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rocoutlaststuff · 4 months ago

Note

So I’ve got a request a Franco Barbi x reader where they were his lover from before he was captured but now they’ve ended up in the trials as a reagent (assuming they can even remember each other) maybe some angst/hurt/comfort as a imagine or one shot whatever would be better for you!! ♥️♥️♥️

One request coming up! I got carried away with this, and you've officially turned me into a bit of a Franco fan which I did not expect. That's what listening to dialogue for an hour straight will do to a person, I guess. Regardless, I hope this is what you were looking for!

Presently in the Past (Franco x Reader) [Requested]

🐑 ♡ I lost the footage to make a Franco gif, anyone wanna play to get it back ♡ 🐑

You can't remember anything about your past, but your past remembers you.

Explicit, Graphic Violence, F/M, M/M, Other/M, Tag(s): Trauma, Human Experiments, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Drug Use, Needles, Memory Loss, Angst, Hurt/Some Comfort, Blood, Violence, Death, Explicit Language, Obsessive Behaviour, Possessive Behaviour, Pet Names, Cuddling, Flashbacks, Oneshot, Ambiguous Gender Reader, POV Second Person

Find it on ao3 ♡ WC: 6,432

Disclaimer: Easterman's introduction to the trial, and the first paragraph of the story were written by Red Barrels. I recommend reading Barbi's comic first if you haven't already!

Thank you to an anonymous user for requesting this! This is very much my first time writing Franco - hope he's written well ♡

CIA ASSET AT A BAR SOUTH OF MIAMI CONFIRMED FRANCO BARBI'S INVOLVEMENT IN AGENCY ACTIVITY IN CUBA. FRANCO DEEPLY ENTWINED WITH EXPAT/COUNTER-REVOLUTONARY CUBAN COMMUNITY IN FLORIDA.

STATEMENT FROM LAST KNOWN FROM CUBAN-COUNTER REVOLUTIONARY ASSOCIATE CONFLICTS WITH CIA ASSET. FRANCO IS HINTED AT LEADING DOUBLE LIFE BETWEEN ROMANTIC INTEREST AND CAREER.

ATTEMPTING TO CONFIRM.

“Maybe he didn't expect someone to like him,” Clyde muttered.

His attention hadn't left the shot of Wolf’s Milk that had been made for him. The mere thought of sickly sweet taste forced his insides to turn. Like the wild goose hunt he was on, he wasn��t about the forget it any time soon. And just when he thought he had some semblance of understanding, it had come out that Franco was attempting to hide his involvement with a potential lover.

He had done a good job too, despite him running his mouth in supposed privacy.

Finding said lover was useful if they could, yet Clyde was close enough to Franco that he preferred the time and resources went towards his target.

“You can say that again. Looking like that I'd give up, but that man… He's got tenacity. If you want to call it that, anyway.” The agent put down the freshly cleaned glass with a sigh, and he waved off a patron.

“I can chase up that lead for our mystery friend if you need, but the shop’s closing soon, so it's best that you're leaving. Good luck finding your guy. Nasty piece of work that one.”

Atropine. Benzedrine. Chloropromazine. LSD. Nitric acid. Glass. Knives. Needles. Drills.

So many things had dowsed, punctured, and been absorbed by your skin.

If you could take stock of how much abuse your body had suffered, you would have died many times over. Yet the cocktail of drugs that flowed through your veins mixed with the very same abuse to create a near perfect blank slate.

You knew who you were. You were one in the same with the person in the mirror. You shared your history with that reflection and no one else.

Yet sometimes when you looked at yourself, you felt like someone else. It was only ever a brief flicker of emotion - a feeling that you replicated in the decor of your space - but you held onto it when you felt it.

Hell, you encouraged it when you could.

Waiting to go into a trial was not one of those times.

Your focus remained on the reagent who sat in the lobby with you. Whereas you sat on one of open tables, he sat on the floor by the stairwell. His hands flit about his body which rocked back and forth from the repetitive tapping of his feet on the ground. The cries of other unfortunate souls beyond your rooms sent him further beneath the stairwell to the point that he was nothing but a shadowy figure.

You suspected he was new.

It was a horrible fate for someone new to be stuck with you too. While the others took their sweet time waking up, you had checked every room. There were four of you in total still within your lobby. The other twelve had left to go to their own trials. So you were left to decide whether you asked the newcomer if he wanted to follow you into the depths of Hell.

Doing trials alone was not the answer. It was rarely the answer in the facility, and the people you saw alone were alone for a reason. They scared you more than some of the freaks they released into the trials.

Your trio was one man short.

Yet you were experienced, and experience meant more pain.

“Hey,” you called out.

A muffled yelp.

“Hey, it's okay,” you soothed as you rose from your table. Each movement was slow, and you held up your hands. Before you even reached the stairs, you crouched to make yourself smaller to him, skirting your hand along the floor to steady yourself.

“Who are you?” the stranger barked at you. His voice was fractured. It never settled on a pitch, nor could one emotion truly determine the tone.

Even in the darkness, enough light reached him to caress the edges of the tears that fell down his face.

You told him your name then asked for his while you sat beside the stairwell. With your hands crossed over your knees, you hugged them tight and waited for him to respond. He eyed you from his hiding spot perfectly still as opposed to how he had been a few short seconds ago.

“I don’t remember-” he choked. “I don’t remember my name.”

There was not much you could do except watch him repeat that statement over and over again in floods of tears. When he started to hyperventilate, you guided him with his breathing to the beat of your fellow reagents coming down the stairs. When they saw the scene, they agreed to take him with you.

Sure, it took a lot of convincing to have him step into the shuttle with you, but he did.

And you gave him a nickname: Franco.

He seemed happy with it, and you were grateful to get the name out of your head. The others knew that was what you called the soft toy you kept on your bed, but you didn’t care. It was one of those silly things you fixated on - one that was better than some of the things other reagents found comfort in.

Like cattle, you were herded into the chairs without any other thoughts about what you should have been doing. It was a routine. One that you explained to Franco. You warned him about the clamps on the chair. Then you warned him about the TV and the gas.

How could you tell someone to brace for the torment you were about to endure though?

"You are the surgeon's knife, and where you meet flesh, blood and pain must follow. We are the surgeon's medicine, who regulate pain and death. Poison the supply of those who would ease pain, and we will let you out."

There were no words shared between the group, only the terrified whimpers of Franco beside you. He cried out at the images that manifested in the fog. The suffering was unique to the reagent, and you stared forwards in disgust with bile in your throat. It was impossible to drown out the sheer panic beside you.

Instead, it became part of your nightmare.

A woman staggered towards you. Her body was outlined in the needles that clothed her skin. They touched every part of her, bouncing to the irregular rhythm of her steps. She tripped, tumbled, and fell into your lap - your eyes shut in an instant to block out the sensation you knew wasn’t there. You told yourself that the weight that hit you wasn’t real.

It wasn’t real.

She wasn’t really there.

Franco’s cries were a white noise that tore through your skull like the nails that dug at your tattered slacks. It was too much. Unable to help your morbid curiosity, you allowed your eyelids to flutter open.

The pulse that pounded within your chest threatened to cease. Tension gripped at your body, and a man held your legs with a similar zeal. Chipped nails belonging to the pasty skin sunk into you. Bloodshot eyes met yours, yet they didn’t seem to hold any hatred. They watched you with a warmth you hadn’t seen since you entered the facility and a smile to match.

You felt like you were looking in the mirror again. Familiarity swelled within your chest, and frustration compelled you to tears the second your wrists crashed against the metal restraints.

He was gone in a blink.

The shuttle stuttered and ground against the rails, coming to stop. You mustered up a brief smile for one of your fellow reagents at the concerned look she shot you. She still asked you if you were okay though while the other checked in with Franco.

“I'm fine.”

You were. If you didn't know why you were so upset by your vision then there was no reason why you couldn’t be fine. If anything you were good. Maybe even great.

Despite the way your guts churned, and a dull ache beat against your head, you were exhilarated.

You recognised that man. You didn't know who he was, but you recognised him, and he was a part of whoever you were before.

He was your answer.

The first thing you noticed was the water. Amid the boxes and televisions, you were lost to the sound of water lapping against something. It seemed you weren’t the only one who noticed it too.

“What is that?” your friend asked. There was no telling if he was talking to himself or not as he passed by you. Franco lingered by your side while your group headed to a nearby set of railings.

“I knew it!” your friend exclaimed. “It’s water. They got water in here.” He proceeded to laugh at the sight before him when he turned to see a pier extending beyond you.

“Fuck - this is…” you watched as he looked around the walls plastered in the image of a distant city, and you noted the way his expression strained under the weight of his thoughts. “It’s too real.”

Nothing else was said. He continued onwards past the viscera not a few steps ahead of him. You allowed yourself the chance to peak over the railings, and the water seemed hypnotising in the way it calmed to near stillness. Something must have fallen in seconds prior to your arrival for it to have made a sound.

You decided you weren’t going to stick around to find out what that something was.

Franco twitched when your body collided with his. He’d frozen. Fight or flight’s third sibling had no place in the trials, however, and you felt your heart sink at the sight of his vacant stare. You weren’t sure if he had clocked out for good already when he probably hadn’t seen a dead body up close yet.

A once over of his attire led you to almost regret bringing him along as you leant down to remove your shoes. The action caused Franco to return from the depths of his mind, and he watched you with intense focus.

“Put these on,” you told him.

With two shoes placed before him, he did so with ample tenderness. Maybe he'd suffered from splinters already. It was a thought that repulsed you given you now had no protection against that fate.

“Thanks.”

You nodded at him and took his hand to guide him along.

“Ignore what you see. Focus on what we're doing,” you said.

Enforcing this yourself, you closed yourself off to the world around you. It didn't matter that the wood bit at your soles, nor did it matter that blood that wasn't your own caressed every pinprick sized wound you endured down there. There was no face you made when you felt something compress under your weight and burst with a squelch.

You continued - plain and simple.

There was little in the way of danger along the pier. Just a couple of stragglers that muttered to themselves. Nobody disturbed them. When you drew near the gate, things changed, and your steel willed determination waned at the sound of nearby pleading.

“Salvatore Cargo,” you parroted from a sign in a bid to soothe yourself subconsciously.

The pleading only grew louder as the gate was lifted. One by one, you slipped underneath to find the source of the cries. Two men hung above you like the countless decaying fish strung out to dry long ago. Except they were very much alive and terrified.

Their fear was your own as you knew the sound likely drew attention, and sure enough a shoulder connected with you.

So it began.

Your friend collided with you to prevent an ex-pop from gutting you on long talons. You were forced back into a crate, and you acted on impulse. Around you, your friends scrambled to fend off the attacker. Franco froze once more.

Taking his hand, you snatched a bottle from a shelf and launched it at the ex-pop to distract them. It gave your friends enough time to run, something that was feral and frenzied when lives were on the line.

Your heart pumped. Unable to keep up with your pace, Franco staggered behind you. Directions and quick observations sounded out from your friends like gunfire.

Without them, you would have missed the safe zone.

You threw Franco into a slot and pushed your way into another. As the click resounded, you nearly fell out the other side. Franco knelt on all fours beside you, and you wrapped your hands around him to pull him up. There wasn't anything going through your head as you dragged him to his feet towards the nearest desk.

All you wanted was for him to be okay. You pulled him down into the cramped space beneath the desk on instinct. He was hyperventilating again. The sounds of movement around you let you know that the others were on their way upstairs.

Meanwhile, you held Franco close to your side.

Each shudder of his body shook your own. ‘Calm’ wasn’t exactly the state you could describe him falling into, but he fell silent soon enough. It was just in time for you to catch the latest disturbances upstairs.

A voice different to your friends sounded over the now frantic cries of the hung men. The first gunshot made Franco smack his head against the table in fright. The second was cause for concern as you realised that you had in fact heard a gun.

The screams were silenced, and the voice was too muffled for you to make out what was being said.

It belonged to a man. That much you knew.

You peered over the table to survey the scene. The safe zone was still in tact. The lockers beside you didn’t seem disturbed, and the partition was still up. A third and fourth gunshot rung out, however.

Whatever was happening wasn’t finished.

The shill scrape of metal on metal filled you with dread - the partition nothing but a memory in the span of a second. You were being told to continue.

“Come on, hey. We’re going to make it through, but we need to move,” you told yourself as you grabbed Franco’s arm and pulled him from his hiding spot. Your friends all but fell down the stairs in their panic to tell you what you already knew: whoever was stuck in the trial with you had a gun.

It was a point of debate as you manourved through the environment towards the next stage of the trial. Even as you hauled pounds of drugs from a cart between one another - the gun outweighed any opinions or thoughts on your given task. How did you combat a gun? Could you take it from the unknown assailant? Were the ammo stashes anywhere?

Nothing useful came of your frantic whispers to one another, and while you took time to search for resources, you decided to help Franco out. It changed the subject at least to something more productive.

“Battery packs go in like this,” you explained, showing him how to work his ESOP. “As for this, if you ever step on a mine and there’s gas - or you’re gassed because it can happen, one puff. That’s all you need. It’ll take it all away.”

You snatched a brick for safekeeping, but no explanation was needed for Franco. He understood its use the second it was in your hand. It seemed he learnt quick too, repeating back what you’d said to him on the way back to your rendezvous by the drug cart.

“I’ve got this,” your friend said. He took out a thin tube you recognised all too well and placed the needle to the edge of his arm. It sunk beneath the surface. You were ready to move again.

Things were going smooth for such an advanced trial.

That’s what you thought as the cart was heaved along at a brisk jog. You eyed the surrounding area from the boat to the fish market, and you agreed with your friend. It was getting very real.

Too real, in fact.

The stench of rotting fish and past reagents left you nauseous.

“Right this way, please.” The mannequin pointed you in the direction of a weird tool, and the group immediately fell into disarray.

“No - geez, another fucking thing we can’t deal with right now,” one of your friends hissed. The other picked up the unfamiliar device. She pressed the switch on the side, yet nothing happened.

“Symbol decoder, it says - look,” Franco managed, “aim it at the uh, at uh-” he trailed off as he waved his hand in the direction of yellow paint nearby. The first attempt didn’t work, but as you crammed around the corner, everything became clear. You had to line up the image.

The device whirred as the roulette of potential combinations locked in far too slow for the sense of urgency you all felt.

Eight, seven, four.

You were left with Franco as the other two rushed over to the vault and input the code. Nothing could have prepared you for what happened next though.

“It’s mine. It’s God damn mine, and I’ll skin, salt, and fuck any ruptured scumbag who tries to take it!”

You weren't in the trial. For a second too long, you were somewhere else. In your head, on a dock, you didn't fucking know. All you knew was that the voice stirred something within you. Somewhere - you'd heard it somewhere before. Where? You couldn't remember. Maybe you hadn't even recognised it, but the strength of the familiarity was enough to shake you.

Somewhere. Someone.

In the blank space of your head that you could feel, you knew he was there. It made you want to claw at your scalp and peel back the flesh. If you shattered your skull then everything would spill out. Or would you end up dying in a disappointing pool of black tar instead?

What if you forgot everything?

“-you alright?” Franco asked, and your attention snapped towards him.

What did you do to deserve to be taken away from everything you knew?

You didn't say anything, nodding instead. A hand wrapped around yours, and he gave you the best smile anyone could muster in your circumstances. Fake and pained.

“Let's go,” he said. You nodded again.

Your friends caught up, and you were given an extra decoder. The space before you led to multiple darkened passageways.

Cattle cars displayed the symbols you needed to find like some sort of messed up children's game, and you were left with Franco. It was decided as a team. You went left. They went right. With a mental note made of the symbol you needed, you beckoned to Franco to follow.

So began your search.

All the while, you searched your mind for memories attached to that voice.

Franco gasped from the pain his night vision goggles caused him when he pulled them over his eyes. Thankfully, it was a pain you had forgotten, but you could sympathise with him. The section beside the train was incredibly narrow with no visibility. He had no choice but to wear them if he wanted to see.

You navigated around a corner with no luck finding a star. Then you navigated around another corner to find nothing useful either. But then a light from another cattle car caught your eye. Yellow paint lit up like fireworks the second you lifted your goggles.

The star was there. Part of it anyway. Both of you moved towards the part of the puzzle you had found, and you glanced around for its missing half. It had to be in front of you if needed to line them up, but where?

The answer was on a barrel.

“Got it-” you breathed, holding up the decoder. It sprang to life, and you jolted when Franco bumped into you.

You were going to ask if he was okay when he told you he had heard something. Against the buzz of the device, you had failed to listen for anything else. How could you when your attention was divided between some stupid star and fragments of your past? But when you focused you could hear it too.

Breathing. It was heavy. Strained. It had to be him. Unless it was another ex-pop there was nobody else it could be.

He wasn’t getting any quieter either, and you looked back at the decoder to see it had stopped on one number. You waved it in front of you, desperate for it to work. You were so close to being able to leave - you could get it before whoever it was making their way towards you reached you.

They could turn and leave. It was a gamble that you were willing to take.

If you stayed you could see him.

“Go hide-” you snapped, and Franco hesitated. “Go.”

“Who is that?” That voice. You froze when Franco finally moved, and he brought you with him onto the car much to your dismay.

“My dad send you? Think I'm fuckin' scared of you?” Franco guided you to a barrel and instructed you to get inside.

You did, albeit you were slow. The voice lulled you into a trance, and you wanted to know who it was. His face was all you needed. Just one peek. That was it. Fingertips rounding the edge of the barrel, you peered over the top to see Franco cross the train towards a barrel on the other side.

He ran right past the opening and fell in unison with a bang.

The sound of the gunshot continued to ring in your ears, and you stared in horror at Franco. He was alive - a strained groan spilled from his lips as he rolled over to grip his leg. The bottoms he wore were red already, but the blood began to seep from between his fingers.

“Found you, fuckin’ rat-” the voice cooed. “Try fuckin’ runnin’ now, cocksucker.”

The stranger came into view. As he stepped into the light you could see everything. It was him.

He was the man in your vision.

Your answer.

And still nothing made sense. Even as you took him in, you couldn't place him in your memory. But you could see the situation was dire.

“Gonna cry? What a fuckin’ coward,” the man said, and you shot up from the barrel. With a blind rig, you weren't much use, but the brick in your pocket was.

“Franco - move!” you cried out. Both men looked at you, and you launched the brick at the stranger.

It was a perfect shot.

“Shit - my fuckin’ head!”

You leapt from the barrel and almost careened over with it as Franco threw himself to his feet. He cried as he did - falling down when he tried to make the jump from the car.

When you landed beside him, you didn't get very far. A hand snatched at your neck, and your body was pulled back against the car floor behind you.

“Must be one of those roaches - the fuck do you think you are usin’ my name like that? You-”

He was Franco.

You let out a whimper at the sensation of your spine being pulled against the car's floor and upwards. As if it couldn't get any worse, a gun pressed to one side of your head, and a face the other. The proximity forced you into stillness at the feel of the real Franco’s breath against your ear.

“Ain't no fuckin’ way,” he huffed beside you, and you looked at the Franco on the floor who was trying to crawl beneath the car.

“One of a God damn kind,” your assailant said.

The aggressiveness he held in his voice shifted into something more joyous. He carried an excitable air around him as he let go of your neck, and he jumped from the train. The mood was shattered when he landed on an injured leg, and the shriek that erupted from beneath the train must have been heard trial wide.

“Shut your whore mouth!”

What were you meant to do?

As two shots fired off into the Franco beneath the train, you were faced with the Franco who had inspired the nickname. And he had killed a man. There was nothing else you could have done but run. You were a credit to your own survival as you did, but you mourned two losses.

One of which tailed after you.

“Where do you think you’re goin’? Are we playin’ games? Kiss and chase?”

You sped towards the drug cart at breakneck speed. It seemed Franco had a hard time keeping up with you as his breathing became more laboured. He shouted after you and began to talk to himself when he lost sight of you.

There wasn’t any time for you to explain as you crashed into your friends.

“Did you get the drugs?” one of them asked, and everything came crashing down around you. They asked about Franco. You felt yourself slipping as the thoughts struggled to form on your tongue.

“Gone, no - he’s gone. Franco got him.”

“What do you mean Franco got Franco?” You didn’t have a response to the question as you fumbled for anything. Each word that unceremoniously left your mouth felt like chewing on dirt. Franco killed Franco. Franco was the name of the ex-pop they had seen.

The silence that fell after you finished spoke volumes.

You could see it in their body language. The way that they didn’t move, yet their eyes danced across you. Muscles tightened like coils ready to spring. They didn’t say anything, but you felt their judgement.

While you tried to convince yourself it was just guilt, you knew why they would take suspicion with you.

You understood why.

“C’mon out, orsacchiotto, I wanna make sure it’s really you,” Franco called out. His tone was playful despite the weasely undertone of something else that dripped through. Whatever it was was primal. “You got more friends you want to introduce me too? I’ve somethin’ for ‘em too.”

A metallic bang erupted from one of the trains as if something hit a wall, and you flinched.

“I know where the code thing is, I got one of the numbers before Franco appeared - I can lead you to-” you were cut off by a hand against your mouth. Your friend had lunged forwards and covered it with his head turned. He let it slide down, and ran a hand over his own face, refusing to step back.

Then he gestured behind you. “Go on, lead the way.”

You did - going back in the way you came. At the same time, it seemed Franco hadn’t given up his search, and his words damned you beyond the judgement you had already suffered.

“D’ya remember those cold, cold nights when I used to keep you warm?” You weren’t sure if you wanted to remember.

“I’d give anythin’ if you’d come cuddle up to me. Baby’s lonely.” Whatever you were to him was more than a friend.

“I know what you want - zuccherino for my zuccherino - too bad it’s locked away. I thought your mommy taught you good manners… All you gotta say is please…” Yet there was a bite of hostility in his voice.

“Don’tcha miss me?”

You did. Deep down inside, despite the way your body screamed at you in all the confusion and pain, you missed him.

You wanted to stop running.

With a shaky hand, you held the decoder up to the star symbol.

Nine, three, zero.

You stared at the void between the floor and the cattle car knowing there was a fresh corpse there. Your friend went to the vault to open it up, and you waited beside the edge of the car.

But it wasn’t silent.

Your name spilled from nearby. Close. It was close, yet you couldn’t see anything. The sound of shuffling and debris being pushed out the way forced you back into the cool steel of the cattle car. From the safety of your light, darkness opened up before you. So you let the goggles slide over your eyes.

There, opposite you, was Franco. You were witness to him as he crawled through an opening in the wall on all fours. He was swift to his feet and quicker to train both barrels of his shotgun on you. A broad smile decorated his sunny expression, and laughter bubbled from his throat at your reaction to him.

“Bang!” he exclaimed. “Caught you.”

There was movement inside of the car.

“And another fuckin’ rat,” he muttered. “Am I not enough? You gotta bring these dumb fuckin’ fucks into my work? My house?”

Your heart was in your throat, and the lack of sound from the train alerted you to the fact that your friend had stopped moving. He was playing it safe. He wasn’t going to leave you was he? He was going to leave you with Franco.

Regardless of if your friendship still existed or not, you were going to try at the very least to let him do that.

You were fine.

“Wait,” you blurted out. “I don’t remember Franco, I don’t remember anything at all.” He stopped dead in his tracks. You glanced at the way his finger toyed with the trigger on his shotgun, and then you met his eyes.

“I don’t remember anything at all,” you repeated as everything began to unwind into sadness. “They put this fucking thing on my head, and they force me to do things I don’t want to do.”

You gripped at your night vision goggles, the bolts embedded in your skull. Franco’s head lolled to the side with narrowed eyes, and you had his full attention.

“Who?” he asked.

“Who what?”

“Who the fuck is making you do anythin’? Is it those scumbags that are runnin’ around?” You shook your head. “Nobody fuckin’ tells you what to do. You’re not some fuckin’ whore…”

Franco’s expression contorted as his fist tightened in on itself. He shook his head and strode over to the car. You watched as he slammd the butt of his shotgun against the train, cursing each time. Each sound sent shockwaves through your poor nervous system, and you felt feint from the amount of adrenaline that coursed through your body.

“Fuck!” Franco repeated. “Why the fuck is nothin’ makin’ sense today? Shit’s so confusin’. Give me strength, somebody.” The gun was pointed at you in a casual gesture far too dangerous for your liking.

“Baby’s got to put on his big boy pants. I’ll be comin’ back for you, oh, don’t you think I’ll forget, but first…”

You couldn’t stop him from leaving. He hopped onto the train, and when he left it, it wasn’t long before you heard the gun go off.

Lupara.

That was what he called it. You remembered.

Unable to control your tears, you let them stream down your face like you fell to the floor. When there was a scream from near the drug cart, you cried out louder in unison. Knees brought up to your chest, you buried yourself into your own makeshift darkness.

Nothing could reassure you as your head pounded from the memories that tried to break through into your conscious mind.

It hurt. All your friends were dead.

And the man who murdered them came back to you with a spring in his step.

Apparently, one summer before Franco had to leave for Cuba, in the light of the rising sun you’d both gone to the docks together. Nobody else was really up at the time, and only the waves disturbed you both. Nothing had been planned, it was more of a spur of the moment thing, but you enjoyed it none the less according to him.

He explained to you in great detail how you’d made plans together to get ice cream and spend the whole day lounging there. Nobody was going to move either of you unless you decided to go yourselves. It was something you wanted to do, and he was happy to oblige since you were willing to give him everything he wanted in return.

You would hold his hand and drag him around to show him all the things you loved, and he would tell you that he loved you.

Love was a word that felt like choking up sawdust when he said it. Love never worked out for him. It wasn’t his thing, but he said it anyway. He recounted how you were so innocent to him.

He never told you how he pictured the shoreline coated in red. Intrusive thoughts flashed the image of you lying before him all mangled and pretty with your face stained in blood. You never needed to know because he couldn’t do it.

No, you were different.

There was nothing but joy on your face as he’d followed you along that beach. It was hard for him to explain, but ever since you had settled into something together, he’d chased after that feeling of being wanted like he chased you along the sand.

You humiliated him in your own way by making him think he truly belonged.

And you’d done it again.

Still in the same spot that you had fallen to beside the car, Franco sat with you. He waved his feet back and forth, swaying his body side to side while he looked at you. You hadn’t come out of your self imposed cocoon yet, but you had a single eye on him too.

Things had been ironed out to some degree.

Obviously he’d asked you what you remembered before he told you a few bits about your past, and while you couldn’t be certain what was true or not, you wanted to believe him. At the point you were at, you prayed that it was true. Something about him soothed the ache in your head.

He was undeniably charismatic, and you weren’t going to deny the fact that you felt drawn to him.

Then the important question of what you were doing in his territory with the others came up again. There was little he could have done to hide the irritation in his voice as he spoke about you being around them. He wanted to know why you were helping them. If you were anybody else he would have killed you, yet you had a chance to explain.

Franco understood to some extent, despite being frustrated.

He told you that he felt great - better than he’d ever been - but things were off. Seeing you made everything that much sweeter, yet that didn’t change the fact that he too was having issues with his memory.

Déjà vu he called it. It felt like the same shit everyday with different faces.

When you’d told him you were kept by faceless men in laboratory coats and given orders, he mentioned he’d seen some people like that behind glass. It was clear the worlds you were living in were very different. To him, the docks were real. To you, it was an experiment.

Things had gone quiet after that while you pieced together the shards of your past until a hand found your arm. Fingers walked up it and poked at your cheekbone. Franco shifted himself into a kneeling position with his body turned to you, and you lifted your head at the way he searched your soul with his gaze. Without even speaking, he was searching for something in you.

“Not gonna leave, are you?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to leave, but I’ve never tried to stay in a trial before without doing what I’m told. What if they come to get me?”

“Then they’re fuckin’ dead. Think they got a chance against my Lupara?” Each word was spat with pride like he could see them cold already. “Hey-”

Your pulse quickened as Franco pulled your arm from your leg. He supported it in between his hands, and he brought your knuckles to his mouth.

“You’d never leave me,” he hummed against your skin. “No - no, I knew you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t abandon your baby.”

The contact left you flustered as your mind raced over the implications that you were very much his old partner. You didn’t even know if you’d ever separated. Most likely not, if he was going to treat you the way he was. It was strange to feel his kiss against your hand. Not unwelcome, but it was strange.

As he told you that he wanted to feel your arms around him, you crossed your legs and opened yourself up to him. Surreal was an understatement to have him crawl onto your lap without the need to be prompted, and you were delicate in the way you pulled him towards you.

When his head rested on your shoulder, you decided to stop trying to process everything.

“Back where I belong…” you heard Franco sigh.

The weight of his body kept you grounded in the moment. An overwhelming sense of comfort washed over you at the contact - something you had sorely missed - and you let it happen. There was so much you wanted to ask Franco, but for the time being, you savoured the affection he showed you.

He made everything feel better.

“Well shit,” Clyde sighed as he placed down Easterman’s report. He bet Avellanos was going to have a field day with the information they had been given. It was a small world, but even he hadn’t been able to track down Fraco’s supposed partner in the height of his investigation.

Turns out all they had to do was pick up people from the streets, pluck them from their homes, and they’d get lucky.

THE PREMATURE END OF THE TRAIL WHICH RESULTED IN THE DEATH OF THREE REAGENTS WAS BOTH DUE TO FRANCO’S OWN AGGRESSION AND THE NATURAL FLOW OF THE TRIAL. YET THERE WAS A CATALYST.

WE FOUND HIS OLD FLAME. THE FOURTH REAGENT BEING FRANCO’S ROMANTIC PARTNER CAME AS QUITE A SURPRISE, AND I THOUGHT YOU’D BE INTERESTED IN SEEING OUR FRIEND IN THE FLESH. I HAVE RECONSIDERED THEIR POSITION AS REAGENT MOVING FORWARDS, BUT WOULD LIKE TO INVITE YOU TO DISCUSS THESE OPTIONS FACE TO FACE.

UNTIL THEN, FRANCO AND THE REAGENT HAVE BEEN SEPARATED.

#Ritual_Of_Cirice fanfiction #Ritual_Of_Cirice requests #franco barbi (outlast)#franco barbi (outlast) x reader #outlast trials #tw blood #tw violence #tw death #tw drug use #tw needles #tw injury #tw non consensual body modification #tw flashing lights

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sataniccapitalist · 2 months ago

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youtube

"Open Celebration of the Oligarchy": Both Dems & GOP Sucked Up to Billionaires in 2024 Election

In the wake of the reelection of Donald Trump, some of the richest people in the world saw their net worths soar as stock prices rapidly shot up. "What was different about this election was how central billionaires were in the entire political discourse," says The Lever_'s David Sirota, who joins _Democracy Now! to discuss the outsized role of the super-rich in U.S politics, pointing out that both Trump and Kamala Harris campaigned heavily with billionaires, including Elon Musk and Mark Cuban. "These people are not giving money simply out of the goodness of their hearts. They want things. They have policy demands," Sirota says. "The investors, the donors, like billionaires, are looking for a return on their investment." Sirota, who previously worked as a communications adviser and speechwriter for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, also explains how Elon Musk's influence on Trump's campaign is a preview of the power he could wield if he ends up appointed to the Trump administration.

#billionaire #plutocracy

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foundtherightwords · 2 months ago

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As the Sun Will Rise - Chapter 17

Pairing: Grunauer (Overlord) x OFC, Beauty & the Beast retelling

Summary: After losing most of his unit in a disastrous D-Day mission, Derwin Grunauer returns to his hometown near Miami, body riddled with scars and heart heavy with guilt, only to find his neighbors shunning him due to his German name. He retreats into his family mansion and remains there, unwilling to rejoin the living, until the day Alba Reyes turns up at his door with a basket full of warm bread. As the daughter of a Cuban immigrant, Alba knows something of being an outsider, and when she offers to work for Derwin as his housekeeper, it is not only to pay off her father's debt to the Grunauers, but also because she feels some connection to the reclusive young man. When that connection develops into something more, they must overcome both the town's prejudice and their own doubts to find happiness.

Chapter warnings: non-explicit smut

Chapter word count: 5.9k (sorry this chapter is a bit longer than usual; I tried to break it up but couldn't, so here we are)

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14 - Chapter 15 - Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Derwin had never looked forward to Christmas, even when he was a boy. His mother's ill health meant that every celebration had to be carefully timed and always ended too soon, or else it would tire her out. And later, after she'd passed away, seeing all the other happy families had only reminded Derwin of how small and lonely his own family was. His father had tried, bless his heart, but he had never been much good at being fun or spontaneous, poor old Dad, and Christmas with just the two of them had always been rather awkward.

This year was the first time Derwin had been excited for Christmas. A cold front had come in, turning the air crisp and cool outdoors and making it cozy indoors, and for once the Christmas decorations fitted right in, as did the scent of pine needles from the tree and the smell of cinnamon and cloves from the cookies that Alba brought—they weren't Cuban, but, as she explained, her father understood the need to cater to their American customers. However, the real reason Derwin was excited, and nervous as well, was that Alba had insisted on him spending the day with her family, no ifs or buts about it.

"I want them to know about us," she'd told him. The way she'd said us went straight to his heart, so casual, yet with so much love and even a touch of pride as well, and he couldn't refuse her, even though he was quaking at the thought of Mr. Reyes, with his booming voice and critical eyes, judging Derwin as his daughter's suitor. But Derwin knew sooner or later they would have to face that particular hurdle, and with Alba there with him, he would be able to get over it.

The other reason he was nervous about Christmas was that Alba's plan didn't stop at Christmas dinner with her family. Apparently Frank knew a valet at some swanky hotel in South Beach and had managed to secure tickets to a Christmas dance there, and he had invited Beatriz and Alba along. So for the past week, Alba had been trying to persuade Derwin to join them.

"What on Earth would I do at a dance?" he'd said, gesturing to his cane. "I'd be the laughing stock."

"Nonsense. You danced perfectly well that night with the storm, remember?"

As if he could ever forget. But they had been alone then, and had the entire living room to themselves, and he'd still managed to nearly knock a lamp off a table with his cane. In a crowded ballroom, with other people around? Forget about it.

"Besides, you still owe me a proper date," she added.

It was true. It had been two weeks since their outing on the boat, and although they laughed about it with each other, Derwin still felt a twinge of embarrassment whenever he remembered it.

Not wanting to turn her down outright, he'd only given her a non-committal "I'll think about it." Alba refused to leave it at that and had been asking "Have you thought about it yet?" every day since.

Now, as he was putting the finishing touch to Alba's Christmas present, she burst into the study with a look that indicated she was going to ask that question again. He hid the present in a drawer and looked up sheepishly.

"It's three days away, you know," she said. "If you're not going, then at least tell me, so Frank can give our tickets to someone else."

"You're not going?"

She shrugged. "I don't have a date, do I?"

"Look, Alba," he began, reaching for her hand to soften his words. "I'm really sorry, but I don't know if I can..." He knew there was a very good chance that he would have fun if he went to the dance. He'd always had fun whenever he went out with Alba, not because of anything they did in particular, but because he liked being with her, simple as that. But he wasn't sure if he could face a ballroom full of people just yet, even with her by his side.

Alba peered at him for a moment or two, and a twinkle came into her eyes. She went to the gramophone in the corner, selected a record, and put it on. "This gentleman obviously doesn't believe in making love," she sang along with the music while dancing toward him, a mischievous smile on her lips. "What do you think, Otto?" Alba asked. "Isn't this the perfect song for Derwin or what?" The dog, lying in a patch of sunlight on the floor, tapped his tail in approval. Traitor.

Alba turned smugly to Derwin. "See, even Otto agrees."

Derwin tried to keep a stern face, but he couldn't help laughing at that. "Yeah, because he loves ganging up on me with you," he said.

Alba was now in front of him. "The gentleman obviously doesn't believe in moonlight walks," she continued singing and tugged at his hands, trying to get him to dance with her. He grinned but refused to budge. He was enjoying this too much. "Alone with a girl and he'd faint—"

"That's clearly not true. I'm alone with you and I haven't fainted yet—"

"Yes, that's just what he'd do. He's one of those gents who just hasn't the sense to thrill to a kiss." Here she bent down and gave him little kisses in time with the music. "Like me"—one on his forehead—"and you"—one on the tip of his nose—"and you"—and finally, one of his lips. "Well?" she asked, smiling down at him.

Still sitting in his chair, he grabbed her waist and yanked her close, so their noses and lips met, fitted together like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. A laugh of surprise escaped her throat and died away immediately when he pressed his mouth to hers. The last notes of the song died away, and a delicious silence followed, broken only by a whisper from Derwin, "OK, I'll go."

***

That Saturday, Derwin felt a bit like Cinderella before the ball as he brushed his best and only suit, brought years ago for his high school graduation, which thankfully still fitted him. Alba was coming by with Frank and Beatriz in Marty's car, and then Alba and Derwin would take their own car and meet up with them at the hotel. Alba had insisted on going in separate cars, and Derwin smiled to himself, knowing it was her subtle way not only to have some privacy to themselves, but to give Frank and Beatriz some as well. Marty and Claudia, unfortunately, had to miss out, as their baby was too small to be left for a whole evening.

He was wrestling with the bowtie in front of the mirror in the hall when he heard the sound of tires on the gravel, followed by voices calling "See you there!", and then the car drove away again. Otto stood by the door wagging his tail, looking a little confused that Alba was arriving at night and coming through the front door instead of the back as usual.

His eyes still glued to the maddening bowtie, Derwin heard the swishing of her dress before he saw her. Then he looked up, caught her reflection in the mirror, and whirled around, dazed, the bowtie forgotten around his neck.

Alba was wearing a yellow dress, the same dress they'd seen in the shop window, the one he'd offered to buy for her and she'd refused. He was right. The dress fitted her perfectly, not just in the way it hugged her shoulders and waist, molded around her breasts and arms, and fell in graceful folds around her hips and legs as she walked, but also in the way it framed her like a golden halo, lit her up both from the outside and inside. It was like a miniature sun had suddenly appeared in his darkened front hall.

While he gazed at her with his mouth open, too stunned to say a word, she walked to him and gave him a peck on the lips, as casually as she had done every morning. "I'm afraid you're on your own with that," she said, nodding at the bowtie still dangling around his neck. "I'm no good at that sort of thing."

Derwin recovered his wits and shook his head. "It's OK, I got it." He finished tying the bowtie, ignoring how lopsided it was, and turned to her again, unable to keep his eyes off her for long. "You look—" Words failed him. "—gorgeous," he finished inadequately.

She smiled, looking both shy and proud. "I told you I'd buy the dress myself, didn't I? Wish I had enough money for the shoes as well." She glanced down at her feet, clad in her old off-white sandals. "But they don't show, so who cares, right?" She fixed his bowtie, then stepped back to look him over with a critical eye. "You look very handsome too," she said. "But something's missing."

"What?"

Alba's eyes landed on the bowl of frangipani flowers set on the side table near the door. She dug in the junk drawer and came up with two safety pins—Derwin was again astonished at her ability to find things in his house that he didn't even know existed. These she fixed to the back of two of the largest and freshest flowers, pinned one to his lapel, and gave him the other to put on her hair, which was swept back in soft waves over her forehead and pulled into a chignon in the back. "No, not that side, the left side," she said, turning her head so he could pin the flower in place.

"Why the left side?" Derwin asked, curious.

"When Raf was stationed in Hawaii, he told me if a woman wears a frangipani flower over her left ear, that means she's in a relationship," explained Alba, a faint blush turning her cheeks pink and making her look even prettier.

"Oh" was all Derwin could say, but his heart leaped and jumped. He looked at the two of them in the mirror and wondered, not for the first time, how he got so lucky.

"Ready?" she said, putting her arm through his.

"Wait." He held her hand. "I have something for you too."

He went into the little broom closet at the end of the hall and brought out the box he'd put there that morning. Inside was a pair of gold shoes, the shoes that had been on display along with the dress. Alba's eyes popped when she saw them.

"How did you—?"

"I had a hunch." It was more than a hunch. After he'd agreed to go to the dance, Derwin had driven back to the shop to look at the dress, hoping Alba would let him buy it for her this time. When the saleswoman told him a young lady had bought it already, he'd known right away that it was Alba. So he had bought the next best thing.

He motioned for her to sit down on a chair. Then, kneeling in front of her, he took off the sandals and slipped the soft gold leather over her stockinged feet.

"Now I know how Cinderella must have felt," Alba said, turning her ankle this way and that so she could get a better look at the shoe.

Derwin smiled. "Cinderella tries on the shoe after the ball," he reminded her.

"How did you know my shoe size?"

"Lucky guess," he said, not revealing that it was the saleswoman who had helped him.

"Thank you."

"Can't you thank a fellow better than that?" he asked, lifting his face to her.

She leaned down and kissed him, softly at first, and then again, not as softly. His hands were still on her ankles, and he slid them up, caressing her legs, until he reached the bare skin between her garter and her stocking. "We really have to get going, you know," she said, but didn't stop him.

"It's called being fashionably late," he murmured, smiling against her lips.

***

"Where have you been?!" Beatriz exclaimed when Derwin and Alba finally pulled up in front of the hotel. "We've been waiting for almost half an hour!"

"Sorry, we got—delayed," Alba said with a conspiratorial grin at Derwin. Beatriz raised an eyebrow at that, but made no further comment.

Derwin shook Frank's hand and saw his own emotions reflected on the other man's face—fluster, excitement, and even pride, as he looked upon his date. Clearly, this was a big night for Frank as well.

"Come on, the band's starting already," Beatriz said, tugging Alba toward the staircase leading up to the hotel's front doors, where the crowd, glittering women in their evening gowns, starchy men in their black and white tuxedos and dinner jackets, was streaming in.

"Relax. It's called being fashionably late," Alba said and winked at Derwin, who couldn't help grinning back. He extended his arm to her, and they walked up the steps, followed closely behind by Beatriz and Frank. Through the double doors, they could glimpse the inside of the ballroom, where a giant Christmas tree stood reaching all the way to the ceiling, dazzling with tinsels and baubles. More tinsels and baubles hung from the ceiling, reflecting the light from the chandelier, making Derwin feel he was outside in the middle of a bright summer's day. Tables with bowls of punch and snacks stood on either side of the vast ballroom, and at the far end, the band sat in front of a brocade curtain, striking up a lively jazz number.

Giggling in excitement, the girls and Frank ran on ahead, but Derwin faltered. It was too bright, too loud, too crowded, and the old trembling feeling in the pit of his stomach was coming back. He paused at the top of the stairs, trying to steady himself by tightening his grip on the cane. Alba turned around and took his hand in hers, concerned.

"You OK?" she asked.

He took a deep breath, finding strength in her hand. "Yeah," he managed to say.

"You sure? We can leave, if you're not feeling up to it."

He would not ruin this for her. "No, it's fine. I'll be fine." He smiled to reassure her, and they went to the door. A man stood there in a black tux and a collar with so much starch that Derwin wondered how he could even lower his chin, taking tickets from the guests.

"Welcome, sir," he said monotonously, taking the tickets from Derwin and Alba. "Welcome, madam." Then his eyes landed on Frank and widened slightly. "I'm sorry, but he's not allowed here," the man said to Derwin, mistaking him for the leader of the group.

"What?" Alba and Beatriz said in unison.

"Indians are not allowed here," the man repeated, a cold edge to his voice.

"But he has a ticket—" Beatriz protested.

"It is our policy," the man said. His neck, if possible, got even stiffer.

"Where is this policy written, then?" Alba asked. "Show me. Is it printed on the ticket? Is there a sign at your front desk?"

"It's an established custom," the man said, inexorably.

Derwin looked at Frank. A flush darkened Frank's swarthy face, and his hands were balled into fists, but he kept his chin up and his back ramrod straight. "It's OK," he said quietly. "You three go ahead. Don't spoil your evening because of me." He turned and started walking down the steps. Beatriz looked close to tears. Alba's nostrils flared in a way Derwin recognized, but she kept close to Beatriz and watched Frank go helplessly.

A sense of déjà vu washed over Derwin. It was like that day at the diner with the black couple all over again. Except back then, he had stood by, not doing anything, only feeling hot shame burning his insides. He didn't know that couple. But he knew Frank.

"Hang on a minute," he said, grabbing Frank's arm. "Frank, where did you serve in the war?"

"The 124th Infantry," Frank said, puzzled. "The Pacific."

"I was in the 82nd Airborne," Derwin said to the man at the door. "Frank Howard and Derwin Grunauer. You can look us up if you don't believe me. And think what it means to your hotel's reputation when words get out that you deny two GIs entrance to your Christmas ball."

The man spluttered. His shirt collar seemed to wilt in front of their very eyes. Finally, after one more look at Frank, and another look at the crowded ballroom behind him, he said, through clenched teeth, "Perhaps an exception can be made for our men in service," and yanked the ticket out of Frank's hand. "Enjoy your evening," he added, with a look that implied he wished they would all drop dead.

"Thank you," Frank said to Derwin, as they walked into the ballroom. "But you didn't have to do that."

"Yes, I did," Derwin said. He was sick of standing by the sideline, sick of watching all the injustice, and sick of feeling helpless. No more, he told himself. From now on, he was going to take whatever life threw at him, both the good and the bad.

Next to him, Alba said nothing, only squeezed his hand a little more tightly. When Beatriz and Frank weren't looking, she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and that was all the reward he could ever want or need.

The dance was in full swing by the time they entered the ballroom. Beatriz and Frank joined the crowd immediately, busting out some complicated moves to the cheerful sound of "Don't Sit under the Apple Tree." The beat was fast, too fast. Derwin didn't know how he could manage it with his cane. But Alba was prepared. She wove her way through the crowd, leading him to a quiet spot on the edge of the dance floor. Here, she put an arm around him and lifted his hands to her waist, while resting her other hand on his cane, just as she had when they danced together during the storm.

"We don't have to impress anybody," she said. "Just move to the music."

And so they did. They stood there, arms around each other, swinging and tapping their feet to the music, out of the way of the other dancers. Some people threw them curious glances, making Derwin's skin itch like ants crawling all over him, but Alba put a finger on his chin to direct his attention back to her, and he breathed more easily again.

After a few songs, Derwin's leg started to protest, so he got himself a glass of punch and sat down at a table, while Alba, at his urging, went back and danced with Frank and Beatriz. Derwin watched her with the same wonder tinged with wistfulness he always felt whenever he looked at her, wonder that a girl like her would want to be with him, and wistfulness that she was forced to rein in her vivacity to stay by his side. But that night, with his newfound determination, he no longer felt so wistful. Alba chose to be with him. And he would do everything he could to make sure she never had to regret it.

The band was coming back from their break. Though his leg was still complaining, Derwin walked up to the stage and spoke to the band leader. He turned around to see Alba smiling at him. "What'd you just say to him?" she asked.

"You'll see," he said. "Or, should I say, you'll hear."

Her eyebrows went up. She soon got her answer when the band launched into a slow rendition of "Green Eyes". Only when the vocalist started singing, it wasn't "Green Eyes", it was "Aquellos Ojos Verdes", and Alba's mouth dropped open in surprise. Next to her, Beatriz also grinned, delighted with this reminder of their childhood memory.

"May I have this dance, señorita?" asked Derwin, extending a hand toward Alba.

Still smiling, she placed her hand in his. He led her to the middle of the floor, swinging his cane in a wide circle. The crowd parted around them like a current. To hell with those people. Let them stare. Let them see how lucky he was to have such a beautiful girl in his arms. Let them be jealous.

As they danced to the song, turning and twirling as they had the night of the storm, something strange happened to Derwin. He looked into Alba's green eyes, felt the warmth of her body close to his, smelled the familiar scent of the frangipani in her hair, and let the music flow through him. And the rest of the ballroom faded away. Even the band vanished, leaving behind only the sound of music, like magic. All his worries disappeared. There was no one else in the world but the two of them, there was nowhere else he'd rather be, and more importantly, he knew that there was nowhere else she would rather be either.

Even when the song ended, they remained in their embrace, smiling at each other.

"You're full of surprises, aren't you?" Alba whispered.

He tilted her face up. "Oh yes," he said. "And here's another surprise for you..."

Before their lips could touch, a voice said behind them, loudly and rudely, "Well, well, well, what do we have here?"

Derwin whirled around. Sauntering toward them was a tall, handsome, dark-haired man in a white jacket, followed by several cronies, decidedly less handsome and less well-dressed. There was something vaguely familiar about the dark-haired man, but Derwin couldn't place that arrogant face.

Beside him, Alba let out a groan.

"Not happy to see me, Allie?" the dark-haired man said. He was coming quite close now, close enough for Derwin to smell the reek of alcohol on his breath. "I've missed you, you know."

Alba tugged at Derwin's hand. "Come on, let's go," she said, but the dark-haired man blocked their way, while his cronies formed a wall behind them. Beatriz and Frank, noticing the standoff, were approaching with concern.

"Now that's very rude," the dark-haired man said to Alba. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your—date? I don't need an introduction to know who he is, though. Grunauer, is it?" He barely even glanced at Derwin, as if Derwin was some vermin not worth his attention. "Really, Allie? Him? You threw me over for a cripple?"

Alba's eyes flashed with the green fire that Derwin had come to know quite well. "I didn't throw you over for anyone, Grant," she said, voice dripping with contempt. "When are you going to get it through your thick head? We are not together. We have never been together. And we're never going to be together!"

As she mentioned the name, Derwin suddenly remembered where he'd seen the dark-haired man before. "You're Gastin Grant," he said. "From Grant's Land. You offered to buy my place."

"That's right, buddy." Grant sneered at him. "And mark my word, I'll get my hand on that place eventually. Just as I'll get my hand on this one—" He reached out and grabbed Alba's arm, wrenching her away from Derwin.

Derwin pushed at Grant's chest. It was rather like pushing at a brick wall, but he did it anyway. "Let her go," he said.

Grant grinned at him. "Or what? What are you going to do about it, cripple?"

A red-hot veil of rage fell over Derwin's eyes. A small crowd was now gathering around them. Frank stepped in. "Hey, there's no need for that kind of language—" he said. Grant nodded at his cronies, who knocked Frank to the ground. Beatriz ran over to help him up.

Derwin looked at Alba, still struggling to free herself from Grant's iron grip, and tried to swallow his anger. "I don't want to make a scene," he said to Grant. "But if you don't leave right now, I'm going to—"

WHAM! Grant's fist flew out of nowhere. Blindsided, Derwin went sprawling on the floor. Through the ringing in his ears, he could hear Grant taunting him, "Going to do what? Think you can threaten me, cripple? Get up! Get up and face me, or are you too much of a chicken shit who can only shoot others when their backs were turned?"

Derwin scrambled for his cane, trying to push himself up, but black spots were swimming in front of his eyes and he couldn't see.

"He's not a chicken shit," he heard Alba's voice say quite calmly. "You are."

There was a sharp thwack, the crowd went "ooh", and something collapsed beside him with a heavy thud. Next thing Derwin knew, Alba was helping him to his feet. "You OK?" she asked.

His eyes cleared, and he saw that Grant was curled up on the floor, a hand clasped to his bleeding nose. His cronies were staring at Alba with something akin to awe as they slowly dispersed, dragging their fallen leader with them.

"Here." Alba led Derwin to a table, where she put some ice into a napkin and placed it on his cheek. That was when Derwin saw that her knuckles were scratched and bleeding.

"You're hurt," he said.

"It's nothing." She tried to pull away, but Derwin held her hand and put some ice on it as well.

Beatriz and Frank came running over. "Alba!" Beatriz exclaimed. "That was—"

"If you're going to say it wasn't ladylike of me, you can zip it," Alba snapped.

"No. I was going to say that was awesome." Beatriz grinned at her sister. "Grant's a heel. He deserves it."

Before Alba could answer, the pompous man at the door came toward them. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave," he said, clearly relishing it.

Alba, apparently still in a belligerent mood, jumped up to protest, but Beatriz held out a hand to stop her. "Let's go," Beatriz said. "This party blows anyway."

"Bea!" Alba looked shocked. "Language!"

Beatriz shrugged. "What? It does." She took Frank's hand. "Come on, Frank, let's go." She winked at Alba, and they all left the ballroom with their heads held high, ignoring the stares of the other patrons.

***

Alba was still shaking with rage when they got into the car and drove away. She knew she shouldn't have lost her temper like that, but Grant had gotten her so angry that she couldn't think straight. She had been looking forward to this night for so long, and now it was ruined. And just when everything was going so well too!

"Are you OK?" asked Derwin. "Do you want me to drive?"

Alba forced herself to breathe normally. No, she would not let Grant's cursed mug darken her moods anymore. "I'm fine," she said. "Do you mind if we drive around a bit before going home? I want to get some air." Frank and Beatriz were going to a club over on Cocoanut Grove, but Alba didn't feel like accompanying them. She just wanted to make sure she and Beatriz came home around the same time, to avoid any awkward questions from Papi.

"I'd love that," said Derwin with a smile.

They drove slowly down South Beach, past the hotels and nightclubs on one side, with their glittering lights and laughing partygoers, and occasional glimpses of the murmuring ocean on the other. The windows were rolled down, and Alba's anger soon melted away in the cool December air. Eventually, they left the swanky hotels behind and came to a deserted stretch of sand. The lights of downtown shimmered behind them like stars, and the causeway, the one they'd taken to Key Biscayne months ago, curved palely across the dark waves like a sliver of the moon.

"I'm sorry we have to cut our night short," Alba said.

Derwin shrugged. "I've had as much dancing as my legs can take, I think. And we're still here. The night is not over yet."

"Are you all right?" she asked. He was still holding the ice wrapped in a napkin to his face, and the melting ice was dripping down his wrist.

"Oh yeah." He put the napkin down and felt about his face. "The swelling's gone down. What about you?" He gestured to her hand.

"It's just a scratch." She took her right hand off the wheel and stretched it across the seat to show him. He took it in his hand, wrapping his fingers around it, gently running his thumb over the scratches and massaging her wrist, which was still sore, despite her attempt to make light of it.

"One hell of a right hook you got," he said, grinning. Then he sobered up. "But I can't keep letting you fight for me like that. That's twice now..."

Alba twined her fingers through his, squeezing his hand. "I like fighting for you."

Derwin was still caressing her hand. Then he lifted it and pressed a kiss to her bruised knuckles. Under his soft, fervent lips, the smarting from the scratches vanished instantly, and Alba could feel tingles running up her arm, toward her chest.

"Could you pull over?" Derwin said.

"Why? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. It's just that I really want to kiss you and I don't want us to crash."

Something in his eyes as he said it made her pulse beat wildly in her breast. "Can't you wait until we get home?" she asked with a teasing smile.

"No, I don't think I can."

Alba had barely pulled over under the low branches of a coconut palm when Derwin drew her to him and started kissing her as he'd never kissed her before, his mouth insistent and demanding, a hand behind her ear, the other running over the bodice of her dress, caressing her side with grasping, impatient strokes. Usually it took some coaxing from her to get him comfortable, and even then he remained shy and hesitant. This passion was new, and just like his confidence when they went out on the boat or when he confronted the doorman at the hotel, Alba found it electrifying. She twisted, trying to get closer to him, but the wheel and the dashboard were in the way.

"You want to move to the backseat?" she murmured against his lips.

His eyes widened, and for a second, Alba's heart faltered. Oh no. What would he think of me now? What kind of girl would suggest such a thing...? But he only said "Yes" in an excited whisper, and was out of his seat in an instant.

Alba scrambled out of the driver's seat. They opened the doors at the same time and fell into each other's arms in the back. Derwin's jacket came off, followed by his bowtie. The buttons on the front of her dress came undone, by his hand or hers, she didn't know, and the dress was pushed down her shoulders, along with the straps of her slip. He fumbled with the clasps of her bra.

"Just pull it—here—let me—" Alba reached behind her, trying to help him undo the clasps.

"Ow," he mumbled as her elbow brushed across the bruise on his cheek.

"Sorry." That set them giggling like two idiots, his face pressed into her neck, his breath tickling her.

"Aren't you going to make it better?" he asked, and she placed her lips to the bruise, just as he'd done for her. Her tongue grazed across his scar, and he moaned softly.

They kissed again, kissed until their lips were bruised, until they had drunk up the lingering sweetness of punch on each other's tongue, until the coolness from the ice evaporated from his cheek, replaced by a warming fire that burned between them. Somehow her bra ended up around her midriff. Then his lips trailed down her throat to her collarbone and her breasts, and her laughter turned into quickening gasps. She lifted her hips, needing some friction, some pressure, something to relieve the building, throbbing heaviness between her legs. The movement only resulted in her sliding off the tiny seat, and she would've ended up on the floor if Derwin hadn't sat up and hauled her into his lap. Laughing, she half-rose to straddle him and banged her head on the ceiling. It only made her laugh harder, and Derwin was laughing as well. Then she sat down, with him fitting perfectly in the dip between her thighs, and their laughs died off as they looked into each other's eyes, breathless, waiting.

"Are you sure about this?" Derwin asked.

They were in his car, panting like they were both on fire, with his shirt unbuttoned and her dress half-off, and he still had to ask. But she wouldn't want him any other way.

"Yes," she said. "What about you? Is it enough of a proper date for you?"

He grinned. "Well, we've had two half dates, and two halves make a whole." He brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "But—"

"You won't get me into trouble," she said firmly, catching his meaning. "I trust you."

There was that quivering little smile again. "Do you?"

"Yes."

Still he hesitated, his fingers dancing over her spine and shoulder blades and the back of her arms, sending delicious shivers all through her. Then he blurted out, "We can get married."

"What?"

"Not right at this moment. But tomorrow. Or Monday. We don't even have to tell anybody, just go to City Hall and do it quick, the two of us," he said in a rush. Clearly it was something he'd just thought of.

"So you can make an honest woman out of me?" she said, laughing.

"Or so you can make an honest man out of me."

Alba gazed at him in the yellow light of the street lamps. She ran her hand over his features and saw in them not just the face she'd come to hold so dear in just a few months, but also his heart, his kindness, his strength. She thought about how her life had changed since he came into it, and, for the first time, thought about their future. Then she dropped her hand and said, with not inconsiderable regret, "... No."

Derwin's face fell. "You don't want to marry me?"

"No, no, cariño," she said quickly, "it's not that I don't want to marry you. I don't... I don't want to marry anybody. Not yet. You do understand that, don't you?" But even as she said it, she knew he understood. He always did. "Besides, I don't think we should get married just to have sex," she added, her cheeks heating up again. "What if the sex turns out to be bad? Where would we go then?"

"You think it'll be bad?"

"I don't know." She leaned down and whispered, teasing his ear with her lips and her tongue, "Why don't we find out?"

And they did. As their mouths and hands and bodies found each other again, and at last, at last, as ecstasy crashed over her like waves crashing over the sand outside, Alba realized that the night was far from ruined. Quite the opposite.

Chapter 18

Here's the song that Alba sings: The Gentleman Obviously Doesn't Believe (In Love)

Taglist: @kitkat80, @hahahafucku

#joseph quinn #joseph quinn fic #grunauer #grunauer overlord #overlord 2018 #grunauer x ofc #grunauer smut #joseph quinn smut

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canmom · 2 months ago

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hi cuba i'm dad

I watched I Am Cuba, whose not-so-recent restoration was playing at the GFT. insanely well shot film, like the level of choreography to pull off those long takes and supercomplicated crane shots with no steadicams or anything is just mind bending. absolutely wild that the soviets didn't say "wow we have a banger on our hands here comrades" and play it everywhere - as a propaganda film, it did its job! definitely leaves you fired up to fight the Cuban revolution.

it is certainly a very didactic film, with the lesson of each vignette being pretty clear. but it is able to lend enough depth to the archetypal characters - the struggling sex worker from a slum who has to hide her relationship serving american visitors at a jazz club, the salt of the earth sugarcane farmer whose land is sold out from under him, the student revolutionary who hesitates to pull the trigger, the other farmer who only wants peace - to get you really engaged, though definitely the revolutionary characters (probably closest to the experience of the filmmakers) feel like they're the most fleshed out.

the third act, in which a revolutionary student plans to assassinate a regime cop (unnamed) but hestitates when he sees the man with his family, only to see that same cop murder first his friend and them himself, is maybe the most spectacular, with huge scenes of rioters getting blasted with water cannons, or the incredible funeral shot...

youtube

but it's not just these flashy huge shots; it's a gorgeously lit greyscale film (absolutely crazy detailed looking with the 4k scan, so cheers for that one Scorcese), ingeniously augmented by infrared photography in places to make it extra stark. more than that and so many shots have really elaborate blocking and camerawork, with the camera drifting from actor to actor, effortlessly sliding between closeup and longshot like it's in the hands of Ichirō Itano, which is wild for live action.

one relatively simple scene towards the end I noticed had a revolutionary arriving at a farmer's house and sitting down for the meal; the men argue, and the farmer goes to stand at the door, allowing the camera to perfectly frame the two of them and almost nothing else in the shot.

it is otherwise very happy to linger on a musical sequence, such as the intense club scenes at the beginning, in a way that feels way more modern than you'd think for the 60s.

the architecture of revolution-era Cuba is just as striking - some buildings, like the rooftop where Enrique tries to line up his shot, look like they could easily be modern buildings. compared to the romantic picture of something like Chico and Rita, of course, this is a film determined to remind you how bad things are, not just show you the touristy bits of Cuba. much of the film revolves around the question of violence - certainly from an agitprop angle, like act 3 is sorta should you hesitate (no), and act 4 is like will you be OK if you keep your head down (no); many of the revolutionary songs are in major part about how it's good and righteous die for the country.

when first shown, it was criticised in Havana for stereotypical depictions of Cubans - which doesn't entirely seem unfair, they are kind of stock characters for the most part, although portrayed with a lot of humanity. in the Soviet Union, meanwhile, it got criticised for not being propaganda-y enough, which is wild because to my mind it works better at getting its emotional message across than most oldschool propaganda films I've seen. that said, I definitely need to watch more critical Cuban films from the same period like Memories of Underdevelopment, or recent ones like Strawberry and Chocolate, for some contrast.

all in all cool film, big shoutout to @hamiltonianflow for suggesting we watch it together <3

#film #i am cuba #Youtube

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ms-spkhd · 9 months ago

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thinking about a Blast From the Past steddie au tonight. like, think about it for a second--steve as the sweet, well-meaning himbo raised in a fallout shelter and eddie as the cynic who shows him the world as it is:

The year was 1962, and an atomic bomb had just dropped on top of the Harrington household.

Okay, not really. It was actually a fighter jet that suffered a mechanical failure just above the little plot of land the Harringtons called their home, but Walter Harrington took it differently. Far differently.

See, the thing was that the man was living in a state of paranoid delusion over the Cold War--terrified of the possibility of an outright nuclear holocaust over the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Soviet Union. He had been carefully building a fallout shelter under his home for his wife and possible children to live in with the works--canned food, running water, and even a working television.

And one day they went in and simply never left. The explosion right when they closed the door was tangible proof that the nuclear war was happening right above them.

A few years later, around 1968, a baby boy was born in a fallout shelter with no one but his mom and dad to keep him company.

They raised Steve the best they could, even if Walter Harrington was a mad genius and Madeline Harrington was a borderline alcoholic. Even if the boy was living in a perfect little time capsule of the fifties and early sixties. Walter made sure to educate him right and teach him how to be a sociable gentleman--even if he had no idea what swear words or the concept of sex were. That was for another time. Although, twenty-four years came and went for Steve Harrington, his father still owes him 'another time'.

Steve Harrington grows twenty-four years in perfect seclusion, but that changes at the flick of a switch.

The year is 1992: supplies are dwindling Walter is growing sick, and Steve is tasked to bravely set foot in the nuclear fallout to retrieve more material. (The only reason why Walter assumes they can even get more stuff is because he observed the outside world when the shelter unlocked and mistook it as a post-apocalyptic mutant society.)

The moment Steve made it outside his little bubble, he was utterly fascinated by the world--how different the people were outside of his television and his little books, how bright the sky was outside, how the irritable man on the bus wouldn't accept the money he tried to give him, how the bus moved and didn't fling him right off his seat.

(He even saw an adult bookstore. Dad told him that those things were filled with poisonous gas. How were they even to operate if they were filled with poisonous gas? That's dangerous and totally inconsiderate of the general public's safety.)

Anyway, he tries to follow the grocery list that Mom and Dad gave him the best he can, stocking up on poultry and tissue paper and the works. But by the end of the day, he doesn't know where he came from. Not a single sign or building or person can give him a single clue where to go.

After a few hours of wandering, suitcase in hand, he comes across a store with WE BUY BASEBALL CARDS written on the window.

Golly, Steve loves baseball cards--could look at Dad's collection for hours, and with the collection he has, he could make a pretty penny selling them for supplies. Despite the little hobby store being beside an adult bookstore with poisonous gas, he scampers right in.

"I see you're looking to buy baseball cards," he says breezily to the gruff, scary-looking man behind the counter.

"That I am," he replies.

Steve pulls a few from his jacket's inner pocket. "Well, these are a bit old, you see, but I was hoping you still might be interested."

The gruff man yanks them from his hands, a spark in his eye. He looks delighted to see them, and it fills Steve with an excitement he hadn't felt at all today. Nobody has been this happy over something he's done today. "Woah," he gasps, then covers it with a cough. "Mickey Mantle rookie season...how much do you want?"

"I was hoping to sell all of my cards, actually!"

The man sputters incredulously. "All of 'em? Are you fucking with me?"

"I'm not sure what that means, but all I have are hundred-dollar bills and I need something smaller. Like, uh...ones, tens, fives..."

"Tell you what, I'll give you five hundred in small bills for all you got."

Steve smiles brightly. "Oh, that would be wonderful, sir--"

"Five hundred for a case-full of rookie season Mickey Mantles, Rick, are you fucking joking?" A deep voice cuts through Steve's thanks from the other side of the small store. He turns around to find a man leaning against a magazine rack, arms folded sternly.

The man is unlike Steve's ever seen before. Long, long limbs and big brown eyes that look traced with black and smudged around the edges. Pretty lips, too almost girl-ish, in the way they were big and plush like the women he'd see on the television. The strangest thing about him, though, was the curly hair that tumbled past his shoulders.

He looked mad, though. Madder than mad.

"Tell the poor guy you're fucking with him," long-hair-pretty-lips says to the man behind the counter, who bristles.

"Were you raised in a fucking barn, Munson? Who told you to interrupt on business?" Rick counters. Steve was really not appreciating the amount of f-words dropped in the conversation, it was uncouth.

"Sure I was!" Munson saunters towards the counter and Steve's eyes follow him like a moth to a light. "But my morals go past your business practices at this point. You remember the ninth commandment, yeah?"

"You shut your Goddamn mouth--"

"Excuse me sir, but I really don't appreciate how you're using the Lord's name in vain like that," Steve says firmly.

"See?" Munson smiles. It's like sunlight. "He gets it."

He plucks the baseball card from Rick's hand and holds it over his head when he tries to reach for it again. "See this little thing?" He says to Steve sweetly. "This guy costs six grand alone."

"Get out of town! Really?"

"Oh yeah, big guy. Selling the thing would give you a small fortune, and Rick over here is trying to con you out of it."

Steve frowns. "Is that true?" He asks Rick.

"Nothing but," Munson says in place of him. He slips the card back into Steve's hands and gives them a pat.

"The Hell is even keeping you here, Munson?" Rick sneers. "Did the gig you won't shut up about fall through like they usually do? Better to bum it out here than in your shithole apartment? Stop loitering in my damn store and make like a fucking tree. You're banned."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," Munson says rolling his eyes. He looks at Steve, then the door, gesturing at it with a flick of his head. "I'll see you out, Beaver."

He walks them both out the door, stopping to gesture at Rick strangely--hands balled into fists with only his middle fingers up--before stepping outside onto the sidewalk.

"Well merci, Monsieur," Steve says appreciatively, because Dad taught him French was always to be used on such occasions.

"What, you're French?"

"Oh no, I'm"--he thinks back to what Dad told him if a mutant asks where he's from. Gosh, he thinks he's supposed to be--"out on business."

"And you don't even have a clue about the little business trick that Rick tried to pull?"

"No...no, I--"

"Yeah, doesn't matter." Munson shrugs. He smiles sympathetically at Steve before turning on his heel and walking off. Oh boy, what would he do without him?

He follows him like a lost puppy, that's what.

"...You going the same way?" Munson asks incredulously. Steve shakes his head.

"Well, I'm following you."

Munson stops in his tracks, blinking, and Steve almost runs into him in his state. "Me?"

"Well yes! Where are we going?"

"We?" Munson asserts. "I'm going back to my shithole apartment, and judging by that jacket you're wearing, you should be taking the next left and hop-skipping straight to the barber college."

"Oh, I'm lost, though."

"Aren't we all?"

"Say, did you just get banned from that hobby store because of me?" Steve says to change the subject.

Munson sighs. "Seems like I did, sailor. The place was shitty anyways, with that dickhead running the operation. Wayne could get better cards from a different joint."

...dickhead? Steve's never heard that leave the seams of anyone's lips before. "Dickhead?"

"Yeah, he's a real fucking loser. A walking talking penis capable of human speech."

Steve gets queasy at the image he's concocted in his head. He leans against the nearest brick wall, his suitcase tumbling to the ground as he drops into a contemplative squat.

"Dude, what is wrong with you?"

"Well, the mental image that I..."

Munson's eyebrows scrunch before he reaches out a hand to Steve. He takes it, letting the man haul him upward. "Look, man, where'd you park your car?"

"I came by bus."

"Aren't you full of surprises."

"I am?"

"Okay look." Eddie raises his hands, palms splayed in the air. "It's your first time in Los Angeles, right? Everyone wants a taste of it, I know, and you're out for business and fucking famished. You got the opportunity to see the great big world outside of your little bubble and you got excited--but you took a bus and got mixed up in the middle of San Fernando Valley without a clue in the world. Am I correct?"

Steve listens in wonderment. So far, Munson's been correct in a way. He's convinced he might be psychic. He nods slowly and seriously just to see Munson flash that lighting-strike smile.

"Great, great. Which brings us to here. Correct again?"

"Oh yeah."

"Where are you staying?"

Nowhere, at the moment. Steve opens his mouth to say so, but Munson interrupts quickly. "Holiday Inn?"

"Yes, the Holiday Inn!" Steve says totally truthfully.

"Okay, cool. Cool." Munson claps his hands together with finality and starts walking. "The nearest bus station is a couple of blocks away if you take a right--"

"Don't you have a car?"

Munson stops in his tracks again. He turns to face Steve once again. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

Something warm pools in Steve's gut at the pet name. Something about the way those pretty lips form that word sends blood rushing to his cheeks. "Steve," he says.

"Alright, Steve." Oh boy, his name sounds even better when Munson says it. "Rule number one in Los Angeles? Never let a stranger drive you anywhere."

"If it makes you feel any better," Steve says sweetly, "I don't have a gun."

Munson pales, then starts running.

"Hey!" Steve cries and makes haste to follow him. "I must've said something wrong, please forgive me!"

"Nope, nope--get the fuck away from me, man!"

He grabs Munson's wrist to pull him back, which is a bad move since the man starts writhing around in his grip. "I'm not going to hurt you, sir!"

Steve drops Munson's hand and raises his in surrender. "See?"

"...Just let me get to my car."

"I'll give you a Rogers Hornsby if you take me to my hotel," Steve reasons.

Munson stills. "...That's like four grand, don't bullshit me."

He pulls the card from his jacket and presents it as evidence. "See? I was holding it back." He wants Munson to feel safe. "I got two." He reaches for the other cards in his pockets and pulls them out. "And-and all these other ones, too!"

"Okay, okay. You'll give me four thousand dollars if I drive you to your place?"

"Uh-uh!"

"That's it?"

"Yep."

"And I don't have to give you a quickie in the backseat or anything?"

"Yes sir--wait, what?"

Munson blows past his question like it didn't even leave Steve's mouth. "Can you stop with the sir crap?"

"Well, I'm sorry, sir--"

"My name is Eddie."

Eddie...Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. Wow, what a name. It's almost like something he's heard on the television.

"Why, it's nice to meet you, Eddie."

"Tolerable to meet you too, Steve."

Steve smiles shyly, then asks, "So are you a girl?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well it's just your hair...it's so long." Steve points at his as an example. "I've never seen anything like it before."

"Dude, it's 1992, every other guy looks like this--have you been living under a rock or something?"

Something like that. Steve shrugs.

"Well guys having long hair doesn't mean that they're girls, Steve, that's a given. It's not 1962 anymore." Eddie backtracks. "Well, I mean, dudes can have long hair and be chicks and chicks can be dudes too but that's not--"

"Oh, wow, my dad told me about one of those the last time he went here!"

"Oh that's fantastic, sweetheart," Eddie says, sugary-sweet. "But how about I drive you home?"

"That'd be a pleasure, Eddie."

#and then steve meets chrissy #eddie's roommate #and they go on a quest to help steve get supplies and also a girlfriend #but of course that goes sideways since they fall in love with each other #i swear thisll make sense if you read a synopsis of the movie trust me #im not the biggest fan of shy babygirl steve harrington but the concept of the film was too good not to milk the shit out of #i might make this a longer fic if I ever actually finish my current wips but who knows im a writing enigma #steddie #steddie fanfic #steddie ficlet #steddie drabble #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington x eddie munson #eddie munson x steve harrington #stranger things #stranger things au #stranger things s4 #alternate universe #blast from the past #this movie absolutely rocks btw you should check it out #it has brendan fraser in it

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