#best Drop In Anchor Bolt

[weaponizedvirtue]

The Face I Hide Behind, Pt. 2 {Peaky Blinders}

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x Reader

Summary: You met Thomas Shelby as Eli Carter, your hair shorn short, your chest bound, the Royal Engineers crest proudly adorning your uniform. You find him again as discarded Marie Tillerson, a woman shamed but remembered.

Warnings: PTSD, panic attacks

Notes: Thank you all for your lovely reception of this fic. The amount of views and kind comments are so incredibly encouraging. Hope you enjoy part two just as much as you did part one.

Part one can be found here.

Tagged: @everythingelseisextra, @ce1iat, @morrigan-crowmwell, @running-outof-time

*

Tick.

The sound wakes you immediately. Your eyes snap open and you wait for another. It arrives a moment later just as you expect, soft but sharp. There’s a rhythm to it, a timing that matches the second it takes to pull a pickaxe down and drive it into rock.

Your breath catches in your throat and you sit up sharply, your nerves instantly engaged for a fight. Your eyes sweep over the room, searching desperately for the source of the sound as it continues. Not real, you tell yourself. It’s not real, just an echo of bad memories demanding an encore. Your limbs ache at the thought and you suck air in through your nose, willing the oxygen to clear your head of the fog. You remind yourself that your time in the tunnels is long past, that you walk above the dirt and the mud and the dust and not beneath it. You remind yourself that the air hasn’t smelled of blood in almost a year now. 

Tick.

Swallowing hard, you slowly lower yourself back to the bed. Tom is warm beside you, a thrumming anchor, and you focus on the slow rise and fall of his chest, desperate for an easy distraction. His eyelashes flutter for a moment, his own dreams careening about in his head, and then the ticking comes back for a fifth round, a sixth, a seventh. You narrow your attention as best you can to the deep black of each of Thomas’s lashes as they graze against his cheeks.

Tick. It's louder now, chipping through the plaster. Tick. You wait for the burst of dust and curl your fingernails into your palms.

Something moves in the wall to your right.

You swallow a yelp, bolting up from the bed again, sure that the moment you gain your feet, you’ll be back in a hole, buried and gasping and never having left at all. But better to face the enemy on your feet than cowering in a corner.

As you land with a soft thump on the carpet, it feels for a moment as if the whole world has gone silent. The room tips momentarily around you and you lean your hands into the bedside table, swallowing back a wave of nausea.

Tick.

Tock.

You blink at the small gadget sitting inches from your hand and your arms begin to tremble. Adrenaline speeds through your bloodstream, a shouted order to move faster, run farther, hit harder, even now as the threat reveals itself to be nothing.

“Goddamn clock.”

Plucking the device from atop the table, you march into the kitchen, desperately fighting the urge to chuck it through the window. It’s not yours, something in the back of your thoughts says, so throwing the thing out or bashing it to pieces wouldn’t be right. You can be civil, even in the throes of panic.

You turn the clock over in your hands and the pulse of the second hand seems to smack against your palm through the glass. The sound of its ticking still sends a rocket down your eardrums, despite knowing now that it comes from a regular, everyday tool and not a person and you drop the clock to the counter with a hiss. Panic rises into your throat again as each second ticks by like a stab in the gut, hammering incessantly at your earderums.

You step back for just a moment, swaying with anxiety, and you listen hard for it, that soft voice nestled right below the din of sound bouncing around in your head. 

“Keep that brain busy.”

Tom had dropped a rolled-up newspaper into your hands once- some new puzzle an American had brought over with him, he’d said later when you found him to demand the origin of the game. 

“Did it work?”

It had, though you hadn’t expected it. Giving yourself something to do with your hands had been enough to bring you out of the long nights of sleeplessness and the moments of heart-rattling mania below ground. 

It can work now too, you tell yourself, taking in one long breath. If you can’t shut it out of your head, you can shut it down with your hands. Your fingers pinch the bridge of your nose just hard enough to feel the pain, then you carefully pick up the clock again. 

You’re not sure how long it actually takes you to dismantle the thing. Not long, you imagine; before the war, you quite enjoyed taking clocks apart, to your father’s chagrin. Each timepiece had a specific list of requirements, a checklist of dos and don'ts that allowed it to work in perfect tandem. Each wheel and spring and catch had to work with the pieces around them. When they didn’t, when a wheel wobbled or when a spring budged and bucked from its proper location, the whole machine failed. The whole thing operated off of its individual parts working together.

You like that about machines. They are predictable and they rely on a set of rules and a set of values to function. Like people, you suppose, though Tom was always better at navigating those while you preferred to stick to your formulas and algorithms.

You pluck the second hand from atop the clock face and the room goes suddenly still around you.

The absence of sound is so starkly different from the moment before that it’s nearly dizzying. Your shoulders sag with relieved exhaustion and you press one hand to your mouth to keep the creeping hysterics sealed inside your throat.

“‘Ey.” You flinch as Thomas’s voice interrupts the silence, bouncing against your eardrum even from the other room. “Everything alright?”

His voice is heavy with sleep, but you’re well aware he’ll come looking if you don’t answer quick enough. Even so, the truth is too embarrassing and you can’t quite admit to a man with a stone face and an even harder shell that you haven’t managed to beat your nightmares back, even now.

“Yeah. Just getting some water.”

You lean over the sink and slowly ease the faucet on. It’s a good enough cover, wil be a relief for your throat and the pounding in your head anyway. The glass is cool against your skin and you down the water quickly, suddenly parched. As you place the empty glass down, the contact sends the softest of ringing echoes rippling out across the tile counter. It’s reminiscent of what woke you, just enough to make you fidget. But the ticking is gone and you’re responsible for that fact. Surely, that’s enough of a task to reward yourself with some rest.

With a sigh, you shadow your way across the room back to the bed and silently crawl back beneath the covers.

Thomas’s eyes follow you, half glazed with sleep but still watching. You wonder if he ever entirely switches off that ever-constant observation.

After a moment, seemingly satisfied with what he sees, he turns onto his back again. The man goes so still that you think he may have fallen asleep again, but then an arm drops down over your shoulders.

"Settle down, Carter."

There's no need to correct him. Not when the name feels just as familiar as Tillerson, as Marie, and not when hearing it again makes you feel like you're home.

There should be some kind of decorum to your actions, when it would be so easy to call you strangers. But Tom is warm and you're too tired to bother with such proper conduct when it's likely neither of you care for that kind of thing anyway.

Your head drops to Thomas's shoulder and you curl one arm around his torso. The smell of cigarette smoke and cedarwood seeps in through your pores and you sigh against him.

He shifts beneath you, his breath halting in his chest for a moment. You think perhaps that you misread the action and an apology spills from your mouth. You begin to pull back, but then his arm shifts from your shoulder to your side. His thumb drags carefully along the curve of your hip, feather light.

It feels like a brand, like his thumb is a match striking alight right along your ribcage.

There's a beat, a moment you can practically see the gears whirring about in his head without even looking at his face. Then his chin settles atop your head and Tom breathes again.

You fall asleep like that, safe and comfortable and home, and it's the sun that wakes you after, nothing else.

*

“So you’re off then?”

He’s trying to remain passive, you know. There’s a kind of forced neutrality in his voice and you can see it, the nights before a plan was put into action, the few spare minutes before a battle where Thomas Shelby stood amongst a throng of men and convinced them what came next was inevitable.

You glance up at him and for just a moment, your heart rises into your throat. The urge to lock your hand around his wrist, to drag him down the steps behind you and disappear, the both of you, to wherever you’d like, is almost too much. He wouldn’t say yes. Shouldn’t say yes. You know this without asking. He’s got his family. He’s got this town. And he’s got a name to make for himself, or so he’d said the night before, when you were both heavier into the drink then you should have been.

He belongs here. And you don’t. Not yet. Not anywhere just yet.

“For now. Things to see.” Things to become.

Thomas nods, his eyes flicking towards the window, then to the pockets of his coat. He digs into one of them, plucks his lighter out with a focused kind of impatience. But as he lifts it to the cigarette dangling from his mouth, you step forward. Your hand circles around the lighter, pulling it from his grip with the silent demand that he pay attention.

This is important. Goodbye, however temporary, is important.

“I’m going to write you, alright?” Thomas pauses, his eyes stilling on your face this time, and he seems to wait, sensing a promise. It is one, really, when you think about it. You owe him that at the very least.

“I’ll keep you informed on where I’m at, remind you I’m still around.” Your thumb taps against his lighter, your offer solidifying in your gut as you straighten in front of him.

You turned tail last time. Forced or not, you left him alone on the battlefield. It’s a mistake you won’t make again.

“And you can make sure I don’t fall off the map again. Deal?”

You lift your chin, your nerves scattering as he considers you and the words you’d spent the last morning hours crafting so carefully. Slowly, he steps forward, so close you can feel the heat of him against you, and his fingers bump against yours to slide his lighter back into his palm.

“Deal.”

[floef-likes-everything]

Nightingale Adventure

(Based on Apo's lore stream of 28-8)

They hadn’t been sailing for more than an hour when the weather had turned sour. Apo didn’t understand how, because when they left the port there was not a cloud in sight. He liked to think he could predict the weather quite accurately now, but today had proven him wrong. The worst part was that he had decided to board Acho’s ship instead of going on his own, which meant he was just a passenger. Acho knew how to sail and with a good crew of Nightingales there really was nothing to worry about. Still, when the first lightning bolt struck the sea Apo couldn’t help but flinch.

“Lightning scared ya, Apo?” Michaela noticed, a smirk on her face as together they undid the ropes that held the small sail down. With winds like this, they really didn’t need all sails up to keep them going. Will and Graecie were up in the mast, hoisting the sail upwards and fastening it.

“Caught me off guard,” Apo deflected. A little storm didn’t faze him, he’d sailed in too many storms to get scared this easily. “I just hadn’t expected a storm to roll in this suddenly.”

“I agree with that,” she said, trying to wipe the thick hair out of her face as she looked up into the mast, where the other two were working hard to tie the sail down. Acho, from behind the wheel, was shouting out orders to the rest of the crew but Apo couldn’t hear him over the sound of the waves. “I’m happy we went with Acho, their ship is by far one of the best from our fleet. No offence.”

“None taken,” Apo muttered, though he would’ve loved it if they had decided to take his ship and let him be the captain. “Do you really think we are going to run into Aimsey on that island?”

“I hope we do,” Michaela’s expression hardened. From what Apo managed to piece together, Michaela knew Aimsey pretty well. She had told him a little about how their families were very good friends and that that was the reason Michaela had come to the Faction Isles in the first place. She was supposed to stay with them for a while, but due to bad weather she arrived later than expected and at that point disaster had already struck. She was told only snippets for what supposedly happened to Aimsey and today the Nightingales hoped to uncover more of what happened that mysterious night. Apo sometimes still had nightmares about the storm and those nasty, purple tentacles.

“Land ho!” Ros yelled from high up in the crows nest. She was brave staying there with this wind, though Apo assumed she was too scared to climb down at all. She was lovely, truly lovely and a true Nightingale at heart but she wasn’t the best pirate. She had however been determined to go along on this venture. She had been so adamant about it that nobody had dared to tell her no.

Acho gestured for Apo to join them, so he swiftly made his way over to them across the slippery deck. He almost stumbled on the stairs, but managed to keep himself upright to present himself to his friend. Acho had been so stoic this journey, as if they had something to prove. Despite them being new to the faction, they were amongst family. They didn’t have to prove their worth to this crew.

“With the weather like this, I can’t dock safely,” they explained to Apo. “I’ll get as close to the shore as I possibly can, but we’ll have to take the sloop to the docks.”

“But we docked safely in that first storm,” Apo argued. “With an entire fleet, even. Sure, the weather is a bit worse than that night but – “

“I won’t put my ship in jeopardy,” Acho interrupted him, set on their own plan. “We had some very good sailors leading the way, that night. We can’t afford losing this ship, we’ll be marooned.”

“Then why did you ask?” Apo said, confused by what Acho wanted from him.

“To inform you to prepare the sloop,” Acho recovered with just a slight hesitation in their voice. “We’ll drop the anchor here. I’ll gather Ros, Will, Graecie and Michaela. The rest of the crew will stay here.”

Apo opted to not go against his friend again and just do as he was told. Acho was on edge, for good reason in all honesty. They were still a bit weary of Willow, the Nightingale that had just come back from a rather large and long journey. He’d been with the Faction for years already, so he knew how things were run amongst their family. Apo somehow assumed Acho felt threatened by that. They must come from a very demanding environment, but Apo didn’t want to get into business he wasn’t supposed to. If Acho want to tell him about their past, they would.  

So, as Acho gathered the Nightingales that would go to shore, Apo prepared the sloop. It wasn’t much and it would be a hell of a job to get this thing to the island that was just about visible through the rain. It wasn’t particularly far and the waves weren’t nearly as bad as on the open seas, but they would have to work hard to row against the tide. Nightingales were though, however, especially when they said their mind to something. With some struggle and good directional ques from Ros, the six of them managed to get the sloop to the deserted docks. When everybody had set foot on solid land and the wood creaked under their feet, they took a look at the island before them.

Apo could feel his mouth drop. It didn’t look anything like the last time he had been here. The goop was gone, the purple tentacles that had engulfed the small seaside down where either gone or had turned to solid stone. It was deserted, as it had been before and cold wind and rain swept against his face. If only he could be back in their tavern with a keg of ale in his hand near the warm fire. But no, they had to set sail to this wretched place they already knew. They weren’t Herons, who looked to discovery every mystery of the world. They weren’t Kestrels, looking for treasure even in places like this. They certainly weren’t Kite, despite them looking for one now.

“This is not what I remember from being here last time,” Graecie was the first one to break the silence. “Where… why has everything turned to stone?”

“I’ve been here once after Aimsey disappeared,” Acho said, which was yet another piece of information Apo wasn’t aware of. “It was a couple of weeks ago, I think, and by that point the stone was already – wait, did you see that?”

Acho pointed towards the sky and Apo had to pull out his spyglass to even see they were pointing to the top of a mountain. He saw nothing but rain and rocks, so he turned to his friend with slight concern.

“I see nothing,” he stated, though Acho looked as if they’d seen a ghost. “It must’ve been the lightning.”

“No, I swear to the Sun God,” Acho argued. Their white hair was plastered to their face and they squinted to look into the distance, the spyglass on their hip entirely forgotten. “There it is again, take a look!”

They pointed, sprinting forward a few steps until Graecie caught them by the collar. Apo followed the gesture with his eyes, but he still had no idea what Acho was talking about.

“What is it, Acho?” Ros asked, her soft voice barely carrying over the sounds of the storm.

“The purple particles!” Acho argued as they turned around, brushing Gracie off. “I – I’m not crazy!”

“We don’t say you are,” Ros assured them with a weak smile. “But let’s not go running off on our own. We already lost a friend here, we wouldn’t want to lose another.”

Ros was the kindest soul Apo had ever met, and he knew quite some people. Yet, on the entire Faction Isles there wasn’t a person as compassionate as Ros. If Apo had to describe what it was to be a Nightingale, he would pick Ros as an example. She would do anything for her faction, even if that particular thing wasn’t in her skill set. If you asked Ros for help, she would drop everything to come to your aid. She cared for her crew.

“I see it too!” Michaela then yelled, pointing to a wildly different spot Acho had earlier. All six of them turned their heads and now, Apo couldn’t deny it. There was something purple far up the mountain, something small and moving. For a moment he thought of cruppy, that weird little creature Olive had encountered on this very island. It had somehow followed them all the way back to the Faction Isles and it seemed to like it there. Yet, this was different as purple particles seemed to flow in the air, clearly visible despite the darkness and the rain. Mere seconds before it blinked out of existence, Apo swore he saw a pair of eyes.

“Where did it go?” Acho questioned and from that point onward, nobody seemed to keep Ros’ warning in mind. Acho was the first to run away, making their way further into the town looking for a way up into the mountains. Michaela followed in their footsteps with her sword in hand. With two already gone, the four remaining Nightingales had little choice but to follow the crew. Apo fell behind as he tried to pinpoint the location of the strange visage again.

There! He spotted it, near where the rest of the crew had gone of to. Through is spyglass he could take a closer look. He had been right, it was more than just particles! There was a figure amongst the strange magic, a face lined in dark hair and shrouded in purple.

“Aimsey…?” Apo muttered aloud, his voice lost to the rain. The appearance looked like them, but he didn’t remember Aimsey being purple. Had they been here the entire time? Why hadn’t they returned to the Faction Isles?

“Aimsey… were are you going?” Apo yelled it into the wind, but the question didn’t seem to land. As his crew scrambled their way up the mountain, the visage had already moved. Apo got into motion, making his way over the slippery rocks and through the mud, battling to keep his balance. They might not be Herons, but this was a discovery worth chasing after. They had come here so Will and Michaela could witness this island for themselves, but none of them had anticipated a chase like this. Had Apo hoped to find Aimsey here? Sure, but he wanted the Aimsey he knew. They had been very welcoming when he arrived at the Faction Isles despite the reputation of the Kites.

“We should take different routes to this mountain!” at some point, Acho was close enough for Apo to hear them. “Take the left, Apo. We think it’s Aimsey!”

It was good to know Apo wasn’t the only one that thought so. He followed Acho’s instructions without giving it much thought, keeping his eye on what they thought to be Aimsey through his spyglass. It moved fast, way to fast for a regular human. Once he had reached the place it had been earlier, it had moved far away. Air started to burn in his lungs and he didn’t know how much time had passed when he found himself on a muddy shore, all alone and in the dark.

“This isn’t going to work,” he muttered to himself, turning around slowly in hopes to spot his crew. He didn’t, however, so he opted to return to the dock where they had set foot earlier. When he finally arrived, soaked to the bone as he had to wade through waist deep water to get back, he found that others had made the same decision. Acho was waiting alongside Will and Graecie. They, much like Apo, had their hair and clothes stuck to their skin because of the weather.

“Apo!” Will sounded delighted to see Apo. “Have you caught them? Have you caught Aimsey?”

“No,” Apo said, still catching his breath. “Did they look weird to you as well? They looked… purple, despite those weird particles.”

“Something is off about this place,” Graecie confirmed. “We… we didn’t get close enough to them to ask them anything. What concerns me more, where are Ros and Michaela?”

Acho snapped to attention as if he hadn’t noticed they were missing two of their crew members before that. The two must still be on their way to the docks, Apo told himself. Sure, this island hadn’t taken another soul. He wouldn’t believe that.

“I – Let me go look for them,” Acho decided all on their own and before the others could go against it, they had already disappeared into the town. Apo opted to go after them for a moment, but that meant he had to leave Will and Graecie behind on the docks. Acho could fend for himself, Apo considered them to be one of the Nightingales best swordspeople.

“When you told me you’d show me a special place, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Will said as the rain started to die down. Apo had no idea how long they had been running around the island, chasing Aimsey, but he swore he could see the beginnings of daylight at the horizon.

“Well, we weren’t exactly expecting to run into an adventure quite like this,” Graecie admitted. She pulled her hair together to wring the water out of it, shifting her eyepatch in the process. She quickly put it back into position. “Do you guys think we should tell anybody at the Faction Isles?”

Apo hadn’t even thought about that yet. Was a wild goose chase on this mystic figure really something they wanted? Sure, Apo wanted to know what was happening here but not at the cost of any more lives. Some mysteries where better left uncovered.

“The Herons might be helpful in this endeavor,” Will opted. “They love their mysteries, if I remember correctly. If anybody knows something about this, it must be them.”

He was right, the Herons might just know a thing or two. Maybe the Herons that roamed the Factions Isles right now had never encountered anything like this, but those of old might just have. Apo knew of their vast library with maps and documents. He was happy he didn’t have to add anything to it.

“Michaela, they are here!” Ros turned a corner and suddenly, she and Michaela had made it to the dock. Their sudden appearance startled Apo, though he hoped he had concealed that first reaction good enough. Michaela still had her sword out, gripped tightly at the hilt. There had been a point at which Apo had questioned if she hadn’t been more on her place with the Kites, but she never meant any real harm with her threats. The Kites did, Apo had had enough running ins with them.

“I touched the cloud,” Michaela stuttered and Ros instantly wrapped an arm around her to console her. “I… they were there. They were friendly. The cloud didn’t hurt me.”

Apo couldn’t really string together what she meant by that, but he didn’t dare to ask. She seemed shaken by whatever had happened to her. All that mattered was that both of them had gotten back safely.

“Great, and now Acho is running around looking for the two of you,” Graecie sighed. “He’ll be smart enough to return swiftly, right? – Oh, speak of the devil.”

Acho reappeared on the other side of the dock, but clocked the group quickly enough. They came running towards them, boots splashing on the waterlogged planks and their coat swirling around their legs.

“Is everybody alright?” they asked and Apo couldn’t help but notice he didn’t sound particularly out of breath. That was impressive, in all fairness. “Have you caught the… whatever that was?”

“It’s Aimsey,” Michaela said with confidence. “Or… it looks like them. Something is off with this island, with them, I don’t know! We should do something.”

Apo had never struck Michaela as someone desperate, but she sure sounded like it. Of course she was, she just wanted to safe her friend.

“We should ask the Herons for advice,” Graecie said, repeating her earlier thought. “If anybody has the information, they do.”

“No Herons!” Acho almost yelled, which wasn’t necessary anymore as the storm had settle down just as suddenly as is had appeared. “It – this doesn’t concern them at all. If anything, we should inform the Kites. Aimsey is one of them, after all.”

“I’d rather not talk to the Kites,” Michaela said and a frown appeared on her face. “One of them keeps threatening me he’ll murder me once I set foot off the Isles. Some of them are… a bit wicked. Aimsey was the most reasonable of them. I like the idea of going to the Herons.”

“What about the Kestrels?” Acho continued, clearly not happy with the idea of going to the Herons. “Wasn’t Aimsey quite close with one of them?”

“With Guqqi, you mean?” Apo had to dig deep in his memory to come up with that name. “The one person who also went missing on the same night?”

“We don’t know if she’s missing,” Acho said, though Apo doubted anybody had heard from her since she had taken off with those cloaked fellas. Apo didn’t talk to the Kestrels that much, there was only Martyn he could sometimes have a normal conversation with but the others were just to stuck up with themselves. Apo didn’t think he could ever be that selfish.

“How about we discuss this back at the Faction Isles?” Ros proposed as more light started to spill over the now calmed down ocean. “We should all get a chance of dry clothes, we’ll get sick like this.”

There was a grumbling agreement and in a somewhat awkward silence, the crew returned to the sloop. Apo couldn’t help but wonder why Acho seemed to have such an aversion to talking to the Herons. He thought the Herons to be quite pleasant to be around as long as you didn’t start about their achievements. Once they started their tales, they wouldn’t stop talking no matter what you tried.

As they rowed back to the ship, Apo threw one last glance back at the island. Now, with the light of day creeping in long shadows were cast over the stony structures looking very much like tentacles. All of the stone had been purple once, whatever had happened to it for it to look like this? Apo was afraid they might never know, which in turn would mean there was little chance they would get Aimsey back. Whatever had happened to them, Apo could only pray the thing that did it stayed on that island.   

-------

This was my first time tuning into an Apo lore stream and I might just tune into a bunch more, as I had a blast! Also, I'll protect Ros with my life she is so very dear to me.

(also please to scream at me if I got any pronouns wrong by mistake)

[blacklegsanjiii]

Golden

Single Dad!Mihawk raising Sanji that I talked about. Can also be read on AO3 here!

CH 2! CH 3!

Summary: Sanji's hair reminds Mihawk of the tales of Nika's sun. Golden.

“Help us! Hey!” A child’s voice called. Mihawk looked up the impossible island to see a blond boy’s head poking off of the side. “Please! Help us!” The boy couldn’t be older than seven maybe and Mihawk was not a soft man, not by any sense of the word. Yet he laid anchor and managed to get the boy, a one legged man, and their bag of treasure off the island and sail towards the nearest town.

Mihawk was providing the best first aid he could to the man as the boy hunched into a corner on the other side of the coffin ship, trying to give them space as Mihawk wastes a decent amount of really good whiskey on the bastard’s leg. They know each other tangentially, Red Leg a pirate with a long career, Mihawk’s already a decent pirate, an excellent swordsman. 

“Take whatever you want as thanks, Hawk-eyes.” Zeff grunts as Mihawk wraps the bandages on his stump of a leg.

“And what could I possibly take that would be worthy of saving both your lives?” He asked with a hint of aggression towards the older man. 

“The eggplant,” Zeff nods to the boy, “he’s got a long way to go but he wants to find the All Blue. Decent enough that you could get a protege out of him, shit at most things though.”

“Are you trying to put this boy further in debt to me?” Mihawk asked.

“Not at all, Hawk-eyes. But we were on that island for eighty five days.” Red leg says, fixing him a look. “If you don’t like him, bring him back to me and I’ll do as I see fit. I think you two might get on better than you think.” 

Neither Mihawk nor the boy replied to him. Mihawk fixing yellow eyes onto the sea blue of the boy’s. Other than starving and almost being cooked by the sun, to Mihawk’s limited medical knowledge he was fine. His eyebrows curled to one side of his face as Mihawk pat his head and steered them to land. Once docked the first thing they did was drop Zeff off at the local doctor’s who shooed him and the boy out without so much as a word. The boy followed Mihawk as he resupplied his ship, be it small it did have to last him until he got back to Kuriagana and he hadn’t been expecting passengers. The boy helped quickly and quietly, eating the apple Mihawk handed him with an expectant look slowly.

The boy was smart, he wasn’t going to gorge himself sick. He looked around, observing his surroundings but flinching at a lot of the loud noises. Seemingly trying to melt into Mihawk’s coat as to be as unnoticed as possible by those around them despite the eyes Mihawk drew to himself. It was getting late so Mihawk found a modest inn with a room with two beds that he led the boy to. Mihawk had bought him a change of clothes and ordered him to bathe and change which the boy listened to, practically bolting away afraid to make the pirate mad. Mihawk disposed of the boy’s other clothes when he was out and brought food back with him, two plates, both nutritionally dense as he gave the boy the smaller portioned one. They ate in relative silence other than a few mumbled thanks by the child.

“Do you have a name or am I just supposed to call you ‘eggplant’ like Redleg?” Mihawk asked as the boy stacked the plates to return them to the kitchen.

“Sanji.” The boy whispered. Mihawk cocked an eyebrow at the boy who hurried out of the room quietly. “Sanji” was the word for three in North Blue which meant this boy had a storied past or unimaginative parents. Neither of which Mihawk cared for. He hung his coat and hat as the boy reentered just as quietly as he left.

He watched the boy quietly toe off his shoes and climb into the bed furthest from the door, sneaking under the covers and disappearing practically. Mihawk took off his boots and laid in the other, extinguishing the oil lamp and letting himself drift off to sleep. He woke up not long later to small whimpering noises and words coming from the other bed. Mihawk scowled as he sat up and looked, the moonlight putting a cold glow into the room as he listened to Sanji.

“Take it off, please. I’m sorry. Stop.” Muffled by the covers that Sanji had encased himself in and Mihawk's eyes widened fractionally. “It hurts, I’m sorry.”

Softly, terribly softly, Mihawk made his way to the other bed. Sitting on the edge and pulling the covers back enough to find Sanji’s small hands gripping his hair tight enough that he might rip it out with his knees tucked to his chin. Mihawk, unsure of much to do with children, so he tried to pry the boy's hands off his hair which evoked a gasp and blue eyes shooting open to catch sight of the yellow eyed man. Sanji ripped away from Mihawk, on instinct the elder thought, only to begin apologising for waking him up.

“It’s not from the island.” Mihawk stated as he and Sanji stared at each other. One with eyes full of realisation and the other full of fear.

“No.” Sanji agreed.

“Take off what?” Mihawk prodded as the boy’s hands found his hair again.

“Doesn’t matter, it’s gone, they’re gone.” Sanji deflected but Mihawk grabbed his wrists, guiding Sanji’s hands from his hair to his lap. Mihawk accepted his words but didn’t pull away.

“What do you plan to do once you find the All Blue?” Mihawk guided the conversation carefully as he moved up the bed, letting go of Sanji to sit next to him. 

“I want to open a restaurant.” Sanji answered quietly. How fitting this boy was rescued by the captain of the Cook Pirates, how unfortunate for Zeff that Mihawk would take Sanji with to Kuriagana so that he could have a well rounded education Mihawk decided. Mihawk nodded as they looked at each other. “Are you going to leave me with him?”

“No,” Mihawk answered, “you’ll be coming to Kuraigana with me.”

“Thank you.” Sanji said quietly as rubbed his eyes and looked to the window. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I can sleep any more.” He apologised and Mihawk nodded. He stood and put his boots on then his coat and hat.

“I could use a drink and you should eat something small again, come along.” Mihawk drawled and Sanji scrambled to follow suit. Somehow still quietly like he had been trained to hide. Putting Yoru on his back they went and found a bar where Mihawk drank wine that looked like blood and Sanji ate the meat and vegetable skewer Mihawk had ordered him.

When the sun rose and the doctor let them in to talk to Zeff, Sanji thanking him for saving his life and Mihawk telling him he was taking Sanji with, Zeff nodded at all of this.

“Be good, eggplant.” Zeff ordered the boy who nodded.

“If your restaurant is still open when he’s older I expect you to give him a job.” Mihawk said before they left. “For experience.” Zeff nodded and they left. It would be a four day sail to Kuriagana, which Sanji learned everything to do with the coffin ship on. He took to it quickly as if clinging onto the words of the swordsman was the only thing that would keep him alive.

When they arrived, first bringing in their haul to the kitchen to be put away immediately. Mihawk then showed Sanji his room to be, the study, Mihawk’s room and his office and the garden. Pointing out other not so necessary things as they passed, all of which made Sanji’s eyes grow wide.

“Thank you, sir.” Sanji said when the tour concluded and Mihawk gave him a curt nod. 

“We’ll wash up and start on dinner, you’ll need to know how to cook to open a restaurant.” Mihawk said and that was the first time he saw Sanji smile, even if it was just a small one.

~*~

One of the first things Dracule Mihawk notices about Sanji is he's rail thin. He smokes cigarettes around meal times and snack times so after about a day Mihawk had put it together. He also had no idea where the boy managed to steal the cigarettes from. Or how many because he was going to let the boy have his privacy and they were most definitely stashed in his room, likely under the bed or in the wardrobe. He's so thin Mihawk could name every bone in his body when he looked at him. Sanji is nine, he looks like he's six.

They're taking a bath, Mihawk notes the scars the nine year old has across his body. He's washing Sanji's hair because it's so fine and the boy is so rough with it. Sanji grips his hair so tight and often Mihawk is surprised the boy doesn't have bald spots. It also took a lot of coaxing to even get the child to bathe with him. He'd debated on calling Shanks as he was based in Foosha for the time being and on the last call they had he was hanging out with a kid who had recently eaten the devil fruit his crew was going to sell. Shanks would probably be a lot better at this than him, not that he'll ever tell that to the man but the point remains.

"Head back." Mihawk says and Sanji complies so Mihawk can rinse his hair. Turns out his hair is even lighter than first thought. It feels like straw still, dry and cracked and the ends are split to hell. Mihawk gathers the conditioner and runs it through the boy's hair. Noting every breath hitch and flinch. Mihawk doesn't ask. He's made it very clear to Sanji that he will stop when the boy says. He might kill someone for waking him up from a nap and he is a pirate after all, but he's never hurt a kid. Which is more than most pirates, or really anyone on the Blues can say.

He works it in and lets it sit, he washes his own hair in the meantime, giving Sanji a much needed break from his touch. He feels a shift in the boy's haki, becoming drenched in fear he whips to the boy.

"Sanji?" Mihawk asks and Sanji is stock still, eyes flicking around the room following something but he doesn't answer. "Sanji, I can't help you if you don't tell me." And then he sees it, a bug lands on Sanji and the boy screams and swats at it but not before it bites him? Stings him? It hurts him and flies off before it gets hurt and Mihawk is grabbing the boy who is covered in fear and pain and horror for some goddamned reason and immediately his hands shoot for his hair. 

Mihawk is trying to get him to calm down but he's in a full blown panic attack and he's not calming down. He instead gets out of the bath and picks Sanji up and he's so light that it makes Mihawk seethe. He gets them both towelled off and wraps his waist while Sanji gets wrapped into two. He'll rinse his hair out later, Mihawk decides and it could be worse. He treats the sting, pulls the stinger out and all. Sanji doesn't react, he just stares at the ground and now his haki is empty. 

"Sanji." Mihawk whispers, garnering no response. He takes Sanji to the master bedroom because Mihawk had found that Sanji's nightmares were intense and if Mihawk wasn't careful he would startle Sanji awake and he had to deal with a boy who had attempted to run away in pure flight mode. Mihawk's hands were rough and calloused from years of sword fighting and it seemed to scare Sanji into a deeper panic if he touched him too soon but this was new entirely. 

He got the boy dressed in pyjamas that hang off his wiry frame, wrapped his hair in a towel and laid him on the spare side of the too large mattress that Mihawk had never shared before Sanji came into his life a month and a half but the boy spends more nights in Mihawk's than his own. He dresses in his sleep pants and lays down next to the boy, gently rubbing Sanji's back.

Mihawk is not a soft man. Yet here he is, caring for a child who has seen so much worse than most pirates will ever enact. 

Maybe a call to Newgate should be in order.

[all-the-gory-details]

Whumptober Day 9

Polaroid / Mistaken Identity / “You’re a liar.”

TW: Restraints, partial nudity (non-sexual), knife, creepy whumper

The morning had gone by like usual. Alexei had come in to hand out food, water, and meds. Casey took a few minutes to go through Georgia’s paper cup and point out each supplement, antidepressant, and vitaman, to ease her mind. There was only one he didn’t recognise, but she quickly explained that it was her estrogen supplement.

“I don’t know how he knew my brand or dosage, though.”

“He has his ways,” Casey sighed.

Alexei came by to collect dishes, and the three started a game of go fish using Felix’s cards, asking questions with each play to get to know each other. Felix insisted on starting with simple questions, which Casey quickly agreed to. Felix tended to avoid talking about deep subjects, when at all possible. Besides, Casey didn’t know all that much about either Felix and Georgia, and favorite colors and animals seemed like a good place to start.

They only had a few minutes of playing before the door opened and Alexei walked in again. “Come on, Casey, let’s get moving,” he ordered, holding the door open and looking impatient.

Casey’s stomach dropped. “Where are we-”

“You’ve got a client,” Alexei interrupted, annoyed, “and they’ll be here any minute, so let’s move.”

Casey stayed motionless, rooted to the floor as the surprise and terror set in. He had only had a few clients since Alexei deemed him ‘trained’ enough to be on the market. He hadn’t gotten used to the paralyzing, horrible sensation of looming pain, hadn’t figured out how to push back the what-ifs and reluctance.

Alexei rolled his eyes and stepped into the room, grabbing Casey and yanking him up to his feet. He put a firm hand on his shoulder, pulling him out of his room and down the dreaded hallway. He stopped to grab something out of a cupboard, but Casey hardly noticed. He couldn’t stop staring at the steel door.

When Alexei pushed him towards it once more, the panic surged and filled his body. “Sir, don’t make me, please don’t-”

Alexei didn’t stop, sliding the bolt and pulling the door open. Casey was pushed inside. His eyes moved on their own accord, and he could not take responsibility for their sweep over the many weapons on the wall in front of him.

Something hit Casey’s back, and he flinched and turned to see a small heap of clothing on the floor. “Get changed quickly,” Alexei ordered, turning to unwrap a thick rope from an anchor on the wall.

Casey did as he was told, pulling off his old clothes and putting on a fresh white tee and a pair of black athletic shorts. He balled the dirty clothes up and held onto them nervously.

Alexei had untied the rope and added more slack. The rope was threaded through a loop on the ceiling, and the end now hung at about eye level. Tied onto it was a large, metal hook.

Alexei pulled a sturdy pair of handcuffs off a shelf, and Casey realized what was happening.

He backed away a step, shaking his head as tears started to well up in his eyes. This was all too much, he didn’t want this, he couldn’t handle this.

Alexei didn’t care. He grabbed his wrists and forced the handcuffs on, letting the bundle of clothes drop to the floor. He placed them on the hook and pulled the rope, and suddenly Casey was on his toes, hands above his head, caught like a worm on a hook.

“They’ll be here in a minute,” Alexei said, grabbing the dirty clothes and moving towards the door. “On your best behavior, understand?”

Casey said nothing, eyes screwed tightly shut.

“I said, do you understand?” The darkened tone made Casey flinch, and he nodded immediately.

“Yes, sir,” he whispered. Alexei left without another word.

The client opened the door a few minutes later, and before Casey knew it, they were momentarily blinded by the flash of a camera. Once their vision came back, blurry and littered with spots, they got a look at the client.

She looked to be in her mid 30s, with blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. She smiled at Casey, holding the polaroid camera up again. This time, Casey had the foresight to close his eyes before the flash.

“Don’t mind me,” the woman said, bending down and pointing the camera up at him. “I’m just getting some ‘before’ pictures. We can get started in a minute.”

Casey found himself not minding the wait, as she lined up a few more shots. Anything to delay ‘getting started’.

Eventually, she put the camera down on a table, laying the developing photos out in a row. She turned to the wall of weapons and started looking. Casey didn’t know whether he wanted to watch or not, whether he wanted to know what would happen to him in a minute or two. In the end, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t bring himself to look away.

“So many interesting toys to play with,” the woman mused, tapping her chin in indecision. “In the end, though, I think I’ll stick to the classics.”

She pulled a knife off a magnetic strip, a small, curved weapon with a wicked shard point and a much duller blade. Casey couldn’t help the pathetic little whimper that escaped from his lips.

He wasn’t strong like Felix, not yet at least. He didn’t know how to bite back the screams, how to stay witty and brave through the pain.

When that knife bit into his chest as she slit his new clean shirt, when it carved patterns into his skin like he was a block of wood, he wasn’t able to hold back the sobs.

The client stepped back after what felt like hours, circling his shaking form like an artist around a sculpture. She picked up the camera and snapped picture after picture as Casey hung, barely supporting his weight, letting the cuffs rub his wrists raw.

She watched as they developed, smiling at each new addition to the collection of Casey’s pain. At one point, she picked one up and walked over to him.

“Look,” She said, grabbing his chin and forcing him to stare at the polaroid, showing off the blood dripping down his chest. “Don’t you think you look just beautiful like this?”

She was gripping him so hard, and his body hurt so much, and he wanted her to be happy, to leave him alone. “Y-yes,” he muttered, closing his eyes once more.

“Aww, you’re lying, aren’t you.” He felt a jolt of fear at these words. Would she punish him for the lie? Should he have told the truth, that he thought he looked like a cut of meat, barely human and hardly pleasing to the eye?

“No matter,” she continued, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “I can see enough beauty for the both of us.”

[thesinglesjukebox]

MAGGIE ROGERS - "DON'T FORGET ME"

In which we manage to not mention Sally Rooney...

[7.36]

Hannah Jocelyn: Maggie Rogers makes the best Kacey Musgraves song we're covering today. The production is weirdly underwhelming, especially compared to Surrender, but if it all sounds a bit bland, the nuts-and-bolts songwriting here is solid. [7]

Julian Axelrod: I've always appreciated Maggie Rogers, despite never being a diehard fan. But every few years she comes out of nowhere and drops a song that knocks me on my ass. "Don't Forget Me" knocked me on my ass. The last song of hers that had this effect on me, 2021's non-album single "Love You for a Long Time," was an ebullient ode to blind devotion that felt like the first peek over the horizon of a long forever. "Don't Forget Me" comes at long-term partnership from the opposite direction. Our narrator watches her friends' relationships stall out over time with a mixture of bafflement and isolation, yet she can't help but yearn for the relative safety of an unreliable companion. "Take my money, wreck my Sundays" sounds like the vows of the worst couple you know, but it's wrapped up in a sweeping hook that would make for an amazing first dance. [8]

Nortey Dowuona: Maggie Rogers is a storyteller. This is her greatest strength. Telling stories is difficult, especially as lyrics; the easy thing is to tell the half-remembered sketches, the poorly thought-out experiments, the overly detailed ears on pancake faces. But telling a complete story is the mark of a great songwriter -- a great writer in general. Maggie lights up your ears when the sound of "I'm still trying to clean up my side of the street slides past you, glittering with the slight glint of frustration at watching Sally find another anchor in the world, no longer there to watch the raccoons dig in the cans on her lawn. Later, she turns the knife with 'She seems happy, but that's not love to me, a reminder that the frustration is beginning to bubble over -- is it worry for Molly, who might be abandoning herself to chase her guy wherever he goes, or the knowledge that she doesn't have someone she could trust that much? It's concrete in its weight yet feathery in its subtlety. Then she gently casts "and maybe I'm dead wrong, maybe I was bitter from the winter all along." She's willing to let go of being frustrated at Sally and Molly finding happiness and willing to try again, trying to recast it as her own bitterness about her thwarted chances of love, willing to thaw out and step forward into the breach. "Take my money, wreck my Sundays, love me till your next somebody, oh, but promise me that when it's time to leave...don't forget me." [10]

Ian Mathers: There's something so compellingly bleak, intended or not, in "Give me something I can handle/A good lover or someone who's nice to me." Or? I've never smoked, but this makes me want to gaze moodily off into the middle distance with a cigarette in my hand.  [6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: With every song she makes, Maggie Rogers is very self-consciously attempting to write herself into great-American-songwriterdom. The funny thing is that it works – the more effortful her efforts toward greatness are, the better she is. I wanted to be cynical about "Don't Forget Me," about the rootsy chug of its guitars and the grand sustains of the piano, but with every listen Rogers' writing endeared me to it a little more. Where her earlier work trafficked almost entirely in the vague inspirational register of first-person heartbreak and growth narratives, here she shines her light more outwards, capturing her own social milieu with care and grace – in passing references to green eyes and weddings – and using those observations to self-examine in a mode that feels more honest than anything she's done before. All that autofictional jazz wouldn't be worth much if she didn't also have a handle on songcraft, but she constructs an exceptionally sturdy folk-pop vehicle that initially struck me as rote before I noticed all of the well-wrought details in each individual part. [9]

Jackie Powell: I saw Maggie Rogers perform “Don’t Forgive Me” live this past summer at Forest Hills. I liked the sound. It was quite Carole Kingian. But it’s not until now that I’ve realized that this is her “Yoü and I,” a deeply personal narrative that could become her most critically acclaimed and beloved song. Rogers, like Lady Gaga, writes about the sacrifices that her chosen life presents her with. She contemplates whether the sacrifices she’s made in not living like her friends Sally and Molly are actually worth it. In verse two when she’s discussing Molly’s life circumstances, there’s a line that could easily have been less insulting: “She seems happy, oh, but that's not love to me.” Rogers could have replaced that with something like “She seems happy, oh, but that’s not the life for me,” but opted for something a bit more grating. I wonder why she made that choice. Maybe it’s because she wants to draw a contrast between settling and having low expectations. Rogers said herself that “Don’t Forget Me” is about having low expectations, and there’s a yearning in the hook for those low expectations to amount to something that’s worth remembering. That’s all she wants: relationships with people that live on even if they are over, and that aren’t just bygones.  [9]

Katherine St. Asaph: Listening to this, I was reminded of Jess Bergman's excellent piece in The Baffler, "I'm Not Feeling Good at All," about the subgenre (that increasingly feels like just the norm) of books about aimless millennial women who drift through half a lonely life like the protagonist of "Don't Forget Me" does: "She has no friends or resents the one she has. Her boyfriend is distant. Perhaps he’s not even her boyfriend anymore, but still, she thinks of him often. She rarely eats. Absent what you might call drive, her life proceeds by rote.... With this literature of relentless detachment, we seem to have arrived at the inverse of what James Wood famously called 'hysterical realism,' describing a strain of fiction overflowing with eccentric characters and detail that, in its exaggerated vitality, depicts life as 'fervid intensity of connectedness.' What these novels constitute instead is a kind of denuded realism. Rather than an excess of intimacy, there is a lack; rather than overly ornamental character sketches, there are half-finished ones. Personality languishes, and desire has been almost completely erased—except, of course, the desire for nothing. ... However individually stylish or inventive, taken together, the novels tend to replicate the sensations of apathy and tedium they seek to describe." I don't dislike this style of writing nearly as much as others seem to, and I don't even dislike it in music necessarily -- Bergman's first paragraph describes the plot of ABBA's unarguably classic "The Day Before You Came" so well I'm kind of amazed it was written about something else. But "Don't Forget Me" sure does replicate tedium, despite being on the surface a more hopeful narrative. Maybe it wouldn't if the arrangement was as un-smooth as Rogers' voice is. [5]

Joshua Lu: The instrumental is gorgeous, the lyricism is poignant, and the singing is so strained it plows through everything like an excavator through a rainforest. Maggie Rogers has a beautiful voice, and she does not have to fight for her life every time she wants to express an emotion. It makes her sound like she's making music the universe does not want her to create. [4]

Isabel Cole: It’s the hitch in her rich, steady voice on “nice”: “a good lover or someone who’s nice to me.” Such a meagre ask, the lowest of low bars — unless, of course, you’ve had cause to learn not to take it for granted. She sings it like it’s a dream so wild she can hardly bring herself to say it out loud, and it kills me every time. [7]

Alfred Soto: Keeping Nilsson's "Don't Forget Me" (and Neko Case's cover) in the rear mirror, Maggie Rogers writes her own summa. No regret but some pain. The piano and bass lock well enough for Rogers to let her voice crack on the strategically placed syllables. A adult song without arthritis. [8]

Aaron Bergstrom: I've always been clear on what I don't want. I thought navigating adulthood would require more active efforts to suppress jealousy, but it turns out that I spend way more emotional energy on listening to people brag about their lives, maintaining a polite smile while thinking "oh my god this all sounds miserable," then walking away feeling equal parts superior and broken. Why don't I want that? Shouldn't I want that? What do I want? On "Don't Forget Me," Maggie Rogers centers her dislocation on idealized romantic relationships, but that feeling seeps into everything. We all know what the "right" answers are, what we're supposed to want. Setting aside those one-size-fits-all dreams is an important first step, but it's not enough. You have to replace them with something. Maggie knows what she wants: someone who will be nice to her, someone who will remember her fondly even if it doesn't last forever, which it probably won't. That's such an honest self-appraisal. Molly and Sally would probably tell her to dream bigger, but these dreams are hers, and for that reason alone they're better. [8]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[jimitjain]

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[more-gremlin-than-fae]

I reblogged this once already without commentary but actually I am team "Do" BUT and this is the part that leads to most of these tragedies: "Do it with respect"

The ocean can and will kill you, without pity or remorse, whether you're on or under it.

But you can make exploring it safer by:

respecting the decades of expertise that go into the classification and certification of vessels instead of saying shit like “The vast majority of marine (and aviation) accidents are a result of operator error, not mechanical failure” - yeah, you know why, dipshit? because there are fucking standards in place for the mechanical stuff which, unlike people, operate in expected ways because they meet those standards

respecting that things can and will go wrong and having an actual plan for emergencies instead of coming to it with the attitude "At some point, safety is just pure waste" - Listen, you will never make anything 100% safe, especially not in the ocean, but that is not the attitude I want the person in charge of designing or signing off on safety protocols to have, good lord. You know what you can have instead of a ship with a Starlink*, an X-Box controller and a door that bolts on from the outside? Electromagnetic ballast, and multiple methods of communication on board, and a locator beacon, and a door that you can fucking open from the inside so that if and when shit goes wrong, your boat will goddamn float to a place where the radio works and you can be rescued and in the meantime there is air to fucking breathe. Certified submarines are built with multiple redundancies because even with certifications and the best inspections in the world, stuff. goes. wrong.

respecting the weather conditions - you know why they were going to be "probably the only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023"? BECAUSE THE WEATHER CONDITIONS WERE LOUSY. It was the worst winter in Newfoundland (which is saying something, boy howdy) in decades, every other group that might have had the intention to do a manned mission looked at that same weather window these guys saw and went "Nope, the sea is changeable and the weather this is year is more fickle than it's been in decades, no thanks"

*Y'all I HAVE a Starlink and it is actually genuinely better than many internet providers - like it's equivalent to a fiber connection and I remote in to work on it most of the time - but also it stops working when: it gets too hot, it gets too cold, it does not like where it is in the garden, i haven't signed in to my account in awhile, and between 3 and 3:15pm every day because there is a tree branch casting a shadow on it for that 15 min window, IT SHOULD NOT BE A KEY PART OF YOUR SAFETY GEAR because it is still new technology that is prone to unexpected failure.

And even if it wasn't [points at multiple redundancies line above], boats carry: a radio, lights, an airhorn, an anchor or three, a big-ass flashlight or spotlight, signal flares, signal flags, and these days probably GPS, not to mention the adults on board having cell phones just for a day sail. You know why? Because conditions on large bodies of water can and do turn at the drop of a hat and if you don't have safety gear, you could become the cautionary tale.

We set out once to sail locally from like, Vancouver to, I think we were heading for Bowen - not even crossing the Gulf - and when we started it was overcast but it was not even supposed to rain. Next thing we know, it's goddamn snowing. And not just snowing because the wind has picked up (enough that it caused the jib to rip) so it's whiteout conditions. We're still in Burrard Inlet but we cannot see more than a couple of meters on any side of the boat - the sky is white, the sea is white, all you can see is snow on all sides where not 5 before we were in comfortable sight of the shoreline.

We know we're near Lighthouse Park, but we can't see the lighthouse and we don't know if we'll see the rocks before we run into them. So here is teen me scrambling up the boat in nothing but a sweater (with a PFD over it) and jeans frantically pulling down the damaged sail, while my dad tries not to steer us into any rocks and my mom is trying to pull out the GPS unit (which was a new thing for itty bitty sailboats like us to have at the time) and the air horn and the PDFs and whatever we had in the way of cold weather gear. If we hadn't had the GPS (or the boat engine) to get us back to False Creek, we might have had to try and anchor out until conditions cleared or edge towards shore and hope we didn't run aground while we tried to find to a shoreline to follow back.

I could hear my parents but not see the cockpit of the boat (that is roughly 20ft) and the sea was rough enough that I was likely to end up IN it, if I'd tried to get back, plus we needed someone at the bow to keep watch for hazards. I spent a very miserable time the whole way back huddled in the front of the boat, using the broken sail as both cushion and emergency blanket, while my parents got us back to our moorage safely.

TAKE YOUR SAFETY MEASURES SERIOUSLY OR DON'T TAKE TO THE SEA

I think the thing about the ocean is that it does not want us there, and it can kill you so much to prove this.

Look, SOME of us grew up repeatedly hearing The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald from a young age and that Lake Superior never gives up her dead. The ocean is like that but MUCH BIGGER and MORE.

Do not!

[deepsteelcenter]

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[artdecosupernova-writing]

Small Stories Hour: Partners

The Lush Belt Champ

↳ The ties came off the second Gilmore and Murray burst through the door to Ben's apartment, belting out the final note to the most successful number of the night loud enough to wake the tenants on the other side of the building. Ben waved the bottle of beer he swiped from the bar in the hand not tugging impatiently at the strip of silken fabric around his own neck, squeezing past Reagan in the doorway to stumble into the living room, all but knocking his shin against his coffee table in the process.

"Look at you, Benny," Reagan purred, pressing the door closed behind his back and regarding Ben with nothing short of his permanent pride. "Continually provin' to be…the best pianist this side of Vienna, aren't you?"

Ben drained the last of the beer by throwing his head back and pouring the last of it into his mouth. He tossed the tie onto the table and swaggered in the direction of the kitchen, at this point much drunker than Reagan as was typical. "I'm breakin' out the gin and you can't stop me!" He somehow managed to get two glasses from the cabinet, noting that he hadn't gone shopping for food in quite a few days. That was important, but not as important as the bottle of gin being far too high up on the shelf for him to reach, apparently. "...Reggie, help me out."

Reagan meandered into the kitchen, grinning very much like the cat that ate the canary—though that was also a permanent expression, it seemed—and he gripped the base of Ben's throat to move him aside. "I'm only taller than you by an inch."

Ben watched through bleary eyes as Reagan unfastened his jacket to extend his arm to the top shelf. "You shouldn't even be taller than me at all, pal!"

"Now, now." Reagan set the bottle on the counter with a thunk and plucked a glass from Ben's hand. He poured the clear liquid into both of their glasses. "Don't get hostile with me; we've got a grand performance to celebrate. Things are finally startin' to look up for us. So, cheers." He held the glass up to Ben. "To you."

Clinking their glasses together, Ben snorted. "To we. There would be no me without thee."

"Without thee, there is no we," Reagan corrected. "Who is the singer without an instrument?"

"Ever heard of a capella, boy?"

"No." Reagan gave him a cheeky wink and took a generous swig of his gin. "Is that anything like antipasti?"

Half of the bottle disappeared within an hour and Ben found himself draped over the couch, balancing his empty glass on the underside of his chin, staring at Reagan through the gap under the coffee table. Reagan had found some solace in the carpet, holding his own empty glass to his chest like a teddy bear and watching unseen shapes dancing on the ceiling.

"Be my partner forever," he murmured.

Ben released a long sigh he didn't expect and the glass tumbled onto the floor. Vertigo cropped up bad if he even thought about getting up. "That's the idea."

The ticking of the clock in the kitchen became an anchor, rooting the duo into reality the harder the liquor decided to hit.

Ben pulled himself upright, wiping a smear of pungent alcohol off his jaw. "You gonna stay the night?"

"I prob'ly shouldn't."

"But you will, 'cause you ain't ever said no to me before and I don't think you're gonna start now."

Reagan turned his head and leveled Ben with a very dark, glassy look. "Better be careful, Benny…'cause one day I just might prove you wrong."

"Ooh, you think you got it in you to say no to me? Go ahead then, say no to me." Ben took a few playing cards from the deck on the table and tossed them at Reagan, who didn't even flinch. "'Smatter, Reggie? I ain't bein' too obnoxious, am I? Am I annoyin' you? Huh? Am I?"

Reagan bolted up and Ben screamed, attempting to make a sloppy run for it and instead dropping like a dead weight behind the table. Reagan caught up and grabbed him around the waist, lifting him over his own head to drop him onto the couch. Ben broke his hold and shoved his knee up, forcefully putting space between them so he could get free.

He succeeded, but only for a moment. They rolled off the couch and Reagan tussled with him to pin him down, straddling him and pressing Ben's elbows into the floor with a wicked chuckle.

"What's that, nine times in a row now?" Reagan struggled to catch his breath. "I'm startin' to think there's no point wrestlin' you if you're gonna keep losin' like this, sweetheart."

Ben scowled up at him. "You're eighty times stronger than me, it's not fair!"

Reagan caught the edge of the table to keep himself from collapsing, snatching the bottle of gin from beside Ben's head and taking a quick pull. "Guess you better start catchin' up."

Pouting like a petulant child, Ben knocked the bottle out of his hand and the the contents splashed on him before rolling to a stop against the wall.

"Oh," Reagan said. "You monster."

The nonchalance of his tone caused Ben to burst into laughter so intense and physical that Reagan had to laugh with him, slumping against the couch to let him get up, though neither of them had the capacity to do so and neither of them really wanted to anyway.

They slept off their inebriation in Ben's bed, ignoring every one of Charles' calls as they remained dead to the world until noon.

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[fixdex-fastening-technology]

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[mochegato]

Even the Losers

Chapter 1

“You can do this Marinette,” Adrien whispered encouragingly, echoing the mantra she’d been whispering to herself for the past two days.  She could do this.  She could manage.  This was for Max.  She could handle it.  He couldn’t be here but she could.  She could be strong for him.  She gave Adrien a shaky smile and nodded.  “We just have to find him and we can leave,” he reminded her.

Marinette took a breath and let it out slowly. She’d dealt with far, far worse than a few judgmental, heartless asses who had no real interest in her.  But seas of artificial smiles had always unsettled her and currently she was surrounded with so much artificial sweetness she felt like she was walking through a kid’s cereal aisle.  That added onto her already existing anxiety had her ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.

She ran her hand over the skirt of her dress, letting the feeling of the fabric and the knowledge of all that had gone into it soothe her.  She was especially proud of her dress and the work that had gone into it.  It was a black so dark it almost appeared to draw in the light around it.  A mesh with strategically placed blood red decorations overlaid the dress, hugging her bodice until it reached her hips then dropped into a flowing skirt that ended just before it could pool on the ground.

She fought the urge to fiddle with the belt in her nervousness.  She couldn’t show weakness like that, not here.  She looked up at Adrien again in search of an anchor to reality.  She took in his expression and had to stifle the laugh that resulted.  He had his own artificially sweet smile on but his eyes quite clearly begged for a quick death.  He glanced down to her and nudged her discreetly, his artificial smile becoming wide and real.  “Shhhh,” he hushed her under his breath.  “We’re trying not to attract attention to ourselves, remember?  We’re ghosts.”  He looked around to make sure nobody was looking at them.

Marinette immediately quieted, her face becoming somber. She did remember.  In and out.  That was the goal.  Her goal. Knock the man on his ass with Max’s accomplishments, then never see him, or anyone else in this room, other than Adrien of course, ever again.  They were supposed to be like ghosts.  There but not.  Her eyes scanned the room looking for their target.

Adrien’s eyes immediately softened and filled with regret.  “Shit, Mari. I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to…”

“No,” she looked up at him with an artificial smile of her own.  “I know. It’s fine.  It’s not your fault.”  She scanned the crowd again, cursing her height, as she had many times in her life.  Even with the six inch, death defying heels, she still barely reached Adrien’s eyes, let alone give her any kind of advantage to see the crowd.  She needed some kind of vantage point but unfortunately, the only high point in the ballroom was the stage, which she couldn’t utilize if she was going to follow her Ghost policy.  “We might have more success if we split up.  Let me know if you find him.”

Adrien squeezed her arm quickly before nodding. “Good luck.”

Marinette shot him a genuine smile.  “You too.  May the Luck be with you.”

Adrien laughed and shook his head.  “I never should have forced you to watch that movie.”

Marinette grinned back.  “You never should have forced me to watch the prequels.  The original ones were just fine.”  Adrien narrowed his eyes at her but let it drop in favor of disappearing in the crowd to find their target.

Marinette followed him with her eyes until she couldn’t see him anymore then took a deep breath to brace herself.  Her eyes immediately started darting around and her fingers started dancing.  She needed something to occupy them or she was going to start attracting unwanted attention.

She noted a bar close by and made a beeline for it. She waited politely for the bartender to notice her, her fingers tapping anxiously against the bar while she waited. She froze when she heard a gruff voice next to her.  “Did you sneak in here?”

She turned to the voice and blinked a few times. “Excuse me?”

“You’re anxious and jittery.  Afraid you’re going to get kicked out?” the man elaborated.

Marinette studied him for a moment trying to figure out why he looked so familiar.  “No,” she started slowly, trying to give her brain a chance to answer the puzzle. “Just not a fan of events like this.”

The man scoffed and nodded in understanding. “Cheers.”  He raised his glass for her to clink his but she held out her hands with a sheepish look, showing she didn’t have a drink yet.  “Well, that’s a crime.  Nobody should have to endure one of these without a drink.”  He motioned to the bartender and got an immediate response. “Another for me and a…” he motioned to Marinette to give her order.

“Oh, champagne, please,” she finished with a smile for the bartender.  That’s what was socially acceptable at events like this, right?  Champagne.

The bartender looked to the man for confirmation. The man nodded.  “And a champagne for the woman.”  Marinette scowled at the bartender causing the man to laugh. “He’s just worried that you’re underage. You look awfully young.  You’re not, right?”

Marinette’s glare softened in realization.  “Oh, that makes sense.  No, I’m not.  I forgot the legal age here is higher than in France.”

He nodded and looked at her critically for a moment before offering his hand.  “Jason.”

Marinette immediately reached out for his hand and answered with her name before her brain registered the name he’d given. Jason.  Jason Todd.  Bruce Wayne’s son.  She pulled her hand back quickly as the realization hit her and focused on leveling her breathing.  She grabbed the champagne glass more violently than necessary when the bartender set it down in front of her and immediately downed the entire glass, only coughing a bit as the bubbles tickled her throat.  Overall, champagne was not the best drink to chug.  “Another, please,” she croaked out.

“You know, there are better drinks for that, if that’s what you want to do,” Jason grinned, laughing at her.

“Wasn’t the plan until it was and then that’s all I had,” she croaked out, her voice still hoarse from the bubbles.  She kept her eyes focused on her empty glass as she spoke, almost afraid to make eye contact with him as if just seeing her eyes would be enough to blow her cover.

Jason chuckled and nodded in understanding. “Don’t suppose you’d care to dance?”

Marinette whipped her head to him and stared incredulously, forgetting her previous reservations.  She only moved again when the bartender set the new drink down in front of her.  “Um… no… thank you.  That doesn’t seem… I don’t think my date would be comfortable with that.  Good luck getting drunk enough to handle tonight though.”  She gave him a weak smile and raised her glass to him before moving into the fray again, now armed with a socially acceptable fidget toy.

It took five minutes of avoiding wandering hands and leering looks but with a little luck and some prodding from the goddess hiding in the folds of her skirt, she was finally able to stumble on M. Lucius Fox, Director of Research and Development for Wayne Enterprises.  He was in a conversation he was not remotely interested in with some vapid business exec who was just as interested in M. Fox.  Not that M. Fox’s disinterest was clear.  He was very polite and good at covering his boredom, much more so than his conversation partner, but she’d been at enough stuffy, snobby parties with Adrien, Felix, and Chloe to know the signs.

She took another breath and squared her shoulders, going into Ladybug Mode; calm and confident, completely assured of herself. She was on a mission.  She had a goal and a plan to accomplish it, and once she had a plan, she had a direction and purpose, and with those, her insecurities fell away.  With M. Fox in her sights, she could see the pieces and the way they fit together. There were no more doubts.  She set her glass on a passing waiter’s tray and made her way over to M. Fox.

“The elusive M. Fox.  It is a pleasure to meet you,” Marinette purred, coming up next to him with a charming, real smile.

“I didn’t realize I was hiding,” Lucius responded with a polite smile of his own.

“Must just come naturally.  Foxes are known to be crafty.”  Marinette looked around them and motioned toward the dancefloor. “Would you care to dance, M. Fox?”

He shook his head deferentially.  “Are you sure there aren’t other people here you’d rather dance with?”

Marinette smiled conspiratorially and leaned closer to him, making sure to keep a respectable distance.  She did NOT want to have her banter confused with flirting. That was not the strategy she had devised.  “That would defeat the purpose of coming here.  I came here specifically to speak with you.”

Lucius looked down at her analytically, trying to figure out what her angle was, but took her hand and followed her onto the dancefloor.  “And what did you want to speak about, Ms…?”

“Dupain Cheng.  Marinette Dupain Cheng.  It’s nice to meet you M. Fox.  I wanted to speak to you to sell my friend Max Kante.”

Lucius’ eyes widened almost imperceptibly as the music changed.  After a beat, he chuckled.  “I’m not in the market to buy anyone, but thank you.”  He settled his hands on her mid-back and hand for their dance.

Marinette chuckled good naturedly along with him. “Sell his talents, would be a better way to say it.”

“And where is Mr. Kante?” Lucius raised an eyebrow at her, curious why the young man didn’t bother to come himself.  “Why are you presenting his talents instead of him?”

“Finals.  Had the incredibly bad luck to have a Friday at noon final.  I mean at least it wasn’t at 19h, right?  Can you believe they have those?”  She scrunched up her nose in playful disgust.  “But still means he’s taking it right now.  And for his last final of his career.  I mean… probably.  Knowing him, he might get another PhD at some point.  My finals and presentation ended last week.  M. Wa…” she took a steadying breath and looked back up with a strained smile hoping he wouldn’t notice the stutter.  “M. Wayne even visited for it.  That’s when the idea for this came to me.  So while Max studied, I plotted.”

“So why me then and not Mr. Wayne?” Lucius asked with a curious interest.

Marinette froze for just a second.  Hardly enough for anyone to notice.  Her mind raced to calculate the appropriate response to that question, a satisfactorily casual yet intelligent response.  “M. Wayne isn’t in charge of research.  You are.  Not to mention, I highly doubt the CEO would be involved enough in the research and development projects to know what was going on.  You I take as a man who knows what is going on with all your ongoing projects.”

He nodded.  She wasn’t wrong, or normally wouldn’t be.  Mr. Wayne usually was not involved in any projects and with the exception of one particular project they were having issues with, he wouldn’t know the particulars.  “A very dangerous and elaborate plan.  Why didn’t you make an appointment with me?  Or just stop me on the street?” he prodded, hoping for her thought process.

Marinette laughed lightly.  “I don’t imagine I would have had a chance in Hell of making an appointment with you in your office.  I have no standing, no name, no significance that would have attracted any PA worth their salt’s attention.  I would have been pawned off onto a low ranking employee to handle, if I was handled at all.  And something like this needed to be taken to you.  

“As for running into you on the street, I can’t imagine you would have responded positively to getting accosted on the street. You seem more than capable of handling yourself with grace in the face of a pest.  I doubt I would have gotten more than a few words in.  At a gala however,” she grinned conspiratorially at him. “Societal convention.  Almost absolute certainty of at least one dance where I would have you one-on-one for a few minutes.  Hostage audience.  Figured I could use it to my advantage for once.”

Lucius smiled back at her ingenuity.  “There’s an application process he could have gone through,” he noted.  

Mari nodded and looked out to the crowd, scanning it.  “Right, applying to M. Fedor Rabler,” she said distractedly.  “He did that.”

Lucius nodded in understanding.  Their application process was tough.  Lots of amazing candidates didn’t get through. He had to respect her devotion to her friend, to risk coming here and potentially making an enemy of Wayne Enterprises if he’d been that sort of man.  His eyes turned sympathetic.  “I’m sorry he was passed over.”

“You know, I’ve noticed Elspeth Cole puts forth a lot of inventions and extremely varied ones at that,” she continued as though she hadn’t heard his consolation.  “Most inventors, you can see their process, you can see how they got from one invention to the next, but hers… they’re so varied.  It’s almost like they’re coming from completely different people.”  Lucius watched her carefully, waiting to see where she was going with this.  “That’s them, isn’t it?  Dancing together.  Awfully close for purely colleagues.”

Lucius followed her sight line to Ms. Cole and Mr. Rabler dancing extremely closely.  Not obscenely, but perhaps a bit closer than was normally acceptable at a society event such as this one.  “It’s hardly incriminating that two people with expertise in electrical engineering would get together,” he said slowly.

“Max is amazing.  Brilliant,” Marinette said, seemingly not noticing her non-sequitur. “He created an AI that helped the Parisian superheroes locate and defeat our supervillain at only 14.”  Lucius’ brow rose.  That was certainly promising.  He wondered what would have caused them not to take such an applicant.  Surely there was some sort of embellishment there, but as he studied her, she seemed entirely genuine.  

“He’s being scouted by several high profile companies including Lexcorp and Palmer Technologies.”  She turned her attention back to Lucius, a curious pout on her lips. “But not Wayne Enterprises.”  She looked away with clearly forced casualness. “Lexcorp and Palmer, they’re offering pretty impressive packages.  Not as good as he deserves in my opinion, but I may be a bit biased.  Wayne Enterprises however… nothing.  Not even an offer.

“Now, I don’t really have a dog in the fight… other than wanting my friend to be safe and treated with the respect he deserves. But Palmer Technologies gets blown up by a villain or its inventors kidnapped far too frequently for me to be comfortable with my friend working there.  And Lexcorp…”  She looked down as if in thought before looking back at him again with a determined look in her eye.

“You know, I get a feeling sometimes.  I can’t really explain it, just get a feeling about people or things.  I’ve found it’s best for me and the people around me if I listen to that feeling and that feeling tells me Lex Luthor is the last person who should be trusted with a brain as brilliant as Max’s.”  She looked back over to Mr. Rabler and Ms. Cole.  “That same feeling told me Max shouldn’t trust the application process for Wayne Enterprises.”  

She looked back at Lucius with an apologetic smile. “No offense.  So, I convinced Max to make a small part of his submission just a little off.  Just a bit. Enough that even an expert could miss it, but if it’s wrong the project could never work.  It took a lot of convincing to get him to do it.  He refused to believe he had anything to worry about in Wayne Enterprises with its stellar reputation.”  She scrunched up her face in annoyance.  “But that feeling, you know?  I couldn’t get over it.  After a lot of work, I convinced him there was no harm.  After all, if he was hired he could fix it.  If he wasn’t… well, you shouldn’t be using what he presented anyway, right? No harm, no foul as you Americans say.”

“No,” Lucius agreed.  “That would be theft and completely against WE policy and standards.  In fact, we should not be asking applicants to submit anything like that in the first place.”

Marinette smiled and nodded approvingly.  “I’ve heard rumblings, or rather Max has, of WE getting into transmutation of materials.  Just can’t get that algorithm right though, can you?  Algorithms are hard.  Just a little off and nothing works.”

He stared at her.  That was a secret project.  Other departments in Wayne Enterprises didn’t even know about it.  “I can’t comment on ongoing projects.”  

“I never did show you what Max is capable of, did I?”  She gave him a bright smile and reached down to press a disguised button on her belt. Lucius tensed and cursed himself for exposing himself to whatever she was about to do.  A wave of emerald green washed over the front of her bodice as the blood red decorated mesh overlay turned into a brilliant emerald green that reflected the lights now rather than absorbing it.

Lucius’ eyes widened in surprise, a feat very few had been able to draw out of him.  “He designed the fabric?” he whispered out.  He reached out tentatively to touch the fabric at her shoulder.

Marinette grinned brilliantly at his reaction.  It was no less than Max deserved.  He’d worked incredibly hard on it.  “He did,” she nodded in confirmation, “and the software that controls it.  The whole dress can change but we’re kind of surrounded here and I didn’t want to attract too much attention.”  She let him touch it for a moment before pushing the button again to turn it back into the black, then allowing him to feel the mesh to confirm it was the same fabric.  “He has ideas for changing the texture as well, but limited resources you know? Something I’d hope wouldn’t be an issue at WE.”

“How does it work?”  His eyes were still focused on the fabric at her shoulder. He took a quick look at the rest of the bodice, but quickly snapped his eyes back to her shoulder.  The neckline was conservative, but it was still rather unbecoming to stare at the young woman’s chest.

Marinette laughed.  “You’ll have to ask Max that.  I just designed the dress.  I don’t really understand the mechanics behind it, but he does.  I doubt Ms. Cole can say the same.”

Lucius stared in awe at her shoulder before looking back up to her eyes and nodding in understanding.  “Interesting.  I’ll take that under advisement.  Maybe we should be scouting you as well.”

Mari laughed.  “No, thank you.  I’m not an inventor.  I’m a designer.  But I appreciate the interest.”

Lucius nodded and led her off the dancefloor with the end of the song.  “Inventor or not, we can always use someone with intuition, intelligence, and ingenuity like you’ve demonstrated.”  

Marinette gave him a brilliant, somewhat familiar smile. “That’s very flattering.  Thank you, M. Fox.  But tonight is about Max.  I have my own, separate plans for my future.”

Lucius nodded in understanding.  “Our loss,” he answered sincerely.  “If you ever need any help or advice, please feel free to call me.  I’m sure Mr. Kante will have it soon enough and can pass it onto you.”  He looked back down to her shoulder again.  “If I may…”  He motioned toward her shoulder.  

Marinette laughed.  “Of course.  I understand how truly impressive it is.  It’s been incredibly inspirational, thinking of the options.”

“And what did your intuition tell you about tonight?” He looked up to meet her eyes, curious about her answer.

Marinette’s face went slack for a moment before she pasted on a bittersweet smile.  “That it would be costly but worth it.”

Lucius quirked his head to the side.  “In what way?”

Marinette shook her head absently and took a sudden interest in M. Fox’s tie.  “I’m not sure yet.”

Mr. Fox’s eyes softened.  “Would he be available to meet on Monday?”

Marinette grin and snapped her eyes up to him. Mission success!  Max was going to get his interview!  “He can be.”

“I’d actually like to speak with both of you, if you don’t mind.  In my office at 10 Monday?” he offered.  

Marinette faltered.  “In Wayne Enterprises?”

Lucius chuckled.  “Naturally.”

Marinette swallowed heavily.  “Why don’t we meet somewhere else?  Early morning coffee perhaps?” she offered instead with an artificial smile.  “Here’s my card.  Have someone give me a call or text and I can arrange it.  He’s scheduled to fly in tomorrow morning.  He was supposed to meet with Lexcorp Monday morning, but he’ll be at coffee to meet you instead.”

Lucius smiled back at her as he slipped her card into his pocket.  “I greatly appreciate your candor and support Ms. Dupain Cheng.”  He took her hand in both of his to shake it.  “I cannot tell you how good it was to meet you.  And if you ever get one of those feelings about me or Wayne Enterprises, let me know, okay?”

“Lucius.”

Lucius froze at the cold voice, not accustomed to that tone of voice directed at him.  He looked over curiously and missed Marinette freezing before pushing another button on her belt.

Chapter 2

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@maribat-bdbwm

[mass-piplup-outbreak]

End of the Line - Chapter 4

[first] - [previous] - [next] read it on ao3! if you like this fic, please reblog it!

Chapter 4: Nightmare The new normal begins.

‥

The Single Train has been out of service for too long, in Emmet’s opinion. Gear Station just isn’t the same without Ingo, and vice versa. Having him back will be like filling a crack in the sidewalk. Fixing something that’s been broken.

“Are you ready for your first day back?” Emmet smiles, tilting his head towards his brother.

Ingo’s uniform is crisp, as pristine as it was as the day he received it. The corners of his mouth tilt up, ever so slightly. “It’s been some time.”

“You’ll do fine,” Emmet nudges Ingo with his elbow. “Safety checks?”

“I’m alright, Emmet,” he reminds him. They stop at the sliding door at the end of the Single Train, which is propped open. Emmet peers over Ingo’s shoulder, looking into the interior of the train. His heart drops.

It isn’t just empty in there. It’s completely non-existent, a dark void.

“Are you sure you want to return to the station today?” Emmet asks nervously, eyes darting between the emptiness and his brother. “There is always tomorrow.”

Ingo rests a hand on the doorway, seemingly oblivious to what Emmet sees. “We all must depart, eventually.”

“Without me?”

“Of course,” Ingo nods. “I’ve reached the end of my track, but you still have many miles left to go.”

Emmet blinks, and the image of his brother is replaced. Altered. The Ingo who walked to work with him every morning, with warm coffee in their hands, is gone. In his place is the warden, the Ingo that Emmet saw in those aged photographs. His coat is torn, and his eyes are empty.

“Don’t leave,” Emmet begs, even as Ingo turns his back on him.“Ingo, please. Please don’t leave me.” No matter how much he tries, he can’t lift his feet from the station floor. He’s stuck there, trapped in place as his brother goes somewhere he can’t follow.

Ingo pauses in the doorway, glancing back at Emmet out of the corner of his eye.

“Ingo!” Emmet shouts, desperately trying to reach out to him. But everytime he gets close, it’s almost as though his fingers pass through his coat. Ingo remains out of his grasp.

Without another word, Ingo steps onto the train, and he’s gone.

Emmet bolts upright in his bed, drenched in sweat and gasping for air. His breathing shakes as he tries to calm himself, but to no avail. Reality comes crashing down again, and the wound is bleeding anew. He can’t stop the broken sob that comes from deep in his chest.

They made a promise once, when they were small and still trying to find their way. No matter what obstacles life threw their way, they would stick together. But Ingo went somewhere that Emmet could not follow. The raw grief claws through his heart, ripping it to shreds each and every time he remembers that one, simple fact.

Ingo is dead now. Ingo has been dead for a verrrry long time.

Emmet barely notices Galvantula snuggling up to his side or Eelektross resting its head on his shoulder. Their presence is almost like second nature, as natural as having Ingo by his side would be. They pull the brakes on his train of thought, keeping him anchored for just a moment.

Chandelure floats above Emmet’s head, its gentle, purple flames filling the room with a soft light. It’s almost nostalgic. The first few weeks of their Gym Challenge were certainly the hardest, but Emmet still regards it as the best time of his life. It was just him, Ingo, and their Pokémon. If only he could go back to those nights, when little Litwick was their only nightlight in the darkness. When everything was so simple, and it all made sense because Ingo was there.

Emmet closes his eyes, and he tries to imagine that he’s still in that tent.

‥

The first day after they arrive home is most definitely the worst. Once Elesa leaves, Emmet finally changes out of his clothes from the day before. It isn’t exactly inspiring that he switched into sweatpants and an old shirt before collapsing onto his bed, but hey, at least it’s clean.

On the second day, when Emmet still hasn’t emerged from under his covers, Ingo asks Chandelure to drag his brother out of bed. He had no recollection of the fact that Chandelure could use Psychic before this moment, but if the circumstances were any different, he would be laughing at Emmet trying to resist being telekinetically lifted out of bed. He begrudgingly eats a bar of granola and drinks some water under the oppressive supervision of Eelektross.

Emmet gets a bit better on the third day. He gets out of bed of his own volition, dragging his comforter behind him. He spends the whole day curled on the couch, alternating between watching the television—which Ingo only remembers the name of about four hours into the ordeal—and bawling his eyes out. Archeops sits on his shoulders, wiping away his tears with its beak.

Very abruptly, on the fourth day, Emmet gets dressed and leaves the apartment. Ingo had noticed him fiddling with the strange device on his wrist for a while, kind of like how Akari used to mess with her Arc Phone. It must be a fun distraction.

Ingo likes the apartment. The familiar environment seems to start the engine when it comes to recovering his memories. He’s pretty sure he and Emmet are twins? They look about the same age in the few photo frames that Chandelure would turn over for him, especially in the ones where they’re children. Their eyes are bright, they have a few missing teeth, and most important of all, they’re always together.

Something about that just makes sense.

And because it makes sense to stick together, Ingo does not hesitate to follow Emmet when he leaves.

The streets of Nimbasa are different than they were when Emmet and Ingo first returned to the apartment. The daylight draws more people to the streets than the desolate, early morning hours do. People stream through the walkways, passing by each other without the slightest acknowledgement.

Emmet weaves through the crowd like he’s an expert, keeping his head down the whole way. Ingo supposes he must have been like that once, but for now, he’s going to have to bear the rather uncomfortable experience of having people walk right through him. At the very least, they avoid Chandelure, who hasn’t left Ingo’s side since their reunion.

As they walk, their route becomes familiar to Ingo, and he finds himself anticipating Emmet’s turns before he makes them. He’s gone this way before, hasn’t he? Their destination is familiar, on the tip of his tongue. When was the last time they visited…?

Visited who?

They eventually step into a highrise that Ingo swears he knows. Skyscrapers still feel so new to him, but at the same time, he lived on a mountain for the last few years of his life without much fear. If Emmet trusts it, then Ingo does too.

Emmet knocks at the door Ingo knew he would. Elesa opens it immediately, as if she was waiting for him just on the other side. Which, judging by the anxious smile on her face, seems likely.

“Emmet, hey!” she greets him warmly, at the very least. She stands in the doorway awkwardly for a moment, perhaps waiting for a reaction from Emmet. When she’s only met with silence and an empty stare, she awkwardly clears her throat and glances behind him.

For the briefest moment, Ingo thinks Elesa might be looking at him.

“Is that Chandelure with you?” She pats the side of Pokémon’s face. “It’s been a while since you went out with Emmet, hasn’t it? Did you enjoy the warm weather on the walk over?”

“It’s been clingy, lately,” Emmet remarks, distantly. “Like when Ingo was still here.”

The tension in the air is so thick that even Ingo can feel it. What’s going on with these two, anyway? They weren't nearly this strained when Elesa came over the other day.

“Come on in,” Elesa pushes her door open. “I got all the paperwork ready for you.”

Have they been talking before now? But Ingo hasn’t gone to sleep since returning home, so he would have known if Elesa came over. Vaguely, he can remember Akari telling him about some sort of long-distance communication, which allowed people to talk and write to each other instantaneously across great distances. He’d been interested in the concept back then, but for the life of him—or lack thereof—he can’t recall the details.

Elesa’s apartment is nice, but not exactly what Ingo was expecting. Her decor is yellow and blue, every surface wiped down and shining. It’s too sanitized, unlived in, pristine. He gets the feeling that it doesn’t normally look this way.

Emmet and Elesa sit on the couch together. Curiously, she seems to have moved a strange machine to her coffee table, since Ingo’s pretty sure it belongs in more of an office space.

Elesa takes a small stack of papers from the side of the machine. Emmet holds a hand out expectantly, but she hesitates.

“I want to hear that you’re sure about this,” Elesa states, clutching the papers close to her chest. “I’ve gotten the records office to promise that the contents will remain hidden from the public, but you know that once these forms are processed…”

“I know,” Emmet nods. “I am prepared for that.”

“Are you?” Elesa asks. Ingo tries to peek over her shoulder in a desperate bid to understand just what the big deal is, but she’s effectively blocked his view. “The people are going to find out, eventually.”

“Elesa, I know!” Emmet suddenly snaps, a fire in his eyes that Ingo instinctively knows is dangerous. “He isn’t coming back! Everything is going to fall apart if I don’t do this!”

Something shatters, metaphorically. It may have been Ingo’s heart. As he watches Emmet curl in on himself and cry for what must be the millionth time, that same pang of guilt shoots right through his chest.

“I did this,” Ingo says, indifferent to Chandelure’s panicked whispers in his ear. All he can hear is his brother crying for him. “I never should have left.”

Cold, spindly arms wrap around him, holding him in place. It’s slightly comforting, a familiar touch that hasn’t been altered from when he last felt it. Ingo leans back against Chandelure, shifting his nonexistent weight into his heels and trying to remember if this was at all soothing before.

“Why didn’t I try to come back?” Ingo asks no one. He looks back to meet Chandelure’s eyes, if only to avoid the sorry sight in front of him. It’s then that he realizes he’s also crying, right along with Emmet. “I abandoned them.”

Chandelure nuzzles its face into Ingo’s back, a helpless attempt to dismiss his dark thoughts. But Ingo is right, and he knows it. He left all of his friends, his Pokémon… he left Emmet all alone. And now they’re facing a life, an eternity, without him.

Ingo glances back at the couch. Elesa has abandoned the papers in favor of comforting Emmet, whispering not unlike Chandelure had been just seconds earlier. The forms sit between the two of them, haphazardly tilting off the edge of the couch.

Ingo can finally read them

Unovan Records Office Petition of Legal Declaration of Death

‥

Emmet spends a whole afternoon at Elesa’s apartment. There’s a stiffness to the situation that he hates. It used to be fun to waste the day away here, watching bad movies and spilling popcorn everywhere. This was the couch where Ingo accidentally inhaled his soda after an actor uttered the corniest line known to man. Gosh, that was hilarious. Emmet still has the picture of him choking somewhere.

Elesa helps Emmet scan the files the Sinnoh Historical Society provided him with. The forms required proof that death had occurred in absence of a body, and since Emmet can’t exactly go grave robbing in Sinnoh, this is his next best choice.

How much of Ingo is left, anyway?

Emmet shakes that thought out of his head, instead focusing on completing the informational part of the forms. Ingo’s birthday is an easy one, as are many of the other responses. There isn’t a thing about Ingo that Emmet doesn’t know. Well, except for how exactly he fell into the past. Or why he seemed to settle into a new life instead of trying to return home. Was he that desperate to leave? Did he even care that he left Emmet behind?

The final part leaves a large space for Emmet to write.

Personal Statement

Emmet taps the edge of the paper with his pen. To his left, he hears Elesa curse under her breath as her printer suddenly makes a strange noise. He chooses to ignore it. If Ingo were here, he would have scolded her for her manner of speech.

Ingo isn’t here, though.

Chandelure floats nearby, just out of reach. It would never stay so far from Ingo, always an arm’s length away from his brother, as faithful and loyal as it was when it was just a Litwick. But with Emmet, it almost seems like he’s an afterthought. It barely acknowledges him unless he speaks to it, and even then, it seems preoccupied with something else.

Maybe it’s just easier for it to pretend when he isn’t close. Emmet wishes he could still pretend.

How does one describe a piece of themself being ripped away, unjustly, unfairly? How could Emmet even begin to rationalize and explain the grief he’s been through? Not just these past few days, but the past six years. Ingo never came home like he was supposed to. Was it a choice? Or was fate just cruel to them?

Deciding to just bite the Bullet Punch, Emmet writes the first thing that comes to mind.

I am Emmet. My brother Ingo is gone. He is not returning.

‥

Before they left, Elesa suggested that Emmet begin to plan a funeral.

Ingo wants absolutely no part in that. Nope, no thank you. He’s already seen the tail end of one of his funerals, and he ended up bound to his gravesite for hundreds of years. There’s no way that he’s letting that happen again, not now. Not after finding Emmet.

Emmet makes a beeline for the kitchen, like a man possessed. He pulls a mug out of a cabinet, black in color with red patterning. Emmet stares at it, holding it in his hands as though it’s the most precious item in the world.

Ingo would ask Chandelure what he was doing, but the Pokémon has since been returned to its ball. It takes a second, but he soon recognizes the mug as his own. He used to drink hot chocolate out of it in the winter, after he and Emmet walked back from the station.

Emmet places the mug on their kitchen island, careful not to chip it.

As Ingo stands confused in the kitchen, Emmet frantically searches their apartment. He yanks open drawers, shuffling through them so recklessly that he barely acknowledges what he pushes aside. At the very least, he seems to know what he’s looking for.

Ingo knows everything that his brother leaves on the counter. A book from the coffee table that he never got the chance to finish. A pair of old shoes, left unused by the door for years. His spare coat, his keychains, his wallet. Every single piece of himself that Ingo left behind, Emmet collects it.

When Emmet places a bunch of pens, of all things, among the pile, Ingo finally understands what he’s doing. He’s trying to decide what to bury.

In the doorway between the kitchen and the hall, Emmet pauses. There’s one room that he has yet to touch, one that both he and Ingo know holds exactly what he’s looking for. Hesitantly, as though there were a monster hiding just out of sight, he pokes his head out and peers to the right.

The door to Ingo’s room has never looked so daunting.

“Emmet, stop,” Ingo commands his brother. This has gone too far, even for Emmet. The only thing he’s going to accomplish by doing this now is heartache, and he can’t bear to let his own family hurt himself like this.

Emmet doesn’t turn when Ingo speaks. He doesn’t even respond to him.

Ingo inserts himself between Emmet and the doorway, blocking his path. “I said stop! You don’t have to do this!”

Emmet takes a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut and balling his hands into fists. He steps forwards down the hallway, passing straight through his brother.

Ingo blinks, stunned in place like a Joltik used Thunder Wave on him. For a brief moment, he forgot. Emmet can’t see him, can’t hear him. As far as he knows, any trace of Ingo disappeared centuries ago, the only remnant being an old grave in Sinnoh. Ingo is, quite literally, nothing.

There’s a certain emotion that Ingo hasn’t felt in a very long time. After spending ages chained to one place, his resignation quickly turned to apathy. He had his moments, sure, but for the most part, he passed the centuries by staring at the endless white snowfields, wishing for it to be over already.

Rage boils in his stomach, steam filling his lungs and heart. He cries, tears he know should be wet and practically scorching against his skin, but he feels nothing but a vague, dripping sensation. His head aches, and his leg is already threatening to give out on him. Whatever it was that saw fit to leave him like this must be so very cruel.

Inside of Ingo, something bursts.

“WHY CAN’T YOU SEE ME?!” he shouts, and centuries of frustration comes out all at once.

Crash!

The noise is enough to derail Ingo. Suddenly, everything inside him feels cold and fragile, like the very foundation of his existence is unstable.

Emmet rushes back to the doorway. When he sees the scene in the kitchen, he gasps, covering his mouth with one of his hands. Ingo follows his gaze, turning back to finally see the source of the broken sound.

“Oh no,” they say simultaneously.

On the ground, Ingo’s mug lays shattered.

Emmet falls to his knees, defeated. He hides his face behind his hands, and again, he sobs.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Ingo is at his brother’s side in an instant, uselessly attempting to soothe Emmet’s sadness. He isn’t sure how, but somehow, he just broke his mug. And that happened to be the final straw for Emmet. He says everything he can think of, apologizing over and over again.

No matter how many times Ingo repeats himself, Emmet doesn’t hear him.

[lesbobiwan]

Brat (Wolffe x f! reader)

Explicit — minors DNI

Wolffe x f!reader

warnings: cockwarming, dirty talk KING wolffe, brat tamer!wolffe, spanking

You did this to yourself. You know that, realistically.

Since you woke up this morning, there was a bone-deep feeling inside you that just begged for trouble and, well, you seem to have found it.

Wolffe's jaw clenches, and his shoulders roll back, giving his already broad body an even broader appearance.

Oh yeah, you found trouble alright.

Still, despite the commander burning holes into the back of your head, you turn to your newfound dance partner.

He's sweet enough — a shiny from the 212th if the brand new yellow paint is any hint. He had approached you with a shy smile and an outstretched hand and had raised his voice to be heard over the blasting music of 79s. "D'you wanna dance?"

Like you said: sweet.

But, you're not looking for sweet. you're looking for something rough and dirty. Something you'll undoubtedly feel tomorrow morning.

You think you'll get what you're looking for tonight. Not from this shiny, but you'll get it nonetheless.

If your dance partner notices how you're putting on a show for someone else, he doesn't say anything. His hands twitch like he wants to reach out to touch, but he pulls back before he gets too close.

You fight the urge to roll your eyes. In any other situation — if this shiny had been someone else — you would have found his consideration for your personal space sweet.

But once again, you aren't looking for sweet.

You turn your back to the shiny, face to face again with Wolffe, whose grip on his glass has gotten tighter and tighter, and press your ass against his groin.

The shiny gasps and his hips jerk against you. Finally, his hands close around your hips.

Wolffe raises his chin and arches a single eyebrow. Are you sure this is the game you want to play? his expression seems to ask you.

You hold eye contact as you roll your hips against the trooper behind you.

His breathy moan echos through your ear, not at all like the hearty groans that Wolffe would let out.

This trooper is all wrong — too sweet, too tentative, too quiet, too nice — but you know you won't have to put up with him much longer.

Not much longer at all.

Wolffe sets his drink down, still half empty.

A bolt of anticipation shoots through your gut.

Fuck, you can feel how soaked your panties are.

"Let's go," Wolffe's hand, strong and confident, closes around your bicep as soon as he gets within arm's reach.

You plant your feet as best you can, doing your best to keep your ass pressed flush to the trooper's slowly hardening dick. "I'm having a good time, Commander," you look up at him through your eyelashes, poking your tongue out to wet your lips. "But thanks anyways."

Oh, you're really playing with fire now.

The trooper's hands have left your body like he's been burned. "C-Commander," he stutters, stuck between standing at attention and hunching to hide his erection. "I didn't know she was w-with you, I'm sorry, Sir."

Wolffe sucks on his teeth before he jerks his head to the side, "Get the fuck out of here, trooper."

The man leaves, but you don't feel too bad about it.

You pull your arm from Wolffe's grip, but you have a feeling he lets you do it.

It's a trap, you know. Wolffe is baiting you into digging yourself a deeper hole but you can't help it.

Now that he's giving you attention, you're sucking it all in and demanding more, even if it's negative attention.

"What the fuck, Wolffe?" you demand, crossing your arms under your breasts to push them out more.

His gaze trails down, so obviously staring at your breasts that it makes your thighs clench in excitement. He drags his eyes back up to your face.

"You don't talk to me like that, girl," he says lowly, and it would almost be too quiet to be heard over the music had it been anyone else that said them.

But it's Wolffe, and you think you would be able to hear anything Wolffe said to you, especially when he said it like that.

Your clit throbs beneath your panties. You wonder if he'll like the nice gray set you picked out just for him.

"Don't talk to you like what, Commander," you spit out, digging your grave even deeper than before. It'll take forever to climb out of it, but you know it will be so worth it.

Wolffe leans in close, placing his hand to the small of your back and pressing you flush against his chest, "Like a brat."

He lets the words hang in the air between you.

Your breath catches in your throat, and all the previous bravado you had vanishes without a trace.

A brat. The label makes your mouth go dry and your cunt get wet with want.

"What are you gonna do about it?" you manage to say.

Wolffe smirks, digging his fingers in harder against your skin, "You'll find out," he replies, voice dark with intent.

And, maker help you, you can't wait to find out.

~

"Please! Please, Commander," you beg, your hips trying their best to jerk against his grip, "Please, let me come!"

You think you've been here, anchored on his cock by the strong hands that hold your hips still, for hours now. In that time, you've fallen apart at a rapid pace.

You know that your makeup, once applied to your face with care and a delicacy usually reserved for breakable objects, has smeared across your face from your tears. Your very soul feels like it's been exposed to a live-wire, and with every roll of Wolffe's hips you get closer and closer to burning alive.

You'd welcome the flame happily.

Wolffe grunts against your neck, not stopping the barely-there thrusts of his hips, "What did I tell you, girl?"

Smack.

Your shriek and buck against his grip. Your clit stings in pleasure, and when you look down, Wolffe's hand is hovering just over your swollen cunt.

Did he just —

Smack!

This time you get to watch as the flat of his palm smacks against your clit.

Pleasurepain shoots through your core. You cunt clenches around his cock.

"Fuck!" you sob, dropping your head back onto his shoulder as you writhe in his grip. "Please, Commander! I wanna come, please let me come!"

Wolffe hums uninterestedly. He seems so cool, so unaffected by your begging and by the way your cunt tries to squeeze the life out of his cock. "Answer me," he demands, placing his hand — wet now with your slick — back on your hip. "What did I tell you?" He rolls his hips beneath you, pressing against that spot inside you that no one before him has ever hit with deadly accuracy.

Pleasure shoots through your gut. "Please!" you sob, thighs trembling atop him.

Oh, fuck, you think you're gonna come. You can feel it building, can feel your core tightening like a rubber band about to snap.

Unintelligible words fall from your lips — a never ending babble — as your release builds. You try to rock your hips, looking for more pressure against the spot that only Wolffe's cock can hit.

He's ruined you, you think. Ruined you for any other man. How could you possibly try to fuck anyone else knowing that no one could compare to him?

You're so close to coming, you can feel it and you know it'll be devastating. One that will rob you of your senses and leave you a blubbering mess until you recover. Fuck, you want it so bad and —

Wolffe rips you off of his cock.

"No!" you cry out, thrashing in his grip as he manhandles you so that your face and chest are pressed into the bed.

Your pussy clenches around nothing, and you can feel the slick that drips from you. The way he tossed you around only makes you wetter.

"You bastard!" you curse, turning your head to bury your face into the covers, "Please, just let me come!"

Your body twitches with your ruined orgasm. Fuck, you just want him to touch you. One touch and you think you could come.

Wolffe laughs, that son of a bitch, behind you, one hand pressed between your shoulder blades to force you down into the sheets. "Now, that's not very nice, baby," he scolds. His other hand trails up the back of your thigh with a featherlight touch.

You try to push back into his hand that traces up the curve of your ass and yelp at the ensuing spank.

"Now, I'll try to be nice, because I know you've gone cockdumb," Wolffe finally presses his cock back against your pussy, sliding his length through your folds. The head of his cock bumps your clit with every slow thrust of his. "But, I need you to start behaving, smart girl. You've started acting like a brat," he emphasizes his words with sharp spanks, alternating cheeks each time.

The moan that is ripped out of you gets muffled by the pillow. "I'll be good!" You assure, turning your head to look at him over your shoulder, "I'll be good, I promise, Commander!"

Fuck, Wolffe looks so good behind you. His normally well-kept hair is slightly askew, a few strands falling in front of his face, and his mouth is twisted into a feral grin that makes your cunt gush on his cock.

"Yeah? You'll be good?" Wolffe slides his cock back, lining the head up with your weeping entrance, "You'll be my good girl?"

"Yes!" You sob, hands grasping at air as your try to grab at him. "Yes, I'll be your good girl. Only yours! Yours, yours —"

Wolffe sinks inside you with one hard thrust. "No," he groans, "No, I don't think you're my good girl. Not yet." He pulls out all the way, but you don't have to wait long before he slams back inside you and starts a devastating pace.

You wail into the pillow, caught between trying to get away from the brutal fucking and trying to push back into it. He's ruining you, you think again, You'll never be the same again.

"Don't worry, baby," Wolffe spanks your ass hard enough to make you yelp, "I'll fuck the brat out of you."

Unfortunately for you, you have a lot of brat to get rid of, and Wolffe is only getting started.

[hobiiwan]

mirror • cpt. rex

pairing: captain rex x gn!reader

warnings: post-order 66 angst, hurt-comfort but i thrive in the hurt

w/c: 1.6k

notes: i'm back with lots and lots of feelings bc i've been ghosted and it's 5 am so i should probably sleep but i hope you enjoy :D

lovely gif credit to @pieklalat!

Framed by distant moons and even further stars, the night sky never seemed more vast. If you closed your eyes, it didn’t take much to picture a Republic Star Destroyer slicing through the atmosphere of the moon whose gravity became inescapable, with you in it.

Glancing over your shoulder at where Rex had made camp for the evening, you could tell he was thinking it too. Though his eyes were closed, it was clear as watching a holofilm; reliving the searing heat of plasma bolts, shot from the blasters of his brothers, the ones he had served beside for years—the same ones he had buried just hours prior.

It felt as though there was a vice wrapped in a deadlock around your heart, constricting your chest until it threatened to collapse in on itself. You exhale sharply, willing yourself to push past the hollow ache of the now-dulled Force connection, the flashing faces of the clones and Jedi who had perished under the Order—the fear they had felt in their final moments. It was now your fear that you would never escape it.

The price of surviving the command settles atop your shoulders, making a home. A bitter, weighted reminder that you are here, alive, when you shouldn’t be—when you aren’t supposed to be.

You collapse onto the ground next to Rex, which pulls him back to the present. His eyelids flutter as he blinks slowly, once at you, then back up to the stretching expanse of the inky black overhead. He lets out a sigh, leaning up on his shoulders to cast a weary glance at his surroundings. “How long was I out?” He questions.

You reply with a thoughtful hum, “Not long. You need the rest, anyway.” It’s true. The day’s events have undoubtedly taken its toll on the both of you. But how does one go about resting after being hunted to the death?

“I’ll take first watch. Get some sleep, cyare.” He says, now sitting upright and then you know there’s no point in fighting it. You both need rest, but with the way Rex’s frame is pulled tense as a bow, his hand twitching ever-so-slightly towards his blaster, you know there’s no way he’d rest easy.

So, you offer him a victory, albeit a minute one. You pull his unarmed hand into yours and close your eyes, feeling the way he lets out a shaky breath, releasing some tension along with it. A victory—you’re still here with him.

Neither of you can be certain how long you stay that way. The low croon emitting from the transceiver is the only sign that time actually passes. Neither of you complain about the noise, either. It didn’t need to be said that the silence—this silence, was much too loud.

You do try to sleep, Rex gives you credit for that. Though, after turning for the fifth time (he counts) you give up and sit up beside him. He’s got his knees pressed to his chest, one hand curled tight around his blaster. In his other, his thumb rubs circles against the back of your hand. The answer to whether it soothes you or himself doesn’t matter.

Wordlessly, your head lowers to his shoulder, propped gently against the curve of muscle.

“Did I ever tell you I wanted to be a singer?” You murmur, glancing at the transceiver. You don’t recognise the singer on broadcast, though you do take note of the melody, slow and mellow.

Rex watches as you even try to hum along, as offbeat as you are.

“No,” he huffs something short of a chuckle, “you didn’t.”

He knows what you’re trying to do, sees it clear as day. Yet, as he watches your feet tap to the tempo of the ballad, he can’t stop himself from humouring your attempt to comfort him.

You nod eagerly, eyes widening as if to express your candor. “I was about to be one, too! Then the Jedi came and…”

Rex waits as you trail off, then clocks the far-off look in your eyes. He picks up where you left off. “Would you sing for me now?”

You return in a split second, your lips pulling into a bashful smile as you avoid his eyes. “I’m definitely rusty by now, I don’t want you losing your hearing because of me.”

The Captain nudges you teasingly, grinning when you break into soft laughter. “It would be an honour, though,” he quips.

He wonders how much of you has been hidden behind the mantle of a Jedi’s title. Who would you have been had you not been brought into the Order, raised from young to be one thing, and one thing only? Who would he be?

Once again, Rex is dragged out of his thoughts. This time, you’re tugging him to his feet. It takes an effort and a half, which you currently lack in your fatigued state.

As he looks up at you questioningly, you motion to the transceiver, dropping his hand to raise the volume. It’s enough to provide a comfortable backdrop instead of a desperate attempt to quell silence.

“Dance with me,” you propose softly, “please?”

“I don’t know how to, mesh’la.”

As if pointedly ignoring his feeble protest, your hand remains outstretched, beckoning his participation.

Maker, he’s only ever seen couples dancing on holofilms and is even more certain he has two left feet. But gazing up at your expectant self is like looking at a promise of escaping the sorrow he now knows as reality.

Really, it’s all up to him.

Rex swears he feels three times lighter from the way you beam in delight when he fits his palm into your smaller ones and helps you lift him to full height.

He stands awkwardly, clueless as to where his hands should go, how he should move. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.

Below him, you soften at the uncertainty tainting his features. Taking mercy on the poor man, you lift a hand to cup his cheek, garnering his attention.

“Put your hands on my waist,” you murmur, eyes twinkling when Rex’s hands fly up to root himself to you. Your own arms loop behind his neck and he takes it as a sign to pull you into his chest, no stranger to the position.

“and now we sway.”

Such a simple command, yet Rex feels like a fish out of water. His limbs are stiff, like the serenity of the movement is a stranger. To an extent, it is.

When you take over, moving him to the beat instead, he gratefully surrenders, allowing himself a moment of tranquility.

The only sounds that reach him become the silky notes of the singer and your soft, steady breaths. If he tries hard enough, he can pretend to be in a distant galaxy, where he is not a clone and you are not a Jedi, where the war is nothing more than a brash concept and his brothers are alive and well.

Rex doesn’t realise he’s crying until your thumb smooths away a tear rolling down his face. His eyes stay closed as he wills himself to keep pretending, but he can’t.

He is still a clone but you are no longer a Jedi. His brothers are gone.

You hold him when he finally breaks, cradling his head close when his shoulders tremble with the force of his sobs. His tears soak into the collar of your singed robes, but you truly can’t find the will to care—not when the man you love is falling apart, barely held together by the threads of your embrace.

“It wasn’t them,” he chokes, shaking his head, a wretched attempt to convince himself, “—it couldn’t be.”

At that, you’re positive your heart shatters. Stars, he doesn’t deserve this. You wish with all your might to take the pain away, to rewind every clock in the galaxy and then the next, but all you can do is watch.

“It wasn’t,” you nod, lowering your forehead to press against his, “not the real them. You know they loved you.” And by the Maker, you know.

Rex’s hands clutch tightly at your robes, as if letting go of that would mean letting go of you. The last tether to what is now his past, his only constant.

What if you hadn’t made it off the ship? What if Ahsoka hadn’t gotten the chip out of him in time? What if he had hurt you?

He briefly registers your voice calling his name, cutting through the despondent scenarios that could have, by any deciding factor, become his present.

“Rex, my love,” you plead, “please look at me.”

When he raises his eyes, he finds that yours are a mirror of his own. The anguish that parallels his agony. He feels you, your presence. He’s never understood much about the Force, but he thinks this is pretty damn close.

“I’m here,” you whisper. The promise of those two words anchor you both. “‘M not going anywhere.”

You mean it. If you believed it before, there was no chance in any star in the galaxy that anyone would be able to tear you away from him now.

For the current moment, you weren’t sure if there was a place to go, even if you wanted. Less than twenty four hours ago, you had been anticipating the end of the Clone Wars. Now, it feels like you’ve been thrown onto the losing side.

“What do we do now?” Rex asks, but you both know there isn’t an answer. There’s no precedent to go off of.

Two of the finest leaders in the GAR and the Jedi Order are lost, with no one left to follow them.

There’s nothing to do but move on.

“We keep living,” you say with a heavy sigh, burying your face into the crook of Rex’s neck, “we live for them. We’ll find a way.”

You always do.

[jimitjain]

5 Types Of Anchor Bolts In The Market

Anchor Bolt:

Anchor bolts fasten structural components to concrete structures and secure them. In general, anchor bolts are used to fasten structural elements, equipment, and skids to concrete. The anchor bolts have one end that is buried in the concrete and the other end that is left exposed.

It is actually a stud constructed of two adjoined pieces, one-piece is threaded at the top end and the other end consists of a process that includes a wedge and clip that is expanded between the stud and the wall of the hole in the concrete.

The anchor bolt are generally a good option for a heavy shear application and for heavy load. Also the heavier duty seismic wedge anchors are used in areas frequented by seismic activities.

Anchor Bolt Types

Sleeve Anchor Bolts:

A sleeve anchor is a type of fastener used to secure objects to a concrete or masonry structure. They can be used to join two or more concrete structures, or to fasten an object such as a shelf to a brick wall.

Headed Anchor Bolts:

Construction fasteners known as headed anchor bolts have a head on the non-threaded end. In order to secure a steel column, beam, bolt, rail, or other structural part in place, this end is placed into concrete or masonry.

Wedge Anchor Bolt:

Consideration made by wedge anchor bolt manufacturers in India: The diameter of the wedge anchor should match the diameter of the holes that are drilled into the concrete.

Additionally, it is only used for solid concrete; it cannot be used with stone, mortar, brick, etc.

Bent-bar Anchor Bolts:

Bent-bar anchors, which include the customary J and L bolts, are threaded steel rods with hooks on the end embedded into the masonry.

Drop-in Anchor Bolts:

Drop-In anchors are female concrete anchors designed for anchoring into concrete. Drop the anchor into the pre-drilled hole in the concrete. Anchor bolt manufacturer use a setting tool to expand the anchor within the hole in the concrete. Drop-in anchors require a setting tool to install.

Best Anchor Bolt Manufacturer In India

Ananka Group is one of the major Anchor Bolt Manufacturer In India offering a diverse range of anchor bolt in a variety of sizes, grades, and scales. The majority of high-tensile bolts, screws, and fasteners on the market are blackish-coloured alloys.

We are one of the best wedge anchor bolt manufacturers in India and anchor fasteners manufacturers in india.

Our website also provides a prominent washer weight calculator offering a diverse range of washers in a variety of sizes, grades, and scales. High tensile fasteners manufacturers in India follow national & international standards. Anchor bolt manufacturer use a nickel-copper alloy that is resistant to corrosion in many environments.

Contact us today to discover why we're the best in the industry. We offer a wide range of products, including 12mm stainless steel rods, M16 threaded rods, stainless steel threaded rods, and 12mm threaded rods.

We are one of the best Eye Bolt Manufacturer in India, Our Anchor bolt manufacturers use a nickel-copper alloy that is resistant to corrosion in many environments.

We are a High Tensile Fasteners manufacturer and Inconel fastener manufacturer.

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Product Source - Anchor Bolt Manufacturer In India