it, and had passed it down to their son.

“Captain Mitchell.” Everyone was watching. The sun had only just set; the sky was melting from horizon-red through orange and yellow and teal up to midnight black above them.

“It’s an honor, sir,” said Captain Mitchell, accepting Admiral Kazansky’s handshake. God, you’d never know it by looking at them. Half the people here on this Roosevelt flight deck knew about them, but they were so convincing that more people weren’t sure. TYCOM Simpson glanced at Rear Admiral Bates, who glanced back in confusion—I thought they were…? They were, TYCOM Simpson signaled, just abnormally good at keeping it a secret.

“Honor’s all mine, Captain,” said Admiral Kazansky, and he passed by without a second glance.

And when he made it down the line of aviators to Lieutenant Bradshaw—you could see it. The similarity in the way they held themselves. Straight and rigid and unyielding. Cold and dismissive beyond belief, even to each other. Admiral Kazansky held out a hand. Lieutenant Bradshaw took it, but refused to make eye contact. Quiet rebellion under the radar: Admiral Kazansky had taught him well.

TYCOM Simpson glanced at Captain Mitchell, to gauge his reaction. And for once, he and Captain Mitchell were clearly thinking the exact same thing.

Like father, like son.

You could see it in their stubborn determination. How far they were willing to go. How hard they were willing to push. How long they were willing to hold their own hands to the fire, if it meant the familiar painful comfort of staying warm. “Ice-cold, huh?” TYCOM Simpson asked him the next morning, trying to pin down their strategy, trying to secure a guarantee that their family would do what their country asked of them, even if that meant death. Even if that meant the ultimate sacrifice.

“Only when I have to be,” replied Admiral Kazansky, which meant always, and—soon thereafter, he ordered Lieutenant Bradshaw to his death.

But also, Lieutenant Bradshaw went willingly, too.

“Dagger One is hit.”

“Dagger Two is hit.”

Loss is supposed to hit a man in stages. Isn’t that the truth? —Not so for Admiral Kazansky, whom grief obviously swallowed whole in just an instant. He did not break, or bend under its weight. Just stood there staring at the E-2D AWACS screen with wide wounded eyes—not disbelieving eyes. They were gone. Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Bradshaw were gone. He was in no denial whatsoever. He had leapt straight to acceptance.

“Sir,” said TYCOM Simpson hesitantly, and he reached out to touch him—the stars on his shoulder—guide him back to reality—what must it be like, to lose a son?—to willingly forfeit your family?—

But before he could make contact, Admiral Kazansky drew a breath, moved away, and closed his eyes for just a second. Perfectly composed, even with the waters of grief closing over his head, even with three dozen observers in this C2 room all scrutinizing him for his response. Perfectly composed. How did he do it? How could he manage? How was he possibly still this proud?

“Vice Admiral Simpson,” he said calmly, “I relinquish my command to you, until you deem me necessary to return to my post.”

“Sir,” said Rear Admiral Bates, darting panicked, sympathetic eyes to TYCOM Simpson, but it was too late—Admiral Kazansky was already leaving the room. Head held high and steady.

Some confusing weeks later, after Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Bradshaw returned from the dead, TYCOM Simpson and Rear Admiral Bates would casually debrief the mission together in the lobby bar of the Waldorf-Astoria in Washington, D.C. No hard liquor, just beers. Just barely enough alcohol to give them an excuse to philosophize. “You think pride is a sin or a virtue?” TYCOM Simpson found himself asking, tracing the rim of his gilt-edged Stella Artois glass with a finger, after having recounted the above testimony.

“Neither,” said Rear Admiral Bates. “Gotta be a vice.”

“A vice.”

“Yeah. Good men die because of pride, bad men die because of pride…we send our sons to battle because of pride…wars are fought and won and lost because of pride… every war in human history, when you boil it down, begins when someone says, ‘You’re wrong and I’m right, and I’m proud of my own righteousness, proud enough to kill, proud enough to die, proud enough to send my sons to die…’”

“Oh, okay. That’s the root of all human conflict, then, according to you, Warlock. Okay.”

Rear Admiral Bates smiled and laughed at himself, too. Pride, he mouthed. Then shook his head. “We’re a proud species. It’s our vice.”

TYCOM Simpson was thinking about the two proudest men he knew, Admiral Kazansky and Lieutenant Bradshaw, and wondered what it was, exactly, that had driven a wedge between them, you’re wrong and I’m right and I’m proud enough of my own righteousness to send you to your death/inflict my death upon you… And then he remembered the warnings he’d previously received about Lieutenant Bradshaw and Lieutenant Seresin and their open relationship, and then he remembered Admiral Kazansky coldly shaking Captain Mitchell’s hand… and he wondered if the wedge between them was exactly that: the matter of pride.

—

[Tom. 2018.]

“Merry Christmas and a happy new year, and all that,” says Pete, raising his glass and reaching over the dining table to clink rims with Tom and then Bradley. “A good year! A really good year! —Sorry your guy couldn’t be here, Rooster. We’ll call him tonight before you go. Tell him we miss him.”

“Where is he again?” Tom asks.

“Washington,” Bradley says with a smile. “Big conference at the Pentagon. I’ll see him next week.”

“You know,” Pete says with a sly grin directed at Tom, “I’ve never actually heard the story of how you two got together.”

“Oh,” Bradley says, shrugging as he tears open a dinner roll, “not that interesting. Pretty much what you’d expect. Inter-squadron competition-turned-sexual tension. Not exactly within regs, but we did meet each other before D.A.D.T. got repealed, so it wasn’t like we’d’ve ever been within regs, either…” (All the while, Tom’s smirking over the rim of his wine glass at Pete, No, Mav, I’m not gonna tell him I had them reassigned to the same boat…) “We broke up when I got sent to TOPGUN. But we figured it out eventually.”

“Glad you did. Sorry he couldn’t be here.”

Bradley hesitates, then says, “You know what I just realized? I never heard how you two got together…! You’ve never told me that story!”

Tom glances over at Pete, do you want to take this or shall I, and when Pete motions all yours, he sighs and says, “Uh, we don’t really know. We’ve just been telling people nineteen-eighty-six because it’s easy. But in a much more real sense…” He thinks about it, then shrugs. “Whatever. If you really want to know. In nineteen-ninety-three, right after I came back to San Diego to take command at Miramar, he and I had a drunken one-night stand. By accident. Which then turned into twenty-five years of accidental one-night stands. So.”

“Oh, c’mon. You guys bought a house together.”

“Yeah, that,” says Pete, “that was, uh, to facilitate the accidental one-night stands. Make it more convenient for everyone.”

“Cut out the middle-man,” Tom supplies, then shrugs again at the look on Bradley’s face. “That’s our story, kid. It’s not super romantic. We weren’t thinking about it that way. We didn’t know how.”

Pete raises the wine bottle to refill Tom’s glass—though it’s still halfway full—and then raises his eyebrows when he “notices” the bottle’s empty. Changes the subject as he stands: “Okay, what’s everyone feeling? Red, white, what’s next?”

“Red,” Tom says absently. “Anything big, I guess—first cab you see…” But then he thinks about it, and he amends his order before Pete leaves earshot: “Actually—we’ve got that petite sirah we gotta drink—two-thousand-four. Israeli. Might be somewhere in the back, sorry. But now’s a good occasion, I think, to bust it out for the holidays. No reason to save it.”

“Israeli sirah two-thousand-four,” Pete repeats, “okay. I got that.”

Then he steps outside, leaving Tom and Bradley alone. It’s not awkward—they’ve worked really hard over the last two years to make it not-awkward, after the mission—but human beings are human beings. Prideful, stubborn creatures. There will always be a little guilt between the two of them, and a little blame.

“I have to be honest,” Tom says after a moment, interested in being honest for Bradley’s sake, “sorry we don’t have a better story to give you, about us. It is a little hard to talk about.”

“Why?”

“Well—we don’t know the words we’re supposed to use, for one. It’s your generation who sets the standard for that kind of thing. You young people. We’re a little out-of-date. And…well. I guess we’re just jealous of you. It’s hard to talk about.”

“Jealous?” Bradley repeats quizzically. “Why?”

Tom leans back in his chair and really thinks through what he wants to say. This is one of those impromptu speeches you never really intend to make, but are probably still important to get off your chest. “Maverick and I,” he starts carefully, “will never stop feeling guilty about what we did to you. Ever. You need to know that.” And when Bradley scoffs and huffs and tries to interrupt, he goes on, “Not just pulling your papers from the Academy. It goes back further than that. We will always feel like we deprived you of your father. The merits of that feeling are debatable, sure, but it’s a fact of life. A fact of our lives, anyway. And it’s dictated so much of how we live, and how we’ve lived, over the past thirty years. Part of the reason I came back to Miramar in nineteen-ninety-three was to be with you and your mom. Because I felt I owed you that, in return for what I’d taken.”

“You didn’t kill him,” Bradley says. “Or, at least, I never blamed you for killing him. You or Maverick both. You guys were my dads. You didn’t take anything from me. —Excepting the obvious, the Academy, but that was mostly my mom, I guess, so, whatever.”

“I’m just telling you what our lives have been like since the day I met you. Why we did what we did.”

“Okay. But I still don’t understand why you’re jealous.”

Tom smiles, a little faintly. “Because the other part of the reason I came back to Miramar in nineteen-ninety-three was to be with Maverick,” he says, “and I’m jealous of you because I didn’t recognize that at the time. —Everyone hopes, when they have kids—because, look, I’m not your dad, but you are my kid, really—everyone hopes they can bring their kid into a better world than the one they had when they were a kid, and we did. But no one prepares you for how jealous you get when your kid grows up in a better world than you did. I’m not sure people your age understand how hard it was for us when we were your age.”

“I do.”

“Sure, but I don’t think you do. I—I didn’t…” He sighs. “I never meant to fall in love with Mitchell. He never meant to fall in love with me. There certainly were men in relationships in the Navy back then who could make it work—we weren’t those guys. We looked down on those guys. Most people did. And when you were an officer, your job security and your paycheck relied on your subordinates’ respect for you. If we’d rocked the boat, traded away our respect for our relationship, well, we’d have each other, but we’d be out of a job. And then, if we’d been fired—what did we kill all those people for? For nothing! What a waste of all the lives we took! It wouldn’t have been honorable. Would’ve disrespected the Navy, our careers, the men we killed. So we didn’t talk about our relationship. You know that. Didn’t talk about who we were, or what we were doing, or why, because we were afraid of losing our own honor. Didn’t talk about it until the day you two died and came back from the dead. That’s what it took. Maverick still hates talking about some of that stuff, all the labels, all the words—that’s why I sent him to get a bottle at the back of the fridge, he might be out there a while…”

“Cunning,” Bradley says softly, but leaves the space open after he speaks.

Tom looks away. “Maybe this is getting too deep into the weeds. I’m just trying to tell you what it’s been like for us. Not sure how much of this you want to hear.”

“All of it. —All of it.”

Tom clears his throat. “…Well, Maverick keeps trying to convince me that we never wasted any time. And I know there is some truth to that—we didn’t start out liking each other at all—even if we’d been as brave as people your age are nowadays, even if we’d been open with each other about that kind of stuff, we still probably wouldn’t have ended up together. I mean, we really didn’t like each other. Especially right after your dad died, and especially after you left, in two-thousand-two. So maybe it was better for us in the long run that we didn’t talk about it. But I look back on the thirty years I’ve spent with him, and…it still all feels like a waste to me.” Maybe he really is too deep into the weeds. But he just wants Bradley to understand. “Look, Mitchell is, beyond any possible shadow of a doubt, the love of my life. Always has been and always will be. Right? —I just wish I’d known that at the time. I’m jealous of you because you’re exactly the age I was when I came back to Miramar to be with you and your mom and Maverick, and you’re already married, and you won’t ever have to sacrifice any of your honor for your marriage. You’re one of the most respected men in the Navy.”

“So are you, Ice, and you’re also married to another man.”

“I’ll remind you, though it hurts a little, that I’m almost exactly a quarter-century older than you, and you and I got married within a week of each other. I had to wait for times to change.” He holds Bradley’s gaze for a moment, then finishes the last of his dinner and sets his fork down on his plate. “So, if you were ever wondering why Mav and I are a little bitter around you and Jake, well, it’s because we are.”

“Oh,” says Bradley. “See, I always thought it was just because you and Maverick are both notoriously bitter people.”

“We are,” Tom admits through a laugh. Then he continues, “But—you should also know how proud of you we both are. How proud of you we’ve both always been. We’re not very brave men—well, we are, of course, but maybe not in the way that matters. It’s pretty gratifying to have a kid who’s braver than you are. Every parent’s dream, whether we want to admit it or not. You’re brave enough for all of us.”

It’s at this moment that Pete opens the garage door and sticks his head inside and hollers, “Ice, I can’t find it. What about a merlot? Can we do a merlot?”

“No, baby, the sirah,” Tom answers without turning his head. “It’s on the second shelf, you might—have to rearrange some of the bottles—we have too much wine. We need to drink more, me and you.”

“Not a problem,” says Pete, and he shuts the door again.

“It’s on the third shelf,” Tom tells Bradley in an aside. “He’ll find it eventually. He would’ve tried to change the subject six times by now. —The previous Secretary of the Army—he actually just got married this week, I think; I need to send a card—also gay. He and his partner invited Maverick and me out to dinner the last time we were in D.C. Most uncomfortable I’ve ever seen Mav in my whole life. Asking us questions like, ‘How did you guys get together…?’ ‘Was it easier for you guys because you were in the Navy…?’ ‘When did you…know…?’” When Bradley laughs, Tom does, too. It’s really nice, it turns out, to joke about this stuff with someone who understands. “We just made our answers up out of thin air. I was uncomfortable too, admittedly. That’s what I’m saying. Mav and I never learned the vocabulary to answer questions like that.”

Bradley starts taking their plates to the sink. What a good kid. “You know,” he says from the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder when Tom joins him at the counter, “it’s so funny you bitch that you and Mav don’t have a romantic love story, or whatever. When I was a kid, you and him were literally the pinnacle of romance.”

“Oh, really.”

“Yeah. There’s something romantic about the secret, too. When Jake and I made our relationship official—the first time—I begged him to keep it a secret just for a little while. You know; it was sexy, for a few minutes! Something only he and I knew!”

“And you immediately discovered how awful it is, I’m sure,” Tom says noncommittally. “I’m jealous of you that you learned that lesson young. —Yeah, real romantic. Maverick and I could’ve ended each other’s careers fourteen thousand times over. Real romantic.”

“And trusted each other not to,” Bradley points out—

—which makes Tom reconsider.

Yeah, okay, maybe it’s a little romantic. The way Grimm’s fairytales, once you wipe away all the blood, are just a little romantic. “I’m of the opinion that the only thing getting old is good for is looking back on your life through rose-colored glasses. Sure. Historical revisionism it is. It was a little romantic.”

“What’s a little romantic?” says Pete, stepping into the kitchen and triumphantly brandishing his 2004 petite sirah; “Have I missed something funny? —It was on the third shelf, by the way. Could’ve told me that before I went and reorganized the whole fridge.”

Tom graciously accepts the half-annoyed kiss to the cheek, and answers, “Nothing you would’ve laughed at, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, one of those conversations,” says Pete, hunting around in the drawer for the corkscrew. “If you were planning on continuing, I can go out and rearrange the wine bottles by region instead of by year—” and scoffs when Tom kisses him back to reassure him, conversation’s over.

“Did you know,” Bradley says, “your husband is now openly calling you the love of his life?”

“Oh, yeah,” says Pete with a smile, popping the cork from the bottleneck, “he tells me that all the time. Nothing new.” Tops up their glasses, then deftly changes the subject: “Oh, gosh. I never asked. This is the big news. How are you and Hangman enjoying SOUTHCOM?”

“Oh, God,” says Bradley, rolling his eyes. “Let me tell you…”

“I think we did good,” Pete says later that night—they’re alone now, so he’s fine talking—as he tugs loose the tucked sheets to clamber into bed, and when Tom moves to turn off the light he adds, “No, you can keep reading.”

Tom sets his book down onto his chest and pulls his glasses off anyway. “Well, you and I are known for doing ‘good,’” he muses after a second. “We’re pretty universally renowned for being good at stuff. But, regarding what in particular? —Raising our kid?”

“Yeah. We did good.”

Actually, they didn’t do very well at all. But of course that’s not what Pete means. Pete means: it’s shocking and stunningly fortunate that they did as poorly as they did and still somehow ended up with such a good kid. Tom’s looking up at the ceiling and feeling very small. “How did that happen? Genuinely, how did that happen? I did always build getting married into my plan for my life—but I never thought far enough ahead to consider having kids. And now you and I have a kid who’s in his thirties. How’d that happen? I remember when he could barely walk!”

Pete yawns and rolls over onto his side and closes his eyes. “You and I have a kid who earned a Medal of Honor.”

“I know exactly how that happened” —and doesn’t like to think about it too much. “I suppose we’re just a family of overachievers. A lot of failing upwards, you and me. Somehow we failed our way upwards into a very happy lifelong relationship, a superstar kid…a few dozen medals each, ourselves…”

“That’s life,” says Pete sleepily.

“That is not most people’s lives. You’re aware that our lives look nothing like the average person’s life, right? You understand that?”

“That’s our life.”

Tom considers this. Yeah, it is their life. Wild how that happens.

He smiles at the singular word life, sets his book on the nightstand, presses a kiss to Pete’s bare shoulder, and turns off the light.

#happy Father's Day!#some light discussion of religion in this one but u should be used to that with me #this one is long bc it hits a LOT of prompts sry it took a minute #going thru my inbox: for this anon obv #and FTAW (for the anon who) wanted more competitive icemav #for the FOUR anons who wanted ice and bradley to talk about queerness in the navy #FTAW wanted rooster to explain how hangster came to be #FTAW wanted more ice breaking the rules (‘management tier asshole’ lol)#for the THREE anons who wanted more soft 90s icemav #which is hard for me to write bc those years are kinda boring #it’s literally just: they wake up together. Go to work together. raise their kid together. eat dinner together. fall asleep in the same bed #occasionally fuck. Keep it a secret. don’t talk about it.#for 5 years. like… narratively speaking it’s v boring but yeah they’re happy :)#FTAW wanted more of ices prenavy backstory (this isn’t really much but…)#FTAW wanted icemav’s relationship with religion #tom iceman kazansky #pete maverick mitchell #top gun maverick #top gun #icemav #top gun fanfiction #you guys sure love ur anonymity don’t u #i wanna know who’s sending in asks!!! my dms are open!!! Please come say hi!!!#there are some timeline issues wrt Carole in this one sorry. u can deal.

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