#i decided fuck it we're posting.

[druidgroves]

Chapter 08: Rhythm of the Rain

Fandom: Fallout 4 Words: 7,844 Characters: Georgia Tate (Canon Divergent Sole Survivor), RJ MacCready Notes: hi this is one of my fav chapters so far pls enjoy >:3c

read on ao3 ch. 1 / ch. 2 / ch. 3 / ch. 4 / ch. 5 / ch. 6 / ch. 7

For the next three weeks, the settlement game became a hell of a lot easier. They’d rock up to wherever, the Boss would charm the settlers silly with her lofty promises for aid, and they would pay her with whatever caps they could scrape together. The first time Mac had actually tried to press her into asking for more–there was no way he was clearing out a possible feral den without proper reimbursement–she had fixed him with a look so severe that he almost ate his words. She ended up giving him part of her share to make up for it, and Mac had been in no hurry to stop her.

She had given him his weekly pay three times in that interim, always on time and with her promised compensation when caps were low. By the time the Boss would be ready to head back to the city at the end of the month, his pack would be full to bursting with all he’d earned under her. For all the good samaritan work they were doing for the Minutemen, at least working with the Boss was never without reward, and it certainly wasn’t dull.

However, if he didn’t know it before, after three weeks on the road with her, Mac found out the Boss talked a lot.

He might as well have learned everything about her for how much she talked. He learned that her favorite color was something called “blush pink”, that she preferred Nuka-Cherry to Nuka-Cola, and that she had a strong hatred for any sort of bug (that one he knew already after the Radroach Incident, but it only became more clear after the later Bloodbug Incident). He learned that she enjoyed cooking but disliked doing it on the road, loved books but had a weird hang-up about “bending the spines”, and hated the song “A Wonderful Guy” whenever it played on the radio, but would be humming it under her breath an hour later. In addition to her books, he found her to be a magazine collector as well–he’d even gotten a few new comics out of it.

“Bullshit,” she had said one day as they walked. “Are you really tryin’ to tell me that Grognak could take on the Silver Shroud? And win?”

“Grognak could smash that nerd’s head in with his axe, easy,” Mac argued, kicking a rock in the road that Dogmeat went chasing after. “What could the Shroud do? Talk funny at him? Please.”

“Oh, them’s fightin’ words, Mac! So, here’s why you’re wrong—”

(She had then gone on for ten minutes straight).

Mac also learned things about the Boss that weren’t so straightforward as her telling him about herself. Instead, he learned through watching. Not in a creepy way, but in the way that two people traveling together naturally ended up watching each other–sometimes they were the only interesting thing around. He saw that she kept three bobby pins in her hair; two for pinning her low bun in place and one for picking locks. He watched when she would type faster than anyone he’d ever seen, fingers flying over the keys as she hacked her way into any terminal that caught her fancy. He’d seen her cut herself off mid-sentence, then switch the direction of her words like she was avoiding something, but he never called her on it. He saw when she popped a Rad-X before every meal and whenever she brushed her teeth every morning. He knew she had a particular way she packed her things, always pushed her glasses up with her middle finger, and always made a face whenever he’d pick over raider corpses.

“Y’know, this would go a lot faster if you’d help,” Mac had said one evening as he shoved his hand into the inner pocket of one of their vests, coming out with a few cigarettes and some caps.

They’d been clearing the road for traders heading northwest from one of her Minutemen settlements—raiders had been attacking their caravans and stealing their wares, and they’d finally found the hideout as well as the missing cargo. Mac couldn’t remember which settlement had sent out the call, only that they’d gotten word over Radio Freedom and would be paid one hundred and fifty caps upon their return.

The Boss had tried a charismatic approach when they came up to the “toll” the raiders had put up, but it had turned into a shootout the moment their leader recognized who she was. The fact that the guy whose corpse he was now picking over knew her by title concerned Mac, in so far as his connection to her. He had to remind himself that as General, she was still a known quantity, and he was willingly tagging along with her. When all was said and done, though, Mac didn’t mind the extra spoils he got when it came down to the mighty General of the Minutemen’s disdain for picking over bodies.

He looked over his shoulder to where he knew the Boss had been standing, watching him with thinly veiled abhorrence. Her arms were crossed and her nose was scrunched up like she’d smelled something awful.

“Where I’m from, that’s called desecration of a corpse. If I can help it, I’d rather not go diggin’ around in someone else’s pockets,” she said, averting her eyes as he began patting over another body.

Mac almost had to laugh as he pulled out a handful of shotgun shells from their pockets. Scavving off cadavers was standard wasteland practice as far as he was concerned–the dead had no use for extra ammo or a handful of caps. He’d always heard that you “can’t take it with you”, but he figured someone else always could, and he quite liked being that someone else. It paid well.

“So, I guess you’re not interested in these then, right?” he asked, and held the shells aloft for the Boss to see.

“Well, I mean, I am, but—”

(She’d stuck her tongue out at him when she took them later–another one of her little habits).

By the middle of that second week, Mac had come to realize there were many things about the Boss that he couldn’t quite make sense of.

His big theory was that she’d come from a vault, he just hadn’t figured out how to ask which one. He didn’t want a repeat of that night in the library when she closed up faster than a bear trap after his big mouth got away from him. He had a feeling she kept her personal business close to the chest, but even so, he was still incredibly curious about her. He’d decided that she couldn’t have been from any of the local vaults early on, given that two were overrun with Gunners and another by triggermen. Mac was fairly confident in the idea that she couldn’t be from Vault 81 simply because none of their traders that he’d seen and heard sounded like the Boss with all her clipped G’s and long I’s. They all had some variation of the Commonwealth on their tongues that he could never imagine her speaking with.

There was also the Boss’ strangest habit of saying things that didn’t quite make sense. Three weeks to the day they met–it was January something, all Mac knew was that the New Year had come and gone while they were busy doing a clean up job on some mutants–a radstorm rolled over the Commonwealth, long overdue.

He had smelled the radiation on the air before the telltale green clouds made themselves known, and when the geiger counter on the Boss’ Pip-Boy started clicking, it hadn’t taken much to convince her to duck into the nearest building. After they made sure it was clear of hostiles and the Boss had dispensed some Rad-X for the two of them, they had settled into one of the Slocum’s Joe booths to wait out the storm. Dogmeat was tucked under the table between them, fallen asleep last Mac knew.

Now, the sounds of Diamond City Radio played softly from the Boss’ Pip-Boy, marred by static and Travis’ anxious reporting. An hour had passed and the storm showed no signs of letting up any time soon, hellbent on making sure the Commonwealth remembered what mother nature was capable of. Mac had pulled out his comics a while ago, knowing they’d be there for a bit, while the Boss had contented herself with chain smoking and watching the rain through the window, humming quietly along to the radio.

“Funny which songs survived two hundred years,” she said suddenly, a cloud of smoke hanging in the air around them as “The Wanderer” faded out. Her words pulled Mac out of his issue of the Unstoppables.

“Huh?”

“If it were up to me, I’d’ve let both parts of ‘Butcher Pete’ go the way of the old world,” she continued, the corner of her mouth curling slightly.

Thunder boomed high above them as Travis’ voice came on the radio again. The Boss frowned and, without tearing her eyes away from the storm, lowered the volume on her Pip-Boy a few notches.

“What about ‘A Wonderful Guy’?”

“That one, too.”

Silence fell between them again after that, so Mac went back to reading his comic. The Boss ashed her cigarette onto an old dinner plate. The quiet lasted all of two minutes before she spoke again.

“How long do these things usually last?” she asked, nodding towards the window.

“What? Oh,” Mac replied, pulled out of his reading once again as he followed her gaze. “Depends. Haven’t had one in a while, so this one looks like it’s gonna be a beast.”

The Boss seemed both captivated and concerned by the storm, her eyes having never left the window since they sat down in the booth. She was bathed in the glowing green light provided by both the storm itself as well as her Pip-Boy. She looked at the sky like she was trying to study it, entranced by how the clouds rolled over themselves and bounced around jagged bolts of lightning. The light reflected in her glasses, the crack in the right frame fracturing the view into several smaller ones. Thankfully, the crack hadn’t been large enough to render her glasses obsolete, and in the few weeks they’d been together, Mac knew well enough that she was blind as a damn molerat without them.

“So we might as well get ready to hunker down, huh,” she muttered after a bit, finally turning away from the window.

She sighed and put out her cigarette, then began poking through her pack. She came away with a bottle of Rad-X, the pills inside rattling as she took it out. It was her own personal stash–Georgia’s, DO NOT TOUCH written on duct tape slapped over the label, but she shook out two capsules despite it. She dry-swallowed one before holding out the other for him.

“You’re real paranoid about rad sickness, Boss,” he said, but took the capsule anyways–far be it from him to refuse anything free. “No offense.”

“‘Scuse me for not wantin’ my insides to turn bright green.”

“Pretty sure that’s not what happens.”

“It’s called a joke, Mac.”

“Really? Then you need better material.”

“I’m gonna start callin’ you Mac the Mouth, I swear. Nothin’ but sass from you,” she laughed as thunder and lightning crackled outside. Mac was suddenly grateful for the miraculously still-intact glass in the windows nearest them, and the boards covering the ones further away.

“Wouldn’t be the worst name I’ve been called,” he shrugged, closing his comic book and stowing it away in his pack to swap for his journal and a pencil.

She stuck her tongue out at him as he opened his journal to a blank page near the back. The Boss was a very chatty woman, her endless need for conversation pulling him out of his reading more than once, so he opted to scribble instead. Doodling never required much focus from him, so if the Boss kept talking, it wouldn’t be as much of a bother.

“You draw?” she asked as he put his pencil to paper, her interest piqued. Mac felt heat creep up the back of his neck as he reflexively shifted his arm to hide the pages of his journal.

“I wouldn’t call it drawing, really. Mostly uh, comic stuff,” he said with an attempt at a nonchalant shrug. “They’re not good, believe me.”

She pursed her lips, disbelieving, “C’mon, don’t put yourself down. Can I see?”

“They’re just doodles. They’re nothing serious, I promise,” he said, trying to get her to lay off.

“Please?” I won’t make fun of you if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“They’re really not anything special,” he tried to insist. “I just followed those step-by-step instructions in the back of my comics.”

“Okay, but I don’t wanna look at the instructions, I wanna look at your’s.”

Mac groaned, running a hand down his face. Knowing that she could keep pestering him forever if she put her mind to it (she was nothing if not stubborn, he had come to find out), he relented, leaning back and turning his journal around for her to see. He had started sketching out a body but had stopped mid-torso, and suddenly feeling like he needed to impress her with his mediocre artistry, he flipped back a few pages to some of his other work. The Boss’ eyes grew wide with curiosity and glee as he did, putting her short, delicate-looking fingers on the pages but leaving the journal where it was on the table.

“Mistress of Mystery fan?” she asked with a grin as she looked over the page, his best rendition of the femme fatale winking over her misshapen shoulder with a crooked eye. He was pretty sure he’d accidentally skipped over a step somewhere in there.

“Like I said, mostly comic stuff,” he shrugged again, feigning indifference to any opinion she had about his drawings. Even if he wasn’t his own biggest fan, there was the tiniest part of him that wanted her to like them, even a little bit. He quickly stamped it out like a cigarette butt on a sidewalk and moved past it.

The Boss looked up at him expectantly when she began pulling at the corner of the page, as if asking for permission to peruse further. Biting the inside of his cheek, Mac nodded hesitantly, thinking suddenly of all the half-written letters to Duncan towards the front.

“Just don’t go too far.”

She gave him that familiar, sparkling smile, all excited and full of perfectly straight teeth as she nodded and turned the page. A half finished bust of Grognak in a power pose was in one corner next to a detailed depiction of his axe, while a simpler doodle of a super mutant in a similar muscle-flexing pose stood in the opposite corner. It garnered a laugh out of the Boss as she turned the page again, flipping to one of his other attempts at drawing without a guide.

Mac grimaced. He’d forgotten about that one.

“...A Mr. Handy?” she tried after a minute, raising an eyebrow and biting her lip.

Mac sank into his seat, looking away as he said, “...It’s Dr. Brainwash. From the Unstoppables. Y’know, this guy?”

He flipped open the top of his pack and pulled out the edge of the comic he’d put away earlier. The Boss’ eyes flitted from his journal to the comic book, trying to fight a laugh the longer she looked between them. He knew he butchered it, but shit, she didn’t have to be so obvious about it.

“Oh, of course,” she said, and he could tell she was trying her hardest to keep up a supportive front. “Silly me. Looks…looks just like him.”

“You said you weren’t going to make fun of me.”

“I’m not! It looks so good, Mac, I promise. You really tried and that’s what matters.”

“Alright, alright, hand it back if you’re gonna be like that,” he chided, narrowing his eyes at her.

The Boss finally laughed, closing his journal before sliding it back over the table. He’d never really shown people his doodles, never had anyone ask, but he honestly should have expected it from the Boss the moment he pulled them out.

“Really, Mac, you’re an artist. Don’t matter if you’re ‘good’ or not,” she said, more earnestly than her other comments, and leaned back as Dogmeat let out a snore from under the table. Mac had almost forgotten he was there; he’d been still and quiet since he disappeared under the table.

“I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call me an ‘artist’, but uh, thanks, I guess,” he said, flipping the journal back open to the page he’d been on.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it, Picasso,” the Boss said with a definitive sigh as she slid out of the booth. He made a face at the unfamiliar name, but left it at that. “I’m gonna poke around, see if there’s any good scrap.”

She turned up the radio again as she left, the end of Travis’ reporting filtering through the static as he shilled ads for Arturo’s shop, before giving way to more music. Dogmeat shifted under the table by Mac’s feet as he returned to his drawing. He could hear the Boss humming to herself as she went behind the diner counter, opening cabinets and drawers and rummaging through them.

Now, Mac understood resourcefulness. He really did. He could appreciate getting crafty when supplies were short at hand. What he couldn’t abide by, however, was the woman’s ridiculous hoarding of junk. Because that’s what it was despite her reasoning that it had use “somehow.” He point blank refused to carry any of her crap when she tried once more to lighten her haul onto him. He eventually sat down and ran her through what would and wouldn’t sell on the market last he knew, the going rates for various choice scrap, and what was better left behind in an effort to be more efficient in what she scavved. The Boss was still working on that last part, unfortunately. Her pack jingled with matching salt shakers and a vase wrapped in her spare clothes, tucked next to a framed picture and faded postcards taken off the walls of the various places they’d been through. It was all old world junk to him, but she delighted in picking them out of the two hundred year old ruins and looking over them with reverence.

By the time he was done drawing and redrawing the Silver Shroud’s jawline before giving up, the Boss was pouring her newest haul over the table. A Nuka-Cherry (off to a good start–he couldn’t begrudge her a soda every now and then), a handful of caps (even better), a pair of thick rubber gloves (alright?) and a pile of holotapes with faded orange plastic (...interesting).

“Look at what I found,” the Boss said as she sat down, popping open her soda on the edge of the table and flicking the cap over to him. Mac caught it with a sniper’s reflex, looking over the pile before him.

She picked up one of the holotapes, holding it up to her face to look for any indication as to what was on it as she took a sip from the bottle. “There was a pile of holos in an old drawer in the kitchen and I wanted to look at them ASAP.”

“Of course you did,” he said and she clicked her tongue at him. He rolled the cap across his fingers as he tacked on, “Plenty of people out there are willing to pay good caps for working holos. Most people end up wiping the memory for their own uses, though.”

“And erase what’s on ‘em? God, how much information has been lost that way?” she said, suddenly looking very distraught at the idea. She shook it off after a moment, shaking her head, “Well, I’m not wipin’ ‘em. If I’m right about what’s on them, they’ll be worth keepin’.”

She put her drink on the table and pulled her Pip-Boy closer to her. Mac watched as she hit a button or a switch or whatever, and a tray popped open on the top. She slipped one of the tapes inside at random before closing it and pressing play. It took a second for the tape to start, skipping a little at the beginning, but as soon as music began to play, the Boss’ face lit up like the stadium lights over Diamond City.

“Oh, my god, I know this song!” she cried out in excitement, cranking up the volume over the rain now beating against the window with fervor. The music was upbeat and inviting, and it showed in the way the Boss started climbing out of the booth again, feet tapping and hips swirling as soon as she hit the floor.

“Come, let’s stroll / stroll across the floor / come, let’s stro-oh-oh-oll / stroll across the floor / now turn around, baby / let’s stroll once more…”

Mac watched her in puzzled amusement, mouth curling at the corners despite the shaking of his head. The Boss strolled across the diner, her moves simple but done with a certain swagger exaggerated by the way she moved her shoulders and rolled her hips to the music. All the commotion woke up Dogmeat from under the table, who padded out to join his owner once he saw her moving about. He looked up at her, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth as he pranced in circles around her. The Boss laughed, carefully sidestepping around the hound before finally catching Mac shaking his head at her.

“What are you doing?”

She laughed again, still dancing as she raised her voice over the music, “You dance, Hotshot?”

Mac barked out a laugh, shaking his head fervently, “Not a chance in he–uh, no way, Boss. Not enough caps in the world to convince me.”

“Hundred and fifty got you walkin’ with me all over the Commonwealth, though,” she pointed out with a smirk, slinking back over towards him.

“True, but I never learned how to dance, so.”

“C’mon. How much more to get you to bust a move?”

“Sorry, Boss, contract’s already been signed. No new amendments,” he said, tipping his hat to her with a flourish and she laughed, throwing her head back. It was easy to make her laugh, he’d found out.

“Where was that attitude after the library job?” she quipped as the music began to fade.

“Dunno, guess I just found it.”

Mac gave her his shit-eating grin and a shrug as she made her way back over and fell into her side of the booth in a heap, Dogmeat hopping up to sit beside her. She settled back and turned down the volume on her Pip-Boy as the next song began to play.

“What brought all that out?” he asked finally, curious to her reasoning.

“Memories of better times,” she said after a beat, quiet.

Mac had a rush of deja-whatever, bringing him back to that time in the library, when he’d asked what he thought was a simple question that only belied a more complicated answer. She’d shut down faster than the lightning currently streaking across the sky outside. For a moment, the air between them seemed to change, but it passed just as quickly as it had rattled through him. The Boss still had her smile on, if a little strained, but he knew they were good.

“Used to have a bunch of gal pals that I would go out dancin’ with,” she said after a moment, already lost in whatever memory she was recounting. “God, there was this one time we went out to this new dance hall we’d never been to. They played that song and everyone but my friends and I were dancin’ all stiff and formal-like, it was like they’d never been to a party and the word ‘dance’ wasn’t in their vocabulary.”

Her attention had once again returned to the storm, staring out at the south Boston sky. Mac had about a billion questions from her opening line alone, but he didn’t dare speak out for fear that she’d clam up if she realized what she was doing. He kept stone still as he continued to listen, years of hard-won sniper training settling over him.

“People were pairin’ off all save-room-for-jesus style and my friends and I were completely over it,” she said with a vague annoyance in her voice. “We were standin’ there next to each other across from a couple people who must’ve had the same idea it seemed, because as soon as we paired off and hit the floor, we were doin’ about half of what I did, except two feet closer and practically on top of each other.” She paused to bring her hand up to loosely twirl one of the strands of hair at the back of her neck. “Goodness, the way we did it, you’d think we had stripped naked by the reactions of the–and get this–dance hall monitors. They kicked us out for ‘immoral behavior’ and ‘vulgar dancin’.’ Can you believe it?”

The Boss finished her story with a breathless laugh to Mac’s confused but attentive expression, crystal-clear nostalgia washing over her after she was done. Half of the things she’d just said barely made any sense to him no matter what context he put it in, but the big picture of it clicked for him immediately: he’d had her pegged wrong all along. Unless she was lying for fun, which didn’t seem her style, then she wasn’t from any sort of vault period, not with a story like that. What kind of vault had whatever the hell a ‘dance hall’ was? Let alone more than one? And what the hell were dance hall monitors?

As Mac sat there in his realization, soaking up that tiniest bit of personal information from her, he realized that for all he had learned about her in the past few weeks, from menial shit like her morning routine to her eating habits, he still didn’t know a goddamn thing about her.

“Hellooo? Earth to MacCready?”

The Boss’ hand waving in front of his face brought him back to reality, his mouth moving faster than his brain as he blurted, “I’mfromtheCapitalWasteland.”

“What?”

“I’m from the Capital Wasteland,” he repeated, clearing his throat. “I mean, where I’m from, we didn’t have whatever a dance hall is or that song or dance hall monitors. Where the hell are you from that has all of that?”

Before she could answer, all his mind could supply was deja-vu.

Just like the library, the Boss’ face fell and she was leaning back slowly on her side of the booth, arms crossing over her chest in a defensive shield. Mac was already mentally kicking himself for him and his goddamn mouth, prepared for her to stonewall again and shut him down. But she didn’t.

“It’s…a long story,” she said finally with a sigh, once again reaching up to tug at the loose blonde curl at the nape of her neck. Mac watched as she wrapped it tight around her finger, skin going red between the strands. “More confusin’ than is worth it to tell.”

He raised a helpless eyebrow as she continued to fidget, “More confusing than the one you just told me?”

“One hundred percent. It’s not that I don’t trust you, ‘cause I do,” she said like it was that easy, and Mac didn’t quite know how that made him feel. Either she was too trusting (entirely plausible) or he was too cagey (also likely). “It’s just…a lot.”

“I could try to follow along,” he dared to say, taking advantage of the way she continued to talk to him through the crack in the metaphorical door instead of closing it entirely. He had his foot in, maybe he could wiggle in a little more.

“Soon, maybe, just…not tonight,” she said, her metaphorical chain lock catching his metaphorical door with finality. “It’s a little hard to talk about. Too much to get into.”

That, Mac could understand. Feelings weren’t really his forte, he never felt confident in what to do with them. But what sort of place did the Boss come from that made her so evasive? If she wasn’t from a vault, where did she get the Pip-Boy still playing quietly on the table? Very little about his employer made sense—General of the Minutemen, First Ever Rad-X Addict, the only wastelander (?) with teeth that straight, and a vulgar threat to dance halls everywhere, apparently—and it was almost enough to make Mac’s head spin.

“Can I ask you a question about your first story then?” he asked instead of the thousands of other questions he had, burning to be asked.

Her eyebrow, the one with the scar through it, arched behind her glasses.

“You got kicked out of a hall where you dance…for dancing?”

Like neon light breaking through Goodneighbor’s haze, the Boss’ grin reappeared. The green light of the radglow illuminated them in the darkness of the diner, glinting off her glasses as she began to laugh.

“Vulgarly,” she reminded him between her laughter. He couldn’t help but join her and suddenly it was like everything was back to normal between them, personal revelations notwithstanding.

Later that night, when the storm had finally moved on but had stuck around long enough that the skies were still dark afterwards, they set up their sleeping bags behind the diner counter. Dogmeat settled up against the Boss as Mac volunteered to stay up for first watch. The Boss had looked particularly tired, and had stopped talking as much as the night went on. If Mac knew anything about her at this point, it was that if the Boss wasn’t talking, something was wrong. Sleep usually fixed most problems in his experience.

Besides, he needed some time to himself to sort through the emotional whiplash he’d experienced during their conversation. Mac thought he had her mostly figured out, given all her previously thought “obvious” tells. Then one little story had turned everything on its head and replaced it with burning curiosity. The Boss was an enigma all her own, every new fact he learned about her canceling out anything he thought he knew. Even so, he couldn’t help the gnawing need to make sense of her.

He chalked it up to wanting to know exactly whose hands he was putting his life into, but then again, he’d made it out alive of every situation she’d put him in after three weeks. He could trust her to do that, at least, even if he was only holding out for Duncan by the time she’d met him. She’d given him a little bit of slack in his rope, so to speak, when she hired him. Gave him a little bit of hope at the end of a long, dark metro tunnel.

But, since he wasn’t ever allowed to be particularly hopeful for very long, he bitterly reminded himself that what they had going couldn’t possibly last. How long did she tell her reporter friend it would be before she’d be back to Diamond City? A month? He knew how most contracts like their’s worked: some schmuck hires you, sticks around with you until they can make their way back to a major settlement because pissing off a hired gun on the road isn’t the smartest move if they’ve hired you for a reason, and then end business there before picking up another gun somewhere else. It was similar to caravan work, the brahminhands and caravan guards trading off walking alongside whichever traders paid well. And with how good the Boss paid…

He had a week left, he decided suddenly, selfishly. He had a week left to convince her that he was irreplaceable, if only because it meant more caps to send back home if she decided he was worth keeping on. He’d pretend like her goody two-shoes, above and beyond approach to the Minutemen didn’t make him roll his eyes sometimes, pretend that her cryptic hints into her life weren’t driving him nuts, and he’d never miss a target coming through an unnoticed exit. He’d keep watching her back, help keep her alive until she realized that he was better than any soldier from her rinky dink militia. His own survival–the survival of his son–depended on it.

----------

The next morning on the road, over a breakfast of scavenged pre-packaged food the Boss had found after another sweep of the kitchens, Mac could tell she had something on her mind. Given the tone of the night before, he kept it simple between them and didn’t talk much except to eat and pack up.

Dogmeat took point ahead of them once they were on the road, and in between keeping his own head on a swivel, Mac’s eyes would fall to the Boss every now and again. He knew the night had ended on a heavy note, and he’d also had a lot on his mind after, but the longer they walked and she still hadn’t started her usual errant chatter, he began to worry. She hadn’t even told him where their next stop was, he realized.

“So,” they both said at the same time.

“Oh, you go first,” the Boss said quickly before he could say the same.

“So,” Mac said again, “where are we headed next?”

“Oh, shit, I forgot to tell you, we’re goin’ to the Castle. Tuned into Radio Freedom for a bit before you woke up,” she explained, tapping the screen of her Pip-Boy through her jacket. “Someone named Ronnie Shaw really wants to talk to me—put the message on repeat out on the main line and everythin’—and she didn’t sound like the type to be kept waitin’, so gotta heed the call and all that.”

“Good thing we were already in the neighborhood then,” he said, then spun it back around to her, “So what were you gonna say earlier?”

“About last night,” she said after a moment, hesitant. “I don’t mean to be so…cagey sometimes. I just have a lot goin’ on that’s hard to explain, but then I realized that I still don’t know a whole lot about you, either, so I thought maybe we could make a game out of it. Like an icebreaker.”

“What’s an icebreaker?”

“Gettin’ to know each other, ‘breakin’ the ice’, y’know,” she said, and he shook his head to indicate that he did not. “It’s supposed to help with team bondin’ and all of that. I get that you gotta keep up with your whole ‘cool, loner mercenary’ schtick, so it may sound a bit gradeschool–”

“Wait, you think I’m cool?”

“Don’t let it go to your head. Anyways,” she went on, attempting to suppress a grin, “I was just thinkin’, we’ve spent a few weeks watchin’ each other’s backs, patchin’ each other up–well, mostly you patchin’ me up, but that’s besides the point. We’ve walked from one end of the Commonwealth to the other it feels like, but if we’re gonna be workin’ and travelin’ together, I think it’s high time we play the ‘gettin’ to know you’ game for real. Ever play Twenty Questions?”

“No, but I think I get the idea. Seems pretty obvious,” he replied with another shake of his head. If a silly little game was the way to make sure she stuck with him, then so be it. He could humor her and play along for what she was paying him.

“Great. One caveat, though,” she said, and he arched an eyebrow, “we can veto any of each other’s questions and we don’t have to explain why. We just can’t veto everything.”

The rule was probably more for her benefit than his given her whole…thing, but he was glad it was there just in case. God knew he had his own baggage he didn’t want to get into.

“Sounds good to me.”

“Alright then, you first. Ask away.”

Caught off guard, Mac thought for a minute. His litany of questions were nowhere to be found now that he was put on the spot.

“Shi–uh, crap, I dunno. Uh…How about this: If you’re not from a vault, where’d you get that Pip-Boy?” he asked, nodding to her arm.

“I never said I wasn’t from a vault,” she said matter-of-factly, and he held in a sigh at her evasive answer. She tugged the sleeve of her jacket up to tap her nails against the screen of the device, “but I got this from one.”

“Obviously. Boots, too?” He pointed to the practically pristine condition of the black leather on her feet. Barely a scuff on them.

“Aht, my turn to ask a question, Hotshot,” she said with a cheeky grin. She bit her lip and tapped her chin with her finger, thinking. “What’s with the swearin’? Or the lack of it, actually. You’ve heard my mouth, I’m not gonna make you wash your mouth out with soap, y’know.”

Mac grimaced. He knew that had to come up sooner or later.

“It’s not about you, it’s about a promise I made to someone that I wouldn’t do it anymore,” he replied after a moment. He, too, could reply with non-answers. “Or at least try not to. Still a work in progress, I guess.”

“Hm. Interestin’.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Is that your question?”

“No. My question is…” He thought for a second, choosing his next words carefully. He perked up when they came to him. “Where’s your accent from? You don’t sound like you’re from Boston.”

“God, I hope not. Can you imagine?” The Boss laughed, then put on her best Boston accent, “‘Wicked smaht, get a load a’ this fahkin’ guy!’ Jesus.”

Mac snorted, “I’m pretty sure you just offended everyone in a ten mile radius. Still didn’t answer my question, though.”

“Accent’s from down south,” she replied, choosing her words just as carefully. “Arkansas, specifically.”

Where the hell is Arcansaw? Mac wondered, but we’re getting warmer. He kept the question in his back pocket as an option for later anyhow.

“Who’d you make your promise to?” she asked for her next question.

Mac shook his head. “Uh-uh, veto.”

He wasn’t opening that can of worms right now, because if he brought up Duncan, he’d have to bring up his illness, why he wasn’t back home taking care of him, why he needed every cap he could get…If the Boss had her own stuff that was too much to get into, he had the right to keep the deep shit under wraps, too.

“Alright, new question then,” she nodded, though he could tell she still wanted to know. “Oh! Your name! You’ve never actually told me your first name. It’s not MacCready, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” he said with a shake of his head. “My first name is Robert, but my friends used to call me RJ.”

“RJ,” she repeated, like she was testing it out before she quickly added, “What’s the J stand for?”

“Joseph,” he answered without thinking, then made a face. “Hey, wait, that’s not fair. I get to ask two questions this time.”

The Boss grinned, satisfied she had pulled one over on him, but relented anyway, “Fine, fine, ask your questions.”

“Where’s Arkansas?”

“Ever heard of Texas? Near there, but northeast a ways. Second question?”

“How’d you get all the way up here from down there?” he prodded. He knew from the educational holotapes passed down through the hands of every Little Lamplighter before him that there was a lot of wasteland between that area and the Commonwealth.

She paused for a moment, eyebrows furrowed behind the frame of her glasses.

“Moved up here for higher education,” she replied after a beat, whatever that meant. Getting colder. “This one isn’t my question, but you said last night you were from the Capital Wasteland, right? What’s it like out there?”

“God-awful,” Mac said swiftly with a dismissive snort, “but it was—is, home, I guess. Most of it’s destroyed, at least D.C. is. We don’t have as many intact buildings as Boston does. Outskirts aren’t as bad, but they’re just as dangerous. We’ve got clean water, though, so that’s a plus. I actually know the person who did that, but don’t go telling anyone. She’s private.” And doing me a huge goddamn favor right now. “What’s Arkansas like?”

The Boss shrugged, her right hand reaching over to rub over the left, “Wouldn’t know. Been a while since I’ve visited…Can I veto the home questions? It’s makin’ me homesick.”

“Consider the subject vetoed,” he nodded, holding his hands up. Definitely getting colder.

She nodded back a thanks, then thought on her next question for a moment.

“Why RJ?” she asked suddenly, “Not Rob, or Robby, or Bert—”

Mac wrinkled his nose at her so aggressively that it startled a laugh out of her.

“Absolutely not. If someone called me ‘Bert’, I’d shoot them on the spot.”

“Answer the question, RJ.”

He shrugged in exasperation, throwing his hands up again, “I dunno, okay? The other kids just started calling me that when I got left there—”

As soon as the Boss’ eyebrows shot up, he cut himself off with a sigh. He could anticipate her next question, but she’d have to wait her turn. “...How old are you?”

“It’s impolite to ask a lady her age, y’know,” she replied, sticking out her tongue.

“Oh? That’s weird, because I don’t see one around here–Ow, jesus, okay, okay, I’m sorry!”

“I’m twenty-four,” she snipped, massaging her hand, then added, “How old are you?”

“Twenty-two,” he replied, rubbing his shoulder. The Boss suddenly looked surprised. “What?”

“I just thought you’d be older,” she shrugged.

Huh. That was a first. It was usually the other way around.

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Sure. Next question?” the Boss supplied.

“Hmm…What’s with the constant Rad-X? You take it like it’s going out of style, and none of the other vault dwellers I know pop ‘em like you do. If you are a vault dweller, that is.”

Given her non-answer around the question, he still couldn’t be too sure.

“I’m countin’ that as two questions, just so you know,” she said before he could argue. “I didn’t grow up around radiation like most people, so I don’t have as good of a resistance. I’ve been inside a vault, but not for very long. Or so it felt.”

Radiation was everywhere, so he thought, an inescapable fact of life for the past two hundred years. The idea that there was somewhere out there so untouched by it to the point where he’d seen the Boss go a little queasy at even a few ticks from the geiger counter was a foreign concept to Mac. So much so, that he didn’t even catch the cryptic ending of her answer.

He had always thought the entire world had been lost to the bombs, no stone unturned. Even the people that still remembered that world, alive but ghoulified, bore the scars of nuclear war.

“Alright, my two questions,” she went on, fingers steepled in front of her chin and he didn’t bother to protest. “Don’t think I forgot—” well, maybe he should have, “—what do you mean ‘got left there?’ Where? Elaborate.”

Mac groaned. It wasn’t the question that bothered him. Despite it all, he had some pride in where he came from, given that they were just a bunch of stupid kids that very well could have died had shit gone horribly south. While he used to sing the praises of ‘pure fucking anarchy’ during his mayorship, someone had to make sure Little Lamplight was kept (mostly) in one piece, which meant there needed to be at least a little bit of organization. Had to make sure it didn’t completely fall apart for the other kids that came after them. With that in mind, he was both grateful and incredulous that he managed to make it to twenty-two years of age under such circumstances. There were a lot who weren’t so lucky.

What really bothered him, though, were the mixed reactions whenever he explained Little Lamplight to outsiders. They usually fell into one of two categories: the disbelievers who usually accused him of lying, or the assholes whose first reactions were to get weird or make fun of him about it.

“I lived underground in a place called Little Lamplight with a bunch of other kids,” he said at last, trying to gauge the Boss’ reaction as he continued. “Just kids.”

Her face fell, genuine concern overtaking her features and almost disbelieving as she stopped in her tracks. Mac stumbled then stopped a few steps ahead of her, and even Dogmeat turned back to look at them, head tilted to the side.

“And no adults? At all?” she asked, and the tone of her voice told Mac that she definitely wasn’t asking as part of the game, and that it may have just ended, actually.

He shook his head as they stood there in the middle of the road, staring each other down. The two of them were on guard immediately, but he could not for the life of him figure out why she was.

“Having adults around wasn’t really something we could trust. We got kicked out when we turned sixteen.”

At that, the Boss looked aghast.

“...How did kids end up there? How did you end up there?” she demanded, incredulity and indignation screwing up her face.

Mac tensed. The Boss had fallen into and created a third reaction category all her own: pity.

“Like a lot of the other kids,” he bristled, defensiveness rising further within him. “Get left there, usually. Look, we turned out fine for the most part—”

“Mac,” she breathed, entirely horrified, “that–that’s awful, I’m so sor—”

“Hey, I don’t need your pity,” he snapped before she could finish the word, pointing an accusing finger at her. He was not about to be felt sorry for, of all fucking things. “Just like a colony you’d find anywhere else, we all had our designated jobs and we watched each other’s backs. I damn well made sure of it. I ran a tight fu–freaking ship.”

“You were in charge of everyone?!” she seethed, her voice raised and barely concealing the fury behind it, channeling it into the shaking of her tightly clenched fists. When she spoke again, her voice went soft, but her grip did not. “Mac–RJ, hun, that’s…you get how that’s messed up, right? No kid should have to go through that—”

“You don’t have to tell me how sorry my life is, I lived it,” he spit, fingers digging into the fabric of his duster. “Veto.”

“I—Okay,” she said, forcing the anger in her voice to dissipate, replacing it with stiff restraint. She started walking again, moving past him with purpose as she hiked her pack further up. “Game over. We’re almost to the Castle anyways.”

[stump-not-found]

A Lifetime Served in a Little Cup

pt.1 / pt.2 / pt.3 / pt.4

---

bill, babygirl, the red flags get outta there

[clarionglass]

here we go :) part one of three, updates to be released weekly!

---

sam says 4 (game master cinematic universe, part 3)

Ruby was at her mum's for a family dinner she couldn't miss on pain of death, apparently, and the Doctor was many things, but a family dinner kind of guy wasn't one of them—particularly when Carla had already slapped him once in the short time he'd known her. He thought he'd broken his streak of bad luck with mums, but… well, seemingly not. So he was companionless for a few hours, and while he could wait for her to get back, maybe catch up on his reading—what was the point of waiting when you had a time machine? 

He ran his hands over the TARDIS console, marvelling at her clean lines and metallic flourishes, the way that even now she felt brand new but familiar, and paused. He’d just pop off for a quick adventure, nothing too dangerous, but—where to go?

He could scan for a distress call nearby, and pitch in to help. He could drop in on Donna and Shaun and Rose, beautiful Rose, and see how they were all doing. Or he could just hit the randomiser button, and jump in feet first wherever he ended up.

He remembered a conversation from a long time ago, when he wore a different face, and his gorgeous TARDIS wore a face too, for the first and only time.

“You didn't always take me where I wanted to go.”

“No, but I always took you where you needed to go.”

He grinned. Who could resist an offer like that? He pressed the button and whooped as the time rotor spun into action, ready to see where the universe would take him.

---

Apparently, he was needed pretty close to where he already was. Earth, 2024. Huh. Same planet, same time—within a few months of where he’d left Ruby, even. The main thing that had changed was the location: he was now in the good old US of A. California, to be more specific, and Los Angeles to be more specific still. And to really narrow it down, the Doctor discovered as he poked his head out of the TARDIS doors, he was in… a broom closet. Not bad, as a parking spot—a bit squeezy, but out of the way. And as he poked his head out of that door, he could finally see he was in the backstage corridors of a studio of some kind. Film or TV, if he was to hazard a guess, it was a different vibe from Abbey Road.

With a shrug, he decided to go exploring.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute before a young woman wearing the full-black outfit, headset, and permanently stressed expression of a production assistant came running up to him.

“Are you the fill-in Sam organised?” she asked breathlessly, and honestly, seeing the look on her face, the Doctor didn’t have the heart(s) to tell her no. And really, what was the Doctor, if not a professional fill-in? This, this was why he had a randomiser button on the control panel, because whatever he was about to get himself into was going to be fun.

“Sure!”

“Oh, thank god,” sighed the production assistant, relief dawning across her face. “When Ally tested positive this morning, I thought we were sunk for the record, because we called around and we couldn’t get a hold of anyone. But then Sam said he could get someone in, and, you know, here you are, and just in time, so—ah, yeah, if you could follow me this way?”

Smiling all the way, the Doctor followed his guide through to hair and makeup, looking around as they went. The studio seemed to belong to a company called Dropout, according to the branding scattered around, and things seemed, at least on the surface, to be… well. Fine. He couldn't tell why he'd been brought here yet, which meant that when he found the reason, it was going to be particularly tangled. He couldn't wait! 

And then he looked back at his guide, still engulfed in a miasma of anxiety, and realised he'd been too busy looking for clues to notice the person right in front of him. 

“Hey, it's cool, you've found me,” he started with a gentle smile. “You can relax. Hi, I'm the Doctor. What's your name?”

“Oh!” she said, startled. “The Doctor, yeah, of course. Um, hi, I'm Kaylin. Look, sorry, it's just that I've been so busy this morning, I'm so distracted… Shit, and I would've completely forgotten to get your details too. There's paperwork to fill in, but you can do that later. Um, just for now, though, can I get your pronouns?”

The Doctor thought for a moment. “He/him, for now.”

Kaylin nodded, making a note on her phone. “Okay, cool! And do you have any socials?”

“Not me, babes,” he replied. “I'm hardly sitting down long enough to be able to update, you know?”

“On a day like this, I know exactly what you mean,” she said. “That's okay, Lou didn't have socials either for the longest time. Right, so if you go through there, the team will get you sorted, and once you're done, someone will take you up to the greenroom. All good?”

“All great,” the Doctor replied. Kaylin flashed him a quick, relieved smile, then hurried off.

Hair and makeup was a fairly quick process, the sound mixer fitted him with a microphone, and before too long, Kaylin was back to take him upstairs. 

“This is the greenroom,” she said, pushing the door open. “The rest of the cast for the episode are already here—they’re great guys, and they’ve both been on the show a lot, so they’ll be able to help if you’ve got questions. And if you need anything else, just come find me or any of the other PAs, okay?”

The Doctor nodded, beamed at Kaylin, and walked in.

---

The greenroom was small but comfortable, and its occupants, two men around the same age as the Doctor appeared, looked up as he entered.

“Oh, you’re new,” the taller of the pair said, clearly giving him the once-over.

The other sighed with a mixture of fondness and exasperation, just as clearly used to his friend’s antics.

“Hey, I’m Brennan,” he said, levering himself up to standing from his perch on a chair arm, and holding out a hand. “That’s Grant.”

The Doctor took it warmly. “The Doctor. Just passing through, and happy to help.”

Grant’s eyebrows quirked. “Doctor… something?” he prompted.

“Or is it just ‘the Doctor’?” Brennan asked.

“Just ‘the Doctor’,” the Time Lord confirmed cheerfully. “You’ll get used to it, everyone does.”

Grant didn’t look convinced, but—

“Copy that,” Brennan shrugged, and settled back on the arm of the chair, returning his gaze to the door.

Grant, in turn, looked at the Doctor and rolled his eyes in a clear expression of ‘no, I don’t know why he’s like this, either’.

“Okay,” the Doctor said after a moment of watching the watching. “I wasn’t going to ask, but now I think I have to. What’s up with the door?”

Brennan huffed a laugh. “Well, the last time there was one of those up—” he pointed to the Out of Order sign stuck to the bathroom door, “—we got locked in here for the game.”

“He’s paranoid,” Grant interjected.

“Well, yeah, maybe,” Brennan retorted. “Or just cautious. Because Sam’s been acting weird lately, and we’re coming up to the last few records of the season, so he’s probably planning something way out of the box for the finale. And the original cast was you, me and Beardsley, so…”

He shrugged one shoulder meaningfully, and Grant nodded, conceding both the point and the potential for chaos.

“So if Sam comes in to give us the briefing, rather than waiting til we’re on set,” Brennan continued, “or there’s anything else weird going on, I’m gonna know about it right from the beginning.”

He turned to the Doctor. “The only reason I'm not quizzing you is because I know for a fact Beardsley was genuinely scheduled for this, so you can't be a plant by the production team. No offence.”

“None taken,” the Doctor smiled. “That sort of thing happen often, does it?”

Grant and Brennan exchanged a look. 

“More than you'd think,” Grant answered with a grimace. 

“Alright,” the Doctor said slowly, then brightened. “So what is it we're actually doing?”

Grant gave him a disbelieving glance. “You don't know—?”

“Very last minute fill-in,” the Doctor said breezily. “But don't worry, I'm a quick study.”

“Well, you're not that much worse off than the rest of us,” Brennan said encouragingly. “You know about Game Changer, obviously, if you know Sam, and we only find out the rules of the game once we get on set. Hopefully,” he added, with a dark look back at the Out of Order sign. 

The Doctor nodded. No, he didn't know Sam, and he didn't know Game Changer, but he could work out the situation from context clues. This was a game show. And with the Toymaker banished, and Satellite Five not coming into existence for another 198000 years, give or take, he found himself smiling. Maybe third time would be the charm. 

“Mmm, hopefully they aren't going to throw you in the deep end,” Grant said. “Because Brennan might seem lovely now, but as soon as we get out there, he's a whore for points. He'll stab you in the back and won't even blink.”

Brennan barked with laughter. “Yeah, and you wouldn't?”

“Excuse you, I'm always a goddamn delight,” Grant replied, the very picture of injured dignity. 

“Oh, absolutely!” agreed a new voice. The Doctor turned to the now-open door to see a bearded man in a pinstriped suit smiling broadly. “That's why we keep inviting you back!”

Grant bowed sarcastically. “Why, thank you, Sam. Good to know I'm appreciated by someone here.”

“Always,” Sam replied, gently but firmly ending that particular path of the conversation. He scanned the room, and his eyes lit up when they landed on the Doctor. 

“Ah, you must be the Doctor!” he said with obvious delight, walking over with his hand outstretched. “I'm Sam—thanks for filling in for us, you've made sure we're going to have a good show. Seriously, it's a pleasure to have you here.”

“Aw, cheers!” the Doctor smiled, shaking the offered hand. “Glad I could help out, I'm really looking forward to this!”

“Well, great!” Sam exclaimed, then took a step back, regarding all three players in turn. “Now, folks, I'm just letting you know that we're just about ready to start the record, so if you can start heading down, that'd be great.”

Grant and Brennan nodded—Brennan, the Doctor noticed, with relief. 

“See you down there,” Sam said, smiling. “Have a great show, and—”

His eyes caught on the Doctor's for a second, twinkling. 

“Good luck.”

---

Backstage, the Doctor, Brennan and Grant were marshalled into podium order and given a final briefing from the crew. And then, with a thumbs-up from Kaylin, that was it.

Showtime.

“Get ready for a Game Changer!” came Sam's voice from onstage. “Tonight’s guests: he can shoot off a monologue with laser accuracy; it’s Brennan Lee Mulligan!”

Brennan, his back to the camera as the curtains opened, spun on his heel and, with a stone-cold expression, pointed finger guns straight down the barrel, before letting the facade crack open. “Hi!” he exclaimed, and walked over to the leftmost podium.

“It’s his first appearance, but he’s already on fire; it’s the Doctor!”

The Doctor leant against the archway to the stage and flashed a broad smile towards the camera, then in a few skipping steps, had bounded over to the next free podium. What the hell, why not make an entrance?

“And even in the toughest of mazes, you’ll always be able to find him; it’s Grant O’Brien!”

Grant dipped his lanky frame into an approximation of a curtsey, spreading his arms wide, then sauntered over to the closest podium with a grin.

“And your host, me!” Sam announced, a ring of manic white showing around his irises as he beamed down the barrel of the camera. “I’ve been here the whole time!”

“This,” he continued, pushing his microphone shut and stowing it in his jacket pocket, “is Game Changer, the only game show where the game changes every show. I am your host, Sam Reich!” 

As he said his name, he looked at his hands, front and back, as if he was pleasantly surprised to be himself, then gestured towards the three podiums.

“I am joined today by these three lovely contestants! Now, you understand how the game works.”

“Of course not,” Grant started. “You know we don't.”

“We can't, Sam, that's the whole point of the theatre you've set up here,” Brennan said over him. 

“Not yet,” was all the Doctor said, anticipation starting to drum a tattoo of excitement against the inside of his ribcage. 

“That’s right!” Sam said brightly, shooting finger guns at the camera. “Our players have no idea what game it is they’re about to play. The only way to learn is by playing. The only way to win is by learning, and the only way to begin is by beginning! So without further ado, let’s begin by giving each of our players fifty points.”

The Doctor, biding his time, watched the reactions of his fellow contestants. Grant looked at the front of his podium, checking the point total, and nodding approvingly when he saw that yes, it was sitting at a round fifty. Brennan, on the other hand, was starting to frown.

“Players, Sam says: touch your nose,” Sam began, and Brennan sighed the sigh of someone who wasn’t happy to be proved right.

“Oh, no,” he groaned. “Oh, you son of a bitch. Wasn’t one this season enough?”

He touched his nose anyway, as did the others, and Sam smiled encouragingly. “Sam says: touch your ear.”

When they all did, Sam nodded. “Touch your other ear.”

Everybody held still, fingers on the ears they had originally touched.

Sam beamed. “Easy, players, right?”

“You say that now,” Brennan said darkly. “Which makes it worse, because all you're doing is setting us up for failure.”

Sam gasped, pretending offence. “Would I do that?”

“Yes,” Brennan and Grant replied in unison, which drew a grin from the Doctor and set Sam off chuckling.

“And I'm not having it,” Brennan continued, leaning his elbows against his podium and pointing at Sam with the hand not touching his ear. “You better watch yourself, because I know how this game works, and you're not going to get one over on me.”

“Strong words, Brennan!” Sam said, clearly delighted by this response. “Okay, then, let's start making things a bit more interesting!”

The game continued as per Sam Says usual, some rounds done as a group and some individual. Points were won, sure, but lost slightly more frequently, and even the Doctor found he was having to concentrate to avoid getting caught in the host's traps. 

It was fun. Genuinely, it was like playing a game with friends, and the Doctor felt himself leaning into it. There wasn't any sign of danger—maybe there wasn't a mystery to solve at all, and the TARDIS just decided he needed a total break. 

Well, probably not. But the way things were going, he was able to let himself hope. 

“Alright, players,” Sam said a good few rounds in, just as pleasantly as he would start any other question, and the screen behind him dinged as a new prompt popped up. “Survive the death beam.”

For a second, everything was frozen perfectly still. 

And then came the crash, the explosive noise of heavy machinery moving relentlessly through a drywall set.

The Doctor was already moving. “Everyone down!”

“Duck!” Brennan yelled at the same time.

The two of them hit the ground within milliseconds of each other, but Grant was still paralysed in the face of the giant, science-fiction type laser cannon that had just ploughed through the wall. 

It whined ominously, screaming its way to fever pitch. And then a sharp pain in Grant’s ankle made him stagger, pitching forwards onto the carpet behind the podiums as the Doctor rolled away to avoid getting pinned.

“Sorry, babes,” the Doctor whispered. “But it was either kick you to get you down, or—”

A hideous metallic screech ripped through the air, and all three of them could feel the crackle of ozone as a beam of energy swept across what had, moments ago, been neck height.

“…Or that,” the Doctor finished with a grimace.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Grant breathed, suddenly very conscious of every inch of his 6’9 frame. “Thanks.”

“Well done, players!” Sam exclaimed delightedly from above them. “But… sorry, I didn’t say ‘Sam says’, so that’s a point off for everyone.”

“What the fuck!��� Brennan snapped.

“Are you actually insane?” Grant demanded at the same time, his voice overlapping with Brennan’s.

In response, Sam just wheezed with laughter. “You can come back to your podiums,” he said, cheerfully ignoring them.

Nobody moved.

“Very good!” he acknowledged, and even without seeing his face, the grin was obvious in his voice. “Okay, Sam says: come back to your podiums.”

Although the words were innocuous, and his tone was just as light and breezy as usual, there was nevertheless an edge hiding just underneath the surface. And while the death beam loomed large in the minds of all three players, it was impossible to consider disobedience as an option.

Slowly, they stood, returning to their places. Now they had the time to look at it properly, the death beam was even more sinister, and Brennan and Grant both kept flicking nervous glances its way, ready to move if it looked like it was charging up again.

The Doctor, however, was focused purely on the man standing in front of them. Unbothered, Sam met his gaze like a challenge, a mischievous smile playing about his lips.

“Oh, you’ll love this one,” he said, and the screen changed. “Sam says, starting with Grant: say my name.”

Grant frowned in confusion, but answered quickly nonetheless. “Sam Reich?”

The man himself shrugged tolerantly, moving on. “Brennan?”

Brennan just stared at him coolly. “Do you take me for a fool?”

“Well caught, Brennan!” Sam said happily. “Sam says: say my name.”

“Sam,” Brennan replied, suspicion clear in his voice. “Samuel Dalton Reich.”

He nodded, still with a hint of indifference. “And lastly, Doctor.” His smile broadened. “Sam says: say my name.”

It was easy. Too easy. And as the Doctor looked into the eyes of the man calling himself Sam Reich, he felt his hearts stutter in recognition, because something had changed. He wasn’t hiding himself anymore, and while the face was different yet again, the Doctor would know the shape of that soul anywhere. It was impossible. It was inevitable.

“You can’t be,” he breathed. 

Sam smirked, leaning in across his podium. “Oh, but Doctor… I’ve been here the whole time,” he stage-whispered with a wink.

“He said you lost,” the Doctor said, shaking his head, looking wrong-footed for the first time that Brennan and Grant could recall. “You lost, and he trapped you.”

The other two watched, uncomprehending, but Sam just smiled, drumming his fingers against the podium with an audible beat, fast but distinct. Four taps, four taps, four taps. “I’m waiting.”

The Doctor took a slow, deep breath. Set his jaw. 

“Master.”

---

missed an installment of the game master cinematic universe?

original idea by @ace-whovian-neuroscientist: x

art by @northernfireart concept: x scissor sisters sketch: x sam and his doppelganger: x

writing by me (!) part one (escape the greenroom): x part two (deja vu): x part three (sam says 4): you are here!

[castielsprostate]

day 200 of asking misha to put his hands around my neck and choke me lightly

[aishabellasbigblogofeverything]

I love it when women hate men. I love it when women are allowed to vent to each other about how horrible and creepy men are. I love it when women form friendships with and prioritize each other over relationships with men(whether they're attracted to them or not). I love it when women put men dni in their bios and on their nude photos and on posts on their blogs. I love it when women refuse to mollycoddle and accommodate entitled male feelings with "but this doesn't mean I hate all men, I know a few men who are great, I love my father/sons/brothers/uncles/male cousins/guy friends" I love it when women complain about men WITHOUT "not all men" being a disclaimer. I love it when women avoid socializing with/refuse to be around/befriend/get close to men because they know men can't be trusted. I love it when women make "kill all men" jokes. I love it when women offer absolutely no concern or care for men's feelings and if their misandry offends men whatsoever because why should we, men are the oppressor class who have raped and killed and abused us and kept us as subjugated as second-class citizens for millennia, they regularly mistreat us and the women in their own marginalized communities still every single day and make this world so much harder and more awful for us to be in, and if we choose to hate them and not spare them any sympathy then so be it, and I don't just mean "men as a class" either, you can be a woman who doesn't want to have anything to do with any man on an individual basis and completely cuts off men from her personal life too and ykw I will love and fucking support you in that because men deserve absolutely NOTHING from us. If they're so tough and strong then they can handle it just like they can handle being lonely. If you are a woman who hates men, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A LESBIAN AND/OR A TRANS WOMAN, then just know that I love you. I love you, I support you, and you are safe here.

[deeply-unserious-fellow]

This is for everybody who saw my vision :)

Vers. w/out the hell police. Square. Things. Cuz why not lol

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

Elim Garak: fucking around vs finding out

[saraminia]

I just feel that we as a fandom moved on too fast from these pictures...

[r0bee]

She switched up so fast but I respect her for it.

[ladyluscinia]

Very few people bothered to find out what S1 Izzy / complex Edward enjoyers were interpreting differently than the "Izzy is Kylo Ren / Ed's his victim" crowd that made us like him in the first place, so it figures that now very few people are bothering to understand what a lot of us are criticizing in S2 while the - shockingly - exact same crowd leads the discussion on how it was a beautiful season and Izzy enjoyers are just incapable of decentering their problematic fave.

And it's once again leading to a barrage of posts lecturing us about why the takes they imagine we hold are wrong and supporting the same toxic fandom atmosphere that aimed to harass us all out for a year and a half. Cool. Glad to see no lessons were learned whatsoever.

Only difference is now we actually might leave, on account of you don't generally put up with extended harassment to support a show you don't even think is being written well. 🤷‍♀️

[moongothic]

Crocodile and dragon meeting because Ivankov introduces them is a cute au idea….you go to the queer pope for magic HRT and through whatever compulsive small talk they decide that you would be *perfect* for their less powerful token cis bestfriend

Describing Iva-chan as the Queer Pope is so fucking funny though oh my god

Part of me feels like it'd be funnier if Ivankov assumed both Croc and Dragon were straight, so they were introducing the two so they could literally be Just Friends (esp because you'd assume they aren't each other's type to begin with)

So when Iva-chan then accidentally walks in on the two smooching they just

[heljay]

Chapters: 5/? Fandom: 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania (Video Games), 悪魔城伝説 | Castlevania lll: Dracula's Curse, 悪魔城ドラキュラ 闇の呪印 | Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya & OC, Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya & Trevor Belmont, Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya & Grant Danasty, Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya & Hector Characters: Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya, Belmont Family (Castlevania), Danasty Family (Castlevania), Belnades Family (Castlevania), Trevor Belmont, Grant Danasty, Hector (Castlevania) Additional Tags: MANY more to be added - Freeform, Letters, Family Archives, Found Family Summary:

Alucard spent over 300 years sleeping in his crypt, hidden away from all the world- save for the three familial heads that had discovered him there to begin with while he was awake. The three families dedicate themselves to keeping watch over their friend until the day he finally stirs.

[tragedycoded]

@sableglass read Chapter 24 last night.

[imgonnagetyoubacktv]

pata hai last kuch din i was very busy with my project kyunki final dena tha and binding karni thi etc to wo karwayi then i went to the bookfair bekaar tha then parso submit karne jaa rahi to subah accident hogaya (bhai ki bike skid hogayi and we fell down) and now i have a big ass blue bruise on my upper thigh and my parents don't even know lmao and kal ek science conference thi to i had to sit in an auditorium for 6 hours listening to accomplished people speak. that's what you missed now your turn

omg i knew everything in this except for the accident cause i stalk your blog vigorously everyday are you okay!!!!!!!!!! did you get tetanus shots!!!!!!!!!! also on your upper thigh oh no that's where future jiju is supposed to write MINE na as per our beloved song guilty as sin?

[good-beanswrites]

Imagine the awkwardness if in that Mikoto Prank Show ask however, if no one but Es and Jackalope were in on it… And they somehow got everyone’s crimes perfectly right.

LMAO 💀💀💀

Jackalope and Es are in on it, and they don’t even need to guess them -- the machine can be legit! As any good businessmen, they put this newfound life-changing technology to good use: reality TV. They get a hold of 10 random people, planning on editing and splicing the videos to make up some crazy stories about crime and guilt and see how people react. They chose an range of people that might feel guilt over something -- they assume doctors feel bad for losing patients even though they did their best, or policemen regret the people they can't save, or chronically online people feel responsible for things they're connected to -- but that's all.

They get to Haruka’s interrogation and Es comes back to the team going, “hey, did you guys watch the video? Crazy that this guy killed animals, huh.” Then Yuno’s rolls around and they go “shit I never would have thought she was the type for that, now she’s overthinking her abortion…” Then Fuuta. “What are the chances that so many people feel incredibly guilty over someone else’s death? Does everyone feel a secret responsibility for something that happened indirectly?” Then Muu. “Okay that was pretty direct. How did we find these people? Should we contact anyone about this? No? Okay.” Shidou. “?????” By the time they get to Mahiru’s interrogation and she readily admits to murder they’re like “yeah okay, I had a feeling.”

The funniest part is, Mikoto is the team's only hopeful case! From the very beginning, they hear him talking around the prison and everyone breathes a long sigh of relief. “Finally! A normal, not-murdery guy! Our show is saved! We have someone real to prank!” … And then.

(Slightly off-topic but I’ve always wanted to write a comedy normal au in which Es befriends the cast in different areas of their life; Amane is transferred to their school after her incident, Mahiru works in a nearby store, Shidou works at their local clinic, etc.) One by one they get close enough to Es to really trust them, and each confess to being involved with a death that was either indirect or very well covered up. The first few times it’s a beautiful moment of trust and vulnerability, but after like five confessions Es is sitting there like “seriously?? How does this keep happening????”)

[imminent-danger-came]

Demon Bull King: "*laughs* You might have that old fool's staff, but you are not the Monkey King." MK: "You're right! I'm the Monkie Kid!"

(1x00 A Hero is Born)

-

MK: "Well, I'm not the Monkey King! Okay!" Mirror MK: "You're right, you're the Monkie Kid! You've got to find your own way to win—so do it."

(2x00 Revenge of the Spider Queen)

-

Lady Bone Demon: "Oh sweet child. Can't you see? Sun Wukong couldn't best me—what can you hope to accomplish when he has failed? Cast aside your stubbornness and face your demise with honor." MK: "If you really believe destiny can't be changed, you wouldn't be using every ounce of power you have to keep him contained! The Monkey King I know will never stop fighting you—and neither will I."

(3x14 Destiny Fulfilled)

-

Curse MK: "We’re just like Wukong. A fraud! A trickster! Destructive! Why would our legacy be any different? Actually, no no- the chaos and destruction we’ll bring upon the world will make Wukong’s past look like nothing."

(4x07 Pitiful Creatures)

-

MK and his debatable likeness to the Monkey King.