#luck me wish

[set-phasers-to-whump]

racing the clock

prompt: race against the clock

whumpee: illya kuryakin

fandom: the man from uncle

hi everyone and welcome to my sixth year of whumptober!! i am so excited to be doing this again and i hope you like this first fic! it can be read as gen or ot3 or pre-ot3, whatever you feel like.

There’s a terrible noise in Napoleon’s head, a tick, tick, tick that counts down in time with the bumping of the car down the gravel road. Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes and then Illya’s body will start shutting itself off irreparably. Thirty minutes. Tick. Tick. Tick. 

It has been five minutes and forty-three seconds from the time they’d found him strapped to that chair, struggling against iron restraints with the ferocity, the desperation, of one who knows that the clock is ticking. 

“Two minutes. Sixteen seconds,” the report from Illya on how long it had been since a man in a lab coat had stuck a needle into his arm and pushed the plunger. 

Napoleon had immediately taken up the count. 

They are miles away from the city, from medical help. Napoleon had radioed Waverly as soon as they’d flung themselves into the car. The earliest evacuation time is two hours too late. 

Gaby is driving as fast as she can. She isn’t counting time. Can’t afford to, isn’t built to. All of her focus is on driving the beat-up little Renault down a road neither it nor she especially wants to be on. Her right foot is glued to the gas pedal, the wheel merely an extension of her arms. She’s in top gear, has been since she’d gone smoking out of the flattened patch of grass she’d parked on. 

She isn’t thinking. It is her and the car and the road, and nothing else exists. 

Nothing else can exist, or she will not be able to work. 

In the backseat, Napoleon is still counting. Tick. Tick. Tick. Nine minutes. Twenty seconds. God knows how far there is still to go. 

Illya is by necessity pressed up to his side in the cramped seat. Heat radiates off him, and Napoleon doesn’t know if this is normal and he’s just noticing everything now, or whether it’s some effect of the drug.  

He thinks. About the worst, mostly. About what he is going to do if they’re not in time, if Illya starts dying. If Illya loses himself. If they lose him. 

It’s difficult to think these things through when Illya’s body is a heavy weight beside him, when Illya’s breathing—slightly irregular—is as loud as the ticking in his head, as the gravel on the road. 

He doesn’t dare speak. Doesn’t want to risk losing count. Instead he blindly reaches for Illya’s sweaty hand, squeezes. 

Illya leans into him more heavily, his head coming to rest on Napoleon’s shoulder. This close, the shaking is impossible to ignore. 

“Я хочу—,” Illya whispers, voice unsteady and afraid, but before he can say what it is he wants, they’re both thrown to the side as Gaby executes a screaming turn, and suddenly the horrible noise beneath the wheels drops away. 

Asphalt. A proper road. 

Fourteen minutes, forty-eight seconds. 

Tick. Tick. Tick. 

Illya is silent. Napoleon’s heartbeat is thumping in his ears, but it has no hope of drowning out the clock. 

Gaby navigates through rapidly rising buildings, trying not to let relief overwhelm her. She still has to find a hospital. They still have to explain what’s wrong to a bunch of Portuguese doctors, and none of them speak Portuguese. 

Stop that. Drive. 

She’d seen signs for a hospital yesterday, driving through the city. She searches for familiar landmarks, finds none. Except—

There. A spire, rising up from behind a dreary apartment block that looks like it belongs back home. She knows where she’s going. A map forms itself in her mind. Fifteen minutes at the current speed limit. 

She’ll do it in ten, or maybe less. 

Napoleon does not let the increasingly more familiar cityscape outside calm him. Any number of things might still go wrong. Plus, getting to the hospital itself is hardly enough. It isn’t like Illya will magically be healed simply by virtue of being in the building. 

Please, he lets himself think, addressing no one and nothing in particular. Let us have time. 

His hand is still wrapped around Illya’s hand, and he’s squeezing every few seconds to make sure Illya’s still there. He gets weak squeezes in return, tappings of fingers, but they’re less and less sure every time. 

The hospital jumps into view as Gaby careens around a corner. Napoleon jostles Illya, directs his attention out the window so he knows what’s coming. 

Twenty-four minutes, six seconds. 

They screech to a halt outside the emergency entrance. Before Gaby’s gotten out of gear, Napoleon’s already half out of the car, pulling Illya along behind him. 

The next few minutes pass in a chaotic haze. Half dragging Illya into the hospital, Gaby hot on his heels. The frantic search for help, a doctor running up, “English?,” frantic explanations, reassurances, Illya being whisked away. 

And then it’s just them, standing in a waiting room with several Portuguese people eyeing them with a combination of confusion and interest. 

They both sort of collapse into each other. The clock in Napoleon’s head has gone silent in the chaos and without it he feels off-kilter, like he is missing something important. 

Gaby is thinking for the first time since she’d slid behind the wheel. Thoughts enter her mind too quickly to be processed in any semblance of order, emotions crashing over her in force. 

She’s shaking, she realizes, leaning into Napoleon. Or maybe it’s him. 

--

They wait. The doctor comes back out, and Napoleon has to forcibly restrain Gaby from jumping at him when he says he can’t say anything definite yet. She’s shaking, he thinks. It might be him, though. 

Finally, they’re given information. Illya is fine. No permanent damage. He needs rest, and they want to keep him for the night, for observation. 

They both start protesting at once. They can care for him. It’s what they do. And they should get out of here as soon as possible. Who knows how long it’ll take for someone to track them down, or to realize they’re not who they say they are. 

The nurse who’d delivered this information puts his hands up in surrender. They both slow down, turning to each other for mutual confirmation, comfort. 

Their evacuation will arrive in about an hour, Napoleon realizes, looking at his watch. They can contact the medical team, let them communicate with the hospital staff. 

He goes out to the car to relay this decision—well, technically it’s a suggestion, but he knows Waverly will agree. He finds it very illegally parked in much the same spot as they originally stopped in, which does not surprise him in the slightest. 

He pulls the car into an actual parking space, then calls up Waverly. He agrees, just as Napoleon had known he would. 

Back inside, Gaby sits in a chair beside Illya’s still, silent form. She’d been able to persuade the nurse to let her see him, and she isn’t sure what she’d been expecting. 

Not this. Illya is so small and pale lying in the hospital bed, IV in his arm, eyes closed. She wants him to wake up, to pull the needle from his skin, swing his long legs out from under the sheets and walk out the door as if nothing at all is the matter. 

Except he’d nearly died. That’s what the nurse had told her. Nearly died. 

But he hadn’t. He’s alive, albeit asleep, hurt, but he’s still here. No lasting damage. 

She slips her hand into his, careful not to jostle the IV. She squeezes, but his hand remains limp. 

Napoleon enters the room a few moments later, and she knows from his expression that Waverly had agreed to their proposal. She watches him take in Illya’s body, sees the pain in his eyes, the relief, the dregs of fear. 

He sits down opposite her and takes up Illya’s other hand, and they wait, the three of them, together.

thanks for reading!! fun fact in an unprecedented and shocking turn of events i have managed to write a substantial amount of fics ahead of time this year (including this one!!) wow ahh ooh

[katsinspats]

Thematically appropriate comic for Make a Terrible Comic Day!!

I saw the original post this morning and it made me get out of bed to make something, so thank u Pseudonym Jones mission accomplished

[possumsinatrenchcoat]

Aging tumblr user base find this relatable?

[mysillycomics]

[nilnco]

Just a little doodle - life's getting real busy now

[carcinogenical]

1984 project progress (for class)

[blueskittlesart]

Linktober day 1: Mirror

[tiger-grace]

Bruce: Okay, Damian. You need to promise to be good for the Doctor, they’re not an enemy in disguise trying to administer poison. We’ve known her for years.

Damian: The clinic is by crime alley! She most certainly owns several firearms that she could use as soon as I’m incapacitated!

Jason, raising his pistol: Firearms?

Bruce: No, Jason, no guns. We’ve spoken about this.

Damian: Anyone could be a part of a test from my grandfather! We need to be prepared!

Bruce: It’s just a vaccine shot!

Jason, very slowly raising his pistol: ..Shot?

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

[miguxadraws]

i wanted to make her more ragdolly

[troutpaws]

stray dragon (acrylic & digital ‘24)

[thatnununguy]

PLEASREE PLEASE SHOW MORE EQUIGAM ART PLEASE!!!!!!

When in doubt — post yaoi art. Or however the saying goes. Perchance.

[limbel]

🏳️‍🌈 day 9 ~ creature of habit

Dean always says that his life could fit inside the pockets of his jacket.

They were never really allowed to have things when they were little – toys and stuffed animals and clothes are only good for slowing you down and getting you killed. 'Cut every non-essential', rule number one of the life on the road. No exceptions for anyone, not even kids.

But that was a rule he could never follow, not all the way. He kept things – small things, insignificant things. He doesn't really remember when or how it started, maybe it was an act of rebellion, or just a way to remind himself that he was alive after all, that the world was bearing a mark of his passage. All the times he felt as disappearing, he had something to hold on to.

He's a creature of habit, in the end. Even now that he has a loving family, a job, a roof over his head; even now that he feels like he is really making a difference, he still keeps those old scraps. And he never stopped collecting new ones.

Zoom for details! I added a few easter eggs, let me know if you find them!

[laylakeating]

NEW GIRL REWATCH | 1.01, Pilot

[courfee]

remus is very unimpressed, sirius is very happy :)

based on this post

[monochromeia]

Reading The Way of Kings is really funny so far because you go from reading about Kaladin and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day(s) to Shallan and her sailor buddy Yalb's wacky book-buying adventure back to Kaladin about to fucking kill himself.