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rosemaryreaper · 11 days ago

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Thanks to @fallout4reacts for the prompt!

So I broke my 1k words or less oneshot rule. Again. Because this became...something. I used this as an opportunity to explore my Sole's relationship with Danse since it plays a role in part two of Rosemary Reaper. But, uh, needless to say, that relationship is complicated.

Anyway, enjoy! As always, I'll eventually post this on AO3 after Tumblr has had it for a bit.

Word count: ~4,300

* * * *

Skin of Theseus (Danse)

“...entire site has been overrun. The door won’t last much longer. Paladin Brandis, sir. It’s been an honor, sir.”

The holotape’s whirring ceased with a soft click, taking the knight’s voice with it. Dust motes, thick and heavy in the light of the window, drifted over remains years past the point of recognition. A tattered orange flight suit hung loosely on filthy bones. Weighted down by a rusted chest plate, the skeleton slumped awkwardly against the wall as if too tired to sit upright. Deep scratches and burns in the wood told the story the tape had failed to finish.

Knight Delaney’s Pip-Boy clunked as she ejected the holotape. She wrapped the accompanying holotags around it before stashing them in her bag. “Well, that confirms it then.”

Careful with the strength of his suit, Paladin Danse swiped a hand through the dust on the chest plate, revealing the winged sword emblem on its front. Delaney wore the same Brotherhood-issue combat armor over her military fatigues. Hers was in notably better condition.

“Knight Astlin,” he said. “She was in my company, years ago. Best marksman I ever saw.”

“She was a friend?”

“Friend” was a difficult word to assign to bones, much less to any Brotherhood soldier. That he had been given the chance to hear Astlin’s voice again was astonishing, certainly, but the sight before him was not unexpected. It was an unspoken assumption that most knights would meet their end in battle, and all of Artemis had been assumed to have met that end nearly four years ago.

Tara Astlin had been his sister. They had fought together, bled together, and placed their lives in each other’s hands. But to call her his friend would have been foolish. It suggested a dangerous level of attachment. Of reckless hope—the kind that sank like a cold stone in his stomach as he stared at the body beneath his hand.

“She was a good soldier,” he said, which was the truth, though a dishonest one. He withdrew from his crouch to cast his gaze about the office. He did not look too closely at the feral corpses, new and old, that littered the room, nor did he look too closely at the way Delaney studied him. “We shouldn’t linger. Note the coordinates of the remains for our report to Scabbard. Scribes will be dispatched to retrieve them for shipment back to the Citadel.”

Delaney cocked her head. “I didn’t think anyone retrieved bodies anymore.”

The spike of anger was bitter and unexpected. He heard the cold in his voice before he could stop it. “We are not raiders—cutthroats and cowards who leave their men lying in the street. The Brotherhood honors its dead. We always—always make an attempt to bring our siblings home.”

She raised her hands. “I was trying to say it’s refreshing to see—if you’d let me get there. Sheesh.”

“You’re new,” he said, a reminder to himself more than her. “Consider this a lesson in the Codex. The last entry in a soldier’s Scroll may very well be their most important, as the manner in which they die holds as much meaning as the manner in which they live. We report their final deeds so that they may ascend into history.”

“So even though Artemis probably didn’t survive…”

“We can still bring them home. If not their bodies, at least their stories.” His gaze fell on the pile of older corpses by the door. Over a dozen decayed ferals at the entrance alone. “Knight Astlin died with honor. She will be remembered by those that come long after.”

These were the words he said aloud. He did not give voice to the anger, still simmering beneath the surface, at how her squad had left her here, barricaded in the room alone. He did not imagine how it must have felt to die with her back against the wall, no one around to hear her scream as the monsters tore out her throat. He did not give voice to these thoughts, to Paladin Brandis’s imagined failings, because to do so would make him a hypocrite. After all, Danse had gotten two-thirds of his own squad killed. He couldn’t rightfully pretend that he would have done any better.

“Have you noted the coordinates?” he asked when the silence stretched.

Delaney held up her Pip-Boy. “Already done. The satellite array isn’t too far. We could check out the next location before—”

A snarl shredded the air between them. One of the corpses twitched to life by her feet. Delaney threw herself out of the way, crashing into a broken display case as the not-so-dead feral lunged for her legs. He shot three lasers into the mutant’s spine. He shot a forth into the back of its head for good measure. It slumped on its stomach with a rattling sigh, unmoving—even after he gave it a solid kick to the ribs to test.

He prodded at the other ferals with the boot of his power armor, silently cursing himself. They had done a thorough sweep of every room in the Recruitment Office except this one. Astlin’s body had derailed him.

It was a poor excuse.

None of the other corpses came to life, which was almost a disappointment. He had the inexplicable urge to throw one out the window. He turned to his knight. “Area’s clear. Are you—”

Delaney was sprawled on the ground, shattered glass and splintered wood scattered around her. Her hand was pressed to her thigh, her teeth gritted as blood trickled from a gap in her armor. “Shit,” she hissed. “Shit, shit, shit.”

He crouched beside her. The string of curses ran through his head with renewed vigor. She was his charge. He should have double checked the room. Now look what had happened. “Did it bite you?” he asked, serious. The chance of infection from a mutant bite was dangerously high.

She shook her head, to his unexpectedly strong relief. “No,” she said through her teeth. “It was the damn display case.”

“Let me see, soldier.”

Blood soaked her fatigues when she removed her hand’s pressure. The wound was deep and jagged, with bits of glass embedded inside. Whatever broken edge she had caught, it had ripped her thigh right open. Not a simple fix.

“We’re not going to the satellite array,” he decided.

Delaney fully bared her teeth in a snarl, not unlike Dogmeat when he snapped at a raider’s heels. It wasn’t a look of pain. She was pissed.

They cleaned and dressed the wound as best they could in the wreckage of the office, but despite the aid of pressure and a Stimpak, blood continued to soak through the bandages over fifteen minutes later. She needed stitches, but this wasn’t the place for it.

Which is how they soon found themselves on the road not east to the satellite array but south to the nearest settlement. It was, uh…a painstaking process.

“This pace is inefficient,” he said for far from the first time.

She glared up at him, also for far from the first time. “I don’t know what you expect me to do about it.”

He liked to think he was mindful of his stride in his power armor when there were members in his squad without. He was not one of those paladins who exhausted their men by forcing them to sprint to keep up. At this pace, however, he practically had to shuffle his feet as Delaney limped alongside him. It would take an hour to walk a single mile, and by then it would be dark. There were too many nocturnal creatures that would love to happen upon slow, injured prey.

“We would move faster if I carried you.”

“You’d have to put your rifle away,” she said, breathless from exertion. “We’d be vulnerable.”

“You still have two hands.”

“Two guns are better than one.”

“You’re dripping blood down your leg.”

“I can walk.”

His patience was slipping. “We have very different definitions of walking.”

“We’re not far from County Crossing,” she snapped. “Just leave me alone.”

“This pace is inefficient,” he repeated. She ignored him.

If she were any other knight, he would have ordered her to listen. Hell, if she were any other knight, he would have written her up hours ago—after a harsh reprimanding. Instead, he bit his tongue, because Nora Delaney was not any other knight. She was not truly a soldier, though she had the honor of one. Most of the time.

And it was because she was not a soldier that he stowed his rifle in his scabbard, thrust his arms under her knees and back, and hefted her into the air without a word of warning. To no surprise, this act did not diffuse the situation, but he would not deny the satisfaction that accompanied it.

She thrashed, spitting like a feral cat. “I hate you. I hate you so fucking much.”

Coolly, he said, “You can direct your ire towards any hostiles that cross our path.”

“This is so undignified.”

“On that we agree.”

She would not have spoken like this to him months ago, when they had first met. She had been polite and obedient in the beginning. Since then, she had morphed into the most infuriating woman he had ever met.

He had known her true goal for joining the Brotherhood from the moment he had sponsored her. Everyone did, but it was easier to pretend the combatant who had recovered an entire super mutant stronghold’s worth of nukes was on their side. When she went off on her own for days or weeks without reporting in, Elder Maxon pretended she did so with his permission. When she talked back or disobeyed his orders on a mission, Danse pretended their inevitable success made up for it. Exceptions were made for Nora Delaney, the knight who wasn’t a knight. It simultaneously vexed and baffled him.

His vexation and her disobedience had only become stronger with each passing month. She snapped and snarled like a wounded animal, hackles raised in battle and out. The Brotherhood had yet to find what she searched for, and somehow it had become his problem. Somehow, he had to pretend she wouldn’t leave him behind as soon as she did find it.

They made it to County Crossing before dark. The settlement was barely more than a mutfruit patch and a shack, but it had clean running water, a rarity in the Commonwealth. The farmers allowed them to set up their tent in the roofless ruins of an old house, with access to any supplies they needed.

Anything we can do for General Delaney, they had said. Not for the Brotherhood—they pointedly ignored Danse. For Delaney.

Like he had thought: exceptions.

If he had to count his blessings—and not strangle the source of his perpetual headache—Delaney was calmer with her feet up. She had stayed quiet as they had flushed the last of the dirt and glass out of the wound. Now, as she lay on a camp mattress within the tent, she flashed him a small smile. He wondered if she’d hit her head on the display case too.

“This might be the longest I’ve seen you without your power armor,” she said. “I almost forgot there was a man in there.”

He could say the same of her—and then some. She had stripped out of more than just her combat armor for the occasion—her Pip-Boy, fatigues, and most of her clothes had been cast aside, leaving her in a tank top and underwear. He was accustomed to seeing his team in various states of undress. They normally didn’t smile at him while half-naked in bed, though.

Her legs were quite long.

“We do not have any local anesthetics,” he said, before he could process the thought. The farmers’ medical supplies were sparse. Apparently, the caravan doctor they stocked up from was due to pass by in two days, which didn’t help them now.

Her lips quirked. “Whiskey and a broomstick in the mouth?”

“We do not have those either.”

“More fun for me.” The smile dropped. Almost off-handedly, she asked, “I take it you’ve done this before?”

“Many times. You can trust I know what I’m doing.”

It had taken watching Haylen operate on herself only once for him to realize that having a single medic on the squad was a disadvantage they needed to mitigate in any way possible. Severe trauma was still beyond his abilities to treat, but a minor laceration on the leg was easy enough to suture without assistance.

“I do trust you.”

Trust was a given among his men, so he did not know why it surprised him to hear her say it aloud. She lacked discipline; she did not desire to shoot him in the back—or vice versa. That they would keep each other alive when they were together was one of the few constants in their relationship. Still, it had been an unspoken constant, up until this point.

She looked up at him, eyes too wide, jaw set too tight. It was a vulnerable position—laid out beneath his looming form. She was not a small woman, relatively. Tall, with long limbs toned by muscle, she’d once knocked Rhys flat on his back in a sparring match. But Danse was well-aware that, compared to him, most things were small. A towering height and broad frame were an advantage in combat with enemies that could swing a chunk of concrete at his head. Here in this tent, for perhaps the first time, he would have shrunk himself if he could, just so she wouldn’t look at him like that.

“This should only take a few minutes,” he said, which was the best he could do instead.

“Let’s just get it over with.”

She closed her eyes as he brought the needle to her skin. He kept his gaze on his task. Not on her face. If he looked at her face, no matter what expression she bore, it would distract him.

An illogical thought. He’d sewn knights back together before without issue. There was no reason she should have been any different.

He didn’t look at her face regardless. Exceptions were made for Nora Delaney.

In and out the needle wove, tugging at her skin with each stitch. She didn’t make a noise, aside from her uneven breaths. Over half a year together and he had never heard her cry while awake. She cried out in her sleep often, but they did not speak of such instances.

The minutes ticked by. He did not have Haylen’s deft fingers; she would have finished the procedure in half the time. His less practiced hands were clumsy by comparison, forcing him to take it slow. The cold lump of guilt gained weight behind his navel.

“Danse,” Delaney said, alarmingly unsteady. “Talk to me.”

He did not have Haylen’s bedside manner either. If there was a protocol for calming a person who would sooner bite his hand off than accept it, she had yet to teach him. “What would you like me to say?”

“Anything. Tell me a story.”

“Uh, I need you to narrow down the topic.”

A rumble rose in her throat. A growl or a groan, he couldn’t tell. “Scars,” she said, eventually. “Where did you get your scars?”

“I need you to narrow that down too.”

“How about the one across your jaw?”

It took an effort to keep his hands moving. Of all the ones she could have chosen…

He felt the bizarre urge to lie. To say he didn’t remember. Or that it had been from some great battle. She would surely laugh at him otherwise, and the last thing she needed was yet another reason to disrespect him.

All the foolish thoughts of a battle-green initiate with something to prove. He chanced a glance at her face. She had laid the back of her hand over her eyes, shielding herself from the world.

“Knight Astlin,” his mouth said, before his brain could give full approval. “Rhys bet her fifty caps she couldn’t hit a Nuka-Cola bottle from a hundred yards away, blindfolded.”

“She shot you?”

“No, she shot the bottle. Which exploded as I was walking by.”

She exhaled sharply through her nose. He double checked that he hadn’t poked the needle too deep. “I bet that earned her quite the earful, huh?”

“In a sense. I let her off with a warning. It was an impressive shot.”

She exhaled sharply again. The vague impression of a laugh. “Look at you, rulebreaker,” she said as he had feared she would. But then she added, “I would’ve liked to have met her,” and that statement was worse—because he agreed with it.

“Almost done,” he said, for lack of an alternative. “Can you withstand the pain for another minute?”

“If you keep talking.”

He did not want to keep talking. He cast about for an escape, and he found it by his hand. “Where did you get this scar? On your shin.”

Her lips curled. With her eyes covered, it was nearly unrecognizable as a grin. “My husband tried to give me a piggyback ride. He tripped, sent us both flying. I scraped my shins on the pavement.”

Ah. Husband. Right. He had forgotten about the husband. She never talked about her old life. Nor did he ever ask.

“You were fortunate.”

“I was fortunate,” she murmured. The same word, yet inexplicably different from what he had meant.

He finished the last stitch. She uncovered her face, her brown eyes amber in the lamp light. Despite the ashen tinge to her cheeks, she maintained her grin as he cleaned up their makeshift medbay.

“It’s funny,” she said. “It’s the stupid scars I remember the most. The ones that tell stories. They’re starting to get covered up now. This one on my elbow,”—she traced her fingers along a discolored patch of skin, darker than the rest of her olive complexion—“there used to be a scar here from when I fell playing tug-of-war at a potluck. There’s a different one on top of it now. I don’t even know where it came from.”

She let the arm fall onto the mattress. Then she drew her fingers down her body. “When I left the vault, I kept track of them at first. The first time I got shot.” Her fingers circled an indentation on her thigh, above the fresh sutures. “The first time I caught shrapnel from a grenade.” Those fingers glided up her hip, trailing over stretch marks as she lifted her shirt above the dark crescents between her ribs. “After a while they lost meaning. They just show up. Enough time and all the old ones will be gone. I’ll be a completely different person with completely different skin.”

She let her hand fall to the mattress on her other side. He didn’t know at what point her grin had faded. Her shirt was still rolled up.

“Maybe it’s already too late,” she whispered. “The person who I was before all this, I don’t see her anymore when I look in the mirror. I think she might have died with the bombs, and I don’t know how to mourn her.”

It took him a moment to recognize this statement as metaphorical and not an admission to being a synth. It would have been easier if she had actually admitted to being a synth. Then he could have followed protocol. There was no protocol here.

She must have been in an extreme amount of pain to say these things to him. No bared teeth. No snaps or snarls. Just an ashen-faced woman too exhausted to pretend to be his vexation. They did not speak like this, paladin and knight. They had deviated from the roles they had carved for themselves. But they had both taken their armor off hours ago.

“I don’t remember my parents’ faces,” he said, and she went still. “Or most of my childhood. The boy who might have remembered died to become an orphan who cut his fingers on scrap metal. And that orphan died to become a soldier with scars, gained with every battle, every loss. I am not the same person I was when I joined the Brotherhood, nor am I the same person I was when my squad left for the Commonwealth. None of my men are.”

Haylen’s smiles were rarer. Rhys was quicker to throw a punch. And Danse? Four graves greeted him on every patrol of the police station’s perimeter, a constant reminder of the cost of a leader’s failure—and a permanent lesson learned.

“I cannot speak to your experiences. Only my own. I could count my scars,”—sometimes he did—“but it wouldn’t do much good. It certainly wouldn’t change them. I stand by the choices I have made, the orders I have given. It has not occurred to me to mourn the orphan with cuts on his fingers because that orphan would not have survived to today.”

She shielded her eyes beneath her hand again, though he had long since stowed the needle away. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” she whispered, voice so strained the cracks were tangible.

His wrists tightened, the painful ache of an unfamiliar kind of panic. That he had never heard her cry was another constant in their relationship. By definition, it was never supposed to change.

Without thinking, he brushed his thumb against the indentation on her thigh, above the fresh sutures. “The goal you seek. Could the person you were before have achieved it?”

She took a shuddering breath. “No.”

“Then bury her. Honor her, but stand by who you have become.”

Her lips pressed into a wobbly line. He redirected his gaze to the medkit, shutting each latch with a sharp snap, too loud in the growing space between them.

She swallowed audibly. “You said the Brotherhood honors its dead.”

“We do.”

“When I die—really die, will you bury my body in Sanctuary, if you can? If not my body, at least my heart.” Without uncovering her eyes, she tugged the chain around her neck out from under her shirt. Two gold rings swung from her hand, a pendulum over her chest, glittering in the lamp light. “It’s the closest I’ll be able to get…to him.”

An absurd request to come from her. He doubted Delaney knew how to die. She would likely claw her way out of any grave before the dirt had settled.

Then he saw Astlin. Her back to the wall as enemies poured in. The ferocity with which she fought, taking down attacker after attacker, the bodies piling up in the dozens. Sheer stubborn willpower kept her on her feet—until sheer stubborn willpower failed to replace allies and ammo. In the end, she fell alone, with no one but monsters to hear her scream.

Except it wasn’t Astlin in the vision. It was the knight breathing tremulously before him, lost in time.

“You have my word,” he said. But you will never need it. Not while she was with him. He stood by his choices, including those made in a heartbeat. She would not be his fifth mistake; he would make sure of it.

She exhaled a gentle sigh. When her hand finally fell away from her face, her eyes were closed. If the pain had dulled enough to allow her to slip towards sleep, that was a good sign.

He moved to stand up. “You should get some rest. I will take the first watch.”

“Wait.”

Fingers closed around his wrist. He froze. She gaped at him, seemingly as startled by the act as he was. Her mouth opened, then closed. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears as clearly as he did in combat. One beat…two…three…four… She was still holding his hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly. “For snapping at you earlier. It was unfair.”

Whatever she had originally intended to say, that hadn’t been it. He couldn’t begin to fathom what thought had hooked on her tongue, but the warmer his skin grew beneath her hand, the less he wanted to wait to hear it.

“I think you may have injured more than just your leg,” he said on impulse.

She blinked at him. Then her touch vanished as sank onto the mattress, clutching her chest in laughter. It was an explosive sound, deep and melodic and bursting with warmth. He couldn’t recall if he had ever heard her genuinely laugh before. Surely he would have remembered the odd sensation it left in his stomach.

“Get some rest,” he repeated, once she had calmed down enough to wipe the tears from her eyes.

“Danse?” she said softly, halting his second attempt to flee. He stared pointedly at the front flap of the tent. The air inside had become stifling. “Thank you.”

He gave a noncommittal grunt. As best as he could to not give the impression of retreat, he left the tent, cutting directly through the cool night breeze to his waiting power armor. He slammed the fusion core into its slot and climbed inside with the practiced movements of someone who wore the heavy metal like a second skin. As the suit clunked into place around him, a confused warning about his elevated heart rate popped up on his HUD. He dismissed it.

Thoughts of their mission slowly recentered him. Despite their detour, today had resulted in the successful completion of multiple objectives. They had located remnants of the lost patrol, cleared a building of a feral infestation, and gained intel on a new location to investigate. Once Delaney was well enough to walk, they could get back on track to their inevitable victory, same as always.

Except tonight wasn’t the same as always. It wasn’t even the same as that morning, when they had set out together. Because, for once, Nora Delaney was neither his vexation nor his bafflement.

No, she had become something much, much worse.

#this might be the first time i've written my sole during the game #normally i write her post canon so she is a WILDLY different person here #fallout 4 #fallout 4 fanfic #paladin danse #nora delaney #sole survivor

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aceghosts · 18 days ago

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DEAD MAN WALKING

Series Summary: In February 2005, Captain Hunter Delaney is tragically killed in action on a BSAA mission in Northern Canada. After their death, scientists and BSAA agents related to the mission start to die. Albert Wesker intends to find out who is killing them, hoping to use this stranger to his advantage. Rating: Mature Warnings: Canon typical violence, Body Horror, and unethical experimentation on humans. Mentions of a corpse, death, and torture. This is a horror fic with eventual romance; you have been warned. If I need to tag for anything else, please let me know. Words: 3,341 words. Author's Note: Chapter title comes from Placebo's Infra-Red. I didn’t mean to take this long between the first chapter and the second chapter. Good news is that I hope to have another chapter out for you at the beginning of November. AO3

CHAPTER 2: FORGET YOUR RUNNING, I WILL FIND YOU

A few months later…

Albert parks the black Mercedes in front of the two-story brick house. Hidden out of the way in this idyllic neighborhood, the quaint home was perfect for someone portraying himself as a simple family man. It was a terrible hiding place if you were Dr. Jeremy Fuller, a man stupid enough to steal from Albert Wesker. Perhaps, Jeremy wanted something familiar, knowing he was living on stolen time. From time to time, animals had been known to crawl back to their hovels, seeking comfort in their impending death. Jeremy must be like them; he certainly was as pathetic as a dying animal. Stepping out of the sedan, Albert closes the car door behind him, striding toward the front door.

Wait…He stops in his tracks, eyes narrowing behind dark shades. The red front door is open, showing no signs of forced entry. Had Jeremy already left with his family, hoping to avoid Albert? Or was poor, naive Jeremy simply setting a trap for him? Albert quietly tuts, shaking his head. Jeremy was only prolonging his suffering. The more annoyed Albert was, the more he would draw out Jeremy’s demise. He silently stalks towards the front door, hand slipping beneath his long, black coat, resting on his Samurai Edge.

Pushing the door open, Albert keenly listens for the sound of movement inside the home. He only hears the slow drip of a faucet, most likely from one of the upstairs bathrooms. The home is unnaturally quiet, devoid of any life. As he steps inside, Albert glances around the doorway, noticing the small unusual details, particularly that there were no signs of a frantic exit. Men’s dress shoes and a leather messenger bag are left by the door, presumably by Jeremy in preparation for his day at work. Albert kneels, inspecting the bag more. Jeremy’s laptop is still there. He must not have run, not at least without the laptop. Now, Albert had only one question: where was Jeremy?

Starting his slow ascent up the stairs in the foyer, Albert eyes the family photos on the beige wall. Each photo is of Jeremy and his family, Jeremy looking so proud. He scoffs at Jeremy’s foolish pride. Relationships were weaknesses to be exploited. Albert used spouses, children, siblings, and grandparents to advance his agenda. People were so easy to manipulate, especially when they had someone to care about. One of the photos, a photograph of Jeremy and his family at breakfast, brings a memory back to Albert’s mind.

—

Albert unlocks the door to the Birkin home, stepping inside. Will gave him the key the moment Will and Annette had moved into the house. Albert pulls his boots off, dropping his bag beside them. Hearing the sounds of Sherry’s laughter, Albert heads towards the kitchen, wondering what mischief Sherry and William have gotten into now.

As he reaches the kitchen, Will turns, spotting and smiling at him. “Hey Al! Here for breakfast, huh?”

“Uncle Al!” Sherry exclaims, excitement shining brightly in her blue eyes. She runs over, hugging him tightly. After Will and Annette, Albert was Sherry’s third favorite person. She spent almost as much time with him as with her parents, which wasn’t much.

“Good morning, Sherry,” Albert greets her, petting Sherry’s head as she fondly releases him. He shakes his head. “No, I’m here to make sure you go to the lab today. We have more work to do.”

Will groans. “We would have more time if you didn’t have to play pretend with S.T.A.R.S.”

“That isn’t my choice. Spencer needs a man inside,” Albert replies, sliding a chair out and taking a seat next to Sherry, as she sits, vibrating with excitement, “We won’t have to do this much longer.”

“I hope so,” Will grumbles from the kitchen.

“Albert.” Annette greets him coolly as she strides into the kitchen.

“Annette.” Turning to Sherry, Albert asks, “How was school this week?” He catches Will giving him a ‘You got yourself into this’ look as Annette smirks.

Smiling brightly, Sherry launches into a long-winded explanation of how she aced her test, beating everyone in her class. As Albert takes in the simple domestic scene around him, he can’t help but feel slightly at peace here with his friends and their daughter.

—

A low growl escapes Albert as he shakes the silly memory from his head. He never asked Will if he regretted marrying Annette and having Sherry. Something like that would have been an off-topic subject for lifelong friends. Besides, Albert knew the answer. Annette and Sherry had been a weakness, costing Will his life. Even if Albert longed for the companionship of another, no one would be his equal, especially not after his transformation.

As Albert makes his way to the master bedroom, he passes the other rooms of the home, occasionally glancing towards the bedrooms. Jeremy’s son’s bedroom, Alan, looked as if he planned to return that afternoon. So did the daughter’s, Lizzie’s, bedroom. Interesting.

Reaching the master bedroom, Albert silently pushes the door open, surveying the room. No one waits for him in hiding, the bedroom completely empty. On the neatly made bed, Albert spies a yellow legal pad, a ballpoint pen lying beside it. Striding over, Albert picks up the pad, noting the deeply indented words marked on the paper. Narrowing his eyes, he notes that it is Jeremy’s handwriting, hastily scrawled, almost as if it were under duress. It appears to be a list of names, with the final name circled: Dr. Charles Griffin. Placing the legal pad down, Albert questions what Dr. Griffin had to do with this. As far as Albert was concerned, Dr. Griffin was an annoyance. An idiot masquerading as a genius. Dr. Griffin, delusional, believed his work would change the world. That honor would belong to Albert alone.

Looking to his left, Albert notices the door to the master bathroom is slightly ajar. He approaches the bathroom, the damp carpet squelching under his feet as he nears the door. Albert raises a blond eyebrow, slowly pushing the door open. The tan bathroom tiles are slick with water as the tub faucet drips. Turning slowly, Albert finds the body of Jeremy Fuller, hands zip-tied behind his back as he kneels in front of the tub, face submerged. Fury rises in Albert as he stomps over to the dead body. Grabbing Jeremy by the collar, Albert pulls him out of the water, confirming it’s really the man he was looking for. He is going to kill whoever did this. If someone killed Jeremy, they were most likely after his sample. And Albert Wesker did not take kindly to thieves.

He releases Jeremy, who flops back face first into the water as it splashes over the edge of the tub. Stomping out of the bedroom, Albert swipes the legal pad from the bed, hoping that he isn’t too late to recover what belongs to him. If it was, this thief should hope that someone else gets to them first.

—

SLAM! His gloved fist dents the desk, pure fury pulsing through Albert’s veins. Everything, all of it, was gone. Jeremy’s monitors and towers were riddled with bullet holes, rendering whatever information Albert might get useless. The refrigerator, containing some samples, was a hollow husk, a grenade thrown in it first before someone deemed it appropriate to riddle it with bullet holes. It was all gone, including the stolen sample. A low growl escapes him, anger threatening to consume him. No. Albert was smarter than this. There had to be a clue about who had destroyed Jeremy’s lab.

As he heads back towards the stairs to the main level, he catches sight of a small door, slightly ajar. Pushing the door open, Albert finds a monitor hooked up to the security cameras, focusing on the outside of the property. He smirks, knowing that this might be the clue he needs. Flipping through the footage for a few minutes, Albert finds who he thinks might be responsible. The monitor’s grainy footage shows a tall figure approaching the property. They look up towards the camera, dark bangs peeking out from the red hood of their black and red sweatshirt. Most of their face is covered, most likely to protect their identity from anyone who would come after them. Someone like Albert Wesker. The figure is too far from the camera to make out any real identifying features. It’s also several feet up, well above anything that a normal human could reach. The stranger will most likely use their gun to destroy the camera.

Within the blink of an eye, the figure crosses the lawn, now in front of the camera. The stranger leaps up, face coming close to the camera. He briefly notices their faded green eyes, freckles splattered across their face, and a scar on the bridge of their nose, peaking out from underneath the mask. Eyes narrowed, the figure reaches for the camera, and the footage suddenly ends. Interesting. If the footage is correct, this individual shows a heightened capacity for speed and jump beyond any human. Were they infected? Possibly. He couldn’t decide either way until he had absolute proof. However, he did always wonder if there were others like Alex and himself, especially with abilities like his own. Most who underwent the transformation of their viruses were monsters, slaves to their own madness, and whoever held the other end of their leash. A small flicker of hope lodges itself in his chest, feeling slightly more optimistic. But he could not get too optimistic; he needed more proof.

After copying the footage of the mysterious stranger, Albert heads back up to the main floor. He walks towards Jeremy’s messenger bag, wondering if he may find more information there. Kneeling by the bag, Albert rifles through it, finding Jeremy’s work cell phone. He smirks as he flips it open. The cell phone beeps, indicating someone left a voice-mail. Albert presses play, an unfamiliar voice speaking aloud:

“Jeremy, where are you? Dr. Ortiz is going to have your head on a pike! Please tell me you didn’t take up that psychopath, Griffin, up on his offer. I know he’s your old boss, but he isn’t worth it! Especially with those samples of that dead BSAA Agent!” Albert hears shouting in the background, presumably Dr. Ortiz. “Fuck, just get in here Jeremy!”

Dead BSAA Agent? Samples? The mystery thickens, and Albert wonders how this mysterious stranger fits in with the dead BSAA Agent. Revenge for a lost loved one, perhaps? But what need would they have to destroy Jeremy’s work? And what role did Dr. Griffin play in all of this?

—

Illuminated by the glow of the screen, Albert flicks through the Umbrella archives, courtesy of the Red Queen. Umbrella has little on Jeremy or Dr. Griffin. Jeremy appears to be one of Dr. Griffin’s known associates, an interesting coincidence. Umbrella has little information on his work but indicated that it would be a strategic move to recruit Dr. Griffin and his team. In fact, they appeared to be recruiting him when Raccoon City fell, taking Umbrella along with it. How unfortunate for them. His file did note that Dr. Griffin may need to be dealt with, especially if he refused their offer to take another opportunity at one of their competitors. The end of the file notes Dr. Griffin and his teams’ attempt to work on something to rival the Progenitor virus. An interesting note, clearly still unsuccessful.

Steepling his fingers, Albert wonders if Dr. Griffin finished his work on the virus. Was he successful? And how did this stranger relate to it? Were they cleaning up Dr. Griffin’s mess, on his or his employer’s payroll? Or were they working for someone else, a simple pawn on the chessboard? And what role did the dead BSAA agent play in all of this? No matter, Albert would make the stranger an offer they could not refuse. And if they did refuse? He would make sure they were removed from the game permanently. However, he needs to find the individual, and Dr. Griffin was his only lead.

A preliminary search shows that Dr. Griffin is under the watchful eyes of the BSAA. Interesting. What had the good doctor done to bring the BSAA down on him?

Getting into the BSAA files was easy. Agencies, like the BSAA, were always behind when it came to security, and like every other major player, Albert had his own men within the BSAA. Finding Dr. Griffin’s file, a photo of the man appears. Dr. Griffin frowns in his photo, pretending to portray a serious yet misunderstood genius. He snorts; Will was a genius, not this fraud. Dr. Griffin’s file lists his work, noting that he may be a serious threat. Albert smirks; Dr. Griffin is nothing compared to him.

He moves on to Dr. Griffin’s work, much of which is mediocre. Yet, Dr. Griffin’s current research sparks his curiosity as Albert pulls up a video, a recording of one of Dr. Griffin’s test subjects. A man in his late twenties-early thirties paces around the cell, clearly in distress. “What did you do to me?” He wheezes, swaying as he paces back and forth. Something grumbles, and the man groans, hunching over as something ripples along his spine. Albert leans closer, inspecting the subject closer. Is-Is something moving beneath his skin? Fascinating. “WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME?” He screams, a melodramatic shriek of pain. Another howl escapes him, and the subject mutates, bones cracking and skin ripping as he evolves. The subject writhes as his body transforms, movement eventually ceasing. A few seconds later, the subject moves, imperceptible to the human eye. His movements increase, the subject rising to its feet, two long appendages protruding from its wrists. The mutation marred the subject’s face, his body distorted from the transformation. It had turned him into a tyrant, not dissimilar to the ones Albert had worked on at Umbrella. The Tyrant looks up at the camera. With a quick motion, it whips one of the appendages, causing the video feed to cut out.

Disappointing. Dr. Griffin’s virus clearly needed more work, more than Dr. Griffin could ever hope to achieve. He pulls up the report regarding the BSAA’s capture of Dr. Griffin. The report lists five members as part of the team who arrested Dr. Griffin:

Agent Arthur Edwards-Alive Agent Patrick Hoffman-Alive Agent Natasha Russell-Alive Agent Kevin Zhu-Alive Captain Hunter Delaney-Deceased

Albert raises an eyebrow. Is Captain Delaney the dead BSAA agent that Jeremy’s colleague referred to in his voicemail? He searches Captain Delaney, pulling up their file, only to be greeted with a familiar pair of faded green eyes. In their file photo, Captain Delaney wears a confident smile, proud of their work. Albert snorts. What a fool. The BSAA was exactly like the entities it swore to fight. It was bloated by corruption, infected with spies from numerous organizations. His thoughts return to Captain Delaney, noting the two scars on their freckled face. Across the bridge of their nose runs a deep scar, only to be outdone by a large, gnarled scar on the left side of their lip. The scar on their nose seems similar to the one of the mysterious stranger.

Captain Delaney’s file notes that they had a promising career in the U.S. Air Force until a B.O.W. attack in Belgium in 1999. Thanks to the Captain’s leadership, their team made it out alive with a few civilian survivors, but something changed in Captain Delaney. Reports from their superiors note their warnings about bioterrorism, starting to become a pain in Leadership’s side. Captain Delaney seemed smart enough to recognize the potential threat that bioterrorism would become. Yet, they decided to play for the wrong side, leaving the Air Force to join the BSAA in 2002. If the U.S. Government was willing to let them go during the beginning of the war on terror, Captain Delaney must have kicked up quite a stir. What had occurred during the mission with Dr. Griffin that led to Captain Delaney’s untimely death?

Scrolling down to the mission reports, Albert opens Agent Arthur Edwards’ report, Captain Delaney’s second in command. Agent Edwards writes in his report: “Captain Delaney was infected by Dr. Charles Griffin with the prototype of his virus. Dr. Griffin informed the team that there was no hope for curing Captain Delaney. Captain Delaney’s infection progressed, and they started to mutate. To protect the team and ensure no further infection, I acted, terminating Captain Delaney. Due to my quick actions, no other members of the team were infected.”

Infected? Interesting. The figure in the grainy video showed no similarities to Dr. Griffin’s previous test subject. They appeared in perfect health, seeming mostly human. That was assuming that it even was Captain Delaney infected with the prototype virus. Glancing over at the yellow legal pad, Albert notes the names. All scientists who worked on the virus that killed Captain Delaney. This stranger was after Dr. Griffin’s team and most likely, Dr. Griffin, himself.

He mulls over the idea of this stranger being the dead Captain Delaney. Albert could not discount the physical similarities between the deceased Captain Delaney and the stranger. It would also mean there was another like him and Alex. Would they be as strong as he was? As fast? Albert’s mind races with many possibilities, eager to meet another tyrant like himself. So many of the other tyrants were rudimentary, animalistic creatures acting on pure instinct. None were the next step of humanity’s evolution like him. He smirks, knowing it was imperative to find this individual as soon as possible. The BSAA would have no idea what to do with a subject of this value, and Albert could not risk the chance that a rival corporation would get their hands on this individual. Albert would do whatever is necessary to gain the loyalty of this individual, possibly being too rare to eliminate if they were like him.

Taking out his cell phone, Albert dials a number. The phone rings a few times before the Lady in Red answers. “Wesker?” Ada Wong asks, her voice controlled. Yet he notes the slightest hint of nervousness. Did she think that Albert had finally come for her, to end her once and for all?

“Ada Wong,” He greets pleasantly, in control, “Long time, no talk.”

“It’s been a while,” She replies, slightly on edge.

While Albert would love to play with Ada, something more important was at stake. “I have a mission for you.”

“What do you want, Wesker? I’m already working on another mission.”

“I’m willing to double what your current employer is paying you. This mission is a priority. And,” Albert stresses, ”You owe me.”

Ada swallows nervously over the phone. “You must be desperate if you’re willing to up my fee,” She tries to play off her fear, but Albert knows she will obey, “What is this mission?”

“I need you to find someone. They may be dead.”

She’s quiet for a moment. “You need me to retrieve a dead person? What’s the catch?”

Clever girl, he thinks. Ada was always able to look past the bigger picture. Yet, it was a double-edged sword, especially when it came to that annoyance, Leon Kennedy. “This dead person may have killed someone: a Dr. Jeremy Fuller. I need you to bring them to me. If you bring this dead person in quietly, you will receive a bonus. I’ll also overlook your little indiscretion.”

“Deal.” No hesitation in Ada’s voice.

“Good. I will send you the information. I expect you to bring me results.”

“Don’t worry, I always deliver.” Ada hangs up, leaving him alone in the silence of the dark room.

Anticipation rises in Albert at the thought of Ada bringing Captain Delaney to him. If Albert was right about Captain Delaney being alive, they would be of great value to his research, but an even greater ally. He would make them one, no matter the cost.

Writing Taglist (Opt In/Out): @bbrocklesnar, @tommyarashikage, @voidika, @alexxmason, @sergeiravenov,

@clicheantagonist, @socially-awkward-skeleton, @imogenkol,

@carlosoliveiraa, @theelderhazelnut, @strangefable, @direwombat, @cassietrn,

@derelictheretic, @cloudofbutterflies92, @spookyrares,

#Kate Writes #The Hunter Fic Tag #fic: dead man walking #Hunter Delaney #resident evil fanfic #albert wesker x oc #resident evil fic #biohazard fanfic #death tw #body horror tw #OTP: Love Me Mercilessly #I really did not mean to take so long between chapters lol #also I hope I nailed Wesker's pov #he is kind of difficult to write for me

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lyralu91 · 8 months ago

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Behind the scenes of Taboo (2017) James ❤️ Lorna

#tom hardy #jessie buckley #taboobbc #taboofx #james delaney #james keziah delaney #lorna bow #lorna delaney #ao3 fanfic #ao3 writer #fanfic writing #kiss each other already!

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tomasz-the-hater · 5 months ago

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claudia, my darling girl, i'm so sorry for what they have done to you. brave and brilliant, fighting for herself, for louis, for madeleine, reminding louis not to trust lestat's words. "i don't like windiws when they're closed" oh god i hope teh audience never recovers because i sure will not.

#delaney saying how claudia's a fighter is so true #i need to write an important academic essay and all i can think about is claudia's tragedy #my girl suffered more than jesus and this is not a joke #at least she left the world with her beloved madeleine; the only one who was on her side from beginning to end #at least she experienced this little bit of love.#iwtv claudia #louis de pointe du lac #lestat de lioncourt #iwtv madeleine #interview with the vampire #iwtv #iwtv spoilers

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iridiss · 2 years ago

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Returning to an old friend, my Cult of the Lamb x Night in the Woods crossover AU to expand on the concept of the relationships between the Bishops and their Witnesses. And also to finally give these characters proper designs! Under the cut is a helluva lot of writing elaborating on these 4’s history with their respective Bishops and their designs.

I’ve played around with the ideas of either having the Witnesses be anthropomorphic in their Eldritch Forms, matching the Follower designs and giving them the same level of autonomy as their minds possess, or to make them more beast-like, closer resembling Leshy/Heket/Shamura’s Eldritch Forms in their wildness, and closer resembling the animals they are. But in the end, I could tell that some characters, like Angus and Beatrice, would be better off beast-like, like a giant hulking bear made of trees and foliage and flowers that tries to crush you, or a crocodilian, Lovecraftian deep-sea “sea monster” that tries to snap you up from the watery depths, additionally as a small nod to the giant animals in Mae’s dreams (the bear and the crocodile.) But characters like Greggory and Lori especially would be more on the slightly anthropomorphic side in their Eldritch forms, with Gregg resembling a large and bloodied hound, and Lori being a mouse with too many eyes and too many slithering tails (as an additional reference to the Rat King or something Eldritch). Lori is still small, even smaller than Mae, but armors herself with a coat of spiders, who are a fundamental part of her attacking style. We’ve got an ancient Forest Lord, a brown bear that’s become one with the trees, a Bloodhound, a Lovecraftian sea monster from the dark Hadal Depths, and a rat that’s become one with the spiders in the attic.

As for their history with their Bishops, let me tell you a story of 4 parts.

——

The Gods were never kind to Angus.

Leshy’s rule was one of chaos, and Angus must’ve been the most orderly and logical person in the entire cult. Leshy believed in raw strength alone, and as a big brown bear, Angus guesses he had potential enough to be “worthy.” What a joke that was. He was the pawn of a child, breaking whatever Leshy threw a fit over. Being an incredibly prideful leader, Leshy made his own rule that none of his Witnesses could see better than him after Narinder’s betrayal robbed him of his eyes. So per Old Faith law, Angus’s sight was removed, completely. He learned to adapt to the viciousness of the wilderness, relying on his other senses to survive and keep himself in Leshy’s good graces. He grew more at home in the woods than he’d ever been before, he memorized how to make flower crowns and weave crafts out of grass. Over the decades, moss grew amongst his fur and dark branches from his head, with Camellia flowers woven into his fur. He may have been afraid of Leshy at first, when he was younger, but now he had grown to be nothing but tired. This was the way things were, this was the irrefutable demand of the universe and the beings that ruled his every breath. He was nothing more than a measly ant. There was no point in fighting it, when Leshy could strike him dead at a moments notice. “This is the way it must be,” he would say to his victims before their inevitable execution, “there is no other option.”

And then another option came in guns blazing, screaming and mowing down the Old Faith like a hurricane on acid. Almost overnight, Leshy was dead, Angus had been beaten, stripped of his power, and thrown into someplace new. Everything had changed.

At first this was every drop worth freaking out over, but…here, the night was serene, the mortals happy and oblivious of any harm, all the screaming had gone away. It was so quiet here.

The truth is, Angus was a gentle giant who’d much rather study the stars than go on bloody crusades. Mae’s new way took some getting used to, but it was worth it. He was cautious at first, not exactly cynical, but he would have been unsurprised the moment “a catch” manifested. He was slow to adjust, having lived his whole life still in one place. But in time, he realized the depths of the scars he bore from Leshy’s destructive rule, everything Leshy had done to him and forced him to do when all he cared for was soft flower petals and damp grass after summer rain. He had his quiet place now. He was finally free.

Helping him get through it, and understanding in his own unique way, was this little obnoxious coyote that Angus…vaguely remembered to be Heket’s Witness? He seemed sweet, sincere, fuzzy, a bit loud, but he understood. Maybe he’d be better off staying here for a while, with Mae, Gregg, all these happy little mortals, and whoever else comes along.

Greggory Lee had a purely militaristic bond with his General, the Goddess Heket. He was her best soldier, her hunting dog. He tracked down the heretics and runaways, and once he found them, he put an end to them, just as Heket commanded. Like a bloodhound to a rabbit, he was loyal. Except, Gregg will always be Gregg, so whenever he was under the impression that Heket was busy or not specifically watching him, he would go to town with whatever chaotic fun he wanted to have that day, consequences be damned. If she was all shout-y serious military business, then he was a wildfire let loose the second her grip loosened. And to a degree he was never fully aware of, his wild antics supported her empire with the sheer fear they instilled on the mortal civilians. At any time, War’s bloodhound could come raging through the village, pillaging whatever he thought was shiny or cool, blowing up whatever was combustible, setting fire to huts and ignorantly letting it spread, and if you opposed the Witness of War himself, you might just get eaten. The chaos was humbling. Gregg was never fully aware of the extent of the damage he caused, it was all good fun for him. That was the job, that was what he was made for, fun. He never quite saw their faces, just ran in, had a good laugh, and left. He was so bored, he might as well do something with his time.

It took a pretty extreme event in order to force him to see the full picture. His first ever doubts started to sink in during the great sheep extinction. The Old Faith had received a prophecy from Shamura: Death was coming. Their only hope to survive would be to kill every last sheep and ram on the continent. Only thing is, there was no way to make this not personal. To track down every last one, to get in their face, make eye contact, see their final moments, hear the screams up-close, feel the bodies go limp in the vulnerable snare of your own bloodied teeth. Becoming the very real version of a child’s worst nightmare, the bogey monster out to get them, was unavoidable. Gregg was…never quite the same, after that.

He was the first to fully and openly accept the death of the Old Faith, immediately embracing the new rule of—well, not exactly The One Who Waits, but Mae was pretty cool. He liked her. As a follower, Gregg is still a bit disaster-prone in the commune, occasionally setting things on fire on accident, but it always sends him into a panic that promptly cleans up whatever mess he makes. He’s a bit of a handful, but he’s incredibly loyal to Mae. He’s doing everything he can to be a good person now.

He had no bond with his Bishop. The only connection he had to the Old Faith was one he’d deeply regret for the rest of his life. Mae on the other hand, all she ever asked of him was to live happily and peacefully in a commune, she never asked him to massacre thousands of innocent souls for something as petty as a rule, or a God’s ego. Death to the Old Faith, he says. Why should he care?

Out of every Witness, Beatrice would have been with her God the longest. Her memories of a mortal childhood had grown fuzzy and distant. Beatrice devoted her whole life and future to Kallamar, giving up everything she had just for him. To her, devotion wasn’t something you did out of joy and love and reverence for your God, devotion was knowing how to survive. This was the way of life, and she would see to it that every last order was followed through with shining marks and perfection. And wherever Kallamar’s cowardice slacked, she would pick up the weight, she would carry his entire Kingdom on her two shoulders alone. This was survival, this was life, this was truth, this was wisdom, this was responsibility, this was reaching the top and staying the best of the best, the Queen of fear and order dictating the helm of an entire Empire crushed under her foot. When this was the brutal truth of reality and life, why would you waste time thinking about a happy merry-go-rainbows imaginary life, when you should be doing your job? She needed this. This was everything.

And then the Gods began to fall. Leshy had died. The ball had dropped. She didn’t know it was possible for a God to die, but sure, Leshy was of the weaker kingdoms. She should have seen it coming a mile away that the youngest runt of the Gods would eventually be snuffed out. But Mae kept going, and then Heket fell. The Goddess of War and Wrath, defeated.

Kallamar’s fears grew worse. The target fell on his back next, and Beatrice knew that sniveling coward couldn’t take the blow. She prepared herself to fight, her time had come, it was her throne to take. She was ready, but for some reason, she was trembling.

And then Kallamar was killed. The other shoe dropped.

Everything that Beatrice had been repressing for decades, maybe even centuries, came back to hit her in the face with a baseball bat. Mae had destroyed everything, and now the responsibility of bringing back the Old Faith and killing an unstoppable force had fallen on her shoulders, with everything else. The Land of the Old Faith was in crumbling disarray, and she desperately tried to fix it and put it back together in the 42 hours (or less) she had left to live. This was nothing more than a deranged little child, a single cat. She could beat her. She could fix it, she could fix everything—

She lost.

Something Beatrice was only able to realize after every last drop of responsibility withered away was just how exhausted she was. She was worn thin, hanging by a string that was tearing. When that string was finally cut, she could freefall, right into the comfort of a safe little idyllic, bright and merry, imaginary commune.

“What the fuck.” Was the first thing she said when she saw it.

You couldn’t just get rid of the Old Faith, you couldn’t just rewrite all of reality itself. Mae was only one woman, how could she possibly have stopped all this? But she did, and she had the insanity to keep going. What the absolute fuck. And worse yet, Mae had spared her life! She had the audacity to kill her captor and “set her free,” she had the audacity to break everything she’d ever known, thinking you could just let go?! This was unheard of!

But then again, Bea hadn’t taken a nap in decades. Actually, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever slept in the past century. She hadn’t ever experienced the peace and fun of dreaming. And now she had a schedule entirely of free time, whether she liked it or not. Beatrice…took a very long time to warm up to Mae. And it took even longer for the shock to fade, to stop feeling weird about this new, free place she was put in. Before Mae, she was overworked, slowly losing herself down the rabbit hole leading to a very dark place. And as time went on, she could finally see herself again, and as she looked at the other Witnesses playing in the grass and making gay little flower crowns, she realized what she could have become if she continued to silently, secretly fall apart. She…could be happy now. Maybe. She’d have to find out if that was even possible…

She also had to admit it was incredibly satisfying to see Narinder, the last God, doing janitorial work while she could sit back and sip on her pina colada made of Darkwood berries. If only she could have seen Kallamar finally do his job while she took a much-needed break.

Lori Meyers was a young, mortal mouse, always the outcast amongst her peers and village-mates. She preferred to keep to herself, hidden far away in the dark that was comfortable, that was predictable, that was beautiful. She found things like bugs, gore, guts, the night, horror—especially spiders, she loved spiders— she found them to be so cool, but for some reason, no one else did. And that made her the weird one. Growing up, all of these things that she was told by her peers deeply got to her, making her quick to become quite anxious before she’d ever share a cool looking bug with someone she liked, because it never turned out well. She wanted to be fine, isolated all by herself in her dimly-lit caves infested with spiders, earwigs and centipedes, she was the only person she ever needed—but even still, she always wanted to have someone to talk to. She would kill to have someone that would hear her talk about how centipedes and millipedes have these super epic pores that shoot out hydrogen cyanide gas that poisons their prey- or- or how cool and exceptional it is that jumping spiders have the brain power to effectively use the scientific method by constantly studying their environment and learning from their mistakes!

And like a miracle of the Gods, she did find someone.

Shamura and Lori likely had the most positive relationship out of all the Bishops and their Witnesses. Lori was scared of them at first—and that never truly goes away, when you’re dealing with a mighty Deity of the Old Faith. But when she spoke, they listened, and in response, they showed her new things to study. When she posed curiosity in unknown species of insect and creature, they would lift her up into the treetops with their colossal, claw-like legs and show her the truth. Shamura cultivated her mind, gave her all the resources and books she needed to learn and grow and become the true scholar her peers could never be. She learned fast, she had a quick wit, and a love for learning all that Shamura’s realm shined best in, and thus she quickly seated herself, obliviously, as the best heir to their throne.

An apprentice to follow in their shadow, a student for only the greatest of minds. The only thing is, she was so young…some way or another, she would have to grow up into a monster. A killer, an executioner, a judge. That would be where the doubt set in for Lori. She only wanted to learn, she never wanted things to come to this, but when not only your God but your closest friend gives you an order…

Lori was devastated with Shamura’s defeat. Her only ally was dead, she was alone again, and to make everything worse, she was the very last line of defense meant to stop Narinder from taking over the world. On one hand, she felt very small, and still very much a child, but on the other hand, she was full of rage and covered in millions of tiny spiders that could feel her grief as much as she. She still ended up losing, reluctantly succumbing to The Witness of Death and becoming a follower. She clung the most to Beatrice in the cult, as the best person who could understand her, but also as someone who tolerated her ramblings. It took her a while to warm up to Mae, and to fully understand the necessity of Shamura’s death. That would come with time and years of gradual reflection as she grew up in Mae’s cult.

The lesson that Lori would teach Mae about the Gods would be two things, one directly from Lori, and one indirectly from her. One would be how much Lori would challenge her faith in TOWW without ever truly dissenting, acting as a mirror for what TOWW’s horrors might look like. The other would be Mae looking at how Shamura kidnapped this child, isolated her from her family and parents, and raised her to be a murderer against her will, and how much indoctrination and manipulation goes into a cult just to make someone still fully believe in their leader even well after they’ve been seriously hurt by them. Lori was a more complicated case than Angus or even Gregg, but she still had her scars. And if Lori had been tricked by the Gods, had Mae been tricked as well? To what degree did TOWW suffer the same flaws as his siblings, to what degree was Mae a gullible child in the hands of a master manipulator, to what degree was this right? Was serving these Gods even worth it? What if she only did what she wanted? What if she just wanted to be happy? What if she was like all four witnesses before her, what if she threw her bat away and rejected this Old God’s offer? Sure, she was small, sure, she was an insect screaming against a mountain, but damn it, they only wanted to be happy. Mae, Angus, Gregg, Beatrice, Lori, all of them.

But this time, she could do something about it. She was the God-Killer. She could make it whatever she wanted, and Narinder would be a fool if He thought she wasn’t going down without a fight.

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mlmxreader · 8 months ago

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Run Away With Me | James Delaney x gn!reader

『••✎••』

↳ ❝ James Delaney (enby, gn, or male reader)

“Yes, you were deceived, for I did not know how much I loved you.” ❞

: ̗̀➛ James can't leave you alone, and you don't want him to; but maybe there's a way around it after all.

: ̗̀➛ swearing, adultery

•───────────────★•♛•★──────────────•

You watched as James crossed the room, his shirt all a scruff and his trousers starting to fray at the bottoms; he looked so pretty when he was just existing, looking out the window with his hands clasped behind his back. You stirred a little, getting comfortable and lying on your side with your hand propping up your head, your elbow dipping into the mattress.

You could watch him for hours, if the truth were to be told, and you had a feeling that he already knew that; he knew you better than anyone, you knew he probably already clocked on a while ago.

He grunted as he tilted his head to the side, narrowing his eyes. In the distance, he could see the person you were intending to marry and had been since his disappearance; he never liked them, he knew that they weren't good for you at all.

But even James couldn't deny that they were certainly good looking, and with their strong family name and their money, he knew that you would be looked after; he did also know, though, that that was not the life you ever wanted. You wanted to get your hands dirty, to have calluses on your skin and rough fingers.

He knew what you were. A member of the lower class, yet content to be a worker as opposed to frolicking and gallivanting with the rich and wealthy. The person you were going to marry would never understand that, and nor would they understand the way you felt pride in it.

"James?"

He slowly turned at the sound of your voice, taking one last look out the window before sitting on the bed by your knees. His hand rested at your lower back so he was slightly leaning across you; his glare was intense, and although it could make anyone else squirm, it only made you smile.

He looked at your lips for a moment, then returned his gaze to yours. "Yes?"

"Don't worry about them," you whispered softly. "It's a marriage of convenience and nothing else... you know my heart was always yours."

James swallowed thickly as he nodded slowly, moving to lean down a little more, turning you onto your back and letting his free hand rest at the base of your throat. "Do not decieve me."

You shook your head, daring to crack a smile as you moved his hand up to rest directly on your throat; you needed him to know that you trusted him, that you trusted he would never hurt you. "I already have, though."

He grunted, furrowing his brows and letting his fingers gently splay out across your throat.

"Yes, you were deceived, for I did not know how much I loved you." You smiled, licking your lips. "And now it's all too clear to me."

James pulled back a little, pulling down the blankets and knocking your legs apart so he could kneel between them; his forearms came crashing down on either side of your head as he leaned in close.

His breath hot and harsh on your features as he did his best to keep himself under control; you put one hand at the back of his head, the other resting on his jaw as you furrowed your brows with curiosity.

"James?" You whispered.

"They could walk in," he grumbled, lowering his head so that his mouth was right next to your ear. "You wouldn't care, would you?"

"I doubt they would either," you admitted with a soft laugh. "I told them from the beginning that I was never theirs, only yours. Always yours."

You heard him swallow, and he slowly moved so that his face was just a few centimetres from your own. Your knee came to rest against his hip as you stared up at him, your hand slipping down until you gently tugged at his shirt. It was easy to see the undone buttons, how they allowed just a slight look at his chest with its titillating v-shape, exposing only a glimpse of the tattoos.

"I'm always yours," you promised him.

James nodded, but could only lunge forward, capturing your lips with his; it was open mouthed, with him swallowing every whimper that came from your throat and eagerly taking every moan that threatened to leave you.

But he grabbed your wrists with both hands, pinning them above your head so that you couldn't touch him. Even when he pulled away, he kept your wrists pinned.

"Mine," he grunted out.

"Always," you agreed. "I love you, James, I always have. I... I never stopped looking for you, either. I never did."

He nodded, looking at your lips for a moment before daring to hum quietly. "Come with me."

"James-"

"Come with me," he quietly demanded. "Leave them."

You shook your head, regret filling your eyes. "I would love to, but if I left... I need the money. My family, we... we've been struggling and-"

"I will look after them," James growled. "And you."

"I couldn't possibly-"

"It isn't a question," he grunted out. "I will carry you out if I have to."

You laughed, your head hitting the pillow harshly as you writhed a little; James waited for you to close your eyes before he smiled. The thought of him throwing you over his shoulder and whisking you away gave you a mental image that you could only find comedic.

"Alright," you agreed eventually, still wheezing and making soft "ooh" sounds as you tried to calm down. "I will come with you. But do not carry me over your shoulder."

He nodded, completely pulling away from you and tugging the bag out from under the bed; with just a look, he told you to stay put as he packed your things. So you did, grinning as you watched him so closely and so carefully.

If there was one thing that you never got tired of, and would always adore, it was watching James; you could watch him for a thousand years.

#mlem writes #james delaney x reader #james delaney x you #james delaney imagine #james delaney #tom hardy x reader #tom hardy x you #tom hardy x y/n #tom hardy imagines #tom hardy imagine #tom hardy fanfiction #tom hardy fanfic #tom hardy

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thewritersofdeceased · 23 days ago

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“you should get some rest, kid.” [ lean ] sender rests their head on receiver's shoulder

Oscar Delancey + Morris Delancey ;; Set after the fight at Newsie Square ;; Morris is older than Osc by about a year ;; @delancey-asks

Bloody knuckles. Jesus fuck did they hurt. Oscar sat with his back against the bed he'd been in ever since he was a young kid that was dropped off at his uncle's terrible place. He was looking at it with one eye, the other being a black eye and difficult to open without hissing out in some sort of pain. He remained silent, staring straight at the ground between his two feet, his boots being off and his mind remaining at it's quickened pace. The next time he'd get his hands on Jack, it wouldn't be a pretty sight, yet a much more bloodied one. He'd murder Jack if he could.

He had to get away from that stupid fight no matter what. He just had to. He didn’t leave Morris behind, but he did run when the bulls had bega to officially show up. Himself and his older brother didn’t have any good connections with the law, especially when the two were younger, right before their teenage years leading up to where they were now. A low sigh and huff would escape the younger boy, his eyes closing eventually. He was processing it all. How himself and his brother had managed to not kick the ass of any of the newsies. Well, they sure as hell had gotten some of them. The blonde, Race, they got him. At least he knew his brother did.

Speaking of his brother, the sound of someone pushing open the door was something that didn’t even make Oscar lift his head. Just the pure born silence was it. There was the remaining silence before the younger had noticed Morris sit beside him. “...your knuckles are bleeding, stupid.” Morris’s voice would ring through the cold air, the feeling of the older boys calloused fingers taking a hold of his hands. “I’m fine, Morris. I always am.” The younger's voice was partially cold, shaking his head right after. He knew he wasn’t fine. But Oscar despised help sometimes. Let alone from the man he idolized. He idolized Morris. The boy who would protect him from all harm and everything of the sort.

“No, you ain’t, Oscar.” The older would speak against the younger's protests, letting go of the shorter boy's hands. He had pulled the shorter up, not as forceful as he would to a newsie. Morris would be much more forceful and harsh with those stupid kids. Sure, he was a year or so younger, but the violence he held in the back of his mind always remained when it came to the newsies. If he had the chance, they’d all be stuck in that stupid refuge. At least one of them was though. The one with the limp. Though as he pulled his brother along, of course, Oscar would protest. “Morris, I can take care of myself-!” He’d complain, trying to get out of his older brother's hold.

Yet the attempt didn’t work in Oscar’s favor, as he was eventually tugged to the bathroom. “Sit.” Morris would grumble under his breath, yet it was still audible to the younger boy. Oscar didn’t exactly have a choice as he sat on the edge of the bath, looking down at his knuckles. They were aching like a bitch, that was something he wouldn’t hesitate to admit at all. “You gotta’ be more careful, Osc.” Morris would start to speak, searching for bandages in the mirror’s cabinets. “You shoulda’ let me handle the tougher and older ones.” He’d continue, taking out bandages from the cabinet. “Didn’t want you getting hurt.. Took them for you.” The younger one commented from the bathtub’s edge.

“Oscar. We’ve been brothers our whole life. I’ve been taking the hits for you since dad started to drink. You realize I’d risk my life for you to be safe, yeah?” Morris questioned as he gently took the younger boys hands again, gently tugging him once more. “Ow-.. Careful, stupid.” Oscar grumbled, hissing out in pain slightly at sudden movements close to where his knuckles had been. He’d hear his brother muter a quick sorry, before the sound of water had been all he could hear. “Wash your hands.” Morris would speak up, moving out of Oscar’s way, who only held a confused look. “It’ll hurt.” The younger grumbled, earning an eye roll. “Yeah, I know it will. But it’ll help clean the debris out of the wound.”

Even if Oscar didn’t want to hiss out in pain constantly, he listened to his older brother's suggestion, cleaning his hands thoroughly with soap and water, hissing out in pain every couple seconds or so. “Fucking-” Oscar would hiss out, going to move his hands away from the sink. The soap didn’t help at all, it was KILLING him to do this. “Couple more seconds, Osc. Then after the bleeding stops, rinse em.” His older brother would explain calmly, leaning against the wall just besides the door. He was making sure his brother was okay, something his father and uncle couldn’t even do. Now that Morris thought about it, the two had nobody that cared about each other. Nobody but theirselves.

“We got tweezers or anythin, Mor?” Oscar would ask as the taller boy had gotten a soft feeling cloth, knowing how the scratchy and uncomfortable feeling ones would annoy the younger boy. “Yeah, yeah. Just- let me do this real quick, okay? Then I’ll get everything else out and wrap it up. Got some stuff to put onto it too.” Morris would explain, focusing his attention on what he’d been doing, gently cleaning the skin around his brothers now sliiightly less bloodied knuckles. Of course, Oscar would hiss out in pain and let out curses of who knows what, but Morris didn’t stop him. “There ya go, let ‘em all out, Osc. I ain’t gonna stop ya.” Morris would mutter aloud to his brother, who continued on with the cursing before being gently pushed down back onto the edge of the bathtub.

Morris would grow quiet as he eventually would search for the tweezers, searching the same place the bandages were in. “Alright, you trust me enough to do the whole tweezer thing?” He questioned the younger, earning the slow nod from Oscar before he’d take Oscar’s hand into his, beginning to get to work taking out dirt and everything of the sort out of his brothers knuckles. “Ow, ow, ow-! Jesus, fuck!” Oscar complained, hissing out in pain every once and a while. Morris wouldn’t reply, allowing the other to squeeze his wrist or arm. It was a little bit before the older brother would talk once more, standing to his feet. “There we go. Dump it in the trash. I got to put the ointment and the bandages on, okay?” He didn’t want to hurt his younger brother any more than he already had been.

“. . . Yeah. Got it. Just be careful. Shit hurts enough.” Oscar’s tone had grown slightly harsh, but he didn’t mean to. He was tired, getting frustrated and in pain. “Ain’t gotta tell me twice.” Morris would respond to his brother's harsh tone, his eyes rolling slightly. He’d been used to harsh tones almost all his life, just letting it happen. It’s not like they were going to fight, both boys were too tired for it. “Here, hold the bandages.” Morris would hum, beginning to put the ointment onto his brother's hands whilst humming a tune their mother would sing to either of them before they’d fall asleep. Morris remembered it more than Oscar had most of the time. Though a comment from the younger made a small smile form on Morris’s face. “You’re singing mom’s song..”

Morris would merely hum in response to his brother's comment, continuing to hum the tune as he carefully put the ointment onto his brother's knuckles, which merely led to more hisses of pain. “You’re okay, Osc. Just gotta bandage them now.” His voice remained soft, Morris not daring to get all snappy at his brother. He took the bandages from the shorter and younger, beginning to wrap the gauze bandages around the now cleaner wounds. “Here we go… just…” Morris spoke to himself whilst fixing the bandages, eventually moving the bandages away and going back to the cabinet. “Go get changed, Osc. I know we both need sleep.” He mumbled out to the younger now, who merely nodded his head and headed towards the two’s shared room.

It took Morris a while to come out of the bathroom and to relax on the bed his brother had sat back on. He held a calm expression, tired. He knew he’d have to take care of his younger brother, but he’d do anything for the kid. Morris closed his eyes, just for a quick second, but he felt something hit his shoulder. Opening his right eye, he noticed his younger brother leaning his head against the oldest shoulder. “...you should get some rest, kid.” He’d comment softly, wrapping his arm around his baby brother's shoulder, who only hummed a noise of protest in response. “...that’s what I’m trying to do, dumbass..” Oscar would grumble out in response, keeping his eyes closed. Morris would hum out, nodding his head slightly, remaining still so his brother could sleep. “Alright, alright… love ya, Osc..” He didn’t often say that, but he did notice that a smile seemed to form onto his brother’s face. “Love you too, Mor. “

#Delaney brothers #morris delancey #oscar delancey #delancey bros #newsies #newsies fic #stories based off rp #RP writings

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divinekangaroo · 5 months ago

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my stray headcanon:

tommy *constantly* misgenders (mis-sexes?) horses because him and his whole family including Uncle Charlie have this weird complicated mental matrix for how and when a horse is a 'he' or 'she' or 'it' based around the equally complex gendering conventions for narrowboats

which convention, from what I can tell by reading multiple narrowboat forums and at least one 16th century four page long complaint letter about indecency on narrowboats some landowner wrote to a canal company, runs something like this:

do you like the guy who owns the boat? y = the boat is she, n = the boat is it

do you think the boat is poor quality = it, but be aware this may be offensive to the owner and start a fight

is the boat in the process of being built and hasn't got hisself wet yet? = he, then he's a she after it's first run

is the boat built by this one particular Welsh dude who lives in [insert Welsh river hamlet name}? y = always a she no matter how you feel about the boat or its wet status

is the boat built by the other particular Scottish dude who lives in [random hated English hamlet name)? y = always a he unless you've actually been on the boat, then it's an it, unless it was a really good road (every lock in your favour) in which case the boat is an honorary she

was a baby born on the boat = she

is it your boat = she

is it your friend's boat = he because it might offend your friend

did the boat once go through some random tunnel = he until he goes through the tunnel again and becomes a she

#when gender is about your relationship not physical characteristic #whatever samuel l delaney was doing with gender in stars in my pocket like grains of sand...#...he should've hung out on narrowboat forums #yes i am aware this all sounds like an ingroups running joke against outsiders but it's also f hilarious #and i think tommy misgenderd horses in the show once #also i swear dangerous changed from an s4 'she' to an s5 'he' but anyway #for someone who actually does academic writing i really need to keep better references #this ties into what i found where calling a narrowboat a barge is an insult to the owner #tommy's “black barge”#also charlie and arthur call the January a she and tommy calls it “it”

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whumpbug · 4 months ago

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i call this one gene had a little lamb

this is just a little drabble i wrote based on the little sheep comment i made here. i wanted to characterize gene's mother and father a bit more, as well explore gene's character (ʃᵕ̩̩ ᵕ̩̩) he's meant to be about 7 in the first part of the fic (horrible, i know).

some scenes were genuinely so sad for me to write so please look at the content warnings before reading! IT HAS A HAPPY ENDING THO. no animals were harmed in the writing of this fic. it was just sheep actor guys i swear its literally eating grass and chilling in a field as we speak

cw: animal violence, descriptions of animal death, verbal abuse, mentions of physical abuse, toxic masculinity, blood (let me know if i missed anything)

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

“Sylvia! Tell that boy to get his be-hind out here!”

Gene’s father’s booming voice made him freeze. He blinked.

He slowly turned to look at his mother from his place on the ground, surrounded by toy trains and wooden blocks.

Sylvia gave Gene a sad smile. “I think you’d better go see what he wants, baby.”

Gene gulped. His father was angry about something. That was bad news. Nothing good ever came of angry men.

“Syliva, I ain’t gonna ask again! You send him right on out here!”

Sylvia pursed her lips and swung her legs over the chaise lounge she had been sprawled out in. She closed the distance between her and her son, bending at the waist to kiss his cheek and guide him to standing.

“It’ll be alright. Why, he probably just needs you to climb into the attic again and get down another bag of feed. Go on, Gene. Come on back when you're finished.”

“Yes ma’am.” He whispered. He shuffled his way out the door and to the front of the barn, where his father was standing, ominously red-faced.

Gene’s heart dropped when he saw what was laying at his father’s feet.

“Would you do me the great goddamn honor--” He reached over and steered Gene by the back of the neck to face the small bundle of curly white on the floor-- “of explaining the hell I’m lookin’ at?”

His voice was venomous.

“A l-lamb, sir,” Gene stammered.

“A lamb," He scoffed. "And ain’t this the same goddamn lamb I told you to shoot yesterday?”

“Yessir.”

His words hardly came out as more than a whisper.

It was true, though. The poor thing had been born one day ago, and it was obvious right away something was wrong. Its back legs were crooked and mangled, like the bones hadn’t set properly. The sad truth was that it had no use on the farm, not even for meat. His father took one look at it and ordered Gene to put it out of its misery.

Still, Gene couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was just so small. It had such big, inky black eyes, eyes that stared right into Gene’s soul. The poor thing barely had a chance. It had never visited the soft, green pasture. It never tasted milk. It never got to play with its siblings. And he was supposed to slaughter it?

He couldn’t do it.

He had trembled there, holding the revolver, for about an hour straight until he gave up and carried the tiny creature to the barn, wrapped it up in his coat, and hid it behind some crates with the promise of checking up on it the next day.

It was stupid, yes, but he didn’t know what else to do.

"You think you get to pick and choose when to listen to me, dont'cha?" Clint spat.

Gene peered up at him with big, blue eyes and shook his head.

"N-No sir."

"Sure as shit seems like it."

"I j-just wanted to help it--"

"I don't want to hear it." Clint manhandled his single-action revolver from his belt and pointed it at the lamb.

“You’re gonna shoot it. Right here. Right now. In front of me. I don’t want to hear no whinin’, and I certainly don’t want to hear none of your sissy crap. Be a man, for Christ's sake, and shoot the goddamn animal.”

Then, the gun was cocked and shoved into his small hands. The lamb bleated softly, and Gene thought he might throw up.

“But Pa--”

“I said I don’t want to hear it.”

Gene shook. He bit his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood when he felt traitorous tears well in his eyes.

He knew better than to talk back. If he refused, his father would only get more angry. Still, how was he supposed to do this? How could do this when the small creature was looking at him like that?

All Gene could think about was how white the little lamb was. It’d only been alive for a day and a half. It wasn’t brown and grimy like the older sheep, it was snow-white and soft and curly and warm and tender.

The tears won. He felt a smack to the back of his head.

“Quit yer cryin’. Get on with it. Now.”

Gene couldn’t help the soft sob that tore from his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut at the sight of the lamb curling in on itself into a tiny little wool ball. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t do this, he couldn’t do this--

“Eugene Alexander Delaney. Don’t make me repeat myself.”

A hand clamped down on his shoulder as another guided the revolver to aim at the lambs small head.

“Pull the goddamn trigger or trust me, you won’t like what happens next.”

He did trust him. He knew his punishment would be awful. So why couldn’t he move?

Finally, his father’s patience wore out. His large finger slipped over Gene’s tiny one, and yanked back the trigger with a loud pop.

It was over in a second. Gene wanted so badly to take his eyes off the visceral, gory sight, but he was still frozen in place. There was blood everywhere.

Clint pulled Gene away from the sight, grumbling curses under his breath, and walked him from the barn and to the house, where Syliva was standing on the porch, trying to get a glimpse of them.

“What on God’s green earth is goin' on?” She asked, finally getting a look at the state Gene was in.

“Your boy is a wuss is what's goin' on. Can’t even shoot a goddamn lamb that was on it way out in a few days anyways.”

"You made him shoot it?" Her voice took a dangerous tone.

"He's too soft, Syl. It needed to be done."

"He is seven years old--"

"When I was seven, I was already helpin' my daddy skin and butcher the meat from huntin' trips. This boy is too soft."

Gene stared blankly at a spot on the ground, doing his best to tune out the conversation. He hated being the cause of a fight. He wished he could be different, he wanted to be different. He didn't know why doing things his father wanted him to do put such an ugly feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Suddenly, the tension reached its peak with a shout from Syliva, demanding her husband go take a walk and cool off.

Clint stormed off, reholstering his gun and scoffing the whole way back to the barn. Gene kept his head down, lip quivering and tears falling. A small, hitched breath escaped him.

“Oh baby,” Sylvia whispered, pulling Gene close to her chest. She threaded a gentle hand through his blonde locks.

And that’s all it took. Gene erupted into sobs, and sobbed and sobbed and clung to his mother like the little boy he was. His entire body was shaking now.

“Shh.. shhh, it’s alright baby. That poor thing was probably hurtin' real bad. Your daddy was right that it wasn’t gonna make it through the night.”

Gene continued to bawl. He gathered a fistful of his mother's dress in his hand and shook his head, whimpering lowly.

Sylvia gathered her boy up in her arms and sat with him in her rocking chair, rhythmically rocking him back and forth. She cradled him close, just like when he was smaller. She hummed softly, smoothing his hair back with a gentle hand.

Gene buried his face into his mother’s chest and breathed in her scent. She smelled like peach jam. He sobbed harder.

“Let it out, baby. It’s okay. I know. It’s okay.”

The two stayed like that until Gene’s sobs turned into soft hiccups and then evened out. Sylvia kept rocking him.

••••

Gene stared down at the small, injured lamb at his feet.

It was bloody. There was a deep wound in its flank. A coyote must have gotten to it after it escaped the pasture. It was sprawled on the side of the road, panting, and left to the elements. The poor thing was shaking.

Gene’s hand went to his hip holster instinctively, and he whipped out his revolver. He cocked it with a soft click before he stopped. Lowered it. Took a closer look.

Other than the wound in its side, the lamb seemed to be relatively okay. Gene was almost certain the animal would be fine if treated properly.

He pursed his lips into a straight line and replaced his gun in its holster.

He crouched and carefully, gently gathered the thing into his arms and held it close.

Calliope whinnied softly as Gene mounted her, still cradling the small bundle of white to his chest. It was soft, warm, and little. It bleated quietly.

He clicked his teeth and urged Calliope onwards, shrugging off his coat to wrap around the tiny thing.

He tilted his head down to whisper to it, the sound hardly audible. “It’s gonna be alright. I’ll take care of you.”

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

#emotional whump #whump writing #whump community #whump #angst #gene and cassidy #gene delaney #cw animal death #cw animal injury #cw blood #cw parental abuse #guys don't worry the little lamb is Alive and Well #Older Gene keeps the lamb for a few days and nurses it back to health before sneaking it into a random pasture #he does in fact debate on keeping it

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dadvans · 8 days ago

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heavy loads

2.6k of self-indulgent lactation!kink bucktommy for @rcmclachlan based on baby probie-verse, where bucktommy have a whoops baby

It wasn’t a shock to find Evan, up from his nap, in the laundry room when Tommy got home from running errands. Tommy went to go peek in on Nora—still Probie to the 118 and Miss Nora to Evan’s parents and sister, a toss up between those and Mashed Potato or Babygirl between Evan and Tommy, or Miss Piggy when she was feeding and Evan thought he was out of earshot—who was conked out in her crib. He silently snuck back from her crib to return to Evan in the laundry room and ask if he needed any help.

Four weeks and some change since bringing Nora into the world, and it was laundry out of everything that had become the main Sisyphean task to own their lives. They’d given up on cloth diapers almost immediately, but between spit-ups and changes and their basic day-to-day, it felt like there was constant, never-ceasing mountain of laundry. And Evan kept leaking.

He’d always had well-defined pecs before getting pregnant, but now he had full on tits. Just perfect handfuls, in Tommy’s opinion, but after the first few weeks the only time he wasn’t complaining about them was when he was feeding Nora.

When he was feeding Nora, all frustration or anxiety melted away into dopey bliss. Evan loved that his body was producing something good for someone else, sustaining life. “S’what I was made for,” he would say, blinking sleepily down at Nora who made sweet, little noises as she tried to suck him dry. It was a welcome difference from the weeks leading up to her arrival, when he’d been so nervous, voice shaky as he worried out loud about faulty parts, that his body wouldn’t make enough or that she wouldn’t latch, right up until she did there in the hospital on the first try.

“Babygirl’s still snoozing,” Tommy said, stuffing a hand in Evan’s back pocket while Evan leaned down to catch some stray wet socks for the dryer. “You need any help?”

Evan made a familiar disgruntled noise at the back of his throat, which meant he didn’t want to ask, but yes. So, Tommy squeezed his ass twice through the denim in a way that meant move. Evan rolled up, tossed the socks in and slammed the dryer door a little too quickly before scooting to the side. His emotions had always run high, Tommy knew, and the hormones during pregnancy and now made him even quicker to anger. In all honesty, Tommy still had to check himself when feeling annoyed about it, but it helped now when Evan twisted to let Tommy’s hand slide out of his pocket and catch on his hip. So,

“Hey,” Tommy said instead. “Hey.”

“We need to do, uh, sheets. Again,” Evan clarified, jaw tight, waving at the still-full hamper and half-emptied washing machine. He smiled like it hurt. “Passed out for a half hour and I totally soaked through them again. And I know I could leave it, let it dry, I’m putting a towel down anyway, but we already had a full load—“

“Evan.” Tommy didn’t shut him up with a kiss, but with a gentle squeeze. He’d found out that Evan’s tendency to pass out face down and sprawled out on any surface had not been fixed, but had simply laid dormant while he was pregnant, and he was up to his old habits again, which now had consequences. “I’ll take over in here. I grabbed you some more of those prebiotic sodas you’re obsessed with, if you want one.”

Evan softened. “Ginger lime?”

“Yeah, baby, ginger lime.” Tommy gave him another squeeze. “So, get out of here and try not to give yourself heartburn while I finish loading the rest, okay?”

He finished loading the wash, and—poor baby, he thought—the sheets really were soaked through already. Both machines going, he closed the door behind him as he left and for one blissful second got to enjoy the sight of Evan settling down on the living room couch with his soda before Nora’s crying from the next room cracked through the silence like thunder.

Evan sighed, and he instantly crossed his arms across his chest, tilting his head back for a second with his eyes closed. The soda can in his hand crinkled in his grip before his wrist went limp.

Before Tommy could offer, Evan said, “Trust me. I got this one.”

Tommy started re-making their bed late evening. Evan came in after leading Nora’s nighttime ritual, slingshotting his nursing tank from the doorway into the hamper, before finding a clean one in the dresser. Instead of tight, elastic straps that he could work loose, it had thicker, ribbed tank straps and deep, henley collar that he probably knew Tommy liked seeing him in. He walked into the master bathroom half-blind trying to slip it on over his head.

“You know,” he called out only to come back a few seconds later, still straightening himself out at the hem and carrying a ragged towel that he flipped over his side of the bed, “you know I think it’s cool that my body knows how to make food for our kid.”

“It’s very cool,” Tommy agreed, no-nonsense. He threw one side of their duvet over to Evan so they could snap it over the bed and peel it back evenly on each side.

Evan flopped himself on top of his towel face up the second they were done, kicking his own feet down to get his calves under the covers. “Well, lately I’m starting to feel like it doesn’t know how to stop, and I’m going to be like this forever. A leaky mess.”

Tommy crawled into bed next to him and leaned over to press a kiss to the meat of his shoulder. “I’m sorry about your tits, baby. Anything I can do?”

His mouth grazed down the strap of Evan’s nursing tank and something deep in his gut began to uncoil as Evan’s breath hitched in response. Instinctively, he pressed another kiss lower, near the crease of his armpit, and Evan shuddered on the exhale.

“You’re playing with fire,” he warned.

Tommy smiled against his warm skin, eyes beating closed. “Good thing we’re both firefighters, then.”

Evan laughed.

“Fuck, I’m serious!” He said, first fond and then softer, “Really. I’m serious, though. If you were. Curious, I mean. Go for it. There’s always a little something left in the tank.”

Tommy hummed. Eyes still closed, he could feel the way Evan shifted underneath him to wrap an arm around Tommy’s shoulder and get a palm at the nape of his neck, fingers tracing up through his hair. Ready to cradle him like that, hold him there, if he wanted.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve already thought about it,” Evan continued. “I’ve thought about it, maybe a lot.”

“Jesus, Evan.” Tommy nipped at his shoulder again, just to tease, but found himself curling into Evan’s hold, reaching up to snap open the collar of his tank and slide his hand underneath to cup at Evan’s pec, which fit perfectly in his palm and sat soft and ready below his chin. His thumb stroked over the nipple, fatter and perkier than ever since Nora’d arrived, and Evan sank back against his body in return. “You gonna feed me?”

“Y-yeah.” Evan sounded shaky but so sure. His fingers in Tommy’s hair curled into a soft grip. “God, help me out, Tommy, please let me feed you.”

Tommy hummed. “Okay. C’mere, baby, I got you.”

It was so easy, taking Evan’s fat tit into his mouth, Evan’s grip in his hair growing tighter while the rest of him went practically boneless. Another shaky breath and then Evan made a noise, half-whimper, half moan, that went straight to Tommy’s dick.

“Need you to take it deeper. Open, open, oh—God, your mouth is so big. Stay there, like that, yeah,” Evan said, hushed, almost reverent, as Tommy adjusted his latch and started putting his tongue to work.

He licked up, chasing Evan’s nipple, trying to tease his milk out. Swallowed around him and threw an arm over Evan’s lap to keep him in place when he started to squirm, thrilled to feel the way Evan shifted as his heels started to dig into the mattress, getting hard, dick pressing up against Tommy’s forearm.

And there it was, suddenly, Evan’s milk streaming into his mouth. Creamy and sweet, like the leftover dregs of Saturday morning cereal when he was a kid, hitting his tongue in little hiccup spurts. He almost choked at the sensation and felt a little slip out the corner of his mouth, and Evan’s grip tightened at the base of his scalp again, holding him there.

Their sex life hadn’t suffered even in the past few weeks, not in the way Tommy thought back on many of his old guard colleagues at the 118 talking about—dead bedrooms, wives like cold fish ever since they popped out a kid for some reason. But between Evan’s body needing the time to heal and the recent arrival of a tiny drill sergeant who demanded to be fed, held, changed and bathed at regularly irregular frequencies, opportunities to be intimate with each other had been few and far between. Tommy wasn’t complaining, but the sheer wave of niceness he felt now—being this close and familiar with Evan felt just as good as the first hit of a dilaudid drip in the back of an ambulance, made his toes curl against their fresh sheets as he swallowed.

“Missed your mouth on me,” Evan sighed, clearly also feeling some kind of way. “Shit, that’s nice. Different, but good.”

His dick was more insistent against Tommy’s arm now, the head eagerly tenting the thin cotton of his boxers.

Tommy finally took pity on him and tugged Evan out through the slit in his boxers, lips slipping loose to murmur, “Yes, hi, hello to you too.”

He licked his hand milk wet and returned his grip to stroke Evan and squeeze a little mean at the tip, the way that Evan loved, the way that made Evan pant and whine, before he resumed suckling. There was something meditative about Evan rocking into his hand and against his tongue, and Tommy found himself soothed by the give and take of his body, their natural rhythm together punctuated by Evan’s swallowed back noises.

“Okay?” Tommy asked, mouth full.

“Uh-huh.” Evan sighed, breath pitchy. “Starting to soak through my other side without my Haakaa.”

Tommy hummed, and licked a broad stripe up his nipple to his collarbone, biting there softly. “You want me to go get your Haakaa, baby?”

“Nah, I have a better idea,” Evan replied. He untangled himself from Tommy’s grip and carefully twisted to throw one long leg over Tommy’s thighs. “Hey, handsome.”

“Evan,” Tommy warned. They were supposed to be limiting the kind of sex they were having for at least two more weeks.

Evan worked the other side of his tank down his chest so both of his tits were exposed, rubbing at the neglected nipple. “I just want to continue what we started. Nothing else. C’mon. No funny business.”

“Maybe a little funny business,” Tommy murmured as he watched milk dribble out over Evan’s fingers. He leaned in to chase the wet line up Evan’s knuckles with his tongue and suck a hot-breathed open-mouthed kiss to Evan nipple before pulling away. Evan groaned and rocked forward, chasing him in response, which almost had Tommy laughing. “Hey, gimme a sec. I’m grabbing you some lube.”

“Me?”

Tommy, halfway stretched back reaching for the bedside table, gave an unimpressed glance down at where Evan’s hard dick still curved up through the slit in his boxers, plummy head drooling precome against the tent in Tommy’s own sleep pants. Then he went back to digging the lube out of the drawer, practiced hands making quick work with it until he was wrapping a slick palm around Evan’s dick.

“That’s right, said I was gonna take care of you.” He sidled back up against the headboard, and Evan shifted with him practiced and familiar, until Tommy’s hand was stroking him, snug and slippery between them. Licking another long, thick line up the small swell of Evan’s breast, Tommy said, “And you’ll take care of me.”

He pulled Evan back into his mouth, and something uncoiled in his gut as Evan’s milk hit the back of his tongue again. His eyes fluttered closed. Years together and Evan’s body was still finding new things to give, new ways to taste, sweet and warm like the rest of him, dripping down Tommy’s throat.

“Oh.” Evan’s voice was weak and pitchy, and he brought both hands back up to curl in Tommy’s hair and hold him there while Tommy continued to suck and let Evan fuck into his fist.

His stomach was soft against Tommy’s knuckles, recently tender enough that Tommy tried to get his free hand on Evan’s hip to control the roll of his hips, opting for a sluggish grind and tighter grip. In the past nine months and change Evan had ridden him, sure, actually ridden him, but more recently he’d had a belly full of their kid in the way, so it was always reverse cowboy, and not this level of skin on skin closeness right in his lap. Evan flush against him now was a reminder of their first several months together when they used a little more strength to push each other around and hold each other down and Tommy, mouth full, felt so hungry for it.

“Can’t wait to have you inside me again,” Evan said, like he could read Tommy’s mind.

Tommy moaned and swallowed in response, tongued at Evan’s nipple like he was begging for more. He could feel Evan’s dick throb hot, heavier now in response, the grinding rock of his hips going a little sloppy.

“Baby,” Evan said, right on cue, “I’m going to come.”

The hands in Tommy’s hair tugged back, Tommy’s mouth dragged away and up with a slick noise to be guided in for a kiss, milk slipping from the corners, passed between the two of them as Evan came, shuddering on top of him. Vaguely he felt Evan’s come seep through his tank and sleep pants, already damp with lube and sweat. He was defenseless against it as Evan kept kissing him through his orgasm, licking into him sloppy and greedy for what felt like an hour, big hands and long arms slowly sliding down to where Tommy was still achingly hard. His fingers curled into the elastic waistband to clumsily peel back what he could without moving to pull Tommy out, still achingly hard.

“Evan,” Tommy said against his mouth, almost breathless with it.

“Let me.” Evan leaned back to spit on his own hand, equal parts too lazy and restless to grab the lube that was right there, but Tommy had been riding the edge practically from the start. He was so goddamn spoiled already.

Evan touched him like he knew, jerking him off hard and quick.

“Next time,” he continued, “next time we do this, you lay me down and I’ll let you jerk off all over my tits.”

Tommy came hard with an ugly noise, like it was ripped up his throat. His head kicked back and Evan laughed, smug, leaning in to kiss the noise down, their teeth clacking together instead. He body felt weightless, Evan’s weight on him the only thing keeping him from floating up to the ceiling.

“Jesus,” he said, eventually.

Evan hummed, settling back. He looked sleepy, and satisfied, and so pleased with himself. “Yeah? You good? Get your fill?”

“And then some,” Tommy replied, feeling half drunk. “You good?”

“Great,” Evan said, glancing between them. Both their clean shirts were soaked through in places. Tommy needed to grab a new pair of pants. “But I'll be even better if you take care of the laundry.”

#mpreg #bucktommy #baby probie #911 abc #delaney writes

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rosemaryreaper · 1 month ago

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Deacon!

Plus a bonus Desdemona snip. Nora enjoys Deacon’s company. She just can’t give him the satisfaction of admitting that to his face. After all, they’re one big dysfunctional family. With guns!

* * * *

There was a man sitting in her chair. Wearing her sunglasses. Over top of another pair of sunglasses.

“Jesus, Deacon. The door was locked.”

“The window wasn’t. You should really get that fixed. Who knows what lunatics might climb in here?”

“Give me those.” She snatched her shades off his face, knocking his own pair askew. He gave her a similarly crooked grin. “Is this a you visit or a Desdemona visit?”

“Both. You’re a popular woman.”

“Hit me.”

“So, long story short, Dez thinks it’s a ridiculously stupid plan and wants you to call the whole thing off before it all goes south and puts the entire Railroad in jeopardy.” He kicked his feet up on the desk. She shoved them back off.

“She’s already told me this to my face. Repeatedly.”

“She just wants to make sure it’s sinking in. Can’t imagine why she’d ever get the impression you don’t listen to her. You two are besties.”

She never wanted to hear the word “besties” leave his mouth again. “I’m not forcing her to attend.”

“Bizarrely, that’s where you’re wrong. Somehow she’s convinced she owes you a debt, saving all the Institute synths and all that. She won’t owe you a chip off a cap after this, but she’ll do it.”

“And what do you think?”

“I also think it’s a ridiculously stupid plan and you should call the whole thing off. It’ll never work. What do you think will happen? Dez and Maxon will shake hands and the Brotherhood will magically stop hunting us down like mongrels?”

“I’m not asking you to be friends. I’m asking you to stop killing each other for five minutes so we can talk about the future of the Commonwealth. Is that really so impossible?”

“Of course not. Maybe we can braid each other’s hair while we’re at it too.”

“Tell Dez her concerns are noted—and that I’ll see her at the meeting.”

“Oh, goodie! I’d love to do that. They never shoot messengers around here.”

“Your sarcasm is also noted. And disregarded.”

* * * *

Bonus:

“You have some nerve,” Desdemona said by way of greeting.

“You’re here,” Nora replied. “There’s no point in arguing now.”

“I’m not here to play nice. I’m here to ensure you don’t do something utterly idiotic.”

“If you were actually interested in stopping my idiotic plans, you would have put a bullet in my skull the day we met.”

“I was sorely tempted, believe me.”

“So tempted that you gave me a gun and code name right off the bat.”

“We all make mistakes.”

#my favorite part of writing nora’s interactions with the faction leaders #is that dez and maxon are so exasperated by her but they can’t help but respect her #and that exasperates them more #nora has a teenager at home nothing is going to faze her #rosemary reaper #fallout 4 #fallout 4 fanfic #nora delaney #deacon fo4 #deacon #desdemona

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elizaellwrites · 6 months ago

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Tag your sun/moon OC dynamic pair

#writer #writeblr #oc stuff #writing #aspiring writer #aspiring author #mine is Rachel and Ben #Rachel Delaney #Ben Baker #i love them

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lyralu91 · 8 months ago

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When you've had a busy few days but all you want to do is lie in bed with James Delaney. James: "Come." Me: "But I need to finish this chapter..." James: "No excuses. The chapter is done."

#taboobbc #taboofx #james delaney #james keziah delaney #tom hardy #ao3 fanfic #ao3 writer #fanfic writing #will Godders be joining us?#put me to bed please #tuck me in

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athousandbyeol · 13 days ago

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lavender. [thamepo fanfic]

"let's take a picture together. you'll see how—" beautiful you are. but thame can't say that aloud. it feels too much. it weighs so much on him now.

or thame realises that he likes po. really, really, likes po.

#thamepo #thamepo heart that skips a beat #thame po heart that skips a beat #thame po #thame x po #po x thame #william jakrapatr #est supha #williamest #estwilliam #fanfic #fanfiction #ao3 fanfic #mood: honesty - delaney bailey #i miss thamepo so much these days...#i hope i can meet them soon :(#//this is another word vomit//#na writes #for thamepo

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mlmxreader · 5 months ago

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Killer | James Delaney x gn!reader

『••✎••』

↳ ❝ James Delaney x Reader -> "They pay me the money and I do the job, I got a contract on you" [No one expected Delaney to be on their list, least of all reader] ❞

: ̗̀➛ Delaney settles down with a bounty hunter, but there's still a fair few surprises to come your way; even if one of them requires both a lot of gall and even more stupidity to even think about.

trigger warnings: ̗̀➛ swearing, mentions of death and murder

↳ word count: 1000

•───────────────★•♛•★──────────────•

“Fuck.”

Delaney looked up from his desk with a soft huff, slowly putting his pen down as he watched you carefully; you walked with great tension in your shoulders and back, hunched over slightly and staring at the piece of paper in your hands with furrowed brows and a tight sneer.

He knew that look.

You had a new client, and they had just sent you your orders. A bounty hunter by trade, you took money from whatever and wherever you could within reason; usually it was just murderers who had escaped justice one way or another - often because they were of a pale complexion.

Delaney knew you all too well, though, and knew that this one was likely not that - or it was someone who was genuinely innocent.

So he watched, listening to the harsh, marching sounds of your pacing as you went back and forth in front of his desk as if you were a caged animal, starving and parched and yearning for freedom - about to risk it all to escape the iron bars.

He leaned back, abandoning his few bits of paperwork for a moment as he tilted his head to the side and kept watching; you kept rereading the paper, as if it would make any more sense the more you studied it. He knew you only did that when you were genuinely conflicted about the bounty.

Often because it wasn’t enough money. You sneered and scowled when you read the section that he guessed held the name, so it couldn’t have been the money. They must have asked you to go after someone innocent. But he couldn’t tell, and he knew that the only way of finding out would be to ask.

“What?”

You turned to him with a sharpness in your eyes that he usually smiled at; so professionally cold and cruel at times, your stare could rival his. Although his was animalistic, yours was trained.

“They pay me the money and I do the job, I got a contract on you now, and I’m not fucking doing it.”

Delaney nodded, partially in agreement as he hummed and looked for his pen; he grabbed a new bit of paper, and started to write something down, but you couldn’t see what.

“James!” You barked with all the authority and brutality of a general. “Did you not fucking hear me?!”

He nodded again, his words just grunting out past his lips. “I’m writing a letter.”

Sure, he was surprised that anyone would have the gall to ask you to hunt him down and kill him, given the fact that you had recently changed your last name to his and constantly wore a ring with his name engraved on it; but he couldn’t be surprised that there was a bounty on his head.

It was brave to ask you to be the one, of course, but bravery was incredibly fucking stupid as well. So he grabbed his pen, and he started to write out the letter as he ignored your continued pacing and loud grumbling.

A tiger trapped in a cage, it wasn’t long until you screwed the contract up and threw it at his head.

“Did that make you feel better?” Delaney grumbled, only looking up at you for a moment.

You huffed as you collapsed in the chair next to his desk, folding your arms across your chest and bouncing your leg. “They want me to fucking kill you, and your response is to… to fucking write a letter?! Are you stupid?!”

Delaney shook his head as he glanced at you, almost smiling as he carried on scratching the pen against the paper. “Stupidity was sending you the fucking contract.”

You couldn’t argue with that. “Oh, so you did hear!”

“Fuck off,” he rumbled, shaking his head. “Do you want this to go away or not?”

You huffed, watching him carefully and curiously as he took the screwed up contract and unfurled it; he studied the lettering and the return address, and grunted to himself before continuing to write.

You guessed that either he was going to ask one of his contacts to kill the person who had placed the bounty, or he was writing directly to them and threatening them himself - either way, you couldn’t see the person who took the contract out living to see the dawn. If they were lucky.

You weren’t quite sure what to do, though; you knew that it was only a matter of time before someone asked the same again, but you also needed the money that came through from the jobs.

You couldn’t hurt Delaney, even when you accidentally tripped over his feet, you always felt immense guilt for it; anyone else, you wouldn’t have batted an eye but he… he was different.

He had always been different. You didn’t want to see him hurt, but maybe… maybe you were the only person who could truly protect him - you knew how bounty hunters and assassins operated, you knew how they worked and how they thought.

Maybe you were his best option for any sort of defence.

But he would never let you do it so outwardly; he said that the second he put the ring on your finger, he would not allow you to become his bodyguard. You were not to get involved with his affairs at all, and you were not to start using your talents and skills to ensure his survival.

But obviously it wasn’t as easy as it all seemed, and from the way his hands shook when he grabbed the contract again, you knew that he was about two seconds away from grabbing his hat and fucking off to find the person himself.

“James,” you said softly. “If you’re gonna kill the cunt, do me a favour?”

“Hm?”

“Don’t get blood all over our floors when you come home,” you told him with a soft laugh, almost too quiet to be heard. “I spent far too fucking long cleaning it up last time.”

thank you for reading! now, if I may, I would like to direct your attention to Sara - she is a 12 year old in Gaza whose family is trying to flee the genocide and seek medical care for her. If you have any, any money at all, even if it's just £1, then please, consider sending it to Sara and her family. Every little bit of money will go such a long, long way in helping this family, so please, consider making a contribution.

#mlem writes #james delaney x reader #james delaney x you #james delaney x y/n #james delaney x yn #james delaney imagine #james keziah delaney x reader #james keziah delaney x you #james keziah delaney #james delaney #tom hardy x reader #tom hardy x you #tom hardy x y/n #tom hardy x yn #tom hardy imagine #tom hardy fanfiction #tom hardy fanfic #tom hardy fic #tom hardy

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