#Until it smeared his painting now he's on the same boat with his brothers

[truths33k3r4]

This is what happens when me and @allyheart707 are chatting about how adorable her turtles are with tails- It made me wonder....

..What would my SIW turtles look like? How would they react to having tails when they've lived their whole lives without them?

Hehehehehe chaos ensued quickly after~

Ok- Now that I'm done this little fun project, I can actually get back to writing the next chapter of SIW! See you guys later! :)

To God be the glory!

~ Melissa

[kaetastic]

New York Guider

pairing: Luca Changretta x Mob!Italian!Reader

summary: Y/N arrives at New York to discuss some deals, until she stumbles upon an Italian mafioso. [requested: @supermegapauselouca​]

warning: just fluff ? lol

word count: 4.6k (a writer’s block that took a week to write this lmao)

note: i am not italian + i do not know the language so please be merciful to my translations lol. anyways, sorry for the time it took for this to post! my brain had been gushing of ideas but nothing is being typed lolol

Blurs of haze cast over the chilly leather seats, seeping through each layer to vaporize each inch of possible material. It smeared over the seats with its unbearable sizzling temperature. Since it had concocted the surface for an area of possible cooking, an egg could be fried in an impeccable haste speed. There was a slight guarantee that the sides would be frayed and crunchy to the tongue. However, it did not budge those who had accustomed to such temperature. 

Hence, they laid their skin over the scorching surface without flinching back, splaying over metal as if it had been a chilly summer breeze. Almost as if they had been immune to such pain. On the other hand, those who had not grown their skin into the new surges of heat were scribbling down notes in their head for the future. Well, in hopes that they would survive this assessment. 

The usually harmless source of heat had become an irritating nuisance recently, something the civilians had only picked up when they realized their coats that were as thick as a bear’s fur had been stuffed deep in their closet. It was covered by layers of dust, sprinkles of cobwebs and things they preferred they didn’t get answers to. Too busy with their heads embedded in their work, they hadn’t brought up the new change in factor. 

Now, the streets were overrun by sheets of munched on newspapers. All sides were covered by articles and endless paragraphs talking about the abnormal heat and the measures people would take to fight in the unbearable battle.

One had amusingly been- The West Deck, A Hot Spot For Cooling. Will Boats Have To Be More Careful? While some papers draped from posts, a handful had dotted the streets as if rolling haybales. It was abandoned after it was used for its short and temporary utilisation, a makeshift fan. 

Despite the scorching sun that pinned high in the sky for nearly two weeks, the realization had only settled down languidly. Meaning, the peak of complaints had only risen at its highest point recently. It had been nothing but complaints.

The sun that pierced rays of heat surges onto the New York civilians was as if it sat behind a blind; paused everybody in a daze to not realize the heat. There were all sorts of complaints: about the sweat dripping down their back or the sweat painting their suits, quite visibly; the street stench of the sticky liquid.

Even though they had spent some time on the road to get to the desired location their boss had ordered, the swivelling of the clock’s arm had not bothered them a bit as everything had gone to plan. Well, nearly everything since there was some trouble on the port to which they had resolved by a quick utter of her notorious lips. Those that sat in the car was a mental person as they subjected themselves to pain and torture of the sizzling metal roof. So, why had they been in the car forever? 

Some bodies didn’t bat an eye to the heat. It was not the same for the man who was behind the wheels, responsible for the valuable life in the backseat. Three were straight out plucked from the Mediterranean, and one had lived his life in the dazzling place of New York City. The roads they had swerved on were accompanied by towering buildings and clutters of people; however, it had decreased as they inched closer towards the wanted street. 

Too busy with the safety of the critical and important guest who sat at the back, the driver tolerated the bites of heat in his suit, the fabric inched tighter as seconds pass. As if his clothing had suffocated his ribs. The back of his palm had been smeared over with the waterfall of sweat crawling down his forehead. Despite his technique of ignoring the heat and focusing on the drive, he had no control over his mind. It felt as if every time he had thought of plunging himself in the chilly water of his tub, it was a method of torture. 

Sparkles of light danced in the air, wavering side to side as sunlight blared through the glass pane, radiating onto the prominent specks of dust. It seemed like an endless cycle of repeated movements. Speckles of dust rocked themselves down the ground then somehow manage to quiver back up. An amusing ride. Though, it wasn’t the same for the punished car and the driver. Y/N’s tongue poked her inner cheek, the tip of her tongue had been desperate for relief of water. Water. It would’ve been the last drink she would call for in a bar. In situations like these, she would take anything.

The residue of red wine that plastered in the crook and crannies of her mouth poked her tongue. Teasing and taunting her as the short supply had, unfortunately, run out. The only available source of hydration she had bought for the journey she had underestimated for being short. It was anything but.

Y/N was sure there wouldn’t even be a drop of the liquor she had brought since it was she who chugged every millilitre of it. She couldn’t help but to wish she had the ability to somehow- magically refill it to the brim. If only. How could she have let the last drop slide down her throat without her reminiscing on the moment? Too lost in her thoughts and approaching negotiations, Y/N didn’t even realize she was getting parched.

Glancing down at her lap, her thumb pressed onto a nuisance string of dust that attached itself to her recently bought dress. The elegant green looked as it had heavily cost, expensive. Even though she had brought a bag specifically for her jewellery which was one of the reasons the driver’s shoulders was crying moments ago, she had worn her beloved golden necklace. Well, she did love each and every jewellery she owned, the low hanging gem was just different. 

Y/N felt slightly guilty for holding her love for the necklace slightly higher than the other’s she owned. Almost like those parents who liked one child more. It wrapped around her neck in an adoring way, capturing every glint of the sunlight. The award for stealing the spotlight would’ve been awarded to the painful investment of a necklace. Her brother might’ve been the one to try to hold her back whenever her eyes graze over the sparkling sins; however, it doesn’t always go as planned.

No matter how big of a closet, full of gold and strings of diamonds she had, Y/N will not be stopped until the room is overrun by the jewellery. Sure, there had been times when her mother had tried to knock some sense in her head for purchasing such luxurious items as soon as she glanced at it. But, it was a little quirk she claimed as hers. A quite shameless one that is. 

“Dove sono tutti?” (where is everybody?) Pietro inquired, eyes brushing over the silent street they had curved into. Seconds ago, every square of the street was packed with at least three people. It suddenly felt like they had entered a deserted land of emptiness. Despite the towering buildings of intimidating glass which were the ogling eyes of the skyscrapers, everyone would assume the commercial road would be streaming of people. That was not the case as the streets were as dry as a desert. There were only a handful of cars that were of the same model- half a dozen to be exact since it didn’t take too long to count such a small number on a said-busy street. Where were the tales of New York and its people? The boss’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

Her tongue poked out to caress her drying lips. Since the situation had felt somehow threatening and sceptical, Y/N already had her fingers pressed onto the bulge of the gun in her garter. Just one yank to finish a battle she hoped she wouldn’t have on American ground. Questions resounded off the walls of her head. There was no doubt that the leader of the territory would be hovered over the edge at her very much expected appearance. 

Was she to be welcomed by silence? The list of people she had to negotiate with had been separated into two: those who had greeted her, and those who didn’t bother to exert an effort. This was the latter’s case. It definitely ticked something in her which caused her tongue to smear of bitterness as if her presence was not appreciated. All the mobster wanted to do was go back to Italy, and munch on some finally good food. Those she had brought over the ship had been already devoured on.

Unfortunately for her, she had to get the business she was set less than a month to get over with. Some issues with the cargoes. One of the main topics that had been brought up during the family dinner by her uncle- one of the reasons she was even here. Damn you uncle Lorenzo.

“Probabilmente cazzo protestando per i diritti di lavoro, americani.” (probably fucking protesting for job rights, Americans) Vittorio snickered when his eyes brushed over the random, peculiar items littered onto the ground. It seemed as if the people had been escorted out quite forcefully in a short time span. There was a violet silk handkerchief puddled on the ground, smeared with a tint of dirt from the excessive amount of times feet had stomped over it. It was accompanied by a shoe that seemed freshly bought, a golden pocket watch, and a pen. All spaced away in great distance. 

Y/N didn’t say anything as she observed the silent road which had been roared by with her vehicle’s boisterous engine. The sound of the car’s plead to rest for a while after the exhausting journey bounced off the walls of the buildings to trickle into ears. She recalled on the time she had heard of the rise in opposition of the civilians to their dedicated work which was met with unfair pay. The Italian had read it on paper and her uncles who lived on the other side of the planet had mentioned it over a family meeting a couple of times.

Before she had the chance to mumble her order, a flock of men dashed out from the corner of a building. All in sombre oversized coats despite the heat, fedora hats attached to their heads, probably cowering around the lake of sweat that had been trapped inside. The pace of their steps echoed into the invisible cracks of the windows, “You’re not supposed to be here!” Leading the group was a man, slightly shorter than the rest; who had a caterpillar as a moustache, his voice sending quivers to run down the present buildings. 

She pressed her lips while her eyes ran over the group as a rapid observation of who she might deal with, “Resta qui e non tirarti fuori le pistole. Non ci serve un'altra guerra.” (stay here and don't fucking pull out your guns. we don’t need another war). There was a second seething in the vehicle before the words marinated into their heads. Pietro, the man who fiddled with the black fedora in his hands, parted his lips to amplify his uneasy thoughts about the situation. The slamming of a door slapped across his mouth. He let out an aggravated sigh from the expected action of his boss. 

The vein on Matteo’s forehead was visibly popping, branching down to slide between his eyes. His eyes were narrowed onto the vehicle which was exactly had he had said- not supposed to be there. Matteo’s pace hindered at the sight that left him astonished for a while. Although his eyes had glued onto the driver who had been drowning in his sweat, it had swiftly averted to another figure. The Italian hadn’t thought that a woman in a fluttering dress would be approaching him- or exit the car. The trailing men followed the same gesture, eyes beaming to gaze at the way the dress danced around her figure with every step she took; the way sparkles pierced back into their eyes from the tinted layer hovering over her eyes. 

It felt like every click of her heels interjected a pause in between a second to stretch time. And stretch time it was. Still in a daze, they watched as she pulled the sunglasses off with a click. The colour of her eyes glistened under the blaring sunlight, smearing over their astonished faces. There were endless of questions brought up in their heads; however, the most common one was, why was she in the car with three other men? It was safe to say all of the inquiries involved her.

“Good morning. I’m sorry if I’m disrupting something but I came here for business.” Y/N sent a quirk of her smile, fingers fiddling with the temples of her sunglasses. Matteo finally yanked away from his thoughts.

“The street is currently occupied.” 

Y/N pressed her lips in understanding before she craned her neck around to brush over the dead street, “Where’s everybody? It’s Monday, right?”

Matteo nodded, “It is. May I ask who you’re supposed to meet?”

“Travis Philip. With this empty street, there’ll be no one to lead me... would you guide me to his building? I heard it’s quite big, myself.”

Matteo quirked his eyebrows as faint chuckles from the men behind him echoed as a response to her indirect jest. The mention of the notorious name struck a chord in him. Travis Philip. The Italian had one and only one memory with the New Yorker. It was not good. There were words hurled around which was then followed by weeks of negotiations and conversations from the head of superiority that pinned over Matteo’s head. By superiority, Matteo meant Luca Changretta, “Travis Philip? What’s a woman like you tangling with a man like Travis Philip? He’s bad news.”

Y/N’s lip parted, wanting to answer his reply as vague as possible since there was a twinge in the man she could not point out. A twinge that would cause suspicion in her to rise. Just like those times she had to face those rising groups in her territory back at home. However, a raspy voice sprung onto the archery board before she had the chance to let go of the arrow, “What’s taking you so long?”

Luca stomped out of the building with anger seething from his ears in a steam of irritation and impatience. His shoulders were tense, rigid as if unbent metal blocks. The mafioso had sent down his accompanying men to check out the roaring noise of a vehicle.

Luca had expected them to kick out the unwanted people without uttering a word since the civilians of the city knew the faces they had to fear. When his eyes grazed through the heads of his henchmen, he was only left with unanswered questions. Questions he wouldn’t mind forgetting for it to torture his curiosity as he could gaze upon the sight. After sending a quirk of his lips, he turned to Matteo, “Mi prendi per il culo? Ho detto blocca la strada.” (are you fucking kidding me? i said block the road)

“L'ho fatto.” (i did) Matteo mumbled back.

“Perché è in piedi davanti a me allora?” (why is she standing in front of me then?) While the two engaged in a conversation- well, more like a scolding from the towering man to the other, Y/N couldn’t help but watch in amusement as she understood every single syllable and word gushed out onto the ground. There were few mentions of the name Luca which suits the towering man with his sleek hair. But what ticked her ears was the name, Travis Philip. The man she was looking for.

The shorter man rambled on, red creeping up to smear against his ears as huffs of mist evaporated out of his ears. Almost as if he was tolerating the annoyance of this, Luca, “Abbiamo bisogno di lui per darci i soldi. Mentre tu ti godevi il tuo tempo qui fuori, potevo solo tenerlo fermo.” (we need him to give us the money. while you were enjoying your time out here, i could only hold him down.)

“What did you do to the poor man?” The blotches of anger on the towering figure halted to crawl back into hiding. Luca pulled his body away from Matteo which he didn’t even notice was an inch away from his henchmen. He averted his focus onto the woman in confusion. Had she understood what he said? His doubts were then answered. “Save some pieces for me. Non essere egoista, lead me to him .” (don’t be selfish)

Sauntering through the crowding bodies of men, she passed the group before she screeched to a halt. There was the noise of a door slamming shut and distant feet approaching her; however, there was no familiar sound of feet shuffling that would usually follow after her from the stranger group of men. Y/N glanced at the narrowing eyes who lingered on the same spot, “So? Do I need to repeat in Italian also?”

Throwing confused gazes at their boss, the henchmen who were on duty were as struck as the superior Italian was. Luca nodded quite defeatedly while he pinched the bridge of his nose. He threw his hands in the air when no one seemed to understand his silent order, “Do I have to do everything?”

After what Y/N would call a successful deal, if you can call a couple of punches and strings of blood gushed to spray the walls a deal, she had realized it took nearly the whole day as the sky was smeared with gradients of orange and red, the sun waving a farewell. There was slight satisfaction on her side even though the bar was not full. 

Y/N could’ve done better- but she was no idiot. The woman was not on board with the idea of giving up thirty percent of the cargo pay to the transporter. He was out of his mind to jump from twenty-three to a whopping thirty percent. All because few shipments had suspiciously not landed onto its designated ports, “You know, I reserved a table at this nice restaurant. Thought of not going because what kind of loner would I look like sitting alone, right?”

The wavering warm light plastered over the Italian who paced beside her with his hands stuffed in his pocket. Y/N could vaguely recall to what led to her being walked to the place she was staying at by a man she had recently just met. Not only an Italian like her but one who possessed the same power in his hand. 

There were fragments she could try to piece together, though, it didn’t seem quite right. The possibility of the situation she was stuck in was hovering over the chances of her men yanked by an urgent call. The corners of Y/N’s lips curled up at the indirect question, “Are you asking me out to dinner, Luca?”

The Italian man pressed his lips, fingers fiddling with the curling cloth that erected out of its stitching line. Oh, how irritated his insides are from the minor fault. Luca hummed, eyes throwing a glance at the woman, “I am.”

“Well, I hope you can push that reserve later because I’m going to be running around this whole week.”

Despite the previous week flying past her in a blink of an eye, Y/N’s whole body ached and quivered like a rattling stick on the furious waves of the ocean. It had been exhausting. There were so many issues she had to multi-task and make sure to recall it by engraining the problems in the back of her head. The men she had dragged from Italy could only do so little. Overlapping her attempts at remembering these tasks she would have to keep her tabs on, she had to face negotiations with other business partners. Even though she had come mainly for Travis Philip, there were strings of names she had to deal with on behalf of her organization.

All of the muscle aching and brain crying vanished as she now sauntered under the howling night towards the building she was to stay at temporarily. It all evaporated in a hasty exhale of waves from her body. No matter what she had done to recover from the period of exasperation, nothing had worked. Unfortunately, she had to learn this first-hand since the list of what her men would usually do had not served the same results to her. That was until the approaching dinner had arrived. 

“You know, usually, I get sent home in cars.” Y/N chided. She couldn’t help the curling of her lips at her words that pierced into the Italian man who chuckled at her jest. The woman was sure that they were midway to her stay since her men had used the same path to send her to her lodge. Somewhere hidden under flaps of thoughts, Y/N didn’t want the night to end after the fulfilling meal; Luca’s presence. She didn’t know what it was about the man, but she knew she had never met somebody like him. Italy possessed a spectrum of people. However, Luca... he was different in ways she could not point out. 

Maybe it was the way his hair was sleeked, or the way his somewhat oppressed Italian accent budged into his English sentences. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the comforting fact that he knew of the world she lived in. Without a doubt, one could see the pair as equals as they stood practically on the same labelled position. Luca Changretta grew up with the knowledge of how the mafia worked, how the organization ran, and the sacrifices they had to commit. All to wear a hefty golden crown on their head. 

While the tranquil street was echoing with the clicking of her sharp heels and the light shuffling of Luca’s steps, she noticed the lack of vehicles on the road. It was usually run over by wheels and honking vehicles even though it was nudging to rising of the sun. One of the things Y/N had learned after a stretched-out meeting that had hovered over the end of a day. The Italian woman would be in the back seat of the car and watch as people engulfed the streets, and vehicles occupying each inch of the road. But now, it was just them and sprinkles of slumbering cars, “Enough experiences, have you?” 

Y/N shook her head at the unexpected reply. Despite the dinner being simple and casual, she couldn’t help but feel it was more than that. Simple was underwhelming to the way her heart fluttered at every mumble of words from his lips or the way she couldn’t help but send a genuine smile after he quirked the corner of his lips.

There was something cowering in the crack in the corner of the restaurant while they munched on the food that was worth salivating for. It lingered its eyes onto the two as they ate. However, the woman held back. It wasn’t a feeling that she was sceptical of or had a bad feeling for. Instead, it was the feeling she had been described to when she was tucked in her bed by her parents. The stories of an emotion that had led people to do things they wouldn’t normally do. The tales of love. 

The Italian woman had a handful of attempts at finding this story- well, more like confirming its existence. Because after some times, she had lost hope and felt that the tearful stories said by her mother were just lies. Lies that she falsely believed in. So, was this it? The way her gut twisted in peculiar angles whenever Luca would do the slightest like quirk his eyebrows while she went on rambling. Now that she noticed, she was slightly more open with the man. Never had she felt in her own skin when talking to someone out of her blood relatives. 

During the simple dinner, she had learned many things from the man. Not only from his stories, but from her observation that she hoped was not too obvious. There were countless of times the Italian male had tried his best to suppress his vulgar words even though she had said not to worry.

It was amusing to see Luca string of from ‘fuck’ to a rather peculiar and random word to finish off in front of the lady. He justified it when he said it wasn’t right to curse in front of a woman. Then, he proceeded to hurl ‘fuck’s and ‘shit’s after he had accidentally nudged his glass cup onto the ground which gushed into fragments of infant shards. To which he threw an excessive amount of money (more like a wad of money) on the desk. It was worth for one table set.

“Enough for me to know that there is a reason for you to tire out a lady’s legs.” Luca grinned, his fingers cladded with his sparkling rings pierced on the stubborn scar that would torment his face forever. The memory of something he wished he could have forgotten. The permanent marking that would remain on him to remind him of the pathetic moment of his youth life. 

The Italian man nodded in understanding, “Yeah, but you can have a better view of the moon when you walk,” Y/N shook her head at his excuse for making her knees cry out for rest. “Plus, you get really good exercise.” 

“I hope you’re not indicating for me to exercise. I’ve done a lot of walking this past week.”

“What kind of a man do you take me as?” Luca inquired as he stuffed his fingers into the pockets of his jacket. 

Silence engulfed the two after Y/N’s quick chuckle. It wasn’t one of those that occurred when the moment had felt wrong. No, it was more than that. It was far more than that. A silence of enjoying the fact that the other was still here. His radiating warmth had coated her arm. She knew it would be a lot warmer if she was just nudged into him. The period of time hadn’t been interjected by a mumble before Y/N’s eye grazed over her lodge, “This is it.”

The pair lingered in front of the wooden door. Luca watched with his hat in his fingers. Although her body swerved to nudge to her left, time smeared in a blur.

Luca caressed her chin with his thumb, fingers gingerly and softly pinching to tilt her up. Even though the night where every civilian had prayed for cooling and a miracle surge of wind, the faint whistling of breezes had failed their hopes. There was only a tease of puffs in the air as if it taunted those who were drowning in their own sweat. With the twinge of cooling breezes, it was vanished once their warm lips generated a temperature hotter than that of the waves of heat in the bright morning.

Y/N didn’t want it to end, the feeling of his fingers brushing a trail to place against her cheek so softly as if she was a cargo of fine wine; the taste of his lips. But it did. Unfortunately, “I’m leaving in two weeks.” She breathed out, eyes ogling up to face the man who had plastered over her with a feeling she had never felt before. It was foreign. Y/N needed more of it.

“Well, then, it’ll be two unforgettable weeks.” 

[fanficimagery]

Tops Dogs

#144 "Well that's pretty rude of you to say."

Summary: When the Alexandrians are on their knees and waiting to see which one of them is to be sentenced to death by Negan, an entirely new group steps in and changes everyone's view on just who the true top dogs are out in the new world. SEASON 7 AU. Modern!100 AU.

Fear.

Pure, unadulterated fear courses through his veins and all Rick can think about is how this is all his fault. As his friends and family are forced to their knees, all he can really pray for is that his son lives and everything's done and over with soon so they can get Maggie the help she needs before it's too late.

"All right!" One of the people who’s captured them gloats. "We got a full boat. Lets meet the man." The same man walks up to a dusty RV and knocks twice on the door.

The seconds seem to stretch on as they wait, many of Rick's group shivering in either fear or pain. He knows now that they're in way over their head, that Gregory had led them to believe they actually had a chance against Negan. But boy were they wrong.

So, so wrong.

The RV door creaks open and a man steps out. It's too dark to really see him, but Rick can make out that the man is gripping a bat in hand while letting it lean against his shoulder. "Pissing our pants yet?" He asks. No one utters a word and the man starts walking forward into the light. Fitted jeans, a black leather jacket, and a red scarf wrapping around his neck is what makes up the man that supposedly everyone fears. "Boy, do I have a feeling we're getting close." He walks towards Eugene, smiling all the while and starts walking down the line of kneeling individuals. "Yep. It's gonna be pee-pee pants city here real soon. Which one of you pricks is the leader?"

Lexa's leaning against the door to the cafeteria, watching on as her people are served up their rations for dinner. It's been a peaceful week so far, so it's not really a surprise when one of her best scavengers comes up to her with news.

"Negan's men are hunting," Octavia murmurs quietly as she sidles up to Lexa's side. She makes sure to keep her gaze straight ahead, all weapons sheathed and arms at ease at her sides. "They've crossed the perimeter into our territory and appear to be circling a smaller group from the Alexandria community."

Lexa's jaw clenches, but makes no move to look at the younger girl. "Is Negan with them?"

"We're not sure, but that ugly RV of his was spotted driving around. It's parked now. In our territory as well."

Lexa finally glances at the younger girl, taking in her coal smeared eyes and leather jacket adorned with buckles and straps. Her hair is pulled back in what everyone started to call grounder!fashion, the sides braided back to a certain point and then tied off to hang loosely down her back. "Give me five minutes. Go and gather a group, and then tell Indra she's in charge while I'm away. We're going to crash a party."

Octavia can only grin in response, she tersely nodding once while rushing off to do what she was told.

In her room, Lexa merely pulls on a jacket over her shirt since the rest of her attire is appropriate for an outing. Then above the jacket, she pulls on a one-shoulder shoulder pad that straps across her chest and then clasps a red sash from the right side of her chest to droop down to her left hip. Her hair is already pulled back and after sheathing a sword at the right side of her hip, she paints coal across her eyes and then smears a few lines down her cheeks. A little metal, gear-like decal is placed between her brows and she's ready- ready to break up Negan's little hunting party and remind the man that he's not all he tries to be.

     - X - X - X - 

Hidden in the shadows with half her fighters hidden high up in the trees, Lexa watches on in disgust as an utterly exhausted group of men and women, and what appears to be one teenager, are forced to their knees in a semi-circle. Negan's men are crowded behind the group's back, all armed with long rifles and smaller handguns holstered at their waists, and holding either pipes or crowbars. Vehicles circle the entirety of the group, their headlights turned on and spotlighting the group from Alexandria.

Negan does make his grand entrance, complete in his leather jacket, red scarf and barbed wire wrapped bat, he ranting on and on about how he does not appreciate Rick killing his people or that Rick and his people killed more of Negan's people when Negan sent in more men to kill Rick's people for killing his people. It's all one big cluster-fuck and Lexa nearly feels bad for the people that earned Negan's ire.

One woman in Rick's group looks to be in dire need of help and it grates on Lexa's nerves when Negan promises that they're going to regret crossing him in a few minutes. She knows how the man works, knows how cowardly he truly is, but they've set their borders on their own claimed territory and stayed off each other's toes.

Until now, that is.

Not only has Negan trespassed, but he's trespassed with the intent to kill. And while Lexa does not know a single face in Rick's group, she's not about to sit back and let Negan slaughter someone in her own backyard.

Negan, of course, demands that Rick and his people give him their shit. This is another thing that grates on her nerves, this self-proclaimed bad ass scavenging from other communities by threatening to kill them if they don't cough up what they fought for. For being a very capable man with very capable men and women at his compound, they choose to take food and other necessary items from groups who worked hard to get it themselves, and that is not okay with Lexa. It's cowardly and pathetic, and she's nearly salivating at the idea of putting the man in his place in front of his current victims.

"I don't want to kill you people. Just want to make that clear from the get-go," Negan says. "I want you to work for me. You can't do that if you're dead, now, can you?"

Rick violently shivers, from both the cooling sweat on his skin and the fear gripping his entire being as he listens to what their lives are going to be like now.

"But you killed my people, a whole damn lot of them," Negan seethes. "More than I'm comfortable with. And for that, for that you're gonna pay." He pauses in his overly long speech and Rick bristles as he hears Maggie whimper. He looks down the line to Daryl and watches as his brother bravely glares up at the one threatening them. "So now... I'm gonna beat the holy hell outta one of you," Negan says as if it were no big deal to take a life.

And if the stories were to be believed, which they are, then Negan was the ultimate big bad and what he's just said was no bluff. 

The gathered Alexandrian's can only watch on as the man taunts them, beaten and utterly exhausted, a bat wrapped with barbed wire leaning against his shoulder as Negan slowly paces before them.

Crickets continue chirp, twigs snap, and leaves rustle, but no one seems to pay it any attention. Negan continues to take his time to size up Rick and his people, and then..

"I'm sorry, but what was that?" A new voice, feminine from the sounds of it, asks. Rick and a few of his people's gazes are immediately drawn to the decent sized group that's crept up on them, a woman with war paint across her eyes and apparently dressed for a battle of sorts now standing just to the left of Negan’s RV. Even the group of men behind her are dressed similar, some of their faces painted as an intimidation tactic. "Who are you going to beat the holy hell out of?"

Negan freezes for a brief second, anger suddenly blazing in his eyes as his grip tightens around his bat. A false smile stretches from ear to ear as he whirls around. "Lexa, my girl, how are you on this wondrous night?"

"Cut the shit, Negan," she says. "You're in my territory and you know how I feel about you and your little merry band of cowards playing this bullshit game."

Negan's men all bristle, muttering swear words as the one Negan called Lexa smirks, and Negan narrows his eyes in anger. “Well that’s pretty rude of you to say.” 

Several guns can be heard being cocked, but all Lexa has to do is whistle and then another group- this one at least thirty or so large- is stepping forward from the shadows on the other side of the RV. The female leading the second group is all swagger and nonchalance, and the men behind her are covered in furs, paint and masks which makes them at least 10X scarier than Negan and his own men. 

"You and I already know how this is going to end, Negan. You're in my territory now and my people greatly outnumber you and yours." He scoffs at Lexa's words, eyeing those standing with her. Even to Rick's gaze Negan's group still looks just a little bit larger, but Lexa whistles again and Negan's back to scowling. Because not only does Lexa have men and women on the ground, but if the little fires suddenly dotting up high in the trees is anything to go by, then she also has people waiting to strike from up high. "Leave now," she threatens, "or I'll drive my sword through your heart and string up your corpse as a warning to those left at the Sanctuary."

Negan's lip curls, but as the seconds slowly tick by he eventually glances over his shoulder and nods tersely to his men. Surprisingly, the wall of men at Rick and his people's backs step away, drop the weapons they had stripped from the Alexandrians, and start climbing back into and onto their modes of transportation. Then glancing back at Lexa, Negan mockingly curtsies. "As you wish, Commander."

Negan shoulders his bat once more and then casts a glare at Rick. "Remember. You work for me now."

Rick gulps, but it's Lexa who pipes up. "Actually, they don't. If you want food, clothing, furniture and medicine, then why don't you put on your big boy pants and fetch it yourself like the rest of us."

"You're skating on thin ice, girl," he chuckles darkly while slowly turning back towards her. "They owe me. You clearly missed my speech about the crimes they've committed against me and since I'm not bashin' in any skulls tonight.." He trails off, shrugging.

"Oh, no. I heard," she assures him. "I just don't care. Alexandria is neutral ground, but since you brought your hunting party into my lands, I'm stepping in now. You will leave them alone or you'll deal with the Coalition."

Negan's lips twist into a snarl as his face darkens. "This isn't over."

"I didn't expect it to be."

As Negan barks at his men to roll out, he stomps back towards his RV and slams the door behind him. It takes a couple of minutes for the RV, trucks and motorcycles to finally leave the woods, but they eventually do and everyone just kind of breathes in relief. But having been left with a far larger and more intimidating group, Rick remains on his knees, watching cautiously as Lexa starts to make her way towards them.

Glenn scrambles over to Maggie who's looking far worse than she did earlier, and Rick mentally scolds him for the action because he's not sure how this new group is going to react to them.

"I am not a monster nor royalty," Lexa says calmly with a small grin. "You can get off your knees now." She holds a hand out to him and Rick hesitantly takes it as she pulls him to his feet. She tries to help up Sasha, but the dark skinned woman refuses and climbs up on her own.

Lexa's attention then turns to Maggie and Glenn huddled on the forest ground, he mumbling soothing words in her ear. Rick watches as the woman frowns and crouches in front of them. Abraham, the surly redhead, tries to intervene, but Rick shakes his head at his friend. "What's the problem?" Lexa asks.

Glenn glances at her, worry glinting in his eyes. "S-she's pregnant," he blurts, "and in an extreme amount of pain. We don't know what's wrong."

Lexa reaches forward and places a hand on Maggie's damp forehead, she shushing and cooing when Maggie tries to pull away. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you." Maggie continues to whimper and tremble, and Lexa's frown deepens. "She needs immediate attention."

Rick clears his throat as his group gathers around, casting cautionary glances towards Lexa's people still lingering by the treeline. "We were on our way to Hilltop when Negan's men started to corral us here. Hilltop has a doctor there that's helped Maggie before."

"I know the community in which you speak of," she tells him. "Unfortunately, if you wish to save the baby, she won't make it as far as Hilltop."

Glenn looks absolutely torn and terrified as Maggie starts to sob, he looking up at Lexa. "Please help us. I'll do- I'll do anything."

Rick's gut clenches at the obvious desperation, but is quite surprised to see Lexa nod. "Polis, our community, is a lot closer. You all," she says, glancing briefly at everyone lingering around, "look like you need some aide in one form or another." Then glancing back at Glenn, she says, "If you will permit it, one of my men will carry her. We are not injured nor are we exhausted, so there's little to no chance of us jostling her too much or putting her in further pain."

"Y-yeah. That's fine." He glances down at Maggie, pressing a quick kiss to her temple. "You hear that, Maggie? We're gonna get you some help, but they're going to have to carry you. It's going to be alright."

She weakly nods and mumbles out a thank you between cries, and then Lexa's standing and facing her people. "Lincoln. We're in need of your strength." A dark skinned man steps forward from behind the only other woman, at least Rick thinks there's only two women since everyone else is covered up, his clothing covered in mud as two dark streaks of war paint are painted down over his eyes from his forehead to his cheeks. Once he's standing next to Lexa, she gestures downward and says, "This is Maggie. She's with child and needs immediate attention from our home."

Lincoln nods before crouching down, but doesn't make a move towards Maggie since Glenn's staring at him in awe and/or fear. "Don't worry," Lexa grins. "Lincoln's a gentle giant. Your lady friend will be perfectly safe with him."

"S-she's my wife," Glenn automatically corrects, he then hesitantly and cautiously handing Maggie over to Lincoln. The painted man gets her situated fairly easy in his arms, he standing and then turning to stride back towards his people.

"Come," Lexa tells them. "To Polis we go."

[a-mad-scientist-approaches]

The Cipher Conspiracy (14)

Oh my God! It’s done!

This story has been in my head for over a year, and now I can finally bring it to a close. I’ve had this planned out since before I even started writing, and it’s such an incredible feeling to finally have it on (virtual) paper and concluded. I can’t believe how fun it’s been, guys.

As always, I am overjoyed to write @hntrgurl13‘s and @missinspi‘s respective OCs Adeline Marks and Madeline McGucket, and @scipunk63‘s Addiford ship. You guys... just...  <3

I am so freaking proud of this. Enjoy.

AO3

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14

Chapter 14: Finale

???    ∆

Ford? Ford?

He was underwater; everything was blurred. Smeared like a water painting.

Come on buddy, wake up. We gotta move.

He could feel something crunchy. Somethings crunchy. Crackling in his ear, along his cheek. Everything was swaying, rhythmically back and forth. Underwater smelled earthy… strange.

Okay, hold on Ford, just hold on.

Brown and dried leaves fell away from him. Brown and dried leaves fell away from him.

A sound stopped making noise. The silence deadened everything even more so. Some kind of blast. Distant. Contained explosions. They had stopped.

Muffled swearing.

He let the depths claim him again.

∆

“-Meanwhile, we go to an update on the situation in Manhattan.

“Power still has not been fully restored to the isle, in what has now been confirmed as a planned attack on American soil. At precisely seven o’clock last night, Manhattan began experiencing massive power failures until the entire city was completely dark. As many have speculated, these blackouts were indeed caused by several electromagnetic pulses, weapons designed to fry the circuits of any and every electronic device within their extensive range, planted in strategic areas for maximum damage. We are now receiving reports from multiple sources which outline Oracle Division, a covert government agency created to investigate and terminate anarchist extremist plots to sow chaos into the world, as the perpetrator for this crime. It seems that what was once Oracle Division’s duty to investigate has now become their duty to instigate. Up next: feel like there’s no one you can trust? No need to worry, because it seems like the end of the world is approaching anyway-”

A Road Somewhere? (USA, Probably)    ∆

There was a loud, uncomfortable rumbling under Ford’s left ear. He opened his eyes and found himself staring at the back of a driver’s side red leather seat – the interior of the Stanleymobile. He was lying on his side, cheek stuck to the surface of the back seat.

His heartrate skyrocketed.

“Ford, you back with me?” Came Stan’s voice.

“Yes!” He scrambled to push himself up. Stan was in the driver’s seat. Obviously. No one else was in the car.

More memories hit him.

“Turn arou-”

“Ford, shut it,” Stan’s voice was tight. “You think I’d be taking us away if we could go back? We’re lucky we got out-”

“Fiddleford and Addi-”

“It’s thanks to her we even are out! If she hadn’t been off drawing as much attention as she possibly could, we’d be in the same boat as her right now! So shut up, sit back, and be grateful, while I make sure that what they did is actually worth something!”

A bolt of anger fired through him. Like hell he would.

“Pull over,” he demanded.

“No,”

“What happened to Fiddleford?”

“What do you think?”

Menace entered his voice. “Pull. Over,”

“Do you actually think you can change anything at this point? They’re long gone by this time, Ford, and there’s nothing you or any other pretentiously-named agency full of ineffective, useless people can do for them, so we are going-”

“You’re just going to give up? After everything that’s happened, you decide-”

“-back to Sacramento to get Carla, and we are getting safe-”

“-that this is where you draw the line of all places-”

“-because crap has well and truly hit the fan and I am not letting-”

“-when Bill Cipher is a bigger threat than ever and he probably has Addi and Fiddleford right n-”

“JHESELBRAUM CAN HANDLE IT FROM HERE!”

“PULL THE DAMN CAR OVER!”

The brakes screeched, rubber burned, and Ford almost shot over the front seat as the car skidded to a halt.

∆

"Breaking news; a statement outlining the reason behind the closure and police perimeter recently established around the FBI field office in Roseville has just been issued by a federal spokesperson. The head of the office, Special Agent-in-Charge Ned Guy, has been killed, and agents have reason to believe that the assassin is still in the area – perhaps even inside the office itself. Further information pending, but the question remains: who sent this person, and who is their next target? Whoever it is, our thoughts – mostly along the lines of ‘I hope to God it isn’t me’ – are with them,”

The Side of a Road Somewhere (USA)    ∆

Ford was out of the car practically before it had stopped moving, and Stan tore off of his seatbelt to meet him.

“What is wrong with you?! We have to help them!”

“Haven’t you been listening? We can’t! We have no idea where they are, and even if we did know, there were at least thirty agents in that forest! How many of us are there, Ford? Two! We have a better chance of being invited into their homes for coffee and evil plans than we have of taking them on and winning!”

“We have Oracle Division, Stanley, and the FBI, and we will use them because I am telling you right now that we are not running and hiding from this!”

“So we act like idiots and end up like Addi and Fiddleford, who for all we know are already-”

The silence roared as Stan cut himself off, not daring to finish that sentence, and Ford fought to keep breathing evenly.

Finally, Stan looked him dead in the eye and said lowly, “Get in the car,” which brought a whole new wave of rage over Ford.

“What world are you living in that I ever would?” He snapped. “Our friends are suffering at this very moment because of my mistakes, because of things I allowed to happen!”

“Ford-”

“And not only that, but the world is in imminent danger from that madman, and you still won’t even consider trying to save anyone but yourself-”

He thought Stan was going to hit him.

“Of course I tried to save them! What the hell is wrong with you that you think I didn’t?! Fiddleford was right there with me, and I would’ve gotten him out, I would’ve, but we got separated and – and suddenly everything was going to shit and Addi was being swamped-”

“And you just left her?!”

“-I thought you were dead!”

The thudding in Ford’s head quieted down and all the panic for his friends that was clawing its way up his throat in preparation to be screamed at Stan caught, his voice refusing to give it power.

Stan looked about a second away from ripping his hair out, and he was staring desperately at Ford in mixed rage and pain and despair.

“I thought you were dead, Ford! Not in trouble this time, not hurt – dead. I heard gunshots, and when I ran towards them I found you, and you were lying on the ground and you weren’t moving and I thought you were dead! Do you have any idea what that’s like?” His voice cracked.

A low-lit room, bitingly cold despite the pleasantness of the bar next door, two bodies bleeding out on the ground, one of which could so easily have been Stan. Yes, Ford knew what that was like.

“So I’m sorry that I couldn’t do enough, and I’m sorry that we can’t do anything right now, but if you think I’m ever gonna let something like that happen again, then you really are entirely as much of an idiot as you act like when you’re scared,”

With that, Stan slumped against the driver-side door, exhausted. Ford felt hollowed-out, everything inside that had been propelling him gone for the moment. On jellied legs he made his way over and leant next to Stan, tentatively pressing his shoulder against his soon after.

Stan was right. He needed to get a grip. Spoiling for a fight – with Stan, Cipher, anyone – was the worst possible thing to do at present.

So what was something they could do?

His mind was blank. Judging from Stan’s equal motionlessness, he didn’t really know how to proceed either; Ford could guess, based on what his brother had just said, that until he’d dug in his own heels Stan had been (and, most probably, still subconsciously was) operating on the single priority of get who you can safe with practically no other considerations until that goal was fulfilled.

The problem was, Ford wasn’t letting him complete that goal, and even though the reality check Stan had given him had been effective, his own mind didn’t seem to be able to supply a solution either.

∆

“We have previously reported that Oracle Division, notorious rogue government agency behind the Manhattan Blackout, is also more than likely involved in many other plots to sow discord and chaos among the nation, and, perhaps, the world at large. Since that time, we have received many accusations of spreading false information through speculation, contributing to mass panic, and we apologise. Here is the following correction: Oracle Division, notorious rogue government agency behind the Manhattan Blackout, is most definitely behind Ned Guy’s assassination among many other disturbing events. The idea that sources can concur on any one thing is a myth, so why even bother to mention ours. We apologise, again, for the former inaccuracy,”

I-I Don’t... Know    ∆

He’d gone. The- the man with the… weapon. Yes. It looked like a gun, it fi-fired like a gun, ergo, it was definitely a weapon, if not one he recognised. But the man had gone, up an elevator, and he’d taken it with him and now he and the woman were left alone in the dark.

She was staring at him, speechless, horrified, and grief-stricken. She was crying, and he didn’t know why, only that he wanted to help her. Had she been there this whole time? It was hard to recall... it was hard to think…

It was like he should be hurting – he felt like he should be so, so hurt, but it was like his head was full of fog instead, and it was hard to do anything. The thing that hurt most was his eyes… which was definitely odd because he didn’t think he’d stared into that blinding white light from the weapon all that many times. A few, yeah, but surely not enough to make his eyeballs feel like they’d been scoured with a wire brush...

He wished she’d stop crying. That wasn’t going to help anyone, and he should know.

Should he know?

... yes, he thought so. He was pretty sure it was useless by this point.

How did he know that?

He felt floaty, which was not something he was used to feeling, but he wasn’t going to complain because it was a lot better than what he’d expected.

He’d expected?

Yeah, expected. He was too tired to think further about how he’d known to expect something. His brain felt exhausted. Imagine if the next round of… (was he being tortured?)… imagine if it involved sums. A bubble of laughter made its way past his lips. Now that would be torture.

Anyway, he felt floaty. Which was strange, because… because… he couldn’t stand… and he couldn’t stop shaking either. He was hanging and trembling from his wrists and his mind felt wrung out and the woman was saying something about the man going up for a phone call and they needed to get away, and she just looked even more scared when he asked what a phone call was. She explained. He snorted. That sounded like something out of science fiction if he’d ever heard it. Useful, but obviously fake. In fact, the only thing he could really feel was…

… anger. At that red book on the table. Because whenever the weapon fired, the book was consulted and it knew everything about him… didn’t it? It certainly didn’t know about – about – about… he couldn’t remember… and he was terrified more than ever for some reason because he couldn’t remember the boy’s name, or what he looked like, or –

He couldn’t remember.

Sacramento, California (USA)    ∆

“Wexler, the deal was you’d tell us what we needed to-”

“Was that I would reveal the agents I know of if, and only if, Cipher is taken down,”

Carla gritted her teeth.

“Until such time as that happens, I’m afraid I will be keeping my mouth – wisely – shut. Furthermore, I believe you have yet to follow through on your promise to place me in the Witness Protection Program.” Wexler regarded her with a very much unbeaten expression and she berated herself for forgetting that he had accepted the deal to save his own skin, meaning that he remained quite firmly on the side of the Cipher Wheel until that no longer became an option.

“Well, plans change, as you and your buddies have seen fit to demonstrate. We need to know where Cipher is. And what those names are, thank you very much,”

He smiled indulgently at her and kept silent.

“It’s only a matter of time before Cipher is dead or behind bars! The FBI is aware of the threat. We have in place layers and layers of resistance to meet him. He cannot win!” She protested, but she’d lost him and she knew it. He’d goaded her into begging, or close enough. Even though it hadn’t been completely successful, the assassination attempt had proved that Cipher’s reach was only growing, and had flipped her and Wexler’s positions: he had the upper hand now. Every line of his body oozed confidence.

“And yet you’re now coming to me, desperate for help. Where did that fierce drive to win go, agent? Don’t tell me. It disappeared, along with all your friends,”

“You’re afraid of Cipher,” she snapped. Wexler shrugged. That was news to no one. “We can keep you safe, you know we can. You wouldn’t have agreed to the first deal if you didn’t think so. We will still do that, but things have changed and you need to tell us what you know sooner rather than later,”

“In fact, McCorkle, I don’t know that you can deliver on all your promises of safety. An assassin is still after you, are they not? More than likely they have already made their way into the building, based on the amount of time that has elapsed since the first killing. So no, thus far, you have spectacularly failed to build any kind of rapport with me or earn any sort of confidence in you. Why should I not just keep my silence, wait for the Cipher Wheel to win, and you to die?”

“DAMMIT!” Carla shouted, striding into the room she had designated as her temporary, windowless, singularly-entranced cell of an office. Jheselbraum didn’t even look up from the news report she was watching as the door slammed closed.

“I take it he’s refusing to cooperate in any manner now?”

Vicious, if muttered, swearing and agitated pacing answered her.

“Has there been any word on El Dorado?” Carla reached the wall, spun on her heel, and strode back the way she’d come.

“The forest is still crawling with Cipher Wheel agents. I’ve heard nothing about Stanley or Stanford, or Agents Marks and McGucket, but we can assume that someone, perhaps even all of them, managed to escape the ambush. The forest would not be so active unless that was the case,”

Another pivot. “But at least one of them’s also been captured,” she stated flatly.

“The vehicles that have left the forest do indicate that,” Jheselbraum confirmed, a pillar of stillness in direct contrast to Carla’s flurry of movement. “As yet, none of my agents have been able to follow them without risking exposure,”

“And with Wexler refusing to talk, we have no other way of finding out where they might be going. Which is wherever Cipher is.” Carla stopped, braced her palms on the table in the centre of the room, and leant heavily on them, trying to work out the tension in her back before all the coiled muscle there snapped something important.

The next time she saw Stanley, and she would be seeing him again, if only to kill him herself, she was never letting him out of her sight again. A bit of a counter-productive sentiment, but rationality had had a foot halfway out the door since the day began.

And at some point she had to deal with the assassin, who was most certainly getting closer with every minute that passed. The building was on high alert, but regardless, she doubted Cipher would have sent anyone after her who couldn’t deal with that.

She had absolutely no idea where to go from here. Other than to pick up some Witness Protection Program forms, she supposed.

A phone rang in the silence. She felt the vibration through the table and looked up to see Jheselbraum reach for the device and stiffen, staring at the screen with the closest expression to dread Carla had ever seen on the woman’s face. She turned her gaze to the screen as well.

The caller image showed a single terrifying yellow eye.

The Road Again (USA)    ∆

Eventually they’d just sunk to the ground, drained.

It wasn’t that Stan wanted to admit that things looked pretty bleak... it’s just that they did anyway.

The silence between them was interrupted sharply by his phone ringing. He felt Ford jolt next to him.

Honestly, the turn the day – the past half hour – had taken meant that if it had been anyone other than Carla calling, Stan wasn’t sure he would’ve picked up. As it was, he turned on the speaker so Ford could hear as well, figuring that just because he wasn’t in the mood to plan a desperate and useless counterstrike against Cipher was no reason to keep that opportunity from his brother.

He hit the answer button.

“STAN?!”

Ford jumped again, and Stan flinched too. Had he accidentally turned the thing up to full volume again?

“Oh my GOD, you’re okay, you’re okay- you are, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Oh, hell, are you hurt? How bad is it? Listen to me closely: if you see a light, and it’s not the sun, do not-”

“No, no I’m fine!” Stan assured her hurriedly. “Ford’s here too, we’re both fine,”

“We’re unhurt, Carla,” Ford supplied, and from the look on his face Stan couldn’t help but think that he was not confirming the situation to Carla but more correcting Stan’s choice of words. Stan was inclined to agree with it.

“Jesus, that’s good to hear.” A pause. “Addi and Fiddleford?”

Stan’s stomach dropped out and Ford was silent.

“No,” he managed to get out. “No. They’re not,”

A sigh washed over the speakers. “I was hoping he was lying..."

“Hoping who was lying?” Ford said sharply.

The brief quiet on the other end of the line was very telling. So much so that Stan pretty much already knew what she was going to say before she’d gathered herself enough to say it.

“Jheselbraum and I just got a phone call from Bill Cipher,”

“Let me guess, it wasn’t to surrender himself and his network,” Stan said, dragging a hand down his face. Ford was rapidly losing what colour he’d regained as he too worked out what Carla was about to say.

“No, it... definitely was not. He wanted us to get a message to you.” She paused again, working out how best to phrase it, and Stan really wished she would just spit it out.

After a second, she gave up and did just that.

“He says Addi and Fiddleford are still alive, and if you guys show yourselves quick enough, they might even remain that way.” She let that sink in.

Hearing it out loud when you’re expecting it should really be easier than this, Stan considered with an air of detachment.

“He didn’t say anything else?” Demanded Ford.

“Other than a few taunts and name-calling? No,”

“So how are we supposed to hand ourselves over if he didn’t tell us where he is?” Stan exclaimed.

“I know. It’s a shame, but he really isn’t an idiot. He knew I’d be listening in to that call. He wasn’t going to reveal anything that might lead the FBI to him before he’s ready to fully take us on,”

“What about you, Poindexter?” Stan said urgently, turning to Ford. “You have any idea where he might be?”

“Cipher didn’t just use one place as headquarters,” Ford said, a deep furrow between his eyebrows. “He moved around fairly often. I know of a few places he’d frequent, yes, but there’s no guarantee he’s at any of them right now, and we don’t have time to check them all before he loses his patience with Addi and Fiddleford. Which is another thing! We don’t even know if they’re in the same place he is!”

“Yes we do,” Carla said unexpectedly, neatly stopping Ford dead in his increasingly hopeless rant.

“We do?” Stan looked at Ford.

“Yes. This whole situation with me got Addi and I thinking: he’s made it clear – even more so with that phone call – that he wants to kill or capture you two himself.”

“What situation with you?” Stan said warily.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said quickly, and he definitely didn’t believe that at all, but she was on a roll and they needed to know this, so he let it go for now. “The point is, you’ve been too much of a pain for him not to hold a grudge. Same situation with Oracle Division,”

“So they’ll be in the same place,” Stan nodded his understanding, and then frowned. “But that still doesn’t help us a whole lot. It just means we only have one raid to do instead of two, in a location we still don’t kn-” Stan stopped. Out of the corner of his eye, he’d just seen Ford stiffen. Looking at him again, there was the tell-tale gleam of understanding in his eye: he’d just worked something out.

“Ford?”

“I know where he is.” He gave a mirthless laugh. “I don’t why I thought it was possible he’d be anywhere else,”

“Alright, tell me where. We can alert Tactical and take him out before knows what hit him,”

Ford opened his mouth, and shut it again.

“No,” he said.

“No?!” Stan repeated incredulously. “Do you want Addi and Fiddleford back or not, Ford?”

Ford’s gaze was flinty and his words were cold enough to chill the Sahara.

“If Bill didn’t think he could kill Addi and Fiddleford before a strike team managed to kill him, he would not have gotten that message to us through you, Carla,”

“Ford, I know you’re worried about them, and I understand that their safety is paramount, but tactical teams know what they’re doing. They are trained for situations li-”

“Their safety is paramount, which is precisely why I’m not going to endanger them even more by telling you where Cipher is,”

“Oh, jeez-” The situation was rapidly flying off Stan’s well-used map of moves-that-could-be-considered-even-remotely-sane.

“So you’re just going to blindly hand yourselves over?” Carla said witheringly, as if she could stop Ford through brute force of will alone. Unfortunately, when Ford got like this there wasn’t really anything anyone could do short of getting into a fistfight with him, and Stan knew from personal experience that that would only harden his resolve.

“Of course not. We’re going to take him down ourselves. Or-” Ford faltered for the first time. “Or I will, anyway,”

He looked up at Stan defiantly, and Stan half wanted to get into that fistfight just to see if it was possible to knock some sense into the guy this time. The other half of him though, was indignant. He’d followed Ford across the world to make sure he wasn’t in trouble. He’d punched more people than he could count for him, and that wasn’t even from this recent jaunt. He’d willingly been flown by someone who didn’t know how to fly, almost been shot, actually been shot (and now his shoulder was hurting again, great), been drugged and dumped, chased and left behind, ambushed, momentarily convinced his brother was dead, and Ford still hadn’t been able to shake him.

Honestly, the most unbelievable thing about this situation was that Ford thought Stan wouldn’t come with him on this.

He groaned. “Weren’t you listening earlier? You don’t think I’m gonna let you do this alone, do you?”

Ford’s face broke into a relieved grin which told Stan that despite how it had sounded, he wasn’t taking this course of action lightly in the least.

There was silence on the other end of the line. Stan could practically feel Carla’s mind whirring.

“As soon as it’s safe to, you need to tell me where you are,” she reluctantly compromised.

“We will,” nodded Ford. Good. At least he wasn’t being idiotically stubborn.

“And Stan?” Her words were clipped and short, but the next ones had the hint of jaunty casualness to them, nevermind if it was a bit forced, just like they always did when they said goodbye. And because it wasn’t the last time they would, Stan thought fiercely, there wasn’t any need for it to be different this time. She might not be able to stop Ford through sheer willpower, but he knew she’d be damned if she let that mean she couldn’t stop anything else that way.

“See ya later,” she said.

“Can’t leave ya hanging, can I?”

There was a brief whiff of sound that might have been a huff of laughter, and the call disconnected.

“Please tell me you have a plan,” he said as soon as it did.

“I don’t,” said Ford immediately.

Stan stared at him. “Well, at least you ripped that band-aid off quickly,”

Sacramento, California (USA)    ∆

Busy. Keep busy. That was the thing. If she kept busy, she wouldn’t have time to think about… whatever she had just condemned Stan and Ford to. She aggressively ripped the Witness Protection forms out of the printer.

Just get this to Wexler and mush his face into it until he agrees to sign it. She sighed. Well, no. She wouldn’t do that. Although maybe she could get away with staring at him unnervingly until he did.

Abruptly, she pulled back from the corner she was about to turn. Window. Large window.

Stay away, you don’t want a bullet in your brain. Way to go, Carla.

She turned back, striding down an alternate, less populous, route. It took her deeper into the building.

Get to interrogation, get to interrogation. Not far now.

And someone knocked the breath out of her.

The Road, California (USA)    ∆

“He’s not going to let them go, Ford.” Stan said flatly. “We can’t just turn ourselves in and hope for the best. Guy’s convinced he’s on the verge of plunging the world into chaos-” He paused, rethinking that statement. “Guy is on the verge of plunging the world into chaos. No way is he going to stick to any deals we make with him. We need to be smart about this.”

Ford paced up and down the dusty roadside, nodding in agreement. “We should also expect that he’ll expect us to try something, and he’ll be accordingly prepared. The question is, does he know that we expect he’ll expect us to do something, and therefore expect our expectant strike at a whole new level of-”

“You’re making this too complicated,” Stan interrupted, passing rapidly through stages of grim agreement, horrified fascination, and irritated dismissal. “Stop thinking about might-bes and doing that get-in-his head routine - this isn’t some Sherkey Homes adventure,”

Ford looked faintly disappointed.

“What we know is that when we get there, he’s going to take our guns off us-”

“Actually, mine’s back in the forest somewhere. We only have yours now,”

Stan’s stomach dropped. “I don’t have mine either,” he admitted.

Ford’s eyebrows shot up and he warily asked, “What happened?”

Stan told him. Ford slapped a hand over his eyes.

“It’s still in the car somewhere!” Stan said defensively. “There’ll be plenty of time to find it on the drive there,”

“But you actually lost-”

“Shut up,”

“You shut up,”

∆

Her body had shut down with that blow. She couldn’t breathe. Her stomach muscles were seizing up. Before she collapsed to her knees, the assassin caught her by her collar and plunged a knife towards her throat.

She caught his wrist and wrenched it down and around, felt something give and his hand sprang open, the knife clattering to the floor. He hissed through his teeth, instinctively loosening his grip on her collar. Her legs took her weight. Her elbow took his senses.

He stumbled back, reeling from the strike to his jaw. She’d bought herself some time. Fighting back the surges of adrenaline that had her shaking and her brain screaming at her to sprint away as fast as she could, Carla focused, and her lungs seemed to expand again, filling with air, combating the pain and panic.

The assassin recovered at the same time she did. He struck first. She dodged, stepped in close, fired a punch into his side and stepped away again, springing lightly on the balls of her feet. He was driven back sharply, but that seemed to be all. Not a flicker of discomfort registered on his face as he reappraised her. Her mouth quirked in response. You didn’t have Stanley Pines as your sparring partner for long without picking up a thing or two.

Keep it simple, keep it simple.

∆

“Alright, alright, keeping it simple.” Ford considered. Having no weapons was a substantial drawback. “We get the memory gun off Bill and use it on him,”

Stan frowned. “Good plan – except there’s no way he going to let us get that close without a fight. And do we really want to fight him while he has that thing and Addi and Fiddleford?”

Before Ford could irritably point out that at the rate he was shooting down their ideas nothing was going to work, Stan straightened.

“Wait, yeah, that’s good. We should just fight him,”

“You just pointed out why that would be a bad idea,” Ford said, annoyed that the one time Stan was changing his mind about a bad idea was when the bad idea was his own.

∆

Not good.

One of the assassin’s legs hooked behind hers and tripped her up. His hand closed around her throat. Her back hit the door of the observation room. Her head slammed forward from the recoil and something metallic snapped. The door sprang open, and they were falling.

∆

“I can keep a gun from shooting me and whoever else is around,” Stan said confidently. He had just spent a couple weeks proving it, after all. “Look, Cipher’s probably not going to be paying much attention to me – you’re the one he wants vengeance and ruination and a spike up the butt and whatnot for-” Ford winced slightly – “meanwhile, what did I do? Just tagged along and punched him in the face that one time. So, you just keep his attention and when he least expects it, I’ll grab the gun from him.”

“If he doesn’t really care about you then why would he demand you show up as well?” Ford objected. “We can’t count on that working. And even if that wasn’t the case, you grab the gun from him and then what? You don’t know how to work it, Stan,”

“So I’ll smash it instead,”

“But then there’s still the problem of Bill – and before you say anything else, remember that he’ll probably have more weapons than just the memory gun on him,”

Stan closed his open mouth. That was a good point.

“So I should do it instead,” Ford stated.

That wasn’t.

“No,” said Stan instantly.

“I know how to work the memory gun. You distract him, I can take it from him, use it on him, and problem solved,” Ford insisted.

Blinking away images of his brother lying motionless, Stan rallied and said, “One: I’m the better fighter,”

Ford frowned and opened his mouth to argue, probably on principle, and Stan quickly amended his statement to, “I mean, you literally cut a probe out of your head and stitched it up a few hours ago. It’d be weird if you were still alright,”

Ford allowed him to continue, moderately appeased.

“Two: how am I going to distract him? If he is interested in me, we don’t know why, and even then you’re the one who’s been working for him for years: no matter what, you’ll be able to distract him better,”

“I refuse to believe that you wouldn’t be able to figure something out,” Ford said firmly. “Stan, it has to be you. The best and quickest way we have of neutralising Bill is if we use the memory gun on him, and since I’m the only one who knows how to do that safely-”

“Safely?” Stan picked up.

Ford waved a hand vaguely. “It’s a very delicate device. If it gets even slightly damaged, the consequences of using it could be-” he hesitated – “not good. Very, extremely not good.”

Stan practically radiated a demand for a better explanation.

“Well, for a start, it could explode, and since when I constructed it I dismissed trying to extract memories in their rather abstract pure form…”

“Right, that does sound hard,” Stan acknowledged.

“I designed it to simply rewrite matter instead, and while I intended the matter to only be neural pathways, it could conceivably be anything,”

Stan stared.

“In my defence, it was just meant to be a prototype,” Ford said in embarrassment.

Stan took a deep breath. “And you thought that was easier than just trying to grab memories?”

“I did,” confirmed Ford. “But the point is, it gets damaged, bad things happen. Most likely in a… silicaceous manner,”

“Bad things,” Stan said hollowly. “Yeah,”

∆

The assassin was at her back, an arm wrapped around her throat, crushing her windpipe. She’d managed to get a hand under his elbow before the lock was fully on and her muscles were screaming as she strained to break it. Her vision was going fuzzy at the edges. She sucked in a sliver of air. She… she had legs.

She hooked an ankle behind his and threw all her weight backwards. He tried to shift his stance to compensate but his foot was trapped by hers and he overbalanced, falling, and she felt the jolt as they collided with something. It was just enough of a distraction to rip herself free of the hold, spin, drive a fist into the side of his face and stumble backwards, coughing violently as the air simultaneously stung her throat and cleared her mind. No time for recovery. She made herself push off the desk she was clutching and ran forward and flung herself at him and took him off his feet and hurtled into the two-way mirror behind him.

∆

“I’m telling you, this is the best chance we have of defeating Bill-”

“And I’m telling you, you’re not a match for him right now! Sure, it could work, but there’s too high a chance that you and the others would get hurt. My way will be less dangerous for everyone,”

“Besides you, you mean,”

“Yes!” Stan said vehemently.

Ford gritted his teeth. They had been running in circles with this plan for far too long, and with every minute that passed he was itching more and more to just get underway already, the temptation to try and figure everything out in the car growing stronger and stronger as the thought of Addi and Fiddleford pressed increasingly insistently at him.

Stan was glaring at him, and had by now joined him in some irregular pacing. He was also occasionally clenching and unclenching his hands to let some agitation out. Clearly, he was also feeling the pressure.

He sighed, and Stan echoed it a moment later.

“Look Ford, there’s no way this is going to end perfectly,” Stan said. “We just have to go with the best option available,”

“And that’s the problem,” said Ford ruefully.

“Because you think using the memory gun on him will end it quicker, with the added bonus that it’s a poetic way to go out and will be pretty cathartic for you,” Stan said with a humourless smile.

“And you just want to do to him what you do to everyone who hurts the people you love,” Ford countered, equally pointedly. “Make sure he can’t do it again by hitting him like a ton of bricks,”

∆

A startled yell rang in Carla’s ears, almost missed in the cacophony created by the shock of the landing and the crash of the glass all around as they’d gone through the window.

She untucked herself from a protective ball, giving no acknowledgements whatsoever to the pains in her neck, back, shoulder, side. They were barely registering anyway. Her head was ringing. She scrambled up off the floor of the starkly-lit interrogation room, the assassin doing the same on its other side, jagged reflective fragments spread across the floor between them. Breathing hard, she got herself into a boxer’s stance, glancing at her hand when she had trouble closing it into a fist. Huh. It had a piece of glass sticking out of it.

The assassin had picked up another, larger shard. He held it firmly in his hand.

Oh joy, Carla thought numbly. A weapon. She decided then and there never to tackle someone through a window again.

The assassin didn’t make to move towards her. His attention had been caught by the third person in the room, handcuffed to the table and looking fairly shocked at what was going on. A person who could be very damaging to the Cipher Wheel, should he decide to cooperate.

The assassin switched targets and lunged towards Wexler instead. He leapt out of his chair and attempt to skirt around the table, but the cuffs anchoring him to the middle restricted his movements. The assassin recovered from the momentum of his first swing and jumped onto the interrogation table. Wexler paled, unable to move out of range. The assassin drew back his makeshift blade and Carla tackled him. They crashed to the floor, Carla saved from feeling most of the impact due to the combined effects of shock, adrenaline, and the relatively cushioned landing provided by the assassin.

His head had cracked against the floor. The fragment had gone deeper into her hand. The room was wavering slightly, but she didn’t think that was actually happening. She’d probably hit her head at some point. That didn’t sound right. The assassin had probably hit her head at some point. Jerk.

He groaned below her, trying to get up again. Carla drew back her good hand dealt him a swift uppercut. He slumped back, and didn’t move again.

“What the hell…” breathed Wexler behind her.

Ah, right.

Carla staggered to her feet and pushed her sweaty hair out of her face. She took a deep breath to try and get her – her everything under control, and delved deeply into her pocket. Wexler watched with wide eyes.

Out of it she drew a very crumpled and slightly torn sheaf of papers. She laid it down in front of Wexler, brushed some glass off, smoothed it out, left some bloodstains behind, and straightened up again.

“Please sign this form to apply for the Witness Protection Program,” she said professionally.

Wexler stared, slack-jawed.

“Unless you still think the FBI can’t deliver on its promises to protect you,” she added.

Wexler’s eyes flicked to the motionless assassin behind her, and back again.

“No, I’ll sign,” he said quickly.

∆

No bright ideas suddenly sprang into Ford’s mind to break the stalemate they found themselves in. No desperate last-minute solutions. Nothing.

Eventually, Stan sighed, and looked away.

Then he cocked his head slightly. Ford looked back at him. He was staring at their reflection in the Stanleymobile’s windows. There was nothing out of sorts to see there, as far as Ford was concerned.

“Y’know,” said Stan slowly. “I’m really glad I got that haircut,”

∆

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are just receiving word that the crisis at the FBI field office has ended, and the assassin has been apprehended with no further fatalities. We go now to Roberta Lopez, spokesperson from the FBI, and – oh, her, uh, colleague?”

“Thank you, yes. While the assassin has indeed been arrested and secured in a holding cell, the current situation is far from over, and before we go any further, we must inform you that Oracle Division is not the agency behind the Manhattan Blackout and Ned Guy’s assassination as the news has been reporting. Thanks for that, by the way. Rather, they have been framed by an organisation known as the Cipher Wheel, which the FBI has been investigating for several months now. At this very moment, we are concentrating our best efforts on bringing down these terrorists before they can cause any more harm. In collaboration with Oracle Division, who Mr Colleague here is a representative of, we fully expect to be able to handle this threat. Take it away, Neil,”

“BOOM! How d’you like them facts?!”

“Thank you, Neil. We will now take questions,”

∆

“Well, at least he’s cooperating now,” Jheselbraum said, arms folded as she peered over Carla’s shoulder at the folder containing Wexler’s new identity.

“For the most part,” Carla muttered, scratching at the bandage over her wrist. She was covered in glass cuts and more, but had only deemed the actual stab wound serious enough to address at the moment.

“Cipher is a sticking point. He insists on the guy being dead before he spills the beans, which on the bright side means we’re back to the original deal, but unfortunately also means that the only lead we have in figuring out where Stan and Ford have gone won’t talk until such time as it doesn’t matter anymore,” By which she meant “until Stan called her to tell her where they were because they’d managed to kill Cipher” and not “because Cipher had effectively destroyed all systems of world order thereby making Wexler’s sharing of information redundant.”

Jheselbraum’s speculative voice broke through her dark thoughts.

“Actually, I have been wondering about whether he is our only lead,”

Carla looked up at her with wide eyes.

“Has Oracle Division tracked down Addi and Fiddleford?” she asked eagerly.

Jheselbraum’s mouth quirked. “Not Oracle Division. And I’m not even certain she can help us. But if anyone has the ability to, it’s her.” She straightened decisively. “I’ll get back to you soon. In the meantime, perhaps you should deliver that folder to Agent Wexler, and savour the look on his face,”

Indeed she did, when she handed his new identity over a minute later. It was the least he owed her for the past few months.

“Alright Mr Toot-Toot McBumbersnazzle, it’s time to meet your new life as a travelling banjo minstrel,”

Gravity Falls, Oregon (Soon-to-be-Divided States of America)    ∆

A proximity sensor buzzed, signalling the approach of Pines, which was good news to Bill, who was getting impatient, and especially good news to Blondie and Fiddlesticks, whose heads he had been about to riddle with bullets.

“And right in the nick of time, boys,” he said, grinning as he lifted the gun off the man’s forehead. All sorts of shouts and protests finished their ringing echoes around the basement, leaving a breathless stillness in their wake that left him free to speak without competition. As the prisoners sagged, he continued, “Congratulations you two, you get to live another few minutes,”

They didn’t reply. Fiddsy he wasn’t even sure could at this point.

Spinning on his heel, Bill turned to the monitors.

He’d brought the brother. Good.

Stanford and Stanley were trudging across the grounds towards the cabin, their movements slow and deliberate. A smart choice, as Bill was more than capable of killing them where they stood thanks to Stanford’s enthusiasm and/or paranoia in his design of this place’s defences. It really was a shame that he’d sided against Bill.

They reached the front door, hands raised in surrender. As per Bill’s orders, the agents in the house above them let them through.

“Hey, you guys wanna play a game?” Bill suggested suddenly. McGucket made no response. He just hung there, his legs no longer able to support him. What a drip. Marks though, she raised her head and fixed him with a gaze that was definitely more lost than it had been a couple hours ago.

“Let’s try and figure out what their play is.” He peered theatrically at the next monitor, putting the gun on the desk before placing his palms flat against it too, pushing his face close to the screen. The upstairs agents were searching the brothers for weapons, going over every inch of them so that not so much as a pen knife would be brought down to the basement.

“Hmmm. Hope your pals here weren’t going to try taking me by surprise.” Twisting the screen around so that she could see, he asked, “What do you think?”

Marks’ eyes flicked over to it momentarily, but she seemed reluctant to look away from him – how flattering.

Then she did a double-take, and her eyes locked back onto the screen. She looked like she was concentrating. She was even leaning forward a little, trying to see it closer, an expression like there was a word she couldn’t think of right on the tip of her tongue, but remaining stubbornly out of reach.

Bill narrowed his eyes and stepped over to the edge of the desk, where he’d laid the memory gun on top of the Journal as a bookmark. He flipped backwards a few pages until he found what he was looking for.

“Ohh, right, you gave Fordsy your own little stop-and-frisk session back in China, didn’t you?” he teased.

Her eyes flew back to him, a sudden clarity in them. Hmm. Obviously his new toy wasn’t as refined as he’d thought.

“Funny,” Bill said, tilting his head. “I thought we already covered China…” He shrugged. “Must have missed this bit.”

A brief spin of the dial and a click of the trigger and a flash of light later, and those memories were once again gone. Marks flinched back, gasping, shaking her head and blinking the stars out of her eyes. When she looked back at the search of Stanford that the agents were finishing up, there was no recognition of the situation.

“Damn thing.” He shook the memory gun a little. “What about you, your head’s not fixing itself is it?” He shot at McGucket before he replaced the device. He didn’t expect a response, but he got one anyway.

“Well, it ain’t like Ah’d tell you’f I was!” And then he cackled – yep, cackled – briefly. Huh, looked like he was finally losing it. Well, it made things livelier anyway.

Out of curiosity, Bill tried erasing the ocean from his head. There was a brief pause, but McGucket continued cackling soon after. Marks looked sick.

“Finally, one of you’s seeing the humour in the situation. I don’t mind saying, you’ve been a pair of Debbie Downers lately.” Bill rolled his eyes and replaced the gun on top of the Journal, then resumed his position in front of the monitors. McGucket’s laughs died down soon after.

Pines and Pines 2.0 were being led through the house now. Returning to his musings on their possible plans, Bill said, “Credit where it’s due, at least they’re not attacking those agents. That would just be embarrassing for everyone,” If either of them so much as twitched aggressively towards an agent, the others, both visible and hidden from view, would bear down on the Pines like the wrath of, well, Bill.

No incidents occurred. Last week, Bill would have been inclined to put that down to Stanford’s forethought. Now… Bill was more informed.

He watched them walk compliantly through the rooms. Another thought struck him.

“Do a perimeter sweep,” he ordered through the mike. “We don’t want Oracle Division pulling any fast ones,” The command was acknowledged, and the monitors showed an increase in activity around and within the property moments later.

He doubted Stanford would have told the FBI where he was, not with Marks and McGucket so easily within his reach, and so far his and his brother’s cautious actions were confirming that. But Bill knew Jheselbraum. If there was anything that witch was good at, it was coming out of nowhere with devastatingly unexpected strikes.

The Wheel reported that all was quiet, however. It seemed that not even she had managed to find her way here.

On the central screen, one of the agents opened the bookcase revealing the stairs down to the basement’s first level. The other two escorted Stanley and Stanford through with a warning hand on their shoulders. They moved carefully.

At the elevator the lead agent typed in the access code, the buttons on the grainy image lighting up. Turning his gaze to a smaller monitor off to the side, Bill wondered if the elevator would be where they attempted something. It was the most strategic place for it.

Stanley and Stanford wordlessly entered the small area. The three guards visibly tensed in the tighter space, clearly also expecting an attack. Bill heard the elevator begin its trundle downwards, the sound propagating through the space and filling the once again silent area. Marks wasn’t even attempting to make escape plans with McGucket anymore. The lack of whispers in the background while he was apparently distracted was new. It was probably the certainty of death that was hanging in the air. Earlier, they probably hadn’t fully realised that he was going to kill them. And doing it in front of Stanford? Just a bonus.

The elevator reached the third level of the basement and its doors opened, revealing Pines, Disappointing Pines, and Guards One, Two, and Three, who had not been subdued, injured, or knocked unconscious. They pushed their charges out roughly.

Bill moved sedately over to the end of the bench, the motion alerting Stanley and Stanford to his presence. Their eyes alighted on him immediately. He settled comfortably against the edge, with the memory gun and Journal to his left, and the regular gun to his right, both easily within reach. He grinned at them.

“Just dump their weapons over there, you two,” he directed the agents.

“They didn’t bring any, sir,” reported one of them.

Bill raised an eyebrow at the Pines’. “Not very hopeful, were you?” he quipped. When they didn’t respond he continued, “Alright then, go back to your stations. Keep watch, be on guard, all that jazz. If you hear any screaming, that’ll be them. Don’t worry about it,” With a cheery wave, he dismissed them, and they turned and walked swiftly back to the elevator.

Once it started its rattling journey upwards, Bill examined his new prisoners. Stanley and Stanford returned his gaze with identical apprehensive expressions. And jeez, speaking of identical… they really did look similar. The monitor screens hadn’t done it justice. Stanford of course had blood and dirt all over his shirt, and Stanley wasn’t wearing glasses, but other than that… sheesh.

“I’m glad you brought your brother, Fordsy,” Bill started conversationally. “I would not have been happy otherwise,”

“You’re happy now?” said Stanford disbelievingly.

“No,” Bill admitted. “But this is nothing to what I would have been like,” The viciousness in his words was tempered by the palpable trepidation in the room.

“Well, you know,” said Stanley, far more flippantly than the tension in his body suggested he was capable of, “wherever we go, we go together,”

Bill gave an overexaggerated wince. “Ooh, might wanna rethink that line, buddy,”

Another difference between the two was that Stanley’s focus was solely on Bill, whereas Stanford had noticed McGucket and Marks manacled to the wall on Bill’s left.

“I assume I don’t need to do introductions?” he said lightly. Marks was looking all pathetic and desperate as she looked back at the frozen Stanford, which made Bill glad he hadn’t gotten around to burning out the latter bits of the Journal from her mind. No recognition would have been so much less entertaining, although Pines’ reaction to that would’ve been a sight to behold. Upsides to everything, Bill considered.

Stanley finally appeared to notice the other occupants of the room, and the expression that crossed his face was such a mixed bag of intensity that Bill actually laughed, whereupon it just became one of hate. Stanford had never been so open and easy to read. He liked this new guy.

“Addi? Fiddleford?” He asked in that rough voice of his. “You two-” He shut himself up before asking if they were okay.

“And look at that, you’re smart, too,” Bill praised. “No, Stanny, Miss Adeline and Mr Fiddleford are definitely not… well, how about you tell them yourselves, guys?” He gestured for them to go ahead and speak.

Marks glared, jaw clenched tightly shut. McGucket, however, was the more noticeably silent of the two. Not only did he not speak, but he didn’t move either. He hadn’t, in all the time that Stanley and Stanford had entered the basement. All eyes were drawn to him.

“Fiddleford?” said Stanford cautiously. No response.

“You wanna tell them or should I?” Bill cheerfully asked Marks.

She swallowed.

“He- he doesn’t know that’s his name,” she said softly.

Bill nodded emphatically. “Yep-amundo! Oh, don’t look so shocked, I had to do something while I waited for you guys, didn’t I?”

McGucket stirred. On shaky legs, he pushed himself to stand on his own a little more. “S’my name?” he murmured to Marks.

“Y-yeah. Fiddleford,” she replied unsteadily.

Well now the guy seemed a little more focused and clear-headed, and that wouldn’t do at all.

He slammed his left hand down on the Journal, and Stanley and Stanford would have had to be blind not to notice McGucket and Marks flinch as he came close to grabbing the memory gun again. Instead, he picked up the Journal.

McGucket’s eyes burned as they fixated on it. Bill’s grin broadened, and he flourished it at Stanford, who’s jaw was tightly clenched.

“Look familiar? It sure does to these two, I’ll tell you that. And it’s just chock full of all sorts of information! Families, histories, interests, missions… and I’m sure they both wanted all of it to end up in an easily accessible diary like it did, to be used against them at their earliest convenience!” Bill gave a mock salute. “We’re ever so grateful, Stanford,”

“Ford, he would’ve just found other things to use against us, or another way to get the information-” Marks started, valiantly trying to preserve the idiot’s feelings – and sure, she may have been right, Bill would have gotten the information anyway, but where was the fun in admitting that?

It was McGucket who interrupted her before Bill could, however.

“Didja write that?” The man was shaking, and not from the spot of torture. His hands were clenched tight, fingers biting into his palms. “All that- in that there book?”

Bill looked at Stanford, whose face was stonily shut down, unresponsive.

Like a switch had been flipped, McGucket chuckled suddenly. There wasn’t the slightest hint of mirth behind it, but he still shook with laughter.

“An’ Ah only had two months before retirement!”

Bill rolled his eyes. “I swear I already wiped Oracle Division…” he muttered. He picked up the memory gun again and shrugged amiably at Stanley and Stanford. “The things that slip your mind, am I right?”

He spun the dial with practiced ease and loosed the bright stream directly into McGucket’s face. The Pines’ started forward.

“AH, AH, AH, BOYS!” Bill held up the memory gun. “Stay where you are,” he warned vehemently. They did, standing further apart than before. “Good. No need to forget what the order of things is here, now is there?”

McGucket hadn’t reacted all that much to the burst from the memory gun. Bill would have wondered if it had even worked if he hadn’t stopped laughing so quickly.

“Alright, enough messing around,” he decided, leaning back against the bench once more and replacing the memory gun in its position atop the Journal, although he kept his hand on it. Pines and Disappointing Pines looked just about ready to charge, and while it would entertain him no end to have yet another excuse to hurt Blondie and Fiddsy because of them, he did want to get around to dealing out some pain for the Brothers Dim, too. That would only be delayed if he had to go and restrain them.

“You have us. Are you going to let Adeline and Fiddleford go?” Stanford said, his gaze flicking momentarily to the memory gun.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just waste my time with that question,” Bill said flatly.

“Then why are they still alive?”

In the peripheral of his vision, he saw Stanley take a step closer to him. So that was their play. One of them distracts him, the other gets the memory gun off him. Not great, and not going to work, and he would have thought that Stanford would be the one trying to wrest the thing away, but he’d play along for now. It’d make the finale all the more fun.

“Oh, because of this and that. Just never got ‘round to it, I suppose.” He turned to face more fully towards Stanford, like a thought had just occurred to him, and Stanley took the bait, edging closer.

“I gotta say, I am surprised you’ve managed to stay alive up ‘til now. I s’pose you’ve got your bro to thank for that, haha. Seems like a shame though, to let all that hard and unrewarding work just… disappear,” He punctuated the word by tapping his left fingers playfully on the memory gun. Stanley came closer still. Honestly, he hadn’t even crossed half the distance! He could definitely do with some pointers on strategy.

Quite happy to keep talking, Bill continued, “Y’know, what the heck!” He spread his hands wide and then dropped then back down, noticing that yes, Stanley had taken advantage of that chance too.

“Since you left, Stanford, I have to admit, there has been a bit of a vacuum left in your wake, and I don’t want to fill it with just anyone, you know what I’m saying? It really does need a Pines touch,”

Stanford stiffened.

Bill tilted his head innocently.

Stanford said, “No way in-”

“I’m sorry, WAS I TALKING TO YOU?” Bill thundered, and then he stuck out his right hand and grabbed the gun that didn’t fire white light and shot Stanford in the chest.

∆

“A’course Ah know where he is, y’think I was gonna let my husband go off in a state’f emergency without havin’ me as backup? I put a tracker under his tie this mornin’. He’s in some town in Oregon,”

“Thank you so much for your help, Madeline,”

“Why don’t you know where is? Jheselbraum? Why are you out of contact with him? Something hasn’t happened, has it?”

Silence.

“Madeline, we’ll need you to transfer us your tracking frequency as soon as possible,”

Silence again.

“Ah’m bringin’ it to ya myself. See you in twenty,”

∆

The blast hadn’t finished echoing around the basement before Bill was turning to Stanley.

“So whaddaya say, sport? Finally ready to join the fold? I gotta admit, I was sceptical at first, but y’know what, Sixer’s convinced me! He’s been singing you praises since months before you even showed up, isn’t that right Fordsy?”

On the ground behind him came a spluttering, gasping, pained noise. Stanley’s face was sheet white, his whole body frozen as if every joint was suddenly locked. Bill tossed the gun to his other hand and picked up the memory gun. So many guns! So many targets! Not the guy in front of him, though. At least, not if he made the right choice.

“All through that tour around the world, after every single mission, it was ‘Stanley this!’, ‘Stanley that!’ and I’ll admit, I didn’t wanna see it! I thought IQ over there was the golden boy!” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Stanley’s eyes finally moved to follow its trajectory – hah, tragic-tory, more like.

“Wasn’t meant to be, unfortunately. Good thing you showed up! And I reckon you’re much more suited to this kind of life. After all, you didn’t go making friends with enemy agents first chance you got, you know how to focus on what’s important, and you know how to think on your feet and do whatever it takes to get what you want. And I bet you, kid, know what the smart option is now, don’t you?”

Stanley staggered a little. His eyes looked distinctly wet.

“I get it, you need a moment to think. Gotta weigh up those choices. Sure, on the one hand, I shot your brother. But on the other, I could just as easily shoot you. I’ll give you…” He deliberated for a moment. “… until I next get bored to make your decision, how’s that?”

He spun around to chat to his other prisoners. Marks’ expression was delightful, it was like he’d shot her instead, with that open-mouthed, shocked look, and eyes slowly filling with tears as she processed what happened. And even though McGucket wasn’t really up to date on what was going on, he didn’t appear any less affected. What a guy! Bill had been telling him practically since he’d arrived that the guy who wrote the Journal was the reason for all his torture, and he still only looked horrified. He was also the only other person in the room who hadn’t just stopped, rock-like. Even now he was examining everything that was happening, and fixing Bill with a pretty impressive evil eye.

Stanford’s groans of agony meanwhile were growing less and less, as were his laboured breaths. Bill didn’t even spare him a glance.

Feeling the constant background thrum of anger in him spike again, he was about to turn around and demand an answer of Pines when Marks drew a quick, shuddering breath and attracted his attention.

“Got something to say, lovely?”

She was stuck for words for a moment, but quickly found something to say.

“How- how could you do that?”

Pity it was so unoriginal.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Blondie, but I’m a little short on all those ‘heroic qualities’ you value so highly,”

“Ya- ya didn’t haveta kill him,” said McGucket, not letting the tremors in his bones stop him it seemed.

“Didn’t I, now?”

“He could’ve still been useful, fer yer – yer whatchamacall it… robotical and weaponisifyin’ office! Where all the mad folk go to unleash their minds upon the world!” He cackled again for a moment.

“You mean the R and D department?” Marks asked him.

“That too,” agreed McGucket.

Bill arched an eyebrow. “Thanks for the suggestion, but he was being far more annoying than useful by the end. And besides! Too late now,”

There was a flicker on both their faces. Wow, shooting Stanford had really rattled them, hadn’t it? They hadn’t been this in sync with each other for hours. It was almost like they had a common goal again.

Bill frowned. “You guys aren’t trying to distract me, are you?”

He whipped around just as Stanley finished crossing the distance and slammed his boot into Bill’s wrist. The memory gun went flying.

It hit the floor, threw up sparks, skidded, and whirled around and around until McGucket brought his foot down and stomped on it with a viciously triumphant expression. The shimmern bulb audibly cracked, and electricity fizzled up and down its length before dying out.

It was broken, that was for sure.

And Bill had no other copies.

And of the two men who could build another, one was all but dead, and the other was rapidly heading towards insanity.

Was Bill angry? No. Was he incandescent? Closer. Most importantly, he was still holding one gun.

“YOU IDIOT!” He roared, and brought it up and struck Pines across the face with it. He went down hard, and Bill wasted no time lashing a kick into his side that knocked him away and onto his back. Bill advanced again as Stanley, coughing, went to scramble up.

Pines made it to his feet and threw a punch. Bill dodged it easily and sent his boot into the side of Pines’ knee, which dropped him again with an agonised yell. Must’ve already been injured. He kicked it again, snarling. Pines screamed.

Stanley was kneeling now. Good. Bill brought the gun around but couldn’t resist hitting him again with it. It struck his temple in the same place as the first time, colliding with his skull in a satisfying crunch, sending him sprawling. Bill brought the gun back again, finger on the trigger, so ready for the sight of some blood and brains, but Pines caught the barrel and pointed it away from his face. Bill fired anyway. The bullet shot into the ground by Pines’ ear, concrete scattering, the bang deafening. The heat from the explosion scalded Pines, who yelled out again and shifted his grip off the hot barrel and over Bill’s own hands, still keeping the weapon away from himself. Bill pressed down with all his weight. Almost immediately, he began to win. Well, it was good to know that the esteemed skills and strength of Stanley Pines were so easily overcome. He must have hit him in the head harder than he’d thought.

Pines was flat against the floor now, almost all of Bill’s weight bearing down on the gun in the grip between them, forcing it slowly back towards Stanley’s face. Bill pulled the trigger again. It blasted into the concrete, barely a millimetre between that hole and the first. He pulled the trigger again. Stanley’s head jerked away from the third hole, neatly in line with the others, but he didn’t let up. Again. A fourth hole appeared, and this time the bullet skimmed his ear, the blood dripping into the cracks on the floor. Bill grinned right into Pines’ strained and desperate face. He sighted along the barrel of the gun. Pines’ left eye widened underneath it.

“Hey wise guy. Thought you wanted me dead,”

No. There was no way.

Bill looked back so fast his neck cracked.

He was on his feet. How was he on his feet?

There was a trail of blood marking where he’d crawled from his prone position. He had one hand pressed tightly just below his ribcage. He looked like any second could bring him down, but the grim set of his face gave some inkling as to how none had yet. And he was aiming the memory gun, the broken, sparking memory gun that Stanford Pines would not fire in a million years, directly at Bill.

He forgot about the man under him and bounded up, one hand extended out in a wild grab-

“STANLEY-”

-and nothing.

∆

The blinding flash faded from her eyes and Addi blinked desperately to clear them.

“What…”

She kind of wanted to scream, kind of wanted to cry, kind of wanted to curl up and pretend like nothing was real, but she didn’t. She didn’t, because the futile hand Cipher had outstretched was immobile, that expression of frenzied desperation permanently locked onto his face. The colour had been leeched out of him.

He’d been turned entirely to stone.

His back still to her, Ford’s arm shakily dropped and the memory gun clattered to the floor once more. He groaned and his knees sagged, and he would probably have fallen flat on his face if Stan hadn’t suddenly been there, grabbing him and offering what support he could.

“Stan? Oh God, how- how do you feel?” Stan was saying… as… he lowered… Ford to the ground…

His voice sounded very different.

“Worse’n I look. Urggh, no, actually scratch that…”

And he sounded different too.

No. Nononono. Wait.

Cipher had yelled out Stan’s name right before…

“You switched?” she burst out, cursing herself for not seeing it sooner. Ford had six fingers, for crying out loud! And they were similar, yes, but not identical…

Neither twin responded, which she supposed was fair enough. F-Stan squeezed his eyes shut as Ford put pressure on the wound. There was a lot of blood, but evidently it wasn’t in an imminently fatal position – although the amount of time that elapsed before Stan got proper medical attention would still be a deciding factor. She’d seen Stan doing his best to plug it, but frankly she was amazed he hadn’t passed out yet.

Ford cursed and looked around, spying his glasses lying a little way away where they’d dropped off Stan when he was shot, and jammed them on his face with a trembling hand. Nope, she needed an answer.

“Why did you switch?” she demanded.

“We thought Ford was the only one who Cipher would be distracted by for long enough to get the memory gun off him, but he was also the only one who knew how to work it,” answered Stan, looking like he was trying to distract himself. “So we switched so I could distract him and Ford could get the memory gun off him, and hopefully everyone would come out fine.” He winced as Ford shifted. “As you can see, it worked amazingly,” he grunted.

It was possibly the most ill-advised plan Addi had ever thought anyone could conceive of. On the other hand, they had pulled it off, in a kind of roundabout way.

“Ford, get me out of here,” Addi called. “I can help, I have medical training,”

Thank God Cipher hadn’t taken those memories from her.

“Not ta mention we’ve been chained to this wall fer hours and we don’t want to be anymore,” Fiddleford chimed in with a far more valid reason. When Addi looked at him, he seemed utterly confused, but she thought that was because of Stan and Ford: he’d been clear-headed enough to keep Cipher’s attention on them. That most definitely did not mean that he was fine, though; he trembled like a leaf, and he couldn’t hold himself up properly. She was getting him, and Stan, and Ford as well, to a hospital ASAP.

Ford hadn’t moved from his position tending to Stan. It was like he hadn’t even heard her. Her heart clenched.

Five gunshots right next to the ear, plus dazing from multiple blows to the head. He probably didn’t.

As if just noticing that the shirt Stan was wearing was beyond saving at this point, Ford sighed and complained – a little louder than he normally would have – “You got blood all over my clothes,”

“You got blood all over your own clothes,” Stan muttered, affronted.

“What?”

“You got blood all over your own clothes,”

“What?”

Stan rolled his eyes and gestured towards herself and Fiddleford. “Just- just go help them down, Addi can at least recognise snark…”

Following his pointing finger, Ford’s eyes widened and he sprang up, finally remembering them. The key was on one of the workbenches, and as soon as it was jammed into the slot on Addi’s manacles, they clicked open. She hissed as her shoulders rotated for the first time in hours, her fingers and forearms tingling painfully as feeling rushed back to them, her back aching-

And Ford enclosed her in a hug and everything seemed a bit more bearable.

What did she know? She knew… she knew he was important to her, very important, as both a friend and something not yet defined but certainly real. She also thought that they’d probably worked together. He made her happy. He was fun, and stubborn, and she knew she needed to help him out of trouble a lot, and... damn it, what else? The little she knew of before Cipher and the basement seemed like a hazy dream. The first moment she could remember between them was… a reunion? In the El Dorado forest.

No, that wasn’t true.

A flash of memories crossed her mind. Her heart beating fast as he held her hands and leant in close. The breath literally being driven from her as he elbowed her in the gut and immediately looked horrified. His suddenly nervous but pleased expression as she asked him to buy her a drink.

Reluctantly, she let him go, and made her legs stumble over to Stan. There would be plenty of time to puzzle out the past later, when they weren’t dying.

She shook her head and dropped down beside him.

“How’s your breathing?” Other than painful and quick. “Difficult? Do you feel like coughing?”

“Nah. Kinda hard to focus, though,” he said, head lolling around to her.

“That’s the blood loss. Try and stay awake, okay? Tell me all about, uh…” She faltered at the realisation that she didn’t know him well enough to bring up his interests. Then a name burst into being behind her eyes.

“Carla! Tell me all about her.” She bent down and listened to the hole in his torso, moving his hands for a moment. She couldn’t hear any air. The bullet had missed his lung then. His hands felt clammy as she pressed them back down. He was in shock, too.

“Ford, we really need to stop this bleeding,” she said, interrupting Stan’s rambling. Ford straightened up from helping Fiddleford to a chair.

“Right.” His gaze passed rapidly over all of them in succession, lingering harrowingly on Stan. “I’ll- I’ll go upstairs and call for help-”

“No, ya darn well ain’t gonna, Stanford Pines!” Exploded Fiddleford. “’Cause there’s a veritabibble army of Cipher Wheel murder-machines dressed’n human form up there and I haven’t had a cat-piddlin’ second to design my own murder bot fer a counterattack!”

Addi stilled. The Wheel. It was still active. And the only reason she and her friends were still alive was because they didn’t know their boss was now a garden ornament. If they came down here, out of all of them she was the only one who would have any kind of chance at fighting back – Stan needed immediate medical help, Fiddleford couldn’t stand on his own or stop shaking (and that wasn’t even addressing his mental state), and Ford was one good hit away from collapse himself. It really shouldn’t be up to the girl with a mind like swiss cheese to protect them all, but it appeared it was.

The elevator came to life and dinged open.

“Area secured,” Carla McCorkle, dressed in full tactical gear, said into her mike.

“We found ‘em. They’re in th’basement,” her partner breathed in relief, throwing her head back and slumping.

Her partner…

“Maddie!” Addi cried.

“Addi!” Madeline McGucket responded automatically.

∆

“It seems that trouble has once again come to Gravity Falls. In a shocking turn of events, the creepy cabin in the woods that we all feel like is watching us when we go near it and out of which strange sounds and black-ops-looking type people occasionally enter, has been the headquarters for a mad spy organisation this entire time. It was stormed by the FBI and Oracle Division – whatever that is – not two hours ago, and four severely injured individuals were safely recovered from the basement, in which they had been held prisoner by the leader of said mad spy organisation, Bill Cipher. In events that are not entirely clear, Cipher had been… turned into a statue? Is this right? It is? Alright then… Cipher had been turned into a statue. When it was brought up out of the house and our reporter on the scene questioned whether Cipher might still be alive inside it, the thing was fly-kicked into a million pieces by one of the aforementioned prisoners, a Mr Fiddleford McGucket, to assorted cheering from the other prisoners, the FBI, the Oracle Division agents, random spectators, and the mad spy terrorists themselves. To conclude, the answer to that question is a resounding ‘no’.

“Meanwhile, the prisoners themselves are receiving treatment at the scene, as they are apparently too stubborn to leave things in other people’s hands…”

∆

From what Stan could see from his position lying on the stretcher in the ambulance, the clean-up seemed to be going well. Red and blue lights flashed into the night, and an almost continuous stream of Cipher Wheel operatives were being led out of Ford’s house, loaded into FBI vans, and driven away. It was much easier to take in his surroundings now that pain and cold fear weren’t pulsing through his body; the paramedics had given him something, and now the entire left side of his body was numb. And they’d assured him he wasn’t dying anymore, which was a relief. Also, they’d bandaged up that bullet graze on his shoulder. It was nice to be looked after.

Carla’s fingers were winding through his hair.

“We’re getting married as soon as possible,” she said. She was sitting in a chair next to him, occasionally touching the plaster the paramedics had insisted on putting on her multitude of cuts and scrapes.

“We are?” he asked.

“We are,” she confirmed. “I don’t trust you not to go off on yet another adventure and do something reckless and get yourself shot again before our wedding day,”

“Me do something reckless?” Spluttered Stan. “You tackled an assassin through a window today!”

“But I didn’t almost die!”

“That bandage over your wrist arteries and those bruises around your throat beg to differ,”

She flicked his nose.

“Ow!” He decided to let her idiocy go, at least until he could properly defend himself. “Yeah, let’s get married soon,” he agreed.

The last of the Cipher Wheel agents were driven off.

“So, case closed, huh?”

“Almost, thanks to you,” she smiled. “There’s still moles in practically every agency on the planet, I’ll bet, not too mention all the bureaucratic higher-ups Cipher had in his pocket – Jheselbraum’s superiors, for one. Fortunately, Wexler is free to help us with that, now,”

Stan groaned. “I thought you were going to take a break! What happened to us having some time off together?”

Carla blinked, startled. “I- uh, well, I’m still needed, there’s still things to-”

“Agents! There you are,” Came Jheselbraum’s voice.

Tilting his head, Stan saw her standing at the entrance of their ambulance.

“I couldn’t help overhearing the tail-end of that conversation,” she stated, “and I’m afraid Carla is right, Stanley. There is still much to see to with regards to the Cipher Wheel investigation,”

Stan’s heart sank.

“In fact, Carla, as a reward for the extensive amount of time and effort that you have put into this case, as well as the exceptional valour, initiative, and determination you have displayed these past few hours in the midst of crisis, I have taken it upon myself to use my not-inconsiderable influence to offer you a promotion,”

Carla’s face lit up.

Great. More work for her to take on.

Jheselbraum continued, “This will enable you a firmer command over the investigation, and I expect you’ll want to take full advantage of the delegative duties now available to you,”

Delegative duties? Well, just because it doesn’t sound like more work doesn’t mean it isn’t…

“I should also mention that this promotion comes with the condition that you take appropriate steps to address the large amount of stress and mental strain that this has placed upon you. Whatever those steps may be,” Jheselbraum looked from Carla to Stan, and back again. “Some leave, perhaps? Or time to work from home?”

For one heart-stopping moment, Stan thought Carla was too proud to accept. A few different expressions warred on her face, until something in it cleared.

“I’ll take that as a yes, Supervisory Special Agent McCorkle,” Jheselbraum smiled.

Carla sat back in her chair, breathing out slowly, and then grinned at Stan, who beamed broadly right back.

“So that’s that, Agent McCorkle?”

“That’s that, Mr Pines” she agreed.

Stan looked out of the ambulance again. Directly opposite, another ambulance was parked, its back doors open to them. He raised a hand in a brief wave to Addi and Ford, who were cuddling with their legs swinging off the edge of the ambulance floor. Ford had finally gotten some proper stitches in his head, as well as a bandage around it, and a knee brace. Addi was physically fine, but had a shock blanket draped around her shoulders. His brother smiled back at him.

“How often do ya put trackers on me?” Fiddleford wondered. His ambulance was next to Ford’s.

“Only when there’s a big whoppin’ emergency,” Madeline answered. Fiddleford was sitting up on his stretcher, and Madeline had joined him on it. The tremors had all but stopped, Stan was glad to see. Those were what had scared Madeline and the paramedics the most, but it had apparently only been shock symptoms, and wasn’t indicative of any kind of lasting brain damage. That hadn’t stopped Addi from flatly stating that both Fiddleford and herself were going to be booked up in mental therapy for the next few months, an action which Stan for one wholeheartedly agreed with.

Funnily enough, Fiddleford’s erratic speech was nothing to worry about. Madeline had disclosed that it wasn’t that out of character for him. He was way worse when he was drunk, apparently.

Something that balanced out the heartbreak that Madeline had shown when Fiddleford hadn’t entirely recognised her was the amazement and happiness on his face when she managed to tell him that she – at this point flushed from the action of the conflict with the Cipher Wheel agents, dressed head to foot in tactical gear, and backlit by the light from the elevator like some sort of avenging angel come to save them all – was his wife. Since then he’d seen Fiddleford staring off into space occasionally, just thinking things over.

“So what’s happening to Oracle Division?” Carla asked.

“We’re dissolved,” Addi replied. She nodded off to where Jheselbraum had moved to talk to some FBI officials. “The director said our mission’s over. The FBI has it handled from here, and Oracle Division agents will be picked up by other departments,”

“Is that what's going to happen to you?” Stan inquired, looking between her and Fiddleford.

Addi hesitated.

“Like hell it is!” Fiddleford snapped for her. “Whatever son of a bitumen road tries to stop me from retirin’ right this minute is goin’ ta be sorry. Ah’ve had it up to here with spies!”

“Fair enough,” Stan said, as Madeline high-fived him.

“I think I’m done with that scene for a while too,” Addi said, nestling closer to Ford.

“In that case,” Ford said, clearing his throat, “since I appear to be out of a job as well, how would you like to stay here with me? I’ve been thinking about going the scientific research route for years now, and this seems to be the perfect opportunity to do it,”

“Wh- really? Yes, of course! I’d love to!” Addi exclaimed, lurching off his shoulder to look him in the eye.

Happy as anything, Ford leaned forward so he could see into Fiddleford’s ambulance. “You’d be welcome too, Fiddleford. I can also look back over the memory gun schematics, see if I can reverse-engineer them. Any chance to make things right-”

“Ford, ‘making things right’ isn’t going to happen,” Addi interrupted.

Ford looked shattered.

Addi blanched. “No, no! That’s not what I meant! It’s because the memories are coming back on their own! We don’t need you to make a reverse-memory gun!”

“Wait, they are?” exclaimed Stan.

She nodded at him. “Every now and then another one gets triggered,”

Ford looked at Fiddleford. “Is this happening with you as well?”

“It is. Maddie’s been tellin’ me about Tate, and I’m rememberin’ him better all the time,”

“Well then maybe-” Ford reached behind him and grabbed the Journal, which he’d taken from the basement – “it would help if I recounted our missions together… that is, if you want my help…?” He looked uncertainly at Fiddleford. Stan winced as he remembered the anger he’d seen on the man’s face as Cipher had indicated the Journal.

Fiddleford sighed. “Stanford, Addi’s right. Cipher didn’t need that thing to hurt us, it was just convenient for him. Ah’d greatly appreciate yer help, and,” He glanced at Madeline, who shrugged in an easygoing manner, “Ah’d be happy to work with ya in th’future,”

Relief crossed Ford’s features.

Stan privately noticed that Fiddleford was clearly – to him at least – holding back quite a lot. Those first sentences had a rigidity to them that Stan thought probably meant that while Fiddleford could say them, and know they were true, there was still a way to go before he would really believe them. However, the fact that he had said them meant that things were already looking up.

“So you’re… doing okay?” Carla cringed at the inadequacy of the question.

“Improvin’,” Fiddleford nodded. “The memory gun stopped workin’ on me after a while, so that’s helped. Don’t think Cipher noticed, or cared too,”

“It did?” Addi asked, wide-eyed. “I mean, thank God, but… it did?”

At Fiddleford’s shrug, Ford straightened up. “That’s incredible! Perhaps you built up a resistance to the ray, or maybe the gun lost its power after a while – although that wouldn’t explain why it continued to work on Addi… I wonder, if we took an MRI of your brain-”

“Ford, are ya a neuroscientist?” Madeline asked with an amused tilt to her head.

“Ah, no-”

“Then leave it alone fer now. Let’s just relax for a while,”

Ford gave an embarrassed grin and Fiddleford squeezed his wife’s shoulders contentedly.

“All that bein’ said,” he piped up suddenly, irritation entering his voice. “Writin’ down yer top secret escapades was an idiotic thing ta do, Stanford, and if I’m goin’ to be workin’ with ya, you’ll be usin’ a computer, yer hear?”

“Computer’s can be hacked,” Ford responded weakly.

“Not mine,” said Fiddleford grimly.

Ford nodded his acquiescence, not that he had much choice, and then turned hopefully to Stan and Carla.

“We’ve already got jobs,” grinned Stan.

“We’ve also got some mandatory leave,” Carla put in. “I’d be happy to spend it here. After all, we’ve got ten years to catch up on, Ford,” She offered, and laughed as Stan immediately agreed to the idea. He was in no way ready to say goodbye to his brother yet, and he didn’t think Ford wanted him to leave yet either. There was still plenty of sappy hugs and conversations to have before then. And it looked like they were about to start now, as Ford opened the Journal on his lap, pressed a kiss to Addi’s hair, rolled his eyes at Stan’s eyebrow waggle, and began to read.

What had his life been like two weeks ago? He’d had a girlfriend who loved him, but who had also been extremely pressured by her work. He’d had a steady-ish job, but no friends. And a brother who he hadn’t seen in five years. Two weeks ago, life had been lonely, and quiet.

Now, he had a fiancée who loved him and whose case was all but wrapped up so she wasn’t in danger of dying of stress, he had taken down a terrorist and probably deserved a medal or some cash or something, he had two very firm friends who pulled stunts he found completely nuts but which probably meant that they weren’t about to be scared away any time soon, and a brother who wanted him around, who liked talking to him, who once again wanted his help and wanted to help him in return.

Now, life was moving on to better things, and he was looking forward to their next adventures even more.

[activatingaggro]

I’LL BRING THUNDER (i’ll bring rain)

RICCIN KAYATA | 9 SWEEPS / 21 YEARS OLD

A SEATOWN IN THE EASTERN SEA | 5860 WORDS

"You look nice," Liyiji tells you. "Almost like you're a decent fucking person."

The times that you've worn full paint can be counted on one hand. True paint, at least - concealer and cover-up has always felt lighter than the pigment smeared across your skin, pulling it gray enough to match Gliese, and it's always let you breathe. Concealer and cover-up have never felt like a shield between you and the crisp night air. You'd thought, even only a few perigees ago, that wearing full paint was just another burden that the indigoes were forced to adorn. The dank sort of joke that the Messiahs laid down upon the most blessed of castes, to even them out and pull them the fuck down when they got uppity. Grease paint always seemed like it was a punishment, as much as it was proof of your devotion.

But the weight of the paint's almost fucking merciful, right now. It's a different sort of sensation, something new and novel, and exactly what you need to distract you from your deja vu.

Because as you step off of Li's ship, and onto the thick, pink bridge anchoring his to the nearest houseboat, it feels almost like you're four perigees again, and you're finally coming back home.

You're deep in the Eastern Sea, at one of the seatowns that you'd used to visit as a sprog. It's too small to have ever gotten a name from the Empire. Only the largest of the Rickshaws get that sort of endorsement. No, the only name you've ever learned for it is what the locals called it: Kah Kin, to hurry, the place where everything is always moving, and nothing ever stays still. Because while some of the seatowns are anchored, entire flotillas of planks and boats permanently anchored around abandoned oil rigs and flooded lighthouses, Kah Kin is different. It's mobile, and the location changes every perigee.

So does the size. High above you, the moons have tucked themselves away behind their veils, and the sky is blood deep in its absence, deep enough that even the spackling of the nebula far above can't fucking light it. In the distance, it streaks into the horizon, rich purples blurring into the wine-dark sea until there's no way to tell them apart. If it weren't for the lanterns aboard each ship, you might've missed them entirely. But the sails are bright tonight, huge banners of white that pulse in the night sky like clouds, and fires sit on the deck of every boat, casting off just enough light to illuminate the next. Some nights, there's hardly any ships here at all.

Tonight, you think, there might be six hundred ships here, all hooked together by teetering ladders and bridges made of rope. It certainly sounds like it could be that many, the din loud enough that even you can hear it.

It's a queer feeling deep in your chest as you take it all in. You hadn't known you could be nostalgic for something like this, but here you are, mooning like a wriggler witnessing their first murder, and.. it's not often that you want to stand still, soak in the atmosphere. The air reeks of salt, harsh enough that your throat chafes at the stench of it, but it smells like the markets, too, that you'd grown up in. Prior to the program. Prior to Kindra, even, back when it was just you, Myrrha, Orpheo, Melete, and -

"Stop gawking," Liyiji scolds you, and gives your braid a sharp tug before he pushes past you on the rope.

"Who says I'm gawkin', brother?" You shake your head, casting your braid back over your shoulder, and the way the veil shifts across your shoulders is unfamiliar enough to stir you from your thoughts. "Maybe I'm just thinking." The last time you'd come here, you'd been four and a half, bright-eyed and eager for an adventure that Melete had promised you. Your hair'd still been short back then. That's another difference. You just need to keep remembering those.

"I said you're gawking. Are you deaf," he drawls, warm, "or just fucking stupid?" Liyiji's pushing forward, ignoring the welcoming volley of words from the shopkeep he passes. The way the boats are set up, everything's connected. If you were the right kind of psionic, you could leap high into the sky, take it all in proper, but you don't have to - you know how things are situated, out here. The boats are woven together like the strands of a net, tied to each of their neighbours like flies caught in a web. If a Rickshaw came across the lot of you without that network, you'd be ruined. There's be no room to flee, no room to flee: the boats would crash into each other in their hurry to get out, the frantic rush to save their own hides even at the expense of everyone else together. If the ropes were hemp, this sort of set-up would never be viable.

But the nets hooking the lot of you together ain't hemp. It's biowire, harvested by some stalwart soul before the adult Exodus, and kept in hand ever since. It's not made for space, these gunky pink lines: nah, they're old, made specially for ships, and the Empire can't bring itself to care about tech so fucking outdated. The biowire connects the logic centers of each ship together, like cells in a brain, and when one sends off an alert that they're being attacked, it draws on the energy from all of them to put up a shield, made of the same psionic energy that some folks use to go deep underwater. It'll let things out, but anything bigger than air just can't filter in.

It's the sort of thing that means there's a helm here, buried deep into one of these ships guts, with just enough ability to put that sort of thing up.

It's the sort of thing that's got you dressed in indigo from head-to-tail, with a clown's full paint coating your mug, all despite the fact that your veins run with liquid gold. You can be whatever chrome you want on land, where the law protects you, and folks have the Messiah’s sense to know what the white on your face means. Out here? The only time law matters is if it’s around to see you.

And the legislacerator’s on the seatowns keep their eyes closed shut.

"If you gotta ask.." You fall in step beside Liyiji as he steps onto the next bridge. The air's heady with incense here, drifting from the burners resting on each ship you pass through. None of 'em have had the courtesy to coordinate: the first you pass by has oranges burning away, the sticks still smoking, and the next has cloves, heavy enough that you can taste them on the back of your tongue. For you, it's just a bother. For Liyiji..

Well. Your invertebrother might be navy, but he's always been the weakest out of all the motherfuckers you've ever met. His ears are pinned as he navigates the crowds, dead-set on a spot that you ain't quite sure either of you know. Wretch must be bothered by the smell, living as he does all on his lonesome - but least he ain't showing it. Ain’t like there’s anything the either of you could do, if he did. "Oh, brother, look at this mug. Look at this goddamn rack. This pan’s too gilded to be fucking empty," you tell him instead, as a distraction, and he snorts, ears flicking forward for the briefest of seconds. "Unlike your ugly-ass mug. You tip out your pan to the gods, brother, or you actually know where we goin'? ‘cause when you said you had someone for me to meet, shit, I was expectin' - iunno - a goddamn teashop?"

You pause, peering at the next ship over. They're a ramshackle of a boat, with plywood nailed in to cover the holes in the cocoon, and a deck that keeps leaking what you hope's gotta be slime. They've got the door of their cabin swung wide open, covered from top to bottom in bowls, and the rest of their ships covered in baskets and displays, each full of stoneware that mostly ain't broken. "I ain't seen a teashop anywhere," you complain. There's snakes coiled over the plates, their eyes strange and wet like they were freshly painted, but that ain’t uncommon. The seafolk always decorate with snakes, like calling down on his kin will stop the Leviathan from wreaking their homes. "One that don't look like a lusus took a bite out of it."

"Why the fuck would I take you to a teahouse? So you could hit on the waitress, and I have to tip to make up for it..? Please, Riccin." He sounds peevish. But that's the delight of Li, you reckon: if he’s got the energy to act like someone shoved a sack of bees up his nook, then he’s still calm, not letting himself get bothered by the crowds brushing past the both of you. He’s navy, and you’re dressed in indigo, but that’s the wonder of the seatowns: so’s everyone fucking else. "No, I'm taking you to someone I think you want to meet. That's all."

He pauses. The tip of his ears flush blue, same way they always do when he gets to paying attention. Then he looks back at you, lashes low. Boy's got heavier lids than even Dysseu: when he does this, it's hard to get a feel on him at all, but for a moment, you almost think he's going to apologise.

The moment passes. "She's almost as foul as you," he says instead, then sets back to walking. "But she's got foresight. And you have questions. She takes payment in alcohol. She'll cut you for it to work."

Foresight. It's a tricky psi, that, and one of the rarest: there was a jade in Chiloa and Ico's creche that'd sported it, back when you were young, but you haven't thought of her in sweeps.  You whistle, low and impressed, then arch your eyebrows at him. "Foresight, brother? Does that shit work better than yours, or are we about to get fucking fleeced?" The crowd’s thinned around you as you’ve walked: it’s just the two of you on this next boat, and the boats surrounding you, the merchandise abandoned as their residents drifted towards the center.

"Mine is perfectly standard." Li's got a way with words. Each one drops like it's a personal goddamn disappointment, but you know him: the fact he's saying them at all is a sweet enough kind of affection. "And more useful. So fuck off. She does probabilities. She can tell you what’s most likely to happen, and how likely it is, and divine from there. Or you could just ask me, and I’ll -”

“- tell me all the grisly ass ways a motherfucker could die?” Something shifts inside one of the houseboat’s doorways, but when you squint, it’s just a ward, catching in the wind. A snake winks at you from the edges, all gild in gold, even as the shape calls for protection. “You ought to give up the divin’, brother, and just sell here. Why, look at these poor fools. Look at the lines they have fucking writ.” There’s another set of wards on the next boat’s shack, three stacked in a row, calling for protection, for health, for light. This tradition isn’t of the Mirthful faith - it’s some remnant kept live on the ocean floor, the sort that trickles up in streams and gasps to the sea’s surface, so you’ve got no qualms pulling it from the wall, waving the ward right at his face. “Look at this shit!” you crow. “They fear death so hard, they bring it into their fucking homes.”

“Sell divinations, so I can be surrounded by strangers, even when I’m asleep?” he asks, dry. “I’ll pass. Stop playing with the deco, Riccin, and hurry up. We’re almost there.”

And indeed, you almost are. The ships are abandoned this far out. The air’s clean, with naught but the fucking salt on the wind, and even the sounds are so far away, they’re muffled. The last few ships are spartan in their solitude. There are no lights on their rails, no candles in the windows or leds along their awnings. There’s just wards, their gilded edges catching the stars light, and the faint pink pulse of each bridge, visible now in the absence of the light.

When you cross the final bridge, onto the boat at the farthest outskirts of the town, you think the sea’s churning around you. But then your eyes adjust. It’s not the sea.  It’s a dozen little canoes with shutters drawn tight on their lanterns, staring in.

You pause mid-step.

“Li,” you say, but he’s seen it, too, and he’s pushing past you.

“Loxias!” he calls, then he pauses.

The brownblood sits in the middle of the boat, her head thrown back and her braids strewn across the floor around her like a cloak. From this angle, the line of her long neck looks like the sort of things trolls would've fought wars for, but then she moves. She's too long-limbed, too bony: the skin pricks at the back of your neck as she pulls herself to her feet, hands splayed with their spider-thin fingers flat against the deck.

She stands up, each movement jerky, like she ain't quite sure how to make each bit of her move on its own, and you take a step back. Liyiji’s paused beside you, his ears pinned back, eyes wide in the darkness.

"Something's wrong," Liyiji says, his voice strained. "Just -" He drags a hand down his braids, mouth drawing thin into a slash, then he glances at you side-long. "Just wait here? I'll check in on her."

She's not looking at the either of you. She's standing, half hunched, her back crooked like she can't quite manage to stand straight. She's still got one long, ungainly palm lying flat on the deck, but she doesn't look up when his feet hit the deck. She doesn't react at all, even, as he steps in closer, but your mouth's gone dry. You're right behind him, never mind his goddamn order, because there's something feral about the way she's holding herself.

It's the sort of look that you've seen on lusii gone rabid, and while you're sure trolls can't go rabid..

Well. It's not worth a risk, is it? Because she’s not looking at the two of you yet, but when Liyiji’s heel catches the deck hard, her ears twitch up. She looks at the two of you then, braids falling away, and there’s something queer about her eyes --

"Oh, for fuck's sake - don't go over there!" someone shouts from the nearest boat, hangs cupped around her, and Loxias pivots.

There ain’t nothing troll about the way she moves, that's the thing. It's limbs pushing like they don't know how limbs work, like a puppet with three strings cut: she jerks and she tilts to the side hard enough you think she must be about to fall right over with those foot long horns, but she manages to haul herself upright just in time.

She lunges for the side of the rail, fingers wrapping hard around it, and she tenses -

- then screams as the troll snaps the shutters on their lantern open. They swing it out wide and hard, so the oil splashes up against the walls and her face is caught in the full light. Your eyes ache with the change, enough that orange floods the corners, but it ain’t any cause to scream. It’s a sting, that’s all.

But she’s howling like something hurt, like the oil has gone through the glass and is eating into her skin.

"She's gone dark!" the troll hollers over the noise of her. "Get off the fucking boat! We’re burning it to the ground!'

"Gone dark," you repeat, looking at Li - but his face's gone bone pale, all his blue fading at once. "Li, what the fuck they on about?"

He wets his lips. But he's not looking at you. He's staring at Loxias, who's taken in a long, shakey breathe, deep enough that you can see her ribcage rattle with it. She slips back to the deck like all of her bones have been lost, her hair falling forward, her hands pressed to the front of her face to block out the light. She's back to moving her lips, words too high for you to hear proper, but you catch snippets - shit that don't make any sense, angels and songs and homes, but said all wrong.

"Li!" you snap, and you lean in, landing an elbow hard on his shoulder. He doesn't quite react, not until you hook around his horn, claws curving in - then he jerks away with a snarl, his pupils slit fear-thin against the blue of his iris.

"The fuck do you think it means?" He starts to curl his arms around himself. Then he stops, shoulders drawing up, and he drags a hand down his face instead. "We've got to go, Riccin," he says, ragged, but for all that he's speaking to you, he's looking at her. Loxias is back to looking almost harmless, but after the way you saw her moving.. there's nothing attractive in that shit now. "She's contaminated. If we stay near for too long, she might infect us, too."

"Contaminated with what?"

"With something dark," he snaps, "something worse than any of your fucking gods! Seatown bullshit! The reason they had those wards up! And we don't have anyone here to get rid of it, so we're just - we -" He swallows, takes a step back. "We're just going to have get rid of her. And if we stay on this boat any fucking longer, they're going to get rid of us."

"Get rid of her," you say, slow. "As in - what, brother, they gonna burn her? Her own people?" But of course they are. The troll off in the distance is still waving their lamp, their face too bright under it to make out their colour. And for all that there's a sea of faces all around you, everyone collected against the edge of their canoes to watch, ain't nobody stepping up to do a damn thing. Should you care? You don't suppose you should. This isn't your town. This isn't your fucking people.

The ward hangs heavy in your pocket, where you’d crammed it down. What point to care is there, when their own ways did fucking naught?

But you know what it's like, to have folks that ought to stand by you turn on you instead. Raphae did his job right when you asked him, no matter how Chiloa sniffed, or how distraught Kindra became. There's no ache left when the thought strikes you anymore, no pain: nah, there's just the sour-sweet sting of the truth, and that's a taste you're learning to get used to. You've never wanted to get used to it. But there hadn't been a choice, had it?

You’ve got a choice now.

"No," you decide. "We ain't."

"Riccin -" He snatches at your shoulder, but you're already striding forward. He doesn't follow, and that ain't a slight. Li's seatown raised, seatown bred, and who are you to ask him to turn against himself? He's true to his nature, same as any lusus, but he's loyal, too: when you look back, he's pulled his trident off of his back, and angled to look towards the crowd. His chin's up, his horns angled in a rake, in the sort of dare that no one seems keen to protest.

He won’t follow you on, but he won’t let none of ‘em intervene, either.

Let him hold them back, then, as you approach the girl. Or, no - the adult, for what you'd taken as an adolescent's gangliness is just the queer shapes of an adult underfed, lengths all wrong for any troll ascended. She's got the knobby knees of Dysseu, when you get closer, stretched thin whereas Sipara'd been squashed short. She's got his long fingers, too, and when she looks up, she's got his gaunt cheeks.

But her eyes are the opposite. These ain't bone-white: they're black, deep as any pit, and your breath catches in an involuntary growl when you see them. The colour's too dark for psi, too curved to pass of as an empty socket. You would've blamed contacts, if you thought anybody was fool enough to play that kind of game. But it ain't contacts. It's like gas, almost, and as you stare into it, you think you can see it moving, strand by strand, thick as an atmosphere over a planet. You can't see her bulbs behind all of it, but she angles her head towards the sound of you, like she can see you.

You can't even see if she's got bulbs, still.

She pulls herself up, rickety, her shoulders bending like they might pop straight out.

"What's going on? Is she - is she burning out?" Liyiji calls, but it's not quite a question

For the best, because it ain't one you can answer. Loxias isn't stepping towards you. Nah, girl just flings herself straight at you, hard enough that you have to catch her with your hands, and she's keening, low and heady in a set of sounds that just don't work together, a lusus's keen of 'come here' hooked in with a pupa's screech for blood, for food, for attention, for anything and everything they can receive. It’s all slip-slod over words too low for you to properly hear, her mouth-gestures too mealy for you to properly read, if you had the attention for it.

You don’t. It's a good thing she's bone thin, more waifish than even Pheres for her size, or else she might push straight past your grip. As is, she pushes and she presses, making that sound until your ears pin to escape it, and - Messiahs fucking above.

This close, you can see the way the things over her eyes coils, the movement undeniable. It's like watching stormclouds, almost, in a way that makes you bare your fangs, your words caught in a tangle at the back of your throat. You hate it, is the thing, for all that you don’t know what it is. A pupa doesn’t have to know the sun to fear the light, and the urge to pick her up, throw her into the sea or the flames each time that smoke churns, is almost impossible to fight.

But you're not going to cull her, no matter how much your pan’s screaming it needs to be done. You're going to help her, and with that thought, you shove her back, hard, then step into her space while she staggers. Your elbows brace against her shoulders, then you hook your hands under her chin, thumbs pressed firmly to the corners of her eyes. Part of you is surprised, when the ink rolls over your fingers, that it doesn't hurt. It doesn't stick, either, because it's not liquid at all. It's like gas, almost, or smoke from one of Iconic's cigars. It doesn't stain your hands: it just pours over them, like something curious, or like aura. And that's it.

This must be psionics, you think, but then you catch a whiff of something else, something sharper, like the smell of ice at the heart of winter. She’s stilled under your hands, losing the wild energy that’d overtaken her, and now you can read her lips. It’s still nonsense, for the most part.

But part of it’s legible enough. "The angels are calling me home," Loxias mouths at you, with a cadence just short of song, and then your hands are burning, a sharp, aching pain that cuts straight through to the depths of your awareness. It's more than just hurt. It's everything, for one heart-stopping moment, sensation so much that it blocks out everything else -

- you're jerking your hands back, hard as if they were scalded.

When you look down, they're bleeding, gold seeping through the lines of your palms and curling down your wrists like water. It aches like frostbite, or like needles in your skin, soaking all the way to the deepest parts of you, but there's a kind of shock to it. There's gold meeting the indigo, brilliant as Grand Highblood Myddus's palms, and.. you can taste the pain in your mouth, almost, the sickly sweet tang of iron, but you can't quite process it.

So you take a deep breath, then grab her face again, more firmly this time. She actually chitters at you, baring her teeth. This close, she could tear out your wrist. This close, with your palms bleeding and bile falling from her eyesockets, she could be contaminating you with the same filth that's taken up in her core. What proof would you have? What protection could anyone fucking give to this?

"Oh, sister, sister," you breathe, like your heart ain't wrenching to escape, like there ain't bile on your tongue. No: your words are like the water around you, still and soothing and more weight than any one troll ought to muster. You speak to her like she is a lamb in your flock, and she has been lost, and like your soul isn't curling away at the sight of the black coiling over your fingers. Because what else can you fucking do? "What have you done? What lies with which did they fucking lure you? These mirthless fucks have taken you astray. They have stripped away your sense. They have stolen away your dignity. But they ain't taken your mind, have they? There is a soul in here, one that is being bound in the chains of this noissome song. There is a troll buried in that deep, dank space, too weak to break free."

"But don't you worry none, little brown," you say, "for I have brought a fucking light."

Deep within you, you pull your psionics together like armour, curling them one point at a time over your mind. You link them together, tight as a shield, and you take a breath, and you think to the past. Myddus of the Golden Palms, they'd called him back before he was the Grand Highblood, and Myddus of the Golden Tongue. He'd pulled the angels from the heart of a sinner, and he had called her soul back with the song on his lips, and the Messiahs had loved him for that.

They'd killed him for that, in the end, but it'd been his place. And what troll can reject their place?

It strikes you, suddenly, that you might die here. But you don't want to die, no matter if it's your place, no matter if it's the Messiah's fucking plan, so you draw your psionics tighter. You think of the Messiahs, their eyes bright, their words full of mirth. You think of the light of their moons, the cast-off spawn of the terrors, and how they'd caught them in the sky - how Pink had stripped them of their tails, and Lime had stripped them of their feathers, and those castoffs had become the angels, who longed for their old bodies, but were destroyed by the glow within them.

You think of the ward in your pocket, painted with the gold of the angel’s servants, and the call for light scribed upon it.

"I'm going to help you, girl," you tell her, and if your voice is shaking, then who is around that would tell?

Then you lean in, placing your mouth to her nearest eye.

The stories had never mentioned the sting of this. To breathe in the gas is like swallowing the sun. It feels like it's flaying away your flesh as it pours down your throat, stripping away everything it touches and making it its own. You've never tolerated pain well, never had much cause to learn, but what other choice do you have? To let her die at the hands of her own? To toss her away, like so many have tossed you?

Life is a sacrifice, the fifth Highblood told his choir. Life is naught but a set of strings set to be snipped, and the joke of it all - the truth of it all, the noise that the Empress tries to filter is  - is you decide if you'll be the strings, or the hands holding them. You'd never thought much about that quote, before, but now it's weighing.

When the sting is too much - when you can't handle it any longer - you pull away. Her face is sallow under your hands.

"Sister," you say, or you try, but the words that come out ain't nothing that you've ever heard before. They ain't words at all. They're just filth, tearing out of your throat like cicadas from their coons, and there's iron in your mouth, coating your tongue as thick as the ink on her face.

Chiloa and the IEP - they'd raised you to be the string, and they told you there would be nothing sweeter than the snap, and they held the scissors to you, and you'd never even thought to fray, not until it was nearly too late. And has it ever helped you? Has it ever done jack shit but cost you?

Maybe it's worth it to be something else, just for one night.

You’d made a choice, when you stepped onto this ship. Right now, all you’re doing is abiding by it.

Loxias blinks. When she opens her eyes, one eye is clear, free of the filth, and flooded with only her blood.

So you lean in, you press your lips to her other eye, and you pray.

Second time around, it's not any better. If anything, you think it's almost worse, for now you've got the taste of the pain in your soul, and you know what's coming. There's no shock to keep it away from you now. It's just pain, washing over you like a wave, and all you can do is close your eyes, and kick towards the surface. Because sure, there's pain, but you know, now, what sort of sick beast is raining discord upon her soul. You can feel the coils of it, pressing in on you from every side. You can feel the way it -

- and you can feel the way it recoils, when it brushes up against your psionics and the light flares.

The world flashes orange. When you open your eyes, the sky's bright, brighter than it ever should be, even this late in the sweep and with the boat lit aflame. But nah. The boat ain't lit. There's no heat save for the reek of your own blood, streaming down your face and leaking from your hands. Loxias's eyes are clear, but the light ain't from her or hers. Her irises are blown big, large enough to take over most of the yellow, but there's scarcely any glow to them, even this close: the dusting of brown light across her cheeks could just as easily be blood.

No, the light's coming from you. When you reach out, careful, to wind it back in, all it does is flare brighter, with a pulse of energy that leaves your veins burning in the aftermath. Your eyes are shining, bright enough that they feel ready to start weeping. There's sparks drifting down around you, like the snow that ain't yet come, but it's fine. There's none of the pain of burnout, none of that sick siren call that comes with destruction. Your psionics are just there, flared, caught up in the grid of armour you'd wound them into, and you'll have to figure out how to fix that later.

And you’re just tired, right down to the bones.

But right now, you have different problems. Loxias's gone limp in front of you, but when she lifts her hands, it's with the movement of a troll, not whatever fuck had been wearing her skin. And when you turn to face the crowd behind you..

There's a few hundred eyes all on you, watching, and in the darkness, with shadows cast harsh on their faces and jaws, it's impossible to tell what they're thinking of you: all dressed up in indigo, with the morning sky in your eyes and the sun's light dripping from your palms. You ain't Iconic. You've never had to go and figure out the beat of a crowd, whether the crook of their arms was to clap, or to grab a rope. You've never fucking wanted to, but Liyiji's tongue-tied and pale next to you, and you know he won't be any help at all.

So you take a breath, you cast your eyes across them, and you pull yourself up tall.

"And what the hell," you ask, voice pitched low, and oh - your throat's gone raw, so the words fucking rasp, deep as any highblood's purr. "Are all of y'all looking at? Do you even fucking know? Has fear stripped the sense from you, that I have laid down salvation in front of you and all you can do is stare? A terror would've plagued your goddamn cities. They would have ripped the bones from your flesh. They would've supped on your quadrants, and left you to fucking watch, for how could some fucking flame - the detriment of the land, the Messiah's first joke - ever quench what comes from the origin of us all? Do you drown your fish in the waters, cousins? Do you hold them there until they stop fucking moving? Because if one does - if you have ever - that would be the most rank of goddamn miracles."

"And you have not earned a miracle." Your mouth tastes of iron. It drags down your throat when you breathe in, but what is that discomfort compared to the patter of your heart? There’s a fire in your veins, burning like it’ll eat its way free of you, and it pours out in your words, like a lash with which you could burn away their sin.  "You have earned jack and shit, motherfuckers, save for the most righteous of ire. What sort of shit is this? Trouble comes, and you sinners, you feckless fucks, all you do is fucking cower. You swing a lamp, and you promise a resolution that you cannot - will not - fucking deliver.  You don't deserve a fucking miracle.”

“If the gods were just, I would have let this motherfucker wreck all of you."

"But the gods ain't just," you tell them, heat enough to match the pulse in your veins, "so we must be, you worthless wretches. Remember that, next time you think to fucking cower. Think of that the next time you go to claiming you'll light a flame upon a motherfucker still occupied. C'mon, Li." The crowd isn't moving. They're just watching, but that's fine - you don't expect they'll move at all, not after that show. "Get your girl, and let's fucking go."

[80srichie]

collide

WHAT IS UP yALL

so i got this idea that derry was the upside down of hawinks and someone told me to write it, so here i am.

however, my wonderful co-writer and beta @richiewheeler helped me out A TON and she’s gonna be helping me write this whole fic so pls give her some love as well pls and thx

i hope you guys like it! we are SUPER DUPER proud of it 

without further ado, here is my stranger things/it crossover

summary: a stranger things/it crossover fic 

pairings: reddie def, and lots of others to be determined

words: 1991

Will Byers always had to ride his bike home at night, it seemed. Mike’s Dungeons and Dragons games managed to always run way longer than the group had anticipated, usually, 10 hours was a normal time frame for them. School nights always ruined the flow of it, sure, but Will’s team always won. Sometimes he wondered if Mike let them win, or, perhaps, it was just luck.

His older brother Jonathan was working a late shift, as was their mother, which was a common occurrence. He didn’t mind riding his bike so late, he’d gotten used to it. Nothing happened in Hawkins, so it was almost therapeutic. The sound of his bike wheels thumping against the pavement and crickets that chirped in the darkness.

Mirkwood, a street so familiar to him he could almost see it just as he would in the day, stretched in front of him. Since it was only a fall Sunday, there was no one there. He hummed to himself and looked through the woods of Hawkins Forest. He’s almost home.

Will looked back at the road, and saw a tall figure standing right in the middle of the street. Yelping, he slammed on his breaks, nearly falling off the front of his bike as he skids to a stop.

It was a clown, with wild red hair and a pristine costume. If it were Halloween, Will would’ve been impressed. But the autumn holiday was last month and this didn’t seem like a costume. It was too real as if the face paint wasn’t actually paint at all.

“Hey there, Will. Where are you off to?” The clown spoke, his words causing Will to physically shiver in fear.

His mother’s warnings of don’t talk to strangers rattled in his head, so he just swallowed and wanted to leave it there. But he had to know.

“How did you know my name?” Will asked, his voice sounding scared to his own ears. He wished he could be stronger about it, but he wasn’t.

“I’m a friend of your dad’s,” The clown said. “He tells me all about you, Will.”

He hated the way this guy said his name, and he knew his dad didn’t say many positive things about him. He changed the subject, “Why the clown outfit?” “Well, I’m Pennywise the Dancing Clown,” The Clown- Pennywise- said, grinning. In the light of the moon, his eyes shined bright and his teeth looked so sharp. “I was just at a party, and I thought I’d take Mirkwood home.”

Will smiled awkwardly a little, “We call this street Mirkwood too.” He didn’t know why he continued to talk to strange man in a clown costume. He almost felt compelled to stay.

“I know,” Pennywise said. Something in Will’s stomach twisted and his fingers clutched the handles of his bike until his knuckles went white.

“My mom’s expecting me home,” Will started to excuse himself, but Pennywise frowned. That frown sent a wave of discomfort through his small frame. A frown like that wasn’t normal. It was far too sinister, too off to be ordinary. The clown tilted his head a bit, his hair staying in the perfect “windblown” shape it had been in. That wasn’t normal either. His eyes, Will noticed, were a bright orange color. Number three on the ‘not normal’ list about this guy. One was lopsided as if he had a lazy eye. One concentrated on Will’s figure, the other looming off slightly to the right of him. Number four, check.

“Let me show you something first.” The clown spoke slowly as if he was trying to be friendlier, more convincing. Will felt as if he didn’t have much of a choice. The man blocked his way regardless, so he stayed put and kept his mouth shut.

The clown smiled once more. His face suddenly contorted, his head snapping to the side violently at a 90-degree angle. That’s when Will realized it was no longer a person. This thing wasn’t human, it never was, to begin with. Will watched in horror as this thing transformed into a large-scale version of the Demogorgon, one of the many pieces in Mike’s Dungeons and Dragons campaign from today. He was terrified, slowly backing up with his bike in a vain attempt to separate himself from this monster as much as he could. Will glanced around him quickly, seeing if he had a possible escape route. He didn’t.

When he glanced back at the monster, it started to advance. With no choice, Will threw his bike down and ran down the street, the thumps growing louder behind him. The last thing he heard was his own terrified scream before he hit the pavement and his vision clouded black.

In a town closer than they thought, Georgie Denbrough bounced beside his brother, Bill, as he made a paper sailboat as a storm crossed through Derry.

This was a tradition they had when it rained, seeing how fast one boat could go in the pouring rain. Georgie liked that even though Bill was sick, he was still gonna let him play. It wouldn’t be the same without him, but they both agreed that tradition was important. They couldn’t miss an opportunity.

“S-she’s all ready, Captain,” Bill said, coughing a little. Georgie nodded vibrantly and took the boat in his hands. Slightly sticky to the touch, he knew how much work his big brother put into it and made sure he handled ‘her’ carefully.

“D-don’t forget your g-galoshes,” Bill reminded as Georgie nearly raced out the door. “M-mom will k-kill you.”

Georgie made a face but nodded once more. When he ran down the stairs to the mudroom, he pulled on the dark green boots that chafed against his ankles.

He ran outside and Georgie turned, waving up to Bill’s window, showing off how well the boat was maintaining its structure in the downpour. Bill waved back at him, so he took that as his signal to start his boat’s journey. The static hum of the walkie-talkie in Georgie’s pocket made him smile, knowing Bill was sorta there with him.

“Be careful.” His brother’s voice crackled and Georgie was off. He placed the boat down near the street curb, watching with glee as it raced down the road following the direction of the water flow.

He tried being careful, he really did, but it was too easy for him to get distracted. Georgie wasn’t too surprised when he smacked into the orange sign, coincidentally at the perfect height to hit his head on. He didn’t want to lose the boat so he tried to keep up, but he cried out in horror as it fell down the sewer drain.

“Bill’s gonna kill me,” He moaned, disappointed in himself. He kneeled down and tried to see if it had caught on something. But instead of seeing the boat, he saw a kid.

Georgie yelped and fell backward, landing on his butt. Even to a little kid like himself, it was a little odd to see someone in a storm drain. The kid in the drain smiled meekly, holding up Georgie’s boat. He had brown hair, that was wet and flat due to the rain. His outfit consisted of a vest with a flannel underneath and a pair of jeans from what Georgie could see, but it was dark in the drain.

“Hey, Georgie, is it?” He asked, looking down at the paper boat. A drop of water landed on the ‘S. S. Georgie’ Bill had written on it, smearing the ink a bit.

Georgie nodded slowly, a little thrown off by his question but answered anyway. “Yeah, that’s me!”

The kid smiled. “Hey, I’m Will Byers. Nice to meet you.”

Georgie smiled back at him. “How did you get in there?” He asked, “Are you stuck?”

Will nodded solemnly, before his expression changed. If people got lightbulbs over their heads like in the cartoons, there would’ve been one above Will’s head. “If you help me out, I can give you your boat back! How does that sound? You can help a new pal out.”

The small Denbrough contemplated it for a second, before agreeing.

Will grinned. “Grab my hand.” He spoke, reaching his hand upwards towards the opening in the drain.

As Georgie reached down, Will’s face changed drastically. It contorted into something sinister, multiple rows of teeth baring in a mere instant.

His scream of agony could be heard all the way down the road but by the time anyone had checked, Georgie Denbrough was gone. The only evidence of that he was ever there was red water slowly flowing into the storm drain.

But no adult nearby saw it.

Will woke up with what he thought was the start of a migraine after the worst nightmare he’d ever experienced. A goddamn clown accosted him when he was just trying to get home. He just wanted to eat Jonathan’s breakfast and see his friends at school. He wanted to hug his mom and have her tell him the nightmare clown couldn’t get to him again until he believed her.

But instead of smelling pancakes and nearly burnt eggs, all it smelled like was like stagnant water and blood.

Will’s eyes snapped open, and all he saw was gray. He pushed up onto his palms and looked around.

He wasn’t in his room, safe in his bed under the covers and dry. Instead, he was in a wide, circular room covered in trash, soaking wet. How long was he asleep? Did he get knocked out?

Something dripped on his shoulder, and he looked up to see a trash pile that nearly skirted the tall ceiling. But more astonishingly, bodies floated. They floated around the room like limp rag dolls that Mike’s sister Holly played with. And they were all upside down.

A sound of squelching caused Will to look to his right, only to come face to face with the same clown that he saw on the street.

As if it wasn’t terrifying before, its clown face was now smothered in blood. It grinned, and the crimson-stained teeth looked even sharper than he remembered.

In its long, twisted fingers, it held an arm with a chunk taken out of it. In that quick glance, he could see blood and muscles and bone.

Will screamed and scrambled backward, a sharp pain in his side as his heart nearly beat out of his chest. How was this real? How was none of that a dream?

No. This is still a dream. This isn’t real, Will focused on convincing himself. He scrunched his eyes shut and dug his nails into his palms.

“Not real, Willie?” The clown’s scratchy voice said, sounding so close. But he refused to open his eyes. “Do you want to see a dream?”

He screamed and his eyes flung open. The clown grabbed him by the throat and leaned in close. Its breath was rancid like the trash that littered around them. It drooled blood and saliva all over him as he squirmed in a vain attempt to escape the clown’s death grip on him.

“I’ll show you a goddamn nightmare.”

so YEAH

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[storiesbybrian]

You Live In A Zoo

Ken was riding alone in the elevator, holding a large black forest cake when he sneezed. He aimed his face away from the cake, but the volume of snot and spit oozing down the elevator’s wood-paneling suggested the cake had not escaped the sneeze’s blast radius. Well, Ken thought. Maybe the cake deserves it for preventing my hands from taking one for the team. So it was unsurprising to turn back and see the white-piped letters reading HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSICA glistening with effluvia, but it was still dismaying. Ken would have loved to blame the person who insisted that cake boxes, with their thin cardboard and non-biodegradable plastic skylights, were preposterously wasteful, but that ever so environmentally ethical person was the same one who just exposed the cake to his own inner environment. He tried blowing the cake clean, which sent a flagella of mucus he hadn’t realized was dangling from his nose lashing across both Ps, just as the elevator stopped on his in-laws’ floor.

He stepped out and placed the slimy cake on the hallway carpet. Sounds of merriment  streamed from the cracked door of his wife’s childhood home. Sounds of merriment and his father-in-law’s favorite record, Extensions by the Manhattan Transfer. That damn record was going to play on repeat all night. Ken took a tissue from his pocket and poised a corner of it over the cake, hoping to absorb his nose’s unwelcome contribution without disturbing the calligraphy. He caught one substantial gob that way, but a few streaks still glared up at him. Using a different corner of the tissue, he swept these toward the nearest cherries where they could just blend right in.

When the most damning of the evidence was cleared, Ken stuffed the tissue into his back pocket and carried the cake the rest of the way to his mother-in-law’s 70th birthday party. Jessica and Boris’s apartment had five bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms, all centered around a dining room so large, Ken always expected Irish wolfhounds to come running in at dinner time, even though the building was pet-free. Ken was nearly sure he would have hated the art they slapped all over their infinite wallspace even if his in-laws’ rent wasn’t lower than what he and Caroline were paying for a one-bedroom 10 blocks away. But maybe he did feel more brutally assaulted by that economic outrage than he did by the enlarged ads for a French liqueur, the brown, crumbling opera announcements, the braille transcriptions of rap lyrics and poetry by Havel, the portraits of all six members of their immediate family, all those ornate frame corners poking from the mint green walls like dungeon spikes.

“Happy Birthday!” he said loudly enough, he hoped, for his mother-in-law to hear him anywhere in the cavernous apartment. He turned left, ducking under copper whisks and ladles hanging from the kitchen doorway to hand the snot-smeared cake off to his brother-in-law Gene, who ruled the kitchen with a despotism his cooking did not merit. Gene took it with one hand, without looking up from his phone. Caroline was pinned to the living room sofa by two of their nephews. Ken stood at the edge of the room, giving the entire party one more chance to herald his arrival, and maybe give him subtle guidance on who to kiss first, his wife, the birthday girl or scotch. Just in case any of Rebecca’s guests noticed he was there, he imagined them judging him most harshly if he greeted anyone before his wife so he wended his way past Caroline’s siblings and parents’ friends to the skirmish on the couch.

“Hi Uncle Ken!” his nephew Elijah said. “Can I tickle your armpits?”

Ken knew permission didn’t matter so after glancing disgustedly at the cluster of paintings, charcoals and lithographs, united in their celebration of 19th Century Japanese agriculture, he stiff-armed Elijah and leant over to kiss Caroline. He wanted to be able to confide in her about the splash he’d made on her mother’s cake, to have it be their dirty little secret, which made him think of Betsy, a girl he’d known years before getting married who, one winter, dared him to stick his tongue up her nostril, which he did. And while getting his tongue poked by her jagged, salty boogers wasn’t much of an erotic thrill, goddamn it was intimate! But Caroline’s devotion to her mother was too slavish to allow her to conspire, even mildly, against her so, with Elijah swiping away at his underarm and kicking at his shin to get closer, Ken just smiled and told her she looked nice, wondering why breathing in the chopped herring on her breath didn’t feel as intimate as Betsy’s boogers.

Elijah reached a few finger tips to Ken’s armpit. Ken clamped his arm down, trapping Elijah’s wriggling fingers against his ribcage. Ken smirked and said, “Still too thin to win, boy.”

“Uh, Ken?” Gene said, swatting his own torso with a spatula right where Joan Jett’s eyes squinted from his dark denim Meow Mix apron. “May I see you in the kitchen?”

Everyone at the party intoned her own version of, “Uh oh, what’d you do?”

Ken assured Caroline that everything was fine and dragged Elijah toward the kitchen ready to deny everything. Absolutely everything. Just before the utensil stalactites, Ken raised his arm and Elijah ran back to the sofa, stopping briefly to try crying but abandoning the project when no tears sprang forth. In the kitchen, Gene gave Joan Jett a break and pointed his spatula at a Royal Copenhagen gravy boat on a shelf he couldn’t reach.

“Gene,” Ken said.

“Yes, Ken?”

“You know I’m not the tallest one here. I’m not even your tallest family member.”

“Darling,” Gene’s father Boris said, poking a rare nude spot on a wall repeatedly. “I’m hungry.”

Boris tried to maintain deference to his son while also entering his own kitchen and sticking spoonfuls from every pot into his mouth, using a different spoon each time, and leaving it there, until it looked like he was trying to swallow a very fancy bicycle gear. Boris was almost elfin in his slightness, his ribbed turtle neck sagging from the slender limbs of his 4’ 9” frame. But then there were his eyebrows, which Ken believed could hold carnations by their stems.

“Daddy!” Gene said. “How is it?”

“That one’s great, that one’s pretty good, that one’s very good, that one’s too mushy and that one needs salt,” Boris said, extracting the spoon corresponding to each critique separately.

Ken felt like the entertainment value of the family schtick had reached its apex, so he handed Gene the gravy boat and made his way to the bar.

Boris had hired the same catering company that handled Ken and Caroline’s wedding, but only for beverage and waiting service. All of the food was courtesy of Gene, who bravely ignored the disappointment shrink-wrapping every thank you and congratulations his parents’ guests lavished on him. Gene’s menu was modeled on Boris and Rebecca’s first date, when Rebecca’s grandmother had served them beef stroganoff by candlelight on the fire escape of Rebecca’s childhood apartment in Middle Village. In addition to the egg noodles and beef stew, Gene had kasha varnishkes, steamed carrots, roast broccoli, cold potato leek soup, and fried zucchini blossoms stuffed with goat cheese. The shard of blossom batter Boris had hacked off with a spoon edge was what needed salt. Ken had never eaten Rebecca’s cooking, which led him to believe it was bad, and he wondered how Boris finessed deploying gusto on their first date with exiling her from the kitchen for the next 40 years.

“Scotch and soda?” Ken said to the bartender.

“Single malt or blend?” the bartender asked. Ken was slightly perturbed to be delayed by further consideration, but this was a special occasion so maybe Boris had sprung for some of the good stuff.

“Single malt,” he said. “Hold the soda.”

The bartender poured a slug from an oddly shaped bottle of a brand Ken never heard of into a wine glass. Tattooed flames rose above the cuffs of her tuxedo shirt, licking at her palms, making Ken feel warmer.

“Hey,” he said. “Have I seen your band play? At the Mercury Lounge?”

“Nice try,” she said. “But I don’t think so.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Ken saw Caroline’s twin brother Tommy watching him get his drink and somehow Ken knew that Tommy had already made the bartender tense about getting hit on.

“No really,” Ken said. “I’m… married, but I do get out to see music pretty often.”

The bartender nodded with all the polite contempt she could contain within the boundaries of professionalism. Ken had his drink and now she’d really like to stop interacting with him. Have a nice day, sir. But Ken felt embarrassed and protected by his connection to the payer of tonight’s bills, so, beneath the shroud of his own bullshit version of decorum, he declared himself the arbiter of when this little chat would be over.

“Drums?” he asked.

“I’m not in a band,” she said. “You don’t recognize me.”

She looked past him to someone else who wanted a drink. Ken turned to see who, hoping it was somebody he didn’t know. In five minutes, he’d secretly ruined the birthday cake and meta-cheated on the birthday girl’s youngest daughter.

“Two red wines please,” Caroline’s sister Gretchen said.

“Hey,” Ken said. “Elijah’s really getting stronger!”

“Yeah,” Gretchen said, taking her wines. “I really wish you’d help me discourage his more violent tendencies, Ken.”

Am I crushing it or what? Ken thought. Well, the scotch was very good. Time to move on to the next exhibit and pay tribute to his mother-in-law.

Rebecca was in a group that included her brother Alan, and her department dean at CUNY. They stood by Boris’s large oil of a barn in Vermont. Ken couldn’t look at the painting without picturing two farmers holding Boris by the ankles so they could paint the barn with his eyebrows.

“No!” Rebecca said to her brother.

“Oh yes,” Uncle Alan said. “Ken, maybe you’ve heard about this.”

“About what? Happy birthday, Rebecca.”

“Thank you, Ken,” she said, extending her cheek to be bussed. Ken never found Rebecca attractive, but her hair was well-coiffed and her jawline was strong and she usually smelled nice. “How’s the cake look?”

“Like a potential fire hazard,” he said to a heartening amount of chuckling. “What am I supposed to settle here?”

“Well, Alan says there was a guy on his flight who was whittling. Whittling! On an airplane. Is that really a thing now?”

“Oh yeah, I have heard something about that,” Ken said. He had not.

“See?” Alan said. “And it was a full-on bowie knife too!”

“Must’ve been a service knife,” Rebecca’s dean said, waiting for his subordinate to laugh at his wit. Rebecca nodded without mirth and Ken tried staring at the dean, daring him to be petty enough to make a note of Rebecca’s defiance, but wary that the dean might mistake his look for a ha ha I’m funnier than you taunt. Someone tapped Ken’s shoulder. It was Tommy, beckoning Ken into the bedroom where he still lived.

“Boys,” Rebecca said. “No vaping!”

Tommy closed the door. Ken had never been able to square Tommy’s bedroom decor with his personality. Floating shelves jutted from one burgundy wall, holding several dozen coffee table books on subjects ranging from wartime photography to arctic wildlife photography, none of which Ken had ever heard Tommy talk about, even when relevant subjects came up in family conversations. The opposite wall was dominated by a wide oak desk that held three monitors across which Bloomberg financial data perpetually ticked. His bed was a stately four-poster that Ken doubted ever saw any action. Tommy sat on it and invited Ken to sit next to him. Ken declined.

“I do have a pen, if you want some,” Tommy said.

“No thanks.”

“So… uh, just thought you should know that the reason Gene called you into the kitchen was to settle a bet we had.”

“Uh huh?”

“Ken,” Tommy said. “You know Caroline tells me everything, right? Like, everything.”

“Well I’m sure there are some-”

“Everything.”

“I see.”

“So, like, my bet with Gene,” Tommy said, now fiddling with the vape pen. “Gene says he can smell how long it’s been since somebody’s… you know. Had sex?”

“Um, for just how much was this bet?”

“Five bucks.”

“Ooh, high stakes!”

“Hey, you can make fun of me if you want Ken, but has it ever occurred to you that I might be helpful to you here?”

Ken tried to leave the room and Tommy yanked him by the arm til he was sitting on Tommy’s plaid comforter with the edge of a sham pillow under one buttock, Tommy’s weight by the foot of the bed seesawing Ken till his feet didn’t reach the floor. And sure enough, Caroline had told Tommy everything, everything being that Ken had not had sex with his wife in several months, and that she correctly surmised it was because he had gotten so tired of being the sole initiator of sexual contact with his wife that he had vowed to leave his balls in her court until she was ready to pick them up and play with them of her own volition. And even with Tommy’s spin on the state of his sister’s marriage, it all sounded pretty reasonable to Ken. What Ken was afraid to say, to Caroline or Tommy or anyone, was that he just wanted to be wanted, that he was tired of doing all of the wanting, so tired, and ashamed of how unwanted he felt and further ashamed of how hopeful he was that his wife’s overweight twin brother might actually be able to help him out here. So they talked some more. And vaped. Ken was about to ask Tommy to put on some music when his phone chirped. It was a text from Caroline reading CAKE!

Ken and Tommy emerged from the bedroom to see everyone gathered and facing Boris and Rebecca. Boris signaled Gene to turn down the music mid-Coo Coo U. Ken stood next to Caroline, trying not to seethe at her for exposing his private foibles to what now felt like the entire party. Did everyone around them seem extra gentle and sympathetic with him? Or was that Tommy’s pot?

Boris gave a bland speech about how thrilling it was to share this milestone with so many of his and Rebecca’s nearest and dearest. Ken estimated the toast was about 15% too long, but Rebecca managed to keep her smile looking genuine the whole time.

Ken went off to use Gretchen’s bathroom, because it was the only one with a door that shut completely. Gretchen’s room was being used for changing and storage by the caterers. Among the various duffels and totes was one Hello Kitty backpack scaled with buttons featuring ostensibly rebellious slogans: Save the Rainforests, They/Them, Fuck White Supremacy, Stop All Wars, People Over Profits, Health Care Is A Right, Leave Britney Alone, Oil Kills and more, plus a few that were just pictures or symbols. Ken used his toe to undo the backpack’s zipper, and then the same toe to widen his view into the backpacks contents, just enough to see the scarred blonde wood of a few drumsticks. He tried his best to not feel ashamed by how good this vindication felt. But with that much joy for a triumph that frivolous, the shame could not be kept at bay. Out of fury at the flame-wristed bartender for her role in his present difficulties, he did not bother to rezip her backpack.

Gene was waiting for him outside of Gretchen’s bathroom.

“Best lock?” he asked, handing Ken a piece of birthday cake.

Ken nodded and took the cake without eating it. They ambled together back to within earshot of the Manhattan Transfer. Ken pretended not to notice Gene’s pretending not to notice the guests smiling more widely over the cake than they had over his fare.

“Saw you talkin’ to Tommy,” he said. “And I dunno what he told you, but if you want the advice of somebody with a more robust love life?”

“You mean you,” Ken said.

Gene stopped walking for a millisecond, as if to warn Ken that he was about to blow his shot at the gems Gene was feeling generous enough to offer. And while he was still hiding how desperate he really was, Ken put enough remorse on his face for Gene to continue.

“You’ve gotta be an animal Ken! You know? Primitive! Find something deep within yourself and just let it out. Rowr! That’s sexy.”

Ken nodded agreeably. Too agreeably, like, give me a medal for being such a good agreer.

“Thanks Gene,” he said. “Here. You can have my cake.”

[hellobazilpatel-blog]

The Lost Tribes of the World an Intresting Insight!

The Lost Tribes of the World Imagine a life without Facebook, Instagram or twitter. I mean yes, we millennials did have a childhood without them but now they are like oxygen to us. I honestly have no idea what do to with my laptop if it is not connected to the Wi-Fi. No Netflix? No The Walking Dead? . By the way if we are on the subject what were the creators thinking when they killed GLEN! . Anyways you can hear my sob story some other time, basically I am talking about a world where you have no idea that technology or even civilization exists. Surreal right? Seems like the plot to some B rated Hollywood movie, starring Rob Schneider and his God awful haircut. I have always felt that fascinating trinkets, weird survival tricks, and strange cultures and traditions do not exist in fantasy novels alone. And to get to the end of my beliefs, I dug deep into the tribes and came to the conclusion that they are definitely not a thing of the past or some ancient myth. Men have evolved from tribes to cities. However, some of these still prefer the primitive ways of life and live an isolated life. So that’s why I share my discovery with you, of the tribes that still live, surviving and thriving against the odds with the survival measures passed on to them down the generation ladder. These are the tribes that have been lost to the world but are surviving regardless of being known or unknown to the world. Here’s a look into a few fascinating tribes that look like they are lost to the world but are living in their own ways. The Surma Tribe All this while when ships sailed the seas, world wars were won and lost, and lands were exchanged on pacts of independence there existed a tribe of peaceful folks that did not believe or have any faith in governments. This is the Surma tribe that can be traced to Ethiopia. They are people who have never bothered to come into the loophole of governments. These are the people who you’d see on the National Geographic channel with giant lip plugs that would either fascinate you beyond infinity or freak you out into believing that these people are really just fabricated and not real. But the Surma tribe is a big fat reality indeed. Although they had avoided any contacts with outsiders yet the outsiders succeeded in making contacts with them in the 1980s when some Russian doctors held a conversation. The only advancement that these tribal people have adopted is the use of Kalashnikovs to protect their land and belongings. The Solo Brazilian When I say tribe, you’d probably be imagining nomads dressed in colorful clothes doing the samba. Of course, your imagination is your own refuge so you can imagine anything you want, but you’d probably not imagine a one man tribe, because since when did tribes really start comprising of only a solo person? But this lone Brazilian is one loner of a tribe who lives somewhere in the Amazon. The guy is more a brother to Bigfoot than anyone else because he shares his traits of disappearing into thin air the moment anyone catches a glimpse of him. He is probably the loneliest man on the planet. Considering that he is not causing us any harm, why are we bothering to invade his personal space? The answer is really simple; our scientists are really curious; they want to finally find the man who they can then feature in the video of Akon’s song, Lonely. There is another good reason too. Basically, the disappearing solo tribesman is the only and last surviving person of an uncontacted tribe in Amazon. The question then arises how he survived for decades all by himself while simultaneously protecting the treasure bank of language and customs of his tribe? if there is any person who can explain all this to us, it is the lone Brazilian himself. The New Guinea Tribes Illiteracy paints a rather cruel sort of picture, and when we say tribes, we are of course associating the lack of education with them. The only medium of education that probably prevails in tribes must be survival over everything else even if that involves feeding on human beings. Sounds horrible, right? Well, that’s the situation with the New Guinea tribes who have succeeded in their lessons of education so much that have not even shown themselves on the radar. And with the tales of cannibalism making rounds, there are literally very few discoveries on these tribes made so much so that they are considered lost to the world. Anyone who has tried to map these tribes has ended down the valley of death. For instance, in 1961 Michael Rockefeller set out to find one of these tribes in the rugged terrain of New Guinea. Turns out he never returned. It is thought that he was captured by one of these tribes and eaten by them The Sentinelese Tribe Imagine being greeted with a round of arrows every time you try to enter a territory. Well, that’s what happens every time that our modern people have tried to enter the area between Thailand and India called the North Sentinel Island. This tribe comprises of 250 people who welcome their visitors with a sweet dose of a rain of arrows. These people are also known to be resistant to natural disasters and survive in circumstances that normally people cannot. For example, these rough and tough tribesmen survived the odds that came with Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004. This catastrophe wreaked havoc in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, but the tribe remained unscathed. They’re probably the most durable sort that mankind ever produced. They are quiet territorial with anger management issues, in 2006 a boat carrying two fishermen accidently drifted near the waters of their Island. Both of the unlucky men were killed by the Sentinelese people and then they were buried in shallow graves. So they are kind of are like your great aunt you meet at weddings, who kills you with sarcasm and then gives you dessert to eat. Burn burn I say. Helicopters were sent to the rescue of those fishermen but they could not land. The Sentinese people started to shoot arrows towards the chopper. Obviously, they had no idea what a helicopter was and might think it was some big bad metallic bird which made weird and loud noises. So the facts are that atomic bombs and state of the art machines was unable to stop the modern man from attacking and taking over but arrows thrown by half naked people made the modern man to back the hell up. Guess we need to learn something from these people. Even the police refused to go collect the bodies of the poor fishermen because they were afraid of the poisonous darts (ok that is a pretty genuine excuse, I mean who wants to be punctured by blood smeared darts). So it isn’t just us cowardly buffoons hiding behind our computer screens that do not want to mess with these people but our adventurous, brave ancestors stayed away from them too. Their delightful rep dates back centuries, Marco Polo stated that these people are the most violent and cruel generation who seem to eat everything that they catch. Talk about something out of a Grimm brother’s novel. These are actual tribes in this world today that live totally secluded lives. They have no idea what is going on in the rest of the world and are completely satisfied and content in their small tribe. It is the whole scenario of the feature film, The Gods must be crazy, in which the African tribe has no idea what a coke bottle is. They think it is some kind of an evil object and one of them decides to throw it off the edge of the earth (loco has no idea that the world’s not flat). So there is another tribe that lives in Indonesia. The Korowai tribe of Papua. Well these people lives in wooden tree houses and use stone tools. Some missionaries and archaeologists did try to make contact with them in the 1970s but even now they have the same old life. The belief of the Korowai people actually stopped then from ever changing their ways, they think that if the change their customs then the world will be destroyed by a huge earthquake (the weight on their shoulders wow). And here I thought the passing black cat was the weirdest superstition of all. These people sure are on a high level of commitment cocaine or they just made up an excuse to say bye bye to the whities. Even the missionaries were like no thank you; think we will be okay with not angering your earthquake blackmailing God, with abandonment issues. Like the Sentinese tribe these people do not scare away people by giving them a death wish. They actually goof around with people until they go away. They even went so far as to hand over a young boy to the pesky reporting who told them a story that he was afraid that cannibals were going to eat him. And when a team came to rescue the boy, they were all arrested because of not having visas while the Korowai people laughed their heads off. Pants or not pants, you got to give to them for their sense of humor. I wish people here believed that the world’s doomed if we wear pants. My life would be so much better. Another Indian tribe called the Jarawas also rejected contact but are slowly emerging into the modern world. The Puroik and Bangru tribe lives in the Himalayas and have their own distinct language and culture. The Ruc people live in Vietnam and were discovered by soldiers in the Vietnam War. The Pintupi people live in the Gibson Desert in Australia. The Carabayo tribe, Nukaak and the Islados dos Rio Yari people live in Colombia. Totobiegosode in Paraguay, Cacatibo in Peru, and Hoti in Venezuela and Apiaká tribe in Brazil are many of the isolated tribes in the world. Do let us know if you have ever encountered any tribes or people who are completely cut off from the world and how they have survived till now. Leave your story in the comment box. If you liked this post, I would be very grateful if you’d help it spread by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you and do read other posts on this blog. Ciao. Click to Post

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The Lost Tribes of the World an Intresting Insight!

The Lost Tribes of the World Imagine a life without Facebook, Instagram or twitter. I mean yes, we millennials did have a childhood without them but now they are like oxygen to us. I honestly have no idea what do to with my laptop if it is not connected to the Wi-Fi. No Netflix? No The Walking Dead? . By the way if we are on the subject what were the creators thinking when they killed GLEN! . Anyways you can hear my sob story some other time, basically I am talking about a world where you have no idea that technology or even civilization exists. Surreal right? Seems like the plot to some B rated Hollywood movie, starring Rob Schneider and his God awful haircut. I have always felt that fascinating trinkets, weird survival tricks, and strange cultures and traditions do not exist in fantasy novels alone. And to get to the end of my beliefs, I dug deep into the tribes and came to the conclusion that they are definitely not a thing of the past or some ancient myth. Men have evolved from tribes to cities. However, some of these still prefer the primitive ways of life and live an isolated life. So that’s why I share my discovery with you, of the tribes that still live, surviving and thriving against the odds with the survival measures passed on to them down the generation ladder. These are the tribes that have been lost to the world but are surviving regardless of being known or unknown to the world. Here’s a look into a few fascinating tribes that look like they are lost to the world but are living in their own ways. The Surma Tribe All this while when ships sailed the seas, world wars were won and lost, and lands were exchanged on pacts of independence there existed a tribe of peaceful folks that did not believe or have any faith in governments. This is the Surma tribe that can be traced to Ethiopia. They are people who have never bothered to come into the loophole of governments. These are the people who you’d see on the National Geographic channel with giant lip plugs that would either fascinate you beyond infinity or freak you out into believing that these people are really just fabricated and not real. But the Surma tribe is a big fat reality indeed. Although they had avoided any contacts with outsiders yet the outsiders succeeded in making contacts with them in the 1980s when some Russian doctors held a conversation. The only advancement that these tribal people have adopted is the use of Kalashnikovs to protect their land and belongings. The Solo Brazilian When I say tribe, you’d probably be imagining nomads dressed in colorful clothes doing the samba. Of course, your imagination is your own refuge so you can imagine anything you want, but you’d probably not imagine a one man tribe, because since when did tribes really start comprising of only a solo person? But this lone Brazilian is one loner of a tribe who lives somewhere in the Amazon. The guy is more a brother to Bigfoot than anyone else because he shares his traits of disappearing into thin air the moment anyone catches a glimpse of him. He is probably the loneliest man on the planet. Considering that he is not causing us any harm, why are we bothering to invade his personal space? The answer is really simple; our scientists are really curious; they want to finally find the man who they can then feature in the video of Akon’s song, Lonely. There is another good reason too. Basically, the disappearing solo tribesman is the only and last surviving person of an uncontacted tribe in Amazon. The question then arises how he survived for decades all by himself while simultaneously protecting the treasure bank of language and customs of his tribe? if there is any person who can explain all this to us, it is the lone Brazilian himself. The New Guinea Tribes Illiteracy paints a rather cruel sort of picture, and when we say tribes, we are of course associating the lack of education with them. The only medium of education that probably prevails in tribes must be survival over everything else even if that involves feeding on human beings. Sounds horrible, right? Well, that’s the situation with the New Guinea tribes who have succeeded in their lessons of education so much that have not even shown themselves on the radar. And with the tales of cannibalism making rounds, there are literally very few discoveries on these tribes made so much so that they are considered lost to the world. Anyone who has tried to map these tribes has ended down the valley of death. For instance, in 1961 Michael Rockefeller set out to find one of these tribes in the rugged terrain of New Guinea. Turns out he never returned. It is thought that he was captured by one of these tribes and eaten by them The Sentinelese Tribe Imagine being greeted with a round of arrows every time you try to enter a territory. Well, that’s what happens every time that our modern people have tried to enter the area between Thailand and India called the North Sentinel Island. This tribe comprises of 250 people who welcome their visitors with a sweet dose of a rain of arrows. These people are also known to be resistant to natural disasters and survive in circumstances that normally people cannot. For example, these rough and tough tribesmen survived the odds that came with Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004. This catastrophe wreaked havoc in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, but the tribe remained unscathed. They’re probably the most durable sort that mankind ever produced. They are quiet territorial with anger management issues, in 2006 a boat carrying two fishermen accidently drifted near the waters of their Island. Both of the unlucky men were killed by the Sentinelese people and then they were buried in shallow graves. So they are kind of are like your great aunt you meet at weddings, who kills you with sarcasm and then gives you dessert to eat. Burn burn I say. Helicopters were sent to the rescue of those fishermen but they could not land. The Sentinese people started to shoot arrows towards the chopper. Obviously, they had no idea what a helicopter was and might think it was some big bad metallic bird which made weird and loud noises. So the facts are that atomic bombs and state of the art machines was unable to stop the modern man from attacking and taking over but arrows thrown by half naked people made the modern man to back the hell up. Guess we need to learn something from these people. Even the police refused to go collect the bodies of the poor fishermen because they were afraid of the poisonous darts (ok that is a pretty genuine excuse, I mean who wants to be punctured by blood smeared darts). So it isn’t just us cowardly buffoons hiding behind our computer screens that do not want to mess with these people but our adventurous, brave ancestors stayed away from them too. Their delightful rep dates back centuries, Marco Polo stated that these people are the most violent and cruel generation who seem to eat everything that they catch. Talk about something out of a Grimm brother’s novel. These are actual tribes in this world today that live totally secluded lives. They have no idea what is going on in the rest of the world and are completely satisfied and content in their small tribe. It is the whole scenario of the feature film, The Gods must be crazy, in which the African tribe has no idea what a coke bottle is. They think it is some kind of an evil object and one of them decides to throw it off the edge of the earth (loco has no idea that the world’s not flat). So there is another tribe that lives in Indonesia. The Korowai tribe of Papua. Well these people lives in wooden tree houses and use stone tools. Some missionaries and archaeologists did try to make contact with them in the 1970s but even now they have the same old life. The belief of the Korowai people actually stopped then from ever changing their ways, they think that if the change their customs then the world will be destroyed by a huge earthquake (the weight on their shoulders wow). And here I thought the passing black cat was the weirdest superstition of all. These people sure are on a high level of commitment cocaine or they just made up an excuse to say bye bye to the whities. Even the missionaries were like no thank you; think we will be okay with not angering your earthquake blackmailing God, with abandonment issues. Like the Sentinese tribe these people do not scare away people by giving them a death wish. They actually goof around with people until they go away. They even went so far as to hand over a young boy to the pesky reporting who told them a story that he was afraid that cannibals were going to eat him. And when a team came to rescue the boy, they were all arrested because of not having visas while the Korowai people laughed their heads off. Pants or not pants, you got to give to them for their sense of humor. I wish people here believed that the world’s doomed if we wear pants. My life would be so much better. Another Indian tribe called the Jarawas also rejected contact but are slowly emerging into the modern world. The Puroik and Bangru tribe lives in the Himalayas and have their own distinct language and culture. The Ruc people live in Vietnam and were discovered by soldiers in the Vietnam War. The Pintupi people live in the Gibson Desert in Australia. The Carabayo tribe, Nukaak and the Islados dos Rio Yari people live in Colombia. Totobiegosode in Paraguay, Cacatibo in Peru, and Hoti in Venezuela and Apiaká tribe in Brazil are many of the isolated tribes in the world. Do let us know if you have ever encountered any tribes or people who are completely cut off from the world and how they have survived till now. Leave your story in the comment box. If you liked this post, I would be very grateful if you’d help it spread by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you and do read other posts on this blog. Ciao. Click to Post