#number on a flex cable or something

[identifying-cellphones-in-posts]

Super slow day at work so I identified and labeled every recycled android we have in our parts bin.

Isn't it beautiful

[bamboozledbird]

IGNITE: A Teen Wolf S1 AU // Chapter 1 / Next

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski, Reader (You) Pairing: Eventual Stiles x Reader, but man are we talking slow burn Word Count: 4.8k Warnings: Canon typical gore/violence, parental death (rip to your fake mom), descriptions of burning, depictions of depression (apathy, dissociation, 'numb little bug' vibes) Tags: Canon has been lovingly scrapped for parts, author is a chaotic bi and it shows, prolific overuse of the em dash, the slowest of burns i fear

Summary: You can always smell ash long after the fire is gone. Perhaps, that’s why you still can’t breathe without choking on the past. It’s been four years since your mom died. Four years since she burned alive. For years since you didn’t. You survived, but they must have buried your heart with her because you feel like something halfway between a ghost and a lamb for slaughter. 

You can’t wash the smell of hospital out of clothes, not really. Maybe, that’s why death and disease follows Stiles wherever he goes now. It’s been eight years since his mom died. Eight years since he didn’t. Eight years since he decided that he wouldn’t let anyone he loved die ever again. He survived, but Scott’s new-found abilities and the murky world they’ve been dragged into is making it pretty damn hard to keep his promise. 

Time never stops turning. The grief never dissipates. Children soldier on—but in a town where all the monsters under the bed are real and old family skeletons rattle in every closet, how long can two fragile, breakable humans survive? 

Maybe, the real question is how long will they want to? Chapter Summary: After your annual interrogation with Sheriff Stilinski, you meet his son who turns out to be very handy with jumper cables and incoherent babbling.

A/N: Does this look familiar? It should lmao. I gave into the peer pressure. All the messages and requests were too powerful. Here is a reader version of my ofc season 1 fic. Obviously some things have been removed to get rid of specific names/descriptions, so you want to read the full thing you can read the og version and check me out on ao3 (dork_knight)! For the sake of not clogging tags, I'll probably just do my reader version on tumblr and the full oc lore version on ao3 from now on. xx

Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire.

Before your mother’s death, you would have picked fire. Every single time. 

You never liked the cold; never really had to get used to it growing up in central California—but the crux of your argument, the twisted logic behind it all, was that most burn victims died from suffocation before they felt the flames. A small mercy, really, in the face of unspeakable tragedy. 

In the end, however, statistics were just numbers, your mother didn't die from smoke inhalation, and there was no mercy in burying a parent before you were old enough to have children of your own. Nothing ever ended poetically off the page. Death was just death, and it was always ugly. Someone should really tell that to Robert Frost, you mused, biting at a raw hangnail.

The medical examiner said the actual cause of death was pulmonary edema; at least, that was his best guess based on the state of the body. He didn’t say that she felt everything, her skin peeling back into her flesh, her flesh liquefying into fuel, her joints flexing into contorted pleas until the fire incinerated her last nerve ending. He didn’t have to; you connected those dots all on your own. You’d been twelve at the time, not an imbecile. 

“I’m sorry to drag you through this all again.”

You flitted your eyes away from the flickering lightbulb above Sheriff Stilinski’s head and met his gaze; it was nauseatingly sympathetic. Your responding shrug was a small, little thing—more like a twitch in practice, “Not your fault.” 

Your yearly visits to Sheriff Stilinski’s office were solely your father’s doing, even if no one wanted to admit it to your face. Most mayors would use their political power to get their child out of a police station, not into it, but perhaps he stopped being your dad somewhere between the funeral and now. 

“If you could start—”

“From the beginning,” you smoothed your thumb in small circles over the armrest of your chair, attentively tracing patterns into the polished wood, “I know.” This was, after all, the fourth anniversary of your first interrogation. You’d become somewhat of an expert at being a useless witness. You picked at your uneven cuticles before continuing, “Mom put me to bed around 10:00—which was kind of late for a school night, honestly, but she let me stay up to finish another chapter anyway.” The right corner of your mouth twitched for a brief moment, “Nancy Drew: Password to Larkspur Lane. I told her that forcing someone to go to sleep in the middle of a mystery was specifically forbidden in Geneva Protocol II.” Your mom had been far too indulgent of your lip on most occasions, but that night she didn’t smile at your snarky aside. She let you finish the chapter because she was too tired to argue; you could tell. At the time, you saw it as a victory. Now, it kept you up at night, the drooping lines of your mother’s mouth spilling over the pages of whatever book you were trying to read.

You bit down on your tongue when a stray splinter snagged against the soft pad of your thumb, “Dad was out of town, so it was just the two of us. Mom always put me to bed when Dad was gone; said it was the only way she could get to sleep. Had to make sure my window was locked.” You paused for a long moment: everything went dark after this. Your mother kissed the top of your head, murmured, ‘Love you,’ turned out the light, and then that was it. You woke up in the hospital, and your mom was dead. 

A bead of sweat dripped onto your top lip. The air in the Beacon Hills police station was, without fail, sticky with heat and body odor—and it wasn’t just the oppressive Californian sun. Even in the winter, a person could choke on the stifling warmth. Idly, you wondered if it was a matter of interrogatory tactics or budgetary constraints. 

“And then,” Sheriff Stilinski prompted gently, though you both knew how the story went from here. You had told it to him and a dozen other officials at least a hundred times in the last four years. 

You bit down on your thumbnail and winced when your teeth snagged on the tender nail bed, “And then nothing. I opened my eyes, and a nurse said that you found me on the front lawn.” 

“You don’t remember how you got outside?” 

You shook your head, staring past the Sheriff's shoulder. Large pieces of dust floated through the air, highlighted by the slivers of light trickling through the blinds. Suddenly, you had a newfound appreciation for the lack of fans in the room. 

Sheriff Stilinski cleared his throat and rubbed his hand over his jaw, “You don’t remember saying it was an angel?”

Blinking slowly, you looked at the grim line of the Sheriff’s mouth and gripped your knees tightly, digging your fingers into fragile skin until your wrist cracked, “I should, right? I was twelve. I should remember something—that’s what everyone thinks. That’s what my dad thinks.” Your eyelids fluttered to a tight close, and your voice went so quiet you could barely be heard over the hum of the copier outside the door, “He thinks it was me. That’s why he makes you question me every year.” Copper flooded your mouth as the soft lining of your cheek split under the brunt of your teeth, “He thinks you’ll finally figure out how I did it.” 

You were scared to open your eyes as the silence stretched between the two of you. You’d danced around the subject before, hinted and spun around the heart of it, but you’d never truly discussed how it looked from the outside. Sheriff Stilinski had been kind enough to give you a few different excuses over the years: trauma, head injury, oxygen deprivation, just plain ol’ grief—but whatever caused your temporary amnesia wasn’t so conveniently explained. In fact, currently, you had no explanation at all. When you finally peeked through your lashes, clumped together with frustrated tears, you couldn’t quite figure out what expression the Sheriff was making. He leaned back in his desk chair and frowned, “I’m sure he doesn’t—”

“He does,” you cut him off. Your eyes went flinty, irises darkening to something far more ashen with the resolve of your anger. You never had any trouble reading your father’s face; the disgust was thinly-veiled between the flickers of fear. 

Sheriff Stilinksi leaned forward so that you had no choice but to look him in the eyes. They were kind—more tired than usual, but still kind. They always were. That was one thing you remembered from that day, waking up in the hospital to Sheriff Stilinski’s kind, watery blue eyes, just before the entire world fell apart. His voice was gentle, but firm, when he finally spoke, “I don’t.” 

You nodded numbly and pulled at a fraying string on the hem of your denim skirt until the thread snapped. 

“I mean it, kid. They couldn’t identify the source of the fire. They couldn’t even find an origin point; no twelve-year-old could pull that off.”

You chewed on your bottom lip, “Could anyone?”

Sheriff Stilinski’s brow furrowed, and his mouth screwed up into a crooked line, like he was chewing on his words and deciding if he should swallow them or spit them out. “I wish I had all the answers for you. I really do. Not knowing, it’s worse than any truth.”

You blinked up at him for a moment, once again taken aback by his raw sincerity, and swallowed hard. He wasn’t the one who was supposed to have the answers; he was the one who was supposed to ask the questions. There was one failure in his muggy office, and it wasn’t the Sheriff. “It’s okay,” you said quietly. “Not your fault.”

He looked like he wanted to argue the point, but whatever he wanted to say was interrupted by the sharp ringing of the phone on his desk. “I have to take this, but if you remember something, or if you just need to talk—”

“My dad spends a small fortune on a psychiatrist and a behavioral therapist for that,” you stood up quickly, shouldering your bag. You forced the corners of your mouth into a small smile, tight at the edges like a sheet that had been stretched too thin, “But thank you. For everything.” 

The Sheriff’s gaze darted to a framed photo on his desk. You had seen it before, on one of your many visits to his office. It was of a boy—his son, you assumed—he looked like he was around five or six at the time. He was grinning, wide enough to show off his missing incisors, and his fingers and wrist were stained cotton-candy blue from a melting popsicle. You must’ve been that happy once, right? In the beginning, everyone was unencumbered by the weight of imminent mortality. Maybe that’s what Sheriff Stilinski was thinking, too. He looked away from the photo and gave you a small smile, “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

You gave a half-hearted wave before wrapping your fingers around the strap of your backpack and walking to the parking lot. 

Outside, the sky was grim, a mocking reflection of the dour expression on your face. The spite in your eyes hardened when big, fat raindrops splattered against the apples of your cheeks. For a moment, you just stood there, glaring at the rain and cursing the cosmos for their utterly unamusing sense of humor.

A jeep pulled into the parking lot, and the squealing engine startled you back into reality. The search for your car keys was, of course, a considerable endeavor. Nothing could be easy. Not here. Not today. Not ever, you thought. A bit melodramatic maybe, but the weather was certainly ripe for a bit of self-pity.

You stacked your textbooks and binders onto the hood of your sedan, haphazardly throwing your jacket on top of the pile to protect your painstakingly penned Kafka essay from the rain. By the time your fingertips brushed against the cool metal of your car keys, your hair was damp and curling at the ends. 

The momentary relief was short-lived when you pressed the unlock button five times and the accompanying beep didn’t sound, not even once. For an absurdly long minute, all you could do was rest your forehead against the driver’s side window, breathing heavily until condensation gathered next to your mouth and the drizzle speckled dots onto the sleeves of your thin cotton shirt.

“If you’re trying to charge the battery through osmosis, it’d probably be more effective to smash your head against the hood.”

You jumped, and then flinched again when your keys clattered against the ground. You caught a glimpse of the phantom speaker in the side-view mirror; bizarrely, he looked just as surprised as you felt. You turned around, trepidatiously—objects may be closer than they appear n’all—and tried to swallow your rapidly rising heart. 

“Sorry,” the boy pulled the hood of his sweatshirt down and had the decency to look contrite, “big mouth.” He rubbed a hand over his chapped lips. “It’s a real problem. It’s so big, actually, that my foot just slides right in there like…all the time,” he gestured animatedly with a flat hand, a quick sliding motion, like a fish through water.

You blinked at him, slowly, and bent down to reach for your keys, “Might wanna see someone about that. Sounds unsanitary.”

“Eh, it’s hardly the worst thing I’ve put in my mouth,” he said, eyes widening into horrified round circles the second he stopped talking. A faint flush creeped up his neck to his ears, and your heart dropped back into your chest. Slashers and ax murderers didn’t blush. Probably. You hadn’t ever met one, but it seemed like sound logic.

“Choking hazard,” you hummed, leaning back against your car. Your fingers traced a small dent in the door, the cause long forgotten, “It’s definitely still a choking hazard.”

The boy grinned before fixing his expression into something on the cusp of severity, “I’m about 95.7% sure that anything bigger than a fist is completely mouth-safe.” He held up his fist and nodded sharply, “Make that 98.3% sure.”

“98.3?” your brow arched.

“Maybe even 98.9.” 

The buzz of a lamp post hummed above your heads as you stared at each other with little smirks until the quiet made you sink your teeth into your bottom lip and big-mouth drum his fingers against his forearm. 

“So,” his sneakers squeaked against the slick asphalt as he shifted his weight, “you need a jump?”

You pursed your lips and ran your eyes over the front of your car, “I might give osmosis another shot. 30 seconds is hardly a fair trial.”

“Of course,” he hummed, “you gotta be fair.”

“We are in front of a police station.”

“Well,” he scratched his cheek, “it’s not a courthouse.”

“Technicality.” You were slightly horrified when you finally noticed that you were smiling. The sensation felt like it had escaped straight out of the uncanny valley and latched onto your face like a parasite in need of a host. It only took two weeks for muscles to atrophy; years must have completely decimated the fibers in your cheeks. “I guess I could use a jump. If your offer was an offer and not a hypothetical.” 

“Smart choice.” The boy rapped his knuckles against the hood of your car and said, “Steel’s probably pretty low on the permeability scale.”

“As opposed to a skull.”

He snorted and then nodded towards the large lump of books and papers covered by your freshly dampened jean jacket, “You should probably move your stuff. Y’know, ‘cause of the very un-permeable battery.”

“There’s that,” you sighed and started stuffing your things back into your backpack, shaking it violently until your notebook finally slid past your chemistry textbook, “and flunking English isn’t high on my list of things to do this weekend.”

His gaze flickered back and forth, rapidly cataloging every corner and crevice of your face. You tilted your head, brows pinched, and stared back at him with your arms crossed tightly over your chest. His eyes, you noticed, became a peculiar shade of brown in the yellow glow of the setting sun and the fluorescent light of the lamppost. More like honey, you realized, more like honey than irises. Something finally clicked behind them. "You,” he pointed aggressively, “you go to Beacon Hills.”

You pushed his finger away from your face with your own, “Safe bet, considering there’s exactly one option for the next 2,000 square miles.”

“You’re kind of a smartass, you know that,” he muttered. He struggled with the trunk of the jeep parked next to your car, cursing under his breath until he finally wrenched it open with an almost guttural grunt.

Your lips parted briefly, and then you grinned drolly. It was refreshing, not being treated like some fragile little creature who would buckle in the knees—or possibly set something on fire—at the slightest confrontation. “Kind of?”

“Total.” He nodded decisively before sticking his head and torso into the depths of his trunk. “Completely, entirely, and wholly a smartass.” There were various clanging sounds until he re-emerged with a pair of jumper cables, “Never noticed that in class. You don’t really…say anything.”

You bit back the snark poised on the tip of your tongue. When people looked at you, the only thing they saw was the worst thing that had ever happened to you. You were the daughter of the woman who burned to death on Cedar Street; your mom died, and you were there. It seemed like that was all you would ever be in Beacon Hills. 

In the grand scheme of things, it was better to be no one. 

High school had been your chance to slip into social obscurity—more kids, more drama, less discussion of homicide by arson—so you took it, wholeheartedly. You kept to the corners of classrooms, away from extracurriculars, and your mouth resolutely shut. 

“I try to exclusively bring the smart and leave the ass at home,” you finally replied.

The boy’s eyes drifted downwards for a moment, and his voice did a funny, squeaky thing when he said, “I should give that a go sometime.”

“10/10 would recommend. No one bugs you—and teachers never throw erasers at your face.”

“So you do remember me,” he grinned a little and rolled up the sleeves of his sweatshirt before unlatching the jeep’s hood and propping it open.

Slanting your head, you watched his profile. There were moles scattered across his cheek and neck, and his angular jaw clenched as he struggled with the knotted cords in his willowy fingers. “Vaguely,” you said faintly. It was coming back to you in pieces. That was life after twelve for you: bits and pieces. Everything was made up of the disquieting moments when you surfaced from the haze and into the present. It should’ve felt like a lungful of air, but it didn’t. It always felt like choking. 

He wiped his grease-smudged hand on his jeans and then extended it towards you, “Stiles.”

You took his hand, despite the strange formality, and shook it—mainly because of the black streaks staining his pants. “Y/N.”

His fingers twitched a few times when he connected the clamp to the coordinating battery terminal, and your eyes widened. You held your breath in your sternum until you registered that he hadn’t been electrocuted. He was just naturally tweaky, you concluded. It was either that, or he had jumped one-too-many engines in the last 24 hours…unless it was hidden option C, and he was actually tweaking. Unlikely, given he was on his way into a building teeming with cops, but far stranger things had happened in Beacon Hills.  

You sighed a little as you listened to the rain patter against the asphalt and the roof of your car, rubbing your palms over your arms until the goosebumps prickling along your biceps receded into your skin. Stiles looked back at you again, and his mouth wormed its way into a little frown. His head disappeared into his trunk, and after a moment a lumpy maroon mass hurtled towards your face. You caught it before it could smack into your nose, and you clutched at the soft material until you realized that the projectile missile was actually just a sweatshirt. 

Stiles was staring at you when you looked up from your hands. A small, unsure…something squirmed over his face, and you felt a little stupid, just standing there, hoodie limp in your arms. It happened a lot—more than it should after so many years. The invisible quicksand materialized in the strangest, most insignificant moments. You blinked, completely brainless, at simple questions, stared aimlessly into your closet until your second alarm startled you into snatching the first shirt you came across—clasped at a stranger’s hoodie until the rainwater pooled on your lashes dripped into your eyes.

Robotically, you thrust your arms through the sleeves and tugged it over your head, “Thanks.” The sweet scent of grass clung to the fabric, and there was something earthier underneath it, something like evergreen. You smiled slightly, combing your baby hairs behind your ears, “I guess I forgive you for attempting to blind me in the process.”

Stiles’s shoulders unwound as he scoffed, “That was an excellent throw. First-line material, honestly.”

You looked at him and tilted your head, eyebrows crawling towards your hairline, and Stiles sighed loudly, “Okay, so I’m not an ‘athlete’ or whatever—but I’m working on it. You’ll see—you’ll all see.”

You hummed softly, unconvinced but grateful enough to not comment further. Another bout of silence fell between you, but it wasn’t so restless this time—even after Stiles torpedoed his body through his passenger seat. He fought with his keys for a while until the correct one slid into the ignition. 

The jeep’s engine hummed pleasantly in the background as you let out a soft sigh, dropping your head back against your car window. The rain had stopped somewhere between trying to unlock your car and now, but you couldn’t quite recall when. The chill wasn’t so bad, you realized, without your foul mood casting a shadow over your head.

Stiles landed back on his feet and leaned against the jeep. You could feel his gaze on you again. A tickling sensation trailed down your spine as you fiddled with your keychain. You took a step backwards and bit your bottom lip, “I should probably try start my car…y’know, before you throw something else at my face.’”

He nodded, taking a step towards his jeep, “Solid plan. A tire iron was next.”

You slid into your car and stared at the steering wheel, forgetting to laugh at his joke. You wrapped your fingers around 10 and 2 and silently called upon every deity you’d ever heard of to end your suffering. Stiles seemed nice enough, but you seriously doubted your smalltalk capabilities were up-to ‘ride home’ standards. Perhaps, you should revisit your resounding dedication to atheism, you thought, as the engine sputtered in protest a few times and then came back to life. 

Stiles flashed two thumbs up through the window. The smile on his face was positively goofy, but his dismount from the jeep was somehow even goofier. He stumbled over his large feet a few times before regaining stability. You bit back a smile when he shot you another thumbs up, this time through the dash as he removed the jumper cables from your car’s battery.

He wiped his hands off on his jeans again; at this point, you were convinced that they were beyond saving, but Stiles didn’t seem concerned. He tapped against your window before stepping around the open door, “You should probably let it run for a while. Take the scenic route home; enjoy all the Beacon Hills hotspots open past 8:00 pm on a weeknight. I personally recommend the Rite Aid or Walmart.”

You snorted, “Maybe I’ll swing by the Preserve. I hear the woods are especially beautiful in the foreboding darkness.”

“Don’t.” Serious was an odd look on Stiles’s face. You decided that you much preferred the goofy grin. “Don’t go anywhere near the Preserve. It’s officially cordoned off—totally locked down, quarantine-zone-central. Something about flesh-eating, parasitic plant life.”

“As completely real and unobtrusive as that sounds,” you drawled, “don’t worry about it. Literally every single person in town knows about the body they found in the woods.” It was bound to happen, small town and all—and ‘woman dies in deadly animal attack’ was the most interesting thing that had happened in Beacon Hills since the intersection got a Target two years ago. “I’ve seen every installment of Friday the 13th and The Blair Witch Project. If I’m going to be murdered, I refuse to also be humiliated by a cliché C.O.D.” 

The manic expression on his face softened to a relieved smile and then again to a little smirk, “So what’s a certified fresh murder, then? Not that I doubt the depths of human depravity, but I think society killed off originality a few centuries ago.”

You thought back to a house fire with no origin, accelerant, or discernible cause. Apparently, not. “You know what they say,” you sighed, “life finds a way.”

Stiles tilted his head, “And death.”

“And death,” you agreed, staring at a small chip in your windshield. The cracks had just begun to spiderweb out from the pit. 

Stiles looked like he wanted to say something, and he looked so much like the Sheriff with his face twisted around thoughtful contemplation that you couldn’t believe it had taken you this long to make the connection. The boy in the photo had grown up. How unfortunate for him. Stiles swallowed whatever it was that was lingering on his tongue and shut your door. He leaned his elbow against the window frame and cocked his hand in a stiff little wave, “Seeya at school. I’ll bring something fun for target practice—maybe grapes. You like grapes? Don’t answer that—I’ll surprise you.”

You put your car in drive once Stiles was safely a few feet from the wheels and gave him a dry smile, “The anticipation is killing me.”

What a scary place to be, you thought as you watched Stiles disappear in your rearview mirror. Anticipation. Hope. Life. You were chronically good at surviving; cockroached your way out of every horrible thing life squashed you with. Lately, all you could do was cling to your heartbeat and the warmth of your skin, until you were barely more than roadkill. A walking carcass was a far cry from living, but death would not stop for you, so you stopped looking for him. You kept treading water, took your pills, stopped existing—you were a lot like Schrödinger’s cat that way: too stubborn to live, too stubborn to die. You didn’t know what to do if someone unsealed the box and forced you to choose. That was the trouble with possibility; it required far too much uncertainty.

Your dad’s SUV was parked in the garage when you finally pulled into your circle driveway. It was a rare sight; your dead battery had disrupted your usual routine. You were supposed to be safely tucked away in your room after an early dinner—take-out usually, sometimes a quesadilla if you were feeling exceptionally inspired—by the time your dad got home from work. It was dysfunctional in every sense of the word, but it was the only way you could function in the same space. 

He used to stare at you from the other end of the dinner table: not eating, not speaking. The only way you knew he was alive was the slow rise and fall of his chest. After a while, he moved dinner to his office. ‘Working dinner,’ he’d say in passing, ‘budgets are due.’ Eventually, he stopped coming home altogether. It was better that way, you thought. You loved each other better from afar, where the power of nostalgia could cloud all the present unpleasantries. You wondered what he saw when he looked at you now. You wondered, and you desperately didn’t want to find out.  

You shouldered your backpack and made sure your car lights were off twice before quietly creeping into the mudroom. You could hear the buzz of the microwave as you toed off your sneakers and tried to discern the smell emanating from the kitchen. Something with garlic and tomato. Bona Vita, probably. Your dad loved their al pomodoro. 

You tried to make yourself as small as possible as you skulked into the kitchen, shoulders hunched to your ears and grip tight around the strap of your backpack. Your dad’s back was to you; you could see the wrinkles in his collar from where he tugged at it when he was agitated. He stopped stirring his pasta once you reached the island. 

“Did…” your dad trailed off for a moment, still facing the kitchen counter, “did everything go alright with the Sheriff?” 

You shrugged even though he couldn’t see you, “I guess.”

“It’s just,” he rubbed at his jaw and looked down towards the oven, “it’s almost eight. I was wondering…worrying.”

He still wasn’t looking at you. You stared at the back of his head and sucked your bottom lip between your teeth. Look at me. Your brows pinched, and your back molars ground together. Look at me. 

“I called him. Sheriff Stilinski. He said that you didn’t speak for long.”

“Didn’t have anything new to say,” you shoved your hands into hoodie pockets, realizing belatedly that you forgot to give Stiles his sweatshirt back. Another problem for another time. 

“That’s not what I—” your dad grasped the lip of the counter and hung his head like it suddenly weighed too much for his spine, “I was wondering what happened to you.” 

“Oh,” you shifted your weight onto your other foot, “dead battery. I think it was the door light.”

Your dad nodded a little, “Do you need someone to pick up your car?”

“Got a jump from a friend.” Not a friend, not really, but you supposed it was the closest you’d come to one in the last four years. That was just a little too sad to say out loud. 

“Good.” He nodded again, “Good.” 

You nodded because it seemed like the only thing to do and slipped towards the hallway. You’d taken no less than five steps out of the kitchen when your dad said, “You could call me. Next time, you could call me.”

Maybe. Maybe you could if he would look at you.

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Congratulations on 6k followers!!

For the celebration, can I get number 2 for Bishop? I can just see him grumbling over untangling Christmas lights, but you know he’s gonna indulge his lady. I feel like that prompt could take the story in so many directions. I’m excited to see what you’ll do with it!

Yes, you can!

"Well maybe, if you actually coiled them up like I showed you and kept them neat with a couple of cable ties, this mess wouldn't happen in the first place!"

Your nostrils flare from the force of your exhale, your lips pursing as you untangle two baubles. "Well, we're not all perfect like you, Obispo."

"Woman, it's just common sense!"

"Don't," you begin, pointing at him, "ever refer to me as woman. You know I don't like it. You're not the type for misogynistic undertones, so don't start them now."

He mutters something under his breath in Spanish, scratching his stubble-thick chin. "Well then maybe just do the simple thing that means I ain't stuck with this headache every year, huh?"

You know he's right, and you knew he'd grump about it, but still, you're annoyed at his reaction. Placing the two dainty, glittering star baubles on the tree, you stomp off, giving your beloved cat Midnight a scratch on his head as you pass, the feline watching the scene between his mom and dad unfold from the safety of the couch, deciding to go and get the bathroom cleaned to a spotless sheen. At least that's one thing you can do right, and it puts a little bit of needed distance between you and your husband.

“I did what you asked and untangled the tree lights, babe. Come look.” You're just finishing wiping away the last of the cleaning paste from the taps half an hour later when you hear him call to you, putting the cleaning products back in their allotted box in the hallway cupboard before heading into the lounge. When you get there, you see the lights perfectly coiled, the bulbs glowing warm white, with Midnight sitting in the middle of the coil, a length of flex wrapped around him, wearing his little reindeer antlers, also festooned with few winds of the tree lights.

You can't help but laugh.

"Majestic house panther!" you giggle, reaching to stroke his face, Midnight meowing in an indignant 'look what he did to me!!' kind of way. "What did dad do, huh?"

Bishop shrugs, reaching for Midnight, scratching him under the chin and offering him a treat, the cat taking it before tiring of the antlers, pawing them from his head. He seems none too bothered by the lights, though. "I had to make you laugh somehow, and apologise for being a dick about them, because I was."

Looking at Midnight again, you shake your head, carefully removing the lights, kissing your husband. "You're forgiven. Now, let's get this tree finished."

[lcdportatiles]

Laptop repair experts mount new hinges on HP

Marbella laptop repair experts received  an Hp Envy with broken hinges. This job is very difficult due to the number of parts of the laptop that have to be disassembled. Therefore, precision, mental order and total organization are required.

Then they remove the hard drive and Ram protector . We remove the optical drive and the hard drive along with its flex cable. We continue unscrewing to dismantle the rest of the bottom chassis. We take out the wifi antennas and the Ram. By lifting the front rubber feet we can see that they hide the hinge fixing.

With the pick we remove the casing. We observe that the problem does not lie there. It actually happens that the 4 hinge nuts grab the middle casing (the one that normally supports the keyboard).

As we can see, this job really requires excellent hardware knowledge. Something that seemed forgotten is the hardware.

[jsms01]

Chest exercises for women to improve strength

Women don’t always put their chest on top of the list when it comes to fitness. The focus is generally on hips, stomach and thighs where fat can easily get accumulated. Since work from home became a thing, back exercises also started getting attention. But you should know that chest exercises are not just for women who want to transform their chest or firm up their breasts. Chest exercises for women are extremely important as they can add more strength to do daily activities. HealthShots reached out to fitness expert Varun Rattan, who shared why you women shouldn’t skip chest exercises. The chest involves some of the biggest muscles in the body. The chest muscles should be exercised as regularly as any other muscle group to get it stronger and well-defined, suggests Rattan.

Chest exercises are essential for stronger you. Image courtesy: ShutterstockWhen you do multi-joint exercises like the bench press, a large number of muscles are used, enabling you to lift more weight. This will burn more calories during your workout than if you only did a bunch of isolation exercises such as front raises or triceps extension. Be it pushing a door or throwing something, your chest works in these activities. Training your chest will make you stronger in doing these daily activities.

5 best chest exercises for women

1. Bench press• Lie down on a bench and hold the barbell with your hands placed slightly wider than shoulders. • Unrack the barbell by lifting it up and slowly lower it to the base of the sternum. • Push the barbell back up by pressing yourself into the bench. There are different variants of this exercise, such as incline and decline bench press, dumbbell press, cable press, and smith machine bench press, says the expert.2. Cable press or crossover• Set up two cable pulleys at shoulder height and take a handle in each hand. • Step forward and extend your arms outwards, keeping the elbows slightly bent. • Bring your hands together in the front of your chest and pause for a second before returning to the start position. 3. Chest pass• Hold the medicine ball in both hands at chest level. You can do this either seated or standing, in front of a wall or with a partner. • Thrust the ball away from your body. As you’re catching it, make sure to flex your elbows and shoulders to absorb the shock.

Push-ups for the win! Image courtesy: Shutterstock4. Push ups• Get into a kneeling position on a mat or floor and then straighten your legs behind you. • Your hands should be shoulder-width apart and fingers pointing forward. Engage your abdominal muscles, glutes, and quads to maintain a rigid torso and make sure your head is aligned with the spine. • As you inhale, lower yourself towards the floor, letting your elbows flare out as your chest touches the mat or floor. • While exhaling, push your body back up until your elbows are completely extended. Make sure to keep your spine in the neutral position, and don’t let your lower back sag or hips rise up (push up variations). Track your health on the go ! Download Healthshots App

5. Banded punches

• Stand in a split stance with your back tall, and knees bent slightly. • Secure a band around a pole that is at shoulder height. Turn your back to the pole, and firmly grasp the band’s other end with your palm facing downwards. • Steady your feet into the floor, engage your core, and straighten your arm forcefully. • Once you reach the end of the motion, hold it for a second before slowly returning to start position.

Tips to keep in mind for chest exercise

Yes, chest muscles are important for our everyday activities. But don’t overstrain any particular muscle group. You might end up with postural imbalance. Rattan of The Body Science Academy, Noida, says that it is just as important to exercise the back muscles like the rhomboids, trapezius, erector spinae, and rear delts. They act as anti-gravity, helping us to maintain an upright posture. Neglecting your back muscles and only working on chest exercises can give a slouchy appearance. Source link Read the full article

[backlinkservices]

Jawbone up vs Fitbit flex; The Battle Begins, Which One is Better in 2023?

Every one of us wanna live a happy life. And if anyone wants to ask me how? My answer would be, ‘The primary key to being happy is good health.’ Yeah, I know; it sounds pretty debatable, right? But trust me, guys, I’m telling you the truth. Also, being healthy is a thing that you can control completely. There are a nearly infinite number of tips for being healthy. Of course, one of the tips gonna like, asking you to monitor your body to stay accordingly by the books.

And that’s where you’re like, ‘damn, how on earth am gonna analyze my body? Do I have to go to the clinic every day?’ No! You don’t need to disturb nurses and doctors; they got their own ass which needs to be covered.

Why fitness band?

My point is, there is no way you’re gonna set up body monetize sensors all around your body and walk with them. And that’s where the fitness band made the entrance. A fitness band, often called an activity tracker, is a device for monitoring your body. This device is used to track fitness-related metrics such as running or walking distance, heart rate, calorie burn, and consumption, etc. Also, in the present market, smartwatches are often used as a fitness band. And this is the reason why people get so confused about fitness bands and smartwatches. You’re looking for a decent fitness band? Then the brand named Jawbone and Fitbit is the brand that you should go for. In this post, I’m gonna review two fitness band that comes from these two brands. The battle that I mentioned earlier in the title is about to start. Back from 2013 to 2015, the amount of craze about fitness bands was high as hell in those years. A detailed comparison between two fitness band models, Jawbone up vs Fitbit flex; these are the model we will review against each other.

How did they get into my hands? After being a successful reviewer of luggage, we started to receive stuff for review. One of those packages contained these two fitness bands. The letter attached with the box mentions reviewing these bands after continuously using them for 1 week. And here am I after 2 weeks. I took so long because I want to give you an in-depth review. Suppose anyone of you wanna purchase these bands. In that case, the buying link will be included as this affiliate commission will help the website grow more.

Why those two? Yeah, I know the question. These two fitness bands were launched in the market many years ago and are still available. Then, why the hell I’m writing the review in 2021? The answer is eternal rivalry and the request of the provider of these bands. Let’s start Jawbone up vs Fitbit flex showdown. This battle or comparison, whatever you think, will be divided into five parts. In each part, we going to discuss the details about both fitness trackers. Jawbone up vs Fitbit flex

i. Design: Jawbone up – As you know, 1st the product got into my home unnoticed. After a long day, when I was tired, I went to my cabin where I plan review tests, and right now, I’m also sitting there. After a few minutes later, I noticed something on the table. After thinking about 5 minutes about the box, I started to unbox it. The box came in white. The pack includes the band itself and tons of manual; the brand also provides a charging cable from USB to a 3.5 mm female jack. The box mentions the mobile app available for IOS and Android that will sync with your band. The look is more versatile than it looks in the box. The band has no strip with a bold and straightforward design, and it springs on your wrist and is simple as hell to put it on and take it off. The people won’t even notice that you’re wearing a fitness band. The look is perfect for making people fool, jokes apart. Honestly, the band is incredible. It looks like a regular rubber band. At the end of the band has a little cap that covers up a 3.5mm jack for charging, which can be put to your mobile for charging. The band got two ends. One with the 3.5 mm jack that I mentioned earlier, which is covered all the time with a jawbone logo cap on it. Another end has a switch that wakes the device and flashes a small LED light shaped as a flowered icon. The rubber design and the designing of the app are mind-blowing. Fitbit Flex – Did I mention there was another box in that package on the table?

I think I didn’t. Yes, there was another box from that package. The box contains a fitness band that goes by the name of Fitbit flex; yeah, that band also came with the same package. The box came in a very strangely designed paper box. When it comes to the design, the Fitbit Flex is slightly better than Jawbone up. The rivalry doesn’t end here. The moment I saw the box, it’s stolen my attention. The box has two-compartments, and 1st things that came to hand is tons user manual and a dongle that can sync with any device. The design is astonishing; the product is available in multiple colors. The band’s entire body is made of rubber with 4 LED lights that signal your activity. Later in this post, I’m gonna explain how this LED works and how you would understand the blinking of LEDs. And if you want to charge the device, you don’t need the whole body of the band as the band’s primary device can be separated from the rubber body of the band. Let’s move on to the primary device that can be separated and charged. The primary device is like a capsule. If you push too hard on the front side of the band, the central device comes out from the back. If anyone is talking about design, the Fitbit Flex has an advantage as it has a futuristic design. Unlike the Jawbone Up, it indicates the signal with led. Jawbone up vs Fitbit flex

ii. Features: In the matter of features, I can’t decide which one is better; maybe later, I can say which one is best as we’re at the 2nd part of this epic battle. Let’s start with the Fitbit Flex. Fitbit Flex – In the previews part of the battle, I mentioned that Fitbit has advantages against Jawbone. And that’s why I started this part with Fitbit, as the band has multiple features that we’re gonna discuss. Futureproof: The band can be separated from the device. It can be used separately as a tracker that can be put in any pocket. Water-Resistant: Yes, guys, it is also a water-resistant fitness band. It has the capability of 1 ATM of water resistance. This means it can be used on the sweaty day of summer, and you don’t have to bother to take it off even in the rain. But keep it in mind, it’s water-resistant, not waterproof. Activity tracker: The band does everything that can be done with any other premium fitness band. It calculates how far you walked or ran, and after you achieve that goal, the band rewards you within the app. If it blinks just one time, that means you didn’t fill up your goal, and if it’s blinking non-stop, that means you’ve done a great job. Fitbit Flex also shows you how many calories you burned and the busy time of your body through the app. Sleep tracker: Fitbit used a technology that can track your sleeping time. Wake you at the perfect timing without any noisy alarm that disturbs you, and you got to snooze the alarm. It uses a silent vibration alarm that forces you to go deep sleep to regular sleep. You woke without rubbing your eyes. Jawbone Up - If we are here to know about the features of this band then, we must understand that this band made entry into the market many years ago, nearly about 7 years. So if anyone asks me how I expect from this device, then I must say I have no higher expectation regarding this product. But if we’re gonna know how Jawbone up is as a fitness band, then I would give it 5 stars out of 5. As Fitbit flex, the Jawbone up has everything that a decent fitness band has. The design was easy to put on and off, but we discussed this earlier, didn’t we? Water-resistant: The Jawbone also has the same water resistance as Fitbit Flex. This has the capability of 1 ATM water resistance. This also means that you can wear it on a sweaty day of summer or rainy evening for monsoon. Activity Tracker: This band tracks your vital metrics from your body, such as calories that burn, the distance you crossed, how much do you sleep. This band calculates everything in your body that matters to you to stay fit. The band itself also wakes you with a silent alarm that buzzes you from sleep. As I used this fitness band, so I know how it is. Especially for alarm, I love Jawbone up than Fitbit flex for sleeping alarm. The light vibration always tells you when to run or when not. In this part of the battle, both sides win. As it seemed, they are nearly similar to each other when it comes to the features.

iii. Battery: Here we are 3rd part of this epic battle. In this part, we will discuss the battery from both devices and see which one is better. As we know, batteries are necessary for any electronic device that is also portable. And we also know that fitness bands are wearable. So the battery is more essential for these kinds of devices. Jawbone Up – The battery of this band is pretty standard. The battery is a lithium coin battery. But the battery management of this device is remarkable. It can give back up up to 7 to 8 days on a single charge. 1st I thought, “No man, this is not gonna last for 3 days.” But after 3 days, I see no blinking, then I decided to use the device until it’s dead. But sad for me, I lasted almost 8 days. After this shocking matter, I started to research the battery, but the battery was typical as hell. Then I realized it is not the battery; it is the device that gave me such a backup. And it is pretty easy to charge; just plug it on your mobile phone and configure it from the UP app and, Boom. Your band is charging. So, I became its fan. Fitbit Flex – But this fitness band also meets my expectations. The super fitness band got excellent backup on its battery. After unboxing, I put it in charge. After a full charge, I started to use this band on my wrist. Now, I got two bands on both hands. But unlike the Jawbone Up, it lasted about 10 days. Yeah, guys, I’m not even joking. I was shocked as you. So, I kept testing as mentioned; I tested them around 14 days by using them on both hands. So in this part of the battle, the Fitbit flex beats the Jawbone up.

iv. Tracking: Here we are, the battle almost complete, and two parts of the fight remain, the other three completed, and Fitbit flex has an advantage over Jawbone up. Fitbit Flex – Fitbit flex has multiple sensors to track. It can track the calories that you burned, and distance you crossed, etc. The Flex has every tracking feature that is needed for a fitness band. This fitness band also tracks your sleep. And I think it is pretty good than Jawbone Up. I don’t have any personal issue with the Jawbone, but the truth is always bitter. As I used both bands in my hands, I know the differences between those bands. Without any doubt, even in this situation, there is no way that the Jawbone up could match up with the Fitbit flex in tracking. As the Fitbit flex is more user-friendly than Jawbone up. So, I excluded the Jawbone in this part of the battle as it has no match with Fitbit flex.

v. App: As we proceed, we are at the final part of this epic battle that waged as soon as these products launched. Yeah, both product brand provides a very user-friendly app for mobile devices. Their both app is available in IOS and Android. Jawbone Up – See? I have no personal issue with this product; Jawbone Up provides an ultra user-friendly app called UP. As soon as you want to set up the band, the 1st thing is that you should sync your band with the phone. You open the cap of the end of the Jawbone UP band and put it in your phone’s 3.5 mm audio jack. Launch the app. Then it will guide you through the whole setup process. For me, it was the most straightforward setup ever. The app will ask for some of your personal details, such as your height, gender, name, age, etc. After that, you’re free to use the UP app and the band. As we finished this fitness band setup, let’s move on to the Fitbit flex. Fitbit Flex – The app that comes with Fitbit flex is named the Fitbit app. It is pretty easy to use; it shows you the calories burned, the steps you take, or your active minutes. The thing you should do for the first time is set up the Flex with the app. Charge the Flex by the USB charger provided in the box; after full charge, insert the tracker in the rubber body. Open the Fitbit app and sign up; if you are an existing user, just log in to the app and click on ‘add a device.’ After that, select the band category flex and bring your phone closer to the band. After that, enjoy your happy and active hours or minutes with Flex.

Conclusion: At the end of this article, we are sure you’ll have vast knowledge about these devices. I was surprised by both devices. And why shouldn’t I? I thought they will never meet my expectations. To be honest, I got my own apple watch for everything that I need from a fitness band. But I can do anything for the review. That’s why I put my apple watch away and put these bands on both of my hands. Both of the devices were amazing, and thanks to that provider for providing me with such products. I used the Jawbone product; the band has a thoughtful design; it is the truth everyone will confess. But for me, it was good but not the best. On the other hand, I got no previous experience with the Fitbit. But I knew they manufacture the quality. And in this post and for me, it is now proven. Now, I got to tell you the thought about these bands. Both of them were awesome. But the winner is the Fitbit Flex. My whole team made the decision not only by me. I just shared the experience with these devices with them. In the 1st, 3rd, and 4th part of this comparison, the Flex had advantages over the Up. That can clear the air. Jawbone up vs Fitbit flex; the battle ends here. Thanks for reading.

[cipheramnesia]

No one was trying to rebuild anything very tall just yet. The number of towers and skyscrapers knocked over in the '79 Burn haunted the empty horizon. Alice stood on a modest five storey warehouse converted to apartments up top and a biker-bar on the ground floor. It was high enough to get a light breeze touching the shaved sides of her head and whipping her raggedy bleached hair, and to put her on eye level with the man growing out of the asphalt of the raised highway across from the warehouse.

The shunts on her upper arms twinged, but didn't itch anymore. She remembered when Dr. White had presented the pair of large, circular saw blades to her in her old room. "It's based on spark buffers," he said unhelpfully. "But I've modified it to aggressively pull the unstable external wavelengths and particles out of the cascade, rather than simply catch the burnoff as an entropic stabilizer. The older sparkbuffers are usually twenty percent efficient at best, but this design..."

He'd gone on for awhile. Now she was wearing them on the outside of her arms. Sleek metal assemblages ran the length of her forearm to a bit past her elbow, and a flick of her palm would set the buzzsaw blades spinning. A series of heavy cables linked to her shunts. One of the sets circulated her blood through the machine and the other Dr. White had just gone on so long about some "interface for synaptical reprocessing of the disentanglement," and he'd been very detailed but Alice mostly just took from it all that they'd let her pull even more of all that beautiful bright burn into herself.

"This is why I was away so long, I put this on the fast track for you, I'm so sorry," he'd apologized over and over for every meaningless thing that she'd never asked. Fine enough by her to leave him unforgiven for all the trespassing he held himself blameless over. She didn't like the wraparound ski-goggle things, but the photosensitive glass worked, picking out the asphalt man in easy shades of blue, green, and yellow to target the burn.

The boots felt good and she remembered how to do a jackhammer push and leap. Dr. White had showed her video cards of closers - Jill of course, also Crowe, the Midnight Twins (Harm and Les), and a smartass calling himself Bat Man. Sometimes they went out. Dr. White let her sit in the truck without the cuffs on, irritatingly correct in his belief she would restrain herself from running until she learned to use the new equipment.

It took months before she had even understood how to move around in it, almost a year before she'd been able to freely and quickly dash and dance along the badly damaged asphalt on the top floor. The bright thread was there. She hadn't asked questions about it, maybe later.

The burner was trying to grow legs. This happened sometimes, no one knew why. The burns would find parts of the world and live in them, or find people and change them. She heard a few places some people thought the burn was alive and trying to talk.

The bright streak of it poured out of the asphalt man's back. Thin, snarled lightning crackled into the sky. "I feel bad," Alice had said, after watching Jill rip the arms off a thirty foot tall mutant, "they must want something."

"They very must," Dr. White agreed. "But what? What do we not know? We must address the immediate danger before all else." He waved at the screen where Crowe was using a peculiar three stringed instrument to demolish a burn. "Look at these ramshackle jobs. Wires, robot arms, a baseball bat. None of them working together at all. Well, I'll soon see this type of thing set to a new standard."

The asphalt man looked at her, and opened his mouth, letting out a scream that pulsed along glass vibrating intervals with a rumbling undertone so deep that the building she was on shook.

Alice took a couple deep breaths and let them out, flexed for a jump. "First one, Alice! First one, you got this." Alice's buzzsaws sparked to life, and she jumped, hurtling towards the burn.

Part 2: The Lonely Extermination of Athena Six

Awhile after Dr. Stevenson left, and after Dr. White's visits were rarely more often than once or twice in a month, Athena began to notice the iron cage. It grew very slowly between the earth and the sky, deep shadow bars tinting narrow strips of the world. The first ones she saw were in the sky, on a day where she could feel the sun inside her room. She felt the slim bands connect to each other overhead.

The small transistor radio at the nurse station had a square of dark bands around it. Dark lines grew from light fixtures and intercom speakers. While she sat with an orderly doing a geometry workbook that Dr. White was supposed to supervise, Athena noticed dark lines on the overhead fluorescent lights. The orderly said it was okay for her to go back to her room and read, so she sat at her desk to re-read a set of old fantasy novels. They were about a prince who was always beset by tragedy and sickness. Now matter how much good he tried to accomplish, he always hurt someone important. In some of the stories he traveled to other versions of his story and met happier versions of himself, or sometimes sadder versions, but mostly happier. Athena thought there were probably happier versions of herself somewhere.

The dark bands grew and crossed and multiplied. The more of the bands she could see, the harder it became for her to find the dancing light. She wasn't supposed to make the light dance anymore since Dr. Stevenson's accident, and the times the orderlies caught her, they stuck a needle in her and she fell asleep right away. That was also okay, but the lights made her happy, so she played with tiny sparks against her wall, too tiny for the camera in her room to see. Except with the dark bands the lights were harder to coax put and she was usually exhausted after trying.

Eventually the grid of darkness covered the sky in its iron cage. She only sometimes saw little dark smears from the radio or people's eyes sometimes. No one else noticed the grid, but she could tell because her thread was less bright and the omnipresent iron bars were visible through the walls and ceiling. She wished she could take them down and so she practiced more and more to control her lights. They were still waiting for her, only a little more out of reach, but she got stronger and reached further every day.

A little while after the grid was in place, Dr. White visited her. He was always very nice, but Athena noticed he didn't listen very much to what she talked about. He seemed to care more about if the orderlies and nurses liked him, but she could tell they didn't anyway. He opened up a box and laid two flat rectangles of woven metal on the table, then pulled his hands away quickly. Athena noticed he always did that.

"Athena, for the next few weeks we're going to try some new games and I think you'll like them very much." He gestured at the smaller, darker screen. "Closers call this a spark buffer, do you know about them?" He kept his arms close to his body, she shook her head for no. "It's okay, not a lot of people do." He gestured at the larger screen, with shiny metal weaving, and some kind of stone under it. "This is possibly a new prototype, and I hope you can help me make sure it works right."

Athena looked blank. "I don't know how... how it works."

"Don't worry," he laughed the fake laugh a little. "All I need is for you to make the dancing lights, and make them touch the buffer."

"The cage makes it hard," she said. "Can we go somewhere out of the cage?"

"Cage? What... I'm not sure what you mean."

Athena just shook her head and Dr. White slotted the new buffer into a small box. He stood up and took several steps back, suggesting Athena begin, so she did.

It was harder than ever before but eventually a flicker of light danced in her palm for an instant. Then there came a spark out of the buffer like a mosquitos into a bug zapper, and her light blinked out. She jerked back her hands as well, feeling a sharp stab of pain at her fingertips.

Dr. White wrote notes and she sucked her fingertips because they hurt. He said "Okay, let's repeat it and then try the other one."

Athena wished Dr. White would go away again.

[10millionyearsdungeon]

One Night in Miyagi

A/N: Another month, another collab~. This one is for the Lovesick Discord server. September’s prompt was The Yandere Purge. Featuring the Karasuno Bara-daddy Officer Daichi Sawamura, we proudly present...One Night In Miyagi: A Purge Story.  ===============================================

The pulsating in your ears was a taiko drum solo your body played by rope; it was a familiar environment you knew you could react in. Muscle memory was your friend when it came to tying tourniquets and starting IVs for fluids. It was your life, after all-- after working several years after graduation at a trauma center in downtown Tokyo, your hands were responsible for saving and soothing so many lives. It only made sense that you would volunteer for this. Out of the back of a repurposed van and a ragtag crew of off duty police officers and nurses, you all agreed to be above the collective who engaged in the chaos about to ensue with the setting sun. “You’re sure about this?” The strapping young officer crossed his arms over his broad chest, dark eyes squinting into the sunset as you piled another heavy trauma kit into the back of the van next to the folded stretcher. You nodded and patted your hand on his beefy shoulder, offering him a small smile. “Sawamura, I’ve never been more certain. It’s not my first purge night.” He didn’t appear to be convinced by your reply, but shrugged and loaded his own gear into the van next to your loaned equipment. “Besides, with the hospitals closed and the rest of the first responders forced to take the night off it’s not like we had anything else better to do.”

The way his eyes lingered on your delicate wrists and trailed up your forearms made you shiver. Sawamura was always one of those friendly faces you looked forward to seeing when he brought a drunk and disorderly patient into your department. In another life you could see yourself fall for him and his bravery. If only you knew just how far he would go to protect you…

He didn’t like the idea of you putting yourself in harm’s way. From the moment he first laid eyes on you after taking a nasty hit during a call he knew you had to be his. It was your gentleness that won him over as you readied his eye for repair. It was a nasty blow to the head and he could barely see. It was like only yesterday when you stitched him up and picked out the remaining glass fragments from the broken beer bottle, only to leave his bay to scold and dish out your own legal form of justice on the drunken fool who dared attack an on-duty police officer. 

Maybe it was your strength that attracted him so. Perhaps it was the quiet way you would smile before selecting the largest angiocaths on your problem patients to help them understand the error of their ways. He found himself thinking as you carefully held the split skin of his face together with delicate fingertips that you were something small, precious even. After that night, he made more frequent appearances, noting your schedule and asking around for you when you flitted from one patient to the next. It surprised you how often you bumped into each other. As a professional courtesy, you bought him a cup of coffee on your break and he nearly fell right then and there. In the ugliness and rot of your shared world, you stood above it all as a paragon of true goodness in his eyes. Somehow untarnished, that tiny nurse who didn’t take no for an answer when it meant it would benefit her patients captivated him. So driven, so pure, you needed to be protected and saved from the filth. He grew bolder, even going so far as to ask for your number one night when your department was emptying out. His request took you aback, but you endeared him further by tucking your hair behind your ear and scribbling your digits on a bright pink post-it note. It started out innocently enough. He’d send you the occasional text to see if you were working and drop by with a much-needed boost whether it was coffee or a touch of kindness and insight only another member of the fold could bring to your hellacious shifts. You never noticed just how close he would get when your back was turned, how discreetly he would lean in to catch a whiff of your perfume from your neck or how his hand would linger at the small of your back just a few seconds shy of being uncomfortable. It was nearly six months before you called him by his given name, and when you did he never wanted another person’s name to fall from your lips. It came as a minor surprise to you that he volunteered for the ride along with you. But Daichi knew it would be easy to get you alone. The Purge was the perfect excuse to be close, to work with you, to protect you from the ensuing violence. You closed the heavy doors and hopped inside with a soft grunt, the sound striking him to the core. “Y’know, there are easier ways to get my attention,” he teased. You grinned and crouched along the stretcher, the cool metal bars digging into your thighs. You adjusted the securement straps on your equipment, really a collection of mismatched bungie cables and zipties, and sighed through your nose. As you did your final checks, Daichi raked his eyes along the curves of your body in silent admiration. Shaking himself from his reverie, he climbed to the front of the van and murmured something to the driver you couldn’t quite catch. They turned on the scanner and the van purred to life as it pulled out of the empty lot. Your night was about to begin. 

You hung out in the back of the van as the driver pulled into another ambulance bay to pick up your second medic, a quiet young man with sharp brown eyes and dark red hair. As he loaded up, a feeling of unease washed over you and you swore you could smell gasoline on his clothes. You pushed your thoughts to the side and helped him secure his equipment, all under the watchful eye of Officer Sawamura. The feeling he got off the newcomer made him recoil in revulsion. He narrowed his gaze at him as the redhead smiled slyly at you and held out his hand for you to shake. “Saito Tendou,” he chirped with a fox-like grin. “Y/n,” you replied, tentatively taking his hand in a brief shake. Revulsion consumed Daichi over the harmless touch. How dare he touch you? Did he know you didn’t belong to him? As Daichi swallowed his rage, he smiled warmly and offered Tendou a thermos of hot coffee, which the newcomer gratefully accepted. Your crew was complete; pulling out of the lot, the van began slowly patrolling the streets. Daichi kept his sidearm close and loaded as he scanned the streets for any unfriendlies. It was early, and the rougher the area became, the more apparent it was that the designated time frame for Purge Night was merely a suggestion. Fires erupted from storefront windows, people in crudely made masks looted and carried their prizes brazenly down the narrow streets. Women, scantily clad in fishnet and plastic wrap sashayed down the sidewalks looking for a few Johnnies to make their Purge Night a lucrative one to remember. Tendou’s gaze lingered on the hookers in their sparkling heels and garish makeup, all the while still wearing that same smirk. “It’s a shame we can’t go out and have a little fun, too, huh, Y/n?” Your cheeks flushed with the implication of his statement and you chuckled nervously. Daichi turned around to watch you tuck your hair behind your ear and again felt that beast in his belly attempt to claw its way to the surface. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” you murmured, eyes thoughtfully trained on the gutters and storm drains as you passed. Daichi flexed in his seat and chuckled darkly, a sound you nearly missed over the chorus of screams pouring from a burned out convenience store Tendou’s grin fell and everyone in the van could feel the tension rise. The driver, with his heavy-lidded eyes and stoic expression breathed out a soft curse as you readied your pack. Daichi opened his door and was the first out of the van. You followed closely behind; it was an unspoken agreement you had when you both signed on for this-- he would take point, and you would stay close to him. You held your medic pack close to your hip as you traced Daichi’s steps. The burly officer had his 9mm handgun trained at the door, moving silently through the trashed aisles. Corn chips and hard candy crunched underfoot along with broken glass and debris. As you trudged through the building behind your dedicated lawman, you gasped when the screaming suddenly stopped. All you could hear was the pounding of blood in your ears and the slowing of Daichi’s breathing. “Y/n,” he whispered, unmoving as his flashlight revealed bloody trails leading down the back of the store to the walk-in cooler. It looked like someone was dragged forcibly into the chilly space, their handprints smeared against the heavy door. He glanced down between his boots and shuffled forward. “I don’t think you need to see this, Y/n.” It was almost a warning, one he knew you wouldn’t heed as the unknown victim’s fingertips rolled under his steel-toed boots. Severed neatly at the knuckle, he pushed forward with his muzzle trained on the door as you skirted to his back. “Don’t look down.” “I--...Officer Sawamura, I-” “I said don’t look.” Your blood ran cold when the door swung open. The convenience store manager huddled in the corner of the cooler, clutching her hands to her abdomen. Her eyes went wide with terror as Daichi shined his light into the space. He almost felt bad for her- hair matted with blood and gore, shivering from the chill that had sunk into her bones. The puddle she sat in reeked of congealed blood and excrement, evidence of her fight soaking into her torn clothes and stained apron. Your feet rushed you to her side before the officer could stop you. You knelt down and whispered kind words, stating you were there to help her. She flinched at your touch, terrified that you were there to bring her more harm. Daichi continued to stand watch, turning his back to guard the only exit. If she was still alive, chances are whoever decided to loot and maim the poor girl would come back to finish the job. “Ma’am, I need to clean the blood off so I can assess the extent of your injuries.” You dropped your pack to your side and knelt as you worked, pulling bottles of sterile saline to wash the blood and urine from her hands and face. Her fingertips were severed cleanly, but to the bone. It didn’t leave much for you to work with, but you persisted. The body was a miraculous thing. As you continued to murmur hushed words of encouragement, of genuine concern and care for the clerk, Daichi felt himself swell with pride and jealousy. You were too good, too sweet for this disgusting world. It was everything he could do to keep you safe. By the time you finished wrapping up her hands and sewing the deeper defensive wounds on her arms and chest, Tendou was sauntering into the storefront with a strange wobble to his gait. You kept your focus on your patient and helped her to her feet, gently reminding her that it was going to be okay, that she was safe. Daichi aimed his gun at the redhead as he drew closer. “Oh, Officer, how nice to see you.” Daichi’s finger gripped the trigger slowly as Tendou walked into the light. He pressed the muzzle of the gun into his own chest and grinned that sly, loaded grin, daring the cop to release the safety and pull the trigger. He leaned over Daichi’s shoulder and watched as you helped your patient out of the cooler. “Does our little lamb need assistance?” “This little lamb is fine, Tendou. There’s a safe house not far from here. Run there and don’t get caught. And don’t stop until you get there. Tell them Mercy sent you,” you ordered the frantic woman. She nodded and pushed past the two men on unsteady legs. “That was sweet of you...but I doubt she’ll get far.” “What do you--” The redhead drew closer as the woman pushed passed him and out of the cooler. Daichi trailed behind her, if only to ensure she didn’t need cover-fire as she made her escape. As the police officer’s footfalls retreated from the store, Tendou grinned and inspected the bloody scene. “Injured lamb, blood loss, the scent’s in the air and the sharks are circling the block...it’s only a matter of time before she’s had, Y/n.” You steadied your breathing and glared up at him. “It was sweet of you to give her a chance, though...Mercy.” He whispered your codename with a smirk, his heavy-lidded eyes drinking in your soured expression with interest. “How do you know that name?” He canted his head, expression unchanging and drew closer so you could smell the coffee and liquor on his breath. He turned only slightly, noting the white light flooding the storefront and creeping into the walk-in in broad, sweeping strokes. Taller than you by a head, he leaned into your body, caging you against the frosty metal of the back of the fridge, his hand clapped tightly over your mouth. Your eyes darted up to meet his, a harshness you were unfamiliar with dancing in them like fire threatening to engulf you both. You understood his wordless plea-- stay quiet and still. Voices, slurring and rough called into the store from the street. They paused only to taunt Officer Sawamura, a mistake met with gunfire and tires squealing into the night. You could hear him make his return, but Tendou held fast to you, hiding you from view. “Are they gone?” You asked quietly when Daichi made his return. Your eyes widened at the shadow that crept over your living shield. The ringing in your ears muffled the rapid sprinting of your heartbeat as hot blood and gray matter sprayed across your face and neck like an explosion of organic stew. Bone fragments caught in your hair with the softer tissues of your former partner. Eyes wide with terror, you stared at Daichi. Your scream caught in your chest as you hyper-ventilated, frozen against the steel wall. He casually stepped over the redhead’s limp body and he reeked of gunpowder and brain matter.

The world and its mindless noise seemed to slow down with the slumping body of your partner. Daichi lowered his weapon and returned it to the holster on his hip as casually as one would slip shoes on. He moved quickly, surprising considering his size, and gripped your jaw with a beefy hand. With your mouth covered again, all you could do was pant through your nose and tremble at the scene. He worked quickly to rifle against your clothes, all the while pinning you to the wall by your face with that single strong hand. When he found what he was looking for, you whimpered quietly into his palm. Daichi drank in your fear and watched you quake against him as he brushed along your hips with measured interest. “If you scream, I can’t promise your protection.” Your throat bobbed with another scream swallowed in fear. It was one thing to see the aftermath of a murder, but another entirely to be an accessory to one. Tendou’s eyes were glassy, pupils blown and fixed as he stared up at your writhing futilely into Daichi’s iron grip. The officer leaned into your ear and you could feel him grin as he fanned your skin with his hot breath. “He was attacking you, Y/n. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t protect you?” The glimpse of Daichi’s true nature shone through as he curled two fingers into the meat of your thigh, his free palm gripping your buttock with enough force you knew would leave you with bruises. You’d be his-- he’d make certain of it. Daichi would keep you safe even if it meant he had to drug and shoot every warm body with a pulse in the entire country. He’d burn the prefecture to the ground if it meant you’d be his to protect. As realization sunk into your bones with the slap of his fingertips against your clothed core, a new feeling of helplessness washed over you that made your insides clench and twist in on themselves. Caught in his trap, Officer Daichi Sawamura ensured it was a Purge Night his night nurse would never forget. 

[falconfriend]

AU where some different things are possible. Don't read too much into Jay's techno babble, quite honestly, I might edit some of it out, it's not the point.

Don't be surprised if you see this edited before the final ff.net post, but it's here, and I'm happy with it. The original concept has a chapter in which our two main characters talk together and process, and that is still very, very important to me, I'll probably bring it back.

See tags for warnings.

--

The amount of power Zane is channeling right now shouldn't be possible. Jay made darn sure to learn everything he could about Zane's possible repairs while Dr. Julien was still alive—the other guys didn't like to think about it back then, but come on, he was old, Jay knew, everyone else knew too even if they weren't saying it— so anyway, he'd spin wild hypotheticals, ask what happens if one tiny piece of machinery goes wrong.

Lloyd would hit the point where he wanders off, self-consciously chuckling that this isn't really his area but he feels like he's kinda learning things, and Jay would watch the clock tick until Nya got bored... and then, that was his opening, to fire off whatever question would come off as too rude while the others were around.

The doctor would smile in a sort of understanding, if slightly flummoxed, way, and he'd start answering. Jay got a lot of answers! He figured out how to put all of Dr. Julien's numbers into his numbers, you know, the kind we learn in the modern century, and made a copy of Zane's schematics with his notes. He had a harder time finding the focus to figure out the Falcon, but Nya and Lloyd are on that anyway. Logical division of labor.

What is he talking about. What was he thinking about. Zane's dying.

Distractedly, he answers- "I said critical mass. If he doesn't contain that, he could go nuclear."

"He's containing it, right?"

"It doesn't- matter." Containing it also means dying.

"Why wouldn't it matter, Jay-"

Jay asked a lot of questions, but he never did even think to ask about Zane's power source. Shouldn't that be the first thing? Why weren't we asking questions about the power source?

He knows approximately how much power Zane runs on. He knows it isn't this much. He knows how a storm feels, right before lightning is about to strike, what builds up in the air and how much damage it can do, right before he—

Jay takes a step forward.

Wu puts an arm across his shoulders, pulling him back. Jay just about slaps him off before realizing that's a quick way to get himself thrown to the ground and shut up before he can start,

So he waits, a frustrating two, three seconds, until he finds words.

"I can help." His throat is dry and he wouldn't mind except that he needs to be louder. "Get me to him, I can help!"

The rest of the ninja are turning to look at Jay… so… slow. Cole looks like he could be swimming through molasses. Jay seethes, and flexes and unfurls his fists by his sides to let it out, and takes a small step back instead of forward.

It works. Sensei releases him, almost.

Kai looks like he might be committing a crime if he lets himself look away from Zane, which isn't helping. Finally, though, he opens his mouth before Jay can. "Your powers? …Do you think?"

"'Do I think-' yes, I think, that's electricity. Or, electromagnetic- whatever. It's energy. I can feel it, Kai- this is taking too long! Where's Pixal- Pixal! Pixal, yoo-hoo, tell them I can help!"

"That won't be necessary," says Wu. Everyone is moving like an old man right now, taking their time; Jay's sure of it. Remember that comment about Cole? It feels like Jay's the only thing who isn't wading through molasses. Jay and the Digital Overlord, that is, and Zane, who cries out so bad Jay spends that moment sure that everything's over and Zane is gone now-

Everyone is moving like the slow old man Sensei talks like, but then Jay sort of- must have blinked, or something, because suddenly, they're all shifted. Cole sets a hand sturdily against his shoulder. It takes him a moment to realize that they're all on his side.

Jay finds a hardened, gold feeling deep in his chest, and latches onto it, and uses it to find his voice. "Okay." Okay. Look. Think. "Cole, I'm going to run at you and I need you to launch me, onto that web. Lloyd, use your energy to boost me."

"But-"

"We don't have time! It's just a scratch."

"Keep him on the edge of the blast. Try to center it about two meters from him." Jay looks back at Nya, Nya looks back at him. It's like they're both realizing how small everything has been. They're nineteen- Jay's nineteen, Nya's eighteen. It's like- like, we didn't need to know the shape of the care right now, I care about you.

Nya waves him away to the task at hand with a smile that means What? Anyway, you're coming back.

Jay looks at Cole and Lloyd. They look back at him. "Well, let's go." With a serious expression, not a word in response and not wasting a second, Cole stoops, palms up and fingers intertwined, a foot-sized platform.

"I'm ready for you, Walker."

He gulps. Time freezes for a second and then skips forward again, like half a second that definitely shouldn't be allowed to be that long. "Okay."

Kai steps forward, like he's going to- hug him, maybe? Rub his back? Push him forward?

"Okay ninja-go—" he kicks off and twists. Off the ground, off Cole's intertwined hands, launching him into the air- about to panic and yell Now, Lloyd when Lloyd finds the right moment anyway, blast re-aiming him just as he's about to fall-

He's sailing through the air, back sore and ears still ringing as the wind whistles past them. Ninjago city sails beneath him. He's two feet short of Zane's hand. He's going to miss.

He's going to miss, he's sorry, and they don't have a second shot, and not that it would be okay if he didn't but now he's going to get all caught in the explosion too,

And Zane reaches back, and grabs his hand.

The jolt that immediately moves through Jay is an absolutely massive electrical discharge. It tries to run from him straight to ground; at first, he was not connected to the circuit, so the electricity is looking for him as its way out. Here's the thing about electricity—it doesn't ask questions. It's already moving by the time your question is halfway out of your mouth, and that's why you need to either be five steps ahead or be ready to start improvising right now or else you're dead.

Something about that isn't how electricity should work, though. It doesn't rush into... a wire that isn't connected to a throughline. Batteries have two ends, positive and negative, and a wire that isn't connected to both of them might as well not be a wire at all— electricity isn't trying to get out, it's trying to get to somewhere, electrons hungry to get to that battery's positive side. Every single electrical invention in the world is formed by humans forcing those electrons to take the long way.

This electricity doesn't have a destination.

The Digital Overlord is always destroying. That means energy in him is leeching outward; this isn't just entropy, this is entropy gone rogue. Jay doesn't know where he's getting the electricity from, but- if he can destroy, maybe he can create. Who knows. Whatever. What becomes apparent right then is that it seems like the Overlord needs to always leech outward, and what Zane is doing is containing him. Sooner or later the snake eats its own tail.

Zane nods, with a firm little hum, as if he can tell from Jay's face what's going on in his head. It's businesslike, and it jolts Jay back to work. Jay can stand this for a few minutes longer, but Zane- Zane's dying.

So: parallel paths. Create two paths, two options, and the electricity will keep looking for how it can be the least crowded. It's like the reason air leaves a popped balloon, kinda like pressure but with a thousand electrons that all hate each other and feel indifferent about you. Or picture... getting into a crowded convention center, and someone coming running to announce they've just opened a second doorway, and that you can get in through either line. Create two paths, and only half of it goes through Zane.

Zane releases his hand.

They really, really need to have a talk later, but Jay is relieved it's not a talk about being willing to be saved. He's helping himself be saved.

Jay holds one of the golden contact points in one hand, and one in the other. The energy rolling around his ligaments and bones deflates, taking the easiest path.

"I had hoped you would do that behind me," says Zane, whose eyes are now closed.

Jay doesn't really try for a little laugh, so much as his body tries for a little laugh, like his brain is fine-tuned into making his excuses with or without him. "You could've said that earlier."

"No, it's alright. Just… here, scoot a little to the side-"

"This is pathetic," hisses a condensed-evil murmur over their shoulder, like it's obligated to, "YOU THINK YOU CAN DEFEAT ME?"

"Yes," says Zane.

And the bluewhite what-is-that-stuff that he'd once used to take down a plain old treehorn beams closer past Jay's cheek than he can really say he's comfortable with. It's almost like being near a fire- a live wire, static. He's not too cold, but he's sure if he touched it, it would move straight through rapid-action frostbite into part of his face falling off.

"Jay, now." Jay isn't sure what he means by now, that uh, isn't very clear, but he spends a half-second in panic before realizing Zane's ice is running a cable to ground. It'll keep a direct hit from coming back for them. It means, since this is the only window before it connects, they need to hit him now.

Jay pulls the electricity out of himself, out of the air- he takes whatever excess Zane will give him, when he touches his hand- and he breaks the circuit. He shoves it, with force, the opposite of the ways electrons want to work, not the way lightning wants to work—but that's the first step of making lightning. You build up a gap. The buildup snaps from him into the Digital Overlord's metal body. Something is wrung out of him like a sponge.

There's a thunderclap that shakes the city and an explosion that's- like a video game character died. Like it's not a real explosion, it's just something- dissipating. The city just turns white.

Jay becomes aware that he's flying again for the first time in two years, and Zane is holding onto him but losing strength. And then it turns out that he's got his arms around Zane, too. He only figures that out when he starts to panic that Zane's going to fall, and the tug of Zane's weight on his arms doubles, and alerts him that they're there, secure. His body was thinking ahead, even if he wasn't.

Zane's out. He's… fine. He's fine. He's got to be fine.

And while we're at it, Jay's hoping he's fine. His heart feels- wrong.

The first thing he needs to do is get back to land, the second thing he needs to do is look at… is get Nya to look at Zane, he's not even sure he can trust his senses. Huh, hang on, there's a sound other than the ringing in his ears.

"Jay!"

That's Pixal.

"Jay!"

She's standing on the roof of Borg Tower, waving her arms, and just as Jay starts to settle enough to realize he's not frozen, adrenaline's not gonna stop him from moving and he should fly somewhere. ...Huh. He has to pick where.

It would be a really good move to let their friends see they're alive. Nya's good at robotics.

Pixal and Borg… can probably fix him faster.

Zane sparks, hard.

Like Superman, made of light, Jay descends toward Borg Tower in a graceful arc. His feet connect with the roof with a very soft patter. He locks eyes with Pixal to hand off their boy to her.

"Whoa, okay, Sparky, geez. Just thought I'd keep the sweat out of your eyes."

Well. That's not correct.

There are the tiles of a hospital ceiling in front of his eyes, which feels more correct. Apparently, Kai is also in the room, because—

"Yeah. He's okay."

—well, because that's Kai.

Cole, of all the things that could happen here, squeezes Jay's hand. It occurs to Jay that he could have died on- on really, really weird terms with him.

Whoof. Jay takes stock of his body. He starts by feeling the sheets, just to figure out where his body is, then investigates the muscles and aches beneath them. He's in one of those medical gowns that closes in the back.

Everything feels... pretty okay? No, everything feels like he's just been stretched in every direction like a piece of toffee.

No, everything feels like he's just been stretched in every direction like a piece of toffee, but also maybe like he is toffee, so he's fine.

He, uh, definitely can't move. And that feels wrong, but at least he's identified the reason he's in a hospital bed, rather than wondering. He'd find this a lot harder to process if he had walked away from it without a scratch at all, even though it would have been cooler. He sort of wonders if anyone would bring his chart over where he can read it.

"Uh, yeah, that's all great, but what about Zane?"

Kai lets out a small, slightly-amused very-concerned snort. "Jay, you asked that already. He's okay."

"Go easy on him."

That's Lloyd. There are, wow, a lot of people in this room. It's gotta be a pretty small room? Hospital rooms aren't that large. Are his parents here?

"They're on their way."

"My mouth keeps saying whatever's in my brain."

Cole laughs. "Hey, don't worry everyone, he's back to normal."

Jay's breath does a weird thing in his lungs. It's like his body is focusing on every sensory detail except where it hurts. "Yeah, you're just jealous of how I looked up there."

Cole could nearly double over laughing at another time, but right now everything about him is subdued, gentle. Jay could see him ruffling his hair if he wasn't, you know. In a hospital bed. "Sure am, sparkplug."

And there's quiet for a beat.

Jay continues, still staring at the ceiling, "Hey, Nya, how bad are you gonna kill me."

"Oh, uh—" That's Lloyd again, kicking one heel awkwardly back against the wall. Kai speaks quickly—

"She wanted to be here. It's killing her not to, I mean— everyone did. Sensei, too. We told them we've got you."

"That's nice."

"I-I said I'd run and call her once you're awake, just to let her know. I should probably go do that now. She's—"

"With Zane," Jay finishes, no bones about it. Kai nods. "That's nice." The way energy thrums from Jay's palms feels different now, like he's not just pulling it from the air, like there's a battery under his skin, but that's. That's a question for training time. It's sleep time, now.

A/N: Why did the writers say "it's reaching critical mass." I still don't know what that means. Zane's power source is presumably based on some kind of nuclear fission then, but I'm not sure what "critical mass" has to do with the Digital Overlord encounter? If anyone knows how that's relevant to how Zane died, please lend me your knowledge, I'd be very grateful and schooled.

Anyway, critically, this is an AU where it is possible for Jay to help, not an AU where Jay notices he can help. It's built on the assertion that there was nothing Jay could do in the original, but in this universe, different things were possible.

[babbushka]

Reunions

Clyde Logan x Reader 

3k ; Minor angst (Military past/reuniting with military buddies) it’s really very fluffy I promise

(originally posted on AO3 12/28/2018, cross-posting here for my tumblr friends)

                                                  -----------------------

Most Monday mornings found you in the front lawn, tending to the flowers you had planted there before the heat of the day set in, and this particular Monday was no exception. 

The birds were chirping brightly, your watering can was full, and the day just seemed glad to see you. Clyde was back in the small house the two of you shared, and was just waking up. 

He always slept in late after the weekends when Duck Tape was at its busiest, so you had taken up this routine as a way to be productive while letting him get some much needed rest – on days where he let you out of his python grip, that was.

A bonus to being outside early was you got to greet the neighbors and various people passing by your property. People walking their dogs or taking their kids to the nearby school all got a friendly greeting from you as you tended your garden, and the mailman was no exception. You usually had a small token of appreciation for him on Mondays, as a way to start the week off nicely.

“Good morning ma’am! Only a couple letters for y’all today.” The mailman said as he pulled up in his truck outside your house.

You brushed your hands off on your gardening pants and took the small stack from him with a smile. You knew you were the last house on his route, he had told you as much one morning a few months ago, and so you didn’t worry about the fresh loaf of homemade bread getting squished or damaged in his care. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with butcher’s twine like it was every week, with a small paper tag on it that you wrote down this week’s flavor – roasted garlic and rosemary.

“Thank you Patrick, here’s something nice for you and Shelley. Have a good day!” You handed him the loaf and he didn’t hesitate to take in a big sniff, the garlic was pretty strong but he grinned like it was Christmas morning.

“You’re always so kind (Y/N), thank ya! It smells delicious, you have a good one.” He gave you a small wave before driving down the block.

Heading back towards the house, you started leafing through the letters. One was the cable and internet bill, another was a weekly newsletter of the local community that you had subscribed to, but the third was addressed to Clyde specifically.

It was small and rectangular, and a little dinged up, but it looked like it had traveled a long way to get to Clyde. His name and address was inked in blue pen that had gotten a little smudged, and you could only wonder how many times it had gotten delivered to the wrong place before it finally arrived to your humble home.

“Clyde honey, something came in the mail for you today.” You said as you walked through the door. Your boyfriend was fully awake and munching on some frosted flakes at the kitchen table, reading through a new book he picked up at the library.

“Just put it in the pile, I’ll sort through it later.” Clyde responded sweetly, making you giggle.

“It’s not a bill, someone sent you a personal letter.” You leaned over the table and gave him a morning breath kiss, placing the letter on the table next to his book. “Return address is from Utah, do you know anyone from there?”

You had thought all of Clyde’s family was here in West Virginia. Well, now with Jimmy across state line that might no longer be true, but still you had never heard your man talk about anyone from all the way across the country.

“Can you get me a butter knife?” Clyde asked, his voice gone quiet as he stared at the letter.  

“Sure thing honey.” You said with a slight frown, grabbing one from the drawer and handing it to him.

Clyde didn’t respond, using the butter knife as a makeshift letter opener to tear through the envelope carefully. Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded into thirds, and was completely covered in more blue ink. From your angle you couldn’t make out the writing exactly, but Clyde’s reaction to it was more concerning to you than the contents.

“Is everything okay? You look a little pale.” You asked, sitting down next to him and hugging yourself close to his arm, the scarred one. He hadn’t yet put on his prosthetic since he had just woken up, but you didn’t mind in the least. You liked that he trusted you enough to be comfortable around you.

“I’m okay.” He said with a deep breath, folding the letter back down and tucking it under his book.

You didn’t want to press the issue, so you just gave him a kiss and moved to the cabinet to get a bowl so you could have some breakfast with him and spend the rest of the morning together.

The next day, Clyde came home early from work and surprised you with takeout from your favorite Chinese restaurant for dinner. You had been watching TV, waiting for him to come home, and at the sound of the front door unlocking you were already running across the house to jump into his arms and cover his face with kisses.

“Honey you’re home!” You grinned, laughing as he lifted you and spun you around.

“Yup, I felt like spending the evening with my favorite lady.” He smiled back at you, giving you one long kiss before releasing his hold on you.

You giggled, still dizzy from the spinning, and took the heavy takeout bag from him. He followed you into the living room where you laid out the spread of containers, and you caught him fidgeting with the buckle on his belt – a nervous habit of his that you picked up on pretty early on.

“(Y/N)?” Clyde said, and you frowned slightly at the apprehension in his voice. “I was wonderin’…if you wouldn’t mind accompanyin’ me to a function this weekend.” He finished, and you were relieved that you didn’t have to prepare for dreadful news.

“You know I’ll always join you wherever you want me to.” You said, sitting on the couch and inviting him to his favorite spot: his head in your lap. “Is this about your friend from Utah? Are they going to be in town?” You asked, thinking about the letter.

“Yup. It ain’t just Tony either, it’s…” Clyde trailed off with a sigh, and your chest tightened for him. You knew there were a lot of things in Clyde’s past that you didn’t really know about, because he had had such a hard time living through them. The last thing you wanted to do was to make him deal with something he wasn’t ready for.

“You don’t have to tell me if it’s hard Clyde.” You said, stroking your fingers through his thick and luscious hair.

“I want to tell ya because it’s hard.” Clyde said, sitting up and taking your hand. He took a deep breath and looked you in the eye, something he was trying to be better at when he was nervous. “I know I don’t talk about it a lot, especially with me losin’ m’ arm and all, but I made some good pals overseas in the special forces. Some of them are having a bar-be-cue, a reunion of sorts, and I’ve been invited to go.”

He looked at you almost like he was afraid you’d say no, but you couldn’t help the smile that crept onto your face, and he felt a little more relaxed.

“Do we need to bring anything? I can whip up my famous mac n’ cheese.” You said, wanting him to know that you accepted every single part of him and his history.

“You don’t mind bein’ around a whole bunch of tough military types for the day?” Clyde asked, sounding slightly incredulous.

“If they mean a lot to you, they mean a lot to me.” You said, leaning in for a kiss.

Clyde’s heart soared, grinning against your lips as he kissed you back. He hadn’t spoken to his army buddies in a long time, at least since he had gotten a phone – otherwise he would have given them his number to call instead of having Tony send him a letter as the only way to reach him. He was nervous showing you more of that side of him, the side that had gotten injured and all the baggage that came along with it, but you had always been supportive and understanding, willing to listen and to help him through all the other bad parts of his life, he should have known you would be there for him during this too.

For the whole week leading up to the BBQ Clyde was nervous with excited energy. He had done a fashion show for you of different outfits he might wear, wanting your opinion on how he should wear his shirts. Should he shave? Should he cover his arm? Hat, or no hat?

You were patient and glad to help, giving your honest thoughts, like he should wear his shirts how he always does; tucked into his trousers and buttoned all the way up. No he shouldn’t shave, he looks handsome with the scruff he’s got, and no hat, it’ll get too hot.

You were an angel, and Clyde kept telling you that on the three hour drive up to Pittsburg, where Emmanuel lived and was hosting this whole thing. Before you two got out of the car, he gave your hand a firm squeeze, and you simply brought it to your lips and kissed the knuckles with a warm smile.

“Clyde Logan, you gentle giant how are ya?” A stocky man emerged from the front of the house when Clyde’s car beeped locked.

“I’m doing alright Emmanuel, it’s good ta see ya, you’re lookin’ pretty fit.” Clyde said, his demeanor immediately lightening up as he was crushed in a bear hug. The man, Emmanuel, ducked his head in a mock shy manner, before flexing and showing off his muscles.

“Thanks buddy! I’ve been spending a lot of time at the gym; they say swimming helps the back.” He shrugged, and Clyde just laughed. It was the first time he had laughed at something other than a corny joke you had made, and it made you grin.

“Clyde you never told us you had a smokin’ hot girlfriend!” Another man stepped out onto the front lawn, he was taller than Emmanuel, but not as tall as Clyde. You were pretty sure Clyde was always going to be the tallest man in the room, even among these guys.

“Shut up Mick,” Clyde teased without any real malice.

“Come on out back and come meet everyone!” Mick said, and the two of you followed him and Emmanuel through the house to the backyard, where it looked like a picture perfect scene out of a movie.

All the guys who were able rushed over to Clyde, and you couldn’t help but get emotional at how they all pulled him into a hug. It was clear to you that they hadn’t been together in a long time, and it warmed your heart to see them still caring about your man.

He managed to push through their wall of affection, and held out a hand for you, which you happily took.

“Everyone, this is (Y/N). (Y/N), this is Mick and his wife Kayla, Tony and his wife Anna, Ozzie, Emmanuel, and Reuben.” Clyde introduced you, and you shook hands with everyone, leaning over to give them kisses on the cheek like you had known these people your whole life.

“It’s so nice to meet everyone.” You said truthfully.

“I bet Clyde’s told you nothin’ about us!” Ozzie laughed, giving a playful elbow to Clyde’s side. “He still the strong silent type we knew back in the day?” He asked with a grin.

“I’m afraid you’re right. But I wouldn’t have him any other way.” You said, making Clyde blush scarlet. He kissed your cheek and the whole group of men wolf whistled, but you didn’t mind, you liked showing off how in love you were with this handsome man. “I brought mac n’ cheese, I hope that was alright.” You suddenly remembered the huge tinfoil covered tray you were holding.

“Damn Clyde, she’s gorgeous and brings food? You got yourself a keeper.” Tony winked, making Clyde wrap his good arm instinctively around your waist.

“You keep your hands to yourself now Tony.” Clyde warned, but he still had that smile on his face.

You stuck by Clyde’s side the entire night. You didn’t say much, but you didn’t have to. It was the men’s night to reconnect with one another after all these years away. Clyde wasn’t the only one to have gotten injured in the roadside mine that took his arm; it took Reuben’s right leg, and had caused Tony to go deaf in his left ear, and partially blind. None of them paid any attention to anyone’s prosthetics, unless it was to comment on how nice Clyde’s arm looked, with how high tech it was.

As the day progressed and more beers were consumed, they started to reminisce about the days when they were together overseas, each one having a different version of the same story. You couldn’t help but laugh at how Clyde seemed to be the mediator whenever two men bickered over minor details in a story, he had always been the calm and collected one in the group, that much was easy to tell.

Emmanuel brought out his tripod and camera, and they set up a timer to take a couple big group photos right when the light was golden, and you offered to take some photos of just the men. Tony had taken the camera from you afterwards, and told you to go stand over by Clyde, and he snapped a couple pictures of the two of you, grinning at one another like the love sick fools you were.

Everyone talked about what they were up to in life. Mick and Kayla were starting to try and have a baby, Emmanuel was the regional manager for a real estate firm in the area, Ozzie and Reuben were both working on memoirs of their time in the war, and Tony had just gotten married to Anna not five weeks earlier.

Clyde was very humble about his life with you, only saying that he was the owner of a bar back home, and that he spent every minute there or with you. You felt like the luckiest lady in the world with the way he smiled down at you, all you could do was sing Clyde’s praises and tell them about the wonderful things he does for the folks back home.

With the evening came s’mores and the passing around of old photo albums. You couldn’t help but snuggle close to Clyde on Emmanuel’s couch as you tried to get a good luck at a young Clyde with nearly shaven hair and a boy’s face. It struck you then just how young all these guys had been, but how young Clyde was in particular. He looked like he joined right out of high school. Clyde’s grip on your hand tightened as they flipped through the pages, some a little older, one in particular of Clyde showing off the tattoo he had on his forearm. You simply put your other hand on top of his, and squeezed back, silently letting him know you were there for him.

Not so long after that came the somber goodbyes, seeing as you and Clyde had three whole hours to drive back home. It was bittersweet, no one knew when they would all have time to coordinate like this again.

“I’m real glad you came.” Tony said, as he held out his hand for a goodbye shake.

“I’m glad y’all invited me.” Clyde said shyly.

“Are you kiddin’? I went through hell tryin’ to find out where to mail that letter! You’re not an easy man to find Clyde Logan.” Tony laughed, deep and scratchy, like he had been smoking a pack a day since the war.

Clyde released your hand for the first time all evening, to pull out a piece of paper from his pocket.

“Here’s my phone number, I want you to give it to all the guys. In case y’all ever want to call or something.” Clyde said, addressing the whole small party.

As Clyde started to say his goodbyes to the folks he had missed, you went around the room and hugged everyone goodbye yourself. As you pulled away from Mick he discreetly slipped the photo of a young Clyde Logan into your hand.

“I don’t know what you’ve done to him,” Mick started with a hushed voice, “But you’ve lit a fire in him like I’ve never seen before. I’m glad he has you.” He said.

“I’m glad to have him.” You said back, with a heartfelt smile, as you hugged him again.

A week or so later, the mailman brought you a small package from Utah, and some postcards from all over the country, no doubt sent by the other members of Clyde’s group. This time you happily recognized Tony’s handwriting and left it for Clyde to open, as he hadn’t come down for breakfast yet.

You had gone to work, but when you came home you noticed a few additions of décor to your kitchen; framed photographs of Clyde and his friends from the BBQ. One of the group, one of just the men that you had taken, and one of the two of you, smiling down at each other.

Clyde’s arm and tattoo was on full display, but so was the love you two had for one another, and that outshone anything else in the world.

[thefloorisbalaclava]

coda [pre-pragma]

coda - a concluding event, remark, or section

pairing: frankie ‘catfish’ morales x f!reader

warnings: angst

a/n: this is it y’all! the last pre-pragma one shot and it’s not a happy one. i apologize in advance.

summary: frankie says goodbye to one of the only good things in his life.

pragma masterlist

FIVE YEARS AGO

Frankie had lost himself. He looked at himself in the mirror and didn’t recognize the man staring back. Help. It’s what he needed, but would he get it? That was yet to be seen.

His phone rang but it wasn’t who he wanted it to be. “What Pope?” he answered.

“Go to her. Now.”

“Wait…what?” He walked out of the bathroom to his bedroom and sat on the bed.

“Just go and see her. Fix it.” Pope hung up leaving Frankie sitting there staring at his phone. He pulled up her number and his finger hovered over the ‘call' button. He couldn’t bring himself to press it.

Stop avoiding her, he thought.

His thumb came down on the screen and the phone rang and rang and…

“Hello?” Her voice was sad, tired. She sounded as though she had been crying.

“H-hey. I…uh…” He squeezed his eyes shut and covered them with his fingers before speaking again. “Can I see you?”

“I don’t-"

“Please? I just wanna talk.” He waited and waited for a response.

“Okay.” She didn’t sound happy about it. If anything, she sounded like she’d rather not see him ever again. He tried to speak again but she already hung up.

Frankie ran into the bathroom and fixed himself up as best as he could. He looked rough. He looked sick. She would know right away. Hell, everyone knew by now. His sickness wasn’t something you could cure with a week of antibiotics though. He turned away from the mirror because he couldn’t look at himself as he did what he normally did to calm his nerves now. A quick sniff and he felt alive again. He felt as though he could face her.

*

The drive to her place wasn’t a long one, but Frankie sat in the car for another ten minutes before getting the courage to walk into the building. He knocked on the door then stood back, removing his hat to smooth his hair back before replacing it. The door opened and he smiled, expecting to be met with a friendly face, but the smile on his face fell when he saw that she wasn’t smiling. She moved away from the door so he could walk in, but didn’t speak a word. He hugged her but she didn’t return it and that hurt more than anything. She was stiff in his arms and leaned away from him as he held her. Letting go, he looked for any sign that she felt something, but her face stayed the same.

“What do you want, Francisco?” she asked monotonously.

He let the door close behind him before speaking. “I…wanted to see you.”

“Did you? Are you sure Santi didn’t put you up to this?” She stood a few feet away from him, avoiding his gaze.

“Why would he need to put me up to this?” He forced a small laugh. She looked at him then. There was something in her eyes—contempt? He wasn’t sure but it’s not how she used to look at him.

“Look at you,” she said barely above a whisper. “Look at what you let yourself become.”

“I’m fine,” he lied.

She gave him an exasperated look. “Bullshit.”

He smiled. “You’re sounding like yourself again…”

“I’m leaving,” she said suddenly.

“You’re…what?” He heard her perfectly. Steadying himself, he sat on the couch and looked up at her.

“I’m leaving.”

He finally looked around and noticed the bags she had packed. “But you’re coming back, right?” Another forced laugh.

“No, Francisco, I’m not.”

“I…I don’t understand.” His heart felt heavy—heavier than the weight of the world he had been holding on his shoulders.

“I can’t stay here anymore. I can’t stay and watch you kill yourself. I can’t let you keep breaking my heart.” Even as she said this, she remained stoic as if she was all cried out. It was his turn to cry now and, god, did he cry.

“But…you can’t go…” He sat back on the couch. He was never one to beg, but he was prepared to beg for her. His vision blurred with tears as he stared at her, pleading silently.

“Frankie…” Her sad, quiet voice floated to his ears and he sat up straight. “There’s nothing here for me anymore.”

“There is. There’s…”

“You?” She shook her head. “You haven’t been you though, Frankie. Not for a long time.”

“I can be if you…if you help me,” he said.

“I’ve been trying to help you for the past few years! The help you need is not something I can give, not without me losing myself in the process.”

“I-I can’t do this without you. I’ll die,” he cried. She looked indifferent. And that’s when he realized. That’s when he knew he had finally done it—he had used up every last bit of her happiness until there was none left. Even as he sat there, crying and begging, she stood there unmoved, looking at the wall behind him.

“I have to do this for me. No matter how much I love you, I just can’t do this.”

He looked at her for a long time. His sadness and anger finally overcame him and he lost himself. “Why won’t you cry?! Why won’t you look at me?!” He saw her flinch a bit then close her eyes. “It’s still me. It’s still Frankie.”

“No.” Her voice cracked. He walked up to her and she stumbled backwards, making him stop in his tracks.

“You scared of me now?”

“You should go.” She turned away to hide her own tears that she finally allowed herself to shed.

“What?” He stood in the middle of the room which now felt cold and unfamiliar even though he’s been there too many times to count.

“You need to leave,” she said without even turning her head to look at him. “I don’t want you here anymore.”

“You don’t mean that,” he said and that’s when she turned to him.

“I fucking mean it!” she snapped, pointing at him. “I don’t want you here anymore! I want my Frankie back not whoever…this is!” She waved her hands up and down at him.

“I am your Frankie. I’ll always be your Frankie.” His voice cracked again.

“No…not anymore.” She looked over at her bags. “You need to leave so I can finish packing.”

“So…just like that, huh?”

“Just like that?” she repeated and laughed bitterly. “It’s not just like that…it’s been coming for years now! I tried so hard. I held on thinking you would get better but you didn’t. You only got worse.”

“And what do you think will happen if you leave?” he asked, moving closer to her.

“I don’t wanna hear it, Frankie. You are not blaming me for whatever you decide to do.” She moved away from him and walked to the window. “I love you so much it hurts,” she sobbed.

“Please don’t go.” He shook his head. “I can’t…”

“Maybe we’ll find each other again in another life. A happier one.” She sniffled and turned to him. He knew he looked a mess. “I need you to take care of yourself and be happy someday.”

“How can I be happy without you?” he asked. He shrugged, feeling lost and lonely.

“I can’t answer that.”

Suddenly, he dropped to his knees and choked out a sob. He had never cried like this before. His entire body shook and his chest hurt from the shaking, wracking breaths he had to take. He felt like he was dying. Maybe he was. He had to be because there was an angel kneeling with him. The angel took his hands in hers and looked into his eyes.

“Get better then come and find me,” she said.

“I won’t be able to find you if I’m lost myself,” he whispered. “Please stay.” She was his guiding light and without her he had neither purpose nor direction.

But he knew. He knew he had lost her already. Her mind was made up and he had lost the only woman he had ever loved in the blink of an eye.

No.

It wasn’t in a blink of an eye, he realized. She was right. It had been going downhill for years. He had been pushing her away, watching her drown in her sorrows for fucking years and she had finally had enough.

Then she touched his face, lifting it so he would look at her. Her eyes held a sadness that shook him to the core. She wiped his tears even as her own stained her cheeks.

“Frankie,” she whispered. “We’ll see each other again.”

“Will we?” he cried.

“I hope so.”

“When do you leave?” he asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“Can I hold you till then?” He smiled sadly and she actually wrapped her arms around him. So, here they were, two people kneeling in the middle of the floor, holding each other. And it felt better than anything had in a long time.

*

Frankie watched as she said goodbye to Santiago feeling a little jealous that he was still able to make her smile and laugh like that. With one more hug from Santiago, she made her away over to him.

“So,” she said quietly, stopping right in front of him.

“So,” he choked out, nearly bursting into tears. He pulled the cap down a little more and lowered his head. “You sure about this?”

“I have to, Francisco.”

“Will you come back?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Maybe one day.”

“So, I have a little hope.” He tried to smile but he cried instead.

“Come here.” She wrapped her arms around him and let him cry. He laid his head on her shoulder and did just that.

“I’m gonna miss you so much.”

“I’ll miss you too.” She made him lift his head then held it in her hands and…kissed him. Their tears mingled on each other’s cheeks as their lips touched. He never wanted it to end. He never wanted to say goodbye but he had to.

She pulled away and held onto his hands, squeezing them gently. “See you when I see you…”

“Sometime soon I hope.”

“You never know.” She dropped his hands and he flexed them, trying to his best to remember what her hands felt like in his.

“Bye,” he said sadly.

“See you.” She was never good at goodbyes. She turned away and walked to her car and he didn’t expect her to turn back this time. He didn’t deserve it.

But she did and just like the first time, everything went in slow motion and they were the only two in the world. In that moment, he mattered. In that moment, he had hope.

“I love you,” he said quietly knowing she couldn’t hear him.

And in her car, hiding away from the world, she had said the words too.

pragma taglist: @cable-kenobi @saltywintersoldat @ahopelessromanticwritersworld @pedrosdoll @psychobillybunny @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead @keeper0fthestars @mrsparknuts @thinemineours @huliabitch @synystersilenceinblacknwhite​ @mrscrain-x7 @fioccodineveautunnale @gooddaykate @themilkface @ms-dont-care @mus1caln0tes @awesomefandomsunited @seawhisperer @virtualxjournality @badassbaker​ @lokiaddicted @forever-rogue @sloantravels @javier-djarin​ @longitud-de-onda

permanent taglist: @demigod-dragonrider-schoolidol​ @tiffdawg​ @smartsexycalmreflective @cryptkeepersoul​ @heresathreebee​ @jawabear​ @agirllovespasta​ @opheliaelysia​ @thisis-theway @huliabitch

sorry if i forgot anyone!

[just-a-fellow0]

Just some things about my brother playing Obey Me!:

- only does Nightmare, sometimes battles for animations and surprise guest

- doesn't really understand english, knows nothing of the story

- has like 5 accounts, adds new delete-after-summoning when there's free dvs

- always pronounces battle wrong (to my amusment)

- likes using whip on the guys (he thought he's giving them a cable at first, cracked up when it hit them - I had to tell him it's a whip)

- CEO of bullying Mammon

- highkey in love with Levi

- told him Solomon's my fav, now flexes every Solomon SSR+ card he gets (what a bitch)

-thinks Levi has a gf due to the UR+ sleeping card with Ruri pillow (I just laughed, I didn't tell him anything :D)

- plays strictly when there's free dvs, especially tries when there's something I want (what a bitch pt.2)

-said Simeon is ugly (how is that even possible) but thinks the bathroom UR+ card looks good, somehow thinks he's hanging from a chandelier in it

- probably hates Asmo bc of that free UR+, he doesn't like it

- his reaction to Asmo's Devilgram cards was "gay"

- likes Satan a lot

- Belphie = flexing cards number 2

- likes Belphie too, when I first asked him who's the best he pointed at Belphie (I mean I lowkey named our guinea pig after him so...)

- we're getting a dog soon, a lot of "what if we name him Satan" jokes (or other OM characters, but it's usually Satan)

- thinks Lucifer looks good, overall neutral about him

- doesn't really like Beel

- calls Barbatos "chess player"

- doesn't like Luke too much but thinks his UR is cute

- overdramatic af

For the info, I haven't asked him about his sexuality yet

[huntsman-ash]

RWBY V8E4 LiveThoughts

And were back at it again, this week with turkey and Italian preserved sausage as a snack! Lets see what RT has for us this week.

Oh, 20 minutes. Are they normally this long?

Oh, wait, the openings almost 2 minutes long. Thats more like it.

And now to Robyn and Qrow. Seems Robyns actually liking Qrow a little bit now. 

Guess the cells aren’t secured if a fly got into Schnee’s. This a “Fly on Mike Pence’s face” reference?

Qrow sounds more growly again. Did he get smacked back two seasons by Clover dying?

If by “darkness” you mean “Tyrian” then, yes. Also dude, its Clover. He was shit anyway. All the Aces are shit. Dont feel too bad about him.

And he’s got a point too. If Clover had thought with his head instead of his dick (yes, Im sure they were gonna fuck, Fair Games totally a thing), he probably wouldnt be dead now, and Tyrian would be the one with the sword through his chest.

But of course this is RWBY and V7/8 so things cant go their ways.

Ouch. Deep thoughts of Qrow. And some interesting stuff from Robyn too. I still think I’d prefer hopeandharmonizing’s Briar, though.

Marrows glare gives me life. Hare’s just a moron right now though, but thats no real surprise. She’s immature emotionally.  Honestly, shes...kind of like a less bad version of our current President. Always has to be the best at everything, fastest, leader, whatever.

Thats probably why this is grating on her so much. Even though shes TECHNICALLY the Ace’s leader now (I think? Seemed like she was Clovers lieutenant, so by rate of succession she’s in command now)

A glance at the little floating control pad... “Clerance access only”. Okay, that...seems weird. Shouldnt it say something like authorized personell only? Maybe it means access by clerance only or something.

Then Robyn’s name, and then process ID 4591-27. No idea what thats useful for but its there.

Also Marrow seems to be the only competent member of the Aces rn. 

Ah now we get to see some of the hills around Atlas. For those of you who have seen my headcanons on the Hunter-Killers and their base of operations, Fortress Academy, its out in these hills somewhere.

The music sounds like a boss fight.

The screen on Ren’s hoverbike reads “HVB Rhino” and “HD5800″ I can only assume HVB stands for “hoverbike” and Rhino must be its name, like how the dropships are Mantas. No clue what the number is. 

Also apparently the cold in Solitas is so bad it corrupts machinery?

Ahh, good, some action. Lets see what we get now. Ohh, teamwork. And again, signs that aura allows you to move faster and farther than a normal human

Heh, it really is like a boss fight, like the chase scene at the end of the first Viking level in For Honor.

Oh, and it can call for reenforcements literally out of nowhere? Or is the whole tundra of Solitas just CRAWLING with Grimm?

Yes, yes it did just call for backup, Yang. Maybe these are all forward scouts and ambush units from the Grimmstorm. They did say its the biggest...

Another banger from Casey Lee Williams...

What the hell happened in Solitas to cause this geography? Seriously, its a line of bridges over a gap in two cliffs...that cant be natrual, not that equal in distance.

Man, those bikes didnt even last half an episode...I guess thats fair, they are facing obsurd odds. Or maybe they just want Yang to be the only one with a bike.

And there goes the dropwall. Woops.

Also you can just kinda see it but they bounce off the rock and thats why they slow down. Useful.

Also this part with them falling off the edge reminds me of the ending cutscene of Halo 4s Forerunner level, where Chief flies out of a portal and almost goes sailing off a cliff in a Ghost.  Except here, the bike stays on the land and THEY go off the cliff.

I paused at just the right time cause YANGS FACE XD

Holy shit what are Ren’s weapons cables MADE OF? The one atop him is holding him AND the weight of his two teammates. And the one below has both Jaune and Yang. No sign of slippage or breackage at all. 

Ahhh there’s the whaleship (Monstra? Fuck it Im gonna keep calling it the whaleship). So yeah my headcanon now is the mountain its right next too is Menachite, where Fortress is. 

Oh hey back to the Schnee manor of all things! Does...this mean military invasion of the Schnee grounds. Hey Whitley. Lesbians are here. 

Someone make a video cut of Weiss banging on the door to the “Knock knock open up the door its real!” part of that one song.

Hehehehhe. Nice Weiss.

Also convenient about the house staff. Good thing RT doesnt need to animate them or Willow now...

I hope the staff took some of the silverware and some paintings on the way out.

Why is MAY the one carrying Nora.

Ah so now they’re stuck out there with no cell service. Hehe.

Ah okay so the cold in Solitas DOES eat aura. Good, my headcanon still kind of stands. 

I wonder, does wearing proper cold weather clothing (like bundled up stuff) help? Or does it cut right through...

Why is JAUNE the one hauling the bike? Isnt Yang the strongest? Or maybe they take turns.

Ahhh inter-team talking. Also, outpost. Hmm. Atlas one? Overrun if I had to guess. Unless he saw Fortress. Which I doubt.

I do love the circling shot here, with the light on Yang’s hair and the shadows on Ren. Its...really artistic and emotional. GREAT WORK RT. 

Rens got points. And hes saying stuff I myself have been saying for ages, which is good. I wonder why this is how Ren is now...working with the Ace Ops? Being afraid of loosing Nora? No one tell him what happened last episode.

Also, Jaune’s hair seems to have gotten less crazy in recent episodes. It looks less like a banana and more like a close tactical cut.

Yangs got a point.

Ahhh and now we get to see the inside of the whale. 

SALEM FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP SHOWING THE FUCK OFF. SERIOUSLY. WE GET IT. 

...this is gonna be a really criingy torture section, isnt it.

Someones gonna take that “hound didnt break you” line in the WRONG direction 

It is amusing the only thing holding Oscar down is the Hound actually. 

Ah so they’re still searching the remains of Beacon.

Also I like how Salem calls them “her forces” as if its anything but a random bunch of expendable monsters. Like, bruh, you cant search anything with THAT.

Ignoring the boring chat between these two, notice how the Hound’s shoulder literally flexes and shifts when Salem touched it. I dont think this thing is solid at all aside from the head and the bone claws...the whole thing is just amorphous Grimm material that can adapt to whatever situation it requires. A specialist unit. A...Hunter hunter.

Yo what the fuck was that. Magic? Huh. Did we actually SEE magic for once in the show? Only took us 8 FUCKING SEASONS...

Doesnt seem to be anything but an energy blast/pain never firing though. I assume his auras still gone, cause its completely singed his shirt, but it didnt do much else.

...Im not impressed.

She really needs to stop touching his face, its creeping me out.

HAHA SHE CANT DO IT HERSELF SHE HAS TO RELY ON HAZEL BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF HIM. I think we know where she stands now, doesnt she...say what you will about her letting Hazel have his vengeance (which is very valid, even he admits hit), but me? I think she A) cant actually beat up on Ozma herself because she still cares and B) shes almost out of magic too. Its weakened as the Gods have been gone and shes been forced to rely on the Grimm and on pawns. Basically, once she and Oz are both gone? That’s it for magic. Remnant will belong to the Grimm...and to technology. 

At which point without Oz around to hold them back Atlas is going to go fucking BONKERS and basically ensure the Grimm get pushed back into a corner and then finally permenantly STAMPED OUT.

More Whale insides. Seems like most of its empty grandious spaces. Or possibly muscle? Hard to tell. Either way theres a lot of open air in there...with tight corridors. If you fired a thermobaric warehead into one of the chambers the resulting blastc could possibly blow the doors off and send a raging fireball through the entire thing...Hmm. Filing that away for later.

NEO IS SO SHORT ITS FUNNY TO ME. I know its just positioning BUT SHE LOOKS EVEN SHORTER IN THIS SHOT THAN USUAL.

More note on the Hound; the “flesh” around its right shoulder spike actually sinks down when it stops moving. Its neck shifts and moves too, like the material isnt solid, but recirculating.

I also dont see any eyes. And it looks like it has some kind of...forehead mouth? Def looks like teeth down the ridge of its spine.

Oh boy yeah that...whole thing is basically melting in on itself.

I wont lie; hearing Cinder get berated by CORTANA (and yes, I still hear Cortana in Salem, espeically now that the two characters are kind of one and the same, both megalomaniacal leaders of giant armies, bar the fact that one of them is about a TRILLION times more dangerous than the other because one of them has access to Guardian Custodies and the other one is...well kind of lame and has to have beefy dudes beat up on small children etc) is pleasing to me. 

Get fucked, Cinder.

And THERE is Cortana again too.

Neo Marry Popins’s Ya’lling is fucking CUTE. And I love her little smirk.

Wait the whale’s that close?

..oh my...hold on.

...thats it. THATS ATLAS’S AIR FLEET!?!

12 AIRSHIPS? 12? EXCUSE ME!?

ARE YOU LEGITAMETLY TELLING ME THE BIGGEST MILITARY ON REMNANT HAS FEWER AIRSHIPS THAN THE SMALLEST NAVY ON EARTH HAS FRIGATES? YOUR FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT? THERE HAS TO BE MORE SOMEWHERE. THIS IS A JOKE, A STRAIGHT UP FUCKING JOKE.

...

No, thats...thats it. Thats Atlas’s airfleet. 12 tiny vessels. I swear it was bigger last season...

...HA! HAHA! HA! Oh, Ironwood, and Atlas as a whole...you deserve everything your about to get. I hope you die SCREAMING, and that when your bodies fall bleeding and shattered to Mantle, the people down there will realize that, no. You cant just assume Hunters will do all the work for you

THIS IS REMNANT. ITS KILL OR BE KILLED. YOU EITHER MAKE A FORCE POWERFUL ENOUGH THAT THE GRIMM RUN FROM YOU  OR YOU DIE INSTEAD. ATLAS FAILED. NOW THEY SUFFER.

Emerald stop simpin.

Also that is...the SHITTEST outpost...I have ever seen in my life. My overall thought process of Atlas is...sinking even LOWER than before. 

Though it seems more like a waystation. Bed, Dust, some dudes coat on it. Dead heater. Its probably a rest spot for Specialists out in the tundra.

Ren does the emo sit. Lol. Yang even says it. Brood himself to death.

Alright whats this now...something forcing itself out of the tundra?

And thats it for today! Cool ass concept art at the end there too. 

[stillness-in-green]

MLA Week, Day 2: Judge/Shackles/Freedom

A threefer!  Spinner and his brand new lieutenants.  (Look, until Horikoshi starts deigning to give these guys names, they are free real estate.)

I was originally going to use this day to write about one of the more thuggy or delinquent-looking lieutenants, spin out an ex-con not being able to get his feet back under him and so sliding into the MLA’s sphere, but then I remembered this three foot tall goblin in a drugstore Halloween costume and decided to go with him instead.

Also included is Spinner’s number 1, this gal: 

Content Notes: Discussions of disability, portrayal of the marginalized having become the radicalized.  The Liberation Army’s really fascinating, y’all. 

———–      ———–      ———–      ———–

«I think you’ll like this one,» Nimble announces, the rainbow-colored letters of her quirk dancing in the air.  

“You thought I’d like the first two, too,” Spinner replies skeptically, looking away from the floating words to focus on his brand new number one, a woman with a face like a doll whose sculptor had gotten as far as the eyes—huge and green—before giving up on the rest, little things like a nose and a mouth.  She breathes by absorbing air through her skin like a frog, apparently, which is why she dresses the way she does, a distractingly low-cut tank top and a sweater jacket that he has never once seen covering her shoulders.  

She shrugs, expressive eyes briefly fluttering closed, and movement in the air draws Spinner’s attention back over to where her quirk—Sky Write—has spelled out her response.  

«I thought you’d like them too.  Can I call him in?»

“Yeah, go ahead.”  Just as long as he’s not a not surly bastard like the last two.  They’d had good quirks, the last two, but damned if Spinner’s going to work with people who can’t even manage to keep resentment out of their eyes for the length of a job interview, or whatever this process of picking subordinates out of an army full of people that were trying to kill him less than two weeks ago is called.  

Nimble’s letters dissolve into a shapeless blur as she looks over to the door, eyebrows briefly lowering in concentration.  A few seconds later, the door to Spinner’s makeshift office opens. Spinner’s eyes drop almost half-a-person’s length in height and he tries to keep the surprise off his face.  

“A kid?”

«He’s twenty-one, actually.»  

“What she said.”  The voice comes out a bit muffled through the black hood covering the kid’s—okay, the twenty-one-year old’s face.  But if he’s the same age as Spinner, he sure as hell doesn’t look it.  He can’t be over a meter tall, with the skinniest legs Spinner’s ever seen sticking out from under the hem of the black robe he wears like a kid running around the house beneath a sheet.  A big feathery ruff sits around his neck like a dried-out wreath.  

“Scarecrow, reporting in.” The weird little gremlin settles into a military rest in front of the desk, far enough back that it’s not too obvious that he has to tilt his head to look over it.  “It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”  

Spinner stares at him, trying to suppress a grimace.  Scarecrow stares back through little eyeholes cut in the hood, but without being able to see more of his face, it’s impossible to tell if he’s glaring or just has really piercing eyes.  

“Right.”  Spinner glances over at Nimble, who nods.  Her response scrawls itself in the air between them, facing first him, then angling to face the gremlin.  

«Show him your meta-ability, Scarecrow.  Catch!»  

She pulls out a 100 yen coin and deftly balances it on her thumb before flicking it out into the air over the desk.

Spinner bites back a yelp as bug legs unfold from beneath Scarecrow’s ruff, long, segmented things that narrow down to sharp points at the tips.  Two thin lines of silk jet out from the knobby second joints, catching on the spinning coin, and the legs reel it back in, bouncing it in the air, spinning it like a weight on a string, then cocooning it up with quick efficiency.  It falls neatly into his hand—not a normal human hand, Spinner notices belatedly, but a prosthetic, hard plastic and super articulated, with cables visible beneath the individual parts.

“I can fully cocoon up to twelve adult men a day,” Scarecrow rattles out.  “I can also pull myself up the sides of walls and move between buildings, if they’re close enough together.  I was inducted into the Meta Liberation Army on my sixteenth birthday; my parents have been members for ten years.  I know we’re a relatively new family, but—”

“I don’t—”  Spinner stops himself from finishing that sentence with care about that stuff, amending to, “I’m not worried about your—generation or whatever.”  Is that better?  Neither Scarecrow or Nimble react to it with narrowed eyes or a snarl, anyway. Promising?  “Why’d you join up?”  

Jumping on a bandwagon is one thing, but at least that takes a running start and a leap.  Not like joining a cult because it’s just the family business, Spinner thinks viciously at his memory of that greasy asshole Trumpet’s plated mask.

Scarecrow stares at him for a long second.  Spinner does his best to look serious, like he’s actually got a whole prepared list of questions or whatever.  Like he knows what he’s doing.  

Finally, Scarecrow holds up his hands, both spread wide, both obvious prosthetics.  His bug legs twitch and probe at the air.  

“I was born with no arms,” he says.  “Just my forelegs.  It’s not the same as having opposable thumbs, obviously, but it’s better than you’d think. But my teachers used to scold me for raising a foreleg instead of a hand to answer a question or carry things.  The kind of stuff a kid who didn’t have a birth defect could use their quirk to do and no one would look twice.  If I go out in public and so much as open doors for myself with them, people look at me funny.  Because I look funny.”

Don’t use your quirk at school outside of training lessons, Shuuichi-kun.  Spinner remembers that kind of bias, yeah.  All the non-heteromorphic kids could run around the schoolyard playing tag with snowballs in July, but heaven forbid he use his quirk to climb a tree so he can get away from bullies for the length of a lunchbreak.  

He pushes the memory away and nods at Scarecrow to keep him talking.  Not that the guy needs much pushing—he talks like someone who’s told the story before, hard-edged, voice intense despite a mid-ranged pitch.  He’s got just a hint of a—a hiss or a lisp, something that muddles the edges of his hard consonants.  The hood doesn’t move like he’s hiding mandibles under there, but…

“I’ve been wearing prosthetics for longer than I can remember.  The government pays for most of it, since I was born this way, but there’re a lot of limitations on it.  How often they’ll replace them, what my folks got charged for them.  It was always tight, and the kinds of prosthetics government money buys definitely weren’t as nice as these.”  He flexes his false fingers demonstratively.

“My folks and I met Re-Destro—” and there’s that note of reverence, the same tone Re-Destro himself’s using about Shigaraki these days “—when I was nine.  A family friend recommended Detnerat’s products to us, and he took an interest. That’s how we found out about the Army.”

“Yeah?”  Spinner crosses his arms over his chest.  

“My parents joined up because of me.  But I joined up for myself.  Because people think that because I have prosthetics, I shouldn’t need to use my forelegs in public.” Scarecrow’s voice sharpens.  “Like I don’t have the right to use the limbs I was born with.  I should have that right.  We all should.”

“We’re not out to reform society, you know,” Spinner cautions him.  He’s had to tell Re-Destro that too many times already, and that’s just having grasped it himself there in the ruins of Deika.  “That’s not what Shigaraki’s after.”  

Scarecrow gives him another long, quiet look, unreadable behind his hood.  Finally—slower, less practiced—he nods and answers, “Destro’s teaching was that oppression will always lead to revolution.  The Grand Commander of the Liberation Army is the one who’ll throw off those chains.  Whatever he makes of the world, I want to be there to help, not sitting in my shackles waiting for someone to hand me an answer.”

Spinner breathes out hard. He scratches at his hair.  

“…Right,” he manages. Don’t admit he said it better than you could.  “Well put.” He turns to Nimble and adds, “Well, he didn’t offend me.”

«I know you’d like him.»  Her words practically shimmy in the air, flickering green and yellow and pink.  «Then do we have our number 2?»

Spinner glances back over at Scarecrow, who’s staring determinedly out the window behind the desk, his back toy soldier straight.  He still looks more like a kid in a costume than anything else, but…  

Well, I like him better than people like the politician.  And we need to keep things moving, anyway.  Don’t stop running or someone might catch up.  

“Yeah, I think so” he says aloud, then takes a breath and leans over the desk, offering a hand.  Scarecrow takes it without a second’s pause, plastic clicking against Spinner’s scales.  “Welcome to the Support Regiment.”  

———–      ———–      ———–      ———–

I’ll have some links up about things here when I post this to AO3, but in the meantime, Scarecrow--whose condition at birth was called amelia--wears a hood not because he’s embarrassed of a bug face, but rather because he’s embarrassed of the way various surgeries to repair cleft palate and cleft lip have left his face looking.  He’s much more confident in showing off his meta-ability than what he thinks of as his disability.  

Scarecrow is also vaguely modeled on an insect called a webspinner, a tiny little bug that lives in big communal web “galleries” and has the unusual feature of its silk production apparatus being located on its front legs rather than the base of its abdomen like spiders.  The choice felt appropriate for an unusually tiny cult member with top-mounted spider legs.   

[script-a-world]

My story takes place in a world that frequently experiences earthquakes due to regularly shifting plates. I was wondering if you had any reccomendations for the types of architecture that would naturally develop in response to this? I've been reading about flexible foundations but I wasn't sure if there were any cultures who had developed specific methods of construction.

Feral: I have a bunch of academic links for you to look at, so I’m just gonna pull a Tex and dump them all at the bottom. But first to briefly summarize:

First of all, given your question seems to be about developing architecture, all the methods I’m going to talk about show up pre-industrial revolution for any given earthquake prone area. I’m not sure what you mean by “frequent” earthquakes. The methods I’ll be describing are based on real world earthquake prone areas, specifically focusing on traditional construction methods in the Himalayas, so take note that environmental factors gradually wear anything down. Even if the construction technique is “earthquake resistant,” that doesn’t make it “earthquake proof.” If your earthquakes are coming much more frequently, then the buildings will break down faster. In which case, you might be better off having your peoples building structures that are not meant to stand up to earthquakes, are lightweight and won’t be a hazard when they fall, and are very easy to rebuild once they’re knocked down - and there are cultures throughout history living in earthquake prone areas who have done just this. The biggest risk associated with earthquakes (just earthquakes though, so not including earthquake-related natural phenomena like tsunamis) is heavy structures collapsing on people; that’s what accounts for most deaths. You should also consider what magnitude of earthquakes your people are experiencing. The methods and materials I’ll be talking about should be ok for earthquakes that are low to medium on the Richter scale, and while there are documented cases of buildings of these types surviving particularly strong earthquakes (that have leveled more modern methods for earthquake resistance), we’re talking about earthquake resistant, not earthquake proof architecture.

Ok, let’s talk shape first. Uniformity and symmetricality are a must. 4-cornered structures - rectangular or square - will work best. The more corner-joints you have, the weaker the building, but at the same time, too few joints (as in a triangle) is not as stable, so 4 is your magic number. A lower center of gravity will also help with stability, so build out, not up. I’m not familiar with any vernacular or traditional domed architectural styles that specifically developed for earthquake resistance. This is likely a combination of true domes being real difficult to develop, the structure needing to be as regular as possible, and the materials typically used to build earthquake resistant vernacular buildings not being conducive to regular, uniform dome building. However, you may have heard that domes are super strong, and I mentioned that you want as few corners as possible. So, yeah, if your people can build (the right kind of) domes well… do that.

Now let’s talk about supporting the structure (assuming you’re going with a square or rectangular building). There are a few ways to stabilize the joints, like corner braces or quoins. To overall stabilize the building you have a few techniques. The walls can be made thicker on a taper; in other words, in a trapezoidal shape with the thicker side on the ground. You can use buttresses (they don’t have to be super fancy flying ones, though adding an arch is another great form of wall support). You also would definitely want to make sure you’re using ties because it’s tensile strength (aka “pulling strength”) we’re worried about when it comes to earthquakes, not compressive (aka “pushing strength”). (We’re obviously also worried about compressive strength in buildings because that’s, like, gravity, but tensile strength is the special kind of concern that seismic activity creates.)

And finally, materials and how to put ‘em together… The material and construction technique that is currently being the most studied is the Bhatan and/or Taq style structures in the Himalayas, particularly in northern India and Pakistan and in Nepal, because of the 2005 & 2019 earthquakes in Kashmir and the 2015 earthquake in Nepal. They use a combination of timber and  masonry (often dry-stacked, aka mortarless). Instead of using the timber in columns, they actually create horizontal frames that they place at regular intervals between the masonry. Timber on the horizontal like that has really great tensile strength (though not great compressive strength), and the stones have great compressive strength but not great tensile strength. This masonry tension-concern is mitigated by the way the stones are stacked: they are allowed to shift within their timber frame, which disperses the side to side energy via friction.

One last thing to consider is where they are building. The last thing anyone wants is for their house to survive the earthquake but then get wiped out by a landslide or tsunami. Site selection will be a major concern for your people.

Check out these resources for more in depth information: (btw vernacular architecture “represents the majority of buildings and settlements created in pre-industrial societies and includes a very wide range of buildings, building traditions, and methods of construction.”)

How Can Vernacular Construction Techniques Sustain Earthquakes: The Case of the Bhatar Buildings

Notes on the Seismic Adequacy of Vernacular Buildings

Earthquake Resistant Vernacular Architecture | Analysis

The Earthquake Resistant Vernacular Architecture in the Himalayas

Seismic Behavior of Vernacular Architecture

An Overview of Seismic Strengthening Techniques Traditionally Applied in Vernacular Architecture

Vernacular Architecture in Post-Earthquake Nepal

Seismic-Resistant Building Practices Resulting from Local Seismic Culture

Check out this dome: Stunning Geodesic Domes from Romania Can Handle Earthquakes up to 8.5 on the Richter Scale

And if you are looking for more modern, industrial and/or smart, design: Designing for Earthquakes: 7 Buildings that Guard Against Seismic Activity

Synth: Traditional Chinese and Japanese wood architecture have structural elements called Dougong and Tokyō, respectively, forms of passive vibration control. They’re made of interlaced brackets (Dougong), or brackets and blocks (Tokyō), that join the building’s roof to the support columns. Both are held together purely through the way the pieces fit, without any sort of adhesives or nails/screws. This lack of fasteners gives the support structure a great deal of flexibility, allowing it to bend and twist during an earthquake, instead of shattering and bringing the building down.

The Inca did something similar with their dry-stone construction, stonework without the use of mortar to hold the blocks together. Just like with Dougong and Tokyō, no fasteners or adhesives meant the blocks could move a bit during an earthquake, dissipating the energy via a process called coulomb damping, which is just a fancier way of saying that the friction between the rocks got rid of the shaky motion of the earthquake by turning it into heat.

Mass dampers in buildings are relatively new -- humanity didn’t start putting them in buildings until about the 1950s -- but in their simplest form they’re basically a big weight mounted inside a building via some springs or cables, counteracting and dampening (hence the name), the resonance caused by seismic waves. Even if your world’s inhabitants have yet to reach their version of the Industrial Revolution, I would consider it possible for them to develop a technique like this.

By now you may have noticed that a pretty common thread running through all these different construction methods is that they create structures that are inherently, well, kinda jiggly. At first you’d think that surely a really solid, rigid building would pull through the best, but it is in fact the complete opposite. Now obviously a building with the consistency of overcooked pasta won’t survive a quake either -- it needs to be able to support its own weight, for starters, and something too bendy would just collapse under the slightest off-centre force -- but a building that can flex, or is mounted on a base that can move -- will fare much better.

Wikipedia’s earthquake engineering page is a good jumping-off point for some more research.

[chellerbelles]

Rogue/Gambit Fanworks week, Day 4: What Gambit Keeps in the Pockets of his Trenchcoat

FYI: This story takes place in the X-Men Evolution universe

Rogue straightened, Vertigo’s unconscious body on the ground before her. She caught her breath sharply and began running down the hallway.

“Rogue!” Jean called after her. “Where are you going? We have to stay—”

Rogue turned the corner, continued running down the hall, made a left, and finally stopped outside of a door, which she opened using Vertigo’s code. She stepped inside.

Hanging from the ceiling in an excessive number of chains, and stripped down to his underwear, was Gambit.

“Why Roguey, isn’t this a nice surprise?” Gambit greeted her.

“Huh,” Rogue said as she looked him over. “And here everyone was thinking you were working for Sinister.”

“Everyone?” Gambit asked pointedly.

“Well,” Rogue gave him a coy smile, “everyone except me. I’m guessing Sinister doesn’t trust you.”

“I can’t imagine why he would think I was at all untrustworthy,” Gambit replied. “Soooo, whatcha say you get me down? I think I’m starting to lose feeling in my arm…” He looked over at his left arm and flexed his fingers.

“I think I could manage something.”

Rogue looked around the room. It was little more than a cell. There was a camera in one corner, but Rogue knew Kitty had already disabled base security so the camera was recording exactly nothing right now. Rogue frowned and tugged at Veritgo’s mind, which was still fresh.

“Hmm…” Rogue said thoughtfully. “Your stuff is just next door. I’ll be right back.”

“I already miss you,” Gambit called after her.

Rogue chuckled to herself. She let herself into the nearby storage room, where a box simply labelled “Gambit” had been temporally stashed. She lifted the lid and peeked inside, but everything was still as Vertigo remembered it. Rogue grabbed the box, and his staff which was leaning on a wall nearby, and headed back to Gambit cell.

“Now, let me see,” Rogue said as she set the staff against the wall. “I’m sure that you’ve got multiple sets of lockpicks in here.”

“Whatever makes you think that?” Gambit asked mischievously as Rogue sat on the floor and opened up the box once more.

“What do you think?”

Rogue started pulling things out of the box. Half a dozen decks of cards, one half empty; nail clippers.

“Talcum powder?” Rogue asked, and held up the small container for him to see.

“Did they go through the pockets on my coat?” Gambit frowned.

“Yep. What’s this for?”

“Stopping my cards from getting sticky,” he replied, “you know, from the oils on your skin.”

Rogue looked at him, and then set the powder by the mostly-new playing cards. “I find it very hard to believe that any deck of cards stays in your hands long enough to get sticky.”

Gambit grinned wickedly at her. “There might be other, say we say, professional reasons why I keep that on me.”

“Now that I can believe,” Rogue replied.

Out came a set of weighted dice, his phone, a packet of gum, and a palm-sized mirror. Rogue held the mirror up.

“I always suspected you were a narcissist,” she said teasingly.

“How else am I supposed to make sure I look gorgeous before entering a room?” Gambit replied with a smirk.

Rogue gave him a long look and shook her head. “This is a thief thing too, isn’t it?”

Gambit chuckled as she set the phone aside. “Mayyyybe.”

“Uh huh.” Rogue pulled out a bottle of oil, partially wrapped in a cloth.

“My lockpicks cannot possibly be that deeply buried. I have at least seven sets on me at all times.”

Rogue removed a small bottle of graphite. “Better make that eight and start keeping one in your underwear.”

“Good idea.”

Rogue glanced up at him as she set aside a small ball of rubber bands. “Of course you would take that seriously.”

“I’ve been chained to a wall.”

Rogue gestured towards him with a slim jim. “If you had any in your underwear right now, you wouldn’t be able to reach them.”

“No,” Gambit replied slyly, “but you would.”

“Touche.”

She pulled out a cable crimper, a pair of pliers, tweezers, and a bottle of clear nail polish before she finally found not just one, but three sets of lockpicks.

“Ah ha!” Rogue stood, lockpicks in hand, and looked up at Gambit hanging from the ceiling. “Right, so, how are we doing this? Do I need to absorb you and pick the locks myself?”

“Nah. There’s a notch on the end of my staff. Just hook the lockpicks on that and lift them up to my mouth,” Gambit replied cheerfully.

Rogue grabbed his staff and spotted the notch. She hooked the lockpicks on and then looked up.

“Wait, what lock are you going to be unpicking?” she asked with a frown. “There’s nothing in reach.”

“This one,” Gambit said, and gestured with his head towards a lock that was just to the left of behind his head.

“How? You can’t turn around.”

“I can turn around enough. Just pass me the lockpicks. I wasn’t kidding about losing feeling in my arm.”

“Alright,” Rogue replied dubiously.

She lifted the staff and held it carefully in place. Gambit snagged the lockpicks with this teeth, and after taking a moment to move them around, twisted himself around to attack the lock.

“Oh hell!” Rogue exclaimed. “No! No one should be able to contort themselves like that. It’s just wrong.”

She turned around in complete refusal to watch any more, and looked back at the box. She started pulling out his clothes, all but his belt and boots had been cut open in various places, no doubt to get at hidden pockets. As she shook the clothes out, other items were dislodged, which she put back into the box (along with the other bits and pieces she’d taken out in her search). She found the rest of his lockpicks, most of them singular; a screwdriver with multiple heads; a pen; and electrical tape.

“Ooh, condoms,” Rogue said as she picked them up off the ground. “Good to know you’re fully prepared for our next date.”

The chains rattled and Rogue reluctantly looked up to see Gambit wriggling himself free of several layers of chains. He passed the lock picks along to his right hand, and started work on the next lock.

“I won’t be caught off guard again,” Gambit replied. “Although, it was fun breaking into Scott’s room.”

“I thought you said it was easy?”

“It was. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t still fun.”

And with another rattle of chains, Gambit dropped to the ground. He stretched and wriggled his arms and legs.

“Ah,” he said. “Much better.”

As he began to get dressed, Rogue looked around for anything she might have missed. She turned, and saw that a small white jewellery box had fallen behind her. She grabbed it.

“Who’d ya steal this from?” she asked as she opened the box.

Inside was a ring. A heart shaped ruby, surrounded by smaller diamonds, and set in a white gold band. She started at it. Her mind raced: Was this what it looked like? Was it meant for her? Did her original thought still apply and this was just something he stole from someone else? Were both options true?

Gambit dropped his tattered coat into the box, interupting her chain of thought. “Gonna have to fix that before I can be seen wearing it again.” He grinned at Rogue, who continued to look at the ring. “Thanks for getting me out of a jam.”

Rogue’s head jerked up. “Oh, um, sure, any time, sugar.”

He smiled faintly at her. “You should read the inscription.”

Rogue gave him a long, searching gaze, and then slowly pulled the ring out of the box. Inside it said “Queen of Hearts.”

“Is… is this…” she stammered.

“Yes,” Gambit replied as he lifted the box of his gear. “But I’m not going to pop the question in one of Sinister’s lairs.”

Rogue smiled shyly at at him. “It’s not very romantic, is it?”

They heard the sound of multiple footsteps coming towards them and tensed up. A moment later they heard Logan say “she went this way.”

Gambit looked back at Rogue. “Not in the slightest.”

The door burst open. Rogue snapped shut the jewellery box and dropped it in Gambit’s box of stuff just as Logan stepped in. Scott and Jean were close behind him.

“Rogue what are you…” Logan stopped and looked at Gambit, then at the chains behind him. He narrowed his eyes. “You.”

“When I absorbed Vertigo, I found out they’d taken Remy prisoner,” Rogue explained, then took Gambit’s hand in hers, and smiled at him, knowing he would feel the ring on her finger. “I wasn’t about to leave you behind. Ever.”