#a while ago i mentioned wanting to try tinned fish

[housecow]

last night i was blessed and able to try patagonia’s roasted garlic spanish mackerel! (google pic bc i was in an area with terrible lighting)

y’all. this shit was SO. GOOD. i’ve never had mackerel before at all but heard such good things about this brand, being able to find it at central market was a pleasant surprise :))

i pan fried some sourdough in the olive oil it came in (lil garlic pieces 🥹) and paired with little tomatoes, onions, and two options of hummus and cream cheese! both were delicious but i’m a cream cheese fan so. obv that’s the move

will be getting this again.. might use pickled onions next instead and fresh tomatoes when the garden tomatoes are ready :)) so excited. god bless

[heyitmelexie]

Falling In Love

Din Djarin x riduur!F!Reader

Word count: 3444 Warnings: mention of wounds and blood Rating: Teen and up

A/N: Day 9 of the December Writing Challenge by @honeymandos​! ❤️

This was also my first time ever writing for Din!

I know it’s late but I’m currently pretty occupied with uni etc. Hope you enjoy anyway!!  ❤️

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The sweet smell of Bantha-butter pancakes tickles your nose and pulls you from your peaceful slumber.

As you open your eyes you see soft beams of sunshine creep through the window, illuminating your exposed legs and bathing them in warmth.

You smile and stretch, hearing the sizzling noise of the pancakes coming from the kitchen, accompanied by soft talking, gentle coos and occasionally one or the other clank.

The door is slightly ajar, but you can still see the domestic scene playing in the other room.

Din, in only his pants and with his hair still mussed, stands with his broad back turned to you. He’s making breakfast while quietly talking to your little green son, who sits on the counter right next to him. You see his ears occasionally perk up, followed by coos and little giggles, making you smile.

“Look, now you flip it. Just like this” you hear Din say, before (you assume) he tries to flip it with the pan. You expect to hear the loud sizzling again, indicating that the uncooked side of the pancake landed safely back in the pan. Instead, you hear a dull splash, like a wet fish falling onto tiles, followed by strings of curses coming from Din and a loud, hearty laugh from that little womp rat.

You laugh softly at that, getting out of bed to make your way into the kitchen.

Upon hearing your laugh coming from behind him, Din turns and looks at you, a sheepish smile playing on his flustered face.

“I hope I didn’t wake you, cyare” he says before quickly cleaning up the mess he made.

“Not really. I woke up from the smell of my favourite breakfast” you hum, before kissing your son’s wrinkly little head. He coos happily and then stretches out his arms to make grabby hands at you. You chuckle softly and then proceed to pick him up. He immediately snuggles against you, one of his little claws clutching onto your shirt.

Din smiles, before gently kissing your lips and then continuing to make the breakfast.

You take the time to go outside into your little garden with the child in your arms.

The sun immediately engulfs you in its warm light and you lay down in the soft grass between the flower beds. The little one moves to get comfortable on top of you, snuggling into your chest and cooing contently.

You smile at him and gently caress his big ears.

Din and you had built this little hut on Naboo together just about a year ago, finally deciding to partially settle down and have a somewhat quiet life. He would occasionally still go on a few hunts to get some credits for the three of you while you would stay home with the child. He would always make sure to not stay away for too long. Din had gotten really used to this simple life with you.

As you now lay there in the grass, admiring yours and Din’s handiwork, you think back to how you two met.

And what had made you realize that you had deeply fallen for this beskar-clad warrior (and honestly sometimes tin can dumb bitch of a man).

You grew up in a very small village that was hidden in the lush forests of Naboo. People there were kind and caring, always helping each other and even going so far as helping out strangers that desperately needed the help.

And that’s what had led to meeting him.

*

You were some sort of healer for the people of your village. Mixing concoctions, ointments, bacta gels, etc. Taking care of wounded and ill people. They trusted you with their lives and that had filled you with a great sense of pride.

One day, while you were collecting herbs in your little garden, you could hear a loud commotion coming from the marketplace. The noise steadily grew louder until five people stormed in, carrying a person covered head to toe in fabrics and metal, that was bleeding profusely from a deep wound in their lower abdomen. A pool of blood was very quickly forming on the floor and then on the bed once they put the person on it.

You dropped everything you held and rushed inside, immediately starting to cut off the fabric from around the wound to get better access to it, not even thinking about removing the armour and pants. You knew what that would mean.

You had heard about Mandalorians before. Strangers come and go; they spend most of their time at the small cantina. Many of them weren’t very social and would mostly just ignore the questions they were asked. But others, they would talk and then wouldn’t stop, much to the delight of the folks here.

That’s how one day you met a woman called Rook Cava.

She was unlike any other person you had ever met before. Just like this wounded person, she was covered in fabrics and metal armour, from head to toe. The specially shaped breast plate was the only certain physical indication for you that assured you she was a woman. The armour had been painted a very deep purple, the paint was already chipping away here and there. On the helmet, around the visor, there were golden, intricate symbols. She was mysterious and, even though you had no idea what she looked like, you thought she was breathtakingly beautiful.

She emitted such strength and power. The armour made her look bulky, but the fabric underneath laid snug against her skin and you saw her biceps. She wasn’t bulky, no, she was strong and muscular. You had never seen a woman like her before. She rendered you speechless and at the same time there were so many questions you wanted to ask her. But you didn’t want to overwhelm her, so you kept these questions to yourself.

So instead, you let her rest for a bit, she had obviously been travelling for a long time before taking a break on Naboo.

Rook was a step ahead of you though because the next morning she knocked at your door. She explained that she needed a few ointments and new bacta gel for the next few weeks of her travels and that everyone had told her to go seek you out for that.

Without hesitation you had let her in, offering her a seat and something to drink which she politely declined.

You sat in comfortable silence for a bit, while you collected the things she needed and also freshly mixed some of them so she could take a bigger amount with her.

Rook noticed that you held back your questions, always glancing at her, at her armour. She smiled under the helmet, amused and also astonished that you hadn’t drowned her in your questions yet.

She slightly shook her head in amusement and leaned back in the chair, crossing her arms behind her head.

“What do you wanna know?”

Your head snaps up to look at her, eyes wide, mouth slightly agape. Her question had caught you off guard and she had laughed at your shocked reaction, heat creeping to your cheeks in embarrassment.

“It’s fine. I know I’m not a very common sight. Go ahead, ask your questions” she said, her voice warm and friendly. The complete opposite from her fierce appearance.

“Uhmm… what exactly are you?” ‘What exactly are you?!’ You wanted to slap yourself across the face for such a stupid question. But Rook didn’t seem to mind.

“I’m a Mandalorian. Have you ever heard of those?” You shook your head no at that and she nodded, showing you that she understood.

“To be clear, a Mandalorian is not a race. It’s a creed. You can be born by Mandalorian parents and grow up to become one yourself, or you could be a foundling. Those are children who lose their families at a very young age. They can be taken in by Mandalorians so they have a home and protection. They will grow up and become warriors as well, they will swear the oath. They will live their lives in anonymity, protecting their creed.”

You let that sink in and crush the herbs in your little bowl. Your eyebrows furrow and you take in her armour again.

“Anonymity… What exactly do you mean by that? I mean, I know your name. So, that isn’t very… anonym, is it?” She smiles, but you can’t see it.

“I decided to go by my name because I was just tired of everyone calling me Mando. I hated it. Some of my kind decide to keep their names to themselves, only revealing them to their loved ones and children. Others, like me, are okay with sharing that information. And, by the way, do people check if the name is real anyway?” You laugh at that. She was right. She could tell everyone a made-up name and they would believe it. Nobody checks.

“But, unless you are the wife of a Mandalorian, you will never be able to put a face to that name. We don’t reveal our faces to anyone but our families. If a Mandalorian takes off the helmet in front of another living thing, the Creed would be soiled, the oath you swore - broken. And we are nothing without our Creed. It’s our religion, it’s sacred, holy. It’s what makes us who we are. And we will kill anyone who tries to take that from us.”

“Is that why you declined the water? And why you asked for the food to be brought to your room last night, so you wouldn’t have to eat in the cantina? Because you can’t take off your helmet?”

She just nodded and you hummed in response, thinking about your next question.

“What happens when you get hurt and someone has to access, let’s say, your thigh. Do you just have to risk dying or are others allowed to see other parts of your body?”

She seemed to think about that for a moment, trying to come up with a good answer.

“Technically we aren’t allowed to show any part of our body to anyone. But wounds are, let’s say, a little loophole. If the wound is dangerous and could possibly kill me, then we can let them assess it. Let’s take your example.” She taps one of her thigh plates.

“If I had an awful wound on my thigh that I couldn’t take care of alone and would need help with, I can take off my thigh plate. You can’t take off my pants but you can cut a hole into the fabric so you can access the wound properly. You couldn’t see much of my skin. My Creed would be intact and you can save my life.” A loophole.

This brings you back to your current situation.

“You need to take off his armour! And his clothes! How can you dress his wound like that?” one of the villagers says, not understanding why you just cut a whole into that person’s pants.

You assumed it was a man, his shoulders seemed to be too broad for a woman and his chest plate was quite flat.

“I can take care of his wound like that just fine” you say, telling them what you needed in order to close and disinfect the wound.

It took you a bit over an hour until you had finally finished stitching it up and wrapping gauze around his thigh.

He still wouldn’t move; the blood loss must have weakened him. You had checked his pulse just to be sure he was still alive and then bundled him up into blankets

Just when you finished cleaning the blood stains and tidying the room, he jolted awake, startling you.

He quickly scanned the room before pulling the blankets off of him and attempting to stand up. You saw his knees buckle slightly and rushed over to steady him, carefully pushing him back onto the bed.

“You need to lie down and rest for a while. You lost a lot of blood” you told him, getting him a glass of water and digging out a straw from your drawers.

You held the glass out for him to take but his visor was focused on your face.

“Who are you? Where am I?” His rough and rather deep voice sent a shiver down your smile that you tried to suppress. You just smiled and told him your name, gently pushing the glass into his hand but he didn’t drink yet, still looking at you.

“You’re on Naboo. A few hours ago you were brought to me because you had a very nasty wound on your abdomen, bleeding like mad. I took care of it, but you need to rest or the stitches will break open again and you’ll risk an infection. And you need to drink” you say, pushing the glass a bit closer towards his face.

When you turn around to put the trash away, he tucks the straw under his helmet and quickly empties the glass. He’s relieved to notice that he immediately feels a bit less lightheaded and puts the glass on the little table before lying back down. For some odd reason he feels like he can trust you.

“I didn’t take off your armour or your clothes. And especially not your helmet, so don’t worry. I must admit though that I put my hand under your helmet as best as I could to see if there would be any blood. But I looked away while I did that, I promise. I know it’s forbidden” you turned back to him, a gentle smile on your face.

“I… Okay. Thank you.”

You felt relief wash over you, glad you hadn’t somehow done anything wrong or harmful, internally thanking the Force for sending Rook your way those few years ago.

The Mandalorian spent about a week at your house, resting and healing.

You had learned that he was hunting a bounty and somehow they had managed to ambush him. The wound on his leg was caused by a warspear the bounty had rammed into his thigh in a moment of inadvertence.

Din had to admit to himself that he… liked you. You were kind and caring. You weren’t one of those people that would ask him when the last time was he took off the helmet or if he’d ever taken it off in front of someone else. None of your questions or conversations were focused on his appearance or his life, which he was very grateful for. He trusted you, but he didn’t want to share such private information with someone he didn’t know well enough.

You simply took care of his wound, made him drink enough water and you would leave him alone whenever he needed to eat.

Not even the conversations with you felt awkward.

You willingly told him about your upbringing, what you had done so far in your life and you also told him about your encounter with Rook Cava.

He knew that he was lucky you had this knowledge of his Creed. What if you hadn’t known it and would have taken off his helmet? He figured that he must have killed the whole village then in order to somehow keep his Creed intact… That thought sends a shiver through his body, once again he felt lucky that he ended up in your care.

When he felt stronger and healthier again, ready to leave Naboo behind, the thought of you sitting in his co-pilot chair flashes through his mind.

He didn’t want to leave you. He didn’t know why, but he wanted you to come with him and stay by his side.

‘I just need someone with her skills’ is what he tells himself.

And when he asked you to come with him, he was surprised at how quickly you said yes, agreeing to leave your home behind to travel through the galaxy with him.

As much as you loved the village, you really wanted to see other parts of the galaxy. So you quickly said your goodbyes and packed your things. You were excited to start this new chapter.

You ended up staying and travelling with him for the following 6 years, before you settled down last year.

During this time, your little green rascal became a part of your family, making you a clan of three. That filled Din with great pride and whenever he looked at his little clan, he felt happy and warm. You two were his entire galaxy and he would make sure that nothing ever happened to you.

One evening, you two had been ‘dating’ for about two years now, the kid was sleeping in his pram and you sat on his lap in the pilot chair, his arms around you. You had asked him a question that had floated through your mind for quite a while.

“When did you know you loved me?” You stared out of the windows, the stars just streaks of light during hyperspace. Din stopped caressing your back for a moment and seemed to think about this.

“Pretty sure it was the first time you smiled at me” he said, making you laugh softly and swat his chest.

“Sure thing, shiny” you giggled, making him smile at you under the helmet.

He held you closer to him and leaned his helmet against your shoulder.

“I think it was the moment I realized I couldn’t leave Naboo without you” he said, continuing to caress your back. “That whole week, you took great care of me and I’ve never felt this comfortable around anyone outside of my tribe before. For whatever reason I trusted you right from the beginning. That first smile you flashed me, if I didn’t already sit I would have probably had to sit down. I never felt like this before I met you. Your presence was calming and kind of made me giddy. I don’t know how to describe it…” You smiled and pressed a kiss to the side of his helmet.

“Like butterflies fluttering inside you? The constant urge to smile?” He thought about it for a moment and then nodded. Grateful for his helmet covering his face because he was sure it was just as red as a tomato.

“The thought of leaving without you, it… it kind of hurt. I was imagining you sitting in my co-pilot chair while I would fly. I even dreamed about you… Back then, I didn’t know I was in love with you. I had never loved anyone this way before. You changed my whole life. To the better. I thought I would die alone. No family, no friends, nothing. But then you strut into my life with that stupid little smile of yours and you gave me hope.”

Your chest swells with pride at his confession, warmth spreading throughout your whole body.

You gave him hope. Home. A family, even before this little womp rat waddled into your life. You made the love of your life believe in a happy ending for himself and that was more than you could ever ask for.

“But what about you, cyar’ika? When did you know you loved me?” he asked, while gently putting a hand on your thigh.

“I think it was the first time I saw you straddle that speederbike back on Tatooine. That was pretty hot.”

He laughed at that, gently squeezing your bum and tutted.

“You are unbelievable.”

*

You didn’t realize you fell asleep again until a gentle hand shakes you awake. Your eyes flutter open and you look right into the face of your riduur. He smiles at you and kisses your nose, making you giggle before you gently kiss him.

After a moment he slowly breaks the kiss and sits next to you in the grass, a big plate full of pancakes in front of him and a bottle of chee-chee berry syrup in his hand.

Before you can sit up, the kid scrambles off your chest and goes to launch himself at the plate of pancakes, but Din is quicker. He scoops him into his arms and then puts him into his lap.

“They’re for all of us, ad’ika” he softly tuts, before taking a pancake and slowly tearing it into little pieces to feed him.

You smile and sit up, pressing a kiss to your riduur’s cheek and one to your son’s head.

The Force had blessed you with such a beautiful little family. And soon there would be another little one moving and kicking inside of you. But you had yet to tell your lover.

--------------------------------

@absurdthirst​ @dindjarindiaries​ @tangledlove27​

[whumpster-fire]

Athanasia Part 2: The Traveler

Okay I finally wrote some Tansy comfort! Or at least rescue, since the poor thing’s still not in good shape.

Tansy’s refsheet

Part 1

CONTENT WARNINGS: Animal Whump, monster whump, mention of past animal cruelty, infected wounds, amputation mention, marginally competent caretaker

The man stumbled through the door of the inn the moment it opened, bringing quite a bit of rainwater with him. William stepped back out of the way and hurriedly replaced the bolt. He briskly lurched back to the desk ahead of the traveler, and hurriedly stuffed the almanac he’d been squinting at by candlelight back in the drawer. It was boring work waiting at the desk just in case someone happened to show up late at night. Especially on a night like this. Not many travelers on the road after a whole afternoon of pouring rain, not to mention the wind. But if one did happen to turn up, they wouldn’t want to be kept waiting at the door in such foul weather.

William apologized, but the traveler didn’t seem bothered. He wordlessly took his time taking off his wide-brimmed hat and shaking the water off, and adjusting his heavily-patched cloak. After looking around for a place to hang it and finding none, he haphazardly put it back on and shuffled up to the desk, setting a waterlogged tin lantern on it.

“Evening.”

“Evening.” The stranger kept one arm around his cloak, holding the front closed. William thought he saw an odd lump underneath – but no, just the cloth and the flickering light. He had a large pack over his back that clanked with his movements. A peddler of some sort. More than a few came through the town this time of year. There was something odd about this one, though. The way he wasn’t looking directly at William. Just for a moment, their eyes met, and he felt goosebumps rise on his arms. They had a strange yellow glow. William thought about waking his father, but – no, there was no point. A guest was a guest. And if this man… well, wasn’t, it seemed best not to anger him or turn away an unearthly traveler in a storm. That was how people ended up turned to frogs or cursed in children’s stories.

“Quite a storm out there, eh?” William asked nervously.

“Aye. Bloody road’s turned to a mire.”

“The courtyard’s no better. Do you have a horse?” Will immediately kicked himself. The pack made it obvious he was traveling on foot.

“No.”

“Will you be staying more than one night?”

“In town, maybe. Here… likely not. One night, a hot meal, and...” the man kept his gaze riveted on William’s guest ledger. “Do you have a room with no one else in it?”

“Err...” he scanned the ledger. “We have two tonight. Not as much business as usual.”

“How much to keep it that way? Just for one night?”

That was a strange request. Unusual but not unheard of if someone important had no better accommodations than the coachman’s inn, but from a simple tradesman? William added the numbers up in his head. “That’d be… a shilling.” He caught the man’s wince, and reconsidered. There were enough beds available that there wouldn’t likely be a pressing need for the others tonight, not after this hour, in this weather. In this weather the traveler wouldn’t be inclined to take his business elsewhere, he’d probably just pay for a bed if he couldn’t afford that, but that would just be threepence, six if he wanted a bed to himself. Should he get Father? No, he could handle this himself. “Or, on second thought, if it’s just for the night we probably won’t have to turn anyone away on your account, so… eightpence?”

“Thank you.” The man reached under his cloak, being very careful to keep it held closed. Muttering under his breath, he fished out a few coins, then a few more. “One more thing… do you have a hearth where I can boil water and a few clean rags, to wash with? And a washbasin?”

“Err… there is a bath down the street a ways, that’ll be open in the morning.” It was another strange request. “Is there something… urgent?”

The man looked like he was struggling to come up with something. “Took a bad fall earlier, onto a branch and some gravel. Just want to make sure that gets cleaned, and I’d rather not catch my death trying to wash it out in this rain.”

“Oh. Sorry. I – there should be some rags I can borrow, and you can ask Mother about payment in the morning.”

“Thank you, young man. I appreciate your hospitality.”

Young man? William stared at the stranger. He had a long, brown, unkempt beard, but he didn’t look that much older than William was. He shrugged. “I’ll take you to your room in a moment – I didn’t catch your name, I have to put that in the -”

“John.”

“There’s… two Johns here already, sir.”

“Markeley.”

William noticed that John Markeley had a slight limp he hadn’t seen before as he lead the traveler to the room. But he shrugged as he went down to fetch a few rags and a bowl of the evening’s stew. It wasn’t his business to pry. He figured either the man had something embarrassing wrong with him, or something that William didn’t want to bring down upon himself by asking too many questions. But a guest was a guest.

~~

The small creature hiding inside the traveler’s cloak freezes when she hears the knock, and the door creak open. She is still shaking – she tries to stop but she is so cold, and so hurt, and so frightened, that she can’t. She thought he wouldn’t hurt her – but he is taking her into a building! Closer to other humans. Closer to another cage. She can’t go back! She can’t go back!

She wants to wriggle out of his grasp, to jump to the ground and run and hide. But where would she go? Where would she go? She is too weak to run, too weak to do anything but crawl, and not very far. One of her back paws was broken in the fall that smashed the cage open. One of her forepaws was broken many days ago, and she is so weak from hunger that it has not healed. All she can do is cling to his clothes with what little strength she has.

She hears their voices, hears a voice she recognizes. A young man who has thrown things at her when she was in the cage on the gibbet. And before that when they made a show out of hurting her, out of trying to kill her, he sometimes helped. She bares her teeth, but she cannot make a sound. She has to stay quiet! If he finds her… she knows he will make sure she is caged again. Or worse. She remembers the whip in his hand, flaying her side open, and shudders.

The door has closed behind the traveler. It is too late to escape. She is trapped. She is going to… she is going to die here. Maybe. Nothing anyone has done to her before has killed her, but they stopped feeding her many days ago, and she has never been this hungry before ever. She has become so weak her wounds have stopped healing, and she is afraid she will rot away to nothing like the man who was hung on the gibbet beside her in a larger cage.

Footsteps take her farther from the door. Farther from safety. Through another door. The traveler and the young man speak to each other again, and the second door opens and closes. She hears footsteps faintly through it, getting farther away, and finally lets out a whimper of pain. Her leg hurts so much. It is being twisted and bent in a wrong way by him holding her under the cloak, and it feels like it is being  torn off. The creature feels dizzy, and sick. She squirms, trying to get free.

“Not yet. Not yet.” The traveler’s voice, low and deep but gentle, says. She hears it, and she can feel the words rumble in his chest. “Sshhh… hold still. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

The creature cannot understand all the words, but she understands enough of them. The people of the town do not talk quite like the people she knew before she was gotten rid of, but she has been in the cage for long enough that she has learned a lot of it, listening for the words that are about her, the words that mean pain.

She waits, trembling, while the man slowly paces back and forth, his boots heavy on the hard floor. Every step jostles her painfully. The young man comes back once more, and he comes so frighteningly close that she is sure he almost touches her, but she cannot see where he is. She tenses, expecting a blow to come out of nowhere. But it never does. Instead, he leaves again and the door closes.

The traveler takes her out of his cloak. He holds her around her chest, firmly but not squeezing enough to hurt her much. She tries to hold still. But thunder crashes outside, so loud the creature’s ears ring and the window rattles in its frame. With a terrified growl-yelp she twists in his grasp, kicking and scratching at his arm and biting at his glove. He hisses in pain himself and drops her. The instant her paws touch the floor she scrambles underneath the bed and cowers there, glaring out at him. Her heart is pounding so hard it feels like her ribs will burst.

She is sure he will hurt her. She is sure he will drag her out from under the bed and throw her against the wall or stomp on her or beat her with the iron stick next to the hearth. Every time she has clawed or bitten her captors they have hurt her so badly that any other creature would die several times over. But he just takes his glove off and shakes his thumb, and holds where she bit him, and sits there calmly, watching her.

“Come on out. Come on, let’s get a better look at you.” The traveler pokes at a wooden bowl with a spoon. Steam is rising from it. The creature sniffs the air. She has been too sick to smell much for a while, but she can still make out the scents of cooked meat and vegetables. “You’re hungry, aren’t you? C’mon, there’s got to be some meat in this stew… here. Here’s a little. I think it’s mutton.”

He brings a piece closer to her. She sniffs at it, reaching her head out from under the bed, but flinching back underneath when he moves a little. It has to be a trap. She knows it has to be a trap. She knows how people use food to draw creatures into danger. But she is so hungry! It has been so long since she was fed enough, so long since she was fed at all. She slowly creeps out, stretching out her neck towards the meat. It does not smell as good after being cooked. There are so many plant smells mixed in, and she does not know if some of them are poisonous, but she has to eat. She snatches the piece, and scarfs it down. But just crawling out from under the bed takes all her strength. She tries to run back under, but her sight goes blurry and her legs will not bear her weight. The floor doesn’t feel solid, it still feels like the cage swaying in the wind. The tiny bit of meat almost comes back up. She lies there, panting, trying to make herself as small as possible because she is sure she will be struck or grabbed.

But the blow never comes. The man raises a hand, but stops when he sees her flinch. “Poor thing. You’re naught but skin and bones.”

He fishes another piece of meat out of the bowl and inches the spoon closer to her. The creature snatches it again, this time with less hesitation. It is not fresh, but it is not rotten. Not like what they fed her half the time, when they bothered to feed her at all. It is wet with broth, but it is salty, and it makes her mouth so dry she can barely swallow. The third bite she can only chew and spit out, even though she is still desperately hungry. She has not been given any water for days.

But he seems to notice. There is a pot and a pitcher full of water that was brought to the room along with the food. He digs a metal cup out of his pack and fills it with water. She sniffs at it carefully, because sometimes they gave her bad water and it made her sick. But it smells clean. She laps at it until the effort of holding her head up makes her neck and shoulders hurt. She has to stop even though she is still thirsty because it feels like her stomach will burst.

And the water is bitterly cold. It is warmer in here than out in the rain, and it is dry, but the creature is still soaking wet. Her fur is not very good at keeping the water away from her skin, especially not after many days of it being so dirty she could not bear to groom herself. The rain has chilled her to the bone, and her waterlogged fur was flattened against her body even before the gibbet fell, even before the cage broke, even before she fell in the deep, muddy puddles that the road turned into. She is covered in mud now. It is so cold and clammy and heavy and uncomfortable. She hates it so much, but she doesn’t have the energy to try to get it out of her fur. Even out of the rain, she cannot stop shivering, and her paws and her ears and her nose are burning with pain they are so cold.

The man has been eating too, but every time he finds a piece of meat in the stew he offers it to her. There was not much in it, but it was enough that the thought of eating more right now makes her feel sick. She wraps her tail around herself even though it is too sodden to keep any of the cold away, trembling violently. She can feel the warmth of the fire, but she is afraid to get any closer. She does not think he will push her into it or burn her with the poker, but they have done that and much worse to her before.

He sets the bowl aside and reaches out slowly, keeping his fingers low. Like he is offering his hand to her. Or like he is showing it to her. He stops far enough away that she has to crawl forward to sniff at it. It smells of people and metal and charcoal and blood. His blood. His finger is smeared red, but she cannot tell where the wound is.

“It’s all right. It’s already closed. See?” He dips his finger into the pot of water that has been hanging near the fire. He grimaces and takes it off its chain. He rubs his finger with his other hand, wiping the blood away. “You’re like me, aren’t you?”

Two pairs of yellow eyes meet. His are not quite like hers – they have round pupils like other humans, and the irises are small like theirs – but they are so different. And so kind. The creature does not understand the words at first, but she understands that moment of connection out there in the storm, when she let him pick her up, when she trusted him, was real.

She closes her eyes, and lets her head slump to the floor. And this time, the touch she braces herself for does come. Just a gentle touch, one or two fingers stroking her head, brushing her ears. It still hurts, because her forehead and ears were cut and scrapped by sharp broken iron when she dragged herself out of the cage, but long-faded memories come back to the surface. Memories of gentle, comforting touch, of soft voices, of being held without being grabbed and restrained.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says again. “But you’re half-frozen. I can’t leave you in this state. I’m going to get you clean and dry. It might hurt a little, but you’re going to feel better. Trust me.” He wets his hand in the pot of water, and strokes her head again. It feels warm, warmer than water should ever be, but the warmth is not bad. It actually feels pleasant.

She is still nervous, but she lets him touch her more. She does not bite or pull away even when he lifts her up and sets her into a metal basin. But only because she is frozen in fear except for the shivering. No! No! He is not going to drown her. He is not going to drown her, he is not going to pour boiling water on her! But it is so hard to believe that he won’t. She tries to scramble out, but her legs still hardly bear any weight, and it hurts so much to even try that she cries out. And her paws have pushed the piece of cloth he put down under her away, leaving just the cold metal. She holds herself up on the rim of the basin with her good forepaw even though it is burning from the cold.

To her surprise he does not fill the basin, though. He dips a rag in the warm water, soaking it, and lets her sniff it and poke it with her nose to make sure it is not too hot before he slides it over her fur. He barely touches her at first, but then presses down harder, wiping the mud away bit by bit. He rubs his fingers through her fur, drawing it out into spikes. Slowly, the numbing cold of the mud and rainwater is replaced by the faint warmth. The cloth was already dirty gray, but it becomes almost black, and the water pooling at her feet is so dark she cannot see the bottom of the basin. She is leaning awkwardly on her side to keep her weight off her hurt back leg, but it is painful to keep holding herself up like this. She loses her grip, and falls with a splash and a yelp.

The hardest part to hold still for is when he washes her legs and her belly. He has to take her out of the basin and set her on a motheaten cloth so he can reach. No matter how gently he touches her it causes horrible, sickening pain, and it takes all her willpower not to bite.

“Good girl. I know it hurts, just be patient.”

He grimaces, examining her hurt foreleg. The rain and the mud and the warm water must have drowned the maggots, but the fur and skin are so crusted with blood and pus that it does not wash away.

“I don’t know if this leg can be saved.” His eyes are so sad, so sympathetic. His hand shakes a little as he holds her paw. She can still feel it, but it is broken so badly the bones have come out through the skin, and the torn flesh is rotting away. “Christ’s weeping syphilitic lesions,” he mutters through gritted teeth. A spark of anger flashes in his eyes, but she can tell it is not at her. “If it were my own hand I’d see a surgeon about cutting it off, or else look to a bottle of strong drink and a hatchet, but you… for all I know the surgeon’s the one that did that to you, hmm?” He yawns, and runs his hand through his beard. “Don’t even know if it’d grow back, and even if it did you’d think I betrayed you.” He sighs.

The creature blinks at him. Her eyelids are heavy with exhaustion, and the words barely make sense anymore. Her head is throbbing with deep, dull pain like it has been struck over and over. It takes a long time for her to understand any of what he says, but when she does her eyes widen with alarm. Leg… saved… cutting off… grow back. She shrinks away, her eyes darting around the room, but they are sluggish, not focusing on anything. There is no way out… no way out… is he going to hurt her? To cut her leg off? She draws it close to herself, trying to tuck it under her body. She winces as the broken place is moved, and gasps in pain.

But there is a little flash of the terrible scent of rot and disease. She sniffs at the wound again, even though she knows it is bad. She has for a long time, but her nose had grown numb to the smell of decay because it was all around her. It is like now that it is clean, she notices it more.

She has chewed her paw off before – once, when it was caught in a snare a long time ago. And another time, when they put her in a long cage and chained her paw to one end and lit a fire under her. But only when she was so frightened she could not think of anything but escape, and it hurt so much she was afraid to ever do it again. And she knows that if the wound would not heal, it would not grow back either.

But maybe now… not now, but if she is able to get away, if she is able to find food…

The creature limps forward, dragging herself along the rough wood floor until she is right next to the man. Tears fill her eyes. The water soaking her fur has become cold again, and she is shivering violently. But she holds the broken leg out in front of her. He does not understand at first, but finally the creature works up the courage to do what she was too scared to for a long time. She bites down on her leg.

Immediately she cries out in pain. She barely breaks the skin, but the taste of her own blood makes her feel sick.

“No!” the man raises his voice for the first time, and lunges for her. The creature shrieks in fear and shies away, but her back leg crumples under her and she rolls onto her back, tail tucked between her legs.

“Sorry. Sorry I shouted. Don’t hurt yourself, all right?” he offers his hand for her to sniff again. “You don’t need to...” his eyes widen in shock, in disbelief. “...You can understand me?”

She does not know how to tell him she can. She just holds the broken leg out in front of her again. She has to trust him… she has to trust him…

“Damn this,” he mutters. He examines the wound again. “I can try to clean it up a bit, wrap it up… for tonight at least. It’s going to hurt, though. And if it’s gotten worse by tomorrow… the best thing for you’s just to cut it off.”

[scimitar-and-longsword]

Two requests if it's okay 1) a gif of the neck grab of pride Andy gives Nile after she jumps out the window. 2)Fic about Nile's first birthday as an immortal Thanks so much!!

Sorry this took so long lol. I really liked the prompt and I just wanted to get it right! We all know my brotp is Booker & Joe... Nicky & Nile are a close second....

—————–

26

There was a sliver of dull sunlight shining right across Nile’s forehead as she came to consciousness on the morning of her twenty-sixth birthday. Or at least it should have been her twenty-sixth birthday. She wasn’t quite sure on the details.

Did she even still count her birthday the same now? Was she twenty-six? Or perhaps only one? No- No. That sounded ridiculous. So maybe just the first anniversary of her twenty-fifth birthday?

Nile opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling. It was a rather unremarkable ceiling, painted a faded a pale green. It was discolored brown from water damage in a few spots. 

She had been to this safe house once before. Two months ago after a particularly rough mission the five of them had limped in, blood soaked and exhausted. Luckily this time they had only been exhausted.

This was the first time she had been to a safe house twice. It was strange how much it felt like home after only having been there once for a week. But after seven months of new place after new place she felt a welcome familiarity with this crumbling cottage, small though it was.

She had known what bed was to be hers. No dragging of an old mattress from another room. No reshuffling of sleeping arrangements to accommodate for her. No Andy or Booker taking a couch or armchair. No Joe and Nicky sleeping on the floor because they both couldn’t fit on the couch.

Booker made a low pained noise in his sleep. And Nile’s thoughts were brought back to the present. 

Booker was in a bed perpendicular to hers, their head’s only a couple feet apart.

She glanced up at him, he appeared to still be asleep, his arm slung over his eyes.

Nile craned her neck to see Andy still asleep in the bed next to the door. Her immortality was gone but she still insisted on sleeping closest to the door. The first line of defense.

Joe and Nicky were directly across from her, huddled facing her in a bed that seemed too small for the two of them.

How old were each of them again? 953, and 950. Booker was 247...or was it 248?, And she couldn’t even guess at Andy’s age.

Would that happen to her? Her years becoming so numerous that she couldn’t remember the year she was born?

The sun had moved enough to shine irritatingly in her eyes, Nile brought her hand up to shield them. But after a minute or so, when her arm grew tired, she flipped onto her stomach. Her frustration got the better of her and she sighed loudly. 

Too loudly, apparently, as Nicky started awake and sat bolt upright in the bed across from hers. Joe too started, and sleepily said something to Nicky in Italian that Nile couldn’t quite make out. Nicky glanced around the room and made eye contact with Nile.

“Sorry.” Nile whispered.

Nicky gave her a sleepy smile and turned over to face Joe, responding to him in Italian as well, but this time she heard her name and the word for sleep.

Andy and Booker hadn’t even moved. Both of their breathing was as even as Joe’s was slowly becoming once more.

Nicky was obviously awake still, propped up on his elbow facing Joe. His other hand stroked Joe’s hip soothingly.

A minute or so passed where Nile turned the problem of her birthday over in her mind, before she gave up trying to fall back asleep. She got out of bed with a frustrated sigh, and exited the bedroom.

The rest of the cottage consisted of a bathroom and a small main room full of mismatched furniture and with what one might consider a kitchenette. 

Nile plugged in and turned on a hotplate and filled a kettle with water. She opened the pantry and was surprised to find a half used package of instant coffee. It took her a moment to realize that it was hers, left here from the previous stay in October.

She couldn’t help but smile to herself. Silly as it sounded, it was nice to find something she knew she had left behind for herself.

She glanced around the room, the little touches of each member of her new family were evident. Various swords hung on the wall above the small dining table. She was sure they were all sharp and battle ready. There was a single bookshelf that was full to bursting, with piles of books on the ground all around it.

Despite the cottage’s pathetic excuse for a kitchen there were nice pots and pans and a stand alone pantry pushed against the wall next to the small counter that currently held the slowly heating up hot plate. That would have been Ncky’s doing, Nile thought with a smile.

The water finally came to a boil and Nile made herself a cup of coffee. She looked out the window at the Welsh countryside and took a long slow sip of her coffee.

She started when she heard the door to the bedroom quietly click open behind her.

She wheeled around to see Nicky stepping into the main room, and closing the door behind him once more with another soft click.

“Good morning.” Nicky said quietly. He crossed the small room and took out a mug to poor himself some of the hot water.

“Sorry I woke you.” Nile said.

She opened the pantry and fished out a tin of tea. But when Nile turned to offer it to Nicky, he was already stirring in some of the instant coffee mix.

“It’s fine,” He said with a smile. And when he saw Nile’s look of surprise, “Sorry, do you mind if I have some of your coffee?”

“You never drink coffee.” Nile said, not really answering his question.

“I think you’ll find words like ‘never’ rather useless when talking to a 900 year old man.”

“I just mean- I’ve never seen you drink coffee. You have a cup of tea. Every morning. For seven months”

“We go through phases,” Nicky said, taking a small sip of his coffee, “Joe was particularly fond of coffee for most of the 1600’s.” 

“An entire century is a particularly long phase.”

Nicky chuckled. 

A comfortable silence fell over them for a while after that. Nicky sat at the small dining table and opened a book he had left there the night before. Nile stared out the window watching the morning fog burn off as the sun rose higher.

She thought about how much had happened in the two months since the previous time they had been to this safe house. None of them had died, thank god. But Nile had been shot twice in the leg, and Joe had taken the butt of a gun to the back of the head, knocking him out just two days ago.

Booker had had his throat cut so deep that Nile thought he was about to fade out as she held the wound together. Luckily he had pulled through, his healing repairing the damage as if nothing had happened. 

Try as she might to distract herself though, her thoughts returned to her birthday. Surely it wasn’t something that should bring her this much anguish. She was not the type of person to care about getting older, let alone now when nothing would change.

But she had seen the way immortality weighed heavily on Andy and Booker. She had even glimpsed it’s sting in Joe and Nicky’s eyes, though they were better at hiding it. At least from her.

“Did you dream of Quynh?” Nicky asked after nearly a half hour had passed.

“What?” Nile said, genuinely confused, “Oh- no. I had just been thinking and forgot I was in a room full of jumpy, trigger happy warriors. I sighed too loudly.”

“Was that what woke me?” Nicky smiled, “Perhaps I am a bit jumpy.”

Nicky returned his eyes to his book, but it really didn’t look like he was reading. In fact Nile was pretty sure she hadn’t heard him turn a single page in his book this whole time.

“It’s my birthday.” Nile said before she could overthink it.

“I know.” Nicky said simply, taking another sip of coffee, and lifting his eyes to meet hers.

“You-” Nile shook her head, a confused smile spreading over her face, “You know?”

“December 10th, 1994.” Nicky said as if that was an explanation.

Nile took a seat at the table with him.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Nile asked, and then hastily added, “I mean- I just feel kind silly for trying to hide it now.”

“I wasn’t sure that you wanted to celebrate.” Nicky said.

“It does feel strange.” Nile said.

“It always does.” Nicky said, he took a deep breath before continuing, “I’m afraid that won’t change.”

“Do you celebrate?” Nile asked, “I’ve been with you all for the better part of a year and I don’t think any of you have mentioned birthdays. Do you even remember yours?”

“October 22nd,” Nicky said, “On the Gregorian calendar at least.”

“So you remember, you just don’t celebrate.”

“Sometimes we do. Big numbers, milestones.” Nicky said, “Booker’s 249th birthday was two days ago. Next year we’ll probably do something. But generally no, we don’t celebrate as a group.”

“As a group.” Nile turned the word choice over in her head, “So that’s Nicky and Joe speak for you guys celebrate each other's birthdays without Booker and Andy.” -or me.

Nicky laughed, nodded, and took another drink of coffee.

“Wait- October 22nd? The last time we were here was on your birthday.”

“That’s true. This is one of my favorite safe houses, I imagine Andy picked it for that reason.”

“I missed your birthday. And I could have done something- gotten you a present or made you a cake.”

“I don’t need anything from you Nile.” Nicky said.

“I know you don’t need anything. But if you want to celebrate with someone I could have made an effort-”

“Do you want to celebrate today Nile?” Nicky cut her off.

Nile blinked at him for a moment. Did she?

“I’m not sure. With Andy and Booker the way that they are- it feels selfish.”

“Forget about them. Do you want to celebrate?”

“I think so?” Nile took a deep breath and tried to order her thoughts, “This will be one of the last birthday’s that my age reflects how I look. One of the last times my birthday will have meaning beyond just being a piece of trivia to remind me of how long I’ve been frozen in time. So yes, I think I do.”

“Good.” Nicky said with a small smile. He got up from the table.

Nicky disappeared into the bedroom and for a moment Nile dreaded him popping back out with everyone to surprise her. But no, that wasn’t Nicky's style. 

Instead, he returned a minute later carrying a small rectangular package.

“Happy birthday Nile.” Nicky said simply as he placed it in front of her, and took his seat once more.

“Nicky-” Nile started, but her words seemed to evaporate in her throat.

“Open it.” Nicky said, his smile was the biggest she’d seen it in months.

She took the lid off the box and found the unmistakable shape of a white jewelry box.

“When my sword, my first sword, the one I brought with me to the holy land from Genova, began to deteriorate beyond repair it was Joe who suggested I melt the steel down to keep. A memory from my previous life.”

Nile took it out and opened it slowly, in it was a delicate silver charm bracelet. On it was a single, rough looking charm.

“Joe wears a piece of it on a chain around his neck.” Nicky continued.

Nile knew exactly the charm he was talking about. A simple rectangle of metal that hung low from Joe’s neck.

“Booker has a vein of the steel in a ring that he hardly wears, Andy has an earring, though I haven't seen her wear it in decades,”  Nicky paused, “Quynh had a piece too, on an anklet. Though I suppose it’s rusted away to nothing by now.” 

Nile stared down at the bracelet, unsure what to do next. Nicky took a deep breath, She could hear the slight quiver in his breathing that he tried to suppress.

“I have more though, I’ll replace Quynh’s when we find her.” Nick said. He extended his hands out toward the box, “May I?”

Nile nodded and pushed the box toward him. He removed the bracelet and held it up for her, fastening around her wrist when she offered it.

“Don’t feel obligated to wear it every day, or even often. Joe tries not to wear his on missions if he can help it.”

Nile took a closer look at the charm, it was a square, rough and unpolished, much like Joe’s. She had never gotten a close look at Joe’s pendant so she didn’t know what if anything was etched into the metal. But as Nile turned the square of rough steel over in her hand she noticed a tiny but intricate cross indented into one of the corners.

“I don’t-” Nile started, she laughed and then a small sob escaped her throat, “Thank you.”

“You are very welcome.” Nicky said, his smile was back to the small one she was used to.

“Well now I have to get you something.” Nile laughed out another sob, followed by another, and then she was full on crying.

Nicky moved around the table to stand in front of Nile and pulled her into an awkward hug while she still sat. Her head fell into his chest and she threw her arms around his waist.

“Hey. Hey- shhhhh.” Nicky said. He placed a hand on the back of her head, the other arm wrapped around her shoulders and held her tight to him as she let the sobs rock her body for a minute.

“I’ll have other birthday’s Nile, as will you. Don’t pay it any mind. I don’t need anything. Though I imagine that’s not why you’re actually upset.”

Nile nodded against Nicky’s chest, vaguely aware that a wet spot was forming where her tears had soaked into Nicky’s shirt. He held her there for what seemed like hours, but in reality was probably less than a quarter of an hour. Until her sobs had subsided into the occasional uneven breath. 

“You haven’t missed Joe’s birthday yet.” Nicky finally said.

Nile laughed, pulled back from the hug, and wiped tears away from her cheeks.

Nicky took a step back, and placed his hands on his hips. He looked very fatherly in that moment, which made Nile’s heart ache, but it also warmed it ever so slightly.

“What about Andy?”

“I don’t know hers,” Nicky said, “But I don’t think she ever knew her birthday. She’s older than the idea of a calendar, or at least in the way we experience years and months.” 

Nicky stood in front of her for a minute longer before grabbing both of their mugs and taking them to the bathroom, where the only sink in the cottage was located.

Nile took another closer look at the charm. She suspected that the cross that was pressed into the metal had more significant meaning than just their shared faith in a higher power. She would have to ask him about it later when she was feeling less emotional.

Nicky returned but he didn’t hover, instead choosing to grab his book and move to an armchair by the front door.

When Joe got up at last he gave her a wink and pointed at the bracelet.

“It looks good.” he said, and then went to kiss Nicky good morning. 

Andy and Booker followed shortly thereafter, and the day passed mostly like any other.

That night she lay in the same bed she had started her day in, her heart much lighter. While it hadn’t been like any other birthday she had celebrated, it had been nice.

She got the distinct feeling that they were all aware it was her birthday. Even though no one else directly acknowledged it. 

Booker had gone for a run with her and sparred with her before lunch. Which wasn’t necessarily abnormal, but she did get more than one hit on him that she was pretty sure he let her land.

Andy was a tougher one to crack, but given that she had chosen this house for Nicky’s birthday and now hers, Nile felt like it wasn’t a coincidence. 

Nicky, with a little help from Joe, made a surprisingly good deep dish pizza using the fireplace for dinner.  Another thoughtful gesture that was not lost on her.

Nile looked up at the now familiar ceiling. And turned the charm around her wrist in her fingers.

She felt different. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to grapple with the consequence of her newly acquired immortality in the seven months she’d had it. But it was the first time she’d felt generally ok with it.

Up until now Nile had felt mostly like she had only lost things since she died for the first time. She had lost the world as she knew it, her life as she knew it. She had lost her family, and a home to call her own.

But for the first time she felt aware of how much she was gaining. The feeling of safety that only came with home. She genuinely felt excited to make her mark on countless safe houses all over the world. 

Family. Each of the other members of the Guard had already felt like a new family to her, but something about the simple understanding of today had made her feel loved in a way she had never experienced before. Each of their reactions to her birthday seemed to fit them all perfectly.

Things were different now, but she liked the small place she was carving out in their family.

Twenty-six years on this earth. She looked forward to what Twenty-seven would have in store for her.

((Available on AO3 as well, link on my tumblr 💜))

[entitynumber5]

iceberg blues

this fic is basically one long jonmartin road trip but with depression and angst and yearning!!!!!! here’s the link to ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30788036. or you can read it below the line!!! <3

Content warnings: depressive episodes, disassociation, panic attacks, discussions of death and mortality, grief, emetophobia, economic anxiety, intrusive thoughts/images, very brief allusions to transphobia and xenophobia (in the context of UK politics), swearing, passive suicidal ideation, food, disordered eating, mention of hospitals, smoking, addiction, arguments, brief references to coercive relationships.

Martin has been sitting at his desk, shivering in his coat, for over half an hour. Still enough that the automatic lights have switched off for the night, one by one in an imploding cascade down the corridor he can see from his desk. Tim and Sasha left a while ago, and Martin had put his coat on and promised he would been right behind them, he was just going to check his emails one last time, when he’d seen Sasha had sent her part of the report on Naomi Hearne’s statement to him. He doesn’t know how to explain why he opened the document and scrolled through to Evan Lukas’s death certificate. But here he is. Stuck and staring.

He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to be staring at the death certificate of a man he doesn’t even know. Since Naomi Hearne’s statement two days ago, Martin has been—well, off. He wishes he had a better explanation, but his creativity has jumped ship, apparently, and either a wall springs up every time he reaches for a way to name what he’s feeling or it is energy he doesn’t have to waste, forcing his mind into forming words.

It feels like there’s a balloon inside his chest and no matter how much he expands his lungs, no matter how many deep breaths he takes, he can’t make it smaller. He’d vomited, when he got back to his flat on the day of the statement; yesterday, he had opened the cupboard and stared at the ingredients but been unable to make himself make anything. On the Tube to work, when a stranger looked at him, just in passing, Martin had wanted to cry, and that feeling lingered with him but nothing came of it except an odd sort of internal tension, like a headache.

Yet at the same time, there’s something so dull about it all. He can feel the boredom in his teeth. The blunt edge of a knife, never drawing blood. Why does it matter? Why does it need to be a big deal?

It isn’t, as far as Martin’s concerned. No one else has noticed, and sometimes he doesn’t either. Sometimes it just slips his mind that this isn’t how he feels all the time. Even now, staring at the computer screen, he almost forgets that he’s cold, that it will be dark outside. That it’s Friday, and he usually calls his mum on Friday because the care home gets fish and chips delivered, every week, a whole event, and it’s easier for them both if she has a proper excuse not to answer.

“Martin,” Jon says.

Martin jumps, but his movements are slower than he expects. His shoulders lift enough that the waterproof lining of his coat makes a high-pitched scraping noise, but he can’t move the hand that’s on the mouse to close the document in shame he knows distantly he should feel.

“Martin,” Jon continues, looking somewhat confused, as if he’d already said his name a number of times. There’s a hint of defensive disapproval in his expression. “You’re still here.”

Martin tries to talk, but his voice croaks as if from disuse. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah. Just, um… finishing up.”

“It’s after seven.”

“You’re also still here,” Martin points out.

Another time, he thinks he’d be embarrassed by the remark. He should be feeling that hot, sharp lance of fear that this might be the fireable offence. But there was nothing in his tone except the monotone stating of a fact, and the phantom embarrassment is so vague he doesn’t even feel guilty about its reason for existing.

There’s a short, soft huff of laughter. Martin drags his eyes to Jon’s face, just in time to see his expression of defeated amusement before it disappears.

“Yes, well, I have my reasons.” Jon averts his eyes and doesn’t elaborate.

Martin turns back to the computer. It should be simple, moving the mouse to the corner of the document, pressing the red cross, shutting down the computer for the weekend, off-off, at the wall and all, not standby or Rosie would moan about the Institute’s already-failing green initiative. But he just can’t do it.

Jon lingers.

“Is… something wrong?” Martin manages to ask.

“I need to lock up,” Jon replies, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He lifts the small ring of keys in his hand as if in justification, a supply of proof. “Unless you would like to spend the weekend in the Archives, I suggest you leave in the next five minutes.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, I—I’ll just—let me just…” He moves the mouse to the corner of the document, hovering, but he can’t bring himself to click off it. Suddenly, he doesn’t want to go home. He desperately doesn’t want to go home.

“Sometime today, please, Martin,” Jon presses.

Martin forces himself to close the document. The balloon in his chest feels very big. In his mind’s eye, he can still see Evan Lukas’s death certificate. The clinical recital of the cause, the dates echoing around in his mind. He feels like he might, at any moment, abruptly blurt the words out loud.

“S-sorry.”

“Yes, well,” Jon bristles, “I do have somewhere to be.”

Martin wishes dully that Jon wasn’t here. He could just pull the computer plug out of the wall and be done with it, although his fingers feel numb and he’s not sure he has the strength. Or rather he does have it, it exists, just not within reach.

Martin goes through the motions of small talk, nonetheless. A kneejerk courtesy that reminds him of all the commutes home he can’t remember, the familiar going-through-the-motions, arriving at your destination unharmed, but having done so on muscle memory alone.

“You do?”

“I do.”

“Right.”

Jon lifts his eyes to the ceiling, as if he had considered rolling them and thought better of it. He takes a moment before he speaks again. “Actually, I had planned to drive to Wormshill this evening. There is a detail in Miss Hearne’s statement that I would like to check myself.”

“You’re going to Kent?”

“Yes,” Jon answers defensively. “It’s not far. A two-hour drive, at most.”

“But it’s—you just said it’s after seven.”

“Because I have an obligation to ensure my employees are not in the building after hours. What you do with the rest of your evening is none of my concern.”

Martin nods. The motion carries him away for a moment, and he gets lost in the gentle repetitiveness of it. He’s definitely nodding for longer than is acceptable—everything is taking longer than acceptable, today—and he should be embarrassed, but its vaguely soothing, a blip in the otherwise flat, linear trajectory of his mood.

Jon sighs. Loudly. “Is there anything unsaved on this computer?”

“No,” Martin replies, “Don’t think so.”

“Good,” Jon snaps, and then promptly switches it off at the wall.

Martin stares at the blank screen. He can just about make out his hollow reflection. “Oh.”

Jon is still standing there. “Martin…”

Martin hums in acknowledgement.

“There is—well, there’s the matter of the Institute’s health and safety guidelines, which stipulate that any employee conducting research in the field after seven p.m. must be accompanied by at least one other person,” Jon says, rushing but still somehow managing to keep the deep, unimpressed tone. “Ordinarily, I would disregard such bureaucratic nonsense, but I, uh, I rather suspect I’ll be receiving a complaint from Miss Hearne, and I’m—reluctant, I suppose, to attract any further attention from Elias.”

Martin doesn’t understand what Jon is trying to say.

“What I’m trying to say, Martin,” Jon continues, “Is that while I would much rather conduct my investigation alone, it might be pertinent to have company. If only to share the burden of driving.”

In the computer screen, Martin’s reflection doesn’t react to Jon’s statement. His eyes are cloudy, out of focus behind his glasses.

“Fine,” Jon huffs, “I’ll be direct, since nothing else seems to be getting through: Martin, will you come to Wormshill with me?”

Martin must say yes, because the next thing he knows, he’s still shivering in his coat but he’s outside, standing next to Jon on the steps of the Institute while they wait for the taxi that’s going to take them across the river to the car hire place in Croydon, apparently the only one willing to loan a vehicle on such short notice and at this time on a Friday. In his own coat, jaw set against his own shivers, Jon keeps stealing sideways glances at Martin as if expecting him to bow out of the bizarre excursion at any moment.

It occurs to Martin that maybe he should give Jon an out. A reason to go alone, since that’s what he seems to want. Now that Martin’s outside, at least, he thinks he can make it home. He can drift through the weekend, try to sleep off the feeling sitting heavy beneath his skin so that he can plaster on a smile again for Monday.

“Jon,” Martin says, “I can’t drive.”

Jon’s face snaps fully to Martin’s. “What do you mean, you can’t drive?”

“I mean I—I never learned how?”

The car was one of the first things they’d sold, when they could no longer afford to top up the meter, and when he’d turned seventeen, it had been too much money and too much time away from his mum to take lessons, even though so many jobs stipulated—illegally, he’d been told by one disgruntled employee at the Job Centre—that he needed a licence to apply. He knew his mum resented the lack of transport. She would complain about the tins getting dented or the fruit bruising on the bus journey back from the supermarket. Martin would take on extra shifts to cover the taxi costs to and from hospital appointments. But otherwise, they were stuck. There was no way around it.

Moving into London had helped with getting around, but not so much with money, and it had been a sort of comfort to Martin that mostly no one expected you to own a car or even drive here. Until now.

“Why didn’t you say something—?” Jon begins, but at that moment, the lights of the taxi slice through the darkness and a white Prius jolts to a stop in front of them, the driver giving an impatient toot of the horn to get their attention.

“I—I’m sorry,” Martin says. “I thought you knew.”

“How on earth would I—?” Another blare of the car horn. Jon makes a disgruntled sound and starts off down the steps. “Just get in the taxi.”

Martin stares down at him. “What—but I—are you sure?”

Jon, with his hand around the door handle, looks expectantly back at Martin. “Yes, Martin, just—come on.”

In the taxi, Martin sits on his hands as his mind lists restlessly between the vivid, intrusive image of opening the car door for no reason and the worry that he should be making conversation, before settling back into familiar numbness. Jon doesn’t make conversation either, which Martin supposes is a relief. The driver fields a number of calls during the journey and ends up doing enough talking for the both of them.

Jon pays the taxi driver with the Institute credit card when they reach Croydon. Martin stands on the pavement and watches the back lights of the Prius fade into the distance, the way you might watch to check someone gets into their house safely after you walk them home, because he can’t really think of what else to do until Jon demands, “Are you coming?”

Martin jogs after Jon, catching him up just as they reach the car park of the hire place. Jon tells Martin to wait outside, so he waits outside with his hands tucked into his pockets and wonders idly if Jon has picked up on his quietness. And if Jon has noticed, does he think it’s a relief, not having to suffer Martin’s small talk, his stammering inquiries and useless observations?  

About ten minutes later, Jon emerges with a set of keys and a collection of paperwork. He barely glances at Martin, making a beeline for the car parked nearest the door, a yellow Citroën.

When Martin stops beside the car, waiting for Jon to unlock it, Jon snaps, “It’s all I could get on short notice.”

Martin stares over the roof of the car at Jon. Is Jon embarrassed because the car is yellow? Because it’s a Citroën? Martin feels like he’s missing something. “I didn’t say anything.”

Jon just huffs and climbs into the car. After a moment, Martin follows, ducking inside and settling into the passenger seat. Jon hands him the paperwork, somewhat unceremoniously, and Martin takes it and places it in his lap and doesn’t say anything about the fact that Jon has given the hire company a false name. Which likely means he has a fake ID. Which is a can of worms that Martin isn’t sure he’s ready to open.

They drive for a while in complete silence. Jon’s driving is a little shaky, at first. He stalls three times in the space of five minutes, and at one point gets flipped off by a teenager hauling Deliveroo via bike. Martin laughs, despite himself, a small huff of air through his nose—it’s a start, he supposes.

“Would you prefer to take the wheel?” Jon snaps and when Martin’s face drops, he adds. “I thought as much.”

Martin sinks back into his seat, the laughter forgotten. He stares out of the window at the other cars and wonders where their occupants are travelling—back to their families for the weekend? When Jon has to merge onto the M25, he clings to the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turn white, and Martin wishes he hadn’t laughed earlier.

On the motorway, at least, Jon seems to settle into the familiar motions of driving and eventually reaches for the radio, tuning into Radio 4. They’re broadcasting a political debate, and Martin tries to watch without being caught as Jon’s face twists or he snorts at a particularly egregious comment from one of the participants.

“Who’s that?” Martin asks, surprising himself, when Jon rolls his eyes for the fifth time—he’s counting—at the same voice.

Jon blinks, turning momentarily from the road before returning to his eyes-ahead vigil of the motorway. He rolls his lips, like he’s pushing down a retort about Martin’s ignorance of politics. After a while, and a sixth eye roll, he says: “That’s Ann Widdecombe.”

“Oh,” Martin says, “She was on Strictly.”

Jon once again looks like he wants to launch into a lecture about Martin’s witlessness. Instead, he says, in that dry voice of his: “Yes. She has also been a particularly insidious member of the Conservative Party for forty years.”

“Right. Of course. I know that.”

“I should hope so.”

“I didn’t vote for her,” Martin tells him, “On Strictly.”

Jon doesn’t say anything.

“Or in the general election,” Martin adds.

“Not least of all because you don’t live in her constituency.”

“I mean I didn’t vote for the—”

“Yes, Martin, I understood what you meant.” Jon pauses. “And for the record, neither did I.”

There’s a very long stretch of silence after that. Martin wants to point out that he used to watch Question Time with his mum, before she moved into the care home, plus he’s trans and what little family he has left are Polish, so it’s not like he can be ignorant about the UK’s political climate, and just because he’s not some Oxford-educated prick who listens to Radio 4—but what’s he trying to prove, really? It’s a waste of energy, and the lull of the car and the cold pressure in his chest quickly extinguish the flare of indignation.

A radio drama about wartime Britain replaces the debate, and Martin tips his head against the window. He can make out the sound of the words, but not what they mean, and the inside of his mind feels like the road ahead: a blur of sharp asphalt and red-white light, the kind of place where it’s not safe to stop. He feels vaguely sick.

Martin thinks about the weekend again. He wishes he could sleep through and wake up feeling better, feeling real. He wants so badly to pause this feeling and pick it up when he’s ready to deal with it. A break. He just wants a fucking break, so badly that the tight-throat tension of tears he knows he can’t shed is back. He closes his eyes, in case Jon notices, and plays with the paperclip holding the contract for the hire car together.

He doesn’t know if he falls asleep fully or just drifts, but the next thing he’s really aware of is the slam of a car door as Jon climbs back inside. Inside? Martin squints at him through the sickly light of the streetlamp outside the car as Jon manoeuvrers his way back into the driver’s seat while holding a cardboard tray of drinks and two greasy paper bags. He hands one of the bags to Martin. It’s warm in his hands, almost burning, but he doesn’t think to let go.

“Where are we?” Martin asks, detached from the question, uncaring of the answer.

“Just outside of Maidstone,” Jon replies, balancing the drinks tray on top of the clutch with meticulous precision before gesturing with far less accuracy in the general direction of the service station. There’s a glowing sign indicating the presence of a Costa and a number of other chains. “Do feel free to use the, uh, the facilities.”

“I’m fine,” Martin mumbles, “But thanks.”

Martin realises he can’t remember the last time he used the facilities, as Jon so delicately put it, even back at the Institute. It should be embarrassing, but even this is hard to care about. There were plenty of opportunities, at work, to get up and make a cup of tea, or to reach into his rucksack and pull out the water bottle he’d bought with the markers specifically to remind him to drink at regular intervals. But he just… didn’t. And he’s dehydrated, clearly. And he doesn’t care.

“Right,” Jon says, looking like he would rather be anywhere else, “If you’re sure.”

Martin has no idea what to say to that. Jon saves him the effort by clicking the radio back on without starting the engine, and the midnight news drifts from the speakers in a deep, sombre voice that makes Martin feel intensely tired.

Jon clears his throat. “I hope you like cheese and tomato.”

Martin blinks Jon’s shadowed face back into focus. The lights are strange, transient—the orange glow of the streetlights interspersed with violent flickers of white as new arrivals pull into the car park.

“Cheese and tomato toasties, that is,” Jon adds, “That’s what’s in the bag.”

“Oh. Oh.” Martin blinks again, almost dizzy. “Thanks. I—I do. Like cheese and tomato toasties. What do I—how much were—?”

“You really don’t need—”

“I insist.”

“It’s fine, Martin.”

“But—”

“I bought it with the Institute credit card,” Jon interrupts, blunt. “If you would like to thank Elias for the cheese and tomato toastie on Monday, be my guest.”

It’s not really funny, but Martin finds himself giving one of those pathetic, half-formed laughs again. Jon looks momentarily surprised before he smiles and turns away.

Martin eats by rote because what else is he supposed to do? There’s an odd safety to mirroring Jon, following his lead. And so Martin does just that. He doesn’t taste the cheese and tomato toastie, and he can’t even tell if there’s sugar in the tea Jon hands him from the cardboard drinks tray, but it sits warm in his stomach, reminding him he hasn’t eaten anything other than crackers for nearly two days.

When Jon begins to drive again, the radio is playing a reading of a book about a Spanish painter Martin has never heard of. He feels like he owes Jon, in some way, for the cheese and tomato toastie, no matter who actually paid for it, and so he decides to remedy his previous disregard for Radio 4’s programming.

“This book sounds interesting,” Martin announces. There’s not much in his voice—no confidence, no real presence—but at least he’s saying something. “I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this Velázquez guy.”

“It’s Velázquez,” Jon corrects, although his pronunciation sounds no different to Martin’s.

“It’s a shame it’s the final episode,” Martin presses on, even though it’s painful. “Would have been nice to have a bit of context, you know?”

Jon hums in disinterest. “I suppose.”

This brief attempt at conversation is uninspiring, to say the least, so Martin instead resorts to an even more ridiculous line of inquiry. “Did we just pass a sign for Leeds Castle?”

“Yes,” Jon says, although he seems somewhat more engaged this time.

“But we’re in Kent.”

“Well-observed.”

“So why is it called Leeds Castle?”

“Well, there’s actually some debate as to why. In the Doomsday Book…”

Martin’s not watching the clock, but if he was, he would know Jon talks for a full twenty-three minutes about the etymology of Leeds Castle. It’s oddly soothing. Like a repeat of the emulsifiers at the ice cream parlour, except they’re not sitting across from each other, they physically can’t make eye contact, and there’s distance and darkness enough between them that they can both drop the performance. Martin doesn’t want to be looked at, to be seen, but he feels grounded by Jon’s voice. And Jon doesn’t stop every few minutes to make sure he isn’t being a nuisance, that he isn’t stealing time that others will resent the loss of.

They’ve made it to the Kent Downs. Martin supposes he should ask what it is they’re here to investigate. He manages it, and watches with something adjacent to despair as Jon’s open, almost excited expression falls away.

“Miss Hearne mentioned a chapel in her statement,” Jon says. His voice has dropped down an octave again, into the tone he uses in the Archives. “I can’t find any record of its existence, but I would like to be sure.”

Martin feels suddenly, impossibly cold. Like he will never be warm again. He shivers, and Jon turns up the car’s heaters. “I remember.”

Jon’s hands tighten around the steering wheel again. “You listened to the statement?”

“You—you asked me to transcribe it.”

“No, I asked Tim to transcribe it.”

“But Tim—well, he has an ear infection, he’s on antibiotics and everything, and Sasha’s the only one with access to the hospital records so she was cross-checking those, and I—I thought it was only fair if I transcribed it instead,” Martin says, the words falling out of his mouth in a blurred rush.

Jon deflates, just slightly, with a tired sigh. “Of course. I must have—I didn’t—I’ll apologise to Tim on Monday.”

Martin sits on his hands again. If he was feeling better, he might wonder if Jon has ever considered apologising to him. But perhaps he’s more truthful, when he’s in this place; perhaps he’s right when he thinks he doesn’t deserve it.

Jon sighs again. “So you heard…?”

“Yeah.”

“Brilliant,” Jon mutters, clearly meaning the opposite.

“Do you really think she’s making it up?”

“Of course I don’t—‘making it up’ would imply some kind of fault or, or blame, which is not at all what I was suggesting.” Jon’s jaw is set, tense, even as he spits out the words. “There is nothing made up about trauma and the very real impact it can have on a person’s life. I think Miss Hearne’s experience was significant and, as I told her, she should certainly seek out help from someone more qualified to address the grief of her fiancé’s death. As for empty cemeteries and chapels hidden in fog, well, I’ve read enough statements to know that the point at which they start to sound like an overdone ghost story is the time to deploy a reasonable amount of scepticism.”

Martin stares at the dashboard. The car’s heating is on its highest setting, the warm air blasting from the vents drying out Martin’s eyes, but he’s still shivering. Still so deeply, immovably cold.

“He was…” Martin whispers, but he can’t finish the sentence.

“He was very young, yes, and his loss was unspeakably tragic. That is not what I am seeking proof of, and that is far from Institute’s area of expertise in any case, but—”

“No,” Martin interrupts. His voice still so quiet, but Jon stops to listen nonetheless. “That’s not what I… I was going to say that she sounded lonely.”

Jon’s mouth opens, but he doesn’t seem able to form words. His teeth click as he shuts his mouth and turns back to the road, driving on in silence as the radio idly broadcasts the shipping forecast.

“I—I don’t mean the part with the empty cemeteries and chapels hidden in fog, although I believe her. I do.” Martin pauses, letting himself linger in that realisation. “The loneliest part was when she spoke about him.”

Jon takes a deep breath. He frowns, as if he wants to say something, but he keeps quiet.

The tightness is sitting in Martin’s throat and behind his eyes again, and he wishes he could cry. Maybe if he cried, it would leave him be, he’d be emptied but in the right way.

“They only got two years,” Martin whispers.

“They were…” Jon says, his voice a feeble imitation of comfort. And when his voice fails, his jaw tightens and the defensiveness flashes back across his expression. “Does it matter how long they got?”

“Yes, it matters. Of course it matters,” Martin snaps. He surprises himself with the vitriol behind his words.

“The length of their acquaintance doesn’t change the extent—”

“Their acquaintance? They were in love.”

“I’m aware.”

“They were going to get married.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Martin,” Jon hisses. “I’m not unfamiliar with grief.”

“Then why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why didn’t you tell her what to—how to—to move on, or—I don’t know, couldn’t you just have humoured her? Couldn’t you have dropped the act for one day to help someone experiencing the worst thing that’s ever happened to them?”

Jon stares at the road ahead, exhaustion sitting in the lines of his shoulders, the twitch of his jaw. He hardly moves, aside from occasionally checking the mirrors, and Martin doesn’t expect an answer. The silence is cloying and choking and Martin lets it fester.

“If I knew how to move on,” Jon says, very quietly, after an indeterminable amount of time, “Well, let’s just say that’s not information I would withhold. And as for humouring Miss Hearne’s experience, what would you have me say?”

“You could have told her you believed her,” Martin presses.

“That would be a lie.”

“It would be a comfort.”

Jon’s lips twist humourlessly. “Aren’t those synonymous?”

“Then why are we here? Why drive around the Kent Downs in the middle of the night if you think it was all just a trick of the mind?”

“Because I need proof.”

“Of what?”

Jon doesn’t answer the question. Instead, he snaps: “I shouldn’t have bought you.”

“Probably,” Martin agrees, falling back into his seat.

“I’m pulling over,” Jon announces without preamble, as if this is a natural continuation of their argument. “I need to check my notes. I’m sure we’ve passed that sign for Bredgar at least twice already.”

Martin doesn’t say anything. Jon pulls the car into a cramped passing place on the side of the road and then takes his phone out of his pocket. The radio drones, and Martin stares out of the window at the darkness of the stretching rural road, the few specks of light in the distance where the sparse houses state their presence. He thinks about the process of lighting torches in order to send a warning. Smoke signals.

“No signal,” Jon mutters in frustration, and then he opens the driver’s door, climbs out and slams it behind him with enough force that the body of the car shakes.

Martin curls into his coat. His face is wet, he realises, and when he lifts his hand to his left cheeks, it’s cold with tears. Jon is a silhouette caught in the car’s headlights, shoulders up, body tensed. To Martin’s surprise, he seems to have abandoned his phone in favour of lighting a cigarette. Martin recalls Tim mentioning that Jon had quit, a while ago. He considers getting out of the car, too, and trying to convince Jon not to lift the cigarette to his lips. But he can’t move. He’s frozen in place, shaking with a chill that doesn’t belong to him.

In the silvery-grey plume of cigarette smoke, Martin thinks he sees the outline of the chapel they’ll never find.

*

Leaning against the car hood, outside a service station near Preston, Jon sneaks a cigarette while he waits for Martin. His hands are restless, twitching, and if he’s being honest, he has played hard and fast with the meaning of ‘quit’ ever since—well, ever since he started working in the Archives. And he needs a distraction because, for the first time since they left the Lonely the day before, Martin is out of his line of sight.

It hasn’t been long. Five minutes, at most. But Martin had insisted on going alone, had told Jon he was feeling car sick and needed a moment to himself to get cleaned up. To brush his teeth, which he had said with an odd smile, like this was a novelty. So Jon had let him go, and regretted it almost immediately, and began smoking soon after to take the edge off his gnawing anxiety.

Now that he’s alone, Jon finds himself thinking about the journey beyond the heart-pounding panic of getting out of London and the slower-burning worry over Martin’s drawn silence.

His lips curl into a humourless smile around another drag of the cigarette, and he huffs a small laugh. When Jon had turned on the radio after they’d finally made it onto the M6, it was already tuned in to Radio 4. He didn’t have the heart to change it, not least of all because he would have to explain to Martin, after all this time, that he doesn’t particularly like Radio 4. It’s not his station of choice by a longshot. The last time they’d been in a car together—a lifetime ago, it feels like—Jon had still been trying very hard to appear older than he was and, in a moment of panic, decided the only way to do this was to listen to a radio station that didn’t even play music, for god’s sake.

Ironically, he has been listening to Radio 4 recently, if only because Daisy insists they both stay appraised of The Archers. Insisted. Jon’s smile falls. Only a few weeks ago, while Jon had been attempting to organise his office while Daisy complained at the latest pastoral plot point, he had found an old, half-folded Post-it note. A jumbled collection of words in Jon’s handwriting: Martin Secret Santa. Velázquez - The Vanishing Man??

“What’s that?” Daisy had asked him. “I can’t read your handwriting.”

Jon had slipped the Post-it back into the drawer, although this time with his rib rather than the jumbled collection of paperwork it had been coexisting with before. “Then I’m not going to tell you.”

“Oh, come on, Sims.”

“It’s nothing important.”

“I don’t think I believe you.”

The Eye had informed Jon that The Vanishing Man was the name of the book reviewed on Radio 4 on January 16th 2016, in the early hours of the morning, when Jon had been driving with Martin around the Kent Downs. Jon had written the name of the book down so that he’d know what to get Martin, if he drew his name for Secret Santa.

In the car park, Jon’s throat tightens with grief. There was never another Secret Santa after Prentiss. It seemed a silly thing, with everything that had happened, to care about. They’d never been a normal workplace, not really. And yet Jon still craves that brief glimpse of ordinariness, of a pointless tradition everyone rolls their eyes at and complains about but which is still repeated every year.

Jon is just about to walk to the bin and put his cigarette out in the tray resting on top when he notices Martin’s slow, almost unsteady approach. He quickly disposes of the spent cigarette and tries to look as nonchalant as possible, like he is perfectly capable of spending five minutes away from Martin without falling apart.

Except that as soon as Martin’s face catches the light and his expression became visible, Jon has no hope of maintaining the act.

“Martin,” Jon says, stumbling forward to meet Martin before he reaches the car fully.

“Jon.” Martin recognises him. It should be a relief, but there’s a dull echo to his voice that reminds Jon far too much of the Lonely.

Jon can see that Martin shivering, even in the too-big knitted jumper Jon had guided him into when they’d woken up sometime after midday, after sitting together on the sofa all night, Jon crying softly against Martin’s shoulder while Martin slept. He remembers the way Martin’s curls had sprung out of the jumper and how Jon had felt like crying again with how much love he felt in that moment, staring at the crown of Martin’s head, wondering what it might be like to kiss him there.

When Jon takes Martin’s hand, it’s so cold Jon feels a bolt of ice shoot up his own spine.

“You’re freezing,” Jon murmurs, pulling gently on Martin’s hand. “Come on.”

Jon places his other hand on Martin’s back, making small, soothing motions as he opens the passenger door as wide as possible and gently encourages Martin back into the seat. He pulls up the fleece blanket in the footwell up so that it covers Martin’s legs, where the worst of the shivering seems to be concentrated, and squeezes Martin’s hand until Martin’s eyes move to his.

“I’m just going to walk around to the other side of the car and get in, alright?”

Martin nods. Jon squeezes his hand again, one last time, before standing up and jogging around the car to the driver’s side. He climbs in quickly, kicks on the engine so that he can start up the heaters, and then re-takes Martin’s hand. Martin stares straight ahead, his eyes cloudy and fixed on a faraway point Jon can’t identify.

“Martin,” Jon ventures, trying to keep his voice as soft as possible. “What happened?”

“N-nothing.” Martin shudders violently. “It was nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

“Jon,” Martin sighs.

“We don’t have to talk about it now,” Jon agrees, trying to keep the reluctance from his words. “But it might… maybe it would help?”

“To see what we’re up against?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the Lonely, it…” Martin laughs, a hollow, humourless sound. “It’s not just going to let me go, is it?”

Jon doesn’t know what to say. They sit for a while in silence, the only sound the rumble of the engine and the whir of the heaters. In a moment of desperation, Jon almost considers turning Radio 4 back on, and he nearly laughs at his own ridiculousness.

“I—I was in Costa,” Martin says, at last, disrupting the quiet. “I was going to get you some coffee, since you’d been driving all evening. I’m sorry. That I can’t—that I don’t have a—”

“Martin, it’s fine.” They’ve already had this conversation. Jon brushes his thumb over Martin’s knuckles and tries not to well up because Martin thought to get him coffee, when he knows for a fact that Martin despises coffee as a point of pride and refuses to even keep it in his flat.

“I always wanted to learn. To drive, that is.”

Jon smiles, but it fades quickly. “Maybe you can. When we get to…”

Martin hums. “I ordered the coffee, that was… it was fine. A bit awkward, I guess. Haven’t talked to strangers in a while, you know? Or anyone, really. But I got through it. It’s just that when—when the barista called my name, she just—she looked through me, like I wasn’t there.” A brief, bitter twitch of Martin’s lips. “Maybe I wasn’t.”

“Martin.”

“It’s fine. It’s—it has to be—I’m fine.”

“Martin.”

“I just stood there, while she was calling my name. Looking at me, but not,” Martin continues, still staring out of the window. “In the end, she gave the coffee to the person who was cleaning the forecourt.”

“Oh.” Jon tips his head back against the seat. “I can—did you order anything else? Are you hungry? I can go back inside. Or we can go… t-together.”

Martin shakes his head minutely.

“We’ll eat when we get to the house,” Jon says, like it’s already decided. “I can make soup.”

“What kind?” Martin asks, so quietly Jon almost misses it.

“Whatever kind you like.”

“I don’t know. Is that something I—should I know?”

“We can find out.”

Martin doesn’t say anything else.

“Are you ready to move on?” Jon ventures.

At Martin’s minute nod, Jon reluctantly untangles their hands and retakes the wheel. He pulls out of the service station, and once they’ve navigated the helter-skelter of roundabouts and made it back onto the motorway, Jon lets his hand drift towards the radio. Would it be so earth-shattering, to listen to something other than Radio 4? Surely it wouldn’t shake the foundation of their relationship more than everything else that’s happened in the last two years. And yet he feels an extraordinary amount of pressure, like he’s about to expose some vulnerable part of himself to Martin by revealing what sort of music he enjoys.

“Jon?” Martin murmurs.

Jon retracts his hand. It’s ridiculous, it really is, but he’s not ready. “Sorry. Just, uh, just checking I know where the—the hazard lights are in this car.”

Martin doesn’t seem to be in any position to question him. Jon returns his hand to the wheel and stares at the straight, sparse road ahead of them. There’s not a lot of traffic, late at night and mid-week, and Jon loses himself quickly in the motions of driving. It’s strange, he thinks, the way skills stay with you after so much time dormant and unpractised. He wonders if he could remember the cords he used to play on his grandmother’s piano, if he sat down in front of one now, or the lyrics of the song Georgie taught him, his voice matching the gentle strum of her guitar. He wonders if the Eye would let him be bad at it, let him rediscover these half-realised skills or supply him with the unearned knowledge of how to perfect them.

Instead, he thinks about teaching Matin to drive. If the Eye is going to insist on perfection, Jon might as well share it with the person he cares about most. The Scottish Highlands aren’t the easiest place to learn, and they probably shouldn’t attract the attention of anyone nearby by hiring an instructor, but it would be something to do. A reason to spend time together. They’d argue, almost certainly. He can hear it: yes, Jon, I know the highway code and Martin, you’ve missed the turning again and well, maybe your instructions should have been clearer and I resent your tone and I resent your directions and—he smiles. Petty arguments, of course, the kind that don’t hurt, not really. They would laugh about it when they got home.

He turns to Martin, as if this is already a joke between them, already spoke out loud, only to find him fast asleep against the window.  

The suspended moment of surprise lasts far longer than Jon would admit to anyone, even himself, and he has to force his eyes back to the road just in time to avoid a large lorry with smiling cartoon produce on its flank. He takes a moment to breath around his pounding heart as he settles back into the speed limit. And then he can’t stop stealing glances at Martin’s sleeping form.

Martin’s head is tucked between the headrest and the window, a position that will likely give him an aching neck later, but Jon can’t bear to wake him. The fleece blanket—yellow with white flowers, Jon remembers, although he can’t see it in the monochrome lights of the motorway—rests atop Martin’s gently rising and falling belly. One of Martin’s hands is hidden beneath the blanket, curled around his knee; the other lies half-up in his lap, fingers twitching every so often. His mouth is open slightly, top teeth just visible. During one stolen look, Jon notices Martin’s nose curling slightly in sleep, his eyelashes twitching. It’s so endearing that Jon has to smothers the urge to cry.

Once again, Jon thinks about the last time they shared an unfamiliar car to traverse unfamiliar terrain. Martin had seemed to sleep then, too, although looking at Martin now, Jon isn’t sure it was actual rest. More just closing his eyes, because there was no real difference between that and keeping them open, staring absently at the road ahead.

When Jon had dropped the hire car off in Croydon around eight a.m. that Saturday morning, Martin bid him goodbye with a hollow smile, assured Jon he could would be fine getting home, and walked—purposelessly, somehow, even though he had a destination—towards the nearest station. Jon had gotten another taxi back to the Institute, weekend be damned, he needed to write up his notes, and picked up his phone at obsessive fifteen-minute intervals, beset with the need to text Martin to ensure he’d gotten home safely.

He never did text. And he still regretted it, even when Martin came in on Monday—still pale, still withdrawn—and assured Jon his weekend had been fine. Even now, two years later.

Worse still, he knew something wasn’t quite right with Martin that week. Tim and Sasha had been worried about Martin, and had come into Jon’s office before leaving for the night and asked that he ensure Martin wasn’t still there when he locked up. Jon had no real issue letting Tim or Sasha stay in the Archives after-hours; he trusted them, and they were experienced researchers, and they both worked best in their own time. Martin, not so much.

But he had noticed that Martin’s quietness in the days since Naomi Hearne’s statement, the way he drifted distracted through the Archives and sometimes seemed to be somewhere else entirely. Perhaps that’s what compelled Jon to invite Martin with him to Kent. To this day, he’s still not sure why he extended the offer. Why he made that decision over and over again, even when opportunities to turn back presented.

He does know how different he feels now. How sorry he is, that he tried so hard to avoid this. How angry he is, that it took him so long to discover this feeling. And he knows exactly why he invited Martin with him to Scotland.

He supposes it’s good, if Martin didn’t—couldn’t—sleep back then, that he is managing to rest now. Jon makes himself focus very closely on the road, on driving gently so as not to disturb the sleep Martin so clearly needs.

It’s not until they’re about half an hour away from the Scottish border that Martin begins to stir, a deep sigh followed by a more discontented murmur. Jon tries to keep his eyes on the road ahead, tries not to think it’s only been an hour, please let him rest just a little longer, but his gaze keeps wandering to where Martin is curling in on himself against the window, beginning to shudder again.

The car’s heating system is already on its highest setting, which Jon discovers when he reaches to turn it up. Perhaps he’s also running cold from their encounter with the Lonely, and the shivery anxiety still gripping him after their escape from London. Jon thinks about reaching across, waking Martin, but just as he wills his hand away from the steering wheel again, Martin sits up with a noise of confusion, the rasping outline of Jon’s name.

Martin stares at the darkness in front of the car, cut through with the white glare of the headlights. He’s stock still, the only movement the rise and fall of his shoulders at pace with his frantic breathing, and the small quivers running through him at merciless intervals. It’s almost reminiscent, Jon thinks, of the time they drove to Kent, except there is something visibly uncalm about Martin’s posture this time.

“Martin?”

Martin just keeps staring.

Jon reaches across the car towards him. “Martin?”

Martin draws a sharp breath, flinching away from Jon’s outstretched hand so quickly he thumps his head against the window. The impact seems to wake him fully, but his breathing gets quicker, if anything, and he hides both his shaking hands beneath the blanket, gathering it up to his chin as he attempts to stop his teeth from chattering.

“S-sorry,” Martin murmurs, “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Jon replies, trying to match Martin’s voice for gentleness, although his does not shake or warp with almost-tears. “Bad dream?”

Martin hums, but says nothing more.

“Would you like to stop? I think we’ll be coming up to another service—”

“No,” Martin interrupts, a new sharpness to his voice. He takes another breath, slower but still unsteady. “No, thank you. I’m—I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

Jon tries to smile, as soothingly as his can, but Martin won’t return eye contact when Jon glances his way. “Alright. We’re not far from the border now.”

Jon drives, trying very hard to focus on the road rather than Martin in the passenger seat. Every time Jon looks Martin’s way, the shivering seems to get worse, accompanied by a blurring at the edges of his figure that Jon attributes, at first, to the late hour, to the fuzziness of the light and the growing exhaustion behind Jon’s eyes. When he tries to focus on it, it gives him an odd, momentary headache—not dissimilar to when he attempts to Know something too big or too abstract.

It’s then that Jon realises this is the Lonely, clinging to Martin like heat haze to the road, except there’s something distinctly sinister and chilling about it. A claws-out, cloying presence in the car with them.

“Martin…”

“I’m fine,” Martin replies, voice as tense as his jaw as he fights down another teeth-chattering chill. “It’s—it will pass.”

Jon swallows around the ache in his throat. “Can I help?”

“It’s fine.”

“Martin—”

“Jon, I’m—”

“You’re not,” Jon snaps, not meaning to sound so harsh, but the worry explodes out of him sounding closer to anger. “You’re not fine, Martin, and I—I can’t just sit here and watch—”

“Then don’t watch,” Martin hisses back. “Would that be so hard? To just. Not watch. For once in your life just stop—stop looking, stop asking to know things that will—that will—”

“That will what?”

“That will destroy you, okay? Stop throwing yourself into—into the eldritch version of staring directly at the sun!”

“Already been there and done that, I’m afraid,” Jon mutters, with no small amount of bitterness.

“Oh, great! And how did that turn out? I’m not some—you can’t—I didn’t ask for this. I’m not a statement, I’m not—you can’t just Know me, Jon, that’s not—not fair. It’s not—” Martin is gasping now, almost gagging on his words, on the tears threatening to implode his facade of distance. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”

When Jon turns to look at him, there is still something blurred and unspecific about Martin, like he is both here and somewhere else. Like half of his image is being left behind by each forward movement of the car. But he is crying, fully crying. And by some cruel twist of fate, Jon can see this more clearly than everything else around them.

“I know what you’re going to say. I know nothing’s fair. I know that’s the—it’s the way our world is now, right? Nothing’s fair, and nothing’s safe, and everything…” Martin coughs miserably, his voice stolen momentarily by the tears. “Everything ends.”

“Martin—”

“Don’t, Jon. Don’t say my name like that.”

“What would you have me say instead?”

“I don’t—I can’t. Not yet.”

So Jon says nothing. He drives. He tries very hard not to look at Martin, who curls against the door, crying in such a quiet, self-contained way that Jon wants to weep with the intensity of grief Martin seems to be denying himself.

By the time they’re nearing the border, Martin is even quieter. Jon risks a glance at him and finds that he is still crying, but sporadically, just tears now, falling silently onto the blanket he’s still holding beneath his chin. His face shimmers when it catches the headlights leeching across the road from the southbound side. The glassy look has returned to his eyes, and Jon wonders if he even knows that he’s still crying.

Up ahead, Jon spots a sign for Gretna Green. It twists a wretched, tearful laugh from his throat.

“What is it?” Martin rasps.

Jon turns to him, not caring if he misses the moment they cross the border—which before had seemed such an important milestone to him, a prerequisite of the journey. Martin is still crying those silent, ignored tears, but his gaze has moved from that absent nothingness to Jon’s face instead.

“I was just—Gretna Green,” Jon says uselessly. “We’re near Gretna Green.”

Martin takes a shuddering breath. It sounds like it could have been a laugh, too, if they were somewhere else, someone else—a perfect twin to Jon’s. “Oh?”

“Did you know that you can no longer get married at Gretna Green without at least twenty-nine days’ notice? In 1856, a law was passed requiring one member of the couple to have resided in the local parish for at least twenty-one days in order to be eligible to marry there. That has since been repealed, but the longer notice period maintained.” Jon didn’t know this until just a moment ago, when the Eye supplied it to him. “The tradition of Gretna Green marriages dates back to at least 1754, although the practice didn’t become commonplace until a toll road made it a more accessible location to those travelling from England. At the time, Scottish law was guided more by Celtic rather than Catholic tradition, and so allowed a couple to be married by anyone so long as there were witnesses, which gave rise to so-called anvil priests—local blacksmiths willing to perform wedding ceremonies.”

Martin swipes at his cheek with the back of his hand. He seems sturdier, more present. “I didn’t know any of that, actually.”

“The most famous anvil priest is Richard Rennison, who was recorded as having performed five-thousand, one-hundred and forty-seven wedding ceremonies before ‘irregular marriages’ were outlawed by the Scottish government in 1939.”

“That’s—that’s a lot of weddings,” Martin murmurs, a hint of humour in his voice. “He must have seen a lot.”

Jon frowns. “Of what?”

“Well, love, I guess. But it can’t all have been good.”

“Perhaps.”

“I mean, I’ve read Pride and Prejudice, for a start.”

“Yes, but Mr Wickham is not a particularly helpful example of a potential husband. Would you hold his entire character against the integrity of Gretna Green?”

“I guess they never actually went to Gretna Green, in the end. But I bet there’s a lot of real-life examples of people manipulating their partners into a shotgun wedding across the border and then—”

“Goodbye happily ever after.”

“I never had you down for a hopeless romantic.”

“I was agreeing with your last point.”

“Yeah, but none of the points before that.”

“Yes, I was.”

Martin makes that noise again, something adject to a laugh that warms Jon’s heart. “No, you weren’t.”

“Yes, I was.”

“No, you—” Martin stops, shakes his head. “This is ridiculous.”

“Fine,” Jon says, lifting his hands momentarily from the steering wheel in a gesture of surrender. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a hopeless romantic, thank you very much. But is it so terrible to imagine that some of those marriages were—well, happy or exciting or—or fairer? Than somewhere else? That there was a great deal of love here for a great deal of time, and that makes this place—unique. You’re right: not all of it could have been happy, or good, or honest. But—”

“But you’re a little bit in love with the idea of this place,” Matin says, and it takes Jon a moment to realise he’s teasing.

Jon feels heat rush to his cheeks, and he’s glad that it’s dark inside the car, that they’re between streetlights and passing vehicles. I’m a little bit in love with you, too, Jon thinks, and feels his blush deepen even further. The thought is so vivid that for a moment, he’s convinced he actually said it out loud. But Martin is just looking at him, his expression still somewhat distant, but there’s something like a smile sitting on his lips. No hint that Jon might have just confessed his love.

“Yes, well.” Jon clears his throat. “Sometimes it’s nice to…”

“Have a little hope?”

Jon nods, just once. When he looks at Martin, his smile has disappeared and there are tears in his eyes again.

“I’m sorry,” Jon whispers.

“For what?”

“For everything. For—”

“Jon, you can’t be sorry for everything,” Martin cuts in. “It will eat you alive. God, you—you don’t have to be sorry. Not for anything you think you’ve done to me.”

“Martin, I—”

“No, Jon, I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“What an earth for? You haven’t—”

“I have. We’ve both—we’ve both made a lot of mistakes. And that’s… probably why we’re here.” Martin sniffs, curls his hands tighter around the blanket. “But I…”

Jon waits. He thinks they must have crossed the border into Scotland now, with little fanfare. Too absorbed in each other’s words to notice the transition.

“Can we stop soon?” Martin asks at last, breaking the silence.

It’s not what Jon is expecting, but he nods nonetheless. “Of course. We’ll stop at the next service station.”

True to his word, Jon stops at the next service station—which just so happens to be Gretna Green. He asks Martin if he wants to keep going, to bypass this service station for another, but Martin simply shakes his head and doesn’t say anything as Jon finds them an empty space.

They walk inside together, only splitting off into separate cubicles when they reach the toilets. Martin says very little, but allows himself to be guided by Jon through Waitrose, which is open despite the late hour. They’ll have to sacrifice affordability for practicality this time, since they’re only two hours away from Daisy’s safehouse and it seems like a bad idea to risk stopping again. Jon fills their basket with tea bags, powdered milk, custard creams, bread, bananas, baked beans and pre-grated cheese. None of it particularly glamourous, but it will tide them over, and he’s not sure either of them is in a state to do more than microwave what they have available.

Just before they reach the check-out, Jon notices the chocolate Martin likes. He remembers, because Tim had once returned from his lunch break having bought the entire box from the nearby supermarket when Martin had been staying in the Archives. Caramel Cadbury, the contrasting purple and yellow wrapper always showing up in the bins after that, and Jon feeling an odd sense of jealousy that Tim had so effortlessly, it seemed, made Martin’s unexpected stay more pleasant.

Jon places two bars into the basket with the rest of their goods. With the hand not holding the basket, Jon reaches for Martin. Martin closes the distance, taking Jon’s hand, and they cling to each other through the transaction and the return to the car.

“Are you hungry?” Jon asks Martin.

Martin shakes his head. Jon adds this to the list of things to address later, when he isn’t so sleep-deprived he’s sure to say the wrong thing, push the wrong buttons. He places their shopping bags in the boot of the car and reluctantly relinquishes Martin’s hand so they can both climb back in.

Jon doesn’t start the engine.

“I can’t stop thinking about Naomi Hearne,” Martin announces, after a long stretch of silence. “I had a dream about her statement. Earlier. It was… different, though. I think it might have been—I think maybe I was—I belonged to that house.”

Jon doesn’t know what to say. His own silence is choking him, and he knows now is not the time to cry, but it’s a difficult thing to wrestle down the onslaught.

“I was so stupid,” Martin hisses. He’s crying again, so suddenly Jon feels like he must have missed something. “I should never have gotten involved with the Lonely. I’m—this is—it’s all my fault. I did this.”

Jon swallows his own tears. “Martin, I don’t understand.���

“The Lonely won’t let me go.”

“It will. It has,” Jon says, quick, desperate.

“No.” Martin shakes his head with a mirthless laugh. “No, it hasn’t, Jon. You remember Evan Lukas.”

“Of course,” Jon replies, although it wasn’t a question.

“He escaped. He escaped, and it took him back in the end.”

“No.” Jon leans back, as if struck. This is—why has he never thought about this? But no, it can’t be true, it can’t be a possibility. “No, that’s—Martin, you aren’t like him. Evan Lukas was—he was born into it. The Lonely was with him for longer than it ever was you.”

“I think the Lonely always had me.”

“Don’t say that. Not again. Not now.”

“But it’s true, Jon! When I listened to Naomi Hearne’s statement—”

“I should never have let you—”

“You didn’t let me. I chose to.”

“It wasn’t a choice.”

“It was.”

“No, it—it compelled you, somehow. The statements, they can do that, they can—”

“I wanted to read it.”

“Exactly!”

“No, I wanted to read it because I was doing my job, because I was helping Tim and Sasha. I didn’t know it would—it just seemed like a normal statement. Until I listened,” Martin continues, voice growing in strength. “It called to something inside of me. I recognised so much of myself—”

“No, Martin.”

“My life is—was—it was just like—”

“Stop,” Jon snaps, “Stop. Please.”

Martin stops, but only momentarily. “We have to talk about this at some point. I know I’ve been putting it off, too, but… we have to.”

Jon drags a hand over his face, suddenly so exhausted he could fall asleep. But his heart is pounding and his hands, he realises as he’s lowering them from his face, are shaking. There’s no rest to be had yet. “Alright.”

“Being cut off from the Lonely might kill me,” Martin says, “Like it killed Evan Lukas.”

“I’ll be cut off from the Eye, too. I’ll—”

“Basira is sending you statements,” Martin interrupts, “And you’re going to read them, okay? You have to read them.”

“Then you’ll have to—to find a way to feed the Lonely, too.”

“I won’t do that.”

“That’s the only deal I’m going to make.”

“I won’t sacrifice anyone to that place,” Martin spits. “You saw it, Jon. You were there. How can you think I would ever send anyone there just to save myself?”

“Oh, and you think feeding the Eye is without its sacrifices?” Jon demands, fury rising to meet his grief in a perfect storm. “Is it okay to subject people to nightmares, to reliving their trauma again and again with me drinking it all in, just so I can survive?”

“At least they’d be alive!”

“Martin, this is ridiculous. You can’t—”

“Stop trying to find a way out of this.”

“Stop acting as if this is the only way!” Jon shouts, loudly enough that Martin flinches back.

With a shuddering breath, Jon tries to contain his anger, to hide it until it’s not so raw. He thinks about the last time they were in the car together. The argument then, and how he had pulled over and gotten out and smoked to avoid finishing the confrontation, to avoid letting his true feelings show.

He won’t do that again. He can’t. Not this time.

“Evan Lukas didn’t—it might not have been the Lonely that killed him. We don’t know for certain that it was,” Jon continues. “And if it was the Lonely… did Naomi Hearne’s statement give any indication that he lived his life differently because he knew it might happen? No. He got a job that he cared about. He surrounded himself with friends. He fell in love. You can have all of those things. You deserve all of those things.”

Martin’s tears drop faster and faster, an unstoppable flood, and Jon wants nothing more than to reach across and wipe them away with his thumb. He would, except that Martin is holding himself so tightly, curled with his back against the car door, and he looks so devastated, so far away, so unwilling to be reached.

“He died,” Martin sobs. “He died, and he left the person he loved behind.”

“Oh, Martin.”

“No, Jon, I—I know what that feels like.”

“Martin,” Jon murmurs. Afraid of what’s coming next. But he knows he has to say it. He has to keep going. “Can I ask you something?”

Martin hesitates, wiping at his eyes, digging his fingers into his sockets. After a protracted moment, he nods.

“Do you think Naomi Hearne wishes she never met Evan Lukas?” Jon asks.

Martin stares at him, still crying. “I don’t know.”

“I think you do.”

“I don’t…” Martin takes a shuddering breath. “No. I don’t think Naomi Hearne wishes she never met Evan Lukas.”

Jon almost smiles. “Neither do I.”

“But she was lonely again, afterwards.”

“Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she reached out to Evan’s friends. Maybe she realised they were her friends, too.”

Martin stares at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Do you know that?”

“No.” Jon sighs. “No, but I—I can Look.”

“No, that’s not fair.”

Jon steadies himself. Across the car park, he watches a young father bounce a little baby, pacing the length of his sedan as he does so. In the car, the faint silhouette of his partner is just visible; they look peaceful, at rest. Jon’s heart aches.

“Can I ask you one more thing, Martin?” Jon whispers.

“Yes,” Martin rasps, reluctance replaced with resignation.

“Do you wish you had never met me?”

Silence. Jon forces himself to keep watching the father, murmuring now to the fussing baby, giving Martin time to consider the question, all of its sharp angles, its gentle core. He wishes, more than anything, that he could reach for Martin’s hand and hold it. Hold it tight, kiss his knuckles.

“Jon?”

At last, Jon turns to look at Martin. Their eyes meet and then, in a blur of movement, Martin reaches for him, his hands pausing on Jon’s shoulders for just a moment, giving him time to pull away, but Jon reciprocates in full, grabs hold of Martin’s jumper and pulls until they’re a tangled mess, holding each other, crying and clinging and trying to move closer than the small car will allow.

“No,” Martin says into Jon’s shoulder. “I don’t—of course I don’t regret meeting you. God, Jon, I—please don’t—never think that, okay? I don’t want you to ever think that.”

Jon lifts his hand to Martin’s hair, runs his fingers through the tussled curls where they’re fuzzy from sleeping against the door. “Martin, meeting you—it was a gift. It’s always been a gift.”

Martin sobs, his face wet against the seam of Jon’s jumper. “I wish I’d never agreed to Peter’s plan.”

“I understand why you did. And I forgive you, if you need to hear it.”

“But I’ve ruined everything.”

“Nothing is ruined beyond repair, Martin.”

“What if the Lonely calls me back?”

Jon holds tighter, as if the Lonely is already at their backs, creeping closer. “We’ll deal with it.”

“You said yourself…” Martin sobs again. “You said—when we went to Kent—you said—”

“I said it didn’t matter how long Naomi and Evan had. I remember.”

Martin is shaking against him. “Did you…?”

“I meant it. Not because—it’s not because I didn’t care, although I know I was trying very hard to give that impression, at the time. I meant it because no amount of time would have been enough. Love is… it’s outlasting. It makes its own time.”

“Jon—”

“No, please, Martin, I—I need to say this. No matter how long we get, whether it’s days or—or years. It won’t be enough. I’ll always…” Jon laughs, a small, fragile thing. “Well, I’ll always want more. Perhaps you don’t believe me, or you—you can’t, right now. But you, Martin, you are enough. Always. I will spend every moment we get together ensuring you believe that. If you’ll have me, of course. There’s—of course, there’s no obligation, and I would—I’d understand if—but it’s true. It’s all true.” Jon laughs again, feeling giddy. “I want to spend all of my time with you, Martin. For as long as you’ll have me.”

Slowly, they pull away from each other, but not far. Jon moves his hands up Martin’s arms, over his shoulders, until they rest on his cheeks, and he finally allows himself the privilege of wiping away Martin’s tears with his thumb.

“I wish it hadn’t taken—well, all of this—” Martin makes a vague gesture with his hand, which still somehow encompasses everything: tea stains on statements, worms at the door and shoulder-to-shoulder against the wall, trips to the café heavy with paranoia, quiet goodbyes, missed moments. “To get here.”

Jon rubs his thumb against Martin’s cheek. “We can’t go back.”

“I know.”

“Will you…?” Jon takes a steadying breath. There are so many questions, but only one matters, in this moment. The rest will follow, one day. “Martin, will you take it day by day with me? And if that doesn’t work—hour by hour, minute by minute. Together.”

There’s a breathless pause. And then Martin laughs, a genuine smile splitting his face for the first time in—well, Jon can’t remember how long. It’s small and tentative, but it’s there. And it means everything to Jon.

“Yes,” Martin tells him.

Jon smiles, too.

“I’m scared,” Martin murmurs, smile wavering slightly.

“Me too.”

“But I—I want to try.”

Jon feels his smile grow. “That’s enough. Always.”

Martin’s smile finds its feet again.

“Are you ready to keep going?” Jon asks.

Martin lifts his hands to Jon’s and squeezes. “I’m ready.”

In the silvery-grey headlights on the tarmac ahead, Jon thinks he sees the outline of the words he is still looking for the strength to share.

I love you.

Soon. He’ll say it soon. He has time.

*

The sun is just rising when they reach the safehouse. It welcomes them like an old friend, worn stone bathed in newborn sunlight as if to say hello, as if to smile at their arrival. Jon insists they are safe here, though his heart is unsure. Martin can’t shake the feeling that this is won’t be forever, though his heart wants to hope this might be it.

Maybe they will have a lifetime here. Maybe not.

Love makes its own time, Martin thinks. And Jon smiles and leads them both towards home.

[leam1983]

On Grief

This is a long one. You're under no obligation to push further if you don't want to. It's a personal post, so I'll more than understand if this isn't to your tastes. The normally-scheduled pedantry, commentary and memes will resume shortly.

One of my relatives was diagnosed with ALS. What started as an odd case of palsy in her left set of vocal cords that could've been far more benign was just confirmed by her referred physician. It's Lou Gherig's, and with her age and current condition, her prognosis is of three to five years, tops. Sure, Stephen Hawking blew his own prognosis out of the water, but a combination of notoriety and luck enabled him to eke out as much existence as medical tech could've possibly allowed.

We knew things were suspect when my aunt, a marathoner with a monthly sub to Runner's World, stopped running. Her food intake dropped like a stone, and she soon took to increasingly simple painting and drawing styles. At first we thought it was just her wanting to explore simpler rendering techniques, but then...

Then we noticed the twitching. How awkwardly her pens and brushes were set in her hands. She was in great shape and didn't mind living in the ass-end of Sutton, basically in the open country and with a path leading up to her front door that was all in rough cobblestones. She broke a hip against them, last year.

Her speech started to slur, lately. Her last bike trip also landed her in the ER. She doesn't bike anymore. She doesn't run, and being a gourmand by nature, feels obligated to restrain herself, for fear of gaining weight. She's aggressively vegan. Not towards others, but towards herself. No meat, no eggs, nothing. Most of us ovo-lactos and omnivores in the family know her constant snacking meant her seventy-plus body is desperate for energy.

From the look of things, it feels like the diagnosis broke through her bullshit reasoning for being vegan. She wasn't vegan for the sake of limiting her carbon footprint or making more responsible choices at the grocery store, but because she, as a lifelong anorexic, thought she was ugly and needed to lose weight. That's been a constant with her. Age catches up and skin sags? She mistakes it for a love handle, cuts out virtually all sources of protein and carbs safe for tofu, seitan and bean-based preps. Of course, like a lot of anorexics, she'd have bulemic episodes. I used to sleep over at her last bachelor pad, as a teen, and I remember her pantry was loaded up for bear with Danish cookie tins, Nutella jars and whipped cream. I remember she invited me over specifically when she intended to cheat. Then it was back to yoga, pot-smoking, meditation and shopping runs - and she probably kept her purging for when I was gone.

So yeah. I'm betting Belgian Asshole (see one of my previous posts) convinced her to break her vows and went looking for a "slice of authentic Tikka Masala", to quote his email. The entire family is made up of ethnic food diehards, so we spam-flooded his inbox with recommendations. Looks like she'll be eating meat again, soon. Her own email mentioned concerns of strength and stamina, so I get it.

Otherwise? We're gobsmacked. Imagine spending an entire weekday both at work and off work, aggressively goofing off because you're trying as hard as you can not to think of your favourite aunt's mention of assisted suicide as an option.

Three to five years. Maybe one, or two good Christmases. After that, her condition should probably have started to deteriorate quickly.

I'm not close with a ton of my own family. I love them all, but it's more a sense of polite respect than anything involving solid bonds. The only two folks I know I'll be devastated for when they'll die are her, and my youngest cousin on the other side of the family.

I'm mostly okay now. No doubts, no crisis of unbelief, no anger, no rage... But then I'll see her in a more diminished state, one of those days. How am I going to take to it?

Part of me keeps a tally of the deaths in the family. First, it was my uncle on my mother's side. Ruptured abdominal artery, with a leak small enough to pool into the gut's cavity for months. Decay settled in, guy got anesthetized for an intervention...

They didn't even bother sewing him back up.

Second one was my other paternal aunt's new husband. First one was great, but left the country in the seventies to go live in Stockholm with his medical assistant. Second one was a geologist and physicist at the same campus she taught as. French guy, the son of innkeepers four generations down. It showed, too. Our Christmas tables haven't been the same since he left us his recipie books, all his corny jokes on provincial eating habits, and his obstinate focus on turning every 25th of December into a Roman orgy probably befitting of the old Saturnalia traditions. I mean, when's the last time you've had an eight-course meal, outside of Thanksgiving?

Tumors in his mesenteric artery lined the blood vessel's inner walls, deposited virtually everywhere in his body. He was diagnosed in June and dead by August. He'd always been the lanky type, bone-thin even if he hoovered food like he'd never have enough. He looked even thinner in his hospital bed.

Then, my maternal grandpa bit it. Decades of casual alcoholism, cirrhosis more or less jumping on him around his seventy-sixth year. He looked a bit like John Keston, the actor who played Gehn in CyanWorlds' Riven. Same hairline, same hawkish nose, same eyes - just more Cajun and less New England-esque. I don't know if it was youth or stupidity or - anything, really, but I dropped by to see him, just two days before he died. I didn't realize he was tallying my life, asking me if I had everything in order, if things were planned.

Now, I understand.

Next one on the chopping block is Aunt Doris, still on Mom's side. She of the serial mooching, she of the concept of not needing much to get by if you were the cute one of the family. She was pretty enough in her prime, sure - if by pretty you meant "cigarette-butt blonde with a discount Farah Fawcett blow-up and an unfinished High School degree". First husband was an abusive ass who gave her an uncommonly sensitive son, second one figured she'd stick to the minimum-wage circuit while he tore out rotator cuffs or busted his C7 while on his outboard like clockwork. By the end, she roped my grandmother into living with her, spent her days sloppy-drunk and died on her ratty couch while falling asleep and choking on her own vomit.

Before them all, the youngest of my uncles died at age two. Cancer. Never knew which one, was told it didn't matter. You didn't survive much of anything cancerous, back in the late fifties.

Ping-pong this back to three years ago, and my oldest paternal uncle dies. Paul, who smoked like a chimney for most of his life and successfully stopped after discovering Champix. He got to live five great years as the high-IQ oddball he'd always been, smoke-free. Paul was the weird bird in the family, the type to remember a really engrossing story at two in the morning and making a note to call you up first thing in the morning to share it. He always had a project of some sort to work on, like a simulated investors' tank for young entrepreneurs looking to learn the ropes, or a Byzantine arrangement of coaxials allowing four of his lakeside neighbours to pirate his cable sub. He'd invite us over for dinner, gather all the ingredients we'd need for whatever it was he wanted to treat us to - and then he'd let us cook it - just sitting by the sidelines, chatting away.

He was also a bit of a narcoleptic, and looked a bit like William Howard Taft if you'd worked him out of these old sack suits and into modern shirts and suspenders. He fell asleep practically everywhere, with his more wakeful environments being his workshop and his property's dock. He took me out fishing, once, and knew what the entire family expected.

"Oars're here, Gremlin, fish're that way. Wake me up when you've got a bite."

At this point, it wasn't even a point of concern; it was just an Uncle Paul Thing, the exact thing you'd have expected out of this kind, eccentric blob of a man whose idea of fishing involved pushing his hat over his eyes and basically all but ensuring that his roaring snores would scare prey away. He'd been a supposedly high-IQ type, terminally bored with almost everything, only really getting agitated and interested back when I asked him for help for my Junior High Computer class's Javascript calculator. Once the syntax hit something familiar and he realized that JS has some similarities with FORTRAN, he was on a roll, acting like someone had snuck a Red Bull in his coffee.

Well, fibrosis caught up with him. His last hours were spent directing us on how to cook what would've been his last meal. I think he really just wanted to know we were alright, that we still could exchange laughs around the kitchen counter. He clocked out the way he always did, except he had an oxygen tube running under his nose. His head bobbed down, he snored loudly for a few minutes, then turned increasingly quiet...

And that was it.

And now there's Isabelle. The marathoner, my partner-in-crime when it comes to professing to have a healthy diet while occasionally cheating in glorious, weekend-defining means, my gateway to cannabis and also the first person who took my cringy self-insert fanfic fodder and went No, that's worth it! Push it, develop that universe of yours!

I wouldn't be almost two-thirds of the way through my first decent manuscript, if not for her, and I wouldn't be shopping for publishers with the same energy you'd reserve for weekend-grade Facebook putzing-about. I owe her part of my self-acceptance, and part of my discovery of what defines my routine to this day. Isabelle was my first meditation coach.

And in three to five years, she might be gone.

I just thought grief might be... noisier, is all. Louder. Right now, it's just germane to confusion, and it's sitting there. There's a pinch of fear in it, too. My parents are in their mid-sixties. How long do I have left with them?!

And the family and I just covered that up with jokes and, well, cooking. I've been told I'd make a half-decent therapist but - navigating your own emotions is hard work...

I don't know. I guess I needed to put this down somewhere.

[halfway-happyyy]

An Invisible String

AN: This is something I’ve been working on for quite a while now, and it is a little different than my usual pieces. It will probably be about three or four installments. If you enjoy it (or even if you don’t) (I don’t do too many chaptered pieces... like, ever) please feel free to send feedback. Warnings include: mentions of suicidal tendencies, depression, anxiety, past mentions of domestic physical and mental abuse. Loosely inspired by the music video for ‘High Hopes’ by Kodaline.

Synopsis: Depressed, suicidal and recently single Alexander Skarsgård is at the end of his rope. But he is about to find out that no matter where you come from, what your pain looks like, or what your truth is... The universe will always fight for souls to be together.

part 2, part 3

“I mean… Maybe, somehow, something good will come of all this change.”

Those words had chimed through the confines of his brain like a clear bell, multiple times since he had last laid eyes on her. He sighed heavily and drew an arm back to cast his fishing line out into the great blue abyss before him. Though he had loved his wife with every fiber of his being, he had grown to detest her incessant need to find the positives in every single situation, towards the dissolution of their ten-year marriage.

“Oh, Alexander.” She caressed a warm palm against the curve of his stubbled cheek. “I just think it wasn’t in the cards for us, my love.”

A single day had not passed that he did not wish his relationship with her had ended differently. Past arguments, miniscule or gargantuan in scale often played on a loop in his mind like a scratched record. Was there anything within his power that he could have done to make her stay? He had concluded a while ago that that question would likely torment him for the rest of his life if he let it. And as the burnt orange sun sank low over the Baltic Sea, he took solace in the fact that he would not have to wonder long at all.

Three hundred and sixty-five days had elapsed since his wife had left him, and daily routines had been mostly kept the same. He still managed to get up every morning, still went for walks around the park. Every now and then he would strap on his hip-waders and fish for hours, and when he was finished, he would go home and shower and then head to the pub for the evening. He found early on that there was not enough alcohol in the world that he could consume to drown out the dreams of her. Frustratingly, days took longer to get through. And it was not that he minded the sudden aloneness… As the eldest brother of seven siblings he had come to enjoy solitude. Quiet mornings out on the water, even quieter evenings at home with a warm fire and a book. It was the fact that this loneliness had been thrust upon him like an extremely unwanted gift. He had no idea what to do with it. So, after careful consideration he made up his mind one morning over a cup of scalding, black coffee that just simply disappearing would probably be the easiest solution to his problems. She had clearly moved on, and it was only fitting that he try and do the same as well… just on a more permanent level. So, he allowed himself a week to set his affairs in order, left a letter for each of his siblings, and on a Friday morning in mid-May took the car to a field a few blocks away from his house. He fixed one end of the hose to the exhaust pipe with an old sock, and the other he fed back into the car from the front window. He could not begin to guess how long this whole ordeal would take, and he wondered briefly if it would be as insignificant as simply falling asleep. Just as he was about to turn the ignition over, he heard in the distance the sound of muffled yelling. He glanced towards the rearview mirror but could make out nothing of consequence, so he sat back a moment and listened. The yelling grew louder, and another glance to the rearview mirror offered something he could not quite make sense of. A woman was running full tilt towards his car, the edges of her white wedding dress clutched tightly in both fists. As she approached the car faster, he noticed a mob of angry men crest the hilltop behind her and she stopped at his door, her chest heaving under the duress of the journey she had just completed. Mascara cascaded down her face like raindrops down a windowsill and she cocked her head to the side in unabashed astonishment. “Alexander?” She inquired, breathlessly.

In a state of shock, he opened his door to get out and stocked around to the back of the car, yanking the hose and sock from the exhaust pipe. He then wandered to the passenger side and held the door open for her which she had obliged gratefully. He paid no more attention to the fast-approaching group of men as he tossed the hose and sock into the backseat and shoved the car into drive. An eerie silence befell the vehicle while his passenger tried to catch her breath. Alexander found the questions he wanted to ask her were suddenly boundless; What on earth could Thea McHugh be doing in this field, in a wedding dress of all things? Where was she going? And most importantly, what had happened to her? He scratched a hand uncomfortably along the strip of stubble beneath his chin, formulating how best to broach the first subject. “Thea… my god. What- where can I bring you?”

She took a steadying breath and turned to him, gaze downcast. “I have nowhere to go.”

He allowed himself a second to take his focus from the road to glance at her. “You don’t reside around here?”

She shook her head. “I lived with my fiancé.”

Alexander was not entirely sure when he had made the decision to bring her back to his home, but if he had to guess, it was probably around the time she had pulled the discarded sock over her fist and used it as a macabre hand puppet. Halfway through the drive he noticed the tip of his silver flask peeking out from beneath the leather interior of his side door and he offered her some of its contents, which she accepted graciously. Neither of them said much as he drove up the lane to the house in which he had bid goodbye not less than two hours earlier. He shifted the car into park and sat unmoving, sparing himself a few moments to try and figure out what the fuck he was going to do now. “Is there anyone I can call for you?” He asked after a while.

She shook her head wordlessly.

Alexander elicited a small sigh and glanced toward the stone structure a few yards away, hardly believing the words that had begun to take shape in his mind. “Listen… I’ve got plenty of space here, if you need a few days to get your feet back on solid ground.”

Her eyes widened and she shook her head no, her pink lips parting in protest. “I couldn’t intrude on you like that… we’re strangers now.”

“Yeah, well… we weren’t always.” He shrugged slowly and took a steadying breath. “Look- there is a motel a few miles down the road that I would be happy to take you to… but I wouldn’t suggest it to my worst enemy. And by the sounds of it, you don’t have any close kin around anymore,” Again, he scratched a hand through the stubble on the underside of his chin. “And your business is entirely your own Thea, but if you need a place to stay, and if you’re not too weary of strangers,” He was not sure how much he liked the sound of that word. “Then I think I could be of some assistance to you.”

She offered up a small smile. “If it really wouldn’t be too much of an imposition- I would be very appreciative, thank you.”

Clambering out of the vehicle, he made his way over to her side of the door and opened it so that she could exit. She followed him up the narrow, cobbled path to the front door and stood a few feet behind him while he fumbled around in his pocket for the keys. He took a deep breath, fit the key into the lock and pushed the door open. He leant against the frame for support as she quietly stepped past him into the darkened entrance. “It's not much…” He found himself murmuring as he watched her take in her current surroundings.

She turned to him, eyes glimmering vibrantly in the waning dusk light. “It's more than enough. Thank you, Alexander.”

He cleared his throat and offered her a curt nod in response, pushing himself back from the wooden doorframe. “I'll be right back with some clothing… for you.” He fished around at the back of his wardrobe for a pair of tattered sweatpants, a t shirt and sweater. When he returned moments later, she had found herself a seat at the kitchen table, her gaze fixed out the garden window at something unseen. She smiled graciously and accepted the clothing with a quiet thank you. “The washroom is down the hall on the left.” He watched her disappear and turned to brace himself against the kitchen sink. Five minutes had elapsed before he heard the familiar creak of the opening bathroom door. He waited for any other indication that she was coming back but when he missed it, he followed the sound of the silence. He found her perched inside the threshold of another room in which he made a conscious habit of completely forgetting was there. He cleared his throat to make his presence known and she turned to him, eyes wide.

“May I go in?”

Alexander shifted uneasily on the spot. Finally, he shrugged his shoulders and conceded. “Sure.”

He had accidentally picked up painting a year and half after he had gotten married. His studio had never really meant to be one for art, but rather a nursery for the baby girl who never quite made the journey into the world. He had returned home after a fishing weekend away with his brothers to find that his wife had done away with everything in the room except that she had left behind an easel, a tin of brushes, and numerous tubes of oil paint.

Thea wandered slowly around the room, absorbing the canvases adorning almost every square inch of space. He marveled at how bizarre it was to feel so naked in front of someone he never thought he would see again. He watched her trace a feather-light touch over an angry mass of scarlet paint on one of the last canvases he had ever worked on. She let her hand drop to her side and turned to him, eyebrow cocked in question. “When did you get into painting?”

He scratched absentmindedly at a spot on the back of his neck. “About twelve years ago, now.”

“These are gorgeous.”

Alexander chewed anxiously at the hollow of his cheek. “They used to help pass the time.” He allowed himself a moment to regard her in the dim evening light of the room. His clothing fit loose on her, and he tried in vain to ignore the questions creeping back into his mind. There still existed something entirely alluring about her; perhaps it was the way that she still seemed so much like the eighteen-year old girl he had fallen for so many years before- time had been kind to her. Or maybe it was the simple fact that she had known him long before his life cracked open and fell apart. Not caring much for where this train of thought was taking him, he cleared his throat and gestured to the kitchen. “I'm going to get something together for dinner.”

Eating together had been a quiet affair. He had found that the questions he had been burning to ask earlier felt inappropriate at this point, so he simply kept to himself. It also did not help that he was entirely unaccustomed to having another living, breathing person in the house with him. When she was finished eating, Thea excused herself from the table to rinse her dishes and gestured with her chin to his empty plate. “Are you finished?”

“All done,” Alexander confirmed and rose from his chair to join her at the sink. “You don’t need to do that…” He murmured as he watched her turn the tap to full hot and pump three gobs of green dish soap into the water beneath her.

Thea shrugged indifferently. “It’s the least I can do. Dinner was delicious, by the way.”

He glanced over at the fried cod in the cast-iron pan, and at the garden-picked green beans in the yellow flowered dish next to it on the stove. He had never been much of a cook, so he suspected that she had merely said that to be polite, but he accepted the compliment with another curt nod regardless. When the dishes were done, he cleared his throat and swayed from side to side, hands buried deep in his denim pockets. “I can give you a quick tour of the place if you’d like.” Thea smiled softly and nodded her head in agreeance. He stocked down the hardwood floored hallway, intending to show her to her room first. The door had been closed and he hesitated a second before opening it to reveal a quaint guest room. He flicked on the light and stood back as she wandered into the room, taking every inch of it in. The walls had been washed in a robin’s-egg blue, and a wicker chair stood in the corner of the room next to a white pain-chipped wardrobe. White floor-length linen curtains hung from the windowsill beneath a cream-coloured wire bedframe. “If there’s anything you need…” He offered awkwardly. “Extra blankets, or anything of the like… please let me know.”

Thea turned to him; her arms wrapped protectively around her frame and offered up a small smile. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

He turned on his heel and left without saying anything, assuming she would follow which she did. “The bathroom is here, the handle on the toilet can be a bit dodgy so just watch out for that when you can.” He wracked his brain for any other useful information that he could offer up. “Uh and the bathtub…” He gestured with his chin to the white claw-foot tub beneath the cracked window. “The water tends to get extremely hot incredibly fast so you may need to run the cold water a little bit beforehand.” He nodded his head in finality, took one last look around the washroom and left her be.

Sleep had continued to evade him that night as it had almost every night for the past two years. The questions had been ceaseless; each time he had just nearly drifted off, another one swam into his mind’s eye and he found himself obsessing over it. What was he thinking bringing her into his house? Why had he even entertained the idea in the first place? What was it about her? He lay awake until the clock next to his bed read ‘3:47 A’, and the birdsong floating in on the half-open window helped to lull his body into a fitful slumber. He jolted awake a few hours later to the sound of a crash in the direction of the kitchen. A cold sweat had broken out over the expanse of his naked upper body, and he fought to keep his breathing slow and steady while he came to the realization that he was not alone anymore. He fumbled around in the dawn light for the beige cable-knit sweater next to his bed, which he threw over himself with a shiver. The scent of sizzling butter in a hot pan greeted him first, followed by freshly brewed coffee. It made his mouth water and it struck him that he could not remember the last time he had been genuinely hungry for food. He was not entirely sure what he would find when he rounded the corner to the kitchen, so when he saw Thea’s form bent over the stove he was taken aback. He stood staring longer than he cared to admit, while she scrambled what looked like eggs, a furrowed expression heavy on her face. She pulled back from the stove to glance around the area, searching for something unknown. “Are you looking for the salt?” He had startled her because she pulled back from the stove as if she had been burned, her eyes wide and alarmed. 

She shook her head slowly. “The pepper…” 

Alexander jutted his chin towards the hanging shelf above her head. It was adorned with bottles of olive oil, a dish of salt and sugar, and a pepper grinder. She smiled gratefully at him and reached for it. “I think I woke you up…” She murmured as she twisted the black grinder above the eggs cooking in the pan. “I’m sorry.”

Alexander shook his head wordlessly and pulled out the chair at the kitchen table. “I’m not uh… exactly used to having someone else around so there isn’t really much I don’t miss.”

“I took the liberty of cooking some breakfast. I couldn’t remember how you took your eggs, so I decided to play it safe and scramble them.” She turned to face him; her expression unreadable. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.” He watched her fumble around for the cupboard with the plates and almost gave in when she elicited a triumphant ‘a-ha!’ And pulled two ceramic yellow plates from the cupboard in the far corner. “Mugs are in the cupboard next to it,” He offered easily. She threw him back a thumbs up in response.

“Do you still take your coffee black?” She asked.

Alexander scrubbed a palm down the side of his stubbled cheek. “Yes please.”

She joined him at the table a moment later, setting down his plate of steaming eggs, fresh buttered toast and a sliced apple. She poured him a cup of coffee which he thanked her for and watched her spoon two heaping spoonsful of sugar into her own mug. They were silent as they went to work on their breakfasts, both basking in the warm sunny glow from the open kitchen window. “How did you end up out here, if I may ask?” She asked once she had taken her last bite of egg.

Alexander swallowed back a mouthful of the deliciously warm liquid and shook his head. “I moved out here when I met my wife.”

The only indication that Thea had been surprised at this revelation was by the way her expressive gaze widened the slightest bit. She too stole herself a sip of coffee before she asked her next question. “And you live here… alone now?”

“I do.” He tipped the last of the liquid into his mouth and removed himself from the chair, taking her empty plate as he did so. “Thank you for the breakfast.”

“It was my pleasure.”

After the morning wash-up, Alexander excused himself to tend to some things that needed done around the house. They were menial tasks; a broken hinge to a door in the basement, a couple of the chairs in the kitchen were loose and falling apart and were in dire need of some good, old fashioned hammer and nails. They were simple undertakings that he had never intended to make good on- Because as far as he was concerned, and it was all written down in his will, his house would go to his brother Bill and their growing family. None of this would have been any of his problem if he had just followed through with his original plan yesterday. But as usual, and he was beginning to think that this was simply his lot in life, there was always something else just around the corner for him.

Dinner had been less of a quiet affair that evening. Alexander had come up earlier in the day to thaw a chicken he had found in the freezer that morning and had left it to roast in its own seasonings. Thea prepared roasted potatoes to go with it, and instead of making any semblance of a salad, (he very badly needed to grocery shop) he threw together a bowl of chopped cherry tomatoes, a few handfuls of garden-grown basil, fresh sliced red onions and balsamic vinegar. “You like cooking now?” Thea asked as she stood leant against the stove watching Alexander chop the cherry tomatoes.

Alexander offered up a gruff laugh in response. “Does anyone enjoy cooking, Thea?”

“Mhm, as a matter of fact lots of people do.”

He tossed the rest of the tomatoes into the glass bowl and reached for the onion. “I suppose you’re right… but I wouldn’t say it’s my favourite thing in the world.” He glanced over at her. “I think it’s one of those things that if you’re only doing it for yourself, it becomes more of a chore than a hobby.” Which was true for him at the very least. He had enjoyed cooking when he and his wife lived together but after she left, the passion for it had dissipated almost as suddenly as she had.

“Alexander, the chicken…” Thea’s voice, or rather the sound of his name from her mouth caught him off guard and shook him from his reverie. The timer on the oven had begun to elicit a high pitch whistling sound which he turned off and reached for a ripped dish towel on the counter below him. “Smells delicious,” She simpered as he pulled the scalding dish from the oven and set it on a hot plate at the set table.

“Yes well… hopefully it’s edible.”

Alexander had a hard time remembering a dinner in recent memory that was as satisfying as the one he had just consumed. He sat back in his chair; one arm slung around the top of the wooden frame. “What do you do for a living now, Thea?”

She swallowed the sip of wine she had just taken and set the glass against the wooden tabletop with a soft thud. “I owned a bakery and café downtown.” There was something familiar in the way her eyes twinkled in whatever light she happened to be in that made Alexander want to spend the next fifty years staring at her. He watched her trace a fingertip around the rim of her almost empty glass. “The business... went under two and half months before my wedding.” A silence had befallen them that was not necessarily uncomfortable. “How about you?” She asked after a while, meeting his gaze across the table.

Alexander shook his head. “I don’t work at the moment.” 

If she was surprised by this, she never let it show. “I’m sorry to hear that,” She offered softly. Alexander could hear the earnestness in her tone and believed her. “What did you do?”

He cleared his throat and deposited the rest of the white wine into his open mouth. “I owned an art gallery in town,” He glanced at the empty wine bottle and suddenly wished that there had been more. “I sold the business about a year and a half ago now. Just after my divorce was finalized.”

As the silence took shape around them, Alexander knew there existed something unspoken between the pair of them; some sort of invisible barrier which hindered either of them from asking what they so desperately wanted to know, which was: What on earth were you doing in that field yesterday afternoon?

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #381

“don’t try to be the one person who has stayed just to say they never left me”

Do you feel bored with your life? Always. Do you miss anyone who was mean to you in the past? I sometimes miss Colleen, but I know it's for the better that we no longer associate with each other. What’s the most weight you’ve ever gained from a medication? I don't know, but a fuck of a lot. Thanks, Abilify. Have you ever been suicidal? Yes. Do you pray? If yes, to whom? No. What do you miss about high school? Memories with Jason. What do you miss the most about college? Socializing. What was the best date you’ve ever been on? A triple date to an arcade w/ Jason and friends. What’s the last great song you discovered? The most recent one? I don't know, really. Do you feel free to post how you feel on Facebook? Yeah. Don't like what I post, delete me. Have you ever done cocaine? Yikes, no thanks. Do you think you’ll ever get married? Do you want to? I sometimes wonder if I ever will. I'm scared of just continuing to be an unemployed leech that is doing nothing significant with her life, in which case it's like, why even be with me romantically. I feel like such a dead end street. I want to get married someday. Who do you care about the most? When it comes down to it, probably my mom. Have you ever made out on a couch? Yeah. Would you ever get gauged ears? I want small gauges, actually. When it comes to clothing, are you the conservative type? Yes, because I hate my body and don't want others to see it. Do you enjoy eating? I wish I didn't. Have you ever ridden in a race car? No. Do you go out of your way to impress the opposite gender? No. Do you enjoy history? Not really, no. It bores me. Are you a pajama person or do you stay dressed all day? I'm just about always in my pjs. Do you value looks or personality more? Personality is way more important. Have you ever changed religions? Yeah. Born Roman Catholic, converted to Christianity when I further understood the differences, then I went to how I am now: I believe in something(s), but I don't quite know what. I wouldn't call myself a Neo-Pagan, but it's what I relate most to. Would you ever wear fake eyelashes? I would for like, my wedding. Foo fighters vs. Red Hot Chili Peppers: I'm actually not a big fan of either. Are you a fan of the SAW movies? I don't really watch them. Do you ever forget how old your siblings are? My two immediate sisters, I'm sometimes a year off. All my others, yes. :x Mountain Dew or Sprite? Mountain Dew, of course. I really don't like Sprite now, which is ironic because as a kid, it was my favorite soda. Could you ever give yourself a shot? Yeah. Have you ever worked as a cashier? That was one of my duties when I worked at a dollar store. If you are on birth control that allows you take pills and skip your period, how often do you opt to skip it? How come? My birth control doesn't allow me to skip, but rather, it regulates it. Is there a book series where you loved the first book, but for some reason the other books in the series just didn’t measure up? I can't say that, no, as most series I just kinda fell out of, like The Hunger Games. LOVED the first book, started the second, and even though I was enjoying it, I just stopped for some reason? Are there any stores/restaurants that you would like to shop/eat at, but there aren’t any located near enough to you? Haha yeah, like lots of west coast fast food places like Jack n' the Box or however it's formatted. If you were told by a professional that you were unable to become pregnant, how would that affect you? Is there something important to you about conceiving a biological child rather than adoption? And finally, if you even want to have children, would you choose adoption or surrogacy or would you go on childless? I don't even want kids, so honestly, I'd be stoked if I learned I was infertile. Wouldn't need to worry about the chance of getting pregnant and facing an abortion dilemma. Is there something that you did not used to take seriously, that you either now take seriously or wish that you had in the past (e.g., a relationship that you miss, your education, etc.)? Hm. I don't know. Are there any subjects that you are interested in so much that you would read whole books or academic journals about them? Meerkats, especially. I will read EVERY scientific article about them I find. Are you physically affectionate with your friends? I'm a hugger. When you were in middle school and high school, did you witness a lot of bullying? How did the teachers react to name-calling or violence? Not really, thankfully. Are any of your friends/relatives actually impressive artists or writers? Are you willing to share an example of their work? Yeah. I have a cousin who's really good at drawing, and my sister is a wonderful cake decorator. Do you drink more apple or orange juice? Orange. Could you forgive your best friend for sleeping with your gf/bf? My hypothetical bf/gf, no. Would you ever donate blood? I have before, and I would again if I knew I was hydrated enough and the opportunity was right there. Would you rather drink coffee or tea? Ugh, neither. Do you get easily embarrassed? YES. How long was your longest make out? TMI alert, like all night. If the person who hurt you most said they’re sorry would you believe them? I honestly don't know. Do you have sensitive skin? Very. What color is your mum's car? White. Do you live in an apartment? No. Do you have a pet fish? Nope. Are you happy with your eye color? I wish they were a more sapphire blue. Solid soap bar or liquid body wash? Absolutely liquid body wash. What color do you want your dream car to be? Baby pink. *-* Do you have more then one favorite band? I say I do, but at the same time I know Ozzy Osbourne will ALWAYS be #1. Do you prefer being single or in a relationship? In a relationship. But it's absolutely not something I'm about to force just for the sake of being in one. Would you be really upset if Facebook ceased to exist tomorrow? Nah. Have you or would you try shark meat? No to both. Do you know anyone that's pescatarian? No. Someone I watch on YouTube is, though. Are you shy or over confident around your crushes? Super shy. Do you think the govt. has a cure for cancer, but is hiding it from public? Hell, I think it's very well possible, but I lean more towards for financial hoarding, they simply don't further pursue potential cures that are discovered. I mean, just THINK about all the "future cures" you've read or heard about. It's fucking outrageous. It's all to fuel the medical industry. Okay, tin hat coming off. Last time you drank a diet soda? A very long time ago, because diet soda gives me a massive headache. Was your ex born in America? Only one wasn't. Name your favorite type of music and why. Metal. I for one just like the sound, and I find it very therapeutic when I'm especially mad or sad. Even when I'm in a good mood, I just enjoy it. I also feel that a lot of metal songs tell interesting stories and/or have very poetic lyrics. Do you own or have you read, or thought of reading any self-help books? I haven't, but I've considered it. Can you breakdance? Definitely not. Have you ever read a book and not understood it? If so which one? Yes. We were assigned this one war novel in middle school that was FUCKING AWFUL, like I was checked out the whole time. I don't remember its name or anything. Have you ever watched a movie and not understood it? If so which one? Yes; the Warcraft movie I mentioned in a recent survey. Orcs and their fucking deep-ass voice that I couldn't understand. Do you blowdry your hair? No. Tell me about your dream last night. Omfgggggg y'all. So, there's one invert pet that I've never understood the keeping appeal of, and that's giant centipedes. Their bites are notoriously excruciating, and they are just SO goddamn fast. Well, for some godforsaken reason, I wanted one as a pet. Got one, and it immediately got loose. Guess who wanted to shit herself lmao. Centipedes are very cool, but only from a distance, ya feel? Have you ever stayed in a fancy high-class rich hotel? No. Have you ever stayed in a rent-by-the-hour motel? I don't think so. Describe the worst fight you’ve ever been in whether physical or verbal. I'm not entirely sure about my *worst*, but I know it was with Mom. We've had a few. Have you heated any food in your microwave today? Yeah, a shrimp alfredo Lean Cuisine bowl. Do you own any items of clothing with cartoon characters on them? Yes. Have you ever played Animal Crossing? No, it doesn't seem like my kinda game. Do you own anything (e.g jewelry, accessories) with your initial on it? Yes, but none of which I personally bought because I don't really like them. Do you own any cats or dogs? What are their names? I have a cat named Roman. <3 Have you added any books to your shelves lately? Which? No. Have you bought any new cosmetics or toiletries lately? Which? No. Do your pets have a specific type of food that they prefer? Roman will eat whatever cat food he's given, while Venus, like your average ball python, is a picky eater. Like when I first got her, she wouldn't eat for almost a year because I just couldn't find a method through which she'd accept food. Now she consistently takes frozen/thawed small rats that have actually sat in warm water (versus doing it by hand under running water), and she generally won't strike it unless it's offered to her by tongs, but not dangling by the tail. Picky, picky miss thang. What's your favourite variety of apple? I'm not very particular about flavor so long as the apple is crisp. I canNOT do soft apples. Which of your physical features do you receive the most compliments about? My hair.

[novadust86]

The Best Laid Plans CH2

Chapter 2: Confessions of a teenage cat girl

Hermione was just finishing unpacking her trunk, and was working through what she needed to do: shelving her books; sorting her clothes, putting the clean ones away and putting the dirty ones, that the magic of Hogwarts haven't cleaned yet, in the hamper; and setting her photos of her parents and other nick nacks in their proper places.

The drive home had been filled with Hermione asking her parents how their year had been. Now that they were home she was expecting to be called downstairs for what she jokingly thought of as her interrogation. It had become a sort of tradition; on her first evening home from Hogwarts, Her parents would pick up a take-away* that broke all their rules about healthy eating and sugary drinks. Then, over the distractingly enticing dinner they would talk about what had happened while she was away at school.

It wasn't long before she heard her mum call for her. Hermione made her way to the dining room to find her parents at the table, ready with pizza and fried chicken, all steaming hot waiting for her. Hermione sat and served herself, savouring the unhealthy food that was a rare treat at home. In fact, now that she thought about it, it had been almost a year since she had last eaten pizza. It wasn't in the Hogwarts meal rotation that tended to favor classic British food, and she hadn't left Hogwarts at all this year.

“So, Kitten”, her father then winced at his phrasing. He had used the old nickname on reflex and immediately regretted it, worried how his daughter would take it. Hermione, however, was laughing at his reaction to his own perceived faux pas*. After getting herself under control she grinned back at him, “it’s ok dad, you can still call me kitten. You have been doing it for as long as I can remember…I’d miss it if you stopped.”

“Ok, then...kitten”, he seemed decidedly uncomfortable with using the nickname now, “in the letters we received from you and McGonagall, who says she’s your Head of House, we were expecting to see cat ears and a tail, but I don't, so did they find a cure...or did your teachers hide them for you?”

Hermione finished chewing her bite of pizza; the toppings were a favorite she shared with her mum, which were ham, mushrooms, pineapple and prawns. “They are hidden, but it was Harry who found a way to hide them. Not one of the teachers. He gave me this hair band today, the spells on it give me somewhere to put the ears. There is also a similar item for my tail.” She hesitated a second, then, checking that the curtains were closed and seeing that it was safe as they were alone, Hermione removed the hair band, revealing the brown and blond tabby cat ears for her parents to see.

Hermione sat there, waiting to hear what her parents would say. They sat in silence for what was probably only about thirty seconds, but they were the longest seconds of her life. Waiting for them to pass judgment on her. Would they think her a freak? Would they disown the monster she had become? Would they insist that she stop coming home from school at Christmas and Easter? Just do their job until they could kick her out once she finished school?

The anxiety-driven thoughts were driven from her head just as quickly when her mum spoke up finally, “Your ears look lovely dear”, with just those five words, Hermione relaxed immensely, feeling a tension she hadn't known she carried slip away, “Is your tail the same colour?”

Hermione's head bounced up and down, “Yes, I would show you, but taking the bag off my tail is difficult in this skirt”, it would also have been embarrassing, the high waist meant that the only way her tail could go was down. This was fine most of the time, but if she got happy or angry her tail tended to shoot up, and that was the last thing she wanted while in a skirt. 

“Did you say bag, Honey?” Her mother seemed a bit confused. Hermione slipped into her lecture mode as she explained to her parents about the three bags and how two of them were concealed in the hair band and how each of the bags had an undetectable expansion charm on them, that created extradimensional space inside the bags. Her parents caught on quickly and soon the whole family were having fun making Doctor who references.

“So, Hermione, you mentioned a few other changes in your letters. I think me and your mum need to hear them all”, the joking was over and they were back to the main topic. “Well...you know about the ears and tail. The ears give me better hearing. It's not magic, it's just that the ears are so big compared to normal ears. My taste in food changed a little, I like fish, chicken, milk and cheese more now”, her parents nodded along; the cheese part was new to them but Hermione had already mentioned in her letters about how her taste in food had changed. Mr Granger had already added a few tins* of different types of fish to the shopping when he picked up the groceries a few days ago. “I also understand cats better. I just seem to know what they are trying to tell me”, Hermione hesitated for a second, thinking about something else, before saying, “that's it.”

Her parents looked at each other, silently debating whether to push. One of the letters they had gotten from Hermione's Head of House had mentioned their daughter was now taking a potion once a month to manage some other aspect of her transformation. Her mother, who had a suspicion about it just what was about, suggested waiting when her husband spoke up, “Hermione we know there's more. Your Professor mentioned a potion you now need to take. Now tell us everything”, he usually wasn’t this harsh, but he was concerned for his daughter and to help her, he needed to know what was the problem.

Hermione sat in her seat fidgeting nervously. It wasn't that she was keeping it from her parents, just that she didn't want to talk about such things with her dad. It had been bad enough when Harry had asked about the potion, but she could tell Harry to drop it and he would listen. She knew that he was still worried about her, but he had relaxed a lot when she promised him it was nothing dangerous.

And it really wasn't, but how do you tell your new twelve-year-old boyfriend that the potion you are taking is to stop you from losing control and jumping him every month?

She definitely wasn’t ready to have that conversation with Harry and she didn’t think Harry was ready for it either. And Hermione really wasn’t ready to talk to her dad about it, “Um…dad, it’s...“, Hermione was trying to work out a way to phrase things when her mother came to her rescue, “Hermione honey, is this a mother-daughter discussion?” Hermione blushed, nodded and suddenly found a bit of lint in her lap very interesting, so interesting that she missed that her father was just as suddenly interested in one of the pictures on the wall. Her mother smiled at two of them; they were so alike at times.

The discussion moved on swiftly; the talk about the potion postponed until later, when the two Granger women could talk alone. They asked about Hermione's classes and how she thought she had done on her end of year tests. The two of them had found it odd that the Headmaster had canceled the end of year tests; they knew that some of them were rather important, the magical equivalent of O and A levels, so surely they couldn't just be canceled? Hermione thought that the people sitting their O.W.Ls and their N.E.W.Ts would have to do them over the summer., but agreed it sounded like a lot of hassle.

The dinner continued for a while longer; the three of them just enjoying being back together as a family, if only for the summer holidays.

---ϟϟϟ---

Hermione had just finished getting ready for bed and was about to go brush her teeth (she may have skipped the odd day here and there while she was at Hogwarts but she knew that she wouldn't get away with that at home) when her mum came in to her room, surprisingly carrying two large bowls of what looked to be chocolate caramel-swirl ice-cream. “Got time for a girly chat?” Hermione eyed the bowls of her own personal ice-cream nirvana suspiciously, her mother didn’t usually indulge in such unhealthy treats, “I think I could maybe find some time”.

The two of them sat cross-legged on Hermione's bed, each holding a bowl but the older of the two still holding on to the spoons, “So...fun questions first. It's boyfriend Harry now, not best friend Harry. what's the story there?” Her mum asked, grinning as she handed over Hermione's spoon. A smile came over Hermione's face as she remembered that happy moment, “it was in the hospital wing after Christmas. Ron and I had had a falling out over his legendary lack of tact. So at that point, it was only Harry coming to see me regularly. Lav and Pav popped in occasionally but Harry was there every day right up until curfew. Classes had started back up and Harry was helping me keep on top of everything, since I was unable to make it to classes.”

Hermione stopped talking for a bit to sample the ice-cream and gave a slight moan of pleasure. “Then Madam Pomfrey asked me to make a decision on something. She asked if I wanted to keep the cat eyes or change them back to normal. I chose to change them back; dad always said my eyes are like grandad's so I wanted to keep them. Anyway, to change them back I needed to take a potion every morning for six days. That was fine as I was already taking a lot of potions, so what was one more? Only...this one had a noticeable side effect.

While my eyes were changing my vision was blurry. I could see well enough to know if someone was there, or to walk to the bathroom and back, but I couldn't read, which you know would’ve been a problem for me. I was a little upset about that particular thing, and then Harry turns up about an hour later. It was a Saturday. And, he was with some of my favorite books. I told him that I couldn't read them because my eyes where being fixed, and that he may as well take them away. He looked at me for a few seconds and I couldn't see the look on his face, but I just know he had that smirk of his on his face, then he just sat down in the chair next to me and pulled out my copy of 'The Hobbit’ and started reading it out loud to me.”

Hermione paused to take another mouthful of ice-cream and her mother jumped in, “So let me get this straight; you were stuck without your books for a week and Harry just started reading them to you”, Hermione nodded slowly, her mouth still full of ice-cream,“Oh god, the poor boy is doomed. Only you would find love through reading, kitten.” Hermione giggled, then continued on after swallowing her bite, “well after about five hours in that chair I realized Harry had to be uncomfortable...so”, she paused for a second wondering how her mother would take it, “I-I moved him up onto the bed with me.” Seeing her mother beginning to smirk, she powered on with her tale;

“Before you say anything, the beds are adult-sized so the two of us fit quite comfortably. He came back every day to keep reading the books to me. Unlike some of the others I showed my muggle books, he was completely fine with them. I guess it was cause he grew up a muggle like me. We were two-thirds of the way through 'Return of the King’ before I was able to see normally again, but Harry hates to leave a job unfinished, and he kept reading to me till he finished.

Over the six days, I wasn't used to things being a bit different from my accident. Apparently, the cat hair I used in the potion came from an adult cat, well, Kneazle. Which is a type of magical cat which is why I couldn't be changed back all the way. The Kneazle magic, portion magic and my magic all got mixed up in a knot and won't come undone”, She took a deep breath, “And I am so glad it was a girl cat, that could have lead to problems I don't even want to think about.” Her mother's face went a little green as she thought of the possibilities. At this point, Hermione began blushing profusely, “But anyway...as the cat was an adult, it...well...I guess you could say I'm more ‘interested’ in boys than I normally should be...” Hermione was burning so hot by now that she was surprised she hadn't melted the ice-cream in her lap.

“So Harry was next to me, and after a few days, it just felt natural to snuggle up next to him. And too easy to dismiss it as a cat thing to cuddle up to something warm. One thing just sort of led to the next, and before I left the hospital wing we were a couple-” Her mother abruptly interrupted Hermione and asked cautiously, “and just what exactly did it lead to?” Her tone was conspiratorial, like two girlfriends gossiping. She didn't want Hermione to close her off, but inside she was of course a worrying mum. Just how far had her thirteen-year-old daughter gone with her boyfriend? 

“Well, let’s just say Harry is a good kisser. A really good kisser...” Mrs Granger relaxed immensely; while she still felt her daughter was a bit young, it sounded as though they had kept their clothes on at the very least. But there was more, “But, that kiss is what lead to Madam Pomfrey putting me on the potion dad asked about.” That sparked her mother’s interest, she had been intending to ask about that after hearing about Harry, but it seemed that they had reached the topic naturally.

“She felt that it was out of character for me to be kissing Harry quite so quickly and did some checking she hadn't thought about till then.” Hermione was now in a constant state of embarrassment, her blush reaching shades her mother hadn't seen since she had talked to her about being prepared for her monthly ‘visitor’. “It turns out I now go into heat like a cat and because the cat was an adult I have been thrown in at the deep end. The potion tones down the feelings I would have without it and lets me act more normally.”

Emma didn't know what to say; her daughter was embarrassed and obviously dealing with some real issues. She’d gone from being a budding teen girl less than six months from her first monthly visit to having to deal with a full-blown sex drive practically overnight. She set the two half-finished bowls of ice-cream on Hermione's writing desk and crawled over to her daughter, pulling her into a hug. “It's Ok honey, we can cope with this. It's going to be fine. aAnyway, you love Harry anyway, right?” Hermione nodded numbly in her mother’s arms and started crying, the last of the tension she had been holding for weeks finally finding an outlet.

They stayed like that for a while; the two replaying a scene as old as humanity, a Mother comforting her daughter on the cusp of leaving behind her childhood. After that, the two sat there talking for a good hour and a half, the Mother asking questions and doing the groundwork to help her Daughter cope with the new challenges that were waiting for her.

chapters 1-45 are avalable on https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13294547/1/The-Best-Laid-Plans and https://archiveofourown.org/works/18862810/chapters/44770174

[love-pyramus]

hi.

you're on a rock floating in space.

pretty cool, huh?

some of it's water.

fuck it, actually most of it's water.

i can't even get from here to there without buying a boat.

it's sad.

i'm sad.

i miss you.

how did this happen?

a long time ago, actually never, and also now, nothing is nowhere.

when?

never.

makes sense, right?

like i said, it didn't happen.

nothing was never anywhere.

that's why it's been everywhere.

it's been so everywhere you don't need a where.

you don't even need a when.

that's how every it gets.

forget this.

i wanna be something.

go somewhere.

do something.

i want things to change.

i want to invent time and space.

and i know it's possible because everything is here and it probably already happened.

i just don't know when to start.

and that's exactly where it started.

whoah, i paused it.

i think there's a universe now.

what's it made of?

quarks & stuff

ah, that's a thing.

in a place.

don't like it?

try a new place.

at a different time™.

try to stick together, because the world is gonna get bigger.

and emptier.

but it's not empty yet.

it's still very full, and about a kjghpillion degrees.

great news!

the quarks are now happily married, in groups of three called a proton or a neutron

and there's something else flying around too that wants to join in but can't cause it's still too

HOT

great news!

the protons and neutrons are now happily married to each other.

and some of them even doubled up.

great news, the electrons have now joined in

congratulations, the world is now a bunch of gas in space.

but it's getting closer together.

and it's getting closer together.

and it's getting closer toge-

it's a star

new shit just got made!

some stars burn out and die.

bigger stars burn out and die with passion, and make some brand new, way crazier shit.

space dust

which allows newer, more interesting stars to be made, and then die, and explode into

even crazier space dust

so now stars have cool stuff around them, like rocks, ice, and funny clouds, which can make some very interesting things.

like this ball of flaming rocks for example.

holy shit, we just got hit with another ball of flaming rocks.

and it kind of made a mess.

which is

now the moon

weather update:

it's raining rocks from outer space.

weather update:

those rocks might have had water inside them, and now there's hot steam in the sky.

weather update:

cooler temperatures today, and the floor is no longer lava.

weather update:

it's raining.

severe flooding alert:

the entire world is now an ocean.

volcano alert:

that's land!

there's life in the ocean

what?

something's alive in the ocean

oh cool, like a plant or an animal?

no, a microscopic speck.

it lives at the bottom of the ocean and eats chemical soup, which is being served hot and fresh, made from gnarly space ingredients left over from when it was raining rocks or whatever.

oh yeah, and it can do that.

it has secret instructions written inside itself telling it how to build another one of itself.

so that's pretty nifty, i would say.

tired of living at the bottom of the ocean?

now you can eat sunlight!

using a revolutionary technique, you can convert sunlight into food

taste the sun

side effect: now there's oxygen everywhere and the sky's blue.

then the earth might have been a snowball for a while, maybe even a couple of times.

it's a sponge.

it's a plant.

it's a worm, and some other types of weird strange water bugs and strange fish.

it's the Cambrian explosion

"wow, that's animals and stuff"

but we're still in the ocean, hey, can we go on land?

no

why?

the sun is a deadly lazer

oh okay.

not anymore, there's a blanket

now the animals can go on land.

come on, animals, let's go on land!

nope, can't walk yet.

and there's no food yet, so i don't care.

ok, will you learn to walk if there's plants up here?

maybe, said some bugs, and fish.

ok, so i can go on land, but i have to go back in the water to

have babies

learn to use an egg.

i was already doing that.

use a stronger egg.

put water in it.

have a baby, on land, in an egg.

water is in the egg.

baby, in the egg, in the water, in the egg.

works for me.

bye bye ocean

and now everything's huge.

including bugs.

wanna see a map of the land?

sure.

oh fuck, now everything's dead.

just kidding, here are the survivors.

keep your eye on this one because it's about to become the dinosaurs.

here's another map of the land.

yeah, it broke apart, don't worry about it, it does that all the time.

here comes a meteor.

and the dinosaurs are gone

it's mammal time, here come the mammals.

look at those breasts.

now they're gonna dominate the world and one of them just learned how to grab stuff.

and walk.

no, like, walk like that.

and grab stuff at the same time.

and bang rocks together to make pointed rocks.

"ouch"

and set things on fire.

"yeouch"

and make crazy sounds with their voice.

"gneurshk"

which can mean different things.

that's a human person

and now they're everywhere.

almost.

ice age

what, you can walk over here?

cool.

not anymore

well i guess we're stuck here now.

let's review.

there's people on the planet.

and they're chasing their food.

fuck it, time to plant some grass.

look at this.

i control the food now.

now everyone will want to be my friend and live near me.

let's all build houses except mine is bigger because i own the food.

this is great, i wonder if anyone else is doing this.

tired of using rocks for everything?

use metal.

it's underground.

better farming was just invented, in a sweet dank valley right in between these two rivers.

and the animals are helping.

guess what happens next

more food.

and more people who came to buy the food.

now you need people to help make the food and keep track of the sales.

and now you need houses for people to live in and people to make the houses, and now there's more people and they invent things, which makes things better and more people come and there's more farming and more people to make more things for more people and now there's business, money, writing, laws, power.

Society

coming soon to a dank river valley near you.

meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, the horse is probably being tamed.

why is all my metal so lame and lumpy?

tired of using lame, sad metal?

introducing

Bronze

made with special ingredient tin from the far lands of tin land.

i don't know, my dealer won't tell me where he gets it.

also, guess what?

egypt

meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, they figured out how to put wheels on a horse.

now we're getting somewhere.

also

china

and did i mention

indus river valley civilization

norte chico

the middle east is getting more complicated, maybe because it's in the middle of the east.

knock knock, er, clop clop.

it's the people with the horses.

and they made an empire.

and then everyone else copied their horses.

greeks

ah look, it must be the greeks, er, a beta version of the greeks.

let's check in with the indus river valley civilization.

they're gone.

guess who's not gone?

china

new arrivals in india, maybe it's those horse people i was talking about, or their cousins or something

and they wrote some hymns and mantras and stuff

you could make a religion out of this.

there's the bronze age collapse.

now the phoenicians can get down to business

also, can we switch to a metal that's a little easier to find?

thanks.

look who came back to israel, it's the twelve tribes of israel.

and they believe in God

just 1 though, he's got like a ten step program.

here's some huge heads.

must be the olmecs.

the phoenicians make some colonies.

the greeks copy their idea and make some colonies.

the phoenicians made a colony so big it makes colonies.

here comes the assyrian empire.

never mind, it's the babylonian- median-

it's the Persian Empire

"wow, that's big"

ah, the buddha was just enlightened.

who's the buddha?

this guy, who sat under a tree for so long that he figured out how to ignore the fact that we're all dying.

you could make a religion out of this.

oops, china just broke, but while it was breaking, confucius was figuring out how to have good morals.

ah, the greeks just had the idea of thinking about stuff.

and right over here, alexander just had the idea of conquering the entire persian empire.

it's a great idea.

he was great.

and now he's dead.

hopefully the rest of the gang will be able to share the empire evenly between them.

knock knock, it's chandragupta, he says get the hell out of here.

will you get the hell out of here if i give you 500 elephants?

ok thanks, bye

time to conquer all of india

or

most of india

but what about this part?

that's the tamil kings, no one conquers the tamil kings.

who are the tamil kings?

merchants, probably

and they've got spices

who would like to buy the spices?

me, said the arabians, swiftly buying it and selling it to the rest of the world.

hey, china put itself back together again, with good morals as their main philosophy.

actually, they have three main philosophies.

out here, the horse nomads run wild and free, and they would like to ransack your city.

let's check the greekification levels of the greekified kingdoms.

greekification overload!

bye, said the parthians.

bye, said the jews.

hi, said the parthians, taking over the entire place.

heyyyyyyyy, said the romans, eating the entire mediterranean for breakfast.

thanks for invading our homeland, said the jews, who were starting to get tired of people invading their homeland.

hi, everything's great, said some guy who seems to be getting very popular and is then arrested and killed for being too popular, which only makes him more popular.

you could make a religion out of this.

want silk?

now you can buy it from china.

they just made a

brand new road to the world

or you can

get there on water

sick! new trade routes! said india, accidentally spreading their religion to the entire southeast.

hmm, that's a good place for an epic trading kingdom.

there goes buddhism traveling up the silk road.

i wonder if it'll reach china before it collapses again.

remember the persian empire?

yep, said the persians, making a new one.

axum is getting so powerful they would like to build a long stick.

has anyone populated madagascar yet?

let's do it together.

china is whole again

then it broke again

still can't cross the sahara desert?

try camels.

hell yeah! now we've got business

said the ghana empire, selling lots of gold, and slaves

hi, i live in the roman empire, and i was wondering

is loving jesus legal yet?

no.

actually, ok, sure, said constantine, moving the capital way over here to be closer to his

main rival

don't worry about rome, it won't fall.

it's the golden age of india

there's the gupta empire, not chandragupta, just gupta.

first name chandra.

the first.

guess who's in rome?

barbarians

what's a barbarian?

non-romans, said the romans, being invaded by non-romans.

r.i.p., roman empire, er, actually just half of it, the other half is just fine, but it's not in rome anymore so let's give it a new name.

the mayans have figured out the stars

oh and here's a huge city, population: everyone

the göktürks have taken over the entire eurasian steppe.

great job, göktürks.

how's india?

broken.

how's china?

back together

how's those trading kingdoms?

bigger, and there's more of them

korea has 3 kingdoms.

japan has a kingdom, it's the sunrise kingdom.

deep in the arabian desert, on the top of a mountain, the real god whispers in muhammed's ear.

so he goes down to the cube where everyone worships gods and he tells them their gods are all fake.

and everyone got so mad at him that he had to leave town and go to a different town.

you could make a religion out of this.

and maybe conquer the world as well.

the roman empire is long gone, but somehow the pope is still the pope.

plus there's

new kingdoms all over europe

i wonder if there's room for moors.

here's all the wisdom.

in a house.

it's the baghdad house of wisdom.

just in time for the

islamic golden age

let's bring stuff to the coast and sell it, and become the swahili on the swahili coast, said the swahili on the swahili coast.

remember this tiny space you have to go through to get from here to there?

someone owns that now.

wanna get enlightened in the middle of nowhere?

the franks have the biggest kingdom in europe, and the pope is so proud that he invites the king over for christmas.

surprise! you're the new roman emperor, said the pope, pretending to still be part of the roman empire.

then the franks broke their kingdom into what will later be called france and not france.

but the northerners, or just norse if you don't have much time, are exploring.

they go north, from the north to the northern north.

and they find some land.

two types of land.

and they name them accordingly.

they also invade some other places, and get called many names, such as vikings.

there's the rus.

the kievan rus.

are they vikings?

i don't think so, said the kievan rus.

ok, fair enough.

the pope is ready to make some more emperors.

of the "roman empire".

the holy roman empire.

it's actually germany but don't worry about it.

new kingdoms.

christianize all the kingdoms

which brand would you like?

mine's better.

mine's better.

mine's better.

time to conquer england, said william.

it's a bird, it's a plane

it's the seljuk turks

aah! said the byzantine empire who's getting so small and almost doesn't exist anymore.

we need help!

they need help, so they call the pope.

hey pope, can you help us get rid of the seljuks?

maybe take back the holy land on the way?

come on, i know you want to take back the holy land.

yes, i do actually want to do that.

let's do a crusade.

crusade

they did many crusades, some of which almost didn't fail.

but at least the italians got some sweet trade deals.

goodbye mayans.

hello toltecs

goodbye toltecs.

hello mississippi

look at those mounds.

there's the pueblo.

i always wondered how to build a town in a cliff.

guess who's here?

khmer.

where?

here.

and pagan is there.

vietnam unconquered itself, korea just became itself, and japan is so addicted to art that the military might have to take over the government.

china just invented bombs, and typing.

and the mongols just invaded most of the universe.

nice going, Genghis!

i bet that will last a long time.

some of the islamic turks were unaffected by the mongol invasions because they were busy invading india.

is it tonga time?

i think it's tonga time.

i just found out where the swahili gets all their gold.

look at this chad.

means "lake".

there's an empire there.

right in the middle of

Africa

the king of mali is so rich he's going on tour to let everyone know.

wow, that guy's rich, everyone said.

the christians are doing a great job reconquering iberia, which will soon be called spain and not spain.

please remain christian.

we will check in later to see if you're still christian when you least expect.

whoops, half of europe just died.

ming

china's back, yay!

hey khmer, time to share.

new kingdoms here and there.

oh, look who controls all the islands.

it's the mahajapit.

majahapit.

mapajahit.

mahapajit.

mapajahit.

majapahit?

oh, italy's really rich, time for them to care a lot about art and the ancient classics.

it's kinda like a rebirth.

here's a printer.

let's make books.

so you think you can conquer the byzantine empire?

yep, said the ottoman turks.

nice job, ottoman turks.

whoops, you missed a spot.

don't forget to ban europe from the indian spice trade.

what? that's bullshit, said portugal, spiceless.

well i guess we'll have to find another way to india

wait! said christopher columbus, probably smoking crack.

if the world is round, let's go this way to india.

nah, don't worry, we already got this, said portugal.

so chris goes to spain.

hey spain, wanna hire me to find india by going around back of the world?

no.

please?

no.

please?

no.

please?

ok.

so he sails into the ocean.

and discovers more ocean.

and then discovers the indies.

and japan.

let's draw a line to decide who gets which half of the world.

the aztec and inca empires are off to a great start.

i wonder if they know that europe just discovered their continent?

the habsburgs are marrying into so many royal families they might have to start marrying each other.

move over lithuania, here comes moscow.

ivan wants to make russia great again.

move over timurids, maybe go invade india or something.

persia just made persia persian again.

let's make it the other kind of islam.

the one where we thought the first guy should have been the other guy.

hey christians!

do you sin?

now you can buy your way out of hell.

that's bullshit.

this whole thing is bullshit.

that's a scam.

fuck the church.

here's 95 reasons why, said martin luther, in his new book, which might have accidentally started the protestant reformation.

you know what would be magnificent, said suleiman, wearing an onion hat?

what if the ottoman empire was really big?

which it is now.

what if russia was big? said ivan, trying not to be terrible.

portugal had a dream that they controlled the entire indian ocean, including the spice trade.

and then that dream was real.

and spain realized that this is not india, but they pillaged it anyway.

damn, said england and france.

we gotta start pillaging some stuff.

then the dutch revolt and all the hipsters move to amsterdam.

damn, said amsterdam.

we gotta start pillaging some stuff.

question 1: can you get to india through north america?

no, but at least there's beaver.

question 2: steal the spice trade.

that's not a question, but the dutch did it anyway.

sugar

guess where all the sugar's made?

in brazil.

stolen

and the caribbean.

and it's so god damn profitable you might forget to not do slavery.

the next thing on russia's to-do list is to get bigger.

britain and france are having a friendly discussion about who should control the entire world.

more specifically, ohio.

then it escalates into a seven year discussion, giving prussia a chance to show austria who's boss.

but what about britain and france, did they figure out who's boss?

yes they did.

it's britain.

guess who's broke?

also britain.

so they start taxing the hell out of america.

fuck you, says america, declaring their independence, and fighting for it.

and france helps them win, now france is broke.

and britain'll have to send their prisoners to a different continent.

wait, if france is broke, why do the king and queen still wear such fancy dresses?

let's overthrow the palace and cut all their heads off! said robespierre, cutting everybody's head off until someone eventually got mad and cut his head off.

you could make a reli- no, don't.

haiti is staring to like the idea of a revolution.

especially the slaves, who free themselves by killing their masters.

why didn't we think of this before?

wait, who's in charge of france now?

me

said napoleon, trying to take over europe.

luckily, they banished him to an island.

but he came back

luckily, they banished him to another island.

there goes latin america, becoming independent in the latin american wars of independence.

britain just figured out how to turn steam into power.

so now they can make

many different types of machines and factories with machines in them so they can make a lot of products real fast

then they invent some trains.

and conquer india and maybe put some trains there.

hey, china! said britain.

buy stuff from us!

nah dude, we already got everything, says china.

so britain tried to get them addicted to opium.

which worked, actually.

but then china made it illegal and dumped it all into the sea.

so britain threw a hissy fit, and made them open up five cities and give them an island.

britain and russia are playing a game where they try to stop each other from conquering afghanistan.

also, the

sultan of oman lives in zanzibar now

"that's just where he lives"

india just had a revolution, and they would like to govern themselves now.

nope, said britain, governing them even harder than before.

technology is about to go crazy

the united states finally figured out whether slavery is good or bad.

it's bad, they decided.

and then they continued manifesting their destiny, which is to kill the rest of the natives and take their land and maybe kick out the mexicans too.

i know, let's rape africa, said europe, scrambling to see who could rape it the fastest.

they never got ethiopia

britain and france are still hungry.

they never got thailand

the united states ran out of destiny to manifest, so they're looking for more.

hawaii

cuba

wait, spain controls cuba.

well, blame something on them and go to war!

what should we blame on spain?

let's blame the maine on spain.

so they blame the maine on spain.

now we're in business.

to celebrate, they kick panama out of panama and make a canal, connecting the two oceans.

britain just found oil in the middle east.

it makes cars go

china is so tired of being bossed around that they delete their old government and make a new, stronger government, which is accidentally weaker and controlled by a guy from the previous government.

europe hasn't had a war since the last war.

so they start world war 1.

look at those guns.

it's gonna be a great war.

so great we won't need a second one.

after it's over, they blame germany.

russia went on strike and the workers overthrew the government.

now everyone's paycheck is the same.

communism

in the soviet union

the arabs revolt and britain helps.

now the ottoman empire's gone so we can give the

jewish people a place to live

hopefully the arabs won't mind.

let's cut the cake, said sykes and picot, carving up the remains of the not-so-ottoman-anymore empire.

except turkey, turkey makes a brand new turkey

and then the saudis conquer arabia.

it just seemed like the right thing to do.

hello?

yes, it's the 1920's calling.

let's get in the car and drive to a party and listen to jazz on the radio and go to the movies.

the economy's great and it'll probably be great forever, just kidding.

germany's back, featuring hitler, the angry mustache model.

and he's mad at the jews for existing.

japan is finally conquering the east, and they're so excited they rape nanking way too hard.

they should probably just deny it.

hitler's out of control.

so the international community tackles him and then tries to explain why killing all the jews is a bad idea.

but he kills himself before they could explain it to him.

that's world war 2

bonus round!

pacific showdown.

united states vs. japan.

fight!

finish him

let's unite all the nations and have some

world peace

seems legit.

hi, i'm gandhi, and if britain doesn't get the hell out of india, i'm gonna starve myself in public.

wow, that worked?

bonus, now there's pakistan.

actually two pakistans.

one of them can be bangladesh later.

the jews and the arabs finally figured out which one of them should live in the holy land.

me, they both said at the same time.

let's divide up the land so everyone's happy.

sike, they both get angrier

look out china, there's a new china in china.

what's on the menu?

communism!

no thanks, said the other china, escaping to an island.

i wonder which one is the real china?

there's the korean war, korea versus korea.

nobody wins, then it's on pause forever.

let's meet the sponsors.

oh, it's the two global superpowers.

they're having a friendly debate over which economic system is good, and which one is an evil virus of Satan.

and they both have atom bombs.

fight!

wait, no, that would be the end of the world.

let's just keep it cool and spy on each other instead.

and make sure we have enough atom bombs.

i'll race you to space.

now let's make some more countries fight themselves.

europe is tired of pillaging other continents, so the continents they were pillaging are tired of being pillaged.

so here's a new map, with new countries.

now you can't tell who they're being pillaged by.

the united states finally decided whether racism is good or bad.

they decided it's bad, and the world agrees.

south africa might need another minute to think about it.

let's check the world population.

whoa.

okay.

technology's better too, that might keep happening.

the soviet union decides to relax a little, and accidentally falls apart.

europe makes a union, so now they can all use the same money, except britain, because they don't feel like it.

let's check the mail.

surprise, it's on the computer.

whoops, someone just attacked america.

i bet they'll remember that.

phone call.

surprise, it's in your pocket.

wanna learn everything?

surprise, it's on the computer.

now your phone's a computer, which is in your pocket.

whoops, the economy just crashed.

don't worry, the big banks won't fail because they're not supposed to.

surprise!

flying robots.

with bombs.

wanna print a brain?

some people have no friends.

some people have no food.

the globe is warming

and the ocean is full of plastic

let's save the planet! said everybody, not knowing how.

let's invent a thing inventor, said the thing inventor inventor, after being invented by a thing inventor.

that's pretty cool.

by the way, where the hell are we?

[neverwatchedonepiece]

635-637: "The Fateful Reunion! Bellamy the Hyena!", "A Super Rookie! Bartolomeo the Cannibal!" and "Big Names Duke it Out! The Heated Block B Battle!"

Luffy’s entire experience of Dressrosa so far.

If I had two words to sum up these episodes, they would be: new characters.

New characters everywhere. 

And, if @mrkashkiet​ is right, some of them should not be immediately written off as battle fodder. I have done my best to keep track of all the new names  and faces (let’s face it, Dressrosa has not yet descended into HxH War of Succession level madness). 

But I think I have a better handle on the competitors now. Who knew paying close attention would work wonders?

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the influx of new characters is not limited to the Colosseum.

Trafalgar Law: Supplier of Tea and Shade

Yes.

It is the return of Cipher Pol. Except this time, the World Government have unleashed the Big Guns.

The Caesar Handover Team (Law, Robin, Usopp and Caesar) had camped at a pavement cafe near the Long Bridge they must cross to reach Green Bit. They were indulging in a bit of recon because the bridge, to put it mildly, was in a state of disrepair.

A rickey, rusting wreck is what I want to say.

A conveniently chatty waiter was only too happy to furnish them with intel. Apparently, people used to freely cross the bridge two-hundred years ago, but an influx of fighting fish ruined everything. The people tried to reinforce the bridge with iron but it never worked. Yes, people still try to cross. The waiter himself knew people who’d made the attempt. But no one ever came back. (I bet the Smile factory is on Green Bit.)

Caesar and Usopp were not keen on making the crossing. Law told them to pipe down and pulled the “we’re here now, anyway” card. The lack of unrest in Dressrosa was what worried Law. (Sanji noticed that too.) Their king had abdicated suddenly. Why was everyone so calm?

Then something awesome happened.

Robin saw something out the corner of her eye. She cringed, pulled her hat down further over her face. Caesar caught on too.

Three sinister, white-robed, masked people walked down the street like ghosts. They were heading in the direction of the bridge.

It was CP0. According to Robin, they are even deadlier that CP9 and are charged with only the highest level intelligence missions. “When they’re on the move,” Robin said, “nothing good happens.”

Except plot, Robin. Good plot happens.

I mean, come on! First Fujitora is hanging about, supposedly to deal with all the pirates in the Colosseum. Now CP0 have crawled out of the woodwork but they are lurking about the bridge. They are all in on something. They must know or suspect something is going on in Dressrosa. I’ll bet they have intel Luffy and Law don’t.

I wonder if Fujitora wants Luffy to draw out Doflamingo (or at least the proof something is going on). He definitely knows Luffy is behind the beard and he let Luffy go. Why? The plot chickenz.

Zoro , Sanji and Kinemon: Technically All Chasing After Precious Things

Elsewhere on Dressrosa, Zoro, Sanji and Kinemon have all gone their separate, chaotic ways.

Zoro has finally laid hands on Shusui again, but - and I cannot believe I am saying this - a small, thieving, invisible creature *was* behind the disappearance of Zoro’s belongings. And they referred to Zoro as a “human”, which means... I mean, are we really talking fairies here? Why do they need to steal stuff? Are they raising funds for Doflamingo? I have no idea what’s going on.  I am at the point of tin-foil hat speculation so I’ll quit before the hat is fully on.

Sanji managed to take out a sniper sixteen metres above ground with one kick. Why the need for a sniper kicking spree? He was being targeted while walking with Violet. I am still suspicious of her. I think she’s in on the whole thing and she is only just beginning to realise that, uh oh, she’s snared a really strong fighter, how do we get out of this one?

Also, Kinemon found himself surrounded by chuckling thugs who threw Kanjuuro’s location in his face. They recognised him by the “top-knot-shaped hat” (lmao). There was a, “If you don’t cooperate, we will kill you and your friend,” moment. Not super interested in this plot point, but looking forward to seeing how Oda weaves it into the wider storyline. 

Meanwhile, on The Event Horizon Sunny...

A portal has opened to another dimension.

In the grand scheme of things, everyone who went to Dressrosa got the better end of the bargain because this... this is some weird shit.

(Plus, there was another Momonosuke clue. While Momo was playing at being shogun (and Brook refused, saying he “Only takes orders from Luffy-san”) Dr Chopper observed Momo’s behaviour. Apparently, Momo is putting up a good front, disguising some sort of trauma. What happened to him a Punk Hazard could be a good bet. Maybe there was something else we didn’t get to see.)

Bellamy Is A New Man! Sort of...

Back at the Colosseum, the main event was underway: Block B’s battle! We still haven’t reached the end of it yet but that’s because a lot was happening backstage.

The action picked up where it left off. Luffy’s reunion with Bellamy did not go quite as I expected - in a good way. A lot has happened since Luffy kicked Bellamy’s ass at Jaya. For one, after ridiculing Luffy for his ambition to visit Skypeia, Bellamy made his own trip. He lost his crew in the attempt (I think?) but brought back a huge golden souvenir, which he presented to Doflamingo. 

I didn’t quite understand his connection with Doflamingo before. I figured he was part of Doflamingo’s crew and worked exclusively for him. But it turns out Bellamy had his own crew? Maybe they were allied with/working for Doflamingo?

At any rate, since he returned from Skypeia, Bellamy has become a changed man. He has obsessively worked for Doflamingo - who was Bellamy’s pirate hero since he was a kid - in hopes of being promoted to an executive post in the Donquixote family. 

That is why he entered the Battle Royale. Not to win the Mera Mera fruit, but for a promotion.

I have the funniest feeling he won’t be getting it.

His spring power is cool, though. Luffy was right. He’s definitely become stronger. The way he took out Abdullah and Jeet was pretty stylish. I also like the character development Bellamy has undergone. Oda has morphed him from a loathsome, one-dimensional mook into someone with ambition who will do anything to achieve his goals. Nice.

Bartolomeo

Now, this guy was a surprise.

When Oda introduced Maynard last episode, I never thought for a minute that the badass Marine who held a knife to a pirate’s throat and took him out so easily would become instant fodder in the very next installment.

That’ll teach me for trying to predict Oda’s intentions.

Bartolomeo acts like an Edgy Edgerson (that’s a bit of an understatement, to be honest) but he does look out for his crew, as all good captains should. The guy who was murked last time by Maynard was part of his crew. Unfortunately for Maynard, Bartolomeo is the revenge type. Maynard was left crumpled in a bloody heap. It was interesting that Maynard had planned to take part in the competition. Was it for intel or were the Marines seriously thinking they were in with a shot at the Mera Mera fruit?

Bartolomeo is also one of the rookies Cavendish loathes. When the commentator introduced him, we learned it only took Bartolomeo a year to become (in)famous in the New World. Apparently, he roasted a crew of pirates and broadcast the footage and bombed some innocent civilians. As you do. He also won the coveted spot of #1 Most Annoying Pirate Who Should Just Go Away (lmao).

This was backed up by the crowd. They booed him like a pantomime villain and pelted him with trash. The bomb prank did nothing to salvage the tatters of his public image. Even Dagama was like, “They hate you so much, brat.”

But Bartolomeo didn’t care. He is super edgy. “Don’t even want them to like me.” (If he met Eustass Kidd, the amount of Edge would reach critical mass and cause some sort of singularity).

I have the feeling Bartolomeo will win this fight.

Why?

He has barely lifted a finger the entire time. When the gong was struck, he lay down like Slaking, took a nap. Then he woke up, pissed in the moat (lmao) and somehow took out Hack the Fishman Karate Master with little effort. He must be a fruit user. I wonder what his power is?

It’s testament to how One Piece stretches the limits of your morality when you find yourself laughing and cheering for a guy who literally roasted his rivals and broadcast the footage over the OP equivalent of YouTube.

And the Award for Most Hostile Leading Question Goes To...

While the fighting was underway, Luffy and Cavendish watched from a balcony. Cavendish gave Lucy the low-down on who the most likely winners would be. Apart from Bartolomeo and Bellamy, there was Elizabello II, his tactician Dagama, Ricky (a mysterious Gladiator), Blue Gilly from the Longarm Tribe, Tank Lepant of Dressrosa, Abdullah and Jeet, and Hack (a Fishman Karate specialist and fan of Jimbei).

Elizabello II, Dagama and Tank teamed up with a cadre of random fodders to protect Elizabello. It turns out Liz has a King’s Punch ability that can take out entire fortresses. The only thing is, it takes ages for it to power up and he can only use it once a day. They must want the Mera Mera Fruit badly, as the restrictions of the King Punch make it pretty damned useless in this context. Even if he did get through to the next round, he might be one-on-one against Jesus Burgess. Burgess does not need to wait an hour to power up a punch. Even if it’s four fighters all in the ring together (I bet Luffy will team up with Rebecca), I don’t see Burgess helping him out.

Blue Gilly is a kick fighter with oddly hypnotic knee pads.

Ricky is a mystery. He is a gladiator other fighters have never seen but some random in the crowd claims he might have once - a warrior who fought with no shield.

The Middle Eastern trope fighters Abdullah and Jeet were taken out by Bellamy, Hack was defeated by Bartolomeo.

All very exciting. I love a Battle Royale.

But most of the action was taking place backstage.

While Luffy and Cavendish watched the battle, a hulking, craggy, mountainous figure approached. I knew he was big because Toei had given him the “Big Guy Clown Shoes” sound effect they use for guys like Moria and Kuma. He had the number 12 tattooed on his forehead. It was Don Chinjao.

He stood beside Luffy and Cavendish and said, “Hey, lovely view we’ve got here. Btw, how is Garp-san doing?”

Luffy, the honest soul, never saw the trap coming. “You know grandpa?”

Uh oh.

Well, the situation escalated hilariously quickly after that.

“Garp was like a real demon to us pirates back then. My wound still hasn’t healed, you know. I need you to pay for what your grandpa did to me. If I’d heard about Garp’s son, Dragon, sooner, you would never have been born.”

Ooft. That’s a heavy grudge.

Of course, Cavendish was like, “WHAT? YOU ARE LUFFY!”

And poor Luffy was still desperately clinging to his Lucy disguise, wondering why everyone was blaming him for things that really were not his fault. “no, really, i misheard. i am lucy, honest.”

“YOU DON’T MISHEAR YOUR OWN NAME!!”

Now both Cavendish and Don Chinjao were steamed. They ended up in a skirmish where Cavendish’s Shiny Sparkly Sword, Durandal, was shown off (to be fair, it does look awesome) and the endurance of Chinjao’s Mighty Skull was tested. Neither were going all out, which was nice.

At any rate, Luffy is now hanging from a window ledge. His promise to Franky is not working out well so far. 

Ahhh, that was a good tinkle.

[nordipalooza]

Perspective [Norway/HK, Fic]

Title: Perspective Author: @rukkilill​ Prompt: Norway, Hong Kong (any character) - fresh air - modern Rating: 0+ Notes: Pairing is Norway/HK, established relationship. 2.9k length. Summary: Norway takes Hong Kong for an outing in the mountains. Though they're very different types of people, they're more comfortable together than either of them would ever have expected.

The boat slowly made its way up the fjord. Hong Kong pulled his hands into the sleeves of his jacket. It was summer, but the air was too cold for his taste, especially out on the water. Looking over the surrounding mountains and the sunlight sparkling on the surface of the fjord, he wondered if he should take some more pictures. No matter which way he turned, the view was travel-magazine perfect. But he'd already taken a lot of photos as soon as the boat pulled away from the village, quietly slipping deeper up the fjord as the sun spiked on the mountaintops. Maybe it was better to let his hands stay warm for a while. Norway had suggested the outing last night. "Are you up for a bit of hiking?" Norway had asked him as they sat outside together in the patio, enjoying the late evening sunlight. "I know a place with a nice view. Quiet. Not a lot of tourists. We could give it a go if you'd like." "That sounds good," Hong Kong told him. And he meant it. He'd glanced at Norway, wondering if he believed that. It was something Norway had never offered before, and Hong Kong could guess why. But if Norway was surprised that he'd actually said yes, he must have decided to keep it to himself. Not a single comment about how he understood that Hong Kong was a city kid, and that they could take their time once they got out there. No condescension or criticism. Not anything like that. He only nodded, and brushed affectionate fingertips over Hong Kong's hand, and that was all. Norway was taking Hong Kong at his word, like he usually did. It was one of the things Hong Kong liked the most about him. Still. Hong Kong found himself glad that he'd already had a few trial runs with Iceland. They hadn't exactly planned it out that way; it was just that Iceland had offered, and Hong Kong said yes, after a little bit of hesitation. So Iceland had taken him out to explore the countryside, starting with the easier trails before working their way up to his mountains. It had gone better than Hong Kong had expected, and he'd enjoyed it more than he thought he would, and even though Hong Kong wasn't very experienced at first, he never really worried about embarrassing himself in front of Iceland. But this was different. Norway was different. Norway was... something else. Not just a friend, not like Iceland was. Not at all. And Hong Kong sure was worried about embarrassing himself in front of him. They'd been seeing each other, as Norway would put it, for a while. But 'a while' didn't mean very much when they were usually on the other side of the planet from each other. It definitely hadn't been so long that Hong Kong wouldn't care any more about whether or not he looked like a dumb kid in front of Norway. Maybe it didn't matter. Okay, Hong Kong told himself as he looked out at the water and the mountains. It's okay. He's taking you somewhere easy. Even if you were a complete newbie, Norway would be really nice and patient about everything. And it's not like you'd make a stupid mistake, like thinking you can wear sandals to go hiking in the mountains. Somehow, knowing that didn't help much. Hong Kong stared out at the mountains for a moment, chewing at his lower lip. Then he turned and went to where Norway sat steering the boat. "D'you have like, a map of where we're going?" "Front pocket of my rucksack," Norway said, nodding toward it. He glanced at Hong Kong, then swept his eyes forward again. "Want to take a look?" "Yeah." He took it out, then settled down onto the seat next to him. The path was marked clearly, winding its way first along the fjord and then up the mountain – but not, as far as he could tell, very far up. Nothing that he couldn't handle, at least. He'd been on hikes like that with Iceland plenty of times. Hong Kong did his best to hide his relief as he folded the map and put it away. "Decided to keep things simple, since we're only makin' a day of this," Norway said, glancing over at him. "I know you didn't come here plannin' on this sort of thing." Hong Kong smiled. "It's okay," he said. And it was. Sure, when Norway invited him for a visit, he hadn't mentioned anything like this. Just some quiet time together, that was all. But Hong Kong had learned on his very first time visiting Norway's house that it was a good idea to at least bring decent shoes and clothes suitable for mucking around in the woods. This wasn't much of a stretch beyond that. "Could do something more involved another time, mayhaps. Camping. Lots of good places for that near here." "Yeah?...That sounds good." And you sound like you're tripping over your tongue like a dorky kid, Hong Kong told himself. "I, um. I've gone with Iceland before. Camping, I mean. At his place. It was nice." "That so." "Yeah. It'd be better with you, though." It was a cheesy thing to say. Really cheesy. Just stop talking, Hong Kong told himself. But he noticed, then, something – the flicker of a smile tugging at the corner of Norway's lips. Even a year ago, he wouldn't have noticed it. But there it was. So, he did shut up. But he also stopped nagging himself about it because, cheesy or not, it didn't bother Norway. And if Norway didn't mind, then Hong Kong decided, he wouldn't mind either. Or at least, he'd try not to mind. They fell into a comfortable silence, broken only by the sound of the boat and the water. Hong Kong watched through the window as they went, the greenery and rocky grey broken up by the occasional farm. And the mountains went up, and up, and up... It was like being surrounded by Norway, in a way that was both weirdly intimate and kind of intimidating. But there was something comfortable about it too. He wondered if Norway knew that feeling. If he'd understand it if he asked about it. Hong Kong thought about it for a while, but decided to stay quiet. Maybe another time. They came to a stop when they reached a small village, pulling in at the dock. Hong Kong looked up once he was on land. The mountains, incredibly close, filled all of his vision. Someone called out to Norway from a brightly-painted house close to the fjord, and Norway called back. The language light and airy, rolling off his tongue. Hong Kong listened, but couldn't understand a word they said to each other, even though he had started studying Norway's language a little while ago, trying to learn as much as he could about the nation he'd become unexpectedly attached to. Once the boat was secured, Norway turned to him, rucksack slung over his shoulder. "Right. Let's go, then." And he headed toward the rocky path leading to their hiking trail. "Right," Hong Kong echoed, shouldering his own backpack and following. There'd been a time, before they got to know each other, when Hong Kong had assumed that it was impossible to be sure when Norway was happy about anything. Now, he wondered how he could've been so wrong. It wasn't hard to know when he was in a good mood; all you had to do was look carefully. He was the kind of guy who smiled, but only sometimes, and usually tiny ones. It was his eyes that did most of the smiling, crinkling at the corners. He was happy now. "What did that guy say to you?" Hong Kong asked once they had cleared the village, making their way up the trail. "Hmm? Oh." Norway laughed, a soft little huff. "He asked me when I decided to start taking tourists up the mountain. That's all." "Oh." Hong Kong thought about that for a moment. Well, it wasn't an unexpected assumption. People from his place did come to visit as tourists; Norway's beautiful scenery was pretty famous, after all. And he sure couldn't be mistaken for family.... "I told him you were a friend." Norway said that word with more warmth than it needed. Hong Kong let his gaze drop down to his feet. He could feel his cheeks flushing, and there was no way he could blame it on the sun or the physical activity or on anything at all. But that was fine. 'Friend' was a pretty good descriptor for what the two of them were, even if they weren't just friends. Not exactly. They were something else, and he didn't know if he should try to put a label on what that was. Norway talked. Hong Kong listened, drinking in the sound of his voice; Norway wasn't the world's most chatty person, and it felt good to know that he was relaxed enough to go on like that. He talked about the mountains. The plants growing along the trail. He answered every one of Hong Kong's questions about where they were headed, what was that flower over there, was that a village he saw in the distance or something else – as if he knew every single rock and tree on that mountain. He probably did. Eventually the trail opened up to a flat rocky space overlooking the fjord, and they stopped there to have lunch in the sunlight. Norway fished some sandwiches out of his rucksack and passed one to Hong Kong. That was followed by the thermos and tin mugs. Hong Kong's eyebrows lifted when he opened the thermos and the scent of hot tea greeted him. "You remembered," he said as he took the mug that Norway passed to him. "It might not be how you like it best," Norway confessed. "That's all right." And it was all right. The tea was very strong, but still good. The fact that it was tea at all mattered more than anything else. Neither of them said much more through lunch, and not after that either. They lapsed into comfortable quiet instead. Norway pulled a paperback out and rested back, using his rucksack as a headrest. Hong Kong slipped his phone out again and took photos of the mountains and the long blue line of the fjord, breathing in air so clear that it almost tasted cold. There was something cozy about the silence between them. And that was good, because if the quiet wasn't the comfortable kind, Hong Kong thought, he'd find the mountains unnerving. Being in such a silent place with hardly anybody around was nothing like home, with its tall buildings and busy streets filled with so, so many people. The two of them were so different. Hong Kong glanced at Norway out of the corner of his eye. It wasn't the first time that he'd wondered what Norway thought about him, what he even saw in him. There was no reason for an independent nation like Norway to even notice a special administrative region from the other side of the world. Especially not a special administrative region that was so completely, utterly different from his home. Hong Kong had brought the subject up once or twice, always trying to be cool about it, acting like it was no big deal as he fished for an answer. But it was a big deal – at least, to him it was. But if Norway caught on to what he was trying to figure out, he didn't show it, and he didn't give much of an answer, either. "You're good company," was all Norway had said. But there must have been more to it than that. The quiet, relaxed aura that Norway gave off when they were together reminded Hong Kong of England, or at least the way England could be on bright, sunny days when he had a good book and a mug of tea and not much that needed to be done. But being around England was nothing like being around Norway. Norway, who'd never had any responsibility toward him, and never would. If Norway spent time with him, Hong Kong thought as he glanced back at Norway again, it was because he wanted to, and no other reason. It was weird. But good. "Just what're you lookin' at, now." Hong Kong flushed five different shades of red. How the hell – Norway wasn't even looking at him! "I... uh." He fumbled for an explanation as Norway lowered the book, revealing his face, eyebrow raised in question. "I was just... enjoying the view?" The eyebrow arched a bit higher. "The fjord's over there," Norway said, pointing. The casual tone of his voice said one thing, but the crinkling at the corners of his eyes said another. "Right." Come on, say something cool, Hong Kong told himself. You can save this, you can stop yourself from looking like a dork. But nothing came to mind, and he was left with nothing but embarrassment. "Come here, then," Norway said as he sat up, patting the ground beside him. The book slipped back into his rucksack as Hong Kong went to take a seat beside him. "Got a lot on your mind?" "I guess." If it had been England asking, Hong Kong knew that he wouldn't have said a thing. He would've clammed up, giving him nothing much except sarcasm and answers designed to test his patience. But this was Norway. So it was different. A whole lot different. Hong Kong took a deep breath. "I was thinking about how different we are." "Oh?" "Yeah." Great, Hong Kong thought. Now you're going to have to actually explain yourself. But how could he? "I mean, you're all..." He looked at Norway, then out at the landscape, struggling to word it. Finally, he just gestured out at the fjord, the mountains, the everything, as if by doing that he could describe Norway in his entirety. "You're yourself. And I'm...." "A metropolis," Norway offered, his voice soft. There was something about the way Norway it that made Hong Kong pause. The sound slipped down his spine, nestled in his chest. Even though they weren't sitting close together, the word almost fluttered against his ear. Metropolis. Well. Okay. "Right. Exactly." "Always did wonder what you'd see in an old sailor like myself." "What?" Hong Kong looked at him sharply. Whatever he'd expected to hear, it wasn't that. It was true that Norway was a little rustic, but it wasn't as if Hong Kong minded that. And 'old sailor' didn't describe him either; the years didn't weigh on his face the way they did for humans. But sometimes, time would show itself in the quiet way he'd get sometimes, the way he'd talk about times and places that Hong Kong had never known, as if Norway had forgotten that those centuries were something far between them. Still. Was what how Norway saw himself? "Would figure someone like you would find me boring." "But –" Hong Kong began, but Norway held up a hand and continued. "I reckon it's your own business," Norway said, speaking gently but firmly, "whatever it is you get out of my company." Then he quieted, waiting for Hong Kong to contradict him. Well, he couldn't say anything to that. Hong Kong chewed at his lower lip as he looked out at the fjord, considering what Norway said. Maybe it didn't matter that much. It was obvious that the two of them saw each other very differently than they saw themselves. Did the reasons why matter that much? Sure, Hong Kong wasn't an independent country, but it was obvious that Norway didn't care about that at all. And if Norway didn't mind that they were so different – even liked that they were.... It was enough that they liked being together so much. "Reckon so," Hong Kong said finally, mimicking Norway's phrasing as he looked back toward him offering a shy smile. He got a laugh for that, a soft huff of sound. Then Norway edged closer, sliding an arm around his shoulders. As Hong Kong leaned into the hold, he felt the soft brush of a kiss against his cheek. The touch was light and delicate, and it said more than words ever could. "Don't overthink it," Norway said gently, lingering close. "All right. I won't." "Good." Another soft, barely-there kiss. "So. How about the idea for another time. What I mentioned before. Camping out someplace. What do you think?" "Hmm." On the one hand, being completely alone with Norway sounded great. But on the other... "I dunno'," Hong Kong said, drawing the words out so it would be clear that he was joking. "There's no wifi in the great outdoors. I'm not sure I could handle that." Another laugh, this time more like a snort. "Just day trips, then?" "Sure. Or you could try to convince me." "Sounds like I'll have to do that, then." You're free to, Hong Kong thought as he nestled against Norway's side. He wouldn't mind that at all. They lapsed into quiet again, and this time, it was even more comfortable than before. Whatever it was that they had together, Hong Kong thought, they were both happy with it. The rest didn't really matter.

[sunnysynthsunshine]

The Entire History of the World I guess? (bill wurtz)

hi, you're on a rock floating in space. pretty cool, huh? some of it's water. fuck it. actually, most of it's water. i can't even get from here to there without buying a boat. it's sad. i'm sad. i miss you. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? a long time ago... actually, never. and also now. nothing is nowhere. when? never. makes sense, right? like i said, it didn't happen. nothing was never anywhere. that's why it's been everywhere. it's been so "everywhere," you don't need a "where." you don't even need a "when." that's how "every" it gets. forget this. i wanna be something. go somewhere. do something. i want things to change. i want to invent time and space. and i know it's possible because everything is here, and it probably already happened. i just don't know when to start. and that's exactly where it started. big bang— pause woah. i paused it. i think there's a universe now. what's it made of? quarks and stuff. ah, that's a thing! in a place! don't like it? try a new place, at a different Time™. try to stick together, because the world is gonna get bigger and emptier. but it's not empty yet! it's still very full, and about a kjghpillion degrees. about no seconds later great news! the quarks are now happily married in groups of three, called a "proton" and a "neutron." and there's something else flying around that wants to join in, but can't cause it's tooHOT. ten minutes later great news! the protons and neutrons are now happily married to each other! some of them even doubled up. about 380,000 years later great news! the electrons have now joined in. congratulations! the world is now... a bunch of gas in space. but it's getting closer together... ten million years later and it's getting closer together... 500 million years later and it's getting closer togeth— star is born it's a star new shit just got made! some stars burn out and die. bigger stars burn out and die with passion! and make some brand new way crazier shit. space dust! which allows for newer and more interesting stars to be made, and then die and explode into even crazier space dust! so now, stars have cool stuff around them, like rocks, ice, and funny clouds, which can make some very interesting things. like this ball of flaming rocks, for example. meteor hits earth holy shit, we just got hit by another ball of flaming rocks. and it kind of... made a mess. which isnow the moon weather update: it's raining rocks from outer space. weather update: those rocks might've had water inside of them and now there's hot steam in the sky. weather update: cooler temperatures today and the floor is no longer lava. weather update... it's raining. severe flooding alert, the entire world is now an ocean. volcano alert. that's land! there'slifeintheocean what? something's alive in the ocean oh, cool. like a plant, or an animal? no! a microscopic speck. it lives in the bottom of the ocean and eats chemical soup, which is being served hot and fresh, made from gnarly space ingredients left over from when it was raining rocks or whatever. microscopic speck asexually reproduces oh yeah, and it can do that. reproduces three more times it has secret instructions written inside itself telling it how to build another one of itself. so that's pretty nifty, i would say. tired of living at the bottom of the ocean? now you can eat sunlight! using a revolutionary technique, you can convert sunlight into food. taste the sun! side effect, now there's oxygen everywhere and the sky is blue. then the earth might've been a snowball for a while. maybe even a couple of times. it's a sponge... it's a plant... it's a worm, and some other types of weird strange water bugs and strange fish. it's the Cambrian explosion: "wow, that's animals and stuff" but we're still in the ocean. hey, can we go on land? NO why? the sun is a deadly laser oh okay. not anymore, there's a blanket now the animals can go on land. come on, animals, let's go on land! "nope, can't walk yet." "and there's no food yet, so i don't care." 100 million years later okay, will you learn to walk if there's plants up here? "maybe," said some bugs. and fish. fish gasps for air five million years later okay, so i can go on land, but i have to go back in the water to have babies! idea: learn to use an egg. "i was already doing that" use a stronger egg. put water in it. have a baby, on land, in an egg. water is in the egg. baby, in the egg, in the water, in the egg. works for me. bye bye ocean 50 million years later and now everything's huge. including bugs. wanna see a map of the land? sure. Permian extinction oh, fuck, now everything's dead. just kidding, here are the survivors. keep your eye on this one, because it's about to become 75 million years later the dinosaurs. here's another map of the land. yeah, it broke apart. don't worry about it, it does that all the time. here comes a meteor. meteor strikes and the dinosaurs are gone it's mammal time, here come the mammals. look at those breasts. now they're gonna dominate the world, but one of them just learned how to grab stuff. and walk. no, like, walk like that. and grab stuff at the same time. and bang rocks together to make pointed rocks. "ouch" and set things on fire. "yeouch" and make crazy sounds with their voice: "gneurshk" which can mean different things. that's a human person! and now they're everywhere. almost. ice age! what? you can walk over here? cool. not anymore well i guess we're stuck here now. let's review: there's people on the planet. and they're chasing their food. fuck it. time to plant some grass. look at this. i get to control the food now. now everyone will want to be my friend and live near me. let's all build houses, except mine is bigger because i own the food. this is great! i wonder if anyone else is doing this. tired of using rocks for everything? use metal. it's underground. better farming was just invented in a sweet dank valley right in between these two rivers, and the animals are helping. guess what happens next? more food. and more people, who came to buy the food. now you need people to help make the food and keep track of the sales. and now you need houses for people to live in and people to make the houses and now there's more people and they invent things which makes things better and more people come and there's more farming and more people to make more things for more people and now there's business, money, writing, laws, power, Society coming soon to a dank river valley near you. meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, the horse is probably being tamed. why is all my metal so lame and lumpy? tired of using lame, sad metal? introducing: bronze. made from special ingredient tin from the far lands of Tin Land. i dunno, my dealer won't tell me where he gets it. also, guess what? egypt meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, they figured out how to put wheels on a horse. now we're getting somewhere. also, china and did i mention indus river valley civilization society count: 5 ... norte chico the middle east is getting more complicated. maybe because it's in the middle of the east. knock knock, er, clop clop. it's the... people with the horses? and they made an empire. and then everyone else copied their horses. greeks! ah look, it must be the greeks! er, a beta version of the greeks. let's check in with the indus river valley civilization: they're gone. guess who's not gone? china. new arrivals from india... maybe it's those horse people i was talking about... or their cousins or something... and they wrote some hymns and mantras and stuff... you could make a religion out of this. there's the bronze age collapse. now the phoenicians can get down to business also, can we switch to a metal that's a little easier to find? thanks. look who came back to israel, it's the twelve tribes of israel. and they believe in God just one though, and he's got like a ten-step program. here's some huge heads. must be the olmecs. the phoenicians make some colonies. the greeks copy their idea and make some colonies. the phoenicians made a colony so big it makes colonies. here comes the assyrian empire. never mind, it's the babyloni— media— it's the Persian Empire: "wow, that's big" enlightenment ah, the buddha was just enlightened. who's the buddha? this guy, who sat under a tree for so long that he figured out how to ignore the fact that we're all dying. you could make a religion out of this. oops, china just broke. but while it was breaking, confucius was figuring out how to have good morals. enlightenment ah, the greeks just had the idea of thinking about stuff. and right over here, alexander just had the idea of conquering the entire persian empire. it's a great idea. he was... great. and now he's dead. hopefully, the rest of the gang will be able to share the empire evenly between them. knock knock, it's chandragupta. he says "get the hell out of here. will you get the hell out of here if i give you 500 elephants? okay, thanks, bye" time to conquer all of india er most of india but what about this part? that's the tamil kings. no one conquers the tamil kings. who are the tamil kings? merchants, probably. and they've got spices! who would like to buy the spices? "me!" said the arabians, swiftly buying it and selling it to the rest of the world. hey, china put itself back together again, with good morals as their main philosophy. actually, they have three main philosophies: confucianism: have good morals taoism: go with the flow legalism: fuck you, obey the law out here, the horse nomads run wild and free, and they would like to ransack your city. nomads ransack china let's check the greekification levels of the greekified kingdoms: greekification overload. bye, said the parthians. bye, said the jews. hi, said the parthians, taking over the entire place. heyyyyy, said the romans, eating the entire mediterranean for breakfast. "thanks for invading our homeland," said the jews, who were starting to get tired of people invading their homeland. "hi, everything's great," said some guy who seems to be getting very popular and is then arrested and killed for being too popular, which actually makes him more popular. you could make a religion out of this. want silk? now you can buy it from china. they just made a brand new road to the world. conquers vietnam or you can get there on water "sick! new trade routes!" said india, accidentally spreading their religion to the entire southeast. hmm, that's a good place for an epic trading kingdom. there goes buddhism, travelling up the silk road. i wonder if it'll reach china before it collapses again. remember the persian empire? yep, said the persians, making a new one. axum is getting so powerful, they would like to build a long stick. has anyone populated madagascar yet? let's do it together. china is whole again... ...then it broke again still can't cross the sahara desert? try camels. "hell yeah! now we've got business," said the ghana empire, selling lots of gold. and slaves. "hi, i'm a member of the roman empire, and i was wondering is loving jesus legal yet?" "no" "actually, okay sure," said constantine, moving the capital way over here to be closer to his main rival. don't worry about rome, it won't fall. it's the golden age of india there's the gupta empire, not chandragupta, just gupta. first name chandra. the first. guess who's in rome? barbarians. what's a barbarian? "non-romans," said the romans, being invaded by non-romans. r.i.p. roman empire. actually just half of it, the other half is just fine, but it's not in rome anymore, so let's give it a new name. the mayans have figured out the stars oh, and here's a huge city, population: everyone. the göktürks have taken over the entire eurasian steppe. great job, göktürks. how's india? broken. how's china? back together. how's those trading kingdoms? bigger, and there's more of them. korea has three kingdoms. japan has a kingdom, it's the sunrise kingdom. intermission deep in the arabian desert, on the top of a mountain, the real god whispers in muhammad's ear. so, he goes down to the cube where everyone worships gods and he tells them their gods are all fake. and everyone got so mad at him that he had to leave town and go to a different town. you could make a religion out of this, and maybe conquer the world as well. the roman empire is long gone, but somehow the pope is still the pope. plus, there's new kingdoms all over europe. i wonder if there's room for moors. here's all the wisdom. in a house. it's the baghdad house of wisdom! just in time for the islamic golden age! "let's bring stuff to the coast and sell it, and become the swahili on the swahili coast," said the swahili on the swahili coast. remember this tiny space you have to go through to get from here to there? someone owns that now. wanna get enlightened in the middle of nowhere? the franks have the biggest kingdom in europe, and the pope is so proud that he invites the king over for christmas. "surprise! you're the new roman emporer!" said the pope, pretending to still be part of the roman empire. then the franks broke their kingdom into what will later be called france and not-france. the northerners, er, just "norse" if you don't have much time, are exploring. they go north, from the north to the northern north. and they find some land— two types of land!— and they name them accordingly. prankd they also invade some other places and get called many names, such as "vikings." there's the rus! the kievan rus! are they vikings? "i don't think so," said the kievan rus. okay, fair enough. the pope is ready to make some more emperors of the roman empire. the holy roman empire! it's actually germany, but don't worry about it. new kingdoms— CRISTIANIZE ALL THE KINGDOMS!! which brand would you like? "mine's better" "mine's better" "mine's better" "time to conquer england," said william. it's a bird! it's a plane! it's the seljuk turks! "aah!" said the byzantine empire, who's getting so small and almost doesn't exist anymore. "we need help!" they need help! so they call the pope. "hey pope, can you help us get rid of the seljuks? maybe take back the holy land on the way? come on, i know you want to take back the holy land." "yes, i do actually want to do that. let's do a crusade." crusade! they did many crusades. some of which almost didn't fail. but at least the italians got some sweet trade deals. goodbye mayans. hello toltecs! goodbye toltecs. hello mississippi! look at those mounds. there's the pueblo. i always wondered how to build a town in a cliff. guess who's here? khmer. where? here! and pagan is there. vietnam unconquered itself, korea just became itself, and japan is so addicted to art that the military might have to take over the government. china just invented bombs, and typing. and the mongols just invaded most of the universe. nice going, genghis! i bet that will last a long time. some of the islamic turks were unaffected by the mongol invasions because they were busy invading india. is it tonga time? i think it's tonga time. i just figured out where the swahili gets all of their gold. look at this chad! it means "lake." there's an empire there! right in the middle of africa! the king of mali is so rich, he's going on tour to let everyone know. "wow, that guy's rich," everyone said. the christians are doing a great job reconquering iberia, which will soon be called spain and not-spain. please remain christian. we will check in later to see if you're still christian when you least expect. whoops, half of europe just died. ming! china's back, yay! hey, khmer. time to share. new kingdoms, here and there. oh, look who controls all of the islands. it's the mahajapit. majahapit. mapajahit. mahapajit. mapajahit. ma-ja-pa-hit? oh, italy's real rich. time for them to care a lot about art and the ancient classics. it's kinda like a rebirth. here's a printer. let's make books! so you think you can conquer the byzantine empire? yep, said the ottoman turks. nice job, ottoman turks. oops, you missed a spot. don't forget to ban europe from the indian spice trade. "what? that's bullshit," said portugal, spiceless. "well i guess we'll have to find another way to india" "wait!" said christopher columbus, probably smoking crack. "if the world is round, let's go this way to india." "nah, don't worry, we already got this," said portugal. so chris goes to spain. "hey spain, wanna hire me to find india by going around back of the world?" "no" "please?" "no" "please?" "wtf" "no" "please?" "...okay" so he sails into the ocean, and discovers... more ocean. and then discovers the indies, and japan! let's draw a line to decide who gets which half of the world. the aztec and the inca empires are off to a great start. i wonder if they know that europe just discovered their continent. the hapsburgs are marrying into so many royal families, they might have to start marrying each other. move over, lithuania, here comes moscow. ivan wants to make russia great again. move over, timurids, maybe go invade india or something. persia just made persia persian again. let's make it the other kind of islam. the one where we thought the first guy should've been the other guy. hey, christians! do you sin? now you can buy your way out of hell! "that's bullshit. this whole thing is bullshit. that's a scam. fuck the church. here's 95 reasons why," said martin luther, in his new book which might have accidentally started the protestant reformation. "you know what would be magnificent?" said suleiman wearing an onion hat. "what if the ottoman empire was... really big?" which it is now. "what if russia was big?" said ivan, trying not to be terrible. portugal had a dream that they controlled the entire indian ocean, including the spice trade. and then that dream was real. and spain realized that this is not india, but they pillaged it anyway. "damn," said england and france. "we gotta start pillaging some stuff." then the dutch revolt, and all the hipsters moved to amsterdam. "damn," said amsterdam. "we gotta start pillaging some stuff." question one: can you get to india from north america? no, but at least there's beaver. question two: steal the spice trade. that's not a question, but the dutch did it anyway. and sugar... guess where all of the sugar is made? in brazil! stolen! in the caribbean! and it's so goddamn profitable, you might forget to not do slavery. the next thing on russia's to-do list is to get bigger. britain and france are having a friendly discussion about who should control the entire world. more specifically, ohio. then it escalates into a seven-year discussion, giving prussia a chance to show austria who's boss. but what about britain and france, did they figure out who's boss? yes they did! it's britain. guess who's broke? also britain! so they start taxing the hell out of america. "fuck you!" says america, declaring their independence and fighting for it, and france helps them win. now france is broke, and britain will have to send their prisoners to a different continent. wait, if france is broke, why do the king and queen still wear such fancy dresses? "let's overthrow the palace and cut all their heads off!" said robespierre, cutting everybody's heads off until someone eventually got mad and cut his head off. you could make a rel— no, don't. haiti is starting to like the idea of a revolution, especially the slaves, who free themselves by killing their masters. "why didn't we think of this before?" wait, who's in charge of france now? "me," said napoleon, trying to take over europe. luckily, they banished him to an island. but he came back! luckily, they banished him to another island. there goes latin america, becoming independent in the latin american wars of independence. britain just figured out how to turn steam into power, so now they can make many different types of machines and factories with machines in them so they can make a lot of products real fast. then they invent some trains. and conquer india and maybe put some trains there. "hey, china!" said britain. "buy stuff from us!" "nah, dude, we already got everything," says china. so britain tried to get them addicted to opium, which worked, actually. but then china made it illegal and dumped it all into the sea. so britain threw a hissy fit and made them open up five cities and give them an island. britain and russia are playing a game where they try to stop the other person from conquering afghanistan. also, the sultan of oman lives in zanzibar now: "that's just where he lives." india just had a revolution, and they would like to govern themselves now. "nope," said britain, governing them even harder than before. incoming telegram: HI I JUST SENT YOU A MESSAGE THRU A WIRE technology is about to go crazy! the united states finally figured out whether slavery is good or bad. it's bad, they decided, and then they continued manifesting their destiny, which is to kill the rest of the natives and take their land and maybe kick out the mexicans too. "i know! let's rape africa!" said europe, scrambling to see who could rape it the fastest. they never got ethiopia... britain and france are still hungry. they never got thailand... the united states ran out of destiny to manifest, so they're looking for more: hawaii! cuba! wait, spain controls cuba. well, blame something on them and go to war! what should we blame on spain? u.s.s. maine sinks "let's blame the maine on spain." so they blame the maine on spain. now we're in business. to celebrate, they kick panama out of panama and make a canal, connecting the two oceans. britain just found oil in the middle east. it makes cars go... china is so tired of being bossed around that they delete their old government and make a new, stronger government, which is accidentally weaker and is controlled by a guy from the previous government. europe hasn't had a war since the last war, so they start world war one. look at those guns! it's gonna be a great war, so great we won't need a second one. after it's over, they blame germany. russia went on strike, and the workers overthrew the government. now, everyone's paycheck is the same. communism in the soviet union... the arabs revolt and britain helps. now the ottoman empire is gone, so we can give the jewish people a place to live. hopefully the arabs won't mind. "let's cut the cake!" said sykes and picot, carving up the remains of the not-so-ottoman-anymore-empire. except turkey! turkey makes a brand new turkey! and then the saudis conquer arabia. it just seemed like the right thing to do. phone rings hello? yes, it's the 1920's calling. let's get to a car and drive to a party and listen to jazz on the radio and go to the movies. the economy is great and it will probably be great forever. just kidding. germany's back, featuring hitler, the angry mustache model, and he's mad at the jews for existing. japan is finally conquering the east, and they're so excited, they rape nanking way too hard. they should probably just deny it. hitler's out of control, so the international community tackles him and tries to explain to him why killing all of the jews is a bad idea. but he kills himself because they could explain it to him. that's world war two! bonus round! pacific showdown united states vs. japan FIGHT!! united states drops two extinction balls on japan FINISH HIM! let's unite all the nations and have some world peace! seems legit. "hi, im gandhi, and if britain doesn't get the hell out of india, i'm going to starve myself in public." britain leaves "wow, that worked?" bonus! now there's pakistan. actually two pakistans, one of them can be bangladesh later. the jews and the arabs finally figured out which one of them should live in the holy land. "me!" they both said at the same time. let's divide up the lands so we're both happy. SIKE! they both get angrier! look out, china! there's a new china in china. what's on the menu? communism! no thanks, said the other china, escaping to an island. i wonder which one is the real china...? there's the korean war. korea versus korea! nobody wins, then its on pause forever. let's meet the sponsors. oh, it's the two global superpowers. they're having a friendly debate over which economic system is good and which one is an evil virus of satan. and they both have atom bombs. FIGHT!! wait, no, that would be the end of the world. let's just keep it cool and spy on each other instead. and make sure we have enough atom bombs. "i'll race you to space." united states plants a flag on the moon now let's make more countries fight themselves. europe is tired of pillaging other continents, and the continents they were pillaging are tired of being pillaged. so here's a new map with new countries. now you can't tell who they're being pillaged by. the united states finally decided whether racism is good or bad. they decided it's bad, and the world agrees. south africa might need another minute to think about it. let's check the world population! woah. okay. technology is better too, that might keep happening. the soviet union decides to relax a little, and accidentally falls apart. europe makes a union, so now they can all use the same money. except britain, because they don't feel like it. let's check the mail... surprise! it's on the computer! whoops, someone just attacked america. i bet they'll remember that. phone call! surprise! it's in your pocket! wanna learn everything? surprise! it's on the computer! now your phone's a computer, which is in your pocket! whoops, the economy just crashed. don't worry, the big banks won't fail, because they're not supposed to. surprise!... flying robots. with bombs. wanna print a brain? some people have no friends. some people have no food. the globe is warming, and the ocean is full of plastic! "let's save the planet!" said everybody, not knowing how. "let's invent a thing inventor," said the thing inventor inventor after being invented by a thing inventor. that's pretty cool. by the way, where the hell are we? thanks for watching history i hope i mentioned everything

[doctorpariahdax]

Gang 2/3

“How’s that one fittin’ ya?” he said from over the counter. “Maybe you feel a bit different about it, but I like to have a farther grip with some of them carbines. They just sit more naturally if you have a farther grip.”    Dutch narrowed his eyes to the storekeep and shook his head reluctantly as he brought down the rifle. “I’m not fond of these larger guns.”   “Not a rifle man, eh? Well, I mean, you’ve seen the half shot guns I got and the pistols. I myself prefer rifles, I feel like they have a bit more practical flexibility but, that’s just my opinion.”    “You ain’t got anything else?”   The storekeeper shook his head. “Listen, fella, I know you’ve been paining over these guns for a while...If it’s that important to you I could knock off a dozen dollars or so-”   “Nah,” Dutch handed the carbine back, scratching his forehead, “money ain’t really the problem. It’s...I don’t have my guns. That’s the problem.” He looked out the window, Hosea was still chatting up a stagehand, looking at a map and occasionally wiping his nose on his mittens. Inside the store it was cozy, a bit of a draft from the winter winds seeping in under the door. On top of him missing his pistols, the weather wasn’t doing much to brighten Dutch’s mood. Damn Hosea, though, he enjoyed the cold.    “You boys ain’t from around here, are ya?” The storekeeper finished replacing the carbines on the wall. Dutch was the only customer in the store at the moment and he had shown up in town earlier looking as ill prepared as one could.   “What gave it away, our ankle height shoes or our soft southern bell faces?” Dutch shared a brief laugh with the man behind the counter. “We’re coming up from Tennessee, took a bit of a detour.” He waved to Hosea’s back through the window. “We’re from Chicago, originally. I kinda grew up here and there. You know how it is. Our fathers were in the war while we were making business overseas. Had to come back, and I’ll tell ya, it’s a hell of a lot easier getting cash flow in Europe than when you start a business anywhere back here.”    The shopkeeper had a long mustacio that he’d occasionally poke his tongue out absentmindedly at, brushing it to the side. He stuck his hand over the counter, “Robert Amato.”    “John Orrelle, that’s Tacitus Combs.” Dutch gave a large smile. Since when did all these people get so damn soft and trusting. Making friends was almost too easy now.   “What business you boys in anyways?”   “Tacitus used to be a banker, an accountant I guess, he’s got a good honest head on his shoulders,” he spoke through his teeth then, “grew up kinda cozy like, he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.”    “And you do, John?”   “Ahh,” Dutch shrugged. “Maybe I just got a thicker skull. Used to be a rancher, wasn’t very good at it so I’ve always done odd jobs here and there.” He pointed to a collection of poorly made skiis sitting in the corner of the store. “Never made anything like them, but they’re popular in Europe. I did carpentry for most of it though, while we was overseas. Nice and quiet. Coming back home...god, I feel like half the people we meet just wanna shoot us.”    Robert nodded but lost a bit of humor in his face after Dutch spoke. “Funny you should mention that. Shootin’, I mean.”   Hosea’s conversation with the stagehand seemed to be taking less of a turn for the better. Hosea was standing there with that dumbfounded expression as the stagehand grew more and more animated through the window.   “What do you mean?” Dutch divided his attention.    “Oh...couple days ago, this kid comes into town, says he’s looking for his uncles. He was supposed to meet them here. He was in bad shape, had a pack with him and whatnot, lots of money, said he was from a well off family but he got separated. Kinda walking with a limp. Oooh, and his horse.”   Hosea had completely surrendered speaking with the stagehand. He looked back into the store, maybe trying to see Dutch.    Robert prodded Dutch’s arm and brought out his accounts book. “See here, John, that boy came in, bought about a hundred dollars worth of cans and dried foods, crackers, tinned fish, ya get the picture. Sold his horse, but the damn thing was barely on its last legs...I sent him down to the butcher, see if maybe he could take the hide off the animal and get the boy some money or jerky or something. We all came together – we’re a good community. I mean this boy couldn’t have been older than sixteen. He was tall and all but he was still a kid, and he was a kid in need of help. We pitched him up with the sheriff’s family. We don’t got much of a hotel here or anything fancy here.”    Dutch knew that; Hosea and him mostly stopped in this little rink-dink town for supplies and weather worthy clothes.    “Anyways, this kid stays a night or two, he’s chatting up the sheriff’s eldest, he’s getting along with the younger boys. Get the picture? Well, Sheriff comes back-”    “Where was he?” Dutch asked half interested, watching the stagehand shake Hosea’s and leave him standing on the porch just beyond the window. “Taking care of a horse theft just down the road, he and our deputy. He left just before the boy came in. But! Sheriff comes back, this kid walks right on out in front of his home, says, “you Sheriff Nemes?” well, Sheriff says yes. Boy takes off his hat and looks at his deputy, nods, asks if he only has one deputy, Sheriff says yes, I mean he knows this boy’s been staying with his family now for a bit, heard as he passed through town. So, being nice and all, he asks the boy if he’s looking for deputy work.”    Robert patted Dutch’s arm again to get his attention, the bell of the store rang as Hosea – Tacitus – walked in. “Boy shakes his head, and he drew his pistol so damn quick below the hand he was holding and he shot the deputy and poor Nemes through his hat right between the eyes.”    There was a moment of silence that fell into the shop. Dutch could tell Robert was hoping for a bit more of a reaction than just a stare.    “You said this kid was walking with a limp?”   Clearly disappointed and caught a bit off guard by the question, the shopkeeper just stared back at the two men, and after a moment cleared his throat and nodded. “Uh, yeah.”   “What kind of a limp?” Hosea poked his head over Dutch’s shoulder. Robert itched his head and licked his mustache. “Ahhh, I suppose. Well, it was more like he was favoring a side than a limp, maybe something was wrong with his spine or something. I mean he was a good looking kid, didn’t look like a cripple.”   “Friend,” Dutch hastily interrupted. “What kind of a limp? What side? Et cetera...”   Robert thought for a moment.   “Well.” He looked up and squinted, contorting his own torso a bit gently trying to remember. “I think it was his left, he was kind hunkered over to the left, said he fell off his horse, hurt his ribs...but lots of cripples kinda tell small fibs to distract from their shortcomings. I’d do that. I suppose. Thought maybe it’s not all that surprising he’d lie given the fact he killed two men in cold blood. Right on the step of their own home too. Good god.”   If Hosea had ever before chosen a more opportunistic time to be helpful, Dutch hadn’t been around. The older man moved to lean on the counter after glancing around the inside of the store. He introduced himself as Tacitus and Robert confirmed he had already been speaking quite a bit with his friend, John. Robert caught him up on the short bits of the story. Hosea held up his hand with a soft smile.    “Don’t mean to interrupt friend, but uh, this kid,” He raised his hand somewhere between Hosea’s head and Dutch’s chin, “he about this tall? Light brown hair? Gangly?”   “That’s right, blue eyes too, I think,” Robert nodded.   Hosea licked his chapped lips. “See...I don’t know if maybe this is ah...well, rude, I don’t want to go prying where our noses don’t belong but my friend here, John, he doesn’t want to admit it, but as ruff and gruff as he is he was robbed a month or two back when we were going through Tennessee. He,” Hosea chuckled, “got robbed by a kid. Took some of our money, messed up our supplies and made off with John’s pistols. This kid….well, you said he came into your shop?”   “That’s right. Sold him dried goods, got his dying horse sold off and he bought a pair of skiis and poles from me. Skiied on off after he done shot the deputy and poor Nemes.”    “Right. While he was here. You and your impeccable eye didn’t happen to catch a look at his pistols?”    Robert thought again for a moment. “I mean. I saw a bit of them when he done took off his coat and he was buying a warmer one from me.”   “Mhm, and what’d they look like?”   “Gold and silver I think? They were real fancy looking. Had uh...embroidery ain’t the right word.”   Dutch’s nose was twitching and he could feel his ears burning. “Ivory handles? Gold inlaid into a floral pattern on the handles?”    Robert’s long thoughtful pauses were accented by Dutch grinding his teeth.   “Yeah. I suppose that sounds about right. They were real fancy looking. I asked if I could see them but he said they was a present from an uncle or something and he was mighty protective of them.”   “Did you catch this kids name?” Hosea supportively clapped Dutch’s shoulders. Robert turned the book around again, his pinkish purple fingers stiff on the paper from the cold. A big ‘x’ was filled out on a line with a total of a hundred eight dollars in miscellaneous goods. “Boy just wrote an X. I thought that was weird. He said he was well off but the kid couldn’t bother to spell out his name. What kind of a wealthy kid in these parts can’t write his own name?”    “What. Was. His. Name?” Dutch repeated Hosea with a little less patience.   “Robin Kilgore.” Robert tapped the side of his temple with an impish smile. “I got a mind like a steel trap I do. He said he was heading up to Vermont, that’s where his family was staying he said. He sounded Lousianan. Awfully long way to travel just for a winter vacation. I mean it’s not warmer up there than it is here round the great lakes. Mind like a steel trap. That’s what my momma said, mind like a steel trap.”    Hosea and Dutch looked between them. Robin Kilgore. How subtle. This kid must think he’s pretty clever. Or he’s just got parents with a sense of humor. Clearing his throat, Dutch thanked the shopkeeper. “That you do, Robert. Thank you for your time and your company.”    “One more thing,” Robert said. “Coming into town, we don’t have very many vagabonds, no homeless really. There’s three beggar kids on the street, an older girl, two little boys.” Robert nodded knowingly. “That’s Nemes’ kids. Momma’s looking for work, I don’t condone beggging but, the kids are just trying to help out, should you find it in your Christian hearts to give them something.”    Hosea spent a bit more time conversing as Tacitus before joining Dutch back out in the cold. Their two horse drawn wagon was stocked back up, the wheel had been reliable since their stop in Tennessee. Now, Dutch supposed, they’d be heading up to the north east. Hosea poked and prodded at conversation, thinking it was funny and how coincidental it would be if this was the same piece of shit kid.   “You ever been to Vermont?” Dutch cut Hosea off in the middle of a book he was reading aloud for entertainment’s sake.   “We’re not going to Vermont, Dutch.”   “I’ve never been to Vermont, heard it’s lovely up there this time of year if you can get over how fucking cold it is.”   “We’re. Not. Going. To. Vermont. You said we’re heading to Maryland. Now, Dutch, I let you drag my ass up here to the great lakes for a bit of business but we’re making out just fine. Now, we’re gonna go to Maryland for the rest of the winter, like you promised, and we’re gonna blow some money on warm baths and nice whiskey. That’s that.”   “I’ll drop you off, then.” Dutch said matter of factly. “I’m going to Vermont.”   “Bumpkin as much as he is did you not just hear what – what...shit what was his name.”   “Robert.”   “Robert said? Kid’s probably been lying through his teeth and doing petty crimes since he was born. Sounds a lot like you, just live and let live Dutch. You gotta be less picky...Besides. I’m sure in Maryland they have some good craftsmen. I bet they can make your guns over and over again for the right price.”   Dutch whipped the horses on a bit harder through the snow. After a minute or two of silence, Hosea slumped in the seat and picked up his scarf, tightening it around his neck. He started reading aloud again, a bit quicker, sour, knowing that whatever protest he might put up, Dutch was bringing them to Vermont. part 1/3

part 3/3

[vennilavee]

fresh eyes

Pairing: sam wilson x poc reader

Summary: You’re a pharmacist in one of the busiest pharmacies in Brooklyn. When some of the Avengers start picking up their medications from your pharmacy, you know life is about to get infinitely more interesting.

Warnings: cursing, mentions of anxiety/PTSD

Word Count: 2497

A/N: Pharmacists never get any love! ANYWHERE- in books, in television, in fanfiction or anything lmao (maybe I’m biased). and also sam never gets any love so here we are.  I’m nervous for this cause I’ve never written Sam before, please let me know your thoughts! Enjoy!

12 hour shifts at the retail pharmacy were a walk in the park to you now, almost ten years after you had graduated from school. You remember when you were a fresh graduate and you remember how your feet and calves would ache from standing on your feet all day. You remember how you would always be hungry and you would end your shift with a pounding headache.

But now, you were a pro. You opted for comfortable shoes rather than stylish flats, you brought in enough food to last you the day, and you always kept cases of water and plenty of snacks in the pharmacy for you and your technicians. 

Most of your patients were well-mannered and kind. You had come to get to know many of them over the years. They knew you by name and whenever they came to pick up their prescriptions, they would give you a quick update on their lives and ask you about yours. They were almost like your family, in a way. You felt the ache when people sometimes moved away and stopped coming to your pharmacy. But of course, there were people who gave you an attitude when their medications weren’t ready or when you couldn’t get hold of the doctor for more refills for their medications. 

You gave attitude right back, though. In the beginning, you were afraid to. But then you realized that this was your house, that people shouldn’t talk to other people the way that they sometimes spoke to you. With their profanities and raised voices. So you gave the attitude right back, and you quickly became known as the pharmacist who would take no shit from anyone. You had thought that corporate would come down on you hard for being firm and feisty, but it was quite the opposite. 

You were the only one who had lasted this long in this particular pharmacy, and it was a title you wore proudly. This job made you get a thick skin and taught you things about empathy that you thought you already knew. 

Your staff was a godsend- always helpful, ready to take charge when necessary. They were like your family, too. You even hung out sometimes outside of work, when your schedules matched up.

Your pharmacy was busy almost all the time and Mondays were often the worst. Phones would be ringing off of the hook, people would be coming in and out. But you thrived in well-organized chaos. Because that’s what it was- despite all the noise, you were calm and level headed.

You think nothing of it while you verify prescriptions for Steven Grant Rogers. That was a common name, right? And then you verify prescriptions that a psychiatrist has called in for James Buchanan Barnes and Sam Wilson and you know this is not a coincidence. Your technician squeals in excitement- “do you think the Avengers will come here to pick up their meds?!” You scoff, because there’s no way that the Earth’s mightiest soldiers are going to pick up their medications at your pharmacy. Surely Tony Stark has his own personal pharmacy in that obnoxious tower that sat in Manhattan?

You are curious, though, at the medications that they’re taking. Some part of you is glad that they are treating their PTSD and anxiety appropriately, when you see the prescriptions for paroxetine, sertraline, and fluoxetine. You’re benignly proud of them for getting the help they needed. Your heart clenches at the thought of all the things they’ve gone through over and over and over again. 

You sincerely hope they stop by.

Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes walk into the pharmacy and they’re both pleasantly surprised when nobody recognizes them. Or if they do recognize them, nobody says anything. They’re greeted with eager smiles and starstruck eyes, that they return.

Bucky picks up a pack of peanut M&Ms and Reese’s peanut butter cups before following Sam to the back of the store, to the pharmacy. There’s a line of three or four people, waiting to be called upon. The pharmacy must be short staffed today, because he sees you running back and forth from the computer inside the pharmacy to the bins behind the counter and helping patients as quickly and efficiently as you can. 

Sam watches you curiously when he sees your smile fall and your lips set into an annoyed line. 

“Can I speak to the pharmacist, please?” The woman in front of them asks you, ignoring your white coat that has pharmacist emblazoned in black print.

“I am the pharmacist,” You say, not bothering to keep the bite out of your voice.

“Oh, but you’re so young,” The woman says quickly, “I was expecting someone... else.”

You want to say, “were you expecting someone that didn’t have brown skin?” But you refrain and physically bite the inside of your cheek. The woman asks you about refills on a medication that she wants to pick up, and you tell her that you were unable to fill the medication because the doctor had not sent over the prescription.

And then she raises her voice at you, her eyebrows furrowing in irritation. You sigh and take it, allowing her to use you to get her frustrations out. Because it was your fault that her doctor didn’t send over her medications, right? 

Sam watches you grow almost bored at the interaction. You even play with the ends of your curly hair and push up your glasses, and he can tell you’re raring to roar back at her for raising her voice at you.

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to stop you right there. I can contact your doctor for you about the script, but I can’t fill something that I don’t physically have,” You say calmly, but Bucky and Sam can hear the venom on the tip of your tongue, “I would appreciate it if you didn’t raise your voice like that in my pharmacy.”

The woman sputters at you, as if you would dare to challenge her. She walks away, but not before timidly thanking you for contacting her doctor for her. You stop yourself from rolling your eyes as she walks away. 

“Hey, how can I help you today?” You turn the charm back on and give the two men in front of you a wide smile. As if you hadn’t been thinking of twenty different ways you could feign sickness and close the pharmacy early for the day not even ten seconds ago.

You feel your stomach drop to your feet when you realize that Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson are standing in front of you, with grins on their faces. You’re certain you look like a fish out of water, with your wide eyes and mouth opening and closing without any words coming out.

“What happened to the woman who told that lady off not even five minutes ago?” Bucky smirks at you while glancing at Sam.

“Yeah, cat got your tongue?” Sam teases. 

“Well,” You manage to say, “It’s not everyday I’m in the presence of greatness.”

You ask them to verify their birthdates before retrieving their prescriptions and try to keep your hands from shaking as you ring them up. You’re certain you’re drooling every time your eyes meet Sam’s eyes. He even winks at you when he notices your staring and you don’t bother to look away. Sam doesn’t miss you push back a stray curl behind your ear, or the way your lips curl up into a smile, or the way your eyes light up at him. 

Bucky stares at the interaction between the two of you and feels like he’s watching a moment that maybe he shouldn’t be watching.

“That was the most flirting I’ve ever seen between two people who hardly exchanged fifteen words,” Bucky informs Sam once they leave and are in his car. 

Sam pushes his shoulder and tells him to shut the fuck up before he shoves him out of the car and Bucky rolls his eyes.

Sam and Bucky start to become regulars at your pharmacy after that. You wonder why they venture all the way from Manhattan to Brooklyn, when there are dozens of pharmacies around the Avengers tower. You realize that they don’t all live at the Tower when you verify their prescriptions- Steve and Bucky live together in Brooklyn and Sam lives not too far from them.

You try not to feel too much like a stalker, but hey, it’s your job right? To make sure that your patients lived where they said they lived?

You’ve even met Steve. He was just as polite as you thought he would be, with a slight flair for sarcasm. You’re surprised by how quickly these three boys have wormed their way into your life in such a short amount of time. Despite your quick 5 minute interactions, you look forward to the next time you’ll be able to see them.

Your technicians are equally as starstruck as you were when you first met them when you told them to ring them up on a particularly busy day.

Bucky noticed Sam’s pouting that day. He wouldn’t shut up about how pretty he thought you looked, with your curly, black hair tied up and strands of it falling into your face, with your white coat and your quiet confidence. He wouldn’t shut up about how he wanted to talk to you, just to even say Hi.

“You just want to make eyes at her,” Bucky says in a sing-song voice later that day, “And you wanna love on her- you wanna take her out on dates, take her home, you wanna-”

“Dude, are you serious? Are you fuckin’ eight years old?” Sam rolls his eyes at Bucky and punches his shoulder, “Tin man thinks he’s got jokes, huh?”

“I’ve got more than just jokes, pal-”

Sam lets him punch his shoulder back and he thinks to himself well, he’s not wrong.

Robberies in pharmacies, especially in the city were pretty common. It had never happened to you, so you hadn’t really thought about what you’d do in the event of one. You had heard from friends and colleagues that people would come in and demand all the cash and all the oxycodone/hydrocodone/Adderall/Vyvanse/anything that could be sold on streets for a profit basically. 

You should have probably prepared for this, you think mildly, as the man in front of you at the counter demands for all the cash while waving a handgun in your face. He is demanding for all the oxycodone, Adderall, Fentanyl, and Vyvanse in your safe. You barely even register the thundering in your ears or the shaking of your hands. 

You had stupidly told your technician to go home early for the night, since it was a Friday night and Fridays weren’t usually that busy. You couldn’t even give a silent signal to let your technician know to call 911. You wished you had gotten that emergency button installed beneath the counter that would automatically dial 911 for you, rather than having to use your phone. Another stupid move on your part.

Your hands are up in surrender, ready to comply. But then you think, who the hell does this guy think he is?

Another stupid move.

“What could you possibly need all that for?” You can’t stop your voice or your lips from moving. You’re terrified and yet it seemed that you didn’t know how to act. He looks momentarily surprised at you. You’re glad that nobody else is in the pharmacy- it’s just you and the front employees who you’re not sure know what’s going on.

You could scream, you think. You could scream and you’d probably be shot in the face. You could try dialing 911 but then you’d still probably be shot in the face.

So the obvious solution is to be a sarcastic little shit. Until you got shot in the face.

“Are you stupid? You stupid fuckin’ bitch-” 

“Alright, relax. There’s no need for names,” You say, gulping. Maybe you should stop being reckless and just acquiesce to his demands. You make your way over to the safe where all the pain medications, Adderall, and Vyvanse are stored.

Sam can smell the tension and he knows something is wrong when the store is eerily quiet. Goosebumps raise on his flesh unwillingly as he makes his way to the back, where he knows he’ll see your smiling face and your dimples.

He’s come alone this time and he came near closing time because he wanted to talk to you. Maybe even charm his way into getting your number. He doesn’t actually need anything, although he told Steve that he would pick up some Claritin since his allergies were picking up despite his super soldier serum. Old habits never really died, he supposed.

A frown his on his lips when he sees this man waving a gun in front of your face. And you’re mouthing off at him, as if his threats don’t scare you. As if you’re made of steel. But Sam sees your hands shaking and your eyes darting around for someway to get help. Your eyes meet his and you struggle to hide your surprise, but you manage to do it anyway.

Tension begins to leave your body when you realize that of course, Sam is here to save the day. His warm, brown eyes make you want to trust him, and you do. You did, almost instantly the first day you met him. You can’t thank his impeccable timing enough and you watch Sam disarm the guy from behind him. He didn’t even see it coming and within seconds, Sam has the handgun in his own hands and the man is on the floor.

All Sam wants to do is beat him to a pulp for threatening you, for waving a fuckin’ gun in your face. But he watches you, standing there warily. You lock up the pharmacy and dial 911 to let them know what has just happened.

You make your way to Sam and don’t realize that you’re shivering. The man is staring at the pair of you with such contempt in his face. It’s weird to you, that you’re staring the man who threatened to shoot you in the face right in the eyes, but here you were. 

When the cops arrive at the pharmacy to collect the stranger, you’re left alone with Sam.

“Hey,” You murmur to Sam, “Thanks. For being a hero and shit.”

“Can this hero have your number?” He waggles his eyebrows and you can’t help the grin that breaks out on your face.

“I suppose my knight in shining armor can have my number,” You agree and press a soft kiss to his cheek. 

“Walk me to my car?” You ask, leaving his embrace to gather your coat and purse.

This time, he’s the one who’s a little starstruck when you grasp his arm as he walks you to your car.

[kanrakixystix]

Santa Monica Dream -- Coctura/Cindy

@ffxvfemslashweek

Day 1: Hilarious Domestic Disasters

Okay so, this is a little less hilarious and a little more angst, but this just happened to speak to me this way, so I rolled with it. Enjoy!

Word Count: 1695

She had always pictured her life differently. Some details varied, but the overall vision remained constant. She owned a large, picturesque house in the country – there was nothing left for her in the city, even if Dino always insisted otherwise – and the sun was always shining. There were fresh herbs in the window, and vegetables in the garden that was on the right side of the shed where someone might work on one of their fine art pieces, or work on cars because that’s why their heart truly lied. The rooms were small, but it was just big enough for her and someone she loved with the occasional visit from friends. It was quaint, quiet, and more importantly, it was a pipe dream.

Sighing, Coctura folded her arms over her chest. In the back of the garage, Cindy worked, humming to herself, and while Coctura felt herself smiling at the absentminded behavior, she was tired. How long would she have to wait for her happy ending? Always working, married to the next car or machine that rolled through her doors, and never to the woman she actually spoke her vows to.

There was a house, yes, and she could hardly call this the country, though it certainly wasn’t the city, either. For years she waited, and she had hoped that after Cid had passed on, may the gods rest his soul, that Cindy, too, would move on. Twelve years had come and gone, and they were still here, she Coctura was still waiting for Cindy to just come home to her, to the life that was waiting for them outside of the tin walls that raised her.

 It was a long while before she Cindy finally acknowledged her standing there, lingering between the outside world and the world that kept her trapped on the inside. When she did, her cheeks were smeared with grease, and she waved before wiping her hands on the towel she held in her back pocket. Coctura waved back, sunglasses firmly on her face, and manicured nails chipped from washing carrots and rolling pastry dough. Cindy approached her, but stopped just short of wrapping her arms around her; she knew better than to dirty the chef with her motor oil and sweat. ‘It doesn’t do well to serve fresh fish that taste like tires,’ she’d said on numerous occasions.

 “About ready?” she asked, hopeful. She never wanted to interrupt Cindy, even if it meant sacrificing time with her, but she held onto the dream that one day she didn’t have to interrupt, and that Cindy would come home without being told for once. For once, she wanted to come first. She didn’t think that was too much to ask.

 “Ah, not really,” Cindy frowned, and pointed her thumb over her shoulder to the metallic black beast she had been tinkering with. “The king dinged this one up pretty good. She’s gonna need more than just a little elbow grease and a spit shine.” Coctura looked around her at the car, and sure enough, she did recognize it, now that she mentioned it. She could have asked more questions, like if the king was all right, or what he did to it, anything to keep the conversation going and to keep Cindy engaged with her for as long as possible.

 But Coctura had gone from tired to exhausted.

 Nodding, crestfallen, and surely with a pout on her lips, she unfolded her arms and placed a gentle hand on Cindy’s cheek. So what if the fish tasted like tires. It’s not like she was cooking for anyone but herself anymore, and occasionally Dino. Cindy blinked, and tried to lean into the touch, but Coctura was too quick for her, and the hand was gone.

 And, before Cindy could ask her why she was crying, she was, too.

 Tears trickled down her cheeks as she drove the length to their home alone. The road seemed more lonely than usual, but she thought that it was maybe it had always been this lonely. Maybe it never really recovered from the decade of darkness. Hell, maybe she hadn’t, either.

 Eventually, she pulled into the stone driveway off the path in the Kettier Highland. Her short-heeled feet were heavy as she walked through the threshold and into the dark, cold house. She didn’t bother with the dim lights Cindy had installed some years ago at her request – for the ambiance, she had told the mechanic – and threw her car keys somewhere to the left in the living room. She kicked off the heels on her feet and left them in the hallway, and she didn’t bother picking up her skirt, either, as it pooled at her feet and she stepped out of it. The blouse she was wearing was unbuttoned and slung over a small chair by the bedroom window, and her bra was left to fall beside.

 Her tears were slower now, and she pulled a sweater over her head before flopping onto the bed that she used to share with someone for more than a couple nights a month. It wasn’t until she had buried herself in the pillows and tugged the comforter over her that she realized the sweater was one of Cindy’s old ones, with holes and grease stains on the sleeves, and the yellow was so faded that it was more of an ivory at this point. Coctura had always hated it, but Cindy would never part with it. ‘It’s still comfortable,’ she insisted. Lying in the dark, surrounded by the scent of gasoline and pink roses that was uniquely Cindy Aurum, she was inclined to agree.

Morning came, and somewhere in the night, Coctura had found sleep, or whatever the equivalent to heartbroken unconsciousness could be called. Like a dream, dust floated through the sunlight filtering through the crack in the curtains, but this wasn’t a dream. In fact, the pain was still raw, and very, very real. She had secretly hoped that she would wake up to the sound of Cindy’s truck pulling in – she always did; the sound of the engine roaring could wake the dead – but there was nothing.

 The sound of pots and pans banging together, though, drew her upright in a panic. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she remained frozen in place until she heard it again. Quickly, she opened the nightstand drawer and grabbed the butcher knife from under the lotions and toys, ‘Because you never know,’ she told Cindy the night she put it in there, and Cindy had laughed so hard that she had almost peed herself. Literally.

 She tiptoed down the hall, and took note that her skirt and heels were picked up and moved, no longer cluttering the narrow hallway. The scent of something burning caught her nose before she ever reached the kitchen. It smelled like a meat – bacon, or ham, perhaps? The thought crossed her mind that Dino had let himself in, but even he had a little more couth than just letting himself in. He would have at least called first.

 It donned on her, then, that she hadn’t even thought to check her phone at all. Maybe he had called, and she had simply missed it? Yes, that had to be it, at least, that’s what she told herself. There definitely wasn’t a burglar in her home trying to burn it down with her still inside. Nope.

 “Oh, dang it all!”

 Coctura paused, then kept creeping down the hallway until she reached the kitchen. As she peered around the corner, sure enough, Cindy was in nothing but her bra and shorts, with the addition of Coctura’s apron, wrapped around her slim waist. The kitchen was nothing short of a disaster. The frying pan with what Cactura thought might have been an edible meat product was turned up way too high and smoking. Flour and eggs were just about on every surface of the counter, and there were at least four pans in the sink with failed attempts at pancakes stuck to them.

 Cindy turned then, not quite facing her, but just enough so Coctura could make out that beneath the grease and flour were dried tears. Her eyes were red, likely from the combination of emotions and a lack of sleep, but above anything, Coctura could see resolve. She continued watching Cindy struggle. She put too much water in the pancake mix, and her eggs were runny, and she wasn’t even going to mention the potatoes.

 Finally, after Cindy turned everything off and stood in front of the stove, defeated, Coctura let out a tiny giggle, drawing her attention. The blond whipped around, eyes brimming with fresh tears, and it clutched Coctura’s heartstrings to see her so upset, even if she kind of did deserve it. She walked into the kitchen and set the butcher’s knife on the small round table before she reached out and touched Cindy’s face, allowing Cindy to actually lean into her this time.

 “I’m so sorry,” she whimpered, and Coctura nodded. They were a sore sight in old clothes and half dressed. Really, they were a right mess, but she couldn’t help but find the whole thing to be out of some kind of old daydream.

 “I missed you,” Coctura admitted, and she pressed herself closer, until their noses touched. The pads of her thumbs brushed under Cindy’s eyes, catching the tears before they could fall, and Cindy took a deep, shuttering breath before she hugged her close, motor oil and dried eggs be damned. For a long moment, they were silent, relishing in the feel of one other’s bodies against each other.

 “It’s so good to be home,” Cindy finally whispered into her ear. Warmth washed over Coctura despite the shiver that traveled down her spine, and she beamed, pressing a kiss to her cheek, then her sugar coated lips.

 Yeah, the kitchen was a mess, and they were in their underwear, but they cooked breakfast together for the first time in years, and it was the first time in a long time that Coctura felt like she wasn’t alone in this dream she had built for two.