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cryptidghostgirl · 10 months ago

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hiii can i request a silly little scene i have in my head? ok so!

alastor x wife! reader- theyve been together since they were alive, legit partners in crime they both encouraged eachother to kill and when they reunited in hell after around 8 years they were independent once again UNTIL They got in trouble with Lilith and she took reader to be like her slave until Alastor finished helping Charie with her dream (until he helped prove that demons can be redeemed) so they didnt see each other for another 7 years (his absence)

And all throughout the first season hes like “I miss my wife, Husk. I miss her a lot” (while drunk-) like that one sonic dub meme and starts shaping his shadow creature into reader and talking to it and everyone is like “m yep he’s officially lost it.”

BUT then Sir Pentious is redeemed and Lilith sees and shes like “damn :/“ and send reader to the new hotel via portal and reader just. falls on the ground in front of the big entrance and everyone hears it and they rush out and Alastor is quiet, wide eyed and reader goes smth like “i know- i shouldnt have accepted it in your name but-“ blah blah she rambles on about it and Alastor just goes “Youre as beautiful as the day I los you.” LIKE THAT HEARYBREAKING SCENE FROM HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 ;-; and everyone reacts in their own way

I REALLY NEED THIS BUT I LACK THE ABILITIES TO DO IT HEEELP (love u)

A/N oh bestie,, i got you. I was actually planning on something similar where Alastor was getting drunk at a bar and talking about the love of his life (I'm still gonna write that one too but I really like this prompt!!) You guys really come up with the best requests, please keep sending them in.

Fuel and the Fire (Alastor x Wife!Partner-in-Crime!Reader)

Pairing: Alastor x Reader

Warnings: ANGST also bad words (idk why i wrote the warnings like this). Also Angel Dust is in this one and I love him but he is a warning on his own.

Word Count: 2,392

Master Lists:

Master Lists

Hazbin Hotel Master List

Alastor and Y/n, partners in crime, the fuel and the fire. On a first glance, it would be assumed she was his fuel, the coal and dry leaves he fed himself by. Once anyone got to know them -- and god, what trouble a person was in if they got to know them -- they quickly realized it was the other way around.

Hand in hand from day one, from childhood. Running from the cops, washing the blood off one another's faces. In the living world and life after death, nothing could tear them apart. He was the soil she planted herself in, he was her rock and Y/n? Well she was Alastor's everything. He'd do anything at all for her, all she had to do was ask.

For a decade, they terrified the living world. They were the reason to double check the lock on the door before bed, they were the ominous shadow at the corner. When cold death wrapped them in his reckless grasp, they turned their terror on Hell.

The pair made a name for themselves quickly, filling up the airwaves and making waves in the underworld. For generations, they reigned supreme. For generations, they knew no fear. Then one day, they simply disappeared.

When Alastor reappeared on the streets seven years later without his shadow, the town was alight with gossip. No one knew where he had been, where she still was, or why he had returned but Alastor quickly rebuilt his operation, setting up shop at Lucifer's daughter's Hazbin Hotel along with several of the souls he owned.

The hotel's other residents and workers were distrustful of the man, to say the least. He was shifty, wore a constant smile, and rumors circled around him like birds of prey. That was until about three months into his stay, at least.

Angel hadn't meant to eavesdrop. He'd been coming down to the bar for a drink and a rant of his own when he'd heard the familiar, crackling voice of the Hotel's host.

"I just... I miss her so much, Husk."

He sounded sad, utterly dejected. Angel crouched down on the staircase, hiding his slim body behind one of the ornate posts supporting the railing.

"You keep saying that but do nothing to go find her. She disappeared the same time as you, you know." came Husk's gruff reply.

"I know she did."

"You keep saying that, acting like you know something. Admit it: you don't know shit, Alastor."

Alastor's radio waves faltered, squeaking slightly. Angel tensed in terror, wondering if he'd been found out. This was clearly a private conversation, and the Radio Demon was testy at the best of times. Right now he seemed positively furious.

"Don't test me, Husk." Alastor said after a moment, breaking the tense silence, "She... we both got roped into something. I am doing my part, she is doing hers."

Angel straightened himself up, deciding it was high time he entered the room. He still wanted that drink, after all. He let his feet fall heavily on the stairs, alerting the others to his presence. Husk turned toward the sound, meeting Angel's eyes as he entered the bar. Alastor, on the other hand, kept his back to the spider demon.

Taking a seat beside Alastor, Husk immediately poured Angel a drink and slid it across the counter towards him.

"So, tough night, Smiles?" Angel asked, turning to Alastor who downed the rest of his drink in a single gulp.

"I don't know what you're talking about, my good fellow." Alastor hummed in response.

There was a threat in his voice, but Angel could tell the demon's heart wasn't in it. Everything was just, odd.

"Yeah... sure..." Angel scoffed, taking a sip of his own drink.

"Radio man was crying to me about his wife five seconds ago." Husk grumbled and Angel's eyes went wide.

"You have a wife?" he asked, turning back to Alastor, "I mean, I get it. I'm in to the whole 'tall dark and creepy' thing too but, you care about someone? I don’t know if I can see it.”

Alastor's eyes narrowed as he turned on Husk. The cat demon rolled his eyes in a brazen display of disrespect. He knew his master well, knew this was the only thing he had any leverage with the man on. With a deep breath, Alastor placed his hands firmly on the bar top and pulled himself to his feet. Not saying another word, he disappeared into his shadows.

That had been the first odd occurrence. Of course Angel had told Charlie and Charlie had told everyone, had even approached Alastor about it. The Radio Demon brushed it all off with skill and for a while, things were quiet.

About a month later, the second strange thing began happening. Alastor had always had a certain sway over shadows, everyone knew that. However, he very rarely used them, brought them out if it wasn't to hide him or take him where he needed to be. Then, suddenly, one began to follow him.

"Uh, Alastor?" Charlie had timidly approached him the first time she saw this happening.

"Yes, Charlie my dear?" Alastor asked, turning to face her as he tossed his microphone in the air, catching it neatly in the center of the stand.

"Well, we were just wondering if everything was... okay?" she asked, her hands behind her back and a pointed gaze on the shadow.

"If everything..." Alastor trailed off, following the path of Charlie's gaze and realizing what was going on, "No, no my dear. Everything is quite all right, quite alright indeed."

"Well, okay... If you say so." Charlie had relented after a few moments, unsure of what else to do.

Eventually, the members of the Hazbin Hotel grew used to the shadows, they too slipped out of their minds. Overcome with impending doom of the extermination just a month away, Alastor's strange behavior was no longer a priority.

That had been until the third odd occurrence came into being. It was Sir Pentious who had noticed it first, drawing it to the group's attention as Alastor walked through the lobby and past the group doing trust exercises there on his way to some meeting or another with the other overlords.

"Sir Pentious?" Charlie had called, trying to bring him back to earth as he watched the place Alastor had occupied, "Sir Pentious?"

"Pentious!" Vaggie yelled and his head snapped to her, "You're not coming up with some new plan to attack Alastor, are you?"

"No!" he quickly exclaimed, waving his hands frantically in the air, "Not at all just..."

"What?" Vaggie asked through gritted teeth, advancing a step forward, her spear in hand.

"It's just... doesn't that shadow Alastor has had following him well.... doesn't it kind of look like a woman?"

Husk broke out into wild laughter while Angel widened his eyes.

"Oh, he's definitely lost it now." Husk exclaimed as he calmed himself, clutching his stomach, "If I knew Y/n was the secret to breaking him down, I woulda done something about it years ago."

"No you wouldn't have, ya big talker." Angel teased, elbowing the cat demon lightly.

"Y/n?" Sir Pentious asked.

"Alastor's wife. That was her name." Husk replied.

"Did you know her?" Charlie asked.

Alastor had left the hotel, the threat that had held their questions at bay for months was gone and the topic was right. Husk nodded.

"So, what's she like?" Angel asked suggestively, "Is she more of a dom? Does deer boy like to get dicked down by his lady?"

"Gross." Charlie shook her head, her hands to her temples, "I do not want to know that."

"She's a good kid." Husk said after a moment, "She's nice..."

He trailed off.

"But?" Vaggie prompted, sensing there was more that he wanted to say.

Husk sighed.

"If you think Alastor is trouble, she's a fucking house fire set for the insurance money."

"So probably not interested in being a guest." Charlie dejectedly stated.

Husk shrugged.

"You never know. It has been seven years since anyone has seen her. Alastor allegedly knows where she's at but, he hasn't gone after her. Just keeps whining to me about it so, I don't know. Maybe she's changed. I doubt it though. Sweet as a pea, sharp as a knife."

Charlie had never felt such relief as when she learned Alastor had not died in the chaos of the battle. The hotel was destroyed, heaven was pissed, Sir Pentious had died but, at least he was alright. They rebuilt the hotel, Alastor's same shadow of a woman trailing after him wherever he went. After about a week, thanks to all the angelic and demonic powers involved in the construction, the new Hotel was finished.

It was just as they put the finishing touches on the place, hung the portrait of Sir Pentious they'd commissioned above the fire place, that a portal opened in the lobby. Everyone tensed, banding together behind Charlie and Alastor. Angels were coming, they were sure of it.

A crash echoed from the other side, a sharp yell and then something tumbled through the portal. With a flash, the portal disappeared behind the shape of a person huddled on the floor. She coughed violently.

Alastor's eyes went wide. Everyone else was too distracted to notice, but if they'd have been paying attention, they would have seen his shadow disappear.

The girl was filthy, her clothes torn and her hair tangled. She let out another, sharp cough before slowly lifting her head. Alastor took a trembling step forward.

"Y/n?" he asked, his voice soft in disbeleif.

A smile, wide and sharp, split the woman's bruised face in two.

"Hey hun, I'm home."

In a flash, he was at her side, helping her to her feet, checking her for wounds.

"Jesus, Y/n." he sighed, "You're a mess."

"I know."

"Y/n-"

"I know. I shouldn't have done it, you don't need to lecture me. I didn't have a choice. It was you or me, Al. I couldn't... I can't... I had to. You've gotta understand."

"Sweetheart-"

Y/n cut him off again, her speech a single, constant, stressed-out stream.

"It was stupid, I know. I know. I really do but, she gave me the option and I couldn't say no cause then if I said no you'd really be the one in trouble a-"

Alastor raised a hand gently to her cheek and Y/n's words caught in her throat. She looked up at him, meeting his eyes at last.

"You're as beautiful as the day I lost you."

His voice was soft, so quiet the others could barely hear him. Y/n's cheeks flushed a bright pink. Her hands found the lapels of his jacket, holding them lightly.

"I.." she stuttered, her mind racing.

With a sigh and a slight shake of her head, she gave up in the search for words and buried herself in his chest. Alastor wrapped his arms around Y/n, pressing her tightly into his frame.

"God, I missed you." she said, her voice muffled by the fabric.

Alastor pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head.

"I love you." she continued, "I'm so sorry."

Alastor pulled her off of him, leaning down the slightest bit so they were eye to eye. Y/n, wiped a stray tear away, letting out a slight, sad laugh. Alastor's eyes traversed her face, caressing every crevasse.

"I'm so glad your alright but, I don't understand." he said at last, "How are you back? The deal..."

Y/n nodded and Alastor's eyes went wider still. Leaning on Alastor's shoulder for support, she turned her eyes onto the rest of the group.

"You must be Charlie." she hummed softly, meeting the young demon's gaze.

Taking a deep breath, Charlie stepped forward and nodded.

"Yes, I am. I run the Hazbin Hotel, which is where you are, to help rehabilitate sinners."

"I know." Y/n nodded, her voice quavering slightly, "I've heard so much about you. You... my dear, it worked."

"I- what?" every other question died in Charlie's throat, shock shot through her body like a bullet.

"It worked." Y/n confirmed, "You did it. I had a deal, a deal which Alastor went to your side to get me out of. If you succeeded in redeeming a soul with his aid, I would be free. And here I am."

"Here you are." Alastor repeated, spinning Y/n to face him once again.

She wobbled unsteadily on her feet. Catching sight of this along with the numerous wounds all over her body, Alastor scooped Y/n up into his arms like he did when they had first been married, when they had crossed the first threshold together. Y/n looped her arms around his neck, exhaustion seeping in with the relief as she let her head fall on his chest.

"Vaggie..." Charlie began as she turned to her girlfriend, "you don't think..."

"Pentious?" Vaggie asked and Charlie nodded.

"It's gotta be." Angel confirmed.

"You did good, kid." Husk smiled, patting Charlie on the back.

Y/n raised her head at the sound of a familiar voice, her eyes opening.

"Husker?" she asked with a smile.

The cat demon stepped forward, bowing slightly.

"Husker! I-"

"Enough of that, my love." Alastor cut her off, tapping her nose gently, "You need a shower and some rest. You can meet everyone in the morning."

Y/n crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes as she looked up at her husband.

"Promise?"

"Yes, I promise." he sighed.

"Does that mean you're staying?" Charlie asked tentatively and the couple turned to her.

"Whatever the little lady desires." Alastor stated, looking back down at his wife in a lovestruck daze.

"Yes, Charlie. We're staying." Y/n laughed, "Things need to start changing around here and I don't see anyone else doing a god damn thing to make that happen except for you."

"I.." Charlie was speechless, the kindness this fear inspiring woman was directing towards her, having never met her before. What Husk had said made sense, she smiled, "Thank you. I don't know what you did, but that you both so much."

"Anything for my favorite girl." Alastor kissed Y/n softly.

"Oh, get a room." Angel scoffed, rolling his eyes.

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tikosblogg · 2 months ago

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The purge…

Summary: The purge. A night full of legalized anarchy. A societal experiment gone horribly wrong. Once a year, for twelve hours, all crime becomes legal, a sanctioned release valve for the darkest desires of mankind. The streets transform into a battleground of chaos, where the weak become prey, and law is reduced to a meaningless whisper in the wind. @iloveyoutodeathbutimdrowning 💜

Warning: ⚠️ 18+ mentions of CRIME, MURDER, little bit of BLOOD. Mention of a KNIFE, GUNS, smut, piv sex, unprotected sex (plz don’t do that) I think that’s it, lemme know if I need to add anything.

A/N: FUCK the haters….thats all. If you don’t like it, go cry somewhere else.

Noah stood in the living room of his L.A. townhouse, surrounded by his friends—Jolly, Folio, Nicholas, and Matt—as they fortified their makeshift sanctuary. The news had broken just a week ago, the Prime Minister’s voice echoing across airwaves, officially sanctioning a night of anarchy. The so-called "Purge" was to commence at 10 p.m. tonight, and he felt a cold dread settling in the pit of his stomach.

“Noah, we need to barricade that window better,” Folio urged, nodding toward the house’s fractured glass. Noah grunted, clenching his fists, his tattooed arms rippling with tension. “Ok.”

His thoughts drifted to y/n, his best friend since childhood. She had moved to San Francisco a year ago, chasing dreams of her own. The last time they spoke, everything felt normal. He had purposefully refrained from telling her about the impending chaos, not wanting to burden her with fears that now clawed at his heart. Instead, they planned to see each other soon, and now… This godforsaken night loomed large with unknown terrors. As the clock counted down, his resolve weakened.

You rushed through LAX, suitcase in tow, your heart racing with excitement. You had decided on a whim to surprise Noah for the weekend. It had been too long since you saw each other, and this precious moment was supposed to rekindle your friendship. As you navigated through the bustling crowd, an alarming sense of urgency swept the airport.

People were screaming, some crying, and others rushing toward the exits. Crowds seemed insurmountable, and the clock ticked menacingly toward 10 p.m. “Where are all the damn cabs?” You muttered, scanning the chaos. It felt as though the world outside had distorted into a surreal nightmare. You finally decided, against your better judgment, to trek two miles to the nearest bus station.

Crossing the now eerily quiet streets, you glanced at the houses. Something felt off. People peeked out through the curtains, eyes wide yet lifeless, like ghosts. Ignoring the isolated chill that swept over you, you pressed on.

When you arrived at the bus stop, your spirits sank further. A hooded figure occupied the bench, a menacing silhouette against the dimming light. As you sat down, adrenaline pumped through your veins. You noticed the figure’s heavy breathing and turned just in time to meet a hollow gaze from behind a white mask, its eyes and mouth outlined in glaring neon. A large knife secured tightly in his hand.

You gasped, your body reacting before your mind even registered the danger. Panic surged as you leaped to your feet, your suitcase clattering to the ground. The figure sprang into action, knife glinting as it sliced through the air.

His heart raced as he felt the looming threat tighten around him. The countdown struck 10. The Purge had officially started, and the world outside was now a canvas for human depravity. His phone vibrated, notifications flooded his screen—a string of reports about violence breaking out on the streets.

“Remember, we don’t engage,” he reminded his friends as they holed themselves up. But the intense need to talk to you clawed at him. He sent you messages, one after another, but silence echoed back. His instinct pricked with fear.

As minutes turned into endless seconds, a loud bang echoed through the quiet night. He glanced at Matt, who nodded apprehensively. “Lock and load. We stick together.”

You charged through unfamiliar backyards, desperation heightening every intuitive reflex you had. The hooded figure pounded behind you like a relentless pursuing shadow. You stumbled onto a lawn and struck a futile plea at the front door of a house—“Help me Please!” The home owners peering out their barred in windows, sadness in their eyes.

Closing in on you, the figure yanked you back as you screamed slamming you against the front door. You sobbed in fear and confusion. Why is nobody helping? The knife glided down your cheek, slicing it. A surge of primal instinct kicked in: you struck out, hitting him in the groin.

The man topples over with a groan, as you make a run for it again. You run through multiple peoples yards, passing house after house sobbing. You don’t understand what is happening. You finally come to a stop, hiding behind one of the houses in the neighborhood. You look around, the neighborhood seemingly familiar. Noah lives on the next street over. You gasp covering your mouth, as the hooded man walks down the side walk tauntingly whistling for you.

You stay silent hoping he gives up and walks away. You were almost in the clear until your phone rang out, its ringtone slicing through the tension. The figure paused, turning toward you. You sprinted, lungs burning, as you finally caught sight of a familiar street. Noah! You can make it.

Noah tensed when he heard a distant scream, a heart-wrenching reminder that this was actually real. He hesitated before finally taking a peek out of the barred window. His eyes in utter disbelief at what they were seeing.

You reached Noah’s front yard just as sheer terror felled you. You felt the ground beneath you, a weight pressing down as the hooded figure tackled you, pinning you. His knife rose slowly, ready to enact a brutal act. You thrashed and sobbed, eyes squeezed shut waiting to meet your dreaded fate.

Suddenly, the air exploded, a gunshot ringing out. The weight on top of you lifted as the figure collapsed, knife slipping from his grip. Noah appeared, rushing to your side. “Y/n Oh my god!” He swept you into his arms before you could breathe, hauling you inside as the guys locked the door behind you.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?!” His voice trembled, his gaze sweeping over your disheveled state and the blood drawing down your cheek. “I wanted to surprise you, but…” your words tumbled out in a rush as your body shook, “He… He chased me, and….”

He pulled away, an intensity in his eyes that both calmed and ignited a fierce instinct as he shushed you. “You’re safe now. I promise. But we need to secure the house.”

As they set to fortifying the house, you found solace in the familiarity of Noah’s presence. Though the night was haunted by terrors. After making sure everything was secured, everyone checked in on you before they scattered to their own respective rooms. Noah grabbed your hand, leading up the stairs to his. He grabbed you a shirt to change into, letting you crawl into the comfort of his bed. He leaned in placing a kiss to your head, before standing back up.

Your hand caught his shirt before he could move any further. “Don’t leave me.” You whispered. He softly smiled before shaking his head. “Never. I just need to get changed.” You nodded softly, allowing him to do so. He finally walked back over, climbing into bed with you. You turned over, as he pulled you back into his chest, holding you tight as the distant sound of chaos lingered beyond their secured walls.

“Please tell me what’s happening Noah.” You whispered, voice still shaking. He kissed the back of your head, gripping your smaller hand in his. You pulled them up to your chest, placing a soft kiss to his knuckles. “I’ll tell you everything in the morning… it’ll be over by then.” He spoke, his voice low. Even more confusion filled your mind, as you snuggled in attempting to get some sleep.

But the peace is short-lived. A nightmare rips you from your sleep, your scream piercing the quiet room. You jolt upright, your heart pounding, and find Noah's eyes already open, alert and concerned.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," he whispers, his hands grasping your shoulders. "You're safe, I'm here baby." His dark eyes, hold yours, anchoring you back to reality. You take a shaky breath, your chest heaving as you try to regain control. "I-I'm sorry, I just..." Your voice cracks, the memory of the dream still vivid.

"Shh... it's okay. Just tell me what you need," he says, his voice steady and reassuring. You bite your lip, a mix of so many feelings overwhelming your body and nervousness flitting across your face. "I... I just want to forget, please make me forget.” You whined, looking away shyly.

He leans in, his lips brushing against your forehead, then your cheek, and finally capturing your lips in a tender kiss. His mouth is warm and inviting, and you melt into him, your lips parting in silent invitation. His tongue slides against yours, a slow, sensual dance that ignites a fire within you.

As the kiss deepens, his hands begin to wander, tracing the curves of your body now covered by his shirt. He lifts the hem, his fingers skimming the bare skin of your thighs, sending shivers through your core. His touch is electric, awakening every nerve ending in your body.

He breaks the kiss, his breath ragged as he gazes into your eyes. "I’ll make you forget baby…just focus on me." His voice is a husky whisper, his desire evident in his intense stare.

You nod, your breath coming in short gasps. He leans back, his hands guiding your body until you're lying on your back, the soft sheets caressing your skin. He stands, his muscular frame towering over you, and slowly peels off his shirt, revealing a chest covered in intricate tattoos.

Your eyes devour his body, tracing the lines of ink that tell a story of his past. He steps out of his pants, leaving him completely exposed, his dick already straining towards you. You feel a rush of desire, your body responding to his raw masculinity.

He joins you back on the bed, his lips finding yours once more, while his hands roam freely, exploring every inch of your body. His fingers tease your nipples through the fabric of his shirt, making you arch into his touch. He pulls the shirt up, baring your breasts, and takes one tight peak into his mouth, sucking gently.

A moan escapes your lips as he alternates between teasing your nipples with his tongue and teeth. His free hand travels down your stomach, slipping beneath the fabric of your dampening panties, and finds the wet slit. He strokes your sensitive bundle of nerves, making you squirm and beg for more.

"Please, Noah," you whisper, your voice desperate with need. He grins, a devilish glint in his eye, and slides a finger inside you, curling it to find your sweet spot. You gasp, your body arching off the bed as he adds another finger, stretching and filling you.

"Feel good?" he murmurs, his breath hot against your ear. "I want to hear you, baby.” Your cheeks flush as you realize he wants you to vocalize your pleasure. "Fuck…please Noah." He chuckles, the sound deep and sensual. "That's it, sweet girl."

He positions himself between your thighs, giving you one last teasing smile, before licking wide strip up your cunt, groaning at the taste of you. You gasp, your back arching from the bed. He dives back in devouring you. He pumped his fingers slowly, his tongue giving your clit few kitten licks before sucking it into his mouth gently.

You whimper, your fingers running through his hair gripping it firmly. He groaned as you tugged it, your hips thrusting against his tongue. “Such a good girl…take what you need.” He groaned watching you fall apart for him. You wasted no more time, pulling his face back into your aching cunt. Your orgasm quickly washing over you.

He grinned as you made a mess all over his tongue. He licked up every drop, before crawling back up to you. His lips found yours in a messy heated kiss. In one smooth thrust, he fills you, his cock sliding deep inside your core. You cry out, your body adjusting to the invasion, the sensation of being stretched around his thick cock.

He holds still, giving you a moment to acclimate, before beginning a slow, steady rhythm. Each thrust fills you, his hips slamming against yours, his balls slapping against your ass. "Fuck baby..you feel so good," he grunts, his eyes closed in concentration. "So tight, so wet…all mine." He growled thrusting harder to emphasize the word ‘mine’

“Isn’t that right sweet girl?” He moaned as You matched his rhythm, your hips rising to meet his, your hands digging into his shoulders, leaving marks on his tattooed skin. "Fuck yes…all yours, please," you beg, your voice breathless.

“Please what baby?” He whispers against your lips. “Harder..”you whine, so close to the edge for the second time. He complies without another word, his thrusts becoming more forceful, his cock hitting your sweet spot with each stroke. You're a mess of moans and whimpers, your body on the brink of ecstasy.

"Touch yourself, baby" he encourages, his voice thick with desire. "Let me see you fall apart for me again." You do as he says, your fingers finding your clit, rubbing the sensitive bud as he pounds into you. The combination of his cock and your fingers sends you over the edge.

"Fuck! I'm—I'm gonna cum!" you cry out, your body convulsing around him, your juices flowing freely. He grunts, his own release building as he feels your pussy clench around his him. With a final, powerful thrust, he empties himself inside you, his hot cum filling you up.

He collapses onto you, his weight pinning you to the bed, his breath ragged against your neck. "Fuck, y/n" he pants. “What?”A light giggle leaves your lips, as he lifts back up to look down you. “I love you.” His face was now serious, almost nervous. You reach up cupping his cheeks, pulling down into soft lingering kiss. “I love you too.”

#noah sebastian #bad omens #badomensimagines #noah sabastian smut #noahsebastiancult #bad omens cult #imagines #bad omens band #bad omens smut #nick folio #kinktober #joakim jolly karlsson #nicholas ruffilo

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psychologeek · 1 month ago

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I just think it’s wack that you only care about Israeli civilians. Yes their lives mattered. But instead of focusing on the real reason why they died, ie, the tremendously irresponsible government of Israel and their bloodthirsty colonialist mission, you focus on “”””antisemitism””””” where there really is none. I’m sure there’s like two (2) antisemitic pro Palestinians. The vast majority of us are normal people who want peace and freedom, and for Israel to stop killing people. And for Israeli innocents to stop dying too. Some of us are even Jews who finally woke up. Sincerely, a Jew who’s tired of colonisation being done in our name

So, I wasn't going to reply to this bc. LOL. Don't feed the troll.

But I'm currently hearing explosions in the background so I was like. Oh well.

Let's unpack it.

I just think it’s wack that you only care about Israeli civilians.

I mean. Y'know. אם אין אני לי מי לי? (Clearly not you).

Wow. I'm shocked. How dare I, an Israeli civilian with friends and family who happens to also be, by coincidence, Israeli civilians, dare care about such vile creatures? (Looking outside of the window) (Remember that I can't, bc it's blocked to prevent shattering by airwaves and sharpanels). Must be a day that ends with a y!

Yes their lives mattered.

I feel like there's a "but" coming.

But instead of focusing on the real reason why they died,

Are we still talking Israeli citisens? BC the current causes of death are missiles, gunshots and stabbing.

ie, the tremendously irresponsible government of Israel and their bloodthirsty colonialist mission,

Funny, you keep using that word. I don't think you know what that means.

Also, having strong opinion about a remote teritory which you aren't a citizen of? Tell me more about colonialism.

you focus on “”””antisemitism””””” where there really is none.

laughing out so hard I actually cry. Like, seriously?

Maybe you, personally, haven't met antisemism (or more likely, were unable to detact it). THAT WAS NOT THE CASE FOR THE VICE MAJORITY OF JEWS.

From vandalism and verbal harassment to physical harassment, beatdowns, and at least on one case - death.

[Funny enough, this article says "Alnaji’s and Kessler’s lives forever changed on Nov. 5 at a pro-Palestinian rally at Westlake and Thousand Oaks boulevards in Thousand Oaks." Well yes. Kessler's life ENDED. His poor killer may face prison. Poor man.

This is antisemic.]

I’m sure there’s like two (2) antisemitic pro Palestinians. The vast majority of us are normal people who want peace and freedom, and for Israel to stop killing people. And for Israeli innocents to stop dying too. Some of us are even Jews who finally woke up. Sincerely, a Jew who’s tired of colonisation being done in our name

Sorry, but if your "peace and freedom" refers to the myth of "The Happy Dhimi", you have a problem.

Some examples, though:

This is the official logo of the Houthis, the terror group pro-pals love so much. the "Curse upon the jews" REALLY gives some vibes of love and caring.

As someone who lived through the latest Intifada, this REALLY makes me feel safe out there:

So, the terror Organistion currently firing at me isn't a terrorist? do tell me more

And of course, the "resistence". Wow I wonder what happened on October 7th?

more (explained) #1, more #2, more #3, honestly just go to #antisemitism here.

And, last but not least:

INDIGENOUS PEOPLE CANNOT BE COLONIALS IN THEIR ANCESTORS' LAND.

WE HAVE 3,000 YEARS OF HISTORY HERE.

But, well, I guess you're from america. Strange how you don't care about colonialism when it's actually. Y'know. BY-THE-BOOK.

Another case of kidnaps by terror organisation (Boko Haram). And another (ISIS) (Hamas connection).

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halcyone-of-the-sea · 2 years ago

Text

FINCH'S FRENZY (IV)

|| COV MASTERLIST || NEXT: CHAPTER V ||

PAIRING: Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick x F!Reader

WORDCOUNT: 8.7k

WARNINGS: Angst, blood, guns & shootings, canon typical, death, vulgar language, gore, arguments, self-destructive behavior, PTSD, fluff at the end? Maybe?

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

Vividly, you remember the first time your father brought you into the Museum. You’d only been little, then, no more than ten but old enough to form lasting memories that would stick with you. Key moments in the spanning woven tapestry that grew and spread like roots with colors named ‘Happy’ and ‘Sad.’ A memory bank of images that never leave the screen behind your eyes.

The statue had only been there because of the fire.

Made by men’s hands, it really wasn't the responsibility of a Museum of Natural History, but this was a special case. The other, sister, building to this one was far off into the city and had been completely ablaze not a week prior by unknown circumstances. Your father’s friend had burned, along with many priceless artifacts that were housed there. But not this.

The stone statue of the woman. Only here because it needed a place to rest before being sent out of state to a more… appropriate facility. They had flocked to her—marble scorched and covered in ash. Yet beautiful. Heavenly. Long arms reach up, a tiny bird held in the clutch of her stiff hands, presenting it to a far-off sky.

Cameras flash and eyes water.

“They’re calling her dīvīnā, Little One.” You had looked up at him, clutching onto your father’s shirt sleeve in wide innocence. He smiles softly.

“Di–” Your lips sputter and face heats, “Di-ven-a?” A small chuckle makes you huff, your expression souring. The man kneeled down, gripping under your pudgy chin and teasing.

“Not quite. Dee-veen-uh.”

“What does that mean?” You stubbornly shake your head, confused, “why are they calling her that?” A kiss is planted on the top of your head, your father standing back up and laughing, as you once more look at the statue with wonder. Your eyes glitter.

“It is Latin, my Little Love,” that stone bird in her lifeless hands has a broken wing, yet still she prompts it to fly; as if she knows it can even though it’s impossible. “Divine.”

To be loved like a woman in stone was a rare thing.

You’re not quite sure why you remember that when you turn a swift corner, slamming a shoulder into it as bitter tears track your cheeks. The bloody hand that steadies you leaves a trail of crimson behind as evidence. You don’t slow, not even when Gaz’s hat threatens to fly off your head at the break-neck pace you set yourself on.

“The park,” you breathe raggedly, frantic slams of your shoes bouncing off the corralling buildings at your side as you dart out of the tree line and into the city streets. If you had been focusing, you’d realize you have no idea where you are; utterly alone while the violent sounds of firing guns and screams continue to bounce off airwaves. Too close. Too loud. “Oh, God, the people.”

Cold couldn’t begin to describe your temperature. Frigid perhaps; shaking with frozen terror that makes you lose feeling in your limbs. Buggy eyes snap to shadows and trash in the alleyway like they were grabbing at you with phantom intentions.

You don’t know when you lost Kyle—when you’d taken a turn too fast and completely disappeared or something else along those lines. But in your chest, your stiff ribs almost welcomed the solitude. You had looked into his eyes. Stifling a loud sob, you increase the pace as the screams behind you loom over your head like a cloud.

Amber. Meadows. Deathly serious.

“No, no, no…” How had the attackers known you’d be out in the city? On campus? That white Sudan…How?

You miss the rapid calls of your name in the background, equally as desperate as your instincts. Loud and distinctly British. Separated by stone and mirky puddles. You increase your velocity; moving farther and farther away. Run, you just need to run. From everything. From everyone.

But when you rush one last corner, the large form that stands there isn’t a made-up phantom of the past. It isn’t a statue.

Skirting to an immediate stop, your legs quiver from the force and the dragging of your heels; your fingertips wrenching into your aggravated injury in retaliation. Gasping, your leaking eyes widen even farther at the covered face. The few feet of precious separation from the man that also surprised at the sudden arrival.

A dead second of slow-motion thoughts and nothingness that seems like a year ensues. Not a single atom bounces. Had he been waiting for you?

You slowly look down with white eyes to notice the assault rifle in his shifting hands; the nervousness of hips as they rotate weight into a form that would remind you of a football player if you bothered to engage with that thought. The air is stuck in your nose. Blood pressurizes itself forward. You swallow tersely, one shoe shifting to take a step back carefully. No words, no exchange of sentiments.

Only a target and a man holding a gun.

“I…” You trail, lips not responding as the rabid pulse in your ears threatens to drown you with blackness. At the click of a safety, you’re running like a rabbit again, darting back down the same way you came as bullets explode through the corner you rampage past.

“Gaz!” The call bounces to the sky, ringing off buildings. Was it possible to die from adrenaline? Everything burns a bright shade of red in the corner of your vision. Shouts ring from behind, a race of scarlet and duty now taking place with feral implications.

This was what being prey felt like, and you had thought you'd only have to experience that feeling once.

“Gaz!” You scream again, ripping vocal cords, and ducking as a round goes directly above your head, slapping your hands to the cap with gasping fear. How many were out there? Had they set a perimeter if you decided to run?

This was a level of professionalism you never expected from terrorists.

Sprinting past an open turn, a hand snags out, jerking you by the jacket collar as a second covers your mouth. Screaming, you bite down as your heart stops, mercilessly slashing out an elbow into hardened ribs. A sharp hiss meets your ear before the shadows of the inside of a doorway overhang swallow you.

Your back is slammed into the barrier, breath on your forehead as your hand snaps to the pen knife in your pocket like a whip. The shock of electricity down your spine is inconsequential to the hand that flies over your mouth. It tightens before your eyes can adjust properly through the tears; fingers flinching fast past layers of cotton canvas.

Lips dance over the shell of your ear. “Stop moving.”

The struggling of your limbs halts, eyebrows slightly losing the agonized furrow. Heat wafts from the body pressed into your own—great bouts of natural warmth that you hadn’t felt in years from another human being. Your heart skips for it; muscles lessen.

Goosebumps raise the hair on the back of your neck.

You blink rapidly, staring into the nose of Sergeant Garrick with a shuttering inhale behind his grip. Sensing your slowing pulse, his hand lowers, moving back immediately. Long fingers find his lips, signifying silence with nothing more than a tap and a frown. There’s still blood over his visage, splattering up his stubble and along his cheeks like paint as his jaw clenches with meaning.

Wheezing, you shake with both fear and a sliver of ease even as your back aches from the force that the Brit had exerted to drag you back. You swallow down saliva and nod a number of times; completely out of it.

You’re moved behind him with a firm push—a part of you flinches at the sudden chill that overtakes you once more—as the yelling gets closer from beyond your hidey-hole, a bulky thumping over the concrete ground like hail. You stare at Gaz’s neck as he grabs the pistol from his belt, leaning on the part of the wall that juts out with a single shoulder and barely peeking out.

He blinks slowly, not even looking at you as his lips thin. He looks merciless and loose at the same time.

The man sprints past, barely making it a few feet from where you watch with stilled breath before Kyle separates from the wall. One shot is all it takes, and the stranger doesn’t even scream before he hits the ground; a last round being driven between his skull plates to silence any sound.

It all falls silent after the reverberations cease—gunpowder in your nose and burning your throat. But it doesn’t even matter, because you’re already being forced along with a heavy hand on your shoulder before the blood can pool over the ground.

“C’mon.” He speaks blankly, whatever sly teasing and amusement from earlier today completely gone. “Exfil point is a block away—we need to move.”

You can’t do much more than follow, your head screaming at you.

“B-but what about…” Wanting to ask about the people who are back in the park, not quite understanding the horror yet.

Sensing this, Kyle knows it’s better to respond briefly.

“They’re dead.” You flinch at the truth, hearing the bitter reality settle in coupled with the man’s bluntness. Gaz sends a side-eye your way, looking down at you from his lashes.

While not willing to offer any comfort at the moment, he twitches his nose and simply states, “You need to stay focused,” while noticing the far-off look in your eyes; the rapid pulse under his grip.

Humming under his breath, he leads you on ever faster, knowledgeable of the quickly dwindling bullets in his mag. As you both speed walk, he speaks through his earpiece, telling Kit the streets before the far-away man replies with the correct route to the Exfil point.

“How’s the VIP?” Kit asks, and Kyle grunts, not giving anything more than a quick response.

“Alive. We’re nearly there.” He inhales slowly. “Multiple civilians down in the park.”

“Copy, 2-6. Keep en route.” Gaz scoffs under his breath, surveying his surroundings as the wails of sirens fly over buildings. This never should have happened.

This brought him back to Piccadilly Circus; the start of his entire counter with 141 and subsequent approval into their ranks. He’d seen many things over the course of his deployments to the Middle East—when he’d put a target on his back when disrupting Opium supply lines. He shouldn’t be here. He should be with his comrades.

Not with a girl that seems to want to put herself in every dangerous situation known to man.

Even with all the mental strain and uncomfortable scenarios he’d been in…watching innocent people die never got any easier.

He moves you along; muscles wound and gun in a tight grip. Gaz tries to tell himself that you couldn’t have possibly imagined this happening and with how you were acting that would be the truth with no doubt. He’d told you, though, hadn’t he? That’s what really gets his jaw stiff.

I told her. And she didn’t listen. Didn’t even try to think it over.

You shake under his grip, and a part of him feels pity, honestly, but right now the severity of the situation is more important.

“Take a left,” he utters, forcing you on with hardened brown eyes. You nod again, throat closed so tight you’re unsure if speaking is the right decision.

Everything is a mixture of hot and cold—fingers burning yet arms shaking from a lack of heat; teeth chattering.

The both of you were close now, only a few more winding turns left and the van should be waiting with the driver; authorities taking care of the shooters left in the park still searching for you. But these alleyways were like a rat’s maze.

“Keep close,” Kyle offers, “We don’t know who else is—”

“Right!” Your yell makes him turn sharply, knife barely grazing the flesh of his neck as he weaves. Brown eyes flair with anger, gun in his grip just as easily coming up to the armed assailant.

The covered face held no weapon besides a combat knife; another person intent on taking your life. How many were out here?

“What in the…?” Gaz grunts, but before he can bring the pistol up to pull the trigger, the man’s other hand is grabbing his wrist, twisting it to the side mercilessly and away.

The Brit hisses, throwing out his other arm to block the knife from once more coming down to settle in his neck. These people were many in number, but how was it that they were so rusty? Anyone with combat sense knew it was best to go low before going high when attacking with a knife. Before he can swipe the Bastard’s legs out from under him, locked in that familiar battle of wills, Gaz hopes in his head you don’t run off again.

Starting to gain the upper hand with gritted teeth and sparking eyes, there’s a swift thunking of metal meeting flesh moments later. Blinking wildly, Kyle’s face goes confused, slightly losing grip in that mere second of oddity.

Then he sees it.

“Bloody Christ.” Gaz gasps, gazing at his own reflection in the hilt of a small pen knife stuck in the eye of his attacker who subsequently begins screaming wildly, trying to back up until the Sergeant shakes out of his shock.

The gun levels with a chest, and it was done before the killer could rip the blade from his eye.

Only one bullet was fired until the small click of an empty barrel signaled that Kyle had used up his last round. The man falls into a heap and lays on the floor, a puddle of crimson leaking from his guts as he gasps and coughs.

Breathing heavily, there’s a pause in the air. Gaz looks back at you slowly, eyes wide with astonishment.

You stare back, right hand quivering and twice as bloody then it had been before. You had made a mirror slice on your palm by holding the blade and releasing it to hurdle forward loyally. Not that you knew that.

No words are exchanged as the gurgling from the body falls silent, only the air speaks in brushing breezes that ruffle your jacket.

“2-6,” Gaz’s earpiece speaks, but for a moment he’s stuck gazing into your eyes as you stare at the body, lips parted and jaw slackened. You’d just… “2-6, do you copy? Extraction is waiting for you.”

Brown eyes snap away, feet quickly shuffling to rip your penknife out from the socket and place it in his pants pocket. Later.

“On it, Actual. Keep ‘em ready—we’re coming in hot.”

“Rog. Laswell’s been informed, expect request for a full security unit comin’ the lady’s way.” Frowning, Kyle doesn’t respond, having to physically turn your body away from the scene and move you forward.

His X12 is slipped back into his belt, useless entirely.

“Love,” Gaz speaks to you, trying to see if you’d respond, but your eyes stay blankly ahead; tears frozen in time on your cheeks yet the hysteria is shown in the stumbling of your legs. The racing pulse under your skin makes the Brit concerned. A stiff sigh is released before a decision is made with creased eyes.

You’re being lifted with little warning, carried into a bridal hold as if you weighed no more than a piece of paper. You gasp briefly, sense coming back in a flash of a thrown knife and a wide brown gaze.

“H-hey!” The exclamation is met with a click of a tongue and increased footfalls, Kyle keeping you close to his chest with wind whipping past your ears. But you can’t think beyond the defining moments. The bodies in the park. The man you helped kill. Had killed.

You force down the bile in your throat as Gaz’s warm body encompasses you.

I didn’t…I didn’t do that, did I? You hadn’t thrown that blade. Couldn’t have. That would make you…

Your face tightens, brows creasing like tin foil.

The van was torn open with a loud bark of ‘get us the fuck out of here,’ and a dumping of you onto the back seat only three minutes later; you didn’t have the thought capacity along that short run to tell Gaz to keep his hands off of you, or to stop sending you those glances with his hidden thoughts. All you could do was try and keep back the flooding hysteria.

Kyle shoves himself into the car, slamming the door.

“Go!” He hits his fist on the back of the front seat and the driver peels out of the open alleyway with a screech of tires.

Breathing heavily, you blankly look outside to watch the rushing police cars and ambulances dart past in the opposite direction. The streets were so condensed with fleeing people that they were having a hard time getting through, the flickering flashes of red and blue lights trapped behind your eyelids even as you blink and shake your vision away.

Jesus, how many people are dead right now? How many were dying?

“Take us back to Base,” Gaz’s harsh accent drives a spike into your ribs. Focus on that. Focus on hating him. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about the knife.

You force out through a shaking diaphragm.

“Fuck no,” the air flips; driver sending a wide-eyed glance through the mirror as Kyle’s wound body stills like a flag on a stagnant day. You persuade a sneer to your lips.

Just make him angry. Make him yell at me—distract me. A vile form of self-destruction, sure, but you can’t start thinking about anything that just went down.

You know how it would go if you had time to process. How the first year went after your father met his fate. You’d…You’d…

The Sergeant’s tone comes out in a snarl, “What’s that?”

You’d never thought his file was true about that part. The hardheadedness and the opinionated side. When he was with you he always seemed level-headed; calm. Now though, it was like you didn’t have a grasp on his character like you thought you did.

In the driver’s seat, Private Clancy clears his throat and grips the wheel tighter, not sure where to go.

“You heard me,” he had, Gaz’s ears had twitched at the curse—vulgar language not common from your tongue. “Fuck. No.” Eyes hard on his knee, you glare through very obvious fear. Kyle stares with venom lacing his silver tongue, lungs inflating. “I’m going home.”

“Home?” The Sergeant asks immediately, the car taking a left turn quickly. “Oh, my apologies, then,” he shakes his head, “Do you mean the exact place you’d be ambushed? Perhaps giving yourself up would be more your speed, Ma’am. Private,” Gaz glares into the rearview mirror, “Base, now.”

“You do not get to dictate where I go, Garrick!” You scream, ripping his hat off your hair and pointing a finger with the same hand. A flash of amber replays in the back of your mind. Stop. Please, stop. “I am not going to the damn—!”

“People are dead!” Flinching, your shoulders hunch in faster than someone can blink, and brown eyes burn at you, jaw tight and teeth bared even as self-restraint tries to hold back a more poison-coated octave. The thin line between the two of you breaks. “Civilians!” You see Kyle take down a deep breath, his hands clenching. The next sentence is slow, but deep, “I don’t care what you bloody want because I’m not asking. I’m taking you in and getting a full Unit assigned.” Your heart freezes, lids going back in shock as sweat trails down your back. Gaz scoffs, turning away from you to run a hand over his hair. “Never should have agreed with Laswell and taken you on. I need to be with my team. You don’t listen!”

Opening and closing your mouth, you stutter for an answer.

“Take me home, Kyle,” your voice is breaking, but Gaz doesn’t even look in your direction; his lips firmly sealed as he glares at the headrest with his resting fist tapping periodically on his chin from the window-ledge. “Kyle.”

He shakes his head to himself, and in a fit of infectious rage, you chuck his cap directly at his skull with a strong arm.

“You fucking pathetic twat! I just goddamn killed someone trying to save your useless life!” You bare your teeth and feel your throat constrict, eyes red and holding back a weeping deluge. Kyle growls under his breath as the hard brim slaps his temple, snatching it back mid-air. But his snapping reply stills on his lips when he meets your gaze head-on. His breath halts for a brief moment, recognizing the dwindling sense of control. Your words give him pause, and he doesn’t think you realize you’re looking into his eyes again as you rage. “I should have let the bastard tear your throat open—at least he’d be getting to do what I’ve always wanted since the moment you put a fucking gun to my head! For leaving my family a mess of blood and pain! Do…do you expect me to be thankful? For what?! All of this is your fault! Don’t you dare try and put the blame on me.”

You’re sobbing, and the Sergeant watches silently, lips slightly parted as the driver gets more and more anxious. The car sputters along at a slow pace; everything relies on who wins this volatile battle. Brown eyes are stuck on the blatant brokenness of your gaze, for the first time able to study them without side-eyeing you or sneaking glances when you regard him by looking at his lips or nose.

He’d never seen eyes like yours.

Blame? He didn’t blame you. Not…not entirely. But he was angry at you.

“For the love of God, I will chuck myself out of this car and sprint home—I don’t give a shit if I get shot at, Garrick. You and your little Task Force can go and fuck yourselves. You left my father with a hole in his head; made my mother leave me in a decaying house all alone and expected me to be okay with seeing my dad slump dead and feeling his blood drip off my chin. That fucking house.” Hands weaving through your locks, you wrench your eyes shut and the connection is severed in an instant, Gaz blinking back to the car with an unsteady inhalation of breath. His body is as still as a stone statue, fingers twitching when you finish with, “Fuck!”

Foot stomping to the floor, you hunch forward, wailing in earnest as the blood on your hands makes you want to barf. Your head burns. Your throat aches. Everything felt like you were being rocked back and forth on a violent wave of self-loathing and hatred.

“Stop it,” you rest your head between your knees, mouth open with desperate pants of air, “Fuck, p-please just stop it.”

No one knows what you’re referring to.

The car had parked a while ago—sitting in the parking lot far away from the park. Once a moment has passed, the Private only taps the wheel in the strangled moment of relative silence, and asks above your wet sobs, “Sir, I…Where are we going?”

Kyle stares at you, opening his mouth to speak before it freezes and falls back shut. He swallows down the saliva in his throat before licking his lips, not looking at his cap before numbly putting it over his head with two hands.

“...Mansion.” The tires peel out slowly.

You don’t hear anything above the ringing in your ears; see above the red curtain settling. All you breathe down is death, and all you can think about is what went wrong.

“It is Latin, my Little Love,” that stone bird in her lifeless hands has a broken wing, yet still she prompts it to fly; as if she knows it can even though it’s impossible. “Divine.”

Your nails dig into your scalp harder, lips trying to strangle back sounds of a breaking mind. But you can feel his eyes on you as your face burns, digging deep when ruffling fabric makes you tense.

Everything is so loud—too bright. You can’t focus on calming down…you…you need to—

A bomber jacket settles over your head, the sides draping down to your ankles as you blink back with panic. You’re about to scream before you realize where you are.

Park. Car. Gaz.

The penknife.

Darkness surrounds you, and body heat suggests someone sits close. On the ground, you see a combat boot peak in from the makeshift shroud, shifting from time to time with unease and an inability to stay still. A blessing and a curse. Your bursting lungs begin to slow as you take count of the laces, studying the color and the shine. Letting the calming low-light seep right into your brain as your fingertips loosen.

A throat lightly clears, and they tense again.

“We…we’re nearly back, Ma’am.” You don’t answer. Gaz sighs quietly under his breath, pressing to the earpiece sitting in his canal. “Actual, change of plans. I need a full Unit to sweep the entire VIP’s property—we’re heading back now.”

“I don’t think Laswell will go for that, 2-6.” Kyle peeks at your hidden form—the way you shake so violently he was afraid you’d shatter like glass. He thinks about what you said, not able to peel his eyes away. Even as he tries to force it down, his heart hurts.

“Do it. I’m not takin’ her to Base.” The Sergeant tits his head down, hand clenched. “It’ll make this worse than it already is.”

“...Rog. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Copy, Mate. Keep me updated, yeah?”

Gaz thinks back to the alleyway and the penknife in his pocket feels heavier than stone. He hadn’t needed help. That wasn’t pride, that was just a fact. The Brit wasn’t as large as Soap—certainly not Ghost—though he was still well above average for what a regular workout would give you. Even if he did value integrity far better than brute strength he wasn’t like a dull blade.

He’d had it under control.

So why had you done that? Even you had expressed confusion over the action. For all intensive purposes, you should have wanted the terrorist to win. It seemed like you did.

“Hell,” Kyle whispers, bushing off the dried blood on his cheeks with the back of his hand as the city falls away to a slower-paced town. The adrenaline was wearing off, and the internal guilt was beginning to form.

He hadn’t meant to yell.

It had been a while since he’d worked Protection, had forgotten how much he should regulate his emotions. Gaz was used to strong bands of brothers—tight-knit groups that went in like a shadow and left with nothing but a whisper. That was One-Four-One; his brothers.

But…brown eyes slowly rove to stare. Listening to the struggling breath like an animal being choked by a collar.

You’d already gone through so much, and although he could grab you by the arm and shake with all his might, it wouldn’t change the fact that you didn’t know how this worked.

He needed to keep his gentle approach, not force you back into the hole you were intent on keeping in. Gaz needed to fix this. Tell you. Show you.

He’d do it tonight and if his honesty didn’t work even a smidge then he’d send in his offer for re-assignment. He’d made a mistake, and he was never one to let that stand.

By the time the van was pulling into the iron gate, held open by a black-clothed soldier, the property was already swept and cleared. Gaz opens his door and steps out, leaving it open on the off chance you would follow him. You didn’t, of course.

“Sergeant,” the man’s face was covered with a balaclava, large of shoulders and chest. A hand is presented, and Kyle takes it with a soft greeting.

“How’s it looking?”

“Everything’s in order, Sir. Laswell took the time to set us up back in town,” there’s a glance sent your way, and Kyle restrains himself from sidestepping and blocking the man’s view. His instincts were still rampant and he shifted his legs restlessly. “Figured the Lady wouldn’t be too keen on letting us stay here—can’t do anything without the inheritor's permission.”

Gaz blinks at that but only adds it to his databank. He knew you had control over who you allowed on the property, but hadn’t known you were the inheritor.

Why hadn’t the estate gone to the wife?

“Good to hear,” Kyle smiles slightly, tapping the side of his fist with the soldiers. “I can take it from here, yeah? See to it your men are comfortable and keep the radio up—we don’t know what else might be going on.”

“Copy, Sir.” When Gaz switches weight, looking into the interior of the car he’s already addressing you with a calm demeanor; ready to coax you out with a good chunk of his gut filled with apprehension.

“Love…can you—” The car was empty, and before Kyle could begin to snap to attention, the black of his bomber jacket slashes his wide vision. A deep sigh falls after a second of exasperation, sarcasm about to be called over the air. Hands rub over eyes before itching at his cheek with a muttered, “Keep it light, Garrick. Sky’s not falling just yet.”

He follows, concern growing steadily.

You had killed a man. Lived through your first shootout. How was he supposed to make this work? You already hated him…what could he say?

Gaz knew for a fact that it hadn’t fully hit you yet, and when it did, he was afraid you would break apart even more. But why was he so conflicted about staying or leaving?

Your feet carry you to the house quickly, head down and extra jacket over your shoulders that you don’t bother to flick off. Shoving past leaving soldiers that give you stiff looks as you pass makes your lungs hitch. You didn’t want them on your property—you didn’t know them.

“Love!” Kyle calls your name from behind, and you hear his jogging feet catching up as your fast-snapping eyes find the black void in the bushes.

The cat.

Green eyes brush against your, slitted pupils corralled by overgrown foliage. It blinks slowly, and you force your head forward once more; un-cut hand snapping to your mouth to keep down the frantic way your lungs jump.

Doors were of no obstacle to you, you shove through them with a hunched shoulder, letting it swing open and hit the wall with a defining bang of oak.

“Hey! Slow down, would you?” Ripping your shoes off, you speed across the foyer, heart distressed. Before long your body points you down the hallway.

Gaz rushes after, heart beating fast as your form disappears down a sharp corner that he grabs to swing himself past.

The black of his bomber jacket is a temporary sight before the barrier of a door slams shut, swallowing you whole.

“I need to…!” Kyle halts to a quick stop, arms at his sides as his button-up stays rolled up at his elbows. Brown eyes close tightly.

“...Apologize.” He places a hand on his head, tilting back his neck, “Shit.”

—

By the time you realized you weren't in your room, it had already been too late to turn back around.

You gradually come back into reality after a fitful anxiety-induced fatigue on your father’s office couch. Hours had passed, judging by the pitch darkness of the room; the temperature was already colder than you usually were used to.

Eyes stare at the ceiling for what seems like an eternity, and it’s sad to think the only time that everything in your head calms down is when you can listen to the pipes in the walls. Creaking wood. Forcing yourself up, you hiss sharply, lids wrenching shut at the zinging pain up your right arm.

Ripping your hand up, you blink rapidly through the achiness of your red eyes to stare down at the dried wounds. The twin gashes across your palm crack as you flex your fingers, crimson lines opening. Even as your sigh builds, you only watch them begin to bleed at the movement; not relaxing your muscles for the single purpose of not caring enough to.

The skin was agitated. Itchy as well.

I sent a knife into a man’s eye. You still, lips parted and numb. I watched people die one after the other because I went outside. This is…this is my fault.

Kyle had been right. You don’t listen. You’re stubborn, vengeful.

“But I can’t be anything else.” Whispers bounce off the walls; the coffee table ahead of you and the gargantuan desk behind where you’d play hide and seek in the gaps.

You’d run to your father's office to try and find comfort you know you’d find nowhere else. Pull it from memories considering it was all you had left.

But you can’t pull comfort for this. Part of you wants to put on the news—know the count of the dead. The other part says that would be worse.

“Because of me.” You mumble, standing on unsteady legs that threaten to buckle. Your body is sore from all the running; fleeing from bullets.

No, not because of you.

Sucking in a slow breath and listening to the creaking of the house, the ghosts, you clear your throat to dispel the mucus.

Because of your father. Mind racing, this event puts a hammer into the stained glass that was your family legacy. Before you could deny it—you could say it was Samson Row that was judge, jury, and executioner; while that was still true, what kind of people would fire on innocent bystanders to try and nail a single target?

Turning, you think back to Laswell as your tongue licks at the dryness of your lips and your eyes move to attempt and paint a picture. You stop to look at the desk.

“Your father had sensitive information that searches of his shipping lot and museum office didn’t offer any leads on. While you’re spending more time at your home, I want you to look for them. Anything that involves other dealers or a location to a hub.”

Taking down a slow breath, the walls were suddenly suffocating you. Your father didn’t…he…he couldn’t have.

Your right hand pulses mockingly.

Without knowing, your feet pad over the floor to his desk quietly, standing behind the chair and over the dust-hidden mahogany. The old lamp on the corner; the strewn papers that have faded ink and old script haunt you as you slide your vision over them.

Museum exhibits that never got installed, bank statements, and more important documents pertaining to his job. You skim over them, bloody fingers leaving streaks in their delirious acts.

Feeling the fiber under your flesh, you push them aside one by one.

Nothing of interest.

Your throat closes for no reason, skin goes slick with perspiration dribbling down your brow. Nothing, see.

Blood drops down to the table as you hold your hand over it, loose and limp at the wrist but violently quivering. You watch. And then you start to open the drawers with a heated fervor, wiping at your forehead and leaving streaks of crimson.

“There’s nothing.” You gasp. “Nothing. They’re dead because of nothing. I killed a man for nothing.”

Guns fire in your mind; people scream like you had when sitting in that chair in a basement. Gaz’s eyes boring into you. You’d looked into his eyes not once but twice—the second of your own volition.

“Nothing?!” Folders are grabbed and slammed to the desktop, exploding with a poof of dust that leaves you turning and sneezing violently before you stifle yourself.

You’re ripping them open one after the other, burning in the back of your nose. A knife keeps releasing from your hand. A shove on your shoulder as a bullet hits a trash can that was used for cover.

The black bomber jacket that had fallen off in your slumber and was now sitting in a heap on the floor.

Innocent people.

Fuck, they were screaming at you.

“There can’t be nothing.” You seethe, trepidation both your drug and your double-edged sword…what if you did find something? “There needs to—”

“Love…?” Air silences. “Are you alright in there?”

There’s a shadow under the door, barely discernible over the darkness as you shiver. How long had he been there? How…how long had you been in here?

Your fingers stop their aggressive tossing and you blink through the dizziness of your brain. Stumbling back a step or two, your hip bumps into the chair. Instantly, the large thing skids over the floor with its wooden legs as an ear-ringing screech as you grab onto the arm to stop from falling. Your skull pounded.

Quick, loud, knocking starts.

“Ma’am? Ma’am!” Breathing quickly, your body shakes at the noise, the sound so similar to the sounds in the park.

“S—,” your voice breaks, “Stop fucking knocking!”

It stops instantly, and you pause there for more than a few moments glaring at the floor; brows tight and teeth biting into your lip. The quiet sound of a hesitant voice echoes after a minute.

“Could you open the door for me?” Gaz clears his throat as you stare at the wooden barrier with glinting eyes. An attempt at a kind chuckle. “...Been getting cramps in my neck from leanin’ back against the wall all night. And I, uh,” you close your eyes, “I think we need to have a conversation, Love. A real one, if you follow me.”

You were tired, incomparably so, but even you knew he was right. What he had yelled at you in the car was true. All of this had gotten put into place with as much consideration as a mallet gives a nail.

And Kyle had known all along what would come of it. A sliver of guilt stabs you.

You didn’t have to like him—didn’t have to forgive him, because you probably never would—but you had to begin to listen. That didn’t mean stop pushing back, it just meant that his expertise was needed for the safety of the city as a whole.

The city with the museum that your father had loved dearly.

Feet shuffling, you move around the desk, side-eyeing the now bloody contents atop with a numb expression as you move to the door. You had locked it, apparently.

Not that you remember.

Hand stuttering above the handle, you stop and listen with straining ears. A shifting body calls to the Sergeant’s anxiousness at your non-visibility. The erratic behavior. Resting your forehead over the wood, you truly wonder if there would ever be a time you were used to someone else living in this house.

This house. Your house.

It didn’t feel right for anyone to live here.

“Are you there, Ma’am?” You open the door stiffly.

Kyle’s face is tense, you can tell just by looking at his chin; how he holds his shoulder back like that. There’s a split-second where you both study each other—you, noticing how he’s still just as dirty as you, and him, seeing the focal point of the streak of red blood on your forehead.

“What, Garrick,” you speak as he sees the ruffled nature of your clothes. Defeated muscles. “Here to tell me you were right?”

His legs cease their movements, mouth half-open with apologizing sentiments now snapping shut with a click of teeth. But not from anger. Concern. Why were you bleeding? Had he missed you being injured? Kyle had sworn you were alright—no shots had ever met their mark.

He’s touching you before he remembers to ask first.

You’re being swept back into the room and plopped down on the couch with no warning, and you don’t fight it. Warm hands grip your shoulders and squeeze quickly.

“Bloody hell,” Gaz rushes to the desk to flick on the lamp, “Why didn’t you tell me you were hit?!” Your eyes snap shut, blinking rapidly at the light.

Rays cascade over the room, the dust in the air being sent into dance classes with how they flew. Lids narrowed at the floor, your socked feet shift over the old rug, but you offered no answer over a soft shrug of your shoulders.

Kyle gawks at the back of your head, rushing back over to check you over as he bends on one knee. Hesitating for only a moment, he first looks at your head, tilting it back and forth with a hand under your chin and the other by your ear. You’re cold under his grip and that makes him even more nervous.

How much blood had you lost?

“I need you to tell me where it—”

“Hand.” He blinks, staring at you for a second with surprise. Gazing down he sees the spasming limb with a small inhalation of air.

You let him slowly move back, all digits moving to encompass the afflicted area. But he pauses.

Frowning, you rub the side of your face into your shoulder as you hear the man suck down a sigh. Confusion lingers in your heart, but you care little at the moment.

“May I?” In between the brief palpitations of your most important muscle, you forget for a second who’s in front of you. You forget the Sergeant. The Brit.

Your face softens.

When had someone last asked you that?

Your lids slide open and closed in surprise as Kyle waits, outwardly patient with an internal raging heart.

“You’re already here, aren’t you?” The room is bathed in warm light and quiet creaking. Two people who don’t know how to act around one another suddenly suffocated with too many words. So they say nothing.

Kyle grips your hand so softly that you have to hold your breath in order to keep sane. You want to rip it back from how warm he is.

“Christ, Love, you’re freezing.” It’s a low comment, passing more for a whisper as brown eyes snap up to you. But slowly he shifts your flesh with the dig of his firm fingers, running over the bone to check for internal damage until he flips it over entirely to see the real problem area.

He holds in a sharp gasp. Tries to keep his cool as you stare at his bobbing neck.

“That…this’ll need stitches.” You hum. Gaze sliding to his face you say what first comes to mind as you draw a comparison to his twin scratches. You end up wondering if you’re drunk again.

“We match.” you point casually to Kyle’s left cheek. His were smaller than yours, of course.

Gaz focuses on your eyes even as you choose not to look at him directly.

“Yes, Ma’am.” He attempts a weak chuckle, still holding your hands with the hope that you might take some of his heat for your own. Why were you so cold? “I suppose we do. Why don’t you come with me and I can get you all cared for, yeah?”

You weren’t acting right, and for an instant, the Sergeant misses your snarky attitude. Anything was better than that bitter nothingness living in your expression. He was shocked. The woman who he’d had this iron impression of was using a chisel on it every instant she could.

It only made him feel more and more like a prick.

Fucking hell, Garrick. This is a whole different game.

“How’d you get them, then?” You were in shock, speaking whatever came to mind with a far-off stare dunked in alarm. Kyle had seen it all before and it didn’t matter who it was plastered on. It was his duty to help.

“Tell you what, Ma’am,” he stands, helping you up by the arm and sending a soft smile your way. “We’ll get you all proper again, and I’ll tell you all about my days in the police force. I wager you’d like that. History and all.”

“I like old history,” leading you out the door with a hand over your back that rubs small circles, he traverses the darkness and leads you to the shining light of his room one step at a time.

He sends an amused glance, “That’s my old history. Pretty good, too, in my opinion.”

You shiver again, and Kyle draws you a little closer, frowning tight. Your eye bore into the ground with cold sweat on your temple. He moves for a second to wipe it away but stops himself with a tight closing of his lids.

“Why would I care about that?”

“You just asked me, Love.” He reminds softly, turning the corner slowly as the two of your feet make the floorboards scream. This house was never quiet was it?

“Humph,” your sound bounces off the walls when Gaz makes it to his chosen room, the door already open and the light on.

He moves you to the cleanly made bed and lets you sit down while he walks to one of his bags by the wardrobe. A medical kit is pulled out, yet he keeps sending looks behind him to stare at you.

Legs hanging off the bed, you can’t really tell if you’re here or if this is some strange point between delirium. For certain, though, you don’t feel good.

Bleeding like a stuck pig and trying to keep your vomit down. It was all a state of far off sea-water. A roaring of waves in the back of your head. But there was a realization as Gaz shifts in front of you once more, face creased.

It is the realization that no matter what you do or what you try and change, you will always just be this. Stuck; stationary. Left to waste like the mansion itself—breaking down year after year until all that’s left is rotting wood and shattered stone. Blades of grass in the cracks and termites with fat bellies. But what was even worse was that you didn’t know how to function without this decay in your skin. The quiet rage pulled down beams of sanity. The agony a network of scuffed floors and dented walls. Shut curtains. Abandoned rooms and memories that shutter with every gust of wind. Ghosts in the hallways.

Was it all real, or was it just a pigheaded attempt to find something to relate to? There was truth to it—there had to be.

This was home.

This was you.

This would always be you.

“You asked how I got my scars,” Kyle speaks and you notice his hand back in yours, skin tingling not from the medicated wipe he runs over your palm like a feather, but rather from the sensation of touch.

Warm. It was a blanket of pure silk. A stuffed animal set into the dryer. How had you ever forgotten what that felt like?

You hum an acknowledgment, flinching when the chemicals start to turn your hand numb. Gaz lightly shushes you, squeezing your wrist.

For some reason, your nose starts burning at the action.

“It’ll be okay, Sweetheart.” He stands, grabbing a chair from the corner table and bringing it over to place in front of your knees. The medical bag is placed beside you, various contents being taken out as elastic gloves are pulled over long fingers. “Where should I start then,” Kyle stares at your sad-tilted eyebrows. “The moment it happened or how I put myself into that bloody stupid situation?”

“Situation?” You utter, scoffing without venom, “Sounds pretty serious there, Sergeant.”

“Oh, trust me it was,” the way he places your hand in his lap is deeply intimate, disgustingly so, but even as you want to rage and shove him off, it hurts to think too deeply. “Terribly serious—I was undercover, y’know.”

His soft expression holds you as the first stitch pierces your flesh. Pressure, no more. You frown, rubbing your eyes with your free limb. He pauses and glances your way, finding no pain, he continues on with the second, deft hold creating perfect knots.

“Ever done that, then? All your snooping around, I wouldn’t be surprised.” A smirk comes and goes on your lips. “Certainly seem the type, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Can’t say I have.”

“Hm, well,” he chuckles. “Anyways, you see, it was a drug bust during my third year with the Blue. Opium. Sizable Mates running that whole operation. They found me out two bloody weeks in.” You blink to slight surprise, shoulders losing their hunch as you now have something else to draw your attention to. “Hoped to at least last a month, to be honest with you.”

“You’re insane.”

“Ah, probably, Ma’am.” Taking notice of the blood staining Gaz’s cap from earlier today when it was on your head, you bite your lip as the story continues. “I was held up in a shipping crate for a whole damn week, and this one fellow,” Kyle moves one hand up and your vision snaps to it, seeing him motion to his chin with a ‘U’ shaped hold, “proper beard on him, tells me I need to give up who I was.”

“...Did you?” Lip quirking, the Sergeant finishes off the first row of sutures, grabbing another wipe and cleaning the area. He was happy you were focusing, at least, but you were still too shaky for his liking.

“Hell no—Bastard sucker-punched me. Happened to have a nice ring on his finger. Can only pray for whoever was married to the bloke. Ripped my cheek open something nasty, enough to make it scar over.” Both of you are surprised by the huff of laughter that jerks your chest.

A pause as Kyle feels his chest go loose. That wasn’t a bad sound at all.

“Well, that’s it,” Gaz admits softly, halfway done with the second, smaller cut, “can’t say it’s all too amazing.”

“Because getting tortured by drug lords isn’t what you consider amazing, apparently.” You cough through your embarrassment, feeling slightly back to normal. Taking down a deep breath, you stare down at your palm as it gets sewn back together again. Hearing how the skin squelches.

“Well,” the Brit holds you delicately, a swelling of pride in his chest, “I’ve done a few bigger things than busting the likes of them. Stuff that meant a great deal more in the moment.”

The rest of the sutures and cleaning is done in total silence, and your lungs are suddenly able to work properly again. Kyle places a thick gauze pad atop the marks, holding it down while taking a roll of bandages; beginning to unravel them.

His thumb is holding the end down when he whispers.

“Why didn’t you want my help?” You ran from him in the park—hid away when you were injured. None of his teammates would do that.

She’s not them.

With a skip to your pulse, you hold your lips shut with an iron rod. That was the question, wasn’t it? You had run from the only person in the world that seemed to care whether you lived or died.

Peering at your palm, you speak the only truth you know, “Because then I’d have to admit something was wrong.”

There are more things you want to say to him—horrible things; pleas and nonsense—but in the end you just turn to stare at his neck with blood on your hand and stitches stuck in your flesh.

Kyle’s eyebrows peel up, holding your hand in his own and suddenly more in tune with you than he ever had been before.

“I…” He starts but doesn’t finish. Not for a long while. “I’m sorry, Love. For all of it. But you need to start listening to the things that I tell you—I’m here to keep you alive. It’s my first and my only priority. You need to be able to live with that.”

He wasn’t sure there was more he could say. Your lips pull in, pressure living in your chest like an infection.

“I hate you,” you say, eyes watering. Blood on your forehead.

“I know,” he responds, slowly, softly; wishing for a moment you’d look into his eyes again so you’d realize he’s finally starting to understand.

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inconspicious-random-thoughts · 9 months ago

Note

How do you see the Vees ultimate downfall playing out?

Greetings my pal!

You come up with some great questions. I honestly never thought or consider the Vees having a downfall or anything they have plan next. Which I suppose is inevitable considering the sending off on season one is setting the stage for the Vees playing a large antagonist role for season two and we know they are not going to be the winners.

I guess it really depends on what their goal is. Vox goals is rather transparent as Vox only really comes alive if Alastor involve. So his personal goals would involve around Alastor. He will definitely try make himself feel more superior by trying to expose the footage of Alastor losing and weaken. If not that, and more likely this, force Alastor into a deal to keep it from going public in exchange for Alastor servitude or something similar. That latter may segue for the audience to see who truly holds the chains to Alastor collar as Alastor force to reveal he doesn't have procession of his own soul aymore to barter with which Vox would absolute lose his shit about.

I am sort of hoping yet unlikely, that Vox has even larger goals like controlling all of Hell. So he tries to make a deal that Alastor has to find a way to get rid of the royal family, Charlie, Lucifer. Just so there's more drama and Alastor angst. Because it just another agenda he has to work with while trying to hide his other agendas and contractors from knowing all the while fighting his own conflicting and struggling of emotions that he does, in fact, care about the Morningstar family. That he has multiple hidden agendas-one that brings him closer to his much desired freedom- that makes him actively work against (probably feeling remorse for the first time in doing so) the family while simultaneous appearing he working along them. It be delicious to watch him juggle (and hide and juggle well) while trying not to have a mental breakdown and more then likely trying to hide his injury and weaken state.

But the overall goal of the Vees? They seem to be more power and control hungry. Which seem flat and inspiring storyline but its what drives that group the most. I don't think they are out to control all of Hell or the pride ring. I think that's too overzealous even for them. That's just too much of an overreach and how are they going to maintain that strength to keep it?

So assuming that's their goal, trying to control most of the city... you have to look how they achieve what they already accomplished to guess how they going to go about it.

The overlords do seem to have actually have physical territory claim in different sections of the city. You can sort of guess who and where in the scene when Vox powered out the city.

Not only do the overlords have physical territory they have other claims and ways to extend their reach by providing some type of service.

Rosie I assume has claim on selling and serving particular dietary interest in her town. I imagine, its very scarce outside her town limits. So Rosie has claim on that service. Rosie demeanour probably helps as well that helps her take in souls

Carmilla service is more limited and only available to those tho afford it. But her service in weaponry helps extend her control past her boundaries.

Alastor has his broadcast. He doesn't really do it as a service but it reaches everyone. He not really providing anyone anything with it but just more amusement for himself and putting his name out there and a fear tactic. I do think he does have a station that plays jazz nearly 24/7, but overall, he only uses his broadcast to override all the stations momentary to announce something, feel like being a annoying little shit and disrupt all the other stations on his whims or to terrorize by the airwaves.

Zestail, Zeezi and unnamed overlord is a mystery to me.

But then you have the Vees who have the greatest reach of everyone in the city that's not directly tied to them by territory or contracts. They basically monopoly everything. Nearly everything in the pride ring that sells its from them. Clothing, entertainment, or any electrical thing, sex products, perfumes, tonics...etc. There's probably not one sinner or demon who doesn't own one thing that came from them. Thats there real power. They influence everyone, even people not under their control. That's what they will weaponize. That and their consumers trust with their motto "Trust us with...."

Whatever they are planing its probably something going be done by with an app on the hellphones. I have yet seen any fic call their cellphones Hellphones...I can't be the only one who thought this. Like....why am I not hearing this term coined in this universe??? It seem obvious? but anyways, their attempt at total control may be perfecting Vox hypnotism through an app and whatever (Probably Alastor radio waves) disrupts it, the Vees will lose their consumer trust in their products. Their consumer base and their influence is really the bulk of their power. If something interrupts that, that will bring them down several large notches.

So ultimately, their downfall will be themselves. They will overreach, grasp too much and won't be able to hold it. Its happens to most great empires in the history. They still be alive and around but much less of the powerhouse then they once were.

But I'm hoping there really isn't a downfall at all. That midway through the season, in which the Vees are being little shit terrors and things seemingly seem to work out for them then a bomb drop. Either it be Heaven/Lute realtation for Adam or Roo finally making themselves known, etc... The game change. That the Vee's will reluctantly team up with Alastor and the hotel and fights alongside of each other to survive. (and the other overlords! I want to see what they truly bring into a fight! I mean....we want to see Rosie being badass power fight!) It's a fight for Hell survival and all of the pride ring will take a stand to fight.

How fun would it see every overlord go full out. Throw out any reservations they had with each other and protect each other. Just watching Vox and Alastor be comrades, even if its temporary, would be satisfying. The look of pure shock when one saved the other, followed by an extend hand to help stand them back up into battle. They would be backhanded insults to each other on top of their usual petty banter. Alastor probably making a comment of "You do a better job protecting me and keeping me alive for someone who claims they want me dead, old pal." But Alastor said "old pal" more genuinely instead of the mocking term he use to do. Vox replying a little flabbergasted "Only, I get to kill you, not these fuckers!"

So I really, hope there is no "downfall". I hope the game change midway and everyone force to be on the same side and leaving feeling more respect for the other while they rebuild what's left.

Love to hear any answers or anything you have to your questions. :) Or anyone opinions really. I'm up for casual discussions

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mariacallous · 6 months ago

Text

The words “RIP America” trended on X minutes after a jury in Manhattan found former president Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts for falsifying business records in connection to a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Images of an upside-down American flag—a symbol of distress that became co-opted by the 2020 Stop the Steal movement—flooded social media, as Trump supporters, fringe extremists, right-wing pundits, and politicians voiced their anger.

Ever since the trial began, pro-Trump commentators—and Trump himself—have been priming MAGA online ecosystems to claim foul play if the jury found him guilty. The response to his felony conviction was predictably swift, with many characterizing it as a declaration of “war” from the “deep state.” Incendiary rhetoric about how the guilty verdict was a sign of America’s collapse reverberated from the mainstream right all the way to the fringes.

“As of today, with this fake guilty verdict against Trump, America is no longer the United States,” wrote Joey Marianno, a pro-Trump political commentator, to his 466,000 followers on X. “We are a third-world shithole heading for a Civil War. I have no desire to see this country to unify. There’s no country to unite. We are long past that.”

Many of the biggest proponents of “Stop the Steal,” which culminated in the January 6 Capitol riot, did not hesitate to claim that the verdict was the result of a “rigged” justice system.

In a video posted to his 2.3 million followers on X, Infowars’ Alex Jones said that the “deep state and globalists” put Trump through a “kangaroo” court in the hope that a guilty verdict would harm his campaign. “Ladies and gentlemen, we see our republic on its deathbed right now,” said Jones, adding that he believed that “false-flag terror attacks blamed on Trump supporters angry about the verdict” were imminent. “We do not want any violence, we do not want any attacks,” he said.

Ali Alexander, a far-right conspiracy theorist, did not mince words either. “Today is Jan. 6th for the entire nation,” he wrote on Telegram to his 12,000 subscribers. “This is worse than the Civil War. Respectfully.”

That kind of rhetoric even made it to the airwaves. “We have been calling it lawfare,” said Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro.“I think lawfare is far too soft, it's far too benign. This is warfare.”

Trump sounded off on Truth Social and in a fundraising email shortly after the verdict came in, doubling down on his false claim that he’s a victim of political persecution, perpetrated by a corrupt system that’s hell-bent on “stealing” the 2024 election from him again.

“THIS WAS A DISGRACE—A RIGGED TRIAL BY A CONFLICTED JUDGE WHO IS CORRUPT. WE WILL FIGHT FOR OUR CONSTITUTION—THIS IS LONG FROM OVER!” he wrote on Truth Social.

Trump’s claims of “rigging” were repeated by supporters. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk also perpetuated conspiracy theories about the verdict. “This case was engineered for years, from the very top of the Democrat apparatus, to bring down Trump, using a rigged law in a rigged courtroom with a rigged jury,” Kirk wrote on X. “We must win. We must defeat these savages. Stand with Trump.”

In addition to posting an upside-down flag on X, US representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a Trump loyalist, called it a “sham trial” orchestrated by “radical leftists and deep state operatives.” You don’t see this level of corruption in a banana republic, but it’s happening in our own backyard,” said Taylor Greene. “There is NOTHING they fear more than another Trump Presidency.”

The far-right fringe’s response was even more ominous. Proud Boys channels for various chapters responded to the news in one word: “War.”

On Patriots.win, formerly the subreddit The Donald, which was a hotbed for January 6 preparation, alarming rhetoric also proliferated quickly. “There are only two choices in November, Trump or civil war, I will hope for the former but prepare for the latter,” one user wrote.

The highly active Telegram chat dedicated to (but not officially affiliated with) Bannon’s War Room also erupted in angry rhetoric. “Time to minute man up ! call to arms!” one member wrote.

“I'm ready to serve again! this time no retreat until every last globalist gone! I’ve never been so angry in my life,” another person wrote.

Overall—the consensus was that a guilty verdict would help, not hinder Trump’s chances of winning in November. “That fake ass conviction is gonna just jump up Trumps poll-numbers,” wrote New Jersey Proud Boys on Telegram.

“Import the Third World, become the Third World. That’s what we just saw. This won’t stop Trump. He’ll win the election if he’s not killed first,” ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson wrote on X. “But it does mark the end of the fairest justice system in the world. Anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and your family.”

Trump, who has made history as the first former president to be found guilty on felony charges, will be sentenced on July 11. He is expected to appeal his conviction. Each felony carries a maximum sentence of four years, but the judge may opt to sentence him to probation or home confinement, according to Axios. The Republican National Convention, where delegates are expected to support Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee, will begin on July 15.

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doctorbrown · 4 months ago

Text

MCFLY JULY ‘24 ⸺ 「 28 / 31 * ON THE RADIO 」

October 8, 1984

How he was convinced to undergo this massive undertaking wasn’t the question. Emmett knows exactly how it happened. Left to his own devices, things had begun piling up and now that their newest side-project was underway, the so-called mega-powered amplifier, they would need to clear away more space before the garage became even more of a tripping hazard than it already was.

The more appropriate question he needs to ask is why he is attempting this in the first place when he knows he will commit to the task for two hours, perhaps slightly longer than that if he’s focused, before his attention is called elsewhere and the task abandoned for the three-hundredth time over the years.

Then the why swings the front door open excitedly, shouts ‘Hey Doc, I’m here!’ and Emmett slides a two-tiered box of two-plus decade-old paperwork to the side of the couch in what has become the designated garbage pile.

“Hey, uh, Doc, you home?”

“Over here, Marty.” Marty follows the sound of his voice over to the couch. “I figured I’d try and clear up some room now that we’re going to be building your amplifier in here over the next few months.”

Marty looks around, noticing the additional layers of paperwork and other seemingly random things strewn across the floor, and frowns slightly. “If it’s too much trouble, we don’t have to do it. You’re working on your other thing, that thing you won’t tell me about a—”

“Marty, I wouldn’t’ve agreed to build it with you in the first place if I didn’t want to. Or if I thought I couldn’t juggle both projects.” After a second, Marty smiles, a visible weight lifting from his shoulders. Emmett stands, passing him a stack of old, yellowed papers that he accepts without question.

“I thought you had a research project you were supposed to be doing.”

“I do. Actually that’s—hey where do you want me to put these?” Emmett gestures to the discard pile and Marty curiously flips through a couple of the documents before dropping the whole pile on top of the box. “That’s why I came. Earlier than I thought I would, anyway. Doc, you ever heard of The War of the Worlds?”

“The book or the radio adaptation?”

“Both, I guess. But mostly the radio adaptation. It was a book first?”

“It was. Written by H.G. Wells. Do you remember me telling you about his other book The Time Machine?”

Marty presses his lips together. “Mmm, yeah, kind of. This guy turns a sled into a time machine and then goes to the future, right? And a lot of things aren’t great there. Didn’t you say they stole his time machine?”

“That’s a quick explanation of it, but essentially, yes. He wrote a lot of plausible science regarding the time-travel into his novel, which I quite liked, and the idea of his time machine—” Emmett stops, waving a hand to get himself back on-track. “Anyway, you were asking me about War of the Worlds. What do you want to know about it?”

Marty flops onto the couch and starts digging through his backpack, producing a crinkled, horribly yellowed newspaper. The tagline reads ‘WAR’ ON THE AIRWAVES: RADIO PLAY STIRS TERROR ACROSS NATION and Marty grins up at Emmett from behind the page. Emmett’s brows fly up as he accepts the proffered paper, unfolding it to read the rest of the front-page news article.

Halloween hoax turns deadly!

Thousands of radio listeners were seized by panic during a dramatization of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds performed by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air between 8:15 and 9:30 o’clock last night, believing Martian invaders had come down to attack the Earth.

Households all across the country were disrupted, radio waves jammed due to volume, mass hysteria caused people to flee their homes en masse to escape—

“I was going to write my paper about the invention of radio and how it changed our lives, so I went to the library. Mom and Dad, well, they weren’t so helpful and this is before they were born anyway.” October 31, 1938—Emmett hums. No, his parents were likely just born around that time, far too young to remember it.

“Almost everything I’ve found about this radio play just talks about how Orson Welles caused so much chaos and panic on Halloween back in ’38. To the point where he had to publicly apologise for freaking people out. Any chance you remember that, Doc? That you were listening to it? I’d kinda like to hear it from someone I trust.”

The memories have adopted that fuzzy quality that time often brings to them, their integrity broken down at the edges to where they are still recognisable, but the smaller details have since faded, been sacrificed to time.

Emmett remembers being eighteen, lounging in the most comfortable chair he had, tuned into CBS, eagerly awaiting the radio adaptation of Wells’ novel. He remembers hanging on their every word, devouring the reports as if they were the real deal, scientific papers published by one of his heroes.

For an hour, he had suspended his disbelief, allowed himself to be dragged into the reimagined world created by Welles and his troupe, and thought about fondly once it had ended, to the point where he’d pulled out the novel to reread.

“I was a little older than you when that broadcast happened and yes, as a matter of fact, I was tuned in.” Marty’s eyes light up and he leans in, eagerly awaiting the story. “This was forty-six years ago so I don’t remember every single detail about the broadcast, but I remember being impressed by the effort put into it. Welles and his troupe did a great job of making it sound very realistic despite the outlandish material he was working with.”

“How’d he do that?”

“He performed it like it was a news bulletin happening in real-time. So he had fake accounts from scientists, from government officials, from ordinary people at Grovers Mill—the novel happens largely in London, but for the play, they moved the invasion here, focusing on New Jersey and New York instead—who were watching the Martians come down, witnessing the destruction, talking like everyday people. In that manner, it was very convincing. I remember being glued to my radio, even appreciating all the changes they had made.”

Marty’s expression turns thoughtful. He can see the gears turning in the boy's head, but what he could possibly be thinking in the moment is a mystery. “So you weren’t afraid at all?”

Emmett chuckles. “No. And not just because I’d been listening the entire time and knew it was just a play. These newspaper articles”—he holds up the one Marty passed to him, indicating the clearly polarising title—“aren’t indicative of what actually happened.”

Marty pinches his brows together and Emmett continues. “For one, nobody, at least not that I saw in California, ever ran out of their houses screaming. It was only ever in the newspapers that that happened. I doubt most people even tuned into the radio show—back then, science fiction wasn’t widely popular amongst people yet, not like it is nowadays—and one look outside would have told people immediately that this was not real. Besides, the Mercury Theatre was scheduled to be performing War of the Worlds at that time; it wasn’t a secret.”

Marty’s expression falls slightly and Emmett finds himself wishing the reality of it could have been far more interesting to match up with the stories perpetuated in the news. He passes the paper back to Marty.

“Then where’d all these stories come from? Do you think he expected this to happen?”

“I think that’s the million-dollar-question, isn’t it? Orson Welles was a very talented man of the theatre; I think he had a vision in mind with that play and he knew exactly what he was doing. However, I believe he didn’t expect the media to use his performance as a stepping-stone the way they did.” Or, maybe, he expected exactly that.

They may never know the truth.

“But if I had to guess, it was the newspapers' way of trying to stay relevant. Around that time, most people owned radios and it became the primary source of news and entertainment. Newspapers were starting to become a medium of the past. Not unlike now, how video is replacing radio as the prime source of media entertainment.”

“Video killed the radio star!” Suddenly, Marty stuffs the paper back into his bag and hops off the couch, startling Emmett. “Not gonna lie, Doc, I was hoping you’d have some crazy story to tell about the panic, but I think you’ve given me exactly what I was looking for!”

In his haste, Marty nearly trips over the couch as he tries to vault it, searching for the quickest way to the door.

“Oh, Doc! Do you mind if I use you as one of my sources for this paper?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

#mcflyjuly #mcfly july 2024 #back to the future #bttf #I HAD SO MANY IDEAS FOR THIS ONE #and admittedly I wanted this to be so much longer and I had doc quote 'the chances of anything #manlike on mars is a million to one' but I ended up changing it and couldn't find a good place to put it back #I love the idea of Marty going to doc for insight and knowledge and just thinking he'll know some of the wildest shit #and doc does know this he lived it he was eighteen and he's just yeah no it didn't happen that way #and marty just loves listening to doc's wild stories lbr - doc's had a very interesting life all around and it's like hearing your #cool grandpa tell you stories about what things used to be like #I had so many ideas for this prompt god - some of them AU but this one just hit #and it was fun and I had to cut it short because there was so much I wanted to have doc say but #Marty just popping by - getting inspired - running off #the war of the worlds fake panic is one of my favourite things it's just so fascinating #also i think doc would definitely have appreciated jeff wayne's 'the eve of the war' for sure #actually the whole musical version tbh especially since it keeps more in line with the novel

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molabuddy · 7 months ago

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schplatoon asks inc!! What does the Captain think of Neo3? What's 4 up to? Any OCs that aren't agents? What do they do? What is each OCs fave boss in Salmon Run?

YAY !!!!! THANKU FOR THE BIG ASK MOMENT

1. the Captain thinks the Neo3s are impressively strong, and worthy of inheriting their title. They're very proud of those weird kids :]

2. Agent 4 is .... on that grizzco grind mostly ^_^; one of the longest working employees, he's of a very high ranking position, incredibly overworked and probably underpaid, tends to get direct orders rather than pre-recorded ones. special responsabilities include testing grizzco weapons, and facing danger that few others would dare.

he knows from the other agents that grizzco was For evil purposes, and that mr grizz is Probably dead, but he has such a hard time saying no (to anyone) that whoever's now giving his orders always manages to convince him to keep coming back..

3. I do have some non-agent ocs :] this isnt all of them, but its the ones ive been thinking abt the most (+ one oc who is technically An agent but isnt one of The agents. yknow) i drew a diagram !

ninez & jackie are deepsea metro escapees. once faced the horrors but then they got to the surface and now their job is be gay & do crime & make breakcore music

hook-bait and tripwire are my salmons :] self proclaimed idols... their job is terrorize splatsville airwaves

& agent 5 (from a splatoon storymode idea thats currently being cooked in my brain) .. his job is The scary adventure

#emails #splatoonposting

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weepingfoxfury · 5 months ago

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The man on the radio is full of Friday fun and obviously looking forward to his weekend. Yet more chocolate has hit his desk and Errol Brown has hit the airwaves. Weatherwise we're being teased with sunshine ... later we'll be tormented with light rain, leading to heavier rain and then we'll need a bigger boat. Too early for both the traffic lady and the chef on the radio ... maybe they're both eating snacks at a service station somewhere.

Well done UK! We're all watching 'this space!'

Today's groaner: what do you call dangerous precipitation? A rain of terror ;-D badoom tish ... here all week!!

Sycamore tree, oh Sycamore tree, your children are many, too many for me. Cathweegia has outdone herself this year ... her offspring have sprung up all over the place. Can't accommodate all of 'em, wish I could. I dream of being able to plant them all far and wide across the Emerald Isle. Only 20% of the trees left here. Why, oh why do people persist in pristine tree free spaces? ... (big sigh).

One of the Hairy Horde is in need of the vet today. Only popped out for 20 minutes the other day ... but enough time for mutt related mischief and mishap. Shiny metropolis here I come again ... hand me my coffee pot and a large straw and I'll be on my Friday way ...

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man--eater · 4 months ago

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WIP Wednesday (a new AU is born)

It's already WIP Wednesday again!! Time to share works-in-progress, writing or art, for Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss!

No pressure tags to share a piece of what you're working on: @sunsetofdoom @oakishdelights @onswifterwings and anyone else who sees this and wants to play, whether or not we know each other! Say you were tagged by me, because you just were! Feel free to use the banner, and tag some other people when you post yours! This is from an AU for Alastor and Daphne that sprang up very quickly!! The basic gist is that Alastor was toppled from his position of power after the battle with Adam, and his soul was sold to Vox. Daphne is the daughter of a disgraced Goetia princess and a sinner demon, and she's being forced to wed an Overlord from the Vees, but she doesn't pick the one she was supposed to...

“Hang on, he’s shy around strangers,” Vox said, grinning conspiratorially at me. “Come on, baby. Come out.” He tugged the bright blue chain and pulled it taut as a hunched figure stepped forward out of the shadows. “It’s not necessary,” I said flatly. “I am not here to be entertained.” “No, no, I insist,” Vox said, “it’s not every day a Goetia princess walks through our door—let alone . He’s an important member of my household.” He couldn’t finish the sentence without laughing. “You know, Allie’s been my little pet for almost three years now, and he still blushes every time I drag him out here!” Vox laughed, yanking on the deer demon’s chain and making him stagger forward, carnelian hooves clattering on the steel floor. “Can you believe it? The Radio Demon himself, folks.” The Radio Demon righted himself and slowly straightened to his full height. He wore almost nothing, but still managed to be imposing, towering over everyone but Valentino. Blue silk hung awkwardly from his thin frame with all the grace of laundry wrapped around a clothesline, and his arms and wrists were cuffed in heavy manacles beneath silver-and-blue bangles and bracelets. Under the heavy, theatrical eyeshadow, his eyes were sharp and bright and brimming with malice over a plastered-on smile. A blue muzzle was fitted to his face, and several gaudy earrings dangled from his ears. The thin fabric he wore did very little to cover him—it was wrapped around his waist a few times, but I could see the white fawn-spots on his dark-furred thighs through the sheer, gauzy silk. Vox was right—the Radio Demon’s face was flushed across his nose and prominent cheekbones, and his discomfort was intense and apparent. His luminous red eyes met mine briefly, then moved on without interest, staring past me into nothing. I frowned. I had heard of the Radio Demon—he had been famous once, long ago. He’d held the entirety of the Pride Ring in collective fascination and terror for decades, taking down and tormenting his fellow Overlords for everyone to hear until few remained to challenge him. But he’d foolishly thrown his lot in with Charlotte Morningstar, and then he’d gone missing after Adam had wounded him. He had disappeared entirely from the public eye and airwaves, and now I knew where to. For all his former strength and power, the demon standing before me now looked like he couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag, let alone out of the headquarters of the Pride Ring’s most powerful Overlords.

ohhhh this one is gonna be so fun guys

#hazbin hotel #alastor x oc #alastor #radioflower #alastor fanfiction #hazbin hotel oc #oc: daphne #radioflower au #hazbin hotel wip wednesday

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saintsenara · 2 years ago

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estuary

read from the beginning here

masterpost here

severus snape/lord voldemort explicit graphic depictions of violence | major character death

in our first chapter, we've seen the story begin with lucius malfoy, a train, and the romantic hiss of power.

more notes under the cut.

our story begins on new year’s eve, 1976.

it is set, then, in a period when muggle great britain and northern ireland were not having a great time. the seventies saw the country beset by blackouts, strikes, out-of-control inflation, mass job losses, infrastructure collapse [snape’s miserable experience on british rail was the standard - it is depressing, then, that contemporary britain’s privatised rail companies manage to be worse], the grinding threat of sectarian terrorism, and truly horrible fashion and design choices [snape’s bell bottoms! my heart!].

a common refrain in political commentary at this time was that britain was the ‘sick man of europe’, and cokeworth - an industrial town whose heyday was the victorian era and which has been declining ever since - is a typical lesion on the sick man’s face. the description of it in half-blood prince - with its grimy canal and crumbling mill - is familiar to british readers as a common image of the post-industrial britain of the 1970s and - especially - 1980s. the industrial collapse during this period which non-british readers are likely to be most familiar with is the coal mining industry, owing to the major wave of miners’ strikes in 1984-1985, during the tenure of prime minister margaret thatcher; but the cokeworth of this story is a cotton town - which means that its decline during this period is calamitous. by 1980, a british textile mill was closing every week.

and this economic situation led to specific youth subcultures which will exist on the fringes of scylla and charybdis - above all, the skinhead movement, some adherents of which snape encounters in this first chapter. while the skinhead movement was not automatically right-wing or white-supremacist [and while many british skinheads were inspired by black british movements such as rude boy subculture], the skinheads snape meets are neo-nazis - aligned with far-right movements such as the national front [which reached its highest ever vote share in british elections between 1974 and 1977]. the fascist movement in britain was particularly politically visible during the 1970s and 1980s, clashing with anti-fascist protestors in often violent circumstances, and cokeworth - which, like other towns of its type, is likely to have gained a substantial immigrant population from britain’s colonies and former colonies during the 1950s and 1960s - would fit the profile of somewhere where state inaction was exacerbating decline and driving up violence.

this muggle social context will be prominent in scylla and charybdis - even though it is, primarily, a magical narrative. in particular, this story will examine the parallels which the canon series draws out between 1970s muggle britain and its magical cousin.

above all, it will examine a reading of the first war which is very close to my heart: that the best historical analogy for the first war is the troubles. i think this primarily because i am northern irish [and, specifically, northern irish, catholic, and from a family whose political sympathies could be accurately described as irish nationalist], but also because so many of the references to the first war in canon allude to things which happened during this conflict. the voldemort of the first war is a paramilitary leader, rather than a politician; his organisation primarily operates in terms of assassinations targeted against state actors, especially civil servants and those connected to the wizarding world’s equivalent of the police and army, with periodic random attacks on civilians; he appears to issue pre-warnings for these attacks; and he is not allowed to use his real name on the airwaves. [this - the broadcast ban to which republican organisations were subjected - is an innovation of the 1990s, but i am absolutely convinced that all the you-know-who stuff in canon is a reference to it.]

the ministry of magic’s response, too, echoes the response of the british state to violence in northern ireland. the show trials of prominent death eaters - and the fact that many suspected death eaters, sirius black prominent among them, seem to have been imprisoned without trial at all - alludes to the internment campaign operation demetrius; the brutality of azkaban echoes prisons such as the maze and portlaoise; the increasingly hard-line wizarding politicians of the period have muggle counterparts; the aurors are ordered to shoot to kill and appear to do so with absolute impunity, much like the british army.

i am not, of course, saying that i think the death eaters are right [i’m also not saying that i think the ira were - at least not unambiguously], but i am saying that the social and political context around voldemort’s rise to prominence in the 1970s can be reasonably understood as sectarian, and that it should be understood as considerably more complex than the canon narrative of good versus evil allows it to be.

in particular, scylla and charybdis will examine the multifaceted ways in which prejudice lives alongside poverty, hopelessness, and resentment, and how disaffected young men are easy to radicalise into violent movements of all stripes - from far-right muggle skinheads, to loyalist or republican paramilitary groups, to the death eaters - by the potent combination of a persuasive ideology, a cause which is perceived to be righteous, and a sense that they belong somewhere and are being listened to. this chapter gives a sense of how.

because it is undeniable that severus snape’s background - and the ways in which his childhood poverty affects him in both the muggle and magical worlds - is absolutely central to why he becomes a death eater.

scylla and charybdis will examine social class in the wizarding world - and how this interacts with blood supremacy - in considerable detail throughout the narrative which is to come, and this chapter is no exception. snape finds himself exactly as unwelcome in the lestranges’ family home because he is poor and has a regional accent as because he’s a half-blood. he finds himself unwelcome in hogwarts for the same reason; the james and sirius of canon do not target him because he’s a half-blood, but nor do they target him because of some righteous desire to stamp out blood-supremacist sentiment. they target him because he’s poor. and this is why he draws a parallel between james and sirius and rodolphus and rabastan lestrange - to him, they’re both pairs of posh bullies. that their ideologies have a vast gulf between them is not something which snape has [at this point, at least] the capacity to understand.

something i have been recently wondering about is whether working class wizards usually attend hogwarts - after all, it’s not compulsory to do so before deathly hallows. the average hogwarts student is extremely well-heeled, and people like mundungus fletcher and stan shunpike who are coded as working class give off a vibe in canon which suggests that they exist outside of the old-school-ties system which binds most of the primary and secondary characters together. if this is the case - and i personally suspect that it is - it would explain why someone like snape was such a visible target for classist bullying. he’s going to be perceived by the posh as a bit of an upstart, coming into a space which is not primarily intended for someone like him and refusing to perform its conventions to its arbiters’ likings.

because, while i don’t think hogwarts is a fee-paying school, it is the primary maintainer of the wizarding world’s incredibly restrictive class system. everything depends - for hogwarts’ students - on the relationships they make while within the castle’s walls, which evidence of insider-status, such as name and background, helps enormously with establishing. snape - with his muggle name and his accent and his poverty and his lack of interest in playing the game - has no chance of fulfilling his enormous ambitions.

unless a patron takes him on.

snape’s reasons for becoming a death eater aren’t fully fleshed out in canon. jkr has said since the conclusion of the series that he was attracted by the opportunity to accrue power, which voldemort obviously has in spades, and also that he felt the death eaters would offer him somewhere to belong.

i think it’s worth examining the class implications of this. becoming a death eater allows snape access to a social circle which would otherwise exclude him, therefore giving him a privileged position in the wizarding economic, political, and legal system [tell me that the reason he gets off on the charges of being a death eater aren’t connected to dumbledore gaming the old boys’ network of the wizengamot…]. but - crucially - it also allows him to transcend the restrictions placed upon him by his class background, and achieve power - pure and simple.

and he is offered this because lord voldemort’s relationship with class is incredibly interesting. in canon, he clearly rejects the patron-client relationship offered to him by horace slughorn, when he refuses his attempts to set him up with a career in the ministry and, instead, chooses a job he gets himself [that this never occurs to either dumbledore or harry - with their pureblood surnames - should not surprise us…]. but he also takes a muggle aristocratic title, and clearly delights in making his wealthy cronies address him by it.

that element of vindictiveness is clear in how he plays with class in order to undermine lucius malfoy in deathly hallows - ‘carelessly’ piling up his expensive furniture and emasculating him in front of his peers - and it is also hinted at here, as voldemort instals himself in the servants’ quarters and makes the lord-of-the-manor - who is absolutely aware of his real name and background, i have never understood why dumbledore is so certain nobody else is - bring his guests to him there.

and this, i think, offers an understandable insight into one of the key aspects of snape which this story will explore: that he is so dismissive of lily’s concerns about the death eaters because he sincerely thinks that voldemort, one of the few people in wizarding britain who doesn’t think the patronage system is a good thing, will help her too. after all, we are told in canon that the dark lord did try and recruit james and lily - which i am certain was at snape’s request - and my personal view is that, despite what canon suggests, there must be some muggleborns somewhere in voldemort’s organisation.

that there would be is due entirely to voldemort’s capacity to attract. this is underplayed in canon, particularly in the second war, when voldemort’s physical appearance becomes straightforwardly horrifying and his purpose in the text becomes primarily mystical - although canon also implies that his charm is superficial - but i have always thought its omission from the main narrative naive. the voldemort of scylla and charybdis is extremely and genuinely charismatic, and this charisma is making him a political threat that the ministry looks increasingly unlikely to contain.

he is also attractive in another sense.

this voldemort is less horrifying-looking than he is described in half-blood prince as appearing in the 1960s - although some of his canonical physical changes are present already. this is not just a choice for shipping reasons - although snape has been happily seduced by the fact that this voldemort still has a nose - but because i think it’s important that voldemort looks like a politician, and that his charm is backed up by his physical appearance.

and snape is very much sexually attracted to him. [so, too, is dumbledore - the idea that he fancies the adult voldemort is something i’m wedded to, not least because so much of their relationship is based in the fact that dumbledore thinks he’s like grindelwald.] although the man on snape’s mind is - without a doubt - sirius black. yes, all the hints that snape has a major thing for him are intentional. [and i think they’d make a great couple!]

snape’s struggle with his sexuality will be a key theme in this story. so, too, will the way that his relationship with his sexuality interacts with his relationship to his gender, and how this in turn interacts with his class. the canonical snape is something of a feminine-coded character, and i wanted to explore the idea that his embrace of this as an adult is a conscious choice - after all, the canonical voldemort is also rather feminine, and the version in scylla and charybdis, with his florid handwriting and habit of collecting pretty trinkets [the shells, seaglass, and paperweights will be worth keeping an eye on], is no different. that voldemort’s gender performance - and the fact that all pureblood men are somewhat effete - is such a change from the working class masculinity snape has grown up around is yet another reason he is hooked.

for now, though, snape is still the ultimate fish-out-of-water in the world of the posher death eaters. even lucius malfoy, isn’t entirely sure what to do with him.

[snape and malfoy’s friendship will be explored more in later chapters, but i do think that his grumbling in this chapter about malfoy is good-natured - whereas he’s genuinely afraid of rodolphus lestrange.]

it’s suggested in canon that malfoy was one of voldemort’s key recruiters during the first war, and that he was the reason several characters - snape among them - became death eaters. there are two other disaffected young men who will feature in this story whom malfoy will be responsible for: barty crouch jr. and regulus black.

but they have not yet been recruited. snape has.

as sirius says in order of the phoenix, voldemort doesn’t just march up to people’s houses, bang on their front doors, and ask them if they’d like to become a death eater. this chapter shows what the recruitment process looked like for snape, as someone who was recommended to the dark lord rather than someone who applied outright through his family’s connections.

in particular, it looks at how voldemort makes use of the muggle world to cover his activities, something i think is really underutilised in fan-fiction. we are told in canon that both of voldemort’s wars had a colossal impact on muggle society, but the narrative never really explains how. in scylla and charybdis, we will see a vast network of squib and magical agents embedded across the british state and within the muggle world. the various old men who sit in pubs and vet new recruits are just the start.

#asenora fics #snapemort #severus snape #tom riddle #lord voldemort #scylla and charybdis #s&c author's notes

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ncisladaily · 6 months ago

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Jeff Kober has thrived on playing the baddie for much of his long career. The prolific actor has almost 150 credits to his name with stops on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X Files, Walker, Texas Ranger, The Walking Dead, New Girl, and NCIS: Los Angeles to name a few. Then there are more regular roles like Jacob Hale Jr. on Sons of Anarchy, Sgt. Dodger Winslow on China Beach, and most recently, on General Hospital where he won an Emmy for his portrayal of shady Cyrus Renault.

Next up is the pool shark thriller Break, where he takes on the role of pool hall hustler “The Hand” Jimmy. In the film, he looks to stand in the way of Eli (Daniel Weiss), the hotshot son of a former rival, from honoring his legendary dad and former rival’s legacy. Here the veteran actor talks about the project and reminisces about some of his favorite parts.

After all this time, how is it being that go-to bad guy?

Jeff Kober: I don’t know. It is interesting, but I enjoy working. What I’m trying to do these days is humanize everyone. Even if they’re not terribly nice people based on the story being told. They can’t be all bad. What’s human about that? That’s fascinating. So you’re not ever acting. You’ve built some type of world you’re living through. As a natural result of your belief system, this is what happens.

You’re the bad guy in Break. What stands out about Jimmy to you?

What I liked about him was it was such a specific world. So foreign to anything I’ve experienced, except bits here and there. I was in a carnival for a while as a younger man and that character would have fit well in the carnival. Someone lost a wallet on a ride. The carny who ran that ride and the carny who ran the ride next to it argued not about who got to turn in the wallet back to the person who lost it but who got the money that was in it. I didn’t understand those kind of people then. Now I kind of do to find my way in and what it would take for me to be like that. This is what made the role so fascinating to me.

How much of a pool player were you beforehand?

I played a lot of pool in bars as a younger man. I once was beaten I think 17 times in a row by Megan Branman, a casting director in Hollywood. So I was a moderately okay pool player. I enjoy the sport, but I am never able to play even remotely like in the movie. I got an evening of lessons. This guy just corrected a couple of things for me and suddenly a whole new world opened up for me. That was amazing.

What did you make of the environment the film takes place, gritty Detroit?

We’re seeing it everywhere today. People are frightened of so many different things. They are struggling to behave in a way with respect to themselves. They may be following the fear and doing things they don’t respect. Like when Eli decides to bet all the money he was saving for his sister’s education. That’s not out of a sense of love and compassion and wanting to do the right thing. That’s out of the terror of I can’t be shown up like this. I can’t have my ego smashed like this. We all have those challenges every day. I just look at it as is this the ego working here or the truth working here and are they aware there is a difference? Those are the questions that occur to me.

How was it sharing the screen with Darren Weiss as Eli?

With Darren, he stepped up and met me. We really play in that area of wanting to beat each other in the script. I’m really proud of what he did in this.

It has been more than 35 years since China Beach hit the airwaves. How do you look back on the show today?

I know it didn’t come out to watch easily over the years when so many others came out because of the music rights that were so spread out. It was impossible to get permission from that many music companies and have it make sense to make it commercially available. I love the fact people are still moved by it. Everyone was trying to do the best they could in order to honor the women and men we were representing. That’s really special when you get to do a job like that.

A lot of times shows will get canceled without getting a formal goodbye, but China Beach was lucky enough to have one. A touching one at that.

I’m grateful we did in the end show these characters accelerated forward and what it was like to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington D.C. This was very special, especially for me who have been around many Vietnam veterans. I still have Vietnam veteran friends in my life and see what they had and lost and the rebuilding process that had to occur. I really feel that China Beach was a part of opening up the consciousness of the U.S. Like, “Hey something happened here, and we’ve been ignoring it. Wake up.”

These days a lot of viewers know you from the soap opera world on General Hospital. How is it to step in and out of Port Charles as Cyrus? A role that won you a Daytime Emmy Award.

It’s more like being a sprinter than a distance runner. You have to be ready to go. You have to be ready to jump in any direction because you don’t know who you’re going to be from one week to the next until you look at a script. You never get to see where that script fits into the larger fabric of the story they’re telling. It’s a hoot because it’s jumping into the unknown.

Cyrus has been through a lot. What do you make of his evolution? Where do you see this character going in the future on the show?

It started out as a short gig. Whatever happened, they decided to keep me on a little longer. So they made me the mysterious half-brother of Genie Francis’ character [Laura Spencer]. They wrote this evil criminal as someone who is broken and needs his mother’s love. I was like, “How do you play that? I guess we’ll find out.” It was so much fun to do that. Then they sent him away to prison and he found Jesus, or did he? For me, it’s always about finding what’s the most interesting and grounded and most passionate perspective this character can have in a given time. They keep you guessing on that show. What he has come around to now, and being holier than now. The last time I saw him he was saying, “I got to work on myself before I tell anyone else how to do this.” Don’t you wish more people in the world realized that?

You’ve been in the shoes of a lot of characters. What are some of your favorites? For me, The Claimers leader on The Walking Dead has to be included.

Joe on The Walking Dead was fantastic because it was so rich. The people I worked with were also just fantastic. I would have done anything on that show for as long as they wanted me to.

What a way Joe went though.

It was the best death in the show up to that point I think. The last line for him was just great, “What the hell are you gonna do now sport?” Just amazing. I loved China Beach, too. The people, we’re brothers and sisters. We left a mark on all of our lives. A lot of us were really beginning our careers when we did that. It holds a place that will never be touched by anything else. I’ve had really exciting experiences. I had a run on NCIS: Los Angeles. I got to work intimately with Linda Hunt. That was otherworldly. There was an intimacy with her and strength in her work. She is like a national treasure. I can always tell how wonderful someone’s talent is when you just get in their face. They go, “Oh, someone is here.” Then they just jump in themselves. They did this.

Jeff Kober and Linda Hunt (Henrietta “Hetty” Lange) in NCIS: Los Angeles (Bill Inoshita/CBS Broadcasting, Inc.)

One of my favorite turns for you was also when you were on New Girl as this curmudgeon of a landlord. During the rewatch podcast “Welcome to Our Show” the cast revealed a few years ago that Bruce Willis was almost cast as Remy. You made it your own though.

It was a hoot. I actually did a movie with Jake Johnson that is on Hulu now called Self Reliance. He wrote this character with me in mind. Then right around Christmas, I did his podcast where they give advice for people on really stupid things. We were reminiscing about the characters almost doing this threesome. I was in my underwear and cowboy boots. We shot the scene many times, and every time I would come up with a different yoga pose or something I’d be doing when they came to me like reading a book or spraying aftershave in my private areas. They give you free rein to be crazy. That was a gas.

#jeff kober #Linda Hunt #ncis la #china beach #general hospital

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spookyspaghettisundae · 10 months ago

Text

What He Signed Up For

The EMD’s battery whined. Green, yellow, and red bars glowed on the side of the futuristic weapon, set for maximum power output.

A measured response to a Tyrannosaurus Rex. A mighty dinosaur in the flesh. Its deafening roar curdled Chloe Grant’s blood and shook her to the core. Their previous encounter with a Purrusaurus had haunted her nightmares with memories of the giant crocodile, but it paled in comparison to this tyrant lizard and its towering appearance.

The earth quaked with every step the beast took. Despite its frightening mass, it displayed an even more terrifying agility. The T-Rex ducked underneath metal girders connecting different parts of the oil rig. Gigantic claws crashed down and kicked up clouds of dust, suffocating the crystal blue sky behind it.

Mischchenko shot first. Electric blasts discharged into balls of lightning where they struck the giant lizard. It roared in pain. Its roar petered out into an angry growl—a single shot from the EMD, even at full capacity, was not enough to knock the dino out.

Grant flipped her internal safety switch. Stopped thinking. Acted on that dread that had been paralyzing her at the sight of the T-Rex, and now acted like she used to in the field, as a soldier. How different could it be from shooting at a tank?

Two blasts from her EMD hit the T-Rex in its snout, dead center. It roared again, reared back, and metal squealed where the lizard’s body smashed through the oil rig’s girders.

From the flanks, more EMD shots sliced through the air, three in number. Ruiz, crouched upon an old blue container shell, sniped at the T-Rex from his elevated position. His first shot sent the beast reeling, stumbling back another few thundering steps. Static crackled around the scaly beast’s body. It shuddered, barely staying standing. Before it could recover, a second and third shot elicited a strange mewling sound from the T-Rex’s maw.

Mischchenko ducked. In doing so, she covered the dirt-caked boy in the blue container behind them. The boy shivered behind her, whimpering, cowering at the sight of the T-Rex. Small hands covered eyes, screwed shut in terror.

Grant stepped farther out from the container, aiming down her EMD’s scope at the beast. It stumbled back another step.

Ruiz’s voice on intercom crackled, tinny, commenting with coldness.

“Careful now. I ain’t carrying that big-ass lizard back to any Anomaly.”

The T-Rex looked disoriented. Its toothy maw opened and clamped shut, and its massive claws kicked up more dust, tearing up ground around the abandoned Midland oil rig.

Grant muttered into the intercom, “How the hell did nobody spot this thing on satellite image? Yo!”

Mischchenko skipped the answer to her question. She barked, “We need a location on the Anomaly! Yesterday!”

The T-Rex lurched forward and the ground shook again.

Murder flashed in reptilian eyes.

“We aren’t getting anything here!” Singh whined across the airwaves. “Not even a visual! Where are you?”

Grant kept her gun’s muzzle trained at the dinosaur’s head. She clicked her tongue.

The T-Rex reared back another thundering step. Its tail whipped around and tore a chunk of metal out of the old rig’s body. Metal bars bent and groaned and screeched where unstoppable saurian force tore them apart.

Huge legs buckled. The EMD shots always hurt.

“It’s going to run,” Burch said over the radio. It dawned on Grant that Burch could see everything they were seeing at the oil rig, as their helmets were continuously transmitting visual feeds. Burch repeated, with more urgency, “It’s going to run!”

Mischchenko took a step forward, Ruiz stayed as still as a statue, and Grant’s finger curled around the trigger.

Time slowed to a crawl. A single second turned into an eternity.

No thoughts. Only action.

Grant shot first, then Ruiz, then Mischchenko. Five more EMD discharges total, and the T-Rex emitted another mewling groan. It stumbled again. It crashed. A living earthquake, shaking their world. Flakes of rust snowed down from every metal girder, and the blue containers rocked. All metal groaned.

The three field operatives breathed steadily, keeping their weapons lined up for more shots.

The T-Rex’s tail slapped the ground, whipping up another violent cloud of dust.

There was almost a tragic beauty in how the dust broke the rays of broad daylight in this Texan desert.

Nobody else on the team commented. Stunned, they watched what the helmet feeds transmitted.

The T-Rex no longer budged. Its maw closed with slowness. Eyelids fell shut.

The dinosaur slept off its stupor. The EMDs had taken it down. For now.

“Specimen incapacitated,” Mischchenko confirmed. “We need eyes on the Anomaly, damnit!”

Nothing. The huge cloud of dust surrounding the T-Rex still settled, slowly. Ever so slowly.

Doctor Solomon broke the silence. “Working on it. I think something’s interfering with our detectors. And something else is affecting the satellite images. Standby, please.”

Ruiz sighed. “We ain’t got all day, and we’re gettin’ spread thin. Wasn’t there another dino out here we need to worry about? And the federales team?”

Stantz replied via radio. “Me, I’m on the military, don’t worry about it. We need to find out if there’s more damage I need to control. Carter—you should regroup with the rest of field ops. Two o’ ya keep your eyes on the T-Rex, two start sweeping the area. How hard can it be to find another big lizard and a big glowing orb of energy?”

“Doctor Trémaux would beg to differ.” Doctor Solomon interjected. “It’s not simply energy, it’s—”

“I don’t care, man,” Stantz cut in. “You eggheads worry about quantum physics or whatever it is you do, I worry about keeping the lid on things.”

“No objections from me,” Carter growled. “Except the part where you’re the media guy, and not our C.O., Stantz. That being said, I got no arguments about our next steps. On my way to rendezvous with y’all, Mischchenko. Sit tight.”

Ruiz hopped down from the blue container. He lifted his helmet’s visor to reveal symmetrical features and a three o’clock shadow on his face. Brown eyes sparkled as he stared daggers at the downed T-Rex.

In a fluid motion, he produced a crumpled pack of cigarettes from a pocket, then brought one of those cigarettes to the corner of his lips.

Mischchenko cleared her throat. She emerged from the blue container with the small boy, helping the child to climb out.

“Not concerned about setting a bad example?” she asked Ruiz.

He shrugged and lit up his cigarette with a blade-like flame from a storm lighter.

Mischchenko sighed. She lifted her visor and hunkered down next to the boy, meeting the child at eye level, and resting a gloved hand on his shoulder. In hushed tones and a soothing voice, she spoke to the kid, soon learning his name was Aiden, and telling him that he didn’t need to be afraid of any dinosaurs as long as they were around.

Figuring Mischchenko had that situation handled, Grant shouldered her EMD rifle and sauntered up to Ruiz.

While he smoked, they kept watch on the unconscious T-Rex.

The dinosaur’s sides heaved with an almost peaceful tranquil. Breathing steadily.

Part of her wanted to approach it. Part of her imagined removing a glove, running her fingers over those scales, to learn what it felt like.

The rest of her body and instincts screamed at her. She was as close as she needed to be, and didn’t even want to imagine what would happen if that beast bit anybody.

Instead of approaching it and sating that lethal curiosity, Grant stood still as a statue, a sentry.

Ruiz scratched his chin and smoked, eventually peeling his attention off the T-Rex, and meeting Grant’s gaze.

Smoke billowed from his nostrils and he chortled. “Well, would you look at that. Feels like yesterday when Carter was complaining about walkin’ into a T-Rex on a mission, huh?”

Grant forced herself not to study his handsome face. He looked like an artist had chiseled a perfect likeness of a man into the shadow of his helmet.

Ruiz must have picked up on it. A smirk played around the corners of his lips, framed by a subtle twitch that he wrestled back into a stoic expression.

Grant had no idea what Ruiz knew. He knew why Future Proof’s team had missed the Anomaly, and still had no visual on the T-Rex. Or them, for that matter.

Just that morning, the mystery woman with the red hair had briefed him on it. Briefed him on it all.

* * *

“We’re about to leak this intel to Future Proof,” said the mystery woman. Loretta Corsino.

If Ruiz’s smirk bore self-confidence, then Corsino’s smirk was smug.

This morning, however, long before Future Proof’s team arrived in Midland, Ruiz wasn’t smirking at all.

He was frowning.

Flipping up and down the brief on the tablet’s screen, its contents were painting the frown on his face.

Corsino’s group, the nebulous company who was wiring obscene amounts of money to Ruiz for his espionage work at Future Proof, had finally gotten a leg up on them.

The screen displayed grainy satellite images of dinosaurs on the loose in the dusty outskirts of Midland. And satellite images of an Anomaly, a glittering, glowing orb in a wasteland.

Ruiz scrolled past a picture of Captain Dariel Rose—bearded, dark, carved with wrinkles from black ops abroad, staring into the camera with a grim expression—acting head of the military operations team en route to secure the specimens.

He scrolled past number crunching, cold mathematics. Corporate language, callous in its specificity, with all the fluff cut out for clarity. Ruiz scrolled past it all. He wasn’t interested in the details. The specifics made his stomach churn and knot.

The stats summed up a preliminary death toll, measured in civilians. They weren’t doing a damned thing.

Ruiz wasn’t liking any of this. It wasn’t what he had signed up for.

The tablet, dropped from his hand in frustration, clattered on the café’s table between them.

Loretta Corsino still smirked at him. Maybe she was just sadistic enough that his reaction amused her. Impossible for him to read. Hers was a beauty to rival his own, and her role in all of this… it frightened him.

Valentìn Ruiz thumbed his upper lip and stifled a sigh.

“What am I supposed to do with this, now?” he asked, throwing up his hand in frustration.

Corsino’s eyes sparkled in the morning sun. She took a timid sip from her cup of coffee, and the smirk never faded from her lips.

“You do your job, Mister Magician. Show up to work, play dumb, and be our eyes and ears at Future Proof. We want to see if Doctor Solomon can beat our new toy before we pull the plug. If this works out right, we’ll always be a step ahead of Future Proof from here on out, and you can expect another big, fat paycheck for your good work.”

Ruiz almost muttered “fuck me” with another sigh. Almost.

Instead, he took a deep breath and sipped his coffee. Suppressed the shake in his hand.

Almost like the shakes he used to have, back in the day of work as a sharpshooter. First Recon. The shakes had gone away after he left the service, went private. Didn’t even need booze or drugs to take off the edge.

And here it was again, the shakes, threatening to return.

What had it all even meant?

The coffee cup almost rattled against the saucer when he put it back down.

Corsino still smirked at him.

He needed to play it cool, always. But the shakes were coming back.

* * *

His hand shook as he smoked while standing next to Grant outside the abandoned oil rig. Ruiz suppressed it again, taking a long, deep drag from his slim cancer stick.

Grant shook her head, staring at the downed T-Rex.

“Seriously, though,” she said. “How does a bunch o’ trained pros miss a damn T-Rex on live sat imaging?”

Ruiz shrugged again. Blew out smoke.

“Who knows,” he growled. “That lizard snuck up on us, too. Maybe something about the oil fields, tech that’s interfering?”

“Unlikely,” responded a voice on their intercom. Doctor Solomon. His voice crackled with static. He added, “Unlikely the energy companies out here had tech like that in place, let alone leaving anything like that behind when they shuttered operations out here. But—not impossible.”

Carter also growled on the radio. “Speakin’ o’ which. Should we be worried about EMDs settin’ off fires, with the oil around here, and stuff? Seen some—”

“Yes,” replied Doctor Solomon. “Yes, Mister Carter, you should be worried about that. I advise caution whenever wielding your EMDs. I saw several puddles of leakage on the airlift. And given how dry the flora out here is this time of year, one misplaced shot could be a recipe for disaster.”

Carter groaned.

Grant and Ruiz both stared at the cigarette cinched between Ruiz’ black-gloved fingers.

He shook his head, dropped the cigarette, and stamped it out, grinding it under his heel into the dust.

Mischchenko joined them. Her EMD rifle hung from her shoulder by the sling. With her free arm, she held hands with the boy.

“This is Aiden,” she introduced them to the kid.

Aiden only shot them furtive glances. His stares lingered on the futuristic rifles they bore, and he stole glimpses of their fearsome black armored jumpsuits, and the name tags emblazoned on their chests.

“Hey, Aiden,” Grant said. Her voice cracked.

She had a problem with dogs, but not with kids. Immediately felt sorry for this boy, and that sentiment only deepened by the minute.

His was a thousand-mile stare. Blank, hollow, piercing outward from a face caked in dirt and dried blood spatters. Grant had only overheard fragments of Mischchenko’s conversation with the boy.

His family was probably dead. Probably definitely dead. Killed by stampeding dinosaurs. Eaten alive. Traumatic shreds of descriptions had bled through his stammering earlier. Grant hadn’t listened to all of it, and didn’t particularly care for the details. She shuddered at the thought of growing up like Aiden would have to grow up now.

She couldn’t even begin to fathom what kind of therapy he would need. She only found solace in the thought that her work here at Future Proof might ensure her own family never met such a fate.

“There we go,” Doctor Solomon said on the radio, every syllable vibrating with confidence. “The figurative fog has lifted, and we can start reconstructing tracks on satellite visuals. Burch? Burch, come, look at this.”

“Once Max gets here,” Mischchenko told Aiden, “We’ll escort you back to camp. You’re safe now.”

Someone grumbled on the radio. Likely Max Carter. Grant gathered he didn’t care for kids.

Aiden stared blankly up at Mischchenko. His tiny hand in her gloved palm looked feeble. Lifeless. She squeezed, to punctuate her words with earnestness.

Ruiz cleared his throat, and nodded.

“Just listen to whatever Missus Mischchenko here has to say, okay? We’ll take care of the rest.”

He took a knee and rested his Type-3 EMD rifle on his palms in front of the kid, like a knight, presenting his sword to a small king. Ruiz spoke with a surprising calm. Also made Grant wonder if Ruiz had experience with kids, or just younger siblings.

Ruiz said, “It’s lighter than it looks. Go ahead, won’t break easily. Maybe you’re gonna do this kinda work one day, too.”

Aiden hesitated. His eyes flashed. The thousand-mile stare focused on the silvery rifle in Ruiz’s hands.

Slipping out of Mischchenko’s grasp, two small hands shakily grabbed the EMD rifle.

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