#i carry one of those big steel water bottles around and nobody notices

[uglyheadassery]

you ever try some new stupid thing and think "oh...oh no...." because it's WAY too easy and effective and you're pretty sure this is how this disease is going to kill you

[paversandplatters]

||𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙱𝚎𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚛 𝚘𝚏 𝚂𝚑𝚎𝚎𝚙|| (2/20)

Apocalypse! Au (TW! Minor gore and cussing)

Reader x multiple

Chapter 2: The church

Y/n puts the vehicle in gear carefully making a U turn and starts down the road in a westerly direction. Her original plan was find refuge in one of the larger towns along North Florida’s citrus belt such as Lake City or Gainesville- still seems viable despite the fact that the engine continues to ping and complain- something has come loose during the plunge to the woods and she doesn't like the sound of it. They need to find a place to stop soon look under the hood, get their wounds looked at- rest maybe, maybe find some provisions and fuel.

“Hey look!” Nick speaks up from the shadows of the rear seats pointing off to the Southwest at the end of the lot.

Y/n drives another 100 yards or so and then brings the Escalade to a stop at the gravel shoulder. She kills the engine and silence crashes down on the car’s interior, it’s almost deafening. Nobody says anything at first- they just stare at the road sign in the middle of the distance. It's one of those cheap translucent white fiberglass ones, set on wheels with the big removal plastic letters still bearing the words “Calvary Baptist Church all welcome Sunday 9 -&- 11.”

Through the spindly Cypress trees and columns of pine that line the road, she can see the luminous white gravel of a deserted parking lot. The long narrow lot leads to the front of a building, it's broken stained glass windows partially boarded up. Its steeple caved in on one side and scorched as if its seen a bombing raid. She stares at the huge steel cross at the top of the steeple- which is covered with a patina of rust- has come loose from its moorings.

It now lays upside down dangling by the remains of its rotted hardware. She can't help but get very still while gazing up at the ruin upended cross, the symbolism isn't lost on her but it may only be the beginning. She never been one for religion but realizes that this may very well be a sign that they've been left behind and this is the rapture and the world is a purgatory now. They’ll have to deal with what remains like junkyard dogs or vermin stuck in a sinking ship.

“Remind me”she says almost under her breath not taking her eyes off the building in the distance one of the windows in the rear has a dull yellow incandescent glow, behind it the chimney is spewing a thin wisp of smoke into the lightning sky.

“how much ammunition did y'all manage to scavenge before we left Calhoun?” the two young men give each other a quick look

Nick speaks up “I have one of the 33 round mags for the Glock and a box of two dozen .380s for the other pistol and that's it..”

“That's more than I managed.” George grimaces “all I managed to grab ammunition wise is what was in the office which I think it's like 6 rounds, maybe 8?”She picks up her Glock from the seat counting the number of times she's fired since they left Calhoun she's got six rounds left.

“All right gentlemen ... I want you to bring all of it, all the hardware locked and loaded.” she opens the door “and look alive…”

The two men get out of the vehicle and join her in the Golden light of the dawn. Something is wrong, Nick notices His hand are shaking as he injects a fresh magazine into the hilt of his pistol

“Y/n, I don't understand” he says finally.

“what are we loading up for? I doubt there's anything in there but scared church people. What are we doing?”

But she's already started down towards the church- her Glock is gripped tightly in her hands, arms dangling at her side like a calling card.

“It's the end of the world boys there's no such thing as church anymore it's all up for grabs…”

The two young men glanced at each other for a moment before hurrying up to catch up with her. They approached the property from the rear, through the grove of sickly eucalyptus trees that mark the outer edges of the churches lot. She can smell the stench of menthol and ammonia in the air as she creeps across the weed whiskered gravel, careful not to make too much noise when her boots crunch under the stones. The light in the chapel's rear window has dwindled with the morning sun and the roaring of crickets fade now, the silence returns over making her heart throb in her ears.

She pauses behind a tree about 20 feet away from the lighted window ... With a few quick hand signals she rouses the two who are hiding behind a nearby oak. Nick moves out from behind cover carrying the pistol against his solar plexus like a vestigial appendage. George moves behind his friend wide eyed and jumpy flinching at the twinges of pain. These two are not exactly the crème de la crème in the world's new survivor class she realizes but perhaps she should see these young men as they truly are. Loyal partners, and friends- surviving all the same.

She issues another signal stabbing a finger at the rear of the building. One by one the three of them move toward the small woodside annex off the rear of the Chapel- she’s in the lead her pistol now gripped in both hands, now pointed downward. The closer they get the more the sun rises over the horizon the more they realize something isn't right. The windows of the building and rectory of the deacons quarters are lined with aluminum foil. The screen door has been ripped off its hinge and the inner door is nailed shut and crisscrossed with lumber. The stench of the dead permeates the air and gets stronger as they approach. She reaches the building first and she gently stands with her back against the boarded door signaling the others with a the tip of her finger to her lips.

They approach as quietly as possible, stepping lightly over the trash and dead leaves that are skidding across the back of the deck in the morning breeze. George stands just behind her, while Nick keeps to her side, both keeping weapons at the ready. She reaches down to her scuffed boot and pulls out a 12 inch Randall knife from the interlining. She carefully wedges the point under one of the boards near the door latch and Yanks.

The door probes stubborn. She pries at it repeatedly with the knife making more racket than she cares to but she has no choice they would make even more noise if they had tried to break through one of the windows. The nails give slightly the creaking sound amplified and the hushed daylight. She has no idea of what they're about to find inside this building but she fairly certain now that both humans as well as the dead inhabit this place.

Zombies don't build fires and the average survivor with the access to soap and water doesn't usually smell like death. The door finally gives and the two men moving closer to her, guns up now as they enter at the same time. They find themselves in an empty room illuminated by dim yellow light and the smell of stale smoke and Bo smacks them in the face. She crosses the floor, her boots making the floorboards creak. She makes note of the small potbelly stove still radiating the heat of the dying embers, the braided rug stained with blood, a desk littered with teabags, dishes, candy wrappers gossip magazines, a few empty 44 bottles and crumpled cigarette packs…

She goes over to the desk and looks down at the display of playing cards arranged in the classic poker pattern it looks like somebody, likely a hand full of people, were here only a moments ago and left in a hurry. A noise from behind the inner doors suddenly takes her attention. she whips her head around to the source, both men stand across the room gazing sheepishly back at their leader.

Again she puts a four finger to her lips giving them the signal to hush. The two mens eyes are aglow with nervous tension, on the other side of the door shuffling noises build, the telltale sound of dragging feet. There's also the reek of mortified flesh almost as pungent as the methane and it's getting stronger. She recognizes that a number of undead are trapped in an enclosed space. She turns and points to George’s shotgun.

Nick understands that he's supposed to blow the lock off the door and George is supposed to back them both up. Neither young man is very happy about this plan. Nick looks pale and George is drenched in sweat both of them nursing wounds and perhaps even internal bleeding. Neither seem gung ho about fighting off and undetermined number of biters. But she is an irresistible leader and the mere look in her eyes is enough to kill any dissension in the ranks. She holds three fingers up. She begins to countdown. 3, 2-

A loud crack sounds as a rotten hand covered with mold burst through the weak spot in the lumber.

Nothing in reality ever seems to play out the way George imagines it should. He trips on his backward shuffling feet and falls on to the floor. The pain in his ribs explode the injury jostled by the impact and at the same time another pair of hands thrust their way through the busted slats of the door. Looking up he sees she has pulled something from her boot. He watches as a dull gleam of a Buck knife strikes through the air. She drives the blade through the tissue and cartilage sawing through the bone it’s hands flopping to the floor as neatly as tree limbs being pruned.

George watches as he tries to sit up, the back of his throat burns and his body threatens to upchuck the paltry contents of a stomach. Things are moving quickly now, hands are flopping around him like fish on a boat’s deck, slowly growing still as the electrical impulses from the reanimated central nervous system drains out. George’s vision blurs his mind swimming dizziness gripping him as his wounded lungs labor to get air.

She's already scooped the fallen shotgun from the floor pumping shells into its breach with a single jerk of her arms as she turns back to the door George manage to get himself back up into a standing position kicking the ghastly hands out of the way . She slims a boot into the door and it implodes revealing the interior of a dark Chapel. Nick gets a fleeting glimpse of the sanctuary before the 1st blast shatters the tableau.

What was once a quaint little church with stain glass and pine pews now resembles an arbiter from the 9th circle of hell. The dead number in dozens maybe as many as 40 or 50 most of them chained to the pews with heavy chains. They react to the light of the outer room as if she had just turned over her oktan exposed a colony of vermin.

Insensate faces jerk towards the noise, some are decorated with spiked collars and others have large makeshift cage like muzzles. The scene gives a a sense of some sort of demented zoo or kennel for these reanimated cadavers. Stranger still, in that terrible instant before the first flash of the 12 gauge, it seems like somebody apparently tried to administer these beings after they were reanimated.

In front of each are dead birds morsels, pieces of roadkill or unidentified human remains are scattered in the pews next to each being. The candles still burn in the same sanctuary on the advert stands in the front room on the modest little altar. Somewhere the buzz of a live microphone drones. The air smells of modified sewage perfumed with rancid flesh and disinfected.

Nick gets one final glance at her before the air lights up- the look on her face is a mixture of sorrow, rage, loss and regret. It's the look of someone confronting the merciless abyss. Then the shooting starts.

The first blast flashes and takes the closest cadaver down in a puff of carnal tissue, the shell ripping through the skull and taking a chunk out of the wood above the door. Three subsequent shots happen, making their ears ring. Already covered with blowback her anguished face stippled and splattered, she now moves deeper into the Chapel and starts in on the others.

It only takes a few minutes, the air flashing like a fireworks display as she goes from pew to pew, either vaporizing skulls or thrusting her Randall knife through petrified nasal cavities before the things even get a chance to bite at the air. George staggers towards the open door to get a better view and he notices Nick just in the side Chapel entrance.

She has the strangest look on her face now as she finished off the last of the monsters with a hard quick slashes of the knife the gun has been emptied, 8 shells peppering the wall behind the heaps of moldering flesh. Completely slick with blood, her eyes burning with inscrutable emotions, she almost looks beatific as she dispatches with the last re animated corpse .

For one terrible moment watching this all from the doorway Nick thinks of a woman having an orgasm. She lets out a voluptuous sigh of relief as she impales the skull of what seems to be an elderly woman. The Crone sacks against the back of her Pew, she was once somebody's mother, somebody's neighbor. She may have once baked cookies for her grandchildren search for famous bread pudding add ice cream socials and laid to rest her beloved husbands of 47 years in the Cemetery out behind the rectory .

Y/n pauses to catch her breath staring down at the woman, head bowed for a moment, when all at once she abruptly stops and looks up narrowing her eyes. She cocks her head to one side and listens closely to something in another part of the building at last she fixes her gaze on George and so softly whispers

“do you hear that ?”

@the-wandering-pan-ace

[valhallanrose]

Hummingbird

Because I’m a sucker for a first kiss and I love Them. 

Milenko belongs to @sunrisenfool​.

3.5k. No CWs apply. 

Title: Hummingbird by The Gothard Sisters

Had anyone else been nearby, Astoria might have asked to be reminded the next time Nadia hosted a staff dinner how absolutely droll they could be. 

They were certainly appreciative - it was the Countess’s display of gratitude for all departments of palace staff, regardless of level in their respective hierarchies. Dinner did feel like a rather unfitting term, though, as Nadia had a tendency to throw parties rather than simply asking them all to sit around a table and chat about the weather. It wasn’t a requirement, though. It was a chance to mingle, to have some good food and a good time, but they were almost routine after a little while. If you’d been to one, you’d been to them all, and if you were an introvert, they were particularly draining on the social battery. 

Astoria was also very much an introvert.

They almost hadn’t come that night, but something told them they should, if for no other reason than to get a slight change of scenery. 

As the night went on, guests trickled in and trickled out, some familiar, some not. Among those to arrive was Nana, whose arrival was almost expected - rarely did he fail to appear - but Astoria hadn’t expected him to bring a plus one, and especially not Milenko. Not that he was an unwelcome surprise - Astoria just didn’t think he’d have been interested in the affair, though he seemed to blend easily with the crowd as Nana introduced his cousin to some of his colleagues. 

For a while, the two of them had been trading lingering looks here and there, smiles pulling at faces and a step taken toward each other before one of them got pulled into someone else’s conversation. At one point Astoria almost laughed at the near pout on Milenko’s face when Nana snatched him away to introduce him to a face they couldn’t name, shaking their head and giving him a cheeky wave before they let themself get pulled into a healthy debate with a colleague from the archives.

Eventually, Astoria managed to slip away from it all, stepping out onto the balcony with a sigh of relief. Crisp winter air swept over their face and carried the evening bird song to their ears, easing the tension in their shoulders as they pulled their shawl a little tighter around themself. 

They didn’t know how long they stood out there, watching their breath turn to fog and tuning out the chatter they could hear beyond the door that led back inside, but it was long enough for them to not notice the door open and someone approach them once it fell shut. 

The lower edge of a ceramic mug tapped their shoulder, making them jump a bit as they turned to meet Milenko’s warm smile and the outstretched cup, the handle turned toward them for them to take. 

“Thought you wouldn’t want to miss the cocoa when it came out.” He said, and Astoria smiled, nodding as they pulled their hands from their pockets and gratefully accepted the warm drink. 

“Oh, I forgot Nadia likes to bring cocoa out when the weather gets cool. Thank you.”

“I think we’re well past ‘cool’ and into ‘terribly cold’.” He teased, and Astoria snorted into their mug as he leaned forward to rest his forearms on the balcony railing.

“Should you ever have cause to visit Rosinmoor, you’ll be grateful for Vesuvia’s kind of winter. I thought my first winter here would be much worse and I was woefully over prepared for it.” Astoria glanced down toward his feet, then frowned a little, head tilting curiously. “Where’s Ursie? It’s rare I see one of you without the other.”

Milenko gestured loosely over his shoulder, making Astoria look toward where Ursula sat right next to the door - nose pressed to the glass just so to reveal her front teeth - enjoying the warmth of indoors while she kept an eye on her human. 

Astoria couldn’t help but laugh, turning around to rest their back against the railing and sticking their tongue at Ursula playfully, snickering under her breath when a pink tongue slid across the glass as if to answer. 

“Can’t say I blame her for staying in. Nattie would be doing the same if she were here, but I couldn’t wrestle her out of my bed. She’s probably still asleep in my blankets. I’ll probably be joining her before too long, if I’m honest.”

“Tired?” Milenko asked, and Astoria shook their head, letting out a soft sigh. 

“More so bored. I come to these mostly because I don’t want to be rude to Nadia for all the effort she puts in, but...they’re not really my cup of tea. Or cocoa, I suppose.” They raised their mug a little at that, and Milenko chuckled, standing to lean against the railing with them instead.

“I don’t think these are really my scene, either.”

“Didn’t you come as Nana’s plus one tonight?” 

“I did, but I didn’t really come for the party.” He nudged them lightly with his elbow, making them pause mid sip and look up at him. “Do you want to get out of here?”

Astoria raised a brow, watching as he swigged the rest of his cocoa and set the mug neatly on the railing. “Get out of here?”

“Yeah. Neither of us are having a good time here, so...maybe we can go snag a bite to eat and chat for a while before you head home.” Milenko held out his hand, wiggling his fingers lightly as if trying to tempt them to take it. “Unless you’ve got a hot date that you need to get back to.”

With a snort of laughter, Astoria drank the last bit of their cocoa and dropped their hand neatly into his palm - their own mug left behind to sit beside his. 

“Absolutely I do not. Lead the way, poet man.”

“‘Poet man’?”

“Shut up, you know I’m not good at nicknames.”

Snickering, Milenko pulled their arm to loop it neatly through his, dramatically looking around as if to make sure nobody was watching their escape from the dining hall. Astoria, for their part, was more focused on stifling their laughter until they were out of earshot, swatting at his arm playfully as they went. 

Astoria didn’t catch the amused shake of Nana’s head when Milenko threw a wave at his cousin, though they were sure to be teased when they came to work in the morning. 

*     *     *     *     *

The pair had ducked into the first tavern they’d come across, Ursula slipping under the table as they snatched the last empty booth and squeezed into the bench seat. Astoria could feel her tail against the back of their ankles, knowing she’d taken up a space between the booth and the back of Milenko’s legs. They were seated close enough together for his arm to brush theirs as he poured them a glass from the bottle of wine they’d bought to share, close enough that when he turned to pass it to them they could see the way the light bounced off his earrings and danced on his cheeks. 

“There we are.” He murmured, and Astoria couldn’t help but return his smile, tapping the edge of their glass lightly against his when he extended it. “Cheers.”

“Slàinte mhath.” 

“Bless you.”

Astoria choked on the sip they’d taken from their glass as they laughed, spotting his teasing grin and swatting at him after they managed to catch their breath again.

“You know what, I take back my toast, I wish the worst health upon you.” They laughed, shaking their head when Milenko gave them those big brown puppy eyes that killed them every time and trying to steel their resolve -

“Would you really wish ill upon me?”

Mission failed.

“No, but I’m still going to pout about the fact that my nose burns now.” Astoria wrinkled the feature in question before they cautiously sipped at their glass again, giving him a teasing side eye of sorts once they set it down. “But you can make it up to me by telling me more about that article you’re working on. The one you were talking about on our way in?”

Milenko nodded, curls bouncing as a smile pulled across his face. “Right, I was. I think I’d just told you I passed it along to my editor…”

The two fell into easy conversation, flowing between them like the ale from the taps or the water in the side canals mere feet beyond the tavern door. 

Astoria had always enjoyed his company. Milenko was warm and welcoming, the smile that came to his face amplifying the natural presence he had about him. They tried to return that friendly warmth as well, but they had come to realize that those feelings of friendly warmth had changed into something new. Not that they minded - in fact, with him, they’d welcome the sort of romantic affection that was blooming if it were reciprocated. 

But for now, with one hand propping up their chin as they listened, they let the world narrow down to just Milenko. 

He made their heart feel like a hummingbird, beating so fast in their chest every time they crossed each other’s paths that they thought it might pop straight out from their ribs and follow him when he left. 

They weren’t sure anyone had ever made them feel this way before. They’d attempted relationships a few times in the past, but the connection never felt like it was there. They were too strange, too work obsessed, too cold - that one had particularly hurt - but always too much for things to work out.

Milenko saw them as they were, and hadn’t been put off by what he’d seen. In fact, he’d embraced it fully, all the way down to their last peculiarity, and seemed to always come back for more. 

They snapped back to focus when they heard him mention that if his editor gave it the all clear, his article would likely be published before the end of winter if all went according to plan. 

“I hope everything goes smoothly, then.” Astoria said with a smile. “Do let me know when I should keep an eye out for it. I’ve always enjoyed reading your work. The content is always interesting, but I find that the way your passion and your intrigue seeps into your writing so enthralling. Usually when I pick it up I can’t put it down.”

“I didn’t know you read my writing that closely.” He said after a moment, a warm flush coloring his cheeks, and Astoria’s gaze dropped sheepishly to stare into the burgundy wine.

“It’s important to you, isn’t it?” They gave him a light smile, tracing the tip of their finger around the rim of their glass. “You listen so intently when I tell you about bones, or heartbeats, or the time I went on a thirty minute tangent about how butterflies are - how did I put it?”

Milenko tried - and failed - to hide his grin behind his drink. “‘Badass little bastards’, I think.”

“Right, badass little bastards.” Astoria was about two seconds from repeating said tangent before they felt their face heat, clearing their throat in order to continue. “But you know it’s important to me, so you listen. And I know your writing is important to you, so I read it whenever I can.”

“I hope you don’t feel like you have to read it just because I listen to you.” He said after a moment, a thoughtful look on his face. “I listen to you because I’m interested in what you have to say.”

“No, no, it’s much the same for how I feel about your writing. I do find the topics you choose fascinating, so it’s also particularly easy to get invested in. The fact that you wrote it is a fun little bonus. And...” 

Maybe it was the wine - definitely not, knowing their own tolerance - but they hummed softly for a moment, mulling over their thoughts as they tried to piece together what they wanted to say. 

“I think you’re strange.” Astoria said after a moment, and Milenko let out a bewildered laugh, giving them something of a bemused look as he set his glass aside. 

“I do hope you mean that in a good way.”

Astoria laughed, nodding as they pushed their drink away from the edge of the table. “I do, I do, I promise. That was poor phrasing I mean that I like you because you’re strange. I’ve always been peculiar, what with my bones and my heartbeats like we said and my preference for dead people -”

“I know, I’ve been flattered to make the cut of breathing individuals you spend your time with.” Milenko laughed as Astoria smacked him with one of their gloves, the leather flapping harmlessly against his arm and their disgruntled look ruined by the smile they failed to hold back.

“I’m being serious, Milenko, only one of us is good with words so let me have this.”

He raised both hands in playful surrender, and Astoria tucked their gloves into their pockets with a lighthearted roll of their eyes, drumming bare fingertips idly on the surface of the table. It took them a few moments to gather their thoughts, but when they did, their eyes were fixed on their empty glass, watching the light and shadows dance across the surface. 

“I don’t often find myself in the company of the living because I know my peculiarity puts some people off. I am still grateful that my observations on your heartbeat did not do the same, though usually when I mention it to someone, I don’t get asked to have an extended conversation about matters of the heart.” Astoria’s mouth twitched up at the corner as they cast a bemused look at him out of the corner of their eye. “But I’ve come to know you. You are strange too, in your own way, and unabashedly so. It’s endearing. And I want to experience more, but...I’m not sure how I can just yet.”

“What do you mean?” He asked gently, and Astoria made a noncommittal sound that was far more casual than how they actually felt. 

“I’m quite awful at reading people.” Astoria shrugged, reaching for the bottle of wine again. “I don’t know what you’re willing to share with me, so I intend to follow your lead. But your writing lets me learn a little more about you, in a way, and a little more about what you’re willing to share with me. So I keep reading.”

Milenko fell quiet for a moment, but out of the corner of their eye, they could see him looking at them - watching as they poured a little more wine into their glass - and when they turned slightly, they poured some into his own, watching as his gaze shifted to the flowing liquid as it swirled and caught the light. 

“I’ve only ever seen you make that look before you take a dip in the canals.” They teased, and Milenko snorted, an amused look on his face as they set the bottle down. “Did the wine have some secrets to share?”

He laughed a little at that - Astoria knew he’d said once before that he’d once had visions manifest in flowing beer - and shook his head, pushing the glass aside rather than taking a drink from it. 

“No, only an inkling this time.” Milenko rested his cheek against his hand, elbow propped against the table as he watched them take a small sip of wine. 

“But if you want to know, it told me you could kiss me tonight.”

Oh. 

Oh. 

Had he not been a foot from them, they might have screamed when it finally clicked. 

Had he really been flirting all this time? They knew they were oblivious to some social situations, but damn, this was a new one. They could practically hear Edrine laughing at them for how oblivious they were in the next letter they wrote home, but perhaps it was worth it. 

When they managed to compose themself internally, they let out a slow breath through their nose, trying to steady their sudden nerves at the realization that those romantic feelings might not be so one sided. 

Maybe he’d been sharing more than they’d though.

“Did it, now?” They mused, setting the glass down and pushing it back from the edge of the table. “Presumptuous of the wine to think I’ll do all the work. You could kiss me instead, you know.”

They didn’t flinch when Milenko’s fingertips skated across the back of their ungloved hand, instead smiling lightly as they turned their palm over and felt his hand settle on their own. His other arm rested along the back of the bench seat, warm against their shoulder as he gave them such a soft, pretty smile it made them feel like mush.

“Well, if I kiss you, I would hope you’d kiss me back.” Milenko said softly, and when he began to lean in, Astoria was more than ready to lean in themself.

He met them halfway - Astoria had slipped her free hand up onto his shoulder, toying with the ends of his curls lightly before giving him a soft, chaste kiss that made everything else feel like it had disappeared. 

It was gentle and sweet, a kiss with not an expectation beyond it. It made them so warm, from the crown of their head to the tips of their toes, as they melted nearly completely into him with the gentle weight of his hand falling upon their back. 

When they broke apart after a moment, Astoria blinked once, twice, before they blurted out a “This isn’t just because of the wine, right?”

Milenko looked at them somewhat owlishly. “What?”

“The wine. You’re not inebriated, are you? I know I’m certainly not, but I don’t want you to do this if this is the wine making your decisions for you.”

“No, I’m not drunk.” Milenko chuckled a little, lifting his hand to gently rub his thumb across their jaw as they let out an audible sigh of relief. “Were you that worried?”

“Only a little.” Astoria smiled sheepishly. They leaned in after a moment, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek, then to the corner of his mouth, warmth heating their cheeks as they met his eyes again. “Mostly because I wanted to ask you for another, and I thought it would be a very poor thing to do if you weren’t thinking clearly.”

Milenko smiled at that, the hand against their jaw shifting to gently tip their head up once again. Their hand slid down to rest against his chest, hardly any space between them as they cracked a smile at the feeling of his heart beating rapidly under their palm. 

“Your heart is racing.” Astoria teased, as if their own didn’t feel like it was going to leap straight from their chest. “I thought perhaps another kiss was in order, but if I do you might make the hummingbirds jealous.”

“You’re full of shit.” Milenko chuckled, laying his free hand over the one on his chest and giving it a gentle squeeze. “May I?”

Astoria was already leaning in again, meeting him in another kiss, this one deepening slightly and lingering rather than being chaste. They could have turned into a puddle right there as they started to notice a bit more beyond the kiss this time - the warmth of his hands against their skin, the sound of their own heart in their ears like wingbeats, the smell of parchment and ink that lingered on his skin for all the writing he did. 

When they broke away this time, their foreheads pressed together, Astoria couldn’t help but match his smile as his nose rubbed lightly against theirs. 

“Let me walk you home.” He said, voice soft, and to Astoria’s amusement, sounding entirely like he didn’t want to follow through with what he’d said seconds prior. 

Astoria hummed softly in thought, a playful tone clear in their voice. “Done with me already?”

Milenko’s chuckle made them smile, closing their eyes as he pressed a kiss to their brow and slid out of the booth.

“Alas, I just heard the last call, and it’s late. But tomorrow is a new day, and I’d be more than happy to take you out for lunch.” When they slid out behind him, Astoria tucked her hand into his, gloves shoved neatly in their pockets and coat wrapped snugly around them. 

“My schedule just so happens to be clear.” They said, and Milenko laughed, giving their hand a squeeze as they made their way back onto the streets.

“Then lunch it is. Think about where you want to go.”

Together they’d begin the woefully short - in Astoria’s opinion - walk to their apartment, where Milenko would give them one last kiss to bid them goodnight and tell them that he’d pick them up at eleven thirty for lunch wherever they chose. 

And Astoria would dream that night, face buried in Nathaira’s fur, of red wine kisses and ink stained hands to hold them close all over again. 

[quillforge-library]

May 2nd: Rope

The bounty hunter Morgan Goode stalked her quarry through the gulch as the sun beat down on the Montanna mid-afternoon. The stetson she wore covered her eyes in shadow with its wide brim, whilst she watched a tumbleweed gently meander across the mouth of the dried up river bed. A pair of spurs jangled slightly from her custom made leather boots with each step her horse took. Three days outside of Georgetown, Morgan had only one thought on her mind: finding the location of a hidden stash from the bandit Moira Byrne. They were heading east, thankfully, which placed the sun behind Morgan should anyone look her way.

It had all begun a few nights before at a saloon in Georgetown. The whisky flowed like water through the gills of fish, and many a game of Faro was enjoyed that night by the gambling sorts. The whores, both male and female, did a roaring trade. It was by all accounts a successful night in the old West. Morgan had been in town a couple of days, restocking on supplies and handing in a bounty to the sheriff's office. It was a tough old life being a bounty hunter. Every step could be your last, but that was just the way Morgan liked it. She wasn’t much suited for softer work.

On this particular evening she had situated herself in the corner, drinking sparsely from a bottle of the old firewater herself. Half of the job of a good bounty hunter was being an excellent eavesdropper. Morgan was able to listen to a room full of people talking and keep three or four separate conversations straight in her head as she listened, whilst looking inconspicuous to her own impoliteness. The doors to the saloon swung open and in came Moira. She carried with her a heavy revolver strapped to her right hip, and an enormous Cheshire cat grin as she sauntered to the bar and demanded the best whisky in the house. Two hours later and everyone in the place knew that she had just split from the gang she was running with, that she had a bounty on her head, but more importantly that she had stashed her share of the profits from a recent train robbery.

Morgan supposed that Moira had thought that she was safe mouthing off in the town. Everyone was in awe of the red hand gang, the group that Moira had just split from. In order to get in you had to be a pretty rough and ready character, or so the stories went. Plus they had pulled off that train robbery, which almost always ended in disaster. There was a slim chance that anyone would be gunning for Moira after that story. Save for the steel eyed bounty hunter following her trail.

Mopping her brow slightly, Morgan pushed her fringe out of her eyes. Though her chestnut hair was closely cropped, it still dangled down at the front when left to its own devices. The back of her quarry’s head was just visible at the edge of her vision, but the gulch was just about to end abruptly and make its way into a steep valley, so Morgan felt it was time to close the distance. Once she got into the valley, there would be no easy escape and there was plenty of privacy to be had.

Spurring the horse into a canter, Morgan checked her lasso knotwork. She was a Kentucky girl herself, which meant horse rearing. Inevitably that also meant that she was a dab hand with a length of rope, in more ways than one. Her family had owned a pony farm on the outskirts of a small town, but when bandits came and stole the whole flock her family had gone out of business real quick. Her daddy had already taken out a loan about as big as he was going to get, and his gambling habit didn't feed itself. Morgan pushed back these thoughts that came unbidden to the fore of her mind. Though the hatred of the lawless would steel her resolve, thinking about her family just made her feel depressed. As her calloused hands felt along the length of the knotwork, she found that it was impeccable as always. Nobody would be able to loosen that once it was pulled taut.

Stepping carefully out of the gulch, it was a small distance to enter the valley. The temperature was rising uncomfortably from the high position of the sun. At least in the valley there was the shelter of the pine trees lining both sheer slopes. The scent of the trees wafted from the pathway where a carpet of their leaves had fallen. Good, Morgan thought to herself, that will give me something to tie her to.

The showdown approached, with Moira still none the wiser to the fact she was being stalked by a rope toting cowgirl. This was part of Morgan’s tactics. She hated to shoot people, no matter how rotten. Everyone out here had someone, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. The list went on. It was far easier to make peace with the bounty hunter who brought your loved one back alive, even if they ended up swinging at the end of a sheriff's noose. And for those that went to jail? At least you could visit or write them. Sizing up the shape of the clearing and the distance between the trees, Morgan coiled the rope to the appropriate length for swinging in such conditions and she began to whirl the lasso over her head as quietly as she could.

The throw landed perfectly. Moira would have only a moment to notice the rope flying past her vision, before she was flying through the air to meet the ground. She cried out in surprise and shock at the sudden rude awakening from what had just moments before been a pleasant trot through some picturesque scenery. Now for the clever part. Morgan spurred her horse into action again, this time driving the mare into a gallop. The rope had caught Moiras hands down by her sides, but most folk worth their salt could still reach their gun from here. Timing it just right, Morgan galloped past like the wind. At the exact moment when Moira was taking her revolver out of the holster she took an almighty jolt from the rope dragging her along. Most people dropped their guns when this happened, and Moira proved to be no exception. The revolver slipped from her hands and bounced once on the pine carpet as she found herself dragged by the bounty hunter deeper into the valley.

Once the gun was dealt with, Morgan slowed her horse to a trot. She was still dragging Moira along, but at least she wasn't smashing her captive off every rock and root through this wild off-road track. Locating a large enough tree for her purposes, Morgan approached and climbed down. The lasso was secured to the horse bridle, and in turn she secured the horse to a nearby log.

“Good girl.” She praised, passively. Her eyes instead watched as Moira was trying to free herself from the bindings, but finding them too tight to do anything about. Her hands were jammed hard against her sides, and the knot was impossible to even reach, never mind undo. Morgan drew her pistol and approached.

“Moira.” She called out on the approach. Moira spun around quickly and upon seeing the gun trained on her she sagged her shoulders.

“Ah fuck.” She said despondently. It took Morgan by surprise slightly, having expected a lot more fire from this alleged firecracker, at least if her antics last night were anything to go by.

“Come with me up the hill to this tree, or I am going to be forced to shoot you..” As she spoke, Morgan busied herself getting behind Moira and marching her uphill. She complied without another word.

“Now sit with your back against the tree.” Morgan said, and again  Moira complied. Morgan then untied the rope from her horse and walked it around the tree multiple times, looping the rope higher and higher up Moira’s torso until the rope sat just under her ample bosom. Morgan tied it off and admired her handiwork. It was a sturdy tie and wouldn't be coming loose any time soon.

“Who the hell are ya, anyway?” Moira hollered, as Morgan went to her saddlebags to get the rest of her equipment. She took out a coil of rope, a large wooden stake, a mallet and a bag. Once she had these items, she walked back in front of Moira, who by now was looking flustered.

“Name’s Morgan Goode, but I go by another name too. Don’t suppose you’ve heard of me?” She said, arranging her tools on the ground as Moira looked on in cautious curiosity.

“Well yer handy with those ropes, I know that much.” Moira muttered darkly as she squirmed to find some give in the bondage, only to find there was none. Morgan reached down and took hold of one of Moira's legs by the ankle. She tried to kick, but found that Morgan’s grip was too strong. Before Moira knew it she had lost both of her boots, leaving her feet shod in thin cotton socks. Her feet squirmed when introduced to their new predicament, one sole covering the other.

“Straighten your legs, please.” Morgan asked, taking a good hard look at Moira for what seemed like the first time. She was shorter than Morgan thought, standing almost six inches less than Morgan herself. She was also a hell of a lot cuter than Morgan was expecting, with auburn hair tied in braids, chocolate brown eyes that were surprisingly soft and a curvaceous figure. For a moment Morgan started to wonder if she had maybe caught the wrong gal.

“I ain't doing what ya say.” Moira spat back in an act of defiance, causing Morgan to sigh deeply.

“We can do this the hard way if you would prefer.” Morgan picked up the large wooden stake in one hand and mallet in the other. Moira’s eyes widened for a moment, but then turned to a look of curiosity when Morgan began to hammer the stake into the ground about four feet away from the tree. It took almost a minute to embed it fully, but once she was done Morgan knew that even her horse wouldn’t have been able to pull this out of the ground. Next she took the rope and coiled it in a complex way until she had made another lasso, though this one was much smaller.

“Last chance to do as I ask.”

“Or else what?”

“Or I embarrass you again, like this.” With slow and deliberate movements, Morgan picked the coiled rope up and reached out her other hand. Despite kicking and flailing as best she could, Moira couldn’t stop the other woman from seizing a firm grip on her ankle and pulling her leg taught, the joints and muscles straightening against her will.

“Get off me! Ya have no idea what trouble yer in!” Moira’s voice was getting shriller, higher pitched and with more of a panicked twinge to it. Morgan still hadn’t explained what was about to happen next. Kneeling across Moira’s shin, she reached out and took hold of her other leg and pulled it beside the first. Moira was probably referring to her affiliation with the Red Hand gang, but probably didn’t realise that Morgan was in the saloon last night and heard this little firecracker openly admit she wasn’t running with that gang anymore.

The trap closed over Moira’s ankles and she was forced to watch as Morgan pulled the ropes taut and bound it to the stake. Her knotwork was hypnotic and impeccable to the point where Moira didn’t even bother to struggle, she just glowered at Morgan, who by this point was starting to enjoy herself.

“Now.” She began, setting a small canvas bag down next to Moira’s bound and socked feet. “It’s time to talk, Moira.” As she spoke, Morgan took a number of items out of her bag and laid them out on the ground. A pair of soft looking eagle tail feathers, a horse grooming brush and a ball of twine.

“What… are ya gonna tickle me or something?” Moira said astutely. Morgan looked her right in the eye and allowed a tiny smile to creep into the corners of her lips. “Wait… I know ya.” Moira exclaimed, eyes going wide with horror at the realisation. “Yer the Kentucky Quill!” Morgan nodded once and tipped her hat in acknowledgement.

“That’s right. So you know what comes next, but you don’t know what I want, but I bet you can guess..” Picking up the plumes before regarding her captive’s socks, Morgan inspected the material. They were white cotton socks, or rather they were white once. A little dirty these days, with some holes in the toes and one or two around the sole. It wasn’t an uncommon sight by any means. It was a welcome sight for Morgan though, as she often liked to start with the socks on.

“I imagine ya want me to talk about my stash from the big train job, but ya must be outta yer mind if ya think I’m gonna spill my guts from a little ticklin'.”

“It always starts and ends the same way. Last chance before we get started.”

“Do yer worst!” Moira glowered.

“As you wish.” Morgan said, delighted that Moira was going to try to resist. She always loved it when they put up a fight, but every single person the Kentucky Quill had ever tied up had spilled the beans one way or another. “Say your prayers Moira, because you’ll need a higher power to resist.”

With that said, Morgan slipped an eagle feather into Moira's left sock through one of the holes in the toes. The bandit squirmed her ankle, trying to jerk her foot away, but Morgan simply took hold of the top of Moiras foot in the palm of her other hand to hold it still. Twisting the feather between her fingers, Morgan caused the implement to spin around in the sock, tickling Moira’s sole. The bandit twitched and struggled as best she could, trying not to laugh in a vain attempt to deprive Morgan of her fun. Little did Moira know, but this was exactly how Morgan liked it.

“Come on quit it!” Moira growled, more bravely than she probably felt by this point, “Yer not gonna break me with this kids stuff, I ain't never gonna tell ya where my stash is!”

The quill sawed up and down throughout the sock, finding all sorts of little places to get lost in for a few moments before gliding back upwards. Trapping the feather between the sock and the sole did diminish how ticklish it was, but it made it much harder to get away from, as Moira was quickly discovering. Since she couldn't make very dramatic movements with her foot, Moira found that the small movements she could make were actually contributing to tickling her foot. She began to titter in earnest.

“Quit it I said!” She yelled now, squirming in her bondage even more, knowing it would earn her only deepening rope marks.

“You are in control of your own tickling, Moira.” A shiver went down Morgan’s back when she said the word “Tickling”. She normally disliked saying or hearing the word because of how it made her feel, but in this context it was thrilling. There were things you could say to a bound captive that you could never say in polite conversation, and if you did manage to say them in that context it would never convey the same titillating feeling. “Just as soon as you cry for mercy and tell me where your stash is, I’ll stop tickling and we can set off to go dig it up.”

It was time to up the ante, Morgan felt, so she released her hold on Moira’s foot and then placed the other feather in her other sock, this time through the hole in the sole. Moira gave out a squeal at the contact and began squirming both feet back and forth. It didn't do her much good at this point though, Morgan was moving more or less in time with Moira to keep up the tickling sensations.

“Wait a second!” Cracks in Moira‘s armour were visibly forming as sweat beaded at her freckled forehead. Clearly she was growing frustrated at the insistent tickling and her own inability to quell it or escape it. “Give me a minute, would ya? I gotta remember where it is!”

Morgan knew full well that this was a stalling tactic to earn her feet a break, but she indulged it with amusement. Letting Moira have a modicum of control allowed Morgan to take it away as a punishment, which always led to some of her favourite scenarios when tickling a prisoner. Withdrawing the feathers she teased them down Moira‘s sock covered insteps, and even this was giving the bandit cause to squirm.

“Take all the time you want, dear. I‘ll still be here waiting to continue the second you decide that you can‘t recall, or when you've found your nerve again.”

“Ya dirty... grrr…”

“The only thing dirty around here are your socks. Speaking of which, since you‘re clearly stalling, I think it‘s time we took them off.”

Without waiting to listen to her complaints, Morgan stripped Moira of her socks. She took both at once in one single yank of the material gathered by the toes and tossed them over her shoulder. Moira wouldn't be needing socks for the foreseeable future as far as Morgan was concerned.

“Damn it! Ya can‘t do this to me!”

“Actually, I can and I am, and there isn‘t anything you can do to stop me. Plus, I know for a fact that this valley is used as a route infrequently, so we are unlikely to be discovered if you were hoping for rescue from your predicament. I don‘t mind if you give up now, in ten minutes, in an hour, or even tomorrow morning. All I know is that I am going to tickle your bare feet until you submit and talk.”

Without waiting for further discourse, Morgan swept the tips of the feathers from Moira‘s heels to the tips of her short toes. The bandit‘s feet were small and wide, forming almost an inverted triangle shape and with aforementioned short, round toes. It would be a challenge to get fingernails between them, but the feather fit just fine. Sawing it back and forth elicited shrieks of panic from Moira, but because she could still wiggle her feet back and forth a bit, Morgan struggled to keep the feather in that sweet spot that would make her squeal. Instead she began sweeping both feathers randomly up and down her flailing feet, which struggled from side to side like a metronome.

“Quit it! Quit it! I’ll never talk, ya pain in the ass!” Moira struggled to speak in between her squeaks, squeals and attempt to keep her lips together. She hadn’t out and out laughed yet, but Morgan was working up to it. Her feet were plenty ticklish though, pleasing the bounty hunter immeasurably. She anticipated that Moira would be begging around the time the brush got to her soles based on her experience of tickling bound feet.

“Then I’ll never give you another break. I bet you’ll need me to stop way before I need to stop. The only thing that gets you breaks is information.” Morgan retorted matter of factly. By now she had been feathering Moira for about a minute and a half and already she could see the resolve cracking on the bandit.

After that, Morgan just ignored every insult, threat and swear word that came out of Moira’s filthy mouth. The feather continued to stroke up and down time after time, teasing at the edges of her feet, sweeping under the toes, dominating the arch of the foot and tracking along each of the bandit’s adorable toes. As Morgan progressed with the tenacious tickling, Moira lost the ability to hold in her giggles, then she began to guffaw,

“Stop! Stop! I’ll tell ya where the money is!” Moira yelled through her laughter. Morgan didn’t stop right away though, every action she performed aimed at taking control away from Moira and illustrating just who was in charge. The feathers decreased in speed gradually, like a train approaching a station until the tips rested against the captive woman’s heels.

“Talk then.” Morgan said, knowing that she wouldn’t. Knowing this was just a ploy to make the tickling stop for a moment, and it took every ounce of self control to not smile knowing what her counter play to this move was ahead of time. From her experience what came next would either be an outright lie, stalling tactics, a conversation attempt, or in her favourite cases pleading. There was something just so satisfying about upping the ante on someone who was begging for mercy, yet unwilling to actually break properly.

“Wait a sec, wait- ahh!” Stalling it was, so Morgan stroked both feathers up Moira’s soles.

“Talk.” Morgan said gruffly, as if she were losing her patience, as opposed to having the time of her life.

“Fuck off!” Moira yelled with all the violent venom she could muster in between having her soles feathered. Well that tore it. Morgan wouldn’t stand for a foul mouth pointed in her direction. Wordlessly she placed the feathers down and picked up the twine.

“You asked for this.” She warned, taking a length of the course material and winding it around Moira’s big toes in a handcuff knot, before tying it off around the rope securing her ankles. It pulled both of Moira's feet together and then bent them back to force the soles taut. She could still wiggle all of her other toes, but her big toes were now restrained. The bound woman tried to spit at Morgan, tried to shout at her to get her attention, and tried to find a flaw in the bondage. Nothing was working, and now the lesson was to be implemented. She did this to herself.

Using the edges of the feathers, Morgan now inserted them into space beside her restrained big toes and moved them back and forth simultaneously, stimulating the soft flesh between her toes. The reaction was an instantaneous shriek and immediate remorse, manifested by a renewed bout of begging and promising to cooperate. She had earned this though, Morgan thought as she lazily sawed back and forth, putting minimal effort in to get uproarious results. She would continue to punish Moira for a good minute of non-stop sawing between her hypersensitive toes. When the bandit started growing hoarse from all the undignified screeching, Morgan ceased between the toes and began stroking her taut soles instead. The realisation that she was unable to move her feet away from the torment hardly at all brought out a renewed bout of helpless laughter from Moira. She tried to restrain it, tried to fight it, but Morgan knew her stomach muscles would be aching by now.

“Quit it!” She yelled between forced laughter. “Stop! I’ll tell ya, I mean it!” Morgan smirked to hear it and carried on regardless. She had just built up a rhythm of alternating strokes and was enjoying the laughter too much. She also wanted Moira to realise that the more she tried to resist and deceive the more devious her captor would be. Another thirty seconds or so and she again began to slow before resting the plumes against Moira’s toes, holding them hostage.

“Go on then. And don’t bother lying, because I’ll know.” Morgan punctuated her threat with a little reminder of the consequences. She twisted the feather between her thumb and forefinger, causing it to slightly brush against Moira’s tip toes. The bandit winced, but didn’t say anything at first, taking this moment to breathe deeply. When she did speak, her voice was as dark as a brooding storm.

“When I get loose, I’m gonna git ya, an’ I’m gonna tie ya up. Then I’m gonna take yer boots off an’ I’m gonna do the exact same thing to ya, see how ya like it!” That concept took Morgan back a bit. Nobody had ever threatened to tickle her before. Plenty had offered to kill her, skin her alive, tie her to train tracks, etcetera.

“So let me get this straight.” She said, taking the twine and forming a series of little loops. Each of these loops found their way around a toe and proceeded to pull back and tie each piece of twine to the ropes binding Moira’s ankles. “You want to tie me up so that I’m as helpless as you are now. Then you want to take my boots off, and then take my socks off, so that I’m as barefoot as you are now...” Morgan was getting a little too into this, which Moira was probably picking up on, but Morgan carried on anyway. It wasn’t every day she got to say these things to someone. “Then,” she continued, voice almost trembling now, “you want to tickle my poor defenceless bare soles until I cry uncle?”

Moira’s dark veneer melted like butter during the course of Morgan’s speech and she smirked. “Yer, that’s right. Only ya won’t be askin’ for uncle, will ya? Prob’ly just ask me to fuck ya instead.” This definitely hadn’t happened to Morgan before and she was a little taken aback by it. “So how's about it? Do ya want a turn to get tied up an’ tickled?”

A thrill ran through Morgan’s body hearing another woman offer to tie her up and tickle her, but her mind raced to quash the feeling. This was about getting the money, and about collecting the bounty for this vile excuse for a cowgirl.

“You’re going to want to keep your dirty talk to yourself.” Morgan said, discarding the feathers and gently rubbing Moira’s soles with her fingertips. “All I want from you is information, and if you keep talking dirty I’ll gag you with your dirty socks.” Without giving Moira a chance to backchat, Morgan skittered her manicured nails right over the arches of her captive’s feet. Moira screamed, much louder than Morgan had been anticipating, and immediately began begging and pleading and saying she was sorry.

Morgan had to find a way to calm down now though. She knew she was blushing deeply, as the scarlet in her cheeks caused them to radiate warmth. What did she plan to do with the money when all this was done? Well, she had planned to buy a ranch and try her hand at raising horses herself. Just her and the horses. It never occurred to her before now just how lonely a dream that seemed. With no more feet to tickle. No more bandits to interrogate in her own special way. No more “Please don’t tickle me!” No more “Not there! Anywhere but there!” No more “Anything but the feather!” She frowned at the small bare feet in front of her that tried every conceivable angle to squirm more than an inch in any direction.

“Mercy! Mercy! Mercy! Ahhhhhh! I can’t stand it!” Moira’’s laughter came in gales now, and her tone of voice was at the precipice of panic. In a blur of nails manicured to a point, scraping up every little bit of Moira’s flesh, the bandit’s resolve finally broke. Morgan ceased suddenly and looked up at Moira, slightly wild eyed as she returned to reality. Somehow Moira had managed to shake her hair out of the braids and her naturally curly hair was all over the place now, including matted to her forehead. She panted and sweated profusely, looking like she had been for a five mile run.

“Mercy…” She panted once more, shoulders drooped and leaning forwards as much as she could. “I’ll tell ya where the stash is.” Morgan had snapped out of it fully by now and was watching Moira carefully, nails poised to tickle again should they need to.

“I’m waiting.” Morgan said, impatiently. Again though, feeling anything but impatient with a captive as cute and as ticklish as Moira.

“I buried it under a stump, out by the red ridge. On the North side, near the creek. I… I’ll take ya there.” Moira said, dejectedly.

“Very good. Now apologise to me.”

Moira’s head snapped up. “Fer what!?”

“You said some very nasty things to me, and I want you to apologise properly.”

“Ya’v got to be kiddin’ me. I’m supposed to get tickled to high hell then apologise to ya ‘cause ya got hot under the collar? Uh-uh. I may have said I give, but I ain’t givin’ ya that satisfaction.”

“Wrong answer.” Morgan grinned, picking up the horse brush, whilst her heart skipped in joy that it was coming to this. The bristles on the brush were soft, but that only seemed to make things worse as the fibres scraped all along the bottoms of Moira’s feet. Morgan knew from experience that this was the most ticklish of the tools she had in her arsenal. Nobody withstood the brush for long, and Moira certainly wouldn’t be able to last on account of how ticklish she was.

“Please! Please! Am sorry! I’ll do it! I’ll say whatever ya want!” Moira pleaded, dispersed amongst hysterical laughter and attempts to draw breath deep enough to laugh back out. Morgan ignored her gleefully, the brush educating Moira in ways no prison cell ever would, and the way no gallows ever could.

“Now Moira, you’re gonna laugh it up some more, and then we are going to pack up and head up to Red Ridge, and you’re going to dig up your treasure for me. You’re going to be a good girl, and you’re going to do as your told, otherwise these pretty little feet of yours will get brush again. I get the feeling you don’t want the brush any more?”

“No! No! No! No more!” Moira squealed. “I’ll be good! I swears it! I’ll do whatever you want!”

Morgan pressed on regardless, pushing the brush up against the undersides of Moira’s toes, long since aware that this was the most ticklish part of her whole foot. “Good girl. Now, tell me who is your mistress.” Morgan said in a sweet and innocent voice, yet the continence of which was growing darker with every second of tickle torture that passed.

“Wait! Someone is coming! Wait! Stop! Behind you!” Moira screamed at the top of her lungs, coughing and struggling now as she battled the brush in a losing affair. Morgan thought it was a ploy to get her to stop tickling, so she carried on, but it was only a few more seconds before something bashed her right behind the ear and she fell forwards onto the ground with a low moan, face landing right next to the very feet she had been torturing for almost an hour now.

The last thing she saw before she passed out was a pair of cowboy boots stepping closer and a feminine voice speaking. “Well look at what we have here. It’s a good thing I overheard the location of your stash. Seems quite a ticklish situation all told.” The sound of the woman’s laughter resonated within the halls of Morgan’s mind as unconsciousness pulled her deeper into the dark.

[sociologyquotes]

Post-Katrina, White Vigilantes Shot African-Americans With Impunity

from the article Post-Katrina, White Vigilantes Shot African-Americans With Impunity by A.C. Thompson

“The way Donnell Herrington tells it, there was no warning. One second he was trudging through the heat. The next he was lying prostrate on the pavement, his life spilling out of a hole in his throat, his body racked with pain, his vision blurred and distorted.

It was Sept. 1, 2005, some three days after Hurricane Katrina crashed into New Orleans, and somebody had just blasted Herrington, who is African-American, with a shotgun. "I just hit the ground. I didn't even know what happened," recalls Herrington, a burly 32-year-old with a soft drawl.

The sudden eruption of gunfire horrified Herrington's companions -- his cousin Marcel Alexander, then 17, and friend Chris Collins, then 18, who are also black. "I looked at Donnell and he had this big old hole in his neck," Alexander recalls. "I tried to help him up, and they started shooting again." Herrington says he was staggering to his feet when a second shotgun blast struck him from behind; the spray of lead pellets also caught Collins and Alexander. The buckshot peppered Alexander's back, arm and buttocks.

Herrington shouted at the other men to run and turned to face his attackers: three armed white males. Herrington says he hadn't even seen the men or their weapons before the shooting began. As Alexander and Collins fled, Herrington ran in the opposite direction, his hand pressed to the bleeding wound on his throat. Behind him, Herrington says, the gunmen yelled, "Get him! Get that nigger!"

The attack occurred in Algiers Point. The Point, as locals call it, is a neighborhood within a neighborhood, a small cluster of ornate, immaculately maintained 150-year-old houses within the larger Algiers district. A nationally recognized historic area, Algiers Point is largely white, while the rest of Algiers is predominantly black. It's a "white enclave" whose residents have "a kind of siege mentality," says Tulane University historian Lance Hill, noting that some white New Orleanians "think of themselves as an oppressed minority."

A wide street lined with towering trees, Opelousas Avenue marks the dividing line between Algiers Point and greater Algiers, and the difference in wealth between the two areas is immediately noticeable. "On one side of Opelousas it's 'hood, on the other side it's suburbs," says one local. "The two sides are totally opposite, like muddy and clean."

Algiers Point has always been somewhat isolated: it's perched on the west bank of the Mississippi River, linked to the core of the city only by a ferry line and twin gray steel bridges. When the hurricane descended on Louisiana, Algiers Point got off relatively easy. While wide swaths of New Orleans were deluged, the levees ringing Algiers Point withstood the Mississippi's surging currents, preventing flooding; most homes and businesses in the area survived intact. As word spread that the area was dry, desperate people began heading toward the west bank, some walking over bridges, others traveling by boat. The National Guard soon designated the Algiers Point ferry landing an official evacuation site. Rescuers from the Coast Guard and other agencies brought flood victims to the ferry terminal, where soldiers loaded them onto buses headed for Texas.

Facing an influx of refugees, the residents of Algiers Point could have pulled together food, water and medical supplies for the flood victims. Instead, a group of white residents, convinced that crime would arrive with the human exodus, sought to seal off the area, blocking the roads in and out of the neighborhood by dragging lumber and downed trees into the streets. They stockpiled handguns, assault rifles, shotguns and at least one Uzi and began patrolling the streets in pickup trucks and SUVs. The newly formed militia, a loose band of about 15 to 30 residents, most of them men, all of them white, was looking for thieves, outlaws or, as one member put it, anyone who simply "didn't belong."

The existence of this little army isn't a secret -- in 2005 a few newspaper reporters wrote up the group's activities in glowing terms in articles that showed up on an array of pro-gun blogs; one Cox News story called it "the ultimate neighborhood watch." Herrington, for his part, recounted his ordeal in Spike Lee's documentary When the Levees Broke. But until now no one has ever seriously scrutinized what happened in Algiers Point during those days, and nobody has asked the obvious questions. Were the gunmen, as they claim, just trying to fend off looters? Or does Herrington's experience point to a different, far uglier truth?

Over the course of an 18-month investigation, I tracked down figures on all sides of the gunfire, speaking with the shooters of Algiers Point, gunshot survivors and those who witnessed the bloodshed. I interviewed police officers, forensic pathologists, firefighters, historians, medical doctors and private citizens, and studied more than 800 autopsies and piles of state death records. What emerged was a disturbing picture of New Orleans in the days after the storm, when the city fractured along racial fault lines as its government collapsed.

Herrington and Alexander's experience fits into a broader pattern of violence in which, evidence indicates, at least 11 people were shot. In each case the targets were African-American men, while the shooters, it appears, were all white.

The new information should reframe our understanding of the catastrophe. Immediately after the storm, the media portrayed African-Americans as looters and thugs -- Mayor Ray Nagin, for example, told Oprah Winfrey that "hundreds of gang members" were marauding through the Superdome. Now it's clear that some of the most serious crimes committed during that time were the work of gun-toting white males.

So far, their crimes have gone unpunished. No one was ever arrested for shooting Herrington, Alexander and Collins -- in fact, there was never an investigation. I found this story repeated over and over during my days in New Orleans. As a reporter who has spent more than a decade covering crime, I was startled to meet so many people with so much detailed information about potentially serious offenses, none of whom had ever been interviewed by police detectives.

Hill, who runs Tulane's Southern Institute for Education and Research and closely follows the city's racial dynamics, isn't surprised the Algiers Point gunmen have eluded arrest. Because of the widespread notion that blacks engaged in looting and thuggery as the disaster unfolded, Hill believes, many white New Orleanians approved of the vigilante activity that occurred in places like Algiers Point. "By and large, I think the white mentality is that these people are exempt -- that even if they committed these crimes, they're really exempt from any kind of legal repercussion," Hill tells me. "It's sad to say, but I think that if any of these cases went to trial, and none of them have, I can't see a white person being convicted of any kind of crime against an African-American during that period."

You can trace the origins of the Algiers Point militia to the misfortune of Vinnie Pervel. A 52-year-old building contractor and real estate entrepreneur with a graying buzz cut and mustache, Pervel says he lost his Ford van in a carjacking the day after Katrina made landfall, when an African-American man attacked him with a hammer. "The kid whacked me," recalls Pervel, who is white. "Hit me on the side of the head." Vowing to prevent further robberies, Pervel and his neighbors began amassing an arsenal. "For a day and a half we were running around getting guns," he says. "We got about 40."

Things quickly got ugly. Pervel remembers aiming a shotgun at a random African-American man walking by his home -- even though he knew the man had no connection to the theft of his vehicle. "I don't want you passing by my house!" Pervel says he shouted out.

Pervel tells me he feared goons would kill his mother, who is in her 70s. "We thought we would be dead," he says. "We thought we were doomed." And so Pervel and his comrades set about fortifying the area. One resident gave me video footage of the leafy barricades the men constructed to keep away outsiders. Others told me they created a low-tech alarm system, tying aluminum cans and glass bottles together and stringing them across the roads at ankle height. The bottles and cans would rattle noisily if somebody bumped into them, alerting the militia.

Pervel and his armed neighbors point to the very real chaos that was engulfing the city and claim they had no other choice than to act as they did. They paint themselves as righteous defenders of property, a paramilitary formation protecting their neighborhood from opportunistic thieves. "I'm not a racist," Pervel insists. "I'm a classist. I want to live around people who want the same things as me."

Nathan Roper, another vigilante, says he was unhappy that outsiders were disturbing his corner of New Orleans and that he was annoyed by the National Guard's decision to use the Algiers Point ferry landing as an evacuation zone. "I'm telling you, it was 40, 50 people at a time getting off these boats," says Roper, who is in his 50s and works for ServiceMaster, a house cleaning company. The storm victims were "hoodlums from the Lower Ninth Ward and that part of the city," he says. "I'm not a prejudiced individual, but you just know the outlaws who are up to no good. You can see it in their eyes."

The militia, according to Roper, was armed with "handguns, rifles [and] shotguns"; he personally carried "a .38 in my waistband" and a "little Uzi." "There was a few people who got shot around here," Roper, a slim man with a weathered face, tells me. "I know of at least three people who got shot. I know one was dead 'cause he was on the side of the road."

During the summer of 2005 Herrington was working as an armored car driver for the Brink's company and living in a rented duplex about a mile from Algiers Point. Katrina thrashed the place, blowing out windows, pitching a hefty pine tree limb through the roof and dumping rain on Herrington's possessions. On the day of the shooting, Herrington, Alexander and Collins were all trying to escape the stricken city, and set out together on foot for the Algiers Point ferry terminal in the hopes of getting on an evacuation bus.

Those hopes were dashed by a barrage of shotgun pellets. After two shots erupted, Collins and Alexander took off running and ducked into a shed behind a house to hide from the gunmen, Alexander tells me. The armed men, he says, discovered them in the shed and jammed pistols in their faces, yelling, "We got you niggers! We got you niggers!" He continues, "They said they was gonna tie us up, put us in the back of the truck and burn us. They was gonna make us suffer...I thought I was gonna die. I thought I was gonna leave earth."

Apparently thinking they'd caught some looters, the gunmen interrogated and verbally threatened Collins and Alexander for 10 to 15 minutes, Alexander says, before one of the armed men issued an ultimatum: if Alexander and Collins left Algiers Point and told their friends not to set foot in the area, they'd be allowed to live.

Meanwhile, Herrington was staring at death. "I was bleeding pretty bad from my neck area," he recalls. When two white men drove by in a black pickup truck, he begged them for help. "I said, 'Help me, help me -- I'm shot,'" Herrington recalls. The response, he tells me, was immediate and hostile. One of the men told Herrington, "Get away from this truck, nigger. We're not gonna help you. We're liable to kill you ourselves." My God, thought Herrington, what's going on out here?

He managed to stumble back to a neighbor's house, collapsing on the front porch. The neighbors, an African-American couple, wrapped him in a sheet and sped him to the nearest hospital, the West Jefferson Medical Center, where, medical records (PDF) show, he was X-rayed at 3:30 pm. According to the records, a doctor who reviewed the X-rays found "metallic buck-shot" scattered throughout his chest, arms, back and abdomen, as well as "at least seven [pellets] in the right neck." Within minutes, Herrington was wheeled into an operating room for emergency surgery.

"It was a close-range buckshot wound from a shotgun," says Charles Thomas, one of the doctors who operated on Herrington. "If he hadn't gotten to the hospital, he wouldn't have lived. He had a hole in his internal jugular vein, and we were able to find it and fix it."

After three days in the hospital, which lacked running water, air conditioning and functional toilets, Herrington was shuttled to a medical facility in Baton Rouge. When he returned to New Orleans months later, he paid a visit to the Fourth District police station, whose officers patrol the west bank, and learned there was no police report documenting the attack. Herrington, who now has a wide scar stretching the length of his neck, says the officers he spoke with failed to take a report or check out his story, a fact that still bothers him. "If the shoe was on the other foot, if a black guy was willing to go out shooting white guys, the police would be up there real quick," he says. "I feel these guys should definitely be held accountable. These guys had absolutely no right to do what they did."

Herrington, Alexander and Collins are the only victims, so far, to tell their stories. But they certainly weren't the only ones attacked in or around Algiers Point. In interviews, vigilantes and residents -- citing the exact locations and types of weapons used -- detail a string of violent incidents in which at least eight other people were shot, bringing the total number of shooting victims to at least 11, some of whom may have died.

Other evidence bolsters this tally. Thomas, the surgeon who treated Herrington, staffed one of the few functioning trauma centers in the area, located just outside the New Orleans city line, not far from Algiers Point, for a full month after the hurricane hit. "We saw a bunch of gunshot wounds," he tells me. "There were a lot of gunshot wounds that went unreported during that time." Though Thomas couldn't get into the specifics of the shooting incidents because of medical privacy laws, he says, "We saw a couple of other shotgun wounds, some handgun shootings and somebody who was shot with a high-velocity missile [an assault-rifle round]." The surgeon remembers handling "five or six nonfatal gunshot wounds" as well as three lethal gunshot cases.

In addition, state death records show that at least four people died in and around Algiers Point, a suspicious number, given that most Katrina fatalities were the result of drowning, and that that community never flooded. Neighborhood residents, black and white, remember seeing corpses lying out in the open that appeared to have been shot.

While the militia patrolled the streets of Algiers Point, the New Orleans Police Department, which had done little to brace for the storm, was crippled. "There was no leadership, no equipment, no nothing," recalls one high-ranking police official. "We did no more to prepare for a hurricane than we would have for a thunderstorm." Without functioning radios or dispatch systems, officers had no way of knowing what was happening a block away, let alone on the other side of the city. NOPD higher-ups had no way to give direction to unit commanders and other subordinates. As the chain of command disintegrated, the force dissolved into a collection of isolated, quasi-autonomous bands.

Around Algiers Point people say they rarely saw cops during the week after Katrina tore through Louisiana, and in this law enforcement vacuum the militia's unique brand of justice flourished. Most disturbing, one of the vigilantes, Roper, claims on videotape recorded just weeks after the storm that the shootings took place with the knowledge and consent of the police. "The police said, 'If they're breaking in your property, do what you gotta do and leave them [the bodies] on the side of the road,'" he says.

As we drive through Algiers Point in a battered white van, Roper tells me he witnessed a fatal shooting. Roper says he was talking on his cellphone to his son in Lafayette one evening when he spied an African-American man trying to get into Daigle's Grocery, a corner market on the eastern edge of the neighborhood, which was shuttered because of the hurricane. Another militia member shot the man from a few feet away, killing him. "He was done," Roper recalls.

During our conversations, Roper never acknowledges firing his weapon, but in 2005 a Danish documentary crew videotaped him talking about his activities. In this footage Roper says, when pressed, that he did indeed shoot somebody.

Fellow militia member Wayne Janak, 60, a carpenter and contractor, is more forthcoming with me. "Three people got shot in just one day!" he tells me, laughing. We're sitting in his home, a boxy beige-and-pink structure on a corner about five blocks from Daigle's Grocery. "Three of them got hit right here in this intersection with a riot gun," he says, motioning toward the streets outside his home. Janak tells me he assumed the shooting victims, who were African-American, were looters because they were carrying sneakers and baseball caps with them. He guessed that the property had been stolen from a nearby shopping mall. According to Janak, a neighbor "unloaded a riot gun" -- a shotgun -- "on them. We chased them down."

Janak, who was carrying a pistol, says he grabbed one of the suspected looters and considered killing him, but decided to be merciful. "I rolled him over in the grass and saw that he'd been hit in the back with the riot gun," he tells me. "I thought that was good enough. I said, 'Go back to your neighborhood so people will know Algiers Point is not a place you go for a vacation. We're not doing tours right now.'"

He's equally blunt in Welcome to New Orleans, an hourlong documentary produced by the Danish video team, who captured Janak, beer in hand, gloating about hunting humans. Surrounded by a crowd of sunburned white Algiers Point locals at a barbeque held not long after the hurricane, he smiles and tells the camera, "It was great! It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it." A native of Chicago, Janak also boasts of becoming a true Southerner, saying, "I am no longer a Yankee. I earned my wings." A white woman standing next to him adds, "He understands the N-word now." In this neighborhood, she continues, "we take care of our own."

Janak, who says he'd been armed with two .38s and a shotgun, brags about keeping the bloody shirt worn by a shooting victim as a trophy. When "looters" showed up in the neighborhood, "they left full of buckshot," he brags, adding, "You know what? Algiers Point is not a pussy community."

Within that community the gunmen enjoyed wide support. In an outtake from the documentary, a group of white Algiers Point residents gathers to celebrate the arrival of military troops sent to police the area. Addressing the crowd, one local praises the vigilantes for holding the neighborhood together until the Army Humvees trundled into town, noting that some of the militia figures are present at the party. "You all know who you are," the man says. "And I'm proud of every one of you all." Cheering and applause erupts from the assembled locals.

Some of the gunmen prowling Algiers Point were out to wage a race war, says one woman whose uncle and two cousins joined the cause. A former New Orleanian, this source spoke to me anonymously because she fears her relatives could be prosecuted for their crimes. "My uncle was very excited that it was a free-for-all -- white against black -- that he could participate in," says the woman. "For him, the opportunity to hunt black people was a joy."

"They didn't want any of the 'ghetto niggers' coming over" from the east side of the river, she says, adding that her relatives viewed African-Americans who wandered into Algiers Point as "fair game." One of her cousins, a young man in his 20s, sent an e-mail to her and several other family members describing his adventures with the militia. He had attached a photo in which he posed next to an African-American man who'd been fatally shot. The tone of the e-mail, she says, was "gleeful" -- her cousin was happy that "they were shooting niggers."

An Algiers Point homeowner who wasn't involved in the shootings describes another attack. "All I can tell you is what I saw," says the white resident, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. He witnessed a barrage of gunfire -- from a shotgun, an AK-47 and a handgun -- directed by militiamen at two African-American men standing on Pelican Street, not too far from Janak's place. The gunfire hit one of them. "I saw blood squirting out of his back," he says. "I'm an EMT. My instinct should've been to rush to him. But I didn't. And if I had, those guys" -- the militia-men -- "might have opened up on me, too."

The witness shows me a home video he recorded shortly after the storm. On the tape, three white Algiers Point men discuss the incident. One says it might be a bad idea to talk candidly about the crime. Another dismisses the notion, claiming, "No jury would convict."

According to Pervel, one of the shootings occurred just a few feet from his house. "Three young black men were walking down this street and they started moving the barricade," he tells me. The men, he says, wanted to continue walking along the street, but Pervel's neighbor, who was armed, commanded them to keep the barricade in place and leave. A standoff ensued until the neighbor shot one of the men, who then, according to Pervel, "ran a block and died" at the intersection of Alix and Vallette Streets.

Even Pervel is surprised the shootings have generated so little scrutiny. "Aside from you, no one's come around asking questions about this," he says. "I'm surprised. If that was my son, I'd want to know who shot him."

By Pervel's count, four people died violently in Algiers Point in the aftermath of the storm, including a bloody corpse left on Opelousas Avenue. That nameless body came up again and again in interviews, a grisly recurring motif. Who was he? How did he die? Nobody knew -- or nobody would tell me.

After hearing all these gruesome stories, I wonder if any of the militia figures I've interviewed were involved in the shooting of Herrington and company. In particular, Pervel's and Janak's anecdotes intrigue me, since both men discussed shooting incidents that sounded a lot like the crime that nearly killed Herrington and wounded Alexander and Collins. Both Pervel and Janak recounted incidents in which vigilantes confronted three black men.

Hoping to solve the mystery, I show Herrington and Alexander video of Pervel, Janak and Roper, all of whom are in their 50s or 60s. No match. The shooters, Herrington and Alexander tell me, were younger men, in their 30s or 40s, sporting prominent tattoos. I have never been able to track them down.

New Orleans, of course, is awash in tales of the horrible things that transpired in the wake of the hurricane -- and many of these wild stories have turned out to be fictions. In researching the Algiers Point attacks, I relied on the accounts of people who witnessed shooting incidents or were directly involved, either as gunmen or shooting victims.

Seeking to corroborate their stories, I sought out documentary evidence, including police files and autopsy reports. The NOPD, I was told, kept very few records during that period. Orleans Parish coroner Frank Minyard was a different story. The coroner, a flamboyant trumpet-playing doctor who has held the office for more than 30 years, had file cabinets bulging with the autopsies of hundreds of Katrina victims - he just wouldn't let me see them, in defiance of Louisiana public records laws.

After wrangling with the coroner for more than six months, I decided to sue -- with a lawyer hired by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute -- to get access to the autopsies. (We weren't the first to take the coroner to court. CNN and the New Orleans Times-Picayune had successfully sued Minyard, seeking particular Katrina-related autopsies.) This past May, Orleans Parish district court judge Kern Reese ruled in our favor, ordering Minyard to allow me to review every autopsy done in the year after the storm. But I soon learned that reconstructing history from the coroner's mess of files was next to impossible, because the paper trail is incomplete. "We carried the records around in our cars, in the trunks of our cars, for four months and, I mean, that, that was the coroner's office," Minyard said in a sworn deposition obtained during the course of our suit. "I'm sure some of the records got lost or misplaced." Even the autopsy files we got were missing key facts, like where the bodies were found, who recovered them, when they were recovered and so forth.

Many of the manila file folders the coroner eventually turned over were empty, and Minyard said he'd simply chosen not to autopsy some 25 to 50 corpses. The coroner also told us he didn't know exactly how many people were shot to death in the days immediately after the storm -- "I can't even tell you how many gunshot victims we had" -- but figured the number would not "be more than 10."

Under oath Minyard proceeded to say something stunning. The NOPD, he testified, was only investigating three gunshot cases, all of them high-profile -- the Danziger Bridge incident, in which police killed two civilians, and the shooting of Danny Brumfield, who was slain by a cop in front of the Convention Center. Minyard's statement buttressed information I'd gotten from NOPD sources who said the force has done little to prosecute people for assaults or murders committed in the wake of the storm.

I contacted the police department repeatedly over many months, providing the NOPD with specific questions about each incident discussed in this story. The department, through spokesman Robert Young, declined to comment on whether officers had investigated any of these crimes and would not discuss any other issues raised by this article.

Sifting through more than 800 autopsy reports and reams of state health department data, I quickly identified five New Orleanians who had died under suspicious circumstances: one, severely burned, was found in a charred abandoned auto (see "Body of Evidence"); three were shot; and another died of "blunt force trauma to the head." However, it's impossible to tell from the shoddy records whether any of these people died in or around Algiers Point, or even if their bodies were found there.

No one has been arrested in connection with these suspicious deaths. When it comes to the lack of action on the cases, one well-placed NOPD source told me there was plenty of blame to go around. "We had a totally dysfunctional DA's office," he said. "The court system wasn't much better. Everything was in disarray. A lot of stuff didn't get prosecuted. There were a lot of things that were getting squashed. The UCR [uniform crime reports] don't show anything."

In response to detailed queries made over a period of months, New Orleans District Attorney spokesman Dalton Savwoir declined to say whether prosecutors looked into any of the attacks I uncovered. The office has been through a string of leadership changes since Katrina -- Leon Cannizaro is the current DA -- and is struggling to deal with crimes that happened yesterday, let alone three years ago, Savwoir told me.

James Traylor, a forensic pathologist with the Louisiana State University Health Center, worked alongside Minyard at the morgue and suspects that homicide victims fell through the cracks. "I know I did cases that were homicides," Traylor says. "They were not suicides." NOPD detectives, the doctor continues, never spoke to him about two cases he labeled homicides, leading him to believe police conducted no investigation into those deaths. "There should be a multi-agency task force -- police, sheriffs, coroners -- that can put their heads together and figure out what happened to people," Traylor says.

One of the suspicious cases I discovered was that of Willie Lawrence, a 47-year-old African-American male who suffered a "gunshot wound" that caused a "cranio-facial injury" and deposited two chunks of metal in his brain, according to the autopsy report. Minyard never determined whether Lawrence was murdered or committed suicide, choosing to leave the death unclassified. However, the dead man's brother, Herbert Lawrence, who lives in Compton, Calif., believes his sibling was murdered. Herbert tells me he got a phone call from one of Willie's neighbors shortly after he died. The caller said Willie, whose body, according to state records, was found on the east bank of the Mississippi, was killed by a civilian gunman. "The police didn't do anything," Herbert says, pointing out that NOPD officers didn't create a written report or interview any relatives.

Malik Rahim is one of a handful of African-Americans who live in Algiers Point, and as far as he's concerned, "We are tolerated. We are not accepted." In the days after the storm struck, Rahim says, the vigilantes "would pass by and call us all kind of names, say how they were gonna burn down my house." They thought "all blacks was looting."

As he walked the near-deserted streets in that period, Rahim, 61, a former Black Panther with a mane of dreadlocks, came across several dead bodies of African-American men. Inspecting the bodies, he discovered what he took to be evidence of gunfire. "One guy had about his entire head shot off," says Rahim, who was spurred by the storm to launch Common Ground Relief, a grassroots aid organization. "It's pretty hard to think a person drowned when half their head's been blown off," he says. He thinks some of the gunmen saw Katrina as a "golden opportunity to rid the community of African-Americans."

Sitting at his kitchen table, while a noisy AC unit does its best to neutralize the stifling Louisiana heat, Rahim describes the dead and lists the locations where he found the bodies. He also shows me video footage taken days after the storm. On the tape, Rahim points to the grossly distended corpse of an African-American man lying on the ground.

Rahim introduces me to his neighbor, Reggie Bell, 39, the African-American man Pervel confronted at gunpoint as he walked by Pervel's house. At the time, Bell, a cook, lived just a few blocks down the street from Pervel. In Bell's recollection, Pervel, standing with another gun-toting man, demanded to know what Bell was doing in Algiers Point. "I live here," Bell replied. "I can show you mail."

That answer didn't appease the gunmen, he says. According to Bell, Pervel told him, "Well, we don't want you around here. You loot, we shoot."

Roughly 24 hours later, as Bell sat on his front porch grilling food, another batch of armed white men accosted him, intending to drive him from his home at gunpoint, he says. "Whatcha still doing around here?" they asked, according to Bell. "We don't want you around here. You gotta go."

Bell tells me he was gripped by fear, panicked that he was about to experience ethnic cleansing, Louisiana-style. The armed men eventually left, but Bell remained nervous over the coming days. "I believe it was skin color," he says, that prompted the militia to try to force him out. "That was some really wrong stuff." Bell's then-girlfriend, who was present during the second incident, confirms his story. (In a later interview, Pervel admits he confronted Bell with a shotgun but portrays the incident as a minor misunderstanding, saying he's since apologized to Bell.)

On my final visit to Algiers Point, I stand on Patterson Street, my notebook out, interviewing a pair of residents in the dimming evening light. An older white man, on his way home from a bar, strides up and asks what I'm doing. I reply with a vague explanation, saying I'm working on an article about the "untold stories of Hurricane Katrina."

Without a pause, he says, "Oh. You mean the shootings. Yeah, there were a bunch of shootings."

When I share with Donnell Herrington what the militia men and Algiers Point locals have told me over the course of my investigation, he grows silent. His eyes focus on a point far away. After a moment, he says quietly, "That's pretty disturbing to hear that -- I'm not going to lie to you -- to hear that these guys are cocky. They feel like they got away with it."

[quietlyhereshhh]

Gravity (Chapter 9: Restart)

Fandom: Kuroko no Basuke Pairing: AkaFuri Rating: T Warnings: Language Other: Figure Skating AU (AKA I’ve been watching a certain figure skating anime…); probably some OoCness too. Cheesiness probably. Chapters on Tumblr: [Previous] [Next] AO3

Kouki knew he was in trouble as soon as he stepped off the ice.

Akashi had broken into a smile but not one of gentleness or politeness like usual. To anyone else, they would assume that he was pleased but that was far from the truth: there was a certain coldness Kouki had never seen before. His eyes were closed as if unwilling to show him how he truly felt. Kouki instinctively stepped back; a boundary suddenly was created around his coach.

He would have looked away if the seriousness in his voice didn’t catch his attention.

“Your jumps need a bit more work than usual, though I was sure we had them this time,” He was avoiding the main topic. “What was with that sloppy jump combination? And your quad toe loop is usually much cleaner. The arch in your back as you held up your leg could have been softer and—”

Akashi continued. He drabbled on about the technique, the incorrectness of it all, the improper positioning and the amount of speed. He went to talk about his lines or lack of and how the edges of his blades were substandard.

And he stopped there.

But Kouki knew there was more to be said.

They sat in the seats that were prepared for the competitors and their coaches after the skate. Akashi sat on one side and his mother took the other, strangely silent when his coach gave him a mouthful. Kouki glanced over to her and saw that she was not entirely focused, her expression showing more thoughtfulness than anything.

She blinked and turned as if she realized he was staring. She smiled.

“Good job, sweetheart,” She placed a hand on his back and patted it reassuringly. “You did great.”

“Really?” Kouki mumbled sarcastically, not quite believing her due to Akashi’s criticisms. Akashi didn’t say anything, smiling at the cameras that turned in their direction and Kouki suddenly felt a similar adrenaline to his performance just now come up.

He clenched his hands in his lap and looked up and straightened his back. Nobody paid him any mind, asking Akashi for interviews about what he thought about the performance as if he just skated himself; what inspired it, what is needed next. He answered them expertly like he’s done so a thousand times and Kouki forced himself to focus ahead, waiting for his score to come in.

“Furihata Kouki’s score is…” Akashi had stopped talking and he felt his mother’s grip on his shoulder tighten. “83.64, currently putting him in second place.”

“Hah?!” Kouki stared in disbelief as he stared at the screen in front of him. His mother grinned, gripping his shoulders.

“Good job,” She hugged him calmly. He glanced down at her calm face, a twinkle of knowing in her eyes.

“T-thanks…”

He looked over to Akashi. He had that polite smile on his face as the media continued to take pictures but he didn’t say anything else to them. He turned to Kouki.

“Next time,” His voice was even and smooth but Kouki didn’t miss the warning under his tone, “Let’s grab first place, alright?”

Kouki had no choice but to agree.

It wasn’t until they got to their hotel room did the real Akashi reveal himself.

His mother had gone off shopping with Momoi (who had been watching from the audience) and his poor father had been dragged along to carry their bags. Kuroko had disappeared off somewhere like he usually did. Akashi had excused them to talk about the performance and prepare for tomorrow.

Kouki sat on the bed with a grim expression on his face. He had changed into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, playing with the water bottle in his lap.

Akashi sat on the chair next to the table. He was still dressed in his slacks and dress shirt though the sleeves were rolled up to his elbows now. His arms and legs were crossed and his eyes were closed. If Kouki didn’t know any better, he would think he was sleeping.

He didn’t want to break the silence. He didn’t know how to act. Sure, he has seen Akashi angry before but it had always been easy to deal with it; Akashi just scolded him right after, face and emotions were open for him to see. It was easy because Akashi had shown some kind of concern.

But there was no concern on his face now.

“So, tell me, Furihata-kun,” Akashi’s voice was sweet, dripping with venomous honey, “care to explain what happened to that performance?”

“I…” He felt guilty but knew he had to face him. He knew this would happen as soon as he started skating, the emotions just overwhelming him. “I did the best I could.”

“Really?” He looked up at saw Akashi leaning an elbow on his thigh, looking at him expectantly. “You believe that was the best you could do?”

“At the current moment,” Kouki gritted out. “It’s my first competition in over ten years. I don’t exactly have nerves of steel, you know? Even in practice, I never did nail all of those jumps and stuff. And the characterization of this piece is hard—”

“Furihata-kun,” Akashi’s cut through him like a sword. “I don’t need your excuses.”

Kouki flinched.

“Did you take into consideration to what this piece is? What the emotions are behind it and why I gave it to you?”

“Of course I have.”

“Then why didn’t you portray them correctly?” Akashi’s eyes flashed dangerously. “I don’t expect you to emulate my example but you didn’t even catch the right mood. I didn’t expect you to get it perfectly during this competition, but I didn’t expect you to be so off.”

“Mood is up for interpretation,” Kouki turned away with a huff. “I just gave my own.”

“That didn’t match your theme.”

“Not in the way that we discussed it,” Kouki replied sharply. “But it got revitalized. It changed – it transformed. Akashi, I don’t think that I would’ve skated as well as I did if it didn’t.”

“You skated roughly and viciously like a juvenile that didn’t get their own way,” He could feel Akashi’s eyes burning into the back of his skull. “You skated like you were some pubescent child, raging through like a maniac, tripping over your steps.

“You didn’t skate like yourself at all.”

Kouki didn’t dispute the claim that but he didn’t agree either. He refused to look at Akashi who was probably just as angry as he was. He knew he was in the wrong but as they went on arguing, something struck him and now he refused to back down even more.

Something felt wrong.

“I’m done,” Kouki said as he stood up. He barely glanced over at Akashi as he grabbed his jacket from his bed and walked towards the door. “It’s stuffy in here.”

Akashi didn’t call out for him and Kouki felt slightly disappointed. Nevertheless, the door closed behind him and immediately, he squat down and placed his face in his hands.

The shot of adrenaline was now dying out and he tried to calm down. Was this what fighting felt like? He didn’t recall the last time he fought with someone – probably against Hikaru when the older boy did something to him when they were small but he was sure it was nothing big. Kouki always avoided fights, even debates, because he knew that that kind of thing would get him too worked up.

But now, he just made his coach hate him. Worse – his idol.

‘Out of all people…’ Kouki groaned and stood up. He took a deep breath.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

After a brisk walk around the block (he did not get lost, thank god, since the hotel was gigantic and hard to lose sight of), he sighed as he walked up to the door of the room. He knocked three times and waited patiently. It opened to reveal Kuroko.

“Ah,” His voice lilted up slightly to indicate surprise. “Furihata-kun. I thought you were resting?”

“Something like that,” Kouki said as Kuroko moved to the side to let him in. Momoi wasn’t back yet from shopping as far as he could see. He noticed the table near the window was set up with Kuroko’s laptop and familiar camera. “Working?”

“Just going over the footage from today,” Kuroko said as he took a seat. Kouki took a seat on the bed closest to the table and began to fidget. Kuroko’s wide eyes were on him.

“Hmm,” Kouki tilted his head. “Can…can I see?”

“What?”

He hesitated. “My routine. Can I see it?”

Kouki didn’t miss the beat of silence.

“Sure.”

Kuroko quickly moved his mouse, pressing a couple of buttons, before turning the screen to Kouki.

He had never seen raw, uncut footage before. The camera was a bit shaky as if Kuroko was still setting up. It zoomed on him when he skated to the center and he could see it instantly how irregular his movements were. The music began and Kouki watched the unrefined techniques, the blades going off balance and the whirlwind of anger.

“Wow.” Kouki mumbled much calmer than he anticipated. He watched the reckless jumps and the wreck of emotion. Was this how he skated?

‘How desperate.’

“Hey, Kuroko,” Kouki said as he kept his eyes on the screen. “How would you describe my skating?”

“Do you mean from today or usually?”

“Usually.”

“Hmm…” The muffled music and the scraping of ice sat between them. The routine was ending. “Magnetic.”

“What?” Kouki was sure his ears were lying to him as he snapped his head up to stare at his friend. Kuroko’s blank stare was serious and he felt himself shaking his head. “Are you crazy?”

“Well, that’s what I think,” Kuroko answered. “And I’m sure that’s what Akashi-kun thinks as well.”

“Nah. I really doubt that,” Kouki furrowed his brow and laid back on the bed. He stared at the ceiling, trying to absorb what his friend thought. “A guy like him? That’s impossible.”

“It’s not impossible if you think about it,” Kuroko said as if it was a fact. “For what reason did Akashi Seijuurou hop on the first plane to get to you after that video went viral? He was a world-renown skater in the middle of the season, had various more competitions and was considered to be at the prime of his career. He dropped all of that to coach you, Furihata-kun. You have been trained by him for six months and you didn’t question maybe your skating brought him to you?”

Kouki shook his head. “It’s hard to believe such a thing.”

Kuroko turned the computer back to himself and fiddled with the mouse once again. When he turned it back to Kouki, he saw that it was a webpage and instantly knew what it was. He hid his eyes behind his hands, refusing to look.

“Don’t. I already went through a lot of torture when you two made me watch the ones from when I was a kid!”

“You have improved since then.”

“But this routine was a disaster. I know it.”

“But you were proud of it!” Kouki jumped at how sharp Kuroko’s voice was, cutting through him and making him look at his friend. Kuroko’s expression was determined and severe and he knew he was serious. “You were so happy that you managed to land those jumps and complete the salchow. I was there after all. You have never been so pleased after attempting one of Akashi’s routines.

“Everyone is their own biggest critic,” Kuroko acknowledged, “But don’t just dismiss the hard work you’ve put into it.”

“I’m not dismissing it,” Kouki mumbled though he was sure his friend could hear him, “It’s just…hard to believe that someone would think I’m worth their time and effort.”

“Believe it because it’s happening.”

“Not for long!” Kouki snapped his head up. His eyes were wide as he realized something, “Akashi was mad. More than mad – he was pissed. He probably regrets coming to coach me after that performance.”

“I think he’s just…worried.”

“I know worry when I see it and that was not it.”

“Why don’t you talk to him then?”

“He could have left the city by now – no. He probably left to go back to Canada.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Or,” Kuroko stood up from his seat, “He could be waiting outside the door.”

Kouki watched, aghast, as indeed, his coach was standing there, now dressed in a hoodie and a pair of jeans. His red eyes flickered in surprise before Kuroko led him in.

“The video is here,” Kuroko maneuvered his mouse once again. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours so you can just leave the room when you’re finished.”

“Wait, what?” Kouki glared at his friend. “You’re just…leaving?”

“I was summoned by Momoi-san. She said that she needed some more hands for her shopping.”

Somehow, Kouki doubted that Kuroko would be willing to be Momoi’s shopping lackey, but before he had a chance to point that out, he seemed to have a disappeared and there was a silent click of the door closing.

He wanted to leave immediately but felt awkward when Akashi sat where Kuroko did. Akashi didn’t look up and just clicked the left mouse button, familiar music streaming through the computer speakers.

There was little movement as it played. Akashi’s eyes were steady on the screen while Kouki watched him. He tried to read Akashi’s blank face – he had years of training with Kuroko but he didn’t even twitch. His muscles were relaxed and he was completely focused.

He stirred when the music ended. Akashi moved his hand over to the mouse, clicked, and the music played again.

Akashi played it again and again until Kouki lost track. The music was slowly becoming a lingering reminder of what had happened and at some point, Kouki snapped.

“Turn it off,” He gritted through his teeth. “Please.”

Akashi glanced up at him for a moment before turning back to the screen.

Kouki narrowed his eyes.

“I know it’s a piece of shit,” He dropped all politeness. He was getting sick of the music already. “I know that you have issues with it and I know that you hate it.

“I’d rather you just tell me straight up instead of you just ignoring me.” Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. “Just tell me that you want to resign as my coach—”

The music stopped and so did the words on Kouki’s tongue. He shuddered when he saw the pure anger on Akashi’s face. However, it was how eerily calm his voice was did Kouki feel fear.

“Is that what you want?” It was quiet. More so than what Kouki expected. “You want me to quit?”

“Isn’t that what you want?” Kouki didn’t know when the panic had set in his voice. He heard the tremors and the uneven breathing; felt the temperature drop and the fear scald him. His eyes were downcast, staring at the carpeted floor.

And he saw Akashi’s feet step into view. Warmth touched his cheeks and was lifted up, the other’s forehead against his in a familiar gesture. Akashi’s eyes were his light – so close, so bright, and so hard to look at.

“No, it’s not,” His voice was barely a whisper. “It seems like we have a lot to talk about.”

His stomach growled at him with agony.

It wasn’t fear or the moment right before taking a dump. Kouki knew those feelings too well and often confused the two (especially when he had to deal with a particularly nerve-wracking situation). It was something unnerving that had been bothering him all night since he and Akashi left Kuroko’s room and went to bed.

Even stretching, anticipating his turn in a couple of more songs, Kouki couldn’t feel his anxieties. They were replaced with something else and for once, he wished he had them, just for familiarity’s sake.

Akashi was with him, sitting on the bench in the waiting room. His mother didn’t join them this time, seemingly able to sense the unusual mood. Everyone there could sense it and the ruckus around Akashi from the other day calmed down. Reporters understood that they should focus on other things. Even Onodera, who looked pleased that he broke his free skate’s record, didn’t wish Kouki good luck.

They moved to a small hall near the waiting room. Earbuds were in as Kouki went through his steps. Akashi watched from the side, leaning against the wall and eyes observing.

Kouki felt breathless, feeling the intensity on him. Not a word was said, but the air was thick and everything was conveyed through that. Your leg is too low. Your hips need to turn more. You’re too tense—

Everything. Everything. Everything. He could hear it.

He could feel it.

The unsaid words of that moment.

The words spoken last night.

Someone had come by to grab them for his turn. Kouki nodded even though he could barely comprehend anything around him. His heart was beating at a normal rate and his hands were cold, but not sweaty. His legs took their heavy steps forward to the rink, unbounded by the pressure of yesterday and waiting for the final result.

It was telling him to finish what he started.

He stripped off his jacket and handed it to Akashi. Neither said anything to each other as he skated towards the centre and got into positon.

And the music began.

“Did you do some self-reflection?” Akashi asked as he sat across from Kouki. He placed his chin in his palm and blinked.

“Yeah. I thought about it,” Kouki breathed in and looked at Akashi in the eyes. “I don’t regret the stunt I pulled today.”

“Oh?”

His feet seemed to finally get some feeling as he reached his first jump but he wobbled on the landing. He tried to keep his performance façade but inwardly cursed, thinking about the next preparation.

“You don’t feel that it was a disaster?”

“It was,” Kouki almost grumbled because he couldn’t fight that, no matter how he tried. “I’m man enough to admit that. Everything was wrong. Everything cried amateur and I know that I could’ve done better. But I have no regrets.”

The triple axel wasn’t as smooth as he wanted and he could feel something off with his flying sit spin before he did it, unable to do as many rotations as he wanted. But once he got out, he skated forward.

“You skated with reckless abandonment.”

“I did.” Kouki acknowledged with a nod. “But that was me skating. That was my skating.”

“It was not.”

Kouki refused to lose to the music that tortured him. He pivoted and spotted Akashi amongst the cameramen, eyes focused on him.

His triple salchow changed into a quadruple.

And he landed it.

“It was!” He insisted, leaning closer to the edge of the bed. “It was. It wasn’t what you know as my skating, but it was definitely mine. It was scared and uncertain. It was a desperate monster of emotions. It was my life, Akashi. It was real.”

For the first time all day, Kouki heard everything but the music: screaming applause; the faint commentary; the scraping of the ice.

For a brief moment, he thought he could hear Akashi gasp in shock.

“Skating is my life,” Kouki couldn’t figure out where the confidence in his voice came from but he had to roll with it or else it would be lost forever. “If I lose it, that’s it. I’m an empty shell. It has given me so much fear, so much anxiety, so many disasters.

“But it’s given me a purpose. It led me to the idea that I could do something. It led me to happiness.

“It led me to you.”

‘Hey, Akashi,’ Kouki thought as he finished a triple-single combination.

His body leaned forward and a leg was lifted up above him. His arm extended out, eyes settling on one figure alone.

‘Look at me.’

He huffed, stopping when the music did, arms hanging loosely around his body. His eyes looked up at the ceiling where the lights swayed as he did, exhausted and burning. Sweat was dry against his cool and hot skin and it took him a moment to hear the thunderous applause.

His face flushed. He had no idea what had just transpired or where he was on the ice. There were so many things running through his head but they all escaped him.

Kouki turned to the end of the rink, prepared to skate off when he caught Akashi’s expression. He hesitated to get off but knew that he had to, edging closer to the man who stood, ready for him.

A smile graced his features.

“I never intended to question your love of skating, nor did I mean to question what your skating is to you,” Akashi said. He leaned his elbows on his thighs, getting closer to Kouki. “Watching you skate on the screen made me long to see it in real life. I want to see how you do it; how it developed and where it could go. I don’t want to see it self-destruct—”

Akashi paused. His lips twisted as if he just tasted something bitter.

“I don’t want it to be destroyed right when we’ve just started.”

“Me either,” Kouki agreed. “Far beyond that. I want…to get stronger.”

Akashi nodded. “We’ll take it down and build it back up. To be honest, we should have done this from the beginning but I suppose we both had our expectations, didn’t we?”

“You need to work on your coaching.”

“And you shouldn’t be so rebellious when it really counts.”

Kouki snorted, trying to hide the laugh from escaping. He saw Akashi give a soft smile and grinned in return.

“So, a truce for now?”

“For now?” Akashi raised an eyebrow.

“In case one of us gets pissed off again,” Kouki laughed fully this time. “Because building up from scratch is going to have a lot of problems.”

“It is,” Akashi nodded. He stuck out his hand and Kouki accepted with his own, “But I’m glad that we’re willing to take the chance.”

Note: It’s been a long time. Thanks for waiting.

This chapter was focused on some issues Kouki and Akashi had because I did a time skip, doesn’t mean that everything was all good, right? There’s probably going to be more time skips in the future and I won’t be covering every competition/routine.

Please tell me what you think~