#ragged chutes

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

River drivers on the Montreal River during the construction of the Ragged Chutes power plant 1909.

The Chutes provided energy to 100 operating mines and mills. Look at the very young driver (4th from left). Photo: Charlie Angus, MP, courtesy The Cobalt Mining Museum

[hairyjocktf]

A Full Dose of Country

Cody was exhausted. He was a star on the wrestling team at his university, but over winter break he’d been conscripted to be a helping hand on his uncle’s farm out in central Texas. After arguing for weeks with his very angry mother over the phone he’d submitted to spending his month off on the ranch. His mom had said that his uncle really needed the help for the season, and to put that athletic body of his to use. Cody rolled his eyes at that; he needed to be training for the next season. Instead he’d spent the past two weeks in the middle of nowhere helping out his uncle Shane, far from his friends and anything fun. Every day was long and exhausting. Cody thought he was in excellent shape but the long hours and excessive manual labor had started to wear on him quickly.

After putting some equipment away in the shed Cody trudged his way back into the small house, finding Shane slouched on the couch in front of the TV. He craned his neck around and gave Cody a quick up and down. 

“Damn son, you look rough today! You better get in bed early, we’ve got a hell of a task tomorrow,” he said. Cody’s shoulders slumped at the news.

“What could possibly be worse than what you’ve had me doing already?” He snapped. Shane was unfazed at the attitude.

“There’s some new bovine flu or something goin’ round. Heard it on the news the other day. I ordered some shots for the cattle to keep ‘em healthy, and I need you to help me get them all handled. Shouldn’t be a challenge for a hot shot like you right?” He snorted. Cody gave him a solemn look.

“Uh huh, sure.”

“I’m just messing with ya, y’know that,” Shane said with more sincerity. “Go on and get some sleep now boy,” he said as he shooed Cody off to his room.

Cody made his way down the dimly lit hallway to the small room he’d been staying in. He wasn’t the neatest guy on the planet but the state of his room was awful, but he’d been run too ragged to care. He pulled off his jeans and shirt and fell onto the bed, and within minutes he was out cold. 

The morning came abruptly with a banging on his door.

“Cody! Get dressed and out here we gotta start this operation early if we wanna finish today!” 

His uncle’s slightly muffled voice was still too loud for whatever hour it was. He threw on his hoodie and jeans from yesterday before making his way outside. The darkness was just starting to give way to dawn as he followed his uncle’s silhouette out towards the barn. The morning breeze was frigid, blowing through his hoodie like it was nothing. Cody shivered as he caught up to his uncle, who was setting up the chute for restraining the cattle. He stood there staring, in disbelief at what he was doing. His friends were partying in Cancun and he was up at 5 am herding cows?

“Well don’t just stand there, help me secure the pens!” His uncle’s bellowing voice snapped him out of his daze. Cody had unfortunately spent enough time on the ranch already to know what to do, and he got to work moving fences and prepping the area. By the time the sun had finally risen above the horizon they were ready. 

“Alright, now you’re gonna herd the cows in here one at a time, I’ll catch them in the chute, hit them with the needle gun, and let ‘em out into that second pen. Simple enough right?” Shane said, again with too much energy.

“Yea, sounds good.” Cody huffed, already feeling fatigued. He jogged back outside to start herding some of the cattle into the pens. He was surprised at how smoothly the entire operation was, within an hour they’d processed a dozen cattle. The problem now was getting the bigger ones in. Cody wasn’t normally afraid of a longhorn but in this situation he was tense, to put it lightly. Keeping his distance as much as possible, he slowly ushered the bull towards his uncle. As they neared their setup he had to get closer and more forceful, before finally spooking the animal into running into the chute. Shane slammed down the gates, holding the frantic bull inside the shaking apparatus.

“Cody!” Shane yelled over the racket, “Come hold this down so I can get a good shot!”

Cody hopped the fence and darted over to his uncle, holding the lever down against a raging bull. Shane was right next to him fiddling with the needle gun to refill it.

“Damn thing always jams at the worst times I swear…” he muttered before finally loading it properly. He squeezed up next to Cody to get close to the animal’s neck and leaned in to administer the shot. In that instant, the bull thrashed. Cody saw the massive horns swinging his direction and panicked, jerking to the side away from the head, directly into his uncle. They both toppled to the ground, and Cody felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. The bull knocked open the gates with no one to hold them down and dashed out into the pasture.

“Jesus Christ,” Shane said as he climbed to his feet, “You alright Cody?”

“Yea… I think so,” Cody mumbled as he stood up, feeling a pulsing pain in his gut. He lifted his shirt to find a small pinprick on his stomach surrounded by a reddened area.

“Aw shit, I must’ve hit you with the gun when we fell.” He walked over to Cody and kneeled down to look closely. “It’s a big needle for the cattle is all, you should be fine I think,” he said. Cody felt less than convinced. He scratched at the slightly itchy spot before letting his shirt down.

“C’mon, we’ve got plenty more cows to handle today. None of ‘em should be that aggressive again,” Shane said while inspecting the chute. Cody was a little shocked at how nonchalant his uncle was about what just happened. Cody headed back out to the pens to continue his job, but the slight itching on his stomach kept his mind divided. Surely nothing in a cow vaccine would be dangerous to a human right? They ate the cows in the end anyway, he thought with a slight chuckle.

Eventually the cows' persistent mooing brought them back to the present, and Cody’s thoughts slipped away from the earlier events. The work got his blood pumping, sending the vaccine’s contents all around his body. While the itch on his stomach finally subsided, a growing uncomfortable feeling was arising in his groin. The viral load had reached his balls, and while it was dormant for cows, the same couldn’t be said for Cody. It entered his cells and began making some changes down there. His balls began to swell, first to the size of walnuts before stretching his sack even more, plumping up to the size of large eggs. His newly enlarged testicles began to flood his body with more testosterone than ever before, laced with some bovine hormones.

His cock was the first to respond, twitching as it slowly grew hard, pressing against Cody’s compression underwear. His cock pulsed, head flaring as it stretched out, engorging to his full size of seven inches. Cody reached down to try and relieve some of the pressure, unaware of what was happening. He adjusted the band of his underwear, allowing more space for his cock to grow. And grow it did, pushing well past seven inches. The sensation of his throbbing member against his tight underwear was driving his body wild, even if he was distracted. His cock reached 11 inches, fully visible with a rock hard imprint in his underwear. Cody tried to adjust his growing package through his pants, oblivious to the situation below. As it capped out a glob of precum shot out of the tip, before the entire shaft thickened to a girth he could’ve only imagined before. A steady stream of precum began to flow afterward, creating an ever growing wet spot through his jeans. 

As Cody continued wrangling cattle, the steady stream of hormones from his massive balls continued to spread. An itch reappeared, but this time in his groin. He’d always kept himself clean shaven down there, but a slight shadow had appeared around the base of his cock. Clear cut hairs were starting to crop up again, a wave of short but dark stubble expanding outward. The hairs didn’t remain short for long, as his bush began to regrow with a vengeance. They pushed out of his skin, curling together as new hairs began to fill in between the old. The hairs pushed out longer and longer, weaving into a dense mat. The forest continued to spread, with thick hairs coating his low hanging balls and expanding out onto his thighs. The hairs began crawling up his lengthy shaft, covering the lower half in a furry sheath. Cody again scratched at his crotch, not noticing the dense growth from outside his jeans. As he finished up working for the day, hairs were slowly popping up further and further up, building a trail from his forested bush to his navel. The thick rug was pushing out against his compression underwear, slowly growing thicker as more hairs filled in.

Cody wiped the sweat from his forehead as his uncle was finally putting away the equipment from the day. He was more exhausted than he’d ever felt, and he didn’t believe he’d ever say that after enduring countless grueling wrestling training sessions with his coach. Thinking on them, he found it harder to recall those experiences despite his muscles aching, but he chalked it up to the brutal day he’d had. The sun was already below the horizon by the time they got back to the house. Cody figured he’d take a shower while Shane was throwing some kind of dinner together, and headed back to his room. He pulled off his hoodie and sweat-soaked shirt, revealing the crawling vine of dark hair making its way up his abs.

“What the fuck?” Cody blurted out in shock. He ran his fingers through the wiry curls exposed above his waistline. He quickly undid his belt and jeans and stuck his hand down in his underwear, deep into the lush sweaty forest that’d been absent when he pulled on his pants that morning. His jaw dropped. What the hell was happening here? He pushed his hand farther in only to find his now massive cock, and his eyes went wide. He darted into the bathroom and yanked down his underwear. In the mirror fully exposed was his flaccid nine inch cock, drooped in front of his comically large balls, all buried within the thickest bush he’d ever seen. Cody delicately handled his dangling member, and the slightest touch had it growing hard, leaking precum from the tip. He was stunned, standing there with precum spilling over one hand and the other buried in the thicket of hair.

As he stood there staring, the virus reached his brain. His panicked face slowly morphed into a grin. This was kinda hot, he thought. Who doesn’t love a massive dick, right? Cody began to rub his hands through the thick tangle of hair, feeling the curls catch around his fingers. His cock throbbed as it grew hard, reaching its full size. He grabbed it with his other hand, feeling the softer hairs that were poking out of his shaft. Cody, overcome with pleasure, let himself go. He stroked with one hand and explored his furry groin with the other. Within a minute he was ready to climax, grunting as he shot thick ropes onto the mirror. 

“Fuck,” he groaned, senses returning. He collapsed back onto the toilet behind, taking a moment to catch his breath before cleaning up his mess.

“Cody! Dinner’s on the table!” His uncle shouted from the kitchen. Cleaning would have to wait. Cody stuffed his still partially hard cock back into his tight underwear and threw on the rest of his clothes before heading out. He still had a grin plastered on his face, and Shane noticed.

“What’s got you in good spirits now, boy?”

“Aw nothin’ just proud of a good day’s work” Cody replied, suddenly caught off guard with his manner of speaking. That voice was his but didn’t sound like him, it was almost… country. No, he’d always spoken like that, he was from Texas after all. The smell of the sizzling food on the table grabbed his attention and he swiftly forgot about his concern. He scarfed the meal down, his body subconsciously needing the fuel. He suppressed a large belch before standing up, thanking Shane for the food, and heading back to his bed. Cody stripped off his shirt and jeans before flopping down onto the mattress, exhausted and stuffed. 

As he laid there, twirling his new pubes between his fingers, he let his thoughts drift back to his friends from school off on their vacations. He wasn’t as jealous anymore. In fact, maybe he was on the better end of that deal. All this manual labor was keeping him in shape for the season; getting drunk daily on the beach wouldn’t do that! His cock began to chub up at the thought of him finally putting on the mass to be at the top of his weight class. Precum leaked down his shaft and into his musky forest as Cody drifted off.

Cody woke in a sweat to a familiar banging on his door. He peeled himself off the sheets, looking at the vaguely body shaped sweat pool he’d left. He himself was also soaked. Then the  smell hit him, a musky sweaty stench had filled the room throughout the night. Cody was confused, he’d never sweat like this, not even after his gym sessions, it wasn’t even hot inside the house. He looked down at himself to see drops slowly streaming down his chest and stomach, which had grown slightly more covered with hair. He thoughtlessly scratched at his chin, fingers raking through small bristles that hadn’t been there before. With no time to ponder more he threw on some jeans and a tank top and ran out towards the barn.

Cody and Shane quickly got to work on the day’s tasks, eager to get as much done as possible before the sun got too harsh. Cody found it easier to get into what he was doing, it felt more natural somehow. As he worked up even more of a sweat than he’d woken up with, the combination of virus and testosterone got pumped around his body at an accelerated rate. The bristles on his chin began to poke out a little more; a shadow of stubble spread across his jaw and up onto his cheeks. Cody scratched at the growing stubble, not noticing the difference from his baby smooth physique before.

That smooth skin was quickly becoming a memory, as his upper lip was covered by the same shadow, dark spots turning into short hairs that pushed out longer and longer. The wiry hairs sprouting from his face grew thicker by the minute, new wisps shooting out between the maturing hairs. He’d grown into a scruffier version of himself, the shadow of stubble creeping down his neck as the hairs on his chin, upper lip, and cheeks fluffed out more.

As he worked, Cody’s arms pumped up more than usual and his legs following suit. His already well defined pecs began to feel sore as they pushed out, stretching his tank even more than usual. What had been rolling hills turned into mountains as muscle packed on. The soreness was quickly replaced with a subtle itch; the tendril of thick curls reaching up from his groin began to climb higher. Hairs shot up north of his navel, growing in a line up towards his beefier chest. His collarbone was the first to react to the cocktail of hormones surging inside him. A lone dark hair shot up over the collar of his tank. Another curled out, and then another. Wispy hairs began to crop up along the top of his chest, cresting over the neck of his tank. The beads of sweat covering his chest only seemed to fertilize more growth, matting the hairs to his skin in swirls and spirals of masculinity. Before long a rug had begun to form on his chest, hairs pushing out and puffing up his tank as it struggled against his growing body.

By mid afternoon, they’d finished everything for the day. Cody’s sudden burst of work ethic surprised Shane, who didn’t seem to notice his nephew’s burgeoning beard. Cody could feel the pump in his body, it was sore but he felt electric after working all morning.

“Whew, that went smoother than I ever figured,” Shane laughed and slapped Cody on the back. “Why don’t we enjoy a beer and take the rest of the day off.”

“Can’t say no to that I s’pose,” Cody responded with a smile. The two walked back to the house and settled out on the back porch. Shane grabbed some beers from inside and tossed one to Cody.

“Seems like you’re getting the hang of all this work around here, son. I could use a hand like yours more often!” Shane howled and cracked open his can. 

“Well, y’know, I guess I’m startin’ to enjoy it all a bit. Somethin’ about it out here makes me wanna stay,” Cody said with a heavier accent than even his uncle. Shane smiled back at him. The two chatted with a better rapport than ever as Cody downed his beer, and then another, and then two more.

His stomach gurgled as more hair spread across his stomach, fully burying his abs under a dark coat of hair. The line reached up to his chest widened, small fuzzy hairs spreading out before thickening up. Cody’s sweat covered chest followed suit. In the cleft between his pecs, hairs pressed their way out, spreading outwards as they grew in denser and darker and caught more sweat. What had been light fuzz across the wide expanse of his muscular form was corrupted by testosterone, follicles going into overdrive pushing out thicker darker hairs. The rug spread out around his nipples and upwards, merging with the hairs covering his collarbone as more continued to pop up towards his shoulders and up his neck. 

Cody was in the middle of downing another beer when a rank stench filled his nose. It was familiar, almost like the one from when he’d woken up. He lifted his arm and was greeted with a faceful of powerful body odor; his pits had become ripe and full of hours worth of sweat. He watched as the carefully shaven skin tinted dark as hairs sprouted en masse. It seemed like a waterfall in slow motion, watching the dark hairs pour out of his pit, growing longer and longer as they trapped more sweat in his damp pit. The growth spread, hairs pushing beyond the edges of his pits and growing the forest larger until it blended with the rug on his chest. His other pit itched as the same growth began to take place, a thick tuft of hair erupting. He could feel the wiry hairs pushing out between his arm and torso, growing bushier and escaping the bounds of his underarm. 

He should’ve been shocked, alarmed, panicked, anything of the sort, but instead he just stuck his hand into the damp jungle to scratch it. His fingers dug into the thick forest, digging deep to get at the sweaty skin below. Upon pulling his hand out he automatically sniffed it, as if he’d done so for a lifetime. The aroma filled his nose, the ripe stench causing his cock to shoot out a spurt of precum. The virus had gotten its foothold, altered his thinking enough to not only be nearly unaware of the changes, but to be aroused by them, to desire them. He leaned back in the chair, lifting his arms behind his head and exposing his hairy matted pits to the world.

The chair groaned under Cody as his body slowly swelled, muscles growing larger and thicker. His back popped as it grew wider, shoulders broadening as his traps and delts exploded with size. His tank top, already at its limit, began to tear at the sides where his lats were widening. Cody scratched at a slight itch on his shoulder, not thinking much of it, but the dusting of hairs on his shoulders had begun to spread, new curls cropping up all over. The wave of fur stretched from his forested chest up over his collarbone to his traps and shoulders before starting its descent. The itch crept down towards his shoulder blades as thin hairs pushed out, quickly growing from fuzz into fur. It almost looked like Cody was developing wings made of hair, as the patches knit together, creeping towards his spine to join into one hairy coat. The bristles continued working down, sprouting into thick stands that tangled together as they pushed out, growing denser as testosterone drenched each and every follicle. The burgeoning trail of hair reached his waistband, where it exploded into a sweaty tuft just above his ass. The hairs continued to fill in until his entire back was coated, a sweat-matted rug that was even curling around his sides to connect with the field of hair on his stomach. 

Cody shifted in his seat, trying to shake an uncomfortable feeling growing down in his underwear. His ass had been filling out all day, stretching his underwear to its limit, but this was different. Deep between his cheeks, thick hairs were slowly pushing out around his hole. They grew dark and wiry, tickling him as they squeezed between his massive cheeks. More hairs began to press out, surrounding his hole before spreading outwards. The shadow of loaded follicles crept over both his cheeks, and shortly after the hairs burst forth in a wave, pushing against his tight underwear as his ass disappeared beneath the growing fur. The hair continued to spread, connecting to his furry back and to his jungle of pubes which similarly thickened even more.

Cody reached down to scratch at his crotch, and paused for a moment after seeing his hand. It was much thicker than it’d been, with rough, calloused palms and thick sausages for fingers. He flipped it over and watched as a thick dark hair wormed out of his knuckle, followed by another, and in seconds there were dark tufts of hair popping up across his hand. The hairs crawled up towards his forearm, where his once soft dusting of wispy brown hairs was overrun by new dense growth. The hairs pushed out long and wove together into a puffy forest that climbed up his arm, the growth not petering out in the slightest. His beefy triceps vanished beneath the growing fur as it reached towards the thick hairs on his shoulders.

He watched the hairs overtake his once smooth and tanned skin but, rather than alarm. all Cody felt was arousal, with his cock chubbing up in his pants. He was half tempted to use that newly hairy hand to grab it, but he restrained himself. Not in front of Shane, it could wait. The sun had started to set, and as if on cue his uncle spoke up.

“Welp, better get workin’ on some supper,” he said, hoisting himself out of his chair. He left Cody out on the patio, finally giving his nephew a quiet moment to himself. Cody gazed out over the pastures, glowing in shades of orange and gold from the sunset. He could get used to it out here, he thought to himself. The desire to get back to wrestling with his team had slipped even further, he’d barely mentioned them during his and Shane’s multi-hour banter. The virus had been multiplying in his head, suppressing those neural connections in favor of those made recently on the ranch. He wanted to stay here on the ranch with the cattle, giving the virus more chance to spread to others. It would do anything to make that a reality.

Cody watched the sun slip below the horizon and headed back to his room. He tried to pull off his tank but instead it shredded, unable to cope with his massive body. He laid down on the bed, feeling the thick hairs on his back rub against the sheets. It was an electric feeling, and very quickly the bulge down there had doubled in size from the sensation. He brought one hand up to the dense rug of hair on his chest, not questioning how it’d grown since the morning, raking his fingers through the wiry swirls of hair. It felt amazing. A wet spot appeared on his jeans and grew as he stroked the thick chest hairs, before he stripped off his pants and underwear to free his fully erect cock from confinement, dribbling precum down its side.

His other hand he brought up to his face, feeling the fluffy growth. It was lighter than the rest of his new growth, but as he scratched at his cheeks he could feel new hairs poking out. The hairs grew in thicker and denser, his beard filling in as skin vanished underneath. The follicles continued to pump out hair after hair, thicker and darker than before as hormones completed his change. The beard hairs pushed out longer and longer, tangling into a solid block of hair that hid his face and neck as it grew down. The bristles poked out higher up on his cheeks, claiming as much of his face as they could. Cody was in ecstasy, feeling his beard come in around his fingers. His cock pulsed without him even needing to touch it, the testosterone coursing through his body thickening all the hairs into a seamless pelt. 

He loved his new body, his new fur, and he had to make it permanent. The virus guiding him, he reached down to his cock, his grip not even enough to surround the girth, and pumped it once up and down. With just that, Cody moaned in a newly gruff voice as he climaxed, his cock erupting with a geyser of cum. Rope after rope of thick cum landed all over his body, getting stuck in the forest of hair engulfing him. As the last load dribbled out of the tip his body relaxed, so did his old life of college and wrestling. Cody laid there, plastered with his own load as waves of pleasure echoed through his body. This was the life, he thought, still rubbing his hands through his cum soaked fur. 

Cody managed to clean himself up a bit by the time Shane called from the kitchen. He sat across from his uncle at the table while they ate, resuming the banter from earlier. At the end of the meal Cody finally decided it was time.

“Y’know Shane, I think I’d like to stick around for good.”

This story is my submission to @occamstfs 2000 follower writing challenge. Definitely my longest one yet, thanks everyone for reading to the end! I hope y'all enjoyed it, and thanks to Occam himself for the motivation, inspiration, and editing he did!

[thedeviltohisangel]

Spook and John have my 🫶🏼. Maybe for a prompt “who did this to you” John asking Spook? I just think with her background as a spy and his protective nature, it fits them!! Can’t wait for more 🙌🏻

All The Things I Did (Interlude): I'm Such a Fool

a/n: broke my own heart with this one. introduced a very curious dynamic with harding, a little bit of solo cass and a few little fluff crumbs so you all don't hate me too much. send romance/fluff/ post-war spook and bucky??? prompts to ease my soul. i'll be waiting to chat...

The moment Colonel Harding was the one behind her office door and there was no smile on his face or flirtatious joke on his tongue, Cass knew. 

“Anyone?” 

“Rosenthal’s crew just landed. I was on my way to interrogation.” Her heart was struggling to know what to do. Seize with sadness over the loss. Hammer in her chest to keep her mind moving. Slow down so she could have a moment to think. 

“I’m coming with you.”

----

She sat silently while they went through each plane until they got to the one John had been on. The tapping of her toes only sped up when the navigator announced he saw ten chutes. “About where was that drop, Lieutenant?” The men looked over at her, Colonel Harding already gathering his breath to tell her to stand down.

“Somewhere over Westphalia, maybe, ma’am. It was…I’m sorry I don’t have anything more specific.”

“It will do just fine, Lieutenant. Thank you.” Cass tucked her notebook, she hadn’t even opened it, under her arm and barely made it out the door when Harding started calling after her.

“Cassandra! Lieutenant!” She kept walking, knowing exactly what he was going to say and knowing with certainty she was not going to listen. “Lieutenant Egan!” That made her pause.

“Who told you that?” She kept her back to him. She wasn’t sure quite yet what game he was playing.

“You don’t think your counterparts were keeping an eye on you over there?” She rolled her eyes. Men and their egos.

“Your feelings about the situation are irrelevant, Colonel. I have work to do.” Cass was going to grab her bag and go get John. 

“You’re grounded, Lieutenant. You try to leave this base and I’ll have you shipped back to the States on the next available flight.”

“Then good thing the OSS answers directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colonel.” 

----

“You shouldn’t be here so soon, Ingrid.” Cass had spent the night in an emergency safe house close to her drop site before setting off to the nearest town where Peter lived, her contact she paid to help get around Germany. Ingrid was the name he knew her by.

“I wouldn’t if it wasn’t for a good reason.” She looked around the beer hall, empty at this time of day. “I’m looking for a pilot. American. Dropped over here a day or two ago.” Peter got quiet and stopped moving the rag over the bartop. 

“Ingrid, asking about American pilots is very dangerous around here.” Her fingers flexed tightly around the glass of untouched beer she had politely paid him for. Tipped double.

“You don’t need to take me to him. I just need to know how to find him on the way to Stalag Luft.” 

“Two men were here this morning on their way to pick up bodies.” 

“Bodies?” 

“They have a spot in the middle of the woods where they bury them.” Cass closed her eyes and fought to maintain composure. There was no chance John was dead. She would have felt it. She would know in her soul. 

And when she rode the horse Peter lent her to that clearing and she saw a lifeless body lying directly in the sun like God himself wanted her to find it, she almost started to think he was gone. 

“John?” She practically fell from the horse as she realized it was him. Dropping to her knees, she grunted as she rolled him over. Her breath stopped when she got a good look at his face. Cass felt around frantically for a pulse and almost cried when she felt one thrumming against her fingertips. “Baby, you got to wake up.” She deduced he had run away from the men that were here to bury a pile of American bodies. It meant that it was only a matter of time before they either found them or sent for German soldiers. 

John thinks he heard her voice. Thinks he felt her presence above him. Thinks that meant he was dead. 

“Cass,” he moaned. His head wasn’t supposed to hurt this bad if he was dead. “Please.” Please just take me away from here, he was asking. Take me somewhere where I can be with you again.

“It’s me. You’re going to be okay. I’m going to get you out of here.” There was no chance she was going to be able to get him on the horse without his help. She draped his arm over her shoulder, his head lolling weightlessly into the crook of her neck. 

“You’re real.” 

“We have to get you up, okay? Can you help me, Johnny?” Her arm wrapped securely around his waist, steadying herself to lift. With a grunt she pushed up but only made it a few steps before she collapsed under his dead weight and hit the forest floor. She rubbed her knuckles as hard as she could against his chest in an attempt to wake him back up. “Come on, come on.” He coughed a little and his eyes fluttered open completely. 

“Cass…you can’t…be here.” She ignored him, propping him up into a sitting position and readying herself to lift him once again. “Cass, please. Go.”

“Not without you.” She had him. They were so close. She couldn’t go back now. 

“I love you, Cassandra Ann Egan.” He was saying it like it was goodbye. She wanted to respond. She wanted to cry and scream. Wanted to burn the entire world down for getting her here but not letting her have it.  Have him. But the sound of a gun cocking and a cold barrel placed to the back of her head made her freeze.

“Get away from the prisoner.” Cass willed herself to think of a way out of this. There was no way this could be the end.

“You want to point a gun at someone, point it at me.” John was sitting up straighter now. Adrenaline reaching all parts of his body. His instinct to protect simmering inside him. He reached for Cass’ arm in an attempt to drag her behind him.

“I found him bleeding while riding out to the market. Was only trying to help.” She slowly stood with her hands up, the gun lowered when the officer heard the German words coming out of her mouth. Keep talking, keep diffusing, keep distracting. 

“He’s coming with us, no need for your help.” For his part, John was using the tree he had been leaning against to pull himself up. He got his wish, the guns right back up and in his direction. 

“You get on that horse and you get somewhere safe.” He was pleading with her. Have never asked her for anything since he met her but was asking her for this. To give him the peace of mind that she was safe. 

“Ingrid, there you are!” Cass looked in horror as Peter entered into the clearing. “You’ll have to pardon her, sirs. She gets lost sometimes.” The two men from the carriage had returned to the beer hall to radio the local security forces. Unable to stop his curiosity, he had followed them to make sure she was alright.

“Enough!” One of the soldiers drew back his gun and brought it down on John’s back, his legs giving out and causing him to drop to his knees. She lurched forward with a scream, Peter grabbing her and pulling her back.

“Stop! Let me go!” 

“Get your hands off of her you son of a-” Another blow, the wind knocked out from him this time. She kicked at Peter’s legs but his grip only tightened as he began to drag her away. 

“John! John!” she screamed as tears flowed down her face. 

“Let her go! Don’t fucking touch her-Cass!” He crawled a few feet in the direction she was being dragged, kicking and screaming and writhing with the pain of leaving him behind. The next blow knocked him out cold.

----

He was certain she was dead. Certain that that was the last he would ever see of her. John had wanted to ask the interrogator. He had shown a grainy image of Cass, called her The Little Sparrow, and asked if he knew her. Knew her real name. Location. He had only smirked. That was his girl. John knows she would have been all too happy to know just how far under their skin she was. He had half a mind to ask the guards to kill him too on his way to the cell. What was the point if she wasn’t there to get home to? To fulfill the life they were foolish enough to let themselves dream about. 

Seeing Buck and the boys numbed him for a little bit. But then Buck asked about London. Asked if John had finally told Cass he loved her. If they had made plans for when this was all over. The words were lodged in John’s throat. He wanted to tell Buck he had told her he loved her over and over again. That she had finally said she loved him back. Endlessly. That they had felt in their guts they were running out of time so they had found their way to a bombed out Abbey and made it all official. But he couldn’t bring himself to talk about the good times.

“Major John Egan.” A guard appeared in the doorway. “You’ve been called back to interrogation.” He had been here a couple of days but knew enough it didn’t sound like a positive. Cass had told him of her encounters with the Gestapo. Maybe they had learned of his connection to her. Maybe that were going to try and torture the truth out of him. 

The guard led him out into the yard, passed the nicer huts where the Germans stayed and toward the remote corner where more housing was being built. It was starting to look more like a good spot for an execution. At least he would see her again. 

“Do I get my last rites?” he asked as he was ordered to stop. There was not a single other soul in sight. 

“Five minutes.” The guard walked away and John looked around in confusion. Maybe he could try and climb the fence. Maybe he could-

“Excuse me, but I’m looking for my husband.” Oh. 

“What kind of husband leaves a wife as ethereal as you all by her lonesome?” There was a chain link fence separating them but she was there. She was alive and she was there. “I thought I’d lost you.” Cass’ fingers curled into the fence and resting her head on the cool metal, his skin finding hers in one of the openings. 

“Me too. But we’ve been fucking with all plans the Germans have for us, haven’t we?” He smiled and wished he could touch her more fully. Wished he could kiss her and twirl her hair around his finger and feel the rise and fall of her breath against his chest.

“We should never have left London,” he whispered. 

“We’ll get back there-” Her words paused as she sucked in a breath of pain. John gripped the fence tighter. She lifted her shirt and John noticed a deep purple bruise along her ribcage. “Definitely broken,” she wheezed.

“Someone do that to you?” 

“You’re not supposed to be worrying about me, John.”

“Who did this to you?” 

“I had a run in with a guard on my way in. He propositioned me and didn’t like that I turned him down.”

“Would you be mad if I killed him?” There was no humor in his tone. His request for her permission was actual. 

“I don’t want you in here any longer than you already are. We made a lot of plans we have to follow through on.” Cass couldn’t help the tears that pricked at the corners of her eyes. 

“I owe you a real wedding,” she hummed in agreement, “some little Bucky’s and little Spook’s,” she leaned in as close as she could, “and that house by the ocean.” She had talked about a house she walked by every summer as a little girl. Thought it was a castle and dreamt of living there with her books and her farm dogs and her own family. Bucky was going to buy it for her if it was the last thing he ever did. 

“I’m going to visit as much as I can. I’ll write to you everyday.” She had noticed the guard approaching again. Their time together was coming to a close. “I love you more than anything else in the entire world,” she said the words as if they were the most sacred. After John had jumped the gun with his feelings weeks ago, she had made him work for the words to be echoed back. He was more addicted to her love than cigarettes.

“I love you, too, Cass. Promise me you’ll always know that. No matter how long it takes for me to get back to you.” 

“I’ll be right here waiting for you. I promise.” Their lips met in one of the diamond gaps, both of them trying to portray everything they felt in the soul. 

“Time’s up.” 

“Let me look at you. Just one more minute.” He wanted to be sure he was able to commit her to memory. Every little detail. Didn’t want to forget a single beauty mark. A single scar. The curve of her top lip or the way her eyelashes looked when they fluttered closed. 

“Now, Major.” The grip on his arm was firm, John practically being dragged away as Cass just pressed herself closer and closer into the fence. He never took his eyes off of her, silently mouthing his love for her one last time before he was around the corner and she was out of his sight. 

“Do me a favor, sir?” The guard stopped and looked at him. “Point me in the direction of the guard that put his hands on my wife.”

[cemetery-sunset]

Caught in the Cattle Chute - Nubbins Sawyer x GN!Reader

Summary: When Reader is just trying to do some chores and clean up the slaughterhouse, they get an interesting surprise from their lover.

Word count: 3.3k

Warnings / Tags: they/them pronouns, gender neutral! reader, established relationship, rough sex, surprise creampie?, blood/dirt/grossness, groping, fingering, grinding/humping, unprotected sex, slight dubcon? kinda

A/N: this is porn with no plot, enjoy!…. maybe a part two will happen?

The slaughterhouse was an interesting place, to say the least. It was dingy and gross, covered in grime and blood… and yet, somehow, it was serene and almost peaceful. It wasn’t regularly used or habited by anybody, family members or not. There were always ambient noises, dust settling, pipes squeaking and the wind flowing through the trees outside.

Leaning over the table towards the back of the slaughterhouse, the newest member of the family hummed to themselves, gently picking up a severed hand out of a pile of dried blood. The hand was stiff and pale, they threw it into a nearby bucket that was slowly filling up with various body parts. They hummed to themselves as they used an old rag to wipe down the bloody, dirty table. It was not a necessary chore to clean up the slaughterhouse… or any of the Sawyers’ house really. The only member of the family that truly cared about cleaning up the houses was Nancy, and she never came to the slaughterhouse anyway. Cleaning it up was just a nice, time-wasting thing to do while the rest of the family were too busy doing their own chores.

There was a noise from somewhere else in the building. A thud like something fell over. Another hand was thrown into the bucket, and then a few different bones. The person paid no mind to the noise, this area always had noises coming from another room, this was normal. The thud came again.

They kept wiping down the table, collecting body parts and trying to clean as best as they could with a dirty rag and lots of elbow grease. Before they could comprehend what was happening, they were grabbed suddenly. Two thin, yet strong, arms wrapped around their midsection, immediately going to their chest. They scream in surprise, not expecting the attack, dropping their rag onto the even dirtier ground.

“H-hey preeetty!” Nubbins’ excited voice rang out in their ear as he leaned his head down to their neck, sniffing at it deeply.

“I-I-I was lookin’ for you!” He chirped out, moving his body to be flush against his lover’s back.

“Nubs?! What’re you doin’?!” His lover tried to move away and turn around to face the man, but his grip was iron. He ignored their questioning as he moved further into their space, pushing them off balance, forcing them to hold onto the table in front of the pair. Nubbins’ large hands kept groping and feeling their body, moving over their chest and pushing at their lower stomach in an attempt to push them ever closer to this rigid body.

“Hang- hang on! Can we just-“ They got cut off when they tried to pry off Nubbins’ hands from their chest. That’s when they felt it, grinding hard against their ass, a hard bulge in Nubbins’ pants.

Nubbins started to moan into his lover’s neck.

“You- you just- you feel so g-good!” He moved his hands over their body, squeezing their soft flesh harder than necessary. His lover’s body was growing hotter by the second, their mind going foggy.

“I-I-I just neeed this!” He cooed and shushed his lover, using more force to rub his hard on against their clothed ass.

“Hey! Nubbins!” They tried to stand up straight and pull their body away from his, but it was no use. Nubbins used that opportunity to push them harder. Their hand slipped from the table as they fumbled onto the floor.

In the fall, both parties failed to notice how close they were to a giant bucket of blood, dripping from a nondescript bag on a hook. For a second, Nubbins lost his grip on his lover. They fell and knocked over the bucket, spilling the bloody contents all over themselves. The clean new clothes they were wearing were immediately ruined, most of the blood ending up on their torso, arms and face.

“Ah! Come on, Nubs!” They tried to protest while rubbing blood out of their face, but it was no use, their skin was now tinted an aggressive red.

As if the hitchhiker wasn’t already in a state of animalistic need, seeing his beautiful lover covered in blood only worsened his feeling.

“Y-you- look…” One of his large, honey hands went down and palmed his bulge as his partner was beginning to stand up on their own. He was frozen for a minute, unable to move purely because his head was overwhelmed with so many thoughts at once.

“Nubs, I just got this shirt… an’ I’m tryin’ to clean.” They were mermering to themselves as they stood and stumbled a little, trying not to slip on the blood.

Before they could catch themselves, Nubbins did it for them. He rushed to grab them again, this time somehow more feverish. His hands moved around the blood and rubbed it all over their face and chest.

“Oo-ooh-!” His voice was high and excited, his brain losing all coherence so all his words began to slur and become word vomit.

“Hang on- Just let me-“ They tried to protest and move away, but they couldn’t get a grip on his arms with their own being covered in slick blood.

“Pree-tty, preetty, pretty, pre-etty- “ He kept moving forward and forward, invading all their personal space. His partner struggled to not fall over, instead slipping on their own feet and the blood on the ground.

With one strong grab on Nubbins’ forearm and his lover slipping in the opposite direction, they were able to free themselves from his grasp once more.

His lover yelped as they tripped from the hitchhikers grasp, instead falling head first into a cattle chute. The chutes lined this side of the slaughterhouse, they hadn’t been used in a while. Now most of them were rusted, dusty and broken from time. Nobody has touched them in years.

As their head shot through the chute, their shoulders slammed into the metal hard. They yelled at the impact; the force was so aggressive that the cattle chute slammed shut, closing around their neck and trapping their head on the other side of the chute.

“Nubbins! Nubbins! Help me!” They cried, using their bloody arms to push and pull at the chute, the metal not even creaking under their force. The only thing that did was get blood and handprints all over the metal machine.

Nubbins was too busy babbling nonsense to help his lover. As they squirmed and thrashed against their new bindings, he couldn’t help but get that same feeling he had when they got covered in blood. He rushed to his partner, slipping on the bloody floor but regained his balance before falling.

“You- you soooo- an’ this-“ Nubbins laughed as his hands slammed into his lover’s ass cheeks unceremoniously, smacking loud smacking noises in the process. The man squeezed and groped at their ass, moving up to their sides.

“Whoa-ah!” His partner jumped at the sudden contact and aggression.

“Hey, I’ll help you, if you get me out! This- this ain’t funny!” They kept squirming, pulling uselessly on the undisturbed metal around their neck. The man kept laughing, at the sight, the situation, at his own lover.

Nubbins shoved his bulge right up to their ass, his hands nonstop groping his lover’s soft body. He pulled their hips backward, causing their jaw to slam against the metal.

“Hey! Ow! Stop it!” Nubbins didn’t stop. He only kept rambling to himself and pulling on his partner’s hips, pushing his hard on right against them.

“Just get me out of here! Please!” His partner kept trying to plead, their cries fell on deaf ears.

Nubbins kept laughing and groping at his partner, loving being able to feel their heat through their pants. It was addicting for him to rub his bulge all over it. His cock rubbed against his zipper so hard it nearly hurt, not enough to make him uncomfortable, just enough to make him painfully harder. In his hazed mind, Nubbins stayed rubbing against his partner, only taking one hand off of them to messily yank open his belt and zip down his fly. His loose grey pants fell to the ground instantly, the belt being the only thing that held them up.

His cock was longer than it was wide and curved to the side. The dark pubic hair resting all around it was completely natural, running up and up onto his flat stomach. Standing straight out, completely at attention, his head was flushed red and already shiny with precum. His balls hung heavier than normal, full from how long it’s been since he’s had the chance to ravage his lover like this. Nubbins wasn’t experienced enough to know how to take care of himself properly, so most of the time, he went without any release for days, and sometimes weeks.

“Nubbins! What’re you doin’?! Get me outta here first! Someone might come in an’ find us!” They pushed at the cattle chute more, to no avail. They tried to cover up their raising voice with the scolding, but it didn’t work. Their breathing got heavier and even they could feel the effect being in this predicament had on their body. Their legs started to tremble as they held onto the cattle chute, no longer pushing, just using it to try to keep themselves stable.

With his cock free, Nubbins rubbed even harder against his lover. The layers between them getting thinner and thinner, only serving to make his excitement rise.

“Fee-el good- soooo good!” He rambled, focusing on how he could feel their heat more prominently on his cock now, with his pants being discarded. His bones hands grabbed at his partner’s cheeks again. His grip landed on the waistband on their pants, he pulled them backward aggressively, less like he was trying to strip them, and more like he was now using the clothing as more leverage to get even closer.

His partner kept trying to protest, but the lord Nubbins pulled at their pants, the more their brain went foggy. They could feel how hard he was, how long he was, the cold air of the slaughterhouse hit the tops of their cheeks as Nubbins’ pulled their pants halfway down.

“You… soo pretty… I-I really… like-“ Nubbins rambled out as his hands slid into the back of his partners pants, pulling them down only barely. The fabric was stuck on their thighs, it was barely low enough for Nubbins to reach their hole. With only their thin cotton underwear in the way, everything felt heightened.

“The-ese a-are pretty ttoo!” Nubbins pulled at the white cotton, making his lover squirm even more. He pulled them up and down and sideways, playing with the fabric. Nubbins grabbed his cock and moved it in between the fabric and his partner’s skin, starting to rub up against their hole directly. They both let out pathetic moans, his partner’s legs trembled more.

“W-wait-“ His lover tried to get him to slow down, but there was no getting through to him when he was like this. It was like he was an animal reverting back to his natural state, like he couldn’t think about anything other than cumming.

As if his lover’s underwear wasn’t wet already, his pre being spread up and down the back of them only made it worse. They were somewhat translucent from the fluid, Nubbins could see the pink of his own cock through the white. The sight only made him run up against them harder.

Finally having enough teasing, Nubbins ripped the underwear with his bare hands, not even having enough patience to use his knife. The fabric stayed wedged between his lover’s crotch and their pants, but it was now in pieces.

“N-now-“ Nubbins barely said a word before he rammed his cock deep into his partner. They both moaned out, his lover letting out shaky breaths, having to hold onto the metal chute with white knuckles. Nubbins laughed at the familiar feeling, barely giving himself a second, he roughly grabbed their ass and began pulling them back and forth onto his cock, spearing it deep every single time. His balls slammed into their body, making a lewd wet noise coming from beneath the pair.

For a moment, he went as deep as he could and just grinded into their wet hole, his balls rubbing up against their ass. He leaned down and shoved his face into their back, licking at the blood on their shirt. His forehead rested on their back, his face now smeared with blood, his smile painted pink.

The quiet, slow moment only lasted so long before Nubbins couldn’t take it. He was never known for his patience. Without warning, he dug his nails into his lover’s sides, nearly drawing blood. He slammed his cock into their hole over and over, repeating a whimpery little mantra.

“So-o so-so good, s-so soft…” Nubbins’ hands were covered in blood, old from the bucket and new from his partner. His nails were dirty, they got blood caked under them as he raked them over his partner's back, pulling at their shirt.

Quickly, Nubbins’ reached up and grabbed his straight razor from the little furry pouch that hung around his neck. He laughed and squinted his eyes as he cut through his lover’s shirt, slicing it in half and pulling the pieces off of their trembling body hastily. He raised the pieces high, not stopping the movement in his hips as he scrunched up the shirt in his dirty hands and rung it out like a used towel. The dirty old blood rushed out of the fabric, splashing onto their back. Drops flew all over the pair, getting onto Nubbins’ shirt and into his partner's hair. After he was satisfied with the amount of blood covering his partner, he dropped the shirt on the ground and used his hands to rub around the blood, smearing it into their skin.

“Ha- ha-! Lookie! Y-You look gooood!” Nubbins laughed as he covered his hands in the blood, dragging it down their spine, all the way to their ass. His hips didn’t stop moving into his lover as the blood began to drip down their cheeks. The hasty movement from his hips made the blood flow faster down his lover’s hole and his own cock.

“Oh-oh! Th-that is- ah-!” Nubbins’ sentence ran off as it turned into a pure moan. He never paid attention to his volume level, but especially when he was balls deep in his partner. Said lover was struggling to stay still with all the movement, their legs trembling and nearly buckling under the aggression and pure power coming from the unpredictable man.

Nubbins leaned over their back, continuing to rub the blood all over them. His nails dragged harshly onto their stained skin, slowly ripping it open. As did the bone bracelet that adorned his right wrist, it started to rip up their skin as his hand and wrist were dragged roughly all over their body. Nubbins didn’t even realize what he was doing, all the blood he was making his own lover shed. The man moved his hands under their torso to hold onto their chest. His hands were full as he groped and pulled at any skin he could get his hands onto. He used his harsh grip as leverage as he was now hunched over their body at an awkward angle, to continue his harsh thrusts.

His partner lifted one hand off of the cattle chute and held onto the large one on their chest. Both of them just moaned, Nubbins laughing and his partner closer to screaming.

Suddenly, Nubbins heard a much louder scream than normal as he decided to shove his teeth deep into his partner’s back.

“F-fuck, Nubs- hang on-! Ple-ase!” They tried to beg for mercy but their pleas only made Nubbins laugh harder. He slowly dragged his teeth out of the deep, bloody gouge in their skin. He shoved his big nose into the wound and licked at it, getting even more blood all over his face and teeth.

“Mmm- you ta-taste so good you might as well be deeesert tonight!” He laughed as he added more bite marks, his hands moved down to his lover’s hips, harshly digging his dirty nails into them and pulling them back against his cock.

“W-wait! To-too much, Nubbins!” His lover screamed, trying to move away from not only his mouth, but his cock that was continuously burying itself as deep as possible.

Before they could say anything, their body jolted and released onto their thighs and Nubbins’ already soaked cock. Their legs shook aggressively and nearly gave out, they had to grip onto the cattle chute so hard that their hands hurt.

“Fu-uck!” Their voice was broken and shaking, just like the rest of their body. It was so intense that it even made Nubbins’ hips stall for a moment, he couldn’t take the pressure that surrounded his cock. Even after his lover came, Nubbins didn’t stop, his hips grew more sporadic as he just threw himself at them over and over, bruising their backside.

“A-ah-! So- tight-!” Nubbins started to cum before either of them knew what was happening. After a quick second, he realized he started to cum inside and he ripped his cock out of his partner’s hole as fast as he could. The rest of his cum landed on his lover’s ass and their back, adding more color to the painting that covered their body. The man used his thumb to press his cock against his lovers hole, rubbing against it while he breathed heavy, watching his cum spray all over their soft skin. He could see his cum dripping on the edge of their hole and the sight nearly made him hard again.

“Lookie at aaall this-“ Nubbins said, his voice rougher and breathy, getting his hands covered in the blood, cum and sweat that covered his partner. He stuck two of his dirty fingers in their hole, not even trying to give them pleasure, just to pull out all the cum that he accidentally sprayed inside.

“T-This needs to be he-here…” He trailed off, like he was talking to himself. The man rubbed his dirty fingers, that were now covered in his own cum, all over their hole, making sure that it was messy and beautiful.

“Fuck…” Struggling to not collapse onto the ground, they tried to look back at their partner as he talked.

“Nubs, can you- can you help me now? Please?” They tried to ask but Nubbins had already pulled up his pants. He gave his partner’s bare all a mindless tap.

“I-I-I don’ know how ta work the chute!” He laughed, gesturing to the machine. His lover started to panic, pulling at the metal, leaving more angry red marks on the sides of their neck. Nubbins’ forte was more mechanics of the homemade variety. If he didn’t make the machine to begin with, chances were he couldn’t figure it out.

“What?! What d’you mean?! Ya don’t know how to open it-?!” Using one hand, they tried, and failed, to pull up their pants. The fabric was too tight, their legs too weak and the fact that they were covered in multiple gross liquids didn’t make the fabric move very easily.

“Fuck- Shit- Nubbins, help me!” They kept struggling, and pulling against the metal, simultaneously trying to fix their unfixable wardrobe.

“I k-know! I’ll go git Johnny!” Nubbins said with his big lopsided smile, proud of his own idea. His partner felt their heart drop, their face losing all color.

“No! Nonono- No! Nubbins, don’t you dare!” They kept thrashing and screaming, now trying to use their legs and more of their body to pull at their binding.

They could hear Nubbins’ laughter, it was loud and obnoxious. He kept giggling maniacally as he gave them a few more spanks on their ass before fixing his belt and nearly running out of the room.

Nubbins just kept laughing as his lover just kept yelling at him. The last thing they heard was the leather metal door to the slaughterhouse be ripped open and then slammed shut, sealing their fate.

[latibvles]

something to write about.

we are back with another one of these!! yay!! this week's prompt is recuperation — and so we're tackling willie and some post-bremen dilemmas, featuring John Brady no this isn't just an excuse for me to write them who said that? anyways im fond of them and this and I hope you are too :) me? posting at a reasonable time? unheard of.

It was almost offputting, how a phrase could change meaning in a little over 72 hours. Nothing to write home about becomes nothing you can write home about. Willie always struggled with writing letters, and Viv often teased her about how she’s the only person in the Hundredth who could struggle with making piloting sound exciting. Of course, Willie didn’t want it to sound exciting, even if she could manage that. She didn’t need Otto getting any wise ideas to end up on the fast track for enlistment. But now, there was nothing she could write home about.

Thirty people, gone, just like that. It was hard to be optimistic when there were no chutes to give some scrap of hope — and Willie hated watching June wipe Carrie’s blood from her hands almost as much as she hated watching Carrie get carried away on a stretcher, her collarbone a bloody mess haphazardly subdued with the sulfa powder and rag June held to it until she had to drop their bombs in the channel. They only knew how upset she was about the whole thing after she kicked her footlocker like it’d personally wronged her after interrogation.

If this is what it feels like being the last man standing, Willie hates it most of all.

That was three days ago, and now most of Mouse Hole’s flak holes were all patched up, and Willie’s certain that if she hopped into it right now, there would be no blood on that bombsight, no remnant of the fact that Bremen, in plain terms, had been a failure.

But that was nothing she could write home about, now was it?

She couldn’t tell home about the dead or about the hole torn through a nineteen-year-old girl. She couldn’t tell them about the flak or watching three planes go down or the engine fire. She couldn’t tell them that ten women she’d considered friends were gone, just like that — no funeral, no fanfare. She just had to live with it, like they all did, even if she still couldn’t make sense of what she’d seen and much less make sense of the fact that she’d have to witness it again.

“Willie?”

The sound of her own name catches her offguard — she wants to kick herself for the reflexive jolt her body makes at being caught offguard. But she turns her head and there’s John Brady, looking apologetic for startling her.

And that fact really makes her want to kick herself.

“Hey,” she breathes out, then inwardly cringes at her own lackluster response. Real smooth, Willie.

“Hi,” That makes it better. He walks closer still, nods, and Willie looks over the details of his face quickly. Furrowed brows and a bit of a tight lip — he’d given them that same look when they came out of interrogation. 418th. The first group grounded, huh. “What’re you doing out here?”

“Could ask you the same thing.” She counters, brows raising. This, however, makes him nod, the frown cracking a little bit. Good enough.

“I asked you first.” Willie clicks her tongue in mock surrender, then gestures to Mouse Hole — the Mickey Mouse decal grinning down at the two of them like a flak-happy lunatic — then gives him a half-shrug.

“Came to check on my house,” she explains, a statement that chips away at the rest of that tight-lipped frown and makes him smile a little bit. Much better. “Thought I’d catch Swanson out here or something. Wanted to ask a couple questions but now I guess I’m just having a staring contest with Mickey Mouse.” His brows shoot up towards his hairline and he chuckles.

“Oh yeah? Who’s winning?”

“Me, obviously. I don’t lose,” He makes a noise that she’s pretty sure, or rather, hopes, is a laugh — based on how the corners of his eyes crinkle a little, how he ducks his head down for a moment to rub the nape of his neck with a quiet muttering of ‘of course.’ Then he shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket, tilts his head up to also, presumably, try his luck against the flak-happy mouse. He’s pretty bad at it though, because he glances at her again out of the corner of his eye.

“Where’s Viv?” Viv and Willie. Willie and Viv. Wherever one goes the other trails. Willie reaches up to rub at her earlobe a bit.

“Fifteen minutes behind me, probably. Or keeping the rest of them out of trouble,” Because that’s how it’s probably gonna be — she’s gonna make sure no girl walks home alone in the dark and I’m gonna sit and grumble until we make piss-poor jokes about it, just like we did over smaller things in Utah, Iowa, and Nebraska, too. “She’ll end up at the club one way or another.”

Brady nods, giving little more than an understanding ‘Ah’ and there’s a moment there where they lapse into something of a familiar quiet.

This, funnily enough, is the most normal she’s felt in days. She couldn’t really shake that restlessness that settled in after interrogation — a loud, harping feeling that she should be doing something. Which is at least half the reason that she came out here to begin with — to do something, maybe find something worth writing about on the hard-stands. I could tell them about Sandy Swanson and her crew of mechanics, or…

She looks Brady up and down for a moment. There was something assuring in knowing he didn’t seem off-put by her silence, that he was fine with sitting in it instead of prying words out of her that she couldn’t give. But words always came easier to her when she was comfortable anyway. And when it came to comfortable…

“You played well, last night,” Willie shoves her hands into her pockets. You always do. He raises a brow, his smile turning lopsided and boyish in a way Willie thinks she likes more than she reasonably so.

“You think so?”

“Well I’m no expert on the subject, but yeah,” Willie nods, affirming her own statement. “I do.”

There’s a look shared between them, and Willie feels that shyness starts to overtake her as it so often does when it comes to him. There’s the urge there, to say more: to show how much attention she pays to him when he picks up his instrument. There’s also the acute awareness that anything she says she’ll have to live with after saying it, and so she bites the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something too bold.

It doesn’t change the fact that he’d quickly earned a soft spot with her, whether he meant to or not. Maybe that was something she could write about.

…Not the soft spot— the band. The music. She hadn’t really talked about that part much, beyond that there is a band, and there is music; jazz most nights, meant to provide them with some means of relaxation day in and out. There are words the more she thinks on it, waiting to be phrased in the right way to statiate the needs of both her worrying mother and her too-curious little brother. If there’s a few sentences in there about an unnamed saxophonist being, in her eyes, maybe a little bit better than the rest — then it’s a good thing she censors her own mail.

She reaches up to pat the body of her fort twice, takes a couple steps back and gives him a once over.

“I’m gonna head over now, I think. So I don’t make the missus wait on me,” there’s a snort there that’s so uncharacteristically Brady, and yet somehow he makes it work.

“Right, okay. I’ll walk you.”

“Think I can’t handle myself, Brady?” He clicks his tongue, turning as she walks past to keep step with her. He mutters something under his breath that she doesn’t quite catch, then continues to look at her as they walk.

“You caught me. I’m trying to keep you from dancing on tables.”

“Damn, there goes my weekend plans.”

Laughing is a shared sound, his deep chuckle overlapping with her breathy one, and she likes the combination. They lapse into that quiet again, the comfortable kind that feels normal when everything else doesn’t. Willie says nothing of the fact that their shoulders bump every now and again — if this is as much of a reprieve as she’s getting, then she’s more than happy. She’s never been a greedy type, but she could start to be if it meant there would be more of this. She steals a momentary glance at him, before committing wholly to it with a clearing of her throat as they get closer to the long rows of huts that line the path to the Officer’s Club.

“You never answered my question,” Willie points out, and Brady responds with little more than another ‘hm?’ “I asked what you were doing out there, you never answered.”

Brady’s brows raise to his hairline and he nods slowly before looking away from her, tongue poking out to run over his lips for what feels like a full minute before he looks back at her with that boyish smile of his again. There’s that brief, fleeting thought that recuperation looks less like the shine of brassy instruments and more like the warm, welcoming glint in those gray-blue eyes of his. If nothing else, he’s serving as a pretty great reminder that she is not, in fact, the last man standing.

“Heard there was a mouse running around by the hard stands, wanted to make sure she wasn’t scurrying into any of the forts and trying to take off,” The smile on his face gets a little wider with every word. Willie can’t help it — she laughs a little louder than before, shaking her head, half-disbelieving and yet surprised all the same that she couldn’t come to that conclusion on her own.

“Seriously? Did Viv put you up to that?” She asks, not upset at all, but Viv had a tendency to worry so Willie wouldn’t be especially surprised if she had.

It’s the barely there shake of his head, ‘no’ that almost knocks the wind from her lungs, and even if she doesn’t write this part down: Willie knows her mind will return to this fact often. And she won’t be able to hide her smile when it does.

[vykker]

Oddworld Headcanon 5/?: Vykkers Labs is Hot and Sweaty

I was gathering pictures of vykkers for drawing references when I noticed something. Why are their outfits so threadbare and nasty? And how come some of the vykkers we see in-game are ass naked? Their most valued business partners are, I assume, the Glukkons, and the Glukkons take fashion & clothing extremely seriously.

Pictured: My Favorite Boys in their tattered rags

Well, what do we know about vykkers? From an evolutionary perspective, not much. We know they're descendants of some arboreal prey species, that's about it. If we extrapolated on this, we can assume they're jungle dwellers. Jungle = big tree.

Jungles are [generally] hot and humid. A creature that evolved to live there would probably not need to wear clothes to keep warm. They might even find the sensation of clothes unpleasant if they're unaccustomed to it. If you were used to swinging around naked in the tree tops, you'd probably find clothes to be smothering and itchy.

Thus, I postulate that vykkers keep the Vykkers Lab thermostat at a comfy 80 or 90 degrees, which is about the temperature of the Amazon in spring. Not only is it a comfortable temperature to them, but it allows them to do work without having to wear clothes, which they apparently hate. I mean, look at Headley the Auctioneer and his stupid little haircut. He wants to look refined, he's dressed in his finest attire, and it's still just shirt cuffs and bow tie.

Now, there IS an outlier to this idea, and that is our beloved Doc Vykkers from Stranger's Wrath. He's dressed a little more conservatively. That being said, his outfit is still just a body-wrap type thing with a hat. He's not wearing shoes or gloves, and his legs and forearms are bare. I guess you could say that his body wrap is air-tight and made to conserve moisture in the dry desert climate, but that's basing a speculation off of another speculation to try and make my theory fit, it could be as simple as he just likes wearing clothes. [Or my theory is wrong.]

Speaking of humidity: I believe the vykkers prefer their environments nice and humid. However, I don't think they need to do anything specific to keep humidity where they want it. As we see in the first levels of Munch's Oddysee, a massive area of the ship is dedicated to a hydroponic spooce farm.

This massive flooded system, combined with the vykker's preference for warm places, would practically turn the Labs into a sauna. I imagine a human entering the labs would feel disgusted by the air in the Labs, and if a visitor were wearing glasses, they'd immediately fog up.

Having Vykkers Labs be an unexpectedly hot and muggy environment would increase the discomfort of non-vykker workers and experiments, making the Labs even more unbearable to work in, probably even nauseating. The whole place would also stink. High humidity and temperatures are the preferred breeding grounds of bacteria, mold, and funguses. If you walked through Vykkers Labs, I think you'd alternate between smelling whatever slime is growing in the walls, and the extremely toxic chemical cleaners they use to disinfect the place, trying to keep said slime from taking over. That's not even including the smell of blood and medical waste. Vykkers don't seem to have nostrils, but I think I recall Humphrey complaining about "the smell" after Irwin leaves a fuzzle on the burner. Maybe you just get used to it when you're so dedicated to pursing science.

When wealthy visitors hop over to Vykkers Labs, I imagine they're taken to special quarters of the ship that are dehumidified and nuked with air freshener.

There's more. Vykkers Labs is not exactly air tight. Aside from all the rusty paneling we see in the labs, we're also shown massive bay doors on the outside where people can exit and enter. There's also the Poop Chute, where they dump waste, and in the concept art, the bottom center of the ship seems to be hollow.

I think Vykkers Labs consumes a LOT of water. The hydroponic vats keep dehydrating, and the vykkers aren't exactly about resource conservation. I imagine that Vykkers Labs will periodically lower close to the ground in order to collect water. They probably drop a massive hose from the middle of the ship and suck up entire lakes at a time. Ecosystems have died just from them topping off the tank one Tuesday. Not only that, but on summer mornings, when the sunrise first hits the side of the ship, you'd probably see a massive cloud of steam rise from it, like when the sun hits the pavement after a rainy night. A mudokon on the ground, looking up at the sky, would see a trailing white cloud approach, something massive and dark spinning inside it.

[qedmirage]

Well, that was a ride. Unmarked spoilers below the cut.

Took me about 5 months to clear episode 8, and three days to clear episode 9. Episode, well, where to begin. I'll admit that I read too many spoilers myself on major plot elements, undercutting some of it. Still, it was neat to see just how hard Deathless Black Snake is into a kind of violent nationalism, possibly even fascist thought?

Favorite moment is without a doubt Alina's death in R8-9 After, and abject refusal to allow Talulah to know her killers. Because Talulah will take revenge if given a chance, will let anger consume her, will fall to Kaschey's arts and hateful manner of thinking - even if the arts weren't there, it would be a path of violence for her.

The white-haired Draco keeps trudging on in the cold, endless snowfield. On her back, the Elafia girl trembles away, pausing only to take in deep breaths now and then. Snow drops down from the Elafia's horns. As Talulah slogs along, the snow-covered trees behind her begin to burn alight in silence. She has unknowingly begun to set her path ablaze.

The final climax of chapter 8 is also some great otaku-ass nonsense as Amiya, our cute soft bunny CEO, has a powerset almost perfectly geared to ruin the Deathless Black Snake's day. And she knows it

The introduction of Priestess, and her vow to Doctor was also really neat:

and I liked the story beat that Kaschey is still inside Talulah, still tempting her. Fuel for my anarchist reading of the story;

It's this urge for control, for power, for violent revenge that undergirds why Reunion goes wrong. The pull towards authoritarianism, towards unchecked violence, is what destroys the liberation movement. as for mechanics, wow. Boy I hate ursus civilians. Ep 8 was probably the high water mark of difficulty in arknights, and I feel like from here I can handle anything. I gotta say Talulah was really a pile of nonsense, but with her Burning Breath mechanic defanged, she's pretty tractable. The basic core of my strategy going into her final fight was to use Gravel and Projekt Red, who have 17 sec redeploy timers, to bait her breath move with its 19 sec cycle time. Absent that mechanic, the rest of her fight is...not easy, but manageable. On the other end of things, ep9.

This one was a much smaller scale story, and I appreciated that! It was shorter too, which in some ways worked against it - the guys Outcast faces off against scream jobber - but it worked. It's also notable as being an episode who's plot almost doesn't feature Rhodes Island - the focus characters are instead Horn (Rita Skamandros), Bagpipe (Fiona Young), and Saileach (Jane Williams), with a little bit of time in Reed (Lougshinny)'s head. Notable is that none of those are part of the feline majority race in Victoria, and the first three all to some degree believe in a pluralistic, welcoming vision of Victoria instead of the oppressive one they have. High points gotta be watching Saileach go from "the nice girl Janie who is nice to everyone and takes care of the flag" to "Me and this entire hospital ward are gonna beat your ass if you harm one hair on a patient's head", and Outcast's whole deal. Like, back in prior chapters we've seen Elite RI ops show up, paradrop without chutes, tear buildings apart with telekinesis, so you know the old lady's gonna be dangerous. And she is and the payoff's great! Great old lady cowboy character. Also, found a bit I liked:

Janie: But it's not… the whole story. After the conversation we had, I remembered some things from ages ago I'd forgotten. My da's a lawyer, and he used to tell me stories about how my grandda's grandda came to Victoria with nothing. He went from rags to riches. The Victoria he described was an advanced, open-minded, prosperous country. Here, technology and capital conquered savagery. The people's hard work and wealth wouldn't be destroyed just like that by Catastrophes or racial conflict. In making it to such a magnificent land, we Vouivre were able to live a "civilized" life, compared to one of barbarism and violence in the old country. Outcast: Victoria was the most advanced industrialized nation in the world, for a very long time.. Janie: But we had to give up a lot, in order to become Victorians… When I was five, I climbed to the top of the tallest tree in our garden. My da caught me having a blast and gave me a good scolding. Then he locked me in my room and gave me dozens of books to read. The next day, he hired a Leithanien piano teacher for me. I missed the view from the top of the tree, but I didn't give it much thought. I knew my da was doing it for my own good. Outcast: He was helping you to get used to the rules. Janie: That's right. Books, piano, the garden… He understood that those were all things we'd need to know, in order to enjoy the life we had.

Janie's family had to work hard to fit in, to not express their racial traits, to shape themselves to the society around them. Similarly, people know and sense that Victoria's glory days are past - but they don't quite grasp just how soon, how fast, the whole thing may end up unraveling. A few characters note that the fire started in County Hillock may destroy the nation, but for people like the Colonel, the magnates who wish to meet Dublinn, it's not understood - these are quite possibly Victoria's last days.

Mechanics and gameplay wise, ep 9...knocked it out of the park! It wasn't too hard, the Dublinn guys had some interesting mechanics that kept any one thing from being stale, there wasn't anything that felt like I was getting smacked with a wall of pain. I will note that 9-14, with all the pre-deployed jerks, I had to use a support Fiametta to funnel all the enemies into her bombardment kill box. The tattered pillars mechanic is kinda tricky sometimes, with how it actively reshapes the map, but it opens the door for a lot more engaging strategies. I kinda hope it comes back now and again. Mandragora's a fun boss. I had Nearl The Radiant tank her phase 1 (shield this, loser!) and then just kinda threw random fast-redeploys and snipers at her in phase 2 including tex alter to drop pillars on her. Part of my line broke and it was nearly a fail but I got the 3* clear! A fun time.

(Edited 11/2 to fix Saileach's legal name and a capitalization error on Victoria)

[palestporn]

Karkat: Lie

"You're not my lusus," you say, and disentangle from his arms with an effort, hissing as water sprays directly onto the arm he dug his claws into. "I'm taking care of you right now, you throbbing chute-sore, settle down and let me do my job already."

Gamzee doesn't answer. He's frowning down toward your feet.

"Gamzee?" you say again, and snap your claws in front of his face. "What the fuck are you looking at?"

"Dunno much about how a lusus is supposed to be at," Gamzee says vaguely, and gives a slow, lazy blink. "But. Figure a motherfucker's gotten his learn on by now how a motherfucking palemate's supposed to do shit."

"Yeah, well, me too," you say. "Why the fuck do you think I've been--"

"And how I figure," he says, and points toward the floor of the ablution trap by your feet. "A moirail's gotta take care. And not just get taken care at."

You look at where he's pointing and see water swirling down the drain. Water washing down your arm, dripping off your elbow; water stained a bright, mutant red. The blood the dark, thick fabric of your uniform was hiding from view, staining the tiles around your feet.

Gamzee says, "You're hurting, best friend. If somebody else made you work all ragged and bloody and shit I'd break their horns for you, but you go and do that harsh-ass noise to yourself, what the fuck am I supposed to do about it?" He blinks again, head sagging forward for a second--swaying, fighting the pain medicine. "...What the fuck am I supposed to do, brother?" he says, slurred like he only gets when he's too tired to manage his ridiculous fangs. "That cruel motherfucker's in you, he's in you, best friend, I can't crush him out for you. I can't..."

Something shitty and bad-feeling is happening somewhere inside your thorax, under the armor and the driving need to get him taken care of. The sneaking, poisonous feeling that you might have fucked up, somehow.

"Lemme take this off," Gamzee says, and his claws tug clumsily at one of your sleeves. "Come on, motherfucker. Please?"

"Let me take your paint off first," you shoot back, bargaining on reflex, and Gamzee laughs, soft and unsteady.

"Hissy fuckin' threshies," he says, fond and drowsy and hurt. You're hurting him. Fuck. "Always gotta get something. Always gotta win ground. You don't have to beg at me to take my face from me, beloved, you can have this motherfuckin' flesh. It's for you, you bend it how you want. Just let me bring you on down with me."

Karkat: show some vulnerability, you dense motherfucker

==> Let him see the blood ==> Let him see the fear ==> Let him see the pity

[Start Over]

[writercole]

For your bingo card ideas, how about for "There's a good chance I may have committed some light treason" on Any Fandom Goes Bingo round 2....

Rooster goes down over enemy lines and Hangman is ordered to return to base. However, he defies orders and goes after his wingman. The line would be uttered once Hangman finds Rooster.

I hope this sparks something but if not, no worries! 💖

Oh, Vee. This definitely sparked something wonderful!

❤ Cole

The voices of the squad yelling into the comms sounded distant as Hangman looked on while his wingman was shot down. Debris rained down as his jet flew through the fireball.

"I see a chute!" someone yelled, maybe Bob.

"Requesting permission to perform search and rescue," Hangman relayed.

"Permission denied," control replied. "Return to base."

Hangman didn't think as he slowed down, letting the two-seater planes pass him by.

"Hangman, you were given orders," Phoenix called, her voice heavy and cracking with emotion.

"Come on, Seresin, we have to go," someone else urged. He couldn't tell the guys apart at this point.

He jerked the stick and broke formation, heading back to the area that his wingman's parachute had been seen last. Hangman found an area clear enough to land his jet and touched down, leaving his comms and chute in the cockpit and taking off on foot.

It didn't take long to come across footprints heading through the woods. Hangman broke into a jog as he followed them, a faint rustling growing louder as he went deeper into the forest.

"Rooster!" he called quietly, hoping that he could be heard without calling attention to their position. "Rooster!"

"Hangman?" Rooster's face appeared above a shrubbery and Hangman let out a ragged breath.

"Oh thank god you're alive."

"What - How - What -" Rooster sputtered as he watched the blond pilot walk towards him.

"I may have committed some light treason," Hangman joked, "but I refuse to leave my wingman out here alone. They can send a rescue chopper for both of us."

"Did you crash your jet as well?"

"What? No," Hangman scoffed. "I'm the better pilot; I just landed."

"Fuck off," Rooster chuckled, shoving his shoulder.

"I mean, I could just leave your ass here and go back alone. Let you get another wingman for the next mission."

"Nah, you can be my wingman anytime," Rooster admitted, a faint smile on his face.

[hesbuckcompton-baby]

Damage Gets Done - SAS: Rogue Heroes x OC - Chapter 4

Masterlist | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 |-| Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11

Summary: Diana's first mission with L Detachment begins with a loss that shakes her to her core, as Eoin McGonigal's jump takes a tragic turn

Relationships: L Detachment x Platonic!OC, eventual Reg Seekings x OC

Warnings: Graphic injury descriptions, death, sooo much angst jesus christ

Word Count: 4.2k

Tags: @20th-centu-fairy-girl

A/N: listening to Abstract (Psychopomp) by Hozier whilst writing this chapter was the most painful decision I've ever made. Do with that what you will

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Pain rippled through Diana's knees as she hit the ground, falling sideways as her ankle rolled over a rock embedded in the sand, landing with her face against the ground as her parachute caught the wind. For a moment she was flailing, dragged blindly through the night across the sand as stones grazed the side of her cheek until it began to ooze blood. Seizing the knife from her belt, she severed the parachute chords just in time before the buckle on her helmet broke with a loud crack, the force sending it spinning off her head, vanishing over a nearby sand dune as the chute was carried away into the darkness, disappearing from view.

She winced as she pushed herself up onto her feet, the damage in her ankle sending painful twangs up her leg with every step as the grazed skin of her face burned, strands of hair that had fallen loose upon losing her helmet sticking to the warm blood. But still, it could be worse. Diana had seen men encounter worse injuries jumping off the back of the jeep during training, and it suddenly hit her that she was likely to see far nastier before sunrise.

Gritting her teeth through the sting of each stride, she began to move in the direction of the cries she had heard upon descent. The sandstorm was clearing now, but the moon and stars were nowhere to be seen, and she was only half certain she was heading in the right direction at all. Diana had been lucky to keep most of her belongings close, her precious rifle surviving the fall, but the weight of the pack now only served to worsen her discomfort as she clambered up and down the sand dunes, hands clapped around her mouth to project her voice as she shouted against the wind. "Hello? Anyone?" Somewhere over the next slope, she swore she heard a groan, an agonised grunt rising out of the desert brush. Quickening her pace, Diana ignored the way every muscle in her body begged for rest as she scrambled up the sand, skidding down the other side as she reached the unfortunate soldier.

But nothing could have prepared her for what she found.

Eoin was half devoured by the rough, dying plants, his body propped up against a ragged bush, blood covering half of his face. She let out a gasp, dropping to her knees in the sand at his side. The thorns had torn half the flesh off his cheek, hanging in ragged strips as he let out one slow, wheezing breath after another. But the real damage did not begin until she tore her gaze from his agony-stricken eyes, allowing herself to look at the rest of his body.

His parachute must have dragged him over the rocks for quite some way, for his clothes had been torn to shreds and the flesh beneath was a deep, ugly purple from bruising, littered with deep gouges where chunks of skin had been lost. Although the external damage did not appear too severe, there was a rattling sound as Eoin struggled to breathe, and from looking at his chest it soon became clear that at least half of his ribs had been shattered in the fall.

"Oh, Eoin," Diana spoke, attempting to stifle the quiver in her voice as she raised a hand to his forehead, stroking his hair to offer some kind of comfort. Although he could not find the strength to speak, he offered her a slight smile, his teeth stained with blood, one of them broken and half-missing. It was an agonising sight, and she held his hand close to her chest, a finger pressed against the inside of his wrist to feel for the moment his pulse ceased.

Something left Eoin's eyes the moment his heart stopped, some glimmer draining out of his deep brown pupils, and suddenly he looked like a thing, not a man - an object, no more alive than a piece of roadkill. His head lolled to the side, the bush he had been dropped on top of obscuring the injured half of his face, and for a moment he almost appeared unharmed. But Diana could feel the way his fingers turned limp in her grip, and over the whistling of the desert wind, she could tell the rattling breathing had stopped. Hot tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked fiercely to drive them out, letting them slip down her cheeks so they could no longer obscure her vision as she placed Eoin's hands gently back on his chest.

She had never seen a man die before.

Diana would not leave him here - she could not abandon him to this heartless wasteland, the very place that had torn him apart and killed him. Rising to stand, a single sob ripped through her chest as she looked around desperately for something that could help her carry him.

His parachute lay strewn across the bushes nearby, ragged and torn but serviceable for her purpose. Tugging it over the thorns, careful not to ruin it any further, she freed the fabric, laying it out flat as best she could in the wind, pinning the edges down using nearby rocks. Looking down at it now, the fraying white carpet below her, she felt her heart stop. It had been her who had checked Eoin's straps before they jumped - it had been her responsibility to ensure he would be safe, to ensure everything worked as it should. Was it her fault now that he was here? That he had died in the dark, in pain and afraid? He had been frightened up in that plane - she could see it, even if he hadn't wanted her to. He had been right.

Sliding her arms under his and wrapping them around Eoin's torso, Diana lifted the man as best she could, his heels dragging lines in the sand as she hauled him over to where the parachute was laid out, lowering him gently onto his back. His eyes were still open, watching the dark sky above. As she followed his gaze, she realised the stars had begun to appear, bright lights peering through the clearing haze as if coming to guide him away - to lift him up and take him home. Diana couldn't help but smile, wiping tears away with the back of her hand as she closed his eyes, wrapping him up in the remnants of the very chute that had killed him.

She tied the surviving parachute straps to her pack, knotting them around and around until they were tight enough, until she was sure she would not lose him again. Using the parachute as some kind of sledge, she hauled his body back up the sand dune, eyes trained on the stars above in some hope they could help guide her way even as her body felt as if it were tearing itself apart with the weight and the strain she forced upon it.

Their pace was slow, laboured, as Diana dragged Eoin McGonigals' body through the desert, pausing at the top of every slope to turn and haul him upwards, her arms growing just as fatigued as the rest of her with time. Her teeth chattered in the cold of desert nights, arms bare to the wind, as she had used her jacket to cover his wounds in a final act of respect. How many of the others would she never see again after this night? How many others had been lost to the fall and the wind and the rocks?

As the morning sun skirted the horizon in the distance, the temperature began to rise instantly, and in moments there was sweat beading where she had just been wracked with shivers. The muscles in her shoulders were raw and dead, each step agonising under the weight of Eoin's corpse, dragging limply behind her all the way.

The next dune they came to was the largest she had yet faced, but with a sigh and gritted teeth, she began the climb, sand giving way under her feet whenever she put her weight down, their progress seeming infinitely slower than it had before. Halfway to the top, Diana let her knees give way, collapsing to the floor, sand filling her shoes as she began to weep, filthy palms pressed over her eyes, skimming the painful grazes on her cheek as she sobbed. Where were they going? What the hell was she doing? Surely she'd never find the others in this wasteland, and for the last few hours she had become consumed by the idea that perhaps the others had not survived either - perhaps she was alone out here, fated to drag Eoin's body behind her as she grew more and more lost. She would never see her father again, never fulfil the mission she had spent her whole life training for, and all because she had failed the man at her back, because she had missed something in her own nerves, condemning him to die in her carelessness.

The feeling of hands pressing onto her shoulders didn't even stir her for a moment until she heard someone's "Shhh," and she peeled her hands from her eyes, squinting in the blinding sun. There was Kershaw, and for a moment Diana was convinced this was all a hallucination as he crouched down beside her, offering up what little water he had left in his canteen. But when she glanced further down the slope, there was Reg, unfurling Eoin from his bundle, the other boys helping him to lift the man and carry him to the bottom of the hill where they could offer him some semblance of a burial.

"How-?" Her voice trailed off, savouring the feeling of water sliding down her coarse throat.

"We were lucky," Dave explained, a grim frown creasing his expression. "Landed close to each other, we were waiting over the hill for the rest of you. After a while, we started to think you hadn't made it."

Diana let her head fall to the side, resting against Kershaw's shoulder. The simple relief of not having to hold up her own head felt like a ten-tonne weight lifted from her back, and she sniffed loudly, blinking away the last of her tears.

"... How far did you carry him?" He asked quietly.

"No idea. We've been going for hours, I found him as soon as I landed," She explained, never daring to let slip the suspicion that Eoin's death may have been her fault.

"Jesus."

Against her better judgement, Diana rose to her feet, yelping slightly at the pain in her legs as she skidded down the slope, Kershaw following at a cautious distance. She would not allow them to bury him without her. The graze on her cheek had already begun to scab over, but it was large and burned an angry red, and the moment Reg's gaze found her his mouth opened slightly in horror, unable to quite find the words. He held out his hand to help her in her last few steps, and she accepted, gripping him tightly as she limped towards the place they had begun to dig McGonigal's grave, the edges of the pit caving inwards with each breeze, the sand too loose the even hold itself up.

Seekings had felt the instinctual urge to offer up a "You alright?", but it was clear the question would have been redundant. She was not alright, hovering briefly on one leg to relieve the pressure on her injured ankle before lowering herself to sit again, his hand still firmly in her grip.

"You alright?" It was Diana's turn to ask, looking up at Reg as she raised her other hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

"... Yeah," He nodded stiffly, barely injured save for a few scrapes that littered his face.

She looked around at the rest of them, Dave aiding the others as they lowered Eoin into the ever-collapsing pit they had dug, shovelling sand over his body as the grains rolled down his cheeks, covering him until, bit by bit, he disappeared from view, nothing but a bulge in the ground to identify him. There were so few of them - not even ten survivors amongst them. How many of them had died the way Eoin had - dragged over the rocks until their insides were reduced to mush and their skin was torn from their bones. How many corpses were they leaving to rot under the sun, how many would go without a burial even as primitive as this, how many mothers would spend the rest of their lives not knowing where their sons' bodies were?

In the bright morning light, Diana began to realise she had not done as good of a job freeing Eoin's parachute from the bushes as she had thought, for poking through the ragged holes in the fabric were half a dozen sticks, which must have poked and scratched at him the whole way here as she dragged him across the desert. The thought had originally pricked at her chest with guilt, but then she had an idea.

Reg's brow furrowed as he felt the sudden release of pressure, Diana's grip on his hand relenting as she reached out for the tatters of fabric, frowning in concentration as she tugged the sticks free, careful not to ruin the parachute even further. Then, producing her knife, she cut the chute straps away, releasing them from where they remained tied to her backpack, and used them to wrap and tie the sticks tightly together into the shape of a crucifix, stabbing it into the sand above where Eoin's head now lay buried beneath the dirt. It was a gentle gesture, a kind determination that McGonigal would not be forgotten, a physical testament to all of the unspoken feelings the men dared not voice - not here, when hope already seemed so lost to them.

They stared at the grave marker in silence, its beams battered and uneven, far too fragile to ever last. But the men assembled there would always know this was where Eoin McGonigal was, even if they could never pinpoint it on a map, even if they'd never find it again. For now, it was enough.

"He was Christian, right?" Diana asked quietly. "Only, I don't know how to make any other shapes."

Varied huffs of laughter tittered through the group, and Kershaw sniffed loudly before speaking. "I think he was, aye."

She nodded, but before anyone could say another word, the sound of a gunshot echoing somewhere close by pulled their attention, Reg's hand instinctively finding her shoulder as they turned in its direction. It was suddenly silent, neither the wind nor the sounds of breathing were heard as they waited for another shot, another sound of life. The thought briefly occurred to Diana that it might not have been one of their own at all, that there was still a war going on in this desert, and it was foolish to assume they were alone. Even more startling was the realisation that they didn't have enough serviceable guns to cover even half of them, and their pathetic supply of hand grenades had little use out here.

And then it came again - a single bang echoing across the dunes, closer this time. The shots were too sporadic to be returning fire, and whoever was releasing them was moving, slowly but steadily towards them. There was only one person she knew ridiculous enough to waste bullets on such an endeavour.

"Paddy?!" Diana called, silently praying her voice would not be lost in the ever-swirling desert wind.

And then he was there - windswept and filthy but unharmed, clambering down from the crest of the dune ahead, squinting irritably in the sunlight. Paddy Mayne was only a few paces away from the others before he hesitated, finally noticing the makeshift grave they were standing around, his frown depending further.

There was something stuck in her throat, something painful and hard and a figment of her own imagination, but just real enough that Diana could not speak a word, could not tell him the news herself. She realised Reg was staring at her, wordlessly waiting for her to talk, but he accepted the slight shake of her head without delay, his expression contorted in a sorrowful scowl as he approached the Irishman himself.

"McGonigal, sir," Seekings stated, his body squared before Mayne but their eyes never quite able to meet.

"... Oh."

Diana had never heard Paddy have less to say than now, the stifled agony that twisted his frown into a silent grimace making up for all that was left unsaid, his gaze unable to pull itself away from the mound of sand that concealed Eoin's body from them. She hadn't known either of them long enough to see the true depth of their companionship, but she knew it was there - knew that Eoin was the only member of the detachment that he'd actually given a shit about from the start, knew that they came firmly as a pair even if Mayne would never truly admit to it. Losing Eoin was like tearing a limb from Paddy's own body, incurring a lifetime of phantom pains that would never truly fade. There would always come times when he would forget McGonigal was even dead - Diana knew this. She felt it herself sometimes - her mother's life ever-present within her even when the memory of her face was gone.

He tried to brush past the grief that had suddenly crippled him, attempting to surmise the state of their supplies and plan their next move as if any of that meant anything to him right now - as if he could do anything but rattle half-hearted orders when his mind was somewhere else entirely.

"We will head North, that fucking way, and we will reach the coast and find our airfields."

"Paddy, we won't destroy a single fucking thing with what we've got," Dave protested. He was right - they all knew he was right, even Mayne - but she knew he was looking for an opportunity to destroy, to displace all the anger and guilt bubbling within him.

"We need to head South, it's going to rain," Diana informed him, Reg beside her, nodding in agreement. "There's dark clouds forming, and we need to get to high ground or it'll wash everything away, believe me."

Mayne didn't want to leave, that much was clear. To him, it was the same as giving up - to him, it was a waste of Eoin's sacrifice. But the storm was rolling in fast, heavy, deep grey clouds approaching from over the horizon. She'd known people who had been stuck in such storms - who had seen the sand eroded away before their eyes, who had waded through mud so thick and deep that it rose to their waists - and Diana knew there was not enough energy left in her very bones for that, not now. They had to get out of here, or everything would get much worse, very quickly.

"We're not waiting around out here to fucking die," Diana declared, Paddy's indecipherable expression finding her, the look in his eyes somewhere between agony and rage. "Unless you know some way of keeping the grenades dry and getting us through a flooded desert, we have to move, Paddy."

Her tone had been severe, unrelenting, a mask to cover her own guilt. But as she watched the way he stared down at McGonigal's makeshift grave, she felt the pain again, tugging at her heart. He was ready to die out here, that much was clear now.

"Paddy, I'm sorry," Diana offered gently. "But if we even make it to the airfields now, it'll be the only thing we ever do. We need to go so we can come back again - we will come back armed to the teeth, and make this worth it."

Still, he did not move.

"Paddy, we can't leave without you." Seekings spoke emphatically.

"It's fine. Go."

The others did not seem to wish to continue arguing, Mayne's dismissal all the prompting they required to gather their belongings and begin the hike back up the sand dunes to higher ground. Reluctantly, Diana followed, the weight of the decision seemingly worsening the strain she still felt consuming her body. There seemed no certainty now that they would see him again - no surety that he would not lay down beside Eoin and wait to die, wait for the rain to flood that dip in the sand and drown him in the mud. In that moment, it seemed all was lost - their leader, their mission, their entire fucking reason for being stranded out in this wasteland.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The rain came quick and heavy, and without her helmet, there was nothing to protect Diana from it, her coveralls soaked three shades darker, her hair clinging tightly to her neck and face. It became immediately obvious that their choice had been the right one, as torrents of water washed the sand away from the crests of the dunes into the basins below, creating murky ponds that would have been impossible to wade, their group reduced to walking single-file along the muddy ridges.

She wondered where the others were - how many of them were stuck in this storm. She wondered if Eoin's grave still stood, though she suspected it long washed away.

"Hey," She heard Reg call over the constant pittering of rain behind her, his hand reaching out to touch her arm, the soaked fabric sticking to her skin where his palm had skimmed against her.

"Yeah?" Diana asked, blinking away a raindrop that had landed on her eyelash as she turned back to look at him.

"Lemme carry that for a while, yeah?" He offered, gesturing to her pack. She was the only one of them who still had all of her belongings intact, and as the rain poured down upon the canvas, the bag's weight only multiplied, wreaking havoc on her already exhausted shoulders.

Wordlessly, she shrugged the thing off, grunting slightly at the feel of release before handing it over. "Thank you," She said, a slight smile tugging at her lips.

Seekings nodded. "Yeah, well... you've done enough today."

Diana accepted this, about to speak when she noticed a silhouette clambering along the sand ridges some hundred metres behind them, his rain-soaked uniform clinging tightly to his frame as he gradually caught up to them. She let out a surprised chuckle, and Reg turned to look, offering a similar grin as he clapped a hand on her shoulder, the pair in silent acknowledgement that things would be alright. They weren't going to die here, they were going to live. They were going to live, and they were going to avenge the death of Eoin McGonigal a hundred times over until the loss didn't sit so heavy on their hearts anymore, until the ache became bearable.

They had no words to offer Paddy, letting him silently trail behind them as they crossed the desert, heading South towards what they hoped would be their comrades. As the hours passed and the storm's gloom turned to true night, the clouds continued to roll further onward, lifting the downpour, and by the time they spotted the funnel of smoke rising from a speck of orange fire in the distance, they had almost dried off, the wet sand caking onto their boots, their clothes releasing their tight grip on their skin.

"Bloody hell, that's Stirling," Kershaw uttered, though none of them had the energy left to rejoice. And as they approached the small camp, one by one the group remembered the code, the song they had to sing to save them from a bullet's worth of misunderstanding.

'Hail, hail, the gang's all here.

What the heck do we care,

What the heck do we care?

Hail, hail, the gang's all here.

What the heck do we care now?'

The words rolled bitterly off of Diana's tongue as they sang, the lyrics entirely too jovial for their current state. They weren't all here, and they would perhaps never know the true cost of this failed mission, for they would certainly never find the men they'd left out in the desert, not now that the rain had covered their bodies in sand and mud. Even as Stirling and his men sang to welcome them, their nakedness becoming visible the closer they got, she did not stir. She could not even find the energy to laugh at the mixture of horror and embarrassment that struck many of the men's faces as they realised they had exposed themselves to her, Jim hurriedly dashing for a blanket, profuse apologies rolling off his tongue as he covered his front.

There was no relief in this reunion. Diana did not want to sing, and she did not want to laugh. She wanted to lay down and sleep until she could feel her limbs again - until she could go five minutes without remembering the look in Eoin's eyes the moment his heart stopped.

She wanted to go home.

[dizzyaddy]

drowning - naruto x oc part 10

(i do not own any naruto characters, only the original characters)

“kuso, can we take a break already? my legs are killing me,” i heard shisori groan from in front of me. even without having to look at her, i could see the grimace that was bound to cross her features.

we had been lucky to travel on a day where the sky was abundant with clouds, providing the three of us with optimal shade when needed. before we left the gates, we unanimously decided it would be best for us to travel swiftly through the trees. that being said, i hadn’t the patience to take it easy on us.

the closest thing i’d ever had to a team was the various anbu members i was paired with when i was assigned a mission. the anbu was certainly no place for a child, and sometimes i wonder if hiruzen ever felt as if he made a mistake enrolling me. but alas, i never had the chance to ask.

“no breaks, not yet,” i said sternly. “just a little further until we reach our vantage point. there, we will rest for the night,” i said, leaping off one branch and onto another, ignoring the groan that left her lips. though mine were aching as well, it was something i was used to.

“now shisori, it isn’t that bad! like she asid, just a little further,” akimitsu cheerfully said from the front, trying his best to motivate her. he looked to be as sweaty as i was, but he also chose to ignore it.

“come on akimitsu, you too? do you think it’s wise for us to push ourselves like this?” she asked, panting as if she was on the verge of being out of breath.

“you call this pushing ourselves?” he asked as he let out a breathy laugh. she crossed her arms as i imagined a scowl forming on her face.

“shisori, it would do you good to conserve your breath and focus on your breathing. that being said, stop complaining. tsunade sama chose you for this mission for a reason, so don’t give her a reason to be disappointed,” i said, fed up wit her hindrance.

“now, like i said, we should be coming up on a summit in the land in a few klicks. remember, just because we’re near doesn’t mean let your guards down. we’re better off traveling in silence until we reach the peak, so stay aware,” i said sternly, watching akimitsu nod and shisori roll her eyes. i slightly squinted mine as i sighed and leaped again.

tsunade had advised us to use the check in points that strategically littered the perimeter around the land of fire, providing us with a hasty escape route if anything were to happen. i had been there twice before, having to rest when carrying out my previous missions. it was a barren and void place, its stillness contrasting the life that flourished all around it. it was made up of a lone, boxed in temple with stone walls barricading it in. from the top of the temple, everything within fifty kilometers was keenly visibly to the eye. thus, making it a no brainer in taking advantage of it for the night.

the sun shone brightly through the gaps in the trees, flushing us with warmth at every opportunity. by the time we reached the temple, my hair was drenched with sweat and stuck stubbornly to my forehead. shisori was on the verge of collapsing as the three of us idled by, hunched over our knees as we took our time restoring our ragged breath.

“thank kami!” akimitsu exclaimed as he stood straight and brought his thigh to his chest, stretching his leg in the process. shisori had taken a moment to sit down with her back against the wall, resting her body from the trip while grabbing a water chute from her pouch. akimitsu was fluid in his movement as he took the opportunity to look around and scope the place out before deciding to speak again.

“you two stay here, i’m going to check the perimeter and make sure we’re secure,” he said before scattering away. i stood there, wiping my slick hair away from my face and grabbing a water chute from the bag i brought. shisori and i were content with the silence as i walked towards her and slid my back down the wall. we each stared towards the woods, relishing in the newfound comfort of having a rest from the toll we put on our bodies.

“is there a reason you’re so strict?“ shisori stated out of the blue, watching how my gaze never faltered from the woods that entranced me. “no offense, but you seem like an old woman trapped in a younger body,” she said, almost jokingly. i snickered at her remark and brought my gaze down to the bamboo chute that occupied my hand. i brought it to my mouth before gulping the rest of its contents and setting it back down on my lap.

“you see, there’s a difference between you and i,” i said with a sigh, watching from the corner of my eye how she turned her head towards me, awaiting my next words. “i’m willing to sacrifice my life for this mission, for any mission at that. the leaf has instilled a ravaging duty inside of me, one only those who possess the will of fire will acquire. i know what i’m here for, and i know what it takes to succeed,” i said before turning my head to look at her. her gaze was downcast as her hands were intertwined, and she looked as if she was thinking of something far away.

“with great power comes an even greater burden, one only few know the true extent of. i do not know how many lives i’ve taken with these hands of mine, and i do not wish to know. only when you inflict pain on others must you reflect on the pain it inflicts deep inside of you. and that, shisori, is the difference between you and i,” i stated, not looking at her reaction as i stood up and wiped my hands together.

“you don’t even know me,” she huffed out while crossing her arms. “so don’t go acting all high and mighty like you do, niwa.”

“you’re right, i do not know you. but this is a mission, not a trip for friendship or kindling. so if you’re done, please go find akimitsu and inform him we need to discuss mission details inside,” i said before turning my back to her and walking away.

“i never asked for your friendship, but now i see why you’re so stuck up. you walk around as if you’re better than everyone else, when you’re even worse than akimitsu and i. you’re a killer,” she spat. i closed my eyes and took a deep breath before i kept on walking.

“i’m here to complete my duty and that’s it! i may take orders from you, but don’t expect anything more out of me,” she said profusely. i turned my head ever so slightly and glanced at her through the corner of my eyes before opening my mouth.

“good,” i said blandly before continuing to walk away. i heard her groan and curse under her breath before she stood up and scattered in an attempt to find akimitsu.

once i walked around to where the entrance to the gate was, i felt myself exhale as tears pricked my eyes. though i knew she was angry, i knew her words held some truth to them. though, if being a killer is what it takes to save sen, then i would be anything for her. i don’t care what they call me, nor do i care what they think of me. the missions success is all that matters, and i will make sure it succeeds at all costs. i blinked away my tears and cleared my throat before gripping my katana and entering the tower.

the inside was vastly more depressing and dim than i remember. cobwebs jumped out from every corner and the old torches that lined the walls were barely visible, shrouded with dust that had accumulated over time. in truth, it was eerie and the unsettling phenomenon of the wind howling through the vacant tower, casting a ghoulish sound to permeate the air only made it worse. i cautiously made my way up the tower, as the entire first floor was visible from the doorway. stairs lined the walls in a spiral formation, each step groaning as i made my way up the tower.

the inside of the tower was a desolate place, the sole purpose of its existence was to offer a check point for passing leaf shinobi and to act as a lookout tower when needed. it was obvious that it had been ages since it was used last, its current condition making me wonder just how long it had been. my calves trembled as i reached the top of the stairs, my legs sorely worn out from the travel here. at the end of the stairs lied a door that led to the only other room in the tower. i sharply inhaled a breath and gripped my katana handle before quickly opening the squeaky door.

this room wasn’t much better than the base room, it was just as old and forgotten as the rest of the tower. the only sign of life in this desolate tower was the critters that crept through the dark and the birds that that had made the dark corners their home. it was refreshing to hear the birds chirp, as it dawned upon me that it was stark silent in the building. the floor creaked beneath my feet as pondered on the structural integrity of the rotting wood, but i casted it aside as i took off my katana and propped it up against the stone wall. this room didn’t have any torches, instead half used candles littered the floor amongst various places. the room offered a window to the far right of it, the glass having been caved in long ago, and a wooden door that led to the balcony outside.

i opened the door and was met with the fresh air, the breeze that casted those eerie sounds feeling refreshing in means of a great contrast. the balcony circled around the top of the tower, with nothing to show for except its stone walls that were the slightest bit too high for me to rest my elbow comfortably on. i closed my eyes as i took deep breaths, relishing in the warmth the sun provided.

once again, the sky was casted with bright oranges and pinks, signaling that soon the day would give away to nightfall. i sighed and scanned the surrounding woods, trying to detect shisori and akimitsu’s chakra. after a few moments, i located the pair walking towards the gate. they both looked to be in a happy mood as they took strides in sync, shisori occasionally pushing akimitsu’s arm as if to interrupt his balance. i watched the two from a distance as they interlaced their hands together, and i felt a frown form on my face as i realized just what it meant. i bit my lip as i furrowed my eyebrows, calculating the risk of the mission going awry because of this connection they have. shisori seemed immature enough as it is, and akimitsu served as her opposite. i felt my grip on the ledge loosen as i tried to reassure myself that this wouldn’t get in the way of anything.

i swiftly turned around and walked back into the room before grabbing my katana and treading back down the overly elongated stairs. once i reached the bottom, i put my katana back on and waited in the room for them to appear. while waiting, i decided to to set down a bento box for them to share, as i packed actual meals. once they did walked in with a noticeable space between them, i cleared my throat and began to speak.

“shisori, akimitsu,” i acknowledged as akimitsu nodded back at me. shisori just crossed her arms and brought her gaze to look around the room. i noticed the bento box had caught her attention as she leaned down and grabbed it.

“as you both know, we’ll be staying here for the night. akimitsu, i’ve been briefed on your abilities and i am aware that you posses fire nature. it would be wise to start one in the room, as this area tends to drop drastically in temperature at night,” i said as he nodded.

“we need to restore as much energy as we can for tomorrow. as of right now, we’re right on the outskirts of the land of fire. we still have to travel through the land of tea, and that should be another few days travel until we make it to our destination, which is an island right off the coast. that being said, make sure your supplies last for the trip there and back. we’ll be leaving tomorrow at dawn, so both of you rest up. i will take the first shift of being the lookout, and we will watch in intervals, as we don’t know if we’ve been tracked or followed. you can decide amongst yourself what order you want to go in. if you need me, i’ll be at the top,” i said before turning around and making my way upstairs.

“kyō, wait,” i heard shisori state from behind me, and i turned around to see her holding the box in her hands. she looked down at it before looking back up at me with the slightest hint of a smile behind her lips.

“thanks,” she said calmly, as i hesitated in front of her before nodding in acknowledgment. she beamed at me before i turned around and ushered a “goodnight,” to them.

“goodnight,” they said in sync as i heard them shuffle away. i continued my tread upstairs as i heard shisori speak again.

“come wake me for shift change, baka,” she said as i snickered at the comment and gave her a wave of my hand before continuing on my way. once i reached the room, i made my way to the balcony where i would reside for the night. i shuddered as i pulled my cape closer to me, the few slivers of sunlight left providing little to no warmth as a chilly breeze rustled the trees around me. the view was beautiful, fireflies filling the forest as the last bit of daylight finally escaped. i sighed and rested my head on my hand before a bittersweet smile formed on my face.

[grim-faux]

New chapter is on the way! WHOOOOO!

Here's an excerpt as proof of my unyielding drive

__

They reached a door and as per the system, she launched the boy at the handle. The rooms they fled through merged into a collage of doors and wrecked furniture, musty shadows and misty windows – she thought they rushed through the same room five times, but she knew each space by the discarded rubbish beside doorframes. For a brief spell they lost the Case Worker after squeezing into vent, barely getting away from a wave of splinters chasing their retreat. The wretched hissing vanished, and it was just their ragged breathing in the narrow passage, muffled by flailing arms and knocking knees. Even in the black confining chute, neither felt safe to halt or clear their heads. The instinct to flee overpowered all sense of need for rest or recover their frenzied wits.

Somewhere in the scarce patches of light, they stumbled into a junction where another kid was nesting. She could smell the other kid before clearing the murky shroud; they had a bunded of cloth and scraps of food scattered. At any other time, she might’ve snagged some scraps, but the kid was already growling softly at the intruders, long before they emerged from the heap of fabric that served as the rest spot. Mono barely spared a glimpse on his way through, he went to the next passage and dunked into the inky veil.

At some distance the vent was caved in, but they backtracked a bit and by sniffing at the murk, managed to fumble into a tight crease. Having the boy to help with fumbling in the dark did make navigation easier – for one, he became a soft barrier her elbows or face plowed into rather than a wall or corner. He also hissed at her when a gap was located, and they managed to drag through the intolerable crawlspace with minimal cuts and bruises.

At last they tumbled out of a crack in an obscure wall somewhere, and landed in a heap of garbage. A swell of flies and other insects swirled when they disturbed the nest, but at least it was noiseless. Six untangled herself first, since the boy was also wrapped up in the tail of his coat. She gave the dim room a cursory examination, foremost absorbing the lack of movement and sound from horrible creatures. Two doors afforded the next direction, and if the urgency was upon them, furniture dotted one of the wilting walls.

[valeriasfragments]

The Rigors and the Heft - Part 2

She's in the kitchen now. She doesn't remember getting up off the floor but that's not unusual, she dissociates all the time. She has apparently started some scrambled eggs, so now she finish them up real quick and she doesn't even bother getting a plate, she stands over the stove with a fork eating the eggs straight from the pan, less dishes this way, laziness wins once again.

The alarm on her phone goes off to remind her to take her medications, some for the depression, some for the voices in her head, some to keep growing her cute little breasts, and an anti-nausea to keep it all down. One gulp, a handful of pills down the chute, and she quickly eats a slightly-too-ripe banana, can't risk the meds getting stuck in her throat.

She rolls a joint with shaking hands, the Goddess' Hands, the hands of her mother. She steps out onto her patio and lights the poorly twisted thing, drawing the smoke deep into her lungs, the immediate relief in her spine, hips, and knees as the wonderful drug eases her suffering. She watches a pair of crows fighting over something she can't quite make out..

There is a thunderstorm on the horizon rumbling in from the ocean. A shock of light illuminates the world for a brief moment, a single bolt touching the ground on the other side of town, lightning like the finger of Zeus probing sweet Gaea for an opening, and the thundercrack her defiant rejection.

Chance ashes her joint into the coffee can she keeps out here and she turns her back to the bickering birds and stares into the half-shadow of her apartment to the chair in the corner. The chair where she sees him sitting out of the corner of her eyes in middle of the night, a hateful memory, a spirit of unforgiven past, a wound with a ragged smoker's cough.

She's lost in thought about the chair and the sounds of birds behind her slowly shifts into the sounds of shredding bloody meat and it is getting louder every moment as the squawking becomes a scream, flesh being torn and infants crying. Evil laughter from small angry horned men and it's deafening and she can't think, the ash on her joint dropping onto her bare feet, and it is coming to a crescendo, the screams and the blood and the moaning. Metal screeching-

"Chance!"

Chance is shivering, soaked to the bone in just a Suspiria t-shirt and a pair of black panties. Her legs covered in an assortment of tattoos, the initials of her loser ex-boyfriend, the only man she had ever willingly fucked; a whole thigh of cherry blossoms, her favorite and most meaningful tattoo; a few horror monsters and a Gigan tattoo too. The joint between her fingers still dangling there, damp and mostly unsmoked, a burnout like its creator.

Before Chance can even turn around, sluggish Chance, drownedrat Chance, before she can even—Elise is there, firm grip and burninghot warm hands guiding her back into Chance's apartment Elise. Elise in her black leather jacket and ripped jeans, strong jaw, and big beautiful hands, outwardly hard and secretly soft Elise, gentle but firm Elise.

Chance looks up to Elise, a good 10 inches shorter than the woman she stares at with such reverence, Chance's heart swells with love she begins to tear up. Chance who is so hopelessly in love with Elise, since the moment she first saw her, at first it was lust, primal, feral, rutting her pillow for days lust. But very quickly she became smitten, silly school yard crush Chance, foolish little jester Chance, would do anything in the world to make her laugh Chance.

Chance is set gently down on her ratty old couch in the warm darkness of her living room, her loving gaze steady on Elise even with all the brain fog, all she can summon up love in the face of this angel of her singing heart. Even if she was clear of head she would be marvelling at the most beautiful woman she had ever seen.

"I'm just going to get you some warm clothes, wait here." Elise stressed but still tender, always a hint of tenderness there.

"As you wish, Miss Elise." Chance would almost sound childlike and precious if only she could stop her teeth from chattering.

Elise stands at the bottom of the hill caked in mud and sorrow as the rain pours down, rain so heavy she can't see in front of her face. Soaked to the bone Elise, only 12 years old and already so broken. Not that anybody could see her anyway, hiding in the Shadows Elise, quiet and invisible Elise.

She could still feel the hot shape of his hand on her arm even though all that showed were tiny bruises, burning hands leaving small planets of purple and yellow all over her arms, a solar system of hurting that haunts her for the rest of her life.

She walks the whole way home, nobody stops her or even bothers to see her, shivering the entire 2 miles from the burnt down house in the hills above her trailer park to her single wide mobile home the color of rust and depression. For years she is convinced she died this night and every night since has been her purgatory or hell, she's so convinced she deserved this for another decade still.

It's so late, it has been dark for at least 2 hours and she is supposed to come home before dark. The porch light is off and she gingerly makes her way up the rickety, cobbled together stairs that groan with each step, the door isn't even locked, and if luck is on her side (and it rarely is) then their dog Cody won't run up to greet her.

Stumbling in and nobody even knows she was even gone, nobody even awake because it is nearly midnight, nobody in this house to care anyway but they would pretend anyway. Elise puts her muddy clothes in a garbage bag, shame to hide until daylight. The shower she takes hurts so bad, she collapses from exhaustion and lets the water flow over her.

"He should have killed me like he promised." The words echo in her mind over and over, bouncing erratically. She can still feel his hands around her neck, dainty neck completely engulfed by him. Officer's hands meant to serve and protect.

The dark thoughts swirl, slowly consuming her already damaged mind. When the water cools and she is shivering again she finally dries herself off and climbs into bed to cry herself to sleep.

In the morning she is jolted awake by her screaming mother, never happy mother, always snide mother. The trash bag full of muddy clothes clenched firmly in her fist, invasive and controlling mother.

Elise has no words to explain why she has a bag of wet and muddy clothes stashed under her bed, she just her open wound heart bleeding into her hands before her burning sword mother's wrathful scrutiny, inquisition matron with a thousand angry faces and none with love to be found. 

And when no suitable answer is given, she's grounded for a month, locked in her room to bleed alone, left with her bruises and broken heart. Always bleeding alone, never comfort when she most needs it, only more pain for not having been the world's most self sufficient 11 year old. Always wrong Elise, always in trouble Elise, always too loud Elise.

She is despondent for days and nobody noticed or worse pretended not to notice. Slowly shrinking into herself until the pain becomes numb. But she can always feel his hands, burning touch on her arms and neck, she can feel him and the hot agony and can't sit only anything harder than a pillow for days.

[antisociallilbrat]

Even When The Sun Rises, Don't Wake Me Chp. 7

Read on Ao3

Chp. 6

Chp. 8

A/N: Welcome back, I offer you this monster of a chapter. This chapter is ALMOST 8k Going back to my 2k - 3k chapters after this

Also Mike and Bill have a conversation in the beginning and part of it is stenbrough related but the other half Bill shines some light on Mike's problems with Max. Also Bill is a cheeky bastard.

he news said to brace down for the long haul as the snowstorm would be lingering. This news brought nothing but groans to Mike's college home.

It was day four of the snowstorm now and the snow was still piling up outside. It was almost to his waist now. Thankfully the snow did seem to at least be thinning out as the snow mounds outside weren’t growing in height as quickly as they had been.

The power has been coming and going and while it’s on right now, Mike fears for when it’ll go out again. Everyone has been dressing in multiple layers to keep warm. Their apartment has this old fireplace that they were all surprised, and relieved, to see that the chimney chute was clear. Bill had bought some shoty firewood from a gas station one time, about a month ago, planning to try it out. This was before they knew the chimney was clear and Derek had chastised Bill to not even think about it.

Now Mike is just happy for Bill’s ignorance because he kept the wood hidden in his closet. Very convenient for their current situation. 

Emily, Bill, and he have made a little fortress in the living room. Bill dragged out his mattress so that he and Mike could share it. Emily has taken over the couch. They pass time by playing card games and munching on Derek’s snacks, trying to bare through the harsh cold.

In these past three days, Mike has seen Max two times.

The first time was the morning of the second day when she came out to get some crackers and bottled water. Her skin was flushed and she looked like she was sick. He was on Bill’s mattress, pretending to be asleep. Not wanting a repeat of the previous night he let her be. 

Later that day they all could hear retching sounds coming from his and Bill’s bathroom. Max allowed Emily to come in and check on her. When Emily came back out she told him that Max has caught a stomach bug. She didn’t look like she believed it, but he was not about to tell her that Max was sick because the drugs were working their way out of her system. 

The next time he saw her was last night. She had snuck out of his room once again thinking that everyone had gone to bed. Mike had been asleep until the nightmares awoke him. The Mindflayer rampaging through Starcourt, hold your breath don’t let it get El or Will! He was sitting against the couch, Bill half flung on him, twitching in his sleep.

Max had pitter-pattered over to the fridge, the light revealing something that made him wish he was still asleep. Last time she was flushed and yet this time she looked like a corpse. Dark circles ragged under her eyes and her face resembled more of a skeleton’s. His sweater hung off her, eclipsing her body. Is it possible to lose that much weight in days?

Again, he said nothing. Not even when she turned away from the fridge, arms full of string cheese and deli meat, and their eyes met. She didn’t appear surprised to see him awake and for a moment they just stared at each other. It felt like he should have said something but he couldn’t bring himself to. What was there to say? They both are in a shit situation, her more than him, and at that moment it felt like there was nothing he could do to make it better. She remained quiet as well and eventually made her way back to his bedroom. He heard the soft click of the lock. Despondency radiated through his whole being as it did.

The days were starting to run together. His sanity was running out and honestly, he wanted his room back. Ha, imagine him going to the door, pounding on it, and demanding that Max give it back to him! The chaos that would follow! For fuck’s sake he’s been reduced to wearing Bill’s clothes! 

Yet, a small part of him is relieved his is happening. He had no idea how he was going to get Max to detox and honestly hadn’t planned on attempting that for a while. Ultimately quitting drugs was going to have to be her choice but as the circumstances are, she doesn’t have one. 

Bill’s liquor and weed are in his room and Max hasn’t thought to ask for some yet. Maybe he can get Bill to lie, and say that he’s out. Maybe Bill wouldn’t question that request from Mike but that would mean he gave Bill enough pieces to put the puzzle that is Max together. 

Her body looks ragged from the detox, maybe he can convince her that she doesn’t have to put herself through this again. That this snowstorm is a miracle from God or the universe or whatever. Why not just quit now that she's already gone through the detox? No need to shoot up again. Guide her stubborn ass into making the right choice, quitting now. Get her to a NA meeting. 

Of course, this would require talking to her first. A feat he doesn’t feel up to right now.

Because for her to quit, he has to figure out why she started in the first place. How did the Max he knew get started on heroin? How did she let herself sink that low? They went through the trauma of the upside down together and yet he’s never felt the need to run away from it through the means of dangerously numbing himself. 

He has a nagging feeling that the answer lies with Billy. Deep in his grave. With the worms and maggots. 

There’s a sense of guilt too. The Party pretty much just moved on after Starcourt. It wasn’t their brother that was lost. They kinda all just left her in the dust. Fuck, he’s angry with himself. Yes, he and Max weren’t that close but how could he not have reached out? Someone who he had risked his life for and who did the same? He’s ashamed of himself and honestly, the whole Party should be too. They abandoned her. 

Tomorrow he’ll talk to her, whether she wants to or not. He’s abandoning her now by not doing so and he’s just letting the past repeat itself. Never again. 

It’s too late to do so now and he’s really hoping she’s managing to get some sleep. She needs it. He himself can't sleep, and sits up against the couch yet again. His mind too busy thinking of every way Max is going to get herself killed.

“What are you th-thinking about so hard?” Bill breaks him out of his stupor. He didn’t know he was awake. 

Mike rolls his eyes, “Go back to sleep asshole and go back to your side of the bed you hog,” he jostles him from where Bill had been creeping towards him. 

Bill shakes his head against the pillow, “Can’t.”

“Can’t go back to sleep or can’t sleep on your own damn side?”

“Yes.”

Mike sighs, “You're impossible you know?”

Bill smiles as he flings himself on top of him to snuggle him, his head now in Mike’s lap, clinging to him in an iron grip, “Maybe but you luh-love me.” 

“Pfff as if. You’re an idiot who never learned the meaning of personal space,” he chastises. 

“I like to love on my fruh-friends. Deal ww-with it jjerkface,” he pinches his thigh.

Mike pinches him back in the neck, Bill letting out an “ack!” before he reminds him to be quiet. Emily is asleep on the couch right behind him. They fall into a comfortable silence. 

This is familiar. Him and Bill being awake in the living room, not talking but enjoying each other’s presence. Once Mike’s nightmares wake him up there’s no going back to sleep. He has a working theory that Bill has insomnia but he’s never asked. They just deal with the long nights together. 

Bill shuffles off of him, not before elbowing him in the stomach on purpose accidently, to tend to the dying fire. They’re almost out of their convenient firewood and if this snowstorm doesn’t end soon their Christmas tree will fall victim. Their sad little tree that has no presents underneath it with it being so close to Christmas. Would it be weird if he wrapped the one gift he bought and put it under the tree? He’ll ponder this if he can ever get back to his room. 

As Bill is watching the fire, waiting to see if the new log he added will catch, he’s staring intently at his phone. With their power limited their phones had been resigned to stay on the charger dock, but Bill checks his every chance he gets. Mike has no reason to check his, it would just be his mom fretting over him or maybe even El checking on him. 

When Bill crawls back into the bed, Mike can’t help but notice that Bill seems…crestfallen. His easy smile disappeared. 

This time Bill lays flat on his back, a space between the two of them. Mike feels like maybe he should pry into whatever has Bill in a sour mood. He does care about him but Bill is also Bill. Dramatic, always waxing woes. That stupid writer's brain of his. In a way, he reminds him of Dustin. And there was only so much he could deal with Dustin. 

Turn around, look at what you seeeeheheeee-

Mike rubs at his face, groaning, deciding to be the good friend for once, “What’s up dude? You’re pouting.”

“Am not!”

“You literally are!” he juts out his lower lip, making an over-dramatic pout overtake his features, “What’s wrong? Who made poor ole Billy sad?” he babbles. 

Bill smacks him on his chest, “Beep b-beep!”

“Stop saying that! I don’t know what it means!” Mike whispers.

He huffs, “Well you should!”

Emily starts to rustle on the couch behind them, their hushed argument making her stir. They both watch with weighted breaths as she turns her head and lets out a loud snore, some of her curly hair falling in her face. Mike doesn’t push it back from her face. 

Bill flops back down onto his back, sighing deeply, “Do you really wa-want to know?”

“Absolutely not,” Bill glares at him and Mike shakes his head, going for a softer tone, “Clearly I want to know, what’s getting you, Big Bill?” 

“It’s fuf-fucking Stanley.” 

That’s a name he wasn’t expecting to hear. Honestly, in all his shit with Max, he’s kinda forgotten about the catastrophe from the frat house concerning Bill. How Bill was making out with mister pristine and accidentally bumped his nose, making it bleed. Okay, it was kinda Mike’s fault but he’s not taking that blame. 

Since that frat party, he’s seen Stanley a couple of times. First at the study session time before fall break and at them since. It’s like he’s now a permanent attendee of them which sucks because if he’s there, Bill won’t be. There's also the fact he's gotten to witness the evolution of Patty and Stanley's 'friendship'. He hasn't told Bill about that. But also there hasn’t been a time for him to ask Bill about the Stanley situation. Not that he’s tried to make time either. Guess he hasn’t just been a shitty friend to Max.

“The guy you were making out with at the party?” he asks even though he knows.

Bill pulls his pillow over his head and mumbles, “Stan! Yes!” or that’s what he guesses Bill said. He can barely understand him.

He pulls the pillow off of Bill's head, “What about him?”

“There’s just ss-so much, I don’t even know wuh-where to begin. Too much history,” he concedes. 

Yeah, he knows the feeling. He knew when Stanley had said that he “only knew of Bill”, that it was bullshit. “How about you just tell me this, how do you feel about him?” he offers him.

More huffing, “As if that’s an easy question!” Bill looks like he’s lost in his mind, reliving through something and Mike lets him sit for a moment. Bill slowly comes back to himself and meets Mike’s gaze. He looks focused now, determination set in his blue eyes.

“Stanley and I, we go way buh-back. We’ve been fr-friends since we were kids. Actually, there were suh-seven of us. A group of outcasts, The Losers club we dd-dubbed ourselves. I loved all of them, but Stan was ddifferent. You know how you can have cluh-close friendships but that one is dd-different?”

Mike nods, knowing exactly what he means.

“Anyways,” Bill waves off, “Stanley, he was ddifferent. Our ff-friendship was different. He was always there for me. Fuck, I basically luh-lived at his home during high school. You know he’s the reason I got into this ststst-stupid school? He single-handedly made sure I p-passed my classes,” he smiles fondly as if remembering.

“I just thought that we’d end up to-together. I thought we both felt the suh-same way and we were just waiting t-t-till university to finally be together. It wasn’t sa-safe in our small town,” he laughs humorlessly, “No one is safe in Derry.”

That sounds so ominous but he doesn’t butt in to question him. Just lets him vent.

“We got into the suh-same school! I was so sure we were thinking the sssame thing! Why would he fuh-follow me here if not? NYU wasn’t in his top choices but he applied anyway! Then when we got here…he wanted n-nothing to do with me!” Bill grips tightly onto the bed sheets, “I was some fu-fu-fucking stranger to him. That frat party was the f-first time I got him to talk to me. I overheard sssomeone say they were meeting up with Stan there so-so I went and cornered him.”

“Oh, so that frat party wasn’t just about you forcing me to liven up then?”

Bill represses a chuckle, “Nope. Sorry dude.”

He looks like he’s not going to say anything else but Mike knows he needs to get this out so he nudges him gently, “Come on Bill, what happened at the party?”

Bill lets go of the sheets and throws up his hands, “We got drunk! We mmm-made out! That’s it! Now he’s back to not t-talking to me and I think he’s bluh-blocked my number. None of my mm-messages are going through now. Probably t-too busy messaging back fu-fucking Patty!” he spits out.

Ah, so Bill knows about that and odds are he found out through Patty herself too.. They are supposed to be friends after all. Mike forgot about that.

“I don’t think they’re dating Bill,” he tries to reassure.

“They’re nn-not dating yet,” Bill corrects. 

To that he has nothing. He’s not going to lie to him. Mike is many things but he’s not a liar. Friends don’t lie. 

Instead, he says: “It’s his loss then. You're a great guy, he’s missing out.”

Bill doesn’t acknowledge this and his next words put Mike at a loss, “I think I love him.”

Shit. Mike is not the guy to give out advice on this. Everyone Mike’s ever loved has left him. All Mike knows how to do is make people leave him. Thankfully Bill isn’t looking for answers. He just looks resigned to his fate. 

“Th-thanks for letting me rant man, it fffelt good to get that off m-my chest,” he reaches over to pat Mike on the cheek, “You’re a good friend.”

No, he’s not. 

Mike flings the pillow at Bill’s face, “No I’m not.” Bill laughs and takes back his pillow, getting it comfortable under his head. Mike is wondering about something from Bill’s tale, something that leaves his lips before he can stop it, “What caused you and Stan to be so close anyways?”

Bill’s breath hitches, eyes widen, “My little brother was murdered.”

He regrets asking. He wants to take it back, but the dam has busted wide open and Bill looks like he’s about to cry as he blubbers, “After his dddd-death, all my fruh-friends were there for me, th-they were amazing like that, but Stan was really there."

Kinda like how the Party was there for eachother when Will first went missing. Just without the romantics. He misses how close he used to be with Dustin and Lucas. 

Bill still looks grief stricken and Mike takes a chance when he says: "Tell me about Georgie Bill."

Surprisingly, Bill smiles softly, his panic striving off, “His name was Georgie. I huh-haven’t said his name out loud in a long time…it fffeels nice. He was always s-smiling, always giggling. He loved to race pa-paper boats in the rain.” 

“He sounds like he was a great kid,” he says honestly. He can picture Georgie now, a little miniature Bill. He hates that he’ll never get to meet him.

“He was,” Bill answers simply. 

Mike finds a sudden interest in his pajama shirt. It was Bill’s and it has DHS WRITERS CLUB in bold print across the front. Bill has shared a deep, intimate part of his life with him and truthfully, it feels nice to have someone trust him so profoundly. He decides he can trust Bill too.

“Max’s brother died too. Well technically, he was her stepbrother.”

Bill sits up, maybe sensing the impact of what Mike was telling him, or maybe because he’s found out someone else near him has gone through the same as him. Though Mike doubts that losing Billy had the same impact on Max as losing Georgie had on Bill.

“Is that why she’s muh-messed up?”

Messed up. That's one way to word it. Aren’t they all messed up? After the upside-down how could they not be? “Yeah, I guess. There’s more to it but essentially yes.”

“How’d he die?” It’s only fair that he asks, he said how Georgie died. Murdered. 

Now comes the lies. Those feeble lies that feel almost like an insult to those that died. Billy died protecting El from the Mindflayer. The only good thing he possibly ever did in his life. 

“We had this mall and a fire broke out. A lot of lives were lost, it was a town disaster. Her stepbrother, Billy, was among those that died.”

Bill’s silent and it takes Mike a moment to realize he’s waiting for him to go on. He preferred this conversation when Mike wasn’t the one exposing stuff about his past but there’s a reason he did this to himself. “Me and Max, we weren’t great friends, more like we just happened to share the same friends. We fought a lot and the summer before high school she convinced my girlfriend to break up with me. Too bad because the breakup didn’t stick…that time.”

Bill in all his chagrin, laughs. Mike rolls his eyes and continues, “But we were friends during the time that Billy died. I was there the night he died. All our friends were and his death was brutal.”

Mike doesn’t want to continue but Bill prods him, “How’d she tt-take it?”

This is when Mike laughs, almost in self-hatred. “I don’t know! We all got busy with our own shit and we didn’t exactly check to see how she was dealing with it,” they abandoned her, he abandoned her, “Eventually she wasn’t talking to any of us. We deserved it but honestly, we were too busy being shitty friends to even notice her absence at first. We weren’t amazing like yours were.” How badly he wants to replace the word ‘we’ with ‘I’ as he speaks.

It feels like a wire is exposed and Bill is looking at him disappointed wearily that he feels like he has to explain more. “It’s not like Billy was a great guy! He was racist to my friend, her boyfriend at the time! He was a drunk and abusive. One time he tried to run my friends and me off the road with his stupid camero!”

An uncomfortable silence falls between them. Mike fears that Bill is judging him. He can’t blame him if he is. He deserves it. 

“You were kids. Kids shouldn’t b-be expected to know how to duh-deal with dddeath.” Bill wasn’t judging him and now he hates himself a little bit more for even thinking that. Bill lays back down and starts to creep his way back over to Mike, getting his head back in his lap. He lets him.

He starts to think that that’s the end of the conversation but turns out Bill’s not done, “Did you ever th-think that maybe Max is fffeeling more than gr-grief over her stepbrother’s death? If he was that bad th-then one would almost feel relieved that he died. Even if he was her ssstepbrother. I can’t imagine the kind of gg-guilt that would walk hand in hand with that relief.”

There have been very few times that Mike has ever genuinely felt like an idiot. Now is one of those times. Leave it fucking Bill to put Billy’s death into a perspective he’s never considered. 

Mike deflates against the back of the couch, the wisps of Emily’s soft snores sending chills down the back of his neck. “You know Bill, you’re too smart for your own good.”

Bill laughs, “Don’t call me sssmart just yet! The reason I ff-first thought of when you s-started bringing Max around was buh-because you had a crush on her.”

He resists the urge to shove Bill off him. Is Mike having a crush on Max?! Gross! A perversion of nature! …Right? Mike flicks Bill in the ear, “Ew! No! That’s just wrong on so many levels!”

The bastard starts to make kissy noises, “I don’t know, I tt-think Mike has a lil crushy wuh-wushy!” 

“I swear to God Bill I will smother you in your sleep.”

Bill gives in but he's still sniggering as he lets his eyes flutter shut. That’s the first good idea he’s had all night. 

-

The next day Mike was determined to follow through on his resolve to get Max to talk to him. And to get his room back.

…Okay maybe not so much that one but he was going to get her to talk to him today dammit!

The next morning starts how he expected. Running on maybe three hours of sleep he tiredly made breakfast. And by making breakfast he means eating crackers and cheese. Their food supplies were running low. 

Bill and Emily split the rest of Derek’s oreos. Mike pointed out that Derek wasn’t going to be happy when he came back and all his food was gone. To which Emily flipped him off and Bill said: “Derek can dd-deal. He’s not the one in a sn-snowstorm. Too bbusy soaking sun in Muh-Mexico.” Mike couldn’t argue with that. 

He tried to knock at his bedroom door, trying to offer her some different food besides cheese sticks, but Max just yelled at him to go away. She sounded tired, defeated almost. If the gameplay here is to wear her down till she talks to him, he’s down. Albeit that gameplay is a little messed up, Max feels like shit with the drug withdrawals. This is potentially the only time in her life when she can be “worn down.” He’s biding his time.

The worst thing this snowstorm has brought was boredom. Mike is so incredibly, mind-numbingly, bored. At least the snow has stopped coming down. Should only be a day or two left now. His time to talk to Max is running out. 

Middle of the day Mike decides to take a nap. Emily and Bill have been watching some boring silent film from the 1920s and Mike is not nearly sophisticated enough to enjoy it. Also, it’s dumb. There’s a reason silent films are outdated.

But his wonderful nap gets interrupted by a loud crash. 

In a panic he sits up on the couch, having taken over Emily’s ‘bed’ to nap. The living room is empty but Bill’s bedroom door is open and the light is on. Another crash comes from the room.

Emily is half in the doorway and Bill is sitting at his desk. At his desk where he keeps his weed in the drawer. For someone who’s having their room torn apart, he looks pretty nonchalant about the whole thing. Shit is all over the floor and his nightstand has been torn apart.

Max is tearing open Bill’s dresser, throwing things out of it. She’s frantic and her movements are erratic. Like a roach when the light comes on.

“What the hell is going on here?!” He demands.

Max whips around on her feet, regarding him with nothing but contempt, “What the fuck is going on here Micheal is that your buddy pal here is hiding his fucking weed!”

Bill shrugs his shoulders, “I told you, I’m out.”

“You! Out?!” she chides, “Based on the size of your stash last time I know you’re basically a pothead!”

Before Bill can say anything else, Mike steps in, “So you’re destroying his room?! Because he doesn’t have any weed?!” 

Max is right, Bill is an almost pothead, but Bill has picked up on the fact that Max is not to be given any type of substance. Mike didn’t even have to tell him. Fuck, he owes Bill big time. 

Max literally screams, “I just need something! Anything! You don’t know what it’s been like for me these past couple of days!” 

He closes some of the distance between them, almost like a shield. He doesn’t know if he’s trying to hide Max in her delirium or to protect Bill and Emily from it. “Because you’ve been hiding in my  room! You locked me out!”

Max races up and shoves him but Mike holds steady this time. When Bill stands to intervene, Mike holds a hand out stopping him. Bill sits back down. 

“Yeah because I could totally do with the signature judging Mike Wheeler look! You don’t want to help me! You only want to ridicule me and- and- and make me feel small!” she shoves him again, weaker this time, “You just want to make me feel small!”

That knocks the wind out of his chest. “I-I-I-,” Shitshitshitshit, how is this her conclusion?! 

Oh yeah, because he’s a bad friend. 

Max watches him flounder just for a moment before she gently grabs his upper arm, “Mike I just need to get high, please. Help me, Mike.”

This breaks his doldrum. She’s asking him for help. She’s asking him to help her get high. To maybe bribe Bill into giving her some weed. She even said ‘please’. He can’t recall a time she ever said that. She doesn’t even care that Emily and Bill are here, now having figured out what is truly up with her. All she cares about is getting high.

She looks like a corpse. Can the dead now talk to him?

He shakes her hand off his shoulder, ignoring the look of betrayal she gives him. “Max I…”

“You know what?” She laughs, “Fuck this shit,” and then she bolts.

It’s like a scene from Looney Toons. He can swear he sees the dust from the spot where she once stood. It’s the slam of the front door that gets him moving. It’s like a horrible flashback as he charges out after her, trudging through the snow. 

Outside is so cold it sucks the air right out of his lungs. He pants as he follows Max’s path through the deep snow, it immediately numbing his bare feet. His pajama pants are soaked to his legs.

“Max! Wait!”

Her hair shines in the street lamp lights as she manically tries to get away from him. The snow prevents her from being too quick but she’s determined. It looks like she's out in the middle of the road but it’s hard to tell. Everything is too deep in the snow. 

“Leave me alone Mike!” she yells over her shoulder. 

“It’s too cold to be doing this! Let’s just go back inside!” 

She ignores him and trudges on. He’s about to plead with her again when she trips on something hidden in the snow and falls face-first. “Max!”

Max is still laying in the snow when he finally gets to her and he’s terrified that when he turns her over she’s going to be dead. God, don’t let her be dead.

“Max?” When he turns her over, snow is littering her hair and the front of her his sweater soaked, he’s surprised to see she’s crying. “Max?” he asks again, unsure of what to do.

She sits up, making a crater in the snow, and clings to her legs, sobs racking her body. Hesitantly he puts an arm around her and is thrown off guard when she twists her body to cling to him tightly, getting his shirt wet with her snot and tears. 

He’s never seen Max cry, let alone like this. Her sobs threaten to tear her in half, ripping their way out of her throat. She cries so hard that her body can’t keep up and it launches her into a coughing fit a couple of times. 

The only thing he can think to do is hold her tight and hope that he can prevent her from shattering. She’s so tiny in his arms and it feels wrong. “You make me feel small.” MadMax is never supposed to be small. Maybe if he can hold the pieces of her together then maybe one day she can mend herself back into a whole person. He never meant to make her feel small. 

For a very brief moment, he thought he had lost her and he was terrified. 

He doesn’t know how long they sit there. In their little crater in the deep snow in the middle of the maybe road. His body is numb and he keeps sniffling. Maybe it’s not just the cold, maybe it’s because he’s crying too. Maybe he’s mourning everything that was taken from him and Max. Taken from the party. Maybe if they got to have actual childhoods, ones not filled with flesh-eating monsters, Max would be okay. They wouldn’t be here now. 

Emily starts to walk down the path in the snow that Max and Mike hastily made when they were running. She’s holding two blankets and she keeps her distance. He’s thankful. 

Max’s sobs taper out and she’s left resting her face in the crevice of his neck and shoulder, probably not ready to face what happens next. Mike feels guilty when he nudges her but if they stay out here any longer the threat of catching hypothermia is very real. 

When they stand, Mike helping her to her feet, Emily approaches them. She hands Mike one of the blankets and puts the other around Max’s shoulders. “There you go darling,” she soothes. 

Max can’t meet her eye and stares at Emily’s slipper-clad feet, “I’m sorry,” she whispers, her voice trembling. 

“Oh no no no,” Emily tuts back. She grabs Max’s chin and forces her to look at her, “Don’t you dare apologize. No one is mad at you. We’re all a little fucked up and sometimes we do and say things we don’t mean.”

“But- But- But I destroyed Bill’s room,” she rebukes.

Emily laughs a little, “Bill isn’t mad at you either. His room is always a mess. If anything, you improved it.” Max doesn’t laugh but she smiles weakly which is good enough for Emily, “Now come on. I have a warm shower going for you. It’ll be good for you to decompress and warm up.” She puts her arm around Max’s shoulders and starts to guide Max back to their home. Part of Mike wonders if that’s because Emily is worried about Max running away again. 

Silently he follows back.

Once inside Emily leads Max to his and Bill’s bathroom. Mike heads to his room to change clothes.

He hasn’t been in here the past couple of days but besides the wrappers in the trash can and the unmade bed, it looks barely touched. He isn’t sure if he should be surprised or not that Max didn’t pilfer through his things. 

Some feeling starts to come back into his hands and feet but he can’t stop himself from shivering. He takes off Bill’s lent, now soaked clothes, and double layers everything in his own clothes. In his drawer, he finds his old Hellfire t-shirt and decides to wear that too. It’s long-sleeved. 

For Max, he lays out some of his pajama pants and socks. From his nightstand, he pulls out Max’s long sleeve shirt from that first night. The one that she puked on and the one that concealed her needle marks. Now it’s clean and can serve another purpose, keeping her warm.

While he waits for Max to warm up in the shower, he wraps a blanket back around his shoulders and heads into the hall. He can hear Emily in the kitchen warming up the kettle and smiles. Emily and Bill are the best and he has a lot to be grateful for.

He stops at Bill’s door when he sees him out of the corner of his eye picking up things from the floor. Bill has put most of the stuff that was flung from his nightstand back, albeit a bit haphazardly, and is starting to pick up his clothes.

“Hey…Bill?” he lingers in the doorway, a bit unsure what to say, “I’m sorry about-”

Bill waves him off, “Don’t wuh-worry about it. It ddo be what it ddo be,” he says unconcernedly. 

Mike sighs and goes to put a hand on his shoulder, hoping to convey how thankful he is, “Just, thanks, man. For everything.” Thank you for not giving her weed. 

He shrugs Mike’s hand off of him abruptly, “St-stop! Your hhands are i-i-icicles! I can fuh-feel it through my shirt!”

“Are they now?” he asks innocently before jabbing his cold hands onto Bill’s neck.

“No! Stahp!!” Bill clamors to his feet and runs out of his room, Mike on his trail, trying to touch him. 

They scurry into the kitchen, Bill stopping and making Mike run into him. Emily stands at the bar, rolling her eyes and sighing,“Now now boys…” she scolds.

She hands Bill a mug of tea and then passes Mike two of them. It’s peppermint. “This one is for Max, it should help settle her stomach…and her nerves.” He grins and accepts it, heading back down to his room. He heard the shower cut off when he was chasing Bill so maybe she’s ready to see him. 

When he knocks the door falls open so he enters. Now or never.

Max is sitting on his bed, dressed in the clothes he laid out for her. Her hair is still wet but it’s brushed and for the first time since this has started it looks clean. She has her arms tightly wrapped around her legs, staring into the abyss. 

He breaks her out of her trance when he offers her the mug of hot tea. She accepts silently with a small smile, wrapping her hands around it to warm them up. Or to try to control the small tremors wracking her body. Stiffly he takes a seat across from her in his desk chair. 

An awkward silence falls between them. 

“So…how do you feel?” He goes for something relatively easy to break it.

Max guffaws at that, “My body feels like it got hit but a semi-truck.” 

“...Guess that’s what a drug detox does to you.” 

When Max flings her cup of hot tea at him it’s going to scald right? He’s going to lose his eyebrows? Because a statement like that can only make her angry. 

Except…Max doesn’t get angry, her shoulders just slump and she looks, and she looks detached. “Yeah, I guess that it does,” she whispers. 

They haven’t been frank about her drug addiction, fuck they’ve barely even discussed it. Now is the time. Now after she just cried so hard in his arms, something Mike never thought would ever happen. 

“Tell me,” he presses, “Tell me why, why heroin? Because honestly Max I’ve been racking my brain, for a while now, and I don’t understand. You barely drank soda as a kid! And now you’re shooting up?”

Remarkably she doesn’t get up to leave or flip off, but she gives him a deflection, “Why are you back in your nerd shirt? Hellfire? I always thought that was a waste of a metal name.”

“D&D is metal!” 

He takes a deep breath, Max is trying to rile him and that’s not what right now is about, “I’m trying to be serious Max, I want to be here for you. Let me do that, please.”  

Max’s face is stoic, unreadable, but her words cut like knives, “You weren’t there after Billy died, none of you were there.”

He leaps to his feet, almost spilling his tea, but he stops himself. His gut reaction is to get defensive and tell her that she didn’t let them be there for her, but that’s not the whole truth. Yes, Max purposefully distanced herself from the Party, but none of them bothered to try and stop her. None of them cared enough to. So he sits back down, Max looks at him with a confused twerk in her brow, and he reframes what he says next.

“I know. I’m sorry. That was, that was pretty shit of me. All of all of us.” Max just studies her hot tea, taking a small sip. She says nothing.

He hasn’t been able to get what Bill said last night about Billy out of his head. Is Max happy that he’s dead? And if so, is it the guilt that crushes her now? He has to know. But he doesn’t get to ask before Max takes the words out of his mouth.

“I’m happy he’s dead.”

“What?” 

Max acts like she didn’t mean to let those words out of her mouth and she looks ashamed, “Forget I said that!”

He sets his tea down on his desk and moves to sit on the edge of the bed, hesitantly placing a hand on her knee, “No Max, tell me. Billy wasn’t a good person, no one can blame you if you felt relieved over his death.” 

She doesn't shake his hand off but she sits up in a reserved manner, “You don’t get it!”

“But I want to! Max, I want to get it!”

“Why?! Why now?! After all this time?!” Max charges. 

Mike rubs at his face with his other hand, the voice of his mom in his head telling him to knock it off be damned. “Because! Because Max I finally fucking realized how shitty of a friend I was!” Am “I mean you watched your stepbrother die and no one bothered to ask how you were handling it! It doesn’t matter if it was Dustin, Lucas, or me! None of us cared enough to ask you! And I’m so sorry! I'm sorry I made you feel small!” tears are springing his eyes but he won’t let them fall, “But-but I’m here now. And Max I care! I know I can’t always show it and fuck, I’m even bad at saying it, but I do care about you! We were friends at one point. We went to hell and back, that has to count for something! If the Party can’t rely on each other then we’re all screwed!” None of them have been good at that as of late. 

Max eyes are glazed over as she shakes her head, “No I was the one who pushed you guys away after-”

Mike grabs her wrist, “Don’t try to take blame now, not after I just waxed poetic about how shitty I and the Party was,” And that, that makes her smile, it’s a little one bit it counts. “I’m serious Max. You know we were in the wrong, not you. You were hurting and we let you push us away…have I apologized for that yet?” 

She sniffles, “Yes, I think you have.” 

He nods, feeling emotionally drained but determined to power on, “So tell me about Billy, I’m listening.” 

And she does. Max tells him about how she felt so guilty when Billy died because she spent so many nights wishing for it. That maybe he would wreck his camaro or drink too much and pick a fight with the wrong guy. An accident. She wanted him dead because he went out of his way to put her and the people she cared about through hell. She never thought he would actually die though.

When he did it felt like she had manifested it into existence. She laughed grimly at that, at how ridiculous it sounded. Max was never one for fate or destiny. She blamed herself for his death. He tries to remind her that it was the Mindflayer but she won’t hear it. Not right now. 

It’s not just the guilt that gets to her. It’s the questions too. Who could he have become? Could they ever have had a normal brother-sister relationship or was Billy too filled with anger? Could she ever forgive him for what he’d done? Can she forgive herself now?

She doesn’t miss him, she misses the good person he had a chance to become. When he gave his life to save El that showed there was something good in him, just buried deep down. And now he’s dead and she blames herself. 

“I’m not a good person, Mike,” she chokes out.

“No, don't say that!” Mike grabs her hand now, having set her tea down as she was talking, “You were the one who gave El a sense of self, and you ran into tunnels filled with demadogs to fight with some nerds you just met. You made Lucas happy! A bad person wouldn’t have done that!”

She tries to argue but he won’t hear it, “Look, Max, me and you? We fought a lot. A lot a lot. And that was because we were both trying to do what we thought was good for our friends!”

“I thought it was because we hated each other.” There’s no malice in her tone. 

“Okay well, maybe that too. You convinced my girlfriend to break up with me, that was a real punch.”

“El was too good for you.”

He snickers, “Yeah you’re right.” 

Mike is terrified that he’s going to say the wrong thing. Max is finally opening up to him. He’s not a fool to believe that she believes him when he says she’s not a bad person. He’s been there, he still doesn’t think he’s a good friend but dammit he’s trying. “I’ll leave it at this: I don’t think you’re a bad person and friends don’t lie, remember?”

“Thanks, Mike,” Max gawkily pats his hand resting on top of hers but she sounds sincere. 

It’s almost…peaceful between them so he hates to ruin it. “Is Billy’s death why you started using drugs?”

Max appears like she was expecting this question but she still isn’t excited about answering it. She takes her hand away and he lets her, “Yes? No? I don’t know. It’s not like I woke up one day feeling like shit over him and decided to shoot up.”

“Then what is it?” This answer is the key to getting her to quit. 

“It was everything I guess. Being a year older than Bill will ever get to be, having no friends,” she scoffs, “fucking Gary and my mom.” Mike has no idea who Gary is but he’ll later find out that it’s Max’s rich new stepdad who carted her mom off away to Seattle. “All of it got to me and I was just looking for a way to get away from it all. Somehow I got here.” 

“But now you can stop with them.”

Max rolls her eyes, “Mike don’t go down this road, I can stop whenever I want to.”

“Can you?” There’s a flash of annoyance in her eyes and he backtracks, “I’m not asking to be condescending. It’s just what happened in Bill’s room earlier, that didn't look like ‘I can stop when I want’ to me...Max, you need help.”

“Mike, I don't need you to try and fix me!” her voice raises.  

He’s learned from his past mistakes with El and Will and that comes in handy now, “I’m not trying to fix you! I just want to give you the tools so that you can fix yourself! Max, you're one of the strongest people I know, I know you can do this!” 

Max’s anger deflates, “...I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

Mike, ever the researcher has an answer to this too, “There’s an NA meeting at a local church, I figure we could start there. You can try to keep clean and we can attend the meetings. You’ve already gone through the worst of the detox period so this is a good start.”

She’s silent for a moment but she accepts his plan, “One problem with this, what do you mean by ‘we’?” 

“Yeah, ‘we’," he says obviously, "You can do this by yourself but there’s nothing wrong with accepting a little help.”

“As long as you don’t become ‘hero’ Mike,” she groans. 

“No promises.”

She wacks him on the back of his head, “Mike I swear!”

“Okay okay! I’ll try to keep from my heroness!” he retracts, “Only if we have a deal though?” He holds out his hand. 

Max eyes it but shakes it after a moment, “You’re such a nerd.”

“I could’ve spit in my hand, we could’ve made a spit pack,” he jests.

“Gross! Mike!”

He’s still laughing when he looks over and accidentally sees on his alarm clock that it’s past midnight. It’s officially Christmas Eve. Huh.

Max watches him as he stands and goes to his closet. He bought this before their first D&D session and didn’t know if he was going to ever actually give it to her. In light of their conversation now feels like a good time. 

She stands and walks over to him silently, bewildered by what he’s holding in his hands. “What is that?”

Is this…embarrassment? Why is there a blush keeping up his neck? He stiffly hands over her gift without a word. 

Max runs her finger up the panel and spins one of the wheels, “Did you get me a skateboard?” He doesn’t answer her and she looks up to scowl at him, “Mike did you get me a skateboard?”

“It’s nothing. I haven’t seen you skateboard in a long time and I just thought-”

“It has Wonder Woman on it.”

Fuck did he mess up? “El told me that was your favorite superhero!” Way to blame it on El Mike.

Max grins softly and traces the Wonder Woman symbol, “El told you?”

“She did.” Mike desperately wants to tell that El also misses Max but now is not the time, “Also I figured that if you wanted to try to get yourself clean, skateboarding could be a good distraction.”

Max smirks, “Guess you do have some good ideas in that head of yours nerd.”

He resists snarking back, this is supposed to be a nice moment, but he still flips her off as he says: “Merry Christmas Max.” 

A/N: RIP Georgie

Don't ask me how Bill's stutter works, I don't fucking know

Have I forgotten to mention that the events of IT chapter one has also happened in this AU? Whoops. Mike and Bill really should trade some notes on fighting interdimensional monsters

Disclaimer! Weed is not a bad drug! (At least in moderation) But remember Max is going through major withdrawals from hard drugs so she's looking for anything to take the edge off. Weed in this context would not be good for her.

I love Emily and Bill. They're honestly the best for Mike and for Max too. Derek...you get your snacks eaten.

OKAY so so much happened this chapter. Please keep in mind this fic is a slow burn, a painful one. Max is no where near out of the woods but finally Max and Mike were frank about her drug addiction and they had to conversation about Billy. I'm getting back into *hopefully* weekly chapter updates. The next chapter will be shorter (plz 7k chapters can't be normal for this fic) and the next chapter is filler of sorts. Basically fluff. Bc you're going to need it after this chapter and the next major chapter.

Side Note: Max did apologize to Bill but I couldn't fit in, it just happens off screen.

ALSO MAX AND MIKE CAN BE HARD TO RIGHT FOR WHEN IT COMES TO EMOTIONAL SCENES AAAAA BUT I THINK I DID GOOD

Thank you for being patient! I'm sorry for the long time between chapters but I have the best commenters <3 Please excuse any errors

[latibvles]

Gonna throw you a bit of an AU. 'Brown iodine stains on skin' for Daisy (yes, Daisy) and whatever flyboy you feel appropriate or interesting.

DAISY AND THE FLYBOYS? DAISY AND THE FLYBOYS. that would be an excellent band name but I digress. I was kind of giggling to myself writing this. wherever she goes she's going to have gray hairs over these soldier boys (affectionate)

—

He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to this.

It’s not a thought that he’ll express anywhere besides in his own mind, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s having that thought at all. Thirty men one day, twenty on another, did you see any chutes? How many? What bearing? What time? He knew what he signed up for, it’s not that he’s complaining about it. He just doesn’t know how to make sense of it. How people can be there and gone in a minute.

And he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.

“You ought to get that looked at,” Dr. Stover cautions, eyeing a few of the cuts on Gale’s face. “After interrogation.”

“Major, here,” chimes the voice next to him, softer but a little more urgent — fingers wrap around his wrist and there’s a hand pressing a small rag unceremoniously into his hand. He winces at the sting of it against his palm. His eyes settle on her as she loosens her own grip, staring up at him with big dark eyes and equally dark furrowed brows. “Wouldn’t want to bleed on the maps.”

For a moment Gale can only stare at her, because if he’s being completely transparent — he still feels like part of him is up there and hasn’t come down quite yet. Hadn’t realized he’d even cut his hand until she’d drawn attention to it, so he just stares at her lips pressed into a line, her warm brown hair tucked neatly into her nightingale cap, her face fresh as a—

“Daisy, why don’t you head over to the hospital. That landing strip looked pretty busy.” Her gaze snaps back to Stover, and she nods with a quick ‘yes, sir’, scurrying off before Gale can so much as choke out a thanks for the rag he was now holding to his own palm.

The interrogation is as chaotic as ever as they try to go over everything they’d just witnessed. It should’ve been easy, considering it’d just happened moments ago. But sitting in the chair, pressing a rag to his wrist, weighing in when needed — Gale can feel the weight settling in his bones, his shoulders. He’s slow to stand when they’re dismissed, letting the other guys filter out before him, partly because he knows how eager they are to leave and partly because it’s all he can really muster as he blinks back into some semblance of consciousness that isn’t so tethered to basic instincts.

He assumes that’s why, when he’s finally made his way over, the hospital isn’t as chaotic. Those who needed beds are in beds, with a nurse or a crewmate by their side, and Gale stands in the doorway watching for a long, silent second. A nurse with honey-blonde hair smiles at him, something bright and welcoming.

“Major Cleven! Take a seat right over there. We’ll get’cha situated in a minute,” she gestures to one of the chairs posed between empty beds, and Gale makes a point to return the smile as he moves to sit where she’d instructed. It’s in this buzzing quiet, only accented by the occasional murmurings of the few men in the room, that he lets out a long, heavy breath. No way in hell he’ll ever get used to this.

He sees the brown iodine stains on her hands before noticing the metal tray of instruments in her hands: bandages, cotton, scissors, thread, antiseptic. And then the crisp whiteness of her uniform, in spite of that.

“I didn’t think you’d show,” Gale lifts his gaze again. The nurse from before, Daisy, is smiling this time, and he notes the dimple in her cheek. He waves the now stained rag in his free hand.

“Figured you’d want this back.” He offers as she sits down on the edge of the bed, taking it from him with a click of her tongue.

“Ah, yes, my lucky hanky,” she hums, fingers brushing against his cheek as she turns his head. She wets the rag with the antiseptic and starts on his face. Gale doesn’t flinch on the sting.

“What makes it lucky?”

“Usually if I give it away there tends to be a pilot attached to it when it comes back,” She looks at him then, but only for a moment before shifting her attention back to his cuts. “And they’re usually the ones who would otherwise need to be dragged here kicking and screaming. So I’m, uh, fairly lucky to avoid that fuss.” Daisy’s quick with his face, leaning away and looking over him before nodding to herself. “Just let me…” she takes his arm again, bringing his palm to her.

“Lucky I don’t kick or scream then, huh?”

“Oh definitely, there must be extra magic in it today,” She doesn’t even look up as she says it, doesn’t miss a beat as her fingers smooth over the skin of his palm. They’re rough, which he wasn’t expecting and hadn’t noticed before, but they’re steady, too. “Lucky for you this won’t need stitches. How’d it happen?”

Gale leans back in the chair, eyes the gash and furrows his brows. He can’t for the life of him remember how that happened. There’d been a lot happening, all things considered. Their whole fort was practically a jagged mess of sharp edges. She’s looking at him now and while she isn’t smiling her face is just… soft, he wants to go as far as to say it’s probably a little knowing — if the roughness of her hands and her good-luck-hanky are any clues.

“Okay, how about this — got your shots?” That, he can answer, so he does.

“Yes ma’am.” She snorts at that, shaking her head a little.

“Don’t call me ma’am,” Back in with the cotton, cleaning the cut, which stings a little more. “Lucky you, then. You’ve avoided the big needle.”

“What, is it that bad?” He asks, and he can’t help the smile making its way onto his face.

“If you’re scared of needles then, yes. Are you scared of needles Major…”

“Cleven,” He finishes as she reaches for the roll of bandages. “No, can’t say that I am, Nurse…”

“Clarke,” Her turn to finish, as she wraps his hand round-and-round. Daisy Clarke, then. “Then maybe you would’ve been fine either way,” she assents as she reaches for scissors to cut the bandages.

Gale curls his hand into a fist, then unfurls it, letting his hand breathe once she finishes, and Daisy watches him for a moment before rising to her feet.

“Try to hold off on any fist-fights and if you bleed through those feel free to stop by to have them changed out, okay?” she dusts off her hands, even though the brown stain still clings to them. Gale nods.

“Yes ma’am,” he parrots. The look she gives him is narrow-eyed, but there’s a smile on her face as she stares, taking the tray with her as she walks off again.

Gale thinks, for the briefest moment, that he might be feeling a little lighter.

[totsnotfake13]

Piss Rags

I'd like to try and regale some of my work horror stories, and the nature that is a donation center for a charity organization. To start, an early and infamous incident into my tenure there. (With names changed as necessary) Roughly 6-8 months into my job, I'm watching a newish member of our team carry a plastic tub full of clothes to the dock. He's struggling though, i don't know much about him, haven't seen much of him so i'm working under the assumption he's just not very strong. He gets to the dock, heaves this tub, and it thuds. It's my job anyways, so I go over and try to lift, and myself notice it's heavy. Coworker goes off for another tub. I notice, they're wet looking, to test this I stick my full hand, wrist deep, into this tub. It's soaking wet. Coworker returns, another thud. He's picking up speed, making his way back for another tub, I raise my wetted hand to my nose, he's making his way back with another tub. I take a whiff. It's piss. Urine soaked clothes, smelly feted fabrics. Thud goes to the 3rd tub. Coworker about midway to his 4th tub of these clothes notices me gagging, stops to witness me point, yell "IT'S PISS" at this donator. I'm unable to stop myself, pose breaks and I continue to gag, and from my watery eyes I watch her jump into the urimobile and skid off like a cartoon villain into the sunset never to be seen again. I try, so hard to ask my coworker why he didn't notice or smell anything about these clothes, and he's just as dumbfounded at his own inability to have noticed.

So there are 3 tubs worth of pissy clothes in my job, and it's my job on this hot summer day to dispose of them. So I struggle, drag and use whatever I can to cover my nose as I bring these plastic tubs to our trash compactor. On this hot day, I lift and dump these clothes onto the metal chute for our compactor. The urine seemingly vaporizes, the smell intensifies and is almost visibly emanating from the hole in the wall. We repeat this process twice more, and I go to wash and disinfect my arm and body. As I come back to the dock, my other coworkers are trying their best not to gag, the entire warehouse reeked of this for a solid 3-4 hours, and mercifully dissipated by the next day.

Nothing came of this, the mysterious pisser has never come forward, but the tale lives on in the singed nose hairs of those that experienced it. There are other stories of the workplace, but this is a great one to start.