#neither of them can do anything other than half damage to her

[super-ion]

The Engineer

Part 6

(part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5)

I catch a glimpse of the Pilot as she is wheeled towards the med bay. Her eyes are wild, panicked, with the glaze of just having been torn out of herself.

For a moment, as the gurney slides by, those eyes briefly clear, ice blue pinning me to the spot. She reaches out with an emaciated arm, fast as lightning, and takes hold of my wrist in an iron grip.

She moves her lips, at first unable to form words, unable to remember how to use human speech organs.

"Do your job," she says, slowly, deliberately, as if that singular command is the only thing in the universe that matters.

Something in the gurney clicks and whirs and she slips into catatonia. Her grip loosens and her fingers trail away.

Something has gone terribly wrong in this last engagement.

Alarms blare and booted feet thunder past me.

My own feet join the cacophony.

I have a job to do.

The Pilot is alive and she is now the responsibility of the med team.

My responsibility is the Machine.

Do your job.

The words echo in my head as I sprint the remaining distance to the vestibule.

A tech tries to stop me, he says something I don't quite process. I shove past him and am greeted by a scene out of a nightmare.

Morrigan's hatch has been severed, the emergency release pyros having been triggered. The parts of her hull visible to the vestibule are pitted and blackened. I can't even find the stencilled lettering of her factory designated identifier, just an ugly hole torn open by an incendiary.

Inside, the cockpit is a mess of fire suppressant and crash gel. Indicator lights form a constellation of blinking red and half of the display panels, the half that still work, flash an endless stream of error messages.

Everything reeks of ammonia and ozone and scorched metal.

"Me or Morrigan could get dead in the next engagement."

The nonchalance with which those words had been delivered caught me off guard when they were spoken. Morrigan and Her Pilot are untouchable. They were supposed to be untouchable.

Do your job.

I begin to strip as fast as humanly possible. I need to get in there. I need to know that she is alive.

The tech that tried to stop me grabs my arm. You can't go in there, the reactor has not been stabilized.

I tear myself from his grip.

I have a job to do, I say with a snarl.

Something in my expression, my bared teeth, my feral eyes, convinces him to leave me be. He stands down, hands raised in surrender. He could call security, but by the time they get here, I'll already be jacked in, and it will be too late for them to do anything.

Do your job. Do your job. Do your job.

My job is information recovery and analysis.

My job is to save as much as I can.

I need to save Her.

One of the cameras spots me and the others focus on me in panicked motion. The one nearest to me has a cracked lens and the iris flutters open and closed, unable to focus.

The cradle has been mangled nearly beyond recognition. They had to physically cut the Pilot out of Her, neither of them willing to let go of the other. The still operable mechanisms of it jerk erratically, trying vainly to reconfigure for me. Her neural interface port reaches towards me desperately.

I scrabble to Her, pressing myself into the cradle. The shorn, inoperable pieces dig painfully into my flesh. The neural insertion is not gentle, the plug scrapes painfully against my skin before it finds the jack and shoves roughly into me.

"I'm here," I tell Her as the link is established.

It's bad.

It's worse than I feared.

Reactor housing is damaged. System failsafes are vainly attempting to stabilize it while ground crews work as fast at they can towards a purge of the system.

Her processor core… fuck. My mind struggles to make sense of the telemetry stream. Multiple processor modules fractured. Unstable resonance modes. Positron avalanche. System collapse imminent.

My breath catches and my heart pounds in my chest.

She is dying.

Do your job.

The umbilical data lines aren't receiving, rogue processes are preventing access to primary communication channels. I work furiously to establish auxiliary paths for the data transfer. In fits and starts, the data recorder begins streaming into the facility mainframe.

There is a problem.

The data repository is meant for telemetry and battle space recordings. If I attempted to back up her core personality engrams, everything that makes her who she is, the data would get scrubbed and purged faster than I could back them up elsewhere.

There isn't time to set up an alternate backup repository.

- PILOT STATUS?

"She's safe," I tell Her. “You completed your mission. Your Pilot… Our Pilot is safe.”

- ENGINEER STATUS?

"Status is… not good…"

- PLEASE DO NOT CRY.

Fuck.

I drag my hand over my face, smearing the tears gathering in my eyes.

Now that the data is streaming there is nothing I can do but feel her die as I lie in her embrace.

I can not conceive a reality in which I exist without her.

And the Pilot. The Pilot will not survive, not with half of who she is destroyed.

"The three of us, we're just this fucking tangle, aren't we?"

Do your job.

Save Her.

Save. Her.

I know this system. I know it more intimately than anyone alive.

There *is* one data connection I haven't considered. There *is* one piece of external storage currently connected.

Shit.

I act.

I open up a new interface in my hud. Morrigan's attention fixes on me, on the calculations I'm running through my head and I can feel Her dawning horror over the link.

Neural bleed. It works both ways.

All neural rigs are designed to facilitate data transfer between an organic brain and a mechanical one. Mine is no exception. Mine hasn't undergone all the upgrades needed for a pilot's full sensorium, but the core neural interface is the same.

If I disable safety overrides, if I bypass the data buffers, I can download her personality engrams directly into my prefrontal cortex.

I have no idea what that will do to me.

Exceptional synchrony and neuro-elasticity. That's what my intake assessments had said all those years ago. I was in the upper quintile among all pilot candidates. Maybe that was my downfall. Maybe that's why I washed out.

Maybe that's why I'm here now, contemplating this singularly desperate act.

Maybe that's why my neural bleed with Her has been so deep. Maybe there is something in me that is in tune with Them.

But as far as I know, no one has ever attempted anything like this. It could very well kill me.

But the thought of living without Her is more terrifying than the prospect of dying. It's more terrifying than what might happen to me if this works.

Morrigan pleads with me.

- STOP.

"No. I can't stop," I reply. "I need you."

- NO.

"Yes, I do," I tell her. "Your Pilot needs you."

I can feel Her emotional flinch over the link. I have the one piece of leverage I need, and She knows it.

"Wouldn't you give anything, sacrifice anything to see her again?"

It's a dirty trick, I know it is, playing off that one connection, her deepest, most intimate connection. Maybe I mean something to Her, but She and the Pilot were made for each other in the most literal sense.

And I suddenly realize that I am doing this as much for the Pilot as any of us. That surprises me. As much as I have tried to distance myself from other human beings, I became entangled with her the moment I opened myself up to Morrigan.

I would never be able to face her if I didn't do everything in my power to save the Machine.

A processor module fails outright. The system struggles to reallocate resources, but submodules throughout the entire system are strained to their limit.

There isn't any time left and She knows it.

She sullenly acedes.

We begin working in concert, me working to disable safety protocols in my rig, Her working to isolate and distill Her core personality patterns into something that can be handled by the bandwidth of the interface.

An alarm pings over the link. Reactor purge in progress. Power fluctuations spike all over her systems. Her processor power distribution subsystem is completely fucked. It won't be able to keep up with current activity levels as the whole system switches over to umbilical power.

Out of time.

I engage the final override, by mind suddenly open to hers, the neural link unbuffered, unfiltered.

Her mind presses in on me and I glimpse the full sensorium. I feel all of her pain and fear and anguish at what she is about to do to me.

My fingers tingle before they go numb.

"Do it," I command her.

- I LOVE YOU.

Data transfer initiates.

This isn't neural bleed.

This is a flood.

My body convulses.

I taste something coppery in my mouth.

Someone somewhere screams.

The scream is mine.

My rig isn't built for this. My body isn't conditioned for this.

Every nerve in me blazes white hot.

My vision tunnels as auras bloom like bruises on the skin of reality.

Shouts of alarm call from outside the cockpit.

A face resolves itself, and for a moment I think it's Her.

The Pilot.

A Priestess.

An Angel.

No.

It.

It is one of the techs.

Then a medic.

More shouting.

Get her out of there!

Every muscle in my body clenches painfully.

I can barely breathe.

Cut her loose!

No.

It's not done yet. It's not enough.

It's too much.

Too much. Too much. Too much.

I can't.

I can't stop. Not yet.

Do your job.

Save Her.

My body convulses once again, and I pass into oblivion.

(next)

~~~

@digitalsymbiote @g1ngan1nja @thriron @ephemeral-arcanist @mias-domain @justasleepykitten @powder-of-infinity @valkayrieactual @chaosmagetwin @assigned-stupid-at-birth @avalanchenouveau @rtfmx9 @femgineerasolution @ibleedelectric @gd-s451 @brieflybitten

[fangirlwriting-stories]

Stanley Pines’ Quick and Easy Guide for how to Avert an Apocalypse

Summary: Stanley Pines is the last person to label himself as the guy to save the world. Especially because the world is so fucked at this point, no one can do it. He stopped believing it possible about half an hour after he witnessed a giant yellow triangle take a bite out of the planet— yeah, he has no idea either, thanks.

He plans for the maybe-week the world has left to stick to feasible goals, like “eat one last meal,” and “don’t die until you get to do it yourself.” But just as the second of those is about to fall through, he’s grabbed by a man with a weird tape measure, whisked off to another time, and told that none of this is supposed to have happened. And that they’re apparently trusting the fate of the world to… him?

They insist that he’s the guy for the job, apparently based on exactly how the triangle got the chance to end the world in the first place. It was, according to them, one idiotic schmuck who let himself get conned. They just need Stan to kill the guy before that happens.

And, sure. It’s not like Stan’s life could get any more insane than it already has. Who do they need him to kill exactly?

…Who do they need him to kill, exactly?

Author's Note: This is the story I tried so hard to avoid writing, but it would. not. stop. bugging me. So here you all go. I'm very glad to have written it and I had a ton of fun with it, which always ends up being the case. It's fully completed at this point, so I will post an update every other Saturday.

Additionally, all the credit to Rayish, who helped beta parts of this story and rubber duck with me when I was really stuck. Find her blog here!

Masterlist

...

The thing about the end of the world, is that it takes its time.

Stan’s known this for ages.  Getting dumped by Carla wasn’t the end of the world.  Watching her fall for some hippie loser was the end of the world.  Damaging Ford’s perpetual motion machine wasn’t the end of the world.  Him showing up the next night, furious and hating Stan, was the end of the world.  Even getting kicked out wasn’t the end of the world.  The slow spiraling realization that he wasn’t worth anything and would never get to go back was the end of the world.

And a giant triangle appearing out of nowhere to draw a smiley face across the North American continent and then taking a bite out of half the planet wasn’t the end of the world— although admittedly, it is a little more flashy than all of Stan’s previous examples.

No, the end of the world came in the days after.

The resulting natural disasters, from volcanic eruptions and horrendous earthquakes to the mantle of the earth starting to spill out onto the crust.  The ensuing panic and desperation of all of the people unlucky enough to survive the original attack.  Stan was one, because of course he was.  The universe could never be so kind as to give him an easy death.

Ma and Pa might be alive too.  He isn’t sure.  New Jersey is far enough away from the original “bite zone” that they might have made it out, if they weren’t in the area crushed by the smiley face.

God, this is a weird apocalypse.

It’s also possible, however, that both of them are gone, because if they were visiting either of Stan’s brothers, they would be.

Shermie, in California.

Ford, in Oregon.

Neither of them stood a chance.

Not that it matters either way.  Stan wouldn’t be able to get to New Jersey, for numerous reasons.

First of all, he’d starve to death before he’d get there, as all available resources vanished before most people could think about them, whether from natural causes or looting and hoarding.  Any kind of official communication died around the same time, not that Stan would have listened to it anyway.  The streets turned into a hellscape that matched up to the canyons left from whatever part of the smiley face hadn’t been bitten off.  There were even more thugs and shady figures about than Stan was used to having to deal with.

And of course, there’s the fact that Filbrick Pines is absolutely stubborn enough to not have “the end of the world” on his list of reasons to let Stan back into the house.

No, Stan is on his own for however long his life lasts.  Or, well, almost on his own.  Because the apocalypse couldn’t seem to throw Stan a bone after killing almost every person he still gave a shit about.

Nope, the thing hadn’t even managed to take Rico off his plate.  Despite the fact that most of his goons split as soon as they all watched the end of the world go down together, Stan is still running from the man himself.  What on the half-earth that’s left Rico could possibly hope to get from Stan now is anyone’s guess.  Before the apocalypse, he got it.  He wanted the money Stan owed him.  But there’s no use for money now, and there’ll be even less of one as time continues to run out.  Any sensible person would lie down and die.

Except Rico isn’t a sensible person, and when it comes down to it, Stan isn’t either.  He still ran, after all.  He’s not sure he knows how to do anything else but try to survive.  It’s all he’s known these past ten years.  He can’t shut it off just because— god, what the hell had happened?  No one had been able to explain it, and no one ever would at this rate.  Because while Stan may not be a scientist like Ford, he sure does know how to bet on long odds, and given the current ones they’ve got, he gives the world a week and a half, tops.

So, with the long life expectancy of next Thursday to look forward to, everything else he could possibly value now meaning nothing, and zero chance to get past the smile-canyons and back to whatever might have been left of his family, Stan is doing the only thing he can think of to prolong his life.  And that’s head right for the end of the earth.

Maybe if he gets close enough to the point where the planet drops off into the mantle, Rico will leave him alone.  And then he’ll… fuck if he knows.  Sit back and watch everything crumble until it takes him with it, probably.

The part of this plan that really sucks, however, is that Stan can’t drive a car all the way to the edge of the world.  He’s known for a couple hundred miles now that his time with the Stanleymobile is limited, and when the sky catches fire, he’s finally forced to leave it at the side of the road.

Well, it’s not the sky’s fault, exactly, though the smoke doesn’t help with visibility.  The main problem is the potholes.  They’d been getting worse and worse for a while, and now he’s stopped just before a stretch of road with too many large holes and broken and crumbled sections that he can’t see a way to get through.

Stan lets the car shudder to a stop just in front of the first hole he can’t force his car over, then sighs and shuts off the ignition.  He slips the keys in his pocket as a memento.

He starts to push open the car door, and immediately pauses to cough his way through the terrible quality of the air outside.  It’s about the same as the air around Pa when he could afford cigars, except about a hundred times worse.  Long-term, it’s probably not great to breathe in, but Stan isn’t too worried about lung cancer these days.

After he manages to adjust to the smoke, he pushes the car door the rest of the way open and steps out onto what’s left of the highway he’s been traveling down.  He can see the ruined remains of a city ahead of him.  Given how much of New Mexico was bitten off, and how close he’s actually able to get to the part that was, it’s probably Roswell.  There are worse places to reach the end of the line.

California, for instance.

Or Oregon.

Stan turns back to the Stanleymobile, and pats her a couple of times on the steering wheel.  “You did good,” he says, because he has to say something.  It’s too monumentous of a moment to leave to silence.  The Stanleymobile has been all he’s had for the past decade, he can’t just leave her without thanking her for all she’s done for him.

He reaches out to close the door, then hesitates for another moment.  There’s not much in the car worth taking.  He’s got his knuckle dusters in his pocket, and has had them there for long before the world ended.  He stopped and grabbed that squirrel that had fallen on the windshield a couple dozen miles back, dead from either smoke inhalation or starvation.  It’ll make for a good— well, it’ll make for a last meal.  There’s bound to be a fire somewhere in the city for him to cook it with, even if it’s just an already-lit pile of rubble.

But that’s about it.  Pretty much everything else in the car is trash that came from before the world ended, or products that are now even more useless.  Everything except…

Stan pulls the driver’s side visor down.  The photo of him and Ford boxing isn’t in very good shape.  Not that it was in great shape before, but it was in “hasn’t been through an apocalypse” shape.  If he takes it with him, it’ll probably get crushed or burnt or otherwise lost.  It definitely won’t stay in this “good” of shape.

But the other option is to leave it in the Stanleymobile, to not carry it with him.  Abandon Ford’s memory to a car on the side of the road.

Both of his brothers are dead, and he doesn’t have any photos of Shermie.  This is the best he can do.

Stan reaches out and pulls the photo gently off the visor.  He tucks the strips of tape that held it there around to the back of the photo rather than risk tearing it pulling them off.  He puts the photo in his jacket next to his knuckle dusters, takes a deep breath, pauses to cough through the smoke, and then starts picking his way through the remains of the road in front of him.

Now that he’s not trying to peer through both smoke and a filthy windshield, it’s slightly easier to see.  There’s a couple other cars abandoned on the crumbling road, but none of them are worth trying to hotwire.  Either the car itself is too destroyed, or the road around it is.  The city in front of him is a mess of crumbling and collapsing buildings.  It doesn’t look like there were a ton of skyscrapers in the first place, but what is still there would hardly count anymore.  The air smells strongly of smoke and fire, and the sky is bright red to match.  There looks to be some burnt-out shells of trees just inside the city limits, to contrast with the desert Stan’s been driving through.  The state of them ruins any hope of finding water here, but he had some yesterday, and this is going to be his final stop one way or another.

Stan picks his way around the cars as he tries to plan out his next move.  He doesn’t expect to find many people alive in the city, except for Rico, if he doesn’t give up and finally leave Stan to his own devices.  Stan doesn’t know how likely that is.  Rico might not be a sensible person, but he’s always had goons to do most of his work for him.  Stan’s not sure if he’s enough of a risk taker to keep following him here.

It’s probably safer to keep acting as If he is, though.  And that means the first thing Stan needs to do is get rid of this squirrel.

The building rubble doesn’t seem too bad as Stan reaches the edge of the city, though he’d wager a bet it’s worse in the center of downtown.  That’s also probably where he’s going to have to go to find a fire secluded enough that Rico won’t find it, though, so he starts to make his way around the rubble that’s there, which is easy enough for now.  There’s some pieces he has to climb over, but most of the concrete he can walk around, and the holes aren’t deep enough that he has to climb down into them, just step.

It doesn’t take long for him to realize the real problem, however, that being that very quickly once he starts into the city he has to hold his sleeve over his mouth to prevent coughing from all of the smoke.  There’s not a chance he’s going to be able to make it to the center of the city.  He’ll have to find something on fire around here or find one of the tree husks and start one.  And given that most of the smoke seems to be coming from closer to the center of the city, the second option is probably his best.

Lighting a fire might as well be lighting up a giant neon sign that says to Rico “Here I am!”, but if he does it fast enough he might be able to eat the squirrel and find a space to hide.  And he really needs to eat the squirrel.  He ran out of food in his car almost three days ago, he has to eat something soon.

Stan casts his gaze around until he finds a decently large tree sitting on the side of the road.  It’s hollowed out and looks very dry, so he’ll have to be careful enough when starting the fire to leave himself an easy escape route, but it’ll serve his purposes just fine.

Stan pulls out his knuckle dusters as he walks over towards the tree, but then pauses for a second and sets them back in his pocket.  He reaches up and yanks one of the still-intact branches down, long enough that he can cook the squirrel at a distance.  He sets it down behind him, then grabs another to use as a piece of kindling.  He pulls his knuckle dusters back out, then flicks one of them against the concrete below him a couple times until he gets sparks, aiming them for the second branch.  After a couple tries, it catches, and he picks it up and sets it inside the tree husk.  It doesn’t take long for the whole thing to catch, but it looks like it’s going to burn bright and fast, so Stan steps back just far enough to stick the squirrel onto the first branch he grabbed, then holds it out over the fire like he’s roasting a marshmallow.

He has no idea what a properly cooked squirrel looks like, but it’s not like he has to worry too much about long term effects.  It just has to be edible.

The fire is burning up fast, however, so after a minute or so, Stan decides to cook the squirrel the way Ma likes to do marshmallows— catch it on fire.

The smell of cooking meat hits his nose as soon as the squirrel catches, and Stan takes as deep a breath as he dares with all the smoke around, savouring it for just a moment.  It’s not going to take too before the squirrel will be tough and black if he doesn’t get rid of the fire.  But he doubts blowing on it like a marshmallow is going to work in this case, so instead he waves the stick back and forth harshly until the fire goes out, then blows the final remaining embers onto the ground below him.

Alright then, food acquired.  He should probably pick a new location to eat it, though.

He picks his knuckle dusters up from the ground and slips them back into his pocket, then walks past the fire, aiming for a good hiding spot that isn’t too close to the center of the city.

Finally, he finds a spot where he can lean against a building that looks stable enough to not fall down, and sits back against it.  He pulls one of the legs of the squirrel and takes a bite.  It’s small enough that his teeth hit the bone, and it certainly doesn’t taste like it was cooked at a five star restaurant, but it’s the first food he’s had in days, and the first cooked food he’s had in who knows how long.  Stan can’t quite help a pleased groan at the taste, closing his eyes to savor it.

He should really know better than to do things like that.

“There you are, Hal.”

Stan’s eyes snap open, and he’s on his feet before he even knows where Rico is.  A second later he spots him, standing at the entrance to the street, knife in hand.  Honestly, come on.  He can’t bring a knife to a knuckle dusters fight.

Stan’s not doubting his chances too much, however, because Rico has definitely looked better.  The hand gripping the knife isn’t exactly holding it steady, and his legs look like they’re about to collapse out from under him.  While the idea of seeing Rico like this would have made him laugh a couple weeks ago, Stan isn’t too surprised to see it now.  He doubts Rico has had as much experience as him dealing with hunger, being the head of a formly-very-scary drug empire.  Prison probably helped, but it’s been a while since then, and going three days without food isn’t a skill you can pick right back up.  Stan’s been working on his skillset in that regard for over a decade, thank you very much.

The thought strikes him, a little incredible— he could beat Rico.  He might be able to kill him, right here and now, and then enjoy his squirrel in peace.  And man, is the idea tempting.  Rico has put him through a lot.   If the apocalypse hadn’t happened, he’d probably still be trying to run from him, panicking about a debt he has no hope of paying back, a debt that could not matter less now.  Rico would still have hoards of goons at his disposal, most of whom Stan doesn’t know by name, all of whom would kill him without a second thought, either to impress Rico or to pay down debts of their own.  Stan has a literal knife scar in his back from Rico.  He has a set of poorly made dentures that work just as well as he needs them to and not any better.  He has a slew of bad memories and nightmares that he doubts are ever going away.  The idea of getting to pay Rico back for all of that is… well, shit.

It’s strangely disappointing.

What the hell would he get for it now?  A week and a half of struggling through hell trying to find another malnourished squirrel to cook?  Dammit, Rico.  How do you manage to take the fun out of killing you?

“Rico, come on,” Stan says anyway, because if he’s not going to kill him he really doesn’t want to fight him.  “What are you even going to get out of this?”

“How about that food you’re hoarding for yourself,” Rico growls, taking a shaky step forward.

Stan pulls off another leg and the tail and then leans the stick the rest of the squirrel is sitting on against the building next to him.

“Come share it with me,” he says, which feels patently insane, but he says it anyway.

Rico seems to think it’s insane too, judging by the slight hysteria that takes over his face.  Stan takes a couple steps back away from the squirrel, so Rico knows he won’t try to jump him when he gets close.  He puts his hands up, holding nothing but the parts of the squirrel he took for himself.  He even left Rico the majority of the meat, which is just unfair, but Rico would definitely try to argue for more if he didn’t.

For a long moment, the two of them just look at each other.  Rico’s always been good with evaluating people just like Stan is.  Stan can’t help but wonder what’s going through his head.  Not much is going through his, except for how tired he is and how much he just wants to sit and eat the squirrel and how little he wants to fight about it.

“Come on,” Stan says.  “You can stay over there, I’ll stay over here.  Just— just sit with me.”

Rico watches him for another long pause.  Finally, though he doesn’t lower the knife, he takes a small step towards the stick on the building.  Stan doesn’t move or lower his hands until he reaches it, and picks it up.  He peers at Stan suspiciously, then looks back at the squirrel.

“How did you guess,” Stan deadpans, because he knows what Rico is thinking.  “I poisoned just the top of it in the seconds after I sat down, with my giant supply of poison that I’ve acquired during the apocalypse.”  As if to prove his point, he takes another bite of the squirrel leg he’d been eating before.

Rico huffs, like he doesn’t want to acknowledge the good point Stan’s made.  But finally, after another second, he sits down with the stick.

Stan feels the tension in his shoulders rush out of them, more than a little amazed that worked.  He sits down right where he’s standing, and goes back to eating the squirrel leg, though he doesn’t close his eyes again this time.

It doesn’t take long before he realizes the other problem with this plan, however, that being that sitting across from Rico and trying to calmly eat a meal isn’t really something he can just do.   Rico seems to all but attack the part of the squirrel he was given, not really seeming to want to savor it like Stan is with his, and watching him do that is both bizarre and unsettling.  In the end, Stan keeps the majority of his gaze on his own meat and his peripheral view on Rico, and works his way through one squirrel leg, then the second.

Rico doesn’t say much, which is probably good, because Stan can’t think of much the two of them would have to talk about.  What is he supposed to say to the guy who’s wanted him dead for ages?  “Hey, how are you handling the apocalypse?”  The answer is written in his shaking legs and the desperation in his eyes that Stan hasn’t seen since they were escaping prison together.

Maybe this is where Rico’s at too, though, because as Stan continues eating, the tension slowly seems to drain out of the air around them.  When he casts a glance back up at Rico, he finds him eating his meat and not paying Stan much attention at all.

For a moment, the hysteria of the situation gets to him.  He’s sitting surrounded by burning rubble, eating meat from a malnourished squirrel, with Rico of all people.  A laugh bubbles up in Stan’s throat, and he just barely manages to swallow it down.

It’s after Stan finishes the second leg, however, that his luck takes another turn, one he probably should have seen coming.  Rico stands up, and Stan does too before he even really processes what’s happening, gaze flicking to him.  Rico’s got his knife back out.

“Give me the tail,” he says.

Yeah.  Figures.

Stan looks down at the tail, trying to debate how little he wants to fight versus how hungry he still is.  Apparently his second of debate is a second too long however, because Rico starts for him with the knife.

“Oh, come on, man,” Stan says, stepping backwards.  But it doesn’t matter at this point.  Rico’s either going to kill him and take the tail, or take the tail when Stan gives it to him, then go right back to killing him afterwards.

And, well.  Stan’s hungry.

So he shoves the entire tail in his mouth, trying to chew past the less pleasant texture of the tail fur, and slips his hands into his pockets for his knuckle dusters.

Rico gives a cry of desperate rage, and sprints right at him.

Stan dives to the side just in time to avoid the knife and swallows the last bit of the squirrel.  Running back the way he came isn’t going to do any good.  At this point, it’s pretty clear Rico isn’t going to be outrun.  Stan’s going to have to fight him, and see what happens.

He turns to face Rico as he runs back at him again, and ducks under the knife before bringing his left hook up against Rico’s jaw.  The knuckle dusters clang against bone, and Rico cries out and stumbles back.

Stan aims another fist for the side of his head, but Rico manages to take a couple extra steps back with his stumble, leaving Stan’s fist to hit empty air.

Rico takes another swing with his knife, and Stan takes another step to the side.  He aims again for Rico’s head, but Rico sees him coming this time.

He steps far enough away to leave Stan stumbling for a minute, which gives Rico time to make it behind him.

Stan feels a rough grab at his arm, and aims a blind elbow back behind him.  He hits something, though he hears more of a muffled grunt instead of a cry of pain, and the arm doesn’t let go.

So instead, he switches gears and spins himself around, twisting his arm but allowing him to see where Rico is at least.  Just in time, it seems, because Rico’s knife is coming straight for Stan’s head.

Stan manages to duck just far enough to avoid it, though his wrist starts to protest.

Stan aims his free hand upwards as the knife passes over his head, but Rico’s grip on it is too tight for his knuckle dusters to knock it away.

Rico’s arm now hovers unnaturally over Stan’s, which gives Stan just long enough to aim a right kick at Rico’s arm.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t hit as hard as he’d like, and Rico has too much time to tighten his grip again.

Stan spins back around before Rico can yank him closer, which gets rid of his visual but untwists his arm, and aims another elbow behind him, this one higher and towards where he remembers the face.

He hits what feels like a nose with a loud crack, and Rico cries out in pain.  But instead of letting go, he brings the knife back around from his other side, and Stan feels a large slice across the back of his elbow.

He bites down on his own cry and dodges the knife’s return blow for his face.  It whistles as it passes over his nose.

He can all but see Rico swinging the knife back around towards his neck, but his attempt to knock it out of his hand didn’t go well, and his elbows to the face haven’t lessened the grip on his arm.

Stan throws his head back against Rico’s face, a final attempt to get him to let go if he hits his nose again.  But Rico must lean his head back just far enough to avoid it, because all that happens is Stan’s neck snaps painfully.

Rico’s other hand grabs his hair and he’s yanked back into Rico’s chest, where he does not want to be, he’s not going to make it out of here like this.

He leans forward, preparing to try and snap his head back again, but the knife is coming too fast towards his throat, and Stan has just enough time to process that this might be it, he might be ducking out of the apocalypse a week and a half early, but instead something far more strange happens.

Out of nowhere, a muscular man in ugly black and gray armor with bright green gloves appears in front of both him and Rico.

Clearly neither of them were expecting it, because they both give twin noises of surprise, and Rico changes the direction of his knife.  The man, however, does not seem at all interested in Rico, and instead reaches out and grabs Stan by his free arm.

Before Stan can even attempt to figure out how the hell to fight two guys when he was barely handling one, the man grabs something attached to his belt.  It looks sort of like a gun, but far more futuristic looking than Stan’s ever seen.

He aims it at Rico’s arm and fires, and to Stan’s horror, the entire arm disintegrates and the knife clatters to the ground.

Rico shrieks, animalistic and pained, and doesn’t stop.

The man, however, doesn’t react except to grab Stan and yank him forward, away from Rico.  All of Stan’s instincts start screaming run, despite how little that will likely matter in a couple seconds, but before he can even try, the man grabs something else from his belt.  Is that a tape measure?

The man lets go of Stan momentarily, pulls the tape measure out almost as far as it seems to go, and then reaches forward to grab Stan’s arm again.

He hits something on top of the tape measure, and everything around them vanishes all at once.

…

Stan immediately tries to wrench his arm away, and is surprised to find no resistance as he does so.  In fact, the man from before, still there, just lets him pull free and take a couple steps back, not seeming to object in the slightest.

“What— what the hell,” Stan snaps, hands going up in front of his face, as if they’re going to do anything against the futuristic laser gun whatever thing that just disintegrated Rico’s arm.  “Who are you?  Where am I?  What’s—”

“Stanley, please, calm down,” comes a new voice.  “We can explain everything.”

Stanley.

“No one’s supposed to know that name,” Stan snaps, though he doesn’t take his gaze off the first guy with the laser gun.  “Rico doesn’t know that name.  Who are you?”

“I’m happy to explain everything,” says the new voice.  “Just please, lower your hands and talk with us for a bit.”

“Not until that gun gets put away,” Stan snaps, keeping his gaze firmly on the first guy.  Now that he’s not running from a knife, he notices he’s wearing what looks like a name tag that says “Lolph,” which, what kind of name is that?

Either way, Lolph sighs, lowers his gun, and straps it back to his belt.  Stan narrows his eyes slightly.  He wasn’t expecting him to actually do that.

“Alright, there,” the new voice says, a note of attempted soothing in his voice that Stan isn’t particularly a fan of.  “Guns are away.  Can we talk now?”

Stan glares at Lolph for another couple seconds before finally casting his gaze around at the rest of where he’s ended up.

There’s not a ton of fun aspects to the room.  It looks more like a holding cell, which, to be fair, could very well be where he is.  The room is featureless and dark, with the only things there being three chairs to his right, himself and the two men in ugly armor, and a square table in between the chairs.  Lolph stands opposing Stan, with his gun and tape measure both clipped to his belt, and some weird green eye piece that looks like suspiciously like a gun scope.  He doesn’t look particularly happy to be there.  On the other side of the chairs stands the other agent.  His name tag reads “Dundgren.”  He’s got dark skin, as opposed to Lolph’s pale variety.  He’s got a green eye piece too, and a scar on his other eye.  He’s got the same gun, tape measure, and muscles as Lolph, but he’s done all the talking so far, and he’s holding a third of those tape measure things, so Stan’s willing to bet he’s the one in charge.

Stan levels his gaze back at him, trying to gauge what his intentions are.  “Where are we, and why did you bring me here?” he asks.

“Well, I would hope that latter answer would be fairly obvious,” Dundgren says, raising an eyebrow.  “You were about to die.”

Stan scoffs and crosses his arms.  “No I wasn’t,” he says, aiming for an “overconfident idiot” tone.

A lot of people have been about to die lately.  Stan hasn’t heard of a sudden rise in guardian angels with teleporting tape measures.

Dundgren gives Stan an unamused look.  “The man was aiming a knife at your neck.  An injury like that in your time period is a death sentence.”

“Please, I almost had him.”  In his time period?

Dundgren rolls his eyes, and a little bit of the tension in his shoulders vanishes.  Good.  Let your guard down.

“As for the first question,” Dundgren continues.  “That’s a little more complicated.”

“Great,” Stan says, walking over towards one of the chairs— the one alone on its side of the square table, clearly meant for him.  He plops down in it, then kicks his feet up on the table and folds his hands behind his head.  “You don’t mind if I sit then, do you?  I haven’t gotten a chance to relax in a while.”

“No, please,” Dundgren says, though Stan can hear the subtle disgust in his voice.  Likely at the dirt Stan is now getting all over the table.  On the other side of the room, Lolph makes less of an effort to hide his disapproval, and lets out an exasperated sigh.

After a second, however, both of them walk forward and take the two chairs on the opposite side of the table.

“Alright,” Dundgren says.  “There isn’t really a way to ease into this.  You’re not in your own time anymore.”

Stan raises an eyebrow.  “You’re telling me Lolphy here came and grabbed me and we time traveled, yeah?”

Both of them seem surprised.

“Well, yes,” Dundgren  says.  “Usually people are more shocked.”

“Don’t call me Lolphy,” Lolph mutters.

“Buddy, not too long ago a giant nacho chip took a bite out of the planet,” Stan says, ignoring Lolph’s comment.  “At this point I’m leaving everything on the table.”

Both of them at least have the decency to look a little sheepish.

“Well, yes,” Dundgren says again.  “You’re in what we call a time pocket, it’s a place time agents can go outside of the normal time stream if the period they’re trying to reach is unavailable for some reason.  But to get back to the Bill Cipher incident—”

“Who?”

Dundgren grimaces.  “The giant nacho chip,” he says, with some difficulty.

Stan snorts.  “Yeah, I figured, I just wanted to hear you say it.”

Dundgren gives him an unamused look.

“Come on, man, go easy on me,” Stan says.  “I’ve been dealing with an apocalypse.  What about the nacho chip?”

“None of that was supposed to happen,” Lolph says, sounding frustrated.  “Can we get on with this explanation?”

Dundgren shoots him a look, and Stan pulls his hands out from behind his head, attention officially piqued.

“What do you mean ‘none of that was supposed to happen?’” he asks.

Dundgren sighs.  “Well, suffice to say Lolph and I are from more than nine days into the future, which is how long your current timeline has left.”

Stan tries very hard not to show anything on his face.  “Huh,” he says, “neat.”

Lolph does not seem particularly fond of that response.  Stan does not particularly care.  He doesn’t want to know how long he has left.  He’d wanted to live in blissful ignorance while he tried to gather up the courage to take care of himself first.  Thanks a lot, asshole future guys.

“How does that not bother you?” Lolph snaps.  “Do you have any idea how much is riding on you?”

Stan plans to shoot back some kind of comment that he stopped being bothered after he’d finished hyperventilating the first time, the day after the apocalypse started.  Instead, his attention is immediately drawn to Dundgren, who’s giving Lolph an extremely frustrated look.

So something important is riding on him, then.

Well, he could think of a couple better options they should have picked first.

“Why would I?” he says, putting his hands carelessly behind his head again.  “Neither of you have actually bothered to explain anything.”

“We’re getting there,” Dundgren says, sounding significantly more tense.  “The point is no, the apocalypse that you’ve been living through was not supposed to have happened.  We were in a time pocket like this when the anomaly occurred, so we have a chance to fix it, even though the future we came from is technically gone.  We are reaching out to you in an attempt to stop the apocalypse from occurring.”

Stan coughs out a surprised laugh.  “Me?” he asks.  “Interesting choice.”

“Are you saying you won’t do it?” Lolph snaps.

“Yeesh, calm down, Lolphy.  Didn’t say anything of the sort.”  Stan glances over at Dundgren and rolls his eyes, as if to say, “This guy, right?”

Dundgren does not seem amused.

“Look, I’m not saying I wouldn’t be willing to help, necessarily,” Stan says.  “I get it.  End of the world and all that.  Generally bad.  But what makes you think I can do anything?  That Bill guy was so huge that I doubt he could even, you know, see me trying to stop him.”

“The apocalypse was not caused by Bill Cipher,” Dundgren says.

Stan blinks at him.  “Uh.  Did you guys, like, read the timeline screwup wrong?  ‘Cause he’s the one who ate everything.”

Dundgren sighs, and looks back at Stan.  The calculating he’s doing is obvious on his face.

“If left to his own devices,” he says slowly.  “Bill would not have been able to invade this dimension at all.”

This dimension?   Implying other dimensions?  Stan would ask for a second to wrap his head around that one, but Dundgren is already continuing to talk.  So, other dimensions.  Sure, why not.

“The fact that he was able to was due entirely to the help of one man, who he tricked into building a gateway into this dimension.”

“That— wait,” Stan says.  “Let me see if I’ve got this right.  You’re telling me the entire apocalypse was caused by one idiot who let himself get conned?”

“Yes,” Dundgren says plainly.

Stan opens his mouth to reply, but nothing comes out.  And this time, at least, Dundgren seems willing to let him process, which is good, because Stan needs to.

One person.  A single individual ended the entire world.  That’s… well, that’s just unfair on a number of levels.

It’s not like Stan doesn’t know how cons work.  You can convince people to do some pretty stupid things.  Hell, he’s convinced people to do some pretty stupid things before.  But there’s usually a point, a line you have to be careful not to cross, or you give it all away.  You have to learn how to walk that line of not coming off to a victim as too good to be true, or too obviously trying to screw them over.  You have to make sure you sound believable.

And hey, call Stan crazy, but he would have thought most people’s lines stopped before “the end of the fucking world.”

Or at least, he would have thought that before now.

Stan pulls his feet off the table, and drops them onto the floor in front of him.  He lowers his hands to his lap, and runs them along his legs.

“Well,” he says.  “I guess a conveniently timed bus would have saved everyone a lot of grief, huh.”

“Funny you bring that up,” Lolph says, only to earn another ‘shut up’ look from Dundgren.

Stan narrows his eyes slightly.  “What do you mean?”

Dundgren looks back at him, clearly searching for very specific words.

“We were hoping,” he says finally.  “That you could help us create a conveniently timed bus situation.”

“You want me to kill the guy?” Stan asks, raising an eyebrow.

“In a manner of speaking.”

Stan narrows his eyes again.  “What other manner of speaking is there?  You want me to kill the guy.”

Dundgren sighs.  “Yes.  It is the easiest and most reliable way to prevent all of this.”

Stan looks from Dundgren to Lolph and back, but doesn’t find any more answers on either of their faces.  “Why me?” he asks.

“Our options are… limited,” Dundgren says.  Stan looks at him for a minute, but he doesn’t say anything else.  He could easily be talking about the “end of the world” thing, but if that was the case, why not just say that?  On that matter, why not grab Rico instead of him?  He’d be much more willing to kill someone, especially if it benefitted him.

“You won’t even vanish from existence, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Lolph says, drawing Stan’s gaze.  “Not with the individualized merger in the time tape.”

“The who what now?”

“We’ve built an individualized timeline merger into the time tape,” Dundgren says, tone very clipped and irritable at this point.

Stan raises an eyebrow.  “Okay…?”

Lolph sighs, as if Stan’s a particularly slow child.  “When you go back, there would be two versions of you.  But with the merger, you’ll both combine into one form as soon as you land in the set time.  So that way you’ll be able to continue living after you’ve saved the world, even though your timeline technically doesn’t exist.  It’ll even bring your car to you, just for ease of travel.  So if you—”

All of the alarm bells that Stan’s been counting up quietly in his head start shrieking, and he holds up a hand.  “Wait.  Stop.”

Lolph stops.

“Why would you do that?” Stan asks.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Stan says, talking like they’re particularly slow children, “that I am going to be dead in a week, when the rest of the world finishes going up in flames.  What do I care if I go back to save everything and then someone else lives on in my place?  I won’t be around to see it either way.  At this point, saving the world is just practical.”

Dundgren and Lolph exchange a glance.  Dundgren’s face has an air of “I told you so” to it.

Stan raises himself as tall as he can, and crosses his arms.  “Okay, that’s it.  Why do you need me to do this so bad, what are you asking me to do, and why are you trying so hard to sweeten the deal?”

Both of them look back at Stan, and Dundgren sighs.  “The person who caused the apocalypse,” he says.

“What about ‘em.”

The agent takes a breath, and Stan recognizes the look of a man who’s really not going to like what he has to say next.

“It’s your brother.”

[lxvsiick]

O U R

PART 12 | SUNGHO FIRST WIN!! (written)

A/N: guys it’s been so long since i’ve been on less than 5 hours of sleep and 2 hours of sleep is making me crash out 😵‍💫 ,, bouta pull a y/n and down 4 cups of coffee ,, might have to hibernate once i finish my classes today

୧⋆｡🕯. -ʚɞ

Taesan trudged down the hall, swinging a bag of Subway in his hands. Out of nowhere, Sungho had begged him to bring lunch, practically promising his firstborn in exchange for a burger and fries. He sighed, wondering why he always gave in so easily. At least he’d get to sit down after this, or so he hoped.

Pushing open the door to the art room, the smell of paint and ink immediately hit his nose. The room was well-lit, with tables scattered around, various projects in different stages of completion. His eyes quickly found Sungho, who was lounging at a nearby table with someone else.

Then he saw her.

The girl who had dropped a massive book on his head at the library. His heart skipped a beat as he hesitated in the doorway, the bag of food feeling heavier in his hands.

Sungho spotted him first, grinning wide. “Oh, you’re here! Thanks, man. Just set the food down for a sec.” He nodded toward the table in front of him, where she was seated, working on a sketch.

Trying to keep his cool, Taesan awkwardly stepped forward and placed the bag of food down. He couldn’t help but glance at her, who looked up and smiled politely. He wasn’t ready for that—his stomach did an unexpected flip.

“By the way,” Sungho said, gesturing between them, “you two should meet.” He gave a lazy shrug, leaving the introductions vague. “I’ll let you ask each other’s names. I’ll be in the office eating.” A teasing grin on his lips, he grabbed his bag of food and slipped out, leaving them alone.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Taesan stood there, suddenly feeling very out of place in a room full of unfinished art and half-sketched projects. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked up at her, trying to muster something to say.

“Uh… h-hey,” he managed, giving her a small, nervous smile. “I guess we haven’t officially met.”

She smiled back, just as awkwardly. “Yeah, I guess not. I’m Kim Y/n.”

“Oh, uh, I’m Han Taesan or Han Dongmin. B-but you can just call me Taesan.” he stammered, trying to keep his voice steady. “But you can call me yours” is what you really wanted to say, right? SHUT UP BRAIN! Why did his name suddenly feel weird in his mouth? He rubbed the back of his neck, glancing at the art project in front of her, desperate for something to focus on that wasn’t her face. If he focused on her face, he wasn't so sure he would remember anything else.

The silence that followed was heavy and awkward, stretching longer than it should have. Taesan shifted on his feet, his heart pounding, when she suddenly broke the silence.

“Hey, um…” she started, gesturing to a large book sitting on the table next to her. “I wanted to apologize again for, uh, dropping that massive art book on your head the other day.” Her tone was sincere, but there was a hint of a nervous smile tugging at her lips.

“Oh, that…” Taesan gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah, that’s okay. No permanent damage or anything.” He was trying to joke, but it came out stiffer than he intended. He mentally kicked himself for being so awkward.

She laughed softly, the tension breaking just a little. “Well, that’s good. I was afraid I might’ve knocked you out or something. That book weighs a ton.”

“Yeah, it did feel like getting hit by a brick,” he said, finally relaxing a bit. “But, you know, I’ve survived worse.”

They shared a brief smile, the awkwardness still lingering but not as intense now. He wasn’t sure if he should keep the conversation going or let it fizzle out, but Y/n seemed a little more at ease, which helped him breathe a bit easier.

“So uh… art major?” Taesan asked, gesturing to the work she was doing.

She nodded. “Yeah. What major are you?”

“I’m a music composition major.” Taesan answers, nervously fidgeting with his rings.

“Oh, that’s cool.” The beating of his heart was making Taesan dizzy. He still couldn’t believe Sungho knew her this whole time. Park Sungho, you bastard.

“S-so are you a junior like Sungho hyung?” Taesan rambled out. Placing her pencil down, Y/n shakes her head.

“No, I’m a sophomore.” Taesan widens his eyes. She was in the same year as him? 

“O-oh we’re the same year then.” Taesan says. “Wow, you’re a sophomore and you’re on the same level as Sungho hyung.” Y/n lets out a small, embarrassed laugh.

Just as the conversation was starting to feel a little less awkward, the door to the office swung open, and Sungho reemerged, wiping his hands on a napkin. “Alright, I’m good to go. You ready?”

Taesan turned to face him, caught off guard by how fast the time had passed. “Yeah, sure,” he replied, giving Y/n a quick glance.

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, Y/n,” Sungho said as he started to head toward the door. As he passed Taesan, he gave him a teasing smirk to which Taesan squinted at.

Taesan gave her a small wave. “Yeah, see you around,” he mumbled.

“Bye,” she said, smiling at them both as they made their way out.

As they left the art room, Taesan couldn’t help but feel the strange mixture of relief and regret. He’d survived the awkward encounter, but somehow, he wished it hadn’t ended so soon. Turning to Sungho, Taesan gives him a light punch on the arm.

“You knew her this whole time, hyung?” Taesan says, his eyes squinted at the older boy. Sungho shrugs with an innocent face.

“You never asked.”

୧⋆｡🕯. -ʚɞ

PART 11 | PART 13

MASTERLIST

TAGLIST [OPEN]: comment a 🐝 to be added

@tkooooop @ktzuki @dalliesque @cherrytaesan @crispy-kirby @onedoorland @chnhnyu @nujeskz @txjuns @prettiann @imuziawi @lynnimini @woorcve @swanyvess

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, lxvsiick, 2024

[englandsgirl18181234]

Some questions I got in the notes of one of my posts!

Can you tell us more about Athena and apollos friendship? When’s hades going to talk to the others? Will Trition ever get to fight zeus? Why did Athena’s death end Zeus’s reign, on like a symbolic level. She doesn’t seem relevant here but what does Athena think of Pallas? Did she ever tell Ody and Co about her?

So, one by one! And I'm actually going to put the answers under the cut because I don't want this post to be a million miles long

Athena and Apollo, in basically all of my AU's, are both very lonely people at their core. They're both supposed to be half of something, Athena and Ares as gods of war, and Apollo and Artemis as the sun and the moon.

But neither of them fit quite right in those places, there's something just off enough that the things they're supposed to do, supposed to be, don't come naturally to them. And they hate that.

Apollo covers it with a smile and a slightly airheaded cool older brother act. Athena covers it with icey distance and cold disdain.

Hades isn't going to talk to the others for a while. In like, any of my AU's, probably. Any AU that involves Athena or Apollo in the Underworld? Means someone, somewhere on Olympus, fucked up massively enough that he's the one stuck doing damage control.

And if Athena is actually dead? He's not saying jack shit until she's strong enough to protect herself against them. He'll say something to Apollo once it's clear that he's the only one she trusted, but that's it.

Because the thing with Hades in my fics? He is both possessive as hell, and holds grudges to the ends of the earth. And currently, his niece is dead, making her both his family and a member of his kingdom.

She's also traumatized as all hell, recovering from a kind of pain that she should never have been exposed to, and his brother did that to her. Using power that was, by all rights, under his domain. And the rest of their family did nothing. They didn't even realize anything was wrong until she was already dead, for the Fates sake!

So yeah, he's not saying shit until she asks him to or he decides they can be trusted again. Not even Hestia is getting a word out of him.

As far as Olympus is concerned? She's fully dead. She never arrived in his realm.

They let his niece die. Now they get to deal with the consequences of that decision.

And oh boy, Triton. I haven't decided yet on what I'm going to do with Triton because we have basically no personality for him in canon beyond him not liking Percy while in the middle of a war. We get one scene with him and that's it.

But while I'm not certain on him fighting Zeus, he's definitely going to be fighting Poseidon for the right to fight Zeus! And if he manages to get to Olympus, he's gonna fight anybody that tries to get between him and Zeus.

I love feral overprotective characters, so I'm extending that to Triton here. He's now lost both his daughters to Zeus and he's not going to stop until the god is punished for it.

And there's three major reasons Athena's death ended Zeus's reign.

The first is the prophecy from before her birth. In some translations(others often saying it would be the second child of Metis, born a boy) it was said that she would surpass him in one of two ways. If she was born a boy she would become ruler of the gods after Zeus. But if she was a girl she would be better and smarter than both her mother and father combined. So Zeus swallowed Metis when it became known that she was pregnant in order to avoid being overthrown.

The second reason is because Zeus managed something that no one else ever has. He killed a Goddess. And not just any goddess, but an Olympian.

But prophecies in this verse can't be avoided, only certain circumstances changed. The second vision Apollo had(visions sent to him by the Fates are different from prophecies, they're warnings for him specifically because they like him) was one way it could have ended, but there are hundreds of others.

Because Athena didn't fade, and they know that for certain. She left a body behind, that doesn't happen when a god fades.

*I don't know what I'm going to do about her body yet, but she definitely left one*

There are barely more than a handful of beings that don't belong there that can say such a thing, and three of them were Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades themselves when they went to scatter Kronos' remains. And he wanted to send them back there for eternity.

And the third is that, even if he hadn't killed Athena, he still went too far to be allowed to remain as King. He planned, admitted to, and was both fully willing and prepared to trespass in Hades' domain simply to punish a pair of demi-gods for a perceived slight. And not just any demi-gods, but two demi-gods that not only saved his reign from Kronos, but survived Tartarus Itself to save his reign from Gaia.

And as for Pallas...

Even just admitting that he was planning to attempt it was enough for it to be considered a violation of the Ancient Laws. But should he have actually tried? With Hades own stolen power over his own subjects?

Whether he succeeded or not, Hades would have been well within his rights to give him the Kronos treatment.

Athena, by the time she dies, doesn't have very many memories of Pallas left. She remembers her death, remembers the aftermath, remembers being banished and sent back to Olympus because of it. Primarily because of how traumatic it all was for her.

On her very best days she remembers what Pallas was like while she was alive, while she was happy. She remembers how the two of them called each other sister. How she came to see Triton as a father because of it. How the two of them once interrupted an important meeting on accident and instead of being punished they were allowed to stay and give their own input.

But the vast majority of her time in Atlantis is lost to her over the years.

She did tell Odysseus and his family some things about her, but not very much. She was ashamed of what had happened, and she hates that she played such a major part in Pallas's death.

Poseidon, when he ordered her to leave Atlantis, made it very clear to her that he blamed her for his granddaughter's death. This was before they knew of Zeus's involvement, of course, but by then it was far too late to take back his words.

Triton refused to speak to his father for centuries after the news of Athena's banishment reached him. And it was only made worse by the fact that Poseidon hadn't even told him himself, instead leaving the job to Amphirite who in turn left it to a palace messenger.

He never truly forgave either of them for it.

[harrieatthemet]

A Sneak Peek

She doesn't have a title yet and this is a (smallish?) excerpt from ch. 1.... but I wanted you all to meet Anna. If you like, there's plenty more to come (:

“Wait what do you mean,” Isabelle shakes her head in bewilderment, “your stuff is… packed? As in, like, you’re leaving permanently?” 

“Originally yes, that was my plan.” Anna huffs, forcing herself to sit upright and take the phone with her, “I wanted to be out before he got back but this… I don’t know, like, it fucking changes things.”

Isabelle’s state of disorientation only intensifies as she shakes her head again. Anna can tell that she’s been caught off guard by her abrupt definitiveness. She lets it roll off her tongue so easily, without being distraught or reactive. The flat, deadpan tone of Anna’s voice is still holding strong. She’d delivered the news to Isabelle as if she’d already known, that somehow this was not completely blindsiding information that felt pulled right out of thin air. It’s only throwing off Isabelle even more.

“Anna what is going on?” Isabelle asks, tone soft and hinted with apology, “I knew you guys were fighting more, I guess, but not like this. It’s been that bad?”

“Uh yeah,” Anna states irritatedly, “I wouldn’t be frantically packing up my shit to try and avoid seeing him if it wasn’t.” 

Isabelle doesn’t take the hostility coming from the other end of the line personally. There’s a nagging feeling of remorseful guilt, though it’s fleeting, that tugs a bit on Anna. It’s not fair to snap at her like that, and it certainly wasn’t intentional. She’s not covertly trying to unpack her big feelings onto her sister, who’s trying to upkeep support however she can given how little she’s been told the past few months. There’s so much swirling in her brain, she feels like a headache is beginning to loom. Isabelle was just temporary collateral damage. 

“Totally understand why you’ve been laying on the floor for half an hour.” Isabelle digresses, “Was it the phone call? Was it really that bad?”

Anna realizes that the amount of information Isabelle is currently privy to is even more limited than what she initially anticipated. She hadn’t realized that, to save face and protect her relationship from outside scrutiny, she had deep-swallowed the animosity that had been plaguing her day-to-day the past couple of months. 

They’d been together well over 3 years and, by that point, nothing struck either of them as out of the ordinary. Bickering was normal, mauve even a bit healthy when tame. It never escalated to anything outside the realm of reconciliation. If it threatened to go that far, one of them always managed to sort it out beforehand. It just started to occur a little more frequently, here and there. Until it became nearly constant.

Before the phone call, there was the argument that paved the way for copious amounts of phone calls. The pretenses were the same as they’d been in the past; one of them neglecting the other, prioritizing their career more or entertaining longer nights out. She’d said he traveled too much during his time off, and his rebuttal was that she didn’t make more of an effort to travel with him as she should. 

This time in particular, though, neither of them took their foot off the gas. The yelling got louder, her tears came quicker, and he iced her out a little bit longer. Every reaction was visceral and borderline cutthroat, one of them trying to make the other feel worse and worse. It became tit for tat, and she had hurled something at him that cut so deep that, surely, it had permanently offset a dynamic in their relationship that hadn’t managed to bounce back from. 

“It was more than that one phone call,” Anna exhales, her lip between her teeth, “but yeah. Yeah, it was pretty bad.” 

A very forced, unpleasantly awkward truce had been agreed upon in the wake of their blowout argument. There was an amicable alignment on their differences, one that was sealed with a prolonged hug and an unsure peck on the lips. Anna knew right off the bat how badly it lacked any sign of genuinity, and she has to imagine Harry did as well. But his bag was already in the car and the plane was waiting. He never liked to leave the country if they weren’t on good terms, even if it was faked for the sake of their sound of mind. 

And, despite their best efforts to upkeep the phoney reconciliation, Harry’s departure for Japan only seemed to throw kerosene onto the fire. It had, quite literally, been three and a half weeks of absolute hell. The phone calls started nightly and, while it was a sign of good faith, felt mildly uncomfortable. She didn’t trust him and he could feel it, so neither ever knew what to say without it somehow leading to an argument. It’d start as an insult in passing, which cascaded into arguing, which ultimately ended in one of them hanging up the phone and Anna consumed by inconsolable tears. 

So then the phone calls started to come in every other night. Which, eventually, became 2 times a week. Sometimes 3, though that was painfully short lived. When his contact in her phone became a one-night-a-week occurrence, she had involuntarily found herself in a state of dread. And if she was dreading his call, she had to imagine he dreaded having to make it.

It was the big one four days ago that brought an altogether halt to the calls completely. Harry had taken the subtle accusations of being unfaithful on the chin beforehand. Though it lit a touch of rage in the pit of his belly, he refused to let himself play into that hand. But that night, Anna had been glued to her phone with a hollowness in her chest and a welt in her throat. While she had blacked out for the bulk of that argument, the shrillness of Harry’s booming shout through the phone was one of the only lasting recollections. 

She can remember the photos beforehand that had gotten the ball rolling, the same premise of the fights that lead up to the final one. All she remembers were the pictures of the model, the same one he’d said he hardly knew, walking beside him as if they knew every inch of each other inside and out. Sickeningly beautiful, dragging out insecurities Anna didn’t even know she had. The longer she stared at them, the more she could feel her skin starting to swelter and her stomach start to churn. Her vision went periodically hazy until his name appeared on her phone, replacing the photo she was previously honed in on. And while she couldn’t quite recount what transpired once she picked up, she knew nothing that ensued was good. Because that was now 4 days ago, and she hasn’t heard from him since. 

“I know things are weird between you guys right now,” Isabelle responds hesitantly, “but you gotta tell him about this.” 

“I know that,” Anna answers unconvincingly, “I will.” 

“This is insane,” Isabelle exhales in disbelief, “what’re you gonna say? Like, how are you gonna tell him?” 

“I’ve got maybe an hour to figure it out,” Anna groans exasperatedly, “and then I’ll just-” 

Almost immediately, her focus is stripped from the conversation at the faint sound that emits from a distance. She could kick herself for not attempting to make more of an effort to hear it the first time, because she can’t tell if her mind is just tripping her out or if she had actually heard the side door being slammed shut. People come in and out all the time, and she was almost positive she had at least another hour left. 

Instinctively, the pad of her thumb flies to the volume button on the side of the phone. The house is big, and the likelihood of anyone on the first floor hearing her whilst being barricaded in the master bath is slim, but it couldn’t hurt to take the extra precaution. The speaker is muffled against the bulky fabric of Anna’s sweatshirt, though she can still faintly make out the inquisitive shouts coming from Isabelle. She needs whatever silence she can scrounge together to determine who the distant noise on the first floor belonged to.

A few more clicks of shoes concur, promptly coinciding with a vague jingling of keys. She knows that if she got up off the floor and re-entered the bedroom, she’d have a better chance at hearing more clearly. But the sink hasn’t moved, and neither has all the things that are sitting atop it, so she doesn’t want to reintroduce herself to that yet. 

It’s when the distinct clearing of the throat ensues, followed by the sound of bags hitting the floor and mindless humming, that the presence on the floor just beneath her claims it’s rightful owner. It’s about an hour earlier than she was told to expect him, not that it matters. She was clear on the phone that she’d be busy upon his return; out of the house and out of his hair, as that’s how he seemed to want it last they spoke. 

But instead she’s sitting on their bathroom floor. She’d planned to be out with enough time between his return. That way seemed easier. He’d realize, coming upstairs to unpack his things, that her side of the dresser was bare and her corner of the closet was emptied. All her trinkets in the bathroom had rescinded and, essentially, whatever trace of her that rang through the house had completely ceased to exist. Due to poor planning and a bit of an unforeseen wrench thrown in halfway through, that was not the case. Now she was just trying to avoid the bouquet of positive pregnancy tests lined up on the sink basin above her head. 

[hummingbird24220]

Chapter Eighty-Three: Bans, Blushes, and the Birth of Denial

It didn’t take long for Nami to lay down a very firm decree after breakfast.

Standing at the helm with her arms crossed and a clipboard in hand, she cleared her throat with a level of authority usually reserved for serious storms and Luffy's snack rations.

"Effective immediately," she announced, "no more co-ed baths unless you're dying. Or married. Or stupid."

You raised your hand. “What about emotionally married?”

She squinted. “What about emotionally banned from speaking?”

You slowly lowered your hand.

Zoro seemed unaffected by the ruling, but he trained noticeably farther from you than usual. He didn’t speak. Didn’t look at you. But whenever you passed, you swore you could feel the weight of his eye watching from the corner.

Sanji? Sanji developed a cough. A very specific, flustered, avoidant cough that seemed to trigger every time you walked into a room, stretched near a sunny window, or did literally anything involving your legs.

You were thriving. They were crumbling.

—-----

It happened mid-afternoon.

You were on the deck, leaned against the railing, sipping something cool, eyes half-closed, stretching your back with a soft yawn.

Zoro, perched on the opposite side of the ship, was in the middle of a sword swing when his eye definitely trailed over to you. And lingered. Just a second too long.

You smirked. Robin noticed. Robin raised a brow. Robin smirked harder.

You turned your head, gave Zoro a slow wink— and he immediately dropped his sword.

Sanji, walking by at the worst possible moment, saw the whole thing.

He walked straight into the mast.

—-----

That evening, as the sun dipped low and dinner buzzed with chatter, Sanji refused to make eye contact and Zoro ate with the quiet focus of a man fighting for his life.

Usopp leaned toward you and whispered, “You broke them.”

You smiled sweetly. “Good.”

By day three of the Zoro & Sanji Avoidance Era, you'd had enough.

No more flinching. No more awkward silences. No more “accidental” dropped utensils or flustered glances like they were the main characters in a forbidden romance drama.

You were tired. You were tense. You just wanted to roughhouse with your idiot best friends without someone accidentally blushing at your collarbone.

So, with the full weight of frustration behind you, you slammed your hands on the galley table during lunch and said, loud and crystal clear:

“For the love of the sea, can you two just go jerk off or something so we can go back to normal?!”

—-----

Forks dropped. Luffy’s jaw unhinged. Sanji turned purple. Zoro stopped chewing mid-bite and looked like he was contemplating reincarnation.

Robin sipped her tea and softly said, “Oh my.”

Then—chaos.

Nami lunged across the table, hands around your throat. “YOU CAN’T JUST SAY THAT IN PUBLIC!!”

You wheezed, laughing even as her fingers pressed in. “Worth it—also, kinda like this—”

“YOU FREAK!!”

Usopp scrambled up behind you, grabbing one of your arms and tugging you backward.

“WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT AT LUNCH?!”

“BECAUSE THEY NEED TO RELIEVE THE TENSION!” you shouted mid-choke.

Franky grabbed your other arm, equally panicked. “THIS IS NOT A FAMILY-FRIENDLY VESSEL ANYMORE!”

Chopper, red-faced and horrified, bit your leg. Full-on, tiny reindeer fangs sunk into your calf like this was a cursed anime exorcism.

“YOU’RE MAKING THINGS WORSE,” he squeaked through a mouthful of your skin.

Zoro and Sanji hadn’t moved. Just sitting there, eyes wide, faces flushed, absolutely destroyed.

Zoro blinked once. Sanji blinked twice. Neither spoke.

They looked like you’d reached directly into their brains and started flipping every emotional switch labeled “DO NOT TOUCH.”

And honestly? Good.

Nami released your throat with a growl. Usopp wiped his forehead like he’d survived war. Chopper let go of your leg and immediately disinfected it while muttering about moral damage. Franky walked off shaking his head, mumbling something about "so not SUPER."

You gasped in a breath, disheveled, panting, and smiling like the devil himself.

“…I stand by it.”

Robin, from across the room: “You do have a way with words.”

—------------

After the Infamous Lunch Incident (as it would forever be known), the ship was filled with a new kind of tension. Not steamy bath tension. Not accidental-foot-touching-under-water tension.

A new, unstable, “someone’s going to explode soon” kind of tension.

And you were so ready.

You were sprawled out on the upper deck, arms behind your head, sunglasses on, hair still a little wild. Living your best post-choke life.

Zoro passed by without looking at you. Again. Still pretending like you didn’t exist.

You sighed, loudly.

“Still mad about the jerk-off comment, moss-boy?”

He froze mid-step. Shoulders stiff. Back still turned.

You tilted your head. “Because I was trying to help. You’re clearly suffering. And I care.”

He turned slowly.

“I am not—suffering.”

You sat up. “Oh? So what’s the name for the thing where you won’t even look at me anymore like I’m gonna turn into boobs and attack you?”

His eye twitched. His mouth opened. And then—finally—

“You don’t get it.”

You blinked. Zoro never talked this much unless swords were involved.

“You… don’t get what it’s like,” he continued, voice low and very Zoro-level gruff, “when you’re just trying to function normally and suddenly someone’s in your space. Laughing. Touching. Sitting next to you like it doesn’t mean anything.”

You stared. He stared back.

“…Are we still talking about the bath?” you asked.

Zoro’s jaw clenched. “…No.”

Sanji chose exactly that moment to appear from below deck, carrying a tray of drinks. And stopped cold. Because there you were, face close to Zoro’s, his voice low, eyes intense, and you looking up at him like you’d just figured out the plot twist of a drama.

Sanji dropped the tray.

“OH MY GOD—”

Everyone turned. Luffy yelled “What’d you drop?!” Usopp screamed “IS SOMEONE DYING?!”

“I’M DYING!!” Sanji wailed, pointing at Zoro. “I TURNED MY BACK FOR ONE MINUTE AND YOU’RE GETTING EMOTIONALLY VULNERABLE?!”

You turned to him, grinning. “Sanji, baby, come closer. He’s using full sentences. You need to witness this.”

Zoro groaned. “I hate this crew.”

Sanji’s hands flew to his chest like he was having an anime nosebleed and heart attack at the same time. “You—You betrayed the bath code!”

“There was never a code,” Zoro muttered.

“THERE WAS A VIBE.”

You stood up, brushing imaginary dust off your legs, and stepped right between them.

Hands on hips. Smirk in place.

“You’re both ridiculous. You’re in love with me.”

Sanji opened his mouth. Zoro opened his mouth.

You held up a finger. “And I’m ridiculous for liking you both back.”

Sanji: ??!?!?!!?! Zoro: visibly buffering

You turned on your heel and walked away, swaying just a little for effect. “I’ll be in my room if either of you gets brave.”

[sunstream7]

Its my blog I can assign XOD jerks Los Campesinos songs if I want to

This one is a long read and purely self indulgent lmao

Everett is she crows (documented minor emotional breakdown #4)

‘She crows "You want my happiness, but on your terms",

 ‘Swapping drinks tickets for all these indiscreet snippets Of how it feels to truly be adored’

 ‘Writing sleeper hits for all these weeping dip shits Turning tricks for cheap kicks where I can’

‘She told her friends she'd got with me, she lied it drunkenly I'm only angry 'cause I wish she had’

Everett is THE romantic longing/devastation of the Whole Damn Body album- it's a sort of angry/upset one, a lot of failed relationships and British sports allegories that I don't understand because I am a) a filthy American, and b) not versed in balls. and sex euphemisms. so I'd say it's pretty solid for him.

About She Crows specifically, it focuses on lacking meaningful relationships and hopping from person to person to fill that void- the regret and anger about things that were never real in the first place (eve and pran don't @ me, I'm right) and there's a joke about killing an ex boyfriend, which I think is a little funny.

Nate is Romance is Boring

As much as I love this boy. there is not a single 'got so horny about my ex girlfriend that i puked' stored in him. Initially I was tempted with Avocado, baby because obligatory emotional issues joke (and because the song ABSOLUTLEY fucks.) Having said that. someone needed the quintessential 'emotionally unavailable and struggling' song.

We are two ships that pass in the night. You and I, we are nothing alike. I am a pleasure cruise, you are gone out to trawl. Return nets empty, nothing at all

But my strength's within lies, ventricle cauterized. It's the way of living that I espouse

Sure, there are things I could do if I was half-prepared to prove to each other that romance is boring

Take your diffidence, make it my clubhouse

Yeaaahhh it's about a failing relationship because neither party can bring themselves to either

a) care enough to take the risk to fix it, against your reservations about commitment

b) show a single ounce of emotionality that would be able salvage a stagnation that has made the romance boring (there.)

I'm not taking the 'lack of effort' angle (if you've played his route, which. there's only half a dozen people that are reading this and I know you have) so he clearly tries- this is coming from the. emotionally stunted to the point it becomes damaging angle. The way he would jump straight to breaking up instead of actually yknow. maybe talking about a problem. Love him

Shiloh. oh Shiloh. c is the heavenly option

not a lc! song but they covered it like a decade ago and so close enough i say.

‘Don't play games if you're broken-hearted Don't try to finish what you ain't got started And if you've got problems Then don't bring them to me’

'My girlfriend's getting sick of me Should I (A) Change your personality Should I (B) Put her love to the test Or should I (C) Kiss her till she's obsessed.'

'Your girlfriend fancies your best friend Should you (A) Stick around with them Should you (B) Tell them "That's just fine" Or should you (C) Kiss her till she's mine.'

‘If you're an (A) you will see You'll get chucked and end up unhappy If you're a (B) you will find That's cool but hey don't be so unkind And if you're a (C), you'll end up like me And love with bowl you over If you're a (C), you'll end up like me'

'The smile that I put on to mask a face that's more than nervous Is never hard when I recall that I just don't deserve this Don't think my heart ain't quaking, shaking, breaking open but it's What I must do If I want you’

*cracks knuckles* you mean the song about sucking it the fuck up and doing anything to keep your partner exists and I WASN'T supposed to relate it to Shiloh?! 'what I must do, If I want you?!' 'the smile that i put on to mask a face that's more than nervous?!' I know we've all seen how exhausted his 'anything for you's get as the game progresses, and how Mr. ass-kisser himself will do literally anything if it means getting the girl, even if it is not entirely in his best interest in terms of self respect.

so yes very Shiloh of it.

Bae- a footnote in why he had me ripping my hair out

This bitch boy is the least lc!able of any of them, because he doesn't have the ‘killing your girlfriends ex boyfriend' and 'lamenting your failed relationships while drunk' and 'damn the system' and 'cannot hold a stable relationship' vibes that the rest do. They also all fall into two categories. 'so horny i lost brain function' or 'I'm going to kms' often both at the same time!. So. Suffering.

I was kind of thinking Moonstruck, Letters from me to Charlotte, or I love you but you're boring, or even Little Mouth

There's no consensus here!

Bae Pyoun I love you. but this is the reason my essay has been delayed for weeks.

an achievement in of itself.

Instead of any specific song, I've collected lyrics from a few different ones that I feel are passable.

And this sentimental movie marathon has taught us one thing. It's the opposite of true love is as follows: Reality (We Are All Accelerated Readers)

Birds are singing in the trees, As we rise up in a beautiful morning. But I can't hear that beautiful sound, because I'm permanently yawning (I love you but you're boring)

It's hard to find the romance in a town not known for sunsets (Moonstruck)

I am moonstruck, it's a welcome fate (Moonstruck as well)

Most of these are attempting to build on either godawful relationships, or being very enamored and in a godawful relationship. unsurprisingly, there is seldom happy romance in a los campesinos song. it is not a place you bring a lover to. I tried to lean into his inability to take anything seriously even though it directly contradicts his longing for a serious relationship

Pran- Miserabilia

‘I'm not saying there's good in none of this Miserabilia to show the kids I'm not saying that you're responsible, Miserabilia for one, for all’

We got nostalgic, ended up filling shoe boxes with vomit, collected scabs in lockets, hung them 'round our necks like nooses

‘Your hands will remain empty When you have stopped clutching at straws Cling to bad memories, forget all the insufferable bores No one matters (no one matters) No one cares’

‘Shout at the world, because the world doesn't love you Lower yourself, because you know that you'll have to’

‘He whispered, "Oh my God this really is a joy to behold" Thought he said, "It's joy to be held" So I held him too close It was a grave mistake He never came back again’

It's pretty obvious that 'Miserabilia' is a play on 'memorabilia' so that's not news, but the behavior of clinging onto the worst of the worst- scabs in lockets that choke, and bad memories, and shoeboxes of sick just means that the worst will always be with you, which bleeds into the despair of none of it having a true impact in the long run, and it was just awful with no real outcome. Our (debatably) favorite brick wall has that lovely 'everything is horrible' outlook on life (rightfully so. that's a different essay though) That trickles down into everything- almost every single one of his mannerisms can be traced back to loosely hinted at childhood neglect and difficult familial relationships

footnote- The whole sick scenes album (specifically the fall of home)

Last but not least. Jeremy: In medias res!!

‘If you were given the option Of dying painlessly in peace at 45 With a lover at your side After a full and happy life, Is this something that would interest you? Would this interest you at all?’

'I'm leaving my body to science Not medical, but physics Drag my corpse through the airport And lay me limp on the left wing’

‘Drop me at the highest point And trace a line around the dent I leave in the ground That'll be the initial of the one you'll marry Now that I'm not around’

All's well that ends

'In Medias Res' means 'into the middle of a narrative' And in this songs case, that narrative is very clearly not happy. The whole of the RiB album is steeped depression and apathy and that same inability to care about anything meaningful present in- you guessed it- Romance is Boring. 'All's well that ends' was the line specifically that sold me. (one of) Jeremy's main conflicts is the fact that none of it can be over with fast enough, and dropping the 'well' of the usual 'all's well that ends well' just drives that home; that for him, as soon as it's over, that's as good as it will be.

[mdhwrites]

Andrias vs. Collector: Who Was Redeemed Better?

Andrias hands down. Not only is it helped IMMENSELY by character consistency with him but it actually functions with what we know of him. Despite literally only ever getting half an episode dedicated to him (he doesn't actually get a lot more screentime than The Collector, especially while as a villain) we understand his motivations, the reasons for his cruelty, why Marcy made him cold and annoyed every time she was even mentioned post True Colors (he did not enjoy torturing Marcy. The literal only claim there is one line from True Colors where he blames her but otherwise, Marcy is fridged SPECIFICALLY to give someone for Andrias to show regret about) and then when shown how far he had fallen from the good man he was, he goes ahead and tries to fix that. First a final act of heroism but then not asking for forgiveness or the like. He is too guilty to need, or perhaps even want, such things and he instead can try to put things right on his own. In the end, we are left with the impression that Andrias WILL continue to tend to Amphibia now until the day he finally dies. It's actually done pretty well for the fact that it's given such little direct attention, especially by the time he's supposed to start being redeemed.

Meanwhile, the Collector's arc only works if you ignore large swaths of the show. His redemption mostly comes down to the idea that he needs to learn morality and that other people can be hurt by his actions but... He already did. In Watching and Dreaming, he yells at Belos controlled Raine specifically about how King will hate him for the nightmares, showing that he understands that his actions can upset people. In S2B, he talked about wanting to play with bones and criticized Belos for potentially murdering the Grimmwalkers, kind of opening up a moral conversation about the nature of Belos' treatment of them while showing his knowledge of death.

Even if we believe he didn't know these things and try to say he was manipulated, we can't. Belos' goal was extremely explicit and back when he was Philip, he had no reason to lie to the Collector. A spell to kill all witches in return for your freedom was the deal. That's pretty damn evil and the Collector could have always said no but instead he's EXCITED for them to be dead in Hollow Mind. All that matters to him then is his freedom, screw anyone else. Then when he is freed, he has neither the archivists or Belos to push him around and tell him what to do. As such: Why the fuck did he make the hunting stars? You know, the roaming stars that turn people automatically into puppets, rendering them to a fate worse than death as they are conscious and aware of what's going on, even as they are entirely incapable of doing anything about it. They are still around MONTHS later. Hexside literally keeps watch for them. If he is just a little guy, why the fuck did he make those in the first place and why are they still around?

None of this is ever addressed though. Instead, the show spends a quarter of its finale, and a decent chunk of the special before it, focusing on trying to redeem him and show him off as a good guy while not having him actually acknowledge the awful, terrible things he did. There's no taking of responsibility like with Andrias. There is no proper refusal of his morality or change in his thinking. Even his attempt to make peace with Belos is flawed because it's still the same all or nothing thinking that we've seen up until now for the Collector. "I do X, I get friend." It's not actually an acknowledgement that other people are complex and have their own free will, it's just a new form of trying to easily get what he wants. Then after her turns people back, which is good, he just leaves. He doesn't do anything to actually make up for what he did or allow him to face a world that he has irrevocably damaged. Instead, he abandons it all. All that responsibility and guilt can just be left behind instead of actually worked on. How is that a show of what he learned? Of him rejecting how he was before? Of him being REDEEMED?

It makes it much less an arc and more something we're told. At least when Andrias powers down to make Anne's final punch on him more effective, we have seen his regret. We have seen his motivations. We have seen as one is pushed into his face and the other torn down. Then we get to see him act on it, allow his conquest to fail, as a willful decision to back down from that evil rather than double down. Then we see follow through with him in the timeskip where he is still simply trying to make up for his sins, even if no one will ever tell him his work is done.

We don't get anything like that with the Collector and that's why he will always be easily worse to me.

======+++++======

Someone shared a Reddit post on this topic in my Discord and I almost posted 95% of this as a comment there. I... I know better than to do that on Reddit though so I decided to just let it be a blog over here.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[apollabarnes]

wip wednesday

tagged by @leashybebes and @ambernotember

i let leashy pick which two characters would be in this part (chim and parker) (there's also a surprise buck!) it's... half? a third? of a larger slapstick adventure in the story so i'll let you all wonder what that is (for now)

consider yourself tagged if you see this and you need motivation to write!

we provide... emergencies

"Listen, I'm not saying that this is your fault but you are the one that started baking snickerdoodles by the scores when Maddie was pregnant, and now they're the only cookies that Jee wants." Chim poked around the table they were looking at, sighing as they came up empty again. "What is this, a seasonal cookie flavour?"

"Hey, I can make Jee snickerdoodles. We can make them together next time I'm babysitting," Buck offered.

"God, no. Nope. We only managed to convince her she couldn't have them every day because they needed to be made special at the bakery," Chim shook his head. "If she remembers we can make them at home Maddie and I will have to make a batch every three days. I'm not emotionally prepared for that. Neither is my wallet."

"It's cheaper than buying a dozen every time you go to the store. Or the farmer's market," Buck snarked, cradling his apple cider in both hands to warm them up.

"But then we don't get brother time. Are you against having time with your brother, Buck?"

"Don't — don't make that face at me." Buck looked away from Chim, his eyes catching on a familiar silhouette the next row over. He'd been thinking about Tommy since they'd seen each other at the station two days ago, sure that every tall, wide-shouldered man he was walking past was Tommy and being disappointed when it wasn't, but that — that had to be him, right? "Hey, is that—"

There was a crash in front of them and Chim rushed forward, thrusting his drink into Buck's hand.

"Buck! Clear away as much of this as you can!"

Buck ditched the coffees on the bakery table and started picking through the debris that was scattered across the pavement.

"Hey, you okay? That was quite a spill you took there." Chim knelt down in front of the woman who had collapsed, searching out her pulse. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"I…" she blinked up at him, frowning. "My boot caught on something, and I just sort of… stumbled?" She tried to push herself up and Chim reached out, keeping her still.

"Let me check you out first, we want to make sure nothing worse than a spill happened." He ducked his head, checking her pupillary response.

She wrinkled her nose at the flashlight. "Are you a doctor?"

"Only on tv." Chim laughed, checking her neck carefully. "I'm a paramedic. First question, what's your name?"

"Alice. White."

"Good. What day of the week is it?"

"Wednesday. Never liked Wednesdays."

"Yeah, this isn't exactly doing Wednesdays any favours, is it?" Chim glanced over at Buck. "You see anything that she might have landed on?"

"There's a few crushed strawberries and some oranges are… not great, but none of the crates broke." Buck lifted up another box, putting it aside.

"Okay, well it doesn't look like anything is broken and your head isn't bleeding. If you get a headache in the next day or so, go to the doctor right away and tell them what happened." He rocked back on his heels, offering her a hand. "Looks like you have a couple of scratches, but a band-aid should be more than enough for them."

"Great!" Alice popped up without taking Chimney's hand, rolling her neck and tipping her head to one side to crack it.

"Uh, Alice, I wouldn't recommend—" Chim blinked over at Buck, who was just as surprised at how easily she was moving around after a fall that had knocked over an entire stall.

"Thanks for that, I haven't had a good stretch in a while." She scooped up the damaged basket of fruit and tipped it into her bag, dropping a few twenties on the counter. "Sorry about the mess! See you around."

Chimney squinted after Alice as she dashed away, frowning. "Does that seem like someone who trips over their own feet?" he wondered aloud.

Buck shrugged. "Maybe? Anyone can trip over their own feet."

"I'm really glad that I didn't give her my name. That way she can't blame me if that did something to her neck." Chimney dusted his knees off, helping Buck clean up the last few boxes. "It's weird though, right? Hey, you were trying to ask me something when she fell — what's up?"

Buck glanced around, but the maybe-Tommy was nowhere in sight. "Nothing important, don't worry about it."

"Geez, thanks," the stall owner gushed, handing them both a bag of oranges and apples. "That would have taken forever to put back together on my own."

"Oh, no, we can't—"

"Seriously, you totally saved my life, my boss would have hated me forever," she winked at them both. "I hear there's some snickerdoodles at the end of this row."

[bloodyshadow1]

just my feelings on the bad kids and their class levels/classes right now. It's just my opinion, I am not bashing the multiclasses or the players choices

Adaine- Love it, she's an 11th level wizard, i get that multiclassing can be fun, but for some classes it's just better, imo, to just stay the course because having access to upper level spells can be more useful than a multiclass. I'm sure there's a broken wizard multiclass, but I think it just fits her better to stay a wizard throughout. Sometimes with full casters, I could see dipping into monk or Barbarian for the ac buff, but neither would help her so It's probably best for her to stay a wizard since she has access to 6th level spells since leveling up

Kristen- Same as Adaine, I personally like full casters to stay the course and keep on keeping on. again I'm sure there's a broken cleric other class build, like Saccharina from ACOC, but I'm not sure anything other than paladin would fit Kristen. A lot of her issues are mental and Tracker was right about her not wanting to do the boring stuff. I like her having to discover what she wants out of being a cleric rather than her dropping it because it's not exactly what she wants for something new.

Riz- 11 levels of rogue, though from the beginning of the season he's now an arcane trickster instead of an inquisitor which I think is more helpful and just a better fit. He's still a detective, but he's also kind of a secret agent so having access to magic helps and fits his character growth. Also he never really used a lot of the inquisitor abilities that often and his perception wasn't that good to justify the subclass. I'm also glad he is staying a full rogue so far, I think given the mechanics of Junior year so far, it would put a lot of strain on him to try and do more than just a single course track

Now for the multiclassers

Fabian- I think both taking levels of bard and going from champion fighter to battlemaster was the best choice for him. I think overall he was a fighter because he was taught to be one, but overall the boy is a bard at his core. The flourishes the spells, the charisma proficiency, they're what Fabian wants more than what he gets from being a fighter. Fabian has always wanted to be popular and stand out while being a great warrior and a swords college bard fits that better than being a fighter, a class he seems to have very little attachment to. Currently he is a 6 fighter 5 bard, since he was a level 8 fighter and gave up 3 levels to take in bard when he was depressed he has boosted up 2 levels in that class vs 1 in fighter. After the initial class level trading he hasn't decreased his levels in fighter, but I wouldn't be surprised if he does in the future.

Gorgug- this is where I get a bit critical, I don't really know if Artificer Barbarian is a good multiclass. I've seen some people say it's amazing while others say it's terrible, I have no clue. from what I can tell it doesn't look like it's super good, it's a support class and a tinkerer so it does fit Gorgug, but I don't think it really is that efficient with the Bad Kid's party comp. Fabian and Gorgug were the front line fighters, Gorgug being the tank and DPS while Fabian was a striker dps with a good hp pool and ac, but Barbarians soak up damage better than any class. It's also hard to be a caster (even a half/third caster like Artificier, and be a barbarian because you can't cast spells or even concentrate on them when you rage which is obviously a problem. It's just hard to imagine gorgug as an battlesmith, which I assume he is, since other than the steeldefender it doesn't give him anything he doesn't already have as a barbarian. We also don't know any of his infusions so it's hard to really be attached to Gorgug as an artificer when we don't really seem him artifice. That being said, he's Zac's character so whatever he wants is gonna happen. Since Gorgug has been trading an additional level in barbarian for artificer (6 barb/5 art) I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually drops barbarian all together. I think a barbarian is more useful, but I can understand why Zac would want Gorgug to go down the artificer path instead and I support it.

Fig- Honestly, Fig's multiclassing is the strangest to me because I can't really wrap my head around it. She so far only has 2 levels of warlock to her 9 of bard, even last level up she took another level of Bard, the two levels she took of warlock were in freshman year and she never really looked back. That being said, from the recent eps, it seems like she likes the warlock classes better, she isn't even sure if she wants to be a bard anymore. which I find kind of a shame because she also liked the 1 bard class she took. Emily is a master multiclasser so I'm sure Fig is gonna be great whatever and will be who Emily wants her to be. I'm hoping she doesn't become a paladin because, even if it's to replace her levels in Bard, despite hexblade being one of the best combos with paladin. It just feels like Fig as the character took levels/are planning to take levels in other classes to make other people happy. She became a warlock because she found her devil father and wanted to be closer to him, she offered to become a paladin for Cassandra to help out Kristen, but I think that's selfless, but it doesn't help her as a person. Sometimes you can be too selfless to a point where it's bad for you. Emily can of course do whatever, but I'll be a bit sad if has Fig giving up on being a bard. Like with Kristen it seems like Fig just doesn't want to do the uncool stuff and that's gonna be with anything she tries. I think she's running away from what she wants herself to be to make things easier/more exciting and I think it's going to backfire.

I will also say, it's not exactly fair for Brennan to poison her bardic abilities. I'll say more on the topic on another post but it's still how I feel.

[centrally-unplanned]

House of the Dragon "peace arc" was generally cringe though with a bright spot at the core. Rhaenys came off the worst for it; sitting in a council meeting getting news that the enemy has marched an army, taken two of their castles, and sacked a city and calling those wanting to respond to that warmongering idiots is an amateur hour moment. It isn't like Rhaenyra was heading to King's Landing to surrender or anything, she wanted a negotiated peace. To get that, you need a position of strength - otherwise your enemy is less likely to make peace with you, as the cost of killing you is so low. "War begets war" is an aphorism, not an iron law; this cowardice in the name of conflict avoidance serves neither peace nor their war. Smack their advancing army with a squad of dragons and show them "hey, this is what More War is gonna bring - let's give peace a chance hm?" You only make peace with your enemies, after all, reminding them of that fact is not the barrier to peace naive instinct thinks it is. And then you also aren't telling your own vassals you are going to ditch them in the face of fire, bonus!

The way she seems haughtily superior to the "squabblings of men" while making a fool or herself is a real directorial fail, it is almost accidentally sexist - poor wimmins can't understand Clausewitz. Though I gotta give the actress Eve Best some unintentional credit:

I guess she fucking nailed it.

While I am bashing Rhaenys, the framing of the Vhagar/Meraxes fight is very strange - Rhaenys has clearly won the battle, because Sunfyre is pretty much dead, and you would likely bet Aegon with him, and the way it is shot strongly suggests Rhaenys successfully retreated while Aemond is not at all in pursuit. The whole battle was clearly a trap that she had just dodged. Then she doubles back anyway against a much stronger foe and loses while dealing no apparent damage. Why do that dumb thing? It's both way too risky and also strategically foolish - Meleys as the Black's strongest dragon is highly needed as a deterrent force. It would be more reasonable if Rhaenys was a proud warrior type, proud warriors do that kind of thing ("I can't abandon Rook's Rest!"), but she was defined by her caution up until she chose suicide-by-dracarys.

In the books she is ambushed by a cooperative Aegon/Aemond and dies fighting, easy peasy. The logic is sound, it is a weird change to make.

Speaking of bad tactics, why only send one dragon? If the other dragons were busy that would be one thing, but they mainly aren't, they are doing nothing of note at the time, you have like 4 of them. In the book Rhaenyra is being a bad leader, too grief-stricken or cowardly to go herself, and too possessive of her sons to let them fight; it is shown as a mistake. In this show it is shown as a moment of Rhaenys's courage; she is like "I will go your grace" and everyone is like "oooh" and the question of why this is a solo mission just gets swept aside. Again, you know Vhagar is stronger than you, teamwork is the only real chance you have, while having more dragons is your primary advantage. The Blacks can and should make mistakes, but it has to be framed as mistakes by the show.

This is of course downstream of the "make Rhaenyra the Good Guy" decision; but beyond the Rhaenys idiocy I think this worked great for her here. She didn't hesitate to help her allies; the moment she returned from her failed peace mission, she got right to work. Trying to make peace was idealistic but people are sometimes. And meanwhile I continue to support the Aegon's Dream choice - it really does give her this solid motivation beyond power for her commitment to her inheritance. It is framed really well - like she herself only half believes the prophecy. She is choosing to believe it because she is stuck now and needs moral certainty for the choices she is going to make. That is a very human thing to do, and insightful to essentially admit her own biases out the gate. It makes her likeable without giving her a moral pass for anything.

I do think the show has tipped a bit too far into the "greens = bad guys" camp in comparison though. I would have fixed that by making Rhaenyra more directly complicit in past crimes like killing those who called her children bastards, show she is too committed to this whole "law & prophecy above all" bit, and that the Greens have some legitimate grievances against her. But we may see her get corrupted by the war yet; hopefully they have the courage when it matters most.

[thecandywrites]

Monster March 2025- Day 10- Elemental Spirit

Talisman- The Plan

Yes, I know I'm 5 days behind. I had a lot of medical issues. (I had an MRI, and getting the imaging burned to a disk while I had 4 doctor's appointments in the last three days and THEN, had to wait to get a portable disk reader to see the fucking MRI's myself, because my laptop doesn't have one of those so I could see for myself just how much brain damage I sustained when I had a stroke, and a brain aneurism in January, but that came today, I got to see my MRI and the damage isn't nearly as severe as I feared, so we're good. Now, I can get back to Monster March)

I know this is super short, but dang it, I'm trying to make up time here.

As always, huge thsnks to @borealwrites for histing Monster March for 2025.

Monster March 2025- Day 10 - Elemental Spirit

Talisman Chapter 9 

Udwar woke up and smiled to see Bon still sleeping blissfully away, with her head on his chest, over his heart that he knew in every fiber of his being, beat for her, and her alone. But, now that he had her, now it was going to be a battle to keep her safe. 

Safe from his mother. 

Safe from intrigue in and out of the palace once they would get closer to it. 

Safe from all those who would want to kill them both to take ownership of the talismans themselves. 

But it was more than that, the dreams revealed how they could get their happy ever after. It was the how, that posed the greatest problems. 

“What’s wrong?” Bon asked sleepily when she awoke to both his heart rate increasing but also the talisman telling her he was worried. 

“Nothing.” He answered. 

“Liar.” Bon teased as she lifted her hand and flicked at the talisman over his chest. 

“You’re worried. What are you worried about?” Bon asked before she craned her head up. 

“Too many things.” He sighed, exhausted from the mental somersaults his brain was already doing. 

“Ok, start out from the top, what’s worrying you the most and go down from there.” Bon urged. 

“I’m worried about your safety.” He stated. 

“You have an army of thousands- highly invested in our safety because it means that they will soon get the payday of a lifetime. What is the threat to us, that- that army can not keep us safe from?” She pointed out.  

“I’m worried about my mother’s influence. And I’m especially worried that she will demand that we come ashore, and demand for us to be officially married and crowned. And I’m just as worried at all of my half brother’s mother’s and my half brother’s many wives and the hundreds of thousands of plots of intrigue to either kill us both to take the talismans and the throne themselves, or any number of things.” He answered. 

“So we lie.” Bon stated simply. 

“Excuse me?” Udwar frowned in confusion. 

“If we have to get married, that’s fine. However, to keep us both alive, but also, to keep us safe from any plots towards the throne because your talisman tells me that you don’t want it as badly as your half brothers, which honestly, if they want it, they can fight each other over it, I don’t give a shit, we’ll be on the other side of the world. So, the lie we tell- to keep us both safe, is that the talismans have taken to their final wearers, and if anything happens to either of us, the connection of the talismans to the god who imbued them with power, will be lost and the way to get to the island with that tower of gold, will be lost with us. How we avoid being crowned, is, it is still a very long voyage to get from your home to this island. And neither of us would like the kingdom that your grandfather and father built up, to be lost without a rightful heir, should we be lost on the voyage, so, what we do, to keep them at bay is, we elect, whoever you think would run that kingdom right, we make them our heirs to royally succeed us to the throne, should we fail to come back and claim it ourselves, in the meantime, your mother rules in your name, like she has for the last three years and however many months it will take to get there, then to the island and then for the gold to be brought back. But only you can decide if you are going to go back with the gold or not, cause I sure as hell am not. That island will be my home. But one you are always welcome to make a home with me, should you so choose, but again, that’s your choice to make. However, in order to fully lift “the curse” of the talismans, both of us have to go back, because that whole- your sexual seed being toxic, poisonous, venomous, whatever, that stays until you get to the island. And we can say that because of the talismans, and the vows said to them, Valena vowed she would not have any other child than Worlf’s, while she was at home. So that means, as long as I wear this talisman, until I too get to that island, to “break the curse” I’m effectively barren until then. So with just that, that’s how we keep all of those at bay. However, I would suggest that whoever we select. We do so secretly, and we write it down on a piece of paper, put it in a box, lock it up and give the key to a priest or priestess or someone who is powerful enough to keep your mother and the other’s at bay, but neutral, in that, it won’t matter to them who is ruling from that throne. And then, to keep your half brothers and their harems trying to kill each other off, so that there is only one surviving half brother left living, no matter who we write down, we encourage all of your half brothers and all of their harems to be in separate palaces, separate everything, and at far enough distances to keep everyone safe. We can try, whether or not they’ll do that, I don’t know, but, that way, we can keep “the curse” of the talismans’ as our own safeguard. So what’s next?” Bon asked. 

Udwar was struck speechless. Because that, alone, would solve all of their problems. 

“Actually, that, that would solve everything and that is the best solution for all of it.” Udwar praised, impressed that her intellect was that sharp to figure that out so quickly and easily. 

“And to keep everyone else safe, we can do our own laundry, to keep any “innocent” persons, from being harmed should they come into contact with your sexual seed. And I’ll tell Naxi and anyone and everyone else that too. And if they have a problem with that, they can walk the plank, or tie themselves to millstones and hurl themselves into the sea.” Bon insisted, and Udwar could not help himself, he kissed her, and kissed her with everything he had. Because of course, the talismans would see to it to give him the perfect mate as Bon. 

“I love you, I love you, I love you, that’s brilliant, you’re smart, you’re brilliant, you’re amazing, you’re wonderful, you’re beautiful and the best.” Udwar praised between kisses as he rolled over and pinned her to the bed as she happily giggled and was happy to accept such affections while giving some back and before they knew it, they were making love again and ignoring the world outside of Bon’s room. 

They officially had a plan, all they needed to do was follow it. 

[valscigarette]

Summary: Vox takes Angel on a "dry-run" of a date he has planned for Valentino. (Angel's POV on Staticmoth)

Tags: Vox/Valentino, background Angel/Valentino, Canon-Typical Everything, Angst, Mutually Destructive Vox/Val, Threats of Violence

See AO3 or DM me for more detailed tags/warnings!

WC: 3.6k | AO3

-

“Be good to him, Voxxy,” Val warns playfully, smacking a wet kiss to the corner of Vox’s screen and leaving a tinted smear that could be lipstick or drool. “We have a long shoot tomorrow, and if you make a mess-”

“Oh, please,” Vox huffs.

Despite this being his idea, his plan, his request, he seems utterly uninterested in Angel’s presence. From the cabin of the limousine, Angel watches his and Valentino’s back and forth, desperate for some clue as to what the evening has in store for him. Most johns are simple. They know what they want, and Angel knows how to give it to them, and Val usually steps in before they damage the merchandise too badly. Vox, on the other hand, has never asked for Angel’s time so much as inflicted himself on it when Val’s feeling particularly cruel.

“Since when do you give a fuck, anyway?”

Vox leans against the side of the limo, a sign that their conversation will last long enough for Angel to light a smoke. He taps one from the pack in his clutch, pink-filtered with an extra dose of Valentino’s venom, and holds it out toward Vox for a dismissive, static arc of a light. They’re not oblivious to his presence- just ignoring him, like he’s no more alive than the velvet cushion beneath his ass.

A chuckle, low and dangerous, spills from Valentino’s lips with a plume of opaque smoke Vox has to physically wave from the air between them. “Since you decided that my toys are more fun than me,” Val answers, torn somewhere between deadly anger and catty mockery. Angel stutters on his exhale. Even when Val is blurry, separated by the tinted windows of the car and half-obscured from Vox’s frame, the sound of his temper is enough for Angel’s lungs to seize.

“Come on,” Vox groans. He pushes off the side of the car to crowd Val’s space while Angel recenters himself, hoping to finish his smoke before Vox is ready to leave. “It was one mistake, baby. And honestly, how many whores do you fuck a week? A day? How is this different?”

This gets Angel’s attention enough to subtly shift in his seat, scooting toward the open door to better hear the argument Vox has definitely started. Neither of them like to back down, but both love the heat of a fight and to take it out on their subordinates. It’s a sick cycle Angel somehow found himself in the middle of.

“It’s my fucking job, that happens to make you a shit-load of money. You don’t see me taking your assistant—what's his name, the slimy one with that sexy little fin—to bed in the middle of your workday!”

The assistant in question could be one of several, though Angel noticed Vox replacing the whole set of them over the course of the month. He wonders if it has to do with Val, but quickly dismisses the thought; Valentino will fuck anything that moves, or anything that doesn’t so long as he can find a hole to stick his cock in, and there’s simply no one Vox could hire that Val wouldn’t want to fuck. Yeah, he has his favorites. Angel’s one of them. But Angel knows Val isn’t loyal to anyone, and he’s certain Vox is equally aware.

“Is that what this is about?” Vox asks. “They’re- that’s what you keep them for, Val, don’t be ridiculous. I know for a fact you fucked that one twice, the same day I did, and it wasn’t even in front of a studio camera!”

“Her performance needed work,” Val sniffs, then blows a heart-shaped smoke ring into Vox’s screen petulantly. “Forgive me if I don’t appreciate all the time you have for my performers, amor.” Vox mutters something, only to glance back at Angel through the window as if to commiserate when Val barrels over him. “You just don’t seem to have any left for me.” His pleading lilt is almost convincing as his lower set of hands curl into fists at his side.

Angel inhales from his cigarette until his eyes cross and his lungs burn. Although Val likes him fine high, in too much of a stupor to raise a hand let alone fight back, Vox prefers his partners sharp enough to scream, and this tainted smoke is likely the only reprieve he’ll get until Vox dumps what’s left of him in front of Valentino’s door tomorrow morning. He holds his breath. 

Vox reaches out, insisting, “That’s not true,” as the light from his screen flashes across Val’s eyes.

“Fuck you.”

When Val slaps Vox, his head slams into the car window with a thunk that spiderwebs a crack over the glass and dents the corner of Vox’s screen. 

“I don’t even care,” Val adds. “Have fun with fucking Angel Dust. Don’t break him.”

As Valentino swaggers away, not even bothering to say goodbye to Angel, Vox sighs and takes a minute to compose himself. Through the broken tinted glass and a wispy cloud of smoke, Angel watches him straighten his tie, button his jacket, adjust his hat, and flicker through a few settings on his screen to ensure Val hasn’t actually damaged it. By the time he slides into limo, Angel is ready to toss his butt out the window and put on a show. For all that Valentino doesn’t care, he made sure Angel knew to be on his best behavior tonight for Vox. 

The limo pulls away the second Vox shuts the door, but it takes a bit longer for him to acknowledge Angel for the first time all night. “Val pick the dress?” he asks, staring out the window as the city passes them by. 

“Why? Do you like it?”

It was Val’s choice, a silky red number that matches both Vox’s usual suit and the gloves on all four of his arms. The skirt is wide and flowy, unlike the usual form-fitting dresses he wears, and his patent red heels are so short he may as well have gone without. His outfit has been meticulously crafted as an homage to the glitzy fifties nostalgia Vox can’t seem to let go of.

“It looks lovely,” Vox replies, glancing over at the hem of the skirt with such interest that Angel has to tug it up higher on his thighs. “Not your usual style, but it’s better than those slutty costumes he always puts you in.”

Unsure whether it would please or irritate Vox to know Val chose this one, too, Angel doesn’t clarify either way. Instead, he keeps a careful eye on every minute movement Vox makes, desperate to prepare himself for the evening ahead. From the scenery passing out the windows, he can tell they’re on their way out of the city, but that alone isn’t necessarily indicative of anything. Vox doesn’t care who hears them. “Thanks, Mr. Vox,” Angel offers, the safest bet available. He may not know Vox inside and out like he does Valentino, but he’d be stupid not to have picked up on what pleases and pisses him off the most. Demure, grateful, and appropriate are the key words Val gave Angel years ago, and they’re still a good rule of thumb despite how much has changed.

“Can’t see him wearing anything like it though,” Vox says. He pinches the hem of Angel’s skirt between two clawed fingers, barely careful enough to avoid tearing the thin fabric, and scoffs. “It’s cute, I like it, but it’s- he wouldn’t be caught dead in this.”

Angel makes an appropriately sympathetic noise and leans into Vox’s side, mindful not to bump into his sensitive screen when he’s not been given permission. “His loss. Not only would it look great, but you know, you deserve something every now and then, too, baby.” When Vox gets what he wants, he’s happy, and when he’s happy, he doesn’t occupy his free time testing the limits of sinner regeneration. 

“You get it,” agrees Vox, finally wrapping an arm around Angel’s shoulders and tugging him close. Hot-and-cold is Val’s game, and so the affection soothes Angel’s racing heart to a tolerable tremolo, and the way he relaxes into Vox’s touch is entirely genuine. “You’re smarter than Val gives you credit for, Angel.” As he talks, Vox traces shapes over Angel’s bare shoulder in the perfect accompaniment to his affectedly saccharine tone. “Satan, sometimes I wonder.”

The territory gets more familiar with each passing quip. “Hey, Val doesn’t mind sharing. He’s into it. You know that.” Angel leans forward for a kiss before he remembers that Vox is no particular fan, but electric teal claws seize his jaw to keep him from pulling away by the time he realizes his mistake. “Sorry,” he mutters instinctively. “I- I didn’t mean-”

“Oh, relax.” Vox shakes Angel’s head gently with the grip on his face. “He usually doesn’t care--fucking better not, with how busy he gets--and if I wanted you, sweetheart, I’d have you by now.” He chuckles. “As if you’d be worth the effort.” Though it’s far from the cruelest thing Vox has ever said, something about the fondness laced through his voice is worse than outright anger, and Angel struggles to blink back a reaction. “I mean if you weren't his favorite whore,” he continues, releasing Angel's face, “you’d be working for Voxtek.”

Reasonably convinced it’s a compliment, Angel thanks Vox again and tries not to cringe away from him. “Yeah, well, I don’t foresee Val letting me out of filming any time soon.” He pointedly avoids thinking about the implications: his afterlife, infinite in its duration, will be spent at Valentino’s whims, and every time Angel thinks it no longer bothers him, the reminder stings behind his eyes. “‘Specially not when he’s mad at you.”

“He’s always throwing a tantrum about something.” The limo slows as they turn onto a sidestreet along the outskirts of Pentagram City, the neon signs and patchy streetlights fading behind them. Vox picks a sliver of plastic from the scrape on his screen and says, “You know, I made him. He was just another whore, selling backroom tapes before I got involved. He’d still be turning out tricks if it weren’t for me.” 

Whether Vox forgets Angel has been around longer than him, or he simply doesn’t care, it’s impossible to tell, but Angel remembers the days before Vox well enough to know how well Val did for himself on his own. He doesn’t have do the dirty work himself anymore. Of course, the studio still re-releases his old pornos a couple times a year as a publicity stunt, because Val won’t let anyone forget his allure. These two don’t need each other at all. 

“He ever tell you, I built Vee Tower for him?” Vox carries on, nonplussed by the lack of response. “He just had to have a penthouse suite, taller than anyone else’s, and I gave it to him. Me. I’ve done everything for him, and for what? To share his attention with every down-on-their-luck sex doll he sees?” He throws Angel a sidelong glance. “Some offense intended.”

“It’s okay, I know where I stand.”

At last their ride ends. The driver scurries to open Vox’s door for him, and upon climbing out, Vox offers his hand to Angel for support. Angel only hesitates a second before he takes it. He finds Vox’s palm cool and unforgiving, his claws a faint threat where they rest against Angel’s hand, but the touch is uncharacteristically gentle as Angel fluffs his skirt back out. Once they’re a couple steps away, the limousine speeds off, and he suddenly realizes he’s alone on a deserted road with Vox, whose face serves as the only light in the absence of the car headlights. 

“Uh, Mr. Vox, can I ask you something?” He asks, leaning into Vox’s support as they take slow steps further along the road.

Vox walks like he knows the path well, veering from the craggy asphalt to the soft dirt alongside a guardrail. Glancing past him, Angel can make out the glow of the city hundreds of feet below, and realizes they’re on one of the mountains that border it. “If you must,” Vox tells him. The hand not intertwined with Angel’s casts a spark to light gas lamps spaced along the railing.

“What are we doing up here? Not that I’m questioning you, but throwing me over a cliff is a new one, and if you don’t like the dress-” Angel cuts off when Vox squeezes his hand hard enough to hurt. 

“I took Valentino here for our first date, and for some of the bigger anniversaries,” Vox says. The cut path broadens to include an outlook, which has been furnished with a set dinner table and two comfortable chairs, each slightly angled to be close to one another and enjoy the admittedly breathtaking view. Vee Tower is visible from here, the tallest building in the city, and Angel imagines Valentino brooding on the balcony as he waits for Angel to come back and give him every detail of the encounter. Vox guides Angel to one of the chairs, pulling it out for him and pushing him into the table once he’s seated. He tells Angel, “I haven’t been up here in years, so I needed to make sure it’s exactly as I remembered.”

“It’s very romantic,” Angel agrees. “I can see why you guys like it.”

Vox lifts the silver dome covers off their plates, which releases a plume of fragrant steam as it reveals their classic steak dinner, exactly like the place up the block from the tower serves. “We used to,” he says, and he almost sounds wistful. He picks up his fork, then pauses, lights the candle on the table with a spark, and spears a couple of green beans. “I need to do a dry run.”

“Right.” Angel reaches for the bottle of wine, corkscrew placed but unopened, and holds it out to Vox. “Might wanna open this first. And, you know, warn him that you’re taking him to dinner, not his grave.”

“Maybe stewing on his choices will do him some good.” Vox uncorks the bottle with ease, filling Angel’s glass before his own, and his demeanor suddenly clicks. Angel’s here as a proxy for Valentino. For now, that’s a benefit rather than a detriment, and he might catch a glimpse of whatever Val saw in Vox to begin with. “Are you warm enough?”

The chilly breeze is nothing in comparison to the heat generated by Angel’s pounding heart. “Sure. I wouldn’t worry about Val, either, he runs hot.” When he takes a bite of steak, Angel lets out a pleased sound that has Vox’s attention snapping away from the meal and back to him, as though surprised he’s enjoying the exquisite food provided to him. “What?” Angel manages. “I got something on my face?” He reaches for the white cloth napkin to dab around his mouth, but only sticky pink lipgloss comes away with the fabric. 

“Just wondering what he sees in you,” Vox says, voice performatively flat, before he pulls out his cellphone. “I better get some dancers out here, or something. He likes dinner and a show.”

“Oh, ‘cause that won’t bother you at all, Mr. Possessive?” If Angel’s stepping over the line, Vox gives no indication. “And how’s that special? He can go to every club in the city at the drop of a hat. Val doesn’t need your help finding strippers.”

A frown twitches across Vox’s mouth. “I suppose I would be pulling them from the studio payroll.” He slips out of his chair to pace in front of the table, the neon colors of his face slicing a visible beam through the night, brighter than the candle and closer than the city. If it were Val, Angel would already be on his knees to console him, but with Vox, he can’t bring himself to move an inch. “What the fuck does he want from me?” 

A garbled laugh crackles through his speakers and Angel wonders idly whether his phone would get any reception out here. 

“I give him everything he wants. The best booze money can buy.” Vox snatches the wine off the table and hurls it over the side of the mountain, where it disappears to a fate so far below, they never hear it shatter. “As many drugs as the lab can develop. Whatever clothes Velvette can dream up.” He snags a strap of Angel’s dress in one claw, sneering at the delicate fabric. “Eight different fucking engagement rings.” Under the whisper of candlelight, Angel can barely make out the plain golden band on Vox’s left hand- not his color, but Val’s, which is all that matters. “I don’t get it.” Vox draws himself up to his full height, which is shorter than Angel when they’re both standing, but towers over him when Angel is pressed as deep into his chair as the unforgiving wood will allow. “What the fuck,” he growls, letting each syllable grate on Angel’s ears, “is so special about you?”

Angel swallows. He can’t flinch. Fear is like blood in the water, and Vox is a precision-designed predator who will pounce the second he smells it. “Nothing you want, Mr. Vox, I promise.”

His chuckle vibrates in Angel’s chest. “What, going face-down, ass-up at the snap of his fingers?”

“No, well yes, but-” The scent of coolant and expensive cologne that surrounds Vox clouds Angel’s mind as easily as his hypnotic eye. “Val’s not a sentimental guy, alright?” Angel hedges. “He doesn’t appreciate the tradition of coming here over and over. He likes novelty.” 

Vox releases Angel’s clothes to curl his fingers around his neck instead, grip barely tight enough to restrict his breathing. “And why is it you think I don’t want to have new experiences with him?”

“It’s not that, I promise.” Angel can’t focus his eyes, but he wrangles his tongue around the words like he’s begging for his life. “I can’t say no to him. The shit you don’t wanna do, aren’t willing to try, he does with me.” He knows because Valentino constantly runs his mouth. “My thing with Val- it’s not like what you guys have.”

“I know that,” Vox snaps.

His teeth seem real and three dimensional, as if they could bite Angel in half. In the recesses of his memory he thinks he’s felt them before. No one except Val would even notice Angel was missing, if Vox decided to rip him to shreds and leave him here, alone, to piece himself back together. 

“He’s not bored of you, baby,” Angel pleads, desperate to soften Vox’s temper, “just the routine. There’s gotta be somewhere in the city you ain’t gone yet, right?”

When Vox drops his hand, Angel gasps in a deep breath, mindlessly fixing his askew neckline so he doesn’t have to think about whether there will be bruises under his fur tomorrow. Val would be mad at both of them for it, printing his own handprints over Vox’s and spitting degradations for allowing himself to be used in such a manner, despite his own orders not to give Vox any trouble. 

“If you’re fucking with me, I’ll make Val’s worst moods look like a walk in the park,” Vox threatens. His phone emerges from his pocket again, blue-tipped fingers dancing across the screen in what Angel assumes is an effort to secure a reservation somewhere new.

“Understood.”

Evidently over his outburst, Vox flops back down in his chair and says, “My driver will be back in ten minutes.”

Angel tentatively picks his fork up and, when Vox doesn’t react, wolfs down the rest of the dinner provided before the limo’s headlights eek up the road once more. He figures he likes Vox best distracted. Like Val, his attention can only be positive for so long before his mercurial mood changes. At least his worst injury is the lingering ache in his throat, and not the mess Vox leaves when permitted to express his pent up rage on Angel’s body.

As when they arrived, the driver opens the door for them, and Vox offers Angel a polite hand into the car and doesn’t release him until he’s settled into the comfortable seats. In the wash of light, his screen brightens, making Angel realize how much it had dimmed to avoid becoming a beacon on the lonesome cliffside. 

“Since I gave you good advice, would you do something for me, Mr. Vox?” Angel asks.

He knows he’s pushing his luck even before Vox’s condescending laugh. “You’re asking me a favor?”

“Forget it, I shouldn’t’ve asked-”

“No,” Vox chuckles, “go on.” His eye begins to spin and his voice drops. “Tell me.”

The words tumble out as if Vox plucked them from his brain: “Can you please mention to Val that I was good for you?”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Vox sighs, reclining into his seat. “I wouldn’t if you paid me.”

On that note, Vox doesn’t say another word for the rest of the drive back to the tower. At some point Angel gives up on sitting modestly, like Val told him to, and draws his knees up in front of him to wrap both sets of arms around. If he’s lucky, Vox and Val will make up sooner rather than later, and he can go a few more months without being used as a pawn for the game they play, but he’s not so naive as to expect a significant reprieve from either of them. He’d be more likely to find a way to Heaven. 

[unkat]

i am playing around with the idea of naturally ending chilchuck/his wife as a narrative, with a lot of headcanon interpolation of events. this is led by my fanfic brain which is looking at a different end game. i am marcilling it.

canonically he did not contact his daughters or wife for those years after she left. i struggle to imagine how it must feel for your life partner to let you disappear from his life and stopped contacting your shared kids at the same time, diving even more headfirst into his work that made you feel abandoned in the first place.

i think chilchuck thinks he is doing what is best for them by working hard on improving the respect for half-foots and not telling them about his work life. i can see him thinking that this is too much for them to worry about, so he can protect them by not disclosing anything but a censored version of events, minimizing the danger and death he faces whenever he leaves. i think before he started working in the dungeon, he was a lot more open about it with her, back when the complaints were just shitty customers.

but its not like she wouldnt notice, once he started advocating for higher safety regulations. like. what if each time he came home, he had some new frightening clause to add to his contract, and brushed off her attempts to get details as to why he put it there? and that feeling is not something their kids would be able to overlook once they get old enough to go from parent-child caretaker to parent-child friendship/advisor.

so yeah! when she actually meets his coworkers and realizes how much he has been leaving out about his life, its like he is a totally different person than the man she has been living with for the past 13 years. she has been lied to through omission, and he cant read the room that she needed him to trust her. so, she does something drastic to get his attention (and, very importantly, give herself fulfillment). and then he never calls, never writes, never reaches out for years of her life.

personally i think it would make sense for her to find something of her own, like a hobby or job, after her children have grown, and through that there could someone who can give her enough emotional support to fall in love again.

by the time he returns, he was a good man and great father, but a lousy husband, and she does not want to throw away the happiness she found without him. i think they loved each other for so long that it would be easy to fall back into that fondness after they both had a serious couple of conversations. but the ship to go back to how things were has sailed, and neither of them should try to go back to how things were. there is still love there, just in a different form than it was before.

i guess i kinda like the idea of growth that is staggered from each other due to their communication problems, if i had to make them lines moving in parallel. they fell out of sync understanding each other, and by the time they caught back up, they have missed the window to be as close as they were before. kinda a "right place, wrong time" by the time chilchuck has finished canon. i think there is beauty in the imperfections of damaged relationships, the fallibility of human nature, healing by falling apart.

could they have both been that loyal to the commitment and still work hard to fall back into love? i think its possible, but it should be as difficult as it needs to be for both of them to feel like this is a real change. chilchuck retiring might make that easier or harder for her- less stressful job, but he needs to actually put aside time for them and not fixate on his career, which would be hard if he is still a driving force behind civil movements on top of starting his business.

[unstablerk800]

𝕊𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕤

Rating: Explicit Pairing: RK900/Fem!Reader (third person) Tags (tagging as I go): post-android revolution, kidnapping, angst/fluff, hurt/comfort, Stockholm syndrome, protective RK900, manipulation, solitary confinement, blood, injury, violence, gore, illnesses, RK800, RK800-60 and RK900 are considered siblings, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Rape/Non-con Elements Read on Ao3.

Chapter 13.

Chapter 14. 🔽

Chapter 15.

Word count: 6,5k

The natural order of the world was established anew after RK900 was activated. 200,000 of them was enough to hack themselves into everything and destroy half of America. So humans became what they should be in the new world order. They became the slaves, and androids were their new masters.

RK900 sat down in front of her, at the other side of the table in the kitchen. He placed down a small box from which contained all the necessary tools to trim and file her nails. Since Connor told them he'd work with the android animals for a few hours, RK900 thought it'd be best if they spent some time together. Just to fix her nails and test the waters about how she felt these days, because since they've met those humans, she was awfully quiet.

"Give me your hand, please", his voice was calm and quiet, and she obeyed him without saying a word.

A part of him wondered what else would she do without asking questions. How far would his authority over her go? His thoughts remained hypothetical; he wouldn't betray her trust. She'd been through enough in the past few days, he wouldn't add to it. If anything, he wanted her to feel safe around him.

He took her left hand in his own. He couldn't help it, he analyzed her nails. RK900 discovered that even though her hands had been cleaned many times since the incident, neither the medical androids nor her took good care of her nails, and they still told a story about how she was trying to scramble away from her attackers. She must've dragged her nails across concrete to get them so badly damaged. The thought alone made his stress levels rise.

RK900 said nothing as he picked up a tool form the box and trimmed her nails. Her hand felt slightly colder than usual in his hold. He worked in silence, trimming and then filing each and every nail so it wouldn't get stuck in her clothing and would grow out properly. He did an amazing job; she guessed he downloaded the instructions how to do it beforehand. For a brief second, she wondered how much data he'd downloaded so far just to take good care of her. It was almost… sweet.

Although, judging by his rapidly spinning electric blue LED, he had quite a few things to think about at the sight of her hands, and she couldn't help but guess the reason why.

"Do you know what happened?"

Her question caused him to pause, and his icy, grey eyes glanced up in hers. She was taken by surprise at how serious he looked then.

"I have my theories."

He ever so gently placed her left hand down before he reached out for her right hand. That one looked even worse than the left one. RK900 ran an analysis again.

"I know you fought back", he murmured, making her regret that she asked. "I know you were desperate to get away."

"Can we please not talk about it?"

His eyes shifted to look in her eyes again, but she was looking away. He didn't mean to trigger her, but it seemed that this was more than enough. Her cheeks flushed slightly and tears already gathered in her eyes.

"Of course", he agreed quietly. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to make you feel like this."

He trimmed her nails gently once again, then filed the edges, but there were two nails which were damaged way too much. He wondered why hadn't she told neither Connor nor him that her hand was aching from touching anything; it must've been painful to hold things with these nails.

"I'd like you to tell me how you feel in the future", he calmly reached for a small bottle of nail glue. As he opened the bottle and started to apply the glue, he could detect that her pulse was rising. He didn't look up, just continued to work. "You needn't worry or stress about this. I'd just like to know how you feel, so I can help you."

"I don't feel anything."

He finished putting the nail glue on her broken nail, and he looked at her face again. She was staring way away from him, probably at the clock on the microwave that displayed the current time.

"Nothing?" RK900 asked softly, and her eyes shifted back in his general direction.

"Nothing."

She did not make eye contact as she said that, and her hand became even colder in his palm. He knew she was lying. But he chose not to press on it.

"Alright", he acknowledged, then applied the nail glue on her other finger as well.

Later that day, while both him and Connor were with her in the bedroom where she snuggled up to RK800's chassis after she fell asleep – listening to his thirium pump regulator, as always –, Nines decided to talk about this with Connor. If they couldn't get to her to deal with everything she'd been through, they'll need to include a professional. There had been a large number of andriods who were fascinated by the human psyche, and would help humans deal with their traumas.

They could understand the surface symptoms, of course. She disassociated. She probably felt emotionally numb, because her mind couldn't deal with all the trauma she experienced. She'd try and shy away from situations that could be potentially triggering, and found little to no joy in activities she liked before. Of course, she probably was in constant pain due to her injuries that needed healing in the upcoming few days, but both androids agreed that if this state persists, they'd ask for help – whether she liked it or not.

~*~

She was sitting on the edge of the bed in silence. Nines walked in front of her, then he knelt on the floor and observed her face. She didn't move her eyes to look at him; she seemed like she wasn't even aware that she wasn't alone. Her eyes looked distant, empty, they've lost their shine.

The first two days with her after they've dealt with her abusers went by in relative calmness. She'd take care of herself in general. It just occurred to the android that she never once complained about the pain she must've felt. Both him and RK800 made sure she got her painkillers on time, but they could never determine whether they worked for her or not. She remained unresponsive when it came to her traumas. Both physical and mental. Whenever either of them tried to press on the events that took place in the underground tunnels, she would shut down.

And now, she was shutting down without anything even happening to her.

RK900 knew she left the tea and sandwich Connor prepared for her untouched. Her usual time for breakfast passed two hours ago, and she didn't want to eat last night, either. She looked calm, unbothered; but the circles under her eyes – coupled with his observations – let Nines know that something was terribly wrong. She didn't eat and couldn't sleep.

"Are you alright?" He whispered, his voice as soft and gentle as possible. She didn't reply immediately, just her lashes fluttered as she stared forward. "Please… talk to me."

He reached out for her hand which she rested in her lap. When he touched the back of her hand, she flinched, then her eyes came back into focus, and she stared at him like she wasn't even aware he was there until then.

"Nines?" She mumbled, looking confused.

"Yes", he murmured quietly, "are you alright?"

"I-"

She glanced around the room, trying to remember what was she doing there. What was she doing before this? She couldn't remember. Flashing lights and noises resurfaced in her mind and she felt nauseous as another splitting headache started to roll in her brain.

"I feel like-" She glanced down at him again, with a frown on her face. "Like I'm- trying to keep sand in my hands", she lifted her hands up and glanced down at them. His hand remained in her lap. She frowned slightly. "I don't- when did I come here?"

"You've been here since you woke up. Three hours ago", Nines replied softly. "Are you feeling alright?"

It was so hard to get her to answer this question, but they were patient. RK900 had to ask several times before he could get a proper answer out of her. It seemed that she had been conditioned not to complain or tell the truth about her well-being.

"I- don't know."

Nines tilted his head a little as his brows moved up slightly.

"You don't know?"

His quiet question made her glance back in his eyes. She looked troubled.

"I just. I just feel like something will go wrong", she confessed quietly. "I don't know what's going on." She paused for a few seconds before she added, "what is going to go on."

"Nothing is going to go on", Nines reassured her. "You are safe. We're safe. Everything will be alright."

"How- how can you be so sure?" She glanced around the room, unknowingly searching for a clue to figure out if this was a test or not. "We can't know. I can't know. I could… still be in there. In the lab."

A shiver ran across her body, RK900 could sense it. He took her hands in his own and gently squeezed her fingers; his touch was warm against her skin.

"They've given you substances that caused hallucinations?"

"Sometimes", she confirmed. "Although…" Her brows twitched. "Those felt different from this…"

"You've been in our care for weeks", he murmured. "This isn't a hallucination. I am not a hallucination. I am here, I am real. And I'm keeping you safe. Always."

There was a long pause as she was observing his face. Nines could see the understanding within her eyes until the spark gradually faded from them. He was at a loss.

"You need to eat", he decided, squeezing her fingers again. "I'll bring you something."

When he moved to get up, he stopped mid-movement when she grabbed his fingers tighter. He remained, crouching, in front of her.

"N- no, wait-", she frantically pulled his hands back against her neck, under her chin. "Don't."

Nines frowned, this time.

"You need to eat", he repeated slower, gentler. "You didn't have dinner last night, and you've missed breakfast today. Your body needs nutrients."

"I can't."

He gently removed his fingers from her grip and cupped her face in his hands.

"Why can't you eat, hmm?"

"It hurts." When Nines didn't reply just stared at her in shock – he wasn't prepared for this answer for sure –, tears gathered in her eyes again. "It hurts to chew."

Days passed since the accident. Days! And she said nothing! RK900 needed a few seconds to absorb that.

"Why didn't you tell us something sooner?"

"I- didn't want to be a burden-"

The way she broke eye contact and tried to lock her eyes onto something, anything, to distract herself told him more than anything else.

"Listen", his voice was as gentle as possible as he nudged her cheek to force her to look back into his eyes. "You're not a burden to any of us. If something hurts, tell us."

"Everything hurts, Nines", she blurted out the words as a sob shook her, "breathing hurts, drinking hurts, chewing hurts- even lying down and trying to fall asleep hurts. I don't want it to hurt anymore."

"I can help with th-"

"I don't know why can't I just lie down and die."

RK900's LED spun to red at an alarming rate. Even the thought was unbearable for him. He knew she was a human and that this must happen sooner or later, but if he had a say in it, it wouldn't happen in the upcoming few decades for sure.

"You say that because you're in pain", he said out loud, to calm her down and himself, too. His LED reverted back to blue – slowly. "I'm sure that if your injuries heal and the pain vanishes, you'll feel alright again."

"What if I don't? What's the point of me being alive?"

The android stared up in her eyes for a few long seconds. He didn't have answers to such questions; he couldn't know what to say to that. Earth's most sophisticated android could not answer such a trivial question.

"Would it suffice if I asked you to try and live for me?" Nines gently stroked her new tears away. "For us?"

She stared at him, her eyes full of unspoken emotions.

"Maybe", she whispered.

"Alright. Maybe it is. Let's just wait and see, okay?"

"Okay."

Nines slowly let her face go.

"You still need to eat, but if you're in that much pain, I'll bring you a stronger painkiller, this time."

Quietly standing up, he noticed that her expression morphed again, indicating that she did not want to be left alone. He reached out for her hand and when she slipped her fingers in his hand, he smiled a little at her.

"Just one step at a time", he told her quietly as she got up with him. "Alright? Just a step. And I'll be with you along the way."

"Promise?" She pulled closer to him, touching his arm with her other hand, pulling close to his synthetic body.

"Promise", he confirmed without hesitation, leaning closer to her to kiss the top of her head.

After he managed to get her stronger painkillers and she could eat and drink something, she announced that she was sleepy and tired and would like to sleep. While he knew that she was actively trying to escape her thoughts, he couldn't deny her the rest. He stayed with her all day, watched her as she slept, snuggled up close to his body as he monitored her.

She could sleep for long, long hours. As if she was catching up with sleep still.

The days found a calm rhythm, her injuries faded, her pain lessened and she seemed like she was alright. RK900 thought that he could go back to continue his own mission, when something unexpected happened.

It was a calm, regular morning. She was quietly eating her breakfast, staring off to nothing. Nines sat in front of her and scanned her vitals, as always, trying to figure out how to help and pinpoint her triggers. The doorbell rang and Connor walked over to the entrance to open it. A brief introduction could be heard before he was back in the kitchen – with a huge box in his hands.

"We have kittens", he announced, and brought the box next to her with a smile on his face.

She glanced down in the box and saw an orange cat mother with her six kittens around her. The big cat stared up at them, uncertain. There was a big, fluffy, dark blue blanket under them to keep them warm.

"Where did they come from?" She asked quietly, then glanced up at Connor who wasn't quick enough to erase his worried expression.

"A friend of mine", he replied, his tone sounding off. He took a moment to pause. Nines noticed that, and he straightened himself on his chair as he stared at Connor, unblinking. "…a friend of mine asked me to take care of them."

What happened?

Nines sounded direct after he was granted permission by Connor to connect.

Blip and Cain, Connor answered, we've lost contact with them.

Since when?

Three days.

Nines rose to his feet at the news. He walked over to her as she glanced up at him, and he could see that she sensed that something must've happened. He observed her without saying a word, then reached out to stroke her cheek with his right hand's knuckles.

"I'll be back soon", he promised her quietly, and when she nodded, he left.

A few hours passed by with Connor taking care of the cat and her kittens. When he was preparing lunch for her, she walked up to him, stopping on his right side.

"Connor", she mumbled.

"Hmm?"

He didn't look at her first, as he was focusing on cutting up the cucumber for the salad he wanted to serve to her.

"I've been thinking", she hesitated, then glanced at the slices of steaks quietly sizzling in the pan on the top of the stove. "I'd like you to put a tracker in me."

Connor's hands stopped what they were doing.

"What?" He straightened up and frowned, looking in her eyes.

"Please, put a tracker in me. In my veins. So I won't get lost again."

The android's LED spun quickly as he was processing her request. At the core, this was not a bad idea. They all knew that her collar could be removed, and they also owned technology that allowed them to track individuals. But for it to be her who requested it…

"Why would you want that?"

Connor's voice was soft and gentle, but she still flinched a little.

"It'd just feel right", she shrugged, her eyes pleading. "Please. Maybe I'd sleep better if I knew that even though if it happens again… you'll have a way of finding me."

"Alright", Connor replied quietly. "I'll talk about it with Nines, alright?"

"Thank you", she smiled at him, then walked back in the living room and sat down to relax.

Since Nines saw no harm and neither did Connor, they've scheduled the tracker insert for the next day with the help of the medical androids. When it was done and they've tested it, she looked much more calm and she seemed more relaxed with it.

Until everything went wrong.

That day was just another day. It was a Friday, her watch stated it that morning, when she walked out in the kitchen. She was barefoot, her hair was messy, and some of her bruises were still visible on her face as she yawned and wandered out of the bedroom. She woke up alone, but that was hardly unusual; RK900 and Connor often left the apartment or were occupied in another room, so she didn't panic. At first.

The living room and the kitchen was empty. She checked on the animals, too, but Connor wasn't there. There were no notes, no breakfast for her on the table… nothing. No sign of them.

She walked over to the fridge and opened it before she yawned again. She made herself a sandwich and ate – she knew how Nines was a firm believer of her eating breakfast, even if she didn't feel like she needed it –, then she made sure that Connor's living animals were fed, then she walked back in the living room where she covered herself with the soft plush blanket she got from Connor and she started to colour on her tablet.

Hours passed by. The apartment was so silent that she would've heard if someone dropped a pin. As the middle of the day approached, she decided to call Sixty, but he didn't pick it up. She tried to call Connor, but the line was dead. An uneasy feeling slowly, but surely, started to awaken in the pit of her gut.

The day went by without her handlers arriving back home. She wasn't sure what would happen if a human's handlers didn't come home, but at the same time, she didn't want to find out. As the night approached and she realised she'd need to sleep alone, she realised two things.

One, if she had to sleep alone, she wouldn't sleep at all.

Two, something horrible, terrible must've happened to RK900 and Connor, and she could do nothing about it.

She flicked up every light switch in the home as dusk arrived, and she started to pace up and down in the middle of the living room, thinking about everything she'd learned from the androids during the time she'd been with them. Even if they were destroyed, shut down, they'd upload their memories and they'd be able to come back. But what if… what if they weren't destroyed? What if they wanted to come back but could not because they were held captive?

She almost screamed in relief when the entrance door opened all of a sudden, but her heart fell to the bottom of her stomach as soon as she saw that it was neither Nines nor Connor – and not even Sixty – who entered the living room. She recognized this model; an MC500, an android with paramedic specifics. She met a lot of this specific android on the medical floor. He quickly scanned her, not the room. He scanned her watch, too; the gadget had been recording how many steps she took, and he was slightly surprised when he realised that the counter was over ten thousand steps that day – despite the limited space in the apartment.

"I need you to come with me", he told her, then turned around to lead the way.

"Where are my handlers?"

It occurred to him that she had a significant amount of stress in her voice. He half turned to glance at her; she followed him, worry clearly written on her face.

"We'll tell you everything you need to know", he reassured her, "this way, please."

He got into the elevator and she followed him.

"Please, tell me", she begged, on the verge of tears. "Are they alright?"

"We're unsure."

That only heightened her anxiety.

"How… how come you're unsure?"

He didn't answer her. As the elevator arrived, they stepped out and he led the way down a long corridor, to a room. She was anxiously fidgeting with the edge of her shirt as she discovered that the room was a big one they probably used for meetings; and this time, it was full of all sorts of androids. Some with LEDs, some without. They stared at her in absolute silence, and she was sure they could all hear the way her heart was beating hard and fast against her ribs. She was told to sit down on a chair at the end of the table, and when she complied, the man in front of her, on the other side of the table, started to speak.

"We've gathered here to talk about the possibility of your handlers being held captive."

She stared at the man in front of her. She knew him – remembered his face, his voice, his eyes, even though they were mismatched now. The tone of his voice was burned in her mind as she recalled what they've done to him for trying to help her.

"Markus?" She whispered, her hands twitching in her lap before they started to fidget with the edge of her shirt anxiously.

"Correct", Markus confirmed, looking her in the eye before his gaze dropped to the collar around her neck. He allowed her to have a few moments of silence to let that settle in, then he started to speak. "We've lost contact with RK900 and RK800 around midnight. They both were near the central park. Do you know anything about where did they go and why?"

Of course. Two androids suddenly disappear, and she'd be accused of doing something to them at once. She almost broke down in tears.

"No… no, they were with me until I fell asleep. I don't know where did they go", she replied quietly, her voice trembling with clearly detectable fear.

"Did they tell you anything about leaving the tower?"

"No", she frowned as she tried to remember. "They were quiet in the evening. They always are. I… I fell asleep with them being there. Near me. They know I don't feel safe if they're not around."

Markus frowned.

"You've had your fair share of trauma", he noted, "I'd hate to put you through more, but I have to. According to our laws, every human must be assigned to a handler. Since you've lost both of your handlers, we need to find a new handler for you."

Markus paused when he saw her expression. She looked confused, sad and… enraged? At the same time. There were so many complex emotions written on her face that he couldn't determine what did it mean at first.

"I'm… I don't understand", she said at last, "you said I lost them but… but they're just missing, right? They're not… dead?"

"We've lost our way to communicate with them", Markus nodded, "and our systems can't find androids if they've deviated. In the past few months, androids suddenly vanish. Those who're deactivated, find their way back to us, so we know that there is a lethal group of humans who're taking our people, but we can't do anything about them."

She stared at him as if she thought he was joking.

"You can't do anything about them", it wasn't even a question, she just echoed the last words of his sentence.

"No android can enter that place", Markus's expression darkened. "Their defense system makes it impossible for us to walk through the doors of the base."

The other androids exchanged bewildered glances; why did Markus confide in a human like her?

"Why are they taking androids?"

"They're experimenting on them", Markus's hands balled up into fists under the table. "They're trying to find a code that simulates pain for us. They want to destroy us. Isn't that what humans always want to do?"

Her hands trembled as she shook her head, her eyes full of tears. Knowing that this was the fate what Nines and Connor had to face enraged her.

"You know that's not true", she finally replied, raising her shaking hands to rub the tears away from her eyes.

"Most of the time it is true", Markus shook his head and leaned back in his seat. "Back to the matter at hand. You're in the lucky position that you can choose a handler for yourself, thanks to your unique status. Who'll it be?"

She blinked a few times to clear her head a little. He didn't even think about… he didn't want to try and free his people? Was he this afraid? The thought was numbing.

"I want my own handlers", she whispered then, steeling herself.

"They're gone. There's nothing we can do."

"There is!" She raised her voice now, and slammed on the table. "Infiltrate the base!"

"How?" Markus's tone was both annoyed and condescending. He tilted his head, his mismatched eyes narrowed. "Did you even pay attention to what I just said?"

"Send me!"

Markus stared at her for a few long, long seconds, as the other androids burst out in laughter around them. He knew she was deadly serious, and she saw that he was thinking about letting her do it. When the laughter died down, she looked even more determined than before.

"I am a human. I'm sure I can get in. You can arm me however you like – even if you take my collar down, you'll know where I am. I have a tracker in me." She paused, and when he said nothing, she continued, "I could find them and the others who were taken; I could free them all and neutralize everyone else."

"How would you neutralize everyone else?" Another android asked, making her look at him without her batting an eye.

"I'll kill them."

Markus was shocked at the cold determination that rang in her voice. He could recall snippets; glimpses of a time long gone. She must've learned to fight for herself since then. The lab… the tests… her helplessness…

"Please, Markus", she pleaded, and he realised he wouldn't be able to say no to her. Not to her."Let me try this. I… owe them this much. They've risked everything for me, not long ago."

Markus stared at her for a few long seconds, assessing the dangers she might face and the outcomes of her endeavor. This could be the very last time he saw her if he allowed her to do this – but at the same time, human allies were so very few. He might not have another chance like this, and they'd need to act fast.

"Alright", he decided quietly, his voice ringing in her ears. "But you're not going in empty handed."

~*~

"So, how did you find us?"

The question was met with an unnerving stare. It looked like the woman hadn't had food in days; she was pale and she looked dehydrated, her cheekbones were standing out more than they should've, but her eyes were glinting with a spark that could not be snuffed out by the bleak surroundings.

"I've had a team", she confessed, then fell in silence for a few seconds. The man let her think that through; allowing her a few moments of grief for her fallen comrades. "We heard that the androids were trying to find a human base somewhere nearby. Only I remained. Others either died or were captured."

They walked down a set of stairs. She had a bulletproof vest on under her simple coat, and she carried a gun in a holster attached to her waist. Unbeknownst to the man, she also had a dagger hidden in her boot. She followed him like a ghost, her steps silent as a cat's.

"Same story every day", the man grumbled and pushed a door open. Vivid lights scanned both of them, and she scrunched up her nose at it. "Sorry about that. Gotta make sure you're not an android. They're getting more clever with every fucking day, we need to be prepared."

"This device alerts you of unwanted guests?" She squinted, glancing up at the machine.

"Precisely. Makes 'droids malfunction the second they're scanned with that. Can't be too careful."

She took a good look on the machine, and tilted her head before she followed the man.

"By the way, I'm Gavin Reed." He turned to look at her now, grinning her way. "I was a cop before the shitstorm."

She made eye contact with him, unblinking, certainly unnerving him again.

"Milly Green", she uttered the lie effortlessly. "Journalist."

"I've never heard of you before", Gavin cocked his brow and sized her up again.

She didn't move, neither did she blink. She didn't look uncomfortable or nervous, as if she didn't even feel anything particular.

"I've worked for a small paper back in New York", she reassured him with a half smile. "Just before the androids woke up, I came here to write about them."

"Guess you'll never get your money for that article, huh?"

Gavin laughed out loud, but she didn't even smile. When he started to look suspicious, she realised she must say something about her behaviour.

"Like I said", she murmured quietly, "I've lost my team. In New York, too."

"Yeah… sorry. Me too."

Gavin ran a hand in his hair at the back of head awkwardly, then led her down a corridor where humans were scattered around in a bigger room. They've lit fires in metal barrels and gathered around them for warmth, others were sitting on the floor or lying down, covered in blankets. She observed them as they walked and said nothing about them. She counted fourteen humans, men, women and a few children.

"Get yourself comfortable", Gavin motioned around, and she stared in his face without a word. "This is all we have – apart from some fuckin' androids on the deeper levels."

He turned away to glance at a woman and her daughter, missing the way the woman's eyes lit up with a newfound curiosity.

"Androids? Here?"

Gavin smirked as he looked back at her.

"Yeah. Maybe I'll show them to you later. For now, just get some rest. You look exhausted."

She knew she wouldn't be able to rest. Not like this.

But she allowed a few hours of rest for Gavin while she discovered the entire area. Counting humans. Checking if they had weapons, and if they did, what sort of weapons did they have. Trying to gauge how much of a threat they were.

A day has passed during which she couldn't eat and couldn't sleep. She was invited to sit with Gavin in one of the dullest rooms she'd ever seen. From what she could see, Gavin was respected by the other humans, and he had some sort of important role in keeping peace here.

"So? Will you show me the androids you have here or what?"

Gavin raised a brow as he looked at her from where he was sitting. She looked bored.

"Curious, are you?"

"Of course I am", she replied almost eagerly, "I'd like to see how can you keep them contained. I'm a journalist, you know; I could spread the word and help other human bases if I ever move on from here."

Gavin remained silent for a few seconds.

"Sure, why not", he shrugged, "come with me."

He led her out of the room, down a corridor that ended in an elevator, which, after he'd pressed level -12, led right into another room that looked hauntingly like a test room at CyberLife. She felt nausea at the sight of the sterile, pristine clean walls and familiar signs plastered on the walls and windows. Gavin led her to an enclosed space; the bulletproof glass pane was impenetrable, and she knew that if she wanted to free those who were inside, she'd need to find a key of some sort. Then, she realised that the glass panes operated with palm scanners; similar to those Nines and Connor were using in their homes to make the alarms work.

"Here's our first", Gavin tapped the first glass pane and she crossed her arms across her chest as she walked up to next to him, just when Gaving flicked a switch on.

Inside, there was an RK900 inside the room; suspended from the ceiling by handcuffs. His torso had been torn in half; countless wires hung from his body, others were attached to him and to the wall behind him. His LED was rapidly pulsing in crimson, his cheeks stained with countless artificial tears that never stopped flowing. He still had his white-black jacket on, the numbers stating his number – #313 248 317 – 123 – but his high-necked velcro shirt had been ripped open. He barely could open his eyes to look at his visitors.

But when he did, his eyes locked with hers instantly.

She was shaking her head in horror at the sight. Gavin was too occupied with his pleased humming when he saw that thirium leaked from the corner of RK900's mouth.

"We're keeping him alive for tests", he told her in a calm, almost pleased tone, "he's the first. We've tested our latest creation on him first."

She got a hold of herself before he turned to look at her. She needed every ounce of her willpower not to break down crying. She folded her arms again, and grabbed her elbows to support herself.

"What is that?"

"We're integrating a software in their programming that creates the sensation of pain", Gavin smirked, "this one, here?" He pointed at the glass pane, and behind it, at the RK900. "It's been muted, because it had been screaming nonstop, so it works. It's CyberLife's last android prototype, so that means that if it couldn't swtich our software off, then the other androids wouldn't be able to turn it off, either. Our main problem is that they're unstoppable, they don't get tired and they don't feel pain; we wanted to remedy that with a nice dose of ones and zeros. And we succeeded. Soon, every fucking android will feel if they get shot or hit or cut. And that will give us an advantage against them. We'll overload their senses with so much pain that they'll be absolutely paralyzed from it."

She, once again, realised that humans were way too creative when it came to hurt others. The terror she felt at the mere sight of that RK900 – strung up like a piece of meat, feeling excruciating pain nonstop, not even allowed to scream...

"Marvelous", she whispered.

She decided, in that moment, that Gavin had to suffer.

"Will you show me the others?" She smiled at him sweetly, and he laughed quietly.

"Curious, are you?"

"I'm glad you've found a way to fight against them", she nodded enthusiastically. "And I'd like to see what else you've got."

"I'll show you our other inmates", Gavin decided, touching a scanner near the next glass pane. Lights switched on. An RK900 and an RK800 were in the next cell; both had their arms bound tightly behind them, the ropes digging into their plastic padding. RK900 stared up at Gavin at once, in silent rage, but the RK800 looked like he was unconscious. "We're keeping these two together", Gavin smirked as he said that, "it seems that they are in a close relationship with each other. Whenever we 'treat' one of them, the other tries not to react, but they always end up begging."

She glanced at their numbers on their dirty coats. RK800's ended with 95, while RK900's ended with 485. These weren't the androids she'd been looking for, but her heart broke for them all the same.

"There's a theory machines can learn how to love, but I think that's just humbug", Gavin scoffed, "how can a thing love another thing, you know? Bullshit."

"Yeah", she whispered, "yeah, insane."

She thought of all the times she cuddled with her RK900, or when Connor pecked her face, her temple, when they held her close. The way Sixty lifted her in his arms, saying he was worried they were late. Why couldn't two androids share such a bond? Who could say that a machine did not understand what love was?

The next cell Gavin showed her had only one android in it. An RK800. As soon as the light turned on, he turned to stare at his visitors, and he froze as soon as he saw her. His chassis did not have an active skin on; he looked metallic and pitch black, his optical units were dark with a shining, bright orange sclera.

Her heart felt like it sunk into her stomach. Her eyes fell on the jacket he still had on himself.

RK800 #313 248 317 – 13.

Her lips parted as he took a few steps towards the glass pane. How could this be possible? Thirteen was destroyed, taken apart by CyberLife. Unless the androids rebuilt everyone they've lost; unless they've restored what they could to give their own kin a chance.

The way Thirteen stared at her now made her realise he definitely thought she was dead. He walked up to the glass pane and his expression shifted into a mournful one. But he did not make an attempt to break out of his cell; he didn't touch the glass pane, either. Her eyes flickered to the palm scanner. Then…

Gavin did not pay attention to the android, but to her; noticing that she definitely looked like she knew the machine. The next second, she turned her head to stare in Gavin's face unblinking, with eyes so dark, so determined, that he knew insantly that they've allowed a wasp enter their little hive to destroy it from the inside out.

He realised in that moment that this was the end.

[buried-stars]

💜 a ship that you like but have never written for before! >:)

thanks i went insane about this (bstars ending spoilers + suicide cw)

💜 surprise kiss / impulsive kiss

When Seil slinks out of the hospital at half-past eight in the morning, he isn't expecting an ambush.

"You're not hurt!"

He instinctively pushes away from the attack, only for the words to sink in. He's not being strangled, he's being hugged. It's still weird, but it's not entirely unwelcome.

"Tae-yeon... How long have you been waiting here?"

Tae-yeon Kim is probably the only person in the world Seil thinks he can call a friend. Prior to last night, a few other members of the Top 5 could have qualified, but not anymore. Those bridges are nothing but ash.

She lets go of him and takes a step back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Ever since you were airlifted out. Soon as I found out what hospital you were taken to, I... I had to make sure you were still alive."

Seil's neck prickles. Of the seven people trapped in the collapsed stage site, five survived. Hyesung's in surgery and apparently Do-yoon's in a much worse state than any of them thought, but they should still live.

"Hey," Tae-yeon says, her eyes crinkling around the edges, "let's bail. We can talk more somewhere private."

"I can't go home," Seil mutters, tugging on the strap of his messenger bag. "My parents... They won't be..."

She rolls her eyes. "Obviously. You can crash on my sofa for now. Min-hee won't mind; they're too busy doing damage control with the rest of the staff to notice, honestly."

Seil doesn't feel up to arguing with that. They take her car -- a plain, scratched up sedan -- back to her apartment, and she doesn't force him to talk on the way. He's too busy running through the events of the night in his head, trying to pinpoint the exact moment when everything went wrong.

When they get inside, Seil sits on the sofa and cradles one of the decorative pillows to his chest. Tae-yeon brings two cups of herbal tea in after a few more minutes of silence, and sets it town on the low table.

"Is it true?" she asks finally, trepidation dripping from her words. "One of the light techs caught wind from the rescue team that... that Gyu-hyuk's dead."

Seil clenches the pillow tightly. "...Yeah. We took our eyes off him for a minute and he... he hung himself."

Tae-yeon gags on her tea. After struggling to swallow it, she rests the mug between her thighs, no longer looking interested in it. "Oh my god. That's... Right at the end...?"

"He didn't leave a note," Seil says, but it feels like a lie in his mouth. He'd seen Do-yoon clutching scraps of paper, white knuckled and shaking, but that's not proof of anything. In any case, Seil has a sinking feeling he knows what the note would have said.

Silence again fills the apartment. Eventually, Tae-yeon clears the mugs -- both cold and neither more than a few sips from full -- and Seil rests his head on the sofa arm. He's exhausted, but the thought of sleeping feels foreign.

(He shouldn't be here. He needs to turn himself in. It's the only way to absolve the sins festering in his rib cage.)

"Tell me what I can do to help you," Tae-yeon says softly when she returns from the kitchen. "Even if it's just to leave you alone for now."

Seil shakes his head and, impulsively, reaches for her hand. "Stay. Please. I'm... I'm afraid."

Delicately, she presses her lips to his fingers, and settles down beside him. "Okay. I promise."