#my brain chemicals are now in 'danger alert. we will not sleep but we will not focus also' mode i have so many things to doooo

[ithacanradio]

sleeping on the floor and marching through the rain: no problem. there's an old professor to wine and dine: one dead three injured. here is a short guide on how to be socially unadjusted communist militants in northern italy

[kpswrites]

Sunrunner – Chapter Three

“Are you sure you’re alright BOB?” Adam asked, looking over the fresh holes in his chassis. “We can stop for repairs or have Zenith take you back.”

“Nothing of importance was damaged! My hardware is more resilient than your squishy flesh parts!”

BOB wasn’t sure why the crew was so concerned; the projectiles were at least two centimeters away from damaging its motherboard. Even if catastrophic damage was done, it could still be repaired by a skilled technician. There was no need to poke and prod him as though it were dying of some paltry mortal injury. Humanoids got so emotional over such small things.

The crew had gathered at the entrance of the facility and took positions around the door in anticipation of resistance. Zenith opted to stay on a ridge near the ship in case they needed a quick extraction. BOB approached the access terminal and extended a hacking tool of its own design, but was restrained by a pink glow. Odybrix held out a hand and waved BOB off. Rude organic.

“This one’s not locked, BOB,” the halfling said.

“How do you know this? You have not attempted to open it!”

“Actually, I’m doing that right now. Stand aside in case there’s another chain gun waiting to add some more polka dots to you.”

“As I have stated, I am hardier than you meat creatures!”

“Wouldn’t want that precious coffee maker to get damaged.”

The nearest replacement was a week’s flight away. Moreover, purchasing an AstroLux coffee dispenser might alert EasyBot to his location. BOB needed to stay off-network if it did not wish to be scrapped. The impolite halfling’s assessment of the danger was correct. BOB hurriedly stepped aside.

Pink light filled the seam between the two doors of the entrance and they slid open with a hydraulic gasp. Bullets and plasma did not tear out of the facility as anticipated. The glow of a work terminal broke through the dim red light bathing the lobby—the building was on back-up power.

BOB moved into the space with the characteristic clank of its ambulation, eliciting sharp incoherent rebukes from its companions. There was no cause for alarm, its visual scans of the area indicated no hostiles. It proceeded to the next door with the crew hurrying in behind. Once again, there was no lock engaged. Confident that all hostiles had been eliminated, it opened the door to a chorus of expletives from Odybrix.

The laboratory was a standard affair given what BOB knew of such workspaces: computers, centrifuges, bio-printers. Adam and Buddy immediately began investigating the room to look for a means of restoring communications with the facility. Jim, hands behind his back, observed the workstations with professional interest. Odybrix immediately initiated a flurry of theft and petty vandalism.

Tucked in the corner of the room, back against the wall, was Hoxley. He was muttering to himself and staring intensely at a glass door across the room. BOB ventured to the glass and began a visual sweep. Amorphous objects floated inside large tubes lining the walls. A small vault at the far wall was torn open. Oh, and there was a pile of bodies on the ground. BOB decided that required closer inspection and proceeded to open the door.

“Don’t!” Hoxley shouted.

“There are humanoids on the floor that may require medical attention!”

“Don’t open that door!”

Organics were so prone to inexplicable emotive outbursts. BOB couldn’t blame them. The constant and chaotic chemical discharge of their organs was a profound burden for them. If only they could know the peace that came with machine thinking.

“The fuck is in there?” Odybrix asked, poking her head through Buddy’s legs.

“Maybe they’re sleeping?” Buddy suggested.

Jim glanced over her shoulder, “Dead.”

“How can you tell?”

“Cerebrospinal fluid commingling with blood and brain matter.”

“I see it too,” Odybrix said, “lab coats means they’re the researchers I guess. Oh well, back to ransacking.”

“Those are used for cloning and incubation,” Adam said, pointing at the large tubes. “I’m not sure what’s inside them.”

“Maybe some highly illegal research? Or something that ol’ zombie Cuthbert wants for himself?” Odybrix asked, stuffing the contents of a desk drawer in her pack. “Okay, now I want in.”

“Lots of people use cloning,” Adam said defensively. “It saves lives.”

“Most people don’t use it as a hack for immortality,” Odybrix said, placing a hand on the glass.

A terrified yelp from behind them trailed off into concerned mumbling.

“Are you okay, Hoxley?” Buddy asked.

“He need not be concerned,” BOB said. “The door is locked and someone has destroyed the access terminal.”

Jim, having already stepped away from the discussion, said, “This appears to be the communications terminal.”

BOB shuffled passed the organics to its fellow machine. The doctor, while skilled, was stuffier than BOB preferred—poor upbringing. It made casual conversation difficult and, given BOB was built to have conversations, it tended to avoid him aboard the Sunrunner. However, when a task was at hand the pair functioned with cold mechanical efficiency.

“Preliminary analysis?” BOB asked.

“Access panel sealed by plasma torch. Suspected tampering. Recommendation?”

“Radical entry!” BOB said, as it began repeatedly slamming its vibration knife into an untampered side of the unit.

“What the hells are you two doing?” Adam asked, not receiving an answer.

“Casing breached!”

Jim’s hand rippled and turned black, contorting and flattening to accommodate the aperture BOB created. He inserted the reformed appendage and tore open the casing in one fluid motion. BOB’s flashlight clicked on and it inspected the interior. The crew crowded around.

“A common scrambler, easily disabled!” BOB said, stabbing the malicious hardware with its knife.

The crew’s personal comms network buzzed as it automatically connected with Zenith and the Sunrunner.

“All good in there?” Zenith asked.

“Mission successful!” BOB said.

“Anybody hurt?”

“Zero casualties! Not accounting for the pile of corpses on the floor!”

“Uh, okay. We’ll talk about that in the debrief. Let’s get back aboard and go collect our credits.”

Hoxley seized on the suggestion and sidestepped towards the door with his back against the wall. He didn’t take his eyes off the adjacent room. The infernum was a little strange, even by organic standards. Perhaps there was a defect in his brain meat. BOB did find him to be a satisfactory conversationalist, however. Perhaps the bug in his programming helped him in that regard. BOB paused at the glass door, detecting movement.

“Huh,” Odybrix said.

“Something on your mind?” Adam asked.

“Why use a scrambler when the mech could have blown up the comms dish outside?”

“Depending on what’s being researched, remote RC facilities have decontamination protocols that can be triggered with an encrypted signal. It’s usually in the event that the system doesn’t automatically trigger when something terrible happens.”

“Decontamination protocol?”

“The site gets irradiated by a small nuclear reactor. They might have snuck the scrambler in if they were worried about the protocol getting remotely triggered during the assault.”

“There appears to be a survivor!” BOB said.

The crew gathered around the glass and peered in. A body twitched as if someone had kicked it, then tilted upward and slid off the pile. From beneath it, a hand clawed outward into the crimson light. Something stood up. Its flesh twisted and congealed around warped limbs, bones cracked into inhuman angles, and its mouth gaped to reveal an undulating throat lined with dozens of jagged teeth.

“It won’t open!” Hoxley yelled, slapping the access pad by the entrance.

A klaxon blared and a voice calmly made an announcement over the facility’s speakers, “Containment breach. Decontamination protocol commencing.”

“Oh no,” Adam said.

“Oh fuck no,” Odybrix echoed.

“What the hell is… in there…you…” Zenith cut out.

BOB’s HUD registered a steady climb in ambient radiation: fifty RAD, seventy, ninety. If the uptick continued, machine and organic alike would be rendered inoperable. It proceeded to the entrance amidst the panicked screams, shoving a frazzled Hoxley aside (100 RAD, 120, 170). The panel was still connected to the network and could be accessed (210 RAD, 250, 300). BOB hacked into the locking trigger and began overriding it, noting several malfunctions occurring within itself (400 RAD, 460, 500). The door slid open a few inches and stopped. The radiation had degraded the internal circuitry.

“It appears we are doomed!” BOB said, its tone unerringly affable.

“Not today,” Adam said, grabbing BOB and hurling it backward.

He unclasped his grenade bandolier and lodged it in the opening, “Everyone get back! Odybrix, any help would be greatly appreciated!”

The halfling’s glow cut through the red light. Glass cracked as the thing in the room slammed its aberrant body into the door. Hoxley screamed. The crew took cover and Adam took aim with his mag rail.

~*~

The Rockhopper was registering alarming RAD levels coming from the base. Zenith circled, ready to kick on the thrusters and fly the sloop away before the radiation shielding failed. There was no communication for one minute. Two. Three. Then a blast flared at the entrance and kicked up a cloud of dust.

BOB was flung out of the building horizontally and skidded to a stop on its side. Odybrix zipped out in a streak of pink light. One by one, the crew scrambled out of the aperture created by the blast and fled from the area. Zenith hit the thrusters and flicked on the external speaker.

“Get your irradiated asses in here!”

https://kpsweeneywrites.com/sunrunner/

[ak47stylegirl]

Hmm... sicktember, huh? Let's go for #10 and I'm going to be boringly predictable with Scott :D Your choice of caretaker.

This was fun 😁 I know you love Scott and Gordon, so the choice of the caretaker was easy lol 😂 I hope you enjoy it! I went with a little bit of a different writing style with this fic, so hopes it's good 😅

I'm doing this challenge by asks, so send in a number and a bro, and I'll get to writing 😄 Overload my inbox!! 😁

----

Glass crunched under his feet.

“Wow…this place was asking to become a danger zone...” Gordon muttered, gingerly tipping over an empty beaker with a finger. “What even was this place?”

It was hard to tell what was dust and what was rubble from the earthquake; everything was in some form of ruin or decay.

“The building is listed as an office complex, owned by lee frank industries, but….” John frowned, sounding perplexed, “something doesn't add up….”

Frustration was evident in John’s voice, because there was nothing that John hated more than a puzzle piece to a mystery being just outside his grasp.

That or false information, especially incorrect space facts…oh boy, does John go feral if you joke that the sun is just a planet that‘s on fire.

So does Alan, though he's more the barking puppy variety, Gordon thought with a smirk, oh that was a great mental image…

“You’re right about that, John….” Scott reported, stormy blue eyes scanning the room, back rigid. “This looks more like a lab than an office, and not one that reaches any legal safety requirements either….”

Gordon straightens unconsciously, becoming more alert and focused. He understood what Scott was implying and what that could mean…

The building’s stability may not be the only danger…

There was a tense pause on the comms before “I’m contacting the GDF….” John's voice filtered over the comms, each word heavy with the severity of the possible growing situation.

“Good plan, John….” Scott nodded, looking left and right down the long complex “in the meantime, Gordon and I should look for survivors….”

“FAB….just..” John’s professional mask slipped for a second, his voice softening, “be careful down there, okay?”

“Will do…” Scott nodded, with a small, confident smile, catching his eye, “Gordon will search the left side of the building, while I take the right, all agreed?”

“FAB”, Gordon and John replied in unison.

“Good”, Scott’s eyes hardened, his commander persona coming to the forefront, “comms stay on at all times, is that understood?”

Acknowledgement was voiced, and in Gordon’s case, in the form of a mock salute, and an ‘Ay, Ay captain!’

Scott’s eye roll could be felt from space.

----

So far, the left side of the building was devoid of life, a ghost town of broken glass and rubble.

And bodies.

“I found another one, John..” Gordon grimaced, crouching down next to a middle-aged female, who was crushed by a shelf, chemical burns making her unrecognisable.

“Damn it, Scott was right, this place was a safety hazard waiting to happen…” Gordon looked around the small stuffy room, bottles of chemicals stacked haphazardly, sharp objects just discard all over the place.

Brains would have a fit if he saw this…

“Had any luck on your end, Scott?”

“Not so far, but keep-” the sounds of harsh coughing could be heard over the comms, “-keep l-looking….”

Gordon frowned, “Scott, are you alright?”

There was more coughing before Scott replied, “I’m f-fine…I just-” Scott groaned, his words starting to slur, “-I just cau-caught my..my b-breath, I-”

There was more coughing and a thud on the other end, followed by Scott’s comm going dead. “Scott?! Scott, are you alright?! Answer me!”

Gordon started to run full speed, all thoughts of lab safety abandoned in his panic. All of the alarm bells in his head were ringing; something’s wrong, something’s wrong.

Something’s wrong!

“Gordon, put your helmet on now!” John barked over the comm line, causing him to halt and follow without question. “There is an unknown gas radiating from Scott’s location! GDF and Virgil are on route now!”

Gordon took off in a sprint again, helmet now secured. “Good! We may need it! Do you have eyes on Scott?”

Gordon flew around a corner.

“He’s still not responding; vitals show he’s conscious, but none of them are in a healthy range.”

John sounded worried. Not a good sign. As was the yelling he could hear as he neared Scott’s location, but something was off about it.

The only one yelling was Scott.

He slowed down his pace, not wanting to run into an unknown, possibly dangerous situation unprepared.

“No! No! Gordon! Please, wake up!” Scott could be heard screaming; his voice filled with pure anguish. “Please!!”

A shiver ran down Gordon’s spine, “John, you don’t have any clue what that gas does, do you?” He whispered tensely; honestly a bit freaked out by Scott’s cries.

“I’m working on it….” John growled, sounding beyond frustrated that vital information was alluring him. “Don’t engage Scott until we know what we’re dealing with, okay?”

Gordon scowled, hearing Scott scream and cry his name again. “Sorry John, no can do….” He turned the corner, finally laying eyes on his brother.

Scott was hunched over a body, screaming his name and begging the dead body to wake up, sob rattling Scott’s shoulders.

Scott thought that body, a young adult male, was him, Gordon realised in horror, his face going ash white.

“Scotty?” Gordon spoke softly, taking a cautious step forward, his hands held up in front of him in a gesture of peace. “You’re okay there, bro?”

Scott’s head snapped up at his entrance, blue eyes locking onto him. Blue eyes which were cloudy and glazed over.

Gordon grimaced, taking another step forward.

Yeah, Scott wasn’t in his right mind; that was plainly obvious.

The situation changed so fast Gordon barely had time to react as Scott launched to his feet with a snarl, yelling, “You!”

Gordon barely dodged Scott’s punch, his eyes going wide. “Whoa! Scott, it’s me! Gordon!” He pleaded as he dodged Scott’s attacks.

That seemed to just make Scott angrier, “don’t you lie to me, you bastard! You killed my brother!!” Scott jumped at him, finally managing to knock him off his feet.

This was bad! This was very bad! Gordon thought as his big brother started to punch him, pinning him down with a crazed look in his eyes.

Virgil and John were yelling at him over comms. He had to do something! Gordon thought as he struggled against Scott, whose punches were becoming more painful.

Gordon’s elbow stuck Scott’s cheek, stunning Scott long enough for him to shove Scott off, and put distance between them.

“Scott! Stop this! I don’t know what you’re seeing, but it’s not true!” Gordon yelled as he once again began to dodge Scott’s attacks, his ribs protesting immensely. “Please, Scotty!”

Scott’s attacks stopped, blue eyes clearing for a second, “Gordy?” Scott’s voice trembled, sounding so terrified.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s me, Scooter….” He took a hesitant step forward, a plan forming in his mind. “We were on a rescue, remember?”

He took another step forward, seeing that Scott was staying still, slowly reaching for the emergency sedative in his sash.

Scott’s eyes latched on his hand movement, eyes going wide, and the anger returned. “Ahhhrgh! Get out of my head!” Scott shook his head, gripping his hair in his fists. “Your tricks won’t work on me, Hood!”

Well, that explains a lot…

He took another step forward, “Scotty, I promise I’m not-“

“Enough lies!” Scott screamed, tackling him to the ground, his head hitting the ground hard, being momentarily stunned.

“No!” Gordon cried out as Scott knocked the syringe from his hand, it rolling just out of his reach.

“It’s over, Hood!” Scott sneered, blue eyes devoid of their normal kindness and love, “you’re never going to hurt my family ever again!”

Gordon looked into emotionless eyes, and felt proper fear of his brother for the first time in his life.

Scott wasn’t going to stop; he was going to...

Gordon growled, his eyes hardening in detention as his fist met Scott’s nose. Scott cried out in pain, distracted for a second, and in that second, he was able to wrestle Scott under him.

While Gordon was quick and agile, a good fighter in his own right, Scott was stronger than him. The fight quickly escalated into a wrestling match, neither letting the other get the upper hand.

Gordon spotted the syringe near them, just as Scott got the upper hand, slamming him into the ground.

No matter how much he struggled, Scott had him well and truly pinned this time, one arm pinned above his head.

One arm was free, but mobility was limited by Scott’s body weight on his upper shoulder and arm. But he had to try!

“Scott! I’m just tr-” Scott pressed his forearm against Gordon’s throat, beginning to cut off his air supply “,-t-trying to help you!”

His fingers brushed against the syringe, it slipping just out of his grasp. So close! So close!

“Like hell you are!” Scott cried, tears of anguish and fury pouring down his cheeks. “What have we ever done to you?! What have my little brothers done?!”

Tears pickled at the corners of Gordon’s eyes, his vision darkening just as his hand finally gripped the syringe.

He didn’t hesitate, slamming the syringe into Scott’s thigh with all of his remaining strength. Scott cried out, the pressure on his throat disappearing as Scott leapt away from him.

“What did you-” Scott stumbled, falling on his butt, eyes starting to blink rapidly. “What did you just...just inject into me?!”

Gordon slowly sat up, wrapping an arm around his ribs. “Scotty, it’s okay….” He moved towards Scott, who tried to flinch away, but only ended up collapsing onto his side.

“No, no, this, this can’t be h-happening..” Scott whimpered in despair, unable to lift his head or stop Gordon from moving towards him. “P-please, not G-Gordy….”

“I’m right here; I’m right here, Scotty..” Gordon pulled Scott onto his lap, wrapping his arms around him tightly. “It’s alright, shh come on, go to sleep now….”

Scott’s eyes were becoming heavy, each blink becoming more prolonged than the last, “No, I can’t…I gotta…I gotta…“

Scott’s breathing evened out, eyes slipping close and not opening again. Gordon sighed in relief, slumping backwards, Scott’s head resting against his chest.

“You owe me big time, big brother…” Gordon whispered with a small pained smile, hearing Virgil’s voice in the distance. “So very, very much….”

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 16

First time reader click here

Summary/TWs: Trouble is brewing. Canon-typical violence, graphic descriptions of wounds and Clint whump. Bad, terrible, no-good medical accuracy. Aliens. Reader is an anxious genius with low self-esteem and PTSD. ✨spicy sadness✨

From now on, chapters will be posted un-beta-ed. She's taking a lil break. 💖💝✨

I liked to think I had made peace with the fact that my boys and girls had one hell of a dangerous job. Natasha, Clint, Steve and Bucky frequently left for missions and while I missed their usual bickering in the background, it wasn't like the tower's common room became absolutely quiet. The fact that they mostly did recon-only missions helped, too, as they would come home unharmed and in one piece. The worry was there but subtle - like setting the table and including silverware for the people who were gone on a mission.

Peter's patrols went less smoothly, usually. He was small and even in his spider-suit, the boy was frequently underestimated by common thugs. Apparently, they didn't know how to read the news - it was blatantly obvious the hero was enhanced. And yet somehow, Pete more often than not sported all sorts of bruises, scratches and tears.

Tony and I routinely tore out our hair over the spiderboy's carelessness. The engineer had a funny way of showing he cared for Peter. Once I got to know him better, my brain dubbed them as Irondad and Spiderson. And it wasn't weird at all, somehow, that I was basically fucking my best friend's dad. Tony never made me uncomfortable, if anything, he went to great lengths to accommodate my whims. Tony continuously found time for me, answered my dumb questions and soldiered through the shenanigans I got up to after having too much caffeine and too little sleep.

Sitting in the quiet, empty common room was unnerving. It was shortly after dinner time - the evening news skipped their usual political debate in favour of the battle that was raging downtown, the reason for my headache and wrung hands.

I missed Tony's running mouth. The aliens the team was fighting looked quite hilarious, murderous intentions aside, and I could only imagine the way Tony and Clint would mock them. Hentai rejects. Tentacle porn knock-offs. The aliens were squid-like, about half the size of a human and very, very slippery, from what I spied on the TV.

An irritated-looking Stephen had me equal parts apprehensive and drooling - one after another, he conjured up a series of small portals, teleporting the aggressive octopods only god knew where. It would have looked incredibly badass if not for the exhausted sheen of sweat I could see on his brow, even despite the camera footage being shaky and grainy.

The news footage showed Tony - Iron Man, soaring contentedly through the darkening skies and taking out the squirmy mass of tentacles with his plasma beam repulsors. Steve and Bucky and Loki appeared too, sporadically, being well-oiled murder machines. Nothing new.

Yet, I worried. The little worm of doubt was squirming full-force. I tried to ignore it, yet pacing, sitting and playing Candy Crush got me nowhere. I pestered Friday to order pizza, the team's usual post-mission order plus a large one for me - stress-eating was better than stress-popping-molly in a tower full of superheroes. It took some courage to admit to myself I'd gotten attached enough to be this much from running away from all that in a blind panic.

And it would be the best option for them, really, because they had much sensible things to worry about than me. Yet every time, my selfishness won against even the most logical arguments I presented. I hated fighting myself but it was all I did - not only I was in love with Tony, I loved him.

Even when he forgot about my existence for five days, to emerge from his workshop with a new piece of tech that revolutionised one or another or something else. I loved him when he annoyed the ever living fuck out of everybody, me included, because I knew that it was hilarious to see people getting riled up over totally trivial shit. I loved Tony Stark when he ran away from his feelings, and everybody else's, because he never managed to run far enough. Or he didn't want to. I loved him, because he was like a multilayered puzzle, complex and captivating and beautiful.

I thought a lot about it, more than people would have noticed. For someone as selfish and goal-oriented as me, Tony lived in my head rent-free most of the time. And nobody would find out if I had the choice because let's face it, I'm a short cameo in his life. I'm a fuckin' catch and even then, I can't expect to hold his attention forever. His genius is too brilliant to settle for one when he could easily have the whole damn world.

Another hour consisted of me pacing and accompanying the pizza delivery boys to the common floor. It was hilarious - they were obviously star-struck about walking the same carpet as their heroes. I could see the faint hope of meeting one of the Avengers in their eyes, their posture. All they got was me - in my sweatpants, Tony's tee and no bra. My tits got the attention they deserved, at least.

My lounging was interrupted by a golden circle noisily appearing in the middle of the room, followed by Clint abruptly falling through it with a pained moan. I froze, the pizza in my mouth turning to ash - Strange poked his head through the hole in space, finding my eyes. He looked exhausted.

"Help him, I don't have much time," He breathed and disappeared, closing the portal behind himself.

The pizza piece flew back in the box as I stumbled, jumped over the headrest, kneeling beside Clint in no time. "Bird, tell me what hurts," I demanded. Not that I had a clue what to do. I mean, I knew basic first aid and...

"My leg," He gritted out, curling in on himself. Fear flooded me, limbs turning to lead. Hawk had a good pain tolerance, I knew he could break an arm and not utter a single syllable until he thought it safe to showcase his vulnerability. "That squid motherfucker stung me, I don't know. My whole body is on fire," His speech was slurred.

I nodded, deciding to limit the touching to only the necessary actions. The leg of his pants was torn and the wound itself was shaped like a whip mark, thin and red and angry. It oozed a yellowish pus-like substance, it smelled bitter, almost like stale water and seaweed salad. I didn't know much about aliens but jellyfish stings, I could work with. A short Google check later, I had an approximate plan.

"Friday, run diagnostics." I ordered, taking a deep breath and filing away the fear, the panic and anxiety for later.

"Mr. Barton has a wound that appears to be contaminated with an unknown chemical that is causing an adverse reaction. The elevated body temperature suggests that his immune system is fighting it. I would suggest a blood test to examine the offending specimens."

A blood draw? I could do that. I definitely, absolutely, could do that.

"Bird, Clint, did you hear that?" I gently touched his shoulder only for him to recoil from my hand, muttering unintelligibly. "Pretty bird, I'm going to help you. Let me." My bedside manner needed improvement - with brain running a mile a minute, I babbled utter nonsense as Friday directed me to the needed supplies. Getting the blood was a feat on it's own - I had to physically sit on top of Clint to get but a tiny vial of the red liquid.

A few tears escaped the emotional fortress I had to build within myself. Clint was in so, so much pain - pain I was inadvertently making worse by touching him. I sprinted to Bruce's lab, feeding the sample to be analysed by Friday, tearing through the room in a hurricane. First aid kit, IV, saline, antibiotics. Restraints, too, just in case.

"Analysis complete. The contaminant appears to be acting similarly to a parasitic infection with a short life-span. Primarily feeds on copper, iron and various metals contained in the human body. Does not appear to reproduce or multiply, my algorithms cannot determine the cause of said behaviour. Calculating..." Friday's mechanical voice paused. "I have calculated the approximate duration of Mr. Barton's symptoms. Onset of critical stage in one to three hours. Complete extinction of parasitic organisms in approximately sixty hours."

"Fri, do you think I have a chance of saving Clint before he goes crazy from pain? And have you figured out what's causing it?" My brain was all over the place.

"I have the best faith in you, miss." The AI sounded almost... Comforting? "I am still running multiple diagnostics. My algorithms suggest the organisms may be attacking the nerve endings - reason unclear."

An idea struck me. A crazy, brash, absurd idea. The pathogen was alien and we didn't have antibiotics to kill it. Even if I gave Clint some sort of medicine, it could go awry really really quickly. Besides, wasn't there a medical team for this..?

"Friday, alert the medical suite."

"Request denied. Per Mr. Stark's protocols, only Sir himself and Dr. Banner are authorized to request medical assistance in case of alien pathogen contamination."

"Fuck. Fuck, that makes no fuckin' sense!" I yelled helplessly. "Okay, do you have blood matching Clint's type laying around?" I asked sarcastically. This protocol pissed me off. What was Tony scared of? That someone would steal alien germs? Too late for that, there were plenty of samples all over the sidewalks downtown.

"A-positive, blue refrigerator, top shelf." Friday's answer was curt.

My hands shook. My whole body shook. Clint was laying in fetal position right where I'd left him and the man wasn't looking better - he became paler, dark circles under his eyes, clammy sweat breaking on every exposed part of his skin. Moving him was out of the question - Clint violently recoiled from me once I tried to touch him.

Reluctantly, I dragged the dining room chairs and piled up whatever heavy things I could on top of them, praying to every god that they would hold a trained man trash around in pain. Then, came the restraints. Belts with clips unlike one could see in a movie with a psych ward. I fumbled with them, then with Clint - very slowly, but I got both of his arms fastened and the man rolled onto his back.

"Wwhat... S'appening..?" Hawk finally slurred, cracking his eyes to see my (probably) disheveled and panicked face.

"This is going to hurt, I won't lie. A lot," I rambled, setting up the tools needed for both a blood draw and a blood transfusion. "I'm not a doctor. I'm not a scientist. You have alien parasites in your blood. I'm going to get rid of em," I announced, not mentioning the fact that I had to Google all the things I was going to do to him.

"S'okay, I trust you," Clint slurred again, moving about much more weakly than before. The tips of his fingers began to turn blue and the blood vessels on his face stood out in a pink-purple web. Not good.

My finest thinking moment: laying out some tarp around the archer and putting on gloves and a mask to minimize the possibility of getting infected. I started with the wound first, carefully wiping away the yellowish goop and immediately sealing it into a biohazard container. Some alcohol around the edges, the wound began emanating a faint wisp of smoke as Clint yelled hoarsely. I didn't even react - man, aliens and their germs were fuckin' weird.

Another biohazard container traveled next to Clint's arm. I had a disposable scalpel in one hand and my courage in another - it was now or never. The vein I was cutting was a minor one, but with Clint's body in total disarray, it was an ugly fountain of pinkish-purple liquid that spurted from it. I was no doctor but blood shouldn't have looked like that.

I stared at the timer on my phone. Twenty seconds, thirty, fifty. Eighty seconds, the blood was beginning to have more of a red hue. Clint's breathing slowed, tremors subsiding by a smidgen. One hundred and eighty seconds, the stream was a healthy deep red colour. With a swift motion, I wrapped up the wound, folded his arm, tied off the blood flow higher up his arm with a spare restraint. Clint wasn't moving much anymore; my hand that periodically checked his pulse shook but dutifully did it's job. His heart was working steady.

Compared to having to drain a friend of his blood, setting up the IV with a transfusion was a walk in the park. My mind was empty of any thoughts but for the actions needed to complete the process.

The container with contaminated blood, closed, sealed and put in a plastic bag, along with the gloves and the tarp. My own exposed flesh, meticulously scrubbed with alcohol until the skin became red and raw. All the instruments, Clint's pants, my clothes - in the bag.

The archer himself was laying still, his breathing steady and calm, face no longer looking like he was one step away from the grave. After undoing the restraints, I wiped down every surface we touched with Tony's vodka - rubbing alcohol had run out and I was too emotionally drained to go downstairs and leave Clint for too long. Whenever the booze collided with a stray drop of blood, a wispy smoke emerged. Such an interesting reaction. Part of me couldn't wait to examine the phenomena together with Bruce. The other part was considering the possibility of having a panic attack in a seafood restaurant.

"Fri, keep an eye- a sensor on Clint for me, will ya? I need a shower and some pants," I denounced tiredly, padding to the communal shower. I found respite, however brief, under the steam for a few minutes. Then I found Tony's old tee and a pair of someone's sweats - I didn't care whose. Post-stress adrenaline shivers had me feeling stark naked in the middle of Alaska despite the room being a toasty, comfortable temperature according to the digital thermostat.

Now I just had to think about what to tell the team.

Propping Clint's head on a decorative pillow and covering him with a soft fleece blanket was the least I could have done for the long suffering archer. The floor was hard but I sat next to him, running a hand through his matted hair, my brain an incomprehensible mess.

✨ TAGLIST OF MY LOVELIES (OPEN) ✨

@another-stark-sub ​ @mostly-marvel-musings  @vozit @littlegasps ​ @pilloclock ​ @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads ​ @hermione-grangers-wife ​ @individualistfem ​ @sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby

[the-omni-princess]

Sleeping Beauty (Soulmate!AU)

Author: @the-omni-princess​

Summary: Soulmate AU! No one can wake up Bucky from Cryo… well, except theoretically his Soulmate.

Prompt: “OH GOD I WASNT CHASING YOU!!! IT WAS DARK, AND I WAS SCARED PLEASE STOP SCREAMING.”

Word Count: 1K

Pairing: Bucky x reader

Warnings: Not canon-compliant, canon diverge, they won Infinity War whoops, and not TWS compliant either, cursing, implied drinking/tipsy!reader, I think that’s it, hit a girl up if I missed anything

A/N: written for @geosaurusrrex​ ‘s #seasaur’s2kmilestone , Congrats bby <3

Prompt is bolded <3 

-

[Masterlist]

---

How you found yourself in the medical wing of Stark Tower, you couldn’t say. The events that led to this moment were honestly a bit blurry.

You’ve been an Avenger since Hydra’s defeat, and even now, a year after the Defeat of Thanos at Wakanda and Titan, you have never seen this part of the medical floor. You heard rumors, that Steve’s best friend, the one and only James Buchanan Barnes was found in cryo-freeze following the defeat of Hydra. And that’s where the current problem lay.

Once Tony was in a better mental state and forgave Bucky for the things he had no control over as the Winter Soldier, he had started trying to help Bucky in any way he could. A few years later, with the help of Shuri, they erased the trigger words, but still, Bucky didn’t wake up. Suspended. Frozen in time. Stuck.

Steve never would admit it out loud but seeing his friend unable to wake up was slowly killing him inside. In a world of Soulmates, some doctors hypothesized that it would only be Bucky’s soulmate that could wake him. You found that a little ridiculous, but Steve, usually hand in hand with his own soulmate, Sharon, kept hope that maybe that would be the key to saving Bucky. Touch was very important to soulmates, as everyone was born with small collections of freckles where you would touch your soulmate for the first time. Some people had their entire hands lit up in freckles, yourself included. Which sucked since you could never be sure that anyone you shook hands with was your soulmate. Some were unique, such as your friend who had her mark of freckles on her butt cheek.

Now you found yourself in the dark, chilly back corner of the medical wing. On a dare. It was another Stark party, but you played Truth or Dare with the newer recruits. As the drinks kept flowing, it became clear that was a mistake. You were a little tipsy and stumbling upon the one floor with all the dangerous chemicals seemed like a fantastic idea.

Shivering chills running up your body as you walked deeper through the floor. “’Just go explore the West part of the Medical wing where we keep frozen soldiers,’ they said. ‘It’ll be fun,’ they said,” You grumbled, using your phone as a flashlight as you moved deeper into a newer, and much colder room. You froze - ha, pun – the light shining upon the clear tank in front of you. “No fucking way,” you moved closer to get a better look, but sure enough, there was James Barnes, a small sheen of ice covering the glass. Despite that, he was shirtless, leading you to see his soul mark. A palm print of freckles on his chest, directly over his heart. Well, that’s cliché.

“Well that would explain the theory,” you shrugged, deciding it probably be best if you left before you did some damage to something important. You stumbled a bit towards the door, quickly grabbing onto the nearby desk for support. In the process, you also pressed a big green button. “Well fuck.”

Smoke started to pour from the chamber as the glass covering lifted. You yelped, trying to move away again, you definitely fucked up. A soft sire made you jump, the Avengers downstairs no doubt being alerted.

As the glass finished ascending, the chamber beeped, making you jump in a yelp. You tripped again over the wiring surround the chamber, this time falling towards the now open chamber. As time slowed and you tumbled, your only thought was “Well, Steve’s gonna kill me.”

Your hand fell onto Bucky’s chest, and you finally found your balance. Well, not really. It was the still cold arm around your waist that caught your balance. Wait, that wasn’t right.

You looked up slowly, confused. Just to see an equally confused – and awake!!!! – James Barnes staring down at you. “Where … am I?” His voice was raspy, your new focus being that voice instead of the now multiple sirens going off – along with the Kill Bill sirens going off in your head. Oh God, he was awake. Oh God, you woke him up.

You yelped, jumping backward as your brain finally connected with your body. This can’t be happening. No. This shouldn’t be happening. Fight or flight response started to kick in your head, making you do a very stupid yet the only thing you could think about since you stood absolutely no chance fighting against him. Run.

He tripped after you, managing to grab onto your wrist before you could run off too far. You screeched, absolutely terrified. No one quite knew what he would be like when he woke up. For all the medical team’s troubles, he might still wake up as the Winter Soldier and not Bucky. You had fought against the Soldier in the fall of Hydra, and you weren’t looking for a repeat.

You thrashed in his arms as he pulled you against him, trying to escape. “Don’t chase me! Let me go!” You kept squirming, but even with his metal arm deactivated and only one – now very warm – arm around you, the super-soldier was much stronger than you.

“Oh god, I wasn’t chasing you!!! It was dark, and I was scared please stop screaming. I just woke up please-“ The former assassin was rambling, mind a little too scrambled to respond correctly.

He did, however, let you go, just as you stopped screaming. “Do… do you know who you are?” you tried in a soft voice, still on edge. Where the fuck was Mr. Star Spangled Ass?

“Bucky… My name was Bucky,” he whispered softly, now looking down at his chest where his mark had deepened in color to darker freckles, easily shown on his light skin.

Your eyes widened, looking down at your hand, your own freckles became more pronounced as well. “Holy shit,” you mumbled, just as Steve and Tony burst through the door, making you both jump.

“Bucky?” It took him less time to recover, now noticing both of you skimming your marks with your hands in shock. “Wait… are you two…?” His eyes glanced back and forth between the two marks.

You looked up towards the Super Soldier, unsure how to really explain the dare that tossed you at your soulmate. “Um…. Hi… Soulmate?”

-

[Read the Sequel Here!]

----

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For a tag, just reply/comment, if I don’t see it, just message me. Tell me what you think! Literally, any comment makes me happy! Like, comment, reblog, interact <3

[dordmagazine]

What The F Are Intrusive Thoughts?

Lesson brought to you by the fact that most of us are having intrusive thoughts right now, no one talks about it, it's considered taboo + scary, and tbh the psychology community does a bad job of normalizing this common evolutionary behavior.

What The F Is an Intrusive Thought?

Imagine this, you're going about your day, and suddenly you’re hit with a thought that’s bizarre, shocking, uncomfortable, triggering, or overall anxious. No reason for it, it just pops up. 

Could be the voice in your head saying the worst thing you can imagine is happening 

Could be a gut feeling followed by intense anxiety and thought spirals 

Could be thoughts of doing something shocking and out of character for you (usually sexual, violent, or suicidal)

Could be in terms of a relationship (thinking you’re not good enough, they’re not good enough, suddenly fearful of commitment despite having intense feelings for that person)

Intrusive thoughts are actually perfectly normal. Literally everyone has them, not just those with mental illnesses. Intrusive thoughts don't necessarily mean you have a mental condition you need treatment for. Intrusive thoughts are not messages, red flags, signals or warnings, despite how they feel. Even for my intuitive people, your intrusive thought doesn’t mean the situation is actually going on. It's just a thought with zero meaning behind it.

Intrusive thoughts feel so threatening because anxious thinking takes over, and the thought appears to have some intense power that it actually doesn't have.

Common intrusive thoughts we don't call "intrusive thoughts", but they really are: 

Thinking our partner doesn't want us 

Thinking our partner will leave or is cheating 

Fearing everyone at the office hates us 

Convincing ourselves we'll fail 

Thinking we'll go broke

Being afraid that fictional things will happen (ex being fearful that you’ll live the plot of a book you just read)

For some reason we don't associate this type of anxious thinking with intrusive thoughts, but they're classic intrusive thoughts. Other thoughts include thinking about having sex with someone you'd never sleep with, getting in fights, getting raped or abused.

It’s important to note, if you are having intrusive thoughts of getting raped or abused, or doing the actions, that does not mean you want to rape or abuse or get raped and abused. For people who conduct these behaviors, these are not intrusive thoughts. They don’t think much about them and move on. These thoughts cause great stress for you because they go against your values and you’d never do them.

For Example:

People who have intrusive thoughts about cheating, usually value commitment, relationships, and family.

People who have intrusive thoughts about hurting an animal, love animals and would never harm one intentionally.

People who have intrusive thoughts about their religion, are usually extremely faithful and take their faith seriously.

Intrusive thoughts are intrusive because they go against your values. You are not subconsciously represented by your intrusive thoughts.

The Science

Here’s the facts, we get intrusive thoughts for a few reasons.

First one, our brains get bored and try to entertain themselves. I wish I was kidding. We’re taught the brain is a complex thing, but it’s really a toddler. In fact the part of the brain associated with intrusive thoughts, the Amygdala, is the youngest part of the brain. It’s kinda still learning how to brain. 

When we get bored or over stimulated, the Amygdala comes up with situations, so the body can send up doses of chemicals and hormones. Our brain likes to imagine things, it’s just sometimes daydreams turn into nightmares. 

Most common reason our brain has Intrusive thoughts, is because it’s evolved to keep us safe. So it constantly scans the environment for danger, running through all the possible cases. While doing this, it generates thoughts that you are unaware of. When it hits one that causes you fear, it becomes a conscious thought.

When fear hits the body, within seconds fight or flight turns on and the Amygdala is turned screaming. It wants you to come up with a plan to stay safe if the event ever happened.

Once you do, the screaming stops. If you ignore it, sometimes the screaming gets louder. We see this a lot with patients who have OCD, the thoughts get louder or keep coming back harder when we try to ignore them.

In a way our Amygdala is saying “Can’t you see we’re in danger?”

The problem is there is rarely ever any actual danger. The Amygdala is the brains faulty security system. It’s triggered by wind the next County over.

The brain does this so that you are alerted to the potential threat and can then problem-solve your way out of it. Our brain honestly thinks it's helping us. But as I mention everytime I talk about anxiety, we're not outrunning bears anymore. We don’t need overly sensitive Amygdalas.

That’s why OCD treatment uses exposure therapy designed to reprogram how we perceive thoughts in the mind. Treatment involves pushing yourself to do what scares you and ignoring the need to control everything. Overtime the brain adjusts to your responses and you have less obsessive intrusive thoughts.

Follow Your Gut

I’m a natural intuitive. So for me to follow my intuition I had to make peace with my intrusive thoughts.

Remember, our brain doesn't know the difference between real threats or imaginary ones. The brain thinks "I thought of it, it's real". Think of it like a toddler holding an imaginary tea party. We know the cup is empty, but the kid honestly thinks imagination made tea.

I see a lot with people who are practicing their intuition or learning to trust their gut fall into the trap of feeding their intuitive thoughts. Out of nowhere they get an intrusive thought that their blessing, prayers, or manifestation isn't coming. And they freak out because they think it's divine guidance.

My dears, your intrusive thought isn't divine guidance. It's your bodies glitchy security system. Your gut, the universe, or god, didn't telling you that your person will never love you, that the job isn't coming, or that you'd never get rich or have a family.

The thing with intrusive thoughts is they often keep coming up, which tricks us into thinking that it actually means something or it's divine guidance. But the reason these thoughts come us is because we never told our brains it's not actually a danger or threat.

How To Make Them Stop

First things first, if you have intrusive thoughts find a Therapist who focuses primarily on OCD. Many Therapists claim to have worked with OCD patients but lack the education or experience to support your healing journey. 

The thing with traditional talk therapy is it can usually make OCD and Anxiety worse. If you are seeking out professional help, which I always recommend, find a Therapist who is trained in Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP). If you’re on the edge of deciding to see a therapist, there are incredible patient guided workbooks designed to help stop intrusive thoughts.

Some of our favorites are:

The ACT Workbook for OCD: Mindfulness, Acceptance, and Exposure Skills to Live Well with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Marisa T. Mazza PsyD

Brain Based Therapy for OCD: A Workbook for Clinicians and Clients by John B. Arden

Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: A CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening, Obsessive, or Disturbing Thoughts by Sally M. Winston PsyD and Martin N. Seif PhD

Brain Lock, Twentieth Anniversary Edition: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior by Jeffrey M. Schwartz

How To Be There For Someone With Intrusive Thoughts

Intrusive thoughts can effect our relationships in every way. It’s hard to see your loved one go through suffering you can’t understand.

I always explain intrusive thoughts like this:

An intrusive thought is like we watched a documentary on Bigfoot. Before it, I knew Bigfoot wasn’t real and the documentary only assured me that Bigfoot is made up. But every night I’ll be terrified that Bigfoot is outside of my window and will hurt me when I’m sleeping. So I lay awake and plan or sit in fear. Eventually, the fear will bleed into my daytime life and I’ll become scared that Bigfoot is behind me or will hurt my loved ones. And in the documentary it said people used to keep garlic in their pocket to ward off Bigfoot. So I start carrying around garlic and hiding it in my loved ones belongings. This entire time I know Bigfoot isn’t real. I know my behavior is irrational. But my body is still scared. Even if everything inside of me says Bigfoot isn’t real and even if it’s proven by Scientists. I’m still afraid.

If the person you love struggles with intrusive thoughts it helps to view everything from their perspective. You don’t need to feed into the compulsions, in fact you usually shouldn’t.

Someone suffering with Intrusive thoughts or OCD needs the people around them to be compassionate, understanding, and kind. When someone exhibits an obsessive behavior tied to intrusive thoughts ask them, “Is that an intrusive thought?” usually that’s enough to stop them the thought, even temporarily.

Another thing you can do is ask the sufferer to explain to you what they’re feeling and why they think that way. And don’t judge them for it. Simply nod and smile. People who have intrusive thoughts or OCD need to feel like they aren’t broken because of the way their brain is programed.

Remember, all their brain is doing is trying to stay safe. Treatment involves reframing thoughts and reprograming their brain. The goal isn’t to stop our Amygdala from being aware, it’s to make it less sensitive and less afraid.

Our brain needs to alert us of a flood, it doesn’t need to alert us of 5mph wind.

The important thing to remember with intrusive thoughts is to think of your brain like a toddler. It's pointing everything it thinks and sees out, making sure you see it too. All it wants you to do is say, "yes, I know. But that's not important right now." or "I think you're not seeing it correctly, it's actually this."

Having these thoughts are normal and although distressing they say nothing about your character. 

Follow us as we work to end the stigma around mental illness and keep an eye out for our full magazine set to release early January 2021.

Disclaimer: No one at DORD is a medical professional, meaning we provide education from our first hand experience (and our Editor In Chief’s Psychology Degree). If your intrusive thoughts cause you great discomfort, contact a license professional. If you think you're going to hurt yourself or someone else, contact a professional. If you'd like to know how to get in touch with a professional, shoot us a DM and we’ll gladly help connect you with the appropriate resources.

[aradyke]

playlists pt one: lowbloods

aradia: Alive & Amplified - The Mooney Suzuki | Madness - Muse | 1901 - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix | She Don't Use Jelly - The Flaming Lips | Dreams - The Cranberries | All I Want Is You - Barry Louis Polisar | Calling All the Monsters - China Anne McClain | Momentz (feat. De La Soul) - Gorillaz | Ghosts That We Knew - Mumford & Sons | Tick Tick Boom - The Hives | If We Never Go Inside - Alkaline Trio | Out of the Black - Royal Blood | Wait for the Blackout - Alkaline Trio | Buried - Alkaline Trio | Live Young, Die Fast - Alkaline Trio | Fine Again - Seether | I, Pessimist - Alkaline Trio | Skeleton Inside! - The Aquabats! | Plastic Lips! - The Aquabats! | Hello, Good Night - The Aquabats!

tavros: Hats Off to the Bull - Chevelle | Double Bass - Gorillaz | I'll Fly Away - Gillian Welch and Allison Krauss | Smoothie Song - Nickel Creek | Poor Boy's Delight - The Infamous Stringdusters | Only - Nine Inch Nails | Lead Poisoning - Alkaline Trio | Suffocate - Cold | Broken Wing - Alkaline Trio | Stupid Kid - Alkaline Trio | Nerd Alert! - The Aquabats!

sollux: The Funeral - Band of Horses | Madness - Muse | The Royal We - Silversun Pickups | Only Happy When It Rains - Garbage | Social Cues - Cage the Elephant | how will i rest in peace if i'm buried by a highway?// - KennyHoopla | Dracula - Gorillaz | First of the Year (Equinox) - Skrillex | Everlong - Foo Fighters | Ghosts That We Knew - Mumford & Sons | Charger (feat. Grace Jones) - Gorillaz | Double Bass - Gorillaz | Technologic - Daft Punk | Little Talks - Of Monsters and Men | Cough Syrup - Young the Giant | Flagpole Sitta - Harvey Danger | If We Never Go Inside - Alkaline Trio | Mercy Me - Alkaline Trio | Loser - Beck | Prevent This Tragedy - Alkaline Trio | Mr. Chainsaw - Alkaline Trio | Turn Up the Radio - OK Go | Dead End Road - Alkaline Trio | Lost and Rendered - Alkaline Trio | Bloodied Up - Alkaline Trio | You're Dead - Alkaline Trio | Honey On My Tongue - Steep Canyon Rangers | Heart Attacks - Alkaline Trio | Just Can't Lose! - The Aquabats! | Nerd Alert! - The Aquabats! | Brain Stew - Green Day

karkat: Get Over It - OK Go | Superman's Dead - Our Lady Peace | Kansas - Gorillaz | Punk - Gorillaz | Little Lion Man - Mumford & Sons | original me (feat. dan reynolds of imagine dragons) - YUNGBLUD | Flagpole Sitta - Harvey Danger | We're In This Together - Nine Inch Nails | Green and Gray - Nickel Creek | Careless - Royal Blood | Where Are You Now? - Royal Blood | Sleep - Royal Blood | Hating Every Minute - Alkaline Trio | I'm Not Okay (I Promise) - My Chemical Romance | We're Going to Be Friends - The White Stripes | Out of My League - Fitz and the Tantrums | Message From Kathlene - Alkaline Trio | Sorry About That - Alkaline Trio | Iris - The Goo Goo Dolls | Worn So Thin - Alkaline Trio | B.F.F.! - The Aquabats!

nepeta: Hello Kitty - Avril Lavigne | Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen | Lollipop - Mika | Best Friend - Toy Box | Donner Party (All Night) - Alkaline Trio | Dead And Broken - Alkaline Trio | White Knuckles - OK Go | Lovers of Loving Love - The Aquabats!

kanaya: Killer Queen - Queen | Cut the Cord - Shinedown | Jenny - Studio Killers | Bad Romance - Lady GaGa | Blue Carolina - Alkaline Trio | Love Like Winter - AFI | Kiss and Control - AFI | I Blew It Off - Punch Brothers | Draculina - Alkaline Trio | Fashion Zombies! - The Aquabats! | Martian Girl! - The Aquabats!

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #228

Thurs Apr 30 2020 [07:47 PM] Wack'd: Johnny never struck me as a "literal jump for joy" kind of guy but he might just want to piss off Ben

[07:48 PM] Bocaj: I tried to do that jump and click heels thing but I don't wear shoes that click so I don't know why I bothered [07:49 PM] Wack'd: Hey so remember that girl at the racetrack Johnny turned down because he was nostalgic for Crystal? Well he's cool now and they're goin out

[07:49 PM] Bocaj: I can see how she won him over. "I've got a jacuzzi at my place" "You **DO**--?" [07:50 PM] Wack'd: Anyway Lorrie is coming over to meet the family so Johnny must be serious about her [07:51 PM] Wack'd: Unfortunately for him Reed just made a last-minute doctor's appointment for Franklin to use his neurologist friend's machine to peek at his mind [07:51 PM] Bocaj: Uh [07:51 PM] Bocaj: Sure [07:52 PM] Umbramatic: wha [07:52 PM] maxwellelvis: I smell wacky sitc-oh [07:52 PM] Wack'd: Sue is like "springing this on Franklin might make him freak out" and Reed, is...a good parent? [07:52 PM] maxwellelvis: Alert the Times [07:52 PM] Wack'd: He's like "hey, why don't we just be straight with Franklin and ask him if this is something he's okay with" [07:53 PM] Bocaj: Hello, The Times? This is your cousin, Marty. Do you know that headline you were looking for? Well listen to THIS [07:53 PM] Wack'd: And Franklin's like "yeah okay that sounds like a good idea, I also want to make sure I know how not to hurt people" [07:53 PM] Wack'd: A smart kid [07:54 PM] Umbramatic: this is going suspiciously well [07:55 PM] Wack'd: Hey, Ben. Buddy. Stop it

[07:55 PM] Bocaj: aw ben c'mon [07:56 PM] Wack'd: Thankfully he quickly regains his composure [07:56 PM] maxwellelvis: Before he drools so much he could be mistaken for Niagara Falls [07:57 PM] Wack'd: Anyway Reed's like "hey why doesn't everyone come with us to get Franklin's head checked out" for. Some reason [07:58 PM] Wack'd: Lorrie's a gearhead so she's into the idea of hanging around and riding in the Fantasticar [07:58 PM] Wack'd: BEN C'MON

[08:01 PM] Wack'd: Anyway, turns out the guy running Franklin's tests is one of Reed and Ben's old college professors. He is not a fan of Ben's attitude [08:03 PM] Wack'd: So Franklin's tests begin! They start with card guessing. Franklin's not great at it [08:04 PM] Bocaj: Do neurologists usually test ESP [08:04 PM] Wack'd: The professor points out that if Franklin's powers come at moments of stress it's likely that he's simply not got them turned on right now, chemically speaking [08:05 PM] Wack'd: Reed's like "we're not traumatizing my kid for science" and the professor's like "well no, obviously not, but we might be able to do something else to create that chemical reaction in his brain as needed" [08:05 PM] maxwellelvis: "You're not drugging my kid for science" [08:05 PM] Wack'd: Oh no, nothing so mundane [08:06 PM] maxwellelvis: You have me on tenterhooks. [08:06 PM] Umbramatic: oh no [08:07 PM] Wack'd: So what the scientist actually says is "we might be able to help Franklin achieve a state of such zen that he can manipulate his own brain chemicals." But the pictures tell...a different story

[08:07 PM] Bocaj: Garnet shoves the doctor aside. "Here comes a thought" [08:08 PM] Umbramatic: eeep [08:08 PM] maxwellelvis: "In such a state, one could walk on hot coals, sleep on a bed of spikes, and get a shot from the doctor without being scared or even needing a lollipop!" [08:08 PM] Wack'd: He's having his blood pressure taken actually [08:09 PM] maxwellelvis: Mine's funnier [08:09 PM] Wack'd: Anyway a quick google reveals that biofeedback is a real thing insofar as it's something that didn't originate in this comic [08:10 PM] Wack'd: It's apparently really good for stopping urinary incontinence in people with vaginas, and okay in dealing with some mental disorders, but doesn't work for much else [08:11 PM] Bocaj: Neurologist: "So we can't prove for sure it doesn't work for superpowers HUH??" [08:11 PM] Wack'd: Forty years have passed and most scientific studies on it are comparatively recent [08:12 PM] Phantom: and none on superpowers :P? [08:12 PM] Wack'd: So at a guess this was basically a health trend for the sort of folks who these days think LaCroix is a health treatment [08:12 PM] Phantom: probably [08:13 PM] Wack'd: The LaCroix comparison might be way too generous, we're in Sawbones territory now

[08:14 PM] Bocaj: Eesh [08:14 PM] Wack'd: Anyway Mr. "With Enough Mindfulness You Can Cure Cancer" decides to try hypnosis therapy on Franklin [08:14 PM] maxwellelvis: "You're not a real doctor, are you?" [08:15 PM] Wack'd: This man's classes were part of Reed's doctorate program [08:16 PM] Wack'd: Johnny and Lorrie meanwhile decide to go on a date and do the Superman thing

[08:17 PM] Wack'd: Freddie Mercury: You've made a powerful enemy this day, Human Torch

[08:19 PM] Wack'd: Franco Mercury challenges Johnny to a game of chicken in his portion of the Fantasticar [08:19 PM] Wack'd: Interspersed with Franklin finally getting in the machine [08:20 PM] Wack'd: I feel like there's supposed to be some kinda causal link but I have no idea what on Earth it might be

[08:20 PM] Wack'd:

[08:20 PM] Bocaj: Franklin was Johnny all along? [08:21 PM] Wack'd: So Franklin's brain vomited some "psychic ectoplasm" [08:21 PM] Bocaj: Wow this guy is dipping into every bit of paranormal bric a brac [08:21 PM] Bocaj: Are we sure his degree is real [08:22 PM] maxwellelvis: Are we sure Reed wasn't also classmates with Ray or Egon? [08:22 PM] Umbramatic: his degree is in "quackology" [08:22 PM] Wack'd: The true identity of the narrator of The Amazing World of Ghosts [08:22 PM] Bocaj: Do Reed Mi Egon [08:23 PM] Wack'd: ...what

[08:24 PM] Wack'd: Franklin...vomited his brain into this guy? And...and now Franklin's Franco? [08:26 PM] Umbramatic: Franklin Meurcury [08:26 PM] Wack'd: Boy, science is really taking some kinda beating this issue

[08:27 PM] Bocaj: Uhhhhhhhhhh [08:27 PM] Bocaj: Franklin is too powerful for his angsts to be doing this [08:27 PM] Umbramatic: science: "i love the young people" [08:28 PM] Bocaj: I EAT KIDS [08:28 PM] Wack'd: Yay Sue! Also not sure how I feel about this new invisibility effect

[08:29 PM] maxwellelvis: Feels more like showing off. [08:29 PM] maxwellelvis: Or at least, the sort of effect that really should have waited until digital inking was more viable. [08:29 PM] Bocaj: The invisibility is not very not visible [08:30 PM] maxwellelvis: "Due to a compatibility issue with Windows 95 graphics cards, the Invisible Woman is now extra-visible. To keep things fair, please close your eyes when fighting her." [08:31 PM] Wack'd: "It's not that I don't trust you, Abe. It's that all your theories are dangerous quackery and also you nearly got my son killed"

[08:33 PM] maxwellelvis: (That's not some weird non-sequitor, I'm paraphrasing the manual for Doom's Windows 95 port there; with some Windows-compatible graphics cards, there was a weird bug that made invisible enemies like Spectres less than invisible. The manual joked that you should make things more fair by closing your eyes if you encounters this bug.) [08:34 PM] Wack'd: Letters letters letters! [08:34 PM] Wack'd: ...i think i hate letters now

[08:36 PM] InbarFink: Letter pages are just glorified youtube comments [08:36 PM] Bocaj: Eesh [08:37 PM] Bocaj: Around this same time ish there were letters in the avengers comics complaining wasp is too weak and ineffectual and the response said they’d work on it [08:37 PM] Bocaj: So it’s not universal among fans at this time at least [08:38 PM] Wack'd: I'm just like [08:38 PM] Wack'd: The one time I can remember you print letters from ladies [08:39 PM] Wack'd: This is what you go with? [08:40 PM] Bocaj: Yeah it sucks [08:40 PM] InbarFink: would it be conspiratorial to sugget they got a LOT of letters about it and most of them were from dudes and they just picked the two with lady names on them [08:40 PM] Bocaj: No it wouldn’t [08:41 PM] Wack'd: I mean if that is true [08:41 PM] Wack'd: Good on them for not printing male misogynists? [08:41 PM] Wack'd: But just because a point of view comes from a woman doesn't make it worth your time [08:42 PM] Wack'd: Letters like "Murder your female lead" and "I prefer when she was hysterical submissive crying and helpless" are ones you can safely ignore no matter who they come from [08:42 PM] Bocaj: Yeah [08:43 PM] Bocaj: I wish unlimited was more consistent on whether they include the letters page [08:43 PM] Bocaj: It’s interesting to me [08:43 PM] Wack'd: Same [08:43 PM] maxwellelvis: "I'm not saying I WANT her to be killed, but I don't like her saving the day and that she should get beat up more" [08:43 PM] Wack'd: Hart literally says she wants Sandman to murder her! [08:44 PM] Bocaj: Wait until Ultimate hart, ya weirdo [08:44 PM] Wack'd: Alright let's move on. The current direction, whatever it ends up being, is only going to end up mattering for another three issues anyway [08:45 PM] Bocaj: Can’t wait for you to experience Byrne so I can also vicariously

[warofchanges]

Ophelia

It's within human nature to get attached to things that are not even alive - and we think it's wrong and devious, all considered true values shouldn't be influenced by the material world. But whether it's right or wrong, we should give up on judgment. Does the possession of a certain object bring us joy? Does its loss make you feel vulnerable, if not completely exposed to other people's judgment?

(Well, Light wouldn't certainly want to lose the Death Note and he wouldn't even imagine how just a simple black notebook made him feel so happy and alive.)

Last but not least, scientific studies have shown that possessing material needs and goods increases the biochemical substance in our brain called dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter and chemical receptor in our brain, responsible for emotions such as sadness, happiness, and anger. So, again, and given his own experience, Light wouldn't ever judge someone's attachment to a lifeless object.

But... there are exceptions.

“What are you doing?”

It's early in the morning when Light enters the bathroom for his skincare routine. You can't be taken as a serious God of the New World with microscopic teenage pimples and the skin color of a zombie after all.

He's not even surprised to find the bathroom already occupied by his roommate, he had given up on any common sense of privacy when Beyond started living in his apartment. And he's not even surprised to see the black polish nail and various makeup items scattered all over the sink, a sight that inevitably makes his brows furrowing in annoyance.

“Careful, careful of your crow's feet, baby God! It looks like a hoard of chicken ran all over your face!” Smudged black-rimmed eyes snicker at the exasperated reflection of Light in the mirror. Beyond goes on to brush his wild hair with what looks like a hairpin, ignoring Light's first question. Light really hopes he's still sleepy because it's absurd and surreal to see someone brushing their hair with a little hairpin that of course can't be a proper substitute for a comb.

“What are you doing?” He asks again, leaning closer just to reach for his skin toner and the moisturizer in the cabinet. As his arm lowers with the prized products in hand, the hairpin is inches away Light's eyes and Beyond's pointy nose is almost digging in his chin with a mysterious and dangerous aura.

“What the hell, Beyond?!”

Living with a sociopath murderer surely sharpens one's survival instincts and Light should somehow be grateful for that, though a more appreciated gift would be avoiding any futile shock at 8 in the morning with just four hours of sleep left behind and have five minutes alone in the damn bathroom. But oh no, Beyond Birthday doesn't look like sharing the same thought.

 A little scuffle occurs next, ending up with the noisy clattering of metallic bottles hitting the floor and black petals of polish nail blossoming in the sink while Light and Beyond's arms are tangled in a sort of deadly embrace; Light's fingers are painfully stretched in the effort to keep away the murderous weapon, shinning in faux innocence in the grasp of Beyond's claws.

“So rude of you, Yagami. I wanted to introduce you Ophelia.” Beyond shrugged in a rather melodramatic way, kissing the tip of the hairpin as he steps back. Light can finally take a breath when Beyond's whatever-new-weapon stops threatening his eyes and he raises a brow, perplexed. “Ophelia?” Then his glance turns from the hairpin to Beyond's pout several times before letting out a sigh. “It's a hairpin. And why were you using it to brush your hair?” Light's aware it's futile to keep up a conversation with a freak murderer, but Beyond's such a drama queen and he would complain despite all Light's effort to ignore him. So better let him speak and be done with whatever new idiocy the man came up with.

“It's not a simple hairpin! Don't insult her!”

Beyond's high-pitched yell pierces the wall of Light's patience, dangerously crumbling under his need to strangle the man once for all. What a pity the Death Note doesn't work with a half Shinigami...

“I'm stating facts.”

“Because you can't recognize a true genius. But...” The hairpin waltzes in the air, too close to Light's eyes again and the teen huffs in frustration, stepping back while applying the cream onto his face. “Ophelia is wonderful! I would be lost without her!” Beyond seems to be ignoring Light's horrified expression as he pirouettes on himself, bare feet kicking the makeup bottles everywhere nonchalantly and kissing the hairpin with the devotion of a true lover. “She's so good at cleaning knives! You should see it yourself how shiny they are now!”

“Beyond, really, do you-”

“And she's the ultimate toothbrush! I can give you a demonstration right away!”

“NO, THANKS.”

 Light exits the bathroom minutes later, followed by Beyond's mocking singing “You don't know love 'til it tears up your heart... And cuts it and leeeeaaaaves you with scars! You're still feeeeeling... You don't know love~”.

Ryuk snickers observing the psychopath singing and holding the hairpin like a microphone, somehow fascinated by human brilliance. “Neh Light-o.” He calls for the teen, twisting his body enough to get a glimpse of Light preparing his school bag. “Would that thing be helpful to scratch my feathers? I'm a little itchy right here...”

Light simply shakes his head and gets out as quickly as he can.

 Why am I surrounded by idiots?

 The apartment is too quiet when Light gets back home in the late afternoon. The roller shutters are closed and each room is wrapped in a comfortable dark blanket, any sound engulfed in a quiet bubble where you can lie down and rest for hours in a dreamless state. Light steps in on tiptoes carefully, it's the quiet before the storm he tells himself because his sixth sense knows something is off - yes, but what? Even Ryuk seems strangely alert, eyes gleaming with curiosity in the direction of the soft yellow light coming from the bathroom.

Light follows behind, but he stops in the middle of the corridor when a low whine echoes through the walls. 

"O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow! Yes child, you died, carried off by a river! It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom."

Beyond's dramatic play is on stage, a black figure curled over the bathtub with trembling hands in his messy hair to enforce the desperation shaking his body and candles glowing in the darkness of the room.

Light inhales and exhales one, two, three times before he announces his presence with a slight tapping of fingers against the door. "What the hell is happening here?" His eyes squint to catch a sight of what is in the bathtub. The candles enlighten the frame of something small floating on the water, a paper boat perhaps?

Without even waiting for an answer, Light switches on the light, breaking the soothing magic of the darkness and the candles. 

"You monster! You ruined the funeral!" 

Beyond turns to yell at Light, black streams of makeup running down his cheeks. Light can't tell if he cried for real or if it's just for the theatrical scene. It doesn't matter anyway. 

"What are you talking about?!"

There's effectively a paper boat floating on the water and the residuals of… Ophelia the hairpin, yes, is lying inside. So...

"She died!"

The truth hits and sinks in with all the desperation of a broken heart, though Light isn't touched by the little show -most likely he wonders why he felt so benevolent to give Beyond a home, to accept his help, who cares if the Death Note can't kill him, there are always other methods… Ah, he really regrets his past choice now.

Ryuk pats on Beyond's shoulder as his tall figure looms over the bathtub to get a look at the broken hairpin. Too bad, he won't ever know if that thing is useful to scratch his feathers.

"My condolence. I can… uh… share an apple with you if ya want."

"Thanks, Ryuk."

Light stands in front of the tub, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Maybe, just maybe, if he closes his eyes for a while, everything will disappear. Beyond, the candles, Ryuk, the petals of rose drowning in the water, the paper boat, and that damn hairpin.

"Beyond."

"Yeah?"

"End this farce quickly, please."

"You heartless little piece of shit, you-" 

"Now."

Beyond sniffs loudly and mutters something unintelligible between gritted teeth before turning towards the dead hairpin. His eyes soften and are filled with pure love while he removes the drain stopper, letting the water running down along with the paper boat and the petals. The motion causes the paper to mash into the water, forming a conglomerate that inevitably blocks the drain. The broken pieces of the hairpin stick into the tube, as if clinging desperately to a life it's never had. 

"My queen! Evil till the end!" 

Beyond claps his hands with tears of joy running down his cheeks, while Light lets out an exasperated sigh and decides to leave the bathroom before his hands accidentally slip to strangle the sociopath murderer. 

"You have five minutes to clean this damn mess or I will throw away all your damn books."

It was a bad idea to give the man all those Shakespeare's books to read… A God should have foreseen the possible consequence of his choices.

[docfuture]

Princess, part 10

      [This story is a prequel, set several years before The Fall of Doc Future, when Flicker is 16.  Links to some of my other work are here.  Updates were theoretically biweekly–more realistically, I’m going to try to get the next one out by early July.]

Previous: Part 9

      Flicker was going to lose pieces of self.  She could put memory summaries in the Database, but that wasn't enough.  She could only permanently store her emotional context in her squishy human brain, which was offline.  This constricted connections between memory, place, and time.  Her older memories should be intact.  When the isotope exchanges were complete and she could finally restart everything and heal, everything should still be there.  But that didn't help now; anything old that she didn't already have loaded into her speed mind was inaccessible, and any new context would be ephemeral--gone after her next proper sleep.       And that 'should'... wasn't a would.  Itchy spots in her speed mind hinted at losses on the boundary, reflexes and habits needed for her squishy and speed halves to work together that she might have to relearn.  Her speech synchronization problems might return, or her chronic self-interrupting.  Old sensory issues might come back, too.       Those losses might extend to memory access.  Which was a little scary.  Moments perfectly preserved in a box did her no good if she forgot where she put the box.  Perhaps because the original link to the first box was now in a junk box labeled 'Misc' on a shelf somewhere.       But that was life when she wasn't technically alive, with a heart that couldn't beat, lungs that couldn't breathe, and a whole reconstituted flesh body locked down in suspended chemical animation while the isotope exchanger worked.  Force fields helped protect everything else from her still-considerable radioactivity.  She probably wouldn't remember exactly how the half-pain, half-itching from her speed body felt, or how her claustrophobia was combining with sensory deprivation to make everything more unpleasant.  The best she could do was to take notes for the Database, which she could finally talk to again.  Slowly.       Doc had rigged up inductors to transmit visual signals that her speed mind could sense.  They could give her low res video if she slowed down to near human speed, but for anything faster she was limited to text.  She was already used to virtual typing, and there were more inductors to pick that up.  The biggest problem was lag--if she typed too fast, she had to wait and watch characters slowly appear to catch typos.  She was watching slowly updating video stills of Doc as a background while they talked by text.       It was way better than nothing.       "... too many versions of the 'alien invasion' story out," sent Doc.  "It wasn't worth trying to correct them.  The Volunteer kept his press brief honest but short and vague--he mentioned non-hostile non-humans who were injured but would recover, he just didn't say they were whales--and then flew off before anyone could ask him any more questions."       "Okay," sent Flicker.  "Can we go back a bit?  No immediate crisis is good.  But I'm still missing a lot.  It's making my mind itch.  More.  It's itching for other reasons, too, but this you can help fix."       "No problem.  What first?"       "What was the bit with Breakpoint?  He wasn't trying to warn you or me?"       "No.  I got a notification just as you started your final run.  The warning was for Journeyman, he listened, and the danger passed."       "More details, please?  Did you forward the warning?"       "I didn't need to; Journeyman was standing beside him.  That was one of the precautions I arranged before you left, and they were quite willing to help.  Journeyman had his own detection setup coordinated with the Database, and they had the attack triangulated in a fraction of a second.  And then Breakpoint got the danger sense spike, just before Journeyman wanted to port, which delayed them for a second."       "A trap?"       "Possibly.  But I think a potential time loop was more likely."       "Caused by what?"       "I don't know."       "Surely you have a theory?"       "Lots.  Theories are easy, distinguishing them is harder," sent Doc.  "Too many parameters we don't know.  But your trap did confirm the attack was based on some kind of foreknowledge--the timing was far too precise for any other explanation to make sense.  Perhaps Journeyman and Breakpoint would have caught the attacker, triggering a loop.  Or killed it, with the same result.  Or they did get caught in a loop and broke out."       "How would that even work?"       "Several possible ways.  Time loop theories are hard to falsify.  But after it was safe, they ported in and swept the arrival location for clues.  The attacker apparently came from and returned to the Topaz Realm, a common intermediate stop for interdimensional travelers who wish to evade pursuit or tracking.  The two of them declined to pursue further, and returned unhurt, though rather drained from the double port.  Journeyman went to ground quote 'somewhere safe' unquote, and Breakpoint is with Jumping Spider.  I'm sure we'll get additional details later, but the attacker was almost certainly an extradimensional being who portaled in specifically to try to assassinate you, with implications of harm to the entire planet."       "And got away.  Whee."       "An overt repeat attempt seems unlikely.  This was a clear worldwide threat, in a way Hermes was not, and now there is a specific event to track from.  The compatible world probability background has shifted by quite a bit.  There are a wide variety of entities with extraordinary perceptions and abilities that are now aware of the attacker and united in the desire for Earth to keep existing, if little else.  The Database has been getting messages from all over the world.  Hideki told me he already had to gently dissuade a group of young Japanese superhumans from charging off on an interdimensional mission of vengeance.  They vividly recall your help during the quake, and feel inclined to track down whoever tried to kill you given the slightest opportunity.  I was also asked to convey their wishes for your speedy recovery."       "That's..."       Some emotional thing.  But Flicker didn't have a working human brain to feel it, and her emulator wasn't up to the task.       "...nice."       She sent a note to the Database to relay a socially safe thank you.  Her mind still itched.       "Okay," she sent.  "Thanks for the summary.  Now... I have a problem.  Your UI works--I can talk to you and the Database.  And if the exchanger were going to be done in a couple of hours, that would be enough.  But it's going to take longer.  I can tolerate the physical part--but I'm not so sure about the psychological.  Sensory dep, and I have to keep shifting what I'm doing to maintain concentration.  I've been recording the more organized parts of my raw impressions and alerts into the Database.  But it's as tedious as hand-typing an endless stream of hex codes.  That's making my attention wander.  I've lost my spot a couple of times already and had to pattern match to find it again.  I hate to complain, but is there anything better you can manage?"       A pause, and the background picture updated to show Doc with his hands clasped in front of his face, looking somber.  Then he started typing again.       "I've been fabbing something that may help.  I'll let you know when it's ready."       The rhythm of the isotope exchanger changed slightly, the ion beams stopped, and the discomfort eased a little.  A message from the Database appeared:       "First pass complete, left leg."       "Well," sent Doc.  "Ready to start lowering the tritium load in the bone marrow of your other leg?"       "Yes.  But it doesn't really matter," she sent back.  "It's the next thing.  We need to get as much as we can done while I keep my chemistry clamped down or I don't get a livable body back."       "Yes.  We may be able to speed up later.  But at least it's working."       "Yeah..."       *****       Tedious hours passed.  Then there was a pause and shift, while radiation-hardened robots installed a new set of inductors for her head, along with an elaborate set of shielding, wiring and cooling pipes.  Flicker took an all too brief run around Doc's test range.  Even though she was still blind and deaf, the flow of air and the sudden bright crispness of her mass sense made it a welcome break.  But she made a little of that air radioactive--she was still giving off too many neutrons--so it would have been indulgence to stay outside the force fields for more than a millisecond or two.       Then tests and adjustments.  Fiddly and annoying, but Doc was determined not to set off an immune reaction from Flicker's high speed nervous system, and DASI concurred with the need for caution.       Another shift... And a world turned on.       A better interface, through a virtual body representation.  Audio, distorted but functional.  Video.  And faster text and data when Flicker sped up.  The grinding background of confinement, restlessness and inability to fully relax was still there.  As was the discomfort from the isotope exchanger.  But her sensory deprivation was greatly reduced.  It worked.       There was one rather jarring issue.       "I feel this sense of cosmic dread," she said.  "Like I'm on the edge of a precipice to dimensions I can't even see, and might at any moment slip and lose my connection to sanity, or drag anything and everything I care about into the abyss."       "Good," said Doc.  "Sounds like your alarm systems are appropriately compatible."  The wide video window showing his image floated in front of her.  The darkness around the edges was still flecked with the writhing static of closed-eye hallucinations, but they were less intrusive.       "Good?  It's not exactly--"  She blinked and suddenly everything was gone, then the old interface returned--text and a fixed picture.  And the static everywhere else.  She sped up.       "DASI?" she sent.  "What happened?"       "You blinked for too long, and the interface interpreted it as a user shutdown request.  I can adjust that, but the safety shutdown thresholds are necessarily quite stringent.  One moment."       Another blink and Doc was back, eyebrow raised.  Half a second had passed.       "--fun," she finished.       "Fun was not a design goal," said Doc.  "This is a high performance multi-sense cybernetic interface.  It's not remotely safe.  The basic sensory relays I started you with were already as high-bandwidth as I could manage safely.  But they weren't enough.  I don't know how to make a full cybernetic interface that's comfortable but not psychologically addictive.  I keep the controller in the vaults for a reason.  I fabbed spare inductors.  They'll probably break frequently.  And shut down for other reasons.  Don't get attached to the interface.  I wouldn't even consider using it if your biological brain was functional.  I put together a list of other ways it's dangerous.  It's just not as dangerous as risking sensory deprivation for what might be days."       "Okay.  But if you think the alarm system for my high speed mind is compatible with a cybernetic interface... Don't I already have one?"       Doc looked down, then back up.  "Possibly.  But you'll want to be careful how you conceptualize that.  Because right now, if your body has a cybernetic interface, you might be that interface.  So it's not a good time to shift your self image."       "Yeah, yeah, because my flesh body is dead," said Flicker.  "I get it.  My internal conceptualization has been pretty consistent.  Messed up, but consistent.  It's like a meat demon with a little metal bug on the forehead.  High speed mind is the bug.  And only the demon is dead.  The bug is mostly worried about staying sane and connected.  And I've got the connected part now, but sane requires something to do.  I can't move while the exchanger is working, can't put things in long-term memory, and my emotion emulation is bad, so my options are limited."       Doc put a hand on his chin and looked back at her image in the video window.  "Could definitely be worse.  You'll want to test the interface at speed.  DASI will keep monitoring.  Perhaps we can tune down the doom response a bit.  And Armadillo will be here in a little while.  She's rather better at cheering people up than I am.  I'm sure she'll be happy to talk about whatever you want."       "Might help a little.  But I'm not sure talking will be enough.  Sec."       Flicker sped up.  The interface speed lagged noticeably and the temperature of the inductors rose.  The temperature in her brain would have gone up too, if she hadn't already been entropy dumping to get rid of the heat from radioactive decay and the isotope exchanger.  She skimmed the hazard list.  Doc hadn't been exaggerating.  And the full interface would not be able to keep up with her mind if she sped up all the way.  The problem was cooling, which was the usual problem that stopped Doc after he'd solved everything else.       So.  Use restraint.  Don't push it all the way to the limit, and it would break less frequently.  She adjusted some preferences with DASI's help, so the interface would gradually degrade to monochrome text and virtual typing input at higher speeds.  That would give her fast responsiveness as well as the increased sensory feedback she needed when she slowed back down.  A few tests verified it worked.       At DASI's suggestion, she tried taking notes at speed with the better interface as a direct substitute for long term memory.  A slower and more structured version of the memory dumps she did before sleeping when her memory was overleveraged and she couldn't stuff everything into squishy brain in time.  With the memory dumps, she could put keys into her squishy brain to connect by reference--but not with everything locked down.       More tests.  The notes were accurate on rereading, though seemed kind of passive-aggressively gloomy.  Upon reflection, she decided that was accurate as well.       What to do?  The data from Speedtest was recorded.  Talking was... talk.  Little point in reading or trying to learn.  Introspection could become a problem fast--her mood was already pretty dark.  But she couldn't get renewal from physical rest, so she was going to slowly go squirrelly from lack of sleep and contact with squishy brain.  And she already felt the kind of frustrated dissatisfaction that she usually handled by going on patrol.  Then she might still end up frustrated, but at least she'd saved lives.  Now she couldn't even do that.       She wasn't helpless.  She still had a net connection, her database node, and assorted bots, both physical and virtual.  But what was safe to try?  She slowed back down.       "Interface works," she said.  "But the doom abyss is getting old real fast."       Doc was studying his own display intently.  He tapped out something on his keyboard then looked up.  "How's that?"       The tension eased somewhat.  "Better," she said.  "Less cosmic dread, more dangerous machinery in operation alert.  I can live with that.  But I could really use something to do."       He shook his head ruefully.  "I understand.  Sometimes the hardest thing to do is nothing.  But you have a very good chance of surviving your bit of existential roulette if you can manage to keep yourself together and stationary long enough for the exchanger to do its work."       She frowned.  "Is that what you call the kind of trap I set?  I thought you said we're safe now."       "No, I said further direct attacks were unlikely.  Whether that's because they wouldn't succeed or aren't necessary is still open.  We can't be reasonably certain until the next time you sleep, then wake up functional and something approximating sane."       "That's disturbing."       "Yes.  But what's done is done."       "So you don't think trying it was a good idea?"       "I'm reserving judgement.  And if you were going to try, the Moon was a better place than Earth.  You minimized direct collateral damage.  However..."  A crooked grin.  "Now probably isn't the best time for critical analysis.  Survival and data recording were the right priorities once you made it back.  We can hash out details later."       "Yeah, but it does give me something to focus on, which I need.  I think that finally getting to go fast was so wonderful, so freeing, that I got overconfident."       Doc studied her image for a moment.  "Based on my preliminary analysis of the Database summaries, I think you may be underestimating another effect.  I can explain, if you think it will help."       "Well, yeah."       "When you left the earth's atmosphere, you were hit with mental changes and a flood of alarms and activations on top of your acrophobia.  Which you coped with very well.  I think your caution, careful safety compartmentalization, and lockdown checking were absolutely correct and optimal reactions.  Having a previously unknown part of your mind wake up and suggest you mess with Planck's constant locally?  That would have terrified me.  But you handled it."       Doc waved a hand.  "That was a way more drastic reaction than I expected, and means I need to rework a lot of my theories.  Anyway, you took care of everything, and landed safely.  You jumped to the Moon.  Your landing message sounded like you were euphoric."       "I was."       "And your fear went away.  You had mass again, the alarms stopped, and you were finally getting to run Speedtest.  Of course you were feeling great.  And I made a mistake.  Before you started your final run, I suggested you go as fast as you felt safe.  I didn't include a stronger warning because I didn't want to interfere with your joy.  But I knew.  I know that feeling, it's Now I Am Invincible, it's incredibly dangerous for a superhero, and I knew the way you usually keep it in check is your care for all the people and other living things on Earth, and there was nothing living on the Moon except you."       He looked down.  "I should have warned you.  I didn't.  I'm sorry."       "Doc, no," said Flicker.  "I'd have done it anyway.  Nobody died.  I got the data.  And whoever or whatever that was, we needed to know about them, and now we do.  I'm going to keep going."       She bared her teeth.  "Even when I can't move for a while."       Doc kept looking down for a moment, then wiped his eyes and looked back up.  "Yeah.  On that note, it's time to move the exchanger focus again, and Armadillo is here.  Shall I invite her in?"       "Sure.  And thank you for--"  She waved the hand of her virtual body.  "This, and the list of reasons why it's dangerous.  Both.  They both help."       The crooked smile was back.  "I do what I can manage."

Next:  Part 11

[gwoongi]

𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗅𝖺𝗌𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝗎𝗌 ✰ taehyung (1)

𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗅𝖺𝗌𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝗎𝗌 kim taehyung / reader genre: zombie apocalypse au words: 6793

You just wanted humanity to survive.

warnings: violence, swearing, sexual content, gore and blood, death, taboo themes, drug and alcohol use

a/n: hi!! this has been in the works for literally. a year. maybe even longer. it has caused me so much pain and stress + im so happy to be putting her out into the world!!!!! thank you for all your endless support and i hope u all like this fic!!!!!!! :D ((it is a revised version of my older “the last of us” fic on cosykims!)) 

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01. denver ↝ 02. holiday with me ↝ 03. sad forever ↝ 04. surely ↝ 05. scorpion ↝ 06. shakespeare

“...city centre is now closed until further notice, after a bomb was detected near the subway station at 3:45pm. Reports say that the bomb was not a hoax, and was indeed planted there by foreign intel…”

“After three major bomb alerts in cities across the country, the senator has released a statement saying the following: Relations with foreign powers are continuing to get worse. Bombs are being planted around our country, and the threat of nuclear war is among us. Currently there are no dramatic changes, but our channel will keep everybody within the area notified.”

“...I repeat, this is not a drill. North Korea have finally declared nuclear war on the western hemisphere, challenging other powers to ready their weapons and start to fight. Curfew is now under way, and everybody must report to nearby shelters in the case of an emergency. May God be with you all.”

“...thanks, Janet. What we are seeing here is the aftermath of what appears to be catastrophic damage done by a foreign bomb in New York City. Thousands of people are suspected to be dead and bombs are still being detected in the radar. This is no longer a fantasy - this is the reality of our country. God Bless America.”

“...months after the fighting has ceased across the Globe, the Government have set up control areas to prevent the possibility of an infection, of which was caused by the toxic chemicals of the bombs dropped just three months ago. Citizens are to be evacuated within three miles of controlled areas and gas masks are being supplied to everybody South of Nebraska….”

“...what appears to be a virus has spread throughout controlled quarantines this evening. Reports from the state suggest that the word ‘zombie’ might fit the description of this virus. This is not a joke, I repeat, we are dealing with a nationwide crisis here. Everybody is to stay within their homes.”

“...the world is ending….hundreds and thousands of people are expected to fall to the virus caused by the aftermath of war...flesh-eating zombies….may God be with us all….oh God...oh God!”

Three Years In 01:12am.

Contrary to popular belief, there were many good things about the apocalypse. One, you wagered, was the fact that there was barely any pollution in the air; in fact, on an evening, you could see the whole galaxy without a telescope, breathing in the life of speckles of white, shooting ivories and the smile of a lonely moon. Two, there were no official rules to life. Unlike life before, no human is illegal, now. Border control is non-existent, and immigration and tax and how much money you’re going to make come payday is no longer important to anybody still alive. And three, if you were lucky, it was always silent.

Before, you used to sneer at silence. The way it mocked you, and humiliated you after a high-school presentation, or after the punchline of a joke. The way the silence slowly picked at your bones and flesh in the attic bedroom of your grandparents’ bungalow in the northern part of the city, secluded in mountains and barren trees; the silence laughing at the way you stared out that small box window, praying for a miracle to make noise. 

But now, silence is your new best friend. Silence indicates that nothing is near, and danger is less likely. It heightens every sense, and keeps you awake at night. Against any loyal survivor or camp-member, you valued silence as the number one ally.

Sniffing once, you caught your nose running, stepping over a large pile of rubble that had fallen from the roof of the warehouse you were currently based in. Careful to not awaken any of your fellow campers, you made your way towards the large wire fence, pulling a cable tie around the sliced wire to tie it together - an unpractical reinforcement, although quieter than chains. And as designated leader of the camp, you admit that it’s hard to keep everybody sane and grounded. Safety was of paramount importance, but you can’t fake it. You can’t lie to your campers by saying everything is safe. Because nothing is safe anymore.

Scraping scrap metal across the tarmac, the distant sound of boots made you glance up, noticing the familiar scuff of red leather and you turned away, not having to look up to know it’s the new guy, Kim Taehyung.

“Need any help?” his voice called across the loud silence, his fingers toying with a loose strand of polyester attached to his jacket.

“I’ve got it, thanks,” you replied, fiddling still with the ties around the looped chain.

Taehyung moved forward anyway, indifferent about the tense tone of your voice. He missed the hint entirely, coming closer when all you want is for him to go away. “It doesn’t look like you’ve got it. Here, I’ll hold the fence.”

You flinched when he appeared by your side, your face meeting his helpful gaze with a sharp glare. Regardless, you sighed loudly and relaxed, letting him hold the fence in place as you wrapped around the cable tie, clamping it closed before moving to the next hole created by cutters.

“Are you always this pushy?” you asked, avoiding his stare as you worked to close all the possible entrances (and exits).

“I just wanted to help,” Taehyung confessed quietly. “I felt pointless in there, not falling asleep. Plus, Jiyong snores. I wanted some peace and quiet.”

At that, you scoffed and smile. “Well, I can believe that. He’s always been a snorer, ever since high-school.”

Taehyung made a noise of acknowledgement, finally accepting defeat and crouching quietly beside you, wordless but inquisitive. It had only been three days since he joined the camp by chance; he was one of the lucky ones who approached your camp and made it inside. A law you lived by, inside your cluttered and hazy and scared brain, was that you never accepted outsiders into the camp. Sticking by friends you’ve known and trusted for years seemed safer than blindly trusting someone you had never met before. But, as Seunghyun pointed the sniper rifle at his tuft of brown hair hanging on his forehead, Yena had bounced down from the watch-tower with wide eyes - “he needs a Doctor, Y/N. He’s bleeding from his knee. We have the supplies, we can save his life.”

You just wanted humanity to survive.

And so the gates opened and he lay down on a medical bed inside the warehouse, and Yena and Jisoo helped patch up his wounds. Now, here he is; lingering in the shadows of the warehouse, limping across the length of the grounds, begging for jobs to keep himself occupied.

“You work a lot,” Taehyung noted. “I never see you sleep at night. Insomnia?”

“One person always stays on guard during the night,” you explain, tugging at the wire to make sure it holds. “I volunteer because there’s always something that needs to be done around here. If you think you’re safe, you’re wrong. Nobody else wants to do it, so I will. Just to keep myself busy, mainly.”

Taehyung nodded. “I get that. Before I came here, I just walked. I never stopped walking from where I was, constantly looking for somewhere safe to go.”

“Ain’t that the way,” you replied. With nothing left to do with the fence, you eventually turned to look at him, staring at his face outlined by the dim gas-lighter by the door to the warehouse. “You been on your own for a while?”

“No,” he answered, hesitantly. “I was with my sister when the virus first broke out. We were both at NYU. We got separated in the manic and I joined a small group of science students on their way to find a cure. Clearly, that didn’t work out. I figured it was safer on my own, you know? I had no idea where she went. So, I walked.”

“And your leg?” you asked, looking at his knee, still wrapped in soaked bandages. “You got hurt pretty bad, huh? Biter get you?”

“Unfortunately not. I got jumped by a couple bandits on my way here. I got away when a few walkers came by, but barely escaped. Then, I came here.”

You stood up as he spoke, him following your every move like a mirror. “‘Walkers.’ You can tell you’re from New York.”

Moving away from Taehyung, your feet take you to the mid-height fence near the drop towards the forest, a view overlooking the tops of tall trees, a spiralling path faded by fog and the familiar outline of a deserted city near the horizon. Kicking the fence gently, it stays in place, requiring no fortifications or attention. Nothing could climb the steep drop beneath it. Resting your elbows on the beach wood of the fence, you rest your weight and stare towards the city, analysing the corners of each building, jagged lines like a maths puzzle.

“While I was getting patched up,” Taehyung began, after a long moment of serene silence, “Jisoo told me that you guys go out on trips, hunts in cities. How many have you covered?”

“Only one,” you replied, nodding in the direction of the city in front of you. “That’s Denver. It’s so large that we barely covered a third of it in the two years we’ve been here. We planned to keep moving, but we had some...complications along the way. We got trapped up here. Every week we send out a group to scavenge the cities, find whatever we can to prepare us for travels. And last week, Jiyong’s pick-up truck ran out of gas for good, so anything we can find to help get that back and running would be great.”

Taehyung nodded with understanding, picking at the dry skin around his bitten-down fingernails. “I hear it’s in a few days. Shouldn’t you be asleep, resting for it?”

“I can’t sleep,” you said quietly. “Not anymore. And it’s like I said, there’s always shit that needs to be done. The drive to the city is around half hour, I can catch some z’s on the way there and between shifts. Why so curious, anyway? You coming with us, or something?”

He shrugged. “Can I?”

“Have you got anything better to do?” you retort, and he smiles slightly, looking down. “I hear you’re a good runner. We could use the extra legs and arms. If your knee’s up to it, course.”

Gratefully, he nodded with acceptance. “Come to think of it, your group is quite small. Has it always been this selective?”

As the words left his lips, Taehyung felt himself regret that sentence, noticing the way you tensed next to him, hands pausing in their movement of toying a blade of grass that hugged the fence post.

“I’m sorry. That was rude-”

“There were others,” you replied tensely, your demeanour changed instantly. “But like all other groups, we lost people along the way. Good people. Kind and loving people. In a world where life is so short, I can’t afford to lose anybody else.”

You clapped his shoulder roughly, “you’re new, Taehyung, and I don't expect you to understand. But we’re a family here, and the safety of the group is essential. You’re gonna lose people along the way but…”

Your voice trailed off, and Taehyung looked up. He got it. You didn’t have to continue speaking for him to put the pieces together.

Two Days Later. 08:19am.

The lively sound of a rumbling engine stirred Taehyung awake, the noise travelling from the square all the way to the South-Wing, painted in yellow as ‘Zone S’. S for sleep, or S for safety, Taehyung couldn’t quite decipher.

Sitting on the rectangle straw-sheet, he slipped on his socks and signature ruby leather boots, carrying his jacket over his arms as he left the zone and moved towards the square, where the sun bled out onto the dusty tarmac, a glimmer of glittering light causing him to squint as he crossed the width of the kitchen. He smiled at Yena, the youngest in the group, only eighteen amongst middle-aged outcasts, and passed her at the table, ignoring her wavering stare.

“Taehyung. Good morning.”

He forced himself to smile over at Taekwoon, only slightly intimidated by the size of his muscles behind a grey sleeved tee, and the way he effortlessly lifted a duffel bag filled with weapons into the trunk of the Subaru. Taekwoon looked over gently, in an effort not to afraid the newbie, and then he shut the boot of the car and approached him.

“You coming on our trip today?” he asked, and Taehyung nodded.

“Did you clear it with Y/N?”

“Yes,” he replied surely. “She invited me.”

Taekwoon smiled mockingly, laughing out of his nose. “Right. Sure she did.”

Taehyung blinked, unfamiliar. “Where is Y/N? Isn’t she coming with us?”

“Yeah. Protocol around here is similar to certain armies,” Taekwoon explained lamely. “The leader always helps out on missions. Hey, she’s nothing like that old guy out of Wonder Woman, I’ll tell you that.”

“Y/N is the leader?” Taehyung asked dumbly.

Taekwoon turned then, resting a hand upon the hot black exterior of the car. “Does that shock you?”

“Kinda. She looks so…”

He didn’t continue, but Taekwoon nodded in understanding. “We get it. But without her, none of us would be here. I couldn’t think of anyone better leading us. Well, I mean, I’d proper love a Rick Grimes around here, but you can’t have everything. Jiyong and Seunghyun are technically leaders, too, but we just say Y/N is to deprive them the satisfaction of feeling powerful.”

From behind him, the short sound of footsteps made Taehyung turn, meeting your gaze halfway as you briskly passed him, cheeks clammy, freckles on display. He’d never noticed them before. At your entry, the group of hunters gathered around the bonnet of the car as you spread a map down on it with a short slap, a dying red Sharpie in your hand, circling the next part of the city.

“Last week we went to this section, so try and focus on these areas today,” you explained, waiting for Taehyung to shift into a position where he could see the map carefully. “Denver was one of the worst hit cities, so we could either be lucky and find bodies, or unlucky and find biters. Either way, try and avoid making sound. We have the radios and walkies in-case we get into any sort of trouble. If we lose signal, meet at the car before sunset. Remember - don’t risk your life if one of us doesn’t arrive on time. Give it five minutes after the sun begins to disappear, and if we’re not here, go on ahead. We can’t sacrifice our supplies for the sake of one man. It’s harsh, and we go through this every time, but I’m making it clear to the fresh meat.”

Everybody, minus Taehyung and his bewildered expression, nodded with understanding, a quiet murmur overpowering the groan of the dead hanging in the shadows of the forest surrounding the warehouse.

“Is there anything anybody wants to ask for before we head onto the road?” Jiyong asked, his voice in the same usual volume- quieter than a shout, slightly louder than a whisper.

“Gas is a priority,” Taehyung suggested, remembering the conversation about the useless pick-up truck sitting in the back near the barrens.

Taekwoon nodded, “we need gas for the truck, and in-case our getaway vehicle runs out unexpectedly. We’re on our last few drops.”

“The usual, I’d expect. Food is obvious, water, clean water. Clothes, or batteries would be great, too. Never skip over a store because it looks empty,” Doyoung, Yena’s brother and the best shooter within the group aside from Seunghyun, said, looking at Taehyung all the while. “Pharmacy's look emptied, but there’s always the office near the back that’s filled with extra medicine. The keys are usually on a staff member who’s lurking or dead. You have materials that can pick the lock.”

“How do you know that for sure?” Taehyung asked, meanwhile the rest of the group readied the truck. You stayed near Taehyung, eager to hear what he had to say.

“I used to work at my Dad’s pharmacy before shit hit the fan,” Doyoung shrugged. “I know my way around a pharmacy, is all.”

Having little else to do, Taehyung simply nodded and stood still, waiting for the group to finish setting up the car, with Taekwoon riding his motorcycle near the front like a Police escort.

“Ready?” you asked, stopping by his side as the group hollered for everybody to get inside. Yena hurried out towards the gate, hanging by the loose chain ready to open it up. Taehyung sucked in a breath quietly, and looked at you with as much optimism as he could. It came out falsely, but you appreciated his efforts.

“Not really. Will I ever be?”

You didn’t know how to answer that. No response was good.

The city was unusually quiet.

Beside you, in the back of the car, Taehyung stared silently at the scenery as it rolled past, just as the car crossed into the city’s territory. Immediately, he could see the stark contrast between the wilderness and the madness; a concrete jungle, overpowered by lush green and forest ferns, weeds that turreted as high as traffic lights snaking up the drains of apartment complexes, tufts of cloth dancing in the breeze. Despite the damage from nuclear destruction, Taehyung was surprised that nature could take over so quickly. He stared in silence at the sight of rusted vehicles abandoned in the streets, decorated with blood red graffiti, the walls of buildings reading “DEAD INSIDE” or “KEEP OUT”, neither better than the other. As the car crossed through an intersection, down one of the streets, water had eroded the roads; murky green water bouncing off the heavy sunlight creating patterns on the brickwork, faded and dressed in dark ivy.

“Reminds me of Chernobyl,” Taehyung commented on the way there.

As the car pulled up in a relatively deserted section of the city, Jiyong switched off the gas and hopped out instantly, wasting zero time. Taehyung clambered out afterwards, holding open the door as you climbed out after him, nodding as a thank-you, already familiarising yourself with the silence.

Taekwoon began to hand out weapons from the duffel bag in the boot as you stared in all directions, analysing pathways and gaps between buildings. Craning upwards, the canopy of unstable concrete, the decaying body of two large towers collided together, made you feel uneasy, and you turned back towards the group, gladly taking a pistol and extra ammunition.

“Remember the rules,” you reminded. “Stay in your partners. Taekwoon and Doyoung, go North. Jiyong, Seunghyun, go West. Jisoo, you’re okay to go South, yes? I’ll take the newbie with me East.”

Jisoo nodded, loading her gun. “I don’t need a man to slow me down.”

“Just be careful,” you warned, happy to see her confident going alone. Taehyung shifted from foot to foot, shakily taking a pistol from the bottom of the bag and following behind you as you moved towards the East direction, towards the fallen ruins of Denver city.

After some minutes of silence, Taehyung spoke up: “where are we going?”

“Further into the city,” you replied, not missing a beat. “Most of the stores close to the square have been checked already. But the ones further in the city are more likely to stay in tact. Nobody comes in here unless they want to die. Thankfully, it seems quiet today.”

“We got lucky, then,” he decided.

“I hope you’re right.”

A few more minutes in, and Taehyung felt himself cower at the sight of more skyscrapers leaning together, debris falling from the sky and landing in tufts near his feet. He ignored the stained blood from feet as he crossed a gravel pathway, near a sectioned off waterpool barricaded by old cars. Distracting himself, Taehyung invested his attention towards yourself, watching cautiously as you fiddled with buttons on the small radio you picked up along the way.

“Should you really be using that out in the open?”

You paused, scoffing slightly. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I believe you, but, that’s making noise.”

“What about it?”

Taehyung narrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “Noise attracts walkers.”

With a final sigh, you turned to him over your shoulder. “You’re going to attract ‘walkers’ in a minute. Just...keep your voice down, yeah? The radio is our only way to communicate with those outside our group. It’s either this, or walking straight into death. You want that?”

“Obviously not,” he replied.

Opting to keep you happy, Taehyung didn’t say anything else. Instead, he followed your heels closely, muttering soft thanks when you lifted up a beam for him to duck under, or pointed out a hole of muddy water that was probably contaminated. In his ears, he listened for the sound of something - anything - to come through on the radio, when a voice cut through the radio static.

“...nothing left. I’m leaving the city, with as many people as I can. We have to leave people behind, but...they’re in no position to travel. Alby is sick, and Jaena’s leg is infected. We don’t have much time left…”

Taehyung moved closer to you, and you positioned the radio so he could hear.

“There’s nothing left for anybody in City Ten. Bandits and hunters come to scavenge stores but there’s nothing we can do about it. We gathered all the medical supplies in our store room in Block 18. Fuck, I don’t know what building we are in, but we can see the large building that towers over all others from our window. Tommy came in saying he has everything ready for us to go. We’re heading North, towards Washington. Some survivors said there was a group of student scientists there with a bunch of NASA officials, working on a cure. They’re calling Washington the safe zone, or something, I can’t remember. Denver is empty.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be here,” Taehyung said in a low voice, and you looked at him briefly before looking back at the radio, as if it would do something visual.

The voice continued breathily: “If you’re still in the city...if anybody even still listens to me, you need to get out. You need to head to-” she paused over the line. “Fuck, they’re here. I hear them.” Her voice got quieter, breathier, like a whisper. You decided to continue on foot next to Taehyung, waiting for her voice to come back through the line. For what felt like eternity, she made no response.

Taehyung heaved himself up over an abandoned car, extending a hand down to you to help pull you up. Climbing up after him, you snatched your hand away when you realised he was still holding onto you, brushing your hand on your jeans and jumping down from the car back onto the floor.

“Hey, Y/N, how about we head over--”

Abruptly, the woman’s voice cut back in through the silence. “Oh fuck! Oh my god, they k-killed him. They killed him, oh my God, they’re coming back for me, stop! Leave me alone!”

Her screams were screeching, loud enough to shatter glass. Taehyung immediately fumbled for the volume, hissing when the radio continued to scream out into the silence of the city. As quickly as her screams became deafening, they became deaf, fallen silent, only static replacing her noises. As if overcome with fear, you toss the radio to the side, causing it to smash into pieces.

“What are you doing?” Taehyung exclaimed suddenly.

“I don’t wanna hear that,” you replied, shaking your head furiously. “Come on, let’s keep going. We’ve already wasted time listening.”

“She’s in trouble,” Taehyung continued, nonetheless following you. “We could try and find her, and help her.”

You smiled bitterly, hiking towards the nearest convenience store at the ground of a large high-rise building, slanted and glass-covered. “Taehyung, you’re sweet. Really, and I so like that about you. You’re a good asset to the team, and I want to keep it that way. But, we can’t afford to save her. By the sounds of things, she didn’t make it.”

“You don’t know that.”

Pausing to observe a blood-covered metal bat rolling back and forth by the open door to the store, you crouch to pick it up and swing it back and forth. “You’re right, I don’t. But I care more about our survival than hers.”

Behind you, he scoffed and shook his head. “You’re heartless.”

“No, I’m realistic,” you counter, holding the door open for him and handing him the metal bat. He caught it with a breath of air. “Look, I don’t want to argue with you about it. We can discuss it back at camp. For now, we have to look in the area and find somewhere to scavenge. This’ll do for the moment. Take the chemist and the clothes, I’ll scan the aisles for food if there is any. If you see bottled water, please get some.”

Taehyung reluctantly sighed, following you through the door and flinching when his boots crunched shards of broken glass on the floor. Shuffling into place, Taehyung scanned the room with a somber expression; the shelves near the door had been stripped clean, with only crumbs and stains marking the off-white colours, faded neons screaming nursery rhymes as he approached the first aisle. To his delight, or more so relief, he noticed food still on the shelves towards the back of the store, and he moved his gaze towards the right side of the store, where a hanging light, swinging to and fro with a daunting creak, read “Clothing”, where a neon should have bled out into cyans and magentas.

“Take half an hour?” you suggested, tossing him a spare flashlight from your backpack. “Meet back here if you can’t find anything useful. Take what we need, not what you want. I mean, clothing is preference, but- you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” he replied, sounding almost indifferent. “I know. Be careful.”

To that, you smiled. “You too.”

Waiting until Taehyung had shuffled into the shadows of the clothes department, somewhat near to the flickering blue glow of the chemist desk, you gulped and retreated towards the far shelf, crouching to pack in a can of beans and some soup, close to expiry but good enough to salvage. By the end of the search, your bag was near enough filled to the brim; you had plenty of food, and lighters to aid Jiyong’s bad smoking habit, alongside a pack of cigarettes you found at the back of the shelf next to some ammunition and a discarded wallet. A pack of batteries lay like a ripe cherry in a bunch of rotten ones, and you barely wedged it into the front pocket of your bag. Feeling successful, you swung the backpack onto your shoulders and rose from your crouch behind the shelves.

Poking your head over the stacks, the sound of Taehyung dragging clothes across the rails puts your mind at ease, distracting you from the low hum of the undead, which, as if it were possible, seemed to get louder and louder. Probably paranoia, you guessed, minding your own business as you approached the counter looking into the bakery. You stared sadly at the moulded breads and pastries, eyeing them with a new hunger. If you remembered hard enough, you could remember visiting a store just like this one and buying fish at the market, and then buying a custard cake at the bakery with your college friends.

At that thought, you looked away, leaning over the counter to eye the floor, messed with flour and footprints dotted with red shuffling towards the kitchen, where silence screamed out. You took a guess that the red wasn’t your ordinary jam, and you gulped, sadly imagining who the unlucky victim was. Shrugging off those thoughts, you prepared to pick yourself back up onto your feet when a loud shuffle made you freeze in all movement.

Please be Taehyung.

Turning around slowly, you held your breath calmly, facing the store. As you turned to look to your left, the sight of a biter hovering near the glass doorway to the side-store made a chill run up the length of your body. You did nothing. It simply stared.

Perhaps if you moved slowly, it wouldn’t see you. Albeit wishful thinking, it seemed better than nothing at this point. It stood there dauntingly, shaking from side to side with a tremor, lips torn apart and skin ripped, maggots clinging to the rotten flesh. It let out a snarl, teeth curling and stirring creamy foam out of its mouth, fingers curled like dinosaur claws. As it waited, you turned fully, hands spread flat on the counter of the desk, observing all possible exits.

There was the safe route; towards Taehyung where he could help you take out the biter coming after you. There was the risky route; straight back towards the door, where noise would attract both the biter and Taehyung anyway. Or there was the stupid route; towards the biter, ready for attack.

Thankfully, you’d seen zombie movies enough times to know that running towards the biter almost always got you killed. Instead, you moved slowly, almost unmoving entirely. The biter stayed in place, biting air, snarling at the wind. Walking as quietly as you could, you edged towards the clothing section to find Taehyung, already somewhat comforted by the continuous sound of him dragging hangers across the rails. Every step was taken without breath; afraid that even blinking would send it into a frenzy, silence was of new paramount importance.

Inching further towards Taehyung, you flinched violently when the biter growled loudly, making enough noise to pull Taehyung’s head out of the clothing racks, bag practically stuff with clothes he basically didn’t really need. When the noise was followed by silence, he gripped his bat handle tighter and dropped his backpack to the tiles with a soft thud. Taehyung moved slowly towards the open archway separating the clothes to the foods, taking his time looking at the way the lights flickered, and the sound of the wind getting caught in the tiny cracks in the window-panes.

“Y/N?” he called, unaware. His grip tightened on the bat when nothing responded, only a murmur, a groan that sounded guttural. “Y/N?”

Approaching the arch, he turned into the main foyer of the store and froze in place when he saw you; standing like a statue by the counter, facing him with eyes wide. Without saying words, he seemed to know what to do - he looked back and forth between yourself and the biter, staring at the way it swayed from side to side, occasionally jolting as if having a seizure. Looking back at you, he paused when you held your hands in front of you, as if warning him to stay away.

“Don’t move,” you mouthed, afraid of a whisper being too loud.

He nodded, although you barely caught it. “What do we do?” he mouthed back.

Catching your breath quietly, you began to move slowly towards him, dragging your feet across the tiles wiped with tomato coloured red. Taehyung held out his hands invitingly, bat still pointed outwards, shaking slightly. He couldn’t pinpoint whether it was nerves, or fear, but either one drove his hands further outwards, taking small steps of his own towards you, quiet in an effort to not distract unwanted attention.

“That’s it,” he whispered, the smallest of whispers, waving his hands slowly in circles. “Slowly…”

The taste of blood swam through your mouth as your teeth sank down onto the inside of your lip, hands shaking violently as you steadily stepped towards your partner. Closer than breath, he was steps away, when your foot came down on shards of cloudy glass.

It ripped through the silence like a cough in Church.

The biter jolted with a high-pitched scream, too loud for you to turn around to check its expression. Taehyung stared over your shoulder at the way it broke out of a trance, screeching loudly at the sight of sounds. Time was running out; Taehyung yelled your name loudly, causing you to hurry towards him to grab his hand extended outward. As you skidded past his legs, his voice rang in your ears, lips brushing your hair: “Outside! Now!”

Grabbing his bag discarded on the floor, Taehyung swung it over his shoulders as you hurried ahead, ducking through a broken window. With impatience, Taehyung pushed you out, hands on your upper-back thigh, cradling you as you jumped out the hole and onto the road. He barely made it out, tugging at the thin material of your sleeve and dragging you out into the dust on the road. From behind both of you, the doors separating the biter and the store smashed open, alerting at least a dozen others lingering nearby in the dusty shadows.

They were newly infected, still grasping on to whatever shreds of humanity they had left. Running fast, screams loud, hands still rotting the flesh away; the biters ran from behind you down the road, screaming with every step, nudging you both further down the large road to nowhere. You weren’t even sure if this was the way you came; all you seemed focused on was the sight of Taehyung’s feet leaving you behind in a cloud of dust. He was faster than you had anticipated, but, with experience, you endured the heat of the panic and gravitated towards his side.

“Y/N-” he began, looking at you with a breathless expression.

“Don’t talk!” you screamed in reply, pulling at his arm. “Just fucking run!”

Passing identical buildings, acting like copied and pasted images, it was hard to deny that you were exhausted. At one point, it felt like Taehyung was dragging your weight, your legs too tired to hurry along after his frame. The cries of hunger and agony from the biters behind you increased in volume, filling the atmosphere with a heaviness. If the group were close, they had heard the noises and thought better than sticking around.

“Turn! Here, here, here, here, don’t fucking stop running!” screamed your voice over the chaos, pushing Taehyung by his shirt towards a small and narrow alleyway between two smaller stores; a ladder, enclosed by a bar painted an ebony black, smiled in the darkness, and Taehyung thankfully ran towards it without hesitation. The sharp turn caught the mob off-guard, sending them skidding across the road.

Taehyung began to climb up the ladder, and you swiftly followed, veins pumping with fear and adrenaline, hands shivering as you climbed from step to step, height to height. A biter lunged for your boot, sinking its teeth into the heel and you kicked it in the jaw, a growl emerging from its torn jaw as it collapsed back into the hoard.

Finally reaching the top of the roof, you heaved yourself up over the low brick wall, physically feeling the exhaustion in your arms, a dampness under your armpits. Landing with a thud on top of Taehyung, a breath of hot hair released from your lips, strands of hair sticking to your forehead like cake mixture to a bowl. Both of your breaths were in sync; Taehyung lay beneath you, unmoving for the several moments of gathering breath, with the shakiness of his hands vibrating against your waist.

When the reality of lying on top of Taehyung sank in, you shuddered and lifted yourself up off his stomach, your palms scratching on the scorching hot roof. Behind you, Taehyung lifts himself up off the floor, leaning over the side of the wall to peer down at the biters below. Groans fill the air as he spots biters learning how to climb the ladder, and he gulps, saliva hot and solid moving down his dry throat.

“That was fucking insane,” he hissed, turning to you sharply as you pace in ovals on the roof. “What happened down there?”

“Biter came up on me,” you muttered, “didn’t hear it until it was too late.”

The biters congregated down below, a loud compilation of groans becoming disheartening as you fail to come up with a solution to this incredibly difficult problem. Taehyung jerks himself away from the wall, crouching to his backpack to take a swig of water he was planning to save until later. You turn halfway, thankfully taking a sip of the water he hands to you once he swallowed.

“What do we do now?” Taehyung asks, hands on his knees. He’s hunched over. “The group leaves at sundown. Will they wait?”

Swallowing thickly, you shake your head and shove the water back into his hands. “No. It’s the rules.”

“Fuck the rules,” he replies. “We’re a team.”

“Yeah, but we’ve worked this way for a while now. We won’t change just because you arrived to the group.”

Taehyung scoffed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Letting out a sigh, you pace back towards the wall overlooking the city. “It’s not ideal, I know. But if the group wait a second longer and lose their supplies to bandits or biters...it would be a waste of time. Our group are already vulnerable back at camp. We don’t wanna leave people behind. If you can help, do it, but we’re on a roof in the middle of the city and there’s no way in hell we can make it back in time without leaving right now.”

With nothing useful to say, Taehyung let his body drop with a thud on the floor, a cloud of dust circling his thighs as his bag dragged against the side of the wall. Above, the sky transitioned into auburn colours, clouds moving faster than smoke rising out a chimney, carried by the wind towards the direction of the camp. The sound of cicadas and the haunting birdsong, and the constant groan of death, was all to be heard as you clenched your outstretched hands into small balls, cursing the air with your gaze cast downwards; it eventually fell on the sight of a rusted, and unstable balcony a few stories below, a scrap of magenta cloth clinging to the corners, broken glass twinkling in the light.

As time moved, and hours rolled by, Taehyung had napped twice and your eyes would not move from the sight of the balcony, analysing each pattern and grid and rusted area, calculating jumps and falls and possible scenarios in your brain. Eventually, when the sky had darkened with rain clouds and night, the sun dipped behind a large storey building. Maybe the group would wait for you.

Maybe they’d think differently because you were their leader. Or maybe they didn’t need you.

With a fright, Taehyung jumped when you spun around to him, crouched on your knees with an urgent voice. “I have one plan, and if this plan fails, we are doomed.”

“Sounds promising,” he commented, without giving a plan of his own. Taehyung rubbed his eye with the heel of his palm.

“There’s a balcony,” you explained, moving across the roof to show him, pointing down at the brown painted overhang. He nodded with understanding, “it obviously goes into a room. We could sneak through the building and come out through the front. The herd are around the back, or in the alley, and the ones up front are too tired to react in time. We use that time to run back towards the truck. The group might have stayed behind for us, but if not, we can try to see if any of the cars around the area are salvageable. If all fails...we could camp in a building for the night. Start walking to camp. We’d be there in a day, or two.”

Taehyung stood quietly, thinking.

“It’s risky,” you considered, looking at him, bottom lip between top teeth. “But it’s the only plan I have.”

“It’s the only plan we have,” Taehyung replied. “I couldn’t think of anything better. Are you okay to run?”

Nodding your head, you adjusted the straps of your backpack, tightening it so it would manage the drop in silence. Taehyung hesitated, watching you climb over the half-wall and settle to sit, your legs hanging over the side above the short, nonetheless intimidating drop to the balcony. Quickly, however, he followed; Taehyung heaved himself up next to you, watching nervously as you pushed forward and back, with inner conflict.

“Ready?” he asked, gently, without demand.

Without talking, you pushed.

NEXT CHAPTER.

[kissjun]

restrained — part 2

masterlist | part 1 | part 3

a/n | sorry it took so long to finish this part!! the next one wont take as long i promise<33

—

A deafening electronic beep sounded from the intercom that she laid painfully close to, forcing her to pry her eyes open from the heavy sleep that consumed her. The irritating noise slipped through the fingers covering her ears, the blanket, and even the pillow; everything she tried to use to shield the noise from her precious ears seemed invisible. Frustrated, she sat up with a groan. She held her throbbing head as she glanced at the clock. 8:03 AM.

She blinked. How did she end up on her bed? As hard as she tried to think, it was almost impossible to focus with the noise blasting from the ceiling.

Mark was already up, brushing his teeth at the small sink in the corner of their room. He seemed used to the routine already; which didn't really come as a surprise to her. She wondered how long he'd been there.

After climbing down from her bed, she returned her hands to her ears, looking to Mark desperately. “Does it ever stop?”

“Two minutes,” he stated through the foam of toothpaste in his mouth.

The following two minutes were absolute hell. But, once it was over, she finally managed to shake off a bit of the headache that lingered from the moment she woke up. In fact, she didn't feel refreshed in the slightest. She didn't understand how she had gotten a full eleven hours of sleep—but still felt like shit.

She tried to backtrack the night before: the doors locked like Renjun had told her they would. She was curious and got out of bed to see if the door really wouldn't open—and it wouldn't. Then Lucas came. She couldn't recall the conversation, but she honestly didn't think it mattered. Then . . . she fell asleep on the floor. But how did she get back on her bed?  Did Lucas move her? She wondered how in the world  he would manage to get her back on the top bunk.

She shook her head. He didn't seem like the type of person to care, given her first impression. He seemed like the type to stiffen at a single touch because it's 'too personal'. She almost scoffed. And she still didn't understand why he was being so secretive about his age. In all honesty, she shouldn't care so much. But she was curious, and it annoyed her that he was being stubborn over a stupid question.

“Why do you look like you're going through an internal midlife crisis?” Renjun eyed her curiously as they met up in the hall to head to breakfast.

“You have to be forty-five to go through a midlife crisis, dumbass,” Mark bopped Renjun on the head.

“Are you not seeing this?” Renjun jabbed a finger at her.

Jaemin threw an arm around her. “Relax, she's probably on her period or someth—“

She abruptly cut off his sentence with an elbow to the ribs, earning a holler of laughter from the two other boys. Renjun barely caught his breath. “I like this girl.”

Just before they reached the familiar staircase in the lobby, a guard carelessly shoved through the crowd. She would have been knocked over if Jaemin hadn't steadied her. Walking up the stairs, she glanced below her, noticing the guard wasn't alone—he and a second soldier were on either side of a young girl, who's sweatpants were rolled up thrice and her UCF t-shirt to her knees. They were taking her into the elevators. To the floors that were prohibited.

“We're not the only planet, let alone solar system, let alone galaxy! It's literally dumb to think we're the only form of life living out of billions of planets,” Renjun rambled as the four tumbled into the courtyards after breakfast.

Jaemin insisted on showing her the courtyards, given it was probably the only part of the facility that wasn't plastered with endless white walls and pristine glass. Although the courtyard was more or less just a simple rock garden, it was spacious enough—especially considering the fact that she and the boys were almost the only ones out there. Why everyone else would want to restrict themselves under the cold, white florescent lights for the entire day was beyond her, but she was glad that it wasn't crowded at least.

“Proof?” Mark raised his brows as everyone took a seat at one of the round, stone glass tables placed beside the mini waterfall that hid in the bushes.

“Scientific research and common sense?”

“What if they're, like, worms that crawl up your nose and infect your brain,” Jaemin grinned. “How's that for forms of life?”

“Gross,” Mark scrunched his nose.

“It's still a form of life, idiot, so I would be right and you would have a worm in your brain,” Renjun shrugged contently.

“Dude, he's getting desperate,” Jaemin whispered to her. She couldn't help but giggle.

“Listen,” she put a hand on Renjun's shoulder. “I believe in aliens, Renjun.”

“Suddenly she's my only friend,” he announced, Jaemin sticking out his tongue in response.

If it weren't for the rain that began to dribble from the sky after a few hours, she was sure they would've stayed out longer. It was the fresh air, she thought, that put everyone in a good mood. No one appreciated being crammed in one spot for too long. Especially not her.

“You wanna grab some lunch?” Jaemin asked, shaking the water from his bangs.

When everyone's growling stomachs agreed for them, the four of them headed up to the cafeteria, paying no mind the the damp clothes that stuck to their skin. As they took place in the bustling lunch line, her eyes found a familiar face. Lucas was standing off to the left side of the room, alert and stiff as every other soldier that patrolled the floor. Soldiers had always been spread across the perimeter of the floors since she'd arrived at the facility, but she had never noticed him there before. And the fact that the facility always felt the need to have even the cafeteria guarded and crawling with soldiers gave her an uncomfortable feeling.

“What about you?” Mark asked her as they sat at their usual table. “What was your life like before the breach?”

“Breach?” she raised an eyebrow.

“You don't know about the breach?” Jaemin asked. “It's what started the whole disease.”

“Really?” she asked. No one had ever informed her much about the details—their cable stopped working, so there was no news—and she knew her parents always felt the need to protect her from the smallest things. But, she thought, maybe if they didn't do that then, she wouldn't feel so weak now.

“Yeah,” Mark nodded. “Some laboratory got bombed and I guess whatever chemicals they were brewing up inside got mixed up the wrong way. And here we are.”

Her jaw almost dropped. “Why would someone do that?”

“Maybe the scientists had different opinions on a project, or maybe some kind of discovery,” Renjun said. “And so they split up. What if they were doing something dangerous and the only way the others could stop it was by destroying the whole lab?”

“Talk about extra,” Jaemin piped in. “'Hey I don't like your idea for the science project so I'm gonna blow the entire science lab up'.”

Mark snorted. “Sounds like Renjun.”

“I like how you assume I'd be partners with either of you for a science project,” Renjun deadpanned.

“Anyways, back to the original question,” Jaemin leaned towards her, shining with interest. “Tell us about yourself!!”

“Um . . .” she wasn't sure where to start. “I didn't ever do anything cool, really. I went to school, had a few friends, went out sometimes. Nothing special. I'm an only child, so it was just me and my parents most of the time.”

“What were your parents like?” he wondered. Mark and Renjun immediately shot him a glare, and he quickly realized his mistake. “I—I mean you don't have to talk about them if you don't want to! I know things are hard for everyone right now . . .”

She couldn't manage to swallow the hard lump that had formed in her throat. 'Were' he said. What were her parents like. She wasn't sure if she had enough power to talk about her parents without choking up yet. She had never had to say anything about it before. She had no one to tell.

“It's—“

Before she could finish her sentence, a different—but also very deafening—alarm sounded from the intercom. Everyone stood from their seats, looking around as confusion glazed their faces.

“There's a fire on the third floor! Everyone head out front immediately!” one of the soldiers shouted above the commotion. “I repeat, head out front immediately!”

Exchanging worried glances with the boys, she did as she was told and followed the bustling crowd of panicking children towards the exit of the cafeteria. She caught sight of Lucas again, who seemed to be frantically discussing something with a few other soldiers. Did he know what happened?

She heard the static from a walkie talkie on a nearby soldier, followed by a frantic voice. “Sir, the patients are overheating—“

“Take them to the west wing,” he interrupted, murmuring into his walkie. “We'll figure out the rest later.”

When the person on the other line buzzed out, the soldier looked up—his icy eyes meeting hers. She continued walking, but felt frozen, as if she'd just got caught hearing something she wasn't supposed to hear.

“Come on,” Renjun tugged her arm, picking up the pace.

When everyone had finally made it outside, she noticed how many people there actually were at the facility—including the staff and soldiers. They almost filled up the entire damp, muddy field under the pouring rain. Everyone hugged themselves under the wetness of the raindrops; and a few kids screamed when it thundered. She enjoyed the rain, but it would've been less painful if it wasn't so cold.

“Clear!” Someone finally called from the entrance. They'd been standing there for about seven minutes, and Mark swore if he had to stand there another minute he would die from hypothermia.

“Finally,” Renjun mumbled to himself, shivering as he waddled back towards the warmth of the lobby.

Murmurs of everyone gossiping about what might have happened echoed through the lobby, trailing into the east wing all the way to the showers as everyone hurried to change out of their wet clothes.

“Ahh, gross,” Mark watched as his soaked socks trailed mud behind his every step—just like everyone else. “I can't stand wet socks. This is disgusting.”

Jaemin wiggled his toes. “Really? I think it has a nice feeling.”

Mark whacked him in the arm. “I hate you.”

“You could never,” Jaemin grinned as they continued their way back into the east wing.

She and Renjun followed closely behind, but she came to a halt when her eyes found Lucas again, who had began to mop up the slippery lobby floor. “I'll catch up,” she absentmindedly notified Renjun before making a beeline for where the soldier stood, busy cleaning up the water.

“Looks like someone was demoted from soldier to custodian,” she hummed as she approached him.

He glanced around, then looked back at her. “Real funny. Do you need something?”

“Well, no, I . . .” she paused. Why did she go over there? To finally get an answer to her question? To thank him for not letting her sleep on the floor the entire night? It was kind of weird when she thought about it.

“You know, you're not really subtle about staring,” he continued mopping up the puddle that sat by his heavy boots. “I can feel you looking at me every time we're in the same room. I'll just go ahead and break it to you—it's not going to happen. Quite frankly, you're not my type—“

“I'm sorry, what?” she gaped at him incredulously. She shook her head. “That's not—“

“Come on,” he almost scoffed. “The personal questions, the staring, following me everywhere. If you know what's good for you, just go slide in bed with your roomma—“

His words were cut off with a cold slap to the cheek. The sound echoed through the room, and she was partially thankful that everyone had already left the lobby. Who did he think he was? She wasn't even sure they would go as far as being friends, let alone anything else. She'd just wanted to know more about him; she was curious. And he made her out to be some desperate girl that wanted to get some. What a jerk.

“I wasn't trying to get in your pants, dickhead,” she fumed. “You look mad and lonely all the time, and you've payed me two favors so I . . .”

“I don't know what I was doing,” she deadpanned, pure irritation surging through her veins. “Now that I know what you're really like, I don't think I care anymore.”

With a hard glare, she turned back towards the east wing and nearly stomped the whole way to her room. When she pushed inside, Mark was relaxing on his bed, completely dry, but sat up when she entered.

“Whoa,” Mark looked her up and down. “What happened with you?'

“Nothing,” she huffed as she dropped to the bottom drawer of their dresser, fishing out a dry set of clothes to change into.

“It doesn't look like nothing,” he hummed cautiously.

She shook her head, forcing her voice to soften. “Really, don't worry about it.”

“Okay. . .” Mark drug out, eyeing her as he returned to his spot on his bed.

Letting out a relieved huff, she headed out to the bathrooms to change her clothes. She was glad Mark didn't ask any more questions—she really didn't feel like explaining the situation. Not because she didn't want to talk about it, but because she was starting to wonder if she really did look like the idiot.

Successfully making it to the bathrooms, she praised herself for not having another lost-in-the-maze episode. Immediately after pushing through the stall doors, she peeled the damp clothes off of her body, replacing them with the dry set she brought. She paid no mind to herself in the mirror, tossing the wet clothes on the overflowing laundry basket as she made her way out of the bathrooms.

As she stepped into the bright hall, she met a familiar set of sparkling eyes that were making their own way out of the men's bathroom. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Renjun met her in the middle of the hall, wearing his own fresh pair of clothes.

“That was weird,” she commented as they walked together. “What do you think happened?”

Renjun shrugged. “No idea. What I wanna know is what the hell they have on the third floor and how they managed to start a fire up there.”

Her mind flashed back to the soldier that passed her, and the voice through the walkie talkie. The patients are overheating, the voice said. Take them to the west wing, he had replied.

“Actually,” she said slowly. “I heard something earlier. When everyone was going outside. Someone was talking to one of the soldiers through the walkie talkie.”

“What did they say?”

“Something about patients overheating? And moving them to the west wing I think,” she recalled. “But it was kind of hectic back there.”

Renjun stared at her with wide eyes, filled with a mix or horror and relief. He came to a stop. “Really?”

She nodded. “I think so.”

His brows creased as his eyes scanned their surroundings. They were alone in the big, cold hall, but she assumed Renjun was one who believed someone could never be too careful.

“Did you hear anything else?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“So he's on the third floor—no, he's in the west wing now?” Renjun began to walk at an even slower pace.

“Chenle?” the name sounded hollow coming out her mouth, like it was a name that shouldn't be spoken.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “What do you think they mean by 'patients'?”

“I don't know,” she kept her eyes low. “Maybe they're sick.”

“Chenle wasn't sick,” Renjun frowned. “Anyone could tell that. He was almost too healthy. Too much energy, too bubbly, too . . . happy. But that was just Chenle.”

A gentle smile pushed onto her cheeks. “He sounds fun.”

“He was,” he grinned a little. “I miss him. But if you ever meet him, those words never came out of my mouth.”

She snorted. “Of course not.”

After a moment of silence, she wondered. “So . . . he just . . . randomly disappeared?”

“Well, not really,” Renjun explained. “That's what everyone else thinks, but I saw them take him out of his cell.”

“How did you even manage to skip the pill?” she asked. After thinking about it, her eyes widened. “You didn't make yourself puke it up did you?”

“No,” he almost laughed, shaking his head. “I put it between my gum and my cheek. I noticed they only really check under your tongue, so go figure. I only did it because I was tired of feeling like I never really got any sleep, you know? You take the pill and you're out for a split second, then you hear the alarms. You don't get time to relax, or fall asleep, or think about things, or be alone. I don't even have dreams anymore.”

She hummed, understanding everything Renjun was saying. She'd felt the same that morning; she didn't feel refreshed or like she had a good night's sleep either.

“But,” he continued. “Jaemin and Mark don't really care. They just take it like they're supposed to. Sometimes I think deep down I really am just paranoid about everything. I think maybe Mark and Jaemin are right . . . but when I think about the night I watched them take Chenle in his sleep and not bring him back . . .”

“That is weird,” she agreed. “But at least now we have an idea as to where he might be.”

Renjun slowly came to a halt, eyeing the ground in deep thought. “I wonder . . .”

She stood by him patiently, waiting for him to gather his thoughts. She didn't know Chenle, or much about him, but she could clearly tell he was important to Renjun. Even if he wasn't, the sole idea of grown adults taking an unconscious teenager from their room at night and never returning him made her feel icky. The fact that it was scaring Renjun made her feel worse.

“What if we could get into the west wing?” he looked at her.

“We?” she raised her eyebrows.

“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I meant me. What if I can get in there somehow? And look around, maybe? Even if I can just see him to see that he's okay.”

“But the doors are locked,” she reminded him. “And there's soldiers and doctors everywhere.”

“I just need a key card,” he thought. “Or maybe I can pretend there's something wrong with me and they'll take me for a checkup.”

“I thought you said the checkups aren't actual checkups? What if you disappear too?”

“It doesn't matter,” Renjun shook his head. “At least I'll know what they've been doing with Chenle.”

“Renjun, that's dangerous,” she frowned. “And if you're going, I'm going. So think of a way we can both get in, okay?”

Renjun looked at her for a moment. Pursing his lips, he nodded. “Okay, I'll think about it tonight. We can talk more about it tomorrow, but I wouldn't say anything around the others yet.”

“Okay,” she nodded. “I won’t.”

They continued the remainder of the walk back to their rooms quietly, and when she entered her room, it was surprisingly empty. She assumed Mark went to bug Jaemin, but she wasn’t going to complain. After talking to Renjun, she had a lot to think about.

Why did she agree to sneak into the west wing? There was no telling what could happen if they were caught. But then again, she couldn't help herself. Not only did she feel like someone was being wronged, she was curious. If what was behind the doors wasn't so bad, why couldn't they go inside? Why was so much of the facility a secret?

She tried to imagine what Chenle looked like. She thought of someone happy and smiley. Someone that was so bright that they made people happy just by being in the room. That's what she imagined him to look like based off of what she had heard so far. A part of her wanted to help Renjun for Chenle. Another part wanted to help for Renjun. And the other part for herself. So she decided she would. She was going to help Renjun find Chenle.

But how, she wondered. There was no was they would both be sent into the west wing at the same time for being pretending to be sick, was there? Not when they had an entire separate medical clinic outside of the west wing. What about the key card? There was no way they could get close enough to a soldier to get a hold of their key card. Especially without them noticing. She hadn't even talked to a soldier since—

Her eyes widened. She did know a soldier; and he was their only way into the west wing. They needed Lucas.

—

masterlist | part 1 | part 3

[et103]

Human: Alright, I'll seriously need to simplify this for the sake of translation. How much does the Federation know about the human mind?

GF: Not enough obviously! If you have been withholding psychic abilities in hopes of exploitin-

Human: Sir. I am trying to clear up a misunderstanding of human biology here. In that regard, its context is important. Having prior knowledge of it would make my job easier and your time significantly less spent. So, how much do you know about the human mind?

GF: ... Basic carbon-based arrangement with neurons as its transmission circuit and combustion between chemicals and oxygen in the tissue for supply of energy. Your run of the mill primate brain, having taken its development into conciousness.

Human: That does make my job simpler, thank you. Have you ever heard the term "subconscious" being thrown around during your investigations of our knowledge?

GF: Yes but the professionals didn't provide sufficient evidence to its credibility as a concept and the term was classified as a cultural myth during the early stages of our inquiries. Did we make a mistake?

Human: Not one we wouldn't have made either. The "human subconscious" as it's come to be known was one of the first signs of our biology's various mysteries, that our bodies could be explored in some way past the medicinal without the involvement of the spiritual. For this phenomenon's case, it was something people could become aware of but few could explain for themselves. Even less fortunately, it fell victim to a lot of case-by-case testimonies, making its research very difficult to both reliably test and prove theories on. Did all of that translate well?

GF: I wish to say no but it was coherent so I will just say "I think".

Human: Alright. Now, the human brain is extremely flawed. It is overengineered and a lot of the prominent cultures throughout our history developed some very harmful trends in societal behaviour. However, this basic concept of "subconscious" - alongside various other relevant terms that had been coined as hauntings or possessions - had been documented in all of them. Unexplained feelings and gnawing sensations that nudge you away from or towards certain reactions. Among these there is a so-called "sixth sense" said to inhabit our psyche.

GF: Yes, yes, the human notion of five senses, what does that have to do with an apparent ability to pinpoint the presence of the known universe's greatest spies?

Human: I am getting there. As I mentioned, the human brain is incredibly flawed and also not entirely controllable; a lot of its commands and hormone releases are autonomous responses or routine actions that happen according to our sleep cycles. We do not have full access to the full capabilities of our brains while our brains do processes that we can be entirely unaware of until symptoms start to show. One of those symptoms is a "sixth sense", manifesting as an undefined feeling of uneasiness during one's routine. The usual triggers include abnormal observations made within our perceived surroundings: a repeating noise, an unfamiliar smell, slight shifts or eccentricities in the arrangement of a space, a difference in the wind or a even a lack of all of these traits can put a human being on high alert to a presence that is unknown to the individual and thus possibly dangerous.

GF: And all of that can occur naturally for anyone of your species, without a need to understand its function?

Human: Some humans' experience has been less prominent with some accounts testifying that they have never had that feeling well into their adulthood. Being aware of its process helps but that knowledge is not required for this function of the brain to occur, making my answer a stern "no" with an asterisk.

GF: Hm.

Human:

GF:

Human: Yup.

GF: Does your species perhaps take protection commissions?

Humans: Some do.

GF: Splendid.

Sixth Fucking Sense Apparently

So humans have a funky little sixth sense for when someone/thing is looking at us and honestly wtf.

So an alien spy is trying to get human info getting progressively more concerned when the human they're tailing keeps looking around and acting like they know the alien is there. Maybe it's an alien species renowned for stealth and no other sentient in the galaxy had ever been able to spot them so at this point they're double checking themselves and going insane.

At this point the human's figured shit out and so they lead the alien into a trap much to Sneaky McSneakfuck's dismay and confusion.

So eventually humans hold a press conference about the whole stalker and the galactic federation or whatever it would be called is like:

GF: How in the dick shitting fuck did you know they were there??

Human: felt them watching me.

Gf: felt them fucking What.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #202: This Evil Undying

December, 1980

Merry Christmas, here’s the Christmas robot here to punish the naughty. Protip: Everyone is naughty.

Okay but no, this isn’t really a Christmas story. Preponderance of red and green aside. But if I read this during December it would be a sweet Christmas gift of sorts from Marvel.

Aside from that, nothing much to say about the cover because this is kind of a generic Ultron cover. All I can tell from it is that this is during a time when Vision, Cap, Thor, and Wasp are on the team. Because that really narrows it down.

Last time: After the #200 debacle, the Avengers wanted nothing more than to clean up and just forget that #200 had even happened. Mostly nothing happened but then a robot broke into the Pym house, stole some important resins, and blew up the Wasp.

This time: The art looks weird. There’s a weird lifeless quality that I can’t quite put my finger on. I think its the inking, maybe.

Also, Jim Shooter once again gets a ‘based on’ credit. And since last post, I’ve actually discovered what that signifies. This two-parter was adapted from a paperback Avengers novel that Jim Shooter wrote.

I don’t know how much of it is Jim and how much was added making it into a comic and I couldn’t find out much about the novel. I imagine everything situating this within the post-Carol time period was an addition. Probably much of the domestic slice of life moments in last issue.

Also also, the window explodes and Cap logically assumes that they’re under attack because dammit they just got this place cleaned up!

Also also also, they’re all here late at night because Iron Man called an emergency meeting.

Lot of context to this splash page of a window exploding.

No further attack comes and Iron Man’s iron ear heard a tiny cry. Looking among the glass shards he finds...

THE WASP!

Jubilation, she lives!

I knew they wouldn’t kill off the Wasp! At least not until Secret Invasion!

.__.

Besides she’s on the cover and it would be a real dick move to put her on the cover alive if she died in the previous issue.

Anyway, surprise alive Jan tells the Avengers about what happened to her, in a surprisingly lucid fashion considering she just flew through an exploding window.

She has the facts down. None of this ‘says one ominous thing and then passes out’ biz.

Wasp: “I guess I should explain, huh? It seems longer, but it was only about an hour ago when I was awakened by a loud crash. And since my better half had already left for a scientific symposium in Tokyo -- I went to investigate, only to discover a huge robot carrying a pair of metal cannisters from Hank’s ‘impregnable’ security vault. And I guess the robot didn’t want any witnesses, because... it tried to kill me!”

Luckily, although she was stunned by a recent explosion, she possessed the wherewithal to shrink to wasp-size and escape.

And then she flew alllll the way to Manhattan from New Jersey because dammit she can do that if she wants to. She has endurance like whoa.

Still she was tired by the time she reached the mansion and lost control and was headed to thump against the window so she shattered it with one of her stings instead. Because crashing into a pile of glass shards is so much safer than hitting a window?

But after all of that, Wasp only has one concern.

Wasp: “Golly, I’ll be my hair is just a mess!”

Scarlet Witch: “You look fine, Wasp.”

Crisis averted!

Wasp always going to Wasp. I guess I don’t mind it because that’s just her character. It’d be a problem if Scarlet Witch were the same because then it would feel like Women Just Be Like That. But Wanda usually has different priorities going on.

Anyway, although the hair crisis is averted, there is still an attempted-homicide robot out there and the Avengers here an ominous clanking sound coming down the hall.

So hey all take defensive positions at the door so that they could hypothetically all be taken out in one shot.

“The ominous rattling grows, getting closer... until...”

Oh, its just good ol’ Jarvis with the early morning coffee and buttered muffins.

He interprets all the signs of imminent violence as the Avengers wanting breakfast later. Or maybe that’s just his droll Bronx/English? sense of humor.

Later, after the Avengers have affirmed that actually yes coffee and muffins will be lovely, Jarvis, Iron Man questions if the canisters the robot was stealing were labelled... “Ad Resin X and Ad Resin Y”?

Because, this just confirms Iron Man’s theory that he didn’t yet share with anyone, not even us last issue that Ultron has returned. BUT APPARENTLY he was chums enough to share it with the cover artist?

I feel slighted.

Hawkeye being Hawkeye says the dick thing.

Hawkeye: “Aw, geez, can’t we ever get rid o’ that tin-plated Napolean? Maybe your hubby’s lab deserved to get trashed, Wasp. After all -- Ultron wouldn’t even be around if Hank Pym hadn’t created him!”

Why do the Avengers like to spend time with this guy, again?

I mean Cap immediately tells Hawkeye not to be a dick but Jan’s response to that is just ‘well I think I would recognize Ultron if I saw him.’

Because the robot that attacked the lab wasn’t Ultron. As we see on the cover (too soon) Ultron is still looking pretty Ultrony. He has a pretty strong self-image actually.

Iron Man decides that this calls for him to explain to everyone (all of whom have fought Ultron and/or were created by him) how dangerous Ultron is.

Mostly because he’s made of adamantium and even though adamantium is a pain to store (once you mix the resins you have to keep it at 1500 degrees Fahrenheit and even then you only have eight minutes to mold it) once it has hardened, it can withstand a direct hit from a hydrogen bomb.

It was fairly long ago in another Ultron story in Avengers #66 when adamantium was introduced but one thing that sticks with me is the creator going ‘well shit this changes everything in a bad way.’

Its so indestructible that its a threat to the safety of the world. Very few counters to it exist. We haven’t seen a few yet like Rune King Thor or Antarctic vibranium which is the vibranium that kicks adamantium’s ass because its from space.

But one counter that we have seen is the reliable ol’ Scarlet Witch, most competent person on the team.

The way that a fully adamantium robot can even work is a molecular rearranger built into Ultron. And Scarlet Witch’s powers can make that rearranger malfunction and tear Ultron apart from the inside. Also, hypothetically, probability alteration should be able to just break adamantium or turn it into a less durable material. Its probability alteration. It doesn’t have to make sense.

Captain America: “That makes you, in Ultron’s eyes, the most dangerous of us all -- and the one he’s most likely to strike at first.”

So with Ultron out there somewhere plotting nefarious plans, this time the Avengers are going to be proactive by being reactive! Their plan this time is: protect Scarlet Witch!

Scarlet Witch protests though that she is accustomed to taking care of herself and really they should just track down Ultron and beat him up. Jocasta can track him, right?

But no, she cannot. Something is jamming her otherwise OP pls nerf cybernetic senses. She can’t find Ultron and heck she can’t even track Beast’s mutant energy like she did before to find Beast and Wonder Man.

Remember? They went to go tape Wonder Man’s show last issue but then Wonder Man got fired? Who knows what they’re up to now. Probably getting ruinously drunk.

Anyway, Vision offers a compromise. What if he takes responsibility for his wife’s safety? They’d be hanging around each other either way and she likes him already. A double marriage with a tree proves that.

She seems partial to the idea judging by that look she gives him.

And. I don’t even know whats going on with that side-eye Jan is giving them. I just. Do not.

Anyway, the rest of the Avengers are dismissed to go about their duties but also to stay near the mansion because WE ARE ON YELLOW ALERT PEOPLE!

I don’t think a color-coded alert system was ever explicitly established and have to believe that Cap just made it up this instant and everyone is just kinda going ‘ok Cap whatever you say.’

Hawkeye catches up to Wasp and apologizes for being an ass. He’s got that problem where his mouth is faster than his brain.

Wasp forgives him but only because he’s cute. That’s how she rolls.

Later, the sun is finally rising. Do these Avengers ever sleep?

We get a cute scene of Scarlet Witch and Vision watching the sun rise.

Scarlet Witch: “The dawn is beautiful, is it not, darling? Do you think it was meant to inspire us?”

Vision: “Actually, Wanda, the coloration you refer to is the result of the unique refractive qualities of the various airborne pollutants present in this vicinity.”

Scarlet Witch: “Wha--?! Blast it, Vision! Can’t you see that I’m looking for a little tenderness? A little compassion?”

Vison: “What would you have me do, my wife?”

Scarlet Witch: “I’d have you let go of me, that’s what! If you’re so blamed insensitive that you can’t tell when your own wife needs comforting --.”

Vision: “But I cannot let you go -- my job is to protect you. Would you like me to list the refractional indices of the chemical pollutants now? Perhaps in descending order?”

Scarlet Witch: “You do and I’ll hex you into plastic slag, you computerized --”

And then he kisses her. Because he was just teasing.

Is cute.

Apparently Vision’s ‘I do not understand human emotions and it makes me angry’ routine has evolved into ‘pretending not to understand human emotions except its foreplay.’

You’re an interesting guy, Vision.

“And the comfort that these two warriors and lovers find in each other’s arms gives evidence that the sunrise has, indeed, inspired them both.”

So yeah. ‘Beep boop what is love?’ is how Vision flirts now.

I wonder how far a gulf there is between this and Wanda dressing up in a Starfleet uniform and Vision asking Captain Wanda to explain this human concept of love.

Anyway, this page is sure to make the Seeing Red shippers very happy. They deserve it.

Meanwhile, in the basement training room, Captain America relaxes his own way. Through constant training.

According to Iron Man’s computer study, the Avengers typically face an average of four opponents in a typical battle. Presumably a typical battle against mooks and not against one superpowerful opponent that kicks all their asses.

So he sets up a training exercise with four targets and breaks them all with his shield. Its just a quick little one-page action scene.

In the event that he ever has to face four guys at varying heights, he’ll totally be able to hit them all with his shield in only a few seconds.

Skills.

In fact, he did so good that he gets positive reinforcement from thin air.

Thin Air: “Wheeee! Do it again!”

I josh. Its actually the Wasp.

In yet another new costume?

This is a very mercurial period in her fashion sense. It looks good though. Although it looks like she’s wearing yellow Saiyan armor. Actually she looks a lot like she was cosplaying Vegeta but maybe hadn’t seen a color image of his outfit. Because she’s got the bodysuit, the boots, the gloves, and the armor with shoulders.

Anyway, she was peeping in on Cap’s training routine and riding on his shoulder for a very important reason.

Wasp: “Sorry, Cap, I couldn’t resist hitching a ride. You’re so adorable when you’re concentrating.”

Cap: “I didn’t realize I was that easy to sneak up on, Wasp. Thanks for pointing it out -- I’ll work on it.”

Wasp: “That’s not exactly what I had in mind, Captain. Oh, what’s the use? It’s no fun flirting when Hank isn’t around to get jealous, anyway.”

... A really healthy relationship you have there, Mrs. Pym.

I do love Cap’s takeaway of ‘she must be telling me to work on my situational awareness!’

Hawkeye pops into the training room to report that Ultron’s robot struck again, stealing ‘secret materials’ from a British arms depot and wiping out an armored division in the process.

Hawkeye grouses that while this was going on, the Avengers were just sitting on their thumbs. Cap counters that they’re doing a very important job that nobody else can do by guarding the Scarlet Witch.

Wasp: “You mean you’re guarding the Scarlet Witch. I’m going back to the Cresskill to clean up the mess that drone made of Hank’s lab!”

Captain America: “Wait a minute, Wasp! We might need you!”

Wasp: “I doubt it, Cap. Let’s face it -- I’m the lightweight of the group. If the rest of you super-strong Avengers can’t stop Ultron, what good is a Wasp going to do? But don’t worry, I’ll stay in touch between loads to the trash bin. ‘Bye.”

... Its true but you shouldn’t say it.

Geez. Even the character is self-aware of how ineffectual she usually is. She’s not going on any Clint Bartony pity party about it but still.

I feel that if the writers were better at figuring out the non-combat utilities that shrinking powers were good for, Wasp would contribute a lot more. Maybe I’m just thinking this because I watched Ant-Man and the Wasp before starting this post and there was so much good shrinking action.

Later in the day, a weary hasn’t-slept-a-wink-all-night-probably Iron Man records a voice log.

Iron Man: “This is Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man... and this is the most difficult message I’ve ever had to dictate. I had hoped to speak directly to Thor, but he hasn’t responded to the summonses I’ve sent. I can only pray that he will before it’s too late.

For I’ve reason to believe that the man who reconstructed Ultron was... myself!

The fact that only a handful of men in the whole world could have done the job, combined with the fact that certain necessary components at Stark International were accessible only to me, can lead to but one conclusion -- that Ultron planted a post-hypnotic command in Tony Stark’s mind before last fighting the Avengers, ordering him to recreate Ultron’s form should he be defeated.

In other words, I was his ace in the hole -- though I’m sure that getting Iron Man under his control was something that even Ultron didn’t anticipate!

What worries me now is that I may still be subject to Ultron’s influence. Which means that when Ultron finds out my dual identity -- he could use Iron Man to fight the Avengers!

Which is why I constructed a tracing device last night, tuned to my armor’s energy mode. It’s locked in the basement vault in the mansion, and is to be used if I should become Ultron’s puppet -- used to track me down... and to destroy me!

Print one copy, seal it in an Avengers priority envelope addressed to Thor, than erase tape. Communication ends.”

Phew. A lot to unpack there.

One: So Ultron prepares for defeat a lot for a guy that never expects to be defeated.

Two: When did Ultron even get the opportunity to put Tony Stark under manchurian candidateism? Geez, I hope being brainwashed by villains doesn’t become a big thing with Tony.

Three: So I guess the invention he was working on last time that would cause his death at his friend’s hands was this tracking device. Hmm. Not what I expected but okay.

Soon, Iron Man finds Jarvis cooking a nice roast and asks him to give it to Thor when he arrives.

Iron Man: “But if I start acting unusual, acting like I’m not, well, myself, then get it into the hands of any Avenger immediately! And whatever you do, don’t give it back to me -- even if I threaten to kill you. I’m counting on you, Jarvis.”

Jarvis: “Thank you, sir. I promise I’ll not let you dow- kill me --?”

God. Jarvis puts up with so much. Double his salary and vacation time. He deserves more but thats for starters.

Also, its evening. A full day! We started at night, then the sun rose, and now its night again.

And Iron Man has approached Jocasta with a solution to the sensor jamming. All she needs to do is plug into this console and the problem will be solved quite nicely.

I don’t mean to cast suspicion at the man who explicitly suspected he was under brainwashing (oh hey, a bit of minor karmic comeuppance for letting Carol waltz off while brainwashed. Weird.) but Iron Man comes off very ominous here.

What with the shading but also the random italics.

But that klak is the last bit of this scene for the very next page and mere moment later, Iron Man knocks (or rather ‘noks’) on Vision and Scarlet Witch’s room.

Where apparently Vision is helping Wanda with her hair? Cute.

Iron Man tells Vision that sensors have detected unusual vibrations in the bedrock below the mansion. Maybe Ultron is trying to sneak up through the floor?

Hey, since Vision can alter his density maybe go check that out? Iron Man will watch the Scarlet Witch.

Vision doesn’t want to leave Wanda (this is the most time they’ve had together in weeks and maybe months) but he goes off anyway.

Wanda questions why Ultron would attack so obviously.

Iron Man: “That’s simple, Wanda -- he wouldn’t!”

He then grabs Wanda and zaps her unconscious.

Gasp! The traitor is Iron Man!

-eats popcorn-

Iron Man places a call to Ultron, specifically identifying as “Tony Stark in Iron Man armor” which is technically correct but also an amazing way to weasel out of revealing your secret identity when you’re technically brainwashed. Outstanding, Tony’s subconscious.

Iron Tony reveals he has incapacitated Scarlet Witch and asks Ultron whether he wants her killed or brought to him.

There’s a second pause.

It would have been a good place for a beat panel.

To drag out the suspense.

And then Ultron tells Iron Man to bring Scarlet Witch to him.

But for the flip of a coin, imagine how things could have been. If Ultron had been more cautious and told Iron Man to kill Wanda. If Tony had come out of the hypnosis to find that he had killed a long-time friend and teammate. Even if Vision understood and didn’t kill Tony in his grief, I don’t think Tony would ever forgive himself even if it was something out of his control.

Now there’s some good fodder for a What If story. But its terrible and I never want to read it.

Anyway, Iron Tony blasts out of the mansion carrying Scarlet Witch but before he goes, he spots Jarvis napping in a chair near a window. With the important envelope on a table right in front of him.

“There, he raises a gauntleted finger -- and cybernetically activates a pencil-thin laser beam -- turning what could well be the most important envelope in the world into a cluster of blackened ash and shattered hope.”

Dammit, Evil Tony! Stop taking precautions against your precautions!

But at least he didn’t murder Jarvis. Small miracles.

So Iron Man flies off to Neville Island where an abandoned Davreax heavy metals plant hides an Ultronish secret.

Its Ultron.

That’s the secret.

He’s got giant bubbling cauldrons of adamantium set up and ready. Despite the high tech lasers and stuff, it gives it a real gothic vibe.

Ultron congratulates Tony on his clever thinking of dressing as Iron Man.

Iron Man: “I... feel the need... to serve you... Ultron.”

Ultron: “Yes, my psycho-hypnosis has seen to that. And you are but the first. For soon, all humanity will serve me. They will serve... or die!”

Oh. Good. At least he’s not trying to wipe out humanity this time?

Actually I’m very vague on what Ultron’s overall goals have been up until now. I’d go back and check but most Ultron stories are stupid.

But elsewhere, an electronic cry of human anguish.

Vision has discovered that Scarlet Witch is missing. Although in classic robo-angst fashion he immediately tries to dismiss his obvious display of emotion.

Captain America: “Vision! What’s wrong? That scream -- !”

Vision: “I apologize for that, Captain. My... vocal circuitry was misaligned. I merely wished to call the Avengers’ attention to an emergency.”

Just admit that you can feel feelings, Vision. You’ll be a lot happier if you do. Happiness, by the way, is one of those emotions you totally feel all the time and yet deny feeling.

But just as Vision is telling Cap that Iron Man sent him on a wild goose chase and tricked them, Hawkeye calls in on the intercom to say that he thinks Iron Man tricked them.

Because apparently when he said he was going to fix Jocasta’s circuits he meant ‘fix’ with scare quotes because when she plugged into that computer console, he scrambled her brain.

Weirdly, the book almost misleads you into thinking you were misled about the ominousness in the Jocasta scene. Iron Man has her plug into a computer to fix her cybernetic sensors and then moments later he’s upstairs going ‘hey something weird on the sensors.’

You kidnap one of the female cast, you turn another one’s brain into mush? Stop being such a dick, Iron Man!

Thor picks that moment to arrive because its the most dramatically appropriate time to arrive. He even says the equivalent of ‘then good thing I’m here!’ in Asgardian speak.

With Thor arrived, Jarvis tells him about the secret envelope Iron Man left for Thor but also that someone burned it while he was merely napping, only this and nothing more.

HOWEVER

Jarvis: “However, knowing the missive’s importance, I took the liberty of xeroxing the message -- without reading it, of course.”

Jarvis, you beautiful man! You beautiful boundaries respecting forethought having man! You deserve a dozen backup stories! Nay, a dozen dozen!

Thor reads the letter and immediately runs to the vault. Unfortunately, Tony welded it shut. Fortunately, Thor just WHA-KAMs right through it.

Which considering the letter was meant for Thor feels like the intended outcome. He welded it shut so that not even he could get in there. He took precautions against him taking precautions to his precautions! Tony, you magnificent bastard!

Inside the vault there is but the Iron Man tracer device that the letter spoke of. Although Thor says it traces Iron Man’s ‘energy aura’ because he’s gotta be fantastical about things.

But either way the device picks up a clear signal from the west so the Avengers Assemble their asses into a Quinjet and go looking for iron.

Or at least I hope that’s the tracer and that they’re following Iron Man’s signal because that device is clearly a cassette player and they may only be following Iron Man’s mix-tape.

... I kind of want to listen to Iron Man’s mix-tape.

Meanwhile at Ultron’s heavy metals plant, Iron Man is starting to come out of the hypnosis when Ultron reveals his plans to hurt the Scarlet Witch.

Apparently, he had Iron Tony bring her from the mansion because he personally wanted to kill her. And to do so in an ‘eye for an eye’ fashion. Since her power tore him apart last time, he’s going to do the same to her.

Iron Man won’t be standing for that and though he doesn’t know how he got here, he’s not going to let Ultron hurt Wanda.

Unfortunately, Ultron still has his Win Button from last time.

When Iron Man grapples with him, Ultron just instantly drains all of the power from Iron Man’s armor, leaving him... well powerless.

This scene would make a hilarious sequence animated. Just charge Ultron and then immediately get dropped to the mat.

It does mean though that the Avengers lose the signal. And without it, they have no choice but to set down somewhere and wait until daylight to make a visual search.

Uh oh. So much for the cavalry.

But back at the plant, Iron Man hasn’t given up. A scraping sound clues Ultron in that the dude is crawling across the floor trying to get to a wall outlet to recharge his armor.

I’m not sure how fast you can recharge a suit of powered armor from a standard wall outlet but I’ll give Tony props for determination.

Ultron decides to be smart and just kill Iron Man this time. Why take chances?

But a tiny but apparently painful and distracting tzzzing painfully distracts him.

The Wasp of all people has shown up out of nowhere and started blasting Ultron in the face.

The Wasp: “I knew I wouldn’t be much good in a frontal assault, so I hid away in Wanda’s glove, figuring I’d be more useful as a surprise!”

That’s that good shit! That is what I’m talking about! Good job, Jim Shooter and/or David Michelinie in having the Wasp use her powers in an intelligent fashion! Misdirection, stealth, and the ever distracting tiny energy blast to the face!

Please keep writing her this smart! Please!

Also, she was apparently in Wanda’s glove the whole time. And they’re not exactly roomy so Wanda knew the whole time that Wasp was there.

Anyway, Ultron threatens to crush Wasp like the insect she is because his superior robot intellect isn’t really great at one-liners but suddenly

SHRAK-OOOM

Ultron gets blasted through a wall.

It turns out that you can recharge an armor a lot in a very short time with a standard wall outlet. Who knew?

Humorously, when Iron Man thanks Wasp for the distraction, she replies that he can repay her with an autographed picture of Tony Stark. Oh, you!

Everyone involved is pretty clear that just blowing Ultron through a wall hasn’t significantly stopped him so the plan now is to grab Wanda and skedaddle.

But just as Iron Man scoops up unconscious Wanda, Ultron emerges from the wall hole and blasts at them. Its a near miss but it still knocks Iron Man off his feet and stuns him.

Ultron: “That’s right -- grovel in your pain! Rue that you are but flesh, while I am all-abiding metal! You shall die, but I shall go on forever! For there is not a single power in the universe that can stop me!”

Narration: “No, no single power... save perhaps the hammer of Thor!”

FRAKOW

I love it when the narration plays off the happenings like that.

So when Iron Man completely recharged his armor from a wall socket, as ya do, the tracer reactivated. So the cavalry has arrived after all!

Bursting through a wall like the Kool-Ade man because that's just how the Avengers roll.

While Hawkeye (really? Really??) distracts Ultron with concussion arrows, Vision and Cap run off to check on Wanda and Iron Man respectively.

Iron Man tells Cap to be careful of the liquid adamantium vats. Remember to remember the vats, he seems to be saying.

Thor scoffs at the need for caution because while Ultron has stomped mortal foes, now he faces A GOD!

And he throws his hammer hard enough that we need to zoom to the outside of the factory to show the impact.

Which is big ol’ lightning strike and the building and even ground cracking and crumbling from the force of uru striking adamantium.

But it is adamantium its striking.

I don’t know why Thor finds this so hard to grasp. Adamantium is really, really, really durable. Although, Thor at his strongest can break it. But we are talking Thor as All-Father or Rune King or whatever.

This Thor that we have right here is comparatively a baby Thor or perhaps a gawky adolescent Thor. He’s not there yet. He doesn’t even have a beard.

Ultron retaliate blasts at Thor but Cap jumps between them and uses his shield to angle the blast right back at Ultron. Because apparently when fusion blasts oppose his mighty shield, even they must yield. And also apparently, its the mirror shield.

Not that it does much. Again: adamantium. REALLY TOUGH.

Its funny though. The motion lines on the panel with Cap and Thor make it look exactly like Thor just grabbed Cap and put him in front of him as a human shield. Instead of the intended read that Cap jumped there.

It’d be way out of character but it made me laugh.

Thor decides that if he can’t just hammer time Ultron hard enough to break something, he’ll strangle him instead!

Okay. Okay. I’m pretty sure this is more of a grappling thing but he keeps pushing the handle of Mjolnir against Ultron’s throat. IT KEEPS HAPPENING.

Maybe it would make more sense to put him in an arm lock. It looks like Ultron designed himself with joints that work like a human’s would. And surely Thor could outmuscle him.

And then when his arms are pinned, I dunno, find a maintenance hatch or something and just start pulling wires.

It wouldn’t work because Ultron pulls powers out of his ass and could... electrify his carapace or something. But still.

I want to see Ultron in an arm lock.

Anyway, Thor’s attempts at grappling are for naught because Ultron just shoots blindness beams with his unlocked arm.

Because he has those. That’s just something he can do.

Then Iron Man calls him out on it.

Iron Man: “That was a dirty trick, Ultron! Let’s find out how good you are at going one-on-one with someone who’s onto your ploys -- like me! Or are you scared?”

Ultron takes the bait for bait it is and jumps over at Iron Man to smash him. Iron Man just flies away leaving Ultron confused and standing next to an adamantium vat that I hope you all remembered was a factor.

Hawkeye: “That’s right, motor-mouth! We humies have a few tricks of our own! Like f’rinstance, the ‘ol’ one-two’ -- in which Iron Man’s the one -- an’ I’m the two!”

And Hawkeye ziplines down at Ultron, kicking him into the adamantium chekov’ vat.

Surely breaking every bone in his foot but oh so worth it.

Then without missing a beat, Captain America and Thor throw their mighty shield and Mjolnir to destroy the lasers heating the vat.

And as the Avengers watch in trepidation, Ultron claws his way out of the vat screaming

Ultron: “No! I... must... sur... viiiiive... *”

And the adamantium cools, trapping Ultron in an unbreakable prison. And he’s powered by fusion so its possible that he’s conscious in there.

“And then it is done, like a tortured fly stuck in glittering amber, Ultron stands frozen, unmoving, unmovable. The threat of the evil undying is over.

For now.”

Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving prick, I suppose.

This is probably one of the better Ultron stories.

I’ve said before that after Ultron becomes adamantium and thus unable to just be punched to death, each encounter with him becomes a puzzle. How do we get rid of him this time?

And although it would be easy to just have Scarlet Witch take care of him every time, that probably wouldn’t be as engaging maybe.

So the solution this time was fairly creative. The Avengers can’t kill Ultron. Or, well, they could. Scarlet Witch was conscious. She could have done her thing. But minus that, the Avengers can’t kill Ultron.

How then do you make him not a threat?

You dump him into adamantium so he becomes a vaguely Ultron shaped statue.

Its an obvious but creative solution that hadn’t been used yet.

And then hopefully you dig a hole and dump him in that hole and dump cement on top of him and then fill in that hole.

I can’t think of a way for this specific Ultron to get out of this but why take any chances?

Also and amazingly: this is the one Ultron story where everybody is smart.

Ultron was smart, hiding behind his robot drones until Scarlet Witch was neutralized. Not having Iron Man kill her was dumb but dude is petty.

Iron Man was smart... ish. Suspecting that he had been compromised, he set up some contingencies to ensure that the Avengers would be able to find him. Making that letter, making the tracer, welding the vault door shut. Smart.

Not telling anyone and relying on a letter to Thor to find its way was not as smart. I understand why though. Revealing he might be under Ultron’s control and may have rebuilt Ultron might lead into revealing his secret identity. Its stupid he has one but its his.

Hypnotized Iron Man: also smart. Came up with clever ways to neutralize Jocasta and get Vision out of the way so he could abscond with Wanda. Also, even hypnotized he protected his stupid secret identity. He also burned the letter without causing much of a fuss.

Jarvis: smart. Realizing from Iron Man’s weird ominousness how important the letter was, he made a backup. While respecting privacy.

Wasp: faked writing herself out of the story for her uselessness, instead proved how useful her powerset is.

Usually, everyone is stupid in an Ultron story. But here, everyone was smart.

They could have done more. Tony should have a team of scientists working around the clock to find ways to deal with adamantium generally and Ultron specifically. They shouldn’t rely on either the Scarlet Witch or having a vat of liquid adamantium available.

Still, way to use your surroundings.

Okay, so despite the story having ‘waiting for Thor’ as a minor plot point, he doesn’t really do much besides bust open the vault but its still something that his and Tony’s mutual trust is what made him the person that Tony entrusted the letter and Iron Man tracker to.

So the real contribution Thor made was not his muscles but his heart. And that’s beautiful.

Its a bit weird that Ultron just so happened to have brainwashed Tony Stark off-panel but that’s not the first time that’ll happen.

Actually, this story is like a much more condensed and much less stupid version of the Crossing. Iron Man turns traitor because he’s brainwashed by a long-time Avengers enemy.

You cut 90% of the fat and the part where Tony is replaced by his younger self and yeah, the similarities are uncanny.

I’m really not looking forward to the Crossing...

Anyway, I think being based on a book helped bump this story’s level of quality up.

I understand that writing a monthly comic means you can’t put as much effort into the story. There’s not time for extensive revising. But you had this apparently pre-existing Avengers novel where more time was spent on refining this Ultron story.

I suspect that the characters that got written out were not part of the novel. Jocasta, Beast, Wonder Man, and Yellowjacket. Also why you had Hawkeye stick around after the nonsense with Marcus. Needed to get him in here so he could kick Ultron.

If anyone knows anything about this mysterious and legendary Avengers paperback novel, please let me know. I’d be fascinated to see what changed and what was kept during the adaptation process.

But yeah. I really enjoyed this two-parter. Its funny that they apparently had run out of ideas for after #200 and had to adapt an existing story but it was good.

Keep it up, Micheline and/or whoever.

How ironic that a machine intelligence who hates humanity would end up the one who has no mouth and yet must scream. Also, follow @essential-avengers because you like me and think I’m rad.

[koffeeexpress]

That morning cup of coffee you love? It turns out to boost your health too

We sure love our coffee. Even during the lockdown, many of us managed to keep buying our daily ground coffee or single-serve cups for Americano or flat coffee. Therefore, we should all be happy to know that those drinks may have helped us stay healthy. The latest evaluations of the health effects of coffee and caffeine, its main active ingredient, are truly reassuring. Its use has been linked to a reduced risk of all types of ailments, including Parkinson's disease, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, gallstones, depression, suicide, cirrhosis, liver cancer, melanoma, and prostate cancer.

In fact, in numerous studies around the world, consuming enough coffee to provide 400 mg of caffeine per day has been associated with reduced death rates. It's about four or five cups of regular coffee. In terms of takeout, a shot of espresso contains 60-65mg of caffeine, and a latte, cappuccino, or flat white generally contains at least one or two shots. (At liquid coffees , you'll get 150 mg of caffeine from a Grande cappuccino and 225 mg from a Venti cappuccino.)

In general, despite various concerns that have come up over the years, coffee is very safe and has several important potential benefits.

In a study of more than 200,000 participants followed for up to 30 years, those who drank three to five cups of coffee a day, with or without caffeine, were 15 percent less likely to die prematurely from all causes than people who avoided coffee. Perhaps most dramatic was a 50 percent reduction in suicide risk among men and women who were moderate coffee drinkers, perhaps by increasing the production of brain chemicals that have antidepressant effects.

As a report published last summer by a Harvard School of Public Health research team concluded, although current evidence may not justify recommending coffee or caffeine for disease prevention, drinking coffee in moderation "may be part of a lifestyle. healthy "for most people.

It was not always like this. I've had decades of sporadic warnings that coffee could be a health hazard. Over the years, coffee has been considered a cause of conditions such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, pancreatic cancer, anxiety disorder, nutrient deficiencies, gastric reflux disease, migraine, insomnia, and premature death. As recently as 1991, the World Health Organization listed coffee as a possible carcinogen. In some of the now-discredited studies, smoking, not drinking coffee (the two often went hand in hand), was responsible for the alleged danger.

"These periodic scares have given the public a very distorted view," says Dr. Walter C Willett, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. "In general, despite various concerns that have arisen over the years, coffee is very safe and has several important potential benefits."

Even if you can easily fall asleep after coffee in the evening, it can affect your ability to get enough sleep.

That is not to say that coffee justifies good health. Caffeine crosses the placenta to the fetus and drinking coffee during pregnancy can increase the risk of miscarriage, low birth weight, and preterm labor. Pregnancy alters the way the body metabolizes caffeine, and pregnant or breastfeeding women are advised to abstain completely, stick to decaf, or at least limit their caffeine intake to less than 200 mg up to date.

The most common harmful effect associated with caffeinated coffee is sleep disturbance. Caffeine blocks at the same receptor in the brain as the neurotransmitter adenosine, a natural sedative. Dr. Willett, a co-author of the Harvard report, says: “I love coffee, but I only drink it occasionally because otherwise, I don't sleep very well. A lot of people with sleep problems don't recognize the coffee connection. "

Discussing his caffeine audiobook with Terry Gross on US National Public Radio last winter, Michael Pollan called caffeine "the enemy of good sleep" because it interferes with deep sleep. He confessed that after the challenging task of giving up coffee, he "went back to sleep as a teenager."

Willett, now 75, says, "You don't need to go zero to minimize the impact on sleep," but he acknowledges that a person's sensitivity to caffeine "probably increases with age." People also vary widely in how quickly they metabolize caffeine, allowing some to sleep soundly after drinking caffeinated coffee at dinner, while others have trouble sleeping if they have coffee for lunch. But even if you can easily fall asleep after a late-night coffee, it can disrupt your ability to sleep soundly, Pollan writes in his forthcoming book, This Is Your Mind on Plants.

Willett says that it is possible to develop a degree of tolerance to the effect of caffeine on sleep. My 75-year-old brother, a heavy caffeinated coffee drinker, claims he is not affected by it. However, gaining tolerance to caffeine could reduce his benefit if, for example, he wanted it to help him stay alert and focused while he was driving or

taking a test.

All the things that people put in a coffee can result in junk food with up to 500 to 600 calories.

Caffeine is one of the more than 1,000 chemicals in coffee, and not all of them are beneficial. Among others with positive effects are polyphenols and antioxidants. Polyphenols can inhibit the growth of cancer cells and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes; Antioxidants, which have anti-inflammatory effects, can fight heart disease and cancer, both of which are top killers.

None of this means that coffee is beneficial regardless of how it is prepared. When brewed without a paper filter, as in the French press, Norwegian boiled coffee, espresso, or Turkish coffee, oily chemicals called diterpenes are leaked out that can increase your artery-damaging LDL cholesterol. However, these chemicals are practically absent in both filtered and instant coffee. Knowing that I have a cholesterol problem, I dissected a coffee pod and found a paper filter that covered the plastic cup. Phew!

Also counteracting the potential health benefits of coffee are popular additions some people use, such as cream and sweet syrups, that can turn this zero-calorie drink into a high-calorie dessert. "All the things that people put in a coffee can result in junk food with up to 500 to 600 calories," says Dr. Willett. A Grande Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino, for example, has about 36.8 g of sugar, 16.3 g of fat (11.5 of them saturated), and 312 calories.

With the arrival of iced coffee season, more people are likely to turn to cold-brewed coffee. Now gaining popularity, cold brew counteracts the natural acidity of coffee and the bitterness that results when boiling water is poured over ground coffee. Cold brewing is made by soaking the grounds in cold water for several hours, then filtering the liquid through a paper filter to remove harmful grounds and diterpenes and maintain the flavor and caffeine for your enjoyment. Cold-brew can also be made with decaffeinated coffee.

Decaf isn't entirely without health benefits. As with caffeinated coffee, the polyphenols it contains have anti-inflammatory properties that can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and cancer. - New York Times

[themackenziemachine]

I’m waiting for some pie crust to chill so I guess now is as good a time as any to expound on my thoughts on Girl Genius, Sparks (Particularly our main trio) and mental health. (Inspired in part by some of @overlord-off-record ‘s fics.)

So, clearly, the state of mental health care in the world of Girl Genius is... less than ideal. It’s a dangerous, stressful and often war-torn society. PTSD, depression, anxiety... even outside of what we see in comic it must run rampant. And most “scientific advancements” seem to be left to sparks. Certainly if I was a depressed/anxious bystander I wouldn’t be lining up to ask for help from my sparky overlord. Lesser sparks are, to put it mildly, quirky and just as (if not more eager) to test their own prowess/interests on someone as to help them. (See Lars and the not so helpful calming pie, suggestions of robotic feet, etc) But I would say it could have been far, far worse. (More under the cut)

A lot of what I think about the world’s treatment options comes down to the question of what we can assume they know about the pathophysiology of mood disorders. I’m inclined to say that they probably know that neurotransmitters exist (IRL Dr. Loewi’s thing with the frog hearts seems very sparky) and they know that stimulating certain nerves release these chemicals and cause physical reactions but I doubt that they know/care enough yet to be making medications like serotonin re-uptake inhibitors.  In fact I’d be more likely to relate the research on mood disorders to the research we see Klaus doing on what causes the spark early on in the series. Which would place things right in the uncomfortable historical territories of lobotomies, less regulated electroconvulsive therapy and water shock therapies. 

Speaking more directly about sparks, especially Tarvek and Gil (which was sort of what this was supposed to be about. oops) it puts them in a very dangerous situation. The breakthrough process in general is supposed to be traumatic even if it isn’t brought on by an emotionally traumatic situation. And then if the first creation is a dangerous one that causes high destruction and maiming of bystanders you’ve got a great recipe for early childhood trauma. Not to mention that the family situation for both our boys was... no good at all. It’s hard enough feeling like you might disappoint less than understanding parents with discussion of your mental health but with a sparky parent just as likely to want to open you up to “fix the problem” or straight up scrap you for parts you can sure as hell bet that /I’d/ never mention my poor mental health to anyone unless they had /really/ earned my trust in some way. (So maybe some rough discussion between the boys early on Castle Wulfenbach, an unspoken understanding between many of the students and almost certainly Tarvek to Collette in the Paris years)

So where does this leave our boys in the way of treatment? Well, they could try light therapy on themselves. That’s innocuous enough. Tinctures and concoctions of their own design, especially Gil with his medicinal background. And certainly laudanum. Although with its sedative properties neither boy would be likely to use it often for fear of being taken advantage of while not alert (the suspicious little fuckers). I can see Tarvek trying it more than Gil. Alone, locked away from everything after transferring  Anevka’s consciousness to Tinka, while watching her brain deteriorate leaving just a shell in her place. He’s a Stressed Out boy who doesn’t have Gil’s advantage of technically needing less sleep than your average bear. Occasionally the temptation to self medicate to slow his mind’s racing is understandable if not healthy. It wouldn’t even surprise me if he still keeps some around later on and offers it to Gil at some point promising to watch over him if he’ll just try to get one goddamn night of sleep. 

I probably have more thoughts I’ve forgotten but this is more than enough rambling for one day and it’s time to go make my pie filling