#or the general horrors of living in the wasteland that threaten you and yours on the daily

[its-sixxers]

Harmonics

Charon once played guitar - a scrap of information more precious than gold. The Lone Wanderer recalls it in the depths of her grief. Both realize that even in the wasteland, neither of them are alone. Charon x Female LW, pre-relationship.

Sorta sequel to Hobbies.

AO3 Link

Charon had mentioned he once played guitar.

Scraps of information about him were rare as intact books and Lizzy was intent on building herself a library with what was offered. Information about what he liked was most precious of all - it took her a couple of weeks to even persuade him to talk about anything beyond his contract, and a couple of months to get him talking about his own personal desires. While the faded slip of paper she kept in the inner pocket of her vault suit said otherwise, she and Charon were equals. She wanted to get him a gift to prove it.

The best part about gifts was the surprise, to Lizzy, and so tracking down a guitar presented a thorny problem indeed. Time spent apart from Charon was scant, and he seemed tense the few times she told him to go do as he pleased. When questioned on it, he said it was always more comfortable for him to stick around and her heart hurt to imagine just what was done to make him feel that way.

Still, she took advantage of what time she had - chatting to Rivet City merchants about possible sightings while Charon was distracted, slipping Crazy Wolfgang fifty caps to keep an eye out as Charon inspected a shotgun grip. Lizzy lingered in the magazine and instrument sections of libraries, sneaking reading material into her bag to figure out just what went into making a guitar work. She even made up an excuse to get them into the area of Agatha’s cabin so that she could check in with the violinist and see if her plan was feasible - and found to her delight that yes, it was.

Crazy Wolfgang eventually came through for her with the guitar, and she enlisted Butch’s help in delivering it unseen. To Lizzy’s despair, the strings were broken or rusted away, but Butch reassured her that at least the body was good, giving it a rap with his knuckles to prove his point. So her search narrowed from a guitar to strings, and even as her work for her father and the Brotherhood picked up she kept an eye out for her quarry. The nights she spent in Megaton (growing increasingly rare, with how much DC needed her) saw her sanding out splinters from the guitar body and varnishing it as best she could. Lizzy winced to see that polish only seemed to bring out a bloodstain on the thing more, but supposed Charon wouldn’t mind.

Blood was just another part of living in the wasteland, natural as snow or rain.

Lizzy soon learned the full breadth of what that meant, and the guitar was forgotten.

Her father’s death made her forget a lot of things - forget why she was trying to put one foot in front of the other, forget that her suffering was echoed by so many other poor souls out in the world. Weeks were spent in a hazy state, eating only at Charon’s urging and starting to dip into the few bottles of alcohol she’d collected. The growing cold outside mirrored the numbness that was spreading through her after she found she had no tears left to cry.

Charon spent more time apart from her out of necessity - it was he who went to see what the caravans had now, who went to Gob’s Saloon to find out the news, who even braved getting them raw meals from the Brass Lantern. When she slept in (slept was a generous term, for she often spent upwards of an hour lying limply in bed in the morning) he’d place a large hand on her shoulder to wake her. His contract meant he had to keep her alive - at least, that was what she told herself. Nothing more.

It was when Charon was out doing yet another thing that used to be her responsibility that she heard a knock on the door. Lizzy dragged herself from the couch where she’d been re-reading the same sentence of her book for the past thirty minutes and tugged open the front door of her Megaton home.

Butch stood with his leather jacket zipped up and knit mittens on his hands, holding a small box. Snowflakes stuck to his pompadour as he fell, and with every exhale his breath puffed out in a fog, reminding her of how they pretended it was smoke back in the vault’s freezer as children. Lizzy could remember the look of horror on her father’s face when he discovered them, her own bewilderment as to how the place could be dangerous. She flinched from the memory, and her dry eyes stung.

“Hey.” Butch said, his smile faltering at the sight of her. While not vain by any means, Lizzy had always placed importance on looking professional and put together - now she couldn’t remember the last time she brushed her hair.

“Hey.” she replied flatly, hand leaning limply against the doorway, subconsciously trying to bar him from entering. Lizzy couldn’t bear the sight of his smile, how it reminded her of the vault, of times when it felt like she’d follow in her father’s footsteps and everything was warm and bright. The fact that she felt such a way toward her best friend in the world filled her with guilt, her cup already overflowing. Guilt was the one emotion that broke through the numbness, and she was drowning in it.

“I found something in Rivet City Supply.” he began. “Had to cash in a favor with Seagrave, but I thought you’d like to see.”

In spite of herself, Lizzy’s eyes dropped to the box in his hands, curiosity sparking for the briefest of moments. Butch moved his thumb from the label, and in faded ink she could read “BKM Guitar Strings”. The cellophane window of the box was still intact, and within she could see shining metal strings.

“You came all this way…” Lizzy’s throat was dry from lack of use, most of the communication she’d done with Charon nonverbal. “... to give me these?”

“I know you were looking for them.” Butch looked over her shoulder and into the house, likely searching for Charon judging by what he said next. “For the big guy.” He held the box out to her, and she took it from him. “I’m gonna be staying up at Gob’s for the next couple’a days. I’d stay and chat now, but Moira wants to interview me about hairstyling.” He made a display of rolling his eyes, and Lizzy knew he was just making up an excuse.

It was a feeling the two of them shared, pain from family. A wish to keep their grief hidden, to keep it manageable and clean. For all the teasing he’d done to her in their childhood, he knew precisely when and how to dodge a painful subject entirely.

Sensation hummed in her fingertips, brushing the old cardboard and tingling in the cold. Lizzy nodded. “I’ll stop by.” she said, not entirely certain it was a lie. The guitar. She’d forgotten about the guitar, an idea born of the time before, when the sun wasn’t so cold and remote. Now the project was rekindled in her mind, something separate from the cloud that loomed over her.

Butch tilted his chin up in acknowledgement. “Say hi to the big guy for me.”

“You’ll probably see him on your way out.”

“He’s a hard guy to miss, I’ll give you that.” He laughed, turning back to Megaton’s many platforms. He cast her one last concerned look over his shoulder before she shut the door.

Lizzy moved faster than she had in weeks, the metal stairwell echoing from her hurried footsteps. She took the box into her room and shut the door before falling to her knees and crawling forward to her bed. Setting the box upon the mattress she set her palms flat against the cold metal floor, finding the panel she was looking for and pulling it open, revealing a floor compartment. Within were her most treasured possessions - her mother’s holotapes, the photographs from her tenth and sixteenth birthdays with Dad and Jonas, Butch’s first leather jacket. With them were items of value - an engraved magnum, an intact camera and film, a half empty bottle of scotch, and the guitar body. Lizzy pulled it out of the hidden floor compartment and retrieved a rolled up instructional booklet from inside of it.

The next two hours were spent sat on her bed with necessary tools in hand, stringing the guitar. Idle hands are the devil’s playthings, the saying went - and with her hands put to work Lizzy was incapable of thinking of the guilt that threatened to drown her. At some point Charon returned, and his knock at her door startled her terribly.

Lizzy froze, vaguely recollecting that surprise was a large part of why she’d gone to such lengths. If she was discovered now, all the work had been for nothing - and she couldn’t bear something else hoped for being snuffed out. To her relief, Charon did not try to enter. She must have made a noise when he startled her, for he seemed satisfied enough that she was still alright judging by his retreating footsteps.

Soon after her work was complete, and she almost wept on the instrument from relief. So much work, so much time, and now she had something in her arms to show for it, unlike…

Unlike…

It reminded her why venturing out of her carefully constructed bubble was a mistake, for she had no cushioning, no numb protection to the raw assault of memory. A hand pressed to glass, fingerprints on the glass, the geiger counter, the geiger counter -

The bath faucet in the other room turned on, the movement of the water through pipes gently rattling the wall the bathroom shared with her room. It brought her back to the present, staring down at the guitar. Lizzy mopped at her wet cheeks, clinging to the last stage of her project. The gifting itself. Thinking up solutions to the problem crowded out her memory - Charon only took what was directly offered to him if it was ammunition or a grenade. With food or medical supplies, she’d have to make a point of having it appear as if she was doing it for her own sake and creating plausible deniability - a gift of convenience.

When she cracked open her bedroom door, she could hear water splashing from the bathroom next door, the familiar sound of Charon’s large form sinking into it. Even in her state she felt a little swell of happiness to know that he was willing to let himself have such a luxury. Assured he’d be kept busy more than long enough for her to do what she had planned, she picked up the guitar by the neck and crept downstairs into the living room. A fire crackled away happily in the wood burning stove in the corner devoted to the kitchen, and the ground floor was much warmer than her room. It was too warm - too close to reminding her what times before felt like, and so she hurried. Approaching the couch, she set the guitar down in Charon’s favorite spot, in front of the blanket Moira had crocheted her as a housewarming present.

As soon as she was certain the guitar wasn’t going to fall over, she retreated back into the familiar territory of her bedroom. The chill washed over her, icing out not just the wave of memory threatening to drown her again but the fluttering embers of joy her work had given her.

Lizzy stumbled over to her bed and fell upon the mattress. The haze began anew.

When she returned downstairs in the night to grab a bottle of water, the guitar was gone.

--

Charon didn’t mention the gift, but the next day he woke her with breakfast and an announcement.

“I believe it is best that we go somewhere today.”

Lizzy hauled herself upright and looked at him blankly, her fork scooping up small portions of instamash. “Where?”

While his stony posture and expression didn’t change, she heard him exhale in relief. “Gob’s. They think I’ve kidnapped you.”

“Mm.” she hummed, finding she didn’t feel strongly one way or another. Lizzy didn’t protest when Charon handed her a brush in exchange for her empty plate, and soon she was bundled up and shuffling through the snow to Gob’s Saloon.

Butch was eating breakfast, and Nova’s face lit up to catch sight of her. She poked her head into the back room, and soon Gob was walking out of the kitchen wiping his hands with a rag. Charon placed a hand to the small of Lizzy’s back and gave her a gentle nudge forward.

The next period of time - Lizzy had lost the ability to gauge its passage - was a mirror world of normal circumstance - now it was Lizzy giving short and clipped responses to any conversation, and Charon exchanging longer sentences. What was discussed left her memory the moment it was spoken, and soon enough Charon was tugging her hat back over her ears and guiding her back outside.

“Charon.” Lizzy murmured, when they were back outside. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Is that an order?”

“No.”

He nodded briefly, strands of patchy red hair falling across his brow. “It is my duty to protect you.”

It was all he offered in reply, and she accepted it as she always did.

Going out was a mistake, she realized that night - new color was given to her nightmares, the armored men who’d broken into the Memorial breaking into the Saloon as she visited, the scene melting into Butch, Gob, and Nova staring up at her with glassy eyes, melting into her father’s kind face, gone slack, the tick tick tick ramping into a metallic screech with exploding rads, Charon’s arms tugging her away-

Charon.

Lizzy blearily opened her eyes, greeted by the sight of her room illuminated in the deep blue of early dawn. It was a welcome sight, an escape from the nightmare, and she lay with her cheek crushed against the mattress staring at the wall until the blue light started to tinge pink and sleep threatened to claim her once again.

Movement had to be made, and with great effort Lizzy untangled herself from the blankets, coiled around her from the thrashing she’d no doubt done in her sleep. When she opened her door she was surprised to find the door across the hall that led to Charon’s room was wide open, granting her a rare glimpse of his spartan quarters. He never needed to sleep much, but the pre-dawn was early even for him. The change made a bubble of dread rise in her throat - and she walked to the bathroom to splash cold water on her face.

The pipes groaned when she turned the tap, the water cold enough to make her gasp when she splashed it on her face with cupped hands. It shocked her out of her dream state and brought reality into sharp focus.

In her new clarity, she could hear something faint coming from downstairs once the pipes had settled, and it took her a few moments to register that it was music. It sounded nothing like the radio, lacking distortion and also entirely different from anything played on it. Guitar strings, plucked one by one in a simple melody. Lizzy took a few steps out onto the landing, and peered as far over the railing as she dared to the living room.

Charon sat on the couch with the guitar in his lap, dwarfed by his large form. He was twisting the metal tabs on the guitar’s head, plucking a few notes, then twisting another - she recalled from the books she’d read that he was tuning it, something she lacked the knowledge and equipment to do. The metal floor panel beneath her right foot creaked, and he lifted his gaze to meet hers.

Caught out, she froze, horrified that she’d made a misstep and seen something she shouldn’t have - but Charon just dropped his attention back to the guitar, unperturbed. He plucked a few more notes before giving the guitar a single strum. The sound reverberated through her small shack, and caused goosebumps to rise on the back of her neck.

When the echo of the strum faded he started playing properly, and Lizzy found herself slowly descending the stairs, the torn hem of her nightgown trailing behind her. Slowly she approached the living room, feet thankful to move from cold metal to throw rug. The music was a siren song, simple and warm notes intertwining in a rhythmic and almost hypnotic pattern. Truly hypnotizing was seeing Charon’s hands at work, large fingers suddenly dextrous and precise, hands that seemed built to destroy dancing up and down the guitar neck.

Another low sound joined the melody, and it took her a moment to realize Charon was humming, a bassy rumble of thunder. It had her sinking into the armchair across from the couch, and still Charon did not seem to mind - his attention was caught in his music, the few glances he cast her way seeming more incidental than anything.

Then he began to sing.

Not in a language she could understand - at first she thought he’d made up the sounds, so musically did it flow, but soon she recognized it had the same intonations and cadence as the few unfamiliar terms he’d used around her before. He sang as lowly as he spoke, warm and rasping as a campfire. The melody was terribly melancholy, but to her surprise Lizzy found it did not make her sad.

It made her feel understood.

The two of them sat only a few feet apart, the ambient blue light fading into the pink of sunrise. Shafts of golden light spilled through the holes in the roof. In the warmth of dawn, even Charon’s features were softened. For those few minutes the small space seemed another world, their exteriors cut open and bared to the other, each observing but saying nothing. When he made eye contact with her after trailing off of a particularly low and mournful note, she realized that she did not suffer alone.

Something about it comforted her. When at last Charon placed his palm over the strings to silence them and set the guitar aside, she inhaled sharply as she had when she splashed the cool water onto her face.

“What was it about?” she asked quietly, and to her surprise he smiled tiredly at her - a rarer sight than diamonds.

“A warning.”

Lizzy stared at him for several moments, watching the muscles in his jaw work - as if trying to work up the words to say something more. Whatever battle he fought, he lost.

“Thank you.” she said, more a whisper than anything - but he heard it in the still silence of dawn.

Charon nodded, breaking eye contact and staring at his lap for a few moments before standing. “I will get us some food.”

“No, it’s okay.” Lizzy interjected, at last finding it in her to smile. “I’ll make it.”

[kaylinwrites]

Life of Pi, The Martian, and Man vs. Nature

[Started January 2019]

By: Somebody who firmly agrees that chemistry is a sloppy b****, and got irrationally upset when Richard Parker didn’t say goodbye. What an animal.

I’ve been out of the loop on here for a while, and I’ve got oversharing-syndrome, so I originally started this essay with a very long explanation of how reading on my phone made me suddenly into reading again. But then I was like, what, is Audible sponsoring me or something? As if. 

So I’ll spare you the backstory. The short of it is, I ended up reading Life of Pi, and finished it within a few days. Reading a really good book is practically a drug, so I started a new book right away, another book everyone seemed to have read, The Martian. 

I got about four chapters in before I started to think things were looking familiar. 

If you haven’t read either book, you should. I’ll wait.

. . .   . . .   . . .

If you don’t have the time or patience for that right now, I’ll give you a quick summary of what goes on in each. If you’ve already read them and don’t care for my summaries, skip on down to the next row of dots.

Life of Pi is about an Indian guy named Pi, naturally. The first part of the book explains his childhood. Pi is the son of a zookeeper, so he knows a lot about animal behavior. When he’s sixteen, his family decides to move to Canada, so Pi, his brother, his parents, and a collection of zoo animals also headed for the Americas hop on a boat to cross the Pacific. On the journey, their boat sinks, and Pi is the sole human survivor. Other survivors and inhabitants of Pi’s 22 foot lifeboat include a zebra, a hyena, and briefly, an orangutan. (RIP Orange Juice.) Oh, and there’s also the tiger, but Pi doesn’t notice that at first because the tiger is seasick and was hiding under the tarp for the first, like, five days. 

(Side note, that’s a very fun reveal, because everybody knows Life of Pi is the book with the tiger boat, so when we think the tiger isn’t there, it’s all like “Hey, where’s the tiger? I feel cheated out of a tiger”, and when the tiger shows back up, it’s all like “Oh s***, there’s the tiger.” Extremely good book.)

So the second half of the book is about Pi’s very unglamorous day-to-day life at sea. He eats raw fish and drinks turtle blood, and walks the fine tightrope of keeping the tiger happy so it won’t eat him, while also making sure the tiger knows he’s in charge, so it won’t eat him. Good thing he grew up in a zoo! Pretty stressful, constant threat of death, but a happy ending. 

The Martian is a book set in, I’m assuming, the near future, wherein a group of astronauts are on a research mission to Mars. Six Sols (Mars days) in, there’s a big sandstorm, and the team has to evacuate and leave Mars altogether. Mark Watney, botanist, mechanical engineer, and all-around great guy, gets separated from the group as they make their way to their rocket (MAV, but whatever), and the team has reason to believe he’s totally dead, so they leave without him. 

Surprise! Mark’s not dead, but he’s soon-to-be, because Mars is a deserted, uninhabitable, hell-planet. So, naturally, he has a crisis, but then decides he’s going to try to survive long enough for rescue. He starts growing potatoes, and tries to keep his equipment running long enough to contact NASA and tell them they messed up big time. There’s a lot of Mars shenanigans, which is to say, Mark almost dies a bunch of times, but he’s pretty smart. Good thing he’s a mechanical engineer! And botanist, I guess, but potatoes are less exciting than blowing up rocket fuel. Very stressful, constant threat of death, but a happy ending. 

. . .   . . .   . . .

Way back in middle school, when we learned about conflicts, they taught us there were three types: Man vs. Man, Man vs. Self, and Man vs. Nature. I’ve heard they’ve added more now, but the only one I care about for this essay is Man vs. Nature anyways.

Man vs. Nature is all about the character(s) winning against a force of nature, be it a wild beast, a natural disaster, or even a zombie plague. Examples of Man vs. Nature stories could be anything from Lost to Jaws to Little House in the Big Woods to The Hunger Games. There’s a lot of possibilities, but the Man vs. Nature books that I’m interested in are survival stories.

More specifically, the type in which the main character is alone for most of the story. I haven’t actually seen Castaway, but I’m imagining that fits into this category. The idea is to throw a character into an unknown and hostile place, and see how they manage to survive alone. 

I believe the first story of this type I read was in elementary school: Hatchet. Looking back on it, it doesn’t seem nearly as hardcore as getting stranded on Mars or being trapped in a lifeboat with a tiger, but that’s hindsight. When I was reading this at 11, it was an absolute thriller. It even had a moment of sick horror for me. I remember reading the chapter where Brian find the pilot’s decaying corpse and freaking out a little because it was the most graphic thing I’d ever read up to that point. Nevertheless, I remember that book as being adventurous, riveting, and very real.

I think one of the most interesting traits of these stories are the realism. If you’ve ever read The Martian, you know that the author definitely did his research. There’s something very cool about watching a character work out problems not with magic, or because they’re the chosen one, but with their wit and sheer determination. Life of Pi would not be nearly as fun to read if the tiger was just magically chill. Pi only survives because he knows how to work with wild animals, and while to some, that may seem convenient, I find it makes for a fascinating story. 

This brings me to the first characteristic of survival stories that makes them so compelling: good old fashioned gritty problem solving. Because any problem that crops up in a survival situation has to be solved immediately or the outcome is likely death, it forces characters to find solutions. Sometimes these solutions are quite creative. Sometimes they go horribly wrong. 

This connects to the second reason survival stories are so interesting: the main character is alone. They have to do everything themselves. And if it goes wrong, there’s no one there to pull them out of the s***. 

The Power of Friendship is a fantastic trope. No one can deny that seeing characters band together to accomplish their goals and become closer as a result makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And exploring the way characters interact with one another and develop their relationships is interesting, sure. But isolating a character is also a goldmine of a trope. Think of the episode of a show where the rest of the team is incapacitated and the remaining team member has to save the day all on their own. It allows that character to prove themselves as a competent problem solver, and show their strengths, and in the end, they save their friends, and there’s all the more Power of Friendship.

But when the character that’s isolated doesn’t have any friends, so to say, what happens? Being indefinitely cut off from the rest of the world makes for some interesting exploration of humanity as a whole. 

From a writing perspective, it’s a fascinating challenge. For one, when your main character is your only character, they have to be able to carry the story by themselves. In Life of Pi, the first half of the book is devoted to letting the reader get to know Pi, so they’ll be rooting for him, and understand his thought process a bit better. The Martian throws backstory to the wayside and tosses the reader headfirst into a catastrophe. The reader is hooked for the time being, and by the time the initial catastrophe is over, Mark has proven himself charismatic and likable, so the reader is alright with following this story through his lens. 

There’s also the psychological side of things, the reflection, which is the third thing survival stories do that’s weird and awesome. The writer can decide how much focus to put on the character’s sucky situation. The Martian plays this pretty light: Mark has a few moments of existentialism, but he hangs on to his humor and general will to live throughout the entire novel. Mark’s narration never truly loses the personality that made it so likable in the first place, even if it gets a stronger undercurrent of “F*** Mars” as the story progresses. In his situation, the threat of death is looming and ever constant. Everything seems to break, potato plants die, and one misstep means suffocating in the cold wasteland that is Mars. Life of Pi has a more passive dread. Once the tiger is reasonably under control, not a lot happens. This is the classic ‘stranded in the wilderness’ type of survival story, but with even less space to do things. All Pi can really do is collect water and fish. This makes his narration more introspective, and sometimes more numb. He spends a lot of the story grappling with his faith, which is a key component of his character. 

(Mark and Pi are interesting to compare in that regard: Mark is so obviously a man of science. He trusts in NASA’s work, and his own calculations. Pi has enough faith to practice three religions, and though he sometimes loses trust in God, in the end, his faith is stronger than ever.)

What I’m saying is, these stories can go one of two ways in regards to reflection. If a survival story is more immediately threatening, the story will focus more on the problems and solutions that come up and the writer will build a story more based around the events, though the main character’s personality is still important to keep the audience caring about the outcome. If a survival story is more slow moving and passively threatening, the story will focus more on introspection, and the writer will build the story around the character and how they react to their situation. Both serve the purpose of seeing how people deal with things alone, physically or mentally.

An honorary mention for things that make survival stories compelling is the lack of antagonist. Some may say the point of Man vs. Nature is that Nature is the antagonist (duh) but I would argue that it isn’t. Nature is really just doing its thing, and Man is the poor schmuck with bad luck. Despite what Mark Watney might say about Mars, it isn’t actively trying to kill him. It’s just existing and coincidentally killing him. And I know I said Life of Pi is more passive, but it might have a stronger claim to an antagonist in the tiger than The Martian does in Mars. But even then, Pi and the tiger reach a sort of understanding by the end, and there’s no longer a true threat besides starvation or one of the many other side effects of being stranded in the middle of the Pacific. 

(Speaking of side effects of being stranded in the middle of the Pacific, Life of Pi absolutely had my suspension of disbelief snatched right up until the part where Pi, half dead, meets another lifeboat out in the middle of the mcfreaking Pacific ocean. There’s no way he didn’t hallucinate that. It’s probably a metaphor, but it gave me so much whiplash I couldn’t figure out what for. Still a fantastic book.)

Survival stories above all give us perspective on our place in the world. As the world grows smaller and smaller, I hope we can remember to keep telling stories like them. They remind us of things we shouldn’t forget: Nature will always be stronger than us, though we can hold out against it. Mankind has a strong will to survive-- for ourselves, for our relationships to others, for our faith, or maybe just out of pure spite. I love both Life of Pi and The Martian for their exploration of these topics, and for being so unexpectedly but delightfully similar. 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go live in the woods, surviving off berries and pheasants that I’ve shot with my bow, and contemplate the nature of man.

[TL;DR What does Mars and tigers have in common? They’re both orange. And also trying to kill the main characters of two well-loved novels.]

[shepherd-of-the-stars]

That’s Above my Paygrade

Hey @iridulcentdays ! I was your backup Santa for the @rusame-secret-santa-2017. Your original Santa never replied to the message which resulted in a default drop-out so uh yeah,,,

A/N: Still have the same shitty keyboard so a few of my keys are sticky (mostly r, t, and g, and now it’s also e and f) so hopefully I don’t make too many typos!

Word count: 5,171

Summary: Magical Strike AU. Alfred F Jones is the biggest troublemaker in the city and constantly picks fights with the wrong people for the thrill of it. Because of this, he has made a number of enemies, enough that he’s gotten death threats and a couple of close encounters. So his father hired him a bodyguard.

Warnings: blood, implied sexual content

Rating: T+ ???

Also available on FFnet and ao3

Alfred listened halfheartedly to his father’s lecturing coming from the speaker on his phone as he slouched in the seat of the car. He’s heard these words a hundred thousand times over and over but Samuel Jones seemed to have forgotten. Or maybe he was trying to drill it through Alfred’s thick skull.

“-but that is enough, do you hear me? Your secretary is sick and tired of cleaning up your messes and trying to answer to the press for you! No more! I hired a bodyguard for you. He should be waiting for you when you get back and I want you to treat him with respect. If I hear any complaints from him, I am cutting off your bank account. Sleep on the streets for all I care!” Jones senior finally took a second to breathe.

“Aw, dad, you hired me a bodyguard to keep me safe? How sweet.” Alfred replied in mock appreciation. It was the only thing he had managed to say besides grunts of confirmation and ‘yes’ or ‘no’ responses.

“You idiot. Open up those clogged ears of yours and listen carefully. That bodyguard is not there for your safety and neither was he hired to be your human shield. I hired him as an adult babysitter, you hear me? So until you learn to grow up, he will be living with you, spending the days with you, and reporting your activity to me. Do not mess this up, boy.”

Alfred didn’t even get the chance to open his mouth before the tone sounded to indicate that the call had been disconnected. Though it wasn’t like this was something new. His father always had the last word.

He tweeted a quick ‘Just got a bodyguard. How do you like me now?’ before scrolling mindlessly through his feed. Several flirtatious texts and many app switches later, they arrived to his condo where his chauffeur opened the door for him. Not a second later, reporters were sticking recorders and cameras at his face and bombarding him with questions.

“Mr. Jones! What do you have to say about your scandal with Francesca Vargas?”

“Alfred! Did you know Lovino Vargas is openly threatening you because of your relations with his daughter?”

“Mr. Jones! Rumor has it you have connections with the mafia! Is that true?”

“Alf-”

“Make room!” Like Moses reincarnate, a tall and handsome man parted the crowd and gestured for Alfred to get out of the car. His chauffeur was doing very little to keep the reporters at bay but it was enough for him to push through the hoard of flashing lights and chaos of questions. All the while, a pair of protective arms made sure none of them got too close and none of them could lay a hand on him. Once they got to the front doors, the building security handled the rest and blocked them from entering the building. And once in the elevator, Alfred finally felt like he could breathe.

“Alfred Frederick Jones, correct?” the man who had helped him asked in a thick accent. His hands were held at his sides like a stiff.

“Depends on who’s asking.” He quickly checked the man out before putting his key into the slot for his floor and turning it. The doors slid shut as the man straightened out his suit.

“Ivan braginsky. Your new bodyguard. Your father, I presume, told me to look for ‘a rebellious idiot wearing a fur coat in the middle of spring with a streak of disgusting pink hair and a black star pasted on his cheek.’ His words. Not mine.” But the edges of Ivan’s lips drew up in a little smirk that showed that even though he was not the one to come up with the words, he still found it humorous how accurate they had turned out to be.

“Asshole.” Alfred muttered under his breath as he stepped out of the elevator once it stopped on his floor. The place was an absolute pigsty with clothes, food waste, and a general mess everywhere. The boy slipped his coat off and threw it onto the couch to add to the mess and chucked his knee-high boots to the pile as well. “Sorry for the mess. My maid quit like a week ago.”

A week? Ivan looked around the penthouse in horror. Even though it had a modern and sleek look, Alfred’s garbage made it look like a trailer park woman’s hoarding room. “You made this whole mess… in a week…?”

“Impressive, huh? Follow me. You can stay in the guest bedroom.” Alfred walked ahead of the stunned Russian to a room down the hall. The bedroom was simple with a bed, dressers, and a personal bathroom but it still needed some cleaning.

“My dad didn’t tell me he was going to hire a bodyguard and he didn’t tell me you were coming in today either so I didn’t prepare you a room. To be honest with you, this is my fucking room. I bring people in here to fuck so um… don’t get too comfortable…”

Ivan made a disgusted face as he looked over to the messy bed. It was no wonder the blankets were practically on the floor and the sheets looked like they were ripped off of the mattress.

“Is… Is there no other room…?” Ivan didn’t want to sleep in a place that was basically a rentable room in a brothel. It was probably covered in disease and the semen and cum of several different people. Whatever Alfred’s preference in bed partners was.

“Well there is one other room.” Alfred gave him a smirk before looping his arms around the taller man and hanging off his neck. His hips were pressed flush against Ivan’s. “You can sleep in my room, big boy.” Alfred leaned close until his lips almost touched Ivan’s but instead of meeting his lips, his lips met leather.

“No.” Ivan had put a glove in front of his face and used it to gently push Alfred off his body. “Being your sexual partner is above my paygrade.”

“So it’s about money, huh?” Alfred dug into his pocket and took out a clip of hundreds. “How much? You’re not too bad on the eyes. How big are you?”

“Too big for you. And too expensive,” he took a step back, “kid.” rubbing salt to the wound. The rich boy has probably never been rejected before and Ivan was right. The look on his face was enough to tell him so. “What are you? Seventeen?”

“I’m twenty. Geez. If I was younger, my dad would have gotten a nanny, not a bodyguard.” Alfred huffed and turned on his heels, throwing himself onto the bed.

“Is that what I am? Your nanny?” He put his hands on his hips and gave Alfred an amused look.

“Dad said ‘adult babysitter’ so yeah, pretty much.”

“Well in that case,” Ivan walked over to the boy and with the strength of a bear, lifted him off of the bed easily. He tore out the sheets, blankets, and pillow cases then threw them into Alfred’s arms. “Do the laundry. And clean the rest of the house as well. I will not be living in this wasteland.”

Alfred’s eyes blinked rapidly as if he was trying to process what was happening in his mind. “Wha…” Then it looked like it finally hit him. He dropped the dirty pile. “Who do you think you are? You’re the hired help. You’re the one who should be doing the laundry. So you go do it!”

“Ah ah ah. You said I am your adult babysitter. Which means I am your temporary parent. And your father said that if I had any complications with you, I can just give him a call. Wouldn’t want to bother your busy daddy while he’s at work because his little boy wouldn’t do the laundry, hm?” That smug look and his baby-talk voice made Alfred’s blood boil but he knew Ivan’s threat wasn’t a bluff.

“Fine!” Stomping his foot like a child, he picked up the pile of laundry and marched off to the laundry room. It was a small room with all of the cleaning supplies and admittedly, Alfred had never been in this room in his life. He had gotten as far as putting the laundry into the hole and closing the door but after that, he just stood there.

Why were there so many buttons?

He pressed one that looked like a power button and smiled when it beeped and turned on but then he was stuck again. There were so many dials and soaps and-

“You need help?”

Alfred flinched when Ivan appeared behind him with a pile of clothes in his arms. “N-no. Just uh… trying to figure out which setting to wash my clothes with.”

“Alfred, that’s the dryer.”

“I knew that.” He stared at Ivan’s questioning face for only three seconds before throwing his hands up. “Alright fine! They look identical! And I’ve never had to do my own laundry before so I don’t know, okay? Laugh all you want.” He crossed his arms and tried to shrink his head into his body to hide his shame. Never in his life has be been so embarrassed. It was just a simple task like doing the laundry and he had no idea how to do it.

But instead of getting the mockery and insults he’d usually get from his father, he got a pat on the head. “It’s alright.” Ivan moved to put the clothes he had in his arms into the washer then gestured for Alfred to take his laundry out of the dryer. “It’s not your fault that your life has always been luxury. If you never try, you’ll never learn.”

God, why did Ivan look so cool saying that?

Alfred nodded and moved his laundry to the other machine then looked up to Ivan like a patient child.

“Show me what you know.”

Alfred closed the door of the washer then pressed the power button, listening to it beep. Then he turned to the shelf of detergent, bleaches, and softeners and just stared.

“Need help?”

He looked back at Ivan who was leaning against the washer cooly. Seems he was trying to teach Alfred to ask for help instead of expecting it to fall into his lap. “I don’t know which soap to use.” Ivan smiled and pushed himself off the washer, starting his lesson.

(-w-)

The rest of the month went on just like that. Ivan would tell Alfred to do a chore, Alfred would do it until he got stuck or messed up, then Ivan would just stare until he asked for help himself. Already, he’s been getting better at it and Ivan found that Alfred had a strong interest in cooking. “It’s like science!” he had said, his entire face lighting up.

As for his bodyguard duty, most of his job was just to fight off the press and was surprised to find many of them were way too aggressive. It was pretty hard holding back his urge to punch them in the throat when they had their recorders pressed against his cheek and huddled so close to Alfred that it was easy to see that the he was having a hard time breathing. It was like that everywhere. The office, the bar, his house, and even sometimes at the grocery store, now that Alfred didn’t have a maid to do his shopping. But they endured and grew closer.

Honestly, this boy wasn’t all that bad. During dessert with a bit of alcohol mixed in, Alfred had opened up to him. He talked about how his father was never around, his mother had left them, and when she left, she took Alfred’s twin brother and little sister with her but his father had wanted to keep him to be his heir. So he was stuck here. Alone. And the maids didn’t talk to him either or gave him any attention. So he sought the company of others. And even though it was the wrong kind of company, it gave him a few hours of happiness and made him feel less isolated.

“Admittedly, Francesca was a mistake.”

“Francesca Vargas?”

“Yeah. Her. I was at a bar. Buzzed. And I saw her at a table with some dude who looked like he was her boring designated driver or something. She had on a tight red dress and looked really freaking pretty. Like I would get down on my knees and kiss her shoe, kind of pretty.”

“Wait. Aren’t you twenty? How did you get any alcohol?”

“I have a fake and I’m rich, Ivan. Now shut up, I’m telling the story.” When Ivan opened his mouth to tell him how wrong it was, Alfred shoved a spoonful of vanilla bean into his mouth. “Anyways. She was real pretty. And of course I went over to say ‘hi’ and stuff but the dude she was with stopped me and said she didn’t want anyone’s company.”

“Her bodyguard.” Ivan mumbled, licking the ice cream off his lips and returning Alfred’s spoon.

“I guess so. But I was buzzed so I just thought it was her protective brother or something.” A shrug. “I told the dude that if she was old enough to be at a bar, then she was old enough to make her own decisions and it seemed to spark something in her. She knew I was right and screamed until the security dragged the man out. I talked to her, we drank, a lot, and then I called my driver, we sneaked out the back door, fucked in the car, fucked again at my penthouse, and the next morning, she left all scared.”

“Condom?”

“Lack of… yeah… That was three months ago. I didn’t even know her name and I don’t even remember what happened that night until my dad called me and said I knocked up some important dude’s daughter. If I could take it back, I would. It was so stupid.” he sighed, leaning his head back on the couch. “And now the press won’t shut up. They’re making a huuuge deal about it and I just want it to stop already. I just wanna be normal, ya know?”

“I find that surprising. You seem to love your money.”

“Well yeah, cuz I was born with it and I’m used to living this way but sometimes, I go to bed and just lay there. Thinking.”

“Pea under your mattress, princess?”

“I’m serious!”

“Right. Sorry. Go on.”

Alfred huffed and ate another scoop of ice cream to cool himself down before continuing. “The money is just handed to me. Like I don’t even have to do anything to get it. I just gotta be alive and not run away or something. Makes me feel kinda… useless.”

“Can’t relate.” Ivan muttered, which earned him a glare.

“You don’t live my life so you wouldn’t know. I just… hate being so dependent. I have no skills, no talent, and if my dad really did cut me off my allowance, then I’d be lost. I don’t even have a resume. I’ve never worked a day in my life. Without my dad’s money… I’m worthless…”

Ivan sensed that the conversation has taken a bit of a solemn mood, and admittedly, he hated seeing Alfred like this. He was always so brave and proud that seeing him so upset with himself was unsettling.

“That’s not true.” He scooted closer to Alfred then draped an arm over his shoulder. “I think you have a great natural talent in cooking. And you have a strong fascination with science. Especially archaeology. And I know you never said it but I know you like history as well. You also seem to have a strong interest in looking at the little details; you are very good at picking up patterns; and your face lights up when you find out about how things work. And I’ve only known you for a month.”

He looked over at Alfred who seemed like he was near tears. “Did I say something wrong?” he stuttered.

But instead of answering, Alfred put their bowls down and wrapped his arms around Ivan in a tight hug. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. No one has even cared that much.”  

“Well seems like the next thing on my to-do list is to find you some new friends.” Ivan let out a sigh and gave Alfred the hug he probably needed. Alfred was likely touch-starved after Ivan shooed away all his possible suitors and bedmates over the past month. In his defense, Ivan could tell easily that they were the wrong types of people for Alfred. And seeing him with someone else made his hands grow cold.

Wait. Was he jealous?

God, he was.

“Ivan?” Ivan grunted softly in response. “I think I love you.”

Ivan’s eyes widened as he looked down at Alfred. “This is a joke, right?”

“No! I’m serious. I’ve... never felt this way about anyone before. It’s… fuck! This is embarrassing.” Embarrassing enough that he had covered up his face with his hands and looked to the side.

Ivan found the action to be adorable and leaned forward to kiss his wrists. For his actions, he was rewarded with Alfred moving his hands off his face and letting him see the beet red blush that covered his face.

“D-did you just-?”

“I like you too, Alfred.” Love? He wasn’t sure yet. But being with Alfred made him the happiest he’s ever been. And no matter what, that joyous laugh always made his stomach flutter and his heart jump.

“Oh gee, ‘like’? Might as well stab me in the back.” Alfred laughed a little nervously, not knowing if that were Ivan’s rejection or some partially returned feelings, which meant he had a chance.

“I don’t love you just yet, Alfred. Love takes time to grow and I don’t want to jump to things too quickly. But, I do want to be with you. Try this relationship out. If that’s alright with you.”

“Yes!” Alfred shouted a bit too quickly but he was just too eager to be with this man.

“But no sex until you’re twenty-one.”

“Why! That’s torture!”

“Alfred, on my first day here, I said I was too big for you and I was being serious. I might hurt you if you’re not experienced enough so we’re going to have to wait until you’re twenty-one. But toys and other things, I will allow. I just don’t want to hurt you, okay?”

Alfred was pouting but deep down he was grateful that Ivan cared about his pain and safety. So instead of pushing him, he just nodded and draped his arms onto Ivan’s shoulders. “Seal it with a kiss?”

“That I will allow.” Alfred’s joyous giggles made Ivan smile up to his eyes and he even let out a laugh at Alfred’s “preparation for a kiss” breathing and lip exercises.

“Right, okay, okay,” He shook his face like a dog and breathed in and out deeply. “I’m ready. Kiss me!”

It was adorable. Ivan cupped his face gently with his hands, thumb rubbing over the scar on his cheek that Alfred had tried to hide with the black star. He gave that a kiss first, then his jawline, then his chin, and his forehead, until Alfred was audibly whining at Ivan’s deliberate avoidance of his lips. Letting out a soft growl, Alfred took matters into his own hands and quickly pressed his lips against Ivan’s before the torturous teasing could continue any further.

For a few seconds, it was like he had forgotten how to breathe. Kisses with his one-night-stands never felt like this. It was like a comforting warmth was injected into his body and made his skin tingle with an emotion he couldn’t describe.

And before he knew it, they had pulled apart, his lips slightly parted and his face flushed. He blinked his eyes open shyly before finally meeting Ivan’s eyes and finding that a blush dusted his pale cheeks as well.

“Was that good enough seal the deal?” Ivan asked, looking at him with a smirk which Alfred then mirrored.

“No. I think I need another one. You know. Just in case that one wasn’t legally binding.”

Looking at that cheeky face, Ivan had a feeling that he’d break his own contract. There was something about him that made him want to throw caution to the wind. Though, he had a feeling that Alfred would have no trouble with his size.

“Maybe one more.”

(-w-)

The two were a chaotic pair. Now that Alfred had a partner in crime, that turned out to be equally playful, he grew more bold and reckless. Not even a week into their relationship, Alfred screamed “I have a boyfriend! Stop asking about a fling!” at the press after being hounded by questions about Francesca.

After his little slip up, their lives turned to hell. If the paparazzi had been persistent before, they turned absolutely obsessive over him in these passing months. All of the gossip magazines were eager to be the first to find the name of Alfred’s boyfriend and many of them pulled up old photos of Alfred together with other men claiming that this person was his lover. Worse yet, some of Alfred’s flings claimed to be his boyfriend just to be a part of the fame but rumors like that didn’t last long.

“God, another one? I sucked this guy’s dick like once at a gay bar over a year ago. He was a fucking asshole. Held me down and forced me to swallow all of his jizz even though I was trying to tell him I couldn’t breathe.” Alfred threw the magazine down to the floor of his limo and plopped his head down on Ivan’s lap.

To Alfred’s surprise, even after all his dirty secrets were dug up, Ivan never called him a whore. He didn’t lose respect for him and not once did he call Alfred disgusting or ridiculed him about his partners like his father had done not long ago. He didn’t understand why Ivan wanted to be with him but the bodyguard refused to leave.

“He doesn’t deserve your anger, myshka. You’ll get frown lines.” Ivan’s thumb massaged Alfred’s temples as he left a kiss on his nose.

“Myshka? That’s a new one.”

“Little mouse.”  

“I’m not a little mouse!”

Alfred had thought the name was embarrassing but still, he was smiling, and that’s all that mattered to Ivan. Oh how he wanted to tell the press that Alfred belonged to him but it was too risky. Alfred’s father would fire him for sure and probably force a restraining order. He couldn’t lose Alfred. Just the thought of it made his heart wrench.

“What are you thinking about?”

Alfred’s voice shattered his bubble of thought. Ivan sighed and leaned down until his forehead was pressed against Alfred’s. “Thinking about how much I love you.” Then he looked into Alfred’s eyes, waiting for a reaction.

Alfred’s eyes grew to the size of saucers and he took in a huge breath. “Oh fuck! That’s- That your first ‘I love you’! You- You finally said it!” Alfred had grown so excited he fell off the car seat but he stayed on his knees in front of Ivan so their eyes would be level. “Say it again!”

Ivan’s face heated up and in an instant, he grew shy. “I can’t just say it randomly! It’s harder than it looks, you know!”

“It’s not! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! Come on! I want to hear it!” Like a dog waiting for his treat, Alfred smacked his hands against the seat of the couch and bounced his whole body.

“Alright alright! Quiet down or the driver will hear you through the window.”

He’s too old for gossip anyways and I pay him well enough. Say it!”

Ivan sighed and rubbed the back of his neck before cupping his boyfriend’s face and leaning in close. “I love you.” The way Alfred’s entire face lit up was almost comical but that gorgeous smile was infectious. Even when they kissed, Alfred couldn’t stop his giggles and excited squealing.

But that happiness had to end eventually. The limo slowed to a crawl as they came into the condo driveway and Alfred could already hear the reporters with their questions.

“Hurry up and get to the penthouse so I can suck you.” Alfred’s flirtatious whisper sent a shiver down his spine and he left the limo with newfound vigor.

“Clear the way, please! Mr. Jones will not be answering any questions!” With one hand wrapped around Alfred and the other pushing away cameras, recorders, and hands, Ivan pushed through the crowd. There were so many questions being asked at once that Ivan could barely process any of them. All he heard was something about a new man claiming to be Alfred’s lover, and something about the Vargas girl.

As they reached the entrance, someone, or a group of someones, gave the pair a strong shove, making Alfred flatten himself against Ivan’s chest. He heard a couple reporters complain shout, “Watch where you’re going!” or “How rude!” but it didn’t matter to Ivan. They had made it inside the lobby. Oddly enough, Alfred still clung to him like a lifeline.

“Alright, we’re safe.” But Alfred still clung to him. “Come on. You can hug me when we get to your room. But right now, I need your key so we can go up to your flat.”

Alfred muttered something under his breath but it was inaudible to Ivan.

“What did you say?” Ivan leaned his head lower so his ear would be by his mouth.

Alfred wasn’t muttering. He was gagging. His eyes were wide with fear and body trembling just the slightest.

“Oh my god. What’s wrong, Alfred?” Ivan pried Alfred’s body off of his but the boy fell limp without him. It wasn’t until Alfred was laid down on the floor that Ivan finally noticed.

There was a tear in Alfred’s coat. No, not a tear, a slit. A slit with a wetness surrounding it. He ripped the coat off his body and what he found took the breath out of his lungs.

The back of Alfred’s pure, white shirt was soaked his in blood. And to his dismay, the red was still blossoming, spreading like death’s poison on his lover.

(-w-)

The trip to the hospital was a blur. When the nurses and doctors spoke to him, it felt like he was listening through a thick wall of water. His entire world felt like it was tilted at an angle and he swore all he could hear his own breathing.

It wasn’t until something slammed into his head that he was dragged back into reality.

“This is all your fault!”

His eyes followed up a pair of legs to a body then a head. It was Alfred’s father.

“I hire you to protect him and you can’t even do that? My son is in the ER because of you! If anything happens to him, you can bet your ass I’m going to sue you until your comminist ass is deported back where you belong!”

Ivan couldn’t feel anything. He just felt… numb. Slowly, he get up off the floor and returned to sitting in his seat but something hit him again. When he looked up, Jones Senior was being dragged out by the security while the nurse asked it if was okay. But before he could even respond, the nurse pressed a tissue against his temple.

“Sir, you’re bleeding. Give me a second, I’ll get you some bandages.”

He could feel the blood sliding down his cheek but compared to the pain in his heart, it was nothing. He felt nothing. he wasn’t even sure if he was still breathing.

“Sir? Sir? Are you Mister uh… Ivan Braginsky?”

Ivan looked up at the nurse. A new one. Wait, when had the other nurse bandaged his head? And when had it turned to night time?

“I am.”

“Mister Jones just woke up and he’s asked to see you.”

Ivan rose from his seat and came forward so fast he almost knocked the nurse over. “Please, take me to him.”

On their way to Alfred’s room, he had stuck so close to the nurse’s heels that he almost tripped on her, and though they were walking fast, it felt like the longest walk of his life. But at the end of the road, he saw Alfred.

Seeing him with tubes and other junk sticking out of him as he lay there in his hospital gown made it feel like his heart had fallen out of his chest. He felt like he had floated over to Alfred’s bedside and if it wasn’t for the pain in his knees when he fell on them, he would have forgotten he had legs.

“Alfred. Oh my god, Alfred. You’re okay.” He took Alfred’s hand into his own, wishing the thick clip wasn’t in the way.

“Well I feel dead.” he scuffed, his voice weak. Even in this condition Alfred was joking about it.

“Please don’t say that, Alik. I don’t know what I would do if you…” He couldn’t even bring himself to say it.

“It’s going to take a lot more than a stab in the back to kill me.” Alfred tried to laugh at that but his voice was raspy and the action made him wince in pain.

Ivan moved to sit on the edge of the bed so it would be easier for Alfred to see him. He reached down to move the hair out of his eyes and to give him a tender kiss. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you. I won’t forgive myself for letting you get hurt like this.”

“Baby, it’s okay.” Alfred gave Ivan’s hand a weak squeeze. “I don’t blame you for it. If anyone is to blame, it’s me for causing this whole mess. But no blame games, okay? I’m fine. I’m alive. It’s over.”

“But I almost lost you.” Ivan hadn’t realized he was crying until he saw his own tears drip onto Alfred’s face.

“But you didn’t, okay? Hey, what happened to your head?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Talking about it is making it more painful.” he lied, “Now tell me what happened to your head.”

“Your father hit me.” He sniffed and wipes his tears away with his sleeve. “He said he’s going to deport me.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Alfred. Stop joking like that.”

“What? I just beat death. Let me joke about it.” And even when he was stuck in a hospital bed with stitches in his back, Alfred still tried to stay strong.

“You’re lucky I love you.” Ivan’s lip was quivering even as he smiled.

“Yeah. I’m the luckiest person alive.”

[cacophonouscatharsis]

DM’s Log #5.1: The big day is tomorrow! Also lore

Tomorrow is the big day, the first session where we’re actually playing my campaign! I’m super excited! Originally I was worried because I didn’t exactly have a whole lot planned, but I did a huge time crunch tonight and I got some maps done, definitely enough to span a full 3 hour session! Now that I actually have the monster manual on me it’s so much easier compared to when I didn’t have it. Before I had to homebrew everything and I didn’t even think to have ability modifiers or anything so I kinda winged it or just didn’t bother. Now I have everything on paper right in front of me in detail ugh it takes a big load off my shoulders. I’m also not restricting myself to a bit outline either. The first time I DMed I had this big summary of the campaign and what I wanted the players to do and go. I gave the party a big objective right off the bat and it culminated in banishing a god which was pretty over the top for first level honestly.

This time I’m dialing it back, giving the players more breathing room and choice in what they want to do. I don’t have an outline, just sort of a basic idea of what’ll happen in my head. Which I know probably doesn’t sound good but I also don’t want to be forced to look back at notes and revise them and shit. Maybe I’ll start doing that down the road when I actually have to remember shit the players have done, but for now it’s not something I need to worry about. Anyway now I’m just worried I’m making my encounters too hard for my players. Especially this short dungeon I made that’ll lead them to a prophecy that will foreshadow things much later down the line. I put several thugs, animated armors, and even a Helmed Horror at the very end as a sort of boss. I think the players will be okay though, after all it’ll be the four of them versus the one boss, so as long as they didn’t take too many hits from the previous enemies it should be a challenging but overall not life threatening battle.

Also I figure this is probably the best time to start posting some lore about the world of Lhorvash and its four continents! I’ll have some drawings I’ve made of them below. They ain’t good but they do the job

Lhorvash is a world that is caught in a cycle. The drive for war is built into the very heart of the world and it’s inhabitants, and if this war is not carried on a regular basis, the world will be purged and reborn anew. All life will be reset and begin to create civilizations once more. However some species have an unexplained innate ability to live on through this process. Dragons, Giants, and select few Animalfolk from Midoraka are able to live through one or even multiple cycles. In the most recent cycle, what most historians believe to be the third iteration of the world, dragons ruled for several thousands of years. However a species only known today as the Progenitors, rose up and drove them to near extinction using strange yet powerful weapons. After that they ruled Lhavosh with impunity. That is until one day, they all mysteriously vanished, and in their wake they left a cataclysm that split the once giant continent into four smaller ones. The only thing that remains of their legacy are massive stone superstructures beneath the earth.

Of the four continents on Lhorvash, Vuusrin is the most diverse, in virtually every way. Ethnically, politically, and also in terms of landscape. It has also been at constant war, it’s once lush forests cut down and used to forge great siege weapons. Only once has a single civilization came close to ruling the entirety of the land. At its most powerful moment, its king stood upon the tallest tower in all of Lhorvash, and called to the gods to grant him strength. Strength enough to conquer all he could see. In that very moment his entire country, which had occupied land from one end of Vuusrin to the other, was suddenly broken apart and submerged beneath the waves. The castle and the tower the king stood upon was made the epicenter of what is now known at the divide. This epicenter is a massive whirlpool that devours any ship that dares get too close. The reason for this catastrophe is only explained in legends, by the most commonly believed one is the gods struck the king down for his arrogance, as an example to the rest of mortalkind.

Lork is the largest continent out of the four, and is also the harshest. Most of the land is a barren desert. A massive rock worm named Kavkor stalks anything foolish enough to roam above ground in large groups. On top of that one of the last living dragons, Adramorgeth the Everlasting, patrols the sky, routinely perched upon its mountain, Charred Rock. The only civilizations that have a chance of surviving are those that are built deep underground. These subterranean metropolises are inhabited mostly by Dragonborn,Draconians, and more recently, Tieflings. However these people do not have the luxury to pick and choose who they share space with. The only thing that matters to them is if you can prove your worth and earn your keep.

Midoraka is a mysterious country, ruled today primarily by elves. A strange aura that surrounds the land boosts the power of all forms of magic. However due to the potential for mages to gain untold amounts of power within the boundaries of the continent, strict laws are placed upon its citizens, and those wishing to take up the arcane arts much first acquire a government issued license to perform magic. This also opens them up to routine inspection by the military police, which does not require a notice beforehand nor a warrant. The government is controlled by a council of individuals voted in by the many lords of Midoraka. Before this council system became a reality, the land was ruled by the Erna Empire. Back then the Elves were at their strongest, due to two powerful allies. The Animalfolk in the north, and the Tieflings to the south. This peace did not last forever, and without warning the Empress Imbryl Erna ordered for all Tieflings within her borders to be immediately slaughtered. Most of the military followed their orders, and got to work exterminating all Tieflings they could find. The walls of the city of Zithrindar became a prison for the victims, as the military burned it to the ground. The few that managed to survive fled to the nearby continent of Lork, and luckily for them the indigenous Dragonborn welcomed them in to their fold. A select few military generals rebelled against the empire, and shortly after the massacre committed a coup d'é-tat. The Empress was publicly before her once loyal people, and those that followed her heinous order were imprisoned for life. For the elves transgressions, the Animalfolk retreated into the Ancestral Forest, never to be seen again.

Depending on who you ask Borshaub is even more dangerous than Lork. If the Remorhaz and Frost Giants don’t kill you, the blistering cold surely will. Only the hardy Dwarves and Orcs, as well as the crafty Gnomes have managed to make a home here. However none of them are willing to venture further north, into the land known only as the Great Freeze. A land of never ending blizzards, where any mere mortal creature will freeze to death in minutes. Separating this frozen wasteland from the rest of Borshaub are the Walls of Hesret. Four barriers that connect mountain ranges on either side, made of stone lined with sacred runes. They’re believed to have been built by the Progenitors thousands of years ago, what their ultimate function is though, no one can be certain. The walls are carefully maintained by both the dwarves and gnomes, who are part of an uneasy alliance. Said alliance formed due to the Orc Rebellion that took place twenty years ago. The gnomes considered the Deadlands to be a part of their territory, and began to venture east of the Shivering Chasm. The Orc tribes had been at constant war with one another ever since there was more than one tribe, leading the gnomes to thinking it would be an easy victory against a fragmented opponent. The Orcs don’t go down easy though, and before a war could break out, Brakuung the Mighty defeated every other orc chieftain in single combat, proclaiming himself to be the Godchief of all Orcs. for just less than a year, the thirteen tribes were united under a single banner, and went to war against the would be gnomish invaders. It would have been a total massacre, if the Dwarves had not intervened. They knew if Brakuung was allowed to live, he would lead his armies further west and conquer their kingdom as well. They made a hasty alliance with the gnomes, less to help them, and more to save themselves. After months of seemingly endless carnage, the newly formed Alliance was able to incapacitate the Godchief and his only son Virmalk. He was beheaded before his own people, and his eight year old child was stripped of his tusks. The tusks of an Orc are considered sacred, and if they are removed in any way that does not involve combat, it is seen as a disgrace. What remained of Virmalk’s tusks were soaked in an acidic substance created by the gnomes, preventing them from ever growing back. He was banished back to the Deadlands, to live on as an example for the rest of his kind of what happens when you rise up against the Alliance.

Sorry for clogging up your dash with my lore. I’ll put out another DM’s Log summarizing the events of our first real session. See you then!

[wavemasterryx]

All the writing projects i’ll probably never finish.  i don’t know why anyone would want to hear about them, but i guess if you’re /that/ bored, enjoy.  Oh, right, there’s also going to be massive spoilers in most cases, if that’s something you’d worry about.

Also, don’t worry about how much progress i might have made on actually working on one of these instead of writing up all of this.  The answer is “none”, because this is not writing, it’s depression-fueled babble.

---

01) Sunny Hoof: Thy Music Too

Small story continuing the series with amputee Blackjack and nightmare Glory, attending the Nightmare Night festivities in Chapel.  i  think Blackjack’s costume was going to be Bowser, so that she could conveniently disguise her wheelchair as his flower-copter thingy, but i don’t remember who Glory was going to be.  It was either going to end up being the two of them sneaking off to bang in the haunted house, or a not-lewd double date with LittlePip and Xenith; i never did decide.

---

02) Sunny Hoof: TBD

Another small story taking place during Chapel’s Running of the Leaves festival (admittedly, not nearly as much running as old Equestria, considering at least half the population has some sort of disorder or disability).  Rather than Blackjack, this one would actually be centered on RedEye and Ilaris having a very casual walk (wagon ride) through the orchards, pure silly fluff.

---

03) Project Horizons the First Movie

Something of a difficult position, this idea takes place after the events of Chapter 77, but before the Epilogue is set in motion.  I mean, in anime it’s very common for movies to happen that are completely non-canon to the show but take place withing a specific time-frame relating to the show, i guess that’s what i was really banking on.

Anyways, the basic idea is that as rebuilding is finally getting underway, a well-intentioned alicorn happened across (or was given by someone...) a document leading her to an ancient shrine of phenomenal power.  Using this power, she wishes “all the good people who were claimed by the Wasteland, within the memory of the living” to be returned to life.  The spirits warn her that she should bring back the not-good as well, but she insists on not undoing everyone’s hard work saving the world, to which the spirits concede, leaving her with a warning that there will be a price.

This price comes in the form of four “Aspects of Suffering”, pure evil taking the form of the (very common in anime) four celestial beings, and seeking to bring pain and misery back to the world.

In essence... it’s just a series of excuses: to bring everyone back to life that deserves to have a happier ending; to have a series of cool, flashy battles, without the potential for everyone dying; and to get some particular scenes that i really want to happen... like Primera threatening / trying to seduce Pip with a choking Homage (something about “i’ll beat her record and make you scream 33 times” ), P-21 and Rampage returning to Equus via rocket, which they land on top of one of the big bads, and Cuarta being all smug and mocking everyone right before she (and the building she’s standing on top of) gets tagged ‘it’ by Puppysmiles.

The story would end with the aspects being defeated somehow... and then a hard “defeat equals friendship”, with Blackjack giving them a chance to do better, much to /everyone’s/ dismay.

---

04) Project Horizons the Second Movie 

Taking place shortly after the first movie, things would seem to be going pretty well with the rebuilding.  It would be pretty slice-of-life for the first few chapters, with gradually more hints that something else was going on as certain ponies begin mysteriously disappearing for increasing lengths of time; including Dawn.

A search would reveal they’d fallen into a trance and in some secluded location had begun building some kind of portal.  Either the work would be just finishing as it was found, or letting it proceed so they could find out what was behind it... the portal would lead Blackjack and a large strike force to one of the other planets in the Equus system, where they would find themselves in a mechanical nightmarescape, created by fragments of Cognitum.

Naturally, they would need to stop her resurrection, and wipe her blight from existence for the final time.

---

05) Project Horizons the Third Movie

Compared to the other two... this idea is more of the pure silly fluff that should be expected of me.  i don’t recall if i had decided how or why, but the basic idea was that something had happened to shift the world to an alternate reality where a large portion of the population is foals.  There would be kindergarten shenanigans, shopping trips and cooking with mama Boo, and all kinds of likewise absurdly and unnecessarily cute things.  Also unlike the other two, i have no conclusion in mind for this one... maybe there could be two versions, one where they go back to normal and one where they don’t?

---

If i somehow had enough money to commission Somber to write these...  i wouldn’t... cause there’s no way he should have to write stories with ideas as bad as these.  Not that i wouldn’t be tempted anyways... out of morbid curiosity i do wonder how much it would cost for him to consider it...

Unfortunately, they’re definitely too complex for me to be able to handle on my own.  i know, it will be hard, but you’ll have to struggle through the disappointment.

---

06) Boo Quest: the Chrysalis Building

A slight re-imagining of the story i had intended to have behind my farce of an attempt at running a “choose your own adventure” thing on Boo’s tumblr.  i’m sure some people were curious what was waiting on the top floor...

It would definitely not involve any voting for this incarnation though, it would just be a straightforward story to be told of what happened on her adventure.

---

07) Fallout Equestria: Botsunyu

The first of my ideas for a full-fledged independent side-story, directly ripped off and or a homage to Resident Evil... 5.  i think.  It would feature a 3-person squad of NCR recruits investigating the hulk of a ship which had been sent on an exploratory mission to Neighpon, only to drift back into Manehattan bay after several months without contact.

On reaching the ship, they find the remains of some of the crew, but mostly a large amount of strangely fleshy tumorous cocoons (or possibly crystalline, if i want them to be less horrifying).  In the course of attempting to salvage the ship, the team would encounter and try to deal with the hatchlings of the colossal nautilus / parasitic wasp starspawn which attached itself to the underside of the vessel.

The story would end with the destruction of the ship, but how many of the team survive, and if they actually manage to defeat the starspawn or not, i’m not certain.

---

08) Fallout: Neighpon

More of an exercise in world building than anything, this idea was a to be centered around the daily life of a ninja scout in training and her hunter-tracker best friend.  Both are orphans, their home villages having been almost totally wiped out by the massive starspawn monstrosities that inhabit the island nation.

i had also considered a variant of this same idea but with more generic characters, to emphasize the world instead of my bad character designs.  Not that the world design is really all that much more remarkable.

---

09) Fallout Equestria: Deepest Dark

Probably the idea i’ve talked about the most before... centered on a structural engineer living in a vault dedicated to deep core mining operations.  The idea is based on Dead Space, Alien: Isolation, and other such horror games... that the stable’s mining runs into something as it progresses deeper... never quite pinned down what.  Some kind of primordial evil, monster from another dimension...  i’d vaguely considered it actually being Sombra’s horn, but thinking about it more now, that actually seems like the least threatening of the ideas.

This story would involve a lot of violence, and potentially end with the entire stable, including the protagonist, being wiped out.

---

10) A Bleach Love?Story: EIRS

The only large story project i’d ever actually finished, and then i had to go and extend it...  It’s probably the story i would like most to complete, if just because my mom really wants to find out how it ends...  She’s literally the only one though; my other two “fans” disappeared when the [Adult Swim] forum died, and there’s no way i could reach them now...  If i ever did manage to finish it though, there would be an issue of what to do with it... since posting it here wouldn’t really accomplish anything other than making another post for people to scroll past.  The only other places i really frequent only service furries, so even if written works were more valued there, i wouldn’t be able to post it.

Anyways... the story itself...  i actually know more or less exactly what i want to happen, but i’ve completely lost pace with the style that i wrote it in, so it puts me somewhat on edge about how big the difference in styles is.

The villain of this season is borrowed from Digimon, and is slowly eating the entire multiverse, erasing anything it consumes from time, so that it was like it had never existed.

i actually had the next chapter halfway done when i stopped writing...  It was going to be the big hint of what’s going on...  Then the chapter after that the D-Reaper was going to make its first big attack on the Enterprise away team, allowing me to bring in a cameo from the first season that i was really hoping to use (redeemed villains for the win), and letting them just narrowly escape.  Third chapter it would attack the Enterprise, and then only Data would be left to find the answer in the final chapter.  Which there is one, i actually have the scene almost entirely planned in my head... except that it’s kinda... a really controversial idea, that i don’t know if it would come across as too disrespectful, even though i don’t mean anything bad by it at all...

The ending i had in mind was Data (ironically played by a Jewish actor, which i didn’t remember until way after i planned this...) retrieving the Ark of the Covenant from the Nazis, and then using it to politely ask God (played by Lelouch Lamperouge) to restore the multiverse.

To me... it’s a perfectly logical and thematically appropriate way to end the story... actually the only ending that really makes sense...  But i don’t want to insult anyone with it, it’s just supposed to be silly fun with a small side of heartwarming, and i know religion can be a super sensitive issue... so that’s a big problem for me.

It’s so close to being finished, which makes it really quite sad...

---

11) TBD: Mercenary Pony Adventures

Really the most ambiguous of all my ideas... it’s something of a catchbasin for all my failed RPG character ideas... a seven-element wizard, a slime wizard, a combat maid, and possibly the two (prospective) main characters from Fallout: Neighpon.  It would requite a lot of inter-personal interaction to drive it, between quests...

---

12) Space-Thriller

Super casual space exploration and possibly light adventure fluff, centered around a young alien slug-girl.

Based on an RPG system i’ve tried a few times to create, but it’s never worked out because i am terrible at balance.  In this same general idea, i would also love to do a story about the adventures of the HMLV Destiny or the smaller and much more reasonable HMCV Raven (101 and 20 pony crews, respectively), but i don’t have any more confidence in writing their stories than i did in running the campaigns that they were part of...

---

13) Pokemon: Milk & Honey

i have spent an unnecessarily large amount of time creating my own ‘version’ setting within the Pokemon world; this story reflects how events in the game would take place if the NPC (Red, Ash, etc) were playing rather than the player.  Or if it were an anime instead of a game.

i’ve been told that stories of Gym challenge journeys and fighting against a region’s evil team are some of the worst fanfiction you could possibly do for Pokemon (maybe second only to running a scarf shop), but i mean... it’s kinda an important step in establishing characters, isn’t it?...

So yes... the story would follow the two protagonists as they travel through the region, battling, training, and growing closer as they reach for their dreams together.

With all the planning i’ve put into it already, i probably have a reasonably serviceable outline for the potential story... but actually writing it is another matter entirely...

Plus there’s the added problem that... the plan is supposed to be for the female protagonist to be incontinent as a result of her quite meager psychic power interfering with her body’s natural development.  i really want it to be a super casual part of the story, like not a big deal at all so that it doesn’t interfere with anything... but then i’m an idiot and go tying it and her mental health to several key plot points and well...  i don’t know how many times i need to say i’m a bad writer before people believe me. 

---

14) Pokemon: Milk & Honey, TBD

Following a rather large battle at the end of the main storyline... the two protagonists are invited by the Pokemon League to take a job in it as special investigators.  While they patrol the entire region regularly, they are also responsible for keeping an eye on the “Dreamers Network” a vast virtual reality system that is growing steadily more popular since its debut.

When users start turning into Pokemon, and coming out of the VR sleep acting like they are still those Pokemon, it’s up to the protagonists to track this brainwashing back to its source; a small clinic on a private server, and find some way to put a stop to it.

Oddly enough... this side-story is actually based on a dream i had way back when i first started plotting out and working on this world.  Most of it has faded, except for one very strong scene...  The male protagonist staring up at his partner on a floor above, being wheeled away by a nurse as she’s begging for him to shoot her [with a special gun that would disconnect her from the network and potentially completely wipe her memory], because she doesn’t want to risk the treatment making her do anything wrong.  It still plays quite vividly in my head, even nearly 6 years later.

i believe my intention was for it to be a human-form Sableye or Espeon behind everything, trying to extract vengeance for someone (probably their trainer) who they had cared about greatly and lost...  Or maybe a Mesprit draining away positive emotions in order to feed them into their close friend who only exists as a remnant on the network.  Or something like that.

---

15) Pokemon: Bunkatsu Village 

A version of the Pokemon world without humans, this story takes place a decade or two after a comet / space ship carrying an alien virus crashed into the planet.  The virus infested and altered everything, the only pockets of normalcy being small villages like Bunkatsu that are surrounded by a powerful barrier; the result of part of the “Legendary Heroes” final effort to save the future.  Pokemon in these villages are trained to be adventurers and head out into temporarily stabilized pockets of the outside world to search for resources, treasure, and (hopefully) the eggs of the fallen heroes.

---

16) Build a Perfect Blitzle

This story would have been the first in a potentially lengthy series of dirty stories, serving as something i could finally use as an outlet for everything i enjoy that makes me a bad person.  It would entail someone being held by “Build Corp.” (voluntarily or otherwise) and being put on a livestream feed where every day the viewers would vote on a set of options put forward by the stream’s “sponsors”.

While actual voting would have been nice, i decided that using a dice to choose randomly would work fine, and so using a list of all the things i like, i could come up with a satisfying simulation of adding torment after torment to whatever poor characters ended up being chosen.

This seemed like a really nice idea at first... but it started getting to me that there’s literally no one i could share it with... so there was no reason to write it, since it could only turn out worse than it exists in my head already.  i actually even finished some of the first trial with Kino, and it didn’t seem half bad (as much as it wasn’t long enough to be bad yet), but yeah...

The idea really had some potential... so many different things that could happen, and the ways options might interact with each other... and new and different kinds of volunteers...  It really could have been fun.

---

17) Other

A few other random ideas i’ve considered at one time or another, but would be significantly less likely to attempt than anything listed above:

Something with my ponies from World of Warcraft.  Perhaps a history, or travel journal to be serious... or lacking that... more silly slice-of-life stuff.  There’s also some potential for naughty things with a few of the characters (seems to be a running theme with this section), but some would be too tempting to involve certain NPCs, which is a big “no no” according to tropes...

A fetishy but possibly not explicit story involving an alchemist zebra of mine and a friend’s pony, as part of an ongoing series they’ve been writing for them.

Or.. trying to write the exceedingly inappropriate story ideas i’d wanted to commission of my dumb bunnies.

[quinzelade]

By No Constraint  (chpt 64)

SS x Danse

Chapter List

Thanks to my amazing beta, waiting4morning, for her wonderful work! Thanks to Musashi1596 for the title.

I apologise this is so late. I’ve been having a rough time personally, and then the attack on London happened yesterday and I really just did not feel in the mood for messing around with fanfic tbh.

Hope everyone is safe, and that this at least lifts someone’s mood.

Major Brotherhood/Danse spoilers.

Want update alerts? Follow this story on FFnet or Ao3.

--

Berkeley Square

 --

“Nuka-Cola?”

Hancock peered suspiciously at Quinn over his cigarette, his eyes slightly unfocused. “Are you high?”

Quinn gestured to the empty jet inhalers at Hancock’s feet and snorted. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

“Since when have you picked Nuka-Cola over alcohol?” he retorted.

“Maybe I don’t have any.”

“You always have booze.”

“Maybe I don’t have any,” she repeated, settling down in the chair next to him. The sun was just reaching its peak in the midday sky—the perfect time to relax in the shade of the porch with a drink and a friend. Quinn held out the Nuka-Cola to him, and after a roll of his eyes, Hancock took it.

“Tin can’s made you all boring,” he muttered, opening the bottle with his teeth, while Quinn opened hers on the edge of her chair seat.

“Or stopped me from being an alcoholic.”

“Like I said—boring.” Hancock sipped his drink.

Quinn frowned and lowered her bottle, staring at him. “Do you really consider that to be ���not boring?’”

Hancock gave a little shrug. “Everyone has their vices. People who don’t clearly haven’t got enough fun in their lives.”

“I’d think I’d rather do without them,” Quinn replied, thinking about her last drunken escapade with a shiver. “They’ve caused me nothing but trouble.” Her eyes returned to the jet canisters on the floor. How much had he gone through this time? “Honestly, Hancock, I’m starting to worry about your ‘vices’ a little. The amount you take is more than recreational chem use.”

Hancock suddenly looked evasive. “Maybe I just know how to have a good time. Besides, ghouls need twice as much for the chems to have any effect.”

“But—”

“You obviously didn’t come here to lecture me. What’s up?”

Quinn took his meaning. Drop it. She sighed but respected his wishes. “I just wanted to thank you for helping me get my friends back. I don’t know what you said to make them come along, but it worked wonders. I never thought I’d be able to speak to Nick again, and MacCready was clearly pissed over Charlie...and yet here they both are.”

Hancock brightened up at this, and leaned back in his chair, smirking. “Ah, no worries. Old Valentine didn’t take much persuading, to be honest. I think once he’d had time to cool off, he was always gonna come around. As for MacCready…” Hancock’s grin turned menacing. “I have my ways.”

Quinn narrowed her eyes. She didn’t like the idea of Hancock threatening MacCready, for more than one reason. “You bullied him into being nice to my son?”

Hancock paused, still wearing his dangerous grin, and then burst out laughing. “Nah, I’m just fuckin’ with ya. I reminded him about Duncan. I figured since you got rid of the Institute for us, the least I could do is smooth things over with the gang.”

Quinn could have hugged him. Instead, a smile spread over her face, and she knew he understood. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The two of them sat in silence, drinking their cola. Hancock shielded his eyes from the sun, muttering under his breath about it, until he eventually glanced over at Quinn.

“Where’s lover boy?”

Quinn paused, just as she was about to drain the rest of her drink. “You know, I’ve no idea.”

“Not keeping tabs on him, huh?” Hancock cackled, throwing back his head and catching the last of his cola on his tongue.

Quinn smiled to herself. No, she wasn’t. She trusted him to stay safe. And if that didn’t speak volumes about their progress together, she didn’t know what would.

Eventually it was time to get back to work. Quinn assisted with the razorgrain crops while Hancock staggered off to help with guard duty. Part of her wondered if he was fit to guard anything in his state, but she remembered he’d been running and defending Goodneighbor for years, high as a kite. She had to give him some credit.

However, as she was carrying a bushel of razorgrain across the settlement for Mama Murphy to work her magic on—though Quinn had to have a lengthy talk with her first as to why mentats did not enhance the flavour of her bread—Sturges popped his head out from his house.

“General,” he said, looking shifty. “A moment of your time, if you please?”

Quinn nodded to him and then offloaded the razorgrain into Rose Crowcroft’s arms, a Minuteman who had chosen to stay behind and help with the settlement. “Take them to Mama Murphy for me, please? And please remind her: no mentats.”

Rose gave a wonky salute as she tried not to drop all the razorgrain. “General.”

Sturges waited for Quinn until she was at his door, and then disappeared inside. She hesitated, wondering what the hell was going on, and followed him into the house.

Quinn blinked.

Laid out in the centre of the room was a small, circular table. Its surface had been sanded and polished to a high shine, unlike anything that was left in the wasteland. Two chairs of a similar quality were seated around the table, and in the centre, a candle stub in a misted glass. By the looks of things, Sturges had repaired the furniture himself.

“For Preston,” Sturges said quickly, as if worried she would take the set-up the wrong way. “He sent ahead a message to say he’d be back tonight. Thought I’d fix up some dinner for us.”

“A date?”

“Well,” Sturges said, and for the first time she saw the traces of embarrassment in his face. “Things were progressing a little while he was in Sanctuary, but then he had to go oversee some new recruits at the Castle.”

Quinn felt a twinge of guilt at this. She had promised to take on the role of ‘General’ when she’d first met Preston, but somehow ended up with the Brotherhood instead. Maybe it was time for that to change.

“Thing is, you’re friends with him too. So you have a decent idea what he likes. Thoughts?”

Quinn laughed. It was all very cute. “Yeah, I think he’ll like it. You’ve clearly put some effort into this, and that’s what Preston’s all about, right? Hard, honest work.”

Sturges grinned. “Why thank you, ma’am.”

The smile slipped from his face, though, as a familiar voice called from outside.

“Sturges?”

“Dang.” Sturges eyes widened in horror. “Preston.”

“I’ll distract him,” Quinn said quickly, running to the door. “Get cooking!”

She heard some form of garbled gratitude behind her, but paid it no mind as she shot out of the house and ran smack into Preston. The two of them went flying backwards, landing in a heap on the ground. Quinn groaned and looked up to see Preston’s hat rolling away down the street, before remembering to get off her friend.

“General,” Preston said, accepting her hand and allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. “Didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

He dusted himself off as they walked over to his wayward hat, which hadn’t rolled too far. He picked it up, put it back on, and then dragged her into a bone-breaking hug.

“I can hardly believe it,” he said into her ear, squeezing her tight. “The Institute is gone. I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

Quinn laughed, and they broke apart. “I’m hearing that a lot.”

He grinned. “Maybe now the Commonwealth can finally come together and build something good for the future.”

“I had an idea about that, actually.” Quinn folded her arms, mulling over her racing thoughts. Plans had been brewing in her head all morning, but they’d still not formed into something solid. “Can’t put it into words right now, but give me some time and I’ll try and lay it out for you. Either way, I’m going to be taking a more active role in the Minutemen from now on, if you’ll still have me.”

Preston blinked and then grinned with delight at her. “Of course, General! I mean, I’d always hoped, but I thought you’d gone to the Brotherhood, and…”

“I’m done with them,” she replied firmly.

“Then I’d be honoured to defer to your leadership, ma’am.” He saluted. “Though it’s not gonna be all sunshine and rainbows from here on out. The Institute’s gone, but there are plenty of problems left to deal with.”

“Don’t I know it.” Quinn stretched her arms, and then quickly spoke as she heard Sturges clattering around in the house behind her. “I think for me, the attitude towards synths and ghouls has to change. Ignorance is the reason they’re stigmatised—especially synths. With the Institute out of the way, I think we could make real progress in breaking down the barriers.”

“I know you have a personal stake in that,” Preston said, “but maybe securing people’s settlements first would be a solid foundation to build on.”

“Oh yeah, that too. But if ghouls and synths help secure those settlements, that would go a long way to changing people’s attitudes, as well as giving them places to live where they’re accepted by the residents.”

Preston raised an eyebrow. “Would this have anything to do with the master plan you’re concocting?”

“Maybe.” Quinn grinned. She changed the subject. No point delving into the concept when it wasn’t ready. “Why are you back so soon? Sturges said you weren’t due until tonight.”

“Well, I decided to escort a local doctor to his next port of call after he helped me out at the Castle,” Preston replied. “Fixed up one of the new recruits.” He paused, looking around. “Now you mention him, though, where’s Sturges? Why were you in his house?”

As he looked past Quinn to frown at Sturges’ house, she heard a quiet, high pitched noise of dismay behind her. Trying to bite back a laugh, Quinn waved her hand in front of Preston’s face, pulling his attention back to her.

“A doctor?” she asked innocently. “Did he follow you here, or did you part ways?”

“Oh, he followed me here!” Preston replied. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to him. His name is Doc Weathers.”

Quinn frowned. That name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t remember why. It made her uncomfortable. Putting her uneasiness aside, she nodded. “Lead on.”

--

Danse sat back down in front of the computer and held his breath. Repairing terminals were not his forte, but with the manual he’d dug up at one of the stores in Goodneighbor, he’d been able to give it his best shot. He hit the ‘on’ button and waited.

The screen flickered to life, filling the room with a pleasant green glow, and Danse grinned. He pulled the holotape he’d acquired from the safe yesterday out of his pocket and inserted it into the tape port. It crackled to life after a few seconds, and Danse listened carefully.

Sounds right, he thought, remembering the tune Quinn had sang to him almost a year ago. The words were familiar, at least.

Danse stood up and held out his arms. He waited for a good beat, and then shuffled around on the spot, feeling stupider by the second. What he needed was a teacher, but he’d be damned if he was going to let anyone see him in such a ridiculous state. That was why he’d retreated to the privacy of the Red Rocket truck stop without telling a soul where he was going. Just imagine if—

“Knock knock, tin can.”

Danse cursed as he spun around, hitting his leg on the terminal desk. He glanced up and saw both the ghoul and the detective standing at the inner doorway to the building. Valentine looked mildly amused. Hancock held the expression of a jet addict that had just found a large stash of chems.

In the background, the song ended and a new one came on. Apparently Quinn had made a mixtape, not just a recording of one song.

“What the hell are you up to?” Hancock said, squeezing past Valentine, unable to keep the giggle out of his voice.

“Nothing,” Danse replied with a scowl, sitting himself down on the desk and folding his arms.

Valentine dragged on his cigarette as he stepped into the room, glancing around with a small smile on his face. Unlike Hancock’s barely contained delight, the detective’s expression was kinder.

“Trying to impress a dame?” he asked casually, while Hancock started to snicker.

Danse scowled harder, staring at the floor as his face burned. When the two of them didn’t take the hint, he sighed and closed his eyes. “After everything that’s happened, Quinn needs a break. One night to herself.” He told them about the song and his plans.

“Quinn mentioned that she hadn’t seen you much today.” Hancock’s smirk widened as Danse’s eyes snapped open again with panic. “Oh, don’t worry about it. She’s not concerned and she doesn’t suspect anything. But I asked old Nick here if he’d seen you, and he led the way. I don’t think either of us expected find this, though.”

“I certainly didn’t,” Nick added, his tone lacking the teasing quality of Hancock’s. “But I think it’s a good idea. Need any help?”

“No.” Danse returned to staring at the floor.

“Tin can,” Hancock chipped in slyly, “your dancing leaves a lot to be desired. Sure you don’t need any help? Nick’s a classy guy, and I know my way around the ladies....”

Oh my God.

“I’m not trying to achieve that,” Danse groaned, covering his face with his hand. Yes, he and Quinn had been suggestive with each other recently, but he just wanted to do something nice for her. How things went after that was anyone’s guess.

“Ignore him,” Nick said, and as Danse glanced up he caught the detective rolling his eyes at Hancock. “The good mayor here is about as sophisticated as a softshell mirelurk.”

“Hey—!”

“But I do know how to dance,” Nick went on, ignoring Hancock’s protests. “Or at least I can teach from afar. You’re gonna need a dance partner, bud.”

Danse opened his mouth to say no again, when he stopped. What did he honestly know about dancing? While the last thing he wanted was outside interference, this was for Quinn, not for him. And it was about time he swallowed his damn pride.

“...Fine.” Danse folded his arms, deep in thought. “Who’s going to be my dance partner, though?” Piper was away in Diamond City, Mama Murphy was...not an option, and Rose Crowcroft looked about as elegant as him.

Hancock stepped forward, grinning.

Both Nick and Danse turned to look at him, then at each other, before diverting their attention back to Hancock.

“No,” said Danse loudly.

“Yes,” said Nick with an approving nod.

“No.”

“I ain’t seeing an alternative, tin can,” Hancock said, barely able to contain his glee. He swept off his hat and gave an elaborate bow. “Milady.”

“Never say that to me again.”

“Besides, you’ll be the girl,” Nick added, starting to grin himself.

“I can work with that.” Hancock jammed his hat back on and curtsied. “Shall we dance, tin can?”

Danse put his head in his hands. “Give me strength.” He snapped his gaze up towards Hancock and glared. “The last thing I want to think of while trying to have a private evening with Quinn is you.”

Hancock blinked, before his expression turned ugly. “I honestly thought you were past the whole ghoul thing, asshole.”

“No, it’s just…” Danse looked to Nick for help, who held up his hands and took a step away from the argument. Danse met Hancock’s eye, feeling more embarrassed with every passing second. “If you were trying to—uh—woo a lady—or whatever the hell you call it—the last thing you’d want is to accidentally think of me because we ran a dress rehearsal before the event.”

Danse realised the words sounded much stupider out loud than in his head.

“Well, there are worse looking faces I could think of, but I see your point.” Hancock spluttered with laughter as Danse’s mouth fell open. “I’m kidding!”

Nick lit a cigarette. “Are you two done? Time’s a-wasting and I don’t think we’re gonna find many willing volunteers for this on such short notice.”

Danse glanced from the still snickering Hancock to the terminal and sighed deeply.

“Fine.” He got to his feet, revulsion crawling through him. “Let’s get this over with.”

There was one other thing that was bothering him, but he didn’t want to upset Hancock by voicing it. The very thought of touching a ghoul still made him feel physically sick. He imagined rotting flesh slipping off under his fingers, the stench of decay tainting his hands for weeks, or even months.

Cold. Slimy. Dead.

He hesitated when Hancock held his hand out to Danse. There was an awkward pause, Danse unable to keep the look of disgust off his face as he looked at Hancock’s wrinkled, damaged skin. He glanced up to see Hancock staring at him expectantly, the ghoul’s mouth twisted with exasperated patience.

Danse drew in a shaky breath and took Hancock’s hand.

To his greatest surprise, Hancock’s skin was dry and leathery to the touch, like old brahmin hide. Perfectly normal. Almost the same as a human labourer’s hands.

“There,” Hancock said with a bright grin as Danse felt himself relax. “Not so bad, huh?”

“No,” Danse admitted, an apologetic smile flickering across his face.

“Course, now I’m going to make things uncomfortable.” Hancock winked and took hold of Danse’s other hand, dragging it to his waist as he stepped closer.

“Hancock,” Nick said in a warning voice.

“Oh come on! He’s not gonna hold her at arm’s length!”

Danse didn’t listen as they began to bicker. He’d expected Hancock to reek the same way feral ghouls did, but there was no smell that was out of the ordinary for any other wastelander.

I’ve been a bigot my entire life, Danse thought, the mortification intensifying as he remembered how he’d treated Hancock in the past. But before he could dwell on the subject, Hancock whipped around to face him.

“Right, tin can!” he said, drowning out whatever Nick was trying to say. “Listen to old Valentine and learn how to sweep me off my feet!” Hancock fluttered his eyes and then blinked as Danse started to snigger himself.

“This is surreal,” Danse said, shaking his head in disbelief. He turned to an equally surprised Nick. “Let’s get this over with.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Nick muttered.

The following lesson was chaos. Between Hancock getting the giggles and his frequent chem breaks, Danse kept messing things up by tripping over his own feet. He’d never been a particularly coordinated person, but this was pushing him to his limits. Not falling over required all of his concentration, to the point where Hancock burst out laughing every time he looked at Danse.

However, after several hours of toe-tapping torture, Danse memorised enough of the steps to get a basic grasp of things. Even Nick, who had taken off his hat and coat and loosened his tie as time wore on, looked pleased.

“I think you’ve got it, kid,” he said, smiling wearily.

“I’m feeling pretty damn swept off my feet,” Hancock said as he and Danse shuffled around the room. When the song ended, they broke apart, Hancock dropping onto the bed with a sigh while Danse sat on the nearby desk. He wasn’t as convinced as the other two, but it was an improvement, at least.

“So, who’s babysitting Charlie while you’re with Quinn?” Nick asked, opening up his pack of cigarettes and frowning when he saw it was empty.

“I’ll do it,” Hancock said, pulling a fresh pack of cigarettes out and tossing it to Nick.

“No, you won’t,” Danse said instantly, glaring. He was grateful for Hancock’s help, but the man was a junkie. “Not with the chems you take.” Danse turned to Nick. “Would you mind…?”

Nick dropped the cigarette he’d been about to light. “Me? I mean, yeah, but…” He smiled. “Thanks for trusting me, kid.”

--

Sanctuary was beginning to wind down for the evening as Quinn walked down the street. She made her way past Doc Weathers and frowned in his direction as he packed away his things and wandered off towards one of the spare bunks.

She didn’t trust the man. She couldn’t say why, but he set her on edge. From his sleazy attitude to his glittering eyes, there was just something not right about him.

Where have I heard his name before?

If she could remember that, she’d probably have her answers about his character. At the very least she was certain he wasn’t affiliated with the Brotherhood.

Quinn decided to let it go for now and instead turned her attention to the sky with a frown. It was slowly losing its steel-blue hue to pastel washes of purple, pink, and gold as the sun departed from the skyline. Worry began to prick at her insides. Where the hell was Danse?

Not that she had concerns for his state of mind these days—if anything, he seemed to be doing better than she was. But if the Brotherhood travelled North West from Diamond City...if they stumbled across Danse…

She should have left Charlie in the care of Danse and gone back to see Maxson herself. Let him know she was fine and there was no need to look for her. Still, it hadn’t been too long. Danse had mentioned before that it had taken ages before anyone was allowed to track down Cutler. And what with the end of the war, likely no one of importance had noticed her absence.

In the distance, she saw a small, skinny figure walking over the bridge towards Sanctuary, carrying a bulky package. Quinn tensed, jogging to the barricades and ducking out of sight. A few seconds later, she stood up again when she realised it was MacCready. As he drew closer, he stopped dead, a blush creeping up his cheeks, clinging tightly to the package. Quinn made her way over to him, noting he wasn’t quite meeting her eye. She thought she’d won him over yesterday, after she’d had to practically drag him and Charlie apart so that Charlie could go to bed. Clearly that wasn’t the case.

“Everything okay?” she asked, already feeling defensive on her son’s behalf. If he gave her any more shit about synths…

MacCready did no such thing. Instead, he looked at her, sighed, and opened the top of the bundle in his arms. She was met with a bright jumble of comic books in varying conditions. Some seemed brand new, their colours glowing in the dull backdrop of the wasteland. Others were torn or heavily worn, their pages yellowed and drained with age. Quinn knew Charlie would love them all.

“I...thought Charlie might like some more stuff to read,” MacCready mumbled, dropping his gaze to the floor again. “I know I would’ve at his age.”

“Wanna grab a Nuka-Cola together?” Quinn said.

MacCready glanced up at her, surprised. When she waved for him to follow her, he did so, meekly. Completely unlike him, but she suspected he didn’t know what to make of her ready acceptance.

They sat on the sofa in her house, the large comic collection set carefully on the coffee table, still covered by the fabric MacCready had bundled it in. Charlie flitted around in the background, eagerly trying to catch MacCready’s attention until Quinn told Codsworth to take Charlie for a long walk with Dogmeat.

MacCready took his cola with a murmured thanks, picking at the label on the bottle instead of drinking it.

“What’s changed, Mac?” Quinn said, swigging from her own drink. “First you’re storming out of Hancock’s place after all but calling me a bad mother—”

MacCready visibly winced, but didn’t interrupt.

“—then you begrudgingly help me escort my son back here, but only after making a point of telling me you’re not doing it for any pleasant sort of reason. Now you’re bringing back comic books for Charlie.” She leaned forward, unsmiling. “What the fuck?”

MacCready didn’t answer at first, stripping away the peeling label completely and scrunching it up in his hand before he spoke. “I...don’t trust synths.”

Quinn snorted with mirthless laughter. “Yeah, that’s fucking obvious. Hancock said he had to remind you about Duncan before you would play nice. And don’t think I haven’t noticed how you are with Valentine.” Her eyes narrowed. “Or forgotten what you said when you realised Danse was a synth.”

MacCready closed his eyes, going red again. He opened them as he said, “I know. I know how I come across. I know how I am with Valentine. And I know how I was with Danse. But I don’t think you realise how everyday people see synths.”

“I have a pretty good idea.”

“No, you don’t.” He looked up at her, frowning. “You know how the Brotherhood treat them—cold, merciless disgust. Not fear, just disgust. And you know that for the most part, Diamond City accept Nick Valentine, although they’re suspicious of the rest.” MacCready’s expression softened. “People like me—we’re just plain scared of them.”

“Scared?” Quinn was confused. MacCready was no coward and could handle himself just fine in the wasteland.

“Yeah, scared.” He shrugged. “It’s not easy to admit it, but it’s true. When I think of synths, I think of people being kidnapped and murdered, and then being replaced by those...things. And then later the replacement killing the entire family and running off. It’s happened...or people say it’s happened. I always tried to be so careful. If I was taken, if I died, who would get the cure for Duncan? And then after the cure, I thought, ‘What if I’m replaced and they find my son?’ Maybe they’d kill him too.”

Quinn remembered the paranoia that was rife in Goodneighbor and Diamond City. People turning on their neighbours or even their own family because they thought someone had been replaced by a synth. People gunned down in the street...

MacCready continued. “Danse is different, because he ran away from them, didn’t he? He got free. But Valentine just looks so...inhuman. And Charlie?” He shook his head. “A replica of Shaun? It seemed too weird. I didn’t trust him. I thought maybe you’d taken him with you for the wrong reasons, or he was some sort of spy with a plan to hurt you for destroying out the Institute.”

“Charlie isn’t—”

“I know he’s not. Now I do, anyway. If anything, he makes me think of Duncan.”

Quinn was surprised. “Oh?”

“He’s not out to carry on the Institute’s cra—um—plans. He just cares about comic books and the other stuff kids like. Wherever he came from...he’s a child.” MacCready squirmed, mortified. “He’s your son, and from what he’s told me, a victim of the Institute, too. So…” He pointed to the comic books with an apologetic expression. “I can’t promise I’m ever gonna trust synths. But I trust you.”

He reminded Quinn of Danse, and the way he had warmed to Sarah - the ghoul from The Slog - after spending some time with her. Quinn and MacCready looked at each other, before he made another vague gesture towards the comics. “I’ll leave these with you, anyway.”

“Nuh uh,” said Quinn, smirking. “You’re the nerd. You can give them to Charlie yourself. You’ll be his new favourite person.”

MacCready laughed just as Charlie walked back in with Dogmeat and Codsworth. Dogmeat bounded across the room, jumping all over MacCready. When Charlie realised what the bundle on the coffee table contained, he threw himself onto MacCready as well.

Quinn left them to it. Although she was glad that things with MacCready were sorted, night had now fallen and there was still no sign of Danse. She bit her lip as she walked down the street, her heart hammering in her chest.

Just as the panic began to set in, Quinn saw him heading back up towards the house. She ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck as he turned to look at her.

“Hey,” he said, squeezing her as kissed her cheek.

“Where have you been all day?” Quinn asked when they broke apart. “I was starting to worry.”

“Your friends are going to look after Charlie for a bit,” Danse replied, blatantly avoiding the question. “I’ve something to show you first.”

Quinn noted the blush in his cheeks, and saw Hancock and Nick strolling past behind them. Nick tried to be inconspicuous, but Hancock grinned, winking as he gave her a thumbs up.

She glanced back to Danse and saw him rolling his eyes at Hancock, before smiling nervously. “Come on.”

Quinn followed him through Sanctuary, past the barricades, and over the bridge into the open wasteland. They walked in silence, keeping their senses sharp for any hidden dangers lurking in the darkness. Despite this, Quinn couldn’t help wonder what he was up to. She knew they had half joked about ‘date night,’ but Danse was an extremely private person. He wouldn’t have allowed Nick and Hancock to be involved just so he could spend the night with her.

Her confusion grew as they reached the Red Rocket truck stop. They went inside, but Danse stopped her at the inner door to the main workshop. He handed her his rifle, mumbling that he had to ‘do something’ first, and then disappeared out of sight, the door sliding shut behind him.

A minute passed, and when the door opened again, Quinn heard the most wonderful sound.

“That certain night, the night we met,

There was magic abroad in the air,

There were angels dining at the Ritz,

And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.”

--

Danse felt sick as he led her inside. At Hancock’s recommendation, he’d dotted candles around the room, the rest of the light being provided by the green glow of the terminal. Then he’d tidied and cleaned up as best he could, leaving a suitable space in the centre of the room.

Quinn looked stunned. She set his rifle down on the nearby cabinet, staring at him.

“When we first left the Prydwen to build the teleporter in Sanctuary, you mentioned that you always wanted to dance to this song, but you never got the chance.” Danse shrugged, the nerves biting hard in his chest. This was the moment: either she would love it, or he was about to upset her. “I’m not Nate, and I’m not trying to replace him, but—”

He didn’t finish the sentence. Quinn flung her arms around his neck and dragged him into a long kiss.

“Thank you,” she said, before kissing him again. “Thank you.”

“Good idea then?” Danse replied, feeling somewhat faint with relief.

Quinn nodded. “Restart it and we can dance to the whole thing.”

Danse obeyed, and the second the song returned to the beginning, Quinn grabbed him by the arm and whirled him around. She dragged him to the centre of the room and took both of his hands.

“Shall we?”

Danse nodded, his mouth dry as he ran Nick’s instructions over in his head. He could do this. He could do this.

He frowned as they danced, trying to keep each step perfect, each move in sync with the music. After a few seconds, though, Quinn laughed and stopped. She reached up and touched his face.

“You’re overthinking it,” she said, placing a gentle kiss on his nose. “Dancing really stiff and awkward.”

Oh God. I’m ruining this for her.

“S-sorry,” Danse stammered. “I’ll start it again. I’ll do better. I—”

Quinn silenced him with a kiss. “Stop overthinking it,” she repeated, grinning now. “I don’t want perfection. I want to enjoy this moment with you. How about a slow dance instead?”

“A slow dance?”

Quinn moved his arms so that they enveloped her, and she leaned her head against his chest. Then she began to sway and shuffle gently on the spot. Danse mimicked her, and suddenly they were dancing. He didn’t know how, since it was less structured and formal than what Nick had taught him, and yet it worked.

Danse felt the tension leave him, and he just focused on the music and the woman in his arms. For the first time since he’d met her, she looked truly at peace with everything, almost melting in his embrace. The way Danse felt about her was indescribable. He’d planned to tell her exactly what she meant to him, but now that the moment was here, every word he could think of was woefully inadequate.

The next song came on, but neither of them stopped. Danse could happily do this all night.

“I don’t even remember telling you about A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” Quinn mumbled. “But you listened to what I had to say, even back then. You cared. And you put all this effort in...just for me.”

“Honestly,” Danse said, “this wouldn’t have been possible without Hancock and Nick.”

Quinn looked up and stared at him, wearing a surprised expression and a small smile. Had he said the wrong thing? Was he supposed to take full credit for it? The nerves were beginning to take hold, and he licked his lips before speaking.

“What are you thinking?” he asked stupidly.

“I’m just thinking how much I love you,” Quinn replied.

Danse’s foot snagged on thin air. In an instant the world whirled around him as he went crashing to the floor, Quinn shrieking as he dragged her with him. He fought desperately to breathe while she lay splayed on top of him, the wind knocked from his body, and drew in deep, heaving breaths when it passed.

“Are you okay?” Quinn gasped, trying to help him up, her eyes wide with worry. “Did you land on anything? Did you—?”

“Y-you love me?” Danse stammered. He couldn’t have heard that right. She obviously hadn’t said that. But...he needed to check.

Quinn blinked. “Yes, of course I love you.” She went pink. “Um, I’m sorry. I—”

“I love you, too,” Danse blurted out.

This was not how he’d intended it to go. He’d imagined softly spoken words and a tender kiss of passion—not lying on the floor, wheezing, having been hit with blunt force trauma to the chest by his own girlfriend.

This was almost as bad as declaring his feelings to her inside a bomb factory.

Quinn started to laugh. For a split second, a rush of embarrassment drowned him, and he wanted nothing more than to sink into the ground and disappear. But then she crawled into his lap and pressed her lips to his.

“I love you,” she said between each kiss. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“Sorry, didn’t catch that,” he replied weakly.

She giggled, but the sound was swallowed as their mouths met. When they broke apart there was a pause, and then Danse sat up, letting her straddle him as he pulled her close. The kisses grew more frantic, their hands eagerly exploring each other. Things were quickly tumbling out of control again, but this time with no one to disturb them. He kissed her lips, her cheeks, her collarbone...only when she began to nip at his neck, moving her hips so that she grinded against him, did his nerves finally leave him.

Danse fumbled with the catch on her bra, but the accursed contraption stayed firmly fastened, taunting him until the anxiety threatened to come back. Maybe Quinn sensed his frustration, or maybe she was as worked up as he was. Either way, she leaned away from him, taking the damn thing off without even bothering to remove her top.

“How…?” Danse began, but the question was forgotten as she returned to him, her fingers tugging impatiently at his belt. He didn’t need prompting. His own hands pulled Quinn’s shirt over her head. Danse threw the garment aside without a second thought, kissing every new inch of her he could reach, unsure where he wanted to start.

Quinn made the decision for him, finally wrestling the belt buckle free and slipping her hand into his pants.

Danse’s breath caught in his throat, and he leaned against her, momentarily thrown off guard as she moved her palm slowly up and down. Then she stopped, allowing the sweet haze to clear just enough so she could catch his eye. Quinn was smirking.

“Bed?”

Danse grinned. “Bed.”

--

A/N: Throwback to chapter 7. This is one of the scenes I’ve had in my head the longest, so I’m glad to finally use it. :)

As I have said at some point, though, I am very uncomfortable with writing smut. And I'm not very good at it. So there will not be anything explicit in this fic. Thankfully there are maaaany smut fics out there, so I'm sure you can scratch that itch quite easily. 0D

I'm so excited for the next few chapters. Now I'm past the end of the game, I have free rein.

FLUUUUUUFF.

[falloutdelmarvaau]

Fallout: Delmarva (Chapter 2)

Mission: Into the Unknown

My first steps into the wasteland are slow and tentative, but I eventually manage to coax myself outside. As my eyes adjust to the light, the first thing I notice is a single dead tree right next to the Vault entrance, no doubt killed during the Great War. My vision becomes clearer and clearer, and I notice that the entire area seems to be devoid of any life whatsoever. There are no living plants, no animals, no nothing. The whole area is nothing but a dry, brown, barren wasteland as far as the eye can see. Which way am I supposed to go? It’s all so overwhelming!

I get another alert on my Pip-Boy. This time, it’s coming from the Map section. I take a look and discover that a new map has already started to generate. Vault 26 is clearly marked right next to the little triangle that represents my current location. As I zoom out to get a more complete view of the area, I notice another location labeled Beach City. According to the map’s legend, it’s about twelve miles from here. I wonder if it’s a pre-war town or a post-war settlement. Nevertheless, it’s as good a place as any to start to. Maybe I’ll run into these rumored strong people. The directional compass says that Beach City is due east of here, so I start heading that way.

As I trek through the wasteland, I notice a complete and utter lack of anything. I grew up hearing scary stories of ghouls, synths, and super-mutants that dragged humans away and killed them. However, I have yet to spot so much as a radroach out here. There aren’t even anydistinctive features to the landscape apart from the occasional rock that’s slightly larger than all the other rocks.

It doesn’t take long before I start getting bored. I idly scroll to the Music section of my Pip-Boy. I’m about to play one of my favorite songs from the 1950s, but then I notice something else. A new feature has appeared alongside all of my songs: an option to tune in to a local radio tower. Curious, I scroll over to it and select it. This pulls up a new page that lists radio options. The only option is Radio New Delmarva, so I select that.

After taking a second to clear out some static, my Pip-Boy delivers the sound of a man’s voice to me. “What up, my irradiated dudes? This is your undead homie DJ Sour Cream coming to you live from an undisclosed location,” the voice says. I pause, trying to process that. Undead? What did thatmean? After a second, I decide that it’s probably just a DJ gimmick. From what I’ve heard, radio DJs are a weird bunch.

“Not much in the way of news today,” DJ Sour Cream continues. “However, I should point out that today is the first day of deathclaw mating season. Remember: if you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you. Now, without further ado, let’s get back to the music. And remember: when you want a fresh new sound, turn to Radio New Delmarva.”

Then a song starts to play. The DJ was right; it does sound fresh and new. I’ve never heard anything like it before: was it written in the 1950s? Before? After? I don’t know, and I’m not really sure I care. All I know is that I like it.

Looking for your place

In the Universe

Don’t you know the Universe

Is looking too?

Looking for its place

In you

And now it’s coming through

Your dream is coming true

Welcome to the party

Mr. Universe

We’re so glad we are

A part of you

Meet the rocks and flowers

The seconds and the hours

The splinters, winters

Apples, chapels

Teardrops, temples

Cats and castles

Anything that you can be

The things you see and cannot see

Are Mr. Universe

Mr. Universe

I can’t help but bob my head to the beat as I walk. This has to be the most unusual song I’ve ever heard. After a lifetime of hearing nothing but jazzy beats, this slow-paced melody is suddenly pulling me in in a way that nothing ever has before. It kind of makes me feel like maybe I was just being paranoid before. Maybe the outside world isn’t that big of a disaster. Maybe I’ll be just fi-

ROOOOAAAAAAR!

The noise comes from behind and startles me just as the song is wrapping up. I turn around to find myself staring face-to-face with… heaven only knows what! It’s a tall, reptilian beast that’s walking on its hind legs. Each of its six toes and eight fingers ends in a deadly-looking claw, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Its back and tail are covered in plates that could probably do some real damage if I ran into any of them. Its head is about the size of a Vault-Tec generator, with curly horns that look ready to ram. Worst of all, however, are its sharp-looking, meat-covered teeth. The horror of these eating implements is accentuated by its foul breath, suggesting that it has eaten recently. And, yet, judging by the look in its orange, cat-like eyes, it’s still hungry.

My heart leaps into my throat. What is this thing? Could it be one of those deathclaw things that the DJ had mentioned? Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem keen on letting me leave unscathed. Unfortunately, in my zeal to please the Overseer, it hadn’t occur to me to pack a weapon. That leaves me with only one option: running like hell.

My legs propel me away from the nightmare creature as fast as they can. I was never the fastest runner in my Vault, but I seem to be staying out of reach of this thing’s nasty claws, so that’s good. Still, this thought does very little to calm my racing nerves, which is probably for the best, given the circumstances. In fact, the dominant thought that runs through my mind as I attempt to escape is, “Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!”

It’s not long before my legs and lungs start to tire. The panicked, “Shit! Shit! Shit!”in my head grows louder. My endurance is absolute crap. I always had a feeling that could be my final undoing, but I never realize that it would be quite this horrifying! My legs are getting more sore by the minute. I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die. I’m gonna-

“Get down!”

In my panicked state, it doesn’t occur to me to wonder who just said that. I simply obey, diving to the ground and covering my neck with my hands like in those old nuclear war instruction videos. I’m about to close my eyes so that I won’t have to see my fate, but then a red streak above me catches my eye. I turn to look… and my jaw literally hits the ground. As it turns out, the source of the red streak was a person… at least, I think it’s a person.

I can’t see much of this person’s skin, but I can tell that her head and arms are completely red. Judging by the sound of her voice as she screams in primal fury, she is female. Her hair is black and kind of… square? How is that possible? More perplexing than this, however, is her outfit. She’s wearing what appears to be a World War II-style bomber jacket that’s open to reveal a white shirt that reads “Blame my wife” in blue letters. On her lower half, she’s wearing yoga pants that are tucked into combat boots. She’s fending off the horrific creature using two large gauntlets, one on each hand. A yellow visor completes the mysterious look.

The woman leaps high into the air and gives the creature a massive punch to the face. The creature lets out what sounds like a cross between a roar and a whimper as it stumbles backwards. When she lands on the ground in front of me, she takes a protective stance that reminds me of a mama bear defending her cubs. “If you want to live to raise your own offspring,” she threatens the creature, “then I suggest you turn back the way you came!”

To my surprise, the creature actually pauses as if it somehow understands what this woman has said and is contemplating it. Or maybe it just has its doubts about continuing to attack a being that can send it stumbling backwards with one punch. Either way, it lets out an indignant growl as it turns around and skulks away. I watch in amazement as its tall, lumbering form disappears over the horizon.

The threat eliminated, the woman turns to me and asks, “You okay, miss?” Then, as if this whole experience wasn’t surreal enough, her gauntlets vanish into thin air! I have to blink a few times and rub my eyes to confirm it, but those things are well and truly gone, revealing a pair of black gloves that only cover her middle fingers. She extends one of her hands to me. Bewildered as all hell, but still grateful, I take it.

“Um, yeah,” I say, allowing her to help me stand. “Thank you, uh...”

“Garnet,” the woman answers. My eyes widen. Her name is Garnet. This is one of the people I’m looking for! “And you are?”

It takes me a second to remember my own name, “Uh, Angelica. Angelica Miller.” I’m about to mention that I was looking for a Garnet, but then I notice something else. My hand, still in hers, brushes against something hard on her palm. Curious, I turn her hand over to take a look, only to come face-to-face with a gemstone! Again, I have to blink a few times to confirm that it’s there. Judging by how smoothly the skin on her palm bends around her gem, it’s an actual part of her body. But… that can only mean… Holy shit!

“You’re one of those gem aliens,” I breath, starting to feel light-headed. “The old legends are true.”

“Correct,” Garnet replied pragmatically.

“This… this is insane! I-I’d always assumed your stories were just distractions from our brutal reality. And yet… I can’t believe I’m actually talking to you.”

Garnet smiles good-naturedly. “I take it this is your first time on the surface?” she asks.

I blush. “Is it that obvious?”

“Many Vault-dwellers who first come to the surface and meet us don’t believe what they’re seeing, either,” Garnet explains. “Plus, most humans who live on the surface don’t have as much trouble dealing with a deathclaw.”

So that was a deathclaw. “Yeah, I’m pretty new,” I confess. Then, figuring it was as good a way to get to know her as any, I ask, “Can you help me?”

“I certainly can,” Garnet answers. “First things first; we need to get you a weapon. I’m assuming that if you had one, you would have used it.”

My blush deepens as I answer, “Yeah.”

“Well, come with me,” she offers. “I have a friend in New Beach City who knows her way around a man-made firearm.”

I blanch. “New Beach City?”

Garnet frowns. “Your Pip-Boy just listed it as Beach City, didn’t it?”

“Um… yeah?”

Garnet sighs. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. None of the world’s GPS systems have been updated since the War. In any case we should get moving if you want to get a weapon before another deathclaw attacks you.”

“I’m right behind you,” I reply peppily. She smiles and starts walking towards New Beach City, and I follow close behind. This is great! I can hardly believe this is going so well! As we walk, I look at my Pip-Boy’s screen, switch the display to the Message section, and send a quick message to the Overseer. [I’ve met Garnet. Why didn’t you tell me she was a gem alien?]

It doesn’t take long before I get a reply: [I had heard that these individuals were aliens. I didn’t want to get you all excited in case it wasn’t true. You know how exaggerated those old legends are.]

[They don’t seem all that exaggerated now.] I tell him, remembering how Garnet punched a motherfucking deathclaw until it went away.

The Overseer’s next message reads [In any case, well done for finding the first of your new friends. Contact me again when you have met the other three. In the meantime, don’t tell them that you are receiving orders from me. I want our plans for an alliance to be a surprise.]

This seems reasonable enough to me. After all, I don’t want to overwhelm them within 10 seconds of meeting them. [Okay.] With that, I lower my arm. The music of Radio New Delmarva has still been playing this whole time, and Garnet and I continue our walk to the sounds of a pre-war band singing about dead-end jobs.

[scotiaeire]

When The World Goes Mad...

Like, when Macron wants to make Europe a nuclear power...feck’s sake, I already lived through *one* Cold War, mister! Or when the UKgov sets armed drones  over civilian airspace. Or, just, Brexit, which, y’know, almost split up my wee family and forced us to move not just from one country, but two (though, if I’d known how beautiful Ireland was before I’d have given in and done it sooner, but nope, spent two years fighting a losing war and have the scars to prove it ) or like when the only news seems to be nothing but bad news (I used to make a point of ignoring the news..memo to self: start doing that again)

Well, then, I try to look on the bright side. Go on, admit it, you’ve got *that* bloody song stuck in your head now, haven’t ye, har!

I’m still alive, for one thing. And there’ve been times I almost wasn’t. Quite a few, actually. Like with an ex who tried to electrocute me by rewiring the washing machine. No, that sounds like it should be in a comedy show but it’s true, sadly. The shock I got threw me back against a worktop, almost broke my back (clear across the room) and I couldn’t move one of my arms for almost a month, but I survived. Obviously.

Or the multiple times my stupid heart arrhythmia put me in intensive care due to reacting to general anaesthetic..which is one reason I don’t want another operation. Ever.

But, aye, I lived through the Cold War. The first one, that is. As a young woman with a baby, I was amongst those living with a dual mindset (and *this* is a prime example of how incredibly easily folks are manipulated by media....) of having a brother in law in the Forces who admitted if the bombs dropped, we’d ALL be fecked. And of being a  member of CND, going on the rallies, baby on hip, attending the meetings and watching the banned MOD vids that showed (diluted, as it turns out) the horrors of nuclear war and it’s aftermath. We were terrified the bomb was going to drop almost every day, more so with Reagan and Thatcher (may the auld bitch rest in whatever hell she’s in. I hope it’s a scalding one) in charge.

But also, we watched films. The eighties was the era of the Post Apocalyptic movie. A media designed defiance against the misery of total annihilation. Films showing the event itself and how a brave wee band of survivors armed themselves to the teeth with whatever they could, scavenged whatever they could find and built Mad Max type cars and trikes to keep “the enemy Hordes” at bay. Or where the event had already happened and a few plucky survivors crossed the wastelands, in search of a patch of land that was somehow miraculously untouched by radiation, mutations, deaths and starvation and disease etc.

All good adventurous fun. And when you’re young and healthy enough, you *do* fall for it. A lot of the music of the day also echoed the “Live life to the full, it might end tomorrow” feeling we lived with.

Then we grew up and many of us realised how damn close we came to blowing our stupid fucking heads to bits....

So to hear someone like Macron advise that Europe should be a nuclear superpower, well...let’s just say, I’d prefer a return to the original Cold War. There was, somehow, a weird, if twisted kind of “innocence” about it that isn’t here now.

Sometimes, it seems like the world has gone mad. Much of this has to do with the instant access to news and events (not always true, and usually always skewed from one particular recorder’s viewpoint, or outright lying) so, here I am on social media advising digital detoxes every now and again.

(Not that I think anyone’s actually reading this blog, but, ahem, if you *do* them’s my words)

Because the world is more than strife and fear, crushing hatred and war. The world is also family and friends, landscape and urban curiosities, the world has people in it who ARE willing to listen to others when they need to talk (I’m one of those btw..anyone wanna talk? I have ears. And I listen well.)

I haven’t had a comfortable or easy life. To tell it all would bore the feck outta folks and take hours. I’ve stared death in the face quite a few times and feared for my bairns’ lives (which is worse than anything), I’ve been homeless and starving (I once managed to survive an entire week *and* go to work potato picking on one dried packet of spaghetti..no sauce...but I was young and tough then) and I’ve been suicidal, particularly lately due to Brexit and the effect it had on my family. I’m losing my sight, my lungs are packing up and my heart’s giving me hell too, thanks body for packing up just when I’d like to appreciate life more...

But I’m glad to be living. In spite of the swamp of fear-creating news (nobody else think somehow, a lot of it is deliberate, designed to keep us, to borrow a word from Watership Down, “thrawn”? Trapped in the headlights of the oncoming car...) well, in spite of it all, life is good. And nobody knows if we get another chance at it. No, I’m not preaching..I’ve been there when hope seems like a forbidden dream and the only way out is to walk into darkness. I’m glad now I didn’t.

Because I think of the pain my daughter and husband would feel. Because I’d miss times like this, when I sit beside a warm fire and it’s quiet indoors, but the rain lashes the windows and the wind makes the trees sing like banshees. Because although I’m going blind, I can *still* see enough to watch the goldfinches eat grass seeds in the bramble thorns, and can still see (when they’re close enough) the gulls wheel inshore to shelter from storms at sea.

When the world seems like it’s going crazy, I retract into myself and turn to the things I know the madness can’t touch...making a hearty meal for those I love, keeping clean, crisp sheets on comfortable beds, tending the bright, warm fire, throwing my arms around my exuberant Border Collie, Bran (named for one of Fionn Mac Cumhaill’s hunting hounds of old Irish lore) and having him just be so happy to be fussed, so loving, so loyal. Small things. Old fashioned things. Comfort blanket things. Treasures that too many folks in the world don’t have access to...

When I was young, I did my activist stint. Back then, we made zero difference. I learned governments will do whatever the fuck they want no matter what the people say en masse. Proof of that?  Cameron, May, Johnson. Trump. Countless others. I was never a pacifist. I believe if you or your family is threatened, words won’t stop what’s coming...you have to fight. Even if you lose, you *have* to fight.

I did, for two years, and lost. And we’re still wounded. But it worked out alright for us regardless.

So the point of all this rambling? When the world’s going mad, turn away from it. There’s no shame in hiding from it, because unless you *can* change anything, all it will do is eat you up and spit you out, destroyed, body, heart and soul.

Sometimes the only thing we can do is live our lives the best way we can. And if enough of us did that, maybe then things might change. Me, I have to leave activism to the young these days. I hope they have as much fight in them as we had back in the eighties, campaigning against the likes of Cruise Missiles and on behalf of Greenpeace etc. We did what we could, even when we knew it wasn’t enough.

But NEVER be ashamed if you can’t be part of that. If all you want to do is hide away from the madness. Be proud, instead, of living a life you choose to, and of living it well. Because others see that. And what others see, they often emulate.