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anexperimentallife · 1 year ago

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Since the rights have reverted to me, this is the story I WAS getting paid to license as the basis of a video game until the deal got canceled unexpectedly after a year of development(for understandable reasons I won't go into here). There's a lot I'd change about it now (I'm a better writer now, for one thing, and my understanding of problematic tropes is better now--this was the first story I ever sold, and was originally published in the anthology The Crimson Pact, volume 2), and my Quiet World setting has morphed and expanded quite a bit since then, too. This will be getting a rewrite, with additional characters (some of whom you'll meet if you play the dialogue-only demo linked to below). But anyway...

HERE’S THE ORIGINAL STORY--ENJOY!

(also here's a link to a playable dialogue-only version of the first three chapters of the mobile game version--which is quite different)

Karma

by D. Robert Hamm (about 15,000 words)

We hit the interstate like an unguided missile. Needles of frozen rain and jagged blades of wind beat my face numb and turned what was left of my dress into a full-body ice-pack. Even with the heater on ‘incinerate,’ I couldn’t stop shivering, but the outside air was all that kept me from gagging on the smell of my own puke and the rusty stench of blood, so the window stayed down. Between the black pavement and blacker sky, the air was wet and gray. It sucked the vitality from my headlamp beams well before their natural time, but that was okay. I wasn’t paying much attention to the little they revealed anyway.

The man in the passenger’s seat either didn’t feel the cold or was too stoic to show discomfort. The dashboard glow turned his short white beard to green and deepened the age lines in his face. Gods, I’d loved that face growing up. It was my grandfather’s face. But right then, I could barely look at it, because this wasn’t my grandfather, just a sad, confused spirit wearing his body. And even though he was one of the good guys, that didn’t mean it was easy to take.

“You’re going to catch cold,” Not-Grandpa shouted over the storm.

“I’m… what?”

Since last night I’d been shot at, whipped, and electrocuted. I’d watched a good man beheaded and disemboweled before my eyes, and learned things about myself, my family, and especially my past, that had already driven other people into padded-room territory. I was marinated in a vile concoction of blood and various other body fluids, quite a bit of it my own, and had spent the last however-many hours fighting horrors that should never have existed. In the middle of all that—because I’m an overachiever—I took time out to kill a man I loved.

And this guy was worried that I’d catch a fucking cold?

Once I started laughing, I couldn’t stop. The kind of deep, full-body laughter that doubles you over and makes your stomach muscles ache for days afterward. The kind that shreds the lining of your throat and rises in pitch to rapid staccato squeaks, like sneakers on a hardwood floor. I held back the worst long enough to wrestle the car onto the shoulder, then let go. The laughter turned to howling, the howling into screams, the screams into sobs, and the sobs into a quiet whimper that finally, gods finally, tapered off, and I could breathe again, in great, ragged gulps. I wiped away a rope of snot hanging from my nose and sat hunched over with my eyes closed and my forehead against the steering wheel, shaking, while the rain pummeled my back with tiny, ice-cold fists.

In shock? Probably. Hysterical? Definitely. Look, I make sandwiches at my family’s restaurant for a living, okay? Sandwiches.

Not-Grandpa waited until I quieted down before speaking. “I’m sorry,” he said. It was the dozenth or so time he’d said it. The line of his mouth stayed hard, but his eyes and his voice were soft and broken. I believed him. Had to believe him.

“I know.” I didn’t mean for it to sound bitter. He’d saved my life after all, and he deserved better than that. I just didn’t know if I could forgive him for not being who I wanted him to be.

A little too “in media res” for you? Yeah, me too.

So here are the vitals: My name is Karma Miranda Rodriguez. I’m twenty-three years old, five foot six, with brown eyes, light brown skin, and dark brown hair that I keep boy-short. I claim to be a size five, and I dare you to say otherwise. I like strawberry daiquiris, support equal rights for supernaturals, am indifferent toward long walks on the beach, and . . .

And oh, yeah—apparently, I kill demons.

Eli’s Borderland Station, my family’s restaurant, has been the only twenty-four hour eatery on the Kansas City Plaza since back before the Jasonites outed the supernatural community (aka, “The Quiet World”) and we had to coin the term ‘daylighter’ to differentiate plain vanilla humans from those touched by the paranormal. During the riots that followed the Jasonites’ little party, and all through the Apocalypse Wars, my Grandpa Eli and Uncle Garston kept the restaurant open as a free kitchen-slash-aid-station for refugees and emergency workers, and turned the upstairs apartment—which is mine, now—into a de facto headquarters for various peacekeeping forces.

So alongside our Absolutely Killer Turkey Sandwich (made from, according to the menu, genuine killer turkeys), we serve up a mean side-order of history. Obviously, a lot of things have changed since the AWs; for instance, the Plaza, always an upscale shopping district, is now a level four Private Patrol Zone with the best law enforcement money can buy. As you’d expect, our main business is well-heeled shoppers whose sidearms are more fashion statement than personal defense, but we try to keep prices reasonable enough for the average college student, too.

No amount of money will buy you a table or a bar stool in our VIP lounge, though, even if every other seat in the house is taken. The lounge is permanently reserved for veterans, proxies, bounty hunters, elites, and so on. It’s where people with code names like Halloween Jack, Lucy D.T., HalluciNathan, and so on come to catch up with one another, trade information, or just relax. Grandpa and Uncle Garston are technically civilians now, but a lot of the VIPs still use their call signs from way back when, so if someone in armored leathers with notched weapons and a stare that looks like they’re counting the ways they could kill you with one finger says they’re going to see The General and Body Mass, they’re not talking about some secret mission, it just means they’re headed our way for the lunch special.

On Tuesday nights we lock up for a few hours of uninterrupted cleaning with my special patented Karma Rodriguez closing procedure. This involves, among other things, lots of dancing around with brooms and mops, and other Weapons of Mess-Destruction, and me in a casual dress singing along with loud music at the top of my lungs. It’s effective. The more I can make work feel like play, the faster and more efficiently I get things done, and as proof of that, what used to take three people on Tuesday nights now requires only two.

At thirty seconds to zero-dark-thirty on a drizzly February evening, when my grime-fighting partner Jayden and I were the only ones left in the restaurant, I locked the front door and hit the music. My mix for the night was weighted heavily in favor of pre-Apocalypse rock—music that was old before I was born. It was a minor tragedy when it cut off about ten minutes into the shift, right in the middle of David Bowie’s Rebel, Rebel. Jayden and I both trailed off a cappella.

“I didn’t hear you singing if you didn’t hear me,” Jayden said. “We stick together, and nobody can prove anything.” He fixed me with what would have been a deadpan stare if not for that quirk at one corner of his mouth that I thought of as his, ‘our little secret’ smile.

I put on my best film noir ‘tough dame’ voice. “It’s always secrets with you, isn’t it? Fine, I’ll play your game.” Staying in character, I headed upstairs with an over-the-top hip-swaying sashay, to reboot the router while Jayden kept cleaning.

I can’t be objective about Jayden, so I won’t try. He was one of a kind. Literally. Part Aosidhe, part Graealfinsidhe, and part daylighter, Jayden was a medical miracle, and he got the best from each branch of his ancestry. Six and a half feet of lean muscle, flawless skin, hair like pale gold silk, and . . . you get the idea. His ears were only slightly pointed, and with his hair down, he could pass for an exceptionally pretty daylighter, if not for his eyes. Whiteless, and bright turquoise in color. They suited him.

And yeah, I know. If only I wasn’t his boss. Jayden had something of a ‘mystery man’ air about him that only added to his status as local lust-object. Among other things, the way he dressed like a wastelander (only cleaner) but acted like a gentleman fueled speculation. He kept his past and his private life just that, though—past, and private. It was like the world was in love with Jayden, but Jayden wasn’t sure how he felt about the world and didn’t want to lead it on.

When I got back from confirming that the router was indeed fried, those exotic eyes of his were fixed on the big screen in the main dining area. I came up behind him and stopped, gaping. “What the . . . ?”

Just north of us, people were fighting in the streets and looting, while Hushville—Jayden’s neighborhood—burned.

“Short version?” Jayden said without turning around, “They busted the wrong guy for the Taylor murders, so they released him. He lasted a whole three hours.”

“They didn’t give him police protection?”

“He was under police protection when it happened. Now everybody has a conspiracy theory, and apparently with every conspiracy theory this week, you get a free Molotov cocktail kit. Speaking of which . . . ” He rewound a few seconds and paused on a burning apartment building that I recognized as his. “Great firebomb, huh?”

“Wow. I’m sorry.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

He shrugged, his back still to me. “I carry everything really important with me.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Want me to leave you alone?”

He paused, as if considering. “No.”

“Okay. But know what? Fuck cleaning. Help me get the trash out, then haul your duffel bag upstairs. You’re staying at my place tonight.”

Jayden turned and looked at me as though I were speaking Swahili. “Your place?”

“You just lost your apartment to a xenophobic asshole with a fire fetish, and you need crash space. Friends do that kind of stuff for each other.”

That earned me a confused look. “No, I just . . . Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.” He seemed utterly bewildered. So much for his famed stoicism and unflappability. Ah, Jayden. Such a strange, strange boy. I ran up to get my coat and pull on a pair of jeans under my dress, and Jayden and I dragged the first can out into the alley.

I remember the air tasted of cold grease and wet pavement. I remember the electric buzz of the street lamp, and the way its dirty light turned the drizzle into sparse gray streaks like anime rain. I remember the exact cadence of the trash can’s scraping and banging as we dragged it toward the dumpster. How screwed up do things have to get before taking out the trash is a fond memory worth replaying in your head?

We didn’t hear the patrol team until they entered the mouth of the alley, running hard toward us, shouting at us to get inside. The woman’s name was Lawson. She’d lost her helmet, and a sheen of blood covered the left side of her face. Her partner, Hall, had a crack running down the side of his faceplate, and his body armor was shredded in places. They both carried their weapons at the ready, scanning the roofline as they ran.

Before they’d even finished their warning, a clot of shadow and sickening angles detached from the rest of the dark. The Shashashkuhun slaughter-spider—How did I know that?—dropped from the roof and—The Shashashkuhun and the bad people are making us walk a long way again. I don’t say how tired I am because I am almost eight years old, and that means I’m a big girl, and because it would make Mommy feel bad that she can’t carry me that far. Mommy and me are in our nightgowns because we were asleep when they—Where were these images coming from?—landed in the alley behind them. It was an impossible thing, eight or nine feet tall, all mottled ochre-and-black chitin, with eight spiked and bladed spiderlike legs from which it took its name, serrated mandibles beneath great protruding compound eyes, and short, thick, writhing tentacles suspended from the underside of a bulbous, misshapen central body.

I shouted my own warning, but Hall was already emptying his magazine at the thing as he backed toward us. Lawson either tripped or dove in our direction, twisting in mid-air to land on her back. She raised her shotgun, and—grabbed us, and it was really late because both moons were out, but they let us put on our boots before they made us start walking. Mommy tried to fight them and she shot one of them but they beat her up and cut her cheek really bad. But she is still the prettiest lady in the whole wide world. It was real people, not Shashashkuhun, but they don’t act like real people. Mommy says they have bad things inside them called Qlippoth. I think they are telling the Shashashkuhun what—made it roar as she hit the pavement.

The monster’s cry was like a foghorn made of cats and feedback, a spike that shoved through both eardrums. Lawson had hurt it, taken out one leg, in fact, but it wasn’t enough, and Hall’s automatic gunfire cut off with a sickening, meat cleaver sound as the spider sliced through his neck. Hall’s head flew from his shoulders and bounced against the alley wall while the spider eviscerated his body before it could hit the ground, as if he weren’t–to do. A man tried to run away today, but they caught him, and instead of shooting him a Shashashkuhun stuck one of its sharp arm/leg things in him and cut him open and played with his insides until he stopped screaming, and I cried, but I won’t cry anymore, because I’m a big girl, and—dead enough already. Even as far back as Jayden and I stood, hot, sticky wetness splattered our faces.

The monster tried to leap toward us, but its missing leg threw it off balance. Lawson’s shotgun was out of ammo, so she fumbled out her .45 and taunted the slaughter-spider while edging toward the side of the alley opposite the door. Sacrificing herself—big girls don’t cry. The demons usually kill everybody, but now they only kill people who try to run away or stop walking before they tell us to stop or people who fall down and can’t walk anymore, but sometimes when somebody falls down they let somebody else make a travois, which is a kind of sled thing that you drag—to give us a chance to get away. My gun was in my purse inside, but even if I’d had it on me, I couldn’t loosen my grip on the trash can, let alone force myself to move.

I caught Jayden’s eye. I’d never before realized–when I feel like crying I think about Daddy. Daddy is a general, which is a kind of soldier who tells other soldiers what to do. He is a long way away fighting other Shashashkuhun, but when he comes to save us, the Shashashkuhun and the bad people are going to be sorry. I am going to be a soldier like Daddy when I grow up and—how much he and I communicated without speaking, but with that look, I knew we’d done the same math. One of us might—just might—make it to the door. If we left the other one to die along with Lawson.

Fuck that.

Once I’d made the decision, the tension drained from my body—I am nine years old, and I have been in the prison camp for over a year. They tell me it is time for the laboratory again, but if I pick someone else to go, they will leave me alone today. If I choose my mother to go they will leave me alone for a month. They seem surprised when my answer is to hold out my wrists for the cuffs. I am the daughter of a general and a hero. I do not run, or let others take my pain. And no matter what they do to me, I won’t let them see how scared I am—the way the fear had, sublimating into the night and leaving me perfectly relaxed. Jayden gave me that ‘our little secret’ smile, and I knew he got it. He understood. Not just what I was about to do, but why.

When anything you do will end in death, make your final act one of defiance.

And so it was that we, about to die, in the most futile and ridiculous gesture in the history of futile and ridiculous gestures, screamed our defiance in the face of death, and charged the monster that would surely kill us.

With a fucking trash can.

We slammed into the slaughter-spider and fell hard, with the trash can bouncing between those giant legs and spilling its slippery contents out onto the already-slick blacktop. The slaughter-spider screamed at the impact, even louder than when Lawson had shot it, and nearly toppled. A serrated leg missed me by inches, and I rolled away, but I’d only be able to dodge for so long. My only regrets were that since I hadn’t properly prepared this body, I would die along with it—again, where the hell did that thought come from?—and that so many things would go unsaid between me and those I cared about. Including Jayden, if I was being honest.

Something hard in my coat pocket bit into my side as I rolled. I’d forgotten about the taser I almost always took with me when I left the restaurant. Even if it was still charged, it wasn’t salvation, but at this point salvation wasn’t an option. Victory was what mattered, and victory was nothing more nor less than continuing to fight until the inevitable happened. I pulled out the taser, flipped off the safety, and sent 50,000 volts into the center of that mass of tentacles, along with all the fury I could muster. The slaughter-spider jerked momentarily, and Lawson took advantage to pick up a piece of steel rebar from the junk pile in the alley and plunge it glove-deep into one of the slaughter-spider’s faceted eyes. Jayden followed with a sharp piece of broken two-by-four into the other.

And as though someone had flipped a switch marked ‘alive/dead,’ the slaughter-spider fell . . . in slow motion, like those television broadcasts of building demolitions. After one final spasm, it was still, and the alley was silent for several seconds except for the buzz of the streetlight. After barely long enough to begin to accept that we weren’t dead, answering cries to the spider’s death scream split the night.

We staggered inside the restaurant as the first new creature hit the pavement, and got the bars across the door just before another slammed against it. I slapped my palm against the ward sigil and spoke the syllables to activate it, then ran to the front and did the same there. After grabbing my gun and other weapons from upstairs and activating still more wards, I hit the ‘dim all’ switch and met up with the others in the kitchen. Lawson used a cabinet as cover, her shotgun aimed at the door, and Jayden . . .

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

I’d been gone perhaps two minutes, but when I returned, Jayden stood transformed, a grim-faced cross between a modern wastelander and a wild warrior from legend, in a combination of armored biker leathers and Fay armor. The hilts of two matching blades extended over his shoulders, and his jacket sleeves were pushed up to reveal Sidhe archery gauntlets—the real kind, not the department store knockoffs. Other weapons clung to various parts of his body, strategically placed so as not to impede movement—blades, throwing disks, bolas, and quivers and bandoliers of bolts and arrows for the quick-load mini-crossbow in his hand and the compound bow housed in a slender case across his back. He shrugged bashfully—Jayden? Bashful?—when he caught me staring. So this was what he meant when he said he carried everything important with him.

The booming of another hit on the door jerked my attention away from Jayden. After a few more tries, though, the spiders seemed to realize that it was futile, and ceased their efforts.

Now that we had stopped racing time, time slowed to let us catch up. Whether from the endorphin rush or something else, I felt disconnected, an observer watching from inside myself. In the dimness, Lawson and Jayden were pale, oh so pale, and heartbreakingly beautiful against the gray and charcoal shadows. I stood with chest heaving alongside them, seeing and feeling and hearing everything as though for the first time, in love with it all. Because we, who moments before had been dead, were alive and more than alive, were filled with life until we could burst from the pressure as it strained against the insignificant scraps of skin and flesh that could barely contain it.

A single glossy drop of blood formed at the tip of Lawson’s finger, creating itself until it was real enough to float downward and finally join its comrades who had already emigrated to the floor to form a puddle, and Lawson was falling, falling, falling behind it as if to join the puddle herself.

I shook out of my trance barely in time to help Jayden take Lawson’s weight. She was conscious, but weak. “It’s okay,” I told her, “We’re going to get you taken care of. Did you call for backup?” Lawson shook her head weakly, closed her eyes, and made a sound between a chuckle and a sob. “Nobody left to call. Even if the radio worked, nobody left to . . . ” she trailed off and seemed to fold in on herself. I’d seen what that thing did to Hall. I didn’t need her to tell me what had happened to the rest of her squad.

We got Lawson into the VIP lounge and onto a folded-out hide-a-bed, and raided the crisis closet. There was more in there than I’d realized. We patched up Lawson as well as we could and got a saline drip going with something for pain and nausea. It was only after I’d given her naproxyn, though, that I thought to wonder if it thinned the blood the way aspirin did. What if she had internal injuries? Was there anything else I was supposed to be doing? At least I remembered to elevate her feet and make sure she had plenty of blankets. Beyond that, it was a matter of, ‘do no harm,’ with a supersized side order of, ‘hope I don’t fuck this up.’

Damn it, I wasn’t qualified for any of this. Grandpa was the one with the certifi—Duh! Grandpa could talk me through this, and we needed to get word out anyway. Our phones may as well have been paperweights, though. No signal, whether due to the riots or something else. If all else failed, Lawson said that after too long with no contact, it was corporate policy to send in what amounted to the wrath of the gods to investigate. The restaurant was pretty much a fortress—even the ‘glass’ was actually transluminum—so theoretically speaking, all we had to do was stay buttoned up for a few hours and wait for help to arrive. And not go nuts in the meantime.

I’d cut away most of Lawson’s uniform, but the rest needed to come off to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Her partner had died saving us, and I’d be damned if she followed suit because of me. I asked Jayden to leave the room, but Lawson put a hand on his arm, winked, and flashed a weak smile. “‘Sokay. I like your boyfriend,” she said.

“Just a friend. It’d probably break my ego to date somebody that much prettier than me.”

“‘Just a friend,’ my ass.” She smiled and closed her eyes, slurring her words, and rolled her head around on her pillow. Her own smile didn’t so much fade as disappear. “Thanks, guys. You did good. I just wish . . . ” Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes, and it didn’t take a psychic to know how that sentence was supposed to end.

After helping Lawson down some broth with a little liquid protein and Nutri-All added, we let her rest. When we were sure she was asleep, and that her breathing and pulse were regular, Jayden and I crept out of the room to treat our own injuries, mostly scrapes and bruises.

It seemed like there was something about what had happened in the alley even stranger than the attack. A flash of knowledge or memory. But whenever I tried to access it, it slipped away. Probably the kind of thing that takes over for some people in emergency situations, like the woman who supposedly lifted a car off of her toddler, or the accountant who found himself standing over the bodies of three would-be muggers, with no memory of what had happened. The other disturbing thing was that I was so . . . blank. I should have been shaking. I should have been horrified at Hall’s death, and at the deaths of the rest of their squad. It’s not that I didn’t care, I just kept feeling like it should have affected me more. We should have been . . . I don’t know, mourning them or something. Maybe I couldn’t let myself feel it yet.

I knelt behind Jayden on a tablecloth on the floor, dabbing antiseptic onto a scrape on his upper back. “So everybody dies,” I muttered, “and we end up with road rash. That’s fair.”

“That’s survivor’s guilt talking,” he said.

“Yeah, well.”

“Lawson’d be dead if not for you. We all would.”

“I had help.”

“Your idea, though.”

I’d been swabbing the same area for maybe a full minute, no longer aware of what I was doing, until Jayden spoke again. “You were wrong, you know.”

“About what?”

“About the ‘prettier than you’ thing. I don’t think anybody is. Nobody I’ve ever seen. And I see into the infra-red and ultra-violet, so I see more than you’d think.” I could almost hear that, ‘our little secret’ smile. “It’s not a peeping thing,” he added quickly, “It’s just my normal vision.”

Blatant change of subject, but not unwelcome. I’m pretty sure I blushed. “Yeah, well thanks. But hey, I like the way I look and all, and I’m not fishing for a compliment here, but—realistically speaking—if you’ve never seen better, you must’ve been living in a cave.”

“Actually,” he said, “a Graealfinsidhe separatist conclave, until five years ago. It was carved into the side of a mountain, so I guess it counts as a cave. Never talked to anyone about it until now. I stand by my statement, though. I decided that if we lived, I was going to tell you that. Tell you everything.”

I blinked. “I’m . . . honored. And I’m not complaining—I mean, look, you’re not the only one who decided out there to reveal some things; guess almost dying does that. It’s just, the guy I’ve been crushing on for two years now is suddenly . . . Why me?”

I caught myself stroking his hair, and was about to stop when he tilted his head into my hand and sighed. We sat there like that for a while before he answered. “I want you to know me.”

Coming from him that night, there in the dark on the hardwood floor with the smells of grime and antiseptic assailing our senses, with death waiting outside the door, those were the sweetest words ever spoken. Sweeter in their simple, naked honesty, than any candle-lit declaration of love, more beautiful in their artlessness than any sonnet delivered on bended knee. I couldn’t stop the wetness on my cheeks, and I didn’t want to.

“Yeah, well, there’s something I want you to know, too.” I pulled him back against me, brushing my lips along his cheek. He turned his body in my arms until we found each other’s mouths and lost ourselves, and entwined around each other on that blood-streaked tablecloth on what might be the last night of our lives was the only place I ever wanted to be.

We dozed, and when we woke it was to Uncle Garston standing over us like a bearded, glowering mountain of muscle in blood-stained flannel, with one bandage around his head and another showing through a rip in his shirt, wearing a flak vest that didn’t quite close around his girth. In addition to his omnipresent Desert Eagle in its holster, he clenched an assault rifle in a hand so huge and meaty that the rifle looked almost like a child’s toy.

“Where’s your half of Eli’s find-me charm?” he growled.

“What? What happened?”

His nostrils flared, and he snorted like a bull about to charge. “Did I fucking stutter? Where is the gods-damned—” He stopped, took a breath, and squeezed the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Sorry. L-word, all right? I didn’t mean to . . . Just, where is it?”

I told him where it was, and he sprinted out of the room. Jayden and I dressed hurriedly, and Lawson called out from the VIP lounge asking what the shouting was about. “That’s what I’m going to find out,” I told her. I ran upstairs, with Jayden behind me, to find Garston in the kitchen scattering the contents of drawers onto the floor.

“Here,” I said, “Right where I said it was. Now stop being Uncle Growly long enough to tell me what’s going on.”

“They took him. Don’t know why, or why they didn’t kill us, but those bastards—”

“Who? The Shashashkuhun? The Qlippoth?”

“Of course, the Shashashkuhun. Who else . . . ” He looked at me with an undecipherable expression. “How did you know about the Shashashkuhun?”

Yeah, how did I know? “I—I don’t know. But when the slaughter-spider attacked last night—”

“They came here?” Garston roared loudly enough to be painful. “Why didn’t you say so? Did they hurt you? And you, boy,” he turned to Jayden, “where were you when this happened?”

Gods. Could I get one question at a time? “I’m fine,” I said, “and Jayden helped kill one of the damn things, so you can back up out of his grill right now. They killed an entire patrol squad except for Lawson, though. She’s downstairs. But this is . . . ” I shook my head. This wasn’t right. “People don’t suddenly know things like that, Garston. And then not even wonder how.” My heart was trying to pound its way out of my chest. Anyone would be freaked out, but why now instead of last night? Where was this panic coming from? “But that’s exactly what I did. I haven’t thought about it since—and when I do, I get these pictures in my head. There were two moons, and we were walking to some prison camp or something, and I was a little girl, and they . . . ” I could hear my voice rising in pitch, but couldn’t stop the words from spilling out or the images from growing more and more solid. Garston and Jayden moved toward me, but I held up my hand. I could do this on my own. I slowed my breathing and counted my breaths, an exercise I had learned as a little girl. One . . . Two . . . Three . . . Little by little, the panic faded, and I opened my eyes.

“Better?” Garston asked.

“Oh, hell no,” I said. “Or yeah, better, but not good. What’s happening to me?”

“Something your grandpa and I were afraid was coming, and that fucker last night must’ve kick-started things. ’Swhy we made you learn all that meditation and shit. Important thing to know is you’re not crazy, okay? But right now, I have to go find Eli, and we’ll explain it all when we get back. Just try not to think about any of it until then.”

“No, you can explain on the way.”

Garston shook his head. “This ain’t a discussion, K-girl. I want you safe. Don’t worry about me. I’m just gonna find out where they’re headed and call in the big guns soon as I get someplace I can get a signal.”

“You’re right, it’s not a discussion. We’ll take my car; it’s faster, and I just charged it.”

Garston opened his mouth to argue, but Jayden jumped in. “Quick question,” he said, “Do you really think anything you say is going to stop her from following you?”

My uncle glowered, but Jayden spread his hands, “I didn’t make the rain, I’m just reporting the weather.”

Garston looked from one of us to the other and threw up his hands—narrowly missing my spice rack with his AR-15—and, grumbling, led the way back downstairs.

Jayden, with his preternatural senses, rode in the passenger seat with Garston’s AR-15, once again in full warrior regalia, while Garston rode in the back with the find-me. I drove. It was calming to have something active on which to focus.

“So,” I said once we were under way, “Tell me if I’ve got this right. Monsters kidnap Grandpa Eli and attack the restaurant, and you know all about them, right down to their inseam sizes, but you don’t think to say anything until they show up and actually start killing people? Oh, and I have random surprise knowledge and first-person scenes from a science fiction movie popping into my head, and you knew that was coming, too, but didn’t think to warn me about that, either. So if I sound just a little bit pissed off, it’s probably because I am. Care to explain?”

“It wasn’t . . . We never thought they’d come here, and just . . . you were so happy, not remembering. You could grow up and have a life this time. Meet a nice boy. Or girl. Hell, a dozen of each and a fucking toaster if that was what you wanted. But you’re the one that made yourself forget shit, and we figured you had a reason and we shouldn’t fuck with it. Maybe it was wrong, but if we’re guilty of anything, it’s trusting your own subconscious, so if you’re looking to be pissed off at somebody, you better put yourself right at the top of the list.”

Ouch. I pretended to focus on traffic for a little while.

“Sorry.”

“‘Sokay.”

“So, whatever ‘it’ was, it was that bad?”

Garston snorted. “Pardon the old war-dog cliché, but I still wake up screaming some nights, and that’s after decades with a PTSD specialist. See, we got what they call desensitized after a while, so they stepped things up a little at a time. When I remembered, though, it was fifteen years all at once, including the stuff at the end that would’a broke anybody unless they worked their way up to it. The good part is it doesn’t sound like it’s hitting you all at once, and like I said, there’s all that meditation and shit.”

“And I still have no idea what ‘it’ is. Looks like we’ve reached the point where not remembering is more dangerous than remembering, though. Agreed? Make me understand here.”“Eli’s better at this kind of thing than I am. It’ll sound crazy coming from me.”

“I challenge you to top the last couple of hours in the crazy department.”

“Okay. Here goes.” He took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and went for it. “Your Grandpa Eli is a demon hunter who travels between universes by performing a ritual that lets him die and come back in other worlds, and he’s actually your father from your first life. You and I and a bunch of others got taken prisoner by the Shashashkuhun demons—who were working with the Qlippoth demons at the time—when you weren’t quite eight years old. Everybody thought we were dead, but we weren’t. We spent about the next fifteen years as live test subjects for demons, until we finally escaped.”

I pulled onto the interstate. The electric hum of the motor, the tires on the wet road, and the wind buffeting us from outside were the only sounds for a while. The drizzle had picked up into rain, and sandwiched between the black sky and blacker road, I struggled to see through the falling gray that sucked my headlight beams into limbo.

“So. You escaped. We escaped, I mean.”

“Yeah.”

“By doing this death ritual thing.”

“Yeah. We got separated, and you took forever to get here, but one day you just sort of . . . coalesced is the word Eli uses. This perfect, beautiful little baby girl, looking exactly the way you used to. Eli picked you up and held you for the longest time, staring at your face and crying, and I said, ‘See? All the good things you’ve done, your karma finally caught up to you.’ And he said, ‘Yes, she finally has.’”

I drove. And I admit that I sniffled a little.

After a few minutes Garston said, “Well? You gonna say something?”

“This is probably the biggest understatement of the century, but it’s a lot to take in.”

“I warned you.”

“You did.”

Still trying to figure things out, we compared notes on the attacks. When Grandpa and Garston saw the riot footage and couldn’t reach me by phone, they headed to Garston’s truck to come check on me. That was when the demons hit them, about an hour and a half after the attack on the restaurant, roughly twelve-thirty or so, when we were still huddled in the restaurant thinking the monsters were right outside. Knowing all that didn’t help much in the ‘figuring things out’ department, though.

Jayden had been silent most of this time except for helping fill in details of our fight with the slaughter-spider. When I glanced over, he was frowning.

“So,” I said, “Regret getting involved with me yet, or do I need to work on that?”

“You’ll have to work on it. Had a thought, though. I’m still not getting a signal, and . . . ” He clicked on the radio. Nothing but static all the way up and down the dial. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding,” I said.

I caught up as close as we dared to the find-me charm, which bought us a few minutes to pull over and search for the jammer. Once we found it, in a waterproof casing fastened to the inside of a rear wheel-well, disabling it was simple. For something a little bigger than a pack of cigarettes, though, it had certainly caused enough trouble.

Jayden took the wheel when we got back on the road so we could run without headlights, thus saving juice and making ourselves stealthier at the same time. Garston made the call. Not just to anybody, but to Malachai Traeger, who doesn’t need a code name because, hey, he’s Malachai fucking Traeger. He might be a sweetheart when he’s not working, but according to local legend, he’s faced down gods. No, that’s not hyperbole. Handy having someone like that as a family friend, especially considering there was no way we could afford him otherwise.

Just knowing that Kai was on the job did wonders for morale, and we whooped triumphantly. Okay, I whooped. Jayden smiled, but for him, that counted. Uncle Garston’s whoop sounded more like, “Would you please shut your mouth while I’m on the phone?” but I claim creative license.

Why wouldn’t we be jubilant? We had a plan, and professionals to carry it out. We had a big head start, but Kai said he’d catch up as soon as he could, and make calls on the way to assemble a small recon team and get someone to the scene of each attack to do forensics. The recon team would figure out exactly what they were up against, and call in extra support as necessary. All we had to do was point the way.

The find-me led, and we followed, with occasional updates to give Kai our route. Once we got out of range of the last cell tower, we dropped emergency reflectors and other expendables at exits and intersections to blaze a trail, and considering we were well into unpatrolled territory at that point, I strapped on Lawson’s body armor just to be safe.

On a sketchily-paved county road at the corner of nowhere and nothing, something pinged the fender, and the front right tire blew with a ‘whump’ like a glove hitting a punching bag, Jayden fought for control and lost, and the world did cartwheels as the car flipped sideways into the ditch, coming to rest halfway down with wheels in the air. Jayden and I extricated ourselves from our seat belts and air bags while I called out to Garston to see if he was okay. He didn’t answer, and when I turned to check on him, he was gone, along with one of the rear doors.

With Jayden’s night vision, it didn’t take long to find Uncle Garston, laying spread-eagled in the bottom of the ditch with his head at an unnatural angle, and wheezing with every breath. I fought back the impulse to throw myself across him the way I had as a little girl, and knelt beside him instead. Jayden understood more quickly than I did what was happening, or maybe just accepted it more readily, and stood silently nearby.

“Least it doesn’t hurt.” Garston said. “Can’t feel shit, to be honest.”

“Kai should be here soon. We’ll get you to a hospital and you’ll be—”

“Come on, K-girl. This ain’t my first body. I know when one’s going.”

I felt like I was six years old again. “You can’t just give up. You’re my Uncle Growly, and you’re tougher than anything, remember?”

“Difference between giving up and knowing when to cut your losses. I need you to do something for me, now. It’s hard, and I don’t want to ask, but—”

“No. No, don’t make me do that again. I can’t.” Again?

“Yes, you can, K-girl. I don’t need the ritual, either, not if it’s quick and clean. If I’m stuck in this body for too much longer it’s over for real, though.”

“I call bullshit. You’re going to hang the fuck on, and that’s all there is to it.” I knew better. But until I admitted it, it wouldn’t be real.

“Karma, I’m asking you to do this because I can’t do it myself. You’ll get past it. Jayden’ll help you with that. I’d ask him, but I know you—even though he’d be saving me, you’d never be able to look at him again and I want better for you than that. So I’m begging you now. Please, do this one last thing for me.”

He coughed, drew in another wheezing breath and coughed again. I ran my fingers over that tangled, salt-and-pepper mess he called a beard and kissed him on the cheek, and after a little bit of struggle, I managed to free the Desert Eagle from its holster and hold it somewhat steadily in both hands.

“L-word, Uncle Growly,” I said.

“Love you, too, K-girl. I’ll be seeing you again.”

Garston closed his eyes. It took me a while, but I pulled the trigger. The big Desert Eagle knocked me on my ass and punched me in both eardrums. I turned my face skyward and howled while the rain sluiced thick, sticky warmth from my face.

And I remembered. Not everything, not even a lot, but enough to begin to understand just how fucked up everything was. To understand why they hadn’t wanted me to remember. Why I had made myself forget. Jayden stood back while I let it out. If he’d put his arms around me or offered any kind of support, I don’t think I could have handled it. He seemed to know that.

Although it’s the worst place to find it, there is strength in pain. Not if you stuff it down or deny it or revel in it, but if you accept the pain as yours. When I was done crying, I used that strength to pull myself from the mud, and hand in hand, Jayden and I helped each other up the slope to the car to assess the damage. Jayden made a frustrated sound beside me, and flipped open his cell phone to show me the bullet hole in the fender.

And that was when I put it together. “Jayden, this isn’t about Grandpa. It never was. This is about me.”

I laid it out for him.

Whoever planned this had learned my routine, knew it would be just me and one other person on Tuesday night, and knew we’d be in the alley with our hands full at some point. The idea was simple. Grab me and get the hell out of there. The spider was never supposed to kill me. But because of the riot, the Plaza had a bunch of extra security, and Jayden and I changed our schedule, so not only were the—call them minions—not all in place, they’d been spotted. Once they’d tipped their hand, they only had a few hours to act, so plan B was to grab Grandpa and use him as bait, leaving Garston alive to come tell me. If they just wanted me dead, why a jammer instead of a bomb, either on the car or in the alley? Or why not a sniper in the alley? And why would someone clever enough to think of making us carry our own jammer not think to look for a find-me charm? They had to have found it, but instead of getting rid of it, they incorporated it into their plan. Then, when we got to where they wanted us to be, they shot out the tire to keep us in place.

There were easier ways to do this. All of it. That someone had gone to all this trouble to show they could outsmart me and pull my strings meant this was something personal, and considering my age when the Shashashkuhun had taken us, it had to be something to do with the prison camp.

It took maybe thirty seconds to explain it all. “So, what do you think?”

“I think my girlfriend is either a brilliant detective or a criminal mastermind. What’s our next move?”

I had no idea.

Garston had brought an extra rifle and plenty of ammo. Jayden and I gathered everything and scrabbled to the edge of the ditch. The tree line was perhaps a hundred yards away on the other wide of the road, but in the darkness it may as well have been miles. I was thankful for Jayden’s eyes.

“I’ve got some movement, but nothing much,” Jayden said “They’re either waiting for their boss, or they just want to make us sweat.”

“Probably the latter,” I said. “We screwed up their plan. Whoever it is, now it’s even more important to show how clever they are. Both for their own ego and to save face. They’re going to want to talk. And gloat. I’ll try to stall them until Kai’s crew gets here. If I say anything horrible that doesn’t sound like the me you know, and I probably will—”

“No, I get it. ‘Words are weapons, sharper than knives.’”

Devil Inside. Now there was an appropriate reference. I nodded. “Just wanted to make sure.”

We watched the tree line in silence for a while. Rather, Jayden watched the tree line. I couldn’t see that far in the dark, so I watched Jayden and tried to stop shivering.

“So,” I said, “Bet you’re wishing you’d stayed at the restaurant about now.”

“No. Gotta admit, though, I normally don’t do the whole monster-fighting thing until the third date. But you’re special.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls who almost get you killed.”

Jayden seemed about to say something when a man’s megaphone-amplified voice shouted across the field. “Karma Rodriguez.”

“It speaks,” I shouted back. “And it knows my name. Should I be impressed?”

“You should remember mine. It’s Brallus. I’m sending over a field phone so you don’t have to shout.”

“Anything that steps out of that tree line dies, Brallus. Especially if it’s carrying something I think might go ‘boom.’” I was already getting hoarse, though. After a quick exchange we determined that both sides had access to walkie talkies, and that Brallus had no need for signal jammers this far from the closest cell tower.

“Alright, Brallus,” I said into the walkie-talkie, “Good people died tonight because of you. If that was supposed to get my attention, it worked.” I wanted to scream at him to give my grandfather back, but if there was any chance at all of that happening, I had to downplay how important he was to me.

“You expect me to believe you’re upset about those native guards?” he said, “What happened to the cold little demon-bitch who whored out her own mother for scraps and special treatment?”

What? Jayden caught my eye, and I shrugged, nonplussed. “You know that’s not how it was. And which of us is working with demons? I could swear that was a Shashashkuhun slaughter-spider I killed a few hours ago.”

“A temporary alliance. And better the Shashashkuhun than monsters like you. See, I know why the Qlippoth’s little experiment worked on you when it killed everybody else they tried it on. You were evil to begin with. That thing they put inside of you wasn’t an invader, it was a soulmate.”

Okay, best not to think about the Qlippoth putting anything inside me for now. Probably something I was better off not remembering. “Brallus, I was a child when they captured me.”

“Captured you? Took you home, you mean. Put you in with the real prisoners to spy on them, and anyone who caught on, you had your followers kill. Then when you and your little band escaped, you left the rest of us there.”

“Okay, do you see the flaw in your logic here? If I was somehow serving the Qlippoth, why would I want or need to escape?”

“How should I know how a demon thinks? After what you did to my brother, I stopped even trying to understand you.”

Riiiiiight. Not like I’d really expected logic to work, anyway. “Look, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No idea? His name was Kolb. You used your powers to seduce him, then had him ripped to pieces when he finally gave in. As if he had a choice. I can still hear him screaming.”

Speaking of screaming, I didn’t need the walkie to hear him at that point. If the idea was to stall, as opposed to goad, I’d better take things down a notch. I keyed the mic, but before I could speak, the world went away. This world, anyway.

The stone is rough against my back, and Kolb has his hand over my mouth. His brother Brallus is supposed to be keeping watch, but he keeps looking at me funny, and he says they shouldn’t do this, but he breathes harder when he looks at me. Kolb thinks I am afraid of them, but I am just waiting for them to make a mistake. When Kolb tries to rip my top off, I bite his hand as hard as I can and knee him between the legs the way Mommy taught me. I still have a piece of his hand in my mouth, and it is gross, but I can’t think about that now. I spit it out and dig my fingernails into his eyes and scream as loud as I can. And then Mommy is there . . . That twisted . . . And he called me a monster? When I could speak again I screamed back hoarsely. “I was nine years old, you sick fuck. I’m glad Kolb is dead. I hope it hurt like hell and took a long, long time, and I’m just sorry they could only do it once. Now give me back my grandfather, you piece of shit, or I swear I will tear you open with my bare hands and feed you your own intestines.”

I was shaking with rage, and when Jayden touched my arm I nearly decked him before I regained control. He raised an eyebrow and indicated the tree line by inclining his head toward it. By the time I followed his eyes, he was already sending arrow after arrow across the field. The Shashashkuhun were attacking. There were at least a dozen or so—I was a little too occupied to count—a mix of slaughter-spiders and more humanoid-looking creatures—slothor, something inside me said—laying down suppressing fire with automatic rifles, but considering what it had taken to kill just one already-wounded slaughter-spider, we were well and truly fucked. So much for Brallus wanting me alive. The only thing to do was go down fighting, but that would probably be quicker and cleaner than whatever Brallus had originally planned. I picked up the AR-15 and took aim, and Jayden lay down his bow and grabbed the other rifle.

“I’m sorry, Jayden,” I shouted. Like sorry would cover this. “They don’t care about you. If you run they might let you go.”

Jayden’s only response was to keep firing. I had to give him the out, even though I knew he wouldn’t take it. Part of me found comfort in knowing he’d be there until the end, and the rest of me hated myself for that.

“I love you,” I yelled above the sound of gunfire. I should have said it months ago, and I might not get a chance to say it later.

“You’d better,” he said as he swapped out magazines, “And I love you, too.” He tried to give me one of those ‘our little secret’ smiles, but failed, and we pretended not to see the fear on each other’s faces. We downed two demons, but although that made them a little more cautious, they were still too tough and healed too quickly. By the time they were thirty yards away, we had only taken one more out of the fight, and were nearly out of ammunition. It would be hand to hand with the remaining ones soon, and realistically speaking, that wouldn’t last very long. We were about to die. The only question was whether we could take any more of them with us.

And that was when our miracle arrived. At first I thought it was more Shashashkuhun, but no, the demons were taking flanking fire from the roadside perpendicular to ours, and a three-wheeler with a sidecar leapt over the adjoining road and sped toward us down the center of the ditch. Malachai Traeger, tall and lean in brown armored leathers and that Boba Fett-looking helmet of his, jumped off the trike before it even came to a full stop, letting it stall out, and a slender Aosidhe woman in ill-fitting rust-colored gear followed from the sidecar, carrying four assault rifles with jungle clips. If I knew Kai, and I did, they’d be loaded with something to give us an edge. She tossed one to Kai on the run, and scrambled up the slope to hand one each to Jayden and me before taking a prone position and firing. She and Kai squeezed off disciplined three-round bursts, and Jayden and I tried to follow suit, focusing on the same targets. The Shashashkuhun didn’t simply fall back or retreat, they scrambled for the tree line. About half of them made it, and the gunfire changed to occasional shots and bursts as targets became less visible.

The Aosidhe woman took off toward the other end of the ditch. Kai waved me a little further down the slope and plopped down next to me, flipping up his faceplate. “Would’ve been here sooner, but someone left a surprise for us. And by the way, that trash can did quite a bit of damage. Not fatal on its own, but more than it should have. Same with the taser.”

“So their weaknesses are aluminum and electricity?”

“Nope. I have a theory about that, but—”

The radio squawked. Brallus wanting to know if I was still there. “Yeah, I’m here, Brallus. You’re down a few troops, though. Seems like this might be a good time for you to surrender.”

“Not when I still have something you want.”

I made sure the mic was off, and explained to Kai what was going on, then asked, “Can your people get to my grandpa?”

“They’re working on it, but we don’t want to put him in any more danger. Stall.”

Along with everything else, Brallus was playing a power game. He couldn’t just tell me what he wanted—He had to make me ask. “Okay, what do you want?”

“You, demon-bitch.” He didn’t speak the words so much as spit them. “Wearing thrice-blessed iron manacles, in a circle of containment. Then I’ll let the old man go.”

What. The. Fuck.

“Traditional anti-demon thing,” Kai whispered. “This is good. Keep him talking.”

“I see a couple of problems with that,” I said. “The first of which is, gee, wouldn’t you know it, Brallus? I’m fresh out of thrice-blessed iron manacles.”

“Funny. I’ll send over the restraints.”

“And what’s to stop you from double-crossing us once you have me?”

“I don’t think you have much choice.”

“Let me talk to him.”

“He’s rather . . . indisposed.”

“Look, do you see the other hole in your logic here? If I’m this evil demon spawn you claim, why would his life mean enough to me to risk my own?”

“I don’t know, nor do I care about your reasons.” Of course. Hadn’t we established earlier that Brallus was immune to logic? “I’ll give you twenty minutes to decide how important he is to you.”

“If you kill him, you lose your leverage.”

“True, but I don’t have to kill him. How do you think he’d like living without his lips? Or maybe his eyelids?”

That was when I knew that no matter what, even if it cost me my own life, I was going to kill that son of a bitch, and anyone who got in my way.—The worst part isn’t what they do to us. It’s what they make us do to each other. I am strapped to the table trying not to cry while my mother stands over me with a hot iron. They give her a choice. She can take over torturing me, or they will burn out my eyes, one at a time. If she still refuses, they will cut out my tongue—but not all at once. They will draw it out. They make it very clear just how long and how horribly they can make me suffer while keeping me alive and awake.—

“You touch one hair on his head, and I’ll make the prison camp seem like Club fucking Med, motherfucker. I’ll . . . ” I don’t even remember the rest of what I screamed into the walkie-talkie at that point, only that my hands were shaking so badly that I dropped it. I was wiping the mud off when Brallus’ voice broke in again.

“I’ll turn this back on in twenty minutes. Have your answer ready.”

Oh, I had an answer for him, all right. I was going to put him in a hole where no one could hear him scream. I was going to cut off his balls and feed them to him. I was going to—

“You know you can’t hand yourself over, don’t you?” Jayden said.

My voice came out harder than I’d intended. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. You think I don’t understand the risk? Would you do it for someone you love?”

Jayden’s voice was quiet when he answered. “You already know the answer to that.”

Oh, smooth. I was bitching at a man who’d proven twice in the past few hours that he’d stand beside me even if it meant dying. I hung my head, blinking. What the fuck? One minute I was ready to kill, the next, I was fighting back tears.

“I didn’t mean to snap at you,” I said. “It’s just so messed up right now. We started the night being attacked by monsters. And do we run from them like, oh, I don’t know . . . sane people? No, we chase them into an unpatrolled zone like some kind of demon-food delivery service, because yeah, that was bound to turn out well. But what other choice did we have? They took Grandpa and we had to get him back. And Garston . . . I lost one of only two people I consider family tonight—no, correction, I blew his fucking brains out, and I don’t dare even slow down long enough to let myself feel it yet.” I heard my voice rising, felt my control slipping, and I didn’t care. “Apparently my entire family is from some alternate universe, and I’m remembering things from a past life where I was tortured by demons for fifteen years starting when I was eight years old—Let me tell you, it wasn’t a good time. I am this close to completely, absolutely, permanently, and irrevocably losing my fucking shit, and the only reason I haven’t already lost it is that all of this is so utterly bat-shit insane that I can’t even focus enough to go properly crazy. I—”

Jayden knelt and pulled me to him hard, covering my mouth with his in a kiss that, for just that moment, was more real than anything else in existence. Solid and tangible proof of a connection with another human being. One who would support me no matter what the odds. When we broke the kiss Jayden remained, holding me firmly but gently, grounding me.

“I’m sorry,” I managed to say, “I just . . . I’m doing the best I can, but I honestly don’t know how much I have left in me. I’m trying to be strong, but I’m so fucking tired of being strong right now.”

“And you are strong, Karma,” Jayden said. “Just stop taking it all on yourself. Nobody’s that strong.”

Kai shook his head and sighed. “The kid’s right,” he said. “Most people’d be ready for a rubber room after half of what you’ve been through in the past—what’s it been, five hours or so? I’ve been close to the edge myself a couple of times, and I deal with fucked-up shit for a living. No shame in needing somebody to pull you back.”

I swallowed and nodded, and Kai continued. “That said, as much as I don’t want to push you any further, we’ve got a deadline to meet. You gonna be okay?”

There was a question I’d heard before. “Ask me that in a couple of years. But let’s do this.”

“Okay. Give me your hands. I have to check something.” Kai knelt where Jayden had been and took both my hands in his. A familiar, subtle energy, both warm and cool at once, circulated through me. Something in Kai called out to that energy, but it was like the call was in a foreign tongue, a friendly language that I could almost, but not quite, understand. Kai became somehow more real, more solid. I had an impression of immensity, of a bright column of light almost too intense to look at, that feathered outward like three sets of giant wings, and of a voice like singing multi-tonal bells and pipes accompanied by a chorus of beautiful, almost human voices. Kai removed his hands from mine, and the vision faded.

“You’re a—” I started.

Kai cut me off. “Don’t go there, it’s not what you think. I’ll explain later, but for now let’s just say the Quiet World is a hell of a lot bigger than most people think. There are some people who don’t even know they’re Quiet Worlders. Like you.”

I swallowed.

“So what am I?”

“Beats the hell out of me. Not the same as me, but similar enough that I’m betting your power—at least one part of it—works about the same way mine does. At least there’s one thing we can both do.”

“Are you telling me I’m a—”

“I said don’t go there. Now about this power . . . ” After he told me I sat blinking, trying to take it in.

“You’re telling me that I turned a trash can into a holy weapon? And I can’t believe those words just came out of my mouth.”

Kai winced. “I wouldn’t put it like that, but basically, yeah. You channel energy into objects, and if something’s got a supernatural weakness, well . . . You’ve seen the results. You’ve already done it unconsciously, and we have about ten minutes to figure out how, so let’s get with it.”

When Brallus came back on the air, I told him I was ready. He sent the more humanoid of the remaining Shashashkuhun across, pulling what looked like an old barn door on makeshift runners, marked with containment circles. Assuming they were specifically keyed to demons, they wouldn’t affect me, nor would the blessings on the restraints. Unfortunately, though, the chains would hold me just like they would anybody else. Brallus insisted I strip down to my bra and panties to make sure I wasn’t hiding a weapon, and while that made sense on one level, it was also creepy, considering. The kind of pseudo-succubus he’d convinced himself I was wouldn’t mind stripping, though, and the idea for now was to play into his expectations.

So I stepped up into the containment circle and made a show of it, shimmying and tossing my head as though dancing to some private, raunchy music—which is a lot harder than you’d think when you’re soaked, and shivering uncontrollably. When I got down to my underthings I ran my hands down my sides, did a little wriggle, and hooked my thumbs into the waistband of my panties. “Sure you don’t want me to keep going?” The demon eyed me and licked its black lips as it came closer. Gods, I was going to be sick if the thing actually touched me.

At a word from Brallus, it backed away hurriedly, and someone in the tree line fired a warning shot. “No tricks,” Brallus shouted. “You, with the long hair,” meaning Jayden, “Chain her up. And do it right, or the old man suffers.” So far, so good. Part of the plan depended on either Jayden or Kai getting up onto the platform with me.

The cuffs and collar were fastened to a ring in the middle of the platform by chains that wouldn’t allow me to raise myself up past a crouch, and secured by large, medieval-looking padlocks. As Jayden snapped the last lock in place, I lowered my head, ostensibly in defeat, but in reality to hide my smile at the feel of cold metal hidden beneath my foot and the chemical smell in my nostrils. The drizzle hadn’t let up, and would already be diluting the acid, but all the acid had to do was weaken the wood where the ring was bolted.

It took forever for the monster to slog across in the mud pulling me behind it. This would work, I kept telling myself. For the most part I believed it, too. Until Brallus stepped forward, placed his hand on the platform, and spoke an activating word. After that I was too busy screaming to think about much of anything.

When I came to, I was huddled on my side in the fetal position, shivering, in a pool of my own vomit and urine. At least I’d landed on the multi-tool when I fell, keeping it hidden. The air was damp and cold, but a tent kept the rain off of us. Brallus stood nearby with arms folded, glaring at me. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, fairly well-muscled, with close-cropped, thick, dark hair. The overall effect was like someone had brought a G.I. Joe to life. A .45 sat holstered on his right hip, and a coiled whip hung from one wrist by a leather strap.

“Killer turkey sandwich,” I croaked, “No mayo, black coffee, apple pie.”

“You have no idea how difficult it was to treat you like a human being, or to keep my food down while looking at you. And by the way, please try to move again. The outer circle is containment, the inner one is pain, as you’ve already discovered. So sorry your foot was touching it when I turned it on.”

“Kinky. If I were fifteen years younger I bet you’d be creaming yourself. Again.” I tried to keep my voice steady, but I was scared shitless, and trying to hide it from him any way I could.

It wasn’t a good tactic. I barely saw the whip coming in time to take the lash on my arms instead of across my face. It was a half-hearted strike and didn’t quite draw blood, but it stung like hell, and I cried out despite myself. The whip gave me an idea, though; I just wasn’t ready to try it yet.

Brallus was red in the face. “Soaked in holy water. It should have burned you, but I guess that’s just one more mystery we’ll have to solve. Some old friends want to see what makes you tick, and I’m sure they’ll get to the bottom of it. If there’s anything left when they’re finished, you’re mine. Think about that, demon-bitch.”

I thought about it, alright, and I didn’t like the pictures in my head. “What about The General? Did you let him go?”

In answer, Brallus pointed behind me to where Grandpa was tied to a post by his wrists with his head down on his chest. He was breathing, but unconscious. “I’ll release him at a more appropriate time. For now, though,” He pulled a baby monitor—talk about creep factor—from his cargo pocket, switched it on, and set it on top of the nearby field table. “Feel free to scream at me as much as you like. I’ll be listening.”

He muttered what I supposed were instructions to the monster who’d dragged me here, then swaggered out of the tent. Smug bastard. The man demon growled when it looked my way, but immediately averted its many eyes, as though afraid to look directly at me. I guessed Brallus had him convinced that I was dangerous. I took advantage to inspect the pain ward more closely, careful not to move any part of my body over it. I was no expert, but if I was right about it, my idea should work. I wrapped myself around the ring, and worked it back and forth, covering the motion with fake, body-wracking sobs, augmented occasionally with very real dry heaves from the stink of my own fluids, until I’d gotten it as loose as I thought I could by hand.

I was determined to stay alert for a chance to work on it with the multi-tool, but I was at that point of exhaustion where inanimate objects move in the corners of your eyes and normal background noise becomes voices on a far-away radio. The pain and growling in my stomach reminded me that what little I’d eaten in the past few hours was either smeared all over my skin or lay in a noxious pool beneath me, and the last time I’d felt warm or dry seemed like a lifetime ago.

My body finally said, ‘enough,’ and as if my brain was trying to convince me to stop fighting sleep, I could almost hear a lullaby in a woman’s soft mezzo-soprano, familiar and comforting. I held the song against myself and let it pull me down into the welcome dark.

I couldn’t have been out for more than a few minutes, but when I opened my eyes, the demon guard’s misshapen head lolled to one side in sleep. It had to be a trick, I thought at first, but then again, we’d left Brallus short-handed, and who knew how much it took out of these things to heal as quickly as they did?

I turned at a low hiss from Grandpa. He winked at me and wiggled the end of the rope. He’d gotten loose, but held it in place to make it look as though his hands were still bound. Thanks to the baby monitor, we didn’t dare speak, but I managed to pantomime my idea, and urged him to escape. He frowned and shook his head no. I hadn’t really expected him to leave me there, any more than I’d have left him or . . . Gods, I didn’t want to tell him about Uncle Garston. I set to work with the multi-tool, digging around the ring to which my chains were attached. Once I got it out I replaced it, took a deep breath, and with an encouraging look from Grandpa, got ready to put on another act.

“Brallus,” I said toward the monitor. The demon guarding me jerked its head up, awake, but other than that, nothing. “Brallus! Please, I’m cold, and I’m hungry, and I know you don’t care about that, but I’ll tell you things you want to know. All I want is a blanket and some food. I’ll cooperate. I didn’t know how bad it would be without my power.”

Still nothing.

“This body’s getting weaker. It’ll get sick. What if it dies? What then? All this for nothing?”

Something rustled outside, and Brallus entered the tent glowering. He spoke a few words to the demon in an ugly language, and the beast left. I did my best to look small and pitiful and afraid. The afraid part wasn’t hard, and I figured that being scared at least meant I was still sane.

“I sent it for food, water, and blankets. I’ll have it bring them in once we’re done here.”

I bowed my head, doing my best ‘humbled prisoner’ act, and reminded myself that as long as those wards were active I’d be unconscious from pain before I could get my hands around Brallus’ throat. “Thank you,” I mumbled.

“Don’t thank me. I’d rather watch you suffer.”

I bit my lip. Have to play this just right. I couldn’t have him get pissed and walk away. I needed to get hold of that whip.

I kept my head bowed. “I know. But I’ll keep my end. I’ll tell you everything.”

“And how would I know it was the truth?”

“Because my best chance of survival, or at least a quick death, is to cooperate.”

The best lies contain at least partial truths, and I sprinkled in just enough to make things sound plausible, given that there was no way he’d accept the unvarnished version. Some things I had to blatantly fabricate, though. For instance, I claimed that the riot and Grandpa were both parts of long-term plans to gain power in this world, and that when I agreed to trade myself I did so thinking that Brallus couldn’t hold me (that part was true) and I’d have my pawn back for free. After a few minutes, it was time to bait my hook. With head hung low, I offered to tell the truth about what I had done to his brother, and said that I’d write a confession. He bit, and I started reeling him in.

Another thing about lies. People will buy into almost anything as long as it confirms what they want to believe, and unless I had seriously misunderstood Brallus’ expression when his brother was trying to molest me, Brallus’ tastes ran similar to Kolb’s.

So I spun a Lolita story that would have made Nabokov proud. Although I barely kept from gagging as I did it, I confirmed all the lies people like Brallus and Kolb tell themselves so they can sleep at night, and credited myself demonic powers to further absolve Kolb of responsibility. Brallus’ breathing quickened, and every so often he’d unconsciously moisten his lips with his tongue. Yeah, I know. Makes you want to throw up, doesn’t it?

“And you’d write this out as a confession?” he asked.

I hung my head. “With witnesses, if you want, to prove I wasn’t coerced.”

He steepled his hands and sat watching me. “You know this doesn’t change anything.”

“I know. Still, I was hoping maybe . . . ”

I let the pause hang there until he prompted me. “I knew you’d have an ulterior motive. You were hoping what? That I’d unchain you and let you go?”

I shook my head. “No, just that if I cooperated and told you everything you wanted to know, maybe you wouldn’t turn me over to them.” I wasn’t even sure who ‘they’ were, but I assumed the higher-ups in the Shashashkuhun hierarchy.

“That’s out of my hands.”

“No, you can convince them. And you can . . . use me any way you want.” Emphasis on the ‘use.’ And then, for the bit that would set me free. “And if this body doesn’t please you, I could help you find young girls, like I was back then. Boys, too, if you want them. I could make them either submit or fight back, whichever excites you more.”

His face went slack and pale. The last thing people in denial want is to have their proclivities thrown in their face. “You. Dare.” Brallus stood and unfurled the whip. I crouched and threw my hands in front of me as though cowering, but as the whip wrapped around my forearms and bit into them, I grabbed and pulled. Brallus teetered, off-balance, but didn’t fall. We played tug-of-war, and Brallus was winning until Grandpa threw himself at Brallus’ back and knocked him across his own wards.

The wards flashed with electricity, and Brallus screamed, convulsed, and passed out. I used his body as a bridge to get out of the containment circle, then Grandpa grabbed his sidearm and his keys. Grandpa offered me the .45, but I waved it away in favor of the keys, and told him to deactivate the find-me charm—which would signal Kai and his group to attack. I should have taken the gun and put a bullet into Brallus’ head, but I wanted him awake and alert when I killed him. As I finished with the locks, scrambling noises outside said that at least one demon was on the way back to the tent. I grasped the chains that had held me and swung them in a slow, but accelerating circle while I used what Kai and I had discovered about my power to infuse them with what energy I could.

When tall, dark and revolting poked its ugly head into the tent, I swung my chains with everything I had, and sent it staggering back. The power in the chains flashed, then diminished, but did not completely fade, and the demon’s face blackened across its eyes where I’d hit it. I swung again and again while Grandpa flanked it with Brallus’ .45. On my third blow, the demon’s skull cracked open, spattering me with blood and brains.

Gunfire and other battle noises announced the arrival of our allies, and by the time I’d secured Brallus and stepped out of the tent, the fighting was over. Filthy as I was, I threw my arms around Grandpa’s neck, telling him how much I’d missed him, how worried I’d been, and babbling about Jayden.

Grandpa looked away, with sad eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not your grandfather.”

“I know. Uncle Garston told me. Dad.” I grinned.

“You don’t understand. I mean—”

I heard movement behind me, and turned to see Brallus low-crawling toward the tent flap to escape.

Reunions would have to wait. I ran toward Brallus swinging my chains, and opened a gash across his back with the bolt end of the connecting ring. He bellowed and fell forward, and I went to work on him. Not his head, though. That would be too quick. This man had killed my friends, kidnapped and tortured my father, forced me to kill the other man I thought of as a parent, and those were only the tip of the mountain of things he had to answer for. He rolled onto his back snarling and tried to catch the chain, and got a broken arm for his trouble. He succeeded in pulling me off balance, but I don’t think me landing with my knee in his solar plexus was the result he was going for. While he gasped for breath, stunned, I raised my arms into the air and smashed a double fistful of chain into his face.

Once he was unconscious I let up, simply because it wasn’t as satisfying to hit him when he couldn’t feel it. I wanted to kill him. I wanted it more than I could remember ever wanting anything. But I didn’t. No, not because of some cliché like, ‘he wasn’t worth it,’ or, ‘that would be stooping to his level.’ Oh, hell, no. I could have killed him and slept the sleep of the just, but it came down to a question of practicality. I had questions for the bastard, and if I killed him, I’d never get the answers. I left him to Kai’s tender mercies for the time being.

One of the proxies loaned us a vehicle to get back to civilization, and Jayden and I set out to find where Grandpa-slash-Dad had gotten to. The drizzle had become a downpour by the time we found him on the side of the road staring at the spot where Garston had died. Correction: where I had killed him. I stuffed that thought down as best I could. Kai’s cohorts had already removed the body, but someone must have told him. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved that I didn’t have to break the news, or guilty that he’d had to hear it from someone else. I finally decided on feeling guilty about feeling relieved. Jayden kissed me—yes, vomit and all—and said he’d be close by, then wandered off to give my grandfather and me some time alone.

I stood behind Grandpa and put my hand on his shoulder. I didn’t know what to say, or even whether to call him Grandpa or Dad, so I didn’t say anything. After thirty seconds or so, he broke the silence, and I didn’t think I’d ever heard him sound so frail or tired.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry. I thought I could get Eli back, but then I was . . . He’s in here somewhere, but he’s buried deep.”

My stomach dropped, and my spine turned to ice. I backed away, drawing my nine millimeter, pointing it at the back of his head and thumbing the safety off. “Who are you? What are you? And what the fuck are you doing in my grandfather?”

“I—Nobody. Just another prisoner. Someone who tried to save everybody and failed. You did great, though. Saved everybody I couldn’t, including yourself. Including me. I’ll keep this body alive long enough to get it to a hospital, and then I’ll leave you all in peace.”

I lowered my weapon. “What do I call you?”

He turned toward me, and I averted my eyes to avoid seeing someone else behind that face. “I won’t be around long enough to need a name.”

There was nothing left but to go home. I took the wheel, with Not-Grandpa in the passenger seat and Jayden in the back. In the enclosed space, all the things I hadn’t been able to wash off hit me square in the face. That window had to come down, freezing rain or no. I eased us back to pavement, and then opened up full throttle, trying to outrun my own thoughts.

Nothing. It was all for nothing. I’d failed, utterly and completely, and as if to prove there was no justice in the universe, I was still alive—Then again, maybe there was justice after all. Maybe surviving was part of my punishment.

Which brings me to my laughing-slash-crying jag at the side of the road. The car was too confining, so I drove to the nearest rest stop, got out and walked to a covered picnic table. After a few minutes, Jayden joined me. As he’d already shown, he had a good feel for when to approach me and when to leave me alone.

“I was talking to, uh . . . ” He gestured toward the car.

“I’ve been thinking of him as ‘Not-Grandpa,’ for lack of anything better. And look, I already know I’m not giving him a fair shake. I can’t help it. And yes, I know we should try to help him find another—”

“About that. I know the whole deduction thing is your territory, but as the Watson to your Holmes, I figure I can come up with something once in a while, too.”

“Okay, spill, Watson.”

“Under one condition.”

At Jayden’s insistence, I gave myself a sponge-bath in the ladies’ room while he rinsed my clothes and laid out his thoughts and conclusions the way I’d done with him earlier. When he finished, I stood literally open-mouthed for probably a full minute, letting it sink in. If my power was, as Kai thought, something like his, there was one way to see if Jayden was right.

“Go on,” he said. “I’ll wait here for a little while.” Seemed like that boy spent a lot of time waiting for me. Then again, we’d waited almost two years for each other, so we should’ve been used to it by then.

Back at the car I took Not-Grandpa’s hands, over his objections, and focused on finding that same energy I’d felt with Kai.

There were no heavenly choirs, no columns of light. Just a face. Layers of faces, actually. The first one was a facade, the peak of a bearded mountain named Garston. Behind that one was a woman’s face, with long, dark hair, and eyes like mine. A face from another life. My mother.

Although it was Grandpa’s body in front of me, it was still my mother’s face I saw superimposed upon it. She turned away from me, crying. I was almost too stunned to form words, and my mouth opened and closed several times before I could make anything come out. “Mom?” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I—” she started, but a huge sob cut her off, and for a while, we just held each other and cried.

So much for this all being for nothing.

Maybe we all got what we deserved in the end, after all. We’ll be a family again for the first time in nearly two lifetimes, once we get Dad back from wherever inside himself he's hiding out and find Mom a new body (no idea how we're going to do that, but I have some ideas). Jayden got me, and at the risk of blowing my own horn, I’m not such a bad catch. The patrol officers—after everything I’d seen, I couldn’t believe that death was the end for them. Me, not only was I getting my family back, along with some sort of as-yet-unexplained superpowers, but also quite possibly the most fantastic guy in this or any other universe. I don’t know what I did to deserve any of it, but it must have been something pretty awesome. So even if it sounds corny—and I know it does…

I’m going to call it karma.

#my writing #urban fantasy #hopepunk #writing #karma #quiet world #my fiction #cosmic horror #new day same boulder

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taylortruther · 1 year ago

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I agree with every lyric you posted tbh and also raise you (not confusing but just side-eyeing lmao):

"and I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you"

"your integrity makes me feel small"

"you fire off missiles because you hate yourself, but do you know you're demolishing me?"

(And I'm going to say it, I always thought the lover line was weird. I love that song soooo much and I just never got it in context of the song)

i totally get why you think the lover line is weird but to me it always made sense framed as an anxiety of hers, but also her putting him on a pedestal: who could stay? and who couldn't want you when you're so perfect? but i get it because as much as it makes sense to me it does give me a tiny bit of ick.

the DEMOLISHING line is also really !!!!!! - still mad at those fans who clung to the "it's actually taylor writing about her own insecurities from joe's perspective" narrative for so long.

very very very intrigued by the integrity line, because i always thought it was more about his ability to imagine a life out of the public eye (related to "you paint dreamscapes on the wall")... but then it also ties into the "i talk shit with my friends, it's like i'm wasting your honor," which i think is a common enough feeling in relationships (i find there is usually a partner who doesn't care about "petty" interpersonal drama), but it is noteworthy that she felt so bad about it herself.

once again thinking about that "avoiding drama, feeling grown up" tweet about writing songs based in fiction...

#renegade #lover #peace

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cha-melodius · 1 year ago

Note

20 for the writing meme, please!

Thanks for asking! You picked a doozy, lol. (Ask me questions about my writing)

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

All right, here's some meta for chapter 2 of Nova, Baby (why chapter 2? Because it's an entire 5+1 inside a single chapter of a multichap fic, which is meta enough reason to choose it).

So yeah, it's a 5+1! I thought this was very clever, lol. Also a little bonkers, but there you go. I love this chapter because it really is a huge arc in Alex and Henry's relationship development, plus I got to play with these little encapsulated moments, and some other characters got to come in too (Nora, Pez). I'll give you some "behind the story" and lists of references for each section!

Below will be spoilers for the entire fic, so be forewarned.

I. My excuse for food-as-a-metaphor-for-love. I love that canonically Alex is a good cook, and this was my excuse to have them indulge when normally you might not get much of that in spy fiction (although, this is also a bit of a reference to my other fandom, The Man from UNCLE, where one of the spies is also a good cook; fancy dishes at safehouses is kind of my jam). I chose molé as a dish because making a traditional one has so many ingredients, to really drive home Alex putting a lot of effort into his relationship with Henry.

II. I had such fun writing this one so that, even though it's from Alex's POV, the reader doesn't know he's wearing a vest until Henry does. He might not have been risking his life (much), but he was definitely risking some broken ribs. This one has a bunch of little references in it, mostly to other spy media:

jumping through a fifth story window into a swimming pool—this is a Burn Notice reference. Throw a mattress into the pool first. Also I just love the idea of Alex being a little Extra when it comes to being a spy.

three guys who look like they walked off a Guy Ritchie set—TMFU is a Guy Ritchie movie, plus I love his movies in general.

Alex hadn’t gotten any confirmation from Langley that MI6 would be a part of this op, Henry had just shown up and Alex hadn’t really questioned it—Meant to sow a tiny thread of doubt in Alex's mind, which would pay off later when the fake burn file comes through.

he notices the way Henry’s eyelashes are wet and clumping together and his eyes are rimmed in red—Henry fucking lost it here. See also the part where he kills the men rather than his usual incapacitating, nonlethal shots. This is probably the point where he realizes how deep he's in.

Turns out, they don’t argue about what to do with it. They destroy the hard drive—direct TMFU reference, (spoilers for that movie), this is what Illya and Napoleon do at the end with the missile plans.

III. The classic Nora-and-Alex-have-a-conversation-about-his-bisexuality scene. Also I just loved the idea of Alex being so oblivious to his bisexuality that he's actually sucked cock before and written it off because 'that's just what spies do'. The layout of desks/offices in this fic roughly comes from the show Covert Affairs, since it's one of the few I've watched that actually regularly shows CIA interiors.

IV. Behind the story peek: Henry bails on this mission because he's concerned, after Lisbon, that he's getting in too deep. Also this scene Alex being a Henry-sexual (not interested in going home with any other people in the bar but can't figure out why), which I love. Also Pez in a poncho, because he would. Pez and Alex have an absolute blast on their mission, and Pez gives Henry no end of shit about Alex when he gets back.

V. Tender wound-tending my beloved. This was such a moment of honesty for them. I mean, not completely honest, but I think this is the first time Alex really realizes just how much Henry cares about him (save the full romantic feelings). There is, of course, a massive callback to this scene near the end of the fic where Alex tells Henry that he can't die because promised he'd always take care of him. All that time, he's carried that in his memory. So yeah, this is a pivotal moment.

+1. Ah, the kiss moment. I always love a kiss-as-a-cover trope, and it made for a good first kiss in this one where it would be easier to write off the potential for feelings, since it was all for the mission. Lots of canon references in this one:

in another life, he would have made a great politician—obvious reference is obvious.

I suppose I could, I don’t know, fall into the dessert table or something—a refence to Cakegate of course.

Christ, you’re thick sometimes—I changed the quote because I wanted it to be a bit less severe than "as thick as it gets." Alex is only thick sometimes in this universe, lol.

Henry’s back hits the wall next to some kind of small, indoor tree—always kissing under a tree, these two.

public displays of affection can be strategically useful for diverting scrutiny away from yourself—yes, this a CA: TWS reference

ALL RIGHT, that's probably enough lmaooooo. You asked me to ramble and I rambled. I hope this was interesting to at least one person.

#nova baby #about my fics #rwrb #red white and royal blue #firstprince #rwrb fic #firstprince fic

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lmelodie · 1 year ago

Text

Bad Ending AU Epilogue (Ghost Sighting)

Part One / Part Two / Part Three (Epilogue)

HERE YA GO @definitelyy-not-a-vampire !! Heres ya food!

For anyone not in the loop, I THOUGHT that this little side quest of a project would only have two parts. But then I got THIS ask from my lovely mutual K that inspired this entire thing. Kind of ripped off from the idea of the Jacqueline Dies AU pt.2 from ANOTHER mutual @safyresky. This is what my life is now. Just writing au's of au's and fanfics of fanfics.

This little snippet of a thing explores what happens when Chance and Choice Jack and Lucy (one year after the fact, when Blackice gets back together), just pop over to the dark side for a quick visit.

Also a little teeny tiny spoiler for something happening to Lucy at the end of Chance and Choice. Oops.

There was a rapturous knocking at the front door, a hurried and frenzied pounding.

“I'll be right there!” The woman called out from the adjacent study.

But the loud and panicked knocking continued all the way from her desk to the front door.

“Jesus Christ, give it a minute!” she shouts, unlocking the various skeleton locking mechanics on the door and creaking it open. “Now I know you had to read the sign on the teleporter to know that you're calling outside office hours! So this better be real—”

She’s halted in the middle of her sentiment by the people threatening to break down her door. Two very familiar faces that drains her own of any color.

“—important…”

She finds none other than the past staring back at her through two very different facets. Memories of a time long since past. Two ghosts of another name. None other than herself and Jack Fucking Frost are on her front door step.

While Lucy and Jack nervously stared back at the woman they both silently noted to themselves how different this version of her was.

She was much older than they were expecting, somewhere in her forties at least; But almost looked even older by the unusual amount of gray taking over her roots. A visible scar streaking across her left cheek. The gray and red hair was thrown up into a bun that was coming undone, an old magenta cloak covering her shoulders. A jaded face pulled back in surprise, appallment even, as her eyes rapidly switched to different things to take in about the pair.

When she didn't say anything at first, the teenaged Lucy and Jack shared a worried glance to each other before the younger girl went into it.

“Okay look, I know this looks weird,” she started, “I know this looks really weird, but we really don't have time to explain. We could probably use your help, more immediately than anything, ya see we ended up collecting this little angry mob along the way over here…”

But before the teen could finish, the terrified older Lucy locked her gaze onto Jack, singling him out. She reaches next to her, away from view and grabs her staff. Wordlessly she glows a bright lavender and a bolt of light comes careening towards him.

Both Jack and Lucy manage to duck just in time, being able to feel the static on their skin from the blast just barely grazing them. But they didn't have to come back up before this other Lucy charges out of her home and relays more solid blasts of light, stringing across the air towards Jack again.

“HEY! WHAT GIVES!?” He immediately backs up and starts running with the older Lucy hot on his heels, knocking over her own counterpart to the ground in her pursuit.

The teenager lands with a harsh thud, nearly into the flower bushes as she watches her older self expertly and violently sling more attacks at him. Beams of light arcing through the air and missiles launching in his direction. Swiping motions from her staff and bare hands summoning targeted blasts of high voltage.

Jack tries out running her first, but she’s much more equipped for this kind of battle than the younger version he’s accustomed to.

“Would you stop! We need your help here!” he shouts over his shoulder, her barrage never letting up and instead growing angrier by the second.

“Shut the fuck up and let me kill you, scumbag!”

He turns around for a brief moment, swiping his arms out and blasting snow in her direction, some of it getting into her open eyes, slowing her down some. He starts circling her making and making more snow, crunching his hands together to puppet the snow around her, trying to sufficiently bury her in it.

“Just hear us out! We don't want any trouble!” Teenaged Lucy calls out as she stands again and catches up with the commotion. “I’m YOU! Were from another timeline, we got lost and—”

With her eyes aglow, the experienced sorceress manages to gesture her hand, severing the case of snow trapping her perfectly in half. She throws her arms open and sends the two halves flying away from her, exploding into powder. Her face snarled in determination.

“Illusions! FAKES the both of you!” She accuses, “I don't know who’s behind a spell like this but it's as poorly in taste as it is crafted!”

She swipes the staff in the air again, sending another large blast towards Jack. He gets into a defense stance to summon something to block it, but he never gets the chance.

The younger Lucy was quicker, and a swirling shield of magic aether runs itself in front of him like a freight train, absorbing the like minded attack with an almost satisfying bloop.

Lucy turns to look at herself with the same ire staring back at her. The young girl takes her own staff in her tremor riddled hands and draws a barrier circle around the woman from afar, sending the magic into the sky and blocking her in. The older Lucy could easily break out of this barrier, quite literally of her own making, but her younger self gives her no time.

“Look, we don't have a lot of time! I’m telling you, that I’m another version of you from a different universe. He’s another Jack Frost, and we’ve kinda amassed an angry mob on our way over, we need your help and your shelter so we can have a chance at getting back to our own timeline!”

She gets all of this information out as quickly as she can muster. The sorceress never wavers, retaliation at the ready while keeping a close eye on the both of them.

“Prove it!” she demanded. “Prove to me that you're both real and aren't evil.”

“I-If I may, actually,” Jack nervously raises his hand. “I don't think there's any kind of illusion powerful enough to replicate two types of magic to this degree,” he gestures to the odd piles of snow on the ground and the barrier around the woman is currently surrounded by. “Not that I know of, at any rate.”

This makes her stop and think for a moment, her outward hostility fading just a bit. She was so gung ho on snuffing out Jack as fast as possible, she hadn't considered this, very begrudgingly true fact. Of all her decades of study she knows there isn't an illusion anyone can cast that could feel this real.

But when all three hear the cluttered and distant sounds of the aforementioned angry mob coming through the teleporter, the youngest of the group goes to seal the deal.

“Your parents' names are Neil and Laura Miller,” she starts, relaxing her own posture. “Your mom was married once before to Scott Calvin, who's the father of your half brother Charlie Calvin. You're a cancer and you wear size 7 shoes, but only in wides. Your first childhood dog was named Tulip.”

The woman's face begins to undo its own tension as she hears the girl list off these things, the reality slowly starting to set in.

“What…what did I want to be when I grew up?” she cautiously asks.

Jack is starting to triangulate his glances between the two Millers and the approaching mob from over the horizon, in more and more of a panic. But teenage Lucy manages to keep her cool, and answers sincerely.

“You didn't know,” she states plainly, almost sadly. “You didn't know for a long time and it scared you really bad. Sometimes you couldn't handle the uncertainty of not knowing what you were going to be. Or how you would've turned out.”

The younger version doesn't have much more to add to the sentiment, and doesn't need anymore to get the point across. The older version seems to slump more and her face falls. She knows this is the correct answer, and she knows it holds far more truth than either of the two know.

She lets a heavy and tired sigh escape, rubbing the space between her eyes for a moment. She eventually steps up to the barrier and swiftly, with staff in one hand, pulls back the fabric and sends it disintegrating into the sky.

“So maybe you are,” she admits, “but then why on earth are you dragging him around with you?” she resentfully gestures to Jack who imparts nothing more than a small fear riddled smile and a tiny wave.

“It's a long story but he’s perfectly fine, I promise. And we’ll tell you everything if you just let us hide and maybe get the approaching mob off our backs?”

She annoyingly glances between the two timeline hoppers, “Well what did you think was gonna happen?! You do realize your trotting around with an actual, historical tyrant right? And you think nothing would’ve come of this?”

Jack skeptically raises a finger, “I'm sorry, a historical what now?”

“You stay out of this!”

“Look he’s not a tyrant in our universe, I swear he’s actually kinda pathetic.”

“What the hell?! I am NOT—”

“Jack there's no time!” the teen shouts, the agitation of the crowd growing louder and closer. “Please, we’ll get what we need and be out of your hair in no time. We definitely don't wanna stay in this timeline longer than we need to. Lucy to Lucy, I'm calling in your help to get us back.”

The sorceress analyzes the images of the two through furrowed brows. She can start to see a mass of people begging to crest over the hill. And after another second of deliberation, she chooses. And she angrily sighs and grumbles about her choice and points towards the front door that was left open.

“Don't make me regret doing this. You leave as soon as possible.”

Both Jack and Lucy take her heed, and nearly sprint to the door and find safety behind its faded pink wood. The older Lucy can feel a headache coming on, turning on her heels to follow the anomalies and to shut the door behind her.

The two of which were catching their breaths in the narrow entryway of the cottage.

“Now why was she only attacking me here?!” Jack asked in a hushed tone.

“Probably because making trouble is your whole thing! You probably deserved it,” the teen responded.

The elder Lucy was going to chime in when there was more knocking at the door. She silently motioned with her hand to the two abrupt “guests” to hide further in the house. They at least made it out of sight of the doorway, before the woman straightened herself out and put on the most convincing “totally relaxed and everything is fine” face before opening the door yet again.

She scans the crowd through their cacophonous shouting, as if seeing it for the first time, “Oh wow. I can't say I've had this many visitors at once before.”

“Where is he!?” a random protester in the back yelled out.

“Where's who?”

“Frost! We all saw him skittering through the bypass, WITH YOU!”

“It couldn't be anyone else!”

“Got any explanation for this, Moon Man?!”

The crowd gets antiser and shouting more overlapping questions and accusatory comments at the lone woman. Some more wild and more stupid than others, as their words get caught in the frey. But they're going to have to try harder than that to break her.

“EVERYBODY SHUT UP!”

This manages to cut through the chatter, and the slew of people slowly halt to a profound silence. She waits patiently for everyone to stop before she continues.

“Yeah but—!”

“Now, I don't know what any of you are talking about, but need I remind you that it is physically impossible for Jack to even be awake? Let alone up and moving anywhere and certainly not getting anywhere outside of his realm. All of that is still incredibly impossible.”

While she is explaining this to the mob, the stowaways are standing with their backs to the wall in the nearby study. Her words and the certainty she says them with, give the both of them a cold shiver down their spines. She says these things so matter of factly, the pair shoot each other nervous and questioning looks as she continues.

“Illusion spells are a dime a dozen. Not hard to come by and can be casted by anyone, no matter how cruel of a sense of humor they have. And if not, I'm sure this was just a brief occurrence of mass hysteria, what you all saw was probably nothing at all. And I would love to help everyone dissect this, but I'm currently off the clock! So I suggest that those of you who are still concerned should come and see me tomorrow morning. But until then, everyone out!”

She throws a strict finger back to the teleporter entrance. And after a moment of unsure fussing, the herd of magical citizens slowly backs off her front step. She watches the lot of them as they defeatedly march back from whence they came, making sure they all fully exit before she closes the door again.

She leans against it, slightly sliding down the wood, blowing a stray piece of hair up and away from her face.

She looks down the hallway to see Jack and Lucy popping their heads out from around the doorway. She suddenly becomes more tired again.

“You two, living room. Now,” she snaps and points them to another archway that leads into the designated room.

After the pair do as she says, they both sit on the sofa. The older Lucy opts to stand and crosses her arms, as if she were a disappointed parent with two misbehaving children.

“Now I need to get one thing clear right off the bat. The most important thing that I need to know you didnt fuck up,” she starts. “Did Killian see you?”

This question throws both of them for a loop. Confusion painted on both their faces as they glanced at each other before turning back to the other Lucy.

“I don't…think so?” Teenage Lucy hesitantly answers. “We certainly haven't seen him at any rate.”

“You think or you know? Because above all else, he cannot see him under any circumstances,” she gestures to Jack for emphasis.

Jack fumbles for a response, “Something here tells me that…maybe that's for a certain reason. Hopefully a Not awful reason!”

The woman just stares back incredulously, the iration slowly and wordlessly morphing into some form of regret. Or bitterness, sorrow, some mix of all of those. So much so that she places her face in her hands and softly groans into her palms.

“I just…I, GOD, I cant…I just can't believe that you're sitting here. In my goddamn living room, like nothing is wrong. After all these years,” painful distraught carves itself into her features, unable to look at the perpetrator sitting in her home.

“What happened, exactly?” The younger Lucy dares to ask, delicate and precisely worded. “Just how different is this timeline?”

Her elder counterpart flashes a sad look to her, “What year is it, in your time?”

“2015.”

“So what, that would make you…six..seven…eighteen right?”

Teenage Lucy nods, and her older self cheerlessly and softly laughs in response.

“God, eighteen. I still remember that age. So you’ve had your powers for about a year now?”

She silently nods in affirmation, and watches as her counterpart's eyes drift to Jack again. Her tone sharpens, “And what's his deal? Not a dictator, you said?”

“Glad to report that no such thing has occurred in our time,” Jack tries his best to banter and puts on the usual people pleasing grin. “Although I’m starting to think that it's scarcely the same deal here. And that stuff you said just now about how I somehow can't go anywhere? And that I'm not awake? And how is anything else impossible? Those little facts aren't necessarily putting me at ease here.”

The older Lucy sighs heavily, “I tried not to spend as much time with him as possible, but somehow this amount of blabbing feels very in character for him. From what I remember.”

“Look, I'm really sorry about whatever's happened. And I know he’s sorry too,” the teen glances at Jack for a moment. “But we could really use your help in setting everything right and getting us back to the right timeline. Here.”

She fishes into her pocket and pulls out a brass pocket watch, flipping the cover open to reveal a cracked clock face. Purple time magic swirls around the open case but glitches abnormally in certain areas.

“We were just hoping that you could help fix this. It's been zapping us around all willy nilly and we haven't had the time to try and fix it.”

This ends up grabbing the woman's attention, as the older Lucy pulls up a nearby ottoman and sits across from herself. She inspects the object with narrow eyes and fiddles with some of the magic with a glowing finger. She pokes around the time magic for a bit before looking back up at the teenager.

“Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do. Somehow the enchantment on this thing got all kinds of tangled and warped. Father Time is the only one that can set it straight again.”

“See! I told you that was the case, didn't I tell you? But you never wanna listen to me!”

“This whole thing is your fault anyway! You were the one messing with his stuff to begin with.”

“In any case, you're going to need to go to him to get it fixed. Discreetly mind you. You can't just be waltzing around like it's nothing.”

“Yeah, what is it with that by the way?” Lucy asks, raising her hand.

“I would also like to know that,” Jack adds. “I mean, it is my life after all. I should know why everyone is out to get me more than usual.”

The older Lucy swallows and looks between the two of them, her heart beating a tiny bit faster. She stays silent for a second more, trying to find the proper words to explain.

“Well, okay um,” she uncertainty starts, “Its—it's such a long story. I mean, I got thrown into this whole thing, a little more than twenty years ago now. But it all kinda started way earlier than that. Around…700 ish years ago I think? From what I’ve been told.”

She seems tired again thinking about it, all of it, everything that's happened. It all seems to weigh on her and press down on her shoulders. It ages her just a bit more.

“Please,” the younger Lucy interjects. “Please explain. Explain why Jack can't just walk around, why that isn't possible.”

It takes the sorceress another longer moment to answer, stealing her resolve and finding all the pieces and the words that will hopefully make this simpler. Retelling her life's story, and the history of the world as she’s always known it is a rather large task.

She inhales and exhales a long and controlled breath, “He can't go anywhere, because the Jack in this universe, the one that I've always known, is in a coma. A never ending nightmare.”

These words in particular stir something Jack. A terrible, awful and completely on the nose assessment that makes his throat close up and turns his blood cold. Lucy’s reaction is much the same, and both sit paralyzed in their seats with their eyes slightly wider. A silent and horrible hunch the both of them have.

The older Lucy launches into her impromptu history lesson. She regales the not-so-strange strangers as you would carry on a eulogy. Skimming some of the more personal details from her one and only first hand account. She goes over the hostile takeover and immediate freezing of the council members, the arrogant and idiodic decisions made by Jack in all his years of absolute power, the near disintegration of magical society.

The indecision of one lone man who stood amongst the wreckage, and made his own poor choices along the way. The one who got caught in the crossfire.

“I was twenty when it happened. When we managed to gather the resources and the people we needed to end it all for good. I fought him. I was determined but not strong enough. Killian had to take over.”

She wistfully looks to an innocuous spot on a far off wall, “He did what he had to. He couldn't kill him, not really. And I can't blame him for that. Sure it might be worse than being dead, but I really don't know if he could have carried that death on his shoulders. Not that one at any rate.”

She chuckles a bit at the next thought that crosses her mind, “He’s the one that taught me everything I knew. Truely, I owe him my life.”

Both Lucy’s look at Jack who is hanging to every word attached to Killians name. Somehow more pale than when she started, his eyes are locked onto the older Lucy as if his life depend on it. Horror like no other sunken into his features, his eyes glossed over with insurmountable dread.

“How is he? Now, I mean. So many years later?” He asks very quietly, as if the question would somehow scare her off and he would never know the answer.

“He’s doing well,” she responds. “Just finished his twenty year sentence, out on parole, doing his job.”

This answer doesn't seem to relieve him by any standard. His gaze is off somewhere far away, mulling over the version of the story he just received. Where he was somehow a much worse partner than he was in his own time. Regret and guilt for the things he himself never really did clawed up his throat, trying to fill his head with desperation.

“Do you know where he is?”

This question, out of all the others, hardens the woman's facade yet again, her line of sight lasered back onto him in a less than friendly way.

“Dont.”

“Please.”

“I'm serious. Don't even think about it.”

“Just five minutes!” Jack abruptly stands up from his seat, “I have to say something!”

“No, you don't!” The older Lucy stands up as well to intimidate him away from the idea. “You stay the hell away from him!”

“He just wants to help,” the teenage Lucy also stands up to match the other two. “Everything has worked out way better in our timeline. His heart is in the right place.”

“I have to tell him I'm sorry.”

“I can't let you do that.”

“Why not!?”

“Because you ruined his life!”

Her shout immediately silences both parties. The cold hard fact of the matter lingering in the air and preventing anyone else from speaking, the concept takes up all the available air space. Jack and Lucy take on a look of reverence.

The older Lucy retracts her claws for the time being, and lets the heavy lull drape over them for another moment longer. Eventually finding the courage to further explain.

“You ruined…everyone's lives,” she nearly whispers. “Everything might have turned out differently in your universe, but it just isn't the same for mine.

He was a broken man when I found him. When he found me, or however the hell that works.

But our circumstances are too different. Maybe what you have to say will help, maybe it'll bring closure. And maybe it could also make things much worse. And that's not a risk I can take on his behalf.”

Her eyes start to gloss over with a thin watery sheen as she all but pleads with them, “He’s finally happy. He’s worked too hard, and he’s come too far. And if you care as much as you seem to, then you should know why I can't let you potentially set him back again. Do you understand?”

The teenage Lucy quickly darts between her counterpart and Jack, her magic vision active and seeing the greater picture. A picture painted with loss and grief, pain and protection, a melancholy separation, a delicate need to salvage something beyond repair. From both ends.

But Jack is the one to fold first, and exhales to relieve his posture slightly; turning his line of sight briefly away from the woman and smoothing back his hair.

“Yeah no, I—I get it,” he punctuates his sentences with small audible breaths. “I'm sorry, you're the expert here. We just need to get our watch fixed and then we can leave.”

The softness returns to the older woman's features, her eyes still slick with unshed tears. She looks hopeful for a moment.

“Is he happy…in your timeline?”

Jack barely perks up at the question and answers without hesitation, “He is. I make sure of it.”

The older Lucy gives him a single nod, “Good. Then I will help you.”

When she abruptly leaves to retrieve something from a different room, Lucy gives Jack a reassuring hand on the shoulder. They’re both finding little room to properly breathe.

Returning, she holds out two metal bands to the guests. Simple metal bracelets that hold a single very small crystal in the center, clear as glass.

“You're both very lucky that I decided to keep a few invisibility enchantments. I really wasnt supposed to with the project they were attached to, but so far no one has seemed to notice the missing pieces.” She watches the both of them take their respective objects in their own hands. “These should help you make it to Father Times tower unnoticed.”

A ghost of a smile threatened to cross her face, almost in amusement, “And go straight there and nowhere else. Who knows what kind of damage this has already caused to the timeline.”

Jack Lucy both give their thank yous as they were shown to the door again. The older Lucy lets Jack go first and waits until he’s sufficiently far enough away to keep her younger self back for a moment.

“Lucy?” she asks.

“Yeah?”

The woman gently takes her by the shoulders and gives the ice spirit another cursory look, “Are you sure, that everything is alright with him in your universe? You are without a shadow of a doubt that you can trust him?”

The younger Lucy needs no time to think, “Definitely.” She grins more to herself than to her counterpart, “He’s not perfect by any stretch…really not perfect. But he tries. He tries really hard all the time and he’s been…a good friend so far. Better than I thought he would be.”

The two Lucy’s shift to be holding eachothers hands, wherein the older woman can feel the faint and constant shiver of the young girl's hands and fingers, “Something wrong?”

“Oh no. It's a really long story. A medical condition.” She snickers, “Actually it's kind of the reason why I trust him. A year ago he was willing to sacrifice pretty much everything when this happened,” she gently lifts her trembling hands for emphasis. “He’s like my Killian. I owe him…my life.”

The older woman takes the teens hands and squeezes them tighter. Her face gives her the first warm and almost motherly smile she’s seen out of her this entire time. It's radiant and the age only seems to make it glow more. Lucy has a passing thought about how well she’s going to age in the future.

“I'm glad,” she says, “I'm glad that you get to have that at such a tender age. I'm glad that your world has allowed that to happen for you. As I've always been one to say, everyone needs a disgruntled old man to attach themselves to.”

Both Lucy’s snort at the same time and chuckle at the notion.

“Hey!”

The Lucy’s jump in perfect unison at the sudden intrusion of Jack’s voice. He takes off the enchanted band and comes back into clarity right in front of them.

“Comments about age are rude, ya know. I know you guys are having a moment here, but I'd rather get the watch fixed as soon as possible. This is definitely not the best alternate timeline I've been in. One out of Five stars, would NOT recommend.”

“Exactly,” the older woman added. “The both of you should be going.”

She shuffles the both of them off her front step and watches as they fall into, what she can only assume to be, their usual strides. Their usual places standing next to one another as they leave.

She uses her own gifted sight to see the truth of the matter.

His core and her aura sending out wavelengths to one another. When one goes up the other goes down, one goes right the other goes left. A spot of cold amidst the warm sun, and a tiny flame in barren arctic.

It baffles her how much it makes sense, and spurs her on to give them one last message.

“Take care of eachother!” she shouts after them.

“We will!” Lucy enthusiastically waves after her older self, before putting on the bracelet and disappearing from view.

“No we won't!” Jack interjects at the last minute, disappearing as well.

Instead of going back inside, Lucy instead opts to sit on her front doorstep; taking a seat on the cold stone and perching her chin under her hand.

She knows, she knows that Killian is probably gonna get word of the “mass hysteria” sooner or later. He's gonna come charging into her home raving about, “Have you heard this bullshit?!” and she’s gonna have to talk him down and tell him that it's nothing to worry about.

She closes her eyes and smiles at the thought, content in the idea of the strange ways in which the universe works. The idea of them needing each other, in a similar way to how she herself has found such a connection.

It's rather nice and a comfort for her to know that some things can stay consistent throughout time.

In the most important way possible.

#nonart #musings #bad ending au #I just need everyone to know #that after this expirience Jack goes home #and hugs killian for a very VERY long time #he has heard things that he cannot unhear

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beesandwasps · 1 month ago

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When I got to be a senior at St. Leon’s College, I was given my very own studio. It was a tiny room in a creaky old wooden shedlike building. Here I was to work on my senior project, a series of woodblock prints. I found, left behind by previous inhabitants, a dangerous electric percolator and a squawky old radio. I loved having a studio of my own, and spent most of my time there. I’d arrive at ten or eleven at night and stay till dawn, chiseling away at my woodblocks, swilling black coffee, and listening to the all-night hillbilly station. At sunrise I’d stroll to my room, where I would sleep until lunchtime. I had signed up only for classes that met in the afternoon, and I had time in the evening to socialize and study before retiring to my little workshop. The rest of the college would be sleeping when I was at work, and I had no distractions. I was getting a lot accomplished. It was an ideal routing, and I was happy. It was during this period that the President of the United States was assassinated. Today, documentaries and news retrospectives emphasize the shock and grief felt by the nation — but I also remember the fear and confusion that closely followed the event. At first it was unclear whether or not the assassination was part of a coup or insurrection. News reports were vague and fragmentary. There was speculation as to whether our country’s enemies might not take advantage of the confusion of the moment and attack us. I hovered near the radio and learned of the capture of Oswald and later of his murder before the news cameras. Lyndon Johnson had been sworn in as President. Harry S. Truman flew to Washington, and from the airport, broadcast a statement assuring the country that the orderly succession of government was intact. It was two or three days before the feeling of panic and uncertainty died down. And the whole time, I was listening — while carving away at woodblocks, because there was nothing else to do. I was realizing that events can become ugly with a terrifying suddenness — and that I, personally, had nothing to contribute in times like these. There were advisors in Southeast Asia. There was a wall in Berlin. We had nearly had a nuclear war over missiles in Cuba. People were being fire-hosed and police-dogged in the South. Now someone had knocked off the First Citizen of the Republican — and I was learning to do what? I was learning to make things for rich people to decorate their apartments with. I felt useless and stupid. As the assassination hysteria subsided, I continued to come to the studio, but it seemed to me an empty exercise. Worse, a mockery. In times like these, the last thing needed was a little more art. Then, one 2:00 A.M., a fellow student dropped in to see me. Jerry Schwartz was his name. I knew him by sight, but had never spoken with him. He had something to tell me. It seemed Schwartz had gone through a period of living the life of a swine. He had been in the habit of coming home drunk at approximately the same time every morning. And every morning, he’d see the light in my studio, and through the window, me, doing… he didn’t know what, but there I was doing it. He felt that here was at least one person doing something probably constructive — anyway, functioning. It somehow meant to him that there was hope for him too. In the parlance of Alcoholics Anonymous, the image of the light in my studio window had become his higher power, had kept him from despairing, motivated him to try to straighten out — and, as he told it, may have prevented his taking his own life. I thought he was probably exaggerating, but I couldn’t take the chance. Now I had to show up every night, and work on my woodcuts in order not to let down this formerly miserable Schwartz. I didn’t see Schwartz again, but I finished out the year and got my degree. And gradually I became convinced that the best way I could address the big evils of the big world would be to keep chipping away and something comparatively small.

— Daniel M. Pinkwater (from Chicago Days, Hoboken Nights)

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deadnburied13 · 2 years ago

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After Bonnie and Clyde's demise, a roll of unprocessed film was found in their hideout. I think this is one shot of many publicized. The film was released in 1967 to small segments of the country b/c Jack Warner and others disliked it as well as Warren Beatty very much ... too many memories. His intent was to then bury it.

Fun Fact: Barb has a friend whose Grandma was in a nearby grade school when Bonne and Clyde were ambushed. All the kids were allowed to run down to the scene and take a look. Grandma took one of Bonnie's shoes back to the classroom but the teacher made her return it to the scene.

Unexpectedly, the film did very well in those small markets and in 1968 was released nationally and internationally, becoming Warner Brothers' 2d grossing picture at the time, just behind My Fair Lady. In a UW film class, we learned that Bonnie and Clyde appealed to the anti-authoritarian sentiment growing in the US because of the Vietnam War. Our class had 72 students including myself, the oldest, and I was the only person to have seen this movie in the theater in 1968 on its release. The Prof would single me out in class and ask me about those times in Madison and what I thought of the film, etc. It had been nearly 50 years since the film so many students probably thought "how did this old fart get in here?" 🙂 Actually, it unlocked a whole stream of consciousness and I told them "lots" becoming the goto guy for "you were there" recollection of Bonnie and Clyde and later Psycho (nobody knew that Ed Gein lived just 60 miles up the road from Madison, nobody had really heard of Ed Gein, or that he had died at Mendota State Hospital in Madison, etc. And also The Birds (1963) which my friends and I thought was an allegory for the coming Nuclear Armageddon... fame and fortune and status or where and when would not save anyone from the birds, and we made the tiny jump that the birds were stand-ins for the Soviet Missiles.

Did you know most films today are directed at 26 year old males? that the scene length has dropped to 5 seconds or less? that Bonnie and Clyde and movies of that era had scene lengths of 15 seconds or more? how deep can a thought be if you have less than 5 seconds to express it?

I loved my Film Classes and Comm Arts at the UW. Sometimes a current Hollywood Director would come and talk about their recent film and take questions from the students. I was surprised how many students from the UW have found good jobs in Hollywood.

Bonnie and Clyde reinvigorated Blue Grass Music. "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" by Flatt and Scruggs, the instrumental banjo piece, was introduced to a worldwide audience as a result of its frequent use in the movie.

Remember this Pop Song?

Bonnie and Clyde advanced their reputation

And made the graduation into the banking bus'ness.

Reach for the sky!

Sweet-talking Clyde would holler

As Bonnie loaded dollars into the dewlap bag.

Now one brave man he tried to take them alone;

They left him lying in a pool of blood

And laughed about it all the way home.

#bonnie and clyde #history #celebrity deaths

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phoenixkaptain · 2 years ago

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I wanna talk about You Boys Play Games Very Well because it is the funniest story I’ll ever read in my life.

First things first: Ling Meng. MengMeng. The best boy. He’s just like me fr his head is full of only video games and food. He also puffs out his cheeks like a pufferfish when upset and that’s just too relatable. Anyway, he’s also super tiny but calls himself Lemon Daddy, and I can’t explain to you how funny it is when he does a face reveal and everyone is so upset and thinks he’s underage-

And Shan Zhu! (His brother’s name is Shan Zha and I know it’s written in characters not English, but in English it’s equivalent to naming one kid Charles and the other Charlie, it cracks me up and the author definitly knew this, okay, they knew-) Shan Zha played one game when Lemon Daddy told him to take things more seriously and he went “…he’s got a point” and became one of the top players. Because someone on a game told him to take things more seriously.

I have a lot to say on Shan Zhu, okay, he is the funniest love interest of all times. First of all, his nicknames include Mango, Mang God (God Mango), Mangosteen, and Apple. He’s called Mango because his name Mangosteen got mispronounced. He started a small account, Apple, because Ling Meng thought Mang God was going to the same school as him and started a tournament to see, and Shan Zhu joined because he wanted the second place prize.

WHAT - you ask - WAS THE SECOND PLACE PRIZE? I’m so glad you brought it up! Ling Meng told everyone it was his nudes, but it was actually a picture of him in the bath from when he was a baby, but yes, Shan Zhu joined a tournament under a newly made account name just so he could deliberately throw the match at the last second and win Ling Meng’s naked photo (which is especially funny because he’s called a walking calculator; he does wildly impressive math all in his head in a couple of seconds and so he deliberately did the math to make his missiles miss, his talent level is off the charts). WHY - you ask - did he do ANY OF THIS? Because he got told by Lemon Daddy to take thing more seriously, then the second time they met, Lemon told him “You boys play games very well” and honestly, who wouldn’t be smitten?

(Also, they made a bet and he did manage to get Ling Meng to try and buy condoms at the school store, so- Look, just read the novel, it makes sense, definitely, just read it-)

But Shan Zha (the most obvious man who has ever existed) and Ling Meng (the most oblivious man who has ever existed) are not the best characters, that honour goes to Xiang Jiao, or Banana, or Guava. Guava is the absolute best character of all time, because he has the biggest crush on Ling Meng yet does absolutely nothing about it. The multiple scenes where he just asks Mango and Apple (which are the same person) if he wants to go pro are very funny, because Shan Zha responds with a no every time, but Guava keeps asking.

Guava has a shit ton of money and uses it almost exclusively to send it to Ling Meng. My favourite part is when someone asks him his hobbies and his coach mentions that he’s been watching a streamer lately (Ling Meng) and Guava says it’s an entertainment streamer (he isn’t really) and says he watches because it’s funny and the coach says “He’s never laughed once.”

Also, Guava asking Ling Meng for his autograph is just hilarious.

Also also, the sex scenes are entirely fruit and rollercoaster metaphors. I don’t know why. But I like it a lot.

So yeah, 10/10, recommend, read You Boys Play Games Very Well, it’s all worth it for Guava being the biggest Lemon fan, and Shan Zhu being the biggest Ling Meng trumpet blower and defender. (Ling Meng is good at everything. Promise, he definitely is, would the extremely biased and smitten Shan Zhu lie to me??) And the chat is pretty funny too. Very good, very funny, so funny, like honestly I laugh so hard every time I read it.

#cnovel #you boys play games very well #ling meng #shan zhu #xiang jiao #the inane ramblings of a madman #long post #novel #listen i realize i didn’t bring it up #but this entire story is interspersed #with incredibly detailed sections #of gaming footage #the crux of the story is the gaming #i probably should have mentioned that #but oh well #better late than never #please read so i can talk to someone about please

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dickotomia · 2 years ago

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Sure, I'd love to share my characters! I'll put them under a read more.

Traits: Fast Feet, Firm Flesh and Menacing Missils. This gave me an exceptionally heavy character (54 cm tall but 60 kg in weight). For creed, I got the "just looking for a good fight" one, but I also randomized the facets and got 4 Ethos, 4 Pathos and 7 logos. I conceptualized the creature as a sort of theorist of violence, an anarchist in the more traditional sense. This worked with the Rebellious Art I got: Realisation. IThe R.A. and the high logos facet might seem to contradict the Creed, but I think it works! I named him Zurkritik Dergewalt, Zurkri for short.

Traits: Unusual Size (Hulking), Langorous Lure and Sticky Steps. This was a long and heavy critter, 104 cm and 80 kg. The facets were 3 Ethos, 5 Pathos and 7 Logos. I rolled the "dismantling structural inequalities" creed, and the Rebellious Art of Ubiquity. I imagined it as a very lumpy snake-like creature that can extend impossibly when using the R.A.

Traits: Cunning Crafter (Wood), Dexterous Digits and Striking Mien (Trustworthy). Facets: 5 Ethos, 6 Pathos, 4 Logos. Creed: "there's something wrong with the cosmos on a fundamental level". Rebellious Art: Consumption. Honestly I was surprised with how well this one works as a sort of nymph- or fairy-like creature. I went with an obvious name, Ifweshadows Haveoffended, Ifwe for short.

Traits: Masterful Mimic, Unusual Sense (Echolocation) and Polycephalous (which I immediately imagined as a bat head growin in the back of its head). Facets: 5 Ethos, 3 Pathos, 7 Logos. Creed: teophagia as an extreme form of worship. Rebellious Art: Iteration. I also rolled features, and got a long beard and pincers, so I imagine him as a nervous, tiny wizard constantly skiterring around, talking with his hidden bat-head. I failed to think of a funny Man-Bat pun to name him after.

Traits: Amphibious, Primordial Power (Cold) and Fluttering Flight. The Features here are particularly funny: mushroom-like growths, feelers/tentacles and big ears/eyes. Facets: 4 Ethos, 5 Pathos, 6 Logos. So, this is clearly the most chaotic one I rolled, if only for the sheer amount of contradicting animal species that seem to collide into a single creature. Which is why I was lucky to roll the "allegiance to chaos" Creed! And for Rebellious Art, Alteration, which works almost too well. I conceptualized it as a penguin-like critter (also exceptionally thin, at 6 kg).

I should point out that I rerolled any repeated Traits, Creeds and Rebellious Arts.

I've finally decided to check out Eat God and I'm OBSESSED with the character creation. I made five different critters today and they were all so different, and yet they all worked great as characters even though I mostly used random generations via dice. Anyways great work, can't wait for the next updates!

(With reference to this post here.)

Glad to hear the random method is working out so well. Big Stupid Tables are kind of my signature as a game designer, and I put a lot of thought into how they interact with each other, so it's nice to have confirmation that those interactions add up to something playable!

(I'm curious to see what those five different critters look like, though, if you feel comfortable posting them. Even considering only Traits, there are currently about 6500 possible unique combinations, and I've only playtested ~1% of them; odds are good you ended up with something I've never seen before, and I'd love to see how you interpreted it.)

#tbh as much as i'd love to play the actual game eventually i'm also happy just creating little creatures

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ghost-runner · 2 years ago

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“Useless” and “Troubled” until the End: Pt. 2

Sully Family x Fourth Child Male Reader

Summary: After being grounded a second time, you disobey Jake’s for the third time to secret sneak out and secretly help out on the raid against a train carrying supplies for the RDA assault forces. This ends up with you getting badly injured from a missile blast and things finally hit the breaking point at home. A familiar antagonist also shows up, looking a lot more blue and bloodthirsty than ever before.

Warning: Violence, blood, injuries, cursing, family arguments, a tiny bout of child neglect, abduction, kidnapping, etc.

Note: Once again, I’m not going to try to use Na’vi language as I don’t have any idea what the translations are to English.

-Y/N POV

I laid back in my hammock, not giving a care to the world as I vaguely listened to Dad tell everyone what was going on today with some sort of raid going down.

Jake: Alright, everyone please listen up. We have something big that will be taking place today. Neteyam, Lo’ak, you’re on lookout and watch duty to ensure everything is going accordingly to plan. Your mother and I will be leading the attack on the train from below.

Neteyam: Awesome! We get be on the battlefield!

Lo’ak: Ddddaaadddd, come on, give us a more exciting role.

Jake: Lo’ak, this is not up for debate. You’re on lookout duty and that’s final. -Dad then turns to Kiri and I while I have my back to him to notify that I’m ignoring him- Kiri, I need you and Y/N to watch Tuk while the rest of us are gone, okay?

Kiri: Of course, Dad.

Jake: Y/N, is that clear?

I ignore him as I try to fall asleep.

Jake: Is that clear, soldier!?!

I roll over in my hammock to face him and giving him a hard glare as Dad gets a bit angry at me for my blatant disrespect.

Jake: Y/N! Answer me!

Y/N: Yes sir…understood. -I give Dad a mocking salute as I turn back over, once again putting my back to him-

Dad sighs heavily at this and walks out of the Hometree to his Ikran, knowing the reasons why I’ve been more difficult as of late. I know Mom is looking at me worriedly as I’ve gotten into a lot more arguments with Dad over the last few days with me trying to prove myself, but I just shrug it off. I feel someone come up behind me and gently hug me from behind. I tense my back at this and roll over once again to see Mom is the one hugging me so I hug her back as she picks me up out of my hammock like she used to when I was a little kid. She puts me on back on my feet after a few seconds as Kiri and Tuk join the hug and the three help me feel a lot better. Mom then pulls away and kisses me on the forehead as my ears flatten against my head. She then walks out of the Hometree to her Ikran while I look to see Neteyam and Lo’ak giving me looks of understanding from where I stand at with our old man as I nod to them silently before the two leave for their Ikrans. Kiri lets me go from the hug and rubs my head with the height difference between the two of us with her being taller than me. She loves to tease me for being shorter than the normal Na’vi.

Kiri: You know I’m always here for you, little brother.

Y/N: I know, sis. Thanks.

I head back to my hammock and climb back into it before I get comfy as I close my eyes when I feel a weight on my chest. I open them back up to see Tuk climbed onto me and cuddled up to me which led me to smile. I rub her head and get comfy with Tuk on me and I fall asleep for about 30 minutes.

- 30 minutes later -

I woke up to sounds of ships careening down to the surface of Pandora and rolled over to see that RDA drop ships are coming into Pandora’s surface. I look around to see Kiri and Tuk not in the Hometree. I’m already know what Kiri is doing with Tuk to keep her distracted from everything going on, most likely by taking her on a nature walk and leaving me in the tree alone so I can have a bit of space. I smile at the opportunity that has opened for me and I quickly grab my knife, my bow which I named “Skull Splitter” from which I had hand-carved and designed myself, and a quiver full of barb tipped arrows I had made. I then run out of the Hometree before I whistle long and loudly for Ro’nea. I get a running start for myself before I run towards the edge of one of the long branches from the tree and jump off, leaving me in free fall as I see a blur of white and Ro’nea is with me as she gets under me, I then connect my queue to Ro’nea’s queue and we become one. I rub her head in gratitude for her quickness of getting here and I guide her to where I know the raid is taking place.

(This is the bow.)

(These are the arrows.)

- 1 hour later -

As Ro’nea and I reach the location of the raid, I begin to quietly think to myself. I know that I’m not supposed to be out here after being double grounded by Dad, but I really don’t care anymore. I have to be independent as I know I can only rely on myself in times like this. Everyone else just expects me to be in the background or to be useless and that I should be okay with with. I already get bullied enough as it is by boys in the clan that are my age because of this while they all have hunted something with it being some sort of achievement. Nobody ever notices the bullying or disrespect I get from my fellow clan members so I’ve learned to just keep my grievances to myself. It doesn’t matter as I doubt anyone would even believe me should I tell someone anyway as one of the son of Toruk Makto,

I shake my head to clear my mind as I start to fly higher than most of the Na’vi involved in the raid on Ro’nea so I don’t get spotted by Mom or Dad, the same goes for any other Na’vi involved in the raid. This is because of a different scar of my face that goes from the left side of my forehead to the middle point of my neck that was a result of a terrible fall I took when I was five years old. Due to this scar on my face in addition to the one from Ro’nea’s crash, I’ve become a very recognizable person so many of my clan know how to notice me out of a crowd, but they fail to notice most of the time due to me also being shorter than most other Na’vi. I also know that I stick out quite a bit obviously since Ro’nea is completely white, but we’ve managed to stay under the radar for now. I look down to my companion and scratch Ro’nea on her neck as she lets out a screech of content at the scratch. I smile at her antics and let out a small thank you to Eywa for allowing me to bond with Ro’nea as she is one of the only friends I’ve had in a long time besides my siblings. I briefly catch my brothers as they are on watch duty as they also fail to notice me partaking in the raid. I look off to see that there are RDA ships incoming as the train blew off its track for the explosive detonation. I grab my bow and ready an arrow before letting go of it as it soared into the glass windshield of one of the ships and went straight through the glass. The arrow ended up impaling itself into the pilot’s chest, hitting the heart and killed the pilot immediately which led to the ship losing control before crashing into the cliff side.

Y/N: Fuck you.

I watch as I saw both Dad and Mom take out a few other ships while I smile at their teamwork. I just wish I could have possibly learned from them instead of needing to teach myself. I then saw both of my parents look over in my direction as they looked at Ro’nea with surprised looks. I can only assume it’s because they’ve never seen a fully white Ikran before, but then again, fully white Ikrans are very rare to find, and it’s considered very sacred as it’s seen to be the very image of Eywa itself. Not only that, white Ikrans are also bigger than most regular Ikrans of different colors. From what I know, if you bond with one, it’s a very special honor amongst Na’vi to have that bond and that anyone who has a white Ikran will be highly respected by the clan. Well, I know that to be absolute bullshit since I’m bonded with one. (I’m making up the white Ikran bond thing for the sake of the story). I’m just happy that they are too far away to see that their son is the one that is bonded with the white Ikran. I keep my head down to make sure it stays that way. More ships begin coming and I continue to launch arrow after arrow at each ship using my bow while riding Ro’nea. I took down three more ships with precise shots to either the pilot’s head, killing them instantly or hitting them in the chest with an instant kill heart shot.

Y/N: All of you RDA sons of bitches can go rot in hell.

I have Ro’nea stop for a moment so I can collect my barrens when I see my two brothers heading down to the train when I knew they were not supposed to be. I roll my eyes and signal for Ro’nea to let me off near where my brothers are. Once on the ground, I get off of Ro’nea’s saddle and leave my weapons attached to the harness I made for her. I detach my queue from hers and tell her to hide herself somewhere safe nearby in case I need her as I don’t want to risk her getting hurt. Ro’nea looks at me, understanding what I’m telling her to do and she flies off to hide just like I taught her. I turn around and then run to where my stupid brothers are at.

— 3RD PERSON POV

Lo’ak and Neteyam are off of their Ikrans and we’re currently opening up a crate filled with weapons as Lo’ak grabbed one of the assault rifles that were in said crate.

Neteyam: Don’t tell me you’re going to try using that thing.

Lo’sk: Come on, bro. It can’t be that hard.

Lo’ak aims the weapons into the air jokingly, but the two Sullys freeze and feel their blood go cold when they hear a voice they know all too well.

Y/N: What the hell are you two idiots doing down here?! I thought dad told you to stay in the air on watch duty!

The two eldest Sully boys turned around quickly to see their youngest brother running towards them with a grim look on his face. They have shock written all over their faces as they look at their brother in confusion with him being here at the raid.

Neteyam: Y/N?!? What the hell are you doing here!?

Y/N: Trying to show Dad I can handle myself and that I’m actually capable of being useful besides babysitting and being a healer.

Lo’ak: Bro. Dad will kill you if he finds out that you’re here!

Y/N: I honestly don’t care anymore. It’s always the same with him! I can never do anything the two of you can!

Neteyam: That’s because you’re unprepared, Y/N!

Y/N: NO, I’M NOT!! IT’S ALWAYS THE SAME WITH THIS ME BEING USELESS CRAP! I JUST WANT ONE CHANC— INCOMING ROCKET! LO! NETE! LOOK OUT!

Y/N pushed his brothers behind some cover as the rocket struck close to where the three Sully boys were at. Neteyam and Lo’ak only had minor bruises from their little brother pushing them out of the impact zone of the rocket, but Y/n took the brunt of the blast and couldn’t be seen by either of the oldest brothers. Jake had only now seen his oldest sons looking around for the third Sully son, but he was completely unaware to what they were doing or the fact of Y/N being there. Jake fly down on his Ikran and dismounted from it to run to where his boys are at. Jake reached his two oldest boys and was totally pissed at the two of them.

Jake: WHAT WERE YOU TWO THINKING?!? I TOLD YOU TO STAY ON LOOKOUT DUTY!!

Lo’ak: Sir, we know. But there’s bigger trouble than that right now!

Jake: What is bigger than you two disobeying my orders?!

Neteyam: Y/N is here and he’s possibly hurt!

Jake froze and felt his heart completely stop at what his oldest child had just said to him.

Jake: Y/N is what!?!

Lo’ak: Y/N is possibly hurt as he pushed us out of the way from the rocket exploding! We need to find him!

Jake: You two get back into your Ikrans and get airborne. I’ll find your brother.

Neteyam and Lo’ak: Yes sir.

The two brothers run back to where they had their Ikrans at and started getting airborne while Jake searched through the wreckage for his youngest boy. He couldn’t find anything and started to worry about what might’ve happened to Y/N. Only then did Jake saw something out of the corner of his eye where he saw a few bodies belonging to the deceased Na’vi they sadly perished during the train raid. Jake shallowed down hard to keep a lump that was building in his throat from bursting out and letting him assume the worst possible fate that his son could have had. Jake ran over to the bodies and began to check each one. The first two bodies were of female Na’vi so Jake ruled them out immediately and the next two bodies were of male Na’vi, however, Jake didn’t see the scar that he knew only his son would have on the side of his face. When he reached the final body, he noticed that the Na’vi was not dead and the person was still breathing and had a pulse. He turned the person over onto his back and Jake instantly saw the scar on the Na’vi’s face, immediately telling him it’s his son. He checked Y/N for any injuries and saw that Y/N had some metal shrapnel in his left leg that will need to be removed later and a large gash in his left arm. He picked his son up and quickly got him onto his Ikran before taking off. Neytiri saw Jake on the ground and watched as she then saw Jake pick up an unconscious Na’vi and taking them to his Ikran and taking off. She went over and looked in horror at the realization that it was her youngest son that was injured. She gave Jake a look saying “Let me take him, you continue leading the attack.” Jake let his mate take their son before he went back to leading the attack. Neytiri started to make her way back to their home when Neteyam and Lo’ak fly over to their mom and tell her to let them take their brother home. She gives them their unconscious brother before she returned to the fight. The boys took their little brother home.

— 6 Hours later —

— Y/N POV

I silently stare at the ceiling of my home as my mind wonders far out. I’m knocked out of thought when my grandmother, Mo’at and Kiri walk into the Hometree while carrying leaf wrap bandages and medicine. Grandma sits down next to me before she began to tell me what she’ll have to do with my leg. I silently nod to her and grab my knife from the table next to me. I put the blade of my knife into my mouth to bite down onto while my grandmother carefully starts to slowly pull the piece of metal out of my leg. I grunt in pain and bite down onto the blade as Grandma continues pulling the metal out slowly. My tail is swishing a lot and my ears are up at attention as I let out another grunt of pain and bit down harder on the blade before Grandma finally gets it out. Kiri than came over to me to put some medicine onto the wound and began wrapping it in the leaf bandages. I take my knife out of my mouth and carelessly throw it at the wall, embedding it into the bark of the tree next to my hammock. I then spit a little bit of blood into my hand and wipe it off onto the already bloodied bundle of leaves beneath me.

Kiri: You really shouldn’t have gone out there, little bro.

Y/N: Kiri, as much as I love you, please not now.

Kiri: I’m just saying….

Y/N: I know, I know. I’m already going to get the same talk down from Dad, the angry drill instructor.

I look outside to see the red evening sky and it fills me with a feeling of contentment. Like Kiri, I’ve always enjoyed nature and the little things in life that are around us, but nobody seems to notice. Kiri rubs my left arm that has a patch of bandage wrapped around the gash from earlier with understanding how I feel about nature and I’m happy that I can share that with my big sister.

Y/N: Grandma, Kiri, thank you both for patching me up.

Mo’at: Of course, little warrior. You’re just like your grandfather when he was a young man.

Y/N: I could never live up to Grandpa’s reputation. I can barely even prove myself to Dad, I’ll never be able to do anything right…. -I hug Grandma tightly-

Kiri frowns and joins the hug as she knows just how badly I want to be considered a “Proper” Sully.

Mo’at: Oh, little warrior. I know about how you feel, your father is a hard man. He’ll come around eventually, I promise. And I know that you can do anything that you’ll put your mind to, little warrior.

Kiri: Even if that doesn’t happen, Y/n. You still have Tuk, me, Neteyam, Lo’ak, Grandma, and Mom. You’re not alone.

Y/N; Thanks, Grandma, thanks, sis. I’m happy to know I can always rely on you.

Mo’at: I must go attend to the rest of the wounded, my grandchildren. Kiri, can I count on you to keep an eye on your brother while he heals?

Kiri: Of course, grandmother.

Mo’at nods to my big sister as she then gets up and walks out of our Hometree. I groan as I get up from the makeshift bench I was laying down on and go to the table to sit down while Kiri gently helps me up over to it. I look over to my hammock to see Tuk sleeping soundly in my hammock and I smile at the sight before I then hear the familiar sound of the flap of an Ikran’s wings and I got ready for the hell that is coming. I look to see Mom, Dad, and my brothers enter the home. I look at Dad and he is giving me the death stare right now to which I roll my eyes as I look away. My brothers are looking at me with sympathy looks on their faces as they know what hell I’m in for. Mom, however, has worry written all over her face at the shock from knowing what her youngest son did. Dad spoke up for everyone’s attention.

Jake: Everyone, head to bed. Y/N. I need to have words with you outside. Now.

I rolled my eyes and got up. Kiri tried to help, but I told her I would be fine. I painfully forced myself out the chair and limped out of the tree with Dad hot on my tail before I turn around to face him.

Jake: What. Did. I. Say. About. Disobeying. Direct. Orders. Soldier? Are you out of your goddamn mind, Y/N?!? Why did you even think that was a good idea?!?

Y/N: Sir— You know what, fuck that military shit. DAD. With all due respect from the love I have for you, can you yell at me tomorrow? -Jake clenched his jaw as stared down his son in worry- I feel like I’m about to fucking pass out and I don’t want that to be considered disrespectful.

Dad’s eyes looked over me could only sigh before agreeing to to what I said.

Jake: Alright, let’s head to bed then.

Dad goes into the home first before I just let out a loud sigh, walk into the home, silently grab my journal out of my pillow, and go back outside the Hometree to climb up to where my secluded sleep spot is. Before I climb, I see Jake giving me a look saying to not go up. I shake my head at him and carefully climb up to my sleep spot before I get comfy and start to write in my journal. After writing down about my feelings and what will might be in store for tomorrow, I close my journal and roll over to doze off to sleep.

- The next day around noon —

— 3RD PERSON POV —

Y/N was currently sitting out on one of the branches outside of the home while he sharpens the blade of his knife without a care to the world. He can hear his parents talking/arguing about what to do in regards to him while the rest of his siblings are off hanging out with their good friend who is a human. They call him Spider as they never knew his actual name and he has grown to be a good friend of the Sully family.

Jake: Ney, we need do something about Y/N’s behavior!

Neytiri: I know. We need to show him how much we care about him. He feels practically useless because we’ve neglected to raise him the right way with training him and showing him how much we care for him.

Jake: I know. I know. It’s just that…..He’s more trouble than he’s worth….He is nothing, but a load of failure….I don’t want to say it….but……..

Y/N sighed as he knew his dad was right. He was nothing, but a failure to the Sully name. He stops sharpening the blade and gets up before he turns to watch his parents continue to argue.

Neytiri: Jake! How could you ever say something like that?!?

Jake: It slipped out……I didn’t mean it that way or for it to com—

Y/n, cutting off Jake: No, Dad, you’re right.

The two Na’vi parents turn to their son as he held his knife tightly in hand.

Y/N: I’m sorry I could never live up to your expectations and standards. I’m sorry for being a failure. And most importantly, I’m sorry for ever coming into your lives.

Y/n then turns around and let out a long and loud whistle before running into a jump from off the branch he was once sitting on. Neytiri and Jake look at each other horrified before they run to where their son jumped off of. They only got to the edge to see Y/N currently riding on his fully white Ikran, Ro’nea, as the two rose slowly to the point where he could stare silently back at his parents. Jake and Neytiri look at Y/N in absolute astonishment and amazement that the white Ikran they saw earlier was, in fact, their son’s Ikran and the fact that they even saw him in action yesterday with taking out several ships.

Neytiri: So it was you….

Jake: Y/N…..

Y/N: I need time alone. You can send Kiri, to find me. She will know where I will be. I don’t care if I get grounded for life for this.

Y/N signaled for Ro’nea to fly away from the Sully home. Neytiri and Jake watched their son fly away in dispose as tears went to their eyes. Neytiri broke down crying as Jake pulled her into a hug and shushed her.

Neytiri: How c-could he ever t-think we think he’s a failure??

Jake: This is my fault. I need to make things right. We first need to find where our boy went.

Jake then used his communicator to contact Neteyam and Lo’ak.

— Elsewhere on Pandora —

— 3RD PERSON POV —

We currently see all the Sully siblings apart from Y/N running around with their good friend, Spider, who is the one Y/N picked up most of his profanity from. The five are all having fun as they explore the wilderness of the Pandora jungle when Neteyam and Lo’ak both get a call on their communicators from their father and both brothers immediately get worried about what’s going on. Neteyam answers the call.

Lo’ak and Neteyam: Dad, what’s the situation?/What’s the problem, Dad?

Jake: It’s Y/N. He’s run away to somewhere.

Neteyam and Lo’ak both look at each other with grim looks on their faces as they hear what the situation is.

Lo’ak: Where did he run off to?

Jake: It’s not so much “run off” as it is to actually flying away on his Ikran.

Neteyam: Wait, wait, wait, you mean Y/N actually bonded with an Ikran?

Jake: That’s right. Not only that, it’s a white Ikran. I think you know how special that bond is.

Neteyam knows just how special white Ikrans are to the Na’vi as they represent the Great Mother herself.

Neteyam: Where did he fly off to?

Jake: Neither me nor your mother knows where he went. He did say that Kiri should know where he’s going. Find him and bring him home. Please.

Jake then hangs up the call. Both brothers look at one another before they nod and go over to Kiri who heard then in the communicators with their father.

Kiri: Is something going on? I heard you two on the call with dad, but not what it was about.

Lo’ak: Y/N’s run away from home.

Kiri: What?!

Neteyam: The bigger issue is that he’s also bonded with an Ikran and that’s what he’s using to move right now.

Kiri: Wait, when did he bond with an Ikran?

Neteyam: Nobody has a clue. Dad said that you would know where he went, is that right?

Kiri: Yeah, he would join me in heading to a secret spot with a lake near where we are right now. He will most likely be there.

Spider then made his way over to the older Sully siblings.

Spider: Guys, what’s going on?

Kiri: Y/N has run away from home and Dad needs us to find him.

Spider: Shit. Any idea where he is?

At that exact moment, all of the Sully siblings and Spider saw a very distinctive white Ikran flying below them through the valley as they continue running along the branches that span across the valley. They try to spot who the rider is to see that it’s their runaway brother as they see the scars present on the Y/N’s face, identifying the rider as Y/N. The Na’vi teens and Spider then ran over to where they could try to shout to Y/N.

Kiri: Y/N!! Up here!!

Neteyam: Y/N! Where the hell are you going??

Lo’ak: Little bro! Stop!!

Spider: Hey, Y/N!! Up here, man!!!

Y/N paid no attention to his siblings nor to Spider as they shouted to the runaway boy. Kiri frowns at this while her brothers just shake their heads.

Kiri: We need to get to the lake before Y/N.

Neteyam: Agreed.

The three oldest Sullys and Spider went over to Tuk and told her they were going to go on a small adventurous journey to a hidden location, hiding the true meaning of why they were going to the hidden lake. Tuk beamed at this news and the five individuals began to quickly make their way to the hidden lake, hoping to reach it before Y/N.

Little did any of the teens know that a small group of Recombinant Na’vi led by a now Na’vi Miles Quaritch had just heard everything while they watched from a distance.

Quaritch: Well, well, well. It looks like the bastard and bitch knocked up. Walker! Mansk! Get on your banshees and follow that little flyer fuck! The rest of you, with me! We’ll use the rest of the little fucks as bait for the real prizes.

Quaritch then let out a a dark chuckle as the Recoms get onto their Ikrans and begin to secretly follow Y/N and the rest of his squad follow the Sullys and Spider.

— 20 minutes later —

— Y/N POV

I smile as I reach my secret spot away from home. It’s a small area that is surrounded by massive trees that hide the peaceful aura that surrounds this place.

(This is what I had in mind for it or something like this at least with much taller trees like on Pandora.)

I got off of Ro’nea and sat down in the shallow water away from her. I close my eyes and just enjoy the peaceful nature and it’s sounds around me. The feeling of the lake water splashing against my body, the sounds of the Pandora wildlife like the sound of Sturmbeests drinking water from the lake a fair bit away from me, and the peaceful aura of nature that is the epitome of Eywa herself. I look over to check on Ro’nea and see her being herself.

She takes a bit of time to stretch her wings and then she looks at me with an uncertain look on her face, trying to ask if I’m okay. I shake my head while smiling and head back over to her, I then gave Ro’nea a hug with her wrapping her wings around me, basically returning said hug back to me. I’m glad that Eywa chose for Ro’nea to be my companion, for she and I are both one of a kind. However, I noticed something very strange when she let me down from hugging me, I saw a blue and teal Ikran with Na’vi decked out in military gear fly down into the brush, as if they were following me. I grab my bow, quiver of arrows, and my knife from Ro’nea’s harness and tell her to fly away so she doesn’t get hurt. She understood and immediately flew to a hiding spot both of us knew about that would allow her to hide unseen until I called for her again. I strap my quiver to my back, sling my bow onto the small catch I put onto the quiver to hold my bow to my back, and sheathed my knife into its sheath. I quietly make my way through the brush to see the two Ikrans from before, but with only one of the riders I saw from before. He was currently checking his gear so I used the opportunity to snuck up to the strange looking Na’vi while I grab one of my serrated arrows and break the bottom of it off, turning it into a small serrated blade and quickly put it to his throat.

Walker: What the fuck…..

Y/N: Surprise, asshole. Now listen carefully.

Walker: you really think you scare me, that’s hilarious.

Y/N: I really could not give a fuck what you think, asshat. Now, you’re gonna tell me how the hell you found me and what the fuck you are doing here.

The weird-looking Na’vi only laughed at me before I felt a sharp pain on the back of my head before everything went black.

— 3RD PERSON POV —

Y/N fell to ground unconscious as he was pistol whipped over the back of the head by Mansk, saving his fellow Recom sister-in-arms.

Walker: Thanks, mate.

Mansk: Of course, my friend.

Walker: Let’s get this little bastard to the boss. He’s gonna have a field day.

Mansk: No shit.

What the Recoms didn’t know about what that the Sully children and Spider had watched the whole thing involving their brother. They quietly watched in horror as Mansk grabs Y/N by his braids and started dragging him away to meet up with Quaritch.

— 7 minutes earlier —

— 3RD PERSON POV —

The Sully children along with Spider outside the general area of the hidden lake that Kiri led them to.

Lo’ak: So what exactly is this place, Kiri?

Kiri: It’s a location that Y/N has found when Dad let him go have a free day to himself. Y/N tried sneaking out one night on foot and Dad had me take my Ikran to follow him. I was amazed by the area that Y/N lead me to and he made me promise to never tell anybody about it, but I have regretfully broken that promise by bringing you guys here.

Kiri pushes some bushes aside to reveal the beautiful hidden lake. Everyone is in awe at how perfect everything is.

Tuk: This is pretty!

Spider: Holy…..

Neteyam: I now see why Y/n and you wanted to keep this place a secret.

Lo’ak: This place screams tranquillity…

Kiri: We need to find Y/N fast.

Tuk: There!

Tuk pointed over to where everyone saw the alone Na’vi boy getting hugged by his Ikran which surprises everyone, even Kiri as she has never seen anything like that. Everyone then sees the Recombinants flying on their Ikrans to a landing zone further into the tree brush and Y/N gets a grim look in his face. They see Y/N tell his Ikran to hide before she flies off with Y/N preparing himself.

Kiri: Who was that flying in? It doesn’t look like anyone we know.

Spider: They’re probably dipshits who stumbled upon this place.

Kiri: I don’t think so, Spider, they weren’t anyone from the clan at all. I’m worried about what they are doing here as apart from us and Y/N, nobody else knows about this location, not even Mom or Dad.

Lo’ak: We need to do something!

Neteyam hits Lo’ak upside the head.

Neteyam: No shit. Also, keep your voice down, you idiot. We need to figure out what those Na’vi are up to and figure out how we can get Y/N out of here so he’s not in danger.

Lo’ak: Heads up! Y/N’s on the move.

Everyone looked to see Y/N quickly make his way into the brush to find the Ikrans that landed over there. After continuing to follow Y/N, they watched the events unfold and saw the other Recom pistol whip Y/N over the back of the head before helping his fellow Recom up. He then dragged the now unconscious Y/N very roughly away by his braids.

Tuk: No….Noooo!

Kiri: Tuk. Come here.

Tuk quietly burst into tears at the sight of what happened to her brother while Kiri pulled her into a hug as her own tears begin to fall. Spider was pissed off at what the Na’vi did to his best friend while Neteyam and Lo’ak were already thinking of the ways they would make the Recoms regret hurting their little brother.

Neteyam: Those bastards…..

Lo’ak: Those fuckers are going to pay.

Spider: Assholes! Both of them are dead!

It was only then that a loud gunshot was heard, luckily nobody was hit as the bullet hit one of the trees and everyone turned to see a bunch of Na’vi in military gear a few meters away from them that were carrying with guns and a now Na’vi Miles Quaritch holding his pistol with a still smoking barrel up into the air.

Quaritch: Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in.

Neteyam: EVERYBODY SCRAM!!

The Sully kids and Spider then ran in opposite directions with Lo’ak and Spider running North, Kiri and Tuk running to the West, and Neteyam running to the East.

Quaritch: Find them! We will not let these little bastards escape!

— 10 minutes later —

— Y/N POV

I felt myself coming to as I felt a massive pain from my head as I realized I was being dragged by my braids. I look around to see it’s the same two guys that were following me before I was knocked out. I look around my body to see if I still have any weapons and to my luck, I still had my knife in its hidden sheathe, I grab it and plunge it into the kneecap of the guy who was pulling me along by braids. He let out a scream of pain as he falls to his left knee in pain before I sock him across the jaw, knocking him out. I quickly grab the heavy revolver that was in his holster.

(The gun)

I silently pray to Eywa that my self-taught gun training will pay off as I swiftly pull the hammer of the revolver back and shoot the second Na’vi that was with us in the shoulder, knocking her off her own feet and to the ground. I then run over and turn the revolver so I now am holding it by the barrel before pistol whipping the Na’vi that was wounded across the face, knocking her out. I pant as I let out shaky breaths before I saw my oldest brother running towards me.

Neteyam: Y/N!!!

He gave me tight hug as he saw the carnage I caused to the two Na’vi.

Neteyam: Fucking hell, bro. Remind me not to piss you off.

Y/N: That doesn’t matter right now. Neteyam, how in the fuck did you find me?

Neteyam: Kiri brought us here.

Y/N: Of course she did… who else is with you?

Neteyam: Tuk, Kiri, Lo’ak and Spider were with me, but we all got separated. We need to find them.

Y/N: No shit.

Neteyam got onto his communicator to call Lo’ak.

Neteyam: Lo’ak, are you and Spider play?

Lo’ak: No, not good, Spider was taken, bro. I found a place to hide at an uprooted tree, but I don’t know where Kiri or Tuk are at. Are you good?

Neteyam: Yeah, I found Y/N. Listen to me, okay? I need you to stay hidden, Y/N and I will look for our sisters. Understand?

Lo’ak: You got it, bro. Stay safe.

Neteyam: You do the same.

Neteyam gets off the call.

Neteyam: Listen, we need to find out sisters, we need to find Kiri and Tuk. I saw them running west, we need to get to them before anybody else does. Let’s go!

Y/N: Right behind you!

— 5 minutes later —

— Still Y/N’s POV

I follow closely behind Neteyam as we stop, seeing Kiri and Tuk, however, we were too late and they were tied up to trees with three hostiles around them.

Neteyam: Shit. We were too late.

Y/N: Not if I can help it. Nete. I need you to trust me, okay? When I start drawing the enemies away from Kiri and Tuk, I want you to take the chance and free them. Go find Lo’ak once you do.

Neteyam: What?!? Are you insane?!?

Y/N: There’s no other option. This is the only thing we can do right now.

I jump down from our vantage point and make my way to an opening where the three Na’vi Recoms can see me.

Y/N: Hey assholes! Over here!!!

I used the revolver I kept from earlier to fire a warning shot at the three hostiles before they started chasing after me with their pistols drawn. I lead them away from Kiri and Tuk so Neteyam can use the opening I’m creating to his advantage. I continue to drawn them further and further away towards a steep cliff overlooking the lake when I heard a loud gunshot and I am met to a sharp pain in my shoulder, causing me to be forced off-balance which sent me over the side of the cliff as I continued to run towards it and down to the water below. Luckily, I land on the shore, I look around for the revolver from before, but I soon found out that I lost it when I fell from the cliff. I now have another problem with my shoulder being in intense pain, I put my hand to my shoulder and only feel torn skin around a hole that wasn’t in my shoulder previously. I knew I had been shot. It was then when I felt myself being grabbed from behind by my braids again and I’m forced to turn around to face an evil looking Na’vi.

(It’s Quaritch)

Quaritch: Well, it’s nice to meet the demon spawn of the man who stabbed me in the back. You’re a lot more trouble than your worth.

The Na’vi then got onto his radio.

Quaritch: Everyone, regroup on me. I want someone to bring that human boy back to the base. I have a special someone who I believe can get us what we want.

I was then being dragged away by my braids once again as I clutch my wounded shoulder in pain. I try to fight the feeling of passing out, but I fall unconscious due to the nasty mix of pain and tiredness.

— 3RD PERSON POV, BACK WITH NETEYAM —

Neteyam watched as his youngest brother drawed the enemy Na’vi away from the area, which allowed him to move to Kiri and Tuk and free them from their bindings.

Kiri: Thanks, but what in the hell is Y/N doing?!

Neteyam: Ssshhh, keep your voice down, I need you to regroup with Lo’ak, Spider was taken, but Lo’ak found a hiding spot that you can go to. Head to the tree that has been uprooted, that’s where he are hiding. I need to help Y/N.

Kiri: Got it. Tuk, I need you to stay close to me, okay.

Tuk; Okay, sis.

The two Sully girls quickly and quietly run to where the hiding spot is while Neteyam ran in the direction of where his brother ran. He caught up only to see Y/n get shot in the shoulder which made him tumble over the edge of cliff. Neteyam couldn’t believe his eyes and tears come to his eyes as he knew that his brother was in big trouble, but he could not do anything with so many enemies around the area. He turned around before retreating to where the rest of his siblings and their good friend are hiding at. They need to make a plan.

To be continued….

Thats Pt. 2 for you. I hope it was not too long and too wordy. Anyways, I wanted to say that I never expected people to actually my idea of “"Useless” and “Troubled” until the End.” I hope people enjoy reading Pt. 2 as much I enjoyed writing it.

#jake sully #neytiri #avatar the way of water #atwow x reader #atwow x you #avatar kiri #avatar x male reader #avatar imagine #neteyam #tuk sully #atwow #avatar loak #avatar

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maxwell-grant · 4 years ago

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Who's your favorite Batman villain?

The Penguin. Was gonna put off this ask for a bit but I got surprised today with an incredible rendition of him, so now the dastardly bumbershoot waddled and squawked his way into my thoughts again and I gotta talk about him.

Penguin's not just my favorite Batman villain, he's my favorite DC character and comic book supervillain, the main reason I even want to write a Batman story someday.

I love the imagery that surrounds him, the trick umbrellas and the birds he so lovely dotes after and the WAKs and the Iceberg Lounge, which has become maligned in recent years as a sign of his downfall, but I very much appreciate as a concept in general still. I love a lot of the performances and actors who've taken him over the years. Burgess Meredith and Danny DeVito are some of my favorite performers of all time, Paul Williams has a wonderful voice and starred in my favorite film of all time. Tom Kenny, David Ogden Stiers, Robin Lord Taylor, Penguin's just had such great, terrific performances and adaptations. Batman Returns is my favorite Batman film by far and it was what got me to start paying more attention to Oswald.

I love the roles he can play in any given Batman story and how he's managed to endure all of his falls from grace by becoming an indispensable part of Batman's worldbuilding. I love his varied dynamics with Batman and Riddler and Catwoman and Gordon and his henchmen and those who get close to him. I love his style and the way he conducts himself when he's allowed to be more than just a generic mob boss. Penguin's design has, by simply staying unchanged over the decades, gone from "common rich person wear draped over a funny cartoon gangster" to "he is so out of touch and desperate for respectability that he dresses like an 1930s capitalist caricature, like a little kid's idea of what a rich and respectable man looks like, and Penguin's still stuck in that mindset". I love how absurd and plausible he is.

I like that Penguin can very easily fit just about any kind of Batman story, from the campy supervillain plots to the gritty urban crime ones. You can tell stories about Penguin falling in love, pretending to be legit because he doesn't want his aunt to learn he's a criminal, and opening up a comedy act with a talking penguin, or stories about Penguin terrorizing the city with giant robots and guided missiles and driving people to suicide. I like that he's a character who both relishes in his lifestyles of supervillain and crimelord alike, and yet is perpetually restless because the minute he acquires what he wants, he immediately starts wanting something else. He could have Batman and the Batfamily and all other supervillains wiped out and have Gotham in his pocket and maybe even become President of the United States, and he'd still want more. Because Oswald is nothing but wants, the wants of a traumatized manchild in a funny costume throwing money and toys and brute force and tantrums at the world until it makes sense, which only makes him far too fitting as a Batman villain.

Everyone forgets that Penguin was canonically the first villain to ever successfully escape Batman at the end of a story, completely bypassing the usual "villain swears revenge behind bars" ending to instead escape scot-free, and went on to establish himself as one of his biggest, most inventive and most cunning villains, second only, if not equal, to Joker. I love that he's ruthless and inventive and classy and cunning and brutal and how his main trick is using the fact that everyone underestimates the short fat man to his advantage. He's taken traits that got many of us in real life relentlessly tormented for them, and he uses them to pull the wool over those who think they are better than him.

It'ss a trick that works because even in real life people can't stop looking at this weird and silly little man and think "that guy's too silly for a Batman villain, he's not a murder clown or musclebound monster, what's he gonna do" and, yeah, that's the point, that's been the point from day one, he doesn't look scary or intimidating or even that evil, and he's the guy who pulls the rug under supergenius fighting machine Batman and becomes the top crimelord of Gotham City, a city ruled by terrors and manias and monsters infinitely bigger and scarier and stronger than he is, and he STILL made it to the top and he STILL maintains it, time and time again even when newer and flashier and scarier villains come and go. Batman is, at it's core, a fundamentally absurd character, and Penguin acts as a reminder of that. Because the minute we accept a man can terraform himself with training and money into a living legend on the level of gods, there's no reason why a tiny fat man with similar drive and resources can't likewise throw his weight with monsters and warriors far above his station.

Despite how ridiculously often he's disrespected by writers and fans alike, how far he's fallen off his former position in Batman's Rogues Gallery, and how often he's used as just a punching bag for assorted Bat-people, Penguin never goes away. He's the biggest survivor of all of Batman's villains, more so than the genuinely immortal ones, because he's the cockroach that won't go away no matter how many times you flush it.

Because once you get past the piles of money and the lounge fortresses and the armies of goons and the piles of cartoony gadget toys not too dissimilar from Batman's own, what the Penguin has is brains, and spite and hatred on a scale no other Batman villain has. He hates Batman, because Batman is nothing but yet another bully who thinks he can push Oswald around just because he's bigger and stronger. He hates the lower class for it's unsophisticated brutes and boors that made his childhood hell. He hates the upper class that's rejected and also tormented him since infancy, that he desperately spent so long trying to be a part of. He hates the monsters and supervillains he works with and has to associate with to stay alive. He hates the city that he fights to rule over tooth and nail.

And although he may never admit it, he hates himself, because he'a short paunchy man with a beakish nose who's brutal and immoral not just because those are the cards life dealt him, but because he likes what it affords him too much to give it away. Because he's never going to have the love and acceptance he desperately craves, he will never be able to accept it or keep it. Because he can never fully be a gentleman, or a monster, but instead a sad mix who belongs in neither of their worlds. Because at the end, he doesn't look like anyone else. He looks like one of him.

And still, I like Penguin because he's a Gentleman Villain. The one Gentleman Villain of Batman's rogues gallery, even if that's faded from a lot of his recent appearences that pushed the crimelord aspects to the forefront. He dresses like a gentleman thief, he's canonically a huge A.J Raffles fan, he's one of the most cunning brains of Gotham, he's got the money, resources, and adventurous spirit. Problem is, he's The Penguin. And suddenly, all that he has becomes overblown, outlandish, theatrical, and out of touch purely because it's him trying to do all those things. He's a gentleman adventurer gone rogue, the Count Fosco of the DCU, and that only makes it amusing, even endearing, when Penguin does engage in the swashbuckling antics he's so fond of.

When all his plans go to hell and so he starts fencing Batman, or when he commands henchmen with superflous fancy language, or even when Oswald gives the whole "hero" thing a shot and we see he's actually not bad at it, maybe he actually could have been one if it wasn't for the bile drowning his heart and the hellscape that warped innocent young Cobblepot into Gotham's Penguin, a name that immediately denotes something silly and ridiculous, and he carries it with pride, because he will make you respect that name.

And that's just a couple of reasons. I really, really love this character to the point of obsession and the main reason why I ever wanted to write stories for DC was to get to write Penguin and at least try to do the character a little more justice. But if nothing else, Penguin endures, regardless of what happens to him, in and out of universe. If nothing else, that's a very admirable quality in a supervillain. Oswald is the best.

#replies tag #comic books #batman #batman villains #the penguin #oswald cobblepot

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stevetonyweekly · 2 years ago

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Stevetony Weekly - September 18th

Happy Sunday!! Here’s what I read this week. Be sure to leave your author a comment or kudos if you enjoy a story!

***Marks my recent favorites

And if you missed it-- A WARM LIGHT, a Stevetony anniversary fanzine, is available for preorder!

~*~

you'll be mine and i'll be yours by complicationstoo

Five words ruin Tony's life.

“He doesn't love me back,” Steve says, and Tony feels his world crumble to pieces at his feet.

Steve loves someone, and Tony knows it isn't him.

The Death of a King by Saber_Wing

"Activate the Avalon Protocol."

There was no coming back from this.

The Only Way Out by Captain_Panda

is Through.

As Captain America: The First Avenger fades to black, Steve Rogers is Not Okay.

***How to Have a Good Time by Captain_Panda

As a reward for good behavior, Steve Rogers takes the team out for a day of fun.

Too bad he let the team pick the location.

On the bright side: Tony Stark always wanted to see what Captain America would *do* in the happiest place on Earth.

In the Early Dawn by starspangledsprocket

Steve and Tony have to share a bed. They use this as an opportunity to talk. Talking leads to more.

Feeding the Fire by ghostlands

Look, there’s different types of crushes. Steve is no stranger to them. You get a crush on the barista because she makes your latte with a cute picture of a cat in the foam. You get a crush on the delivery guy because he drove all the way out in a storm with twenty boxes of takeout for the tower (he was also pretty cute). You get a crush on someone when they flawlessly fire off multiple, tiny missiles right against your shield.

Crushes are supposed to be fun and fleeting, gone as quick as they come.

Slumber by ConjureUpaSmile

"‘Especially Steve,’ was probably more like it. Semantics, the mechanic decided. He had wanted world peace, created a killer robot that did its damnedest to wipe out the human race, and had been just as upset with himself as his teammates had been with him. It was simple when you broke it down, really.

Either way, it didn’t make sharing a bed with Steve Rogers any easier while they were laying low at Clint’s farm."

Tony can't sleep. It seems like Cap can't either, so they become insomniacs together. That is, until they find a solution to their problem. Tony has to figure out what it all means and what he wants, but he never can seem to keep from getting in his own way.

Waves you bring by babesrgrs

Of course, it was Steve and Tony who had to bunk together.

Keeping Company by quiet__tiger

It was like Barton was punishing him by making him bunk with Steve. ...No, it was totally punishment.

He'd have to thank him later, dammit.

a god to a non-believer by calciseptine

After the world ends, Steve finds happiness.

Caesura by Ylixia

Tony's gotten maybe twelve hours of sleep in the past four days, and he's been carrying the deaths of everyone that matters to him like a rock in his gut.

Hysteria When You're Near by StarSpangledBucky

Tony has been pining for Steve for a while, calling off his relationship with Pepper. After their first encounter with Ultron, they're at the farmhouse and Tony can't help but want Steve more. It isn't until night arrives when Natasha tells Steve to stop by Tony's room, where he finds the brunette in need of some comfort. Steve's right there with him. Feelings are confessed and comfort sex ensues. By morning, the team can finally relax when they see that the pining has been resolved.

Come All You Young Lads, and Lay Me Down by laudatenium

It wasn't easy, feeling like this for someone he was barely friends with.

But it wasn't like life had ever been kind to him.

***Must Be in Want of a Wife by FestiveFerret

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that every genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist must be in want of six shots of high-priced vodka, a trashed hotel room, a hot dude in his bed, and basically nothing that Steve has to offer.

Not that he wants to offer anything at all to someone like Tony Stark.

***lie back (and think of america) by calciseptine

"So vanilla," he teases without rancor. "I'll never know why this is your favorite, Cap."

#stevetony weekly #stevetony fic #stevetony recs #stevetony #stony #stony fic recs #steve rogers #tony stark #captain america #iron man

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azurefishnets · 3 years ago

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AO3 Profile Fandom: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective Words: 2649 Summary: Bailey and his coworker meet for dinner and dancing. Is it a date? Bailey's not sure, and the panic is rising...

"sissel and missile trying to put up party decorations using their little paws before remembering they have POWERS" "alma and cabanela going shopping—bonus jowd holding ALL the bags" "those two gay prison guards, dramatically getting ice cream or chicken together"

So see, these are all great prompts and I couldn't just pick one?! So I picked all three and then panic danced my way through writing this fic... I hope you enjoy the weird mishmash that resulted! Happy Ghost Swap 2022, @redwoodrroad!

Snow fell, flakes fluttering down and to the sidewalk all around him in dozens or hundreds of tiny, crystalline kisses. It fell on his ears, red from the cold, and on his hair, loosed from the unremorseful and not-terribly-special prison of his warm and wooly hat. The rowdies overcame the guards in this case; his hair blew freely in the cold wind. Bailey stomped his feet in place and blew on his fingers. It was perilously close to a dance, a good thing because he was cold: dancing would warm him up. Yet it also meant that he was on the verge of panicking because his coworker was late. He was late for their date and that meant that he was held up! By… a woman! And she wanted something from him! Or something like that, anyway. Bailey’s worries were endless. Maybe this wasn’t a date. Maybe they were supposed to meet somewhere else. He’d wanted to see dancing. Maybe they were supposed to have met at a club. Maybe… his feet sped up to a nervous shuffling and his fingers began, involuntarily, to wiggle preparatory to his hands rising into their too-long-accustomed vertical shuffle.

He was on the edge of becoming a full on dancin’ fool, just like generations of Baileys before him. Yet, as he stood poised, his eye was caught by a small black kitten in the window of the storefront in front of which he stood. The little guy was frolicking with the ribbons and tinsel some enterprising clerk had left in the window to decorate a small tree. It batted the glitter into the air, then watched it fall with huge golden eyes. The tinsel glinted with the same rich, dreamlike light in sharp contrast to the white dazzle of the snow falling all around. Bailey’s movements slowed to a stop and he watched, distracted and enthralled, as the kitten caught tinsel with one curved, pink-beaned paw and shoved it at the tree. It wouldn’t stay where it was placed.. The kitten tried again. Tinsel fell, ornaments tumbled and rolled, but none went on to the tree. Bailey caught the kitten’s eye… did it look oddly sheepish? It was a strange look on a cat.

Bailey tapped a gentle finger on the glass. The cat put up a paw. There was a moment of communion between them before the moment was lost, the cat looked away, and Bailey’s coworker showed up at last. Bailey looked into his eyes and realized several very, very important things, here in this fraught and fragile moment.

First, that man was terribly handsome here in the snow. He had pulled his own cap off and as he blinked up at the sky, his eyes squinting into the gloom of the evening, the glare of the streetlights, and the falling snow–it all made Bailey feel something soft and lovely inside, something he’d been pretending not to feel at work. Something warm, something all those generations of Baileys must have had a dance for and yet, it felt completely new.

Second, he was holding a small wriggling Pomeranian. The dog looked strangely familiar, but Bailey couldn’t focus on that. There was a third, important–the most important–thing he’d just realized.

Bailey, who had worked with this man for ten years, who had talked with him about anything and everything in their long shifts, who had been teased and joked with by this most maddening coworker until it drove him wild with both confusion and frustration, and, finally, who had been asked out after much will-he, won’t-he… Bailey’s mind had gone absolutely and positively blank. White and pure as the snow. And in that white wilderness, one thing was plain; his coworker’s name was not there. He couldn’t remember it.

At all.

Ohhhh, this was bad. Horrifically bad! There was no way he was ever going to live this one down. His fingers started to twitch. He tried desperately to stop the shuffle. And still, his brain was tuned to only one, pervasive, intrusively loud thought.

Aaaaargh!

His coworker seemed not to notice Bailey’s incipient panic, preoccupied as he was with the Pomeranian.

“Hey, Bailey,” he said. “This is Lynne’s dog, isn’t it?”

“Huh?” Bailey responded intelligently. “Lynne?” He took a closer look at the Pomeranian, shoving his cap up so he could see better. The Pomeranian’s tail waved wildly and his tiny black nose twitched. “I guess maybe it is… why would I know? You’re the one–”

His coworker’s face twitched, an eyebrow raising. “I’m the one what ?”

Bailey drew himself up to his most prim, the tallest stance he could manage, stilling his feet as best as he could. “The one who has the dog,” he said with desperate, faked dignity. “You must have met Lynne somewhere on the way here.”

“Ooh, those the detectin’ skills that keep you working as a guard?” his coworker snarked.

Bailey reeled back against the window, groaning, “Aaaaargh!” It felt good to say it out loud, at least, and get back to their customary banter. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the kitten stop playing and sit up, interested. “Stop bringing up the detective’s exam! I studied so hard…”

“Yeah, yeah. You really did.” The other guard winked at him. “But hey, ya failed, so we’re goin’ out for drinks and then you can show me “Dance Away the Pain.” That oughta be enough consolation.”

“I…well…” Bailey glared as his cheeks reddened. “I mean. If this is an actual…” He stopped, embarrassed. “No, it’s not a consolation prize at all!”

His coworker waved his protests off. “Anyway, I did run into Lynne though. But she didn’t have the dog then, so…”

Bailey drew himself up again. “So you went out with her first!”

The other guard gave him a blank stare. “...no.” He shook his head; perhaps it was fond. “But, see, she asked me to find her dog and then it was just a crazy string of coincidences…”

“Which you just went along with, I’m sure,” Bailey said, nodding. After a beat, he added, “...that was sarcasm. In case you couldn’t tell.”

His coworker ignored him. “I don’t think I would have found the little guy if I hadn’t dropped my hat in the park, and then I couldn’t find it, so I went lookin’ for it and a sweet potato dropped out of the sky. In front of where that big weird statue used to be, ya know the one.”

Bailey gave him a blank stare. “...no.”

“The weird-ass one in the park, Bailey. With the creepy eyes? Where they arrested our special prisoner?”

“Oh. Where that street rocker guy hangs out.”

“And the pigeons, that’s the one. So I saw a blue pigeon flying away with my hat.”

Bailey twitched. “ What are you even talking about?”

“Of course I chased it; it’s cold out,” his coworker said reasonably. “And the pigeon led me to a burnt out campfire, and dropped my hat, and there the little guy was. He was real happy to see me too! You should have seen him dance. Speakin’ of which…”

“This whole story…” Bailey said slowly, “is ridiculous. You didn’t want to see my dance after all, did you?!” His feet involuntarily moved him to one side, then the other as his arms began to gyrate. “You just wanted to laugh! At my pain! I can’t believe! You asked me out! Under false pretenses! ”

“What?” Bailey’s coworker gave him a genuinely flummoxed stare. “Nah, it’s all true. Come on, Bailey. I’m beggin’ ya, not this again…”

“Oh, I’m gonna dance! Until the world ends!” Bailey panted. “This panic! And pain! Are intertwined now!”

His coworker sighed. “ Why are you panicking, though. I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Because! You’re dating! Lynne! And you lied! And for some reason! I! Can’t! Remember! Your! Name!”

Bailey’s coworker gave him a stare. “Ya can’t remember my– Are you kiddin’ me right–” his attention was caught by something behind Bailey. “What is that?”

“You can’t! Trick! Me that easily!” Bailey huffed.

“No, but–’”

“Ho ho ho!” came a booming, jolly voice from behind him. “And have you been good guards this year?”

“Isn’t the outcome the same as if they’d been naughty?” a light, amused voice said.

“Come ooon, baby, it’s about the look of the thing,” a third, more sardonic voice drawled. “Theatrics, nothin’ like ‘em.”

Bailey swiveled, still dancing, to find Detective Jowd sitting in a large, cloth sided red wagon, surrounded by beautifully, fashionably wrapped boxes. The wagon was being pulled by a tandem bicycle crewed by Inspector Cabanela and a long-legged woman Bailey vaguely remembered from precinct parties as being possibly Jowd’s wife. Was it Alice? Alma? Something like that… his dance intensified in his embarrassment at being caught forgetful yet again.

“Ho, ho, ho!” boomed Jowd again, the sound sounding more like laughter and less like acting this time. “Good guards get presents from the man in red and white!”

“Wait, but aren’t you the one supposed to be giving presents here?” The woman winked at Bailey. “Oh well. Cabanela, you heard the man.”

“So I did, baby!” beamed Cabanela. “Sooo I did.” With a grand flourish, he gestured at the wagon. “A present for two good boooys!”

“What the–?!” Bailey heard his coworker say as a crate next to the door seemed to instantaneously switch with one of the beautifully wrapped presents, then slide its way to Bailey’s feet. Bailey tried to step back in time, but tripped, landing in the fluffy white snow. His dance stopped involuntarily as the cold shocked him out of his panic.

The other guard stooped to pick up the box. “It says to Bailey and …” Bailey heard, but the sound was muffled by his snow-blocked ears.

His coworker reached down a gloved hand to lift him up. “Ya good, Bailey?” When Bailey stood, the other man shoved the box at him. “Here, let’s open it.”

Bailey carefully unwrapped the ribbon while, to his surprise, the other guard equally as carefully took the paper off the box. They opened the lid, only to be inundated by a great wash of glitter and rose petals propelled by a small device.

“Happy birthday, baby!” cried Cabanela. “For spending with friends and loooved ones! Just so ya know, Jowd’s daughter built the glitter machine.”

The woman Bailey was reasonably sure was named Alma snorted, laughing along with Jowd, who truly was belly laughing now. “Did they need to know that? Also, It’s not both their birthdays, surely!”

Bailey and his coworker peeked cautiously into the box to find a gift card for the Chicken Kitchen, along with more glitter and flower petals.

“We thought you boooys needed a little help pickin’ a place to eat,” Cabanela said. “Not my choice, by the way.”

“Sorry,” said Jowd, sounding completely unrepentant. “And, by the way, the special prison’s being repurposed now that Yomiel is free,” he added. “Sorry about that too, but you boys are out of a job.”

Bailey felt his former coworker’s hand spasm, then reach for his. Wait… was he panicking now? Without needing to dance? Bailey resolved to ask him for his secrets. Right after he remembered his name. For now, Bailey squeezed back.

Cabanela took the Pomeranian from the other man’s unresisting and now free hand. “We’ll get this valiant little warrior back to our baby,” he said, and handed him down to Jowd, still in the wagon. “She’s probably just finishin’ dinner herself.”

“Oh, with Memry?” Alma said, smiling. “Guess we’ve got this matchmaking thing down to a science.” She gave Bailey a funny little salute. “Good luck! And thank you for being kind to my husband.”

“Huh?” Bailey said, flustered. “I’ve only met him once or twice…”

“Don’t worry so much about it, maaan,” Cabanela drawled. “Onward!” He and Alma began to pedal, somehow, magically, in perfect synchronization.. The bike, the wagon, the three humans, and the dog shot away as if propelled by a missile and disappeared into the thickly falling snow.

“What was that…” Bailey’s former coworker said blankly as he pulled away. “Hey Bailey. Are we… unemployed?” His hands flexed a little and he looked around aimlessly. “I had just finished my card tower…”

Bailey dug in the box and pulled out a note, which blew out of his hand in the wind. Expertly, the other man caught it.

“What’s this? Lemme see that.” He read it and looked up. “We’re invited to apply for a job with the new special investigations unit,” he said, his voice stunned. “With personal referrals from Captai– Captain Jowd? He got promoted? And Inspector Cabanela..guess he got promoted too.” He shot Bailey a slightly shyer grin. “Sorry for grabbin’ ya. I got, er… nervous.”

Bailey peered at the card, oblivious. “I don’t even know what to think any more,” he said blankly. “I didn’t know I had to be worried about this too. My poor stomach…”

“Oh?” his friend slid him a narrow eyed gaze. “Nerves? Or hunger?”

“Ergh… maybe both…”

“Hmph.” The other man drew himself up in what Bailey realized after a moment was a parody of his usual posture. “Well then, maybe it’s time to panic after all.”

“Panic?” Bailey blinked. “Why would it be–”

The former guard carefully placed a foot backward, then another. His hands rose and he made an awkward squiggle in the air, then he stepped forward, waving a hand up and down.

“It goes like this, right?”

“Err..” Bailey watched him, mouth agape. It wasn’t right, at all, but generations of Baileys were standing and cheering in his brain. He was trying. What more could one ask?

“It’s not panic time,” he said, nevertheless. “It’s a different dance when your stomach hurts.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Dance Away the Pain.”

“Well, show me then.” Bailey’s ex-coworker shot him a slightly nervous smile.

Bailey realized two more important things in that moment. First: heck. This guy was still handsome even covered in snow and dancing very badly. Second: In all that wilderness of white static in Bailey’s brain, the all-important name was back. It wasn’t even as if it was an uncommon one. The panic had just stolen it.

Bailey’s feet slid into place. His hands rose to the proper position. With one hand, he gestured. “This one’s done with two people. Wanna learn?”

“...yeah.” Bailey’s ex-coworker, current friend, possible partner, put a hand in Bailey’s and pulled him in a little closer. “But only if you remember my name.”

“Easy,” said Bailey, and said it. They both grinned fatuous grins and danced away into the falling snow as behind them, a Christmas tree in a window stood, perfectly decorated and leaves swaying gently in the breeze. Beside it, a small black kitten lay very still, probably exhausted by its efforts.

“Wait, that’s it?”

“Well, what else would there be?”

“Why were Jowd and everyone there?”

“Because it’s more fun that way!”

“Have you ever even met those guards?”

“Sure! Miss Lynne knows them, even in this timeline! They’re nice!”

“…Huh. So they just dance off and we never even learn Bailey’s friend’s name.”

“Well, I don’t know it, so…that’s just how my dream went, Sissel.”

“Well… at least it was fun. Hope they work it out in real life…”

“I bet they will! They’ve got us rooting for them!”

“Uh, sure. And like Cabanela always says, ‘ When in doubt, just keep movin’…”

“ So as long as they keep dancing, they’ll be fine?”

“In your dreams anyway. …and, sure. Maybe in real life too.”

“I’m gonna show them the dance Mr. Cabanela taught me, in that case! That should be perfect!”

“...You know, I think you’re right. They’re gonna be just fine.”

#ghost swap 2022 #fyeahghosttrick #ghost trick #redwoodrroad #writing af

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