#chapter from a longer work

[daytaker]

The Adversary

“What happened?” he kept asking. “What the hell happened?!” But I was Wrath, and Wrath doesn’t speak with words.

AN: This is a modified chapter from a longer fic of mine called "Let's All Be Shadows". (Link leads to ao3.) There are references to events from that story, but this can be understood without reading the long-fic.

POV: Satan Nightbringer Timeline Word Count: ~ 4500 Synopsis: Satan recalls his earliest months in the Devildom and a new revelation that hit him just recently. CW: violence, rage, blood, manual choking

Most of the fic is below the cut.

----

Nominative determinism.

That’s a philosophical theory that argues that people gravitate towards interests, careers, or behaviors that align with their name. Nominative—named. Determinism—fate.

The name Satan comes from an ancient human language; the Hebrew word הַשָּׂטָן (hasattan), which means “accuser” or “adversary”. So, following nominative determinism, that is my role. I am the opposition. I am the adversary.

And, following this human theme, if you asked the average human today, they’d probably tell you that Satan and Lucifer are both names for the same entity.

They wouldn’t be completely wrong.

----

The first thing I knew was a white hot pain. It exploded through me, starting at my core and bursting outwards. I was on fire. I was dying.

It’s ironic that birth and death must feel so similar.

I was in a fugue, then, for what felt like a long time. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. I could only rage. Everything that approached me, I tore to shreds. I was feral. I was out of my mind. Flashes of memories are all I have of the beginning. There’s the taste of copper in my mouth and blood smeared over my face, on my hands, in my hair. I’m tearing at something that used to be alive. Then oblivion, and the next thing I recall is writhing on the floor in a dark room, the rough masonry scraping my bare back. I bled all over the Demon Lord’s dungeon, and I never stopped screaming.

I screamed until my throat bled, and after that, I screamed in choked, gargled bursts of sticky blood and saliva.

After the rage, the blinding heat, the blood, the broken nails and torn hair and shattered restraints… After that, there was him.

I hated him.

I knew who he was; what he was to me. It was instinct, the way a baby knows its mother. Lucifer was my mother.

I’ll never forgive him for that. I’ll never forgive him for making me.

Because he did. He made me. He put me here, a struggling, suffering, raging mess of tissue and blood and bile and hate.

I don’t think I can effectively put into words how badly I wanted to die. There’s no way to say it without sounding pathetic. But I wanted death in a way I can barely understand now. Everything hurt, and now he was here, and every nerve ending in my body seared with a sort of fuming hatred that I couldn’t understand. I still don’t understand it. The idea that I could end my own existence never crossed my mind, though. That didn’t feel like an option. He made me. I was his responsibility. He should be the one to liberate me.

Instead, he tied me up, cast enchantments, and put me into bondage; he prevented me from moving. 'For my own good,' he said. And there, where I couldn’t lash out with my body, when I couldn’t strike and bite and rip, when I could no longer express myself physically; that’s when I spoke my first coherent words. They were like pebbles on my tongue, awkward and slathered in saliva, garbled, but intelligible.

"Traitor," I growled in a strange voice; a voice I'd never heard before. "Look at the mess you made."

I used those words to remind him what he was. That was my violence. Words like:

Coward. Failure. Hypocrite. Pathetic. Weak. The worst thing to ever happen to the people who trusted you.

It was a chorus of insults designed to burn him. Babies nurse on their mothers. So did I. I nursed on his pain. I wanted so badly to hurt him the way he hurt me. And maybe, possibly, he’d do what he should have done the instant I was born into this world. Maybe he would lose his temper. Maybe he would kill me.

He didn’t. Obviously. He never even responded to what I said, in those early days. He’d just look me over, examining my body, treating the rash of scabs on my back and shoulders. He’d put this cooling salve on the sores, and it burned like ice on my skin. I screamed and I bit at him and I tried to show him what words, still so new and ineffective, refused to do for me. “I hate you. I will kill you.”

Sometimes he’d get this look on his face… This awful, sick… sad… sour look. Pity. It was just pity.

And it enraged me. How dare he pity me when this was his fault? I told him as much.

I told him everything back then, in those earliest days. Every thought that entered my head. I only knew three things: pain, hate, and Lucifer. And only one of those things could understand me.

My memories from then are fuzzy. Rather than a narrative, I recall a tapestry of impressions and sensations; reds and whites and blacks, flashes of green, and long stretches of gray. But some incidents stand out in my mind, clearer than all the others. In one, I was bound and naked—I wouldn’t wear clothes then, in the earliest days; I just shredded them when I had my hands free, and I screamed and tensed and scraped my body on the walls when I didn’t. I hated how they felt, hot fibers rubbing against nerve endings that were so raw I could barely think. But I was naked, and I was bound to a bed or a chair or something in the Demon Lord’s castle, and I was screaming, and tears and blood stung my eyes, and I told him:

“This was inside you all along, Lucifer! Look at me! I was inside you! This is you! I am you!”

And he sighed. He looked so tired, so pathetic. He ruffled my hair with a gentleness that ignited the rage inside me to a maddening level. And he said to me:

“I am me. You are you.”

I told him to eat shit, and he shrugged and cleaned me up.

I wonder if he was punishing himself, the way he always took care of me on his own. Or maybe it was just one of his self-imposed responsibilities; another thing he could do to convince himself he didn’t deserve to be miserable.

Back then, in those early days, he treated me like I was his child. I was his child. It always makes me sick to think about it that way, but he was my parent. He gave birth to me. He nursed me. He raised me. And just like so many parents since the dawn of time, he made me into a miserable facsimile of himself. I was Lucifer, but worse. I was Lucifer, but broken and ashamed and out of control. I was Lucifer, if Lucifer hated Lucifer. I didn’t want to be Lucifer.

“I am me. You are you.”

That’s easy enough to say when you’re the original. What about when you’re the parasitic thing that exploded from someone’s wounded body and heart? What then, Lucifer?

----

In spite of everything, I somehow made progress. I learned to dress myself, and to wear clothes without tearing them to shreds. I learned how to walk without erupting into an inferno of fury. I learned to speak without screaming. And that awful mother of mine was always with me, it seemed; always by my side. “Remember to breathe,” he’d say, or “Focus on what’s in front of you.” And I’d mutter curses at him, and I’d try; I’d try to do what he told me to do, and I’d feel so ashamed . But when I did what I was told, he’d give me things. Books, mainly, but also different foods, changes of scenery… So I did what I was told.

In some ways, I was as naive as a child. I remember the mystery of my first snowfall, touching it and putting it to my lips and staring at the impression of my handprint in the white blanket on the ground. But there were also plenty of things I never had to learn. I knew how to read and write; I understood, conceptually, that there was a Celestial Realm and a Devildom, and which one I was in. I knew that Lucifer had brothers and a sister, and I knew the sister was gone.

I knew about Lilith.

Lucifer says I often talked about Lilith in my early days. I don’t remember it myself, but he says I seemed fixated on her. I would sob and rage at him for letting her go, letting her die, twisting what was left of her and warping it into something ugly.

Lucifer said he thought it was because he was so heavily focused on Lilith when I was ‘born’; he supposes he must have imparted some strange impressions on me in his grief. I don’t remember any of that though, like I said, so I had to take his word for it.

I don't think that's the real reason anymore, though.

----

I remember meeting my brothers. Tch. My ‘brothers’....

“This is Satan,” Lucifer said to them. “He is your brother. I expect you to treat him as such.” They all stared at me as I sat bound and chained to a chair, gritting my teeth, and then they glanced at each other. They didn’t know what to say. And then they stared at me again, and I knew they were told how I’d erupted from Lucifer’s body, and I knew they had heard me screaming in the dungeon and down the otherwise quiet corridor of unused rooms, and I knew they were afraid. I knew.

But I was just six weeks old, and I was terrified too. And being terrified made me so angry. I struggled to swallow the rage, but it was only a matter of seconds before I choked out the first coherent thing that entered my mind, the words crescendoing into a grating scream by the end.

“They’re not my brothers!”

My vision wobbled, my head ached, and my muscles burned with an energy that could only be expelled with violence. I broke free from the chains around my wrists, and soon I was throwing things. Whatever I could get my hands on. A table. A painting. A priceless vase. Levi and Asmo and the twins scattered, and Mammon looked like he wanted to join them, but he didn’t. He stood uselessly in the middle of the hall as Lucifer grappled with me.

“O-oi, whadda you need?” he asked Lucifer, who responded by flapping his wings in irritation and grabbing onto my throat.

I grinned at him. I wanted to show him the worst, most sickening face he could possibly imagine. Lucifer’s expression hardly changed, but he squeezed, and I knew I’d succeeded. “Kill me,” I spat. I was crazy. I had lost my mind. It was empty of everything besides the hate. “Kill me, you scum. Kill me like you killed her.”

For a short while, I thought he might really do it. His fingers dug into my throat, his jaw clenched, and there was a rage in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before as I used some of my last stores of strength to strike him with my tail. Yes. He fed off my rage, and I fed off of his, and it was an infinite feedback loop. The border of my vision started to grow hazy, and my pulse was pounding in my ears, and…

He released me far too soon. Far, far too soon. I didn’t even fully lose consciousness; didn’t even get to enjoy a moment of oblivion. I’d just let myself go limp. I surrendered so easily. And that second of lowered resistance was all he needed to cast some binding enchantment on me and leave me irate and screaming, wheezing for breath, my pulse pounding in my face as my blood resumed circulating, and I wriggled on the floor like a worm. I felt like a worm. 

Time was still so new back then. I couldn’t follow how it passed, and it seemed to dilate, stretching and squeezing, becoming longer and shorter based on my moods. And now, it all feels so long ago.

It was a lifetime ago, I suppose. From then to now, for me.

I wasn’t kept under lock and key. Not normally, at least. I was allowed to wander the Demon King’s castle. While Cerberus stalked the labyrinth below, I was treading the hallways above. I wonder how Lucifer convinced Diavolo to agree to that…

It never got better, though.

The rage.

I just learned to manage it. Slowly. Bit by bit. I’m still learning to manage it. Sometimes I slip.

I slip a lot, actually.

Books were my main solace in the Demon King’s castle, just as they are now in the House of Lamentation. Because I understand how little I know, and how valuable books are as resources.

But funny enough, that wasn’t why I became so interested in books at the start. I was far less interested in nonfiction than I was with novels. Reading a good novel…a really good novel… It can feel like a possession. Like you’ve entered someone else’s body and attuned yourself to someone else’s mind.

I wonder if others understand what a relief that is? I wonder if anybody can have any idea what others actually feel, and how it compares to yourself? It’s a question I sometimes get stuck on. The question alone takes me out of myself. I like that.

I didn’t care much about the real world when I was new. Why should I? The only things in it were Lucifer and his brothers, and I got enough of that already. I would rather be Azaz the Summoner, the demon who forged pacts with other demons in defiance of all natural laws. Or a young human boy living in the wilderness with wolves. I like stories like that.

No, what piqued my interest in the world outside was the butler.

I don’t know where he got the time, or why he cared enough to be bothered with it, but he told me about his own life. Only in the vaguest terms, of course; never touching on anything that felt truly personal. He talked of how ancient he was, and how he’d walked in the human world before humans ever did. And he told me about his room. He even let me look inside once. It’s shocking. Doors and stairs all over the place, leading to different places and times… 

There’s no way for me to know if he was being honest with his stories, but he knew so much, it seemed insane to believe he was making it all up. He knew about the way the Devildom smelled when it was first inhabited by demons; he knew about the sulfur mines that shut down millennia ago, and the infrastructure that transformed the place into somewhere livable… 

So I read some books about the ancient history of the Devildom. From what I could tell, his descriptions were accurate, and though he could have learned those things the same way I had, I didn’t feel he did. It felt more as if he was speaking from experience.

But when I read about the early Devildom, I wanted to learn about the fae. And when I read about the fae, I wanted to learn more about magic. And when I learned about magic, I wanted to learn more about curses, and magicians from all three realms, and soon I was no longer reading about fictional worlds, but my own. And I wanted so badly to see it.

----

When we moved into the House of Lamentation, Lucifer gave me the scroll. It was shiny and strange, and he told me it belonged to me, and that I should look it over when I was ready. He told me it had information about my birth. He made it sound like some sort of legal document, and it seemed to me that he wanted me to look at the thing sooner rather than later. So I tossed it on a high shelf and ignored it. I ignored it until you came to my room and started asking questions.

Lucifer came into my room the night I had you over. No knocking. He just burst in, arms crossed, wearing that disgusting look of beleaguered disappointment on his face. Like I’d let him down again. Like I owed him the consideration of trying to do anything else…

“You had a guest today, I heard.”

I was sitting on my bed, reading a book about who-knows-what. I’ve forgotten. He made me forget. And I was suspicious. Why was he speaking like that? Why wouldn’t he just say what he meant? I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of an answer, so I glared at the page of my book without seeing a single word.

Lucifer continued. “Did you become angry? Or were you cruel out of some new, cold sadistic streak?”

I threw my book at him and he dodged it with ease. Then he continued as if I hadn’t tried to smash his face in. “Or perhaps it was unintentional. But it seems you left our attendant in a state of deep distress. What did you discuss?”

“Get out of my room, bastard.”

I turned and lied on my side, back to him, and I dragged my tail over the bedspread. I was working away at it, slowly turning it to ribbons as the threads hooked onto and snapped over the sharp spines. I knew he hated it when I did things like that. And he knew I knew, so he pretended not to notice.

Irritating.

For about three minutes, I laid there, and he stood there, and neither of us said a word.

“Why does it matter?!” I finally snapped. I found myself tugging at my hair in irritation. Every part of my body feels so unnecessary when I’m agitated, from my hair to my horns to my skin. “Why won’t you leave?”

“You should be more careful with whom you share family matters.”

I actually spat out a laugh. Was he serious? I rolled back over and sneered at him. “Why’s that? Anyway, isn’t this all more or less a matter of public record? The entire Devildom knows how I came into the world.”

“Hm. So that’s what you discussed.” He nodded, and there was something supremely cocky in his mannerisms that made me want to strangle him. But I couldn’t strangle him. So I did the next best thing.

“Lilith came up.”

I stared at him, and I saw the flicker of emotion on his face when he heard that name. That name… Lilith… It’s a name I could use to hurt him. That’s all I was thinking when I sharpened it like a knife.

“I don’t understand why anyone would be cautious talking about Lilith with me,” I said nonchalantly. “But I guess my ‘guest’ thought I would be bothered. Tiptoeing around the fact that she died. As if I would be devastated over it.” I laughed, but it was hollow, and I wasn’t getting the reactions I wanted.

I doubled down.

“Really, I’m glad I never had to deal with her. She sounds infuriating. When you get down to it, the entire war was her fault. All because she couldn’t stand some human dying ten or twenty years before he would have ended up dying anyway.”

I could sense his rising annoyance, but it was too tempered. He knew I was trying to get a rise out of him, so he wasn’t as angry as he might have been otherwise.

“She was your sister,” Lucifer said. He had a strange voice when he said it.

I laughed again. “Right. Like they’re my ‘brothers’. But I never even met her. She’s just some idiot who threw away her life and all your lives for a single stupid human. She’s a stranger. She means nothing to me. She has nothing to do with me. And she deserves what she got.”

Lucifer was quiet for a few seconds. I couldn’t tell if I’d struck a nerve or not. He wasn’t so upset that he reacted, though, which annoyed me.

“She has nothing to do with you?” he echoed.

“Nothing whatsoever.”

His eyes roamed around the room, and they quickly fixed on that damn scroll, as if it was a homing beacon.

“You haven’t read that yet, have you.” It wasn't a question.

I felt another sharp jab of annoyance. “It doesn’t interest me.”

“Don’t be pointlessly stubborn, Satan.”

“What do you care?” I snapped. “Did your attendant come crying to you? Did that break your heart? You just can’t stand seeing someone in pain, is that it?”

“It’s not like you to be intentionally ignorant.”

“Didn’t you say it’s just a record about my birth? I don’t want to know anything else about how I was born. I hate what I already do know.” I jumped out of bed and stalked towards him. If he wasn’t going to walk out the door on his own, I’d gladly help him get there. “And it’s completely like you to dodge a question.”

“You weren’t asking that to hear the answer.”

Again, irritating.

“Why does it matter if I read that thing?”

“Because it concerns you. You should understand how you came to be.”

“I know how I came to be,” I growled. “You pulled your wings off and bled all over and cried. Am I wrong?”

Lucifer lowered his arms to his sides and frowned deeply at me, but he didn’t say anything. Something about that...scared me. Something about that filled me with dread, like I’d suddenly found myself on the edge of a precipice. But dread can’t exist inside me for long. Soon, it had churned through my body and hardened into something more familiar.

“Stop looking at me like that,” I growled. He didn’t say a thing, and he didn’t move. My stomach roiled in my gut. The frustration and disappointment were no longer evident on his face. Instead, I felt like I was a newborn again, “Stop looking at me like you’re worried about me! Like you pity me! It makes me want to vomit!”

I lunged at him. He reacted with the strength and dexterity I’d come to expect. I could never land a blow on Lucifer. If I hadn’t been so damn angry I wouldn’t have even tried. But my entire being ached with rage, and I acted without thinking. I felt so weak. I felt so helpless. I stood there, struggling to free myself, and he stood over me, my fists in his hands, that same, awful, pitying look on his face that he used to have back at the Demon King’s castle. Seeing that look…

“Why do you look at me like that?!” Hot, angry tears blurred my vision and burned my eyes. “Your face always makes me sick, but I can’t stand it when you look at me like that! Why can’t you hate me?!”

And before I could do anything else, I was bound up. Again. Just like I used to be, back in Diavolo’s place. I screamed, and I sobbed, and I felt like I had felt when I was first born. Like nothing but wrath, poisonous wrath, was coursing through my veins. And I felt arms around me—his arms, and I couldn’t push him away, so I just screamed as he embraced me. Like he had any right to embrace me! Why couldn’t I make him leave?! How dare he touch me?! I’d kill him. One day, I’d kill him!

It had been a long time since I’d been that angry. I think it took a toll on my body, because I slipped off to sleep without realizing I'd ever slowed down, and when I woke up, I was in bed, unbound and alone.

My body was sore from straining all my muscles the night before, and I felt groggy and unwell, like I’d been drunk on rage and woke with a hangover. I stepped out of bed and looked around the room. I felt I was searching for something.

Again, like a homing beacon. The celestial glow drew my eyes.

My fingers twitched.

I took the scroll from the shelf and untied it. I hated that I was giving in to him so easily. But what choice did I have? I had half a mind to burn the thing unread, but it slipped open and the words appeared before my eyes in a language I barely recognized. A human language, bizarrely. It appeared to be Latin. It used Latin characters, at least.

ANNO MMCDXCI REGNI GARDONI MAGNI A SANGUINE LUCIFERI ET CORPORE LILITHAE IN REGNO QUOD INTER REGNA EST CREATURA NOVA E PACTIONE SANGUINE CONSIGNATA APPARET. EX AMATO AD AMATUM IN ACERBISSIMO MORTIS DOLORE CORPUS CORPUS ITERUM FIT ET SANGUIS SANGUIS ITERUM FIT. HAEC PACTIO IN TERRA NEUTRIUS PARTIS CONCELEBRATUR AB INFERNO CONFIRMATA NEQUE A CAELO RECUSATA. SATANUS, ADVERSARIUS, NATUS EST.

TESTATUM PER DIAVOLUM, GARDONI MAGNI FILIUS NATURALIS TESTATUM PER BARBATOS, DAEMONUS TESTATUM PER LUCIFERUM, ANGELUS LAPSUS

----

I wandered to Lucifer’s study. It was empty. It took awhile to find the right sort of dictionary, but eventually, I had what I needed. And I got to work.

Within the hour, I was rampaging around the house. Mammon tried to get me under control, but he was never able to contain me. Only Lucifer ever did that.

“What happened?” he kept asking. “What the hell happened?!” But I was Wrath, and Wrath doesn’t speak with words.

----

Playing the adversary is hard work. It’s exhausting. It makes me miserable. But I have to do it. It’s my role. It’s my name. And I’m made out of Lucifer’s wrath. He must feel so much lighter without all that anger weighing him down. How nice for him. But when I learned about what else I was…

I’m Lilith, you know? I’m made out of her.

For some reason, that made me crazy.

----

IN THE 2491st YEAR OF THE REIGN OF THE GREAT GARDONUS, FROM THE BLOOD OF LUCIFER AND THE BODY OF LILITH, IN THE REALM BETWEEN REALMS, A CONTRACT SEALED WITH BLOOD BRINGS FORTH A NEW ESSENCE. OF BELOVED, BY BELOVED MADE, IN THE AGONY OF DEATH, BODY AGAIN BECOMES BODY AND BLOOD BECOMES BLOOD ANEW. THIS DOCUMENT BEING LEGALLY SOLEMNIZED ON NEUTRAL GROUND, SANCTIFIED BY HELL, UNCONTESTED BY HEAVEN. SATAN, THE ADVERSARY, IS BORN.

WITNESSED BY DIAVOLO, NATURAL SON OF THE GREAT GARDONUS WITNESSED BY BARBATOS, DEMON WITNESSED BY LUCIFER, FALLEN ANGEL

[hinamie]

red sky at dawn

chapter 3 of Like the Moon Haunts the Sun is out now!! first chapter release of 2025 yippee yay wahoo we hope u enjoy!! read from the beginning here ooh u wanna read from the beginning so badddd lmhs blog: @lmhsfic sam my love: @philosophiums

[owlf45]

youtube stealers are getting a little ballsy

[everyryuujisuguro]

[blaithnne]

You’re 12 years old the first time your father leaves. You’re 26 years old when he comes back. You’re 6 years old and your parents adore you, you’re 10 years old and they hate each other more. You’re 13 years old and your mother moves you out to the wilderness, packed into the back of her rusty little trabant-six-oh-something. You’re 13 years old and you have a new room, but you miss your old one. You’re 14 years old and you still haven’t gotten your period, your mother says it’s nothing, but you think she's lying. You’re 15 years old when your father comes back, and he loves your sister more than you. You’re 15 years old and you just want him to love you. You’re 15 years old and he tucks you into bed, kisses your forehead, and leaves before you wake up. You’re 16 years old and you know he doesn’t want you, you know he never did. You’re 12 years old and your parents won’t stop fighting, you’re 13 years old and you miss the noise. You’re 12 years old and you want to run away. You’re 12 years old and your father does. You’re 11 years old and you have a crush on the boy next to you at the station, and he hands you a cigarette and makes you feel special. You’re 13 years old when your mother finds out and convinces you to quit. You’re 16 years old when your father asks you to buy him a pack of cigarettes, and he doesn’t come back to smoke them himself. You;re 16 years old and you can’t bring yourself to let them go to waste. You’re 26 years old and you only smoke once a week, but you know you’ll never break the habit now. You’re 12 years old when your father runs away, you decide to do the same. You’re 12 years old when your mother tells you she’s pregnant. You’re 13 years old when your little sister is born, and you can’t believe there was ever a world without her in it. You’re 16 years old and you give her your favourite scarf, you’re 26 years old and she still won’t give it back. You’re 23 years old and you’re back in the city, you have a new room but you miss your old one. You’re 14 years old and you take the train back and forth from Trolberg every weekend on a supply run, you feel important, needed, special. You’re 16 years old when you have your first kiss, 17 years old when you have your first break up. You’re 19 years old when you find out you’ll never have children, you’re 26 years old when you have your first. You’re 23 years old when you meet the love of your life, still 23 the first time she kisses you. You’re 25 years old when you decide you’re going to marry her. You’re 23 years old when you meet the best man at your wedding. You’re 25 years old when you buy your own house, and you don’t miss your old room, you’re not alone in this bed. You’re 23 years old and your girlfriend lives in a van, you’re 26 years old and now she lives with you. You’re 25 years and your little sister’s afraid you’re leaving her, you’re 26 years old and you’ve converted your attic to a bedroom for when she sleeps over. You’re 25 years old when you open a cafe. You’re 25 years old and your mother is your first customer. You’re 26 years old and your son calls you mum. You’re 26 years old and sometimes he calls you dad. You’re 12 years old and you think your life is over, you’re 26 years old and it’s only just begun. You’re 12 years old and your father doesn’t want you. You’re 26 years old and he changes his mind, but you don’t need him anymore. You never really did.

[penumbra-mayhem]

The Fall of an Alpha (ch. 2)

aka: Put Your Ear Up to My Wall, Mistake My Heart for A Drumbeat

David fights to keep everything quiet, Asher takes on a new role, and Milo finds Tank (for better or worse).

Ch. 1 // ao3 // 4.6k words

(TW: death, car accident, grief, implied/referenced self-harm, vomiting, gore/blood, violence)

————————————————

Sept 3. 2017, 11:52 pm

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

David’s phone started vibrating as soon as he pulled away from the morgue. He’d placed it in his backseat—a habit Gabe had instilled in him years ago so he’d never be tempted to text and drive.

He ignored the buzzing, willing the rain battering against his car to drown out the sound. It worked; his phone eventually went silent, and David’s full attention was brought back to the barely visible road he was traversing.

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

Another call. He contemplated pulling over, but Gabe’s voice hummed in his head: Patience. Not everything needs an answer right away. He decided against it. Whoever was calling would realize he wasn’t available and leave a message. 

The call ended.

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

It started again. And again. And again. And again. As soon as a call ended, another began. He could feel them in his skull, like the buzzing was coming from his brain. Like his head was a freshly shaken wasp nest.

The wasps traveled down into his gut, twisting and tightening his intestines. They kept traveling, moving to his extremities. His hands went numb. Then his feet. He couldn’t feel the steering wheel. Or the gas pedal. Or the brakes. His vision began to tunnel.

No. He didn’t have time for this. He had a job to do. He needed to focus. He needed to get back to his apartment safely. He needed to get the key. He needed to go to his dad’s house. He needed to get into his study. He needed to throw up.

David found himself pulled off on the side of the road, doubled over in the rain, emptying his stomach into a bush. How embarrassing, throwing up like a little kid. That’s enough, he thought to himself, get it together. He stood up straight, but the movement was too quick and he found himself doubled over again.

Everything in him burned as it came up. It stung. 

Retreating back to his car, David quickly checked his phone. Missed calls, voice messages, and texts from various pack members flooded his screen. Someone must have found out what happened. None of them seemed urgent—nor from Asher or Milo—so he put his phone on ‘do not disturb’ and returned it to its place in the back seat.

When he sat down behind the wheel, the wasps were gone. David started the car again and continued back home.

————————————————

Asher cradled his phone, rocking gently in an effort to appease his bawling body. He told himself he had until Milo texted with an update. Then he would pull himself together. His abdomen ached as wave after wave of mourning slammed into him.

He mourned for Gabe. The officer had said he’d died at the scene, but had it been instant? Had he suffered? Did he know he was dying? Did he try to move his legs only to realize he was paralyzed from the waist down? The neck down? Did he frantically gasp for breath as his lungs slowly, agonizingly filled with blood? Had he tried desperately to pry his arm from where it was pinned to reach his phone and call his son just one more time?

He mourned for his pack. Gabe was the founder. They’d never been without him. Would they survive? Would they break into dissension? Crumble apart without leadership? Asher had heard of the devastation past packs had gone through following the death of an alpha or a founder. Gabe had been both. And the pack didn’t even know he was gone. David had said he’d tell them tomorrow at the meeting, but was that the best way?

He mourned for David. David, whose family was already so small. Who already struggled to feel and show his emotions. Asher had seen the initial impacts of this loss. Cold. Detached. Devoid. Would David recover? Was this a wound he could ever heal from? Was he in pain? Asher assumed so, but if David was, he hadn’t shown it. Was he putting on a front, a wall he wouldn’t let anyone see behind? Or was he numb? Was that worrying David? Did he feel guilty he wasn’t feeling anything for his dad’s dea—

buzz buzz

Asher jumped at the vibration in his hands. He rose from the floor and stumbled over to the couch, wiping his face with his shirt. Milo had texted:

At Tank’s place, door was left open

Asher’s stomach dropped. His fingers were a messy flurry as he texted back:

shit

txt updts

or call

davids not bakc

He waited for a reply.

————————————————

Milo pulled into the parking lot of Tank’s apartment complex. He’d past the site of Gabe’s crash on the way, scanning for a glimpse of Tank or their bike. Thankfully, he’d found neither.

But he saw Gabe’s car, and that alone almost sent him into a spiral. No wonder Tank had sounded so wrecked; the driver’s side had crumpled like paper.

As he raced through the parking lot, Milo caught a glimpse of Tank’s motorcycle parked in a large puddle to his right. He’d been right; they’d come back here. Thank god.

Once at the entrance to Tank’s building, he pressed the buzzer for their door and waited. Nothing. He pressed it again. When he was met with the same result, he started pressing every button, hoping someone would let him in. Eventually the door unlocked, and he pushed through.

Milo bounded up the stairwell to Tank’s apartment, slipping and catching himself several times on the rain-slick steps. His throat tightened when he turned a corner and spotted their door at the end of the hall, slightly ajar.

As he walked towards it, he texted Asher:

At Tank’s place, door was left open

After a few moments, his phone buzzed with a series of replies:

shit

txt updts

or call

davids not bakc

When he reached their door, Milo pushed it open further and crept into the apartment. The curtains were all drawn and the lights were off, but Milo could slightly make out a series of objects on the floor. He felt around for a switch and flicked on a light.

All the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen were open and empty, silverware and broken dishes littering the floor of Tank’s tiny studio. Milo could practically track Tank’s movements, following the dents along the wall where they had hurled each cup and plate and fork and knife.

Then his eyes landed on blood—a piece of broken glass on the floor, glistening crimson along its sharp edge. Milo trailed the fat red drops to the closed bathroom door. The sight and faint smell of Tank’s blood made his head spin.

“Tank?” he called out.

A smear of blood glinted on the door handle. He gave two soft knocks. “Tank, please,” he tried again, “I know you’re in there.”

A wretched voice answered from the other side of the door, “Go away.”

He ignored them and tried the handle, grimacing at the slick feeling of fresh blood on his hand. Luckily, they’d left it unlocked.

Pushing the door open, Milo peered inside the dark bathroom. Tank was a huddled mass in the corner of their shower, head buried in their arms.

“I said go away, Miles!” they shouted, raising their head just enough to glare at him over their arms, eyes glinting with fury.

Milo flinched but didn’t leave. Crouching down, he spoke in as calm of a tone as he could muster, “Where’re you hurt, Tank?”

“Get. Out.”

“I’m not gonna do that,” Milo replied, “Can I turn on the light?”

“No,” they snapped.

“Okay." Milo took out his phone and turned on his flashlight instead. He tried to ignore the trail of blood leading to Tank as he opened up their mirror cabinet, then the one under their sink.

“What’re you doing?”

“Looking for your first aid kit.”

“I don’t have a first aid kit,” they sneered.

Milo shined his light at Tank, who shrunk against it, burying their head again in their arms. They were soaking wet from the rain and shaking terribly. He cast the light away from them.

“Just leave!” they moaned.

“No. You’re injured, and since you have nothing to treat it with, I’m taking you back to Ash and David’s,” he retorted.

A snarl gurgled up from deep in Tank’s chest as Milo approached.

“You can growl at me all you want, I don’t give a damn.”

The snarl grew louder the closer he got. But once he kneeled down in front of them, it began to change, breaking up and losing its bite.

“I know,” he whispered, tears welling in his eyes as Tank began to cry, “I know, Tank.”

He placed a tentative hand on their arm. They trembled under his touch, but didn’t pull away. 

“Just come with me, please. You don’t have to talk about it. You can be as angry as you want. I don’t care. I just want to make sure you’re safe,” Milo said as he set his phone down, flashlight to the floor.

“I-I am,” they lied, their sobs warping their words. 

“You’re bleeding from somewhere, I saw the blood in the kitchen and in here. So no, you’re not,” Milo countered. 

“…it’s n-n-not b-bad,” Tank lied again. 

“Can I see?”

Tank hesitated, then raised their head. Milo couldn’t make much out. He flipped his phone around, so the light pointed up at the ceiling.

He choked down a gasp at the sight of Tank’s face. The gash just under their left eye was deep, blood still pumping out slowly, drenching their cheek and dripping down their neck. It was in their hair, on their clothes, on their hands.

“Not that bad, my ass,” Milo muttered, “Tank, this needs a healer.”

“No. No healers,” they choked out, tears leaving trails in their blood.

Milo knew accepting any sort of medical help was difficult for Tank. They never talked about it, but he assumed there was some sort of trauma or pride or fear stopping them. He was trying to be understanding, he really was, but it was all too much. It was late, he was spent, Tank was bleeding, and Gabe was dead.

“Fine,” Milo spat, “You either go back to Ash and David’s and let me sew it up, cause it’s going to need stitches, or I stay here and call a damn healer. Your fucking choice.”

That shut them up. Their sobs subsided and they glared with all the fury left in their trembling body before muttering, “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

————————————————

At the sound of the front door opening, Asher sprang up and raced to the hall. "Tank?"

David stood in the doorway, rainwater dripping like tears from his lashes. He looked as stoic as before, but now a sickly tinge covered his features. 

"David," Asher breathed, "Was it...was it him?"

"Yes," he muttered, walking inside and shutting the door, "What happened?"

"What d'you mean?"

"You thought I was Tank." David stopped in front of him. 

"I just uh...hoped..."

“What happened?” David repeated, his voice low and tense. He didn’t have the time nor energy for hesitation. His stare bored into Asher, demanding an answer.

"T-Tank saw Gabe's car," Asher spluttered. David's eyes widened. "They called Milo when they saw it. He had to tell them what happened, he—we couldn’t lie to them. Milo went to their place. He texted me when he got there but he hasn’t updated since.”

Of course. Of course they couldn’t have just waited to tell anyone until David got back. Or until tomorrow, like he told them. David pulled out his phone, turning off ‘do not disturb’. There were more missed calls and texts, but none from Milo or Tank. He pulled up Milo’s contact and called him. 

“Hello?” Milo’s voice oozed with trepidation. 

David’s was dry and sharp. “Is Tank ok?”

“…yes. We’re heading to my car now, we’ll meet you back at your place.”

“Are they hurt?”

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

David started getting another call. He ignored it. 

“Um…” David could tell Milo was choosing his words carefully, but for David’s sake or Tank’s he didn’t know. “Yes, but it’ll be ok.”

David gripped his phone tighter, but kept his rising worry out of his tone. He needed to stay level, anything less would just be detrimental to everyone’s safety.

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

“Take them to a healer.”

David heard Asher mutter ‘fuck’ behind him. There was a long pause on Milo’s end, filled only with the sound of rain and Milo’s breathing as he walked. 

“Milo.”

Finally, he replied, “We’ll be at your place soon.” And with that, Milo hung up.

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

The buzzing in David’s head started again, echoing those from his phone. He stuffed his phone back into his pocket as he stormed past a bewildered Asher and into his bedroom. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

“David? David, what did Milo say? Is Tank ok?” Asher called out as he followed, making the wasps in David’s head angrier. He watched David tear through the drawers of his desk, searching for what, Asher didn’t know. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

Asher called his name several more times before David seemed to hear him. He whipped his head around.

“Is Tank hurt?”

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

“Yes,” David replied before continuing his search, “But Milo says it’s fine, so I’m hoping it’s not too bad. They won’t go to a healer, no surprise there, so they’re coming back here.”

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz… 

“Who is calling you?”

David finally found what he was looking for; he pulled out the key and clipped it onto his key ring. “The pack. Someone must have found out. Maybe the wreck was on the news or someone saw it like Tank did. They’ve been calling since I left the morgue.”

David pushed past Asher again and started heading towards the front door. He fought back the wasps in his head. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz… 

“Are you going to answer?” Asher asked as he followed. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

“No.”

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

“Why not?”

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

He opened the front door. “I’ll talk to them tomorrow,” buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz… “At the pack meeting.”

“David they can’t wait that long,” buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz… “They already know. Or they’ve at least heard rumors. You need to talk to them.”

“Well, I don’t have the time!” buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz… “I’ve got to get to my dad’s house and figure all this shit out,” David growled. The wasps were winning; he was starting to lose focus. He turned to leave. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

“Then let me do it.”

David paused. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

“What?” he asked over his shoulder. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

Asher’s voice took on an edge David had never heard from him before, “Let me go with you and answer the calls,” buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…“I’ll still be near, so you can get to your phone if you need to. But this way, you won’t be distracted, and the pack won’t be left in the dark all night.”

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

David wanted to say no. Having Asher near right now felt like a liability. But he was right. buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…The pack already knew, and keeping them in the dark was only going to incite panic. That and David needed the buzzing to stop, both from his phone and his head. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

David unlocked his phone and handed it to Asher. 

————————————————

“Hey, can you see who just texted me?” Milo asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the road. 

Tank wiped their hands as well as they could on their jeans before picking up Milo’s phone. 

goin w david 2 gabes

key undr mat

b back l8r

“It’s Ash,” they reported, “He’s going to Gabe’s place with David? He said the key is under the mat and they’ll be back later.”

“Why’re they—nevermind. Can you text him back and let him know we’re almost to his place and also ask if David has a suturing kit? Password’s 0209.”

Almost to ur place, u got a suture kit?

tank???

The one and only, how’d u know?

u txt dif

y do u hav milos phone

He’s driving

oh rite

r u ok

Im fine, suture kit?

david says in bthrm

Gotcha

y do u need it

Dont worry bout it

————————————————

“…yeah Kelsey, it’s true…I know…we don’t know that yet…yes, tomorrow morning at 11…okay…hey, you text me if you need anything…okay…okay, I’ll see you tomorrow, try and get some rest…I will…bye K.” 

Asher ended the call and trotted after David, who was already unlocking Gabe’s front door. He rubbed his eyes in the brief moment of silence before David’s phone started buzzing again. 

“Hey, Mika…yeah, it was a car crash…”

David was stuck in the doorway. The foyer loomed before him, both nauseatingly familiar and eerily alien. His childhood home was now as much a husk as his father was. It made the wasps in David’s stomach writhe. 

Asher was staring at him, David could feel it. So, he took a step inside. Then another. And another. It almost felt like trespassing. 

There was a David who used to live here. Who at seven years old had learned the virtue of honesty when he admitted to breaking the kitchen window. Whose first loose tooth was yanked out by a string attached to the front door. Who used to visit every week after he moved out. Who mended the roof and repainted the baseboards. Who spent countless hours listening to his father’s stories by the fireplace.  

That was not this David, the David treading across the floorboards like a thief. 

He reached his father’s study and unlocked it with the key he’d retrieved earlier. Asher ended his call and said, “I’ll be in the living room. Let me know if you need anything.”

David nodded and walked into the study, closing the door behind him. 

It smelled like him: rosemary, leather, and something distinctly Gabe. The scent should’ve been comforting, but it just stirred the wasps up, making him lightheaded as they whirled.

David switched on the desk lamp. Everything was just as he remembered:

Books lined the walls, organized alphabetically by last name. Stacks of paper sat neatly on the outskirts of the desk’s surface, leaving the middle open for work. A lumpy mug David had made in high school held a collection of pens and pencils. 

David walked around the desk. Three picture frames adorned the polished oak. The first held a pack photo from the previous year��s Solstice. The second held a candid of David’s mother, sticking her tongue out at the camera as she ran through a yard sprinkler. The third held a picture of Gabe and David on their most recent camping trip, their faces wild and beaming. 

On the back of Gabe’s chair hung his jacket. David felt the black leather—soft with use and dedicated upkeep. 

The wasps were stinging his eyes; David pressed his fingers into them, seeing sparks as he crushed the bugs behind his eyelids. He collapsed into the seat and focused on his breathing, forcing the wasps in his chest to move in an orderly fashion. Not here. Not yet. He had a job to do. 

David opened the largest drawer of the desk and began to gather what he needed. 

————————————————

"Shit, Tank, this looks really bad.”

Milo sat back on his heels; the cold of the tile seeped through his pants and into his skin. Tank stayed still in their position on the bathroom floor as Milo leaned in again, holding the needle tight in his hand.

After a moment, he leaned back again, exclaiming, "Fuck, I don't know how to sew stitches! I mean, my mom taught me to sew but skin is so fucking different than fabric. It moves and bleeds and-and, for fuck's sake, it's your face, can we please get a healer?"

Tank scowled but didn't reply, biting the inside of their cheek to keep from snapping.

"Alright, fine. Okay. But I'm gonna have to go slow. I don't know what I'm doing and, again, this is your face," Milo warned them.

"Just let me do it, then," Tank muttered. 

He dismissed the offer, "No, you've got your shaky hand."

"I can use the other."

"No, cause that's not your dominant hand. You've got to do this with your dominant hand, and that's your shaky hand. You're gonna scar real bad if you—”

"I don't care about scars."

"You'll care about this one."

"I have other scars on my face, I really don't care."

"You'll care about this one."

Tank looked away, the weight of the night and how they got there in the first place pulling them back down into silence. Seeing he’d won, for now, Milo breathed deep and tilted Tank’s head up slightly with one hand. He held the needle close to their cheek, whispering, "Okay. I'm gonna start."

Tank winced as the needle pierced their skin, and Milo almost called the whole thing off. But he kept going, and they quickly stopped wincing.

Milo was laser focused, doing his best to keep the stitches small and tidy. But when he was about halfway done, a tear rolled down into the gash, stirring Milo from his concentrated state. He used a gentle thumb to brush away the tears on Tank's cheeks.

"I'm not crying cause it hurts," Tank whispered, "It doesn't hurt."

"I know," Milo murmured, "...almost done."

Despite the circumstances, a sort of morbid satisfaction stirred in Milo at the sight of the bloody rift closing under his hand. It felt good, felt right, to be pulling something back together when everything was falling apart. 

When he finished the last stitch, Milo placed a large bandaid over the gash. Tank stared down at their hands while Milo put away the suturing kit. 

As he began scrubbing the dried blood off his hands in the sink, Tank explained:

“I didn’t mean to do this, you know.”

Milo stayed quiet, giving Tank the space to talk more if they wanted. But the silence just made them feel more pressured to defend themself.

“Well, I did mean to throw that glass, I just, I didn’t mean for it to throw itself back at me,” they clarified.”

“Okay,” Milo said. His tone came out of his mouth light, but fell heavy on Tank’s ears. 

“I wasn’t trying to draw attention to myself,” Tank asserted, their anxiety rising.

“Okay,” Milo repeated. The discussion didn’t need to go any further. He didn’t even know why it was happening in the first place. 

Tank blinked tears from their eyes. “I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t purposely pull everyone’s attention from Gabe.”

Milo turned around and leaned against the sink, trying to defuse them, “I believe you, Tank. I know you. You would’ve let yourself bleed out in that shower before ever coming to me or anyone else for help. Especially tonight.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Of course it’s a bad thing, Tank!” Milo threw his hands up, gripping tightly onto his braids.

“How is that a bad thing?!?”

“Because you can’t—I just—ugh, I can’t have this conversation right now. I need…I don’t know what I need, but it’s not any more of this,” Milo shot. 

Tank’s face twitched from the blow. They staggered to their feet. “Fine. Then I’ll leave.”

“What? Tank, no—”

“You stitched me up. Thanks. Now I’m leaving.” They threw open the bathroom door. 

Milo followed them down the hall, grumbling, “Tank, you don’t even have a ride.”

“I’ll walk.”

He rolled his eyes. They were being ridiculous.  “That’ll take you forever, especially in this weather.”

Tank whipped around, hissing, “I don’t give a fuck. You don’t need me here, you said it yourself.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Well it sure did fucking sound like it.”

They stormed towards the door, but Milo slipped in front of them and blocked their path. 

“I just meant I don’t need to talk about that anymore!” he exclaimed, gesturing to Tank’s cheek, “We can talk about Gabe. We can talk about how we feel. We can talk about the future and the pack and what this all means going forward. Or we could not talk at all! But I don’t want to talk about shit that’s already happened. I don’t want to talk about shit that didn’t even happen in the first place. That’s not productive.”

“I don’t care about being productive,” they spat. 

“But you care about David, right? If you won’t stay for yourself or for me, stay for him.”

“He’s not even here.”

“But he’ll be back. And you know how he gets; he’s going to need us.”

“He doesn’t need me.”

“Yes, he does,” he groaned. 

Milo’s phone began to vibrate. 

Tank cried out, “No, he doesn’t! He doesn’t need my mess on top of everything else going on.”

As Milo dug his phone out of his pocket, Tank shoved past him and raced out the front door. 

Milo’s heart stuttered at the name on his screen. He rushed to the open door, yelling into the storm, “Tank, stop! Tank, please come back! Tank!”

Tears welling in his eyes, he leaned his weight against the door frame and answered the call. 

“Mom?….yeah, it’s true. Gabe’s dead.”

Wails erupted through his phone, scraping Milo hollow. 

————————————————

David found everything in under ten minutes—unsurprisingly, given how organized Gabe was and how pressed David was to leave. 

When he’d gathered the last of what he needed, he locked the study and walked into the living room. Asher was pacing, on another call of what seemed an endless barrage. He glanced at David and was summoned by a jerk of the latter’s head. 

The two left the house and drove back home, Asher answering calls and texts the whole way back. When they reentered their apartment, they heard Milo’s voice trickling down the hallway:

“Yeah, I know…no, but I’m sure we’ll find out more tomorrow…Oh, David and Ash are back. I’m gonna talk to them and then head over…no the rain has died down, I’ll be fine…yeah…okay, I will, I promise…okay, see you soon…I love you too, ma.”

He looked up at David and Asher. 

“Is Tank okay?” Asher asked. 

“Huh?” Milo replied in a daze. 

“They had to get stitches?”

“Oh right…um, yeah they fell on their way to their apartment after they saw the crash. The rain made their stairwell slippery and they busted their face open. But I stitched them up, best I could,” Milo lied. 

Asher nodded before getting another call. He answered, walking away into the kitchen. 

“Where are they now?” David asked, clutching a  handful of manila folders, a briefcase, and a familiar jacket. 

“They uh,” Milo looked away, “They left.”

The buzzing picked back up in David’s head. “Left?”

“…we got into a fight.”

David breathed out slowly, muttering under his breath, “Tank.”

“No, no, it’s my fault! I was distracted, I wasn’t careful with my words, I wasn’t listening to them. They left, I don’t know where, and I was gonna chase after them but then my mom called and…” Milo wiped the back of his hand across his face. 

The sight of Milo’s tear-streaked cheeks turned the hum in David’s head into a cacophony. 

“I think I’m gonna stay at hers tonight,” Milo croaked as he gathered his things, “She’s really upset.”

“Of course,” David replied, internally cursing that he couldn’t bring himself to say more. 

“I um, I’ll be at the meeting tomorrow. I’ll text Ash for the details,” Milo babbled. He stopped by the front door. “David. If you need anything, you text me. Or call me. You hear?”

“I hear,” David lied, the buzzing in his head drowning everything out.

[youling-the-ghost]

More hand-written fanfiction! (ft. a bubbamiah fic that I impulsively started working on during class and I feel bad for because I'll have to abandon it so that I can finally finish chapter 3 of To be in Love)

[allmightskitten]

I know the latest chapter of corazon's flower shop diary was monstrously long at an insane 23k words but I regret to inform you that the next chapter is probably going to be even longer

[ibijau]

on good news, I've typed almost half of my small notebook that I recently finished filling

on bad news, I keep finding parts I know I'll need to expand on the first round of edit

[slippery-minghus]

System Breach Sunday... Rewind ⭕

#7

“Connor!” Hank dropped to his knees in front of his android charge. Sidearm holstered, he reached out, hesitant. 

Still frozen, lifeless like a broken doll, Connor could only watch as Hank took one of his hands from where they rested in his lap. The sight seemed almost far away… nearly glowing under the weak midday sun. Even still, Connor could feel it as Hank’s warm, calloused palm squeezed his own—he could hear the Lieutenant’s elevated respiration, feel his anxious pulse through the contact in his palm—but he couldn’t react. Couldn’t reciprocate in any way.

Connor was fine, but the remaining seconds that he was powerless to prove it made something inside him hurt. 

>WARNING: COMPREHENSIVE MOTOR REBOOT REQUIRED

>Time Until Motor Reboot: 53 seconds

>

>Software Instability ^

Gently, almost fearfully hesitant, Hank reached to Connor’s chin, tilting up his head. The sensation was a stark, cutting contradiction to the deviant’s forceful grip—and in a flutter of irrationality, Connor once again found himself verifying his anti-virus program’s readout. 

Still clear. Still nothing. 

He was alright. 

Connor’s vision rose, panning from the Lieutenant’s knees before his own, up to the man’s concerned, gray-framed face. Hank’s expression was pained, his voice tentative, “Can you hear me, son? You okay?” His gaze shifted slightly to Connor’s right, and the finger at his chin tilted his head to follow—Connor’s LED was still an angry, cycling red. 

“Shit, you still in there, Connor?” Hank asked with a bit more urgency. But then his gaze shifted away, and his hand gently lowered Connor’s head. His tone took on a more inward quality, “His LED’s still goin’, probably means he ain’t dead… the fuck did that deviant bastard do?” Careful, probing hands prodded at Connor’s sides, his arms, shoulders, his throat—barely brushing the data panel below his jaw—yet Hank found nothing amiss. “This is why I didn’t want you going off alone, you dumbass!”

>WARNING: COMPREHENSIVE MOTOR REBOOT REQUIRED

>Motor Reboot Initiated

Finally, after so many frustrating, powerless minutes, Connor began to regain physical functionality.

His breathing was the first to come back online. In a warmer setting, the influx of air would have been vital to cool his arrested biocomponents—but as his synthetic lungs expanded, Connor was met with the frigid rush of Detroit winter. Some basic, hard-coded instinct sent a violent shiver juddering through him, and Connor’s eyes squinted shut before he realized he’d even regained the ability to blink. He wheezed again, exhaling harshly as if the next breath would not come just as cold. 

“Connor!” Hank gasped, moving to grip the android’s shoulders. “Hang on kid, hang on. I’ve gotcha.”

Though the shivers persisted, each tremor was more fluid—more lifelike—than the last. And before long, Connor was able to perform simple movements of his own volition. With meticulous focus, he strung a sequence of actions together, then executed. First, Connor reached for the Lieutenant’s wrist and grasped it lightly. He slowly shook his head. Then Connor opened his mouth, activated his vocal synthesizer, and whispered, “I’m okay.” 

Yet he sounded anything but. Connor’s voice had come out small, rattled, afraid. He hadn’t queued an emulated well of emotion, hadn’t plotted the expression he could feel furrowing his brows. Androids weren’t supposed to—

“Like hell you are! What the hell happened? What’d that fucker do to you?” Hank’s tone was rough now that the imminent danger had passed, but the sharpest edges had been sanded smooth by relief. Connor couldn’t help but think back to the echo of Hank’s anger—his fear that he might lose…

Connor blinked, then jerked his hand away from Hank’s arm. He tried to right himself, but only managed to sway in Hank’s persistent grasp. The danger had passed, but— “The deviant—” Connor pressed, eyes wide, “It can’t have gotten far. I can track its progress through the cameras from here—” 

“Woah, woah, woah, hold it,” Hank rumbled, biting back a curse as Connor nearly slumped further to the ground. “I’m not going anywhere until I’m sure you’re actually okay. And not just saying it. Why’re you moving like a drunk bag of rocks?” 

[rawliverandcigarettes]

I think one of the reasons why I latched onto asari characters but not super onto asari culture itself, is because I think there's something inherently... bi-cultural about being asari, in a way? Either you have to live with the heritage of another species weighing down on you regarding its expectations, history and shortcoming, knowing that by nature, you probably won't even get to spend that much time with your dad and will have to accomodate for the hole they'll leave behind; or you're pureblood, and you're also ostracized by default.

Every asari is kind of doomed to feel culturally incomplete in some way, and I think it's pretty wild that it's baked deep within the biology itself.

[kiwichaeng]

WIP Wednesday

Thank you so much for tagging me @im-overstimulated-and-im-sad and @heartstringsduet ❤️

Every muscle in Carlos' body freezes. Very slowly, he puts the glass down on the counter, his eyes never leaving the man. The man he recognises. He's in the same outfit as earlier, a plain sweatshirt and jeans. His hair is tousled and free of blood this time, his eyes bright and colourful. Except he can't be here, in Carlos' home, sitting on his goddamn couch and looking at him with curiosity, like he's anticipating Carlos' next reaction. Carlos' mind is playing tricks on him, he's working too hard, he's seeing things. Because there is absolutely no way that Tyler Kennedy Strand, the man who's dead body Carlos saw today, is sitting on his couch.

Absolutely no pressure tags under the cut

@liminalmemories21 @orchidscript @lemonlyman-dotcom @paperstorm @strandnreyes @carlos-tk @ladytessa74 @carlos-in-glasses @theghostofashton @three-drink-amy @fallout-mars @chicgeekgirl89 @lightningboltreader

[arson-duck]

Teaser ;)

I was screwed. I wanted to be screwed. In every position imaginable. In private. in public. In every hole I had and maybe even a new one.

I had held out my hand in greeting, and for a moment it seemed he wouldn’t return the gesture, but he took my hand and squeezed it. Not even properly shaking it, just gauging my reaction. He seemed pleased when I squeezed back harder, but he never made an effort to come into contact with me again.

Sure, we worked the same missions, and sometimes drew straws to brawl with each other, but that was just duty. Ghost had never once, of his own volition, reached out to touch me because he wanted to. And God, I wished he wanted to.

(Safehouse by l3uttstuff on Ao3)

[ohitslen]

WOW WHAT. I UPDATED 🎉Ch. 6 of The neighbor from 311 is up!🎉

[nostalgia-tblr]

I think the readers overall were not keen on that final chapter but that's okay it was my first go at the 'epilogue with a baby' structure and I may have made it overly twee or something (or maybe even not twee enough, idk) and so I shall not do it next time I write a multichapter (assuming there is a next time which is something I argue with myself about because Oh So Conflicted). But either way I don't need to write any more of that fic as it is done now. Hurrah!

[astarionancuntnin]

not me having an epiphany at 1am and rewriting 3 entire chapters for my fic