#how the fuck do you guys keep yourselves so regulated

[misspermitted]

I’m so amazed by people who study things that they have emotional lived experience with. Like, I just sat through one lecture on colonialism and I want to cry. Then I had to actually try to process those emotions! Wtf!! You guys studying the systems that screwed you over so you can change them are gods goddamn soldiers I swear.

[glowinggator]

Cuddles - All Turtles

Request: Hi I really like you writes! keep up the good work, I was wondering if you could do a rottmnt cuddle Imagines? If that's fine?

Pairing: All Turtles! (Non-Poly) 

Content: Fluffy as FUCK. Brush your teeth after you read this, cause it’s sweet as hell. 

Raphael: 

He loves to cuddle! But...he’s nervous. He doesn’t want to prick you with one of his spikes, or...worse. With his brothers, it’s different! They’ve got hard shells and plastrons, but you’re so... squishy! What if he hurts you? 

He gets so happy about casual touch. Putting you on his shoulders? Throwing his arm around your shoulders? Affectionate hair ruffle? He’s the physical embodiment of :) 

If you want full cuddles, though, you’re gonna have to be the one to initiate it the first few times. He’s just too nervous, otherwise. 

Rest your head on his plastron when you’re watching a movie and he’ll melt. 

Seeing how your arms maneuver around his spikes to embrace him, how gingerly you hold him...Maybe it’s possible. Maybe you two can cuddle without getting any boo boos.

He can’t really lay on his back because of his spikes. He’ll either get stuck that way when his spikes inevitably get embedded into the material, or he’ll shred up whatever he’s laying on.

(He’s banned from the beanbag chairs.)

He wants to be the little spoon so bad, but it’s physically impossible. He’s forever bound to big spoon duty. He’s okay with that, though. 

(One time you showed up wrapped in mattress foam and bubble wrap to try and be the big spoon. It's a very fond memory, even if you were padded too stiffly to actually hold him.) 

He likes to rest his head in your lap. Run your nails along his head or shell and he’ll be asleep in no time.

He won’t lay on your stomach or chest though. He really wants to, but he’s afraid he’ll crush you. There’s no debate with that topic, unfortunately. 

He’s such a good big spoon!! He’s so strong, and he cradles you like you’re the entire world. Because you are! 

He likes to rest one hand on your stomach and tangle his other hand with yours. It’s so cool to look down and see how his spikes cradle you. Almost as though you were a treasure encased in barbed wire, protected from the outside world. 

You always feel so safe when you cuddle. I mean, it’s hard not to when you’re cocooned in 1000lbs of muscle and spikes!

His hold is firm, but noticeably gentle. 

He runs pretty warm, compared to the rest of the turtles. Great in the winter time, not so great in the summer.  

He traces little doodles on the back of your hand. You can never tell what they are, though. And he won’t tell you what they are, if you ask.  

(They’re dogs.) 

He’s not coldblooded, due to the way he was mutated. As such, he doesn’t really have any issues regulating his body temperature. He does find himself seeking out heat sources, however! Donnie calls it a vestigial response. Raph absolutely does not care about no scientific names or explanations: he just knows that he likes to sit under the heat lamp in the morning.

Prepare to be his next heat lamp. 

If you come over in the mornings, prepare to be greeted with a very sleepy Raph the instant your feet hit the lair concrete.

He’s never on his phone when you cuddle.

He is a talker, though. He doesn’t quite whisper, but he definitely invokes the gentle voice. 

He falls asleep very quickly if he doesn’t keep himself talking. Your presence is just so calming to him, he can’t help it! 

He’s a very deep breather, and it’s really calming to listen to!

Unfortunately, he starts to snore about 15 minutes after he falls asleep. And he’s loud. 

You’ll get used to it, eventually. 

Donatello

He doesn’t sleep consistently, so full cuddle sessions are far and few between.

He read that fake rumor that Albert Einstein only slept for five hours a year: while it’s since been debunked, it’s stuck with him. He started training himself when he was little to power nap instead, and now it’s hard for him to get out of the habit.  

But..you’re a good motivator.

He’s a little nervous around the concept of cuddling, at first. He’s very touch-starved, and once you warm him up to the idea, it’ll be hard to pull him off you! But he’s incredibly nervous about it at first.

It’s...intimate, you know? He’s vulnerable, and that freaks him out.

His shell is super sensitive. Partially because it’s soft, but wearing his battle shell all the time has removed a lot of stimuli that would have made it less sensitive.

He reflexively rolls his shoulders when you run your hands along his exposed shell. At least, for the first few times. If you do it enough, it’ll quickly become a way for him to relax.

Likes to pull you to his chest and hold you like that. He usually has your head under his chin so he can scroll through his phone while you cuddle. He doesn’t move his arms much though, so it’s okay.

(He also likes it when you’re facing him so he can steal glances at you once you fall asleep. He thinks you’re even prettier when you’re completely relaxed.)

You’ll rarely see it for yourself, but his eyes get all soft while you’re cuddling together. The quietest, calmest smile graces his features when you’re in his arms.

However, you do notice how all the tension fades from his body, and how his breathing seems to slow down.

He’ll run his free hand along your back every now and then, pressing a quiet kiss to the top of your head.

He runs fairly cold, which is awesome in the summertime. He always lets you borrow his hoodies when you cuddle. If you ask nicely, he’ll let you keep ‘em, just so long as he has one or two in the closet.

His bed has super soft blankets, and they’re so nice to curl up in. You’ll probably stay there for a little while after he gets up, honestly.

He’s not a talker, surprisingly. Every now and then he’ll pull his arm back to show you some meme on his phone, but that’s about it. He’ll listen to you though! He actually really likes it when you mutter about whatever's on your mind while you cuddle.

King of “Uh huh,” “Wow,” “Mmhm,” and “Damn that’s crazy.”

He really is listening, though. He just likes to tease you a little bit.

His grip is either iron-tight or loose as hell.

On bad days he’ll curl up as the little spoon, and not even the gods could convince him to let go of you.

It takes him a while to warm up to the idea of being a little spoon. Both because his shell is hyper-sensitive, but it also kind of erodes that “bad boy” persona he’s got going on.

Once he’s more comfortable with it, he’s about 50/50 on it. He’s more likely to indulge himself on bad days, but it honestly just depends on his mood.

If you pull him away from work, you can bet that he’ll pull you to his chest while he’s sitting on the bed. He’ll lean forward to rest his chin on your shoulder as he explains his latest breakthrough. He shakes a little bit when he’s excited, and you can feel it as he holds you.  

He panics a little bit when he’s on his back, but he really likes it when you lay on his plastron, so...Chair cuddles!

He likes to have you in his lap while he works.

He also likes to kick his legs up onto your lap when watching TV. If you guys have the couch to yourselves, he’ll also lay all the way on your lap. If anyone sees you guys, or if anyone comments on it he’ll just hit ‘em with a very snarky quip.

“Okay, and? At least I actually have a partner :)”

You don’t know how he said “:)” outloud.

Leonardo 

He thinks he’s so smooth, but honestly? He’s such a dork.

He’s huge on touch. But cuddling? It’s a whole ‘nother ball game. He loves it a lot, but...he’s so vulnerable! It’s so intimate to him. He’s not adverse to it in the slightest; in fact, it’s the exact opposite! He’s super excited when the topic comes up.

You can tell that the idea of fully cuddling affects him more than he lets on, because he won’t stop talking when you bring up the subject for the first time. He rambles when he’s nervous.

(He talks with his hands a lot, and it’s really cute how he rambles and rubs the back of his neck.)

He’s actually a great cuddler, though.

Big spoon? Hell yeah. Little spoon? Awesome. Horrific entanglement of limbs that would put eldritch horrors to shame? Sweet! He’s just happy to be close to you.

He can go 50/50 on having his phone with him. If he does, he’s usually either watching memes with you or playing a mobile game.

(Kind of unrelated, but he was very excited about that weird, Subway Surfers revival that happened earlier this year. It was all he played for a while, and now you have the tune lodged in your brain forever.)

He’ll talk for a little while if he doesn’t have his phone, before you settle into a comfortable silence.

He’s either ranting about something shitty that happened that day, or shitposting. There’s no inbetween.

“If I shot someone from Texas while I was on the moon, would that fall under Texas’ jurisdiction or the moon’s?”

He also likes to trace little patterns on your hands, if he has access to them that day! You can usually tell what they are. Other times, it just seems like he’s finding an excuse to hold your hand. It’s really cute.

(If you ask him what he’s drawing, he’ll say he’s reading your palms before dropping a sweet little line about how he’s in your future.)

(He does NOT know how to read palms but it’s the thought that counts <3)

Not ashamed about cuddling in public. Hell, if you’re fine with it, he’s more than happy to cuddle during movie night. In fact, it’s kind of a source of pride for him!

He looks so cocky about it that Donatello has to make a physical effort to NOT hit him.

Please run your palms over his shell, he’ll melt.

If he’s the big spoon, squeeze his biceps. He might not say it out loud, but he’s melting internally. It sticks in his head for at least a few weeks afterwards. Ego Boost 100

If you’re ticklish, prepare yourself for tickles. He strikes without a pattern, and without warning. He doesn’t always do it, though. Maybe about one in ten times. He just likes to hear you laugh :)

He’s very nice to cuddle with overall. He’s the best cuddler in the lair, hands down.

Michelangelo

Literally the only one in the lair who isn’t embarrassed when you bring up the topic.

He’s been WAITING for this moment, actually.

Doesn’t care about whether he’s the big or little spoon.

He’s super talkative when he cuddles, it’s cute. He usually likes to spend this time talking about one another’s day. He’s a great listener too!

He’s always 100% engaged in what you have to say.

He has trouble settling down outside of his normal schedule, so it’s rare that he’ll fall asleep while cuddling.

If you’re in a position that gives his arms a lot of mobility, he’ll draw on you. Not just tracing patterns, but he’ll actually bring out his markers and draw on your arms, back, or just any exposed piece of skin.

He always manages to find the prettiest colors to compliment your skin tone. You never want to wash it off, honestly.

He HAS to keep himself busy with something, or else he’ll explode. At least, that’s how he describes it. If you try and get him to lay down and fall asleep...well, he’ll try! But he’ll be squirming the whole time.

It’s best to throw on a Jupiter Jim movie if you want him to stay still.

He likes to tangle his legs with yours while you cuddle. Whether he’s taller or shorter than you, he WILL find a way.

He’s the lightest out of all the turtles, so there’s a possibility of letting him (partially) lay on you without shattering your sternum! Congratulations!

(He’s around 525 lbs. He’s only half of what Raph weighs, but he still has to be careful about how he lays on you. It’s crazy to think that you’re so small compared to him.)

His hands are so cold, and he’ll absolutely use that to his advantage. If he gets bored, or if he just wants to make you laugh, he’ll grab your waist with his cold fucking hands. Hope you’re a northerner <3

He also likes to tickle you, way more than Leo.

Don’t try and tickle him though, he HATES it. He’s absolutely the type of person to just Scream if you try.

Like I said, he gets bored really quickly. He also just likes to make you laugh.

If you’re cuddling in bed though, like right before he falls asleep? It’s so nice.

He’ll still tangle his legs with yours, but he moves so much slower. He loves to let his hands lazily roam across your form as he pulls you closer to him, savoring the comfort and heat that you bring. If he talks, it’s in drowsy whispers that only you two can hear.

[captain-danwilds]

I’ve been waiting for so long (to feel like I’m home)

A RBB 2021 Fic  AO3 Accompanying Art by @mareofthesky​

Summary: Palmetto Public Hospital was just supposed to be another meaningless stop in Neil Josten's life.  He doesn't have a reason to keep running to a new hospital every few months, but that doesn't mean he's learned how to stay.  And there's something about the rest of the staff on the burn ward that makes him want to try, especially the physical therapist. 

This fic was written for the 2021 AFTG Reverse Big Bang. Thank you @gluupor for organizing! I had the joy of being paired with @mareofthesky. She’s absolutely incredible, both as an artist and as a human being. I seriously couldn’t ask for someone better.   

This work takes place in a hospital in pre-COVID times.  I am not a nurse, doctor or physical therapist, let alone a burn survivor.  I do not know everything they go through.   I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible, but recognize that I’m going to be wrong about some things.  There’s only so far research can take you.

While I don’t think this work is more graphic than canon, it does deal with some distressing stuff, namely: burns, blood, hospitals, child abuse, violence, panic attacks, hurt/comfort, torture, mutilation of corpses (referenced) and Baltimore references.  

Nathaniel Wesninski was thirteen when his mother almost died.  

In another universe, this would have been the thing that killed her.  She would have gotten her hands-on fake passports and they would have traveled across Europe until he was fourteen and Stefan got shot in Germany.  But they would have still ended up in Seattle, her blood spilling on the leather seat as her son drove down the coastline.  

In this world, their plans to head to Europe fell through quickly.  There hadn't been a couple million dollars to pave the way, just two desperate souls fleeing in the night because Nathaniel couldn't live up to the standards his father set for him.  

Nathan Wesninski was the head of his own empire, eager for his son to take over.  There was no Yakuza demanding a show of loyalty.  If Nathaniel had shown promise, he would have been able to take over the family operation.  

The problem was, in both worlds,  Nathaniel hadn't shown promise.  It took years for him to learn how to watch his father butcher a man without crying.  He could never master Lola's style of knife play, refusing to draw out the pain any more than strictly necessary.  As he got older, his eyes would go stony, his hands moving automatically.   But he was moving through water.   He barricaded himself into his own head so that he didn't register the stickiness of the blood on his hands until he'd left the basement.  The sound of screams became so ubiquitous, he could tune it out.   There was no joy, certainly no drive to continue the Butcher's legacy.  

He had merely nodded when his father had announced he expected Nathaniel to take care of the traitor in his ranks.  He kept his feet trained on the floor, on the puddles of blood slowly inching toward the central drain.  

But Mary saw the gleam on her husband's face, the unspoken or else.  She also happened to know the traitor in question.   One of the servants who liked to sneak Nathaniel snacks while he worked on his homework.  There was no way that Nathaniel could force himself to do it.  He'd be left with new scars if he was lucky.   Knowing her husband and his current frustration over territory losses, Nathaniel wasn’t going to be lucky.

So she'd grabbed what she could, contacted the few contacts she had with her family that could do good work for cheap and escaped into the night.  

When they met Nathan and his ilk in Seattle, they had only been on the run for three years.   Linda and Alex, their 8th set of names, had settled into the type of neighborhood where no one noticed another kid with desperation in their eyes, where no one had the energy to poke into anyone else's business during the break between second and third jobs.   Alex was fine, good at following orders, a natural at stitches.  He could blend in just fine, answer questions the right way, but he certainly wasn't ready to start out on his own.  

For every time they successfully changed identities, he complained about not joining the track team or jostled against the restrictions of coming home directly after school without hanging on the monkey bars or meeting friends.   For all their time on the run, for all the times she'd tried to beat it out of him, Alex was still a child.  

And even if he had been ready to stake out on his own.  A child, especially one as small as Alex, would always draw attention when traveling alone.  

Despite that, he had been able to drive the beaten down car, the phone book stacked beneath him giving him just enough extra height to see the road.  His maneuvering was perfect as he weaved through traffic.  They hadn't spent weeks training as Caroline and Sam in backroads lined with corn in Iowa for him to fail when escape was their only option.  

Mary applied pressure to the bullet wound with one hand and frantically called the local FBI office with her other.   Her family might have been able to help her, but she wouldn't live to see them arrive from England.  In dire circumstances one had to make do.  

And Mary had years’ worth of insider information of her husband's dealing she could easily trade for her treatment at a hospital and her son's continued safety.

So Nathaniel was 13 when his mother almost died, and he entered the witness protection program.   He was thirteen when he became Neil Josten.  

"Isn't it too similar to his real name?"  Mary huffed, giving the trio sent to her hospital room a jaunty smile.    

The mousy-haired social worker pushed up her glasses as she gave them a placating smile.  "We find young children tend to adapt better when allowed some connection to their genuine selves."

Mary had rolled her eyes, but Neil had merely frowned.   He had no idea what she meant by genuine self.   Was he supposed to be like creative like Sam?  Or logical like Owen?  His life had been a mass of contradictions.   The only thing he knew for certain was he didn't want to be brutal like Nathaniel.    

The only thing he'd consistently been his entire life was scared.    

He was fifteen by the time arrests were started to be made in Baltimore.  

"You needed two years for that?"  Mary spat as she talked to their handler over the phone from their Millport townhouse.  "Fucking Moorhouse and Redler?

Neil dutifully filled out his homework as he sat sprawled out in the living room with the patio door open so he could smell his mother's cigarettes as she badgered tonight's lucky caller.

"I would have thought that you'd have something more to show for yourselves.  Truly the incompetence is astounding."  

Neil smirked as Mary's natural brogue colored her words.  She could speak half a dozen languages with the precision of a local but rile her up enough and anyone would be able to tell she’d spent her childhood running wild in Manchester.    

Neil pressed his pencil hard into the paper as he underlined yet another one of the rules for pickleball.  Sure he couldn't even run around the neighborhood anytime soon, let alone play a game he's actually interested in, but the epitome of his online gym education truly was learning rules and regulations for sports he wasn't even sure were real.    

"I'm allowed to lie on this one right?" He sarcastically asked his caseworker as he laid out the exercise tracker worksheet.  "Like I'm not about to put myself in federal custody for claiming I have access to an Exy court? Since you guys said I had to be totally honest and everything"  

She had rolled his eyes at him, but she didn't ask about Mary's late night phone calls to Uncle Stuart, so Neil took it for the win it was.  

In another world, he was nineteen when his father’s people found them.  Instead, he was fifteen.   Fifteen with a limited skill-set since there are things that can be taught on the run that can’t be taught in a small flat under government surveillance.  

The only bright side was that in this world, there was no car.  He was not crammed in a trunk with Lola tool close, practically grinding on top of him as she reminded him how much he looked like his father. It’s a small victory.  

Instead there’s screaming and knives and he had to watch.  He had to watch with his heart in his throat as Romero showed no mercy.  Watch as his mother died, watch until he can’t recognize her corpse anymore.  

They took enjoyment in this.   Lola’s practically laughed as he slammed into the wall, as she dragged her knife down his chest.  

Neil spit in Lola’s face as she poured the gasoline. With his squirming, it only managed to douse half his body, but it was enough to finally wrench the screams from his throat as the flames bit into his flesh.  

He was scared.  He fought back anyway.  

But that really wouldn’t have changed in either world.  

The bullets that finally came, that finally bring everything to an end, did not come from his Uncle in revenge.  

Instead they are fired by federal officers aiming to main so as not to lose the opportunity to interrogate the criminals that might have enough knowledge to bring all of East Coast’s organized crime to its knees.  

The weeks that followed weren’t kind to him.  Neil saw the pictures later and he didn’t even recognize his own face.

But for once, the people were kind.  Kind enough to give him hope even as the rest of the world collapsed around him.  

Somewhere else a scared boy finds his family and himself at nineteen on an Exy court.  In this world, Neil Josten is twenty-six and finds them in a hospital.  This is that story.  

"It really was lucky that we found you with such short notice."  

In general, Neil Josten didn't believe in luck.  He certainly wouldn't call it luck when Palmetto Public Hospital had posted exactly the type of job he looked for on all the travel nurse job boards.   Just desperate sounding enough to cause people to not ask too many questions, while professional enough to not make a big deal of his scars.  

Neil took Chief Nurse Danielle Wilds' hand with a carefully constructed smile on his face.  "I'm glad I'm able to help.  Although I was under the impression, I'd be your replacement."  

Wilds let out as a laugh as she seemed to instinctively cradle her baby bump.  "My husband, Matt, you'll be working with him too, thinks I'm being ridiculous, wanting to show you around myself, but I'd truly hate for you to get the wrong impression of us."  

Neil just barely kept himself from rolling his eyes.  Every hospital thought they were so special. Like a family or some shit.   Every hospital was wrong.  

Procedure might differ slightly, and some places had more people worth avoiding.   But in the end, all that mattered was that the nurses showed up,  did their job and offered some kindness.  Even if he’s no Abby, even if his version of kindness wasn’t so much sympathy as it is experience, kindness was essential.  

He can never claim to know exactly what the patients are going through.  Even if they showed up with third degree burns down half their body, a punctured lung, a broken arm and some knife wounds, he wouldn’t really know.  He’d just know they’d hurt like hell.  Even if the injuries were the same, their story would be very different.

No one breaks the same way.  

Still the things a broken person can say to another broken person can often carry more weight.  

It’s one thing to offer sympathy.  It’s another entirely to nod in understanding that your body doesn’t entirely feel like yours anymore, that it might never feel like yours, but you just have to keep going forward.  

Over the years, Neil got very good at moving forward.  

Neil tossed his running shoes by the door.  It took him less than ten minutes for Neil to add his things to the furnished apartment.   He'd discovered only two hospitals ago that people ask less questions if his clothes weren't covered in wrinkles from staying packed.   So Neil haphazardly moved the folded scrubs onto the cheapest hangers he could find.

3:08 PM I'm all moved in.  

The responding string of smiley faces to Neil's message was instantaneous despite the fact it was the middle of the afternoon and Abby was likely still on shift.  (Or maybe precisely because she was on shift and had her phone on to stay up to date on patients as opposed to cutting herself off from the rest of the world to try and squeeze out some sleep.)  

He didn't feel guilty per say as he closed his phone.   Abby knew better to expect much from him.  

"Kiddo, I'm going to take what I can get. I understand you aren’t used to having someone in your corner."  She said as she bundled him up for college, doing far more than anyone had expected of her.  

Well he should have expected it of her.  Abby had practically laughed in his case worker's face when Cindy had brought up the different moveout options for when Neil turned 18.      

It was a strange thing to have someone, even if he kept her at arm's length.  

It's for her own good.  The little traitorous voice in his head whispered.  

Logically, Neil knew that Abby was already in too deep.  Anyone, including any of his father's men seeking retribution could find her by simply looking for his file.   He didn't need to maintain a relationship with her in order for Abby to be at risk.   She had housed him during the trial.  That would be enough for them.   There was no need to push her away, to prevent her from actually knowing him.  

But he felt a little bad that she knew him well enough to not ask why he had a new number or what his address was.  Moving so soon after getting a housewarming package of cookies hadn’t been an overreaction and he stood by that.

When he finally met him, Matt was more of an overexcited puppy than an actual person.  He dragged Neil down to the cafeteria every day they shared a break.  Matt carried the conversation easily needing only the slightest input from Neil to keep going.  He talked about any and everything, from college exploits to TV shows to worries that he wouldn’t be a good dad.  

“It’s not like I had the best example, you know?”  Matt joked even as his eyes are serious.  

Neil nodded, understanding a bit too well.  “Still an example.  Just an example of one way to fuck up.  You’ll be fine.”  

He ducked his head as Matt beamed too brightly at him.  

Words were a weapon he’s used to, but everything about conversations with Matt felt wrong.  

Matt made him feel unbalanced.  He offered up genuine parts of himself so easily.  Neil wished he had something to give him in return for his easy friendship and trust, but even what was safe to say felt like it belonged to a different person entirely, a person he didn’t want to be anymore.  

And what was left after that?  The fact he didn’t like books or movies or vegetables.  It wasn’t a fair trade. Matt shouldn’t be content to accept the breadcrumbs Neil offers in return for his raw insecurities.  

But he was.  

And that made Neil want to try.  Try to force himself into a person Matt deserved, someone real.

Creating that person was fucking exhausting.  

After two weeks, he had more than enough.   Neil had a bag lunch and a mission.

Neil slipped into the stairwell without anyone spotting him and headed up.  He might be able get onto the roof.  But he would settle for just one of the upper floors.  As long as there was no well-meaning coworker attempting to engage him in the break room or bring him down to the cafeteria, Neil would consider it a win.

The door marked “Roof Access – Maintenance Staff Only" looked like it should be locked.   But a few jiggles of the handle had it opening easily enough.  

The roof wasn't empty like he expected.  Instead there's a figure sitting cross-legged near the front edge of the roof.  Even from here, Neil could tell the man is short.  Small but not delicate.   Probably a former athlete from the width of his shoulders, the bulk visible even through the loose black scrubs.  His short blonde hair is slightly windswept, enough so that he can see the man’s black earrings.

Neil tried to place him.  He is not the best with names.  He didn't see the point of attempting to remember when he’d be gone soon.   But Dan had wanted to introduce him to everyone, saying something about them not being a whole bunch of "do-nothings" and it would do him some good to know the typical inhabitants of the burn ward.  

Allison had taken that a step farther.  Probably because she wanted gossip and hearing vague descriptions wasn't very helpful to her.  

Neil stared for a second, cataloguing the man from behind, before it clicked.  

Andrew Minyard, Physical Therapist.  

”Monster Minyard” Allison said as she brought him around with her one day, telling him everything he should know about his new coworkers.  “Bites worse than his bark. If he wasn’t so good with hopeless cases or getting rid of particularly overbearing visitors, I wouldn’t even know why we kept him around.”

The little Neil’s seen already was more than enough to know Andrew’s good.  

The only way the nickname seemed to fit at all was that the man was intimidating when he wanted to be, that he could turn himself into a threat with ease.  Neil had seen him practically threaten a relative with a scalpel to the chest before turning on the dime and gently helping the patient bend the joints covered with skin grafts.

But the most remarkable thing was how Andrew always let his patients set the pace.  

There were sections of his own skin where Neil had lost sensation.  There were days when they'd ache or itch, but he couldn't feel much beyond heat. He'd nearly decked the first doctor who touched his arm without warning him.  Neil hadn't even realized he was there until the hand moved to a less ravaged spot.  Everything about it had made him feel unsteady.   He couldn't rely on his body to stand guard for him anymore.  

But Minyard never let his patients be surprised.   He narrated everything he did before he did it.  Nothing was a surprise.  They could say no if they didn't feel ready or if something hurt particularly bad that day.  He was flexible with the patients in a way he never was with the staff.  

Neil hadn't actually heard Minyard utter a word that wasn't directly related to their jobs.   He moved silently through the halls, meeting attempts to socialize with deep scowls.  

Maybe he'd be better off scouting out somewhere else.  There was no rule that Minyard owned the roof.  But Neil was also used to spotting dangerous people and everything about Minyard screamed trouble.      

“What are you doing up here?”  

Neil hadn’t realized Andrew had even known he was up here yet.  He didn’t bother turning when Neil forced the door open.  

“Trying to avoid company.”  Neil moved across the room until he sat next to Andrew.  They’re not quite at the edge, but there’s no guardrail.  It’s unnerving.  

Andrew gave a soft grunt of acknowledgement, still not looking at him.  

“What are you doing on the roof?”

“Used to smoke.  Never broke the habit.”

Neil merely nodded as he unwrapped his sandwich.  

Andrew tilted his head just slightly to the side.  “I thought that you’d be put off by smoking.”

“Is it bad to say I like the smell?”  

Andrew’s nose scrunched ever so slightly.  "You lie.  All the time."  

Neil only nodded again at the accusation.  

This time it isn’t quite a lie.  He did like the smell.  It’s not quite the same as the Lucky Strikes his mother would blow through after she thought he was asleep.  But it’s close, certainly a lot closer than the smell of burning human flesh.  

But it's not like Minyard's wrong either.  He did lie all the time.  Sometimes it felt like lying came easier than breathing.  

The rest of the staff hadn’t seemed as bothered about the lies. They were practically amused by them.  Neil had smirked when he passed the break room and overheard them sharing some of the most outrageous ones.  

“I heard him say to 402’s kid that he was trying to steal treasure from a palace guarded by lava, and he hadn’t been able to jump far enough on his way out.  

“At least that one’s child appropriate, he told 407 that was a victim of secret government trials of new chemical warfare weapons.  As if anyone with a brain couldn’t tell those were accelerant flame not pure chemical burns.” Allison added.  

No one mentioned “International Jewel Thief tortured for trade secrets.” And Seth didn’t bring up “I dabbled in porn to get through college.   Got a bit too into temperature play” even if it had made patient 406 laugh uproariously.  It was almost a shame his best lies were unappreciated.  

They’d even started a bet on what the real reason could be.  It would never be settled since it required asking him directly and none of them would do that.  They all liked to pretend to have morals even as they bet on everything under the sun. Besides what sort of example would it set to their patients? The one staff member that actually looked like them and yet they couldn’t even show basic decency with regards to his privacy.  

Maybe they have a whole separate bet about who’s finally going to work up the courage.  Neil didn’t think any of them had put money on that person being Minyard.  

Minyard turned to face Neil for the first time, "Tell me something true."

It wasn’t concern on Minyard's face.  The look in his eyes barely qualified as interested, but Neil still wanted to answer him.  He didn’t know what to say but he can't dismiss the fact that he wanted to answer. It was easy to admit to himself he doesn't typically want anything.  

"I don't see the point of icebreakers."  

Minyard tapped his fingers aggressively against  the roof.  "I'm not asking for party tricks.  I'm asking for something true."  

Neil wasn't sure he even had something true to offer.  What does that mean when he existed as a lie stacked atop another lie? The things he’s already told Matt don’t hold enough substance to be something true.  

"I didn't even think about becoming a nurse until after all this."  He gestured to himself.  He can't call it an accident even if that would make it simpler.

It was no accident where Lola pressed the dashboard lighter into his face, no accident in the way she poured the gasoline.  Every one of her actions had been designed to cause him the maximum amount of pain.  This wasn’t an accident.  

"My roommate forced me into PT.  Thought that since it was his new purpose in life, it would be mine too."  

"It's not like he was wrong."  

"You disgust me Josten."  

"I mean you can't be so good at your job without feeling something."  

"It's more interesting than other options."

"So you like it then."  Neil teased easily.  

“Give me one good reason to not push you off the side.”

"Just try.  I'd drag you with me. It's a long way down.”

It grew from there. Going to the roof was no longer about avoiding the others by spending time with Minyard, but instead about just talking with Andrew.  Eating on the roof together felt easy.  The conversation had rules.  Answer for answer, truth for truth.  There was no awkward imbalance or a desire to be something more for Andrew.  They could just talk.  

Neil practically collapsed into his spot on the roof with his lunch in hand.  He was painfully aware of how he’d gradually crept closer since their first conversation.  "Why'd you choose Palmetto?"

"Brother didn't want me in Chicago."

Neil’s head shot up from the banana he was peeling.  "You have a brother?"

Andrew glared as if to say it isn't your turn idiot.

He raised his hands in mock surrender.  "All right I get it. Go on. Ask your question."

"And if I think we should be done for the day?"

Neil shrugged. "I can wait."

And he could. With each day spent on the roof, Neil only craved to know more about Andrew. But he liked what they had and wouldn't dare ruin that with his impatience. The roof felt safe in a way the rest of the hospital didn't.

Andrew grunted. “What's with the orange?"  

Neil rolled his eyes.  "You gave me a hard time for my question and you're asking that?"  

"That wasn't an answer."  

"And if I just like orange?"  

"You're being ridiculous."  

They sat in silence for a while before Neil offered up more.  

"College colors.  Just never outgrew them I guess.  They make me feel..."  

Safe wasn't the right word.  He practically spent all of college categorizing every exit on campus.  Like he was a part of something feels wrong too.   He left his apartment for class and an ever-changing cubicle in the library. There wasn't a whole lot to be a part of.  

But Andrew nodded anyway like he actually finished the thought instead of trailing off into silence.  "Feeling is dangerous."  

Andrew's words were simple, but Neil could tell from the way he looked at the edge of the roof that they meant something more.   It was a confession and an accusation wrapped all into one.  

"So is not feeling.  What are you supposed to keep living for if everything is grey and I say that as someone who actually likes grey."

Andrew scoffed, but didn’t say anything more.

Even knowing that Andrew had a mysterious estranged brother couldn’t make Neil break the silence.  It wasn’t that he was afraid of pressing too far.  Andrew wouldn’t let him.  But he knew what it’s like to feel exposed and Andrew had already shared more than usual today.  

They sat in comfortable silence until a pager goes off.  

Neil wasn’t sure what the others think about the two of them.  

The hospital chaplain with her oddly died hair likes to smile at him whenever she came to their floor.  He thought she might be friends with Andrew, but he didn’t really care what she thought as long as she stayed out of his way.

Matt complained that he never got to eat with his new buddy anymore, but Neil wasn’t sure the rest of them even noticed.

They must have though, because their friendship was no longer confined to the roof.   There were conversations in the hallways, extra food left in the break room that Neil certainly hadn’t brought himself, jokes cracked in the locker room when only Neil could hear.   What they had wasn’t something that could be easily hidden away.  

It certainly helped that they shared patients.   They could walk down the hallway, a patient between them and debate plans for the zombie apocalypse.  402, Luis Hernandez, was a particular good sport about it, even if he was a bit too moral about the end of the world.  

Neil did not have soft spots for patients.  He was the epitome of professionalism.  But he could admit that he liked how he had an excuse to talk to Andrew longer with Hernandez around.  

"You don't have to like your scars you know?"  Neil said lightly as he perched next to Hernandez’s bed, grabbing more antibiotic for the man's face.  "Don't have to hate them either."  

Hernandez gave a half-hearted shrug, clearly trying to stay still while gesturing to the brochures in his lap. "Everyone keeps bringing up plastic surgery."

Neil hummed. “They're going to keep doing that.  I'm not saying they're an eyesore or even particularly noticeable.”  He uncapped a new jar of ointment.   “It’s just easier for them if they can pretend it never happened.  No scars. No problem.”

“But that doesn’t mean-“

“I’m not saying it would.  People are just good at ignoring what isn’t directly in front of them. And if they’re forced to see it, they have to actually acknowledge you’ve been through some shit.”    

"It doesn't change what happened."  

“They see something wrong, keep trying to find ways to fix things even if you don't particularly think you're broken.”

"And if I want to be fixed?"  

"Then that's on you. You're recovering quicker than we expected.  I don't see why you wouldn't respond positively to cosmetic treatment." Neil sighed as he laid down the old wrappings "You've just got to be the one to want it. You've gone through too much to want to start living for anyone else now."  

He heard a cough behind him and only barely resisted the urge to whip around.    Instead he waited until he’d finished smearing the antibiotic across this section of the man’s chest.   He turned to see Andrew leaning easily against the doorframe.  

“You’re good to take lunch when you’re done here.”  

Neil looked upwards and Andrew nodded.    

It took very little time for Neil to finish knowing that Andrew would be waiting for him on the roof.  

“Did you seriously believe all that shit you were telling Hernandez?”  

Neil looked at his lap where his unopened lunch sat.  He suddenly wasn’t feeling particularly hungry.  “People always look at the scars.  Drove me mad with their staring.  Hard to be invisible when you’re this fucking distinctive.”  

Andrew snorted.  “The scars are the least of your problems then.”  

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  

Neil felt the weight of Andrew’s stare as it slowly scanned up and down his body.   He huffed, wanting an actual answer.

���Are you an idiot?”  

“Considering you call me that about six times a week, yes?”  

Andrew angled his body toward Neil instead of the steep drop of the roof.  “People find you attractive.”  He shrugged, “I’d blow you.”

The confession was dropped in the middle of the conversation so easily as if it didn’t send Neil’s entire world spinning.  He dug his hands into his legs trying to focus himself in any way he could.  

“You like me."  

"I hate you," Andrew corrected him, but Neil barely heard him, even as the other men left.  

Neil got to work slightly ahead of schedule, rolled his eyes slightly at the night nurse giving him the pedantic recap of today's patients, somehow managing to drone on for ten minutes without saying anything of actual value.  

Andrew would be in later, he thought absentmindedly as he washed his hands.  They might be able to coordinate their breaks if he was lucky.  And you might even be able to convince him at gunpoint that lately he was pretty lucky.  (Although that might also be because Matt was managing the schedules and his smile was a bit too knowing.)  

Still today shouldn’t be too bad.  There was only so much on the burn ward he hadn’t seen before and if they had had new patients, they weren’t any of his.  

412's patient was a finnicky older woman who only seemed to be living out of pure spite.  She'd been in a few days now and Neil's sharp tongue had done little to endear himself to her.  So it was truly a matter of his job security to get in and out as quickly as possible.  If he had to hear one more complaint about ungrateful grandchildren or idiot politicians, he would snap.

The television was turned up loud in order to reach the women's bed.  Despite insisting her hearing was just fine thank you very much, this meant the news could be heard down the hall.    Still, Neil had gotten used to putting his head down and doing his own business.  

There were enough signs that he should have known. After all, he knew it had to be interesting in order to keep Linda from complaining about the slight pinch as he repositioned her IV.  

He should have heard it before he turned around to see his father's face plastered across the screen with the bold red font "Serial Killer Nathan Wesninski found dead in Baltimore Penitentiary."   They'd chosen one of the trial photos as opposed to the mugshot.  He looked handsome in his expensive suit with the smile he only pulled out at the business parties that left Neil sore for days.  

His feet were moving before he fully registered what the headline read.  

It was pure instinct to put as much distance as he could between himself and his father as possible even if it was just the picture.  

Neil couldn't hear the clatter as he knocked over one of the vases.  He was sure Linda was having a conniption, but he couldn’t hear it.   He’s not here anymore.

He was thirteen again.  And his father wore a much more dangerous grin, the kind that meant no mercy.  

Neil's hands were covered in blood as he dragged his mother to the car.  Hands digging into her chest as if he could force her to stay with him.

He was eight and his father had crossed the line that was even too much for his mother.  

His hands shook as he tried to thread his own needle.  He held the needle with his mouth, trying to thread it with one hand and using the other to force the wound together.   There was just so much blood and not enough time.  

You can't stop running.  

He thought he heard someone calling his name.  Too close. He’s too close.  

You're never safe.      

He darted through the closest door.  It was a dead end, but it was out of sight.  

When you fight back, do so quietly and quickly.   You cannot risk attracting another opponent Abram.    

He forced himself into the corner.  There should be something here, anything really to block the door.  But he didn’t see anything, and he heard footsteps. Resounding thuds against the linoleum floor. They were too close.  

And if you can’t run.  You hide.  You hide until I come get you.

There’s space on the lower shelf.  It wasn’t very big, but he’s always been small.  It should be just big enough.   Neil shoved the folded bedsheets and patient gowns out of the way.  He would look out of place, easy enough to find if someone cared to look hard enough, but for now he just hugged his knees to his chest.

Everything felt like it’s moving too fast.  His heart was pounding so loudly he’s sure it’s about to give him away.  His mind wasn’t even forming full thoughts anymore, just racing ahead of him.   He squeezed himself even tighter as if he can force out the emotions.

He only vaguely felt his right hand digging into his left arm over the burn scars.  He knew he should stop.  He hadn’t picked at them in years, tried not to irritate them more than necessary so they didn’t draw attention to him. But it’s not like it mattered now.  He’d be dead soon.   He should be worrying about if Abby would be able to find the body and how long it’d take the hospital to notify her since after everything she was still his emergency contact.  

He should have tried to think his way out of this.  

But he couldn’t get his thoughts to stop for a fucking second. Just one second might be enough to find a miracle. But even if Neil Josten had ever deserved a miracle, he’d used up his share.  He’d made it to twenty-six.  But now, he was going to die.  

He knows it won’t be a painless death.  There’s only so much a human body could take, a line at which point the mind can’t comprehend the pain anymore.  But Nathan Wesninski knew the line and played it like a violin.  He’d want to take his time, really make his son feel every inch of his displeasure.  There was no way Neil would be able to contain his screams for long enough to satisfy him.  His father would risk getting him out of this hospital if it meant he could take his time.  

Neil wouldn’t let himself be taken. To lose consciousness now was to accept a long painful death. He would not leave this hospital, not ever again.  He would take a quick painful death over a long painful one any day.

But to get a quick death though he needed to be here. And he couldn’t seem to force himself to be.  He kept seeing flashes of other moments.  

Blood snaking down toward the drain of their concrete basement.  Romero’s fingernails digging into his skin as Lola brandished her knife.  His father’s grin menacing and horrible.  

It spoke to his terror that he didn’t notice when the door opened.  

"Hey." The voice is soft, gentle in a way the Butcher of Baltimore was never capable of sounding even when he was playing pretend as a productive member of society.

Still the sound has Neil's head shooting up, just to be sure.  Andrew is standing with his back to the door.

"You're Neil Josten. You're in the supply closet at Palmetto Public Hospital.  You're safe."  The words wrapped around him like a caress.  

It felt less like he was drowning.  

Neil still couldn’t move, so he just stared.    Stared as Andrew moved forward, every step light, his arms raised in front of him to show his empty hands.  

Andrew repeated the refrain as he squatted down near Neil's hiding spot in the linens.   His hazel eyes stared into Neil's.  They're warm like sunlight, like they could cut through the shadow of Neil's soul.

"It’s over.  You're safe.  Can you breathe with me?"

Neil didn't move.  He couldn’t force his tongue to wrap around the words, couldn’t even decide what the words should be.  

"We're going to do this together."   Andrew shifted from his squat to sitting cross-legged next to him.   He's close to the shelving unit, but he wasn’t trying to force Neil out.   Andrew exaggerated his own breathing.

He didn’t know how long they sit there before Neil feels his own breathing falling in sync.  They're not deep breaths.  Just shallow rasps, but he's trying.

Andrew put his hand out in front of him.  "Can I touch you?"  

He nodded haltingly.  

Neil didn’t move away when Andrew gently cupped the side of his face, running a finger over the puckered skin.  “You’re not there.”  His voice was soft, but it practically echoed in the small closet.

When Neil nodded this time, it feels more natural.  

Neil shifted in his position on the lowest shelf.  He wiggled his limbs slowly, taking stock of all ten toes and fingers.  He's all in one piece. He's fine.

He didn’t know what Andrew sees in his glance, but he's happy when Andrew backs up so he can crawl out of the shelving unit.  "Yes or no?"  

He hated how broken his voice sounded.  His father wasn't even here.  His father was dead.  He shouldn't sound so lost.  

Andrew's stare was penetrating.  "To what?  I'm not going to kiss you.  You're having a mental breakdown Josten."  

Neil bit his lip.  That hadn't been what he was thinking of at all.  He almost wished he had been, because it would have been nice to just lose himself in the sensation, let his body be consumed with raw need for Andrew until there was no room for fear.  

"Just touching you.  Leaning on you."  

Neil knew Andrew didn't like being touched.  It felt wrong to want to envelop himself in Andrew, to even ask knowing that, but he's desperate.  

"It's a yes,"  Andrew said as he settled down again legs extended in front of him.  

Neil curled easily against his side, Neil's head resting in the crook of his neck.  It's nice to sit there just listening to Andrew breathing, knowing that there will never be a future where Nathan Wesninski will get his hands on this bright spot in his son's world.  

"I should be happier."  

"Bullshit.  There is no should."  

"He's dead. He's finally dead. That has to mean something."  

Andrew adjusted himself to free one of his hands. He threaded it easily through Neil's hair.  "Maybe someday it will.  When was the last time you thought about him before today?"  

Neil wanted to snap back that he'd never stopped thinking about his father, that every decision he made was just one in a long way of keeping himself safe from Nathan Wesninski and his subordinates.   But he couldn't.  For the last month or so, Palmetto had felt safe.  

He'd spent nights marathoning movies in Andrew's apartment and stolen moments on the roof.  He treasured Matt's laughter and the yell of joy at grocery deliveries that was quickly hushed because babies are fickle things that never stop crying.  He even thought of Allison trying to convince him to let her take him shoe shopping.  

Slowly Neil had built something, something untouched by his father.   And then his gloating face had come crashing into it, ruining something even in death.  

Andrew took his silence as a sign that he was right.   “They come where they aren’t wanted.  Doesn’t mean they get to stay.  

Neil hummed and leaned more of his weight onto Andrew.  

“Do you have any other clothes?”  

Neil looked up at him confused.  

“You’re not staying here,” Andrew said as if talking to a small child.    

Neil pushed himself into a standing position, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet to try to give credence to his protests.  “I’m fine. I’ve got a whole shift ahead of me.”  

Andrew glared.  “I’m taking care of that.”  

Neil wanted to call bullshit, but he didn’t.  

He let himself be manhandled into the locker room where Andrew tossed him some clothes. The black sweats are too short, but the sweatshirt hung comfortably off him.  The grey material smelt like Andrew, so he hugged it tighter to himself as he waited for him to get back.  

He didn’t jump when Andrew wrapped an arm around him and directed him toward the parking lot.  

Maybe he was just done feeling, because he couldn’t even find it in himself to be surprised by the GS Andrew pushed him into.  It was much nicer than anything a PT should be able to afford.  

They drove in silence.  At first, Neil stared out the window letting the surroundings blur as they got on the highway.  Eventually though he shifted to stare at Andrew.   Neil wasn't sure how long it had been when Andrew finally pulled off the highway into a dingy gas station.  The sun had set at some point, but that wasn't much of a clue.  Neil didn't even bother to check the clock when Andrew turned the car back on with his hands full of junk food.  

"Do you want to go back to your apartment?"   Andrew asked as he viciously bit into the twinkie.    

"No."  The answer was instantaneous even if Neil didn't know why.  He should want to go curl up in the far corners of his bed with the door locked and the world unable to touch him.   But the thought of leaving this moment, leaving Andrew felt like too much.  

He didn't know when Andrew turned into a safe place.  Neil was used to standing on his own, but now it felt like he didn't have to.  It wasn't just today.   Andrew had been there today, but the trust had been building gradually until Neil realized it felt like Andrew could protect him from the world.  

"Kevin's going to ask questions."  

Neil barely stifled his groan.  While he'd only met the man a handful of times, Andrew's roommate was a common topic of conversation on the roof.  

"Why do you even live with him if you hate him so much?"  Neil asked.  

"Don't ask stupid questions."   Andrew said his eyes still focused on the road.  

Because he's one of yours. Neil thought to himself.

Kevin was Andrew's in a way Neil could never be.  Kevin was the person who stayed even after he fulfilled his end of a deal in college.  Andrew may complain about his constant nagging, his hypocrisy when it came to Andrew's sweet tooth, his attempts to get Andrew to join his countless intermural sports teams.  But at the end of the day, even when Aaron rejected him, Kevin stayed.  And for that Andrew would never let him go.  

Still the thought of dealing with Kevin’s seemingly endless energy felt like too much right now.  

"The hospital's fine.  I can get home from there."  

Andrew gave him a disparaging look.   "Now is not the time Rabbit.  Give me the address."  

"I'm surprised you don’t already have it.  The lock on staff records too hard to break?"  

Andrew snorted as he changed lanes.

He still felt rubbed raw from the way he'd broken so easily even if it had been nearly six years since he'd been near his father at all.   So he knew Andrew was right, he couldn’t handle other people.  He gave his address even as Andrew smirked.  

After leaving the safety of the car, he'd ran about eight miles on the treadmill that had certainly seen better days.  Typically he'd prefer to run outside and let the breeze carry his worries away from him.  But the thought of people made him want to shrink.   He'd take the cheap gym with locker rooms that smelt vaguely of mold if it meant he could avoid interactions with all but two people.      

He ran to the hospital the rest of the week too.  It wasn't worth trying to navigate the subway when he'd be looking over his shoulder the entire way.  

Neil wasn't being paranoid.  His father was dead. So were Romero and Jackson.  Lola and the majority of the minions he'd met were in prison.  But there had to be some he hadn't met.  People the FBI hadn't even thought to warn him about.  He hadn't expected to live this long and if he had to keep one eye over his shoulder, his duffel bag always packed and a new city every few months to keep living he'd do it.    

But for now, he had time.  He could make the most of his time at Palmetto.  

He knew now that Andrew wanted him, and even though he’d never given the thought of kissing much thought before.   He was suddenly desperate for Andrew’s lips on his.   Andrew made him feel like he didn’t have an expiration date, like the future didn’t actually matter.  For someone always thinking three steps ahead, that felt entirely new.  But he thought he could get used to it.  

Neil had just finished helping Hernandez check out when Dan walked back onto the unit for the first time.  

He did a double take at first. He still had three weeks left on his contract and being reminded of just how little time he had left made him grit his teeth.  

Typically he’d already have his next location lined up, but Neil hadn’t even sent in his application yet.  

He wasn’t an idiot.  He knew prolonging the inevitable wasn’t a good idea.  Pretending he could stay long enough to memorize the feel of Andrew’s hands on his scars and their mouths pressed together desperately would do him no favors.  Neil knew when he started that anything they started had a clear expiration date.    

But seeing Dan with her little yellow bundle made him realize how close that date actually was.  

Luckily Neil was spared from giving Dan more than a cursory nod due to Allison practically sprinting down the hallway to the front desk.  

Allison’s smile was dazzling as she gestured toward the baby.  “I’m so glad to see you.  Now give me my niece.”

Dan merely rolled her eyes.  She looked more tired than the last time Neil had seen her, but also happier.  The dark bags under her eyes were matched by a brilliant smile.  

When she hesitated to hand her newborn over, Allison put her hands on her hips.  "You're in a hospital Dan.  It's not like we don't know how to take care of her"  

"And when was the last time you did an OBGYN rotation?"  

Allison flipped her blond ponytail dramatically.   "I'll have you know I could do it any day.  I just like you too much to be reassigned."

"And you'd be a bitch to replace. Here."   Dan smirked even as she handed over the baby.

"Oh She's absolutely precious, Auntie Allie's going to absolutely spoil you. Yes she is"   Allison cooed as she held the newborn.      

Dan watched her with a smile.  "Randy's a lifesaver, but I'm not about to say no to more babysitters."  

"Wait until she's older. I’ve got enough diapers to change as is.”  

Dan snorts.  

"So when are you back officially then?  I need my bestie back."

"I'm still working out the details."  

Allison snorted.  

Neil busied himself with sorting through the pain medication records for 409, pretending to ignore the weight of Dan's stare.  

But Allison had no intention of ignoring it.  "You mean we get to keep him?"  

"Honestly Al, he's not a stray cat."    

"So?"  

"And I haven't asked him yet, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't scare him away in the meantime."  

"Of Course Dan.  I wouldn't dare."  Allison smiled again at the baby before announcing that clearly Auntie Allie was the only one who could give a proper tour and that maybe "We'll even find daddy in time for him to change your diaper."      

Dan rolled her eyes but wasted none of her newfound baby-free time in waiting to approach Neil.    

"I'm so glad I was able to catch you.  I've heard nothing but good things about you since you started."  

Neil glanced up from the paperwork, but kept his fingers wrapped tightly around the clipboard.   "Most of them from your husband I assume."  

Dan laughed good naturally.  "You’d certainly think so.   I swear if I hadn't already cemented myself as his favorite person, I'd be worried."  

Neil grimaced.  

"But it isn't just him."  Dan stepped closer.  "How are you enjoying Palmetto Public Neil?"  

"It's fine."  

Despite his lackluster answer, she seemed undeterred.  "I'm glad to hear it, because we've been so happy to have you here.  And since we're always short-staffed, I was able to get the board to approve your transition to a full-time position if you want it."  

Neil swallowed, a pit already forming in his stomach.   "That's-"

"You don't have to give me an answer now.  I was just stopping in today and wanted to let you know as soon as possible so you could get your affairs in order."  

She smiled so eagerly at him.  He almost felt guilty when he said, "No.  I'm grateful for the offer and all, but I can't stay."  

"Oh."  Dan's voice was so small.   She looked absolutely heartbroken.  

He grimaced again.    

"Well, if you change your mind, just know you're always welcome here."  

Neil forced himself to turn back to the paperwork to give her a chance to slink away. He wasn't actually reading, probably couldn't even if he tried.  

They wanted him to stay.  

And that very fact made him want to run until he couldn’t move anymore.  

Neil at least stopped himself from running out of the hospital.  He went to the roof, where things had always been just a little bit clearer.   Maybe if he could just think, he could make his heart stop pounding.  

"Why are you being such an idiot?"  Andrew's voice was angrier than he'd ever heard him as he slams the door open.  "I can't believe you."  

"What's there to believe?"  

Andrew stalked across the room toward him.  Neil knew what angry men could do, but he wasn't afraid not even as Andrew practically spit in his face.  "That you're just going to run off again like a fucking rabbit."

"It's better for everyone." His voice sounded empty even to his own ears.  

Andrew dug his hand into Neil's shoulder. "Don't give me that shit."

Neil looked at him blankly.  

"He's dead."  

"So?"  

"So stop running."  

"I don't know how."  The words were small, but he felt the truth in every ounce of his body.   He's never had somewhere worth staying or anyone worth staying for.  

Abby had tried, tried so much harder than anyone else.   But it wasn't the same.   He couldn't stop feeling like the scarred boy who'd come into her care determined not to need anyone.  And she was all too willing to watch him walk away.  He didn't need to stay anywhere to be worth something.  

He couldn't explain why this time was different.  Why he ached at the thought of never listening to Allison tease him.  Why never talking to Matt again made him want to curl in on himself.  He certainly couldn't explain why the thought of not being able to laugh with Andrew, not being able to see him every day physically pained him.  He needed Andrew in a way he hadn't needed anyone since his mother died.    

Neil was desperate for him to understand.   "Tell me to stay.  You have to tell me to stay."  

"Why should I?  Nothing will come of it."  

"What's that supposed to mean?"  

Neil wanted to scream.   Scream that maybe if Andrew just asked he'd be able to.  He'd be able to force down all the impulses telling him to run, just like he was able to stop himself from running out of the hospital entirely at Dan's offer.  Instead he ran to the roof, where it was safe, where Andrew made it safe.  

Andrew pushed him away and Neil already felt himself stepping forward unconsciously, trying to close the distance between them.  

"It means I'm self-destructive, not stupid.  I'm not going to ask when you clearly don't want to.  I won't make you."  

I'd never make you.  

Andrew didn’t say that, but Neil heard it anyway.  Because Andrew never pushed when it came to consent, to wanting this thing between them.    

It's why he's so desperate for Andrew to understand now.    

"It's always been 'go.  It's always been 'lie' and 'hide' and 'disappear'."   Neil gestured wildly as if trying to grab the words from thin air. "I've never belonged anywhere or had the right to call anything my own. You can't expect me to just know how to-”

Neil trailed off when he saw Andrew's face.  It was stony even to his impassioned plea.

He didn't know how he could fix this.  He felt like he was hanging on by a fraying thread as it was.  "I'm so tired of being nothing."  

"Then stop making yourself be nothing.   Let yourself have this."  

Neil felt himself floundering even more.  "It's not that simple."  

Andrew huffed and turned away from him.  "I don't have time for rabbits or idiots."  

He let the door slam as he left.  

Getting through the rest of the day was a blur.  Neil just kept thinking about Andrew walking away from him and the rooftop door echoing too loudly as it closed.  His apartment was no better.

There was nothing in the little apartment that Neil was renting that looked remarkably like home.  He was used to packing his life up in to the grey duffel bag every few months.  Nothing he bought couldn’t be replaced at any big box store.  

It never really bothered him before.  

That wasn’t to say he hadn’t noticed how other people’s spaces seemed to fit them.  But he had spent so long trying to blend in that he wasn’t even sure what he could add to make the space feel more like him.

He didn’t have the college pictures to string along his wall like Dan and Matt.   He didn’t even have the dime-a-dozen motivational posters that Kevin seemed to favor the few times he’d been to the apartment he shared with Andrew.   He certainly didn’t have the wall of books that Andrew kept in his own room.  

Up until recently he wouldn’t have cared.

But for the first time in his life, Neil was starting to feel like a real person.  A real person was supposed to have something that other people could remember them by, to identify them with.  Neil had his job and the scars on his face.

And Andrew.   Andrew who didn’t seem to care about either.  

If anything Andrew scoffed at the desperation he brought to his job when they both know that you couldn’t save everyone, and that most of the time you couldn’t save the people who deserved it either.  

But Neil could see the way he cared even if he didn’t make it his entire personality or guiding force.   His chart notes were too detailed.  His frown all the deeper when things went wrong.  He was too good at his job to not care at least a little bit.  And there was no one at Palmetto that could deny that Andrew was brilliant at his job.  

While others could look at Neil and see nothing but his injuries, there was a way that Andrew looked at him, his eyes pooling like honey that made Neil feel like Andrew was seeing everything but his scars.  

Somehow he even looked happy with what he found.  

It made him want to stay, to take that little feeling and nurture it until Neil could see something in himself too.  Something worth being happy about.

He sent out three texts one right after the other.  

The first was to Andrew.  “I’m not an idiot or a rabbit.”

It was simple, but it said everything.  Neil wasn’t running from this, wasn’t running from Andrew.  Tomorrow they could talk, but for now it had to be enough.  

“Can I really stay?”  

It was less professional than it should be, considering Dan would be his supervisor if everything worked out.  But he didn’t have another way to ask.  It felt like pulling teeth to even write those four words.  

Neil shouldn’t have turned her down so quickly this afternoon. He should have let himself realize how much he wanted this, realize how forcing himself to move again felt like he was leaving a part of himself behind that he didn’t even know he had before.  

But he needn’t have worried.  Dan’s reply was practically instantaneous.  “Of Course!!!! I’ll make sure to go over all the paperwork tomorrow.”  

The last message was one he should have sent twelve weeks ago.  It was only his address.  But Abby would know what it meant.   She always did.  

[tiliamericana]

Muay Thai: 1.09

Nairi double checked the address Linden had texted her and looked back up at the set of buildings. They were squat and stuck together, looking kind of like a demountable set up someone had made permanent as best they could. The foundation was brickwork that looked more recent than the dirty siding, and about halfway up the wall it was all old windows, half of which were propped open.

The number she was looking for was around the side and about halfway down, and Nairi could smell cleaning supplies and cooking food, and hear discordant music as she walked up the ramp towards the door she was looking for. It was propped open a couple of inches by a worn paint can filled with concrete, a little angry face painted on it in red. She knocked on the window panel in the door. “Linden?”

The door swung all the way open, and Linden poked her head out, smiling at her. “There you are! Found it okay?”

She was completely bare faced for the first time since Nairi had met her, and while the denim cut offs were a familiar part of her wardrobe rotation, the oversize grey t-shirt was new, shapeless and paint spattered. There was also paint all along her forearms, some of which had managed to get onto her legs as well.

“Yeah,” said Nairi, holding up the paper bag. “And I brought lunch, as requested.”

“Oh, I’ll have to keep you around,” said Linden, grinning as she stepped back and opened the door properly to let Nairi in. She took the bag as Nairi stepped past her, digging in to retrieve her enchilada with a pleased noise.

“Having a… productive Tuesday?” asked Nairi as Linden let the door fall back into the paint can with a muffled clang.

Even with all of the windows propped open and the extractor fan wheezing loudly, the room still stunk of turpentine, paint, and something else chemical and sweet that she couldn’t quite identify. There was an unfinished counter running along one side of the room, cluttered with tubs of paint and half-filled bottles of oil, dirty jars and mugs, with an industrial sink at the end with an old microwaved plugged in next to it. One of its hinges was held on with electrical tape. The shelves under the counter had a lot of plastic tubs filling the space, labelled in masking tape and marker.

Linden crossed the room to a section where the floor was covered by an old bedsheet, sitting down on a wheeled office chair with the back broken off in front of an easel holding a canvas that was mostly pale green. She nodded as she picked up a tall ceramic mug with a lid, and she drank deeply from it, gesturing at a ratty couch under the windows on the wall. The mug had a strip of masking tape wrapped around it, ‘NO TURPS >:|’ scrawled on it in thick marker.

“Yeah, I got my wash layer down for the base of this bad boy,” said Linden, setting the mug back down and jerking her thumb over her shoulder at the canvas. “I spent a good chunk of last week fucking around with thumbnails, but your housewarming gift is officially on the way as of now.”

Nairi, sat on the couch. A strut creaked under her, threatening to crack. “You don’t have to—”

Linden waved her off. “I told you, your walls are too bare, and this is literally my area of expertise. How was your morning anyway?”

Nairi shrugged. “Okay, I guess? I really only got out of bed when you texted me.”

“Nice for some,” said Linden, grinning at her. “Layabout! How do you and Aggy get anything scheduled? She’s up by six and in bed by ten sharp.”

Nairi shrugged, unwrapping her own lunch and shifting uncomfortably on the terrible couch. “I guess we’ll find out; I’m having dinner at her apartment tonight.”

“Co-sy,” said Linden sarcastically, setting her enchilada on the folding table next to her ‘not turpentine’ and a clear jar filled with what was presumably turpentine. She picked up a flat paintbrush and dabbed it at her palette, rolling her chair forward and making a couple of light, decisive strokes on the green. “You two are enjoying yourselves, then?”

“I think so,” said Nairi, not entirely certain if she’d messed something up or was missing something. “Have you got plans for the night then? Or are you working?”

“Both,” said Linden promptly. “Got a hot date with a cool hook up, and then a much hotter date with the rest of next month’s rent check. Can I ask you a favour?”

“Sure,” said Nairi, chewing slowly. “For your cool hook up or next month’s rent?”

Linden turned her head and bounced her eyebrows at Nairi. “Next month’s rent check. Si’s kind of a dickhead, but he’s only dangerous if you don’t like T.S. Eliot or are allergic to, like, papercuts, or lignin, or something. I need a safety check in for when I finish my job. I have a couple of people I’d usually ask, but the one I normally go to during the week has a daughter in hospital for her appendix, and Flo takes melatonin to keep her schedule, like, regulated during semester so asking her to wait up on a school night is a no-go.”

“I should be able to do that,” said Nairi, nodding, partially because her only other option was asking what the hell ‘lignin’ was. “What do you need for it?”

“It’s just waiting for me to call when I’m finished with my job, or calling to check in, just to make sure I haven’t been murdered or whatever,” said Linden, leaning back a little to scan the lines she’d marked out on the canvas. “I’m booked for eleven, so I should be done before one. I’ll like, send you the address and the number for my work phone and stuff.”

Nairi nodded again. “Okay, sounds easy. So, if I can’t reach you by one, what do I need to do?”

“I’d tell you to call Nick, but he’d only call the cops so you can probably just cut him out of the equation and go straight to them. I’d like, rather not with them, like at all, ever,” she emphasised this with a slashing motion of her paintbrush, “but if it comes to that, then tell them like, I’m on a first date with a guy my dad thinks is creepy and I promised to check in or something, I don’t know.”

If she had the address, then… well. “Why would Nicholas call the cops if he knows you’d hate it?”

Linden rolled her eyes extravagantly and set her brush down, going for her enchilada again. “Because he believes in the power of the system, doesn’t approve of my job, is convinced that one day cops will magically stop being shitty to me, and also he apparently still thinks I’m sixteen.”

“Right,” said Nairi, slowly balling up the foil and paper of her lunch. “He uh, cares a lot about you, huh?”

“Yeah, he’s an old friend of my dad’s,” said Linden, nodding and swallowing. “Looked out for me when I was a teenager, you know? He’s still convinced that every time he turns around I’m gonna run off and nearly get myself killed again, it’s a real pain in the ass.”

“Again?”

A rueful smile flickered across Linden’s face. “Yeah, I ran away from home when I was about fifteen. Jim’s the one who found me and got me off the streets at first, but Edie and Nick were the ones who really made sure I got on my feet.”

“Right,” said Nairi, and she hesitated. “Jim’s a friend of theirs?”

“Was, yeah,” said Linden, glancing down at her lap to brush off an invisible crumb. “He died when I was about nineteen. Lung cancer, you know. It happens.”

“Damn,” said Nairi, not sure what to say in the face of that. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too, sometimes,” said Linden, her smile a little lopsided as she looked up. “It was a long time ago, though—water under the bridge and all that.”

“Yeah,” said Nairi, glancing at her hands briefly. “So what, Nicholas is worried that you’ll end up in a gutter?”

“Street corner, more like,” said Linden, dryness creeping back into her tone as she popped the last piece of her enchilada into her mouth, shaking her head. “He was pretty pissed off when I got out of college and went straight back to hooking.”

Nairi snorted. “Yeah, he doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d ‘approve’ of that.”

“Real stick up his ass, yeah,” said Linden, nodding again. “Edithwas the fun one when I was a teenager, so you can imagine what a downer life was back then.”

“A little, yeah,” said Nairi, her mouth twitching. “I didn’t know anyone like that as a teenager, maybe it would’ve helped me out some.”

“Oh, I know that feeling,” said Linden with a laugh, giving Nairi a carefully measured side-eye. “He’s very useful to have around sometimes—my taxes get filed on time every year and all that.”

Nairi laughed. “Nothing shows you care like robust budgeting, huh?”

Linden cackled with laughter, a loud, startled noise. “Yes! Exactly—god, you should have seen him when I got my first apartment. He came with me to sign the lease and he interrogated my landlord, did his own goddamn tour, took his own photos of the place when I moved in and hunted the guy down to sign that he’d seen them, made copies of my bond payment, and thenhe was on me every single month to make sure I had a receipt for my rent.”

“Ferocious,” said Nairi, grinning at her.

“And wildly disappointed in me the first time I got evicted,” said Linden, grinning back at her.

Nairi laughed without expecting it, the lines around her eyes creasing. “You’re a menace, then?”

Linden was smiling with bright eyes; head tilted a little. “Damn right I am. Nick’s been putting up with my shit for ten years, I really thought he’d’ve clued in by now.”

“Maybe he thinks you can be better than shit?” suggested Nairi.

Linden’s smile softened a little as she picked up the paintbrush again. “No, he’s a little better at managing his expectations than that. I mean, he sticks up for me with dad, but it’s not like I get away scot free when I fuck up!”

“Your dad’s not a fan of the hooking I take it?”

Linden made a wheezing sort of noise as she went for her paint again. “Oh god, no, my dad doesn’t know about the hooking, he’s an attorney, he’d kill me. That’s part of why Nick fucking hates it, he doesn’t like lying for anything, least of all my sorry ass.”

Nairi nodded again. “Okay, so, your dad’s just kind of a dick, huh?”

Linden paused and turned her head to look at Nairi, giving her an annoyed look. “No, he’s fine. We don’t get along that well, is all. And that whole thing where I was a missing teenager for four years and then came back queer and punk didn’t exactly help things either. We’re fine, I’m going up for dinner with him in a couple of weeks, actually.”

“Right, sorry,” said Nairi, holding up a hand. “I never met my parents, I don’t know what’s like, normal or whatever.”

“It’s fine,” said Linden, shrugging at her. “People get the wrong impression sometimes, is all.”

Somehow Nairi wasn’t shocked by this. “Will I hit another pothole if I ask about your mom?” she said instead.

Linden laughed. “I never knew her. I asked about her a bunch when I was a kid, but my dad was kind of really evasive and I stopped asking—I sort of got the impression she died when I was extra small or something. Edie reckons that whoever she was they were never really, like ‘together’, ‘cause apparently I was a surprise baby for everyone who knew him.”

“Oh, I don’t think kids work well as surprises,” said Nairi with a wince.

“Definitely not,” said Linden, grinning widely. “He did okay, though.”

Nairi shifted uncomfortably on the couch again. “You turned out okay, so he must have.”

Linden snorted.

Nairi’s phone chirped in her back pocket and she tugged it out to check the message. The couch creaked ominously as she shifted again, and she paused, glancing down at it. “Just out of curiosity, how much did you pay for this couch?”

“I didn’t, I nicked it from a guy who was throwing it out,” said Linden, taking a drink of not turps as Nairi’s phone chirped again. “Who’s texting?”

Nairi glanced down at her screen, tapping open the messaging inbox. “Agatha. She’s just checking that we’re still on for tonight.”

“You’re not gonna disappoint her, are you?” teased Linden.

Nairi looked up at her, not sure what to make of the way her tone had dipped. “No?”

Linden hummed, her mouth twitching. “Well, don’t party too hard then,” she said in the same tone again, and she turned her attention back to her canvas.

[fandom-necromancer]

1438 + 1414. “Would you just hold still?” “Oh my god, please don’t tell them.”

Now to the second story prompted by the lovely anon! I like this one better. Enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 (Warnings: gun violence, android getting shot, android being repaired while temporary paralysed)

[part2]   [part3]

Nines couldn’t keep his LED from spinning red for a full circle, watching Detective Reed picking the lock in front of them. He had deliberately taken the position furthest away from the man, right behind Detective Collins and next to Miller. He didn’t like him, he would even go that far to say he hated him. It was evident Reed was anti-android to the bone. Nines knew from Connor that he had repeatedly hit him, pulled guns on him several times, never had shown even an ounce of compassion for an android, even as they had been slaughtered in the revolution and even now, he was still openly hostile. Nines hated the way he called him names and it was even worse with other androids in the precinct. Even with their rights granted by the humans, they had to stand together, so this was only another reason to detest the man.

He hadn’t liked taking Reed with him on a mission, but they needed backup on this, and the human was surprisingly competent. What he demonstrated yet again, clicking the lock open and holding the door for them to advance. Without a word, Nines hurried past him, mind already back on the task at hand: Finding and capturing their suspect. It was a thirty-two-year-old male who lost his job and took to offering services of the illegal kind: mostly robberies in the beginning, but soon his crimes escalated. They had him caught once already, but he had managed to escape by shooting the police officers who had been arresting him. Since then Nines was searching for him. And today he would make sure, the human wouldn’t get away a second time.

Nines advanced deeper into the building the man had chosen as a hideout and kept scanning his surroundings for any sign of his presence. But they could inspect the whole building without interruption. Apparently, the man wasn’t home. The group ended up in a room that looked like his base of operation: Weapons were lying around, none of them registered or owned by their suspect. They were joined by a Laptop without internet access that Nines interfaced with. His data wasn’t well protected, likely because he had never expected someone to get their hand on his computer, so it was easy for Nines to find even more of his illegal activities. He was already in the process of securing it all in a package to send to the DPD as evidence, when he hear the door open and a hissed: ‘Oh shit.’ Immediately he had his gun out and aimed, shouting: ‘DPD, don’t move!’ But the man wasn’t about to listen to him. He had his own weapon out, a machine pistol that he shot two times at Nines as the most aggressive opponent, and darted. Miller and Collins were immediately following the fleeing suspect, while Nines held onto the table with the laptop not to fall. He failed, dropping to the floor. It was a wonder he hadn’t tipped over the table in the process. The android was too occupied finding the wound through the steady stream of blue blood and noticed too late how the remaining Detective knelt down in front of him. Nines tried to scoot away from him, suddenly afraid this was what the man had been waiting for. He was in an ideal position to kill him and blame it on the wound later.

But there were strong hands at his sides, pulling him back. Nines resisted the hold and struggled against the grip only for it to get eve harder, Gavin using his body weight to press him down. ‘Phcking tin-can… Would you just hold still?’ ‘So you can kill me?’, Nines pressed against the static. ‘Never!’ Reed sighed, getting a hold of the android’s arms and pinning them against the table with one hand. The other found a knife laying around and Nines knew, this was how it would end. He awaited the long blade to be pierced in between his hull and his thirium regulator, but to his surprise, it only faintly touched him as it was pulled through the fabric of his shirt. Too perplexed to notice, the human had already pushed in the right places only a Cyberlife engineer would know and his chest opened. Again, the mortified thought arose that maybe Reed was someone who had fun in dragging it out? He had all the time in the world after all, with Miller and Collins gone until they got their suspect safely in a car. He bucked his hips again and tried to pull his arms away to get away and run from this lunatic, or at least close his chest cavity again, but it was no use. With low thirium levels his movements were sluggish already and whatever Gavin had done to him counted as a manual override.

There was another sigh, before one of his hands disappeared in his chest and dug around for a specific cable. Nines eyes went wide, and he tried his best to get this human away from him, but Gavin simply ducked under his arms he had let go to have two hands to operate and pulled. Nines immediately went slack and watched in terror how Gavin wiped away his sweat and smeared thirium all over his forehead. ‘maybe now you’ll finally let me help you, jeez’, he mumbled, quickly getting to work. Nines watched how he cut into his shirt again, ending up with a long, thirium soaked stripe of cloth he wrapped around a thirium pipe and fastened with just enough force to seal it but not break it even further. Immediately Nines’ thirium levels stabilised with a minimal leakage. But Gavin wasn’t finished yet, rummaging in his chest, opening valves for backup-pipes and adjusting the power of his pump until he had successfully bypassed the damaged part completely. As a last action, Gavin pulled out the damaged tube and set it down next to him. All of that he had managed in under an hour. Nines would have been impressed, had he not been this surprised.

Gavin sat back, still straddling the android and breathed, before frowning at him. Only then he remembered the pulled wire and was quick to reconnect it, closing the compartment afterwards. But still Nines just sat up a bit, staring at him, not moving otherwise. ‘What?’, Gavin spat. ‘You didn’t kill me.’ Nines made no effort to hide how surprised he was. ‘I didn’t- What?’ Gavin looked at him as if he just told him the world was flat. ‘You had the chance to get rid of me.’ ‘Why the hell would I do that?’ ‘You hate androids.’

Gavin leant back, rubbing his eyes in defeat. ‘Toaster. I hate Connor. I hate Cyberlife. I don’t hate androids and I don’t hate you. And even if I did, killing one? Excuse me, how much of an asshole did you think I am? Okay, don’t answer that, I think I got the message. Phcking ungrateful piece of shit.’

Finally, the human got up from the android, kicked the broken pipe away and stomped out of the room. Only a few minutes later Miller and Collins came back, completely out of breath. ‘Shit Nines!’, Chris cursed, dropping next to him. ‘Sorry we couldn’t come any faster, we finally caught the bastard and had to wait for Tina to come and pick him up. God, if I had known…’ ‘Where’s Gavin the asshole?’, Collins asked, looking around deliberately trying not to look at the puddle of blue blood underneath Nines. ‘Running off without even trying to help, that’s so him. We’re so sorry, are you alright? Do you need help?’ Nines shook his head, but Chris helped him up anyways. They both hovered around him on their way outside, where they met Gavin, smoking a cigarette. Nines wordlessly walked towards the waiting police car, while Chris and Collins stayed behind to yell at the Detective. ‘What do you think you are doing?’ ‘Nines was in there bleeding out and you go for a smoke?’ ‘What the fuck is wrong with you, seriously?’ ‘I’ll tell Fowler, don’t you think you can get away with this.’

Unimpressed, Gavin pushed himself off the wall and threw the cigarette to the ground pushing it out with his boot. ‘Go phck yourselves, guys’, he groaned, walking past them, Nines and the car down the street. ‘What are you doing?’, the android shouted at him, what the Detective answered by showing him his middle finger and shouting back: ‘Gonna call a taxi back.’

As soon as the man entered the precinct later, Nines was on his way to pull him to the side. Not only because Fowler was on the lookout for him, but also because he wanted to talk to him. ‘What is it now, tin-can?’, he asked, clearly tired of talking. ‘How did you know how to bypass a thirium system component correctly?’ ‘I’m Elijah Kamski’s brother’, Gavin stated as if that was the most normal thing in the world. ‘If you live with him for a while you pick up a few things.’ He suddenly froze. ‘Oh my god, please don’t tell them! Although… I guess they wouldn’t believe you anyways.’ Nines shook his head. ‘I guess not, I hardly believe you. Why even save me? You hate us.’ ‘Because you are alive, dipshit!’, Gavin shouted then, annoyed that they even needed to have this conversation. ‘Because you are a living person, damnit, a colleague. Because… God, you don’t have to find reasons for saving someone’s life, you just do it. Is that so difficult to understand?’ He groaned. ‘Listen, I’m no different than Miller or Anderson or anyone in this precinct deep down. I am just a human, just a person that wants to do good. If everyone decides I’m the bad guy so be it. But I don’t have to explain myself when I already know no one’s listening. So, go back to your good people and do your job. I did mine.’

He shoved Nines in the chest and walked away, straight into Fowlers arms and likely another suspension. It made the android think about what he had thought about the human and how wrong he had been to blindly follow Connor’s evaluation. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t right. In a fit of spite he knew he might regret later, he sat down at the empty desk opposite to Gavin’s, waiting patiently for his return. He enjoyed the frowning faces of those passing him by, but none of them as much as Gavin’s completely dumbfounded expression. ‘Alright, what is that supposed to be?’ ‘I listened to you’, Nines simply said, before standing up. ‘Come tomorrow Fowler will have revoked your suspension and you will become my partner.’ ‘What?’ ‘There’s nothing you can do about it.’

[>next part]

[littlebabycrybtch]

oh my god im sorry but i HATE reading analysis discourse so fuckgin much. its so annoying and unnecessary and cruel bc per usual ableists just Scream over everyone and manipulate the view by focusing on the wrong points. disrespect towards this issue is never gonna work and yall would get that if you actually listened to the way the (usually nd) people felt about it and why, but ur too busy mocking them so you look good for consuming the Proper Medias tm. i mean you literally have to know this isnt productive, yall keep going bc you get a kick out of laughing at ‘unintelligent’ people.

‘uu ur teachers didnt oppress u by making u read to kill a mockingbird instead of the hunger games” ok listen 1. media you dont personally care abt can still definitely hold depthful value and be analyzed. oh my god lmao. the people who prefer ~that kind~ of media arent stupid and dont prefer easy thinking, its your own fault for Not looking into it yourself and just assuming its worthless, literally judging a book by its cover. LITERALLY avoiding the analysis skills you claim to have by assuming anything you read in highschool = smart, valuable and anything mainstream = stupid and useless. most books inherently contain symbolism and morals, a lot of these people CAN understand it, theyre just criticizing the inaccessibility of the writing that was forced on them academically. the people analyzing those medias instead of your favs are still taking in lessons even if they prefer to do it in a different format, i mean for instance THG is literally about fucking classism and racism and war you dumb hypocritical tunnel vision bitch, young adult media usually has a Lot of real world parallels in it that very much pertains to how teens see the world, thats the literal POINT, just cuz ur too elitist and dont respect children enough doesnt mean some books are ‘too stupid’ to analyze with any real social value, and 2. A BOOK NOT BEING EXCITING... OR EASY TO UNDERSTAND... IS LITERALLY SMTH VALID TO CRITICIZE IN MANY CASES, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE GIVING IT TO CHILDREN.... if a kid says “this is boring/too long/uses words that i dont know, so i cant make any sense of it” that doesnt always mean theyre lazy or w/e, if its not a book made for kids (bc kids can understand mature themes but that doesnt. mean you can just throw all the other skills they arent experienced with yet at them, they still need writing tailored to them), Thats your first problem, but sometimes ur book is just fucking boring all together. a book can have as much symbolism as it wants, if its not there to open the mind and provide necessary depth, but to feel self important and make you feel self important for getting it, thats not a good book. and with books i do respect now like TKAM i remember outright saying, “i literally cannot read this and dont get it at all” at like 10 yrs old, and my teachers didnt do shit to explain it or help me or give me any skills at all, they were just like. :) keep trying!! according to your scores we know you can do it!!! so, i did not keep trying, i gave up, and i guarantee if it had been a few years later it would have been easier. if i had been given the opportunity to read stories with similar morals that were made for my age range that i WANTED to read, i guarantee i wouldve gotten so much more out of that. but i was literally DISALLOWED, bro if i grabbed a book that actually interested me, i was told i couldnt check it out at ALL unless it was in the ‘range’ i was assigned, which was college level since i was in 4th grade. so if you think i shouldve kept reading, im being unironic rn, you need to go get a degree, become a teacher, and if a kid or teen says to you what i said, sit them down and TEACH THEM without shame, and fight for better regulations of what reading levels can be pushed on what age groups. if lit analysis is this important to you, FUCKING TEACH IT PROPERLY, that is literally the ONLY REAL SOLUTION to the problem you have, NOT SHAMING the people who were ALREADY FAILED BY THE SYSTEM.

the problem is not ‘idiots think symbolism is stupid’ the problem has ALWAYS been ‘the education system is flawed and how and when children are taught certain skills is so corrupted and damaging, the children growing up with it cannot Help but struggle later in life, and your issue should be with the system”. like can i be real. learn how to Emotionally ~analyze~ posts from sad kids with mental illnesses saying smth as basic as “i wish i wasnt forced to read mature books as a child without any themes pertaining to me at all bc it hurt my already fragile motivations for learning :/” without your ass getting defensive over the classics. bitches stan ‘the door is red to symbolize anger’ but think thg is just a stupid dystopia love triangle book................ ur not even that smart like yall are just elitist like LITERALLY just elitist if you mock the values ppl see in other books and claim theyre too stupid to understand ~real books~. a fucking mickey mouse cartoon could hold the exact same moral lesson as a 1200 page novel written by a college professor of 30 years, like the Exact Same Conclusions CAN be drawn no matter how many words and analogies and metaphors are thrown on top!! for many those fancy details make it more enriching but its literally possible to get the same concepts from “EASIER” material, that is not Lesser it is ACCESSIBLE and it should be ENCOURAGED all the same. yall are gatekeeping and its stupid, if you actually want ppl to analyze media then you’d applaud how they analyze their passions even when you dont share it, not shame them for struggling with understanding other stories. this rly boils down to either ‘i hate ppls preferences and wanna make them feel stupid’ OR the ever so lovely ‘i hate whiny disabled ppl and kids who were pressured to the point of burnout, and wanna make them feel stupid’. its fucking exhausting. idc how you guys feel, you talk to hear yourselves talk and its all just talk and nothing helpful, your disrespect doesnt work bc its an echo of the root problem. for gods sake shut up already lmao

[2ofswords]

Dankovsky ^^

Oh dear! Strap yourselves in, we are going to be here for a while! Also another warning: There is a mention of suicide in “a headcanon about their future”. (Which is probably very telling of said headcanon… Also: There are spoilers!)

their biggest strength

I guess having academic knowledge is a cool thing, but honestly, I would go with determination and willpower. I mean… while it might not be the best or most healthy situation ever, staying alive while having the sandpest out of sheer spite and willpower is still a fucking achievement! I mean to a certain extend all healers share this drive, but for me the way the Bachelor’s determination works is fucking inspiring and just the thing that keeps him going. While being the one who is like not hunted for sport (most of the time) he gets dealt a fucking terrible hand when it comes to dealing with the sandpest (neither any menkhu rights nor any magic, not being allowed to acquire the necessary components or equipment for his area of expertise, being the most distrusted and getting the least information, oh and of course getting told to solve the situation in a specific and completely counterproductive way by multiple parties) and most of his successes come from going through with it despite that, and screaming at people who don’t want to listen. While it can become (or be seen as, depending on perspective and circumstances) rude and insensitive this mindset is what gets the plague acknowledged and at least some of the measures established as a result. His whole thing is seeing an impossible task and going for it anyways, his entire goal of defeating death has that vibe and while he might never live up to his own standards I think there are things to achieve and to get done along the way that are of great value. Also while it might come of as arrogant, I think the mindset of “Yes I can do this, I will make it” when going against great odds is actually very inspiring and useful. Also I think it sometimes gets confused with thinking one is better than other people or just above human limits, with… isn’t always the case and you can actually see in his own route how it is more of an “I need to do this so I will make it.” But I digress and before this ask completely turns into another “Daniil Dankovsky defence squad post” of mine, I will leave it at that and say, that I think the way he moves forward and tries to archive great things by sheer willpower and determination is commendable, inspiring and one of his greatest and most important character traits for me.

their greatest weakness

This is a hard one for me. Definitely not because there are no weaknesses, but more because a lot we see in the game is a bit situational and/or an amalgamation of different things that morph into one single shitfest that I cannot really find a word for. I have thought about using single-mindedness but I actually think it is inaccurate and a word used often for him that while coming close to what I want to say does give of a very different vibe than I am going for and there are definitely aspects, where he isn’t single minded at all and as I said: very situational. Sooo… I would like to introduce my favourite weakness to give a character (seriously like 80 percent of my OCs have this one): tunnel vision. Kind of a downside of determination but also alluding of the fact, that our dear Bachelor likes do dismiss peoples opinions if they don’t match up with his own. But I don’t really think this is because he is generally dismissive of everything (because he shows signs of interest even in the town and it’s culture when it is not interfering with his work and while I wouldn’t dare to say that his handling of the situation is a good one, I think it is largely enhanced of the whole plague thing going on and also of everything getting in his fucking way). Example: getting really weirdly pissed at Lara for telling him that there probably isn’t any (human) source for the disease is not really being “fuck you, I am better, you know nothing” and more “no. There is one, this is my goal so there has to be one”. You know… tunnel vision. Same with most of his rants about the town that are mostly like “why wont you give me the information I need in the terms I could use?” or “why the fuck can I not be an efficient doctor in this town?” It disregards the towns uniqueness in a way that is dangerous and bad for both parties, hinders his work, and damages the town. It can also lead to my first instinctually chosen word, single mindedness, because it leads to this disregard of others peoples opinions but I think it is more of a symptom and it doesn’t mean that he looks down on people all the time (oh, he definitely does sometimes but I would argue not as much as people are saying) but that he is so much in his own mind, that he doesn’t even think about considering! (Which is also bad but in a different way.) It also explains why I feel that most of his downsides are very situational: Because they are! They are a result of him setting himself certain goals and then being very very hard to change his way of looking at the specific problem. It can be helpful and is also kind of a part of his strength but at the same time are his own downfall. (I mean, just look at the letter of “a” and his complete and utter disregard of it! He has his standards and by god he will keep them no matter what anyone is saying.)

a headcanon about their childhood

Not a childhood one and only a pre-canon, but I think, he designed the coat he is wearing in Patho 2 himself. Or at least with like a friend who also creates fashion and either he went to the poor artist with a plan and that guy was like “are you sure..?” and Danko was like “Yes. This is exactly what I want” or the friend was also into weird fashion and they made this horrible thing their own little problem being like “fuck the clothing conventions, we are making everything asymmetric and… horrendous”. Either way it is a deliberate choice. (Also if the designer was up for the project it is the same one who made Andreys pants. ^^) To also have a childhood one: I think Daniil was one of those children who idolize their parents a lot and talk to others about how great they are. I also think he had a falling out with his father at some point, but they had a really good relationship in childhood.

a headcanon about their future (if they have one)

Tbh I have a massive amount of different ideas about the future and it depends on so many things. I absolutely can see him going back to the capital and getting executed and I also can see him seeing to his own death after a different character’s end (oh, old black train! You have tainted my heart with my own tears! Thank you Ned! ^^) In the second game I feel him staying in town a bit more, but in P1 there is really nothing that keeps him in the end. Though I love and follow every fucking story that lets him stay or get a better ending and in my head I also have a “goes into the capital and gets brainwashed and dragged into the inquisition” storyline. That one might be fun… But again I have so many varieties. If he stays I kind of enjoy the thought of giving him an administrative job and not letting him be a slightly shittier doctor then Artemy. Tbh he is more of a scientist and there’s just is no equipment in town even if we disregard the whole problem with him not being a menkhu (something that definitely doesn’t change after the Haruspex ending). So I like to either see him as taking the Kains job after they leave in Patho and either organizing the houses and/or becoming the next judge or picking up Saburov’s job and trying to govern the town. It depends on who lives and who dies and what the political landscape is like. (For example, which part of the town Khan and Capella will regulate, because he sure as hell cannot step into their shit!) I just think it fits him better and plays to his strengths a bit more. Gives him his own thing to do while he tries to re-establish his science things. And as someone who founded an entire lab, he probably has some expertise and it’s the aspect in town he most succeeded in. But yeah, it all strongly depends on game ending and how characters interact with him because he is pretty much broken by the end of it and needs some form of support or opportunity to find his bearings.

a small detail/scene that leaves a great impact

There are so many! And a lot of small lines that people already made great points about! ^^ I already talked about the “do you condemn me?” line so I will use a different one. Let’s go with “What does ‘erdem’ mean? ‘Arrogant fool’, maybe?” because I freaked out about this one in my second playthrough. I was so delighted by Danko showing interest in the steppe language in my first playthrough that I completely disregarded the “arrogant fool” part which… honestly shame on me, it’s now one of my favourite things! Because it is one of the very little moments where Danko actually shows self reflection and I think the reason is less that he doesn’t think of himself as said arrogant fool and more that he is normally not showing it but this little jab allows us to catch a glimpse. (Also I do not think that it only is “you are saying bad thinks about me, right” and more a moment of self-deprecation, just because the insult is way to precise and fitting to be randomly picked. If it would be, he would go with “city quack” or “outsider asshole” or something along these lines. More what is actually said and less concrete.) I already said that I think Daniil is psyching himself up a lot about being able to do things and telling himself again and again that he is in fact capable of all these things, but that also leads to the acknowledgement that one is indeed an arrogant fool. I think he is aware of not being pleasant and arrogant and while there are other sometimes more direct and sometimes more subtle ways this gets addressed (“I am not nice” in Patho one and generally how people talk about him in his own fever dream and are telling him what a piece of shit he is) but this one… also hits close to home because this joking kind of self-deprecation is just so familiar and common to me. It hits close to home while containing a pretty interesting piece of characterization.

their philosophy/worldview (or part of it) described in one neat little sentence

Urgh, I only put this in the meme to torture myself, didn’t I? Um… I really like his “If you bend your mind towards a challenge the skill will follow in your hands.” So I will just steal it from the man himself. It describes his emphasis on the mind as well as the importance of being focused (ha!) on a set goal and following it through. It also makes reaching goals and acquiring said things sound possible no matter what it is, and last but not least: it doesn’t really specify your ability but what kind of person you have to be but a state of mind you should be in. It is universal. And since I am really fascinated by his way of dismissing other people while still having a universal respect for human beings, I like to incorporate this aspect. ^^

[knivestothroats]

Part 8

Previous Parts

Welcome to my FAVORITE CHAPTER, Y’ALL!! I love me a fight scene. Plus there’s like emotional payoff or whatever.

THE GOOD STUFF: Fight! Fight! Fight!, Luke and Ace finally get a chance to talk, haircuts as a metaphor for the state of your life, a coupla yucks

THE BAD STUFF: Mind control (referenced in past), memory loss, bullying?, minor panic attack, fistfight, attempted choking, someone gets their face smashed but it’s not too graphic

~

Luke’s friend had been right – Luke did try to reach out to Ace. What his friend hadn’t known was that Ace would be so panicked the moment Luke approached them, that they probably hadn’t needed anyone to tell them to keep their distance. Ace’s brain read the event like a wild Pokémon encounter and selected the “flee” option.

All Luke had managed to say was, “Hey, Ace, I wanted to talk to you.”

Ace’s very calm and collected response was, “I – I have to go. S-sorry.”

“Okay, well, when can we…” Luke started, but Ace was already hurrying away. “Alright. See you… later,” Luke said to the space where an Ace-shaped cloud of dust would have been in a cartoon.

In the safety of their room, Ace continued to panic. They paced the floor and tried to regulate their breathing, keeping a hand on their chest to feel the frantic beating of their heart. Ace ran their other hand through their hair, fingers tangling and tugging on the overgrown locks. They turned and glared into their mirror, staring themselves down.

If they want to feel like themselves again, they decided they should start trying to look like themselves again. Usually Matty would take the clippers to the sides of Ace’s head, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and Ace truly felt desperate.

Ace tried their best to shave their own head, doing what they could with the mirror and using the fingers to find the edges of their Mohawk where they couldn’t see. Trimming the long part was pretty much a gamble. They didn’t bother trying to strip the dark brown from their hair, opting the go straight to layering on the color.

The end result was patchy, uneven, and red-tinted at best. But they had their hairstyle back, and they had done it themselves. No one else had made this change to them, and they found solace in this small measure of control.

That is until the next day in the cafeteria; then they just felt self-conscious. More accurately, they had felt self-conscious since they had left the infirmary, and now they felt embarrassed. Hunched over their meal, they rested a hand protectively on the back of their head, fingers running over the sloppy buzz cut. They told themselves that this was just another day to get through, and all they had to do was keep their head down.

But then a tray was set onto the table next to them, and Ace looked up.

“Mind if we sit here?” Luke asked, already lowering himself into a chair. Three others, including the friend who had told Ace to keep their distance, hovered around the other seats. They looked less sure about the situation than Luke did.

“Uh, you can do whatever you want,” Ace shrugged.

“This is Mark,” Luke said, gesturing to the friend Ace had already met. He looked uncomfortable, but just gave Ace a nod. “This is Jo, and that’s Harley,” Luke continued. They gave small greetings and Ace gave one back as Luke introduced them. “This is Ace. We, uh… I mean, I guess we don’t really know each other, even though we spent a lot of time together.”

“Yeah, I… in my mind, we just met,” Ace said, keeping their eyes on their food.

“Yeah, I guess we sort of have,” Luke said, keeping his tone light, seemingly effortlessly. “It wasn’t really you before. I’ve been…” he chuckled, and tried to choose his words carefully. “It was kind of a, uh, pet project of mine to figure out how to have a conversation with you while you were under mind control. I’m hoping it’ll be easier now.”

Ace said nothing, so Luke pressed on.

“I see you cut you hair. Did you do it yourself?”

Ace scoffed and ran their hand over their head again. “That obvious?”

“No, it looks good!” Luke insisted. “I need to get mine done too. My roots are gonna be longer than the blond soon. I’m thinking about doing something new, though. Might get rid of the blond altogether.”

Ace picked at their food. “What, uh… what were you thinking about doing instead?” they asked in an attempt to keep any awkward silence at bay.

“I don’t know, I might–”

“Nice haircut,” a voice cut in. Ace didn’t have to turn around to know it was Tate, no doubt with his two usual accomplices. Luke and his friends watched them approach, eyes flicking between them and very tense Ace. The four of them might not have known who these people were, but they were quickly making their own assumptions. Tate’s shit-eating grin and Ace’s white-knuckled fist on the table said enough.

“Is this guy a problem? Because he’s coming over…” Harley muttered to Ace. They hadn’t needed to, as only a moment later Tate’s hand was on the back of Ace’s head.

He shoved Ace’s head down toward their tray of food. Ace was holding steady, but Tate kept pushing, so they gave in. They pushed their tray out of the way and made sure to catch their forehead in their hand as they allowed Tate to slam their head into the table. Ace straightened up as Tate and his friends laughed, but they didn’t turn to face them.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Luke snapped at them.

Ace gave him a sideways look. “It’s fine,” they hissed. But it was too late. Luke had drawn Tate’s attention towards himself.

Tate leaned over him, resting his hand on the table. “You sticking up for the killer? I guess you two spent a lot of time together, huh? Maybe they shoulda checked you for brainwashing.”

He reached out toward Luke – whether to push him or grab him or whatever, he never made it. Ace’s hand darted out and grabbed Tate’s wrist. They stood up and threw their whole body into a punch, landing it squarely in Tate’s face.

Ace let go as Tate staggered backwards. His two friends moved forward.

The one on Ace’s left tried to throw a hook punch, but Ace stopped his arm. They sent a palm to his nose, an elbow to the side of his head, and then a sweep kick to his ankle in quick succession, sending him to the floor. 

An arm wrapped around Ace’s throat from behind. Ace twisted toward the gap at their attacker’s elbow to gain some breathing space. They stabbed an elbow into their attacker’s ribs, and kicked back their heel into his shin. When the grip loosened, Ace grabbed the arm at their throat and flipped the assailant forward, onto the first one on the floor. The two of them scrambling over each other would buy Ace some time. Tate was coming back at them.

He threw a couple punches, which Ace managed to block or dodge. Tate managed to grab Ace, but they kneed him in the groin and broke free. He doubled over slightly, and Ace swung their hands in over his ears, pulling him down further so they could send a high knee to his face.

Ace watched him stagger backwards, disoriented. They couldn’t help but smile.

In their periphery, they saw someone getting up from the ground. Ace spun on them delivered a swift blow to the throat. The giddiness of being in – and winning – a fight was getting to Ace, and then they decided to show off with a tornado kick, knocking their opponent back onto the ground. They felt a hand pull their shoulder, and they turned right into Tate’s fist. He tried to throw another, but Ace blocked it and retaliated.

Tate was still disoriented enough to be knocked backwards easily, and Ace managed to pinned his back down on an empty table. A tight fist on the front of his shirt, holding him there, Ace began to repeatedly punch him in the face. Filled with rage, stocked up from having to take the looks, the scorn, the abuse. From not being able to fight back after three months of not being able to control their own actions. The thrill of being in control, the adrenaline of a fight, the joy of winning. It propelled their fist back and forward over and over. There was strength in each punch, satisfaction each time it connected.

They drew back again and a hand caught their arm.

Assuming one of the others had gotten up and rejoined the fight, Ace spun around and used their free hand to send a hook punch into Brooks’ jaw.

He immediately let go of Ace’s arm, so it technically worked.

Ace jumped back, hands flying over their mouth.

Brooks rubbed his jaw, readjusted his glasses, and gave Ace a look.

“I’m… so sorry…” Ace said. And they were, but they were also trying not to laugh.

While the others managed to pick themselves up, Tate sunk down to the floor, face mired with blood.

“You two, take him and get yourselves to the infirmary,” Brooks ordered. “I’ll be down in a minute, and we’re going to talk about what happened.”

Nobody moved for a moment, maybe deciding if they should protest.

“Go. Now.”

The two others hoisted up Tate and half-dragged him out of the cafeteria. Brooks turned to Ace, who was standing with their arms crossed, suppressing a smile.

“You, I will talk to later,” Brooks said, using his Order Giving Voice, knowing it carried without needing to yell. He shifted then, so that he was closer to Ace with his back to the onlookers. Quietly, he said, “Glad to have you back. Enjoy the rest of your lunch.” He nodded toward Luke and his friends before turning to leave.

Ace returned to their seat, no longer able to hide their grin. They sat back comfortably in their chair and resumed eating lunch. The others looked at each other, unsure of what to say, until Jo spoke up and asked, “What the fuck was that?”

“How do you mean?” Ace asked, swallowing their food.

“Why the hell were you letting those guys fuck with you if you could kick their asses that easily?” Luke asked.

“A lot of people here blame me for what happened, and/or think I’m going to hurt someone on the team again. So I had to, you know, not hurt anyone on the team.”

“And… you just got sick of it?” Harley asked.

“Uh…” Ace drummed their fingers on the table. “I could take it, but… he tried to fuck with Luke,” Ace said sheepishly.

Luke blinked. “You beat those guys up for me?”

Ace looked at him and said, “I beat those guys up for us.”

[continues here]

[icosmohunters]

chapter eight : master of puppets

chapter eight of cosmo hunters!

word count : 8.2k words

synopsis : the pirates have opted to help hope out properly in an attempt to get their hands on the puppeteer, a cyber mastermind capable of sick atrocities. after touching down on the m-colony, hope can’t help but feel uneasy, in worry that somehow this infamous criminal would hurt her. or worse, someone else.

the m-colony was perhaps one of the few human bases in the solar system that touches solid ground. though smaller than the earth, mars held a behemoth city on its surface, capable of withstanding some of the conditions normal architecture wouldn’t be able to handle. this includes the slight earthquakes and sandstorms that occur on the surface of this red rock.

out of all the planets in the solar system, hope has never had the chance to visit mars, the earth’s smaller but stranger brother, the red planet, often suspected of harnessing life, harnessing magma and active volcanoes underneath its soil, capable of supporting life if the earth were to end tomorrow.

mars was not only colonized with methods of living to support human life, but it was also taken in as extra space for agriculture, and the endless fields of dust and mahogany dirt that seemed to stretch on forever were often used as a method of sport; racing. 

even whilst entering the atmosphere now, hope could see the hoverbikes speeding past each other in a series of turns and jumps over cliffs and fields and hills, the riders wearing suitable equipment like helmets and specific suits.

“ after this is all over, remind me to book a seat to one of these things, i was never fond of formula one ”, the bounty hunter told her a.i. she had been given clearance soon upon entering the atmosphere, and now she followed a set of floating lights positioned as guidelines towards the nearest base. “ but that, i can definitely get behind. ”

“ we can do so after we finish what we’ve come here for ”, a.j stated and hope couldn’t help but mimic his voice before rolling her eyes. nevertheless, a.j always made sense, they did have to finish what they came here for. 

according to her artificial intelligence, the puppeteer has been hiding out within the human m-colony, somewhere within a run-down version of the apartments the humans first built after they entered the planet. the structures were left to rot and many building companies gave up on bull-dozing the place. so now, it was there, a ghostly sight.

and home to a potentially conspiring force of evil, and hope had to stop them.

m-colony was covered by a massive, almost dome-like shield harnessing the oxygen required for humans to breathe. the city was perhaps as big as beijing back home, but nowhere as big as the j-colony. nothing could reach the size of that monolith of a city. 

skyscrapers, roads, billboards, and marketing spread all around her. she peered out through nebula’s window and inhaled deeply. it was all perfect, the systems were complicated but safe and not the types that could be breached. however, this might not stop a particularly nasty person from ruining it all.

and by this nasty person, she meant the puppeteer. not much was known about them as a person but they were capable of doing things that could potentially kill millions. all that they’ve done is steal money from global banks, leaving people with little to no money in accounts and sending the earth in a financial crisis a couple of years back.

upon landing at the docks, hope let out a sigh of relief. ever since she left the headquarters, she’s felt like she was being closely followed by the very company she’s been working with. so far out into space, they couldn’t exactly trace her location nor her status nor log into the camera feed of her ship, not without her permission. but she still felt odd about it, worried.

maybe it was nothing to worry about but she would constantly think back to beatrice yoh, standing on that stage with a proud smile on her face announcing the strict regulations that had implemented to avoid a mutiny or a coup. it was a haunting memory, ironically the worst thing hope has ever witnessed.

a powerful woman imposing a regime that was going to put people in their places, people who disobeyed. as someone who was breaching at least a dozen protocols, hope was beyond anxious. all for the sake of keeping these pirates somewhere safe before taking them to where they had to be.

removing her seatbelts from her, hope took the elevator down and found the pirates gathered in the lounge once more. there was a proper meeting room somewhere in the nebula but hope never used it, especially since she rarely had visitors. besides, the lounge made her feel less worried about all of this, convincing her to brush it off like it was a family gathering of some sort.

“ we felt bad for taking some of your weapons so we managed to store some new ones after a shopping spree at j-colony ”, enzo announced, loading a firearm that seemed to be a ray gun of some sort, but it looked like it was capable of so much more.

hope shook her head, “ i usually stack up on my weapons when i go back home. dad keeps huge storage of them in the garage, he’d lend me some. but i don’t know when i’ll be going home, so i appreciate it. thank you. ”

something she’s noticed within the coming days is growing used to the presence of these strangers. she grew used to quinn and enzo bickering during a game, she grew used to the rattling of pans in the kitchen from vivienne and dawn. she wasn’t so used to dom making any noises but she grew used to seeing him about.

she never thought she would get used to it, but she was getting there. it was still unfortunate to have to wait for someone to finish showering or for her to eat within a close range of people. but then again, baby steps.

“ oh, it’s not a problem ”, vivienne spoke. “ besides, you just said yourself you don’t know when that would be. but it’s good to have weapons in case another name pops up on the list. ” hope nodded, looking down. “ this puppeteer . . . are you sure you’re confident in going after him? ”.

the captain rose her head once more with a chuckle, “ well, i have no choice. voyage gives me the targets and i either accept it or pass it on. and i’ve never passed down a challenge, not a single one in my years as a bounty hunter. “ besides, this is not the kind of person we want wandering around. something needs to be done about them. ”

“ you say that and yet you’re letting us go along with you ”, dom said and hope looked over whilst adjusting her wristband. “ sure, enzo can be quite manipulative when he wants to be. but why not just let us stay here? ”.

quinn called from the other side of the room, “ scared to die out there, dominic? we’re safe in a larger group. besides, we might not even need to attack if this person is a cyber mastermind rather than, you know, a physical one. ” he looked over his shoulder and towards dawn. “ besides, the medic’s staying behind. ”

hope snapped her head towards dawn quickly, “ you sure you’re okay with guarding the ship by yourself? i mean, nebula is safe and all but you might get bored quite easily. ”

“ i-it’s fine! ”, dawn squeaked, waving her hand to dismiss the statement. “ besides, i only ever come to use when someone’s hurt. and going in a large group, you might find yourselves injured. i can somehow sense it. so i’ll stay here, preparing anything in case someone comes back hurt. ”

vivienne snorted, “ knowing everyone, i bet it’ll be enzo. ”

“ rude! ”.

after a small gathering, hope went and got changed into something appropriate for the mission and this time, she made sure to lock the door in case someone with curious eyes came in to peek at her again. slipping her jacket on, she looked into the mirror and noticed her hair. “ fuck, you’re going to bother me ”, she cursed and grabbed a hairband before taking to leave her room.

in terms of weapons and ammunition, she had plenty in her backpack, it was heavy because of that but she could persevere. besides, comfort was the last thing on her mind when she had a person to hunt down. but her preferred weapon of choice remained with the band resting on her shoulder, the rifle she’s spent years protecting.

“ you look like you’re going to war ”, quinn commented when she came out of the ship. the items felt heavy on her body but the sooner they got to hunting, the less she would have to worry about carrying the damn thing around.

“ i might as well be ”, she said and grabbed a handful of her hair into her hands and then tied it up into a semi-neat ponytail. her hair’s never been an issue but this was a serious matter and if she missed her shot because of a brown lock of hair, she was going to lose it. 

dawn grinned brightly behind them, “ good luck, guys! and stay together, don’t split up! ”.

m-colony was fuller today than most days, people spreading into the streets with excited beams on their faces. they didn’t seem to be aware of the armed group of people walking among them, but then again, the blinding lights may capture someone’s attention and then cause a frenzy, a daze. hope would have been lost in it herself if she hadn’t been focused on the matter at hand.

the place where the puppeteer’s lair was possibly located was some miles from the main city, the outskirts of the deserted lands that were of no use to the human civilization at that moment.

“ how are we going to get there? ”, vivienne called over her shoulder towards hope. since she was at the front, and the cacophony of noise was enough to cloud their voices slightly, she had to yell.

“ there’s a car service not far from here! all we need to do is hire one! ”, hope called back and looked around, checking her location on her wristband. the location was a good half hour drive from them, but perhaps the drive would be enough to calm her nerves. she doesn’t like going into missions tense.

the car service was definitely not far, it was cross the street. now that she thought about it, based on the positions of these billboards and the streets lined up, she recognized times square back in new york. she chuckled and shook her head for a moment, humans bring their brand everywhere. it’s quite cute.

“ alright, we can hire it for four hours. after the time limit, it shuts down and we won’t be able to get back inside it ”, quinn warned after they had gotten the car they acquired. it was a hovercar, like most, with a beige, suede interior. “ so i suggest we hurry it up. ”

“ hah, four hours is more than enough to find a man and kill him. well, knowing how insane space can be, i might just have to take that back ”, enzo put in a lighthearted tone, before shrugging and pulling the door open for vivienne and hope. “ ladies first! ”.

the car was similar to that of a jeep, except it was incased with glass windows holding the oxygen required for the drivers to breathe. a snoop around and hope found it to be in good condition to drive, so she threw the coordinates onto the gps and then adjusted her seat-belt.

dom had chosen to drive, so hope remained in the back seat and gave a quick look around them before the car started moving. she saw the billboards, the skyscrapers, and many cameras. cameras that the puppeteer could potentially be peeking through, being the sneak he was.

always observing but never courageous enough to step in and actually act. a coward in a way but an ironically brave one, considering he was capable of committing crimes with the mere click of a button on a control panel. a hivemind, smart enough to never had to step out a confined space hidden somewhere in mars.

well, hope was going to blast that confined space to pieces.

the ride out onto the quiet zone was, well, quiet. racing through martian landscapes, seeing the mountains and valleys up close. it was like a ride through the old deserts back home, but even deader. the sky wasn’t particularly blue, it was gloomy and the sandstorms in the distance were horrifying but the car persevered.

“ so, should we play a game ‘i spy’? ”.

“ i can only see s and i ”, quinn muttered under his breath. hope looked up at him with a raised brow. “ sand and an idiot. ” this time, the bounty hunter couldn’t help but chortle, the kid was too good. he could be a comedian if being a pirate ever got boring. 

“ i’ll punch some sense into you, kiddo ”, enzo warned with a glare, but it was passive. hope chuckled and looked out of the window as the car continued moving.

the ride couldn’t have lasted more than twenty minutes with how fast dom was driving. after ten minutes, they seemed to have exited the main part of the city and entered fields and large, vast structures which she assumed held cattle and livestock. perhaps even the farms needed to feed these people.

and after another five minutes, these structures soon faded and it was just sand and hills for a while. but then hope began to see something on the horizon, something tall and saw it as an apartment building of some sort. rotting and falling apart. another one followed briefly after. and then another.

checking the gps a minute later, hope’s eyes flickered to the terrain of abandoned buildings and she felt a chill run down her spine. “ well, this is it. hear that? ”, she questioned and it seemed like everyone held their breath. 

all that could be heard outside was the cries of the wind, sound traveled solemnly over a landscape of nothing but what was once a lovely place, lush of life and the humans that once lived there but now it was sleeping. dormant. not completely dead, not with a single human being there. but it most certainly looked like red limbo, something that caused hope’s breathing to tremble. despite seeming dead, it felt like something slept beneath the soil. sleeping. or very much awake. waiting. an eye peering through somewhere, looming over every stretch of the landscape in search of . . . something. a watchful beast.

quinn exhaled, “ sounds like my literal nightmare. ”

“ the quiet zone. well, now it’s quiet, didn’t use to be. once home to about a million humans, apartments and accommodation scattered everywhere. the first establishment of life on mars, and now it’s a ghost town ”, hope explained in a grave tone before reaching into her backpack. “ everyone, put your masks on. ”

“ the humans migrated, didn’t they? moved to the big city? why would he be hiding out here of all places? ”, enzo questioned mostly to himself before he seemed to figure out the answer himself. “ oh, he’s arrogant. ”

“ well, try stealing a hundred billion dollars from every global bank on earth. that’s a self-esteem boost ”, dom said before pulling his oxygen mask on. hope bit back a smile, she couldn’t help but agree. 

after putting on the masks, it was time to head out. hope remained cautious because upon entering a territory of a prying animal, you wouldn’t want to wake it up or even piss it off before you get the chance to come within single proximity of it. so she warned the pirates to keep quiet and to stick close together.

stepping on martian soil, it’s perhaps the most thrilling experience hope has felt. she’s been to titan, europa, io, even to jupiter but nothing felt quite surreal like stepping on the red planet. she paid a glance around her, seeing the absence of people, people she thought would be living happily.

but not a single one in sight. not a single one.

“ alright, in which direction are we going? ”.

hope looked towards a puzzled vivienne and then pointed northwards. the base was said to be located somewhere beneath the ground. where? she didn’t know. and she didn’t have the equipment to dig down. so she prayed that perhaps these apartments had a basement that this monster could be living in.

so they went north. crossing these structures, seeing them up close right from the very bottom, hope realized just how behemoth they were, craning her head back to peek at the very top. doors had come off their hinges, windows broken, the little playground area deserted and scattered with graffiti.

to think that normal people once lived there. biting her lip, she looked back just once. it felt weird, then again this is the first time she’s doing something like this, approaching the devil’s lair with hardly any preparation. all she knew is that she had to be the one to murder this guy. the pirates could injure him, but she needed that final bullet to be fired by her. no else but her.

“ you know, for a planet that was supposed to be earth’s sister, it does a good job in being anything but that ”, enzo commented before kicking a pebble not too far away from him. it rolled over and then paused. “ just . . . rock and dirt. is anything alive? ”.

hope looked around before she continued leading the way. “ well, first off, correct yourself. it’s earth’s brother, more like. ares, god of war, male, one of the twelve olympians, get it right ”, she corrected him. “ second off, they believe this is what an early planet earth would have looked like. magma flowing underneath the ground, sleeping mountains and volcanoes burning up all the elements of life. ice being melted by this heat, generating water, generating the incubators for life . . . except mars hasn’t changed that much. they believe it’ll be a few years until it’ll be like the earth. ”

“ i think it’s quite a shame. it’s so similar to back home ”, quinn mumbled. “ minus the sandstorms and earthquakes that could happen. it’s why some people are scattered to build on the surface and choose to do it beneath the surface. ”

hope chuckled, “ i watched the documentary. yeah, mars is great but it’s one angry planet that hasn’t settled in just yet. the black sheep of the family, if you will. then again, so was ares. ”

“ well, at least it’s not venus. ”

“ weren’t they in love? aphrodite and ares? ”.

“ i don’t want a history lesson on god sex, thank you very much. ”

after about ten minutes of pacing, hope’s gps beeped and the map on the right side of her helmet showed the red dot blaring. they’d arrived. but there was nothing. they were pretty much there but there was nothing, nothing but red dirt and painful silence.

“ well, looks like you got the wrong coordinates ”, dom voiced and turned to hope. “ are you sure this is where we’re supposed to be? we can’t dig down, we don’t have the tools for it. ”

enzo kissed his teeth, “ stop annoying her, dom and let her think. maybe this guy is using a field of some sort to blind us, invisible. like the cloaking feature, the one we had on our ship before we left it! or perhap— ”.

“ enzo, step back! ”.

the captain of the pirates let out an echoing gasp and took a major step back and the ground beneath him seemed to crumble slightly. and then for the first time, hope heard a sound. like something falling on the ground and so she advanced forward towards enzo and saw what he could have fallen into.

a ravine of some sort. except it wasn’t a natural one, it was artificially made, hope noticed the balconies and the doors and windows and the walls and noticed that some apartments had been built inside a huge ravine on the ground. and it was deep, at least a hundred feet in depth.

if enzo had dropped in, he could have died. not even the slightly weaker gravity could have cushioned his fall. hope took a straight glance down and winced before turning to the captain and patting his shoulder, “ nice reflexes. ”

enzo sighed nervously, “ y-yeah, well, i try. ”

“ so, i’m assuming this is it. a giant hole on the ground, of course, the base would be here, it’s where the red dot is. now, it’s a matter of tracing this fucker down ”, dom said and crouched down slightly just by the edge. hope anxiously moved closer to ensure nothing bad happened. she didn’t want him toppling over the edge. “ should we take a dive inside? ”.

of course, there was only one answer to his question. they had to go in. there must have been at least ten different levels of these apartments and they managed to get into the top one. it was like council estates in the united kingdom, with a balcony shielding the drop down. and below, a basketball court. desolate.

on the top floor, hope looked and saw nothing but doors and doors and broken windows and some other doors. all of them appeared to be broken down or scratched in some way. she frowned and started to walk slowly down the hall.

“ this is something of silent hill, this is creepy and i don’t want to be here ”, enzo muttered under his breath before calling out. “ uh, hope! can we hurry it up a bit? ”.

“ shut up ”, hope snapped and listened out for another sound. the only sound she heard was the pebble hit the ground, nothing else. just utter silence and it was grinding her gears with how cold it was, how desolate and lifeless it was. not even her ship was as lifeless as this . . .

but that’s when she sat it. a door at the very end of the hall. seemingly polished, not at all damaged like the surrounding ones, like the rot didn’t affect it like it wasn’t even supposed to be there. not a hint of rust in the hinges. nothing at all. an ordinary, new, polished door. 

hope hurried her steps and motioned over her shoulder for the group to follow her and they did, so when she reached the door, she set her hand on the handle. and then pushed it down. 

the door beeped.

hope flinched back in fear there was an explosive behind it but it was nothing, it was only the door which slid slowly open. the noise it created was ghastly, like a creature crying out. a creature so bizarre she can’t even compare it to anything. “ that’s definitely gonna wake someone up ”, vivienne uttered. 

“ well, then we should hurry. ”

stepping inside, it was unlike anything hope suspected. she thought it would have been at least cozy, similar to the vintage decorations back home. the way her grandmother used to arrange her furniture. a sense of home. but no, it was like she had stepped inside a spaceship. gulping, she grasped her riffle and nodded to the group after scouting around. 

they had landed in a hall of some sort, a hall going left, right, and forwards. and she didn’t like that. it suggested the idea of splitting up and she was exactly against it. but they were definitely in the puppeteer’s lair, there was no doubt about it.

“ i always say go forward. we’d be going deeper into the ground and away from the apartments in themselves. he’s dug deeper, anyone can see that ”, quinn muttered and stood beside hope for a moment. “ what do you think? ”.

hope rose her brows slightly after sighing, “ well, forwards is the only way to go. no turning back now, not when we’ve come this far. ” she nodded forward and proceeded, hearing the footsteps continue behind her. 

the halls were similar to that of the nebula, silver with lit lines dug into the walls, no lamps required to keep it lit. the floors were polished, some sort of marbles and it was making her footsteps echo, something she didn’t need at that moment. at the end of the hall, there seemed to be a sealed door. 

“ well, that was fun until it lasted ”, enzo snorted before raising his gaze up before humming. “ there’s an opening above us. and judging from these designs, there’s something for us to crawl through. like shafts. anyone want to do the honors first? ”.

hope shrugged and adjusted her backpack and riffle, “ fuck it, why not? ”. enzo reached up quickly and gave the shaft entrance a tap with the butt of his gun and it budged, it could be removed. he pressed harder and the hatch opened completely, more than enough space for her to crawl through.

“ need a hand u— ”.

“ mars has weaker gravity for a reason ”, hope uttered and then jumped, feeling her feet touch the ground. it was like she was lightweight for a second, she grabbed her hands onto the edges and then hauled herself up with the strength she had. she crouched in fear of hitting her head, but she never did. she looked about and blinked. “ uh . . . it’s another hall. ”

enzo scoffed before jumping through himself and climbing onto this new level and looking around. “ well, so much for my james bond movie moment. i always watched to climb through a shaft ”, he complained. hope snorted and rolled her eyes. “ alright, you lot, come through, it’s safe. ”

after the other three had crawled through, hope looked at the two ends of the hallway she could take and bit her lip. “ usually this should be easy, but it’s one way or the other ”, she uttered before standing properly, despite the quiver in her legs that she couldn’t hide. she was shaking, worried. 

ever since she had arrived, it felt like something was digging into her head, telling her to turn back even though she’s never been the type of person to give up halfway. no, she’s never even been the type of person to give up at all. so why was she so willing to drop her weapon right now and run back to her ship like a coward?

“ well, we could split up ”, vivienne suggested whilst crouching to adjust her shoes. “ i know, terrible strategy but we have each other on a call. we can trace each other down and send locations easily. it’ll be easier to trace him down. ”

enzo groaned but then ran a hand through his brown locks and clenched his jaw. “ right, well, not a bad idea at all. i’ve just seen too many horror movies to know how it usually goes down. but we’re capable, w-we’ll be fine ”, he decided and looked towards the captain of the nebula. “ i’ll go with y— ”.

“ no ”, hope interrupted. “ if this guy really forgot to turn his security on today, i’ll get lucky with one shot. one bullet. but if there’s anything else out here, at all, i’ll be able to protect myself from it alone. i can fight, but only alone. you guys work better as a team. if you find him, you can fight together. we have equal chances like this. it’s just better that i remain alone. ”

enzo opened his mouth to say something but seemingly closed it and glared down. he cursed under his breath and moved away. dom stepped up, looking at her with a puzzling look. “ you sure you’re okay going alone? ”, he questioned. 

“ yeah, of course ”.

it took some convincing. in fact, it took a lot of convincing. enzo was hesitant on letting her go by herself but there wasn’t really an element of choice available considering the circumstances they were in. for all she knew, this place was a maze and her memory was better when alone. her senses were better when alone. her fighting was better when alone.

she needed to this alone. so whilst she went forward, they moved back. and even if they went opposite ways, they could potentially end up on opposite sides of the quiet zone. and she wasn’t going to risk it too much, so she paid attention. she gripped the rifle in her hand, ready to use it when the time came.

the door slid open when it sensed her. it really felt like a spaceship, or like she was walking through a voyage base buried deep underground. the end of her rifle rose immediately as she carefully aimed and tiptoed in, and found herself in a wide opening. it was dark, but then a sound beeped and the lights snapped on. just like that. 

hope held her breath.

this was horrifying, but it felt like she was in a storage room. no, a lab. no, a huge hall of some sort with tubes scattered all around, displays of . . . robots. it felt like she had walked into a hall of fame, in which display housing a robot. robots whose models she’s never seen before. it felt like walking through a museum. alone. at night.

but there was a sense of familiarity in these robots. she’s seen something similar to them before, a long time ago, perhaps when she was a kid. or older than that. she looked around, but her guard never dropped. who knew if these things were sentient, aware of her and ordered to get rid of her.

when she thought about it, looking at the models of these robots, built to resemble humans, covered by traces of glowing blue lights over a black, armored body of some sort, she felt like she’d seen them somewhere at least before. perhaps during a meeting with voyage or a picture her father had shown her. 

hope gulped, aiming at them and seeing that there was no other exit nor entrance other than the very one she’d walked through. the door remained wide open and she could very much retreat but something told her to wait. with furrowed brows, she began to look around.

there were military crates stacked around, some laying down on their sides which someone used as a desk, based on the papers scattered and the lamp shining over them. who even uses paper anymore? hope, being a curious soul, picked one piece of paper and saw what appeared to be rough sketches of robotic models drawn. similar to the very ones around. they were all the same, though, and the one on the paper looked a lot more . . . intimidating.

whatever the puppeteer did on a regular basis, she wasn’t aware of. but she most definitely knew that he was fond of making weapons of mass destruction. why else would he make so man—

hope’s heart dropped. she gasped and dropped the piece of paper and bolted for the door but it closed firmly before she even got the chance to reach it. she let out a yelp and started to bang her curled fist into the metal in hopes that it would echo, in hopes that someone, any of the pirates, would hear it.

“ g-guys, guys! come back, guys! don’t go down there, please! come back! ”.

“ well, what do we have here? ”.

hope didn’t turn around at first. every muscle in her body seemed to freeze into ice, stone, whatever. she froze completely, paralyzed with fear. fear. she wasn’t accustomed to being scared, nothing in the universe could make her scared. perhaps death scared her. an early death, to be more specific but she still felt fearful. very fearful.

“ hope, the bounty hunter. top twenty on the list. i mean, you’re on the eleventh place! one more kill and boom, you might end up in the top five ”, the voice continued. hope gulped, feeling her previously frozen muscles begin to tremble. “ oh, don’t avoid my eyes, hope! look at me, let’s see that pretty face. ”

what could she do? if she wasn’t careful, this guy could potentially disintegrate her. fry her. freeze her and then pushed her frozen body to the ground. so she turned, reluctantly but she still turned. her bottom lip quivered and her breathing became erratic. but she still dared to look.

the puppeteer’s face appeared on the screen in front of her, a huge screen tucked into the other side of this enormous room. his face, far from ugly, was ironically terrifying. because he was a beautiful man with dark hair and oval, pale, clear face. lips pouty and jawline sharp. but his eyes . . . oh, his eyes.

they weren’t human, hope wanted to say. they looked far too unreal, far too artificial; two glowing, purples eyes looking right back at her. purple, of all colors, her favorite. it was like staring into an android of some sort, the ones used in modeling. he didn’t look real. but then his lips rose into a sickening grin that left her stomach aching, the food daring to come out.

“ beautiful. at least you’ve got that going for you, good looks. good looks, a decent wit, you also pack quite the punch ”, he uttered softly before paused and smirking. “ but you’re rotten on the inside, aren’t you? oh, i’ve heard all about it. the ice princess, the ice queen, lonely assassin. rubbish names, but i like the one i picked for you. wanna hear it? ”. he laughed suddenly, rather maniacally. “ hopeless. ”

she felt like she was going to faint but she battled to remain awake or at least aware of her surroundings, of the things around her. of her intention and why she was here. wherever this guy was, he most likely wasn’t near her. unless if he was behind the screen . . . literally behind the screen. 

but she didn’t dare to aim and shoot to try, especially as he regained his composure and his expression fell stone-cold once again. “ and now you’re here. all alone. right into my trap. i heard what you said, i’m insulted, actually. i’m quite capable of getting to you myself. but where is the fun in that . . . when i can do, this? ”.

at this, hope felt the ground shake. and the floor not too far away from her, with a circular frame attached to it, began to slide open. and from the ground, a figure seemed to have emerged. ascending. hope held her breath when she saw it was one of the robots. almost identical to the ones on the displays.

except it didn’t feel like it was just a dummy. the helmet it wore seemed to show an led light, lighting up within the shape of a puppet. a normal puppet, a circus puppet. a puppet you would see in the movies. but it was horrifying, the cheeks were large and the smile was crooked and the eyes were wide and staring right into her soul.

it was like something out of her biggest nightmare.

“ oh, this is so exciting! ”, the puppeteer cried and clapped his hands happily. “ marvelous, isn’t it? say hello to the juggernaut. handsome fellow, ain’t he? made him myself. he’s quite fond of games. especially one that includes, let’s say . . . a boomerang. ”

gulping, hope watched as the robot rose its metal arm, letting out small wiring noises as an object came into view. a circular object with inside cut open, it looked like a full boomerang. or like a flying disk of death, especially at the spikes suddenly poked out.

the puppeteer squealed, “ i love it when he does that, he looks like a superhero! eek, i can’t wait to watch this. hope versus the juggernaut. ” he clapped and whistled. “ let the match begin! ”.

hope’s eyes scanned the area and soon she grabbed her rifle as soon as she boomerang was thrown, lunging forward and ducking for cover behind a crater. thank god there was a fuck load of them around the hall. she ducked and saw the bladed boomerang dig into the door it had been thrown towards. seeing how much it had dug into the metal, her stomach dropped.

no, no, she couldn’t die here!

harnessing the courage, hope rose and slammed the rifle over the crate, looming over until she saw the juggernaut. it extended his hand out and the boomerang reeled back, ending up safely in his hand once again. oh, great, magnetism!

rolling her eyes, hope fired one bullet and it managed to see right through the range of the bullet and cut it. cut the bullet in half. “ oh come on! ”, the girl cried and threw her rifle over her shoulder before bolting to the sides, remaining behind the crates at all times.

the impact of lasers being fired in her direction hit the wall in front of her, so she tried to keep her head down unless if she wanted to get it cleaned from her head completely. she peeked once again and the juggernaut aimed its metal arm towards her and throw the boomerang. when it was thrown, before she could duck, she spotted something. something interesting about the object.

and then ducked before she could get her head chopped off. she rolled on her stomach after coming to a clearing and fired another kind of bullet, a stun bullet. and he wasn’t able to cut through it this time, especially with the boomerang gone. “ take that, motherfucker! ”, she yelled when the bullet met its leg. and then it beeped. and then it blew up.

oh, nevermind, that wasn’t a stun bullet, that was a mini grenade.

the leg had been completely blown off and yet the robot managed to remain firmly on its feet, and then it looked at her as if to growl or frown and drew the boomerang back. the juggernaut suddenly lunged and hope threw herself back when it jumped and smashed its fists into the ground.

like some sort of hulk-like move, the ground shook beneath her feet. hope cried out when the grip from the rifle was lost, it ended up flying out of her grip and over to the side of the room, which she wouldn’t be able to reach without getting a limb cut cleanly off. 

“ alright . . . let’s try it another way ”, hope growled and picked herself up from the ground, watching the robot approach slowly. it was heavy, heavy because of its armor so taking a step would take long enough for hope to jump away. and jump, she did. 

on top of a crater and onto another, leaping on top of one and then another, hearing the beams just barely missing her head. grunting, she fought her way across the room and then lunged up and forwards, and a beam just right past a strand of her brown hair, burning it off. 

but she managed to jump back to where her weapon was, leaping, gripping the rifle and rolling back over her shoulder until the soles of her feet met the ground again and her arms rose to aim. and then she fired another bullet. another mini grenade, rather.

it hit one of its arms but it only managed to burn the hand off, not the complete arm. hope growled and rose her rifle once again whilst rushing to take cover, but then the juggernaut threw the boomerang once more and it didn’t hit hope, but it pretty much chopped the top end of her rifle clean.

she gasped, ducking when the boomerang withdrew and a laser struck on the ground just beside her. throwing herself behind another crater, she looked at her rifle, well, what remained of it, and she swore she teared up at that moment. gnarring deeply, hope threw the rifle to the side. 

“ you’re gonna have to pay for that, dipshit ”.

she was going to have to do this properly. and in a potentially suicidal way but it was the only way out of this duel.

“ you know what i love about robots? ”, she dared to ask, and it seemed like even the robot had paused, staring at her. “ that anything they drop, anything at all, ends up being a weapon! ”.

in her grip now was the very leg the robot had lost, which she threw towards the boomerang and instead of reacting, it seemed like he let it happen. when it dropped, they both lunged at the same time for it, but hope had enough power in her to sweep her aching legs beneath the robot’s feet, tripping him up. she cried in pain, forgetting he was made of metal.

but she rolled forward and caught the boomerang. the handle was firm and free of spikes, which was a relief. hope let out a sigh and picked herself up, but grunted when it seemed like the weapon sprung up with a life of its own. and that’s when she realized the juggernaut was reeling back once more and if she got close, it could potentially be the death of her. 

so she caught hold of something and brought herself closer to it, knowing that if she weakened her grip she would end up chopped in half. grunting, she saw the robot pull harder for its boomerang, but at this point, hope’s genius struck again.

“ you want it? ”, she questioned through a strained voice. she smirked painfully before laughing. “ alright, here you go! ”.

she did let go, but not before pulling it and then letting it escape from her fingers. the impact, of course, was like a catapult effect. the harder you pull, the harder and higher it goes. and when the boomerang came back, it struck the robot instead of ending in its grip again.

he cut his own arm off. and without both hands, the boomerang was no use. smirking properly now, hope rose a cocky brow. “ so, should we end this? ”, she questioned, bowing her head in respect before sweeping under his feet and grabbing the boomerang, take advantage of his slowness.

gripping the handle, hope breathed and rose it, before cutting it into the robot’s waist. she cringed at the way the weapon shook at the impact and the gross sound it made, of metal against metal. but she pushed harder until she left a great cut on its back.

kicking it forward, hope watched it stumble and then kicked herself off the ground once again before throwing the boomerang. it cut into the robot’s hip, and then came back to her. she inhaled deeply, avoiding the spikes before going in for the final blow. 

grunting, hope sent the boomerang hunting for the robot’s head. and before it could fall, soon after it was sliced cleanly off, the bounty hunter turned and roundhouse kicked the head across the room. she didn’t care what the head hit. but she liked the sound the impact made.

it was dead, unmoving. staring at its fallen body, the bounty hunter then blinked back into reality. panting for a moment and hunching over to press her hand over her chest, it felt like her heart would give up on her.

“ i-i think i win that one. ”

looking up, hope saw the doors slide open and bolted. she didn’t think to look back at the puppeteer if he had come online once again. she ran for the door and down the hall she had come through and to the other end and when those doors slid open, she let out a gasp and covered her mouth with her shaking hand.

smaller androids, so many of them, with bodies mangled over the ground, bits, and pieces all over, ripped cords and wires spilling onto the marble floor. even if it was nowhere human, hope still felt sick to her stomach.

the pirates were fighting, they looked as if they’d been fighting for hours. she saw enzo stab the blade of his rifle into the chest of an android, she saw vivienne lead some of them into incinerators where they cried out as they burned. she saw dom shooting one of the ground before smashing his boot onto its head. 

“ hope, watch out! ”.

the bounty hunter yelped and snapped back into her senses, throwing the weapon she still held in hand and watching it sweep through four of five androids at the same time. reducing them to scrapes and fillings. the girl exhaled uneasily and then ran to the others when danger seemed to reduce. 

“ what the hell happened?! ”, she cried and then spotted quinn wincing in the corner and gripping his waist. the girl’s eyes widened, throwing herself forward and rushed to the boy before grabbing a hold of him. “ f-fuck, you’re hurt. h-hey, look at me! t-that’s right, keep looking at me! ”.

quinn squinted at the girl and winced. hope frowned and looked at the others quickly whilst trying to keep quinn on his feet. “ he needs immediate help, we need to get out! ”, dom declared, shouting over the mayhem. 

“ but the puppeteer, we haven’t gotten him! ”.

“ quinn’s bleeding out! ”.

enzo seemed willing to keep going, dom was against it, vivienne just ran over to hope and quinn to attempt to help. “ it’s up to hope ”, the young woman said. oh, hope hated that. she hated calling the shots.

she was close to getting to the puppeteer. if they persevered, they would be able to find him in no time. but this place was a maze. they would get lost and quinn would bleed out by the time they got out of here. she was so close to killing the man she had come here for and yet . . .

was she really going to let a kid die for the price of bounty points?

firing a painful look at that boy, hope grimaced and then nodded. “ we’re leaving! get back to the car immediately. hang in there, quinn ”, she told the boy and with vivienne’s aid, she pulled him towards the door and towards the hatchet, the gravity would cushion his descent so not a lot of damage would be done. they needed to hurry back. 

enzo and dom stayed behind briefly to get rid of any more androids that just kept coming like an army of ants. insects seeping through openings and prying their hungry hands towards the humans they’d been ordered to kill.

by the time they were on the surface, quinn could barely stand. so hope did the thing she did best, being strong. she grunted and put the boy on her back, and as painful as it was with some of her own injuries, she fought through. because she wasn’t the one dying, it was him.

the car door opened and hope slid quinn through, sitting him down. “ w-we need to get him to dawn immediately, he needs to get patched u— enzo, dominic, hurry the fuck up! ”, hope screamed, seeing the two bolting towards them. she went inside the car herself and watched vivienne attempt to calm quinn down, he looked fit to throw up. and hope couldn’t blame him.

by the time the car was moving, hope’s breathing was erratic. but she had to stay calm, especially for quinn. the boy was grunting and wincing, hope saw the tears spilling down his now pallid face. he was losing too much blood. “ stay with us, kiddo ”, hope prayed, grabbing his bloodied hand and ignoring the disgusting smell and sensation of the red substance. breathing deeply. in and out. trying not to think of it.

because quinn needed support right now. and all of her past grudges towards the pirates were not relevant at this point. quinn had gotten injured because of her mission because he had come along. and the others could have been hurt as well. what happened? how did the boy get struck?

looking at his injury, through her lightheadedness, hope could see it was a stab wound. so he was stabbed. and it was a deep stab. and she just prayed to god that he hadn’t struck a vital organ.

as the car rushed, hope furrowed her brows into a grimace and squeezed her eyes closed, praying, wishing, hoping. demanding safety, demanding peace. and that this boy would keep breathing and living as soon as he heals.

“ p-please god, i’m praying just this once. please, please keep this boy safe. ”

[thatonecurlygirl]

Can you do a Billy H x Reader one about the reader has a higher sex drive than Billy and he’s slightly embarrassed/mad that even HE can’t keep up with the reader. Preferably not entirely all smut but fluff too. I love your blog and thank you!

Pairing: Billy x ReaderWord Count: 1.4kWarnings: Some smut...

*Thank you, love. Sorry that it took so long for me to post this.😘*

The house is quiet, empty save for the two warm bodies lain in the room that belongs to Billy. Their voices the only ones that travel through the halls on the warm, Sunday afternoon.

“Oh, God… Billy” You moan his thrusts deep and his fingers working tight circles at the bundle of nerves right above where his body and yours meet.

You dig your fingers into your biceps, your eyes fluttering open and closed with pleasure, each time they open, you see Billy smirking down at you. His eyes dark with lust, right eyebrow raised, and his lips deliciously curved at the corners.

“Wrong.” He growls, causing the coil in your stomach to wind tighter and tighter.

“Daddy.” You correct yourself, drawing it out and watching the smirk on his lips grow wider. “Just like that. I- I’m so close.”

You always know when Billy is close to coming. His eyebrows furrow, eyes close shut and his lips part ever so slightly. It’s a beautiful face he makes, following that his hips stutter, and if your hands are on his chest, you can feel the vibrations or a growl-like moan make it’s may from his chest then…

“Fuck, baby!” He moans, his orgasm and yours set off in quick succession.

By the time Billy has fallen into the bed beside you, your legs are still spasming and your heart thudding against your chest as if it is trying to break free. Staring at the ceiling, you can’t help the smile.

“Damn, Bill. You never cease to amaze me.” You turn to your side, looking at your smiling boyfriend and pressing your lips gently against his.

Slowly, your lips trail from his lips to his jaw and chest before he chuckles and grabs your chin, tilting your face up so that you can look at him. His smile is sweet and he pulls you back toward his lips as he kisses your softly.

“How about for round four, I hold you until you fall asleep. Then after a short nap, we can finish in the shower?” He quirks an eyebrow, a pink flush to his face.

“That sounds great, babe.” You lean back in, pressing your lips to his once more before snuggling into his chest.

Billy lays there staring at the ceiling, fingers softly skimming up and down the soft skin on your back as his breathing slowly gets back to normal. He looks over at you, your eyes closed, breathing deep and regulated and the corners of your mouth tilted up ever so slightly as if you as smiling in your sleep.

“You’re gonna kill me one of these days.” He groans, kissing your forehead softly.

————

Billy was still confused as to why you were making him drive all the way to Indy for you to get a prom dress. He figured it was something you would want to do with your mom or friends and maybe somewhere a little closer to Hawkins. He wasn’t complaining, he liked spending time with you, especially seeing you happy.

“What about this one?” You ask, stepping out of the dressing room.

You slowly spun around in the A-line, off the shoulder, dark green, satin dress that met just below the knee. On the hanger, it didn’t look that appealing to either your or Billy, but the lady that worked there insisted you try it on.

“That one,” Billy smirks, eyes trailing up and down your body.

“You like?” You ask quickly as you slowly walk up to him. “How about we sneak into the dressing room and you take it off me.”

“Babe, we had a quickie in the gas station bathroom half an hour ago and I fucked you in the car an hour before that. Once we get back to your place I’ll show you a thing or two.” Billy chuckles, gently slapping your ass and gesturing you back toward the dressing room.

“How’d she like it?” The lady asks, walking up as you duck back into the dressing room.

“I think that’s the one we are getting.” Billy nods.

“Billy can you unzip me?” You call from the dressing room, cracking the door open slightly and waiting for him to open it up.

You hear the soft creak and his warm fingers graze your skin as they reach from the zipper. Slowly the zipper goes down and down until your dress is in a pool at your feel and Billy kisses the nape of your neck. Before you can say anything he has stepped out and closed the door leaving you in there to get dressed.

By the time you are redressed and out of the dressing room, Billy is standing a few feet away, looking at himself in a mirror and smirks at you when you walk up. You smile back at him, m wrapping your arm around his waist as you hug him softly and lay your head gently on his shoulder.

“Look at that handsome man.” You say in awe.

Billy smiles, turning around and kissing you sweetly before leading you to the front counter so you can pay for the dress and head back home. Billy is ready to get home, exhausted from the errands you’ve run and the shopping you’ve done, but he knows there is more to come when the two of you get back.

Your parents are gone for the day, your dad working through the evening and your mom out with your Aunts. You and Billy have the house to yourselves, for the next few hours at least. You’ve barely made it in the house before Billy’s lips are on yours, pulling your shirt up over your head and stumbling around the furniture to your bedroom.

“Billy,” You gasp, as he pushes you backward onto your bed, his teeth nipping at the sensitive parts of your neck. “I was just playing when I—”

“I wasn’t.” He growls, the look of determination on this face as he pulls away long enough to pull his shirt off and shimmy out of his pants. He kisses you from your belly button to the valley between your breasts, up your neck until finally his lips make it to yours again. You can feel him grind against you as his fingers work to quickly undo your bra. When his eyes take in your bare chest you can see a hint of lust in his, bogged down by that still present determined look. That isn’t a looks that Billy normally gives during sex, like he is trying to accomplish something and you know you can’t ask him about it, because he won’t tell you anything.

“Hey, Bill-”

The sound of keys jingling downstairs seems to be almost deafening along with the following footsteps as you and Billy quickly throw on your clothes and try to make it seem as if Billy wasn’t seconds away from being inside of you.

“Y/n, Billy, you there?” Your mom’s voice calls down the call.

“Yeah, how was Aunt Lucie and Melody?” You ask, walking out of the room, Billy following close behind.

“Your cousins Davie and Susana got sick, so we decided to reschedule. What are you two up to?” She asks, and you can feel your heart beating hard in your chest, but before you have time to panic, Billy comes in with the save.

“Came back here to watch a movie,” Billy says with that charming smile of his, holding up the E.T. VHS tape he must have snatched from your TV stand before walking out of your room.

“You want some popcorn?” Your mom asks, sitting her purse down and walking into the kitchen.

“Sure sounds good.” Billy nods. “Thanks”.

You let out a relieved sigh, walking to the couch and plopping down in your usual spot as Billy puts the movie in and meets you on the couch. When he sits by you, he looks so relaxed, that look in his eyes completely gone as he pulls you closer into his chest.

Billy is a sexual guy, everyone knows that. He loves sex and you love sex with Billy, maybe a little too much. Maybe Billy has gotten a little soft on you in the almost year that you’ve been together and he is getting more comfortable with the idea of not every intimate act being sex. Sex is good and all, but honestly, maybe Billy is finding that sometimes this is almost as good as sex.

“God, I love you.” He whispers in awe.

Smiling up at him, you kiss the corner of his mouth. “I love you too, Bill.

[vagrantblvrd]

Bones (1/1)

Summary: There’s not a lot to do between missions. Hell, there’s not a lot to do on missions sometimes with the whole hurry up and wait bullshit that happens.

So you know, you find ways to entertain yourself. Pick a random topic and go off on it just to keep from being bored out of your mind while you wait for something to happen.

Notes: Prompt fill for Anon who asked for agency Jeremavinwood with Battle Buddies vs Play Pals???

(Read on AO3)

There’s not a lot to do between missions. Hell, there’s not a lot to do on missions sometimes with the whole hurry up and wait bullshit that happens.

So you know, you find ways to entertain yourself. Pick a random topic and go off on it just to keep from being bored out of your mind while you wait for something to happen.

“So wait,” Jeremy says, bundle of wires tucked into the corner of his mouth. “You’re telling me you two idiots decided to call yourselves the Play Pals because you couldn’t figure out what the designation Command gave you meant?”

Well when you put it like that, it does sound stupid. (Also, team designations are randomly generated by some fancy computer algorithm or something, Michael tuned out when Ryan tried to explain it to him once, because who the hell cares?)

To be fair to Gavin and Michael, however, most of the teams in the agency get two or three letter designations. They’re the only ones he’s heard of to get a four letter designation.

Jeremy must have finally realized that too because he just had to go and ask about it, didn’t he. Got Michael going on the subject while he tinkers and fiddles and swears under his breath as he works.

“Gavin’s idea,” Michael says, because the little idiot’s not there to refute the claim. “Who the hell else would come up with something so dumb?”

Not his fault he’s got Gavin as a partner and not some melodramatic idiot like Ryan with a penchant for the really destructive kind of chaos. The kind of team designation that lends itself to them being called Battle Buddies and having it stick until no one can remember a time when they weren’t called that. (Funny as all hell when Command slips up and puts it in the official reports that go to the bigwigs in DC, though.)

Jeremy laughs and almost inhales the wires he’s fucking around with. Gives Michael this look when Michael reaches over to hit him on the back to keep him from choking and all that.

“Thanks, pal,” he says, in that way he does sometimes.

Sarcastic as fuck and this touch of amusement to it and then the alarms go off, which means their dumbass partners have finally arrived to rescue them from their terrible fate as prisoners. (Shit happens.)

Michael glances around at the unconscious bodies of the guards who were meant to be watching them.

Some might lean a little more towards dead, but since they’re the ones who started it Michael doesn’t feel too bad about things.

There’s at least three levels of secret bad guy base above them, and Michael can still hear the explosions clear as day.

Michael and Gavin make a hell of a team, and so do Jeremy and Ryan. Do a little mix’n’match like this mission has forced them into and the results are maybe not the desired sort. (To hear Command talk anyway.)

“You got the door, or are we going to wait for those morons to save the day?”

Their escape may have met with a few complications, or maybe just another round of bad luck. They made it out of the zip ties and locked room these assholes had them hidden away in, sure, but then they had the fortune (misfortune?) of getting locked in this shitty little room. (Because fuck them, that’s why.)

Michael gets another look because Jeremy’s been trying to hot-wire the door’s locks or whatever the hell he’s been doing for the last half hour with no success. (Michael may or may not have been heckling/nitpicking him the whole time, but that ties in with the finding ways to entertain himself.)

Another explosion goes off above them, big enough Michael can feel it, and Jeremy looks down at the mechanism he’s been fiddling with. Takes the wires out of his mouth and gives Michael this wry little smile.

“Well,” he says, and dusts his hands off before reaching for the hand Michael's holding out to him to help him up. “Since they’re here anyway and all.”

Right, right.

Hate to pop their balloon or whatever bullshit excuse Jeremy has.

Another explosion rocks the compound and Michael

========

Michael loves to give Gavin shit for pretty much everything he does? But the truth is that Gavin is good at what he does. (And he does a lot.)

Still, there’s no denying he’s also a colossal moron.

“Gavin,” Michael says, because how the fuck, and also why the fuck. “What did you do?”

Ryan is running around HQ with a gooddamned crossbow and nowhere is safe.

Gavin is a goddamned horrible little goblin who loves enabling Ryan and his lunacy and Michael and Jeremy were gone for maybe – maybe – twenty minutes tops for a coffee run.

And now look at the place.

Crossbow bolts embedded in the walls and people hunkered down waiting for someone to either talk Ryan down from playing with his new toy or just tranq his ass. (Oh, Ryan’s too good to be careless with the damn crossbow, but that doesn’t make him any less of a menace with it.)

Gavin’s rolling around on the floor wheezing and squeaking and no damn help at all because he thinks it’s hilarious.

Meanwhile Jeremy’s tracking Ryan down and checking in every few minutes sounding like he’s trying not to choke on his own laughter. (With Geoff in DC for budget meetings Michael’s the only sane man left.)

“You’re explaining this to Geoff when he gets back,” Michael mutters, and heads out to grab a tranquilizer gun to put an end to Ryan’s little rampage before it really gets out of hand.

========

The kind of missions Michael and Gavin get sent on mostly deal with stealth. In and out before their target knows what’s happening because Gavin is fucking spectacular when it comes to stealth and Michael’s not too bad himself. (He’s always been a quick study, and keeping up with Gavin is not something just anyone can do.)

Jeremy and Ryan get the missions where subtlety isn’t a key factor. Get sent in with a case of explosives and other shinies and walk out when everything’s on fire. (That wasn’t always the case, but Geoff and Jack just kind of gave up after a while, and hey, it works.)

Every once in a while they get sent on missions together, and that's just -

“Oh, dear,” Gavin says, leaning back from his laptop. “That’s not ideal.”

Michael leans over his shoulder and tries to make sense of the million and one windows Gavin has open.

Security cam feeds he’s plugged into thanks to the Battle Buddies and satellite feeds. Other bullshit Michael recognizes but doesn’t give a damn about because things just went to shit.

Again.

“Christ,” he mutters, wondering if the agency throwing them together on missions is just an experiment to see how quickly things will turn to shit when combining their bad luck or if they’re just cursed like that. “They didn’t even make it inside this time.”

Gavin smothers a laugh, turns it into a cough as he toggles between camera feeds to keep track of Jeremy and Ryan being marched through the compound to wherever the guards are taking them.

“Should have taken Jack up on that wager of his, Michael,” he says, because he’s an asshole and Michael forgot, okay, he forgot.

Too busy checking over their gear to pop over to Jack’s office to join in on the betting pool and then Ryan threw a fit because he didn’t get the flamethrower he wanted. There was a lot going on, okay. Fucking sue him.

“Fuck off,” Michael says, and glances at the weapons crate stuffed full of the goodies the Battle Buddies love to lug around with them. “And dibs on Ryan’s mini-gun.”

========

So the thing is, the four of them get along a little too well for Command’s peace of mind.

Don’t give a shit about so-called friendly rivalries or trying to one-up each other in the hopes of currying favor with Geoff or Command.

No point to it when none of them give a shit about those things. (Geoff’s not the kind of guy who’d appreciate any of it no matter what he says, and Command’s long been wise to them.)

Gavin and Ryan are the worst because they’re stupid smart and have that little workshop down in one of storage subbasement no one’s supposed to know about. Make use out of the downtime they get between missions to “improve on” whatever gadgets tech comes up with for them and other fun experiments of theirs.

Jeremy joins in every so often when he gets a hankerin’, as Ryan likes to call it. Stars in his eyes and visions of explosions in his head or whatever the hell, and Michael?

“Jesus Christ,” he says, and plucks the grenade out of Gavin’s hand before the idiot blows them all sky high. “No.”

Gavin gives him a look, all sad-eyed puppy in the rain because Michael is a terrible bully. Behind him Ryan is just kind of pathetic, because somehow he set himself on fire – again – and thankfully Jeremy was there with a fire extinguisher, because what the hell.

“Michael,” Gavin starts, earnest as hell like the three of them aren’t the most ridiculous idiots Michael’s ever met. “You’ll love it, Michael. Ryan had the best idea!”

And, see.

Michael knows it’s going to be the worst damn idea in the world if Ryan came up with it. Dumbass always thinks he knows what’s what only to have things (sometimes literally) blow up in his face.

This time it’s something about putting the explosive power of a grenade in a pen – a pen - like something out of a dumb spy movie to use on missions.

“Just think of it, Michael!” Gavin says, clearly infected with Ryan’s dumb. “It would be amazing!”

It would be a disaster is what it would be, but then again that sounds prefect for them.

========

There are fraternization rules and regulations in the handbook they were given when they signed on. Outdated bullshit no one bothers to enforce because it would mean cracking down hard on half the agency at this point.

The only time anyone brings it up to Geoff is when it’s a suit down from DC to see how the funding they receive is being spent. Little meet and greets with the operatives and other assorted assholes working here and find them lacking in some way. (None of them are ever what people expect them to be. Too human to begin with, all these hopes and dreams and lives outside the agency. Emotions, feelings, all that shit.)

“Just don’t – don’t let it fuck things up,” Geoff told them when he found out. Tired and worn down and trying to act like he didn’t know because the suits wouldn’t get it, understand. “Be careful.”

It’s a lot to ask of assholes like them, but they do their best to make it work. Have their moments where things get real shitty real fast thanks to the stress of their jobs and the way life has of being a shitshow.

Rough patches and all that, but they’re all a little too invested in the life they’ve built for themselves to give up so easily and he knows it baffles the hell of the people who know. Look at them and try to figure out how the hell assholes like them make sense, when they don’t even know themselves.

(Only bit of good luck to stick for the four of them, and goddamn if they’re not going to hang on to it with everything they have.)

[aces-to-apples]

May The Fourth Be With You (And Also With You)

I don’t have anything ready to post for May the Fourth this year, boo!, but instead I’ll steal Dharma’s idea of posting a snippet of all my applicable WIPs, yay!

“Sugar and Spice” aka The Nika Fic aka genderbent AU crosses over with canon-verse a la Universe Collisions by Sroloc_Elbisivni

The Jedi took a couple more shuddering breaths. “Anyone else need a top-up?” she asked, voice steady but gaze fixed on the dank rock wall.

Rex exchanged looks with Kix, who straightened and surveyed his patients, clearly weighing who among them could use the help. The men themselves—Onyx, left hand useless from taking a swing at a clanker when his power-pack ran out; Honeycutt, nursing a couple cracked, possibly broken, ribs; Fives, unable to stand on his right leg—shared a non-verbal conversation of their own.

“Onyx can't shoot and Fives can't walk.” Honeycutt gave up the names with vicious pragmatism, ignoring both men as they silently threatened to space him once they were back on the Vigilance.

The Jedi looked between them with a small smile—at Fives who was stubbornly trying to get to his feet in protest, at Onyx who gripped his deece in his non-dominant hand like he was contemplating bludgeoning Honeycutt with it, and at Honeycutt himself with his arms crossed over his chest, one hand subtly nursing the injured ribs. “What about you, tough guy? Need a hand?”

“I can walk and I can fight,” Honeycutt said defiantly. He jerked a thumb at the other two. “That's more than these idiots can claim, and you're the one who asked.”

“True enough,” was her easy reply, but her eyes held a challenge. “How well can you breathe, though?”

He bared his teeth at her. “Well enough to argue with you… sir.”

Rex was prepared to step between them, to apologize for Honeycutt’s disrespectful attitude, but held back another beat. As half of him suspected she would, the Jedi threw her head back and cackled.

“Oh, I like you,” she announced with a grin, the color swiftly returning to her cheeks and her eyes sparkling. “You got a name, tough guy?”

“… Honeycutt,” he replied, looking from her to Rex and back. Rex couldn't do more than shrug, because he didn't know either. “Corporal Honeycutt.”

“Pleased to meet you, Honeycutt. I'm Nika.” She held out a hand to him, palm up, and watched his eye it distrustfully, shell-pink lips curved to one side. After a second, he took it and she hauled him to his feet. “Now, let’s see what we can do about those ribs, shall we?”

(Working title:) “Friends, Foes, and Telling the Difference” aka part three of “A Non-Comprehensive Guide To Force-Sensitivity”

The boy watched their interaction with the same lackadaisical interest the young Zabrak had demonstrated during their journey. “What does the Force feel like to you?” he finally said, blinking owlishly as Dooku refused to choke on his Tarine tea and delicately cleared his throat. “When Ben talks about it, it’s all very mystical-sounding. Cool winds and noiseless whispers, like a friendly ghost or a helpful spirit. Feelings and stuff. But when Maul talks about the Force, it’s more like instincts and heightened senses. It’s more physical than, I dunno, spiritual. So I wanted to know what it’s like for you.”

“That,” Dooku replied, placing his teacup on the table just so, “is a very personal question, young Skywalker.”

Anakin tilted his head innocently and said, “Oh, is it?” but his even his shields—well-made and well-maintained both from within and without—do poorly to contain the bright, bubbling amusement he was polite enough to hold back. Clearly, he knew very well what he was doing, and Dooku had to admire the tenacity of a such a young boy teasing a Jedi Master whilst genuinely seeking information.

He hummed pointedly and stared the unrepentant boy down, but considered the question in earnest. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge was a worthy pursuit. “Your brothers,” Dooku said the word carefully, weighing its meaning as he met the boy’s eyes, “were both correct. The Force can manifest in various ways, and it’s likely different for every being who experiences it. For many, whether they purposefully follow the ways of the Force or not, it acts in a more passive manner: a feeling of wrongness when danger is near, a keen sense of distrust when one is being deceived, or even just a quiet knowledge of where to go or what to say at a certain moment.”

Young Skywalker nodded thoughtfully, his eyes far away. “That’s very interesting, sir,” he said after a moment. “I think Ben will like you, if you ever meet. You both talk the same way, like you’ll get a prize at the end of the day for how many questions you can avoid answering. That, or he’ll hate your guts. It’s hard to say with Ben.”

Queen Amidala smothered a giggle.

“Well,” Dooku drawled, picking his tea back up, “Maul seems determined to dislike myself and my companion, so I think not.”

The boy shrugged and gulped down the rest of his milk with a grin. “Maybe, maybe not,” he cheerfully declared. “Those two disagree so much, I think it’s on purpose. Mom says they were like two tomcats until I was born, always arguing and hissing at each other, so Ben might decide he likes you just to be contrary.”

“An interesting way to raise a child,” Dooku noted, dry as the desert air outside. “If they disagree so often, you must have quite a bit of conflicting information on a great many topics.”

“Dab’ika Vaar’kara” aka the Camp Half-Blood AU an anon accidentally requested when they combined “summer camp” and “magical accidents” during a trope mash-up ask meme

“Now, as new arrivals, you're given a certain amount of leeway when it comes to the rules, regulations, and realities of living in the Godsworld.” Rex fixed the little ones—nearly fourteen and just barely scraping in under the wire in regards to the required claiming age—with a hard stare. “After orientation, you will be expected to either figure out what you don't know yourself or keep your trap shut. Understood, cadets?”

It was a blatant lie, of course; Cody could already see Kix’s bunk littered with sheets of flimsi covered in drawings, diagrams, and written explanations. Still, it was the spirit of the thing, yeah? A’sev had scared them witless when they’d first arrived at camp, and now that he was off doing Paladin shit, it fell to them to keep the tradition alive. It was a beautiful cycle, really, and watching the tiny shinies straighten up and shout “sir, yes, sir” like Rex was a fucking drill sergeant was hilarious.

“First off,” Rex continued, beginning to pace rather impressively in front of the duo. Cody had a hard time not joining the boys in their next snickerfit. “Congratulations on surviving your first monster encounter—besting an abaia while it’s got a home-field advantage is no easy feat. You did yourselves, and all your brothers, proud.”

The rookies straightened up that much more under the praise and Cody felt his need to smirk warring with the impulse to coo. “Whose idea was it to get it to charge into the rocks?” he asked curiously. They'd taken bets, watching from the shore.

“Mine, sir,” the one with the crew-cut said, taking a small step forward. A ripple spread through the cabin as they all noticed he'd subtly placed himself between his twin and Rex. That kind of body-language, combined with the late claiming, didn't bode well.

“Well done,” Rex acknowledged with a nod. “It was reckless, but well-executed. Just the kind of thinking we need in Mandalore Cabin. You got a name, shiny?”

“Ferdinand, sir,” the kid said without any hint of irony. They all winced in sympathy, because yeesh. “This is Emrys.”

Seeing that Rex didn't quite know how to phrase it, Cody asked, “You boys got nicknames?”

Their reaction was… worrying.

“Sir, no, sir,” Ferdinand—poor fucking kid—immediately denied, panic well-hidden to anyone not used to reading every variation of the face the Mand’alor’s poor decisions had stuck them all with. “We’re proud to carry these names and would never—”

“Anyone here calls me Emrys, I’ll break their fucking nose,” the long-haired twin cut in, stepping forward so that they stood shoulder to shoulder. “Got it?”

“Blood On The Ice” aka the Skyrim AU that I’ve world-built wayyyy more than I’ve actually written

The first glimpse of Coruscant—snow-dusted, crumbled stone reeking of despair—holds true as Ahsoka enters the city proper. Barrels of supplies do little to mask its deepening poverty when the cobblestones themselves shift beneath her feet.

A little Human girl, clad only in a threadbare red dress, entreats her to buy a wildflower and Ahsoka’s heart breaks at the girl’s gratitude when she agrees. She’d heard of Skyrim’s civil war back home, but had thought the children would be spared from adult pettiness. In Valenwood, the Green cares for younglings nearly as much as their parents; in the home and hold of the Storm-Hand, it seems, children shiver and starve. Not yet an hour in his hold, Ahsoka finds herself unimpressed with the rebellious Human king.

Unsure which path to take from her ingress, she chooses randomly and goes right.

Lined with homes and shops in various states of disrepair, Ahsoka regrets her choice until she spots an older gentleman lingering in a doorway. Her shoulders slump with relief to see one of her Twi’lek cousins, even bundled in the furs and leathers needed in the harsh Skyrim climate, rather than colorful Morrowind silks.

“Greetings, nerra,” she says warmly, stepping closer and holding out a hand.

The man appears nonplussed for a moment but replies with an affable, “Welcome, numa,” and clasps her forearm. “Are you new to Coruscant, gida?” he asks, nodding at her bow and daggers. “Most elves know better than to appear before the Stormhands so armed.”

untitled time-travel fic currently referred to in-house as “first battle of geonosis time-travel fic” aka this fic

And on it goes, a litany of ghosts and brothers lost to the stars. He matches numbers to names as they speak through the darkness: Fives and Echo, Jesse, Hardcase, and Kix, Onyx and Honeycutt, Razzy, Ringo, Tup—even Dogma, quietest and most hesitant of all. The barest bones of Torrent Company; eleven dead men walking, and Rex makes a full squad.

Numbers are and ever will be your greatest strength, your keenest advantage, he recalls the woman saying at one point, somewhere between his failed intruder alert and the imperious wave of her hand that sent him to his knees, heaving.

“Where the frip’s my bucket,” a voice gripes—Ringo, by the sound of it. The only reply he receives beyond repetitions of the same question, “Prob’ly right where you left it,” comes from Razzy, no question. It's both a relief and a punch to the gut to hear Ringo gripe, “Umbara, then, with the rest of me.”

“Oh, hey, mine too,” Hardcase pipes up, saying it like a joke, like it was funny. “Anyone else kick it on that sith-hole?”

“Yeah, Krell,” Five answers into the uncomfortable silence. It sounds like he’s smiling; the smile doesn’t sound very nice.

“Ori’haat?” Hardcase says, intrigued and vaguely impressed. “You do the honors?”

And finally, “chasing a dream” aka the summary and first couple sentences of the Treasure Planet AU that I absolutely forgot I was going to write at some point

Her name isn’t Hawkins. The cyborg isn’t silver. And the closest thing she has to a father isn’t a caninoid species. They’ve got the makings of greatness in them all the same.

-

Ahsoka is six years old when she meets her very best friend in the whole wide galaxy. He's a Guardian—only a little one, though, like she's only a little Jedi—and he's got the same warm brown skin and golden-brown eyes that his brothers do, but he's also got a bunch of bright yellow hair.

[stuflux]

An oversimplified guide for keeping your shit together next year

I feel like the reason why I have to start over and over again when it comes to achieving my goals is myself constantly underestimating me. What have I done to deserve this kind of self-esteem? I'm practically my own No. 1 hater. And I am not just verbally abusing my victim (silently in her ear 24/7), but I also make sure that she suffers physically. Oh yes, lets fuck up future me, intentionally passing time and knowingly trying to do nothing, a week before the finals week (when i have at times 3-4 tests a day) and literally collapse senseless later that week during an all nighter, failing a subject that I needed to pass.

And this is one of the latest, most serious consequences of my hating on myself. But alas, this one is not a rare case. Be it a relationship situation or a thing at work or a health related scenario, the only thing that I do not fail to do, time and time again, year after year is putting sticks in my own wheels.

It sucks, yup, it sucks big time. But let's not get all caught up in being sad about it. I know that I am fine, I'm learning how to cope with myself better, every year. And there is far less things that bother me now, than before. But how do i do it? Fucking up, left and right and still keep it together? (in difference to previous years so far).

"How did i get here from wanting to go to Sweden for getting euthanasia not long ago?"

I clearly did not make any radical changes, my life is mostly unorganized, chaotic and full of setbacks and disappointments. I did however cultivate some sort of balance between self hatred and self-love. Because, personally at least, there is no way I can Lenin my way out of this and overthrow the oppressive regime that is my mind, overnight.

I'm going to try to break this concept down a little cause it doesn't make much sense right now.

Why would a person need some of that good ol' delicious self-hate? (take it with a pinch of salt I'm not your therapist)

Firstly, in regulated levels it can be a pretty good motivation for improvement. As in negative reinforcement, but self-directed, of course. I guess it works more effectively when you are younger though, since you have a very limited understanding of your own use in the world.

By the way if you are still reading, whoever you are, woow! Seriously I'm sincerely jealous of your clearly superior attention span. You are a real treasure buddy, please take care of yourself.

Secondly, it can help keep you humble and down to earth, again if used in moderation.

And lastly, why not look at self-hatred (for the lack of a better word) as a mean for self-reflection. Certainly, together with the self-love tool we can have a pretty insightful and objective picture of ourselves. (ah, yes the duality of a man)

When it comes to self-love, why, you know how it goes:

-surround yourself with people that you most like (love is a strong word here, we all know it's hard to love people around sometimes, so do your best, knowing that liking them works as well)

-try to stay away from things that make you upset (like throwing in some emo-rap songs or whatever your preferred depression music is, when we are down to make ourselves more miserable) cause that really doesn't do any good unless you really just wanna do that that day which is fine, I guess.

-give yourself time to appreciate and capture cool stuff that you have and you like. Talk about them with people that are around you (once you know, the first condition is met). From my experience, whatever it is you are into, if you really like that shit and talk about it they'll appreciate your enthusiasm. Don't shy away from sharing. (but READ THE ROOM)

-make yourself take care of you. Try buying vitamins; drink more than a glass of water a day (preferably at least 4-5). Guys and gals, you can also dedicate a day for self-care, put face/hair masks and watch youtube videos about stuff you find interesting (that is if you are having a hard time finding stuff to do when bored). Very helpful, i know, you are most welcome.

-if you are not an outdoors person, don't beat yourselves up, you don't t have to love having grass in between your toes or whatever those people are into. You can have plenty of quality time without ever seeing the sun (take vitamin d3 if that's the case and get out for groceries and work/school, obviously)

-when thinking about yourself, try to act as your own lawyer. The prosecution attacks, you defend the defendant to your best abilities and best arguments in your favor. In this case the prosecution and the defending parties are all you, of course. "Objection, I didn't mean to feel bad after that rave and my friends don't hate me for having to take me home and watch me try to not have diarrhea on our way back". Something like this, you get the drill.

These are the basics.

The problem here lies with making this whole thing a way of life and making it consistent over a period of time and not being too mad at ourselves when we fail.

Eradicating self-hatred? More like taking baby-steps to making sure we don't make it a central part of our character. It's cool if you are angry sometimes, when things don't work out. We are not in much hurry after all, for the most part we are a work in progress and we have this whole life thing ahead of us, a whole grand incredibly interesting world if you choose to stick around and participate in it.

Basically, its all gonna be fine next year. You are gonna see you're getting better after awhile. Fo'realsies.

[boysoverroses-blog]

Alyuin (1)

Alyiun Club:

You'd think that managing a business is easy and there are no troubles that find you, other than miscalculated reports. But not this one, for various reasons. One being, the business in question is a club and second, it is managed by 9 girls. It's safe to say they were pretty good at their job. The occasional fights break out and they resolve them pretty quickly, but this one needed a little more attention.

Sang Soo was behind the bar, bartending, it was her hobby and quite frankly she was good at it. It's also a great place to keep an eye on the customers. As she made drinks she surveyed the surroundings. Her eyes zeroed in on two guys, who were manhandling two of the waitresses that work there, Min Ji and Seo Yun. Sang Soo’s eyes were glued on the scene for a few minutes, her gaze hardening when she took in the girls uncomfortable state. She was about to ring the security when Yong Sang came out from the back.

“I see them but we can't do anything yet, they have already paid and should leave soon,” she spoke with a calm voice but you could see the hardness in her eyes. Sang Soo released a slow breath before turning her back to the crowd.

“If they don’t leave I am kicking them out. The girls are uncomfortable, they seem to know each other.” Sang Soo stated.

“Nevertheless I'll call Ji Mi out” Yong Sang threw over her shoulder as she made her way to Ji Mi’s office.

Sang Soo rolled her eyes and murmured, ‘I can take care of myself’, before huffing and finishing a margarita for a short blonde girl.

‘Clearly, you forgot about the in-ear piece because you didn't even try to hide your growling’ Rae Jae’s voice rang through Sang Soo’s right ear. She swore in her head and let out a ‘sorry’.

“It’s fine, I see them too, and it’s disgusting, I can’t wait for the show”

“There won't be one” a voice cut in before Sang Soo could reply with an eager ‘hell yeah’. Sang Soo’s eagerness died in her throat as she realized that Ji Mi had decided to join their conversation but was nowhere in sight.

“Somehow you manage to ruin my fun without even moving a finger,” Sang Soo grunted under her breath while shooting a customer a friendly smile as they decided to leave in favor of the dance floor. She turned at the call of another customer,

“Blue Martini” his voice cut through the loud music. She nodded and started making the cocktail before turning her attention back to the two guys. Je Ki’s voice cut through the earpiece asking whose voice is that and why it was that deep, but that was the least of Sang Soo’s worries right now, the situation wasn't looking very good.

“Do something or I’ll be kicking their asses out of here!” Sang Soo growled as she watched Ji Mi approach the two guys that were holding the two struggling girls. Sang Soo kept her eyes on the scene while also making the guy’s drink. When she got the hint that they weren’t budging and decided that it was the last straw.

“I am going in” she murmured before turning to the cat-eyed deep voice customer. He looked at her with an interested smirk.

“Excuse me, I'll have your drink ready in a minute, but I have to deal with a mild inconvenience first.” she excused herself before taking off her apron and sliding over the counter, making her way to the two guys she's been wanting to beat the whole time they've been here. The cat-eyed customer turned to watch what the cute bartender was going to do to the two gorilla-sized men.

“Is there a problem?” she menacingly asked. Ji Mi turned to her and said that they refuse to leave.

“She asked you politely to leave” she repeated with a glare.

“I see no reason for us to leave when we’re not done,” one of the buffoons said, still holding on Min Ji, who up close looked like she wanted to cry.

“Please let go of my employees and escort yourselves out before I call the security guards,” Sang Soo said sharply to the two men. Seo Yun literally looked so done, she tried to rip herself out of the man’s grip but he tightened his hold and she scrunched up her face in pain.

“It's against regulations to harass the waitresses,” Ji Mi said with a deadpan voice, her patience running thin.

“They’re not waitresses here, they quit.” the man holding Seo Yun spits out with a disgusting smile.

“You have no right to say that. You have no power over me anymore, we broke up. Get it through your thick dumb head” Seo Yun raised her voice, while Min Ji nodded her head.

‘‘How the fuck did you even know that they knew one another, Sang Soo?” Yong Sang asked her through the earpiece.

“Clearly, they’re uncomfortable and have already ended things with each other” Sang Soo said matter of factly and looked the intruders straight in the eyes “so, you should either get out on your own or I'll have to kick your asses out myself.” Sang Soo threatened.

The cat-eyed customer raised a questioning eyebrow. His attention shifted when someone took the previous bartenders’ position. Her name tag said, Hyo Gun. Her attention was on the scene before them. He turns back to see the two men face to face with Sang Soo and the brown haired girl.

“And how are you going to do that, bitch?” he spat in her face.

Sang Soo smirked at the curse word and buffed her chest even more “Well, you see, the security guard will take around 30 seconds to arrive here and in those 30 seconds I can dislocate both your shoulders and break your nose without breaking a sweat.” she nonchalantly said staring intently at them.

“You think you can take us?” the other one responded to her threat.

“Just try me.” she challenged. She could beat them up if she wanted to, but she doesn't want to start a fight. That would just end with her getting in trouble for initiating a fight with a customer. It would be better if the customer throws the first punch. Everything after that would've been a self-defense act and if anything she could get a bonus or a raise.

“Please, remove yourselves from the premises immediately.” she tried again. In a blink of an eye, one of the men threw a punch her way. Fortunately, she caught it with ease. “You leave me no choice.” she sighed, her face showed disinterest before it morphed into hatred.

The customer at the bar was caught off guard when she easily twisted his arm behind his back. He could vaguely hear the girl, Hyo Gun, behind him calling for the security guards.

Once the other guy processed that a fight had started, he turned to Ji Mi and moved his first in her direction. She easily avoided him, as he was more wasted than the man Sang Soo was handling. She hit the side of his head to disorient him. The two waitresses had already left the scene and gone to the back to report to Soo Mi since she's kinda in charge of damage control.

The two girls had kicked their asses when the security guards finally showed up. One of the two men was passed out cold while the other one had a busted lip. To say he was pissed would be an understatement.

“You're banned from coming here ever again.” Ji Mi calmly said. Sang Soo waved her hand sarcastically before returning to her post behind the bar. Hyo Gun helped around for a while before going to the back.

The handsome stranger was surprised, as he didn't think that this would happen. They were very intriguing. He turned to Sang Soo, who looked as if she didn't just beat a man twice her size. He had very good attention to details. He was watching the fight and he knows for a fact that Sang Soo received one of hell of a punch to her left side, which was unprotected. She had a blind spot, she didn't protect her left side. But he’ll give her props, she knew a lot based on her performance, and so did the other girl, which is weird. He knows for a fact that when they’re hiring they don’t look for a specific requirement, like knowing self-defence. He would know this since he co-owns this club. He isn't surprised that they don't know who he is, because frankly, he doesn't know them either, but they made an impression, so he's going to make Kyungsoo and Jongdae dig.

“I am sorry, can you repeat your drink again?” she asked him.

“Blue Martini” he repeated. She nodded and finished his drink a lot faster than before.

“I think you need to take your break” Hyun Jin came out, tying her apron and taking over.

“I know you say you’re fine, but Sang Hee wants to check on you, you were sloppy and he got a hit on you.” she continued knowing that Sang Soo was going to argue.

Cat-eyed stranger, Minseok, lifted his head slightly. He looked around and saw the security cameras that were stationed at every corner, then back at the new bartender. He could see the earpiece in her left ear through her hair. He may not know who he hired, but he does know what they provide to workers, and it's definitely not earpieces. He paid for his drink and made his way to the house. He needed to do some research, this wasn’t over.

“Fine, but he really was tipsy so his ‘hits’ were even that hard” she excused herself and made her way to the back only to meet Sang Hee half the way.

“You worry too much” Sang Soo muttered to Sang Hee, who was already peeling a bruise patch.

“And because I worry too much I saved you from internal bleeding last month, which means that you shouldn't have fought at all!” she huffed.

“I couldn't help it, besides I was itching for a fight. I haven't punched anything in the last three weeks.” Sang Soo whined.

“You’re a bartender, you shouldn't be fighting at all, we have security guards for that,” Rae Jae stated coming in the locker room.

“How come no one is scolding Ji Mi?” Sang Soo whined looking at a crossed arm upset Ji Mi.

“Oh, come on, not you too!” Sang Soo whined again.

“Control your anger” she commented. Je Ki came in and had a piece of paper.

“Well, congratulations! You kicked ass in front of the owner of the club.” she fake cheered.

“Look, I know we won't get fired. she sighed. “I think it was the blue martini guy” she added, catching their attention.

“Why?”

“The letter said, he’ll order a blue martini if he's satisfied.”

“Hey at least he was still satisfied.” Hyun Jin said.

“Fun” Sang Hee uttered. Soo Mi came in and looked at the scene and sighed before sitting down.

“The girls are okay, we’re relocating them to Love Shot just in case.”

[sithlordintraining]

She’s No Angel (Part 23)

A/N: Guys, everyone watch I, Tonya. It’s sooooo good!!! Like my parents are jumping off their rocker because they lived through it and they’re hype af talking about it. Also, watch Scandal because this show gives me LIFE!!

She’s No Angel Masterlist

You sighed reading the last page of the proposal of a new allying planet. There was a knock on your door, you pressed the button underneath your desk to open the blast doors. It was Lucky, with a tray in hand. You smiled up at him setting down your datapad. “You’re really taking personal trooper to the next level, you didn’t have to.” Lucky set the plate in front of you and snorted. “Yeah and if I didn’t Ren would have my head on this tray.” He removed his helmet and sat in the chair opposite the desk. You propped your head upon your hand wearing a bright smile at your best friend. “So you guys are talking?” Y/N teased. “It’s only about you, Angel.” He scratched his head. “So,” You shrugged. “After all this time, it took another technician.” Lucky groaned thinking about the girl. “Angel, we care about you and tease me all you want, there’s something about her that Ren and I just don’t like.” You removed the cover of the tray and begin to pick at the food in front of you. “Well, you’re right about one thing.” You ate a spoonful of the meal in front of you. “You and Kylo speaking about me is still good enough to make me happy that you two are speaking instead of at each others neck.” Y/N sighed leaning back in her seat. “Just imagine we can have so much fun on missions now and we could have dinner!” You jumped at the thought.

“Dinner?” Lucky smirked. “You, Kylo, Ava and me?” Your lips fell into a frown at the mention of the name. “Ava...doesn’t,” You failed at finding a good excuse. “Angel, whatever happened to you guys in the past it’s been years! You both have matured, so why can’t you move past it!” Lucky threw his arms up. “We are both in happy relationships and getting along with Ren, so.” You just sat there watching your hands in your lap. “I’m not mad Angel,” You felt the hard gloves brush against your scalp. “I just want the same effort for Ava.” After Lucky left, you sent Kylo a message regarding dinner plans for a double date. You set your datapad down and thought for a moment. This would be the first couple that you would be able to compare your relationship too. Ava and Lucky had had much more experiences than you and Kylo, so maybe it would be good for you to see that. It also worried you that someone other than the people you trusted was about to find about your relationship. A chime alert you of a new message from Kylo and somehow it had a warm feeling spread within your chest: Do you think we are ready? It could be interpreted anyway, but you saw it as nervousness and unsure which is how you felt now. Yes. Was all you wrote as you went; sighing you couldn’t be happier that everything was coming together.

Ava was no longer Lucky’s plaything and it was much easier since Angel had been preoccupied with something or someone else. There were rumors surrounding you and Kylo, especially since his face reveal. But everyone thought so highly of you and they knew you would never submit to him after everything that happened. This was the reason, that made you and Hux want to keep the relationship a secret. Also, Hux never thought it would last as long as it did and neither did Lucky. But you proved them wrong and now a double date was well on its way. Anxiety riddled your body leading up to the double date. You became hyper-aware of your surroundings and all the little whispers that echoed in the hallways. And Kylo noticed. “You look beautiful.” Kylo appeared behind you in the mirror. You fixed the greatcoat on your shoulders. “It’s just one of my uniforms.” You tsked. Kylo walked closer kissing your hairline as he held you in his arms. “You're always beautiful.” He fluffed the (y/h/c) curls that frame your face. “Why are you so nervous?” He played with the strand right in front of your ear. “It’s silly I know, but this, us, it means a lot and she will be the first person to see it and I-I just don’t want her to say anything, I sound stupid.” You placed your forehead on his chest. His laughter resonated through your body. “Then make her sign an agreement.” You looked up at him and smiled at his joke. “Well, that is my job.” “Exactly,” He pressed a wet kiss to your cheek.

They were late, and not just a few minutes late, almost an hour late! You and Kylo sat there in an awkward silence trying to find things to preoccupy yourselves with. The couple stumbled in, Lucky in a basic all black regulated off-duty attire and Ava in a low-cut burgundy dress. Their smiles and sheen of sweat didn’t go unnoticed as Y/N stared with her mouth slightly agape and Kylo with his classic scowl. Kylo waved at the waiter to start bringing the courses. You cursed yourself for suggesting dinner, you thought about how horrible yours and Kylo’s went and so far this just proved that dinner dates weren’t for you. No one would dare question Kylo Ren and Ava just seemed to talk the whole time. It wasn’t until between dinner and dessert when Kylo surprised by asking in his careless fashion: “How’d you two meet?” But Kylo genuinely wanted to know because Ava didn’t even come close to you and she was quite annoying.

Ava turned to smile at Lucky. “Well, I’ve known her for quite some time; it was in the medbay, of course, and-” “And he and another trooper were trying to patch up each other's wounds and Luck was doing a great job.” She interrupted him. “I like a man that knows how to use his hands.” A blush quickly rose in Lucky’s face as he tried to ignore your disturbed expression. Ava placed her hand on his thigh and smiled back at you. “What about you two?” Kylo’s eyes widened as his mind went blank. What story could be told that didn’t make the two seem like a deranged pair? “We met in the hallway.” Your voice pulled Kylo out of his thoughts. Kylo nodded looking down at you. “And we went back and forth a lot until” You shrugged giving Kylo a soft smile. Kylo watched the gleam in your eye sparkle as he felt the warmth of your hand wrapped around his. “I think everyone meets Angel in the hallway.” Lucky laughed. Kylo squinted at the man who had stolen this intimate moment. “That wasn’t funny Lucky.” You scolded him. “Angel,” He looked at you. “It was very frightening!” You told him. “W-What happened?” Kylo asked.

“Do you want to tell?” The friends laughed in unison. “No Angel, you do it.” Lucky cooed. “Zeros and Lucky were showing us new recruits around Starkiller, literally the first and last time I was on it. It was in one of the sectors that held the main water valves and of course, the pipe broke and it exploded. The water burst into the hallway and rushed in so quick, sweeping some people under and I went back to save some and he was one.” You humbly ended, but Lucky wasn’t having it. “No, Angel is a fucking fish. She was a captain of her swim team. She kept going back in to save us one by one. I was the last because my armor got stuck and I was sure I was about to die. I was positive I was dead when she came to get me she looked like an ethereal being, she wore that light gray academy uniform and her hair started to curl and the overhead light just crowned her head. She was the reason I was ready to go to the light!” Lucky joked. “And then I passed out because you’re fat.” You giggled and Lucky rolled his blue eyes. Ava sat with a twisted face and crossed arms avoiding the conversation. Kylo felt a pain in his chest knowing that you could’ve died because of him. It was due to one of his tantrums that had caused that valve to break. But the feeling weighed heavier than he would’ve thought of. His brown eyes looked at your smiling face. But you knew him better than anyone.

“This was fun, but I think it’s time for us to go.” You smiled, interlocking your fingers with his. “You know, the higher you are the earlier you rise.” You sent Ava a devilish smile before leaving with Kylo and your great coat blowing in the wind. You entered the elevator and a dark chuckle left Kylo as his long arm wrapped around your waist pulling you closer. “What?” You leaned your head on his chest. “Nothing.” He said bringing his other arm to hold you close to him. “Seems like something.” Your fingers crawled up his massive chest as you looked up at him through your lashes. Craning his neck, his lips met yours, sucking on your bottom lip before going in for another kiss. You pulled him closer to you enjoying the subtle taste of wine on his tongue as they danced their way with one another. The two of you didn’t even care about the surveillance in the elevator. When the doors opened Kylo held your hand as he walked you towards your quarters. He looked you deep in the eye as he brushed a curl behind your ear. “Goodnight,” He whispered before heading for his quarters. Kylo entered with a sigh before there was a knock on the door. Opening it, you appeared with that wild look in your eye that he loved so much. Without hesitation, you jumped wrapping your legs around him. Your lips latched onto his as his strong arms held you tightly. Kylo stumbled back hitting the back of his knees and landing on the couch. “Y/N,” His low rich voice sent shivers up your spine. A smile was pressed against his lips before pressing a gentle kiss to his pink lips. Nothing was said but he could feel your heart just swelling at how he made you feel. A low groan slipped pass his full lips causing Kylo to pull you into a deeper kiss.

“Commander!” There was a knock on the door that caused them to pause. Y/N looked down with pleading eyes as Kylo’s were locked on the door. Another knock rang out and Kylo gently moved her aside to stand. “Can’t you just ignore it?” Your lips fell into a pout. He cradled your face in the palm of his hand. “I’ll be back Nyneve.” You looked down to hide your blushing expression as he used the nickname he had picked up on one of your missions. Nyneve was an alluring immortal being that had been worshipped by the people of the planet Avalon, she held power and saved many like no man before or after. You weren’t used to the name seeing someone like you shouldn’t be compared to someone with such a high-caliber. “You will be.” He squished your cheeks making you smile. “Now wait for me on the bed.” You shook your head and made your way to his large bed. He watched your figure disappear into the next room before he left.

He stomped down the hallways frowning after the ridiculous meeting. A banging caused him to snap out of his thoughts. He looked around the hallway to see no one but still heard the banging. He walked up to the panel and inspected it. Using the force he removed the panel revealing none other than Serena. Before he could ignite fear throughout her body, she moved forward clinging herself to him. Kylo took a step back as her grip tightened. She peered up at him with a stream of tears falling from her large Persian orange eyes. “Your eyes?” Kylo remembered them being green and right after he questioned her, they shifted to obsidian black. She unlatched herself from him and quickly ran to her quarters. Kylo stood there contemplating if he should just let her be, but for some reason, he decided to follow her. It wasn’t long before he was hot on her trail on the back of her heel as he cornered her in a sequestered hallway. He stalked closer to see green eyes but one a few shades darker than the other. He watched her quiver before him as mixed emotions consumed her. “Was it the-” “Troopers.” Her fragile voice spoke with his. He sighed as he recalled the countless taunting he had to deal with as Matt.  “I’ll take care of it.” He sighed not knowing why he had the urge to help the annoying technician. Before he could leave she laid a small hand on his arm. “Thank you.” He was transfixed on her eyes that were now a fluorescent blue. It reminded him of something from his past, he flinched and removed himself from her and made his ways back to his quarters. He couldn’t shake the sight of her glowing blue eyes that brought up haunting memories and the kiss that should’ve never happened. Serena filled his mind, he forgot that you were waiting for him, sleeping peacefully in one of his black long sleeve shirts. He quickly removed his attire and made his way to you, careful not to disturb. He looked around him in this cold room, your warm beautiful figure beside him, his powers, his title and yet when Serena looked at him with those eyes he felt like B- “Kylo?” You muttered in your sleep turning to rest your head on his chest. He tensed as your fingers grazed his bare chest. He had to remember, he was Kylo Ren and he would not succumb to weakness.

P.S.:  I know it seems like I’m just throwing in a random character, but in the long run it will make sense. I promise. Hit me up with comments, concerns, jokes, reminding me that Kylo Ren passed out when he got a blowjob, anything. I miss talking to you guys. I JUST WANT TO STATE: Right now, from this point on, no matter what happens in the sequel trilogy, this series will end the way I want it to end. Events that I want to happen. People I choose to die. So if it is somewhat similar to the movie: I did it first. AND SUPER THANKFUL FOR ALL THE SNA FANS THOSE FROM THE BEGINNING AND THOSE TUNING IN NOW!!! I just want to say thank you for everything <3 (if anyone is still here)

[mylifeatwar]

Book 2, Chapter 2, Page 3

Archived Text Follows:

It’s still not midnight in my timezone yet so this page totally counts as being on time! In all seriousness though, Matt had this page done hours ago but I was kind of in the middle of a tattoo session and wasn’t really available to post it. That’s on me, not him

I really love this fucking page by the way, especially the shading in panel 2. There’s also some great foreshadowing here, but I’ll let you folks find it yourselves.

Something that Matt and I were joking about recently was language and accents in the MLaW verse. While the language that Free Marketeers is essentially supposed to be English (though they call it Treadspake) the accent is pretty different. It took me forever to find but here’s an example of what someone with a heavy Free Market accent sounds like to someone who doesn’t speak Treadspake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa-lmcdlq4A&list=FLWEkhqIkBE080OHhK-mC85g&index=1

You can already imagine how that colors most people’s perception of the average Free Marketeer.

Thanks for reading!

– Luther out

Comment Text Follows:

lhsc - Oh ho, Lulu is going to defend her favorite asset. Always bet on the Lulu.

Gillsing - So Free Marketeers aren’t big on enunciation, huh? I guess I’d need to hire a translator to understand them then. Oh. I see what they did there.

Killercow - BOP DAP BOODLY DAP DAU. Also, is lulu like, majorly huge? She looks at least a foot taller than the guy next to her, and she’s taller than Big Al by quite a bit.

plaintextman - Yeah, mista Patenge mentioned it during the long-winded discussion started around chapter 1’s cover: http://www.mylifeatwar.com/?p=26“ Lulubelle merely appears at a normal height because she’s been shown standing next to Captain Theroux, who is a very… very large ogre of a man. We made them this way as a response to the mecha genre being full of diminutive female characters, most often relegated to a non-combat role who spend way too much of their time stating everything they feel.” And MLAW is slowly but surely defying that “softy women” trope more and more (without — so far — overdoing it).

Mr. Patenge - Lulu-Belle (and her friend Missy) are around 6’3″. It’s all those chemicals and hormones in the milk man… also in the soda, the water, the coffee the air, the beer and, for some reason, the toilet paper.

Killercow - I gotta get me some of that toilet paper! Being 6’4 without, I’d probably be a freaky giant!

Iarei - Dat reflection.

Grudgesettler - Fridge with legs versus Lulubelle. Taking all bets, remember the house charges a 15% gratuity from all proceeds. A question, if I may. This one is regarding the competitive nature of the Free Market and their attitudes towards monopolies. From your answer regarding an earlier question about the util, I gather that for the most part, monopolies are disliked. My question is this: what guarantees the continuation of this competition instead of the eventual creation of a series of monopolies? I suspect that the Free Market doesn’t have much in the way of Anti-trust laws. Excellent page. I especially love the perspective shot in the second frame.

Zarpaulus - Three words: Mega-fun food inc. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that they do a thing to prevent monopolies, real life economic Libertarians don’t so why would fictional ones?

rfaramir - You don’t have to fight monopolies, so long as you have no State which can grant one. So-called “natural monopolies” are rare and not a problem to the free market. Think of a one-of-a-kind mineral mine. Consumers did fine before the mine was discovered, life got better when it’s otherwise-unobtanium made production more efficient, but if the price goes too high, the free market will work at creating alternatives or doing without, going back to previous production modes without the others-unobtainable substance. Potential competition keeps monopolists from charging truly damaging monopoly prices.

Iarei - That simply is not true. You’re drawing an imaginary line in the sand between ‘monopoly’ and ‘dictatorship’ that does not exist. “A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned”. In any hypothetical ungoverned free market, the most powerful monopoly necessarily assumes the role of governance. You’ve heard of ‘company stores’ right? Any barrier to entry for competition that exists under a corrupt government is going to exist in a free market system. The only difference is that the company wouldn’t need to bribe any politicians. A question was raised earlier in this comic – “How can Fizziz stay in business if their product is both foul and poisonous”. If you’ve been paying attention here you should already know the answer.

Killercow - No, it tends to be governments that aid monopolies. In a perfectly free market, in theory, a monopoly can’t hold any power because as soon as the price becomes too dear, another company can come and offer competition at a lower price. These are opportunistic people, who would jump at a chance to undercut a company that was being a little too excessive with their prices for their worth, and without a government to aid in forcing opposition out of business, or breaking strikes and such, monopolies would be much harder to obtain. Not impossible, but extremely difficult. For example, look at the role the security contractors play. On one page it is mentioned that Mega Fun Foods is subsidizing their losses to keep them fighting, and it is mentioned that “Few enough companies can do our job”. While they don’t hold a monopoly, because of the couple of other security companies, which keep them from overcharging, they are a specialized and presumably expensive commodity. They have skills that are rare and useful, and charge more for it. But even those skills are not unique to one company. As for Fizziz, I think that was supposed to be more of a joke than a serious commentary on monopoly, but it may have also been something else, like it has a niche market of… I don’t know, horse pee lovers or something. Or it might be an acquired taste. Or maybe they used to offer good products and now people just blindly buy the brand.

Iarei -  Monopolies help themselves, they don’t need a government to do so. All they need is thugs they can pay to shoot anyone not working the line or a sufficiently high barrier to entry. What magic power do you think you have over a monopoly that you don’t have over a government? A working government acts as a check against monopolies. Like, the government that’s literally fighting a monopoly owned mercenary company in this comic? The comic you’re reading? As far as monopolies you might be familiar with go, how about your ISP? If you live in the US I can all but guarantee you you’re overpaying. That’s in a country where the government nominally has legislation intended to prevent monopolies. In this example, it has nothing to do with the government, it has to do with the fact that those companies are better off ripping off the customers in their respective fiefdoms than expanding their infrastructure into areas with competing services with competitive rates. What do you think would happen if your gas, electricity or water were held by a private entity that could set it’s own prices? I’m sure some competing company can come out of nowhere and set up competing utility lines, right? Free market magic, goo! I’m sure you can find your own solution when prices for necessities become to prohibitive, right? Want a drink of water? Hope your rain barrel’s full or you’ll be buying from T. Boone Pickens. Oh no your house is on fire? Don’t worry, Marcus Licinius Crassus is here to help! Someone’s robing your house? Store? Did you pay your protection fund? Oh, and while this is getting beside the point remember that without a government there’s no regulation on things like ‘can that company dump toxic waste in my river’ or ‘can that company sweeten it’s drinks with lead acetate’. Is our governments perfect? Are they even moderately close to good? No, probably not. It still beats the ever living hell out the alternative.

Plaintextman - Remember that regulations like ‘minimum wage’ and ‘standard bread price’ come from governments. These are made to keep monopolies in check, or rather, to effectively grant the common man some power over companies, in turn evening out the concentration of power. However, also true that insane-level OHSA requirements, government-tendered projects to large companies and overtly strict permit regulations are all government-implemented things that can make it hard if not impossible for small players to get in the game, thus supressing competition. So yeah, it’s not really so much a question of whether there is a formal government or not. More a question of how those in power act, for they are the ‘government’. And this is ultimately determined by what kind of rights (formal and de facto) the common man is granted. Do you have the right to shop somewhere else without fear for your life? The right to your own property? Freedom of speech? I love the idea of free markets. They’ve been so successful over the centuries because of that awesome self-correcting mechanism of ‘competition’; just about every city ever had a market place where businesses could offer and compete, much more than can be said of less natural systems like communism. But “total objective freedom” doesn’t really exist, so no market can be truly “free”. Illegal (drug-) industry is example of an ‘anarcho-capitalist free market’ environment that’s also extremely unfriendly to just about everyone except those in power. And the reason why boils down to how uncaring those in power (“government”) are and how little power the common person (consumer) it given: as long as they pay nobody really gives a shit about them. And if they stop paying by say, buying from a cheaper supplier, they might as well die along with that supplier.

motorfirebox - I like the tan lines.