#cut to all the companions across space and time coming together for an intervention

[that-ineffable-devil]

Tennant!Doctors always look at timeless villains like "I can fix him... 👀"

And his companions are always like "STOP PROPOSING TO GUYS THAT WANT TO DESTROY EARTH!"

[if-music-be-the-food-of-love]

Happy Birthday

Robbe IJzermans!!

“I Want it All” ch. 8 Sneak Peek: Robbe’s Birthday

Summary: Sander goes all out for Robbe’s birthday. So much fluff. All fluff. Amelia is cute. Still rated T. This takes place about halfway through the chapter.

**Disclaimer: This is a rough draft. Please forgive my typos and inconsistencies. As always, it’s long (7k). Enjoy!

Link to fic on Ao3. This is not posted there. Preview below only:

Amelia - almost 12 months

Sander

 “Bye, Laurence,” Sander said before hanging up the video call and closing his laptop. He stood, and reaching his arms overhead, stretched side to side before arching his back and twisting a few times. As he rolled his shoulders, he heard giggling coming from the kitchen, and a slow smile spread across his face. 

Curious, he left their bedroom and followed the sound to the kitchen, where he found Amelia in her high chair, cackling and clapping her hands as Robbe ‘found’ Cheerios in her ears. He’d show her his empty hands and then reach for one of her ears where he’d miraculously ‘find’ one and give it to her to eat. Her eyes grew wide every time he brought the Cheerio in front of her, sheer adoration and amazement all over her face. She’d squeal as she reached for the cereal and laugh and clap her hands as she popped it into her mouth.

After four more Cheerios received the same treatment, Sander strode forward casually, hands in his pockets, and said, “Still don’t think that’s the best way to impress the girls.” He ruffled Amelia’s hair and gazed down at Robbe, a teasing smile on his lips. “Glad to know those magic tricks paid off. Longest investment I ever made.” He then ruffled Robbe’s hair, and muttered, “Dork.”

Robbe snorted in response and blushed prettily as he rolled his eyes up at Sander. “It’s your fault. You can only blame yourself. And,” he poked Amelia’s nose and made another Cheerio appear out of it, eliciting more loud giggles, “Amelia is clearly impressed. Aren’t you, sweet girl?” He asked, speaking directly to her, his voice dropping into a goofy drawl. “You think I’m amazing, don’t you? Forget what your silly daddy thinks. He’s just jealous.”

Sander bit the inside of his cheek and pursed his lips, his head shaking side to side. “If I’m jealous of you,” he finally said, “I guarantee it’s not about the magic tricks.” He winked at Robbe, pursing his lips into an air kiss, and then swooped down to kiss the top of Amelia’s head. 

“How’s Laurence?” Robbe asked, refocusing his gaze on Amelia and continuing her magical meal.

Sander shrugged, stepping up behind him. He waved his hands forward a few times, and understanding him immediately, Robbe scooted to the edge of his chair. Sliding in behind him and then pulling Robbe back into his chest, arms still wrapped around his middle, he answered, “Tired. They’re afraid the baby might have colic, but it’s a little too soon to know.” Robbe shivered beneath him at the thought. “He looks like a zombie. Did we ever look that bad?” He rested his chin on Robbe’s shoulder.

Robbe chuckled lightly and turned his head to kiss his cheek. “Yes, we did. At one point, you looked like death, and I was seriously worried. Remember? I had to stage an intervention. I’m sure I didn’t look much better. Those first few weeks...just thinking about them…it was rough.” Robbe shuddered again, and Sander gave him another squeeze.

He kissed the space between Robbe’s shoulder blades and then rested his cheek on his shoulder, lips lightly touching his neck. He let his eyes close, and a companionable silence descended between them as Robbe continued to feed Amelia her snack while Sander rested. 

Several minutes later, Robbe’s fingers touched his hands, pulling him out of his light doze, and he said, his voice coming across gravelly because Sander’s ear pressed into his shoulder, “I’ve been thinking.”

“Mmhmm,” Sander responded, his eyes still closed.

“Amelia’s birthday is three days after mine, and I know we already have some big plans. You know, all the chaos and people and food. It’s a lot to plan and manage. Maybe this year we don’t do anything for my birthday. Just stay home, nothing special. Its--”

“No,” Sander cut him off, snuggling in a little more. “Absolutely not.”

As if not hearing him, he continued, “Maybe in the future we could just do a combined birthday or something.”

“No. No. No,” he hesitated for a moment and then added, “No. C’mon, Robbe, I’ve been making a fuss about your birthday for almost two decades. You really think I’m going to stop now just because our daughter’s birthday is so close? Please.” He let out an exasperated “pfft” into Robbe’s neck.

“But, it just makes sense, especially this year,” Robbe tried. “We should focus on her. It’s her first birthday. It’s a big deal.”

Sander sat up, his voice turning serious. “And so is your birthday. The day you were born is a big deal to me. You are the most important person in my life, and I want to celebrate the fact that you exist. Would you deny me that?”

Robbe turned to look at him, and Sander thrust his lower lip out into an exaggerated pout. Robbe shook his head in response, but the corners of his mouth twitched. “That’s kind of sappy, San.”

He dropped his forehead onto Robbe’s temple and said, “You make me sappy. Not my fault.”

“Hmmm,” Robbe responded noncommittally. A second later, he surprised Sander with an elbow to the stomach, saying, “And honestly, not fair. You know I’d never deny you anything. Turning it on me so that I’m doing it for you? Pathetic.”

Sander grinned and hugged him closer. Bringing his lips to Robbe’s ear, he whispered, “Yet effective.”

“Ugh,” Robbe groaned, but he leaned back into Sander, clearly giving in already. 

“Anyway,” Sander continued in a normal voice, “This is the first birthday where I can show you exactly how much I love you.  I’m going all out, baby! I already have everything planned, and Zoë offered to watch Amelia before I even asked. So...you’re stuck.”

Robbe moved like he was going to protest one more time, but they were interrupted by a stream of babble from Amelia. She had about a dozen Cheerios on the tray in front of her, but she kept clutching at her ears and then looking disappointedly at her hands. Each time they came up empty, she chattered at them as if giving them a pep talk before trying again.

“Oh no!” Sander guffawed. “What have you done?”

Unable to control himself, Robbe’s body shook with laughter. “I...I...well...oops.”

“Oops is right. Let’s hope she doesn’t try to pull Cheerios from anywhere else.”

“Sander!” He elbowed him in the stomach again, but they both laughed. They laughed so hard Amelia finally gave up looking for Cheerios and stared at them in confusion, completely at a loss for why they were giggling so much.

 Robbe

 Robbe’s birthday dawned wet and cloudy, but the grey atmosphere did nothing to dampen Sander’s spirits. He woke up early to make Robbe a ‘real’ breakfast before work and shoved him out of the door with a dozen kisses and a promise to come directly home.

When Robbe arrived back at the flat, he found Sander’s backpack stationed by the door and Zoë’s shoes resting next to Amelia’s. He gave the backpack a second curious glance and then followed the sound of voices to the kitchen.

“Dada!” Amelia’s voice called, and Robbe immediately redirected from looking for Sander to searching for Amelia. She stood next to the couch, holding on with one hand, her chubby legs steady beneath her. 

“Hey, princess,” he said, squatting down a few feet away from her. She took confident steps toward him, hand sliding along the couch in support, and then in her excitement at being near him, she let go of the couch and half toddled, half fell forward into his arms. 

He held her for a moment, unmoving; then his jaw dropped, and he looked up, seeking Sander’s eyes. When he found them, shining and surprised, he asked, “Did you see that? Did it count? Do you think it counted? Did she walk?”

“I saw at least two actual steps before she fell forward,” Zoë said helpfully.

“I think I saw three,” Sander agreed. “I think it counts.” 

Robbe squealed, lifting Amelia into the air as he stood, and swung her around. “You did it!” he shouted over and over again. He hugged her to his chest and showered her in kisses.

Then it was Sander’s turn. He hugged them both, liberally peppering them with kisses as he said, “And you did it on your daddy’s birthday! What a sweet girl! Happy Birthday!” He gave Robbe a loud smack on the lips.

“B-tday.” Amelia mimicked, clapping her hands, and they both erupted into even more praise.

“Best birthday present ever,” Robbe said, giving her cheek a final kiss before putting her back down to play.

“I dunno about that. Til now, maybe, but I have plans to top it. Just wait,” Sander said, bumping his shoulder.

“Oh really?” He wrapped his hands around Sander’s waist and looked up into his face, eyes teasing. “You really think you can top my daughter’s first steps as a present?”

“Definitely,” Sander said confidently, his mouth spreading into a broad grin.

Sander’s confidence gave Robbe a moment of pause. What could he possibly have planned that he was sure would top this? He was even more curious about the bag by the door.

 When they reached the sidewalk outside, Amelia already being happily spoiled by Zoë inside, Sander took Robbe’s hand, and they turned towards the bike rack. 

“So,” he said, “We have a few options. We can’t head to the main event until 20:30, and then we’re having dinner afterward. So between now and then we can do whatever you want.”

“Wait, what? The main event? Wouldn’t dinner be the main event?”

Sander smirked down at him, saying smugly, “Nope. You’ll see. So--” He clapped his hands together, rubbing them quickly while lifting his eyebrows playfully at Robbe. “What should we do now? I’m all yours.” He opened his arms and turned to walk backwards in front of him. 

Grinning at him, Robbe said, “Oh, I’m well aware.” He then gave him a light shove and took his hand again to pull him alongside. “I thought you had it all planned. Now you’re making me decide. Rather unfair, don’t you think?”

Sander snorted, dropping his head forward. “Ro-obbe, this is part of the plan. You get to decide how we kill time together. Just us.” He looked up, his hand reaching out to caress Robbe’s long hair. “No babies. No friends. No responsibilities.” His fingers trailed down Robbe’s cheek. “Just us.”

Robbe’s breath caught, and when he met Sander’s eyes, he could clearly see how pleased he was with himself. Robbe rolled his eyes at him, bumping his shoulder with his forehead as he mumbled, “You can’t seduce me in the street, you know.” 

Sander’s teasing voice lilted, “But I can make you blush.”

Robbe groaned, but when he lifted his head a soft, dreamy smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. Sander beamed back at him and kissed his forehead. He then tucked Robbe under his arm and led him to the bike rack. They unlocked their bikes and set off, heading in the general direction of the Schedlt.

In the end they decided to just walk along the riverfront, lingering anywhere that struck their fancy. Sander took about a hundred pictures of Robbe as they went, much to his consternation, which eventually led to him running away and them chasing one another around. Teasingly, Robbe would let him catch him, or he’d tackle Sander out of nowhere; but after a few kisses, he’d slip out of his grasp and dart away again. 

At one point Robbe leaped at him from behind a tree, wrapping his legs around his waist, and it surprised Sander so much his legs buckled; and they tumbled to the grass. Robbe rolled to his stomach and kissed Sander’s cheeks and forehead apologetically while his hand snuck into his pocket and stole his phone. When he pulled it out, he snapped three photos of his shocked face in quick succession and then leapt to his feet and ran down the walkway. Sander shouted, “You little shit,” behind him, and rose to his feet more slowly. He took off after Robbe, laughing and glaring simultaneously. Robbe turned around, jogging backwards, and pointed the phone at him again, zooming in on his face. 

“Not as much fun on the other side of the camera, is it?” he called.

“Robin, you ass!” he growled back.

Robbe stopped abruptly, and raising both eyebrows as he cocked his head, he pouted, “But you loooove me.”

Sander slowed to a walk, approaching him with outstretched hands. Slightly out of breath, he huffed, “Yes, I love you, idiot.”

Robbe giggled in response, lifted the phone up, and snapped several more photos of Sander’s exasperated face before racing off in a new direction, taking photos randomly as he went. He chuckled to himself thinking about all the pictures Sander would have to sort through and delete. 

As he darted around the next tree, he took pity on Sander and turned around to allow him to catch him. Sander slammed into him, and Robbe wrapped his arms around his middle, burying his face into his chest. Sander burrowed his nose into Robbe’s hair and murmured, “You gonna give me my phone back yet? I do actually want to document some of tonight for posterity’s sake.”

Robbe kissed his chest and then lifted his face to nuzzle into his neck. “Only if you promise to be in more of the pictures. No more random ones of just me. I want us. Together.”

“Fine,” he said, smiling into Robbe’s hair.

“Excellent.” Robbe lifted the phone, flipping the camera, and took several selfies as they hugged and kissed against the tree. “Better,” he said a few minutes later, finally handing the phone back to Sander.

Exhausted, they strolled back towards the path and collapsed onto a bench facing the river. Sander rested his arm on the bench behind Robbe, as they leaned into one another, watching the sun begin to set over the city, the orange rays fighting through the remaining clouds. Several minutes later, interrupting the calm that had settled over them, Sander said, “We’re going to have to go soon.” Robbe made a quiet, guttural sound in his throat, and Sander chuckled, knocking his knee into Robbe’s. “I promise. You want to go. You’re going to love it.”

“More than Amelia’s first steps?”

“Yes,” he said confidently. Then he paused, adding, “Maybe. Probably. I mean, they’re such different things you can’t really compare them, but I guarantee you, you’ll like this. So,” he nudged Robbe’s foot with his own, “We should go get our bikes.”

Robbe begrudgingly agreed and allowed Sander to pull him to his feet. They walked briskly back to their bikes, and Robbe followed Sander, now almost overflowing with curiosity. Where on earth was Sander taking him?

As they ascended the elevator in the Sint-Annatunnel, Sander lifted an eyebrow at Robbe, saying one word: “Race?”

Robbe grinned back and said, “You’re on.”

As soon as the doors opened, Robbe stood and put his full weight on his pedals, propelling himself forward. He and Sander raced neck and neck, occasionally avoiding pedestrians and other cyclists. About halfway through the tunnel, their eyes met, and without saying a word, they slowed to a more reasonable pace.

Sander pulled out his phone and aimed it at Robbe. Shaking his head, Robbe admonished, “Selfie mode, baby. Selfie mode.”

Sander rolled his eyes but acquiesced, flipping the camera and taking several photos of the both of them as they neared the exit.

 When they arrived at their destination, Robbe’s eyes grew wide, and he asked, “The pool?”

“Yeah, the pool. Our pool.”

“Our pool,” Robbe repeated under his breath as he locked his bike. Knowing their destination wasn’t helping. He was as confused and curious as ever.

Sander shrugged on the backpack, and turning to Robbe, said, “Okay. So I need to go get the key. There’s something I want you to see around the corner, so just stay here til I come back.” 

“Okay,” he answered. As he waited, he began to fidget nervously, alternately pacing and bouncing on his toes. What were they doing here? What mad scheme had Sander come up with for his birthday?

About two minutes later and just after Robbe had to clasp his hands in front of him to keep them from shaking with nervous energy, Sander returned, jangling a set of keys from pinched fingers.

“Alright,” he said, grinning, “We’re good to go. The pool’s ours for the next hour.”

“It is? Just us?”

“Yep,” Sander confirmed, wrapping his arm around Robbe’s neck and pulling him in. “I gave our old coach a call, and he was willing to do me a favor as long as I promised that we’d continue coming for lap swim. There might have been something about volunteering at the next swim meet as well, but I’ll deal with that when I get the email.”

“Wow. Okay,” Robbe said, still confused. “Now what?”

Sander kissed his temple and said, “Don’t worry, Robin. I’ve got it all covered. Now,” he swept his arm forward in an arc, “I wanna show you something. Let’s go.”

Sander steered him to the end of the building and around the corner. About halfway down the alley, he stopped and said, “Pull out your phone and turn on the flashlight.” Robbe did as he said, facing the light towards the ground. “Okay,” he continued, “Now point it over here.”

It wasn’t full dark yet, but since it was overcast, the sky was darker than usual. Robbe lifted the light, directing it to where Sander indicated, and he gasped. 

On the wall, in bright oranges, reds, browns, and yellows, was an enormous robin, its wings outstretched as if landing on a branch, its feathers ruffled around the neck, its brown eyes fierce and piercing. As Robbe took it in, his eyes darting from one detail to the next, Sander came up behind him and wrapped both arms over his shoulders, pulling him into his chest. 

“Before you worry,” he whispered, “I had permission.”

“This is like your tattoo,” Robbe finally managed. 

“Yes and no. They are similar,” Sander kissed Robbe’s temple, “But if you look closely, you’ll see that this one is quite a bit more aggressive. The one on my hip...that one is softer, sweeter, a more cuddly Robbe--the one I see at home. The one I’ve known and loved almost my whole life. This one is a bit more badass, more intense--the focused scientist the world gets to see.”

Robbe swallowed, unable to form words, and continued to stare at the robin, his robin. Sander was right. Apart from being a robin with outstretched wings, they were completely different. The robin on Sander’s hip was etched permanently in his memory. He’d spent hours studying it, tracing it, and kissing it. It was softer, the edges less harsh, the expression less intense. He wasn’t entirely sure he deserved to be labeled a badass scientist, but he could definitely see the differences in the two birds.

Kissing his ear, Sander continued, “And anyway, my tattoo is special, so much more special.”

Robbe turned a questioning face up at him, still unable to speak, and Sander breathed a quiet laugh, answering his unspoken question, “Because it’s our secret. It’s just for us. The world can see this one, the awesome, amazing, intelligent chemical engineer who gets published in fancy journals. The other one is ours.”

Finally finding his voice, he whispered, “How? Why?”

Sander laughed in earnest, his whole body shaking, taking Robbe along with it. “Really, Robin? Do I ever need a reason to draw you?”

Robbe ducked his head, pressing a shy smile into Sander’s bicep.

“Okay, but really. I’d been wracking my brain, trying to think of what I could do for your birthday, and I had this idea. I knew this wall was here because we used to run around back here. I asked the pool owner if it was alright, and she said yes. What I wanted to do was cover this entire wall with your face. You know, because that’s how much I love you.”

Robbe’s stomach fluttered suddenly, and he placed his hands on top of Sander’s, briefly kissing the soulmark on his left wrist.

“But,” Sander continued, “I didn’t think you’d appreciate your actual face on display, possibly for years, so I sprayed the next best thing, your namesake. And voila! You got a three meter high Robin. Happy Birthday!”

Overcome with emotion, Robbe again couldn’t respond with words, so he spun in Sander’s embrace, sliding his hands up to his face. The light was dim, but he knew Sander could see him well enough; so he gazed directly into his eyes and put all of his feelings, his love, his complete devotion to and adoration of Sander into his look, trying to express how he felt about the gift without words--that he loved it, thought it was amazing, and was honored to be the subject of Sander’s skill.

Slowly, Robbe lifted up onto his toes and kissed him softly, worshipping his lips with lingering kisses and caressing his skin with light fingers, as if he were the most precious treasure that deserved care and attention and love. 

Sander had always been great with words, but he truly expressed himself best in his art. Such a large, public piece of art was a declaration of love, as or possibly more meaningful than his words. He poured his heart and soul into his work, but this was a full exposure. There was no way Robbe, or anyone who knew the backstory, could deny the depth of Sander’s feelings, and knowing that until two months ago, he could not have done this, couldn’t have shared his love at all, let alone this loudly, filled Robbe with love and longing. Sander had waited so long to love him openly, and it was almost exploding out of him uncontrollably. It had exploded onto this wall, in vibrant colors, and Robbe could only imagine where it would surge out next. 

His wonderful, beautiful, talented Sander was the most loving person in the world, and he couldn’t believe how lucky he was to finally have him, all of him. The feeling was overwhelming, and he started to deepen the kiss, pulling Sander closer and trying to plaster himself to his chest.

Sander smiled beneath him and leaned back a little. “I’m so glad you like it, and while I’d love to do this all night, we have to be out of the pool by 21:30. So…”

Robbe lifted up on his toes one last time, leaning forward to peck his lips. “Fine,” he sighed, “There better be more kisses coming, though.”

Smirking cheekily, Sander gave Robbe another quick kiss and said, “I promise. You will get more kisses.”

“Good. Lead the way, then.”

 The purpose of the backpack became clear the second they entered the pool’s changing rooms. Sander had packed their towels and swimsuits. They changed quickly, and then, leaving their things behind, strode out into the large, echoing chamber.

Sander lifted an eyebrow and, repeating himself from before, said, “Race?”

Robbe nodded. “Race.”

They made their way to the blocks. “Fifty or one hundred meters?” Sander asked.

With a wicked gleam in his eye, Robbe answered, “One hundred. Butterfly.”

Sander groaned, and Robbe grinned evilly. He knew exactly how much Sander hated the butterfly.

“Fifty?” Sander hedged.

“Fine. Fifty. But then we do one hundred free. Deal?”

“It’s your birthday,” he said, stepping onto the block.

“Yes,” he agreed, smugly, “Yes it is.” He stepped onto the adjacent block.

They took a few seconds to set their hands and feet, and then Sander began the countdown. “On go, three, two, one, go!”

They dove into the pool, and Robbe almost immediately regretted choosing butterfly, as neither of them had goggles. Valiantly, he struggled on, kicking hard and sweeping his arms wide, opening an I when he could. Still, it was no contest. Even without proper equipment, he was back at the start while Sander had over half a length to go.

He swam over to the lane divider, and crossed his arms over the blue plastic, waiting for Sander. Once he touched the wall, he turned to face Robbe, sputtering, “I hate you.”

Robbe reached his toe out, poking him in the side, and said, “No, you love me. That’s why we’re here.” He tickled him with his toes, making Sander squirm back. He giggled proudly, and snarked, “You ready for the next one, or does the old man need a moment?”

“Old man?” Sander sputtered again, spraying water everywhere. “You’re the one who’s actually older today, and twenty six is by no means old.”

“Well,” Robbe said, reaching out again with his foot, “I’m only turning twenty four, so...math. It never lies. You’re old.” He extended his toes to poke Sander again, but this time Sander grabbed his ankle and pulled him under and toward him. 

He came up sputtering and spitting, wiping water out of his eyes. Sander gave his chest a slight shove and backed him up into the side of the pool, placing one hand on either side. “So,” Sander teased, his eyes heated, “What you’re saying is that you like older men.”

Robbe wrapped his legs around his waist, hands braced on his shoulders, and said, “I love you. I like whatever you are. So I guess I like older men.”

Sander rolled his eyes. “Of all the things I am, you went for old. Thanks.”

“Sander?”

“Yes.”

“Shut up.” And Robbe curled his arms around his neck, running his fingers up into his hair, and kissed him. The kiss was less successful this time because neither of them could stop smiling. Finally, Robbe mumbled into Sander’s lips, “Okay. You’ve had a long enough break. Let’s go.”

Together they lifted themselves out of the pool and climbed onto the blocks. Sander counted down again, and they dove into the water. Freestyle was Sander’s stroke, so it didn’t matter how long they raced. He’d win. Every time. Robbe didn’t really care. He was just happy to be spending some carefree hours with Sander on his birthday.

As expected, Sander won, finishing several lengths ahead of Robbe. “Now who’s old?” he asked, as Robbe touched the wall.

“Still you,” and Robbe splashed him with an avalanche of water.

They spent the next twenty minutes fooling around in the lap pool. As with everything they did, there was a mixture of teasing, bickering, wrestling, and kissing. With the added element of water, there was also a considerable amount of splashing.

At one point Robbe had to stop Sander from tackling him because he’d splashed water up his nose. Immediately redirecting his momentum, Sander scooped him up in his arms and kissed his nose while Robbe recovered. 

When he finally felt better, he snaked his arms around Sander’s neck and pulled him into a soggy kiss, Sander still cuddling him to his chest.

Robbe marveled at how different things were between them now and yet how familiar the whole evening felt. They’d spent years training and messing around in this pool, playing together, racing, competing, acting foolish--much as they were now. The pool had been their safe place, their neutral ground. Since they went to different schools, having somewhere they both felt at ease had been important, and somehow they’d begun to associate one another with water. Now, even as adults, it was where they came together, meeting up after work to trade out Amelia and exercise. 

The main difference was the kissing. When they were kids, it had been about fun. Now, it was still fun, just in more ways, ways they could never have imagined back then. And honestly, the kissing was nice, better than nice. Kissing Sander felt like a miracle, something he craved like an addict. After being denied for so long, it felt wonderfully luxurious and overwhelming and special, like his body came alive and every nerve ending was ramped up, feeling each sensation that little bit more intensely. He was so lucky, so damn lucky they’d figured everything out. It almost made him cry, but he focused on Sander’s lips, slick with chlorinated water, and his own hands, as they ran over the muscles on Sander’s back and shoulders. 

Robbe kicked out his legs, freeing them from Sander’s grip, and wrapped them around Sander’s waist again, giving himself a better angle to kiss and caress his soft, golden skin.

Sander, however, had a different plan. As Robbe aimed a kiss at his neck, he pulled away, panting as he disentangled Robbe’s arms and legs from his body. “Wait. Wait, Romeo.”

“What?” Robbe whined, his lip jutting out petulantly.

Sander laughed at him and cupped his face. “I told you. I have the whole evening planned.” He jerked his head over to the diving pool. “We have a date with my old nemesis.” He jokingly glared at the diving platform.

“We do?” At Sander’s nod, he shrugged and said, “Alright.”

They swam to the edge and crawled out, holding hands as they strode to the deeper pool. “Any chance,” Sander hesitated, bumping Robbe’s shoulder, “That I could convince you to...uh…” He snapped the waistband of Robbe’s swim trunks. “Remove these?”

Robbe turned to him, aghast, whispering furiously, “What? No, there are cameras! There have to be cameras here. No way, San. No way!”

Clearly disappointed, Sander frowned but nodded and began chewing on the inside of his cheek. His eyes searched the cavernous room, and he looked thoughtful. As if coming to some decision, one that pleased him, a slow grin spread across his face--an obvious warning that Robbe probably should heed but was willing to ignore--and clutched Robbe’s hand tighter, pulling him toward the ladder.

Robbe ascended first, and Sander gave his ass a light slap before he followed, making Robbe smile. Robbe reached the top and moved aside so that Sander could climb up behind. Sander’s fear of heights hadn’t followed him into adolescence, so venturing up here today wasn’t an issue for him. Robbe was sure he was doing it more for nostalgic reasons than anything else. 

As if he could read Robbe’s mind, Sander said, “Remember when you punched that kid for me.” He pointed to the space in front of the bleachers. “It was over there.”

Robbe nodded, wrapping his arm around Sander’s waist. 

“You were my hero, you know,” Sander said quietly, earnestly. “I was in such awe of you. This little tiny thing, dripping wet, hauling ass out of the pool to deck that asshole, someone who’d been tormenting you for months. That you, the kindest, most caring person I know, would defend me like that. It was...you were magnificent, and I loved you so much for it. That might have technically been when I fell in love with you, but since I was ten at the time, I definitely didn’t realize it.”

“Hmpf,” Robbe grunted. “He deserved it. He could have killed you. Even thinking about it now makes me--” His body shook, and he growled. 

“I know, baby. I know.” He hugged him tighter. “It’s fine. We’re fine. And anyway, let’s enjoy ourselves. We’ve never been allowed to do this.” He spread his arms out, indicating the platform. 

“What? You mean be up here together?”

“Yeah. We definitely need to take advantage because you know they’ll never let us do it again.”

“True,” Robbe agreed. Then he had a thought, and he turned an excited, crooked grin at Sander. “Amelia’s going to jump off this thing one day.”

Sander’s jaw dropped, his eyes going wide as an expression of sheer panic came over him. He shook his head dumbly, finally saying, “No. Nope. No. I can’t handle that.” He looked over the edge, shivered, and said, “No,” one last time. 

“C’mon, San. It’s not like it’ll be next week, but yeah, it’s gonna happen. Our girl is a daredevil. We’re doomed.”

“I know,” Sander said, frowning slightly. “We are so doomed.”

Robbe kissed his shoulder and bumped him with his hip. “Stop worrying, and let’s jump off this thing.”

Sander stepped aside, still holding Robbe’s hand, and doing the one thing they were never allowed to do at the pool as kids, they took three steps forward and jumped into the water together. 

Robbe hit the surface with a splash and plunged underwater. Somewhere along the way, he had lost Sander’s hand, so he used both arms to swim to the surface. Taking a deep breath, he noticed that Sander hadn’t surfaced yet. He searched around, looking for a dark shape. A few moments later, Robbe saw Sander rising beneath him. His body almost grazed Robbe’s as he broke the surface, appearing directly in front of him. Their eyes met, and immediately Robbe was suspicious. There was a playful, teasing glint in Sander’s eyes, a smug, self-satisfied glimmer that alerted Robbe to mischief. The question was what.

Before Robbe could ask, Sander blurted out, water spraying into Robbe’s face, “You know, I think I would have jumped off the platform sooner if you’d been allowed to go with me. That was a stupid rule. I’m glad we’re breaking it now.”

Robbe smooshed his hand into Sander’s face but smiled in agreement. “You’re probably right, but you eventually did it. On your own. And that’s all that really matters.” His fingers traced the shell of Sander’s ear before returning to the water to help him stay afloat. “I was so proud of you. I almost went hoarse cheering. You were amazing, baby.”

Robbe glided forward, reaching out to pull him into a kiss, and then stopped abruptly. Wait. Was Sander-- He slid his hand down Sander’s chest, following the curve of his ribcage down to his hip, and--

Nothing.

No swim shorts.

Robbe’s hand was now on Sander’s bare ass. He lifted his eyes to Sander’s and found that playful, pleased look again. He winked. “Enjoying yourself, IJzermans?” 

“Sander, what the hell?” He pulled back, his arms and legs treading water madly. His eyes darted around, searching for Sander’s shorts on the bottom of the pool.

Sander began swimming in a slow circle around Robbe, leaning to the side. “You were worried about the cameras. Well--” he grinned, “The cameras can’t see underwater, so we’re safe.”

“I--err..umm...San, I don’t know,” Robbe stuttered.

“Don’t worry, baby. I have a plan. We’ll be able to retrieve them before we leave.” His eyes grew soft, and his lips pouted. “Please, baby, indulge me.”

Robbe knew he’d lost the second Sander turned on the pleading eyes. He rolled his eyes and sighed, moving his hands to his waist. 

“Oh no, baby. Allow me,” Sander interrupted, stopping his hands. He brought his hands to Robbe’s waist, accidentally kicking him a few times as he treaded water, and unknotted the shorts. He then pushed them down and taking a deep breath, he plunged below the surface, arms reaching overhead. Robbe could feel him working them the rest of the way down. 

When he could see a dark shape sinking toward the bottom, Sander popped up again in front of him, once again grinning. “Now doesn’t that feel better?”

“Honestly,” Robbe answered, “It feels kind of weird and not weird. Weird because we’re here, and I’m freaking out a little. But not weird because I’m with you, and it’s not like I’m not naked in water all the time at home. Well, except usually it’s in a shower, not an enormous, chlorinated bathtub.”

Sander barked out a laugh, leaning his head back. “Only you, Robin, would be analyzing this right now. Just go with it, baby.” At his words, he began circling Robbe again, his eyes turning predatory.

“Should I be worried?” Robbe asked, lifting an eyebrow and turning his body to face Sander as he moved.

“Not at all.”

“Are you sure? You’re kind of circling me like a vulture.”

“I’m just enjoying the view,” Sander stated, matter-of-factly.

“Pfft. You’re ridiculous.”

“Robbe?”

“Yeah.”

“Take a deep breath.”

“Wha--” Robbe began but stopped when he saw Sander dive beneath the surface, his pale bottom peaking out momentarily before his feet kicked up behind him.

Before Robbe could process what was happening, he felt Sander’s hand close around his ankle, and he was barely able to suck in a deep breath before he was pulled underwater.

So surprised by the turn of events, Robbe’s eyes shot open, and he looked around. Sander floated directly across from him, his dark hair undulating slowly above him. His eyes were open, focused on Robbe, his gaze intense.

Robbe realized what was about to happen just moments before it did. The bottom dropped out of his stomach, and his chest ached, his heart beating like a hummingbird in anticipation. Sander’s arms pulled back, propelling him forward, and then his hands reached for Robbe’s face. Robbe’s fingers automatically found Sander’s neck, and within moments they were kissing. This was happening. It was happening!

And...it was interesting, a little bizarre. Their lips pressed together softly, the water providing a surprising resistance. 

As he tried to deepen the kiss, an air bubble escaped Robbe’s mouth, and as he opened his lips for Sander’s tongue, a gush of chlorinated water flooded his mouth. He exhaled it out, closing his lips around Sander’s, and kicked his legs, propelling them upward.

When they reached the surface, they broke the kiss briefly to breathe and then slammed their lips together, kissing more successfully and furiously, hands caressing whatever they could reach.

Even as his mind registered how romantic this was--that Sander had paid attention when they were watching Romeo and Juliet and understood how much Robbe wanted to try this, that Sander had fabricated this whole evening to give Robbe the romantic moment he wanted, that kissing Sander anywhere at any time was still his favorite thing to do--his brain couldn’t stop thinking about how awkward it was. Sander didn’t taste like Sander. Water still dripped down their faces, getting in their eyes and tickling their cheeks. Their hands were occupied, holding one another closer, which made treading water harder. They were so close, their legs kept kicking one another. The whole thing was a bit of a mess, sloppy and uncoordinated.

Even so, Robbe enjoyed it. He was here. He was with Sander. They were kissing in their childhood pool, and Sander loved him, a fact that still staggered him, crushed him, made him feel weak and the happiest, luckiest person alive all at the same time. 

And everything so far tonight screamed how much Sander loved him. The date night, the robin, the pool, the underwater kiss. It was all so much, so wonderful, so ridiculously over the top, just like Sander, that Robbe couldn’t contain his feelings. Even as his body fought to stay in the kiss and his mind analyzed it, his heart exploded with love, overwhelming him. He needed more. He needed to be closer to Sander. He wanted to show him how much he loved him, how grateful he was to have him in his life.

Without thinking, he wrapped his legs around Sander, and within seconds, they sank below the surface. It didn’t take long for them to come sputtering back to the surface, laughing uncontrollably.

“Someone got carried away,” Sander snickered.

“Yeah well. You’re hot, and I love you,” Robbe countered.

“Touché.”

“Sander, that was...that was…”

“Awkward,” Sander supplied.

Robbe ducked his head, blushing because that’s exactly what Sander had thought it’d be like. Softly he continued, “I was going to say mind blowing, and it was,” he emphasized, responding to Sander’s incredulous look. “But yes it was also super awkward.” He blushed again and ran his knuckles along Sander’s cheek. “But thank you. You are the best, baby. This whole thing,” and he waved around at the pool in general, “Has been so amazing and wonderful. I can’t show you how much I love you right now because we’d drown, so I’ll tell you. I love you.” He gazed earnestly into Sander’s eyes, willing him to understand the depth of his feelings. “So much. You are truly the best, and I am so, so lucky.” 

“I love you too, Robin, and don’t get too excited. I’m not done yet.”

Robbe startled back, “What? You’re not?”

“I actually have one last gift for you.”

Robbe looked at the clock on the wall, 21:20. “Well, you can give it to me soon, then. We have to leave in a few minutes. I mean, that is, if you’re giving it to me here.”

“Oh, I’m giving it to you now.”

“You are? How?” Robbe asked, confused.

“I have it right here,” Sander said, opening his arms wide. 

Robbe looked at him, completely bewildered. Sander was naked. His pockets were in his shorts, which were currently at the bottom of the pool. What? How? Robbe’s eyes darted all over, looking for a clue, but he found nothing. 

How could Sander have one more present to give him? What was it? 

**Lets pretend this is one of the selfies they took at the tree…

Thank you for reading and celebrating this fictional boy’s birthday with me. I don’t think there’s any possible universe where Sander doesn’t spoil Robbe rotten on his birthday. Again, please forgive my mistakes (I was rushing to get it done), and I look forward to sharing the rest of the chapter with you….what is Sander’s surprise gift? Wait and see! 💖💖

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 21

First time reader click here

TWs/SUMMARY: Wanda fluff, Loki fluff, we're getting a whole ass friendship! Dad sucks. The outfits are neat tho! Check the end for a mood board 😍

a/n: dress inspo and aesthetic visuals can be found here, here and here. (Paolo Sebastian, Firefly Path gowns and Viona Ielegems photography).

"Gi-i-irl..." Wanda drawled, seeing me arrive with Tony, both of us freshly showered and still hazy from the amazing orgasms. God only knew what she'd seen in both of our heads - if judging only by the vivid, crimson blush she spouted, it was definitely something very NSFW. Bruce already sat at the dinner table, quietly slurping his soup, his back and shoulders the most relaxed I'd ever seen. He gave me a knowing smile once he noticed my presence in my usual spot by his side.

The rest of the team appeared completely oblivious, preoccupied by their food.

"So, about the party. Got any costume ideas?" I cut straight to the chase, unwilling to wait for Wanda to start asking for details right in front of everyone.

Steve, Bucky, Pietro, Thor and Natasha all answered affirmative, the latter whacking Clint upside the head and firmly stating "no funny business". I couldn't help but wonder what kind of crazy shit the Bird had in mind and was kind of disappointed at Nat's intervention. A good chaotic moment was always worthwhile in my opinion!

The other bird, Sam, approached Bruce with caution as he wondered if the scientist was interested in doing a paired costume with him, only to be interrupted by Tony declaring, with childish glee, he had a "wicked project" that he and Bruce would be doing together. The scientist gave a resigned sigh and apologized.

Sam wasn't deterred by the slight setback; he approached Clint instead and after being given an okay from Natasha, the Birds decided to pair up. As they should, if you'd ask me.

"I have a costume but I need some accessories. Wanda, Lokes, join me on my lil' shopping trip?" I prompted, wanting everybody to be included. I was fully prepared for Loki to scoff and dismiss my invitation but the Asgardian nodded after a second of brief speechlessness. Didn't anyone invite him to birthday parties as a kid? Either way, Thor gave me a grateful smile, like a proper big brother. Both Asgardians had grown visibly closer during the past couple of months which made me hide a secretive smile behind a spoonful of soup.

It turned out, Loki hadn't exactly been introduced to the buzzing beehive that is NYC. He didn't get out much and when he needed to be somewhere, the man simply teleported to the desired destination. As convenient as it must've been, I still expressed my outrage at his lack of experience doing the usual "touristy" things that, in my opinion, every non-newyorker was obligated to do when visiting. Yes, even if said visitor had literally traveled across different galaxies.

Wanda wasn't much better in terms of city knowledge. According to her, she'd lived here for several years already but never bothered to go beyond the borders of the block surrounding the Avengers tower. The witch didn't have friends outside of her teammates (therapy. they all needed so much therapy. y'all...) so she simply saw no point in going anywhere beyond the local mall.

Which was trash. I mean, I loved Hot Topic and Forever 21 as much as any other young adult with depression and anxiety but it was literally impossible to wear clothes made out of cheap cotton and polyester all the time. I'm pretty sure I would have hives and ulcers if I attempted that.

"We're going on Sixth Avenue and that's final. No friend of mine will be wearing shit from Wal-Mart at a Stark party," I interrupted Wanda's defensive stuttering, using my other hand to summon an Uber.

"That is good advice," Loki, previously silent, added in a sweet tone. I counted on the fashionable Asgardian to be on my side and with his schmoozing skills, I didn't even have to drag Wanda inside the car by, like, her hair or whatever. The three of us barely fit into the small Toyota anyway.

A thought struck me when I had to consciously avoid stepping on Loki's leather shoes and keep away my elbow from Wanda's stomach. "Mister? I'll give you a hundred bucks cash if you turn around and drive to this address," I hurriedly rattled off my home address, delighting in the way the driver nearly did a U-turn at the mention of crispy dollar bills.

We arrived home quickly. Wanda gaped in mild disbelief at the size of my house while Loki looked about as interested as he'd ever be. His face was akin to an expression one made while smelling fresh manure. Opening the garage, I was greeted with an unpleasant surprise of my dad's outrageously painted Corvette standing neatly by my white Range Rover.

Loki looked and felt considerably less tense in the back of my car. The subtle signs of discomfort all but left his face replaced by slight wonder as I explained how to adjust the temperature and turn on the heated seats.

Dad met us at the gates. "You didn't come in to say hello," He pouted. His breath reeked like a five-day drinking binge hangover and he looked a dead man.

"We're in a hurry, dad. There's a lot to be done," I replied curtly, hoping to get rid of him fast. I hated being sober around my drunk father. My fingers twitched on the steering wheel.

"You're like your mother, always busy," Dad's laugh was coarse and bitter. "But at least you find time for Stark and his friends. That'll do your future real good," He clapped once on the hood of my car, heading back to the house with a wave of his hand, just in time to miss the disgusted shudder that ran through me.

I knew my dad well enough to understand the implications of what he meant by his words. In his world, fucking way up to the top was considered the norm. I'd rather cut off my own foot than use Tony that way.

"Sorry you had to see that. I thought he was still in Cali," I gritted my teeth, pulling out of the driveway.

"I'm sorry you had to experience that. I have no kind words regarding your father," Loki's look was sympathetic in the rearview mirror.

"Or your mother," Wanda added, messing with her seatbelt. Loki nodded tersely.

"Aight, aight," I sighed, set on improving the mood. "Let's not poop this party. We're getting some absolutely delicious beverages and wasting my money on outrageous pretty things. My treat."

Wanda's protests were drowned out by Motorhead and Loki's grumbling was overshadowed by Guns'n'Roses. Their resistance didn't stand a chance. Few blocks out, the witch was singing along to November Rain, heavily accented and terribly off-key, and the Asgardian watched New York city intently behind the protection of the tinted rear windows of my ride. He seemed mesmerized by the crowds and the variety of colorful shop fronts. This was the the one and only reason I eased off the gas pedal and drove the speed limit for once.

The atmosphere was, well, magical. Looking at my two companions, I discovered the familiar city anew with every question they asked, every remark they made. The desire to ask in turn about their homelands melted like the tension I was harbouring after the run-in with my father. Content and warm, I had my attention divided between Loki and Wanda juggling their wonder back-and-forth between themselves and the absolutely crazy NYC traffic.

So what if I parked in a no-parking zone just to get us the most delicious coffee in the city? Loki, the resident tea person, ordered himself something unpronounceable, something that made the barista twitch. Wanda got a sugary-sounding vanilla-white chocolate perversion. I just got a mocha, having had outgrown my adolescent desires to experiment with "how sweet can I make this coffee before I literally puke?" beverages.

With a laugh, I instructed them to pose in front of the nearest reflective surface to brag about our coffees on Instagram - this café deserved more recognition. My companions reluctantly obliged.

I wonder if the barista realized just who had bought the coffee - Loki was quite a media darling when it came to fangirls. Tony's PR team did a wonderful job on the Asgardian's redemption arc. The trickster only fueled the utter devotion his fangirls had for him by being extra nice and charming in every video I've seen. I guess you can't out-mindcontrol manners outta somebody, he was raised a prince after all.

It wasn't raining but the autumn chill seeped into the tiny spaces between my layers of clothing. I already managed to regret my fashionable dark academia inspired outfit at least twice, however the matching vibe all three of us had was positively dashing. Loki, wearing his usual onyx black and dark green. Wanda with a burgundy sweater dress and thigh high platformed boots - sweater dresses, out of all things, had no business looking this good on anybody. But she pulled it off.

"You said you've got a costume. Mind sharing what it is?" The witch said, curiously peeking into the windows of a nearby vintage boutique as we took our leisurely stroll with steaming paper cups keeping our fingers warm.

"A fairy dress. It was custom made for me last year and I actually didn't get to wear it. I need some jewelry to go with it," I explained, stopping to show a photo of the dress on my smartphone. "And some shoes, too. Let's hope the party will be held completely indoors, otherwise I'll freeze my ass off."

"Custom made?" Wanda squeaked, looking at the garment in wonder. Loki gave a vaguely approving nod.

"Yeah, there's a company that makes these fantasy dresses. You want one? What did you have in mind for your costume anyway?" I switched the topic quickly, seeing how Wanda withdrew into herself slightly. I heard from Peter she grew up poor, in the middle of a war and I didn't want to make her feel bad or anything. I wasn't good at these things...

"I thought maybe I could match with you," She replied, slowly taking a sip of her coffee.

"Sure. There are a couple of shops with really cute dresses that fit the aesthetic." Marchesa. We need a Marchesa store. And a Zuhair Murad - if there was one on this stretch of road. "What about you, Lokes? Anything in particular strike your fancy?" I asked our silent companion, frantically googling the information I needed.

"Black," He answered moodily.

"Boo, you whore," I rolled my eyes at his scoff. We had watched the Mean Girls recently and he got the reference, immediately raising a sarcastic eyebrow. "You know, you could do so much with this pale aristocratic look you've got going on. How about a medieval vampire?"

"Like Lestat? He's fucking hot," Wanda and I understood each other promptly. She jumped on the bandwagon immediately.

Combining my blunt honesty and her adorable fawning over a fictional bloodsucker, we managed to convince Loki into going on a hunt for brocaded, velvet suits and blouses with ruffles for his look. The trickster revolted at the mere suggestion of procuring some fake fangs, instead magically making them appear and showing them off in the middle of the crowded sidewalk, much to my and Wanda's delighted shrieking. He looked, I daresay, very attractive, like a porcelain figurine. Delicate but dangerous.

We arrived at the store that showcased beautiful, airy dresses of silk, chiffon and tulle. The lace was delicate and the seams invisible. I ushered Wanda into a dressing room with a shop attendant that was quietly but strictly instructed to not discuss the cost of the dresses and hide the price tags.

"I want it to be a gift. My friend here deserves no less than a magical experience," I explained quietly, winking at a bewildered Loki.

"Why did you do that?" He asked once Wanda was given a selection of several dresses in flattering colours and led into a separate dressing room.

"These dresses, they're special so they're a bit pricey. And knowing Wanda, she'll make a scene and refuse to let me buy them for her," I idly twirled my phone in my hands. "But every girl wants to be a princess and it's kinda sad she never got to be one. It's more than just a dress, it's more than feeling pretty, although it's a big part of it. She'll feel on top of the world."

Loki nodded. I'm certain he didn't understand it - being a man and all - and I wasn't sure I understood it completely, too. I never lacked pretty or expensive things, always got whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. But for a moment, I thought how it must've been for Wanda - seeing all these girls on TV, looking like pictures - and never having the chance to experience that. A concept that made me so sad, I was tempted to ask the customer service person for a glass of scotch. Being poor sounded depressing as hell.

Suddenly, Loki's cool, large hand landed on mine. "Thank you. I am certain Wanda will be the most beautiful lady at the ball."

I stared at him. Loki understood.

"Well, I... I don't know how finicky you are on gender labels for clothes, but there were a couple of blouses you might want to check out. They've got the neck ruffles and shit." My throat suddenly seized up and I had to clear it before speaking, steering away from the uncomfortably emotional moment. Thankfully, Loki wandered off without as much as a word.

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub ​ @mostly-marvel-musings  @vozit ​ @littlegasps ​ @pilloclock ​ @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads ​ @hermione-grangers-wife ​ @individualistfem ​ @sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby @cutenessloading @romeo-the-cactus @jelly-fishy-babie

& the promised aesthetic

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “Suspended Diplomacy.”

Its all coming together. I hope you guys like, has a lot of cool action :)

The stone wall rose up, and cut past him on either side as he blasted through the tight opening body rigid like an arrow. The cool darkness of the building’s interior was blasted back by warm rays of sunlight, which warmed his back as wind whipped past his clothing.

Below him there was nothing but mist and the plunging sides of the pillars cutting down into nothing.

His momentum carried him only so far before he began to plunge downward, though his freefall was cut short as he re-engaged the jetpack cutting upwards in a backwards spiral that sent him looping over the top of the city spires. Off in the distance he could see more than a dozen pairs of dogfighting individual no more than black dots on the horizon.

He cut left quickly and rose up to take the high position wind whipping past his face and roaring inside his ears. His maneuver caught two of their attackers by surprise shooting the out of the sky as he descended from above. He caught another one as it was reaching out for one of the marines, grabbing it by the wing and spinning it around to color with another of it’s companions.

Tangled around each other they fell like a stone into the mist below.”

Ramirez cut down on his left, and another marine on his right, and together they flew in a tight triangular formation. It reminded him a lot of his training drills at the flight academy, though unfortunately for him, while the marines could operate a jetpack, they weren’t trained in aviation, and so couldn't follow his more complex maneuver.

And together, they still flanked a couple of warring Krree taking them out before they could overpower their voiced counterparts.

He spotted T’lau by way of her colorful clothing, which practically glowed like a beacon against the grey blue sky, and what he saw didn’t look good. Two Kree soldiers harried her from behind flicking at her with their razor wire, attempting to cut off a wing as she churned and dived frantically trying to avoid severe bodily injury.

It was clear she was going to lose.

Commander Vir, pushed the engine on his jetpack rocking forward and  away fro his formation of marines. The two Kree had hardly any time to turn towards him as they heard the roaring of his engine. He caught them both around the middle, the edge of their razor wire scraping off the edge of the Iron-eye suit.

He only just had time to pull up as they careened towards an outer line of trees that had been set up along the side of the city. The little blue spheres that hung from the canopy exploded on contact drenching him in blue juice that stung slightly upon contact with his skin.

The impact slowed the enough that, when he cut the engine, hitting the ground was only mostly painful. Though he was bruised, he had managed to slip one of the Kree under him, using its feathery body to break his fall.

He heard something crunch and the kree lay still.

The other Kree, not as dazed or injured from the fall pounced on his back, and the two of them went rolling across the floor as the Kree attempted to slip the razor wire around his throat like a garotte. He ducked his head as the wire sliced across his cheek, drawing blood. The blue tree juice oozed into the wound and he roared with agony as it felt like his face was on fire.

WIth a jolt of energy and adrenaline, he flipped around in place and grabbed the kree around the middle again. The creature kicked and bucked against him, but he held tight. It was all he could do to keep holding on as the creature was surprisingly wriggly. If it had not been for that, he might have been able to overpower the creature, but as it was he kept losing his grip taking all his energy just to keep the creature in place.

His frustration mounted as the kree nearly slipped away.

And with his anger came the whirring of the machine.

The iron eye suit whirred to life with a hungry hiss, and the hydraulics that augmented his body’s power began to slowly compress. He felt his muscles contract like a constricting python around the creature as it struggled. HE was squeezing so tight, that his muscles shook, and when he could do no more, that is when the machine too over. 

The whirring grew louder and louder. His arms and legs clamped down like a steel vice.

The kree screamed, then choked off as it’s air was cut short.

And then a horrendous symphony of crunching noises, and a final snap as the creature’s spine broke in two and it went still.

The iron eye suit disengaged and his ucles failed causing him to flop backwards onto the floor, hands out to either side next to the two kree corpses. 

Overhead, engines roared as the two marine shuttles descended from orbit.

The battle had lasted less than seven minutes, and the marine’s time from orbit to landing was faster than most ambulance response times back on earth. One shuttle landed not so far away, while another circled around back of the palace.

From this distance, he could see groups of marines spilling out the back jetpacks already engaged.

Below the shuttle two twinned guns fired intermittently towards the Kree.

The marines on foot fanned out in a quick semi-circle ordering each other by their hand signals before fanning into two fire teams, which cut to explore the city.

Their response was fast, and he was soon to see why.

Sunny was the last to appear from the shuttle. In her two lower hands she held held a spear, maybe three to four feet long tipped with the deadly black head, and in her upper arms she carried the marine standard issue automatic carbine with red dot site, which she used to great effectiveness on a passing Kree.

Her aim was uncanny for someone who hadn’t been using human weapons for very long.

He could hear her ordering the marines about over the comms, her voice sharp and clipped, her orders precise and irrefutable. The marines did as they were told washing over the city and taking out all targets with great efficiency.

Not to be left out, a number of Drev had been dropped on the other side of the city, and were cleaning up the remnants of their attackers on that side with great glee. Ironically, their response time had been faster than that of th Kree defence team in itself, who finally dared to show up in their colorful armor and belatedly wielding their weaponry.

The marines cut across the open space in those first few moments two taking covering positions as a third knelt next to him on the marble, “Commander secured!” He announced over his radio.

The little red cross on his sleeve denied him as a field medic.

It was a relatively good sign considering that krill had forced all military medical personally through a rigorous training course that made them some of the top field medics/ and occasionally field surgeons/ in the galaxy.

The man grabbed his wrist to check a pulse as he looked over the cut on his face.

“Are you injured, commander.” He asked even as he was busy looking him over.

“No, no just winded, I think I’ll be alright.”

He finished his examination and called out for another group of men who cut across the space from the shuttle and knelt to cover the commander as the others moved off.

“What happened?” One of them asked relaying the information to sunny in quick-time as the commander gave it.

“The colorful kree are friendlies called the voiced. The ones without funny robes are the voiceless. They attacked us as I was speaking with their leader. She should be somewhere around here. We don’t really know more than that?”

“And their leader had nothing to do with this?”

“Not as far as I know.” He said slowly crawling to his feet, muscles aching from the iron eye intervention.

The ache brought back a sudden stabbing memory of pain and agony, but he shoved it back down engaging his comms, “Sunny report!” he ordered.

“Three dead, two wounded. The dead are the voiced and the two wounded are our marines. One of them is minor, the other is serious calling for medivac now. We have the voiced leader secured and one captured one of the voiceless for questioning.”

As soon asher comm line went dead, another one popped up.

“Commander this is harbinger, we are receiving some unusual radar readings. Can see nothing yet but whatever it is it is big and it’s coming in fast.”

Shit, he thought hauling himself up to his final standing position, “Call in immediate GA backup from Irus. Get Capain Koslov and Captain Ho on the line as fast as you can and order them in for a short warp be ready to cover them as they come in. Order all units to battle stations immediately.”

Just then, Commander Vir turned to see Sunny escorting T’lau over the open floor. She was limping pretty badly to go along with her already uneven gate on the ground. Her feathers were ruffled, her robes torn and she looked ore than halfway to panic.

“Commander, commander you must understand. We did not orchestrate this attack. We had no idea they were here, and they have never been so bold as to attack the city before.”

He held up a hand, “I understand, do the voiced have space ships.”

“What?”

“Answer the question.”

“No… well not really. They have small ships, no more than cruisers, and none of those have functioning weaponry as far as we are aware.” “Has your species made any deals with any other entities?”

“I… well not the voiced but….oh…”

“You want to tell me what that is all about?’

She turned to look at him, her large-dark eyes very wide, “The Burg.”

“THE WHAT!”

“The burg.” she was close to full panic now, “THey are the first species that we met, some of the voicless insisted on trading with them though we refused. We did not think an alliance would have stretch any further than that.”

He cursed turning away from her and ordering over the line to the harbinger, “Be advised possible burg short cruisers incoming. Alert the GA and the UNSC tell them that we may be under attack. I repeat we may be under attack by burg short cruisers allied with a terroristic Kree faction.” 

He shouldered his weapon and ordered the marines on him joining to meet up with Sunny as the other marines retreated back toward the shuttles from cleaning up the rest of the burg attack.

“You alright.” Sunny asked, ordering a contingent of arines onto the first shuttle which was quickly pulled into orbit medivacing the marine who had broken a leg and an arm during he fight.

“As good as can be expected.” he turned to look at the Kree T’lau, “If i find out you were in on this….”He let his threat hang in the air as he and sunny retreated back onto the shuttle after the marines. He could see the shamed look on her aes as the shuttle door closed before turning towards the front of the shuttle allowing command to the second pilot as he opened the comms to speak with sunny and the rest of the command team.

“All diplomatic missions are suspended until further notice.”

“Commander GA ships are arriving. They brought a Celzex imperial frigate.”

He felt himself relax a little, “Thank Lord Celex.” He muttered under his breath

“See if we can’t get a Rundi ship to cover for the Celzex. They are the best firepower, but I know their shields have been known to short out. Take a position behind and below the Celzex and afford them cover fire if you have to. When Captain Kozlov and Ho get here order them to cover the rear high and low. Prep evac shuttles, we should be there in ten.”

He let the com go dead listening to the chatter over the line and popping in to give orders on occasion.

Across the shuttle from him, Sunny rocked slightly in her seat as the ship rattled upwards through the atmosphere.

He kept one ear open to the comms, though he was compelled to speak knowing that this might be his last chance.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the iron eye suit, or the jetpacks.”

He had to raise his voice to be heard over the roaring of the engines.

Her eyes were cold, and she didn’t say anything, “Look, I knew you wouldn’t trust my judgement, and I get that but sometimes I know what I am doing.”

Sunny’s eyes blaed, “It’s not your judgement I dont trust, Adam.”

“Than what is it?”

“I hate the fact that you don’t trust me, that you feel like you have to hide this sort of thing.”

He frowned, “The last time I used a jetpack you nearly grounded me for a month.”

“Thats because you weren’t being careful, you weren't thinking things through, but this time you are and you did. I need you to trust me to know how to behave when the situation calls for it.”

He went silent in his seat, “Alright… I was wrong and I’m sorry, but I need you to trust me to know what I can and can’t handle. I know it may be hard and I havent always proven that, but I can’t command my ship if I’m being second guessed.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” 

They were silent for a moment as he listened to the chatter over the comms.

“Sunny.”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for showing up.”

“I wouldn’t dream of doing otherwise.” 

[theharellan]

To Feel Another’s Woe

Set in early Inquisition, in the heart of the Mage-Templar War. Featuring Thora Cadash from @ourdawncomes​. Content warning for gore, descriptions of battle, and mild illness.

Now available to read on AO3!

He counts the battle in heartbeats. Every rush of blood through his veins is another spell from his fingertips, every sixty seconds counted it another sixty seconds survived. Minutes count more in this Veilless world, where the tide may turn in an instant.

Everything is different, even war.

Bowstrings slap the air, signalling a fresh volley of arrows. “Shield yourselves!” the Seeker cries. Solas blinks to Varric, stopping short of his shadow to draw a barrier over them both. His magic resists his dwarven companion, drawing more mana from his fingers before the spell completes, and with little time to spare. Arrows skirt by them, falling harmlessly to the earth, cutting only magic upon their descent. Varric wastes no words thanking him, vanishing in a cloud of smoke to retreat to a safer distance.

Tangled in the midst of half a dozen Templars, their Herald draws every last eye on the battlefield to her. Every blow is preceded by a shout, often followed by another torn from their enemies’ throats. Swords point towards her back, posed to pierce the gaps in her armour. Their wielders hesitate to join the fray, uneven grips a telltale mark of fresh recruits, but they will not wait forever. He seizes upon the moment, hand gripping his staff and grinding it into the dirt, its focus drawing his intent into the world. A thin orange line burns in the grass, smoke heralds flame which bursts to life at Thora’s heel, a harsh curtain drawn between her and half her enemies.

She does not flinch, nor shrink from the flame. Solas watches as her leg hooks around a rogue Templar’s ankle and trips him. He falls headfirst into the fire, inhuman shrieks silenced by a killing blow to the head. As she lifts her hammer from the bloody pulp of a skull, another soldier lunges. Solas slams his staff against the earth, calling winter to a warm August day. Ice crawls up his target’s leg, erupting from the damp grass stamped down by war. In an instant it claims him, sword aimed at their Herald’s heart now suspended harmlessly in ice. Cassandra arrives, blade red with archers’ blood, and slams the tapered end of her shield against a weakness in the ice. It shatters, the boy’s body falling limp in the grass, joining his fellows.

The hairs along the nape of his neck stand on end, an uneasy premonition answered by an unseen force reaching across the Veil. It parts the fire, reducing it to a ribbon of smoke that coils in blue Fereldan skies, and through the ashes steps a Templar, his shield held aloft. Spells glance off him, rolling ineffectively over his armour. Thora’s hammer fares better, shield straining against its face as they come crashing together. Sparks fly from where their edges scrape together, forcing his guard down for an instant. Long enough for the Herald to find her advantage.

She strikes her with the heel of her hammer and he staggers, stumbling forward with the grace of a drunkard on his sixth tankard of ale. “Now, Solas!” she shouts. He stops, stares. There are only seconds to discern her meaning, no wisdom floats to him from across the Fade to deliver her meaning. Visions of a war long since finished return to him, memories of dwarves that cleaved dreams. He decides, then acts. Solas stretches across the Veil to find his own truth, a different reality than the one these Templars seek to reinforce. The air around the Templar expands with dreams, then dissipates.

The effect is instant. Beneath his helmet he heaves, lungs flooded with magic like water in the lungs of a drowned rat. Thora brings down her hammer on his breastplate. Metal made brittle by magic crumbles at the impact, leaving a hollow crater in the center of his chest.

From a distance his eyes meet Thora’s, her head nodding in his direction. Behind her, the remaining Templars gather their strength and prepare their onslaught, but her attention remains divided. Her gaze darts to his left. Brown eyes widen in their sockets, alerting him before she can cry out: “Look out, Solas!”

He catches the greedy glint of steel against sunlight from the corner of his eye, thrusting towards him. In the space of a breath he surges backwards, Fade carrying him from the Templar’s reach. All the air rushes from him, back crashing against the trunk of a tree, stealing the air from his lungs. Skull cracks against the bark, vision blurring as the Templar advances. Dark words seethe from bloodied lips, cursing him in the name of her fallen brothers and sisters.

Solas’ grip tightens around empty air, realising only then that his staff was lost in his retreat. It matters not. Energy pools into his palm as easily as through a focus, but stutters in the presence of the cleansing aura. Sparks fly, grazing the Templar’s breastplate, earning him nothing but seconds. Once the task of dispatching her would be as trivial as crushing an ant beneath his thumb. Now, his magic wanes, flying further from his reach with every step the Templar takes. What a cruel joke his life would be if this is its final note.

But he has been backed into tighter corners than this by worthier foes. Undeterred by the fear which lays claim to his heart, he grasps desperately for more power, summoning every last scrap of ambient magic in the air. A hopeless thought eats at him as he wonders how it came to this, shooting cinders from his fingertips like a child conjuring their first flame. They fly from his hands, aimed at the dull human eyes which blink out at him from behind a helm.

Every muscle in his body tenses, unsure if he had missed. A shout of pain tears from her throat, and he has his answer. Gloved hands yank her visor back to reveal red-rimmed eyes, tears already streaming down her face to fight the ashes suspended in her eyelashes. “You’ll regret that,” she spits. The glow that wreaths her sword bursts, and he braces against the tree. Blinding light tears the colour from the grass and magic flies from the Veil to places beyond his reach. She purges the song from the sky, all the weight of the world seems to fall around his shoulders. He grips the bark at his back with white knuckles, until the grooves bore into his skin. If not for it, he might have collapsed. His lungs ache as though they are new, throat closing around unyielding reality.

The Templar sloughs off the dispel from her blade, now trained to kill. Somewhere beyond his field of view, Solas hears a shout. “You wasted precious time taunting me,” he says, words straining against empty lungs. Amusement flickers in his eyes, lips too tired to form any semblance of a smile. “I would be dead were it not for your pride. Now it is too late.”

He sees the question in the soldier’s eyes. Solas counts the seconds. He hears his rescue upon the wind.

Bones crack with a sickening crunch as the Templar’s knees snap backwards, crumbling from the force of Thora’s hammer. She falls like lead weight at Solas’ feet, legs bent at an unnatural angle. A feral cry chokes her, whimpering like a wounded animal which has not yet accepted its end. “Mercy,” she moans, the plated hand which moments ago reached out with violence now stretches imploringly towards his feet, desperate for the healing touch of magic. “Please.”

It isn’t Solas’ mercy, but Varric’s, which ends her life. The bolt pierces her helmet, puncturing it like paper, killing her instantly. “Poor bastard,” he hears the dwarf say, but in the heat of the moment Solas cannot find his pity. His heart hardens as the Templar’s life oozes onto the grass, and he thinks to himself that her blood and bones will do the world more good than her deeds ever had. The bitter thought goes unspoken, Varric’s remark remains unacknowledged.

In an instant, the chaos of battle is over. As he recovers his breath, he looks out over the field to see it riddled with fresh corpses, all of their making. Cassandra stoops in the dirt, wiping her blade in the grass as Varric retrieves his ammo from the bodies of their enemies. Thora’s hammer stands alone by the Templar’s body, its face crusted with a thick layer of blood, its handler nowhere in sight. In the grass beside it lies his discarded staff, its crystal focus shining dully, unaware the danger has passed. Solas bends to claim it, magic coaxing it the rest of the way to his fingers. The exertion proves more taxing than he envisions, the back of his head throbbing with the memory of his collision with the tree. He winces, nursing the back of his head, capping his fingertips with ice to soothe the growing ache.

“You alright there, Chuckles?” Varric asks, concern overshadowed by the hint of amusement which laces his question. “You hit that tree pretty hard.”

“I will manage, thank you,” he says. “Were it not for our Herald’s intervention, however…” He looks for her again, eyes darting around the area. This time he sights her in the shadow of a tree, one arm supporting her against its trunk. “Excuse me a moment.”

Solas steps out of the reach of his would-be killer’s corpse, winding towards the battlefield’s outskirts where their intrepid Herald lingers. “You fare better with a hammer than a sword,” he remarks as he nears her. Thora’s shoulders tense at the sound of his voice so close, and he stops short, uncertainty tinges his words. “After Haven I was unsure what experience you had in battle. I see now I was too quick to judge.” She had been clumsy in the snow, swinging at demons as though she had never held a sword in her life, and maybe that was the case. What she’d lacked in skill she more than made up with strength. The demons fell, though she made quicker work of the Templars today. 

Thora doesn’t answer, and for an instant he wonders if she’d taken offense. Dwarves of old were proud warriors, it may be that not everything he remembers of them has been bled from them by the Blight. She turns her face an inch towards him, the rest cast in the shadow of the tree. “I—” One hand flies to her face, fingers pressing against her mouth in anticipation. He watches, uneasy, as she swallows thickly and fights back whatever had threatened to escape. “Sorry.”

Before he has a chance to reassure her, Cassandra’s voice rings out behind them: “We should press on if we want to reach Redcliffe Farm by nightfall.” She stands where he last saw her, sword sheathed and shield shining, bearing no mark of the battle that came before. He does not linger on her, eyes returning to Thora whose attention has shifted as his had, allowing him a glimpse of her face. An ill look haunts her, grey tinges her usual warm complexion with dark lines drawn beneath her eyes.

A sharp intake of breath pierces the air as Thora readies her answer. He reaches out, hand brushing her shoulder before he interjects. “Another moment, Seeker,” he says. “I believe it best I examine the Anchor first. There is no telling what influence a Templar’s abilities have on it.”

The Seeker looks at him, her mood impossible to discern from beneath a dark, drawn brow. A small sigh that sounds like frustration escapes her lips. “Very well. Do what you must.”

“Thank you,” he says, inclining his head towards her. As he turns to the Herald, he sees emotion shining in her eyes as she looks up at him, perhaps trying to decide what to make of his diversion. Solas is not certain what to make of it himself. The easy answer is that it is in his best interest to protect her image, even if only from their companions, but it would be a lie to insist it’s the only answer. In her discomfort he saw a glimpse of the familiar, recognition of a feeling he had once grappled with himself— or so it seemed. He did not know. The Veil mutes all emotion, from the most fervent passions to the most tender sentiments. It may be a reflection he sees in her eyes, his own hopes and fears echoed back to him.

Whatever he sees in her he pushes aside for the sake of their present problem. Cassandra could not be held off forever. Lowering himself to one knee to accommodate her height, Solas extends one hand towards hers. “Give me your hand, please.”

She peels the glove from her left hand, offering it forward to Solas as she did on the day they first met. This time it lands in his waiting reach, rather than being yanked forcibly towards a Rift. He’d studied it well while she lay motionless in her cell, and then again in bed, but conscious it is a different creature. Her fingers flex and bend, clearly unaccustomed to the careful attention afforded to them. He strokes his thumb across her palm, smoothing them back to allow him an unobstructed view of the Anchor. It runs like a fissure in the earth across her skin, an otherworldly green occasionally flashes in the center, and through it he catches a glimpse of the infinite. “Does it pain you?” he asks. This examination is a façade to buy them a moment’s respite, but there is no telling what effect the Mark will have on her in the coming weeks. Already he fears there will come a day where his knowledge of it will fail him, powerless as he is now.

“No. At least not since you last looked at it. I... don’t think the Templars could touch it if they’d tried.”

“Curious.” Although he ought not be surprised, the Anchor and the Templars share more than a few similarities, tied together by a Titan’s heart and blood. “Regardless, I would advise caution. This may have been an anomaly.”

“I’ll be careful. I’ve had it described to me by mages before, doesn’t sound like something I’d want to invite on myself.”

Her comment sparks a question, one which has plagued him since she called out to him in the midst of battle. “You’ve fought alongside mages before, have you not?”

“Yeah,” her response is strained, and punctuated by a second heavy swallow, “how’d you guess?”

“You signalled for my intervention when handling the marksman. The uninitiated would not have thought to ask.”

The observation catches her off-guard, eyes darting from his face to her hand before she remembers who she’s addressing. “The Carta’s been known to hire apostates. Some jobs just needed that magic touch, you know?” A small smile turns her lips, weary eyes shining with a hint of mischief. “I’ve, uh, been known to smuggle a mage or two out of the Circle, too. Back in Kirkwall. Don’t... don’t tell Cassandra.”

He blinks, surprise registers upon his face as no more than a mild arch of his brow. “You believe she would be displeased?” Solas asks, working a barrier into the surface of her skin. It accepts the magic more readily than Varric, the Anchor glittering like an uncut peridot, recognising the spellcaster.

Thora shrugs. “They’ve got enough to deal with from me being Carta.”

“True, but there is more than the Chantry to consider,” he says. From his perspective (and in his experience) there will be little pleasing them, presenting an obstacle to be worked around rather than through. Even Cassandra seems to realise that. “The rebel mages may look favourably upon someone who has helped them in the past.”

“Maybe.” 

A frown tugs at his lips, her dismissal rankles despite telling himself she is not at her best. “If I may ask, how did you find yourself in their employ?” He imagines the children of families blessed with the fortune to be born into money and magic, with coin enough to make the Carta think it was worth the Templar’s scrutiny. “I cannot imagine it is work you find yourself in by chance.”

“It’s not. I volunteered. I ran the same tunnels as the Mage Underground, and it— well, it seemed like the right thing to do.” She pauses. “It was the right thing to do.” 

“I see.” He doesn’t see, at least not entirely. Like the many lies he has told since walking into the Inquisition’s midst, it is woven with truth. Solas knows well the impulse to do good, or try to, whatever the cost to oneself may be, and he’d seen it in Thora before. Thanks to her, the people of the Crossroads will sleep with full bellies and warm blankets, but the world will thank her for helping them. The same cannot be said of the mages. Suddenly the promise made to him in Haven does not seem so empty. Her oath to guard his freedom from those who sought to take it no longer rings as a hollow platitude. “Whatever Seeker Pentaghast may think, I believe your conviction is admirable.”

She shifts self-consciously, the hand in his grasp straining against his gentle grip. “I’m glad you think so.” The simple effort it takes her to accept his praise seems a laborious undertaking, he wonders to himself if the sweat on her brow now shines fresh from the endeavour. Her acceptance is punctuated by a sharp inhale. “Listen. I… I wanted to thank you, you know, for this.” She looks pointedly at their joined hands. “I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. It’s…”

“A natural reaction.” Their eyes meet, but it’s her gaze which falters first. “They were our enemies, but where we saw a threat to be eliminated others would have seen friends, family.” He does not look back, but his mind returns to the felled Templar behind him. No pity nor guilt moves his heart at the thought of her passing, she laid in a pool of her own violent choices. Still, he spares a thought for the woman her family will mourn. A woman who undoubtedly bore little resemblance to the one Solas briefly knew. “Our duty to ourselves and Redcliffe’s people demanded we face them, but it is not weakness to be affected by their deaths.”

A weak smile spreads over Thora’s lips, thin and touched by lingering unease, but it shines true in her eyes. “Thanks,” she says for the second time. “For understanding, I mean.”

He acknowledges it with a mild bow of his head. “Does it bother you, knowing that I have seen how this affected you?”

“A little,” she admits. “Better you than—” Her head nods towards the others, brow arched in their direction.

Solas looks towards them, catching sight of Cassandra as she paces aimlessly around the field, throwing glances towards their destination, always mindful of their journey’s end. Varric shows no such concern, reclining upon a rock, an unfamiliar tune whistling from his lips. He turns back to Thora with a question upon his. “And what have I done to earn the distinction?”

“Nothing.” The confession is quick, as though speaking it without hesitation will spare her his offense. “Cassandra’s put such faith in me, I’m just counting the breaths until I let her down somehow, and Varric…” She pulls a face, nose wrinkling. “I’ve read one or two of his books. I’m not sure I like the thought of making into one of them.” Thora at last looks up at him again, searching for something in his face. What quality she seeks, he’s unsure, though he is reluctant to grant it. Every piece he surrenders is a piece he cannot get back. “You? You’re just… odd.”

A surprised laugh chokes him. He does not need to look behind them to feel the Seeker’s head whip in their direction, discerning eyes measuring their progress. “An honest assessment, and perhaps well-deserved,” he says, amusement wrinkling the corners of his eyes. “Should I take offense?”

She fixes him with a challenging stare and smiles, though this time the gesture spreads her lips wide, revealing two rows of white teeth. “I suppose that depends on if you think being normal is something to be proud of.”

To his surprise, he feels himself smiling back, her playful grin reflecting in his own. “I suppose it does.” He looks down at her hand, ears angling back as he realises any pretence of examination had since been forgotten. Seconds counted for more in this world, true, yet it remains remarkably easy to become lost in conversation. “Do you feel ready to move on?” Solas tries to discern the answer for himself from her expression. The long, drawn-out look has faded, forgotten as the excuse which kept them here a moment more. Recognising that settles uneasy in his stomach, raising questions better left for dreams.

“I think so.” She takes her hand back from him, flexing her fingers before she fits them into her glove. “I don’t know how much longer Cassandra will buy that excuse of yours, anyway.”

“You underestimate me.” There is a humour in his remark that surprises him, a wry twist to his words which he did not expect to find in the company he keeps. “Were I less adept at wasting the Seeker’s time, I would not be stood before you now. Still—” He rises, mindful of the wet patches of mud which now darken his knees. “We would not want to keep her waiting.”

She gives him a knowing look, the faint smile creasing the corners of her eyes fades as she turns back to the rest of their party. Varric is the first to notice their business concluded, or the first to acknowledge it, behind him he hears his voice call out, “Hand treating you any better?”

“Never better, actually,” she replies in a chipper tone, a friendly veneer which masks the unpleasantness of a moment ago, but Solas notes how she averts her gaze from the carnage they left in their wake. The shadows of war still seem to haunt her steps. She tilts her head towards Cassandra, deference clear even from behind. “Sorry for the hold up. I’m ready to go now.” Deference aside, it is at Thora’s word that their party picks up and moves, mere moments passing between her signal and the resumption of their journey. Solas alone trails behind, forgetting his feet beneath him. Only his eyes follow her, mind wandering, wondering, doubting if the Mark upon her hand is the most remarkable thing about her. She senses his absence, looking over her shoulder with a question upon her brow, saying nothing, but somehow he hears. Questions pile like snowflakes on a rooftop, building around him with no easy remedy to relieve their mounting pressure, but he picks up his feet and follows the answer into Ferelden’s hills.

Surrounded by the voices of his companions in the thick of conversation, the seconds lose their urgency, the minutes slip by without notice. As a joke in the air draws a new smile to his face, sixty seconds starts to resemble not another minute survived, but rather another minute lived.

[impishnature]

Hell Hath No Fury

Number two! Look at me! I can do this! <3 Imptober Prompts so far 

AO3 Fandom: Good Omens Rating: T+ Prompt: Kidnapped Summary: Warlock is in trouble. And Nanny will not stand for it. 

.

"How? How could they have let this happen?"

The pacing had been going on for a while now. Small heels clicked on marble flooring, over and over. Snap snap snap. If the very ground beneath her feet had burst into flames with her fury neither of them would have been surprised, each drag of her heels a spark of wrath that only added to the burning embers raging through her entire mildly shaking form. 

As it was, the floor seemed hard pressed to refuse the gouging lines she was trying to physically force into them with every sharp step.

"Crowley-"

"Don't Crowley me, Francis." Ashtoreth snarled, spinning toward her companion, a whirlwind of emotion and fluttering skirts. "You're as angry as I am."

"Quite." 

She blinked at the blatant admission, fury momentarily forgotten in a puff of cold shock. She took a second to look him over, note the ice that sat within his gaze, the stone sharp gravel in the rumble from his throat and the tight tremor in his fist. His was a cold anger, the storm that froze all beneath his stare, but he was doing his best to reign it in. 

After all, it wouldn't do for the gardener to rant and rave, it wasn't his place.

And he was so good at playing his part. 

A Nanny, however, was allowed to be beside herself. She'd probably even be permitted to be a little bit hysterical whilst the parents were not looking... but as it was she wanted to be neither of those things.

She wanted heads to roll. And she refused to stand idly by, waiting for others to make it happen.

"But we cannot move, Cr-Ashtoreth." Francis's eyes turned softer, his gaze concerned as he patted the seat beside him. "We're already under suspicion, everyone in the house is. Until the young master is found we must sit and wait-"

"We already know where he is!" Her voice was punctuated by the crack of her umbrella against the ground, enough force to make the marble groan and dent beneath her iron will. The drone of voices in the nearby room hushed and Francis couldn't help but make quick shushing hand gestures, glancing between her and the doorway. "There's already a ransom." Ashtoreth's face took on a twisted dark smile, disbelieving and repulsed in equal measures, even as she lowered her tone to placate him. "One day." She held a finger up accusingly. "Just one day we let them look after their own kid without our intervention and this happens." 

"That's not entirely fair." The words were asinine at best, and at least said with such hollow sincerity that she had no issue with ripping them apart.

"Oh? Is that why you're so stoic all of a sudden? You don't blame them, you blame us?"

Ashtoreth didn't really know what she was aiming for, only that she was in pain and she wanted him to be in just as much pain as she was.

One defeated look from Francis though was enough to make her wish she hadn't, even if she couldn't back down entirely. 

It was a look that said he was aching just as much as her.

That he blamed himself more than anyone else in the world.

And she felt it too, that awful twisting, gnawing guilt but also the vicious harsh reality of the situation that it wasn't fair.

Parents were meant to love their children, protect them no matter the costs.

But at least one of the parents they were employed by seemed hellbent on forgetting his family existed even when they were right in front of him until it was too late.

It shouldn't have been this easy, this simple- they'd never had any issues when they'd looked after him.

"You do, don't you?" She took a step back, resting slowly on her umbrella as she gave him an appraising look. "One day off. That's all we've taken in years. We both needed to report in with our respective management. They should have been able to look after him for. One. Day." 

"They don't know they're dealing with the antichrist."

His eyes said it all. We lost him. We misplaced the antichrist. 

No one else. 

Us.

But that wasn't fair.

And it did not help the matter at hand.

"This has nothing to do with that and you know it. This is bog-standard human idiocy and cruelty. No Angels or Demons needed for that." Ashtoreth's expression soured, a bitter taste at the back of her throat as she continued, disbelief and disgust colouring her voice. "Kidnapping a child to get at the father." The next words came out in a much harsher mutter, more hiss than words and more bite than bark. "A father who doesn't deserve him."

"Crowley." There was far more warning there than there ought to be as far as she was concerned.

Luckily, she never was very good at listening to warnings.

"It's true- and you know not to call me that, Angel." Ashtoreth cursed at the raised eyebrow she got in return, that look that called her a hypocrite without actually saying anything at all. "This isn't helping." She knew her voice was becoming desperate, pleading in a way that would normally fill her with shame, but there was no space inside her narrow frame to hold any more emotion than she was already dealing with. "We know where he is, what's stopping us from just-"

"We can't." Francis stood up, gripping her shoulders tightly but gently, a soft shake to try and drag her back into the reality they faced together. "You know we can't get involved. If we get involved, management on both sides will find out. How will we explain all of this? What will happen then?" His eyes tried to catch hers, moving this way and that but she refused to give him the satisfaction. He gave up with a sigh. "They'll decide we're not up to the task, that's what will happen. And then they'll get others to look after him." He tried to pull her closer, but she refused to budge. "You know that can't happen, deep down under all this anger. We can't let that happen and it will if we-"

She pulled out of his grasp, cutting him off as she pushed his hand aside. "I can't. I can't just- not again. Not this time. I've sat and watched too many things happen before and I refuse to do it again." Her eyes gleamed, locking with his in determination and even though she could feel them welling up she refused to cry in front of him, even in anger. "I don't care if this is part of some ineffable plan- some- some divine intervention or pure fucking coincidence- I will not stand by and let him get hurt. Not now. Not ever."

Francis stared at her, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape in shock. Of course he was startled by her venom, this was a job, after all; that's all it should be for either of them. 

But it was also so much more.

They'd lived through so much and seen so much and she'd be damned if she carried on letting God hold all the cards.

"Of course not." The words were soft, understanding flowing through them in a way it hadn't before. Then came a small nod of approval- acceptance, perhaps even a little bit of pride- and it was all she needed to take a few more steps back, breaking what was left of the hold that kept her at bay. "Of course you can't." 

She turned her gaze away from him, unable to stand the sad smile glimmering in his vision, the eyes that saw through her, saw what she tried to hide, knew her more than she'd ever allowed anyone to be. 

But he'd been there too. Seen the ark, the wars, the suffering- the innocents who didn't deserve their fates. 

But not this little boy. 

Not this time.

This time she could make a difference.

"If one hair is- If they have hurt that child in any way there will be nothing left but ashhh when I am done with them." Her forked tongue was making an appearance and she swallowed down the urge to change, to tear the world apart in search of her boy.

Francis nodded, eyes already darting about as he tried to come up with a plan of action. "I'll do what I can to keep the peace here. No one will even know you're gone. Just be careful- and quick. Hopefully, it won't take too many miracles for us to pull this off and if we're careful no one will be any the wiser." He frowned thoughtfully, fingers tapping nervously. "At least us being separated should help with that."

"Oh, don't worry." Ashtoreth grinned, a vicious wide snarl that showed too many teeth and stretched too far across her cheeks. "I'm not planning on using that much influence on them."

Francis raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you going to change at least?"

"No, I think I look perfect for this particular mission."

~~~

Miles away, in a small unremarkable building, surrounded by police, with each window manned by an unscrupulous kidnapper, the ringleader would come to find that a rather large oversight had been made.

If anyone were able to ask him what exactly had happened that day, he would have to say that despite their fortifications, the back door had been found mysteriously and rather irresponsibly unlocked.

The creak of the floorboards and the clack of small heels would be the only warning any of those in the building had to what would befall them in the next few moments. Before a striking red headed lady in a long black dress walked into the main room with little fanfare as if she hadn't just wandered calmly and obliviously into a hostage situation.

"Who the fuck are you? And what are you doing here?"

"Oh, where are my manners." The lady smiled, though it was the kind of smile more suited for a predator staring at prey than a seemingly unarmed lady surrounded by guns. 

"I'm here for my Godchild." 

~~~

Francis hovered fretfully, only a few hours since her departure. He had heard the news- a team of special operatives had managed to surround the building and break in, pushing forward until the kidnappers gave up their hostage. It all seemed too good to be true, and if he was honest, rather reckless to put the hostage at risk in such a manner.

But then again, he knew a manipulation of reality when he saw one, and at least it was only a small demonic miracle to get the police to believe they had been the ones to save the boy instead of what had actually happened.

He assumed that the assailants would also assume that they had been brought in by the police, though the brutality they no doubt had faced at Ashtoreth's hands might be a lot harder to explain away. Perhaps they had fought back... no doubt she would tell him exactly what had taken place when they had a chance. 

For now, however, he just waited with bated breath as a familiar head of red hair came into view, a small boy wrapped up safe and sound in her arms as she slowly walked down the garden path to the back door of the house.

He quickly did his part. He'd kept the family and police calm, kept them out of Ashtoreth's way while she worked until he'd had the signal that she was on her way back. And now he cleaned up. As far as any of those in the house knew, Warlock had been brought home a while ago, they'd had their tearful reunion with him and now he was being quietly settled by his diligent Nanny, to make sure that he wasn't too traumatised by the entire event.

Perhaps it was a bit malicious to not actually let them have their tearful reunion... but he couldn't say that the denial wasn't a little bit deserved too.

A little bit of divine punishment, if you will. 

He opened the door for her, quickly beckoning her in before closing it just as abruptly, locking out the world from their small bubble if only for a moment. "How is he? Is he alright?"

"He's sleeping." The anger seemed to have abated now, a much softer, warmer simmer to her entire appearance as she cradled him against her shoulder, her words cooing and placating. "It's been a long day but he seemed to think it was all one big adventure." She gave him a sidelong look. "So if my management does for some reason ask, that's what I'll tell them. I took him on an excursion and showed him what he was capable of."

Francis blanched. "He didn't actually see-"

"Of course not." She rolled her eyes at him. "No ones going to hurt him, let alone me." She continued to rock him, humming softly. "He's too young to see... all that." Her smile turned sharp again, grim satisfaction gleaming in her eyes.

Francis shivered. No doubt she had left her mark and the kidnappers would renounce their ways if they knew what was good for them. "G-good. Well, everything is sorted here. You needn't worry about anyone taking him off your hands for a bit." 

Ashtoreth blinked at him blankly for a moment, before glancing down at the boy in her arms. It seemed to dawn on her then that if the parents had tried to take him from her, she might have fought them tooth and claw. She sniffed, standing straighter in a haughty attempt at dignity. "I don't know what you're talking about, gardener. But, I think I should get Master Warlock up to bed. It's been such a long day, we shouldn't disturb his sleep."

Francis smiled, a knowing look that made her scowl deeper as she stalked past him. "Of course. You always know what's best, Ashtoreth."

"Of course I do. I'm his Nanny."

~~~

The next day was a whirlwind of an affair.

The media hounded the door, trying every underhanded method to be the first to get an interview. Security was tightened, meetings were held, and droves of people, relatives, friends, work partners, appeared out of the woodwork to check up on the family- or at least be seen doing so.

That was the crux of it all, Francis couldn't help but think, as the pair sat by and watched the humans do their little dances, the little rituals repeating over and over again. Anything to make sure they were seen, make sure they were heard, each one of them there for reasons that the two of them found distasteful and unremarkable as they instead kept their eyes on what was important- the small boy running around as if nothing had even happened the day before.

Or at least, mostly acting like nothing had happened.

You see, the young boy had a rather interesting story to tell to every new person he was introduced to. 

Each time his parents called him over, only to parade him in front of people to prove that he was alright, they would be treated all over again to the show. They would stand with amused, affectionate smiles that didn't quite reach their eyes as he would grin and wave his arms around, proudly remarking that his Nanny had come to get him from the bad people. 

The adults would laugh, the kind of endearing laughter that adults did when a child was being ridiculous and they had more important things to be discussing and off Warlock would run, back to his games until the next time he was called on to be their pride and joy. 

But his story never changed, no matter how many times he told it.

Nanny had come to bring him home.

She'd always promised him that nothing bad could happen to him, and she'd made good on that promise.

Francis gave Ashtoreth a sidelong glance as they sat on a picnic blanket, propped up against the garden wall as Warlock ran between them and his parents. Ashtoreth kept her eyes on Warlock, acknowledging his glance with only the tilt of her head. It was an unspoken agreement now, that Warlock was always in sight of one of them, neither of them prepared to let anyone else do their job from now on.

"I thought you said he didn't see anything?"

Ashtoreth finally pulled her eyes away from the boy, if only for a moment, to look at him over the top of her glasses, eyes sparkling with mock innocence and mischief. "I said nothing of the sort." 

"You did. You said-"

"I said I didn't let him see any of the violence. That's all." She turned away from him, laughing and shaking her head along with the other adults that looked their way as Warlock yet again retold his tale, an endearing gleam to her eyes that only Francis could see behind her glasses. "Kids say all kinds of impossible things after a traumatic experience, didn't you know?"

Francis smiled, shaking his head as he sat back against the wall. "That they do. That they do."

[theoriginalladya]

“Pull over.  Let me drive for awhile.”? Perhaps featuring Biotic Pinball Wizard if it strikes your fancy?

from this prompt list

On AO3 here

Here you go!  Michael and Kaidan ... and a surprise peek-in by Kandra Alenko! lol  She’s an ornery thing!  ;)   (under cut for length)

~~~

The benefit of driving east like a bat out of hell is that when darkness comes, it comes faster, or seems to at any rate.  The downside is that the reapers ability to find them isn’t affected by the lack of light.

Shepard stares out the front-facing virtual window of the Mako absently watching the desert scrub flash by; blacker than black spots in the night that remind him of black holes in space.  Southern California is well behind them now, and they haven’t seen any reapers in over two hours, but they aren’t in the clear.  Not yet.  There are times during the past few hours he’s wondered if they ever will be again.  

After the initial flurry in their efforts to break free and flee after collecting the latest additions to their group, everyone for the most part has settled down for the duration.  Most are asleep or resting in some capacity; it’s a tight fight in the vehicle, but they make it work.  Even James, who steadfastly mans the cannon and shoot at anything that came in range now sags in his safety harness, head resting against his chest, barely a hint of the soft snore he usually has when he sleeps.  

But that isn’t the case up front.  With his eyes still trained ahead of them, Shepard asks, “How are we doing?”  He isn’t driving, so he directs the question to the only other person on full alert.  

Kaidan sighs and rubs at his eyes, but he keeps one hand on the steering wheel at all times.  “Tell me we’ve got some water back there?  Somewhere?”  Dehydration isn’t something they needed right now; Shepard grimaces, remembering instances when it would cause the debilitating migraines Kaidan could never seem to avoid.

Shepard moves immediately; stretching around his seat, he grabs a bottle from the crate of provisions stashed there.  Kandra has somehow managed to wedge her foot against it to keep it in place; on purpose or not, he doesn’t know, but it earns her another tick on his respect-meter.  She’s been a trooper ever since they met up in Vancouver; he can only hope she sees him in a similar light now.  

Turning back to Kaidan, he loosens the top and hands the bottle over. When his fellow biotic accepts it, Shepard’s hand drops to help balance the wheel while he drinks.  There is little necessity for the action; Kaidan still keeps one hand on the wheel, but if nothing else it eases Shepard’s mind.  It’s only a matter of seconds before the bottle is drained, and Kaidan hands it back, both hands securely steering again.  “Thanks.”

“Why don’t you pull over,” Shepard suggests as he takes the empty.  Kaidan is exhausted, that much is clear and obvious.  He needs a break.  “Let me drive for a while.  God knows you can use the rest.  You’ve been at the wheel since Escondido.”

“That’s okay, I’m good for now.”

“Kaidan …”  There is a hint of warning in the tone, but it’s buffered by genuine concern.    

A soft, bemused chuckle escapes Kaidan’s lips.  “Do you honestly think I’m going to willingly hand over control of a Mako to you ever again?  After Therum?  After Eletania?”  He darts a quick, direct look over at Shepard.  “After Ilos?”

Shepard inhales sharply, chest puffing up as he prepares a counter argument, but a soft murmur from the back deflates him almost instantly. “I’ve heard those stories, you know.” The smirk is obvious in her voice. “He’s right.”

As Kandra stretches and cautiously moves forward to crouch in the open space between the two of them, she adds, “I’ll relieve you, K, if you want a break?”

The suggestion triggers an amused grin, but he shakes his head.  “I’ve got it. Thanks.”

Shepard, however, stares at her, arms folded across his broad chest.  His estimation of her recedes a bit at her current intervention.  “What makes you think he’d let you drive over someone who has actual military training on the vehicle?”

Kandra grins, leans over and whispers in conspiratorially, “Because I know how to drive?”  

She’s quick, too, Shepard notices.  She doesn’t wait to see what, if any, fallout might come as a reaction to her comment and moves back to her seat.  Within seconds, she’s curled back up and dozing.  Another couple of miles fly by and she’s out like a light again.

Now that he doesn’t have her distracting him or her twin, Shepard focuses his full attention on Kaidan.  “You really should get some rest.”

Kaidan shrugs.  “I appreciate the offer, Shepard, but honestly, I’ve got this.  If you really want to help, grab me another bottle of water and a protein bar.”

He does so without question and hands them over one at a time until Kaidan has finished.  When he collects the trash, he asks, “Where are we?”

They’ve been following the old US interstate and highway system to avoid some of the worst the southwestern landscape has to offer. While the Mako can handle any terrain, it substantially slows their progress when they head off road, and that was more trouble than help with the reapers on their heels.  This far out, however, Shepard judges the reapers a minimal to medium size threat; there is no immediate danger.

“Passing Kingman, Arizona.”  Kaidan points in a vaguely northeasterly direction.  “Grand Canyon’s up that way.  I’d like to stick to the old road systems as much as possible and avoid it. We’ll make better time that way, at least until we hit the mountains.  That’s a whole other issue.”

Shepard settles back in his seat.  “And you think I can’t keep to the roads?”

Kaidan doesn’t answer, simply keeps his eyes on the road ahead of them, which leaves Shepard alone with his thoughts.  They have a long way to go before their relationship will be back to one hundred percent, before that trust is fully there again. They might be stuck fighting a war together, leading the crusade for resistance on Earth, but that doesn’t guarantee an easy time of it.  Hell, at this point, it’ll be a miracle if we get beyond twenty-five percent.  

The desert scrub flashes by, darker spots against the darkness of night.  You’re stubborn, he thinks, irritation simmering inside him.  Far too stubborn for your own good.  We’re in this together and I’m just trying to help. Huffing softly, he sinks into his seat and folds his arms across his chest and stares out the front windows once more, sulking.  

Several miles pass in silence – a silence that is surprisingly companionable given the circumstances – until the truth finally occurs to him, at which point he sits up straighter, his arms lowering to his sides. He dares a quick look over at Kaidan out of the corner of his eye, but the major is focused on the road ahead.  We’re both too stubborn for our own good, aren’t we? A smile curves at his lips.  Yeah, that’s it … but you know what?  That’s why we’ll win this thing in the end.  We’ll win and the reapers won’t know what hit them …

[iceboundeve]

It’s been nine month since since my boyfriend took his life, and it still has me as fucked up as when I was first processing the news. The debilitating grief and loss I have been experiencing has evolved with a continuous ebb and flow, but the gnawing void in my life has not become anymore manageable. It simply exists alongside everything that I do. It’s still so hard to understand that he is gone, and he’s not coming back, and that the circumstances with which he left this earth under leave me suffocated by these profound unknowns.

I wish I could say this is normal grief. I wish I could say the only challenge I am facing is mourning the loss of my soulmate. The reality is, there is a substantial amount of additional pain that I am forced to navigate simultaneously. And if I could have just one thing, it would be to resolve the feelings of invalidity I have had to face at the hands of people not willing to understand my side of the story.

For the last year of his life, my boyfriend grappled with the throes of alcohol addiction. In the time that I knew him before our relationship when we were friends, and even within the commencement of our relationship, this struggle of his was something unbeknownst to me. It required an intervention from one of my boyfriend’s very close coworkers, a father figure one could even say, for me to have any inkling that addiction existed in his life. Upon finding out, my gut instinct immediately made me want to make sure that he got help. No matter how much he tried to pass off this stumble as something insignificant, some residual depression compiled upon stress from a high intensity job, I couldn’t help but feel like help was what he needed, and recognizing a root cause would be the only way to abolish this problem completely.

Fast forward to when a lot of changes started taking place in our lives. I moved across the country, from the east coast to Alaska, so that we could live together. This was a turning point in our relationship, and in the sense of all the build up that had taken place in the year leading to that point, our dreams were about to unfold. Head over heels does not even begin to explain how in love we were with each other. We were not shy about planning our future together, talking about living together, building relationships with each other’s friends and family, becoming engaged, getting married, having children; there was no detail too vast or unreachable.

We had a fleeting taste of what that life we planned was going to be like, and then that lingering addiction began to creep forward from the shadows again. I admit that at first I was extremely naive to to the mechanisms, behavior, and psychology of addiction. Having never been subjected to it before, how was I supposed to be confident that I knew anything? Quickly, I had no other choice but to learn. In just a matter of days, my boyfriend quit his job without warning and showed up at our doorstep severely inebriated and in a very bewildered state, as if even he didn’t know what it was he had done. From there is were the rest started.

Being in a relationship with someone who struggles with addiction is like being committed to one person while someone else waits in the wings and does everything in their power to make you two breakup. The first, is person you fell in love with. He comes around and makes you smile, holds you close and reminds you that everything will be okay. But his presence tends to be infrequent. The antagonist, on the other hand, tends to be the one who comes around more often. He’s there in the house, but makes you feel alone because he’s always sleeping, or gazing off into space. He never asks you about your day, but instead likes to fixate on asking if anyone else has been talking to you, or if you’ve been talking to other people. He loves to project his insecurities and faults onto any aspect of your life he can catch within his grasp.

Being in a relationship with someone who struggles with addiction is like being afraid to feel happiness. As the companion of someone with an addiction, you are not in control, but rather under control. So long as this battle exists, your life revolves around putting out fires and trying to get ahead of all the triggers that causes your loved one to succumb to their vice. You convince yourself that it’ll get better if you can only outsmart the grips of the addictions. If I could bar him from having any access to alcohol, we could stop this downfall that seemed to be escalating profusely. You convince yourself once you get the upper hand, you are going to be consciously meticulous and gentle about assessing the damage, and will handle your fragile significant other with care in hopes of coaxing them to want to get help. The reality is, you have no control. You are at the mercy of being forced to relinquish your autonomy to avoid having another relapse on your hands.

Weeks turned into months, and there was no end in sight. What came next was tensions building between my boyfriend and his family. In the beginning, I tried doing what I could to make sure they knew what was going on, after all, I was the one coming home to finding my boyfriend at the end of a binge, or passed out, or severely ill, or even beat up from some sort of unknown brawl. It wasn’t long before I felt like an inconvenience if I brought up something gone wrong from my boyfriend’s addiction. It wasn’t long either before my boyfriend continually got angry at me for getting his family involved and letting them in on something he seemed to want to remain a secret. What was I supposed to do? Was it the right thing to stand by my boyfriend’s side and be the one to support him on my own? Or was it the right thing to disregard his wishes, potentially inflaming the situation more in order to keep his family updated to everything going on, and have them intervene?

Soon I had no choice, and my boyfriend drew a clear line between myself and his family. And the side he chose to stand on was mine. Instead of it being myself and his family against his addiction, it was now his family being pitted against me. Against my wishes, I was held captive in a very toxic situation. The attention veered from trying to help my boyfriend through his addiction, to being the target of a family that lost their son in what appeared to be the workings of a manipulative girlfriend. I wanted nothing more than to help him, so refrained from filling in his family on every gritty detail of how he was doing, but as a result, the less I made sure I involved them, the more it looked like I was trying to coax their son away.

And so it stayed for months on end as I tried to just hold on and keep my boyfriend safe. We moved from place to place, we fell apart and continued to glue shattered pieces back together, and still his addiction persisted. It got dangerous on many occasions, and I was forced to be the negotiator of multiple suicide attempts. My life was not mine. I existed purely to just be the facet that kept my boyfriend alive, no matter the detriment to my life. This was not a situation I could just walk away from if I wanted to.

To be frank, his family hated me. They hated my place in his life, they hated that I had something he found so irresistible that he would venture to turn his back on them and cut contact in order to remain with a woman he wanted, and they hated that he turned to me for help. Everything that happened looked like it was by my control. It looked like I wanted to push them away, it looked like I wanted to make sure he remained far away from them. No matter which way I cut it, I was fucked. I found myself involved in a situation that would never be improved. And it seemed like I was the only person who could realize this was all because of an addiction. That the person at the center of this all was not in their right mind, was not a pawn to be played, was not a prize to be won, but a fucking human being who was suffering an unimaginable amount.

When my safety was put on the line, and when my boyfriend began to make threats against my life, I had no other choice but to file a restraining order. I was exhausted, I was terrified, and I was falling apart. For 20 days, I had silence. But even silence and safety felt debilitating. How was I supposed to function when all I had known up until that point was how to care for someone else instead of myself? When our court date came, it was nerve wracking. I shook like a leaf as I talked to the judge and described the situation. When given the choice to extend the order for an entire year, I declined.

Finally, there was a break in the storm. In the days after the order was filed, it seemed as if my boyfriend finally started making amends with his family under his own jurisdiction. I had to thank God that this took place. It also seemed like he made massive strides in keeping himself sober. For the next four days, we were at peace. We approached each other gently, we spoke softly, we negotiated these foreign waters of not having alcohol be at the forefront of everything. For once, things were good. For once we could be happy and not be scared that it wouldn’t last.

On September 5, 2016, my boyfriend killed himself. Just hours before, he had been spending time with me, and it was like a day out of one of our dreams we thought we had lost.

I didn’t find out he had passed until two days later. No one called me. No one texted me. All his friends and coworkers knew about what happened at least a day before I had any clue. I found out via a post someone had commented on that happened to come up on my newsfeed.

No one fucking told me.

From that point forward, his family was making every advance to make it so I would be erased from his life. To them it seemed like I made their son do this, I took away his happiness, it was my presence and my influence that made him take his own life.

They forbid me from attending his funeral. I didn’t get to say my last goodbye. I didn’t get to shed tears before his casket when he was buried. I wasn’t permitted the release of being able to witness him being laid to rest. I was robbed of something I so truly needed to have just a small shred of peace within this devastating experience. To them, my pain, my grief, my heartbreak, and my sadness were completely invalid. There was no amount of remorse in the wake of his death that would inspire them to lay down their defenses.

I struggle every single day with all of this. Some days more than others. Today is just one of those days where I can’t hold back the tears that well up within me. I’ve come a long way with getting my life back towards some towards of deliberate direction, but there is still a long way to go. And at times that thought is overwhelming. There’s a lot I wish had not happened. There is a lot I wish I could change. But if it came down to just being granted one thing, I wish I didn’t have to suffer so much at the hands of those who just really have no comprehension of what I have been through.

[petsupplyandmore]

The right way to Deal with Sore Paws

You’re going for climbing together with your buddy and are most likely sporting comfy footwear to guard your ft, however then, what about your canine’s ft security? Listed here are concepts to maintain your canine paw in good situation regardless of the tough surfaces.

Canine paws are usually thick and hard. Nevertheless, that is no assure that they will’t get harm, and similar to different animal paws, canine homeowners should be cautious of this. By nature, canine’s ft have been crafted to endure harsh surfaces, however regardless of this, pet paws are nonetheless extremely liable to damage by burns, blisters, sores. Sore pads are normally a standard manifestation particularly after an extended interval of climbing, shifting via icy and snowy surfaces and strolling on roughly cemented surfaces like pavements.

Fortunately sufficient, our group has gone out of their method to give you a number of the helpful ideas in stopping and managing these canine conditions. A fast tip will be fastidiously inspecting the canine pads for any abnormalities. After lengthy hours of traversing to snowy and harsh surfaces, you can look out for any particles, swollen toe or any international physique that you simply would possibly discover caught in between your buddy’s paws.

Listed here are a number of the signs of paw damage:

Noticing the canine chewing paws Licking of the paws The pet proprietor complains “My canine is limping” Blisters on canine pads Discoloration of canine pads Canine pads are bleeding Limping The canine walks whereas lifting up the injured paw

When you discover that he’s presenting with the above signs, then it’s about time you establish what the issue is perhaps. Of word, warning is essential; injured canines will be fairly aggressive particularly when dealing with them. It’s due to this fact required that homeowners must be looking out for such canine behaviors. You’ll be able to preserve your self from canine bites by placing a muzzle on the canine’s mouth whereas dealing with the animal.

Methods to Soothe a Sore Canine Paw

Pet homeowners must brace themselves as a result of, in the end, they’re going to should cope with some issues associated to their canine paw. Listed here are nice concepts that will help you get via within the occasion such occurs:

1. Foot Baths for Itchy Paws

In case your canine is the sort that continually chews and licks their paws regardless of veterinary interventions, then foot baths are the answer. A fast hack is to maintain a water bucket simply by the door to make use of after your canine walks.

Listed here are a number of the efficient foot tub recipes on your sore canine paws:

Baking Soda

Place some baking soda in a bucket of heat water after which place your canine’s ft within the answer. That is normally efficient instantly you’ve come again out of your canine stroll. Simply place the bucket outdoors and guarantee he stays there for a couple of minutes. This baking soda answer features to take away all of the irritating allergens that normally trigger the itching and even higher go forward to refresh the infected pores and skin.

Oatmeal Bathtub

This may be efficient for the dry and cracked paws which are liable to soreness after an extended day’s stroll. Dissolve grounded oats in heat water then in a bucket then dunk the canine’s ft inside for a couple of minutes. This can moisturize the pads and forestall the pores and skin from being infected.

Iodine Answer

That is primarily helpful for canines that chew and lick their paws. It is a combination of heat water and iodine that usually eliminate allergens that irritate the pores and skin and disinfects any sore cuts that the canine may need acquired alongside the stroll. The iodine ought to simply be sufficient to have the ability to forestall any ongoing yeast an infection in your pet paws.

Epsom Salts

That is normally combined with water and works by elevating the canine’s PH degree. Elevating the PH will eliminate a number of the allergens and irritants on canine pads which are chargeable for the sore canine paws. Bathtub your canine for a couple of minutes with Epsom salt and assist enhance the integrity of your canine’s pores and skin and improve the regeneration of the paw cells. All this simply to make sure your canine will get a wholesome coat and pores and skin. In some situations, povidone iodine will be substituted for Epsom salts because it additionally has a great vary of antibacterial properties.

2. Management Licking and Chewing

That is normally forbidden in a bid to drive sooner therapeutic of wounds on canine chewing paws. For some occasion, licking of wounds to facilitate therapeutic will be efficient. Nonetheless, this may at occasions have an effect on the therapeutic course of by slowing down the scarring. When accomplished in extra, it can lead to new infections and irritation of the pet paws. This may be prevented via using some sprays and lotions which have thus far confirmed efficient in combating the scenario. These are normally utilized across the licking, and chewing space and their bitterness will preserve the canine from the behavior.

As well as, you may apply bandages to the wound to stop the canine from accessing the positioning. This could enable for higher cicatrization and avoids contact between the paws and the bottom. Strain bandaging may help in assuaging the ache. In case your canine is ill-mannered and decides to begin chewing the bandages, use a canine collar to curb this.

three. Paw Lotions

Along with utilizing the most effective joint complement for canines, paw lotions generally is a long-term answer for soothing sore canine paws and even offers antiseptic choices. You’ll be able to apply an ointment or topical cream. Earlier than use, you’re required to make sure that the applying website is clean- cleaning will be accomplished by canine swipes or saline water. Apply the substances as soon as the positioning is completely dry. In some conditions, you can find some canines are hypersensitive to the lotions or ointments. To keep away from this, it’s endorsed that you simply begin by making use of small bits then improve the quantity as you go by, normally an hour or so. Warning is that this shouldn’t be used over lengthy durations, as they are often averse to the pores and skin.

four. Keep away from Extreme Canine Actions

Canine, similar to most animals, will not be totally acutely aware of their motion actions. That is the place the proprietor ought to play a proactive position in controlling and limiting a number of the pointless canine actions that contribute tremendously to sore paws. For the fortunate pet homeowners who’ve crane skilled companions, simply preserve them there and guarantee they get satisfactory hydration.

An alternative choice is to boost the kennel. This may be by bettering mattress comforts, further toys, yummy feeds and naturally your presence. The aim is to maintain the canine indoors and scale back out of doors actions. At any time when the canine goes out, the therapeutic course of is affected because the sore paws are additional rubbed in opposition to the tough surfaces.

5. Hair Trimming

Extreme hair, as a lot because it normally makes the canine look lovely, has its disadvantages. It could actually retain and harbor a number of the allergens and micro organism that normally contribute to sore paws. To forestall this, it’s advisable that you simply often give your canine a mild trim ought to there be a necessity.

6. Treating Reduce Canine Pads

In a super setting, a lower canine ought to simply be left to relaxation and heal. However let’s face it, this may by no means occur. We imply, canines can’t stop from operating up and down regardless of how arduous you attempt to management them, go away alone the wound repeatedly reopening. Even the slight disturbance on the ft may cause the bandaged paws to open and turn out to be sorer. A really perfect method to curb that is to first make a great judgment on the scenario. For the upper inhabitants, stitching cuts don’t actually maintain effectively on the pads. Nevertheless, this strategy may help:

  Do an intensive examination of your canine’s paw. Look out for ripped nails and cuts, pad tears and small bleeds. At occasions the canine can have one swollen foot, due to this fact examine each ft. Use heat water to scrub the wound to get a greater look if there’s any left international our bodies and particles and take away if any. Tweezers will be of assist in such situations. Use antiseptics, usually Betadine answer to cleanse the realm. As soon as the affected website is dry, apply some cream or ointments. This you could find in your nearest pharmacy. Apply cushion to the pad through the use of delicate gauze and stress bandaging to assist in relieving ache. Guarantee it’s not too tight. Then apply some anti-licking lotions to stop the canine from chewing bandages. A great first assist equipment usually incorporates virtually all this.

The bandages are usually stored on for at the least three days after which lower off. The difficult half is available in while you need to preserve the bandage from reopening. A canine boot might come in useful. This may be worn every time the canine goes out on a stroll and as soon as they’re again, take away the boot to revive satisfactory aeration across the wound.

7. Shield the Foot Pads

Everytime you’re going out for climbing, traversing snowy terrains or lengthy walks, bear in mind to guard the canine’s foot pads through the use of foot wax. Others use canine boots. These can be found in your nearest veterinary store.

Conclusion

It will be important for pet homeowners to be effectively conscious of when to go to the Vet. At all times contact your Vet everytime you discover some abnormalities within the canine’s behavioral and motion patterns. Please share with us a number of the recommendations on learn how to heal a blister that has labored for you. We’d love to listen to from you!

Writer Bio: John is among the main imaginative and prescient holders of offering individuals throughout all walks of life with each efficient and related guides that expound extra about pet merchandise. He’s additionally a webmaster of allpetsexpert.com. On this method, pet homeowners expertise a neater time selecting to buy their merchandise. He has modified myriads of individuals`s in addition to pets` lives via the arduous work invested on this weblog.

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[troytlepower]

Smacking butterflies around: Time travel and choices in Sci-Fi

This blog post will contain spoilers for Doctor Who, Star Trek, and The Animorphs. Specifically, the Doctor Who episode “Turn Left”, the Star Trek episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise”, and Megamorphs 4, “Back to the Before”.

I grew up digging sci-fi stories from a very young age. I have weirdly specific memories of watching Star Trek with my parents in our living room and watching Star Wars with my brother and sister on a CRT TV we jerry-rigged to be hooked up in the back of our Suburban on a family road trip. As I grew older, I consumed more and more, specifically getting into Doctor Who and Star Trek (again) when I was in college. It doesn’t even need to be good sci-fi for me to dive right in, I even like the trope-filled stuff. In fact, sometimes tropey sci-fi is the best, and one of my favorite tropes is stories that look at the idea of a butterfly effect. Show me a story where changing one decision in the past ripples through time, and I am 100% there. This past week, I reexperienced two stories that follow that idea, which reminded me of a third, and found some interesting similarities in all three.

Image from Seerowpedia

The first one I started this past week was the fourth Megamorphs book in the Animorphs series. For those who aren’t familiar, the Animorphs books tell the serialized story of a group of teens who get swept up in a guerrilla war to stop the covert enslavement of the human race by a race of mind-controlling slugs called Yeerks when they cut through a construction site on the way home from the mall and are given the power to transform in to animals by a dying warrior. Each book in the series is told from the perspective of one of the teens, except for the Megamorphs books, which can change narrators on a chapter by chapter basis. Megamorphs 4, “Back to Before”, starts off from the perspective of the leader of the group, who is tempted by an evil, ultra-powerful alien named Crayak to abandon his fight by allowing time to be rewritten so that the team never walked through that construction site. The book then jumps back to the start of the series and goes through a series of catastrophic events that never happened in the prime timline, thanks to the intervention of the Animorphs. The most empathetic member of the team, Cassie, seems to be aware that things aren’t right from the very beginning, and eventually pulls most of the group back together. Ultimately, the Yeerks start an all-out war against humanity, and 4 out of the 6 Animorphs end up killed (two while they are the active narrators!) before Crayak calls an end to the altered timeline, as he has come to the realization that Cassie is sub-temporaly fixed, or some such nonsense, and therefore this new timeline would never work. Everything gets reset back to where the book started, and only Cassie is left with a vague memory of what happened.

Image from BBC.co.uk

Over in Doctor Who, near the end of David Tennant’s run, the Doctor, a Time Lord who travels through time and space righting wrongs and battling evil, and Donna, his human companion, stop off at a market on an alien planet in the episode “Turn Left”, where a fortune teller pulls Donna away, and affixes her with a weird, time-energy consuming bug who takes her back to a single decision (specifically a turn at an intersection) which determined whether or not she’d meet the Doctor. Based on turning differently, the Doctor and Donna never meet, and the Doctor dies during what should have been their first adventure. Donna actually sees the Doctor’s body being carted away, and so does Rose, a former companion who does all sorts of weird timey-wimey-alternate-reality stuff. The episode then goes through a series of time jumps, showing us just how wrecked Earth becomes without the Doctor’s oversight. A hospital full of people (including Martha Jones, another companion) is killed by aliens, the Thames is drained in an explosion, and, eventually, London is destroyed by a crashed, space-fairing replica of the Titanic. This leaves England decimated, and the population (including Donna and her family) live as refugees in their own country, until the military starts rounding up any foreigners and sending them to “labor camps”. Throughout all these atrocities, Donna keeps coming across Rose (who refuses to introduce herself), until eventually Rose convinces Donna to come with her, introduces her to time travel, and sends her back in time to prevent her changed decision, warning her that she’ll have to die to do so. Donna ends up throwing herself in traffic to cause a back-up, convincing her prior self to turn towards the right timeline with the Doctor. When Donna comes back to the market in the present (and in the correct timeline), she only has a faint memory of her experience.

Image from CBS.com

Thinking about those two stories reminded me of one of my favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, “Yesterday’s Enterprise”. In this episode, the exploratory and diplomatic priorities of the Enterprise are suddenly replaced with a military mindset, including new uniforms, hip-mounted phasers on every crew member (including the return of definitely-already-dead security officer Tasha Yar), and a ruthless attitude. The ship, NCC-1701-D, comes across another Enterprise, NCC-1701-C, coming through a portal in time. With their war with the alien Klingon Empire going poorly, the modern Enterprise convinces the relic from the past to stay and help the fight, especially because when they were displaced from time they were just about to be destroyed by another group, the Romulans. Everyone is on board with this plan except for the ship’s bartender, Guinan, who knows without a doubt that something is wrong. Ultimately, the crew decides that if the Enterprise-C had been destroyed by the Romulans, it could have altered the United Federation of Planets relationship with the Klingons, and the C prepares to go back in time to sacrifice itself in pursuit of peace. Guinan specifically knows that Yar should be dead, so the security officer decides to go back with the C as their tactical officer, to really go out with a bang. Of course, as soon as the C goes back, everything resets to normal, and no one remembers what happened… except for that Guinan asks Data to tell her about Tasha Yar.

I love all of these stories because the idea of such drastic change from such small moments makes me reflect on the decisions I make in my own life. Specifically, it makes me realize that it’s futile to dwell on mistakes because you never know how doing something differently would have caused ripples down the line. There are two commonalities in these three stories I noticed that are really intriguing to me. First, every single story has a character who is aware that things aren’t the way they are supposed to be in the altered timeline, and, second, every single one ends with only one character remembering the alteration. I wonder if there are examples of these stories that don’t fit those trends, either by having all character fully absorbed in the alternate timeline or by having everyone impacted remember the changes after the fact.

If you can think of any stories that break this formula – or even have a favorite in the formula that I missed – let me know in the comments below, but please be sure to include spoiler tags!

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[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs,, “The Promise.”

A continuation in the Burg war arc. I especially like where the last part is leading me, super excited to write the next one. 

She could hear the sound of jets overhead, a distant roaring that turned into a scream and then back to a roar as the sleek alien crafts cut overhead. She had landed by shuttle with a group of marines not a few minutes ago, and had already taken over command. As chief weapons officer aboard ship she saw it as her duty to prepare them for battle. 

Off the books she was also an unofficial officer, but in charge of the Delta units (Drev) and the marines. Out of everyone on the ship she may have been second in line , behind her brother, regarding combat experience, but she did know more about human/other relations and their equipment. 

Even so, she brought Cannon with her to supervise and give his advice as they went along. His mechanical leg brace clicked and hissed as they hurried through their makeshift FOB. They were about half a mile outside the city, with Rundi, Tesraki, and Humans landing continuously to augment their troops. The fighting in orbit had drawn to a close with the Gromm retreating to the edge of the system.

Their job wasn’t to cripple the GA fleet though. Their job had been to simply breach the nexus and get one or two ships down onto the home planet where they would be in range of the Gromm capital City. They had done what they had come to do and so withdrew, it wouldn't matter if they managed to cripple the fleet, if they could just appear wherever they wanted without intervention by any other species.

On the ground, the Gromm forces had been mobilized, but looking over the state of their troops, sunny had to admit that she was not particularly impressed. Their understanding of war was rudimentary at best, and their physical constitutions were hardly conducive to war. The Gromm were a sort of gelatinous slime-covered species that required a lot of water to maintain their homeostasis, so their ability for drawn-out conflicts was sketchy.

The roaring of another jet thundered overhead, and Sunny lifted her head towards the sky. The F-90 darkfire roared past them low and on the right. The pilot was taking it risky and cutting very low along the ground, less than  a hundred feet, but as they did gunfire and missiles streaked away and forward completely annihilating an entire  row of advancing burg forces, just let loose from the amber dome that now covered  their original ship.

The jet banked low and to the left, cutting around the side, chased by drones on at least two sides as it tried to find a weakness in the outer shell of the dome. A single missile was fired, and Sunny watched in great interest as the projectile shot forward and then rammed into the shield.

A bright, amber circle erupted from the point of impact causing waves of power to pulse out in ripples.

The missile itself exploded on impact sending shrapnel out and away from the dome giving the pilot just moments for a tight roll.

The maneuver was so fast, that the following burg drones either didn’t have the time or the skill to respond, and both fell to the ground in wave of crashing heat.

Sunny smiled to herself, as much as a Drev could smile.

Despite being a human she was pretty sure that Adam had been born to fly. Perhaps whatever deity or spirit had made him hadn’t given him wings knowing specifically what kind of power he would possess if that was the case.

The jet pulled in a slow parabola around the opposite side of the dome and then came shooting back towards them.

Anti Air artillery took out any of the burg ships that dare venture to far into the friendly zone, and so the commander made it away scott free from harm.

How did she know it was Adam?

She could just feel it.

Also 110% because he was totally the best pilot up there, and the maneuvers he had pulled made that pretty clear. The jet circled once, then twice before slowing, landing deftly on a major piece of infrastructure, now abandoned by all nonessential gromm travelers. Sunny and Cannon jogged across their little base and approached the slowly rolling jet.

A few of the marines had taken it upon themselves to clear a space for incoming aircraft, and though they weren’t exactly trained in such things, they were smart enough to get the ball rolling bringing the commander to a stop just off the roadway. 

Now that the burg had pulled back and were keeping a tight defense around their dome, the other jets had pulled away as well, and a few came in to land. 

The canopy of the et opened just as sunny and Cannon were approaching, and she watched as the commander slipped from the front seat easily sliding down the ladder that had been provided. His companion was somewhat less steady on his feet wobbling down the ladder and then awkwardly tipping onto one knee as he hit the ground 

The commander turned to face them, still wearing his helmet but allowing the oxygen mask to hang to one side as he absently adjusted the hooks and harness  on the rest of his flight suit.

“Casualty report?”

All business, just like their military leaders back home. 

The facial expression he wore, at first, seemed distinctly not-Adam jaw set lips pulled into a hard line head held high eyes hard, but the closer she looked into the single nonmechanical green eye the more she sensed her friend in there.

“Counting all the casualties from the Esperanca, pilots, and ground forces around 211 fatalities and another 100 injuries at least half of those being serious.

Sunny watched carefully, saw as the corner of the man’s mouth twitched, watched the fiery spark in his remaining eye flicker and dim a bit. Though he didn’t show it, not in any meaningful way, Sunny knew him well enough to know the agony those words must have caused him, an internal pain that would be building up in him for a long while silently festering on his insides.

Adam was an amazing soldier.

But he wasn’t meant for war.

He had too much of a heart for it.

“First thing’s first, I want a triage tent set up for our wounded. Get Krill to wherever the most medical action is and make sure he stays there to help. The second place gets doctor Katie, and so on and so forth using all the available medical staff we have on hand. Someone get a message to Conn, and have him come down here. If we can get him close enough to one of these, we may be able to learn about troop movements. Sunny, I want you to make a call to the GA and get in contact with the Drev representative, the burg command ship is pretty large and recruit McCaster, quick thinker as he is, managed to do a scan of the ship as we passed. Looks like they tried to cram an entire army into that thing. I thought I got a good hit on them earlier, but that is less than a fraction of what is inside, and that isn't including artillery, ground vehicles, and drones. I’m hoping the Drev will be willing to help us win a war.”

“If there is one thing you can count on my species to do, it is to fight in a war.” Sunny said 

He nodded his head sharply, “In the meantime, I want to take the lull and set up the camp in the most efficient way possible, I want Artillery and ground forces spread out to greatest feasibility without compromising the line. I want to make sure they can’t take us out with one lucky shot. I want snipers on the ridges over there and there, and I want at least two jetts, drones or UFOs patrolling the sky at all times. See if we can't call into the GA and get ourselves some kind of shield, or the Gromm city for that matter. Just as many shields as possible.” He pulled off the helmet tucking it under one arm as he began to walk, “If anyone knows absolutely anything about the Gromm shield, I want to know about it. How do they go in, how do they go out, how long can it last, and how much firepower do I have to hit it with before it disrupts, or if there IS any firepower than can handle it.”

“We already have our people on it, sir.”

This was another voice sunny didn’t recognize, and the group of them turned around to see another human jogging up fro the interior of the camp.

“Sorry sir, I couldn’t help but overhearing. I was supposed to bring the news to you anyway. We have GA members that say they are familiar with the technology. It’s an energy shield that is designed to incorporate the kinetic energy of a projectile into its own power output. The more we hit it, the stronger it is going to get until there is no way to breach it.

“Than what the hell are we supposed to do.” 

“That’s just it sir, the design is great in theory, but the way it is made, it wouldn’t allow anyone in or out, and that tends to include air particles as well. If you stayed there long enough you would suffocate, so they need holes large enough for ventilation and for their people and weapons to go in and out. Inside the shield  they have collapsible portals that can be opened or closed fro both the inside or the outside.”

“So, theoretically if we were to get close enough, we could just walk right in.”

“Precisely sir, though that would reduce us to close quarters combat on their turf without the assistance of air support also leaving you trapped in an area with alien ship that contains a few thousand or more burg soldiers just raving for blood.”

The commander sighed, “Just excellent.” 

The man nodded and stepped away,

However, the commander held up a hand to stop him, “Tell your scientists to take a look into whatever other technology they might have. I want to know everything we can before we begin a ground assault. Preferably I want them to come to us, and I want  to thin out their lines before they show up.”

“Yes, sir.” The man hurried off leaving Sunny and the Commander to walk together through their little base and towards the operations tent where, seemingly all the officers had agreed to set up camp.

They allotted as the commander entered placing his flight helmet on the makeshift table and turning to his officers.

“Tell me everything we know, and lay it out for me as we know it. Don’t leave anything out.”

The man started with the casualty report and losses. Sunny glanced at Adam, who, again made sure to show no signs of how the news affected him.

“Based on the calculations sent from your scan sir, we reasonably estimate a body count somewhere in five thousand just on that ship alone. Judging from early estimates of casualties based on volume and square space. Maybe 200 of those 5,000 dead. As far as their artillery goes they seem to have one artillery unit per every 100 individuals giving us 50 units five of them having been destroyed out of the ten that were originally deployed. We do not think that this ship is meant to make it out of this alive. Clearly, we are under the impression their job is to get in and get the information by whatever means necessary.” He pointed out towards the looming burg ship, “Everyone on that ship is likely to have been put on a suicide mission. They will have no fear and no qualms about what they are doing. Their best bet is to do one mass attack and push forward through our lines. If they do that, there is no way that we can stop them other than with mass casualties.”

There was silence around the tent.

“What you’re saying is, we have no chance of stopping them?”

“Realistically, commander, not if they are doing what I think they are going to do. They don’t care about the civilians in the city, and they don’t care about us. If they attack all at once we WILL be overwhelmed, and we will be overwhelmed quickly. They will make it into the city, and they will have the warp codes before we can do anything about it. Once those codes are in their hands they will have the ability to attack any target in the known universe within reason. Of course earth, the GA the Tesraki and the Rundi will be difficult targets owing to our defense systems, but other more rudimentary planets will not be so lucky. The Tvek, dead, the Finnari, dead, the Celzex, dead, the Drev, dead…. He paused and looked to sunny and Cannon, you get the picture.”

“We can’t let them get that far.” The commander mumbled.

“No, we can’t. It will, likely, take them a day or two to organize an advance at that scale. So they are vulnerable from now until nearing the beginning of the attack.

“What are our options?’

“Well, the one good thing about being inside that dome is that they are cramped together in such a tight space that any chain explosion could potentially annihilate them all in one go. Though whoever went in would have to be fast, agile, good at close combat, and almost indestructible.”

The commander sighed looking up at the tent ceiling with a sick expression on his face, “So we have less than two days to come up with a crack team of demolition experts who are fast, agile, and trained in close combat to go in there on a suicide mission and blow up the dome before the burg can mobilize enough troops to wipe us all out, and cause mayhem across the galaxy.”

“Not entirely so, sir. We have access to GA shield technology, so you would have that added protection.”

The commander paused staring out at the field of combat eye burning with the pain of a difficult decision, “If we don’t do this, the entire universe is in danger. I cant believe someone didn’t notice this massive security breach. Giving the groom access to all those condones i none space was foolhardy at best and criminally negligent at worst, and now I have one day to come up with an idea to-” He paused 

And in him sunny saw something.

The fire flared again though his face contorted for a microsecond into a mask of absolute agony, sadness and disgust. He shook himself, “I need to make a call. I think I have an idea.” 

He turned around to march off, “Lieutenant, take command.”

“Yes sir.”

Sunny followed after him, catching up halfway to a shuttle catching his arm with one of her four.

“Adam, are you ok? What’s wrong.”

He jerked his arm away from her, and she stepped back in surprise caught off guard.

He turned to look at her and his expression softened, “I’m sorry, I just. I have to do something that…. I don’t want to do.”

“What?”

“I can’t tell you.”

She was confused now, “Why not!”

The pain in his expression was only growing more palpable, “Because you would never let me if you knew.”

“Shouldn't I just stop you anyway then?” 

His expression was now one of open pain, “Sunny, don’t talk me out of it because I WILL take you up on it, but you have to trust this is the only way.”

“I’m sure you're just exaggerating.”

“Maybe I am.” the man whispered, “But it’s the only solution I have.”

She growled in frustration, “Then just tell me, and we can talk it out together! I can help.

He looked away, “I can’t trust you not to be biased.”

She crossed her arms, “And you can?”

“Sunny, this is going to happen whether you agree or not. So which side do you want to be on?”

They locked eyes, and despite his words of harshness she saw no malice in his face, and to her surprise she could see that.

He was afraid.

Where once pain had covered up fear, she could see it rearing its ugly head.

His cheek twitched.

“Please.” He was begging now, and it made her sick to watch.

It hurt.

“Adam… I, whatever it is you don’t have to do it alone.”

He looked at her with a steady expression, “Do you promise?”

She nodded.

“I promise.”