#i dunt even know what I’m saying.

[claire-elvisgirl]

A Growing Lily - pt. 2

Hope you like part 2...let me know what you think! And part 3. Is almost ready!

Word count: 3435

Summary: You’re divorced. Elvis takes you and you little daughter to live with him. 13 years after he acts like a perfect possessive and jealous father.

Warnings: +18, mention of booze, authoritarian fathership, rebellion, relationship step-father/daughter

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13 years after...

In the first years your life was exactly as you expected. Lily was growing and you and Elvis were united as ever. But thirteen years could change even the most perfect couple. He was always caring and loving with you and Lily, but you seemed to have lost the joy of loving him, even if you would never leave him. You were so grateful to him for saving you, for giving you the new life you deserved and now you simply couldn’t tell him that things have changed a little for you.

Lily had turned into a beautiful 18 year-old girl and she was Elvis’ real joy. He spent most of his time with her, spoiling her and cuddling her as his little princess.

One day he got back home and find Lily on the couch, reading a book. He leaned down behind her and kissed her head: “How's my favorite little girl doing tonight?”

“She gasped surprised: “Elvis...you scared me! I’m good... you alright?”. After she turned 15 she wouldn’t be able to call him daddy again. She was growing and he was getting older too. He was 35.

Lily grabbed his hand as he seated next to her on the couch: “Where's mama? I haven't seen her all day...is she ok?”

He looked at her seriously: “She's upstairs in bed and do me a favour, darlin', don't bother her, alright?”. You asked him to let you sleep. You hadn’t felt well all the night and you were so sleepy that you had to recover. Lily looked at him worried: “Is she sick?”

Elvis looked up annoyed. “Not exactly, sweetheart. She been cryin'...ya mama got a lot on her mind, but it was my fault this time, so she needs her sleep now.”

“What happened?” she asked worried.

He smiled: “Don't you be worryin' your little pretty head about your mama, sweetheart, she’s fine. Just let her sleep, don't you bother her tonight, ok?”

Lily got up from the couch. “Well...ok...I was about to tell her that I'm going out tonight...”

He looked at Lily: “You are, sweetheart? Where you goin'?”

She headed to her room: “Hanging out with my friends, we would probably go to that beach party I told you about!”

He pointed his hands on the couch and followed her. “Seriously Lily? I thought we talked about that…I don’t want you to go that party...who knows how many people, drugs, booze... just ain't safe, ya hear? I think I maybe have to talk to your mother...”

Lily smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek: “Oh please...I'm not 5 years old anymore...and mama agreed to let me go! Didn’t she tell you?”

He ignored her kiss and kept on talking: “Well, sweetheart, just cause you aren't five anymore doesn't mean a thing, darlin'!” He was in rage. But suddenly he calmed down “Just promise me...no booze, no drugs, no messin' around! Okay?”

“Alright... no booze, no drugs, blah blah blah...ok...same things...” she answered.

“That's a good girl, you know how I love you and I get so worried when you ain't around, sweetheart.”

“I know! But you dunt have to worry! Now I have to get ready. Danny is gonna pick me up in 15 minutes!” She headed for the bathroom but he stopped her. “Oh…and another thing Lily: no make up this time, ya hear?”

She passed over him: “Oh Elvis please...no make up? Seriously?”

He looked at her seriously grabbing her cheek. “I think you need to be natural, Lily, you are more beautiful that way. Ya don’t need to cover that natural beauty. No make up Lily, that’s it! Ya hear me?”

She rolled her eyes back, taking his hand away: “Alright, but it's not fair!” she answerd hiding some make up stuff in her purse.

“Fair or not, darlin', when I say something, that's what I mean and you know that. So ya better behave and stay out of trouble!” he yelled going back to the living room.

She got angry and turned to him: “You know... you're not my real father Elvis! you can't keep on treating me like I was a child. As you can see, I'm not a child anymore!!!!

He stopped and got back. He got very close to her and he stares from up to down: “Hey!! don't ya raise your voice at me, young lady!! You are still too young, so you better listen to what I say. Understand?”

“Too young?? Oh God, Elvis, I'm 18 and technically I'm adult...”

He was getting angrier: “Well, you may be an adult technically, but mentally you still got a long way to go til you're a grown woman. Furthermore, you're legally my step-daughter, and the rule is no make up, no booze, no drugs and that's the end. Ya understand?”. He threw a punch on the wall.

She stepped back scared. Then he kept on talking: “Don’t look at me like that...I'm only tryin' to protect you and keep you out of trouble. Now go. Your boy is comin' in a few minutes.”

She came to your room to tell you she was going out and that she loves you. You kissed her and wished her a good evening. Then she came back with a short pink dress on. As she passed beside Elvis he grabbed her arm. “I think you didn’t heard what I told you!!! Where do you think you’re going with this thing? Don’t you think it’s a little too short?”

“Oh please Elvis, not again, mom said this was alright! I bought it with her!”

“I don't care what your momma said! I’m in charge now! I'm your step-father and I said no. This dress is too short, and you’re not going to wear it! Understand?”

She laughed at him: “Are you serious? Is this some kind of joke?”

He looked at you: “This ain't a joke, I'm dead serious right now. So, you’re not gonna wear this dress. That’s it!”

In that moment the door bell rang. “Too late!” She went to open the door to find her boyfriend Danny.

Elvis stopped the two lovers: “So…where ya going?”

Lily snorted: “Elvis please I told you... we're going to the beach!”

He was standing in front of the door: “Yeah, beach party, right..”

Danny felt the heavy situation and promised to take care of Lily. “You better son, otherwise ya gonna make me have to follow you and keep an eye on ya!?”

Lily pointed her finger at him: “Oh don't you dare....”

Elvis towered her: “’Don't you dare’ what? Ya got a little attitude there?!”

An annoyed voice came from upstairs. It was you who stopped all the circus: "Elvis please stop it...let them go!”

He looked up: “Oh for the love of Christ, alright...just go on, and do me a favorite, behave yourself. And don't be callin' your momma and tellin' her I told ya to behave, ya hear me?”

“Oh thank youuu... you're the greatest!” she kissed him on his cheek then she went out with Danny. Elvis remains alone and he sat on the couch.

“God, that damn girl's gonna be the death of me. She's gonna do what she wants...and if she ever gets herself in trouble, I don’t know what I’m gonna do...” He said to himself with annoyance and with a pinch of sadness in his voice.

Lily spent a wonderful night with her friends. As she promised there were no drugs or other bad things...except a little bit of alcohol.

The day after Elvis woke up early, his thoughts were already on his stepdaughter. He went to check her in the bedroom, but the bed was tied up and nobody was in the room. He went to the bathroom, he looked at his reflection in the mirror and splashed cool water on his face to wake himself up. He couldn’t help but think about Lily and he was worried about her.

He was about to wake you up, when he heard the doorbell. Elvis rushed up to answer it. To his surprise, he found Lily and Danny at his doorstep.

“Well...isn’t it a bit late to come back!?” he was furious. “You were supposed to take it easy and come back by midnight. Are ya two alright?”

She entered the house: “Don’t worry Elvis, I'm feeling very good!”

“And Danny here? Is he treating you well? Please tell me he is behaving. I'm trusting him to take care of you...

“Oh don't you worry, he took greeeat care of me!” she answered looking at Danny with a mischievous face.

Elvis's tone changes and he became harsh and authoritarian. He saw a big smile in her expression, and knew she was hiding something. “You...you two...haven't done nothing stupid, Lily?”

“Come on Elvis... you worry too much....” then he kissed Danny and she sent him away: "You better go!".

She sat on the couch and Elvis went straight to her. “I'm pretty sure you broke your promise! What happened last night?”

“Dunt get mad, it's alright!”

“C’mon, you know me better than that! I just want to know how you spent your night, 'cause I couldn't stop thinking about you, I was worried!” He got closer to Lily, to the point that he was sitting right next to her. Their eyes met when he looked at her with a kind and worried look. Elvis smiled as he spoke: “Oh, this is killin' me, Lily...just tell me what happened, please. You know, I care about ya…”. His tone was sincere and honest. He looked at her with genuine worry and he put his hand on her thigh in a protective gesture.

She pushed him back: “What are you doing?”

“Don't worry about it, Lily...don't worry at all! Now, just tell me what happened, and everything’s gonna be alright, ya hear me? You broke your promise, you know that? But I want ya to be honest with me now!” He then slowly moved his hand to caress her thigh. He wasn't thinking straight anymore, his desire just took over at that point.

“Elvis please...what are you...?”

He couldn’t hold back his feelings anymore: “Darlin', now listen to me...ya know I love ya, like any other father, but hey, every man has needs and you just don't know how hard it is to resist you, and...” his hand had already traveled up to the edge of her dress, his eyes were now fixed on her lips like a hungry predator. The thought of kissing her was overwhelming him.

As she realised what was happening she got up from the couch: “Dunt you dare…I'm gonna tell mama!”

His desires overpowered him, and he was now ready to go much further to have his way. His thoughts were only focused on her, everything else had disappeared in that exact moment. Elvis got close to her and kissed her hard, while his tongue tried to find its way into her lips. He was now desperate to possess his stepdaughter. He pulls her on the couch so her body was now on top of him. His hand grabbed her hair and pressed the back of her head down, bringing Claire face closer to his.

She struggled to push him away... "It can't be happening!” she thought. His hand moved to lift the edge of her dress higher and higher up her thighs. He was trying with all his might to resist the urge to take her right there and then, but he was into it. In that moment, as she was trying to escape, she felt her body shiver and a strange pressure grew in her lower belly. “Oh my God..”

She grabbed his shoulders and pushed him away standing up and leaving him on the couch: “What are you trying to do?? Are you mad?”

“Honeybee, ya know what I'm trying to do! I want you in every possible way, and ya know that. I love the way you look, the way you move, the way you smell. You are mine, ya hear me? You are mine!” He stood up and grabbed her again. This time he pressed her against the couch with his whole body on her and pinned her against the couch as his hands were under her skirt and tried to undo her bra.

She cried “No, please...mooom!”

In that moment your voice came from upstairs: “Lily, what's going on sweetheart?” You asked while getting downstairs. Lily jumped from the couch. Elvis looked at her in a frustrated way, as he fixed his clothes to look good again. “Ah shit Lily! Why you had to go get your momma?” As Elvis heard footsteps getting closer to the living room, he tried his best to hide his arousal.

Lily ran upstairs and locked her in her bedroom. Elvis hears her crying and his face was filled with sadness. As you came down, he found himself with you in the living room and he tried to lie, but he seemed to be a bit nervous. You looked at him with a skeptical look.

“Oh y/n, sweetie, Lily was just scared because I yelled at her for breaking her promise and going out with his boyfriend. I just yelled at her 'cause I'm worried she'd break her promise again, she's not in trouble, ya hear me?” You looked at him worried. “Believe me y/n, Lily is ok, she’s in her room now, I sent her to rest!” You were so tired that in the end you believed him and went to get lunch ready. Elvis, in a desperate gesture, decided to knock on Lily’s door. He knocked very hard, as if it was a threat.

“Honeybee, I need to talk to ya. Please open the door!”. He was knocking on the door over and over and over again. He seemed nervous, frustrated, and sad all at once. He needed her to open that door so he could convince her. “Lily please...I didn't mean to scare you, sweetheart...and I won't yell at you again, I promise! But I really need to talk ya, darlin'. Please, sweetheart...I promise it will not take long!” He sounded desperate at this point. She felt him crying and she opened the door a little bit. He saw the little slit of the door open and his heart beat fast. He took all his strength to keep his composure and not look at her with lusty look.

“Lily please...I'm gonna fix this, I promise...just listen to me and don't tell on me, ya hear me?” His words were sincere, but he couldn't help looking at her and wishing he could hold her.

“What did you got on your mind?” she asked shocked. Elvis looked up and tried to fix his eyes on her eyes. “Listen to me Lily, don't say anything to your momma, ok? I couldn’t bare to lose both of you!”.

Lily is very angry and she felt betrayed by him. All of her life she looked at him like the hero of the fairytales, her prince charming and now she was seeing him as a monster. “How can you ask me that? Do you realise what you were about to do?”

“Lily, please... I wasn’t about to do anything, you hear me? I just wanted to hug you and...I'm sorry...just please, don't tell your momma. Please!” He started to sound needy, pleading, and desperate. He sounded as if his life depended on her not telling on him. Lily looked at him and in that moment something changed inside of her. She saw him vulnerable and almost lost. Elvis, who just wanted to kiss her, saw Lily getting closer to him. She got closer and Elvis' heartbeat increased even more. The temptation was bigger than ever for him.

“I won't tell her...daddy!”

Elvis saw her smiling. She was a lot more beautiful and cute when she smiled. Then he smiled back at her and put his arms around her waist, ready to hug her. She suddenly leaned towards him, expecting a kiss. Elvis was confused. He kissed her passionately, in a way he never expected to. He couldn't resist her anymore. His desire for her was too big to resist. Finally, his tongue was in her mouth and their lips were dancing free. She pulls back shocked at what she did: “I'm...I'm sorry daddy...I..”

Elvis was still holding her, and didn't let her go. His eyes were on her lips and he couldn't resist her anymore. This was just a kiss to her, but for him, it was like a dream becoming true. He kissed her again, but even more passionately than before. As their lips danced, he was the happiest man in the world, knowing it was a mistake that would cost him everything he had. He couldn't resist his stepdaughter and he was enjoying her lips and her body now more than ever.

He pushed her against the wall and kept kissing her passionately. Her legs moved a bit, but Elvis felt that she was into it. So he kept going, pushing her body against the wall. His desire for her was as big as his love, if not bigger. He couldn't get enough from her. Elvis didn't want this moment to end, but the thought of letting himself go any further also crossed his mind. He knew this would cost him a lot if anyone came to this room. As he kissed her on her neck, Elvis made sure to whisper: “Be quite baby...” then he locked the door.

He put his hand on the back of her neck, as his other hand moved slowly down to her butt and thighs. He loved to touch her body and he couldn't resist her anymore. He wanted to take her right there and then. He wanted to get her out of that dress and make her his own. He kissed her slowly and passionately, taking his time with her, giving her as much pleasure as he could. Elvis stopped his hands slowly from touching Lily’s body, as he took his eyes off her body and he started to look in her eyes. He looked at her with desire, but at the same time with deep feelings of love and tenderness.

Suddenly Lily pushed him away. “Please Elvis, stop... this is not the right way!”

Elvis was confused. He had never felt this way for a woman before, but at the same time he was just a man who couldn't resist his desire. Elvis knew he was in trouble, and he had a big decision to make.

“Lily, ya know I want to hold ya, ya know I want to kiss ya...and I want to give ya everything you... deserve, ya hear me?” he said while he kept on caressing here gently.

She looked down: “What I'm trying to say is...I want it too, but not this way!”

Elvis wasn't expecting that. He looked at her in shock. She was telling him that she also felt what he felt, but she was too scared to fully admit it.

“You mean...ya want this too? Oh God, ya can't imagine how much I want to be with you and make you mine, but you know I can't Lily...you know I can't...”

She held him and looked him in his eyes: “I loved you since I was little...when you took us with you I was just a child and you were my big hero. I remember I called you daddy back then but now...I just can't. That's why I never called you that way anymore...”

“Lily, you mean you love me? You...you fell in love with me a long time ago? I never knew that! I...I can’t believe it. But...you are too young for me Lily. We could never be…” Elvis was torn apart. He would have taken her right then, but still he saw her as the little girl he raised and he couldn’t do anything but feel guilty.

“I don't care if I'm too young!” said Lily “I want you to teach me how to love you. You know, I have to confess you a thing: Danny tried to do something last night, but I stopped him! I didn't want him to be the first, I wanted to be you!” At that words he took courage and chose the path of his new life. He could have the opportunity to be with her. So he didn't want to waste anytime and he had the perfect place for spending some quality time with her. “Lily, come with me! We'll need to be careful, but once we get there, there's no one that we have to hide from. It's just you and me, alone and free!"

*

[raindragon-20]

Currently reading TRC and it be like...

Hi I’m Blue, and this is my boyfriend Gansey and these are Gansey’s boyfriends Ronan and Adam, and thats Ronan’s boyfriends Adam and Gansey, and Adam’s boyfriend Ronan. And this is our ghost child Noah, okay bye thanks... mom where are you?

[titan-fodder]

Pyroclastic (Mike Zacharias x Reader)

Summary: Some would argue that the park is dead, but you know better; it’s livelier than it has been in hundreds of thousands of years, a shuddering, breathing monster finally rising to its feet after an eternity of slumber. Soon, it will open its mouth in an earth-shattering scream, and then, everyone will see.

Not dead; just waking up.

Rating: E (explicit)

Word Count: ~19.5K

Warnings: slow burn, friends to lovers, Eruri, implied Mobuhan, spelling Miche ‘Mike’, swearing, fighting, lots of nerdy shit, explicit sexual content, breeding kink

A/N: This is my contribution to the Smut Pile’s Apocalypse collab. I urge everyone to check out all the pieces on the masterlist. A big thanks to @pleasantanathema​ and @whats-her-quirk​ for being about as excited about this as I was, to @shadowworks​ for always encouraging me when I take on projects too big for my own good, and to @mindninjax​ who volunteered her husband’s expertise on this. I’m pretty proud of this piece and had a blast writing and researching for it. This is by no means scientifically accurate, but I did my best to make it realistic (as in I watched Supervolcano again and spent a lot of time on the USGS website). Also, I have been to Yellowstone exactly one (1) time in my life and was terrified the entire time which is where my fixation with it comes from. 

Enjoy~

GLOSSARY

Caldera - large basin-shaped volcanic depression with a diameter many times larger than its included volcanic vents; commonly formed when magma is withdrawn or erupted from a shallow, underground magma reservoir.*

Pyroclastic flow - A hot (typically >800 °C), chaotic mixture of rock fragments, gas, and ash that travels rapidly (tens of meters per second) away from a volcanic vent or collapsing flow front.*

Tephra -  pieces of all fragments of rock ejected into the air by an erupting volcano.

VEI - The Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) is a relative measure of the explosiveness of volcanic eruptions.*

*definitions taken from USGS website

4  Y E A R S  B E F O R E 

Levi looks pissed when he’s on screen. He looks pissed all the time, but he looks especially pissed when he’s made to stand in front of pointed cameras and outstretched microphones. 

You can’t blame him; it’s not actually his job to deal with the press, but some years ago, Erwin had twisted his arm this way and that and convinced Levi to take over conferences.

“They understand you better,” he’d said. “You enunciate better than me. We can’t have people misunderstanding me and panicking, can we?” The blond had purposely spoken with an accent thicker than usual, and Levi had called him every name under the sun, but in the end, he’d relented, and now…

“Dr. Ackermann! Dr. Ackermann! Is it true that this has been the largest earthquake in Yellowstone since Hebgen Lake?” 

Levi squints, actually cringes at the question, then waves one of his small, bony hands. “Hebgen Lake was a major quake—7.2 on the Richter scale. This was only a 5.3, and yeah, it’s been a while since the park has had a quake larger than a three, but that doesn’t mean—”

“So, should we be worried about a supereruption?” Another reporter asks, and you clamp a hand over your mouth to keep from laughing as the light leaves your colleague’s eyes. 

Levi’s jaw slides, and he pauses, no doubt to think about how to answer because this is a delicate question, one that the general public always reads extremely far into. He’s good at keeping his expression blank, at least, probably another reason Erwin requested he take over interviews. 

“Listen,” he starts off, slate eyes locking onto the largest camera in front of him. “Yellowstone is a hub of seismic energy. It wouldn’t be the park we know and love today if it wasn’t shaking and letting off steam like it usually does, right?” This gains a few relieved chuckles from the crowd of journalists. 

“Was this earthquake bigger than the ones we’re used to? Yes. Are we monitoring each and every tremor that we pick up? Also, yes. So, don’t make yourself sick worryin’ about sh—stuff you can’t control. We’ll let you know if it’s time to worry.” He sucks his teeth for a second, waiting for his advice to wash over everyone, then adds, “Keep a bug-out bag packed, though. Not because of the volcano or anything. Just because… The world is crazy and so are people, and it’s always good to be prepared.”

They take it as a joke, laugh a little louder as Levi steps down from the podium, but you’ve worked with him long enough to know he had made the comment with serious intent. It’s a lot easier to fly out of town at a moment’s notice when you already have the necessities packed, and though he won't tell them all the facts this early on, there’s a chance that they will eventually have to evacuate, yes. 

“I fucking hate that big, blond bastard,” is the first thing Levi tells you when he’s within earshot, much less well-spoken in casual situations than when his face is being broadcasted. “Voht iff they dunt understahnd me, Lebi?” He mimics your boss badly then pantomimes an uppercut with a dramatic grunt. 

“Why’d you make him sound Russian?”

“I was trying to make him sound stupid ‘cause that’s what he is.”

“I have four doctorates,” Erwin states as he falls into step with both of you, finally moving from his little hiding place behind one of the news trucks. “I’m not stupid. And, I do not sound like that.”

“That’s what you think,” Levi grumbles, doing his best to shrug away from the larger man when Erwin slings an arm around his shoulders. It doesn’t work, and Levi ends up stumbling to keep up with Erwin’s longer strides, which only serves to irritate him further. 

“You looked good up there. I mean, you sounded good. Sounded sure, comforting…” 

You shake your head at Erwin’s obvious struggle to just not be the big weirdo that he is, but it sure is painful to watch sometimes. 

Governor Zachary takes over the conference, leaving the three of you to make your way inside the lodge that the emergency broadcast was set up outside of. Levi and Erwin bicker through the lobby then through the back doors that lead you to the jeep that you all swing yourselves into. 

The sky is still a little dusty with shaken sediment, and some of the park rangers are setting up barricades at the mouths of a couple hiking trails leading to what is now a moderately large crevasse that’s opened up in the Biscuit Basin. 

Other than that, the park doesn’t feel much different as you ride through it on your way back to the lab. The Summer sun brings with it your favorite 70 degree days, and if it weren’t for Erwin’s questionable driving, you’d be tempted to hang half your body out the window just to feel the warmth better. The faint smell of sulfur in the air is soothing at this point—the smell of activity, the smell of science, the smell of home. Geysers are still shooting boiling water to the skies. The mud pots are still bubbling like ominous cauldrons. That earthquake couldn’t have shaken too much out of place if all the geothermal spots are still behaving as they normally do.

The tires kick up rocks and dust as Erwin brakes dramatically outside of the base, right behind another familiar jeep that makes Levi roll his eyes. 

“Great. The boy scout’s here.” 

“Oh, be nice, you little grump,” Erwin chastises him. “Mike’s been nothing but kind to us since he started working here.”

“Yeah, except for the time he misjudged the depth of that puddle and—”

“Splashed you with mud, yeah, yeah, we know, Levi,” you finish for him as you slide out of the vehicle. “You bring it up every time you see the guy. We know.”

“And, didn’t he apologize afterward?” Erwin prompts.

Levi doesn’t answer, but you respond for him: “Profusely. Drove him back to the lab, offered him his spare change of clothes—”

“Useless,” Levi hisses. “The dude’s a giant.”

“Not his fault he’s…” You try not to sound too giddy when you step through the door and see the man in question. “Enormous.” 

You don’t know Mike very well, one of the newer park rangers but with a background in geology which leads him to your neck of the woods very often. The few conversations you have had with him have all been pleasant. He’s soft-spoken but obviously intelligent with good instincts about both the park’s weather and wildlife. 

He’s also the only ranger you’ve seen actually pull off the dorky park uniform, but that could just be because the different shades of green look good against his tan skin and bring out his light eyes. Even taller than Erwin and a little broader too, M. Zacharias (as his little, metal name tag reads) is a slab of a man, and yet, when he grins, it’s almost boyish. 

“Hey, Mike, what’s up?” You greet.

He turns his head to look at you, flipping shaggy hair from his face, then offers one of the soft smiles you were hoping for. “Just came to drop off some samples for Hange.”

“Disgusting,” Levi mutters just for you to hear as he passes, and you shove him hard enough to make him stumble and flip you off. 

“How’d the press conference go?” Hange asks, tossing a small, corked flask of mud from hand to hand—what you assume to be the sample—while twirling in their computer chair. The last member of your team, Moblit Berner, glances away from the holographic model he’s studying to hear the answer. 

“I think it went well,” Erwin says. “Levi handled it like a champion, as always.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, old man,” the brunet bites out, joining Moblit next to the expensive projection table in the middle of the lab. “What’re we lookin’ at?”

“I’m just running the numbers from today’s quake. The possible effects it had underground.”

“And?”

Moblit is quiet for a beat too long.

“Mobs, what is it?” 

You, Erwin, and Hange make your way over to the table, staring at the laser-lit park model and the chamber underneath it. 

“Well, in most of the scenarios, it’s fine,” Moblit tries. “Nothing to worry about.”

“And, in the others?” 

He looks to Erwin, as everyone does in times of concern. Thick eyebrows pinched together, your boss motions to the hologram. “Show us.”

Moblit punches a few things in on the app he uses to control the model, then takes a deep breath and lets it play out for everyone to see, including Mike who slowly makes his way over, curiosity apparently getting the best of him. 

At first, nothing looks to change, just a living, breathing reenactment of what you were seeing today—every geyser, every fumarole, every little rumble, every minute rise and fall of the ground sped up to be detected with the human eye. 

And then, it stops. 

“Why did it…”

“Just watch,” Moblit shushes you. 

The outline of the ground fractures in several different places, statistics for different earthquakes blinking above. The known vents of the park—every geyser, mudpot, and fumarole—are rendered inactive, and under it all, that massive chamber everyone is always so worried about begins to bulge upward and outward, growing larger and larger until…

The map shorts out, flickering then disappearing entirely, leaving the six of you staring at the space where it was shining just seconds ago. 

“Was that…” 

Erwin inhales deeply through his nose before exhaling the word that will eventually bring the nation to its knees.

"Supereruption."

3  Y E A R S  B E F O R E

Even through the thick headset, the whir of the helicopter blades is loud, a rhythm pulsing through the air strong enough to be felt in your chest right alongside your beating heart. 

Thankfully, Mike’s deep voice is loud and clear when he speaks, nodding his head to the right, “Look down at about two o’clock.”

You follow his command, tilting your head and peering down at an empty field. 

“I don’t see anything,” you say.

The microphone hanging in front of his mouth picks up his chuckle, and the sound of it echoes in your ears, making you grin albeit a little confused. 

“Exactly. That’s a big spot for bison this time of year.”

“Then why aren’t they here?”

Mike lets the chopper hover for a while, both hands still on their respective control levers. 

“Ground’s been moving too much,” he says after a few seconds of silent staring. You’d known the answer already but hearing the wildlife expert confirm it fills you with a little more dread than you’d originally harbored. “They feel things we don’t, the tiny quakes, the tremors. Stuff you only think the seismograph picks up—they feel all of it.”

“They know what’s coming,” you say more to yourself than to him. 

Mike offers you one of those charming, close-lipped smiles. “When in doubt, trust the animals.” 

A line you’ve heard him say a few times now. Mike loves everything that lives in the park, from all the common lake trout and sand cranes to the endangered grizzly bears and gray wolves. 

Trust the animals, he says. Because he trusts them. Because he loves them. 

“You wanna fly over the Grand Prismatic?” Mike asks, pulling you from your thoughts, and when you look over, you find your reflection in his mirrored aviators as he stares at you. 

His mouth quirks up at the corners, causing yours to do the same, and you nod. “Yeah, always.”

It’s your favorite view in the park, the colorful spring from up above. Mike had learned that a few months ago, and now whenever you ride in the chopper with him, he makes sure to pass over the beautiful attraction just for you.

Nearly 200° Fahrenheit with a pH of 8.7, the pool, while still dangerous due to its temperature, is one of the more moderate dangers of the national park, tame in comparison to the Norris Geyser Basin with temperatures up to 459° (a thousand meters below the surface, anyway) and a pH of about two. It’s dissolved bones—human bones. And, would claim even more if given the chance. 

You suppose that’s expected for a basin that’s sitting over a chamber of 1,500° molten magma. 

The Grand Prismatic is just as stunning today as it is every other. Its outer orange and yellow rings darken to greens and blues the further inward you look, thick steam rising from all over but more condensed over the middle. 

It was one of the park's biggest attractions, tourists flocking to the spring with their cameras, too stricken by the vivid chromaticism to listen or read about the temperatures and microbials that are responsible for the colors in the first place. 

As you hover above now, just to the side of the steam, your heart aches. There are no ignorant tourists to take pictures of the pool, the boardwalks and trails to these hot spots now blocked off once it became apparent that the earthquake that took place last year was not the last of its kind. Your team as well as the park rangers went to the park board as a unit and suggested that tourists needed to be kept away from as many geothermal features as possible, all of you with the same fear in mind: someone (or many someones) falling in. 

It's always been a risk, but now, with weekly rumblings, that risk has multiplied exponentially. All it takes is someone losing their footing on the boardwalk over the Norris Geyser Basin for serene sightseeing to turn into tragedy, and that's on a good day. Throw a 5.7 earthquake into the mix, and the park could lose an entire tour group to the heat and acid. 

It's just not a risk any of you are willing to take anymore. 

Most of the park remains open. Old Faithful continues to draw people in by the thousands. They sit and watch boiling water shoot into the sky every hour or so, clapping happily at the sight, unaware of the way you and your team hold your breath in wait, hoping for the geyser to go off on its usual schedule. 

One day it will stop. One day they'll all stop. And, then… 

"I can't believe it's all gonna be gone one day," you muse, blinking down at the prismatic pool for as long as Mike will let you. 

"Nah," the man disagrees. "Not gone. Buried, yeah, but not gone."

You snort, turn back to him with a grin and roll your eyes. "Yeah, no big deal. Just miles of pyroclast and ash, probably snow when we get thrust into another ice age 'cause of the crazy climate swing..."

"Alright, alright, I get it. The sun dimeth and the land sinketh."

"Gusheth forth steam and gutting fire," you continue grimly.

Mike turns the helicopter back toward the landing zone, saying nothing else and leaving you to take in the sights below. You're grateful for the silence; it's good for processing, for preparation. 

And, you're grateful for Mike, one of your best friends at this point—soft and kind despite his intimidating stature, smart as a whip, and just as stunning, if not more so, than the Grand Prismatic. 

"Any idea what you'll do afterward?" He asks, holding a hand out to you to help you from your seat in the chopper. 

"Not really. Survive, I guess." 

You land just a little too close to him, your face nearly coming in direct contact with his broad chest, but Mike steps back just in time, making you extend your arm, still connected at the fingers, before he drops your hand. 

"A feat all on its own," he says flatly, but he perks up as you both begin walking to the park ranger base. "Maybe you'll find another team to work on."

"I don't want to find another team," you tell him honestly. "This is my team. This is my home."

Mike hums, an understanding little sound, body warm when he gently bumps into you on the gravel pathway to the lodge. "Yeah, I know."

A geophysics major at UCLA with a specific interest in volcanology, getting to intern with the Erwin Smith at the Yellowstone supervolcano had been a dream come true. You'd expected to gain knowledge and experience—nothing more and nothing less. You'd lived out here for one summer during your graduate program, clocking the field experience you needed to get your degree and taking in everything you could. 

Back then, it felt like all you did was ask questions and get in the way. By the end of that summer, you knew every variation of Levi Ackermann's irritated sighs, every different pitch of Hange Zoe's shouts and how they correlated with their experiments. Moblit had been the newest permanent addition and was even more nervous than he is now, trying and failing to keep up with Hange (which he's much better at doing these days). 

They were all fantastic, but it had been the lead researcher who'd reeled you in. You'd never met anyone as passionate as Dr. Erwin Smith, captivated by the monster underneath the park and thrilled to share his brain with anyone willing to hold their hands out for it. Hell, he'd even helped you with your Master's thesis—hydrothermally altered mineralized systems and their seismic reflections. 

When you graduated, the Yellowstone team was the first you reached out to and the first you heard back from. Erwin said you'd been a perfect fit even as a student (which you hadn't exactly believed but definitely blushed at anyway). Mobs, Hange, and even Levi seemed happy to have you back. It was like you were meant to be here. In this park. With all of them. 

Studying the volcano and all of its properties has always been like breathing to you—natural and necessary. You move when it moves, every shake and tremor a heartbeat in your own chest, every shooting geyser like blood in your veins. The mudpots are your bubbling emotions, the fumaroles, your sense of building pressure and release.

You feel at home in the park because you trust it. Because you love it. 

You don't have room for another team in your heart, but as you walk inside the lodge next to Mike, watching as he takes off his sunglasses and grins at one of the other rangers, you think you at least have room for one more person. 

2  Y E A R S  B E F O R E

The lab has two extra bodies in it—two extra unwelcome bodies who keep getting in your way and touching things as they ask questions that no one has the answers to yet.

“When did you say this was going to happen?” The rotund state governor, Dhalis Zachary, asks for the second time since arriving, picking up a sample test tube that Moblit immediately plucks from his hand with a nervous smile.

“As I said before, it’s difficult to place a concrete timeline on an event like this,” Erwin tells the white-haired man. “We don’t exactly have in depth records of the last three eruptions, so all we have to go off of is the earth itself and our simulations.”

At the edge of the projection table, Nile Dok, FEMA director, cautiously waves a hand through the holographic model displayed in front of him. He obviously doesn’t think anyone is watching him because the slender man jumps in surprise when you snort at your desk, and his angular cheekbones take on a pink tint of embarrassment from having been caught.

He clears his throat, straightens the knot that sits over it, then turns to face Erwin and prompts, “Three eruptions before. One was a lot bigger than the others, though, right?”

Erwin nods. “Huckleberry Ridge. Over two million years ago.”

“We’re hoping—if a supereruption is to occur—it’ll be closer to the size of Mesa Falls,” you pipe up.

“Which one was that?” Zachary asks.

“One-point-three million years ago, two-hundred-and-eighty cubic kilometers of erupted materials…” Levi lists off as he makes his way over to the table with a sanitary wipe in hand. He doesn’t like people in his space, doesn’t like strangers in the lab, even (especially) government officials (“They leave fingerprints, and they breathe on everything, and they waste our fucking time.”).

“Two-hundred-and-eighty cubic kilometers… That’s the best-case scenario?” Zachary looks to Erwin, eyebrows raised high over his wire glasses.

Erwin stares at him for a moment, contemplating the best and easiest way to explain this to someone who has no real experience in the field. Eventually, he settles on, “Moblit, can you run some simulations for me?”

“Of course, sir,” the mousy scientist agrees, phone in hand and pulling up the app before the boss can even finish speaking.

Everyone gathers around the table except for Levi who steps away from it, grumbling under his breath about coming back to clean it later. He at least hits the lights, making the model easier to see as Erwin starts listing off numbers and scenarios.

“The best case, actually, is only one vent opening, maybe two. It would be something comparable to Mount St. Helen’s, though probably a bit bigger, say point-five cubic kilometers of material. It would be necessary to evacuate the park and this region of the state at the very least.”

Zachary hums, “And, how likely is that?”

Erwin shrugs. “Hard to say right now. As the earthquakes increase, though, the likelihood of a small eruption like that, uh, dwindles.”

“Small,” Nile scoffs.

Zachary makes a similar noise, slightly louder, a little more offended, then rattles off, “Mount St. Helen’s killed almost sixty people. The blast, the ash, the lahars—” as if you don’t all already know.

“No one’s discounting the damage of the eruption,” Levi cuts him off. “But, if you’re sweatin’ at those numbers, all due respect, Governor, I don’t know if you’re ready to stomach the rest of this little light show.”

The older man cuts his eyes at Levi who squints right back at him, only turn and shuffle over to his desk when Erwin waves him further away, a silent way of saying ‘keep your smart mouth away from the authority figures’.

“Moving on,” you cough, twirling a finger to get both Erwin and Mobs to continue.

“Yes,” Erwin nods. “So, any eruption is dependent on how much magma in the chamber is eruptible magma. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it will come out.”

Moblit punches in a few numbers to show what a small-scale eruption would look like, first with one vent then with two.

“With just that amount, even with two vents, it isn’t enough to completely destabilize the chamber.”

“And, destabilizing it would be… bad…” Nile states more than asks, brown eyes lit up by the model in front of him.

“No shit,” everyone hears Levi grumble from his desk, and Erwin huffs and looks at you, expression a little exasperated as he jerks a thumb back toward the grumpy man in yet another one of his silent motions— a plea in this case—'go take care of him’ which you do.

Levi is slumped in his computer chair, arms crossed over his chest as he peers over his desktop at the four men gathered around the hologram.

“Should’a just gone with Hange and the boy scout to collect samples when I had the chance,” he mutters.

“You hate collecting samples, especially sulfur samples. Which is what they’re getting now.”

“Yeah, well I hate these guys even more.” He says it quietly enough so that they won’t be able to hear, and even if they could, both Governor Zachary and Nile are too invested in the information that the scientists are giving them to pay attention to anything else.

“What’d they ever do to you?” You push, curious now because sure, Levi has always been the surliest of the team, but it’s rare that he’s surly and loud about it.

“Nothing. They have done nothing because they don’t belong here. They have no idea—no fucking idea—what’s about to happen.” You can hear his frustration even through his whispers. “Best case scenarios? Why are we even going over those? We know damn well that we’re not looking at one or two vents. And, we’re not lookin’ at Mesa Falls either.”

Letting out a long breath, you lean against Levi’s desk, ignoring the way he grunts in protest.

“I know. I’m sure Erwin and Moblit will prep them for the worst case.”

“There’s no prepping for it,” Levi hisses, gray eyes flashing. “We’re talking about—"

“…A nationwide cataclysmic event.” Both of you register Erwin’s voice at the same time and glance at the other group to find them staring at the lit-up simulation of the Huckleberry Ridge eruption.

“Which would pretty quickly turn into a worldwide problem,” Moblit adds quietly.

“Worldwide?” You hear Nile question in a low but very alarmed tone. “Because of the ash?”

“Well, yes, but, it’s not just ash,” Erwin clarifies, diving into his explanation of tephra and how dangerous it is. He reminds the men how far it traveled after the Mount St. Helen’s eruption since they’ve apparently latched onto that one, then challenges, “Now imagine an eruption about… six hundred times that size.”

“Six…” Nile swallows, turning his entire, slender frame toward Erwin and repeating, “Six hundred times bigger? That’s what we’re expecting?”

In his little rolling chair, Levi’s chest puffs a bit, finally satisfied that the gravity of the situation is beginning to set in. “Maybe they aren’t as dumb as they look.”

Erwin is about to say something, right hand lifted with his index finger extended in a very matter-of-fact way, but before he can manage to get anything out, the door to the lab swings open and Hange walks in, Mike just behind them carrying all the collected samples in what almost looks like a lunchbox.

“We’re back—” Hange stops, taking in their surroundings, the lack of lights, the bright projection, the grim energy, then shouts, “Hey, get some Pink Floyd playing! Like a planetarium in here! Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me…”

“Dr. Zoe,” Moblit clears his throat. “We were just going over the utter devastation a supereruption could wreak on the country.”

“Oh, were you?” Hange pauses, brow rising, lips puckering into a sour expression. “My bad.”

Raising a hand to your forehead, you laugh to yourself for a few seconds before shaking the untimely amusement off and making your way over to Mike to take the sample kit from him.

“Careful,” he warns jokingly as he passes it off. “Got some very fragile gas and mud in there.”

“Yeah?” You tease. “So, I shouldn’t, like, shake it or anything?”

“Definitely should not shake it. Here, here, just—” He takes it back, grinning broadly as he tells you, “I think it’s best if you let a professional handle such dangerous compounds.”

All the doom-and-gloom you had been feeling mere seconds ago evaporates entirely, and you let out a frankly embarrassing giggle as you watch Mike very carefully set the samples down on Hange’s lab table, making a show of securing them and whispering a final, “Stay,” so that you clamp a hand over your mouth.

Levi groans in disgust, and, at the same time, Erwin mutters an apology to Zachary and Nile for, “… employing a team of children.”

Your face heats in embarrassment, but it doesn’t keep you from smiling at Mike when he saunters back over, looking rather sheepish himself.

“Lunchtime soon, right?”

“Yeah, in a bit—”

“Please go now, for the love of God,” Erwin sighs. “And, take Levi and Hange with you.”

None of you need telling twice, quickly grabbing wallets and home-packed meals before rushing from the lab before your boss decides to murder one or all of you.

Levi steers Hange toward his car, leaving you alone with Mike which you don’t mind in the slightest. You take most of your lunches with him anyway, some of your breakfasts and dinners too, so this is simply part of your daily routine.

“I’ve got some sandwiches packed already. Wanna hit Mount Haynes?” He suggests, sliding into the driver’s seat of his jeep.

You point a fingergun at him and nod. “I like the way you think, sir.”

He takes a very specific route, avoiding any damaged areas, having to veer off of the actual road at a certain point to take a safer path he and other rangers have made. You watch the mountains of the park grow closer and closer, what you know to be the ridge of Yellowstone’s caldera looming nearer.

Mike parks at the base of your intended destination then reaches into the backseat to grab the aforementioned lunch. You have no intentions of actually hiking to the top of the mountain—don’t have the time or the will, honestly—but as soon as the two of you have worked up a sweat and are at a decent enough elevation to look out on the park underneath, you drop to the dusty ground and take it all in.

Even from this distance, you can see some of the gases and steam in the air. That’s the only movement there is, though, save for the occasional ranger vehicle zipping along. The land seems almost barren at this point. The grass is still green. The sun is still bright as it is every Summer.

But, there are no animals, no tourists, no real life. Instead, it’s been replaced with cracks and crevasses, with barricades and warning signs.

Trail Closed

Road Closed

Danger: Keep Out

It’s been almost six months since the park decided to shut down to the public, and if you’re being honest, it should have closed its doors long before. It took people dying to bring the board to their senses, an earthquake that shook the ground for minutes, the crust of the earth splitting right under the historical lodge that so many loved.

Fourteen casualties. Twenty-nine injured.

That’s what it took.

You barely recognize the park now, feel like the last endangered species left within its boundaries. It’s just the research team, some of the rangers, and the occasional outside visitor (board members, government officials, or press that gets waved away).

Some would argue that the park is dead, but you know better; it’s livelier than it has been in hundreds of thousands of years, a shuddering, breathing monster finally rising to its feet after an eternity of slumber. Soon, it will open its mouth in an earth-shattering scream, and then, everyone will see.

Not dead; just waking up.

“You look tired.” Mike’s voice may as well be carried by the breeze, light and low, refreshing as it passes over you, and you flash him a smile while nodding.

“Exhausted.”

He grabs a sandwich from the lunchbox, and you fish hand sanitizer from one of the many pockets on your pants, squirting it into your hand first then holding it out to the man beside you.

“Seems like you spend more time here than at your apartment.”

“Oh, most definitely.” You unwrap what looks to be turkey and pepper-jack and try to ignore the way your stomach flips at the fact that it’s your favorite simple-sandwich-combo and that Mike remembered. “Lot to do in the lab. Obviously.” You take a bite—no mustard, only mayo—and feel some of the tension between your shoulder blades begin to unwind.

“Figure you wouldn’t want it any other way, though,” Mike comments before chomping into his own sandwich.

“Right you are. I mean, end of the world, potentially. Scary stuff, but also…” You swallow, lick your lips and stare out at the landscape in front of you as you grapple with words. “It’s like… I’m terrified, but I feel like I’m exactly where I need to be. Like…”

This is how I’m supposed to go out, you almost say, but you’re smart to keep it to yourself. That’s a thought for you and you alone, one you haven’t shared with anyone because nobody else would understand except maybe Erwin.

“This is what you’re meant to do,” Mike supplies, and you look over at him. “This is what you love. I get that.”

And, he’s right. But, the park and volcanology—those aren’t the only things you love.

Mike sits there, legs crossed like an overgrown kindergartener, shaggy hair blowing in the wind, light green eyes so, incredibly warm and bright, and it feels like you can’t breathe anymore, like your lungs and throat are already full of ash that hasn’t fallen yet, tight with dying declarations you can’t bring yourself to make.

“Have you ever heard of Katia and Maurice Krafft?” You ask, and yes, your voice does feel somewhat strangled, the space behind your eyes burning just a little hotter than usual.

Mike shakes his head, takes another bite, and gives you his undivided attention.

“They were these French volcanologists who got really famous for the pictures and footage they took of erupting volcanoes. The recordings they got for the community were—I mean, they were pioneers. They changed the game. There’s photos and videos of them just—” you gesture nebulously with both your hands, nearly flinging your sandwich off the side of the mountain and making Mike reach out and catch your wrist before you can.

“Please, no feeding the park’s wildlife, ma’am,” he jokes easily, and you have to shove the sandwich into your mouth to keep from giggling like a schoolgirl. Mike shows the smallest of satisfied smiles, completely unaware of his own charm, and it’s maddening and intoxicating, and it’s all you can do to keep talking about the brave scientists.

“Anyway,” you continue. “Katia would get, like, within feet of lava flows. Just walkin’ right beside ‘em in her special heat suit. And, they’d wear protective helmets because of, you know—”

“Explosions. Falling rocks.”

 “Yeah, exactly. They were just there, documenting it all happening, nerves of fucking steel. Katia was usually the one gathering samples and stuff while Maurice recorded, but he was right in the thick of it too. This badass couple learning and adventuring together.”

Mike eventually questions, “What happened to them?” but you’re sure he knows the answer when you deflate a bit.

“Mount Unzen eruption—got caught in the pyroclastic flow. Died instantly.”

“At least they were doing what they loved,” he says, and you nod.

You’re silent for a while, neither of you eating but both of you staring. You think about the Kraffts often, especially now with Yellowstone’s imminent eruption. Doing what they loved… They died for their research, and though you never got the chance to meet them or even speak with anyone who has met them, you have a feeling they wouldn’t have wanted it to happen any other way.

“Just so you know,” Mike gets your attention, and when you look over at him, your heart swells.

The sun is reflected in his eyes, making light green glow with more than just warmth and sincerity, and god, you’re so in love with him, you can feel it in your bone marrow. You ache for him, you pine for him, and you want to live for him, but how…

“I’d film you walking next to a lava flow,” he tells you. Despite the little smile playing at his lips, you know he isn’t kidding.

Tears prick the corners of your eyes, and you have to look away before any actually fall, but your sniffle definitely gives you away. You swear internally, berating yourself for getting emotional in front of Mike, though you can’t say you’re too surprised. Your stress levels have been through the roof, working non-stop for months now, the government breathing down your neck. People have died and the park is literally fracturing before your eyes, and you’re not ready to see it end—to see everything as you know it come to an end.

“Pretty dusty up here,” Mike comments while nudging you. You find him holding out a handkerchief, letting you take it then turning his gaze forward again to allow you a little privacy to dab at your eyes.

Mike has senses beyond the normal human spectrum. He has a sense for weather unlike anyone you’ve ever seen before, from thunderstorms and tornadoes to record snowfall and, on a few occasions, earthquakes. You can still vividly remember being in the lab the day of the fatal quake that damaged the hotel, seeing Mike suddenly look at the seismogram seconds before it started picking up the first tremors. Levi had called it “freakish”, but you had called him “incredible”.

It’s not just the weather, though. Mike has a way with people and animals too, like he can gauge their emotions and act appropriately. It’s how he knows what days he can push Levi’s buttons and get away with it, how he knows when Hange is too busy and overwhelmed to gather samples themself, so he gathers some for them.

And, it’s how he knows exactly when he needs to pull you into a hug, like when the team realized the chances of a small to moderate eruption were next to nothing, like when he had told you how many of those hotel guests had gotten hurt and died and you’d stared at him with wide, watery eyes, and like right now, as you think about Katia and Maurice Krafft, the fate they met and how yours might not be any different.

Will you die doing what you love? Will you be able to welcome it as bravely as they did?

You rest your head on Mike’s shoulder, letting yourself melt into his side, his arm sturdy and grounding where it wraps around you, and as you look out over the sunlit grounds, one last question plagues your mind:

Does a pyroclastic flow burn as hot as the molten feelings inside of you?

You can’t imagine anything does.

1  Y E A R  B E F O R E

The message is broadcasted straight from the state capitol, Levi's expression grim as he reads off the paper hidden on the podium. 

"I know all of this sounds apocalyptic—the ash and blackouts and probable climate change, and it is scary, but we still have some time, so there's no reason to panic. We just urge that if you haven't already started preparing, now's the time. Please."

A couple steps behind him and a little to the right is Erwin, standing tall and nodding at everything Levi says as if he's providing some kind of credibility. 

"Considering we're looking at a VEI eight, the team of volcanologists at Yellowstone have recommended that all of Wyoming and its neighboring states evacuate, but I'll let Homeland Security go over all that."

As he turns to step back, the crowd of reporters and journalists begin shouting out questions, and Levi grimaces as he moves to stand next to Erwin who places a hand in his shoulder. 

You can't hear everything being asked from where you're watching at the lab, but you can't imagine it's anything good judging by the way Levi's frown just keeps growing. 

Fortunately, the vaguely familiar secretary of Homeland Security, Dot Pixis, takes the stand quickly, holding up wrinkled hands in an attempt to calm the crowd. 

"We have some more very important information to cover in this address, so if you'll allow me…" He clears his throat and straightens a stack of papers on the podium, no doubt a huge list of protocols that the public will only half listen to. 

You swivel back and forth in your chair as you watch the thin man on screen, his voice scratchy but strangely soothing as he outlines rationing, supply storage, and evacuation routes. 

"We're also negotiating with our neighboring countries about opening borders. Now, anyone seeking refuge would still be required to fill out an application for a temporary visa, but—"

"God, you know they gotta love that," you mumble to yourself. 

Hange, tinkering somewhere behind you, laughs and agrees, "Yeah, after decades of treating immigrants like trash, and now we're just knocking on their doors, asking for help. Ridiculous."

"Embarrassing, is what it is." 

It was for whichever government official had to make that call, anyway. You're positive that had been a hard pill to swallow. 

As far as you've heard, the foreign affairs part of this mess is actually going quite well. You'd accompanied Erwin to the big meeting with Canadian officials and watched him and Pixis plead a case for America, emphasizing just how bad the eruption will be "at home", then switched tactics at whiplash speed to go into how countries needed to work together since this wouldn't just be the US's problem in the long run. 

It turned into a rather inspiring speech, if you're being honest, prompted you to text Levi a short, how is E so damn charming all the time? to which he'd responded, Believe me, you're asking the wrong fuckin guy. 

With multiple government agencies now backing the states and setting plans in motion, the impending eruption seems even more real. You thought your stress levels were high before, that your sleep pattern left little to be desired, but oh, you had been wrong. 

Case in point being Mike walking into the lab with a brown paper bag and slightly unpleasant expression as he asks, "Have you eaten today?" 

Your glare has no real meaning as you grumble, "Had a granola bar this morning."

"It's nearly six," he groans, pushing you, chair and all, up to your desk and setting the bag in front of you. "Please eat something before you pass out."

"Okay, okay, Christ. You're more attentive than my mother."

"I met your mom last year, and you and I both know she would be hysterical if she knew how you've been treating yourself lately."

He has a point. In fact, you're glad Mike is naturally quiet and didn't bond too strongly with her, otherwise you have a feeling he would have called her by now to complain. 

The chicken salad sandwich you bite into must be imbued with some kind of magic, because you let out an honest to god moan when you swallow the first bite. 

"Oh my god, what did you put in this?" You ask as you blink up at your best friend. 

Mike snorts and rolls his eyes. "Uh, actual nutrients maybe? Weird how your body needs those."

Hands too busy shoving more food into your mouth, you headbutt him right at the hip, just hard enough to make him grunt and sway. He steadies himself, glances down at you like he's annoyed but ends up breaking into a grin when he catches what you assume to be a piece of chicken salad dotting the corner of your mouth. 

"What am I gonna do with you," he mumbles, wiping it with a gentle thumb. 

Your body warms with both embarrassment and affection, but you can't quite find a response even as your head clears for the first time in about two days. You really do need to start taking better care of yourself. 

The undeniable feeling of being watched makes your neck prickle, and you break Mike's gaze to find Hange staring at both of you, a not-so-subtle smile making their mouth curl mischievously. You have a pretty good idea of what they're thinking, and you're heart starts beating a little faster at the thought of them possibly speaking it out loud, but before they get a chance, Mike's phone rings. 

You catch a glimpse of the name displayed before he picks it up—Gelgar—recognize it and tease, "One of the doomsday preppers, right?" 

Because no matter how much Mike denies it, just like he does now— "They're not doomsday preppers—" you know that his friends are a little odd. Extremely well prepared, but odd. 

"Hey man, what's up?" He answers, stepping away from you. "Isn't it almost two there?" 

You don't try to listen in, just look back to Hange and shake your head when their smile grows. 

"Stop."

"What?" They giggle. "I'm not even doing anything!" 

"You're thinking things, though."

"Well yeah, I'm always thinking things. How else would I have gotten this smart?" They flip their ponytail for emphasis and toss a wink your way, but Hange's voice gets oddly sincere when they tell you, "Seriously, though. You guys should get while the getting's good. I don't know why you haven't jumped each other's bones yet."

You splutter, look around frantically to make sure Mike isn't within earshot, and thank god, he's in the next room over. 

"Hange!" 

"I'm just saying! It's like watching Erwin and Levi from a few years ago. God, that was a nightmare."

"How dare you. I am nothing like—"

"Yeah, yeah. When do they get back in anyway?" 

You both look to the TV that's still playing the live address, easily spotting your missing team members behind Secretary Pixis. 

"Probably not 'til later tonight. Levi's gonna try to talk Erwin into getting a hotel, I bet, but he's gonna wanna come back to the lab and check everything before he goes to bed."

"How do you know he wants to come back?" 

You show a sheepish grin, fishing the chips out of the paper sack Mike brought, then answer, "'Cause that’s what I’d wanna do."

*

It's late. Far too late to be at work, but being at home never feels right these days. It's too quiet, too still, too not the lab. The only time you genuinely enjoy being there is when friends are over for a movie or meal over the weekend. Other than that, you're not at all attached. 

Not the way you are here.

Almost midnight, you move from table to table, working, organizing, just keeping busy. You're very awake, still jittery from the quake that shook the park at around three that day. It lasted for almost three minutes, splitting the ground dangerously close to Old Faithful, and the geyser hasn't gone off since which is troubling. If too many of the geothermal spots stop releasing pressure, the eruption will take place sooner than anticipated. 

It's why you're here so late, pouring over the data, studying the numbers and possible effects. 

You're not alone, though. Erwin is also shuffling around the lab, but he's focused on something else, a project of sorts. 

"Can you come take a look at this?" He calls from the projection table, and you drop what you're doing to join him. 

The model isn't lit up as a hologram, surprisingly. Instead, Erwin has paper blueprints laid, curling at the edges from being rolled up. It takes you a second to realize what you're looking at, but when it comes together, you inhale sharply. 

It's a simple design, a square floorplan with a couple entrances. The only exit looks to lead upward, though, and it's easy to tell that means Erwin wants this to be underground. There are notes scribbled in the blank spaces, 4 meters down, bomb proof top, ventilation, generators, gasoline?, rations < 5yrs, medicine, vitamins, guns. The list goes on, handwriting sloppier and sloppier the more thoughts Erwin had at the time. 

"You think this would be ready in a year?"

Erwin shrugs. "With the right construction team, yes. That one bunker designer…" Erwin snaps, trying to think of the name, but it doesn't come to him. "Whoever—He built ten shelters in two years." 

You stick your hands in your back pockets as you lean over to look closer. It could just be your overworked brain, but it looks like a good design, something someone actually has a chance of surviving in. 

Hearing your name makes you look up again. Erwin has you pinned with one of his serious blue gazes. "No one else will understand, so please keep this plan to yourself."

You nod but venture to ask, "You haven't told Levi?" 

"No," he answers, mouth pulling downward. "It's… Going to be a fight."

"Understandably so. You're basically married to the volcano, though, Erwin."

"So are you."

His eyes are shining as your lips twist into a grimace. He's gotten to know you well over the years. You've always shared a certain bond over Yellowstone, one the other team members just don't have. To them, it's just a job, just science. 

To you and Erwin, though, it's a religion. You're in love with the park, all its secrets and eccentricities. It's your home; it's where you belong. 

"Assuming this does get built," Erwin starts, lifting a thick eyebrow in curiosity. "You would want to stay, right?" 

"You mean, ride out a supereruption? Be the first to see the zone-one damage?" 

Erwin doesn't answer, but he does smile, excitement dancing just below the surface of his stare. 

You feel it too, the urge to throw caution to the wind, to take a chance that could very possibly get you both killed. The Kraffts flash through your mind again, their failed attempt at escape.

A breathless, "Fuck yeah," tumbles from your mouth before you can dwell on the consequences for too long. 

It's time to either live it up or go down in ash and flames. 

6  M O N T H S  B E F O R E 

Yellowstone is unrecognizable. The ground is mostly made up of large crevasses and smaller cracks, debris from fallen buildings left in piles with no one to clean them up. 

The geysers are all inactive at this point, but steam is still rising from the springs, and the mudpots are still bubbling. It's the only thing that's keeping the volcano from erupting. 

The ground shakes multiple times a day, the lab seismographs constantly picking up activity. The little ones don't faze you anymore. You and Mike secure the glass samples to make sure they don't break while Erwin and Levi basically hug their computers. Yours was damaged in the quake that prompted Hange and Moblit to leave—a 6.7 that caused Hange to fall into their desk, breaking their collarbone in the process. After getting Hange pain meds and a sling, the two of them were on a plane to D.C. that same night. 

Every day is another risk taken. Now, it's just you, Erwin, Levi, and Mike. 

The latter two spend most of their days dropping hints about leaving soon as well. Mike has already made plans to fly to Norway and join his not-doomsday prepper friends and brings it up often.

"You should come. See the tulip fields while they're still around."

"Gel and Nana have done a great job setting up the ranch. They wanna let as many people stay as they can." 

"You'd really like them. They bicker like an old married couple, but they're good people."

Levi takes a different approach with Erwin, appeals to the other man's desire to help and protect. 

"We really should head to the homeland security office. They don't know what they're dealing with."

"Dok is an idiot. They need a bigger brain over there for guidance or whatever."

"Your long-term plan will be better than anything those government fucks will come up with anyway."

Every time, you and Erwin gently wave them off with promises of "soon" and "just a little longer." Neither of you breathe a word about staying. Despite the fact that construction on the bunker has not started and you're running out of time, both of you are dead set on the plan: go down with the park. 

You're found out before it can come to fruition, however. 

The remaining team is sitting in the lab, busy with their own little projects, when Mike looks up suddenly, takes a deep breath, then says, "Earthquake," just as the seismogram starts going wild. 

He pulls you from your chair quickly, dropping to the ground and bringing you with him to crawl under your desk. On your knees, your body curls in on itself and you lock your hands over the back of your neck as the floor beneath you starts to rumble violently. 

You can hear Levi cursing from somewhere as the sound of glass shattering rings throughout the lab. You think another computer falls, models and books flying from shelves. 

Mike huddles over you, one hand gripping the leg of the desk while the other protects your ribs. You want to tell him to shield himself, but you know there's no use. Besides, the weight and warmth is comforting even in the face of danger—his chest hot against your back, the epitome of a knight in shining armor. 

It lasts for several minutes. The power cuts off, windows crack, doors swing open only to slam shut again. You know the lab is going to be an absolute wreck when it's over. 

When the shaking finally settles, everyone crawls out of their hiding places. Levi warns, "Be ready for aftershocks," as if you don't know, and Erwin fumbles in his desk until he finds a flashlight. 

The ray of light illuminates the damage. Just as you suspected, the place looks like a tornado blew through. Glass litters the floor along with the far-flung books and park models. Both Levi and Erwin's computers fell and disconnected, and your stomach drops as you think about all the potentially lost information. 

"You okay?" Mike asks, pulling you up to your knees so he can look at your face. 

"I'm fine," you tell him, his hands on your cheeks making you flush, so you distract yourself. "E, Levi, you guys okay?" 

"Yes," Erwin answers first. 

Levi shows his face, a deep frown making his brow furrow, as he looks at his desktop. "I'm pissed but uninjured."

The four of you spend the next couple of hours cleaning up what you can, pausing and taking cover when the aftershocks hit, then starting over as the lab sustains more and more damage. 

Mike sweeps up the glass. Erwin focuses on getting the computers back on the desks safely then goes and checks the projection table. You and Levi collect the bigger items, setting books back on shelves. 

You don't think about the mistake before it's too late, when Levi is already pulling out the blueprints that were hidden behind the stack of encyclopedias. 

As he stills completely, you turn to look at him and find him staring down at the large, uncurled papers. Your instinct is to snatch them from his hands, but it's no use. He's already seen enough. 

"What the fuck is this?" His voice comes out like poison as he immediately looks at Erwin. 

The larger man glances at Levi, eyes trailing to what he's holding, then pales. 

"Levi..."

"Is this a god damn bunker? Are you planning on staying in this hellscape?" 

Erwin strides over to him and reaches for the prints, but Levi tugs them out of reach. 

"Answer me," he spits. "Is that your plan?"

"I—" Erwin swallows thickly before answering, "Yes."

It's silent for a long time, and the more it drags on, the tighter Levi's lips get, gray eyes shiny with quiet rage. 

This is what Erwin was trying to avoid, why he insisted on keeping the bunker a secret. 

But while Levi is glaring at Erwin, you feel another gaze on you. Skin crawling, you chance a glance up at Mike, stomach churning when he looks away quickly and bites his lips. He knows. Somehow without anyone saying anything, Mike knows you’re planning to stay too.

Heavy breathing and the distant sound of rumbling earth is all that can be heard, followed by backup generators roaring to life and restoring the overhead lights. 

"You too?" Mike finally speaks. “You wanna stay too?”

You chew on the inside of your cheek, unable to answer. He sounds so disappointed—defeated—and it makes you feel sick. 

"Do you guys know," Levi growls, "How fucking insane that is? This is the dumbest, most reckless, selfish fucking thing you could do! And, I know it's all your thinking!" He drops the blueprints in favor of shoving Erwin roughly, making him stumble back. 

"Hey," you step toward him, but the small man just turns to you and accuses, "And, you egged him on, yeah? Did you even think of us? How we would feel? Staying here is suicide!"

"I have a plan, Levi," Erwin says, raising both hands to his head and effectively disheveling his own hair. "If you just look at the plans. I know what we need to survive. I've done the math, I've studied the—"

"Jesus Christ, we're talking about an eight hundred degree pyroclastic flow! Tephra that will suffocate you. You really think being a few meters down during the eruption will be enough?" Levi is screaming now, his voice cracking, and you think you see tears at his waterline. 

It makes the spaces behind your eyes burn, but it’s only partly out of guilt. The other emotion that’s welling up in you is anger, a betrayal you can barely wrap your head around, but it comes tumbling out anyway.

“Do you even know us? You think we can actually leave the park behind?” Your voice rises to match Levi’s, gains his acidic attention once again. “I don’t even understand how you can run away, after everything you’ve put into this place! How can you just—” You let out a sound somewhere between a groan and a cry as you raise your hands to your face and shove your palms to your eyes. “I get Mike because he doesn’t have anything fucking left here. He’s just been helping out—”

“You think I don’t have anything left here?” He asks quietly from beside you, and when you look at him with a watery stare, you find him wounded. His jaw slides forward as he sucks on his teeth, and fuck, his eyes are getting glossy too. 

“See, this is exactly what I mean,” Levi gestures wildly at the two of you. “Mike and I have stayed because you guys won’t fucking leave, and now it comes out that you were never planning to. When were you gonna tell us? Would you have even given us enough time to get out?”

“Of course!” Erwin takes him by the shoulders, and Levi snarls up at him. “I was working up to it. I wasn’t ready to—to deal with this.”

“I can’t believe this. You really think a whole team of workers is gonna come out here to help build this? You wanna put their lives in jeopardy too?”

“We—”

“You haven’t even thought this through all the way! When did you come up with this? When you hadn’t slept or eaten in forty-eight hours? When your brain wasn’t fucking functioning at full capacity?”

Erwin stays quiet, and so do you because Levi has a point. Taking care of yourselves physically has not been high on either of your lists of priorities, and you’re sure your mental state has suffered for it. All the nights spent at the projection table, mapping out ideas, growing giddy over the idea of staying for the eruption. Was that just two people high off passion, becoming more and more unhinged with each passing day?

Quite possibly. 

You expect the fury to be enough to push Levi away, that he’ll simply give up, drag Mike out with him, and leave you and Erwin to hunker down like you’d planned.

But, that is not the case. 

Instead, he shoves a thin finger into Erwin’s chest, gritting out, “Pack your fucking bags so we can go to D.C. where they need you.”

Erwin takes a breath then slumps in defeat. Now, when faced with the obstacle that is his boyfriend, you figure he’s weighed the pros and cons and made a decision. Between his love for the park and his love for Levi, he’d rather salvage the latter. 

Mike shifts next to you, grumbles out a low, “You too,” that makes the tears finally fall from your eyes. “I’ll take you on one last ride to the springs, but then we’re leaving.”

He stays true to his word, and you cry the entire time you’re in the chopper, headset smushed against one ear as you rest your head on the window and look down at the Grand Prismatic, the steam rising from it. It’s beginning to grow discolored with all the activity, but it’s more stunning now than it’s ever been. 

Soon, it’ll be completely covered. All of it will. And, you could have been too, stuck underground for a couple of years only to be the first to step out into the pure destruction. 

That’s not an option anymore, though, not with Mike looking as grave as he does, not with the way he shadows you in your apartment as you gather the necessities, like he thinks you’re going to bolt and run back to the lab, not when the two of you meet back up with a still-fuming Levi and a despondent Erwin to head to the airport.

The tickets are outrageously priced at such short notice, but that doesn’t stop Levi and Mike from passing their credit cards over.

“Two for Washington D.C.”

“And, two for Bergen, Norway.”

Boarding passes in hand, the four of you walk through the bustling airport together for as long as you can before you have to inevitably split up. Levi glares at you but still pulls you into a tight hug, grunts into your ear, “You’re so stupid,” before letting go and turning to Mike. “Keep her safe, boy scout. I’m trusting you.”

Mike nods, and both of them clasp hands as you turn to look at Erwin. Tears and pathetic sniffles return when you walk into his open arms, clinging to him and mumbling, “‘M sorry, ‘m sorry. I would’ve followed you.”

“I know.” He rubs your back and heaves a sigh. “I know you would have.”

He eventually disentangles you to hold you at arm’s length, wipes the moisture from your face with his thumbs, then shows a sad smile. “See you in a few years, yes?”

“Yeah.”

One more squeeze, and everyone turns away to walk to their respective gate. Mike’s hand splays across your back, warm, guiding you in the right direction, keeping you steady. He’s always kept your feet planted firmly on the ground. You figure, if there’s one person you’d like to experience the downfall of society with—above ground—it’s him. 

S I X  W E E K S  B E F O R E

Norway is kind of incredible. It has a natural beauty that takes your breath away just like Yellowstone used to, but it’s vastly different. Everything is green, including the lights in the sky at night. You’re surrounded by rolling hills and mountains, and you just know it’ll be beautiful under thick layers of snow. 

The once rustic ranch, now restored, is made up of several small houses and a farm full of cows and goats. It’s sad to think about the fate they will eventually meet (slaughter then stomachs), but you know it’s necessary to prepare for the coming years.

And, the owners have definitely prepared. 

Gelgar and Nanaba are everything Mike described and more. Between taking care of the farm and setting up energy sources, they do their best to make you and the other arrivals feel at home. They’ve designed the ranch to house up to about thirty people, a commune of sorts (minus any cult-like vibes). Naturally, everyone pitches in and helps around the place. You find yourself cleaning a lot, but you don’t mind. It’s a nice, mindless task that keeps you from thinking too hard about everything you’ve left behind. 

You also like to join Nana outside, help with the animals and enjoy the sunshine while you still can. Of course, this subjects you to endless teasing especially today when she catches you staring into the distance at Mike who's helping Gelgar fix a solar panel. 

His shirt is starting to stick to his back from sweating, muscles straining under the damp cloth, and good lord, when did he get that broad? Sure, he's always been tall and fit, but working on the homestead has definitely made him more built. That along with the fact that his hair has gotten long enough to tie up in a bun has your mouth going a little dry. 

"Like what you see?" Nanaba asks, accent thick, voice full of amusement. 

You shoot her a look, face all scrunched up when you mumble, "Don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh?" She sticks her tongue out. "Don't be coy. I see the way you both look at each other."

"Tch." 

"And, how both of you volunteer to cook with the other when it's your turn to. You move around each other like you know exactly where the other is. Two halves of a whole."

You roll your eyes. "We've just worked together for a while. We make a good team."

She's not wrong, though. Since coming to Norway, you and Mike have grown even closer. There was a period of time when you could hardly look at him, too guilty for trying to stay at the park, guilty for hurting him, but eventually the two of you fell back into your normal dynamic—joking, laughing, touching just a little too much, smiling when you think no one's looking. You even spent an afternoon together in a nearby field of flowers, just like he'd promised. With a picnic basket full of food, and a blanket to lay on, you'd admired the clouds overhead while enjoying the rustling grass surrounding you. 

It's been your favorite day since coming here, had reminded you of the lunches you used to share on the mountain. 

You're not brave enough to make any sort of move, though. Mike is just so good. There's a chance his affections are simply based in friendship, and that's something you're scared to ruin. He means too much to you. 

"How long did you work together?"

"Like, four years, give or take a few months."

"And, you're still acting like nothing is there?" Nanaba tsks. "Ridiculous."

"How long did it take you and Gel to get together?" You ask, then quickly backtrack, "Not that that's what I want with Mike necessarily."

"Mhm," she smirks. "Gel and I did it backwards. Got pissed at a bar and fell into bed together. Then we started to get to know each other and found out we just worked."

Sounds about right, you think. The couple has an interesting back-and-forth, half bickering, half innuendo. You can always, always see the love in their eyes, though. That's what you want in life. That’s what you want with Mike. Even if you won't admit it out loud. 

You turn your gaze back to the roof he and Gelgar are on just in time to see him making his way down the ladder. Once on the ground, he and the other man start striding over to you. Mike's face is red, sweat beading at his hairline, and Gelgar's pompadour is beginning to fall. 

"Think we got it fixed up," Mike announces, lifting the bottom hem of his shirt to wipe his forehead. 

You stare at his toned stomach for just a little too long, the lines of his hip bones leading into the waistband of his jeans. 

Nanaba's words ring in your head again—fell into bed, fell into bed, fell into bed—and you fixate on the idea of you and Mike doing the same. To have him hovering over you, or maybe you over him, thighs on either side of those hips as his hands trail up your body—

You shake the thought from your head, letting your glazed eyes refocus on the men in front of you. 

"Alright, I'm gonna grab a shower before dinner. Who's cooking tonight?"

“I believe it's Lynne and Henning," Nana answers. 

Mike nods then heads toward the little house he's been living in, right next to yours, of course. He reaches out to let his hand brush yours as he passes, and it takes conscious effort not to grip onto one or two of his large fingers and follow him. 

"God, that's painful to watch," Gelgar snorts. 

Nana laughs and agrees, "I was just telling her the same thing."

"Oh, shut up. Ya' couple of meddlers."

*

A line forms every evening outside of the main house, the one Gelgar and Nanaba share. You and Mike stand together at the back, watching everyone in front of you. Some are families, some are couples, some are here alone. You figure, no matter their status, the ranch is a nice place to be—peaceful, home-y despite its size. So far, everyone gets along. 

Only the kids complain about chores, about seven of them constantly running around together, but that’s to be expected, and honestly, you don’t mind picking up their slack. Life is about to get very difficult for them. They should get to be children for a little while longer. 

Potato soup is poured into your bowl with a ladle, topped with shredded beef and green onions, then you and Mike retire back to your little cottage home to eat and watch TV. It stays on the same channel, world news, and there’s always a long segment that covers Yellowstone and what it’s doing. 

It is not uncommon at all to look up from your food and see Erwin or Levi’s face on screen, speaking with experts, sometimes in interview-like settings.

Tonight, they’re covering a problem that’s been going on for some time, but everyone figured would resolve itself: some people will not leave the most dangerous zones, and it’s because they simply do not believe an eruption will take place. 

Even with the evidence, the science backing it—even with actual federal authorities knocking on their doors and telling them to leave—there are many people who just want to stay put. It’s insane to you, makes your blood boil. Children have been taken from their homes to be placed in safer areas, which only causes the disbelievers to get angrier. They want to say “I told you so”, but that’s not going to happen. 

What’s going to happen is getting burned alive in the flow that pours from the volcano. They will die a painful death, get buried under meters of fallout, ash, snow. There’ll be nothing to recover except for petrified, charred corpses. 

Of course, the irony is not lost on you; you and Erwin were both willing to chance similar fates, but you still think the two of you would have been more prepared than these regular-Joes who think their front door is enough to stop a volcanic eruption. 

“In the end, there’s no reasoning with people like this,” Erwin says on camera, a soft, sad smile playing at his lips. “When a person is so, uh… Dead set on staying, it will take an unstoppable force to move them.”

In your case, that unstoppable force had been Levi screaming at you while holding back tears. 

“Unfortunately for them, this force is the eruption, and they won’t be able to leave when that occurs.”

“Because they’ll be dead,” the reporter states more than asks.

Erwin nods and answers with a grim, “Yes. Yes, they will be.”

They’re not trying to be subtle, obviously hoping that this will get through to the stubborn masses, but you doubt it will. They’re living on borrowed time at this point. Any day could be their last.

Mike is quieter than usual as he eats, barely even looking at the television screen, and you have a feeling he’s thinking about how close you were to staying alongside those stupid assholes. It’s still a touchy subject, one both of you do your best to avoid. You’re mostly happy to be in Europe, spending your days with Mike and his friends and everyone else running around here. 

But, there’s also a part of you, deep down inside, that aches, that misses the park, that still wants to be right in the middle of the destruction. Watching it blow from so far away is going to hurt. This massive monster you’ve fallen in love with over the years will never be the same, and your last good look at it was that tearful helicopter ride. 

You’re not resentful toward Mike or Levi for dragging you out of the lab that day, but you are grieving in a sense. 

The program ends with Erwin giving one last warning— “If you insist on staying, I’d advise bomb-proofing your home, stocking up on several years-worth of rations, and installing one hell of a ventilation system. Good luck.”

Mike clears his throat and stands, grabbing his empty bowl as well as yours, then heads into the kitchen to rinse them off. 

Sighing, you follow him, lean against the counter a couple feet away as you think of something to say that won’t sound too forced.

“Hey,” you start.

Mike gives a low, “Hm?” as he holds the dishes under hot water, finally glancing over when you gently nudge him in the side.

“Thanks for…” You take a deep breath, pinned by light green eyes, then try again. “Thanks for bringing me here.” He blinks but doesn’t say anything, so you continue. “It’s really nice. And, I’ve bonded or whatever with Nana.”

“But, you miss the park,” he says.

You shrug. “I mean, yeah. That park was my life, but… Probably dying in it was not one of my brighter ideas.”

He snorts, shuts off the water, then turns to you. Craning your neck, you take in his face—really take it in—the few strands of hair that hang freely past his jawline, the way his beard, no longer stubble but not exactly thick, forms around his mouth and connects with his sideburns, his strong, slightly curved nose, how his Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows. He’s so painfully handsome, especially all shaggy and rugged, and it makes your heart beat too hard and too fast in your chest. 

Mike dries his hands on a dish towel, looking down at them when he tells you, “I’m glad we were able to get you out of there. It’s not something I’ll ever feel bad about. Even if you hate me for it.”

“I don’t hate you,” you scoff. “Never could. You’re my best friend, Mike.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you smile, then think of Nanaba earlier that day and laugh quietly. 

“What?”

You wave a hand, shake your head. “Nothing, nothing, just… Nana has… Ideas, or something.”

There’s no need to elaborate. Mike understands what you’re trying to say. He inhales then breathes out it out in a chuckle as he posts up against the counter next to you. “Yeah, Gelgar does too.”

“Guess they don’t know us very well.”

A silence hangs between the two of you, one that would normally be comfortable but is now a little thick given the subject matter of your conversation.

You and Mike. Just earlier that day you had been thinking about how scared you are to ruin the friendship, but the more you imagine, the more you get lost in the fantasy…

“Or maybe…” You glance over to see Mike nibbling on his bottom lip, eyes fixed on the ground as he continues, “Maybe they know us better than we know ourselves.”

He raises his head, gaze locking with yours, and you stop breathing. Because that stare is so hesitant, searching for something inside of you as if you have the answer, but you’re just as scared and confused as he is. Over four years of friendship—of good, meaningful friendship—is that worth risking just because you’re both curious? 

Or has it all been leading to this since the start? Since those first, short conversations, since the meals shared with one another, the affectionate gestures. Mike has always kept your head on straight, looked after you with even more care than he had with the park’s wildlife. 

You thought it’d all been one-sided pining, that he was just glad to have someone who understood him a little better than everyone else because you do. You understand his passion for the planet, you understand all his little fixations. You appreciate every eccentricity like he appreciates all your neuroses. 

“Maybe so…” 

Two very large hands are on your face, tilting upward, and your lungs begin to burn as Mike strokes just under your eyes with the pads of his thumbs. He has to lean down quite a bit, pauses just over your lips to let out a tiny huff of surprise, disbelief, awe maybe, then closes the rest of the miniscule distance. 

He is very warm and very firm against you—feels good, all the comfort of someone familiar but still so new. Your lips fit together perfectly, and at last, you’re able to breathe again, mouths moving in an experimental back and forth, feeling each other out until he runs the tip of his tongue along the seam of your lips. Gripping strong shoulders, you let the kiss deepen, opening your mouth for him, and Mike groans when he’s finally able to taste you. 

Hands fall from your face, moving down, down, down, brushing your ribs, settling at your hips, but his fingers are long enough to curl and dig into the meat of your ass, making you gasp and press harder against him.

Rolling his pelvis into yours, you very quickly find yourself pinned between Mike’s body and the counter. Your grasp travels to the back of his neck, pulling him closer—you just need him closer—and he must feel it too because he hoists you up and sets you on the countertop, making room for himself between your legs.

You feel too hot and too desperate, but it’s good, a release that’s needed to happen for far too long. All manner of geothermal metaphors swim through your mind, spurting geysers and boiling mudpots, and it makes you giggle against him, biting down on his bottom lip and smiling around the flesh as he lets out another one of those rumbling, satisfied noises. 

“What’re you laughin’ at?” Mike mumbles, and for some reason, it’s strange to hear his voice so close, so quiet, as you’re pressed together, breathing each other’s air. It’s intimate and different, but it’s right. 

“I’m just…” Another little laugh, “Thinking about the volcano.”

“When are you not thinking about the volcano?” You have a feeling he’s rolling his eyes, but he still grins and kisses you again.

“It’s all dirty things if that helps.”

Mike nods slowly, lips trailing from your mouth toward your neck. “Helps some.”

You tilt your head to give him better access and let out a little whine when you feel him bite down on a patch of skin just beneath the notch of your jaw, wrap your legs around his waist and do your best to rock into him because good god, you want him. 

Fingers tangling under his loosening bun, you tug him back to your mouth, slotting your lips against his and sliding your tongue between his teeth. He presses you closer with a hand on the small of your back, squeezing the air from your lungs so all you can breathe is him. 

“Mm, Mike, Mike,” you pant, barely breaking away only for him to chase after. You laugh, push his chest at the same time you gently tug at his hair, and he backs away just enough for you to get a good look at his half-lidded eyes and spit-slicked lips. 

Honestly, staring at him now, you can’t believe you made so long without ever making a pass at him. He’s gorgeous, built like a roman statue only larger, with sun-kissed skin and a startlingly light gaze that threatens to leave you boneless. 

“D’you wanna, maybe…” You swallow and blink up at him, too many questions suddenly invading your mind—is it too early for sex? Will he think you’re easy? What if it doesn’t actually work out? But, you bite the bullet anyway and finish, “Go to the bedroom?” 

Mike is silent for a few beats, leaving you to second guess yourself and brace for disappointment and embarrassment, but then he clicks his tongue and answers, “Uh, yeah. Yes, let’s do that,” in a voice a little higher than usual, and scoops you from the counter.

Every little house on the ranch is laid out the same, so it does not take him long to find your room. He sets you down at the threshold, and from there, it’s a flurry of discarded clothing and stumbling to the bed.

“How have we never done this before?” He huffs, crawling over you, leaving wet kisses in his wake. 

You’ve still got an arm covering your bare chest, but Mike doesn’t seem self-conscious in the slightest which comes as a surprise considering how reserved he typically is. Not that he has anything worth hiding—not the thin layer of hair that dances over his barrel chest, not the ridiculously cut abdominals or sharp ‘V’ of his hips, and definitely not the thick cock bobbing against his stomach as he moves. You would be intimidated if you didn’t know him as well as you do, but you’re sure that he’ll be gentle with you. Mike may be many things, but careless is not one of them.

He reaches your mouth, kisses you so deeply it makes you dizzy, and as he does, he very slowly pulls your arm from your chest, leaving you vulnerable—free for the taking. 

His touch is soft enough to tickle as he brushes over one of your nipples, making you exhale against him and arch your back like a silent plea for more. He traces around the bud, makes it pebble before carefully rolling it between two fingers.

Warmth spills into your gut, makes you squirm on the bed, and a moan makes its way from your throat as Mike gently tugs at the sensitive flesh. He lowers his head again, lavishing the same kind of attention on your other nipple with his mouth. He nibbles and licks and sucks, and you wriggle and whimper beneath him, one hand trailing down his body until you’re able to close your fingers around the head of his cock. 

Mike grunts, thrusts into your hand a couple times, enough to make precum drool from his tip, but before he can get too carried away, he says just above a whisper, “Let me get you ready,” then moves to lay between your spread legs.

Sliding his arms under your thighs, he locks them into place, and you release a shaky breath, feeling his eyes taking you in for several seconds before licking up your slit once then pushing deeper.

“Oh, fu—”

Both your hands shoot downward, one gripping the messy bun at the back of his head as you shudder at the sensation of his beard against your pussy. You’re wet in seconds, core pulsing as Mike uses his tongue to slowly open you up, then pulls back to flick over your clit. 

“Mike—Mike—”

He hums into you, shaking his head slowly back and forth, no doubt making a mess of his face and you. You don’t have anything to say, just feel your throat tightening like there are unspoken words that need to come out, but you can’t think straight, not when he’s doing what he’s doing, not when you feel the tips of his fingers reaching out to spread your lips. 

He is thorough bordering on methodical, makes sure you’re at the point of full body shakes before he gives you a break, and then, when your breathing returns to a normal rate, he starts all over again. There is a tightness in your gut that builds and builds then dissipates every time he stops, and he must know because when you whine in frustration, Mike just grins and kisses the inside of your thighs. 

The same pattern is repeated with his fingers, just one at first, massaging your walls perfectly, then a second that makes your eyes roll into the back of your head. He rubs over the swelling tissue inside of you, seems to enjoy every little gasp and noise you make, including the unsatisfied one you let out when he pulls his fingers from you. 

You can feel how damp the bedspread is underneath you, can see the evidence of your arousal on Mike’s face, and it makes you flush but doesn’t stop you from tugging him down for another messy kiss. 

“You ready?” He asks, sounding just as breathless as you feel, and you nod furiously, bending your knees and planting your feet on the mattress so that you can lift your hips to his. 

Mike chuckles, reaches down between the two of you to take hold of his length and taps your clit with his cockhead a couple times—simultaneously the most infuriating and most erotic thing you’ve ever experienced. Slowly, he lines himself up, just barely pushing forward, and when you bite your lip and squeeze your eyes shut, Mike tells you to, “Breathe, baby, open up for me.”

He already sounds wrecked, like he’s fighting the urge to just sheathe himself entirely, but he waits, giving you one inch at a time with periods of adjustment in between. You always sort of figured he was big, but this burning stretch is something you hadn’t imagined even in your lewdest of fantasies. You’re incredibly full, feel him in your gut and throat and everywhere, but it isn’t bad; it’s just a lot. 

“Okay,” you stroke the forearm next to your head and nod. “Okay, you can start moving more.”

Mike’s brow creases. “You’re sure?”

“About as sure as I can be with a monster cock inside m-me—” Your laugh turns to a moan as Mike begins to pull out, eyes trained on your face for any sign of real discomfort, but your mouth just drops open, your own eyebrows raising at the feeling of his length hitting every one of your most sensitive spots. 

“Holy…”

He pushes back in quickly, still mindful of what your body can take, and when all you do is cry his name and scratch down his back, Mike starts up a steady rhythm that has you seeing god. 

That tightness is back, hotter than before, threatening to burn you up entirely as your cunt flutters and spasms and leaks around Mike’s length. 

The sound of a hoarse groan makes you open your eyes, and you follow Mike’s line of vision to where you’re connected, see his cock sliding in and out of you, dripping slick and ringed in white cream toward the base. The sight makes you clench around him, and Mike swears under his breath then leans forward to gather you in his arms. Your head lolls back as he lifts you, sitting on his knees for just a second before falling onto his back and letting you drop onto him. 

You choke, and Mike pants, but his hands are tight at your hips, moving you up and down his length like a sleeve. His pupils are blown wide when you look down at him, hair nearly entirely out of its tie, bottom row of teeth exposed as his jaw slides almost primally. 

He looks completely lost in you, possessed as he fucks up into your pussy rougher than before. You bounce in his lap, whimpering his name with every thrust, growing in volume when you feel a finger press against your clit. 

“You gonna come for me?” Mike grits out, rubbing a circle over the swollen bundle as his eyes flick from your chest to your face. 

You nod, ignoring the burning in your thighs in favor of the sensation between your hips. “Yeah, I—I—Fuck, Mike—”

“Come on, baby, come on—wanted to see this for years, come all over my cock…”

You snap, legs shaking as your climax crashes through you. Your cunt pulses around Mike, coating him in more of your juices and making him groan and fuck you through it. You whine at the stimulation, swollen walls so sensitive yet taking everything he has to give you.

Every thrust to your g-spot makes you gush a little more, come a little longer, until all you can do is fall onto his chest and let him use you as he needs to. You leave marks on his pecs, bites and scratches, and Mike grunts at every one of them until he sits up and flips you once again.

“Where do you want me?”

“Anywhere, I don’t care, I don’t care,” you babble.

Mike inhales sharply then lets out a long groan as he pulls out and shoots his load onto your stomach. It’s warm and thick, some pooling in your belly button as Mike makes a trail down to your clit where he smears the last few drops. You twitch at the contact, hole clenching around nothing now, but you can already feel soreness settling into your muscles. 

Mike gives you two little pecks on the mouth, then one last, longer kiss before rolling to lay on the mattress beside you, chest rising and falling with deep breaths.

This silence doesn’t bother you. It gives you time to come back to your senses, to reflect, to remember everything that was said which leads you to ask, “You meant that—about wanting this for years?”

Mike turns his head and smiles so sincerely it almost brings tears to your eyes. 

“Well, yeah. Been in love with you pretty much since I started at the park.”

He says it so casually, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and maybe it is, but it still makes your breath catch. 

“Seriously?” You turn to lay on your side, and Mike mimics the action, propping his head up with one hand while he lets the other settle on your waist. 

He lifts an eyebrow and questions, “Is that so hard to believe?” 

“No, I just… Thought it was one-sided on my end, I guess. Like, we were too good of friends.” Mike leans forward to gently headbutt you, and you snort to yourself, “Guess I was wrong.”

“We were both being stupid,” he mumbles. “But, we were also focused on other things, married to the job or whatever.”

Lifting your face makes him lift his, and you smile into another kiss, feeling happier and more balanced than you have in a very long time. 

Without much more discussion, you and Mike get up to rinse off, sharing more soft touches under the spray of the shower before crawling into bed together. Falling asleep feels like coming home.

You don’t even mind the smug grin on Nanaba’s face when she sees you and Mike leave your house together in the morning, nor the teasing jabs Gelgar throws your way over lunch. You don’t know if anything is capable of knocking you out of your perfect, peaceful little world on this perfect, peaceful little homestead.

Except maybe a supereruption, of course. 

E - D A Y 

It happens right in the middle of the morning news. You and Mike are sipping on coffee, expecting the same report you’ve gotten every day— “Nothing yet, closely monitoring, blah blah”—but as the English news anchor tries to introduce the meteorologist, he stops, holds a hand to the speaker in his ear, then looks at the camera with wide yes. 

“I’m—I’m getting news that the Yellowstone supervolcano has just begun to erupt, we’re cutting to the US address at Washington D.C. now—”

And just like that, Levi’s face is suddenly on screen, picking him up mid-sentence. 

“... One vent open at the present time, but more will open shortly. Stay indoors, ration your food. This is what we’ve been preparing for.” He looks tired, and when you do the math, you understand why: seven AM in Norway is one AM in D.C., meaning Levi was probably woken up to make the announcement. 

As always, you can make out Erwin’s figure behind him, hands clasped tight and shaking, and it isn’t until Mike puts a hand on your shoulder that you realize you are trembling right along with your old boss.

“Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” he reassures you. “We’re gonna be okay here.”

You nod and let him pull you closer to him as both of you look back to the screen and listen to what your old colleagues have to say.

The news stays on for the rest of the day. At around ten, the second vent opens up. Then another. Then another. Levi keeps track, expression never betraying the fear he must be feeling, even when he delivers the message that a full ring around the caldera has opened up. 

“Obviously, we can’t get in close enough to look, but we estimate at least two thousand four hundred and fifty cubic kilometers of eruptible magma will pour from the volcano. That’s the size of the eruption from around two million years ago, but it could be worse with the current number of vents…”

The journalists on site, usually so ready to ask questions and challenge Levi, are silent today, and you imagine they’re staring with eyes the size of saucers, not quite believing what they’re hearing because it’s happening. It’s finally happening. 

You eat a quiet, solemn lunch at Nanaba and Gelgar’s, no one knowing what to say. You feel nauseous, stunned, not unlike losing a loved one. You’re able to forget the absolute destruction taking place in the states for a few minutes at a time, but it always comes back to you, punching you in the gut with the same, brute force every time.

The park. The lab. The forests. The towns. Cities, states, homes, lives, all wiped off the map. 

Erwin takes Levi’s place as public speaker close to five, probably to let the other man get some sleep, and reports that the portable seismogram, still linked to the remaining seismographs located around the park, show that there are near continuous earthquakes taking place, “Which could either help should enough earth shift to block the magma chamber, or make things worse by disrupting it further.”

“E is not very good at keeping people’s hopes up,” you mutter, and Mike chuckles.

“Yeah, I see why he makes Levi do all the talking now.”

You both receive texts from the rest of the team, Levi’s coming at an appropriate time but the others reaching you at odd hours of the night when you’re nestled in Mike’s arms.

Neither of you sleep as reality sets in the rest of the way. That was it. The beginning of the end of everything you know. Everything is about to change.

You sniff, try to be as quiet as possible as the tears you’ve been holding back all day finally begin to fall, but Mike knows, feels your body stiffen as you curl into yourself. 

He hugs you close to him but doesn’t say anything, just rests his cheek against yours and holds your hand. 

There’s nothing anyone can say to make this better, no amount of optimism or determination that will make this any easier. Your home is covered in miles of pyroclastic flow, and as it hasn’t stopped yet, you know this is just the start. Soon, anything left alive will be suffocated by the tephra, people, animals, and vegetation alike. Though you won’t die where you are, everyone at the ranch will be feeling the effects soon enough.

Your mother calls from France where her and your dad decided to “vacation” for the next several years. She’s worked up about not being able to get through to you for almost an entire day, and even as you reassure her that you’re mostly fine, she hears the way your voice cracks and offers to fly to Norway.

“Mom, the airports are shut down by now,” you sigh. “We already talked about this. We can’t see each other for a while, but we’ll FaceTime until we can’t anymore.” Until the cell towers are knocked out, you don’t say.

“I just know my baby girl is hurting right now. I know how much you loved—”

“I know,” you cut her off, scared that hearing it from her mouth will just make you lose it again. “I know, but I’m okay here with Mike and everyone else.”

“You’re sure?” She sniffles, sounding a lot like you. “Cause your father and I will find a way to get to you if you need us.”

“I’m sure, Mom,” you tell her with a sad smile she can’t see. “Get some rest, okay?”

You share many calls like that, many ill-timed text messages until the eruption finally comes to an end six days later. The damage it’s done is incalculable—the entirety of the United states now covered in a cloud of ash that blocks out the sun. 

It doesn’t reach you for a few days, but every time you go outside, Mike sniffs the air and mumbles something like, “Smells like sulfur,” or “It’s getting closer”, but after another week, the entire globe is covered. 

1  M O N T H  A F T E R

Everything is an estimation. Everyone knows that a massive amount of magma erupted, but they don’t know how much. Everyone knows that a large number of people have died, but they don’t know how many. There are too many mysteries, and it’s nowhere near safe enough to send search crews out. 

Despite all the warnings, people are still trying to go outside—to see the ash, to review the damage, but even with cloth or medical grade masks, they’re breathing in the dangerous particles floating in the air, tiny minerals that turn to a cement-like substance in their lungs, and because of that, the death count is only rising. 

News reports cut in and out, as do phone calls. Some texts never get sent or received, so all you truly have is your little home and Mike. 

And, you cry, and you mourn, and you miss your friends and family—fuck, you don’t even know how you’ll survive so long without them—but you also revel in the fact that you’re safe. Not everyone can say that. The fact that you had almost willingly stayed in the most dangerous zone of the explosion is laughable now. There’s no way you and Erwin would have survived that, something he agrees with you on when you share a short phone call with him just to check how he and Levi are doing. 

They’ll be staying at the Homeland Security compound for the forseeable future, but he assures you they’re well-prepared to brave the years-long gray storm. 

Without any livestock to take care of, or mouths to feed other than yours and Mike’s, you find yourself with an abundance of free time. You still have power thanks to the solar panels and the couple of windmills set up around the ranch, but you don’t know how long that will last. 

You both read a lot, do puzzles together, fall into bed both out of desire and just because there’s not much better to do.

And, that part of your apocalyptic life is kind of great. Mike is great. He takes care of you both in and out of the bedroom, is gentle with you until you tell him not to be, and then he’s more than happy to succumb to your needs. He’d invested in a frankly absurd amount of condoms before the eruption so he wouldn’t have to worry about pulling out every time, but every once in a while you want him like you had him the first time—desperate and passionate and completely raw. 

That’s the feeling you’re experiencing tonight, staring at Mike from your place on the couch rather than at the book in your hands.

You see him smile before he actually looks at you, but when he does, he has a glint in his eyes you’ve gotten very familiar with over the last month. 

“Need something, baby?”

You bite your lip to keep from grinning too bashfully and glance back down at the open pages on your lap. “Nuh uh.”

“You sure?”

“Mhm,” you nod. 

“Really?” Mike puts down the wildlife magazine he’s perusing and leans closer to you. “’Cause it looks like you might want something.”

You cross your legs, flip a page you haven’t even read, and shake your head. 

It’s a dumb game you’ve both started to play, who can hold out the longest. Of course, the longest record is one you both hold—four years and some odd months—but other than that, you usually make it two or three days at most.

But it’s hard with him walking around looking like he does, and for someone so quiet, Mike is mischievous and handsy, knowing just how to rile you up only to walk away and leave you to whatever you were doing before. He whispers in your ear, he grabs your ass, sometimes he’ll just stand right behind you in the kitchen and inhale, trace his nose up your neck so that you shiver and break out in goosebumps, then mumble a shameless, “You smell nice.”

He’s troublingly good at driving you crazy, and you realize this is why it took you so long to actually get together. You can’t imagine being this wound up and wanton in the lab with everyone there to see. 

“You know,” Mike speaks again. You look at him from the corner of your eyes as he leans back against the cushions and nonchalantly kicks an ankle over his thigh. “A lot of people are dying. Like, thousands. Millions.”

Frowning, you nod. “Uh, yeah. Worldwide disaster taking place.”

“Yeah, it’s a shame,” he adds. His lips twitch upward for a second before he purses them, waiting for another couple seconds then stating, “Should probably start thinking about… Efforts to repopulate.”

Eyes widening, you tilt your head to the side in disbelief, a short, incredulous laugh bubbling from your throat.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, Mike Zacharias!” 

Reaching behind you, you grab a throw pillow and launch it at him. Mike shields himself easily, choking and chuckling as he tries to defend himself, “I’m just—saying! It’s something to keep in mind!”

“Trying to guilt me into sex—” You smack his forearms with the pillow again, “As if I’m not already easy for you—" smack, smack, “—by bringing up all the people dying out there. What is the matter with you?”

He gets a hold of the pillow and rips it from your hands then hugs it to his chest and stares at you with that uncharacteristically devious look. “Is it working?”

You scoff at him, gently kick at his thigh in one last act of defiance before responding, “I mean, kinda.”

And, that’s all he needs to hear before he’s throwing himself at you, pinning you to the couch even as you giggle and squirm, ridding you of the comfortable clothes you have on so that he can kiss and lick every part of you he can reach. He acts like he’s hungry for you, and you have to use all your strength to shove him off of you just so that you can work his pants off and return the favor. 

Mike is all grunts and curses as you work him over with your tongue, a hand on the back of your head heavy but not pressuring. He trembles as you take him deeper, his tip hitting the back of your throat and sliding just a little further. 

It always hurts your jaw, leaves it sore for a full twenty-four hours at least, but the way his jaw drops and his hands ball into fists make it worth it. 

You use one hand to stroke what your mouth can’t reach, the other settling between your own thighs to get you to where you need to be, and only when Mike is panting and you’re dripping slick into your curled palm do you pull off of him.

He helps you into his lap, lets you take your time sliding down his length, because even after as much practice as you’ve had, it hasn’t exactly gotten easier. He’s still massive, and you still have to will yourself to relax around him, but once your muscles have loosened enough, you begin to rock your hips. 

Mike lets you use him like that for a few minutes, knows he’s at the perfect angle to rub over your g-spot, so he just watches and leans forward to place teasing kisses around your open mouth. 

“Feel good, baby?” His voice drips like honey as he grips onto you to aid in your movement. 

Nodding, you dig your nails into his shoulders, then shift to start moving up and down his length. Mike takes it as his cue to take over completely, strong enough to lift and drop you as he pleases, and you both fall into a frenzy of motion, desperate to get off, to get each other off, to share that euphoria. 

“Do you actually want to?” You ask in a daze.

Mike cracks his eyes open to ask, “What?” and slows down enough to give you enough breathing room to speak. “Do I wanna what?”

Making lazy air quotes with your fingers, you mimic his deep voice, “Repopulate,” then elaborate, “Have kids. Do you want that?” 

Everything stops. Your hips still, as do Mike’s, and he stares at you, the lusty haze of his gaze clearing as he processes what you’re asking. 

Feeling completely exposed, you try to rationalize, “I know, I know, we’ve only been doing this for, like, a month, and it’s kind of a terrible time to actually bring new life into the world, but if I’m gonna do it with anyone—”

Mike fists both hands in the hair at the back of your head, pulls you to him to smash your lips together. When he starts bouncing you again, your muffled moan is still loud in the small living room, and Mike’s voice comes out somewhere between desperate and destroyed when he tells you, “Yeah, I want kids. Want you to have my kids.”

“Okay,” you breathe, matching his rhythm, then again, “Okay.”

A switch seems to flip in Mike’s head. You watch and experience him devolve into someone—something—primal. He fucks you like he never has before, long hair hanging in his face, lip caught between his teeth as he groans around it, pistoning into you quick and rough.

“You want it?” He growls, pausing to suck a mark at the swell of your breast. “You want me to come in this pussy?”

Your heart stutters, jaw dropping slightly because Mike isn’t a vulgar man, never has been, but now, the way he’s looking up at you with wild eyes, you know all he needs is the right push, and he’ll lose it completely. 

“Yeah, fuck, want you to fill me up, please,” you whine.

Your world tilts as he tosses you long ways on the couch, sliding back into you with ease and demanding, “Touch yourself.”

You grin slyly, “What, don’t have the focus?”

“Not really,” he admits, flicking sweaty hair from his eyes. 

Two of your fingers find your clit, massaging it the way you always do when you’re desperate for an orgasm. It makes you clamp tighter around Mike, and you tell him again—beg for him— “Please, baby, want you so bad.”

He comes quicker than usual, shooting line after line deep inside of you until it starts dripping out around his cock. 

He can’t stay inside you for long, unable to take the way you keep clenching and twitching from your own ministrations, so Mike pulls out and shimmies down your body so that his face is just above your cunt. At first, he just stares (like always), admiring your swollen folds and how messy you are, but soon he pushes a finger into you, attaching his mouth to your clit shortly after.

It doesn’t take you long. The thought of him fingerfucking his cum further into you paired with the actual sensation of it sends you over the edge within a few minutes, and the two of you are left sweaty and panting, too drunk off each other to really think about the gravity of what you’ve just done but enjoying it all the same. 

The feeling eventually returns to your legs, some of the fog in your brain dissipating as you run your hand through Mike’s hair, and when you find that you can, you voice, “Can we even handle a kid? Or like… Can a kid handle the world as it is?”

“Kids are weirdly resilient,” Mike speaks, face pressed against your stomach so that you can feel the vibrations. “And, maybe there’ll eventually be a race of super babies or something—have enhanced lungs to deal with ash. Darkvision and shit.”

You snort and shake your head. “Dummy.”

He retaliates by blowing a raspberry just above your belly-button, grins lopsidedly when you squeal. 

“But really, our kids’ll be fine. Volcanologist for a mom and an Eagle Scout for a dad? Doesn’t get much better than that.”

“Oh my god, you were actually in Boy Scouts? Does Levi know?”

Mike makes a little ‘pft’ sound and shoots you an unimpressed look. “Of course not. Like, I’d ever let that tiny, tiny man be right about anything.”

Your laugh is so deep and genuine, it makes your whole body shake. Mike raises his head to keep it from bouncing so much, but you can feel him staring for the duration of your giggle fit. Even through squinted, teary eyes, you can see his gaze is full of adoration, and you figure having two parents who love each other as much as the two of you do will at least make the hard life ahead of you a little easier for a child. 

4  Y E A R S  A F T E R

Heavy snow falls outside, adding to the thick layers on the ground and clouding the window you’re staring out of. The carrier is nicely heated, ensuring you and its other two occupants stay toasty as you keep eye out for incoming headlights. 

“Think that’s them,” Mike says, and you swivel to look out his driver’s side window to see two dull beams of light growing brighter and brighter. 

“Don’t know who else it would be,” you joke. “No one else is dumb enough to come back to this place.”

The only sign of your husband raising his eyebrows is the way his hat shifts slightly. “You’re right about that.”

Cinching fur-lined hoods tighter, you both slide out of the tram, boots crunching on ice and snow when you land on the ground. Mike circles to your side, opens the back door, then unbuckles and collects what looks to be a bundle of jackets in his arms. Two light eyes peer out between a beanie and a face mask, gloved hands reaching out and grabbing for you. 

“You want Mama?” Mike coos before passing your son to you.

You settle him on your hip, rub his shielded nose with yours, hoping your body heat will help keep him warm out here.

It’s been winter for… Years, now, the ash from the eruption having behaved exactly as you thought it would, blocking out the sun, and sending the planet hurtling into another ice age. It was something not everyone was prepared for—the intense cold, the food and water shortage, the isolation, but you were lucky. You had everything you needed.

The other snow vehicle stops a ways off, lights left on as two figures jump out, recognizable even when completely covered up. One is nearly as tall as Mike, the other considerably smaller even up close. 

Pulling his mask down, Erwin shows a brilliant smile as he stops in front of you and Mike, and Levi immediately protests— “Oi, cover your mouth, old man! You need it for more than just talking shit.”

Mike laughs, but still reprimands the other man with a pointed, “Levi,” and a nod toward the little boy you’re holding. 

“Fuck—I mean…” Levi takes in a deep breath then apologizes over the whistling wind and falling snow, “Sorry, Huck.”

Bouncing him on your hip, you peer at your son and prompt, “Huckleberry, you remember Levi and Erwin from the computer?” 

Though your team has seen him many times on Zoom and FaceTime, this is first time Huck is meeting any of them in the flesh.

Your son looks between them for a while, quiet as he sizes up both of the men, then he reaches out for Levi the same way he had for you just moments before. Levi makes a dissatisfied noise but still takes him from you, and once Huck is passed off, you shuffle to Erwin and wrap your arms around him, breathing into his chest and warming your face. 

Your boss squeezes you tightly, mutters a low, “I know, I missed you too.”

It isn’t enough to drown out Levi’s sing-song baby voice, and both you and Erwin glance over to find him with his forehead pressed to Huck’s as he teases, “Can’t believe your parents named you after a volcanic eruption. That was pretty dumb, right?”

Mike glides over, places one hand on Huck’s head and the other on Levi’s, then sighs. “Please don’t criticize my wife’s terrible taste in nam—”

“Hey! You agreed to it,” you shout, taking the little boy back from Levi and glaring at both the smiling men. “Better shut up before you give him a complex. He can understand things, you know. He’s three.”

“Huckleberry Pine Zacharias,” Levi scoffs. “I cannot stand you guys.”

“I think it’s a great name,” Erwin interjects, lightly tapping Huck’s nose under his mask. 

“Well, you have shit taste, too.”

“Obviously, if I married a little gremlin like you,” Erwin drawls easily, leaning into the punch that Levi throws into his arm.

“Anyway, we’re here for a reason, right? Other than freezing our asses off?”

“Yeah,” Mike nods, kicking at the snow on the ground like it’ll make a difference. 

All of you know that buried beneath all the white is dried pyroclast, but under that… 

Is what remains of Yellowstone.

“How do we even go about rebuilding?” Mike is the first to ask.

Erwin stares at his own feet, face scrunched up in thought for a while before looking back up and stating, “From the bottom. Everything starts with a good foundation.”

Levi just scoffs, but you and Mike lock eyes and share a hidden grin. 

You take Huck back from Levi, leaning in for a side hug as you do, then suggest to everyone, “Well, then, now that we’ve seen a little of what we’re working with, we should head back to the shelter and start making a plan.”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees. “Gotta start getting ready for the next eruption due in seven hundred thousand years, right?”

“Right.”

After splitting back up into the two separate carriers, Mike follows closely behind the other in order to make it to their newly built bunker without getting lost. It’s perpetually dark from the never ending snow and cloud coverage, hazardous even with the vehicle’s tracks, but you can’t find it in yourself to be scared. Not now, not when life finally feels to be returning to something close to normal. 

[uk-news-talking-politics]

Everything you need to know about day one of Brexit

By Ian Dunt

Oh sweet Christ not Brexit again.

Yes, you will never escape. It will never be over. Decades from now, as your wrinkled fingers grasp the remote for your 3D holo-viewer, the main news item will still be about Brexit.

At least we got a break during the coronavirus emergency.

Yep, say what you like about pandemics, but at least they take trade talks off the front pages. Still, it's back now. We leave at the end of the year. And deal or no-deal, things at the border are going to be very different.

OK lay it out for me.

For decades we have had frictionless trade with Europe in the customs union and single market. The customs union got rid of tariffs, which are taxes on goods entering a territory, and the single market harmonised regulations, which means goods are made to the same standards. Once you're outside of them, you need checks at the border to make sure people are paying the right tax and complying with the regulations.

And that's what's about to happen?

Exactly. And this will apply regardless of whether there is a deal or not. I want to issue a word of warning before we go any further: It's a horror show. The level of tediousness here is off the scale. This is like someone came up with a super-powered serum for the concept of bureaucracy and then injected it directly into your bloodstream. But you didn't turn into Chris Evans in Captain America, you turned into Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. The worst things are the acronyms. Everything has an acronym. But you need to get your head around it in order to understand what's going to happen to us next month.

I don't care. I hate this. I want this conversation to stop.

You can't, it's too late. You are trapped here with me and the acronyms. OK so here's the basic problem, the one from which all others follow. Our customs system currently processes around 55 million declarations a year. In 2021, it will process around 270 million. It needs to massively ramp up capacity.

It's just as well the government has such a good track record of implementing complex IT projects at speed then.

Quite. To be fair, the government has put a lot of effort into this, albeit belatedly. More than 35 government departments and public bodies are involved, including HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), the Home Office (HO), the Department for Transport (DfT), the Border and Protocol Delivery Group (BPDG) and the Transition Task Force (TTF).

Sweet Jesus the acronyms.

Actually, most of those are abbreviations, but let's not get caught up on details. We've barely scratched the surface. There are three key areas where the government needs to build capacity: IT systems to process the customs declarations, physical infrastructure at or near ports, and staff in government and the private sector to keep the customs system going.

That's a lot to do.

It is. But the government made things easier in one crucial respect: it delayed its own import declarations system until July next year.

What does that mean?

It means that stuff coming into Britain from Europe basically gets waved through. There are still technically customs requirements, but they've been pushed back six months. This allowed them to make sure goods would still enter the country and let them focus on trying to get the exports right.

It's hardly taking back control, is it?

No it isn't, but they're undertaking a systems-level change at an eye-watering timetable, so it was a necessary sacrifice.

Couldn't they have extended transition to prepare for this?

Yes they could, but chose not to. That's cost them. Covid seriously delayed preparations, dominated attention in business and government, paused ministerial decision-making and put communication with traders into deep-freeze over the summer.

So what are the biggest risks now?

The IT systems. There are 10 critical IT systems which are needed at the GB–EU border. Then there are the European systems which UK exporters will need to use to get access to the continent. We're not going to go into all of them here - we're going to massively simplify.

Thank heavens.

Don't worry, it'll still make your brain dribble out of your ears. We're also going to simplify by taking goods going from Britain to Northern Ireland off the table. That's its own separate hellscape. And we're going to focus on the Dover-Calais crossing. There are many others going from England to France, but this is the main route. It serves 'accompanied goods' - when a driver in a lorry takes the goods onto a ferry and then drives it off on the other side of the Channel. This is called RoRo, for roll-on-roll-off.

Acronym. Drink.

If you keep that up you'll be smashed by the end of the article and won't have any idea what I'm talking about.

I already have no idea what you're talking about.

Fair enough, drink away. The trouble with customs IT systems is this: Everyone needs to be filling in the right thing, in the right place, at the right time. If they don't, things break down. That doesn't just apply to the UK and French governments. It applies to exporters and importers, ports, hauliers and others. Customs is all or nothing. If one section is wrong, it's all wrong. Lorries are often full of lots of different consignments of goods from different exporters. Plenty of them travel with 100 individual separate consignments on them. This is called 'groupage'. So if one input of one customs form in one of those consignments is wrong, the whole lorry is delayed. And if that lorry is delayed, all the lorries behind it are delayed. The potential for breakdown is therefore very significant.

This is already making me anxious. It's like Jenga but it reaches all the way into the sky and is composed entirely of knives.

You also need to make sure that third party software used by places like the ports integrates with the government systems. And that assumes that the government IT systems actually work and have staff with the proper experience and training to operate them. And this too is interrelated. If one of the systems breaks down, it has a knock-on effect on the other systems. You keep seeing this same problem crop up. It's not one of error, exactly. It's about the consequence of the error, the knock-on effects of it.

How robust are those IT systems looking right now?

Not great. Some have been delayed indefinitely, some for a set period, some are in trials and some are online. But even when they're finished, you really want to give all the people using them time to understand them, to get used to them, so that when we leave transition there are as few mistakes as possible. All four industry representative bodies, including the Road Haulage Association (RHA) and the British International Freight Association (Bifa), have raised concerns about the government's level of preparedness, saying that they don't believe the border will be fully functioning by next month.

That's two more acronyms by my count.

I'm glad to see you sticking to the important information here. The trouble is that lack of government preparedness doesn't just affect it - it affects trader preparedness as well. If they're not getting clear communication from the government about what is happening and how it is happening, they don't know what to do. And the government has a bad record here. It has marched traders up the hill on no-deal several times over recent years, only to march them down again. Now many simply ignore it. Government communications have, until recently, centred on the "opportunities" of Brexit, which does nothing to indicate the urgency with which people need to make expensive and time-consuming changes. Even in October, just 45% of high-value traders who trade exclusively with the EU had started to invest in readiness.

Oh dear.

There are some reasons to be more optimistic. The first is that government communication has belatedly started to improve.  A new campaign in October was much better, telling traders that "time is running out". There's also one really important thing to remember about all this: it's not a long term problem. Brexit has plenty of those and they are severe, but this is not one of them. This is a short, sharp, embarrassing shock. Eventually, the market will adjust. People will see what happens in January and find ways around it so they can get their goods to market. Some people think that will happen very quickly indeed - no more than a month. Some think it'll take the first quarter of next year or longer. But very few people think it will last the whole year. What we're looking at here is the most dramatic, but also ultimately the most superficial, of Brexit impacts.

Starting to feel a bit tipsy now.

Cool, then it might be a good time to start talking about the IT systems.

No. Stop.

What?

I don't want to hear it. I want to get out.

It's too late. You're trapped here in an imaginary world in which I am talking to myself and explaining customs procedures. And in fact your resistance to this conversation probably points to some kind of deep-seated psychological trauma which I'm working my way through.

Dog carcass in alley this morning. Tyre tread on burst stomach.

Very good, Rorschach. So look, there are really four forms you need to remember. First, the import/export declaration. Second, the safety and security documentation. Third, the sanitary and phytosanitary measures for agricultural goods. And fourth, the system that collects these data sets and connects them to the lorry which is transporting the good.

What's in the import/export declaration?

They basically state what the good is, its value and how much duty you have to pay on it. It's the tax bit. It's all very complex, laborious and crammed full of technical minutiae but that's the executive summary. It needs to be lodged before the good gets to the French border.

How do you lodge it?

You do it through a UK system called the Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight, or Chief.

Drink.

This is a really old system and before Brexit was even a twinkle in Boris Johnson's eye, the UK planned to turn it off and migrate all traders to a new system called the Customs Declarations Service, or CDS.

Drink.

CDS was meant to replace Chief from January 2019 and then switch off altogether by March 2021, but there were repeated delays. So instead they're keeping Chief for trade between Britain and the EU and using CDS for trade between Britain and Northern Ireland, because it has the capacity for dual tariff fields. CDS is then going to be scaled up until it can deal with all the declarations.

No acronyms there.

Actually trade between Britain and Europe is called GB-EU and trade between Britain and Northern Ireland is called GB-NI, but let's not worry about that. The government insists that Chief now has an increased capacity that can handle 400 million annual declarations - way higher than the 265 million which are expected. HMRC has paid Fujitsu £85 million to provide technical support. But others aren't convinced. They're not sure it can handle the load and nervous that there isn't enough support if something goes wrong.

Very reassuring.

Isn't it. Remember that the importer on the EU side also has to be doing all of this - at the right time, in the right place - on the European customs system.

OK so what about the safety and security thing?

It's a document outlining what the good is, so it can be assessed for potential risks. Again, it's a long complex thing with multiple data fields. Like import/export, it has to be done in advance of the goods reaching Calais. It's submitted to the UK government via a new system called S&S GB.

Drink.

It must also be submitted to the EU member state's Import Control System, which is called ICS.

Drink. OK tell me about the sanitary pad things.

Sanitary and phytosanitary measures, or SPS.

Drink.

These are there to protect people, animals and plants from disease or pests. They cover products of an animal origin, like cheese, or meat, or fish, as well as live animal exports, plants and plant products, and even the wooden crates used to transport other types of goods. It's painstaking stuff, but I think, given the pandemic we're all going through, we all understand why it's important.

Yeah, fair enough. You've sold me. I'm totally on board with this stuff.

These kinds of goods have to enter Europe through specific Border Control Posts, or BCPs.

Drink.

And there they undergo some, or all, of a variety of checks. There's a documentary check for the official certification which travels with the good. There are identity checks, which provide a visual confirmation that the consignment corresponds to the documentation. And there's a physical check to verify the goods are compliant with the rules, for instance temperature sampling, or laboratory testing. You know that whole chlorine-washed chicken thing?

Sure.

Well this is where they check whether it has been and stop it getting into Europe if it has. But it's actually the documentary check which is the hardest part in terms of UK preparedness. It includes something called an Export Health Certificate, or EHC.

Drink. Jesus Christ.

These are documents which confirm that the product meets the health requirements of the EU. So they might say that the animal was vaccinated, for instance. Some products, like a cut of lamb, will just have one EHC. But others, like a chicken pizza, will have more than one.

We've talked about this before. People shouldn't put chicken on pizza.

You are wrong, it's a perfectly legitimate pizza topping, and in fact you are so wrong that I have started using chicken pizza as my trade-good shorthand. Chicken pizza is the new widgets.

What even are widgets?

No-one knows, that's why economists love them. A chicken pizza, however, is a composite good for the purposes of SPS. The chicken and the cheese are different animal products, so they would need separate export health certificates. And all these certificates have to be verified by an official veterinarian, or OV.

You're just messing me about now.

No seriously, they use that acronym. This whole area of public life has been radicalised into extreme acronym use. Anyway, the OV goes through the details, queries the documents and signs them off. But there's assistance from a person pulling together all the paperwork. They're called a Certification Support Officer, or…

I can't believe this.

...CSO. These guys are mostly in private practices, usually farming practices. It's not a big part of their workload - maybe 20% of what they do. But if you don't have those vets, you can't send the export. That would be catastrophic for the farming, food and hospitality sectors. And that's where we have an issue. There are restrictions on getting that many OVs up and running. There's a tight labour market for vets and the UK is highly reliant on Europeans coming over to do the job, but the end of free movement makes that much more difficult and expensive, as does the covid pandemic.

So what has the government done?

It pumped £300,000 into providing free training for the role. Many vets took it up. The number of qualified vets has jumped from 600 in February 2019 to 1,200 today. But that still leaves a capacity gap of 200.

Well that doesn't sound so bad.

No it doesn't, but when you start to scratch away at the figures, they fall apart. The 200 figure is the number of 'full time equivalent' qualified vets required. And if vets only spend about 20% of their time doing this, it means we'll actually need an extra 1,000 vets training in the additional qualification.

Oh dear.

Yep. Groups representing the sector are seriously worried about this. And as with customs, the smooth functioning of the border will rely on the importer on the EU side doing all the bits they're required to do too, by creating a record in the Trade Control and Expert System, or Traces NT.

Drink. OK, what's the fourth bit of IT?

Transport. This involves wrapping all the other forms together and attaching them to a vehicle. In the UK, we'll be doing this through something called the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, or GVMS.

Drink.

It links export declaration references together into one single Goods Movement Reference, or GMR.

Drink. Bloody hell man these people are out of control.

The GMR should come out like a barcode, a one-stop shop for all the tied-together information we've been discussing. GVMS will be needed for certain movements in January, particularly for trade with Northern Ireland, but it won't be a requirement of all imports until July. It's currently being tested and there are dark murmurs about its functionality from those who have come into contact with it. Mercifully, exporters into Europe on January 1st will be using the French system, SI Brexit. This was operational a year ago and has been fully tested several times.

Those lazy French with their useless romantic dispositions.

It's almost like they're a nation that cares about shopkeepers.

Speaking of which, how're British businesses going to deal with all this additional paperwork?

Many companies will be OK. Very big corporations are well ahead and in many cases have set up a European entity so that they can sell directly from their UK entity to the EU one. Then they'll probably just reflect the customs costs in a subtly increased retail price. Smaller companies who are used to exporting to the rest of the world outside of Europe also have an advantage. They're used to these kinds of things. The people who are most at risk are the small-to-medium-sized enterprises who have traded exclusively with Europe.

Small-to-medium-sized… Oh no.

Yeah, that's right. SMEs. Which, by the way, comprise the vast majority of companies in the UK. If you send just two or three loads of your product a month to Europe, it probably won't be worth the cost in manpower and money preparing for all this stuff. They'll likely just accept a shrinkage in their business. For many of them, the whole thing is a bafflement. Honestly, you read the guidance on all these systems and it's like it's in an alien code - a garbled assault of acronyms and complex systems. Many small firms, already suffering from covid, just throw up their hands in despair.

Bleak. It's always the little guys that get it.

Yes, although paradoxically, that actually presents one of the few reasons for optimism. Well, not optimism exactly, but a hope for least-badism. Now that so many people feel January will be chaotic, they might just decide not to bother trying to send anything. Goods will get stuck at a warehouse instead of on a truck.

Seriously? That's your good news? Aren't you just displacing disruption from the ports to other parts of the supply network?

Yes precisely. But there really are no good outcomes here.

Because if that doesn't happen, the system seizes up?

Yeah exactly. Lorries head to Dover then get held up because they don't have the correct paperwork. Then lorries behind those lorries get caught up, pushing the queue out, dominating Kent, creating a huge singular blockage. The government's own Reasonable Worst Case Scenario, or RWCS…

Drink.

... estimates that between 40% and 70% of lorries may not be ready for border controls, leading to queues of up to 7,000 trucks.

But that would only be going out right? The stuff we bring in to the country would be unaffected because we're not putting in place controls.

Kind of. It's certainly true that most imports should have a clear run into the UK. You can keep those two lanes separate. But most hauliers are from Romania, Lithuania, Hungary and Poland. They pay a lease on their trucks, which means they have to keep them going if they're to make money. They can't afford to get stuck in a queue at the border. So there's a good chance they'll look at the log-jam in the UK and think: 'I'm not touching that with a barge pole'. This would mean Britain struggled to get its imports, including potentially fresh food and medicines.

Wow.

Yeah, it could be bad. But there are plans for that eventuality. The government has set up some emergency routes, for instance on the Newhaven-Dieppe crossing. There's additional ferry capacity at eight ports, with the Department for Transport acting as the referee on which vehicles get onto their crossing. But it's not a like-for-like replacement. Many of these crossings take much longer than the short gap between Dover and Calais, and they often operate for unaccompanied goods overnight. If the import is urgent, or fresh, or, like some covid vaccines, needs to be kept at a certain temperature, then you may have a problem.

What is the government doing to make sure this doesn't happen? How will they control the blockage?

There's three parts to that really. The first is controlling access to Kent, which the trucks head into to get to Dover. This project has no acronym, but instead adopted one of the least elegant names in the history of British policy-making: The Check an HGV is Ready to Cross the Border Service.

Wait but...

Yeah. HGV: Heavy Goods Vehicle.

I fully accept now that it was a mistake to adopt this drinking idea.

Before the lorry gets to Kent, the driver will fill out an online form with a bunch of information - the registration number, the destination, details of the consignments, confirmations that the import/export documents have been filled in, export health certificates, the whole lot basically. Those that are judged to have all the documentation are given a Kent Access Pass, or KAP.

Drink.

And that allows them to go into Kent. Police can hand out £300 fines to lorries found on the Kent roads without the permit.

But this is all done on trust right? It's a self-assessment form.

Yep. It'll rely on people filling it out right. It's not linked to EU customs systems. So there's no guarantee that documents they claim to have completed will be accepted by EU customs authorities. But on the plus side, the software was launched recently and most people think it'll work OK. It's better than nothing, basically.

Alright so what's next? Traffic management?

Exactly. It's uncanny how naturally your questions lead me onto the next thing I want to discuss.

That's because I am you.

Don't talk about that, it makes it weird. Alright so first up we have the traffic flow plans. The Department for Transport is taking an existing temporary system to create contraflow on the M20 and putting it on a permanent footing, allowing 2,000 lorries to be held on the motorway while traffic still flows in both directions on the London-bound side.

OK, what's next?

Well then there's the issue of actual sites. HMRC has identified seven locations outside the ports. There's prep work being done at a site in Sevington, Ashford, at a cost of £110 million, to act as a clearing house for another 2,000 lorries. Some 600 lorries can be held on the approach to Manston airport, with more at the airport itself. These two sites, along with the M20 contraflow, are for holding traffic. There are also plans for Ebbsfleet International Station, North Weald Airfield and Warrington to be used for bureaucratic checks away from the border. Other sites, potentially in the Thames Gateway and Birmingham areas, are also being considered. They insist that this should give them capacity for 9,700 lorries, which is above the 7,000 in their worst case scenario.

Assuming that scenario is correct.

Right. Covid and other unrelated events, like a fire breaking out for instance, could mean that even the worst case scenario is an underestimate. We just don't know. Plus that relies on all of this being up in time. The government has passed legislation to streamline planning processes, but the timetable is unbelievably tight. The same thing goes for staff.

These are the customs officials who check all the paperwork, right?

That's certainly part of it. They're split into two departments: HMRC and Border Force. HMRC needs 8,600 full-time equivalent staff in place for January 1st. They still need another 1,500 but seem confident they'll have them. Border Force recruited an additional 900 staff ahead of a possible no-deal last year and is trying to bring in 1,000 more. Ministers are confident they'll have enough people in place by January 1st, but trade experts are less convinced.

Recurring theme.

Indeed. It's easy to get fixated on numbers but it really matters how well you've trained people too. You can have someone helping with customs work after a day or two, but for them to have any real sense of what they're doing, you're going to want a year's training. And then there's the question of personality type. Customs is a very specific kind of work, full of extremely complex documentation which must be got right. For some people, that is unimaginably boring. For others, it's very satisfying. But you need the right ones. And that's not what typically happens when people get desperate on a recruitment drive.

What's the other part of the staffing problem?

The private sector. It's a job called 'customs broker'. They're basically people who come in and help companies with their customs forms. Like I said, this stuff is mind-meltingly complex. You really do need someone to come and help you do it. And that's what the government wants too of course, because the more people getting it right, the fewer delays at the border. But as of last September, just 53% of traders said they planned to use a customs broker, with 30% unsure and 18% saying they were going to do the work themselves. Those aren't good numbers.

Are there enough of them to meet demand?

No. This has been a long-running problem. Almost two-thirds of customs brokers do not have enough staff to handle the increased paperwork from leaving the EU. And actually capacity seems to have reduced over the year due to the covid pandemic. The UK needs thousands more.

What's the government doing about it?

It's invested £84 million since 2018 into training, recruitment and IT system development. But many customs brokers are still hesitant about taking on new salary costs to build a capacity that won't be fully required until next July and they're nervous about taking on unprepared customers.  Of the £84 million on offer, just £52 million had been taken up in mid-October.

Is that… is that it? Please say that's it. I'm wasted.

It is.

OK so give me the executive summary.

We're about to experience the sudden implementation of complex customs processes in a nation which forgot they existed. This involves the introduction of numerous interrelated IT systems which have been under-tested. It's not clear that either government or traders are fully prepared for what's about to happen. In order to minimise the disruption the government is introducing various traffic management projects and trying to bulk up staff capacity. But there's just too many variables to know how it'll pan out. Maybe the systems will hold out and many traders will anyway sit out January because of concerns about queues. Or maybe the systems will fail, traders won't fill in forms right and the whole thing will blow up in our face. The most likely outcome right now is somewhere between shambles and catastrophe. We have to hope it's a shambles.

Can you do it in acronym-speak?

Amid RHA and Bifa concerns about the lack of progress, HMRC, Defra, the HO, the Dft, the BPDG and the TTF are building up IT systems for post-Brexit GB-EU trade and particularly for RoRo at Dover-Calais which will involve exporters submitting import/export declarations to Chief and the CDS, S&S information to S&S GB and ICS, and collating their SPS documentation - including an EHC filled out by an CSO under the supervision of an OV sent via a BCP - with the importer logging it on Traces NT, while generating a GMR via GVMS and SI Brexit, and then HGVs getting a KAP, all to avoid the RWCS.

D… Drink?

Yes I think so. That seems very sensible.

[stay-midnight]

I roll around in my sleep too lol so most likely I won’t wake up, I’ll be knocked yk. I would end up waking Minho up cause I throw things in my sleep.

I would wake up the next morning and just back hug Hyunjin the whole day. Also back hug Chan as well.

“I-nooooooo;^;” I would push myself even closer to him and just stay there cus of fluster-ness. If he were to do that in front of the others I would be really flustered, like I’ll stay hidden in his side for the rest of the day and anytime I try to answer anything it sounds like, “ahfobwochwoxbkB”

Tbh I wouldn’t be surprised if he did know👁👄👁. I would hum in agreement and chuckle, “You have me to yourself right now baby”

My tics aren’t like Tourette’s syndrome, they are completely caused because of anxiety so it’s an anxiety induced tics. I have GAD which causes me to be anxious all the time so I’m always ticking. I have certain tics cause by certain things then I have like regular tics that happen randomly. Most of them are vocal like I mentioned but I have a few physical ones like snapping, jerking my head and grabbing onto people. I also this thing that’s happens when I’m too anxious like I need to ask for permission to do anything. Ex: you give me a drink, I won’t drink it till you say I can drink it

My friends find my Yoo-hoo tic cute cus I say it in a high pitch voice, Yoo-hoo is just a comfort drinks lol. Also I haven’t had any monster today I only really have it like 5 times a week

“Sunshine your logic is a bit flawed, Channie is my baby so is Sungie, I’m at war with Jeongin about this. I may be the other’s baby but you’re my baby” I would laugh and lay down with him on my chest. “Imagine the others reactions to you call me Daddy they would lose it” -•^•

Minho would hike his leg on you if he got out of his burrito blanket 💀- Throw in your sleep I- Minho would groan and blink awake, then just fall asleep again like a kitten 🤧.

Hyunjin would nod and pet your head or ruffle your hair and Chan would look back at you and hug back.

“Cute.” He would smile at you and hug you close to himself, He will call you baby boy around others now seeing as it makes you the literal definition of a baby— He loves seeing you like that, he would cuddle and steal you from Minho from time to time and protect you from getting stolen by Jeongin.

I- Cooking Lessons with Minho, EP. 1 - Humans— Jeongin would smile and basically squish you into the bed, “Yep, stupid hyungs will not take you.” He would hug the life out of you.

Ohhhhhh, Tysm for informing me since I don’t have any backround knowledge on tics except that I know it causes people to repeat words or smth like that. What’s Tourette’s Syndrome though, first ive heard of that ausjsjsj. That’s good as long as you don't overdrink it much since it may cause health problems, and i dunt want that for you 🥺

Felix would look at you dumbfounded at your explanation, “So, if Chan is your baby.... Then you are his daddy?—” 👁️👄👁️ - he would have this face while asking you that- He would pout, “No way, I’m calling you daddy—”

[queenjunoking]

Wolf Taming Pt 19

CW: Noncon - Shock Collar - Pain - Petplay - Drugs - Kidnapping  - Manipulation

“I know you can hear me Sasha. You’re currently under the effects of a drug I helped make. It’s a bit like the one I gave you on your second day here, but it doesn’t make you loopy. It also has some other effects you’ll figure out in a bit.” I pulled Sasha out of the heap she had landed in and laid her out of the floor so I could get a good look at her. “I needed you to cooperate with what I’m going to be doing and this seemed like a fair trade. Admittedly this would be much easier with someone who was willing but I can only work with what you’re giving me. This way you don’t have to bruise your pointless pride right now by just doing what I ask and instead I’ll just be doing things to you. I wouldn’t consider that better but I guess I’m not you.”

I had gotten credit for the discovery of the drug, it was why I got such a generous start up sum compared to other new members. But I wasn’t a chemist. It was an unintended interaction between other chemicals I had been using on someone the society was having me work on. The poor woman spent a month under its effects before a new concoction was made that could counter the effects. It was yet another thing that had unfortunately made me well known in the society despite my low status.

I looked at Sasha as I started to unbox her new outfit. Unfortunately I couldn’t discern what Sasha might be thinking. She couldn’t move her face yet so her eyes were just watching me. The drug would start wearing off on her face first, letting her move the muscles in her face. Then she’d be able to talk a bit. Getting anything else back required the other drug.

“If you weren’t acting out we could be outside right now. We would have put the hood on, put on the arm binder and with a few tugs on the clamps we could have gotten upstairs and outside and you would have been free to wander around and enjoy the sunlight. Instead you get to spend more time down here while I get you in your new outfit.” The first ten minutes or so of Ragdoll were a bit frustrating for me. I liked to get a reaction out of the person I was working with, but she could give me nothing. A subject could hurl scream and cry or hurl insults at me all they liked and it typically didn’t bother me. I had heard it all. But getting nothing made me uncomfortable.

I unpacked the box and placed the items next to her. I had wanted to save this until a nicer time when she could wear the entire outfit, but unfortunately I would only get to use a few pieces of it if I ever wanted to get her up the stairs. As fussy as she was being, I was sure getting to go outside would ultimately fix her mood.

I could see her straining her eyes to see what I had put down. I sorted the pieces of the outfit, placing the parts that I couldn’t use back into the box. I held up the part I had been waiting to have her wear for so long. My heart ached that I couldn’t put her in it today. A beautiful latex bitchsuit. One of the few purchases that I had been talked into that I actually wanted to buy. I had been excited to use it for so long, but there’s no way she could climb two flights of stairs in it, let alone get back down here.

I usually sat on the side of latex being pretty, but much too delicate and hot for it to be useful for most things. Maids were a popular choice, they usually stayed inside which kept them cool enough. Latex was apparently popular for show ponies, but I never bothered to actually go and see a competition so I wasn’t sure what else owners typically did. But what else did you do with it? Make a bitchsuit out of it was apparently the answer. I wanted it the moment I saw it. Maybe it wasn’t suitable for her to wear for long periods, but she’d look stunning in it.

I stoked my hand over the suit, listening to the sound it made. Then I heard another noise. “W..uhs tha?” Sasha was starting to get her voice back. It took a bit for her to get full control of her voice.

“Nothing sweetheart. This is something for another time.” I placed the suit back in the box. I may not be able to use it now but plenty here was usable. “I really wish you had just listened Sasha because this is going to be unpleasant and annoying for both of us.”

“Ten dunt do et.” It was adorable listening to her slurred words. Even in this state she was being a brat.

“You’re funny. That’s not how this works and you know it. Let’s start with your paws.” The suit normally didn’t have a reason to use paws given how it made the body fold, but I spent extra to get some matching pieces that would help complete the outfit without the bitchsuit. 

I removed her cute locking mitts and replaced them with the ones made for the outfit I’d be putting her in. Black leather paw mitts that went up to the elbow, complete with locks. Maybe not as cute as her other mitts, but they had their own fun quality.

“Are they comfortable Sasha?” I wanted to wait until she could talk again to continue. I was eager to hear her feedback while i worked.

“No.” I watched her move her face around as she was regaining more control of it.

“These aren’t much different than you’re previous ones except longer so I’m not sure I believe you.” 

“Tose wer-” She stopped and cleared her throat and tried again. “Those weren’t comfortable either.” Good, her voice was back.

“Well if you thought those were uncomfortable then you’ll probably dislike these, but you don’t really have much of a choice right now.”

Now that I had everything set up I was really starting to realize the task in front of me. The bitchsuit came with leather padded leg binders. They would keep the legs folded and had padding on the knees so the wearer could walk on them. But they were easier to put on when the wearer worked with you, it was going to be difficult to put them on with her limbs being slack at the moment.

"What are you doing?" She asked after my third attempt to keep her leg up so I could get the binder on her leg.

“You know, I figured you’d be more concerned about not being able to move. ‘What did you do to me? Why can’t I move?’ Something like that.” I ended up taking my belt off and using it to keep her leg folded.

“You injected something into the back of my neck and I can’t move. It’s not like this is the first time you’ve injected me with something and…” she trailed off.

“And I’ve yet to hurt you from doing it and you have no reason to think I’m trying to hurt you now.” I finished her sentence for her. I finished lacing up the leg binder and locked it on before moving to her other side to start the process again.

“I’m not sure that drugging me doesn’t count as hurting me but I’m sure you have a way of rationalizing all of your behavior.”

“There are very few people like you Sasha.” It was an honest observation. I had never worked with someone like Sasha.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I could hear her eyes rolling as she spoke.

"Well here you are on the floor, injected with a drug that’s left you unable to move and left completely open to whatever I want to do to you. But here you are just having a casual conversation with me. You realize this isn’t how people normally act right?” I wrapped the belt around her other leg so I could get to work on lacing up the next leg binder.

“What do you want me to do? Scream and cry or something? I’m not sure how to feel about anything anymore. All that happens here is a rotation of boredom, pain, and humiliation. Everything has blended together at this point.” She sounded distant. She wasn’t wrong, these kinds of environments could break people. It’s why i was taking her outside.

“I want you to feel like you want too. You’re special because you’re you. Many in your position would scream and cry. Some would just fall into line to avoid getting hurt. But you keep playing your own games. You’re very fun. I’m glad no one else got their hands on you, they would have stamped out that beautiful spirit of yours.

“You’re fucking psycho. I don’t know how you sleep at night.”

“Surprisingly well actually.” I finished locking on the leg binder. I hadn’t always slept well after joining, but you get used to it eventually.

“You’ve been honest enough with me in your own creepy way so I’m going to be fair about something so I won’t feel as bad about it when the time eventually comes.”

“Oh?” I got up and moved to stand directly over Sasha. I sat down so I was straddling her stomach and she made a noise of discomfort. It let me look directly into her eyes. “And what’s that?”

“The moment you slip up, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

A shiver went up my spine and I gave her a smile. “So violent. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I could tell she didn’t really appreciate that I was sitting on her. I’m sure she’d love to make good on that threat right now if she could. She definitely would after what I was about to do to her. “I have a question for you Sasha.”

“Just go ahead and ask it. It’s not like if I say no it’s not like thats going to stop you.” Her face was starting to go a little red and her breathing was off. The secondary effect of the drug was starting to affect her.

“Have you ever had sex?” I asked her with a straight face, doing my best not to give anything away.

“What?!” Her face instantly went several shades of red darker.

“I’ll take that as a no. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Though some people would find the situation you’re in quite erotic. If you ever need some stimulation or want some release you should let me know. I’d be happy to take care of that for you.” Sasha was cute. The most nothing questions revolving around sex would set her off. It was obviously something she was insecure about.

“I don’t think my sex life is any of your-” I interrupted her by stroking my thumb over her nipple, elicitng a moan from that that surprised us both.

“Do you like it when I play with your nipple?” I asked her as I continued to stroke her nipple.

“Nnnno… Nno I dooo..n’t.” It was a pretty bold lie from the moans I was pulling out of her. But at least part of it was from the drug. I had tried to argue against adding the aphrodisiac effects, I wanted Ragdoll to just be a drug that could be used to lock someone in their body. But the Society was convinced it would do better with that extra effect so I was forced to withdraw my objections.

“You look on edge Sasha, you sure you don’t want to ask for an orgasm? There’s no shame in it.” There were many things I would enjoy doing to Sasha, but I had decided long ago that an orgasm was something she’d have to swallow her pride and would have to beg for one.

“Fuuuuck you.” A fair enough response. I was enjoying how much it was affecting her. The aphrodisiac was a fairly low dose. I had options I could use on her that would make her needy enough to start humping my leg like a dog in heat. But that kind of thing was for another time.

“I’m flattered but now really isn’t the time.” She let out a frustrated growl, sending another chill down my spine. She couldn’t hurt me right now, but being this close while she did that still made my heart race a little. “I’ll be back in a moment Sasha. There’s one more piece to your outfit that you still need inserted.

“What?” I ignored her question and went into the toy room, grabbing a pair of latex gloves, some lube, a blindfold, a leash, and a vial of the antidote that I would need. I made sure to keep them out of her sight as I returned.

“Have you ever played with sex toys Sasha?” I wouldn’t have called myself the most adventurous person before I joined the Society but even I had sex toys.

“I don’t think that's any of you-” I cut her off.

“So that’s a no. Nothing to be ashamed of, nothing wrong with them either though. ” It took quite a bit of effort but I managed to flip Sasha off of her back and onto her stomach. I realized my mistake, it would have been much easier to do what I was about too before I put on the leg binders so I could prop her up on her legs. But I’d have to work with what I had. I snapped on one of the gloves and applied a generous amount of lube.

“What are you doing?!” Her sense of urgency suddenly went through the roof.

“Shh… just relax.” With that I slowly inserted a finger into her butt.

“Stop! What the fuck are you doing!” She wanted to pull away but her body wasn’t cooperating with her.

I sighed. “I’m turning the collar back on Sasha, yapping will be punished with a shock. If you keep yapping despite that I have other methods.”

To my surprise, she became quite quiet after that. Little noises and moans, nothing the collar would pick up on. I was expecting a fight to be honest. I wasn’t expecting her to simply take it. She made a louder noise the collar picked up on when I added a second finger, her body convulsed slightly. But whether it had been a sound of pleasure or displeasure was something I wasn’t quite sure about.

“I think that should be good enough. It’s time for you to try your first toy. Don’t worry, it’s quite small and very adorable.” I picked up the last piece of the outfit that I could use. A sleek puppy tail plug. I gave it a generous amount of lube and pressed the bulb against her so she could feel it. “Ready Sasha?”

I didn’t wait for her to answer. With a bit of effort I pushed it inside of her. With that my wolf was dressed. Legs bound so she could no longer stand upright. Paws so she couldn’t grab anything. And a beautiful tail that would shake back and forth as she walked. I took a picture of her back end, getting her bound legs and the plug in the picture.

I discarded the glove and knelt by her head. I grabbed a handful of her hair so I could pull her head up and she could see the picture. She already had tears in her eyes and her face was bright red. “See? I told you it was cute!” She looked at the picture but didn’t say anything. I released her hair and stood back up.

“You know, I’m kind of glad you were being a brat. This was fun, to think you could have just gone outside without having to have gone through any of that. You still sure you don’t want an orgasm? You seem flustered. Speak.” I could feel a bright smile on my face, I was really enjoying myself. It had been quite some time since I enjoyed myself before Sasha came along.

“No I don’t you psycho!” She was upset but she couldn’t really hide the effect the aphrodisiac had on her.

“Fine, if you want to deny yourself that’s fine. We could always get you a chastity belt or something if you decide you never want to have another orgasm, but those are usually reserved for maids and people in similar positions. People, not pets.” My comment elicited yet another growl, she was quite feisty today.

“Here’s the thing Sasha. That drug requires an antidote or the effects don’t end. If I wanted too I could leave you locked in your body like that forever, never able to move again.”

“Y-you wouldn’t do that. You want me to do things. Tricks and stuff.” She called me out on my bluff. She was right, but that didn’t mean the thought didn’t scare her.

“You’re right, but I am very patient and those leg binders will get uncomfortable after awhile. Swallow your pride and repeat what I say and you’ll get the antidote and we’ll go outside. Say ‘Please give me the antidote Master.’ Speak.”

“Please give me the antidote Master.” She spoke through gritted teeth, but I could hear her voice wavering.

“Say ‘I’m sorry for acting out Master.’ Speak.” I was going to poke her all I wanted. She knew I wouldn’t leave her like this but she was scared regardless. 

“I’m sorry for acting out Master.” She kept playing along, nothing else she would risk doing.

“Say ‘I’m your wolf master.’ Speak.”

“I’m your wolf Master.” The words sounded beautiful when she said them.

Say ‘I belong to you master.’ Speak.” Repetition was the key to drilling it into her head.

“I... belong to you master.” She was getting frustrated now, but her fears were overriding her frustration.

“You’re such a good girl Sasha.” I loaded the applicator with the antidote. I pressed it against the back of her neck and pulled the trigger. There was a small hiss and it was done. She’d be able to move around in a few minutes.

I waited for a few minutes and watched as she regained control of her limbs. It was funny to watch, they just kind of jerked around a lot until she regained control. I watched her weakly push herself up with her arms. She stumbled a bit, trying to figure out how to move with her legs bound like they were. It was kind of like watching a baby deer learning to stand. I clipped the leash to her collar and slipped the blindfold over her eyes.

“How about we finally go play outside?”

[littleshebear]

Little Bird

pt 1 | pt 2 | pt 3 | pt 4

AO3 Link

Amanda Holliday | Commander Zavala  | BB!Amanda | Zavala is Tower Dad | Tower politics | PTSD | Childhood Trauma | Canon typical violence | Ramos is the best boy

Zavala uncovers the exact circumstances of Amanda's arrival in the City. Amanda makes a visit to the Tower, with permission this time.

Content warning for childhood trauma, parental loss. First half of this is a little heavy.

___________________________

A hunter turned this way and that before shrugging and letting his arms flop to his sides. He shook his head, scanning the landscape. This place used to be an industrial area, it was littered with rusted old machinery and large concrete pipes exposed by years of erosion. There were a few derelict buildings dotted here and there, crumbed into nothing but concrete shells from years of abandonment and neglect. In short, the area was rich with hiding places for this thing that he had been tracking for the last half hour.  

“It was right here! Where did it go?”

“Shhhh,” his Ghost hissed. “I still have it on radar. It’s close. Eleven o’clock. About ten feet in front, see that drainage pipe?”

The hunter nodded and drew his side arm. It was only one contact, but whatever it was, it was small but he wouldn’t let this go until he understood what it was. They were too close to the City to be cavalier about this.

“See if this turns out to be a rabbit…” He tailed off, sighing.

“It isn’t. Too big.”

“Dreg?” He asked as he crept forward.

“Too small.”

“Dog?” Whatever this was, it was fast, and almost certainly evading them on purpose. There was purpose in its movements. “Aw, I hope it’s a dog.”

He paused beside the pipe, listening for movement. He sidestepped and dropped down in front of the pipe in one smooth movement, raising his gun at his quarry. When his Ghost’s light fell on his target he gasped and immediately holstered his weapon.

A child cowered at the other end, pressed up against a metal grate choked with vegetation. Her blonde hair was damp and hung limply around her face. She held up one tiny hand to shield her eyes from his Ghost’s light. She was bleeding, the cuts on her fingers suggesting she had been trying, in vain, to shift the metal grid barring her escape.

“It’s just a kid…” He breathed before squatting down to fit into the pipe. He extended a hand toward her. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you. Come out, niñita , it’s all right. Why are you out here all by yourself?”

She swallowed hard and edged forward, shuffling as she went, not taking her eyes off the hunter.

   “That’s it,” he beckoned, “Come on, niñita, it’ll be alright.”

   She got just within touching distance and dashed forward, ducking under his arm and shoving him to the side with all the force she could muster.

   “Hey!” The hunter cried out. He tried to straighten up only to dunt his helmet on the roof of the pipe. “Ow.” He shuffled out awkwardly to see the child running as fast as she could away from him. It was then that he noticed she was missing one shoe, giving her an awkward, loping gait that would have been amusing if the circumstances were different. He ran after her, his longer legs easily closing the distance. He caught her around the waist, only to be met with shrieking and little fists drumming on his arms.

   He frantically shooshed her, “ Niñita, niñita, stop! I’m a Guardian, I’m here to help.”

   His Ghost swivelled around and dropped down to her eye level. “Please calm down.” She ignored this latest entreaty and tried to wriggle out of the hunter’s arms. “Take off your helmet. She’s afraid, show her your face, let her see you’re human.”

   “She’ll make a break for it again.”

His Ghost sighed and dipped his spines. “I’ll transmat it to the ship.” The Hunter’s helmet disappeared with a whooshing sound and he risked loosening his grip enough to turn her around to face him. He hunkered down to her level and smiled.

“There, see? Look, I’m human, I’m not going to hurt you, you’re gonna be okay.” She kept tugging backward and away from him until he said, “I’ll take you home, I’ll take you to The City, it’s not far.”

She stilled, finally looking him in the eye. She didn’t speak, her heavy, uneven breathing being the only sound she made.

The hunter nodded encouragingly, “That’s right, The City. Is your family there?”

She shook her head and managed to wrench one arm free, which she used to wipe her running nose on her sleeve.

“Then where are they? Why are you all by yourself?”

She set her lips into a thin line and swallowed hard before speaking. “How far is it? The City?”  The words emerged thin and strangulated, something between a hiss and a squeak.

“Not far,” he shrugged, “few hours by sparrow.”

She took a sharp, deep breath and screwed her eyes tightly shut as tears spilled over and left clean streaks through the dirt on her face. When she exhaled it came out as an ear-splitting scream that seemed to go on forever.

The Ghost shied backwards while the Hunter pulled her into a hug, muffling her next wail against his shoulder.

“Turn it off.” Zavala rises from his seat and turns his back on the Ghost who was projecting the recording of the day he and his Guardian found Amanda in the wilds. He stares out his office window across the City, working a muscle in his jaw as he processes what he’s just seen.  

“Did we do something wrong?”

Zavala turns back around to face the Hunter, who’s perched on the edge of a chair on the other side of the desk. Cayde had told him which of his scouts to speak to about the circumstances of Amanda’s arrival in the City.

“Did we handle that badly? Is that why we’re here?” Ramos continues. Zavala can see why this man would struggle with a game of deception. His emotions are writ large in his behaviour.  The scout looks up at Zavala with large, brown spaniel eyes, his brows knit together. He had taken off his gloves half way through his Ghost’s recounting of that day’s events and he grips them tightly in his lap, worrying them and turning them this way and that in his hands.

“I checked the records. Ramos, that’s your man. Good guy, great scout, terrible poker player,” Cayde had told him. For once, he’d had the good grace not to pry too deeply about why Zavala was so interested in this particular scout report. Zavala must have looked even more serious than usual.

“No,” Zavala assures him. “No, you’re to be commended, both of you.” He manages to muster a sad smile.

Ramos breathes out but still fidgets with his gloves. “Oh. Thank you Commander.” He manages to muster a lop-sided smile. “When you’re a Hunter and you get summoned to the Titan Vanguard you just assume, you know. Not that I’m saying you’re a hard ass, I mean, it’s just-

“Ramos. It’s fine. Relax, before you strain something.”

   “Yes sir,” Ramos mumbles, setting back into his chair.

   “What happened next?” Zavala sits down, rests his elbows on his desk and threads his fingers together.

   “Nothing I didn’t cover in the report. She quieted down not long after, all cried out, I guess. I took her to a hospital to get her checked out.”

   “Did she say anything?”

   Ramos shakes his head. “Not really. She said she was sorry a couple times.”

   “What was she sorry about?”

   “She didn’t say, and honestly, Sir,” Ramos tips his head to the side and shrugs, “I didn’t want to push her.” He takes a deep breath before speaking again. “I went back out and scouted the area. I found a battle site, fairly fresh. Few burned out vehicles, some overturned supply crates. No survivors. No bodies.”

   Zavala closes his eyes. “How long do you think she was alone for?”

   “Hard to say, she couldn’t have lasted that long, alone. A day, maybe two? She was really good at hiding though, bless her. Gave us the runaround.” A heavy silence falls between them. Ramos picks at a loose thread on his gauntlets. “Her feet were bleeding.”

   Zavala opens his eyes again, while the Hunter just stares glumly at his lap. “You did well Ramos. She’s alive because of you. Be proud.”

   He mumbles a thank you, then looks worried again. “Why are you asking me about this now? Did something happen to her, is she okay?”

   “She will be. She’s doing remarkably well all things considered.”

   “Do you think,” he falters, then rallies, “Do you think I could go see her maybe? Just say hi?”

   “In time, perhaps. For now, she’s a little fragile, I think.”

   “Right, right.” He nods, his understanding not counter-acting his disappointment. “Was there anything else, sir?”

   “No, thank you for coming in, you’re dismissed.” Ramos rises to leave. “If,” Zavala interrupts, “If you need to talk to someone about what happened, I can help with that.”

   Ramos frowns, “I just talked to you about it.”

   Zavala smiles softly, “No, I mean, talk to someone in a professional capacity. Counselling.”

   “Oh…” Ramos says, comprehension dawning across his face. “You mean like a Talk -talk. That might be good.”

   “I’ll have my Ghost send you some names.” He makes a show of sorting through some paperwork on his desk until Ramos leaves then slumps back in his chair. He sits in silent contemplation, staring at the ceiling, wondering what to do with this information. He almost doesn’t notice when Izanami appears beside him.

   “I was relieved when you took a posting in the City,” his Ghost says gently, “I thought it would mean you wouldn’t have to see things like that again.”

   “You think I should close my eyes to what happens outside the walls?”

   “Of course not, nor do I think you would.” She bumps her shell against his shoulder, the tips of her spines tapping on the metal armour there. “But I reserve the right to worry about you.”

   He holds his hand out for her to settle in his palm, almost a reflex after all these years with her by his side. “I needed to know. I knew it wouldn’t be pleasant. No wonder she doesn’t feel safe. They were so close. She went through all that to get to this City,” he sighs deeply before continuing, “And it’s failing her.”

“I keep telling you Zavala. You can’t save all of them.”

“No,” he concedes, “But I can try and save this one.”

-/

While she can accept that a school trip to the Tower is a good deal more exciting than an average school day, Amanda allows herself a degree of smugness. As she trooped in with her schoolmates, all of them clad in garish luminous jackets, accompanied by their teacher and a few more adult minders, she thought back to her hangar misadventure. In comparison to sneaking into the hangar, alone, this is old-hat to her. Positively pedestrian. She must admit though, the man currently speaking to them is fascinating. She wonders where he got that helmet from and where its missing horn went.

“So, in conclusion, adversity breeds strength!” Shaxx exclaims, slamming a huge fist into his open palm as he addresses the group of children from the orphanage.  They stare up at him, slack-jawed and necks craned.  “Never regret mistakes, it’s how you learn. Follow your dreams! Be bold, take risks! I’ve heard so many Guardians complain about getting exploded from grenades,” He snorts, “The explosion isn’t the thing to focus on, it’s the getting up and carrying on. I get exploded all the time!” He pauses in his speech when he hears their teacher pointedly clear her throat. She subtly shakes her head at him, eyes wide and pleading. A few seconds of awkward silence pass before he points down to the rapt school party in front of him and states, “But stay in school! Listen to your teachers. Any questions? Yes you, blonde girl.”

“Why does your helmet only got one horn?” Asks Amanda.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older. Anyone else? You!” He points to a girl towards the back of the group. “Fierce-looking lass with the pigtails.”

“What are those bones up there?”

“Ahamkara, wish dragon. Dangerous beasts, I killed this one,” he replies, inclining his head in appreciation of the chorus of ‘wows’ and gasps that ripple through the group.

“Can we fight in the Crucible?” Asks one eager lad, not waiting for permission to speak despite sticking his hand in the air.

Shaxx throws his head back and laughs, his shoulders heaving. “Of course not. You’re only children.”

“What about when we’re older?”

He stops laughing abruptly and shakes his head. “No. Seriously, no. Guardians only.”

“But you said-“

“All right children, I think we’ve taken up enough of Lord Shaxx’s valuable time. Let’s all thank him and move on,” their teacher interjects breathlessly. “Commander Zavala very kindly offered us to have a look at the Vanguard Hall, won’t that be exciting? Don’t wander off, do as the tour frame says and don’t touch anything.”

Shaxx places his hands on his hips and nods to each pair of children as they pass by, not noticing the look of relief on the teacher and escort’s faces as they leave.

“How was that Arcite?” Shaxx calls across the corridor to his frame companion. “I thought that went well.”

“Very well my Lord! Inspiring!”

Shaxx gives a self-satisfied nod. “I think so too.”

Ikora glances up from her studies as the children troop in, two by two. She scowls, unable to drown out the excited chatter of children and the droning of the guide Frame explaining the history and purpose of the Vanguard Hall.

“I can’t believe you agreed to this,” she says to Zavala through clenched teeth. “I feel like I’m in a zoo.”

“I didn’t agree to it,” Zavala replies, drawing himself up and placing his hands behind his back. “I suggested it. I want them to feel like they have a stake in the City, so I want them to see how we protect them, that we value them. This makes it less abstract for them. They might feel more secure if they actually see us at work.”

“Guardian/Civilian relations? I thought that’s what Cayde’s sports day nonsense was for.”

“Nonsense? Cayde protests. “Dodgeball is a noble endeavour, I’ll have you know.”

“The purpose of this exercise is two-fold.” Zavala continues, ignoring Cayde’s indignation. “Framing this visit as educational, as school-work also means they might be more inclined to find this place boring and not sneak up here. I want to take away the Tower’s mystique.”  

“Playing some three-dimensional chess there,” Says Cayde, “That’s strategy. Two birds, one stone. See Ikora? That’s why he’s Commander, we need to get on his level.”

“Just promise this won’t be a frequent occurrence,” Ikora sighs.

“We’ll see how this turns out then-“

“Psst! Commander!”

Zavala turns to find the source of the hissed interruption; a grinning Amanda Holliday, her chin resting on one of the railings surrounding the upper level of the hall. One of her pants pockets bulges out sideways, with a little scrap of luminous fabric spilling out. If only those high visibility jackets were harder to take off and not so easy to conceal.

“Amanda, what are you doing?” He demands.

“Hi!” She waves, excited and oblivious. “Didja get my letter?”

“I did. Apology accepted, now get back to your classmates before you feel the need to write me another apology. Do you want this to turn into another hangar incident?”

“Hey!” Cayde calls across the table. “You got me in trouble for that, how come I didn’t get an apology?”

“No I didn’t. I didn’t rat you out,” Amanda responds, using the railing to pull herself up onto her tiptoes.

“You told me you were waiting on your mom!”

“I said she was an engineer, and she was. I never actually said she was in the hangar.”

“So, a child has broken away from the group, Cayde is losing an argument to said child…” Ikora shoots a lopsided smile at Zavala, who has taken to pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Has the Tower’s mystique been sufficiently dispelled?”

“Cayde, let this be an object lesson in not making assumptions,” Zavala announces, blocking out Ikora’s teasing. “And Amanda Holliday, please get back to your group.”

“Are those guns?” Amanda drops down to her haunches and cocks her head to the side to get a better look outside the window at the end of the Hall. “They’re huge!”

“Anti-aircraft cannon,” Cayde says, gleefully. “In case any Fallen Ketches get too close. Aren’t they great?”

“Yeah! How do they work? How did you get them up there?” Exclaims Amanda. “You gonna fire ‘em?”

“Obviously not-“ begins Ikora.

Zavala glares at each of them in turn. “Ikora, I will handle this. Cayde, do not encourage her. Amanda, Get back to your classmates and I shall consider it,”

“Yes Sir!” Amanda hops to her feet, waves frantically then makes her way back to the group, expertly weaving her way around frames, furniture and civilian workers to hide herself from her classmates and school staff.

Ikora watches her progress across the hall and smiles softly. “One has to admire her ability to avoid being seen unless she wills it.”

“Indeed. It’s a survival technique,” Zavala mutters, almost to himself. He bunches his fists and leans on the table for a few moments, before pushing himself up by his knuckles. “Mr.  Jiang. I believe the defence cannon are due for a test fire?”

The City Forces soldier Zavala had called upon stares at him for a second, glances at the tablet in his hand, then back to Zavala. “I don’t think so, Sir? Not for a couple weeks?”

“We’re due.” Zavala assures him. He raises his voice to address the children at the other end of the Hall. “We are about to conduct an ordinance test. Nothing to be alarmed about. Cover your ears please.”

The Frame escorting the children looks as confused as a humanoid robot can, then reassures the children not to worry. The children for their part, clamp their hands over their ears, snap to attention and train their eyes on the window at the end of the hall.

Jiang sounds out a countdown to fire. When he reaches zero, the floor under their feet vibrates and there’s a muffled boom from outside the room.

Zavala looks up at the children, half expecting fear. They wait for the vibrations to subside before erupting into cheers and applause.

He breaks into a smile, a rare, public indulgence as he looks up and makes eye contact with Amanda. He may not have broken the mystique of the Tower, he can’t say if this made her feel safer but as he watches her clap and jump up and down on the spot, he knows it was worth it.

“You getting broody, Zav?” Cayde asks, following his gaze.

“Nonsense, Cayde.” Zavala looks away from Amanda and turns his attention to Jiang. “Targeting telemetry on my desk by tomorrow, yes?”

“Yes sir,” Jiang replies hesitantly. “So…am I to reschedule the…scheduled test, sir?”

Zavala, nods slowly. “Yes, you’re clear to reschedule, assuming everything is within parameters.” He briefly raises his hand to Amanda, who waves back at him as she and the other children retreat through the doorway.

“Yeah, you’re not fooling anyone,” says Cayde. “That’s it, I’m roping you in to help with the next dodgeball match.”

“I’m busy,” Zavala counters, dropping his gaze to watch a live patrol feed coming through on his tablet.

“I haven’t even decided on a date yet!”

“I’ll think of something.”

____________________

A/N: Full disclosure, "I get exploded all the time," isn't something I came up with, it's in-game dialogue but I love it too much.

Ever since Forsaken dropped, I couldn't stop thinking about Amanda describing how she lost her parents. Losing her dad that close to the city was just too heartbreaking to handwave away. As upsetting as it is, I didn't think I could properly tackle her as a character but ignore that aspect of her past.

[ladybugsfanfics]

Lunch Interruption | Good Omens

Pairing: Aziraphale x Crowley

Style: One Shot apart of this drabble series.

Summary: Lunch is interrupted. Az and Crowley are having a rather good time. 

WC: 1235

A/N: This is part of a series in Aziraphale’s tattoo shop. This part will be called Chaotically Angelic which I got from @gamillian​ who helps me with these kinds of things. This part will be mostly from Aziraphale’s POV. If you would like to be added to/removed from the taglist, please let me know.

Intro | Series Masterlist | AO3

“Lunch, my dear, lunch.” Aziraphale stares shocked at his husband. “What on Earth did you think I meant?” 

Crowley shrugs. “Ngk… I don’t know,” he gestures in the air, “maybe something… I don’t know.” He looks away from Aziraphale, who smiles rather amused at Crowley. 

“Well,” he says and places a tray of sandwiches on the little table in the back room of the shop, “that is what I meant. And you promised to bring something to drink. Is it really that hard?” 

“...Yeah.” The florist scans the room. “I’ll just go upstairs and bring some.” 

“Don’t use too long.” Aziraphale says as Crowley goes into their apartment to get something to drink. “But don’t take the wine. We’ll have guests this evening and it took a long time to find that wine,” he yells after him, knowing the man usually prefers wine with any food. 

Crowley comes back a few minutes later. In his hands, he carries a jug of water. It nearly sloshes over as he puts it down on the table. “Happy?” he asks, which to anyone else would seem rude but to Aziraphale is only a gesture of love (he takes what he can get). 

The tattooist rubs his hands together with a smile. “Yes, very.” 

They both sit down to eat. Generally, they eat in silence. Aziraphale has already noticed that might not be the case this day, as Crowley is in a slightly restless mood. 

“Do you… uh, do you have any appointments later in the day?” 

Aziraphale nods. “Yes. One at eleven and one at one fifteen. Why?” He takes a bite of the sandwich and looks expectantly at his husband. 

“Nah, was just thinkin’ we close up early.” Crowley waves his hand, brushing the thought away. 

“For what purpose exactly?” Aziraphale purses his lips. He has a hope as to what Crowley is going to say. 

The florist, on the other hand, doesn’t answer. He looks at the stack of sandwiches, avoiding Aziraphale’s gaze. The latter gives him time, instead using his energy on eating and knowing one of the customers coming in later (his one fifteen appointment) has never taken a tattoo before. Aziraphale loves it when they come to him, especially with such requests as the one he had for that one. 

Crowley makes some noise where he sits, regaining Aziraphale’s attention. “I was thinking…” He coughs. “What if we take the day off tomorrow?”

“Why?”

Aziraphale’s husband shifts in his seat. “Nah, no reason, really. We could sleep in, have breakfast together, so on. Lazy day.”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale says the name in such a loving tone he can see the other man blush slightly, then shake his head and hope it wasn’t noticed. “We eat breakfast together every day. Other than the one appointment I have at noon tomorrow that sounds lovely.”

The florist nods approvingly. “Sure.” To keep from the moment he reaches for a sandwich, takes one bite and puts it down on his plate. It lies there untouched until Aziraphale coughs (read: says he should eat). 

They spend the next minutes in silence. Both content with just being in each others company. Crowley even took off his sunglasses. And for a long while they just sit there, lovingly staring at each other. 

Aziraphale takes in the beauty of his husband. The messy bun atop his head he always has a comment about but secretly loves―dragging his fingers through the soft hair is moments he appreciates drealy as Crowley rarely lets him. He takes in the beautiful eyes of his husband; the small wrinkles around them, the warmth they emit as they lock eyes and just look at each other. Aziraphale can’t help but smile. 

The bell at the door of the tattoo shop rings, signaling a new customer. Crowley jerks his head in the direction whilst Aziraphale keeps his blue eyes trained on his husband. With a slight realization that they are, in fact, in his shop, he gets out of his chair and walks into the little waiting area of his shop. 

A woman stands by the coffee table. Her gaze scans the room and Aziraphale puts on his best smile as he greets her. “Hello,” he says. “Do you have an appointment?” 

The woman purses her lips. Nods slowly. “At eleven,” she says. “I’m in no hurry, though.” 

Aziraphale only smiles brighter. “Can I bid you something whilst you wait? Water? Coffee? Tea?” He motions to the coffee table, “and please, help yourself to some biscuits.” 

“Actually, coffee would be nice.” She sits down in the chair. A look of surprise flashes across her face. It is gone quickly, but Aziraphale noticed. He also notes how her fingers trace the spines of one of the books on top of a stack, and smiles brightly as he goes to make her coffee. 

Where the tattooist left him, his husband sits in his chair around the small lunch table. As Aziraphale walks past him and to the coffee maker, he lets out a huff. The tattooist rolls his eyes slightly. “Oh, Crowley, don’t be foolish,” he says as he pours the coffee. “I already told you I had an appointment at eleven.” 

The florist stares unhappily at him. “Yeah, yeah. Dunt matter anyway, I’ve probably been gone too long.” Crowley stands up from his chair and walks over to where Aziraphale stands, a mug of hot coffee in his hand. 

Crowley leans over to kiss his husband, but the latter shoos him away. “Careful,” he says, “this is hot.” And before Crowley gets to take the mug away from him to get his goodbye kiss, the tattooist walks away to deliver it to his customer. Slightly annoyed, Crowley saunters after. 

“Here you go.” Aziraphale puts down the coffee cup next to the woman. “I almost forgot. My name is Aziraphale. Have you ever gotten a tattoo before?” 

The woman frowns slightly, but quickly recovers from the slight shock. “Oh, well. Uhh, no, I haven’t. I was told this was the best place to go when I got my first.”

Aziraphale beams. “Oh, I love it when that happens. Don’t you worry the least bit. It will be slightly uncomfortable, it will possibly hurt a little bit, but it does pay off. And after it’s done there is usually nothing but happiness.” 

“Don’t scare the poor woman,” says Crowley. 

“One moment,” the tattooist says and turns to face his husband. “What is it, dear?”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “I have to get back to work.” He shudders at the statement, but beckons Aziraphale closer. “Uggh, just let me say goodbye.” Aziraphale chuckles slightly, smiles at his husbands cute antics and leans in. Their lips meet in a quick peck (that being all either of them is ever willing to display in public). 

“Bye, angel.” The florist says. Crowleys is out the door in a matter of seconds and Aziraphale smiles happily as he turns back to his customer. Had he been slightly faster to turn, he would have been able to see the slight shock on her face, but when he did face her, she had already regained her composure. 

“Now, shall we begin?” The tattooist clasps his hands together and beams at the lady, who nods―though with a slight half-terrified expression. “What would you like?” 

Taglist: @the-asexual-alien @clone-number-1

[serabiet]

Heyyyy; i'm so interested in strange county and what you've made with the premades, it's so amazing, love the whole ambiance / background. If you were to develop a serie on it, like with episodes and stuffs (i love to see simstories as series) what would the 1st season be about ? like plot line and stuffs ? characters ?! I hope one day you'll develop this story !!

HElloo :D You people are the best thing, being like this in my asks ❤️ Thank you! I’m at a place where in a week or two I should be able to actually sit down and write SC clean enough for other people’s eyes (been waiting for that for what, two or three years now, wow) so there’s that! Here’s hoping.

It’s definitely suffering a little from SO MUCH GOING ON WITH TOO MANY PEOPLE OH MY GOD I FORGET HALF for an easy-to-follow story, so I’ll be chopping it down to more cohesive wholes in separate story arcs tbh. If just to keep my own sanity and trim down the bloat on the side. Structuring the world and story like that, it looks like it’ll be three consecutive big arcs? Each consisting of hopefully less than ten episodes/chapters. Any more at the current pace and we’d be at this 50 years from now.

First season of Strange County: the Series would (and does) mainly center on Komei’s cult of badness: it’s a bit of red herring – but not entirely – while the supernatural bad vibes are building up in the background*. Essentially it allows introducing an initially limited gallery of characters, and have them make less than well-informed decisions that accelerate actual shit to fan hitting.

Premise: Strangetown is a whole town’s worth of liminal space. Locals have been disappearing into the desert for years, often enough that it’s almost normalized. There’s a weird sludgy atmosphere even to the mundane everyday. Allegra and Lilith are outsiders, hired by another, Jane Stacks-Curious, to solve the Beakers’ disappearance and doing so clear her husband Lazlo, and his brothers from any suspicions of involvement. All signs point to the old Muenda farm currently run by Komei and his followers, and boy there sure is something dodgy** going on there. While Allegra focuses on the job and makes friends with the reluctant local deputy Tank “Grumpy” Grunt, Lilith starts on her own dissociation adventure leading towards 13 Dead End Lane. She finally feels at home somewhere and sick to her stomach because of it.

Dunt dunn. The following arcs introduce Olive’s Magic as the Shit Catalyst, and Soil Alien*** bloodlines, and more of the characters so far left in the background. I know the vibe I want for the story but don’t know for sure yet if I’m good enough to make it come across. I’ll try to gather my courage to try though, now that I have a chance to!

* Saying that doesn’t really spoil anything heh.

** DODGY

*** I forget why I asterisked this

[westmeath]

Got tagged in TWO different things... Livin the life. Both are sort of About Me tings so have a look if u want 😳 Sorry if the readmore doesn’t work lol

Was tagged in this first one by @flame-august​, fank u Very very much

rules : answer twenty questions and tag twenty people you want to know better

nicknames : biz, jim

zodiac : sagittarius and year of the cat in the viatnamese zodiac HEHE (just pointing this out cus extremely sexy song)

height : 160cm :[

hogwarts house : bich I don’t know.. I tink like constantly on the threshold between gryffindor and slytherin... quizzes never give me a straight answer

last thing i googled : windscale nuclear disaster lol

fave musicians : too many to list go to https://www.last.fm/user/kkaisuke

song stuck in your head : the chosen one - bread

following : 239

followers : 384

do you get asks : I get maybe one a year if even that

amount of sleep : I need at least 10 hours or I die

lucky number : 3

what are you wearing : the shirt from my hoshi cosplay (which i use as pyjamas now lmao) and boxers cause I was too lazy to put on the trousers.. embarrassing

dream job : hahahhahaah musician or actor or anything that I get to wear a high vis and hard hat at. LORRY DRIVER

dream trip : dunt know. there’s lots of countries I’d like to visit.but right now I Really Really want to go to chernobyl and throw myself into reactor no 4

instruments : bass, guitar, have a drumkit I desperately need to actually start using again, and learning tenor saxophone. also bodhrán & tin whistle. veyr important

languages : english.. as much of Irish as anyone gains from school..

favorite songs : again go to lastfm there’s just too many to name and they change all the time.but special special shoutout to woodstock by matthews southern comfort/joni mitchell

random fact : I own many, many, many teddies.. as we speak there are 8 in my bed and one in the bell of my saxophone. hold on I’ll get a picture

aesthetic : uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... I like 70s stuff.. fields and countryisde and mountains and seaside... working class charm.but thats not an aesthetic that is simply a way of life

-------------

And dis is the SECOND one which I was tagged in by @v-pet thank u SO much for ur constant support 

Nickname: oh these are going to be very similar. will just put a ^ on any questions any already answered in the other one

Gender: is mens

Astrological sign: ^

Height: ^

Sexuality: mostly gay but I don’t care.. whatever happens happens

Hogwarts house: ^

Favourite animals: otters, pigs, chickens and other farm animals..lots of birds.. I love all animals even insects OH THAT REMIKNDS ME those really big beetles. I love those

Number of blankets: one but in winter I put another lighter one on top of my normal quilt

Where I’m from: born on a mountain (stevenage england) raised in a cave (offaly and westmeath ireland) fuckin and truckin is all I crave

Dream trip: ^

When I created this account: this account specifically in uhhh I think 2015 but I been on tumblr since 2012 (technically 2011 but I didnt start using it till 2012)

Why I created this account: I was a very mentally unstable 15 year old and would NOT stop remaking all my social media accounts

I’M NOT TAGGING ANYONE CAUSE I’M A LAZY CUNT!!!!!!!!!!! BUT PLEASE FEEL FREE TO DO EITHER ONE OF OR BOTH OF THESE AND SAY I TAGGED U IF YOU WISH!!!! THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR TIME LOVE YOU ALL

[nigeiadigitalmarketingcompany]

Links 7/30/19

Digital Elixir Links 7/30/19

Yves here. The Democratic Party debates are tonight and tomorrow night. Both evenings, Lambert will host a debate special feature. However, it takes a lot out of him to participate. So he will be actively involved in this evening’s debate (Warren and Sanders as the big names, where the policy issues, what is said and isn’t said are important) and will sponsor an open thread tomorrow (Biden and Harris, which will presumably lend itself to more reader snark).

I’ve Stayed Silent for Too Long: Opossums Deserve Our Love Mother Jones (furzy)

Boar wars: how wild hogs are trashing European cities Guardian

Scientists Stunned By ‘City-Killer’ Asteroid That Just Missed Earth On July 25 Washington Post

Ethiopia Plants 350 Million Trees in a Day To Help Tackle Climate Crisis Guardian

Can Robots Solve America’s Recycling Crisis? CNBC

5G May Drain Batteries, While Base Stations Will Require Three Times As Much Power IEEE

Lithium Industry Buildup Is Outracing the Electric-Car Boom Bloomberg (UserFriendly)

Despite denials, study claims 2017’s mysterious radioactive cloud did come from Russia New Atlas (David L)

Could cheap drugs (up to a century old) be the new way to tackle cancer? That’s the intriguing question raised by patients who swear they work – but profit hungry big pharma is ignoring them… Daily Mail

No, Lyme disease is not an escaped military bioweapon, despite what conspiracy theorists say The Conversation

China?

Rising rhetoric drowns out Sino-US trade talks Asia Times (Kevin W)

Brexit

Boris Johnson Issues Ultimatum to EU Over Brexit Talks as Pound Slumps Bloomberg

UK Made Illegal Copies and Mismanaged Schengen Travelers Database ZDNet. And no doubt passed it to the US.

This is key. No-deal will last for years. And during that period we’ll struggle to sign meaningful deals with other countries until they know what our relationship with the EU will involve. https://t.co/xooynZWg7N

— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) July 29, 2019

New Cold War

China-Russia air patrol shows Japan and South Korea in disarray ejinsight (Kevin W)

Syraqistan

Tanker Seizures and the Threat to the Global Economy from Resurgent Imperialism Craig Murray. Kevin W: “Includes image of actual law in article. Worth scrolling down to last paragraph which he lays out his qualifications to talk on this subject.”

US to reduce Afghanistan forces by 2020 DW

I can’t overstate how many times President Bolsonaro & his government have accused me of committing crimes & threatened to arrest me in the last few days without specifying a single crime other than reporting. This exchange is surreal: the reporter asks 5 times & gets no answer: https://t.co/hr7SyaJfOc

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 30, 2019

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Amazon Told Police It Has Partnered With 200 Law Enforcement Agencies Vice

BoJo adviser lays down strict ‘no leaks’ policy — but the warning is instantly leaked to media RT (Kevin W)

United Airlines Is Expanding Its Creepy Biometric Screening Technology to More Airport Hubs Gizmodo (Kevin W)

‘Never-Googlers’ Take Extreme Measures To Avoid Data Tracking Washington Post. I must confess to not being this rigorous. My big issue is the avoidance of being GPS located.

How the West Got China’s Social Credit System Wrong Wired (David L). Who paid for this handwaving? The plan is there and the fact that execution is behind schedule doesn’t make it any nicer.

200 Million Devices — Some Mission-Critical — Vulnerable To Remote Takeover ars technica. Honestly, I’m surprised the number isn’t much much higher.

Capital One Says Breach Hit 100 Million Individuals in U.S. Bloomberg

US Files Lawsuit Against Bitcoin Exchange That Helped Launder Ransomware Profits ZDNet

Trump Transition

Trump Adviser Tom Barrack Pushed for Saudi Nuclear Deal — and Planned to Profit From It ProPublica (UserFriendly)

Experts Say the DOJ Justification for T-Mobile/Sprint Merger Approval Is a Joke Vice

2020

sanders spoke at the @NAACP convention where he got a standing ovation. The @nytimes straight up pretended he didn’t go. @AsteadWesley mentioned every other candidate there. Did Wesley submit it like that? Or did editors cut sanders out? Here’s what happens when you search (1/?) https://t.co/XpGIuFVWjb

— Katie Halper (@kthalps) July 30, 2019

Gabbard’s run: “A different type of vibe” Washington Post. UserFriendly: “Actually somewhat positive.”

Conservative Democratic Ringleader Josh Gottheimer Gets A Progressive Challenger Huffington Post (UserFriendly)

Count every vote and count them all by hand Tim Canova South Florida Sun-Sentinel (furzy)

Journey to power: The history of black voters, 1976 to 2020 NBC (furzy)

Judge Dismisses Covington Student’s Lawsuit Against ‘Washington Post’ Rolling Stone (furzy)

The Dangerous Austerity Politics of the Washington Post Dean Baker, FAIR (UserFriendly)

More Older Couples Stay Together Because They Live Apart Wall Street Journal

Privacy Group Challenges FTC’s Small Facebook Settlement, Also Wants an Admission of Guilt The Verge

Apollo Trawls Records in Hunt for Epstein Links: Report Bloomberg

S&P 500 buybacks are driving an unprecedented cash decline, says Goldman MarketWatch

Facebook warns investors that Libra may never see the light of day CNBC

Deutsche Bank probes access of fired workers to lender’s systems Financial Times. We pointed out DB’s IT is terrible. This is far from the worst possible mishap.

Hiring is Broken And Yours Is Too Rajiv Prab. Important.

Class Warfare

28% of Delivery Drivers Have Tasted Your Food, Survey Finds Restaurant Business Online. If 28% admit to it, the reality has to be worse.

Parents Are Giving Up Custody of Their Kids to Get Need-Based College Financial Aid ProPublica (UserFriendly)

Against Against Billionaire Philanthropy Slate Star Codex (UserFriendly)

Antidote du jour (MGL):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

Links 7/30/19

from WordPress https://ift.tt/333Hz3p via IFTTT

[morganeuk]

Shuffle or a life in 365 songs: Too Drunk to Fuck

Summary: Sherlock is in a pub with Greg...

Inspiration: Too Drunk to Fuck / Dead Kennedys

I am loving you so so much SH

I know love, are you still with Greg?

Grig? SH

It's beginning to be ridiculous you know. G. R. E. G. Greg.

(...)

Yiss, the man is here. I screem Griiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeg and few people turn. SH

So if it is one of them I am still with a Grieg.  SH

Grrg. SH

GREG. SH

Is any of them looking at you with a big smile and grey hair?

YES! You arre so beautifolly brilllwant my JOne. You know things all the things that I don't. SH

I dont know evrithing. but dont tell Andirson, itws a secrwet. SH

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhut. SH

and i am needing to do filthy things to your body. SH

That's sweet honey, me too. Could you please give your phone to the grey-haired Greg?

Wy? I duno want to lose my ohone. SH

Mycoft said that I must go upto the end of the year with thez one. SH

My brother is cheep. SH

Sherlock?

Yess my beeloved. SH

The phone, to THE Greg. Please.

(...)

Hello John. SH

WTF did you give him Greg! You know he's not good with alcohol!

He only took few drinks, I swear! Probably exacerbated by the lack of sleep and food. SH

But it's kind of cute. SH

This is so strange, how he always put SH at the end of his text. SH

That's. SH

Weird. SH

I don't know... he always configurated his phone like that. Could you please put him in a cab?

Yes. Don't worry. I'm giving him back the phone. SH

(...)

Luv the man wantt to put me in a cab. SH

I dunt wanna go away I want to go home. SH

Go in the cab darling, I will wait for you at home where you're going to do anything that you want to me.

Ok then I will go in the cab. SH

(...)

I ask the cabbie he says hes not a serial killer. SH

You are really careful love. That's good.

Yes. SH

I am. SH

Darling, why do you always put SH at the end of your text?

Oh... becauze that way people know its me. SH

This is a stupid but lovelly question. SH

I love your stupidiness. SH

My silly Jon SH

Darling. People have your name in their address book. So they KNOW it's you anyway.

But... why. SH

Why they keep you in their address book? Because you're important for them you ridiculous man.

I even have a picture of your lovely sexy mouth that pop on my screen each time you text or call.

A pictuure? SH

Yep. That's driving all the women at work crazy and all swoony-ish everytime you text.

A picture? Of me? SH

Yes, I've changed it regularly with my new favourite.

Greg Lestrade has one of you on a crime scene.

Mrs. Hudson alert is you playing your violin.

Anderson is keeping one of the time when you slide in the mud in that Hyde Park case.

Molly got one of your eyes.

You are important love. Now come home to me, the bed is waiting.

I'm near. SH

I'm going down to help you love doesn't want you to broke your lovely neck in the stairs.

John paid the cabbie and quickly but carefully helps Sherlock to get out. "Hello lovely. It was fun?"

"Too much GregS and you weren't there..." Sherlock mutters, pouting.

With an affectionate laugh, John manages to get Sherlock in the flat without missing any steps. "Now, bed!"

"Jhooon..." The detective murmurs, sorry, "I think I am too drunk to show you how big and deep... Deeply... I love you." Chuckling like a teenager he repeats "Deep... You know like... Deeeeeeeeep."

"Yeahhhhh.... I know what you mean." He laughs softly. "It's not that subtle, even an idiot like me can get it darling. Sleep now love." God, he's ridiculously cute. Taking his phone, he rapidly took a picture of his drunken angel. This one... is just for me.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14529468

Enjoy!

[ellaintrigue]

I’m in purple here obviously. When I talk to new people to pass time it usually comes up eventually that my mom is sick, and my own problems, etc., because if I’m going to end up making friends eventually they’re going to have to know about me. Plus, to be honest, I blow off steam because my existing friends get tired of hearing me go on, I know. I refuse to candy-coat for anyone.

Of course, there will always be trolls and you have to be prepared for unkindness, HOWEVER, this dude totally believes himself because this is not the first time people have told me cancer is a curable mindset.

I have met people from East Asia that think herbs cure cancer, and I have met Americans that swore weed cured it. If someone smokes enough pot, boom, cancer gone. I have asked both, if that is fact then why isn’t everyone devouring pot and herbs and being cured? They (so many of these fucking people out there) told me it’s because doctors and the government want to keep profiting from cancer. Okay... so, again, why can’t someone with cancer eat a fuck ton of magic herbs and smoke weed and be cured? That’s then these folks get mad and say I won’t get anywhere being full of doubt. I had one person tell me my mom could easily be cured instantly, it’s just that the government is hiding the cure.

The delusion is infuriating, why aren’t these people coming over with their magic cure-alls then? THEN, THEN, LOOK AT THE LAST LINE. “Stay positive,” the most NEGATIVE, hollow quote of all time, cancer-shaming aside. Not only have I personally been told pot and vitamins would cure my own (less lethal) long term illness, I have been told that if I had a “positive” attitude I wouldn’t be sick at all. Health is a state of mind I’ve been told. Sure, less stress means slightly lower risk of health problems but is slapping a big ol fake smile on my face on this fine morning (5:30 AM currently) going to stop my bladder from bleeding and my lifelong disease?

I had mumbled on about having a bad day while pretty sick to another online stranger one day and he told me that he had a degree in psych and that if I was happier my problems would ebb away. I asked him the logic, what would a mood boost do for the chronic physical pain and compromised immune? He told me being positive improves everyone’s life and health. I said I agreed to that much but I wanted to know the specifics of me being cured of 10 years of disease. He went off on me saying he was educated and that I needed to fucking listen. He seemed angry, wait, why wasn’t he being positive?!

This is a thing however, not just something my grumpy ass complains about: https://thepsychologygroup.com/toxic-positivity/ People don’t just want to block out negativity, they use this shit to block out reality and most of them don’t even know it. “Be positive” is not an answer. One time I had a mind blowing kidney stone and told one of my little internet friends I was in a lot of pain. They told me to be positive, buck up, and to go throughout my day. I was literally on my knees with my head barely able to see my computer on its desk. Like I’ve said, you have to get used to trolls, but THESE PEOPLE MEAN IT. And this same shit is also the norm in real life, not some online trend of hazing.

Another factor is that people are fucking scared of cancer and take it too far. Just like the person that blamed mom for not getting checked sooner (see previous blogs), people want reasons. They make excuses, because, well, cancer won’t happen to them if they get checked all the time and go on walks! Eat their greens! People love being able to say, oh, well, that person drank, that person smoked. I had a 28 year old fitness freak friend that had washboard abs, an intense diet routine, and followed every health article there was. Boom, testicular cancer at 28, late 2000s, had to have a nut cut off. Not his fault. Wasn’t even in his genes. Things happen. My mother: also daily exercise, healthy habits, never smoked or drank.

I am acutely aware I could get cancer myself, yet I don’t feel constantly worried about it. Perhaps these other people have more guilt than me? Karma and cancer don’t care who you are. ;)

PS: Please refrain from telling me I’m in the wrong over a topic like this, like the person who commented on my post on how I despise religion, saying I needed to find religion... IT DUNT WORK LIKE DAT KIDDOS.

[self-destructing-sad-boi]

Sometimes when my roomates talk about their family I wanna scream

Like they've got fucked up shit, dads who are physically there but checked out emotionally years ago, mams that are scared to let em go, had to grow up too fast to emotionally support a parents. Hell one of em ain't even got a mam no more bless her.

Even though Stephen left me I know (I'm pretty sure but could be wrong) that he's still alive. But a dead parent is...that's some tough shit when you're old never mind when you're a kid.

But still. They talk about their siblings. Their mas and their das. Their aunties and uncles and the endless numbers of cousins they all seem to have. And..I wanna scream.

I ain't got that. I ain't had that in years. And sometimes I just wanna yell cuz it feels unfair. I ain't got no da, me ma is...let's not. I only have brothers by blood and nothing more and the 1 sister I still talk to we sometimes dont speak for months.

I ain't got no cousins or uncles ot aunties. I tried texting me uncle Kev cuz it seemed he wanted me in his life again...but we talked the once and hes ignored me since..so maybe I just didn't measure up. I know I'm weird and awkward and rough around the edges (and fine. A fair bit of the centre too) but I didn't think I was that bad

I dunno man. It's just. It's late. And I'm tired but way too anxious to sleep.

I just. Even though their lives all sucked (as most peoples loves do, the unfortunate consequences of this thing called "birth") in different ways. I just. I wish I had that.

And I know that makes me a terrible person because you cant compare trauma and like life shitness but...I'd have liked emotional constipation and yelling over emotional constipation, yelling, physical abuse and the looming threat of social services and suicide that was my childhood.

Like. They have family photos and home videos.

My family is my mother (whole ass bag of crazy and We Don't Have Time To Unpack All Of That), my step dad (complex with a lower case c), my sister C (whole ass other bag of crazy mixed with "nah dude our childhood wasnt that messed up" "dude you literally moved out at 16 because you couldn't cope anymore". Which is a fun blend of weird victim blame gaslighting but also just genuinely repressed trauma and emotions) and my niece (I dont have anything bad to say because I love this child more than anyone on the planet. Only wish I could be a bette Uncle). But we are a family held together by string and weird emotional blackmail (with some genuine love underneath which is weird as). And like. A whole ass truck load of trauma.

I dunno if I'm making sense at this point. It's like half 5 in the morning and in still too anxious to sleep (Fuvk you PTSD memories!) And I'm sad and I feel alone even though I have people who love me I just. I dont want them too because I'm like a weird tuffed of mold on out of date cream cheese and just. You shouldnt love mold. And I'm not really sur what yo do with genuine love and kindness, I never have been it's just very weird and foreign to me even after years of developing friendships and just

.blegh. when people are too nice to me I want to punch them in the face which isnt normal but its liek "shut the fuck up and just tell me either A.How you plan to emotionally fuck me or B.tell me what the fuck you want" and again I'm very aware that that is not healthy.

Im in that oddly hellish in between of "I've had enough therapy to very easily see my unhealthy behaviours, thoughts and coping mechanism" and "but I haven't had enough to properly fix that or really so anything about it". So now in in the limbo of *looks at self* "welp. That's just a whole lot of fucking oof there dude but I dunt know what you want me to do about it". Which is a hard emotion to properly convey to most people

Again. This is a very late jifht/early morning ramble and I dont expect to have made an ounce of sense but fuck it.

[llamasgotoheaven]

Hi @tyvani thanks for the tag

Name: Danica

Nicknames: Danči, Daničica, Daka, Dane, DanDan, Daniboo, Dannyboy, D, Dyeaniee

Gender/Pronouns: Kinda genderfluid but I always go by her, and ya i have mammaries n a vag so there’s that too

Star Sign: Taurus

Height: 5’6 i think … 167cm…

Time: 8:24 PM (GMT+1)

Birthday: May 10th

Favorite Bands: I mean idk… I find that to be really fluid. RN I’m listening to a lot of Jefferson Airplane, I’m perpetually a big fan of Flyleaf, Soft Cell, Marina and the Diamonds, Florence and the Machine, Lana Del Rey, The Blasting Company and Green Day.

Favorite Solo Artists: Rom Di Prisco, Susanne Sundfør, Jan Johansson, Deadmau5, Allie X, Sevdaliza, James Blake, Toby Fox, Yann Tiersen (Do Composers count? If so… Throw Rimsky Korsakov and Stravinsky in here.) Django Reinhardt, Monica Zetterlund, Julie London, Cab Calloway, Beyonce, Nicki Minaj etc.

Song Stuck in your Head: A nauseating blend of Mirage by Rom Di Prisco and Bluecid by Sevdaliza

Last Show: Ore Monogatari

Why did you create your blog? I was in part trying to keep up w Makani’s work and my long distance best friend Lilly was here, so I thought it might be like a fun thing for the two of us to bond over and Lo: I never got out.

What do you post? Uhh lots of fandom drawings and stuff I find amusing/interesting. I should really change my theme so it shows my art tags better on llamasgotoheaven. I have a “Serious” art blog too named llamasgotopurgatory.

Last thing you googled? Maya Rom Di Prisco

Other Blogs: lol I have a Portal blog that’s gathering dust, waiting for Portal 3 to happen… I also have said art blog, and a NSFW blog. That’s four in total haha 

AO3: I dunt kno wat dat is Arielle 

Do you get asks? Sumtimes!! It’s such a fun suprise when I do.

How did you get the idea for your URL? Legit just like llamas a lot ever since I watched Emperor’s New Groove as a kid. The general consensus is that they spit on people, and since I find sassy personalities really funny and appealing the url somewhat makes sense.

I Follow: 343 Followers: 1,139 (?????? How the fuc??) Average Hours of Sleep: lol anywhere from like 4 and a half to 12 Lucky Number: I’m gonna say 3 Instruments: I know a few guitar chords :m I also sing so much while hanging around the house that my mom n sis used to get super annoyed and yell at me about it

What are you wearing? Waist belted pants and a tucked in black t-shirt topped by a long open wool sweater.

Dream Job: Distinguished and dilligent visual artist of some sort. Hopefully work in comics or something similar. I also really wanna try being a actor, voice actor or stage singer at some point. I really miss drama club!

Dream Trip: 今は日本に行きたいです！

Favorite Food: Pelmeni with Sour Cream or Smetana ;—; Even tho Im lactose intolerant af

Significant Other: Zoro and Robin lmao

Last Book I Read: Aside from my frickin Japanese textbook… I think it was actually One Piece. The chapter where Ace dies -o-

Top 3 Fictional Universes: The Mass Effect Universe, the World in One Piece, the world of The Witcher series.

[lonespektr]

Starting back Vikings again randomly........

blue eyes still hasn't fucked that priest

When's he gonna bang the priest, he doesn't like his new wife 🤷🏾‍♀️

Rollo needs a win/ cmon lady archers

Stop listening to random men, every main character gets bad advice from randos

Very deliberate word choice

Blue eyes is do butthurt his boyfriend is not coming with him priest is literally staying for you, you blockhead

Men are idiots

Tomgirls trying to sit still and look pretty when they clearly want to punch people

They keep using attempted rape for her power ups and they could do literally anything else

Glad the mrs is back

She's worried about jr but it looks like he can fight brother still absolutely in love with the mom cause she's a bad bitch

But he would have cheated too soo 🤷🏾‍♀️

He's big but it doesn't look like he hits hard, he's moving frantically, he doesn't lean into his hits??

The bows are used in short range i feel like it's that accurate??!!

Nobody is hyped the mrs is home and i feel like that was a wasted opportunity

Priest is attracted to bad people

Everybody got a shower

Who ever is subing the sound effects is a fucking poet Every grunt has a adjective

Always gotta upstage your brother just fukkkin relax

He's rejected the sacrament dunt dun dun!!!

Cheese and crackers woman how many boys you churnin out

What's the science? Boys are faster swimmers so short vagina?? I forget

She's gloating

Yea no shit. He don't even like that other future telling bitch

Rollo just stick with old girl u are bad at politics

This is a very sexual prayer priest

You tryina get what by the holy spirit??!! Save that for blue eyes

Thorvard big as fuck

That boy ain't got no right being that big his parents is normal sized

If i wanted to say it in private i wouldn't fucckkin come down to long house

Who's fuckkin army is that , just her homies?? She got warrior homies?

Ah she just wanted to threaten the general community that if anything happen to hey son it's they ass

Yea those'r just her homies

Another sexual assault threat but in an unexpected turn is events his kinsman ain't down with that shit and backed her

Infamous wings pf the vikings

More sexual assault threats

Whoever is writing these subtitles is a fucking legend

Priest new boyfriend is in wooing his old boyfriend's ex wife and he has to be an awkward translator

Wack what a serious waste of ambition

Them two rando little boys already died they really gotta take the one bitch was leadership vibes

She threw away throne thrown for dinner snot nose kids

He play too much, but they are great together

Preist done diddled that brown hair plain and not blue eyes

Vikings does appear to have a strict all rapists must die policy (marital rape excluded- even that's appears to have consequences)

Surprised they let siggs go but i think she landed a better role, shes a bigger actor then all em

I still don't know which god he was supposed to be. Guess i gotta brush up on my norse history

What's rollo gonna go without his political advisor

That guy coulda had a bigger role but this was 6+years ago and he was not as big then so..makes sense

Preist talking shit about women knowin damn well he just left a perfectly boring one to be with sky eyes

Hypocrisy , ungrateful ass volunteer to help the mother of your child

Screw everybody and they mama, leave yo wife month at a time with no backup booty

Why you only slept with yo wife once? 🤨

Seer tied of yo ass

Sky eyes just move to Paris with the preist

They are doing a sharp turn with him that is uncharacteristic, they haven't done a power corruption thing or anything to transition him from opportunist to greed

Also wtf boo /This is your earldom ??? You just gon stand there?

Still holding with the rapist get stitches law

Burning cross bit heavy handed

Bjorn tell your wack ass absentee father to back your mom

Yea we have been here before, cause your dad keeps fucckin up, you forget last time you left with her cause you knew he was wrong

Blue eyes has become a kind of apathetic shell without preist and wifee no1

Um wtf was that with the 👀

Just fuck already

Can the women have a story not around babies

Where rollo headed?

This is evidence of a turning point we should have gotten a half step before this

Except she was taking care of the one kid you ignore and you know damn well that priss don't do no work and her servants watch her kids anyway

Lol whut person or persons unknown, but you have evidence?

King got plans on plans on plans

Do they just not know what to do with the preist anymore??

Hey least he said it

That was the least intimate interaction he's had with anyone

Disrespect on disrespect

I think they are going to do something stupid with her 🙄 looking forward to that

Woah full stop yikes 😬

Another unforced error. I knew they were gon do some dumb shit with her, no he actin stupid too

This really there seasons about an unrequited love story

It gets boring when the main character is white male tyrannical and off his rocker - when he's not a zealot

Mentally ill opportunist are not very complelling

I'm annoyed blondie is really confessing to a man who has been treating her like shit for the past decade because a first good decade

Unforced errors and making her stupid is something shows love to do with women

But they gave her so much pride it doesn't make sense

I thought maybe they all knew, but it's just bjorn

Blue eyes was hoping for a confession

Why do you tear me away from myself

Trojan horse is the only thing that ever made sense with impregnable walls even with that hint he still couldn't figure it out, he had to almost die

Rollo is out here now? Why doing what?

I mean tbh is a really good idea to get away from your brother

Oh so the King isn't a complete idiot, just a coward

Another betray your brother situation 🙄

Just let rollo needs live

All our protagonists are isolated

He still didn't get that confession

Oh he just said it

What was the point of that Christian coming to visit?

Lit of obsessive unhealthy male relationships

Floki/Ragnar

Althestan/Ragnar

Ragnar/ rollo

How would rollo even convince the remaining vikings to go against their own

Now we must be subjected to this embarrassment

Co Earls, this guy is a not confused about his endgame

He should have just married her when she asked

There is one asian

If this the season where the non whites enter? They should have done that in Paris

He's an absentee father but he's annoyed his kids are stupid

Floki bb hella cute

It's odd the show has isolated everyone

He's such as gaslighter

The only stable relationship is the ones between the mentally unstable people

The two best pairings were both uneccesairly antagonistic towards each other

What's rollo doing

Le sigh she's smiling because she thinks he backed her , finally someone did she deserves to be supported

But he only backs himself

Time inside learning could be useful for him

Even rollo is not this stupid soooo 🤷🏾‍♀️

Blue eyes mad that his wife doesn't give a shit about him, knowing damn well he don't give a shit about her

Rollo 👏🏾 isn't 👏🏾 stupid👏🏾

He also wouldn't ally himself with strangers 🤷🏾‍♀️ it's a repeat pattern of making the wrong allies but this don't make sense

Hopefully bjorn gets more interesting

Or another woman character not attached to a damn man comes in

1 poc is already gettin eyeballed by ol blue eyes

What old lady would be concerned with getting revenge on is wessex king who raised her new settlement to the ground

There's that projection again blue eyes

The rollo situation is getting close to puppy punching

He looses his accent a lot

Blue eyes has odd codependencies

Man has no loyalists but strong affections that look like loyalty from afar

Why are they all obsessed with this fucking guy

Predatory men who pretend to be small and unassuming to trick women

She choked those words out, I wonder how many takes they made her do before they went with that one

This descent into madness isn't nearly as entertaining as they think

That's the first time he's called her by her first name

Curious move bjorn /curious situation they pulled moms into

They make women look stupid by having them smiling the whole time while men who are being equally deceived look suspiciously but they are tricked just the same

Once again he just identifies foreigners as roadmaps to conquer new lands

Gaslighter all these men are gaslighters

All these braids and this is the first time i've seen one of the man brushing they hair

It's going to be four full seasons of wounded mentally ill drug addicted blue eyes??

there it is, that was his dream, not the crazed ambitions of winning for winnings sake

Opportunistic and talented or rather lucky is different than tyrannical and that's what they are playing him as with no foundation

I know she tired of these dirty whites raggety ass wash rags she want a real bath with soap

Random edge play over the top hair cutting symbolism

That bb old enough too...ok

The girls were ready. And he even ain't mad because she told him straight up she was going to kill him

She doesn't want to remarry, she's better boss ass bitch but it's fucked up she can't just have a decent man partner and equal but these men are trifling they may as well get her a girlfriend

Is the seer dead?

It's 13 right?

Heavy handed women freedom theme happening