#killdeer is named after the way it's call sounds

[hersurvival]

Lain in plain sight,

Nothing more than another rock

Left in the grass.

As the first, I was immediately left

For the following clutch.

Mother would feign injuries,

Not to protect us,

But because she thrived on attention.

It's unfair to say father was inattentive,

However it felt as if he were always

75 feet away, physically distant.

27, never made a sound,

But I shout, "kill deer, kill deer."

"See me, see me."

@nosebleedclub June 17th - Killdeer

[theoriquewitherseld]

Heck I DO wanna know more! I'm super interested in thia fic 👀

OK I am SUPER happy receiving this ask, but alas all I can offer is a lot of excerpts,, more under the cut

When Jacques arrives at Stain'd, he finds the records to be VERY accurate: it's a deadzone. That would likely explain the weird look the conductor gave him when he requested to get off. There's no longer anybody here

Back then there must have been some, perhaps, in order to enact Lem's apprenticeship. But he still regards the situation with an air of apprehension. Large chunk of reports were missing, reports that were leading up to his disappearance. It could be that VFD hid it, of course, but intentional or not, its denominator remains the same: something monumentally terrible occured for that to happen.

And he will have to walk straight to it. Or at least, its aftermath.

The rattle of the train leaving startles him, and he shakes off his nerves. He wants so badly to get back on the train, jump on the railings perhaps but the rear has gotten quite a distance away. He's already alone.

(Oh God I just realized I have no idea what people do after they get off trains. Should there be like people taking ur tickets or something?? Ive been on a train only once and that was super long ago)

The Stain'd Station was utterly deprived of life. Everything was cracked and looked in the danger of falling apart. Litter and dirt was strewn all around. There was no place that Jacques just wanted more to bail out of immediately (except, perhaps, that one wasp-infested area but that is besides the point). It unnerves him, to listen to the echoes of his footsteps in the abandoned station, with its business nothing more than a ghost of its past. It rattles him more than the rattle of train wheels on the tracks. But he trudges on, hoping to find some clue.

Out on the street was no better. All buildings were boarded up, some windows smashed. Brown grass was growing out of the sidewalks. There was few vehicles on the side of the road: a brown rusty one with its hood popped up and its insides gone, a yellow cab so terribly dented, and a black one with its paint job scratched and all four of its tires missing. It was a miserable place, not fit for any human life, much less an apprenticeship. He grimaces in dismay. This is where they dumped his brother? Even as a containment procedure, it was a bit much. No person should be in this place.

But that wasn't the most pressing issue. The most pressing issue is where to start. He does not have the faintest idea where he is in this desolate town, much less where his brother stayed for the duration in the past — except for the address of The Lost Arms. But that information was useless without a map, and every other map he scoured to know about the town has vehemently insisted that Stain'd-By-The-Sea does not exist. Whether VFD has already tampered with those maps, he can not tell.

He had hoped there may be a clue in there, some forgotten item, a thing accidentally left behind. But with no map, his best course of action is to simply search every establishment and hope for serendipity. Not all of the best things are necessarily good things.

He hears a rumble of an engine.

His gaze snaps upwards, puzzled if whether or not he had imagined it. Then he can see the yellow dented cab making its way towards him at a snail's pace. Jacques's heart stops, and gripped his suitcase until his knuckles turned white. It was a trusty little suitcase, filled with tools and files that are of great use of him, but he's not so sure if it were of any use against a damned ghost cab. If it were really a ghost. If Kit was here, she would've scoffed at him. But he's not really feeling up to an argument, not when his feet was stuck to the pavement, body frozen into place. He stares, heart pounding like there was no tomorrow as the taxi pulls up to its side, exactly right in front of him, and stops.

But then the window rolls down, and Jacques felt very, very foolish, but immensely relieved, as it reveals a worn and much younger face of a boy with a busted blue cap.

"Well, hello there friend," he says, with a voice just as tired. "Another visitor was the last thing we expected, but —" he gives a small shrug, "— here we are. Need a taxi?"

It took him a moment to realize how stupid he looked with his mouth gaping open. "I-I'm sorry," Jacques stammered, once he found his voice. "We?"

Another younger face pops up from below the young driver, and Jacques nearly jumps in surprise. "That would be us, the Bellerophon brothers," he reveals with a squeaky but cracked voice. "I'm Pecuchet, and this—" he points upward, and his brother tipped his hat at him, " — is Bouvard, but that makes people's tongue tired, so you can call him Pip, and me, Squeak."

The driver known as "Pip" frowned. "Are you alright though? You've looked like you've seen a ghost."

His eyes fluttered. "Er  — Yes, yes, I... I am afraid I also didn't expect anyone to come here either." He tips his white hat at them in turn. "Greetings to you, I am Ja— James Moore."

Internally, he cringed. It was a sloppy pseudonym, but he can't risk revealing who he is in the potential situation VFD managed to track his trail, they wouldn't be able to hold incriminating evidence against him. Curiously, it didn't arouse much suspicion from the odd duo, except for a slight tilt of the head.

"Well, nice to meet you Mr. Moore. Do you need a ride anywhere?"

Jacques is not quite sure what to think of climbing into a cab with kids of odd names in an abandoned town. However, his relief in discovering that there is fellow life, inexplicable as it is, and a likelier possibility of gaining information triumphed over whatever reservations he had at the moment. In the pursuit of his search, with its very nonexistent lead, he'd take anything.

"I'd like to go to the Lost Arms please."

"Sure," Pip reached out behind him and opened the door. "Hop in."

He pauses, and then climbs in and closes it shut, and soon enough, the two brothers drive away from the Station with startlingly expert hands on both wheel and brakes. Jacques is fairly impressed at their coordination.

"Say," Pip starts, once they got a quite the distance away. "Apologies if it sounds prying, friend, but out of curiosity, what business does a stranger have with Stain'd-By-The-Sea?"

That shook him out of his stupor. Idiotically, he hasn't prepared for that, he was ascertain there won't be anyone here, he even got business cards and all but it's not in his suitcase (which he wants to smack himself on). His mind blanks for a moment, but he manages to scramble an answer that isn’t necessarily a lie nor a truth. "I am private investigator hired to search for someone last seen in this town."

Pip looked at him through the rearview mirror, which was a bit dirty and cracked. "Oh? That certainly does explain why someone wants to be in this town."

Jacques didn't bother to clarify he does NOT want to be here at all, but he nods his head instead.

He expertly steered the wheel. "You wouldn't happen to be allowed the details no? Sorry, but interesting things have rarely happened here since..."

"I'm afraid not, no," Jacques blinks. That felt off. "Speaking of visitors, you haven't happened to have driven someone around lately no?"

"Until you came along? Not one for the past year. No outsiders at the very least."

He deflates a little, but he's unsurprised. So he really wasn't here recently. He was about ask more, when the taxi came to a stop in front of a shabby and derelict building he would presume to be the Lost Arms.

Once again, Pip reached out to open the door for him. "Here we are then, Mr. Moore."

"Thank you," he says, retrieving his wallet. "How much is the fare?"

Pip blinked in surprise. Then his eyes flickered towards the wallet, and his eyes widened further. "Huh, I never expected a paying customer today either."

It puzzles him so much that he tilts his head. Did they just let him ride as a charity? "Well, it's only natural to pay for a service, no?"

He just shrugged. "It's alright. Keep the money, it's not gonna be much use anyways, with the state of the town. You may wanna give that to the proprietor though —" he nods to the building, "— Prosper Lost."

"Well, I shan't dare to think of leaving this taxi without giving something in return," Jacques insisted.

"How about a tip then?"

"A tip?" he frowns. "A tip what?"

"Anything really, s'long as its useful."

That got him thinking. He thought of giving them a tip of accepting money when they get it and leave this terrifying place, but decided against. He then looks up.

"Here's a tip, there's this book that..." he trails off, feeling a painful lump form in his throat. "That my associate enjoys. Champion of the World, heard of it?"

~

Ellington feels the bitter sweetness on her tongue. The air was damp and cold after the shower, having ceased into droplets. Everything reminded her the cool greens and blues of a watercolor painting. At the distance, the light of the morning sun peaks through. She's glad she's getting some pieces of her back, but some of the damage will be permanent, and some things are just lost forever. Seeing the Association and strangers and natives to Killdeer fields all work together to set things right was amazing, but also drove home on the tragedy of Armstrong Feint, whose pursuit of vengeance blinded him, destroyed himself and set back hopes of recovery for years. The pain he inflicted was an unnecessary cruelty, that if he had bothered to spare, even the tinniest bit of mercy and offered his help, he would've witnessed the return of the sea and the recovery of the environment, and they could've been together.

But he had made a decision. All of their parents did — the Mallahans, the Hixes, the Knights, the Bellerophons, the Losts. What's done is done.

She remembers a line that her father read her once, many years ago. It was the book where Snicket claimed a wizard was not so very helpful, and that her father loved because of its elaborate descriptions of trees. Many elaborate description of trees.

"'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo." Ellington murmurs to herself.

"'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'"

She stares at the sky.

~

But there was a knock at the door

They both froze. Moxie is still on the phone — with who, Kellar didn't hear.

It could be anyone, Kellar thought, perhaps some coworkers who forgot their stuff, or has the intention to work overtime. It may even be some neighbor, asking for help or providing assistance. It could even be a fellow Associate. There's no reason really, to think there could be enemies on the other side.

But he walked anyway. His breathing far too loud and uneven, yet his pace cautious and fearful. He calls out, "Who's there?"

No answer.

"I'm warning you," he says slowly, attempting to keep the tremble out of his voice, "that I'm armed."

Silence. It's a blatant lie of course, but no matter how he strained his ears, he still can't hear anyone walking away. They’re not fooled.

He motions to Moxie to get ready to run. A few seconds, he could buy that. Enough seconds to scramble whatever data they need and bolt like hell. Kellar doesn't see if she saw it.

The door is inches away from him now. His heart pounded in his chest. His hands carefully placed on the dark wood, and he looked into the peephole.

Kellar had barely moved his head in time just to dodge the blast shot that would've blown away bits of his brain, but had blown off half of his right ear instead.

He screamed, it hurt, hurt worse than anything he'd known and he's sure he's lost his hearing there, but he let the wound bleed and instead ducked and braced himself against the door to keep them from opening it. "Moxie run!"

~

"Look at him. Look. At. Him." Pip hissed, and Squeak looked at them with an air of innocence. "You think that's an angel?? A beacon of innocence?? Wrong. That's bastard incarnate. The single source of maliciousness on this earthly realm. Look. Look how evil he looks. He's a little prick."

~

"Frankly, I'd love to have a sibling," Cleo said.

Kellar looked at her as if she said something deranged and jabs a thumb towards Lizzie. "No, you don't. I love my sister, but you think she won't sell me off to the circus first chance she gets?" He shook his head. "Think again."

~

"Dibs."

"What the—" Moxie then scowled. "That was too fast."

Snicket just shrugged. "I have two older siblings, Moxie. The true nature of siblings... Is natural selection."

"Are you certain you should be using big boy words like that?" Ellington asked, bemused. "I'm fairly certain you can't even differentiate a crocodile and an alligator."

~

"If I may introduce you to my family," Jacques says.

He points to Kit emerging from his side. "— Parasite number one—".

And he points to Snicket as he emerges from the other. "— and Parasite number two."

~

"Alright, does anyone have any questions?" Jacques asks tiredly.

They all raise their hands.

"That isn’t sarcastic," he snaps.

They all lowered their hands, disappointed.

Jacques sighs. "Lizzie, you've got the stage."

~

"Just what time is it?" Ellington inquires, exhausted.

"Hang on," Kit smiled, and instead of whipping out a clock, she instead produces a clarinet. She took a deep breath, and blew. Before she could even make it to the second note, they look up at the ceiling— startled— suddenly hearing a very muffled but very clear yell from Jacques, Kit, are you seriously playing the clarinet at 2 IN THE DAMN MORNING.

They look down. Kit still has a devilish smile plastered.

"It's 2 am," she announces.

[sorrelchestnut]

EVERYBODY’S PICKIN’ UP ON THAT FELINE BEAT, PART 31

GUESS WHO’S ACTUALLY WRITING IN FALLOUT AGAIN MOTHERFUCKERS.  man it feels good to make some actual progress on this beast.

Part 1.  Part 2.  Part 3.  Part 4.  Part 5.  Part 6.  Part 7.  Part 8.  Part 9.  Part 10.  Part 11. Part 12.  Part 13.  Part 14.  Part 15.  Part 16.  Part 17.  Part 18.  Part 19. Part 20.  Part 21.  Part 22. Part 23. Part 24. Part 25. Part 26.  Part 27. Part 28. Part 29. Part 30.

Title: everybody’s picking up on that feline beat Author: Sorrel Fandom: Fallout 4 Rating: Mature Warnings: None Relationships: Deacon/Female Sole Survivor Series: Part 3 of everybody wants to be a cat

  "Well, at least we know the lay of the land," Whisper says a day later, peering down the scope on her rifle at the courser standing deceptively still in front of the big double doors to Kendall Hospital.  “That’s something, at least.”

  "Unfortunately, so does the other guy, and they've got home field advantage."  Next to her, Deacon studies the approach through a pair of binoculars, but he already knows what he'll see: only one way up from the road, all other entrances carefully blocked off with rubble or flipped cars, just a single clear line with a dozen and a half different sightlines on anyone dumb enough to come up that way without authorization from the second courser posted down by the road.

  He knows it because he set it up that way, goddammit, and it grates even more than he would have thought to see the Institute using his carefully-designed safety procedures against him.  Bad enough that they cracked this place once already, killed their way from top to bottom and left his people where they dropped to be binned like trash by opportunistic raiders, but now this? It's insult to injury, and he knows he's not the only one who's pissed.  Whisper's too-still body next to him screams with tension, more than can be accounted for by the enemy combatant in her sights.

  Even that enemy combatant.

  "You sure those two coursers on watch are the only ones here?" Whisper asks Hancock, on her other side.

  Deacon leans up on his elbow, catches the tail end of Hancock’s answering shrug, a small economical movement of his narrow shoulders under the heavy rotting fabric of his coat.  "'Bout as sure as you can ever be with the Institute, yeah.  We watched 'em a solid week ‘fore I called you in.  They've got a fuckton of the plastic types, but only the two of flesh and blood.  And the doc himself, ‘course."

  “Of course,” Whisper says.  The muzzle of her rifle sweeps from one courser to the other and back again, thoughtful, and Deacon gets a sinking feeling in his stomach.

  “Partner,” he says, not wanting to use her code name in front of Hancock, and when she doesn’t respond, he nudges her with one elbow.  “Ey.  Liv.”

  That gets her attention, sure enough.  The line of her shoulders tightens up, and she shoots him a look he can’t quite read.  “What?”

  He’s spent too many years cultivating a personal talent for being fucking annoying in the name of justice to be put off by her petty irritation.  He nudges her again.  “Tell me you’re not thinking about trying to get past them.”

  “‘Get past’ is such a broad way of phrasing that,” Whisper says, going back to her scope.  She’s not looking at the courser anymore, but something further in the distance, Deacon can’t quite tell what.  “We have to get past them eventually, obviously.  But if you’re asking if I’m planning to storm the front door, then no.  I don’t think that would work as well on ‘cutting edge Institute fuck-up-your-day technology’ as it does on raiders that are too goddamn high to think straight.”

  “Well,” Deacon says, mollified.  “As long as we’ve got that settled.”

  “Such insightful critique.”  Whisper lays down her rifle and rolls over onto her back, bringing up her left wrist to fire up her Pip-boy.  Deacon insinuates himself in against her side to peer nosily over her shoulder, and she obligingly shifts to show him the map she’s pulled up on the screen.  “If you're going to be useful, at least offer constructive criticism.”

  She’s got the map zoomed in as far as it can go, just a few blocks in either direction.  There’s not much nearby; another reason he’d picked this spot, back in the day.  “Give me a hint.”

  “I'm thinking something like a Killdeer Shuffle.”

  It only takes a moment to see what she's talking about, but Deacon allows himself a slow count to five to make sure that he's not imagining things before he slowly twists around to give her a look of pure unadulterated reproach.

  "You're insane."

  "What?" Hancock says, looking back and forth between the two of them.  "What's going on?"

  Whisper doesn't look away from him.  "As I recall," she says, the corner of her mouth ticking up a little, "I specifically asked for constructive criticism.  These personal attacks are so childish."

  "Here's your criticism: it's insane."

  "Seriously, what's going on?"

  Deacon raises his eyebrows at her: you want to tell him?  She grins back.

  "It’s a distraction play,” she explains to Hancock.  “Make a big noise on their front door, draw out the watchdogs, and then slip in the back and take the prize while they’re still chasing their tails.  We can’t face a pair of coursers head on, but…”

  “There’s another way in,” Hancock surmises.  They both nod; Deacon doesn’t have any secrets left to protect here, and maybe Hancock can talk her out of this.  “Okay, sounds like a fair deal.  What’s the catch?”

  “Johnny’s got his panties in a twist about the distraction,” Whisper says.  Hancock raises a polite eyebrow, and she taps her thumbnail on the map, right over the Cambridge Crater.  “If you’re going to throw a party, it’s only polite to invite everyone.”

  Hancock’s not slow on the uptake, Deacon’s got to give him that.  “John’s right,” he says, flatly, after a moment.  “You’re insane.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith.”  Whisper doesn’t look anywhere near as daunted by their combined disapproval as she rightly should.  “Look, even a courser has to step in if you send a horde of ferals past their front door.  It’s a straight shot up from the crater; two guys in power armor could pull them all the way up here without too much risk, as long as they were moving fast.”

  She’s… not wrong.  Exactly.  “And where are these ‘two guys in power armor’ going to come from, again?”

  “I think Sturges has a few he hasn’t shipped back to Preston yet out at Starlite.  I could send Cait to pick them up; this is just her kind of party.  They’d come down the tracks and cross the river near Graygarden, loop around and come back up across the Longfellow Bridge.  From there it’s a straight shot across the Crater, and since it’s out of clear view from here the lookouts won’t know what started thes scuffle.  It’d look like a normal patrol that just went crossways.”

  She’s put a lot of thought into this.  It’s not some fly-by-night plan (not that they ever do that, of course), and that’s nice, but it doesn’t really make him any less wary.  There’s a lot riding on this- Kendall’s damn near in spitting distance of Bunker Hill and Ticonderoga bother, and they already know about Goodneighbor- and while normally he trusts Whisper to cover all the angles, he can’t forget that she’s been distracted lately.  They can’t afford to give the Institute an opening, not with so many balls in the air.

  “And you think the Institute is going to buy that?” he challenges.  “You think when our fine feathered friends down there finish plowing through those ferals, which they will, and come back to find the body they’re guarding gone with a bunch of dead Gen 2s lying around, which they will, they’re just gonna go, ‘oh yeah, those whacky Minutemen, what a wild co-inky-dink,’ and go home like nothing happened?  You think your people aren’t going to see reprisals for that?”

  Whisper gives him a faintly pitying look.

  “What?”

  “I don’t think the Minutemen are, no,” she says, talking like she’s explaining things to a particularly slow child.  (Or Carrington if you’re trying to piss him off.  Not that Deacon’s ever done that.  Much.)  “A double patrol in power armor, coming up from the southeast and heading west into Cambridge proper?  Why would they think the Minutemen had anything to do with it?”

  The elegance of her plan comes clear to him in one beautiful rush.  “The Brotherhood,” he breathes.  “They’re going to think the Brotherhood is behind it.”

  She nods, trying and failing to bite back a smug grin.  “Sure will, partner.”

  If Hancock wasn’t here, he’d grab her shoulders and plant one right on her smirking mouth.  “And with the Brotherhood seeming to gear up for a move against them, the Minutemen will drop down the Institute’s threat list.”

  “That’s the hope,” she says with a shrug.  “Might not come to anything, but at worst it’ll cover our tracks here, and at best we buy Preston some time.  It’s win/win.”  A sudden wry turn to her smile.  “Assuming we pull it off, that is.”

  “Oh, we’ll pull it off, don’t worry.”  He grins over her shoulder at Hancock, who’s sitting patiently on her other side, keeping very quiet so as not to interrupt and clearly, avidly drinking in every word.  Deacon’s not worried.  Whisper might trust Hancock, but she didn’t say anything he didn’t already know, either.  “Especially with a little help from our favorite local politician.”

  Whisper gives him a look: you sure about that?  Deacon grins lazily back: trust me, grasshopper.  She tips her shoulder in a shrug and turns to Hancock.  “You game?”

  Hancock’s black eyes flicker between the two of them before landing, oddly, on Deacon.  “Hell yeah,” he says.  “I want these bastards out of my city almost as bad as you do.  Just tell me what you need.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” Whisper says.  That Pavlov guy really knew his shit, Deacon’s got to figure, because he’s feeling a rush of warmth down to his stomach from nothing more than the triumphant, toothy edge to her grin, in spite of the extra company.  “Okay.  What we’re going to do is this…”