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shade-pup-cub · 8 months ago

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Febuwhump 2024, Day 19: Twi, Time, Shade (Chain) - “Please Don’t”

Fandom: LOZ/Linked Universe

Consequences on not telling Time the full truth was lurking in the woods between Twilight and Time's eras. Pulling Time to the side to tell him of the Hero's Shade, there's an attack on camp, forcing the secret to come out in the worst way.

CW: blood, injury, language, self sacrifice

Apparently I have a pattern of hurting Twilight in some kind of way when Shade enters a story.

“Guys, wake up. Anyone know this place?” Legend asked as he and Wild sat around the cooking pot. They had just shifted while most of them were asleep.

Twilight looked around curiously. “It feels familiar, but too young to be my era. Time, is it yours?”

The Old Man took a deep breath in, scanned across the new forest, then let out his breath. “Feels too old to be mine. Could be in a between era.”

Twilight blanched at that. That could be the worst thing to happen since that meant Sh- Nope, he was over thinking it too quickly. “Did either of you scout out around here?”

Wild kept stirring, but pointed in a direction. “Yeah, there’s a road about half a mile from here. Seemed to be well used, but it was too early in the morning for people to be using it.”

“I’ll go see if anyone is there now.” Twi tried to stand to make his way to the road, but Wild swiftly pointed his ladle at him with a fierce look.

“After. Breakfast.” The steely look had Twilight consciously sitting back down like a good boy. He was not going to piss off his Cub when it came to everyone being fed. A few others snickered and giggled and all got the same look from Wild. He really could be terrifying.

Wild made a feast of a meal for them: Crepes, oatmeal, omelets, toast, honey and nut fruit and of course an assortment of drinks that everyone liked. Even with the great smelling food in hand and a hungry stomach, Twilight was having issues forcing the food down.

Thankfully his own mentor had mercy on him. “Come on, you're too antsy and it’s killing me to see.”

The unknown bad choice of words could have made Twilight run for the trees to bring everything back up, but then he wouldn’t have been allowed to leave camp. Instead he put on his normal clothes, sword on his back, then waited as Time finished putting on his armor.

The walk was silent outside of Twilight’s heart pounding in his ears and the birds singing in the trees. That was until Time broke the silence. “Alright Pup, what has you so worked up?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I know you are lying and hiding something. You get the same crease in your forehead Malon does. Spill it.” Time grabbed the young man’s shoulder, bringing them both to a stop.

Twilight took several long breaths to calm himself and to figure out the words. “This is going to be hard to tell you, specifically you.”

“Harder than telling me that we are related, can shapeshift and that I somehow trained you in my future?” Time gave a half amused smile.

Oh if he only knew… “Yes.”

Time straightened up, full attention on his descendant. “I’m listening.”

“I didn’t tell you the full truth of how you ended up training me in the future.” Why did he have to do this now?! “You didn’t time travel to my era to train me.”

“How can that be if we are an unknown hundred of years apart?”

“Just… When we met, you weren’t exactly al-” A howl nearby stopped him short. His eyes blew wide.

Time grabbed the hilt of his sword. “Wolfos?”

“N-no” Twilight spun around. “I know that howl.”

Paws making contact with the forest floor could be heard getting closer, making Twi’s heart nearly leap from his chest. A flash of gold had Twilight racing for it.

“Pup, wait!” Time was no spring cucco, but he kept up with the younger.

Twilight zig-zagged through the trees, catching the briefest amount of gold and white. “Shade, wait up!” he hollered, but the wolf stayed out of sight. When he no longer could see where he went nor could hear him, Twilight stopped.

Time stopped with him, slightly panting. “Friend of yours?”

A yip had both men’s heads turning. Standing a few feet away was the wolf in all his golden glory. Twilight knelt down move eye level, “Are you going to just sit there or are you going to get over here and say hi?”

A few bounding steps later and the wolf had his front legs draped over Twilight’s shoulder. Shade rubbed his head against the other’s neck, giving slight whines as if saying he missed him. There were a few licks to Twilight’s hairline before the Hylian stood up, wolf still hanging on his shoulders, showing that he was taller than the younger.

“Pup, you are aware that he is a spirit, right?” Time asked, eyeing the giant wolf carefully.

“I know, but how do you know?”

Time opened his white eye, pointing to the marked side of his face. “He sees all.”

That gave a chill down Twilight’s spine. “Did he tell you who Shade is?”

“No, he only gave an all too delighted laugh.”

Shade’s ears perked up and did a slight swivel. A low baritone grumble came from his chest. He pushed off of Twilight’s shoulder and seemed to be tuning into whatever he was hearing. Twilight closed his eyes, filtering out the noises around him to get a longer range.

There was metal clashing, hollering and the screeching of monsters. “Ambush… Camp!” Twilight and Shade bolted in the direction of the others, Time right behind them.

When the two heroes broke into the clearing of camp they saw seven heroes all armed and surrounded by a mix of different era’s monsters. Giving a gruff-snarl, Shade led the attack as he literally dove into the horde. The action had Legend screaming like a kit and Twilight was not going to let that slip away later.

The camp turned into a bloodbath as more and more monsters swarmed in from all sides. It wasn’t an impossible fight, just one that they weren’t prepared for since most of them were still in their night clothes.

Twilight made sure to keep an ear out for everyone, especially Shade. Not everyone would right away think ‘Friend’ when seeing a red eyed wolf covered in blood. He knew first hand how badly that could go, seeing that he went through that exact thing after his adventure, forgetting that Ordon hadn’t been told yet of his ability to shift and they already had nightmares from when the children were taken and a wolf had been stalking around that time. That wolf had been him, but he was there to protect, not harm. They didn’t know and he paid the price. He would never blame them either.

Somehow in the fray Twilight became overrun with monsters and was brought down to his knees. His sword was ripped from him while at the same time a heavy foot flattened him onto his back. One of Wild’s silver Moblins was pressing its weight against his chest, club high in the air. The monster roared and Twilight matched it, but not out of fear. Twilight roared in defiance.

He didn’t know how it happened, but he knew why and when it happened. The fight unexpectedly turned, drawing the attention of the monsters to someone else. That someone else was Shade, but the wolf was now the skeleton Twilight had been trained by.

He stood tall as a fully armored in gold metal, sword drawn, single red eyed stalfos. To the rest of them, this would seem to be a Boss Stal that happened to be out in the open. He locked his gaze on his descendant and made his way over in large strides, ignoring fights around him.

As Warriors went to be the first to strike, Twilight hollered, “Wait!”

Shade caught the blade’s edge with his metal covered hand. He didn’t strike back, only shoved the captain away. Time was at his backside, sword already slashing at his side and it forced him towards Warriors who tried again to land a hit. With the power behind Time’s swings, Shade had to pull his weapon, but to defend himself.

It was irrational for Twilight to think something could happen to the Hero’s Shade as if he could be more dead, but he was not going to risk the chance of talking to his mentor again after everything. He didn’t think he could handle seeing metal and bones fall to the dirt. And what would happen if they did? What would happen to Twilight as a baby since Shade was the one to care for him in the woods before leaving him at Rusl and Uli’s door? Would Twilight still win against Ganondorf?

Would Twilight fail the legacy Time started? He would damn himself, but not the legacy created by a child who held the weight of the world on his shoulder yet still died with regret. He could never.

Twilight’s mind screamed for his original mentor. ‘No! Please, don’t! How can you not see who he is?!’

With everything happening so quickly, the Moblin holding Twilight down had looked away, foot relaxing some on his chest. The monster was still big, but Twilight just twisted his body enough to get a shot with his foot to the things jambags. It worked to his surprise. Sword in hand, the Moblin’s head fell to the ground.

Twilight looked up at Shade who was deflecting Warriors and Sky while Time readied another deadly blow. With his mind still irrationally thinking, Twilight ran to stop the fight, but it was about to be too late. He wasn’t going to make it.

Time had his Biggoron Sword thrusting forward and Twilight knew the other was too far into the motion to stop, so he did the one thing he could think. He just prayed that Time would forgive him if he survived.

“Shade!!” Twilight was one more step away.

The Stal turned around to his name being called, his eye locked onto Twi and the sword headed now for both of them. It was all in slow motion.

The Ordonian had no fear as he jumped that last step, flinging his arms over the golden armored skeleton into the resemblance of a hug. At the same moment Time’s blade was run through Twilight’s back, coming out his chest and imbedding into Shade’s chest plate. Twilight sucked in a stuttered and pained breath, sagging into the boney arms that wrapped around him as they both fell.

The sword jossiled as they landed, Twi on top, and he screamed at pain that slowly subsided as he went into shock. He looked between them, grabbed the blade and stood, removing the tip from the other. Twilight swayed on his feet as the battle continued around him, hands now bleeding from the sharp edge he was still holding onto and now pushing out of himself until he heard it clatter onto the ground behind him. Straightening up, he mouthed an apology to his former mentor before he couldn’t hold himself up anymore, going to his side.

Shade was up and holding Twilight in his arms before he hit the ground again. He looked around at his old companions seeing that there were many of them injured and Hyrule was going to be needed for those. He only had one choice and he wouldn’t fail or so help him he would fight every damn goddess and god there was! He laid the boy on the ground, trying to ignore the sounds of him sucking in breath and blood into his lungs. Shade placed his hands on the ground drawing in only as much magic as he needed. The grass around him shriveled and died as they gave their essence to him. Muscle and flesh formed under his armor though his clothes stayed tattered and torn.

Feeling his body reformed, he removed his broken helmet, throwing it to the side. He didn’t care how many enemies were left or who was now jaw dropped at the sight of who he was, what he had become. He didn’t care about the shock his younger self was still in. All he cared about was his Pup. Tearing the boy's tunics open more to access the wound, Shade saw how dire the situation really was and honestly Twilight should have already died from it.

With his death, Shade didn’t just become the Hero's Shade. The Lost Woods had granted him the power to protect the forest, to give and take life inside of it. That didn’t mean only for the things inside the forest originally, but the people who entered with ill intentions too. He was a deity in a different form than the one inside the mask he carried when alive. He placed a hand over the wound and one on the ground. He pulled magic from every living thing outside of the last few monsters and the boys. The tree’s bark rotted as the leaves turned brown. The grasses grew dry, critters that hid in the ground were consumed as well. It physically hurt him to do this, but he promised to restore it all.

Looking over his shoulder he shouted, “Leave some of the monsters alive! Restrain them!” To give life was to take life. Different shades of green magic swirled over his hand touching the ground, absorbing it, then releasing it into the boy’s chest. Twilight thrashed as the magic worked to stitch him back up.

“Twilight!!”

“Wild no!” Time went to grab Wild by his belt, barely making it to him when Shade’s hand swiped from the ground, upwards. Deep underground roots sprang up, blocking the Cub from getting too close.

“If you get too close, the magic will jump to you and I can’t afford that, not when he is barely alive.”

“What happened?” Hyrule asked.

“I- he-”

“No point in pointing fingers when what is done is done and even more so when it was no one's fault.” Shade snapped.

Twilight stopped moving, stopped breathing, heart nearly a flutter if that. His eyes were open, but no light shined in those blues.

“Come on Pup, take a breath, just one.” Shade closed his eyes and with a yell, pulled an extreme amount of magic from his surroundings. The trees snapped in half, forcing the boys to move closer so as to not be crushed. Shade gave away some of the magic he had used to bring himself back, revealing the wounds he had received during his final battle, including the fatal gash that went all the way across his midsection.

He could feel the wound closing the last bit all the way through and he pushed it slightly over to where his boy’s heart was lying still in his chest. Knowing that he was draining near his limit, he raised his left hand from the ground, raised it up in the air and swiftly slammed the magic overtop of where Twilight’s heart was.

“BREATHE!!”

Twilight’s eyes shot open, back arched off the ground, mouth drawing in gurgled air. Shade turned him to his side where the younger began to heave, globs of blood spewing onto the dirt before being turned back over.

“You irresponsible child! I kept you alive from the age of one up until I could teach you everything I knew, past fighting Ganon and this is the shit you do?! What were you thinking?!” He gave the boy a shake, wanting to knock some sense into him. All he got was a bloody smile. “Why are you smiling?”

“I missed you.”

#ao3 writer #febuwhump 2024 #febuwhump #linked universe #hero of twilight #hero of time #hero’s shade #golden wolf #lu boys #fierce deity #FD is an ass!!🤣

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love-and-monsters · 2 years ago

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The Imposter

It’s Christmas Eve, I officially have a master’s degree, and I’ve finally finished this story that I started quite a ways back. It was supposed to be quick. It ended up being over 6,000 words. So. Whoops. Anyway, Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, Happy Hanukah and all that. Enjoy!

This story is based off this post by @cozycryptidcorner and used with permission. Thanks!

M alien X F human, 6,387 words

Trigger warning: This story contains death and murder (performed by one of the main characters), depictions of torture and gun violence, (implied) cannibalism, and mentions of pregnancy/breeding and having children.

It’s been a week and a half since we last heard from the secondary outpost twenty miles from the main command center, which means we need to actually go out there and see what happened. No one’s happy about this- even our second in command has some arguments against it. But Ann was pretty firm. Regulations state that if an outpost stops responding for longer than ten days, there needs to be a rescue effort. There could be a severe power outage, some kind of system collapse, a localized weather phenomenon. Any number of things preventing a response.

I don’t know. It could be any of those things. But I don’t think it is.

We’ve got four grunts going with us, along with our xenobehaviorist, our third in command, and me, our xenobotanist. I don’t know if they’re sending me along in order to gather samples along the way or if they think there might be a botanical element to the disappearance, but I’m going. No getting out of it.

At least I’ll be getting out of the base. It’s a little claustrophobic, being there for weeks on end.

The planet itself is beautiful. Earth-like, but with a composition of elements in the atmosphere that makes the sky pale pink in the morning, when we set out. Most of the area we landed in is covered by grass, or at least something like grass. It’s shy, curling in on itself and retreating when we roll over it. Large tangles of bushes dot the landscape with enormous, flat leaves and elongated, berry-like fruits. It’s a fascinating environment, one I would love to study more, but there’s no stopping on the way there. We roll right on by, passing the miles until we arrive at the secondary outpost.

It’s easy to see the outpost from a distance, or it’s at least easy to see its major landmark- while the main outpost is set into the side of a cliff, the secondary outpost is set in the middle of flat ground next to a massive stone obelisk.

It’s a weird obelisk, very smooth and tall, not matching the rest of the world around it. Our geologist is fascinated by it, says it’s the weirdest erosion she’s ever seen, like nothing on earth. She’s trying to team up with our meteorologist to check for unusual weather patterns that might cause it- personally I don’t see what she likes so much about it. It’s just a large rock.

The secondary outpost sits right in its shadow, nestled against it. It’s an intimidating sight to approach, to be sure. More intimidating is the sight of the secondary outpost itself, because it’s completely dim. Most of the time, there are lights along the outside, at least as a sign that it’s still operational. Now, there’s nothing.

We have to pry the doors open. No automatic power. A musty smell wafts out, like a place that’s had the same air circulating for too long. The entire place is dark.

Once we get enough torches set up to keep everything illuminated, we search. The secondary outpost is much smaller than the main one- meant for twenty people as opposed to nearly two hundred. I never knew any of the people here- they were transported separate from the rest of us so we never met- but they were pretty similar to us. Any of us could have been a part of their crew. Just luck of the draw that we weren’t.

That makes it a lot more unsettling when we find the bodies.

There are nineteen. Some of them look like wild animals got them, torn apart. Others are visibly uninjured, but with a strange blue-purple tint to their skin. All of them are dead.

Our xenobiologist takes tissue samples. The rest of us search for some sign of what caused this. There’s no obvious breach- nothing to suggest animals actually broke in. The only sign of something anomalous is on the wall near the bunk area- a massive black and blue cocoon, large enough to hold a person split open and spilling thick, sticky liquid across the floor.

The trail stops abruptly in a spatter, like whatever was coated in the liquid shook it off all at once.

It’s when we’re debating what kind of creature could have made such a thing that we hear someone banging on the inside of the bulkhead.

The bulkhead is the reinforced security section under the main command center. Designed for safety in emergencies, it auto-locks from the inside and is basically airtight- once it’s sealed nothing can go in or out until it’s released.

Our third-in-command puts in the override entry code and the bulkhead doors grind open.

The man inside is naked, huddled in a corner. He looks up and his eyes are brilliant blue, like the blue spatter outside was turned almost neon. His hair is pale blonde and messy, with streaks of spattered blue in it.

I don’t recognize him, though I don’t really recognize anyone who was on this base. He looks startlingly pretty, though, with angular features and a slim body. He rises with a surprising amount of grace for someone who has been huddled in the bunker for some time.

It takes some time before he speaks. When he does, his voice is whispery, almost raspy. We gather in the bunker with him, listening.

“A virus,” he says. “Or a spore or other contaminant. I don’t know who brought it in. But it spread. So quickly. The infected attacked. I got to the bunker first. The others were injured too quickly. If I had held it open longer, I would have been attacked as well.”

His voice is soft, but steady as he speaks. Flat. Numb, maybe. His gaze wanders between us at first, but as he speaks, it settles on me and stays. I stare back at him, trembles racing up and down my spine.

He doesn’t exactly explain why he’s naked, but all of us have worried about an emergency occurring while we’re washing. Perhaps that’s even what saved him- he was away from the others and able to sneak to the bunker while the attackers were distracted. There’s some worry about contamination, but eventually, it’s determined that if it was airborne, he would have succumbed a while ago. A couple of our number head off to find him his identification and clothes- he’s currently in a hurriedly-located blanket, which is draped around him like a toga. The rest of us stay to pack up any supplies that remain, take samples, and prepare for departure.

I pack food, given that my own specialties don’t seem useful here. He stands next to me, picking up cans and boxes of dried food and setting them in a travel container. There are quite a few empty shelves, more than I’d expect from one person living here for a week. But it’s also possible they hadn’t fully stocked the bunker. Just as I’m pondering that, he steps closer to me, eyes trained on my face.

“Yes?” I say. His gaze is oddly intent. I don’t see him blink.

“What’s your name?” his voice is still whispery, but stronger than it was when he spoke before.

“Tamara,” I say. “What’s yours?”

He smiles, showing his teeth. “Patrick.” His smile widens- his teeth are oddly white. “I’m glad to meet you.”

His ID never turns up- it’s presumed to be among the other missing ones. He is clothed in the standard orange uniform and, once we’ve packed up the samples and salvaged items, we start heading back to the main base.

He sits next to me. The swaying of the transport makes him lean against me, his body warm against mine. Eventually, he falls asleep, pale hair tickling my neck and face as his head rests on my shoulder. In his sleep, he curls closer to me, trying to press as close to me as possible.

I nudge him awake when we reach the base. He blinks up at me, eyes soft and blue as a kitten’s. One of his hands is resting on my thigh. I can feel the slight shifting of his fingers as he squeezes. “We’re here.”

He smiles, though he doesn’t break eye contact as he does so, and speaks. “Home.”

Patrick takes several days to go through the required quarantine and debrief. I hear about him only through whispered rumors. He’s a strange sort, apparently, and quiet, only speaking enough to answer questions. Mostly, he watches people from inside the quarantine chambers with his bright, intelligent eyes. I visit on occasion. He always smiles at me when I arrive- I initially assume he’s just pleased to see anyone after spending time locked away, but other members talk about how solemn he is, barely reacting when they enter the visitation zone.

About a week after his arrival, I’m surprised to find him in my botany lab, dressed in white labwear over his orange jumpsuit and goggles that somehow enhance the clear blue of his eyes. He beams upon seeing me.

“I was asked what I would like to do here,” he says. “They indicated you might be in need of an assistant.”

I am not, in fact, in need of an assistant. Especially not from someone whose qualifications I don’t know. My lab is the space where I don’t have to interact with other crew, and where they don’t have to interact with me. They seem content to ignore me, for the most part, unless they need something.

But Patrick looks all but thrilled to be in my presence. It’s… unusual. I can’t remember the last time I looked at someone and their eyes didn’t just slide off me. But his eyes are focused on me, waiting for me to speak.

“Yes,” I say. Patrick beams. “We can start by examining the new sprouts.”

He is strange in his work- too smart and too naïve at the same time. He takes to the machinery and work like a fish to water, but stares like a statue when I ask him where he was originally from, on Earth. Might be for the best. I never liked small talk anyway.

He’s a good assistant. Eager to please, almost ridiculously so. Several times I mention offhandedly how I would like to have a particular piece of equipment and he vanishes, only to return with whatever I asked for. It’s usually cobbled together from backup materials, like he went to the storage closet and went ham. When I ask him how he knows what he’s doing, he cocks his head at me.

“I learned,” he says. “I know what the parts do, and I see how they go together in my mind.”

I take that to mean he’s more or less self-taught. It doesn’t bother me, though our second in command would probably flip her shit if she found out. We’re only supposed to use standard issue supplies, and repair with the exact correct components, and any modification needs to be rigorously checked by our site’s engineer. I get that there’s safety reasons, but he modified a light source into a sustainable, sterile incubation unit to check the self-reproductive process of one of our samples- it could be revolutionary to creating a sustainable food source, but if I’d asked, it would have been turned down. It’s the first damn time my work or position has been treated as anything close to important. Maybe it’s stupid and petty, but I’m not turning that down.

Patrick takes meals with me in my lab, in the area I’ve designated as a clean zone. Technically, I’m supposed to eat in the mess hall with everybody else, but I stopped as soon as it was no longer required. There’s nothing wrong with the rest of the crew. We just don’t talk, and it’s more comfortable staying here than sitting in the uncomfortable silence- or worse, sitting in but apart from the amiable chatter.

It’s not their fault. Most of them are engineer types. They like the mechanics, the challenge of setting up the base and forging their own path. I don’t think I’ve ever been much of an adventurer. It lets me study my plants and figure out how they work and be quiet and alone. That’s all I need in this job. The other crew members don’t particularly care about that, and I don’t really care about their fantasies of adventure and glory. So, we talk very little.

Patrick is different. His eyes are sharp and clever and he pays attention like I’m imparting the secrets of the universe when I speak. And he lets me talk, smiling as I ramble about anything and everything.

He only talks sometimes, when I nudge him. It’s never specific, and I don’t pry. But he speaks about having been sent away from his family when he was young, and wandering for a long time before finally coming here. He talks about wanting a family of his own, to love and be loved by. His eyes gleam as he says that the only thing he wants is to be able to care for the people he loves- to prove that he’s a good partner, that he will be good for someone.

I take his face in my hands before I can think better of it. “You’ll make an excellent partner. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met.”

He tilts his face into my palm, almost nuzzling against it. “I’m glad,” he says. “Very glad.”

It starts slowly after that. Little things, normal things. He grabs extra snacks for me when we get meals, making sure to snag whatever I like for dessert. He always tries to give it to me, though he practically squirms in happiness when I say that he can have some and showers me with praise. His eyes gleam bright blue, focusing adoration on me like a magnifying glass focuses light. It’s pleasantly warming.

He stays near me. Not at all times, making himself scarce when I tell him I want space. But even when he’s not there, I can feel hidden eyes on me. Perhaps I should find it disturbing, but after the isolation of space, it just feels… comforting.

He sings, sometimes. Strange, trilling melodies that don’t have any words. He sings to me as he takes work from my hands, nudging me toward my bed. “Take care of yourself,” he says, half-humming the words. “You’re valuable.”

His blue eyes speak nothing but the truth. Everything in my body trembles at the thought.

Our third-in-command goes missing two days later.

There’s panic- controlled panic, but panic still. The missing person protocol is deeply entrenched, each of us with a specific role to perform. My role is mostly to stay out of the way.

We don’t find a body, or even a trace. Patrick comes to work in a new orange jumpsuit. I pretend not to notice.

Our xenobiologist vanishes three days after that. Patrick comes to work with a cut along his jawline and wearing an oversized, ill-fitting jumpsuit. I say that it looks like he might have cut himself shaving and got blood everywhere. He repeats that to the commander when she comes by.

Patrick asks to sleep in my quarters that night. Technically, it’s disallowed- the official reason is that even with our birth control implants, they can fail and there’s not enough supplies here for a safe abortion, and certainly not for a baby. But people here have bigger concerns than illicit sex, and no one protests when Patrick and I slip off to our quarters together. Maybe they even think it’s safer- no one wants to be alone right now.

The sleeping quarters are small, big enough for a bed, a dresser set into a wall, and a bathroom and shower separated from the rest of the room by a thin curtain. Patrick isn’t at all bothered by our close quarters. If anything, it seems to please him, since every opportunity he gets, he’s pushing his body up against me, nuzzling like an overly friendly cat. It takes some effort to disentangle myself from him to change- despite his touchiness, he’s shy about nude contact, so I’m fully dressed when we get into bed together.

Patrick presses up against my back, nuzzling his face into my neck. I can feel the cool tip of his nose tracing lines against my skin. It’s pleasant, if a bit shivery. After a few moments, he transitions to small pecks against the back of my neck. Then open-mouthed kisses. Then his tongue starts tracing against my skin. The shape of it is weird (are tongues usually this long? This sinuous?) but his hot breath and the coolness of his kisses creates a nice tingling. Eventually, the movements become lazier as he falls asleep, nestled close against me. With his warmth and comfort, I fall asleep not too far behind him.

I wake slowly and dreamily in the morning. Patrick barely stirs as I get out of bed and into my usual clothes. Even when I return and try to nudge him awake, he only blearily opens his eyes before closing them again with a sigh.

“Are you all right?” My heart jumps in my chest. We have limited medical supplies- if he falls too sick, it’s possible he won’t recover.

He tilts his face toward my hand as I rest my palm on his cheek. “I’m fine,” he murmurs, though there is a lazy undercurrent to his voice. He blinks blearily. “Perfectly fine.” He catches my hand with his, tugs my palm to his mouth so he can kiss it. “You’re wonderful. Perfect.”

I run my fingers through his hair, admiring the white strands as they drift. “What’s wrong? You’re acting strangely.”

“Everything is all right,” he says. “It’s almost time.” He kisses the tips of my fingers, one at a time. “I just need to rest, darling. Once that’s over, we can be together.”

I stroke a hand over his forehead. He feels warm, though his skin is quite pale. “Are you sure you’re not sick?”

“No. Just tired.” His eyes close. “I love you. Do not worry. Everything will be all right. We’ll be together.”

He sleeps after that. It’s a strange sort of sleep, one where his body goes completely still, except for little shivers and muscle twitches.

I stay with him for a time, but eventually, I leave the confines of the room to get something to eat. He’ll be hungry when he wakes up, he’ll need something to eat too.

The base is quiet. That’s unusual- the individual rooms are supposed to be soundproof, but even the smallest noises carry down the halls like an echo chamber. Typically there will be the sounds of at least one person moving around.

The silence makes the back of my neck prickle. I try to pick up my pace, but the sound of my footsteps clanging in the silence makes me slow back down again.

I was considering checking on my plants, but by the time I make it to the cafeteria, my nerves are shot. I’m not sure whether I’m hoping to finally run into someone or if I’m scared of that. All I know is I want to get back to my room with Patrick.

Once I’m in the kitchen, I gather as much stuff as I can carry and immediately turn to head back to my room. I make it just past the doorway before a hand catches the back of my clothes.

I scream. The sound echoes across the walls before it’s cut off by another hand on my mouth. There’s a moment of fading sound before silence takes over once more.

I fight, but I’ve never been all that physically strong, and my captor drags me into one of the nearby security rooms. They’re not places I regularly visit- mostly they’re waypoints for security details and commanders to get a quick read on what’s happening in the building. As soon as we’re fully inside the room, my captor drops me and pulls the armored door shut. The pressurized lock hisses and clicks into place.

It’s the commander, though she looks significantly more disheveled than I’ve ever seen her before. Her clothes are rumpled, her hair untied and knotted. But more than that, there’s a frenzied look to her. Her teeth are bared, her eyes so wide I can see the whites all the way around. She looks frightening.

It becomes significantly worse when she levels the gun at my chest.

“Tell me what you know,” she says, “or I will fucking shoot you.”

My mouth opens. It takes several seconds before any noise comes out. “Wh- I don’t- what are you-”

“Don’t lie to me.” The commander takes a step closer. “Don’t move or I will shoot you. Talk or I will shoot you. Tell the truth or I will shoot you.” She makes a noise that is not quite a laugh, but not quite anything else, either. “I won’t kill you. I’ll shoot you. I’ll shoot you over and over. There are lots of places you can shoot a body before it dies, did you know?” She considers me for a moment, as if eyeing up potential targets. “So. Talk.”

I swallow several times, but there’s no liquid in my mouth. “What am I supposed to be talking about?”

Her expression sours. “Him. It. That thing that you let into your room.”

A flicker of offence steadies my voice. “Patrick’s not a thing-”

“Like fucking hell he’s not.” The gun trembles in her hand and I remember exactly how delicate my position is. “You know what he’s been doing.”

I can’t speak. I just shake my head.

“You know. You’ve been helping him. Been getting close to him. And he stayed in your room last night.”

My voice comes out tiny and whispery. “He’s not like that. You can’t blame him because he’s still new here- because of what happened to his crew-”

“What happened to his crew?” The commander’s voice breaks into a rush of hysterical laughter. “His crew! So, you really don’t know about that bit. Guess it makes sense he wouldn’t tell you.”

She’s on top of me all of a sudden, gun muzzle against my brow. “I don’t know what he told you. I don’t know what he’s convinced you of or what he’s got over you that’s making you cover for him. But that wasn’t his crew.” She goes quiet, dragging in a few ragged breaths. “He killed them.”

I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say. I’m not surprised. I sort of wish I was, but… I’m not. Maybe I should be more upset about it. Maybe it’s the immediate prospect of having my brains blown out with Patrick as my only real source of help here. But somehow… I think it’s just that I don’t care.

He would hurt other people, but not me. Never me. Because I’m special to him.

“Took me ages to get the security video- he wanted to make sure no one would find it. But I saw it. He’s not human. Fucker slaughtered everyone and went into a cocoon.” The gun presses harder against my head. “When he came out, he went into the bunker and waited. He wants something. And given you’re the only person he’s been so buddy-buddy with, I figure you’ve got a better shot of knowing what that thing is.”

“I don’t know.” My voice comes out weak and wavery. “I didn’t know he wasn’t- What- what are you going to do to him?”

“I’m not going to do anything to him. But turns out, there’s a pretty large number of people here who are more than happy to try and kill a murderous alien.” She smiles, wide and terrible. “Unfortunately, we had to be practical. Don’t know how much gunfire it’ll take to kill the thing, so I told them to get the biggest guns they can and keep shooting until they’re out of ammo. They weren’t real happy about that. Didn’t like the idea of killing the thing so quickly. It’s fair, I’d say. Think they might be due for a little revenge, but we can’t take any chances.” Her smile gets wider, but it never touches her eyes. “They were pretty pleased when I told them about a certain traitor. Technically, we should bring you back for interrogation, but. I don’t think anyone will notice an extra name on the missing list, would you?”

Terror knifes me in the gut. “No!” He’s not dead yet. I would know, somehow, if he was. If I can get to him before they do- he can help me. Take me somewhere safe, I know he can. I just need to save him-

I lash out, aiming my foot for one of her calves. She barely stumbles, readjusts her gun, and there’s an earsplitting bang. For a second, I wonder if she missed. Then pain so great that I can’t even scream radiates up my right leg.

I wheeze, my entire body arcing and twisting from the pain. I broke my arm in a machinery accident when I was twelve- this is worse. So much worse. My vision swims, clouding with gray spots. I can’t think or breathe or do anything more than lie here and wait to die from the pain, because surely something this bad will have to kill me.

“I was considering dragging you back home.” The commander’s voice comes to me as if from a great distance. “Handing you over to the council for punishment. But y’know what? I’m not feeling that generous. You helped some inhuman creature stab my crew members in the back. They didn’t even get a chance to see their death coming.”

She walks around me and, beyond the onslaught of pain, pain, pain, I feel the muzzle of the gun touch my uninjured leg. “I figure I’ll shoot both your arms and legs, then set this place on fire. I figure that’d be about what you deserve. I hope the fire takes its time getting to you. I hope you get to feel every second it licks your skin. I hope you beg for death for hours before it finally, mercifully-”

There is a muffled grunt and a wet, crunching thud. The gun muzzle stops pressing against my leg. The commander screams, once, and falls silent. There’s another wet crunching sound, then silence.

“Darling.” The voice is strange, with a sort of reverberation to it now, but I recognize it.

“Patrick!” I try to move toward the voice, but the pain strikes me so terribly that I almost throw up. A gentle hand, tipped in dripping claws, rests against the side of my face.

“You’re safe now. I’ve got you.” The hand turns my head, tilting me so I can really look at him.

He’s beautiful.

He no longer looks human. His skin is dark and shines like an oil slick. Bands of electric blue run up the tendrils that stretch out from his head in place of hair. He has a tail, long and sinuous, and his legs are elongated, giving him a digitigrade stance.

And his eyes are the same piercing blue as always.

He creeps closer and I see the sharp tips of his many fangs in his blood-covered mouth. “You’re hurt,” he murmurs, voice thick with pain.

“You’re not,” I whisper back. “How?”

He smiles. It’s all sharp teeth and cruel delight. “I heard you yell. And then I heard them coming for me. I slipped away before they entered my room and attacked them from behind. They were foolish and sloppy, and I knew I needed to find you. I came as swiftly as I could.” He leans forward to press his forehead to mine. “You’re safe now. Always.”

There’s black licking at the edges of my vision. Now that the adrenaline’s fading, the pain’s becoming the centerpoint of the universe. Terror burns in my chest. I’m not going to die, but our medic is probably dead now, and I don’t know how to set a broken bone. “Patrick. I need help. It hurts. I- I don’t know how to make this better.” My eyes sting with tears. He saved my life, but I can’t survive an alien planet with a broken, bleeding leg. If I get some kind of alien infection, that’s the end for me.

“Shh, shh.” Patrick murmurs, cradling my face in his hand. “It’s okay. I can fix it. I’ll fix everything.” He smiles, and this time, his face looks soft, comforting. “Lie still. This will hurt, but then it will feel better. You’ll be safe. I’ll never let anything happen to you again.”

He bends forward and presses a kiss to my cheek. Then a kiss against the side of my neck. Then the slight nipping of sharp teeth. Then his fangs sink into my skin.

I wail and try to thrash before the pain in my leg stops me. He pats my face, teeth digging in deeper and deeper, then releasing. A tingling sensation starts to spread from the bite area.

“You’re okay,” he murmurs. “I love you. We’re going to be together forever, and I will always be here to protect you. I love you so much. Just rest now. Rest.”

The tingling numbness crawls up my face and my eyelids droop. With the soft, soothing whispers of Patrick in my ear, I close my eyes and drift into a slow, easy sleep.

It’s a warm comforting sleep, the sort of sleep you get when you’re settled under warm blankets against the chill of the night. I don’t dream. I just drift, cozy and warm. Sometimes, from a distance, I hear Patrick murmuring soothingly to me. All soft, comforting, loving tones that make me settle back into the gentle warmth of sleep.

I drift to the surface in bits and pieces, sometimes breaking into wakefulness for a few moments before being pulled back under. Patrick is always there, a constant, warming presence. Sometimes he’s holding me, sometimes he’s speaking quietly, sometimes he’s pressing pieces of meat past my lips and helping me swallow them.

There’s pain, sometimes. It comes and goes, like my consciousness. It’s more like a full-body cramp at times, more like a sharp itching at others, sometimes a bone-deep ache that reminds me of when I was hitting my growth spurt. Whenever I try to shift away from the pain, Patrick is there, murmuring and soothing until I’m asleep again. The longer I sleep, the less the pain is every time I wake.

Eventually, there’s a shift when I open my eyes. It’s subtle, but I can feel my consciousness more clearly than every other time I’ve woken up. My body is stiff, and my limbs are clumsy. I try to roll over and only succeed in crushing one of my arms under me.

“Easy now.” Hands roll me over onto my back. The room is bright, full of sunlight in a way the station never was. It smells nice, too, almost floral. I shift a little bit, trying to get a better look at the room. “Here. Eat.”

Something presses against my lips. I instinctively take it into my mouth- it reminds me of pork, like fresh pork, something I haven’t had in a long time. “Take your time. Here. Eat some more.”

Another piece of meat pokes past my lips and I take it. It’s Patrick’s voice that’s speaking, and I trust him instinctively.

He presses a few other pieces of meat into my mouth and offers a few sips of water. As he does so, I can feel my mind slowly clicking into place with my body. It’s easier to move around, though I feel strange. My body doesn’t respond quite in the same way I’m used to.

“Lie still.” Patrick strokes the side of my face. I turn my attention back to him. He looks the same as when I saw him last, all elongated and black. His soft, blue eyes are locked onto me with a strange intensity. “How are you feeling?”

I open my mouth to respond and am immediately struck by the weirdness. My tongue doesn’t sit the same way anymore, too sinuous, and my teeth feel longer and sharper than normal. “F-feel… weird.”

“Yes. I know.” Patrick smiles at me, his teeth still sharp as knives. “You’ve been out for a while. It took longer than it should have, because of your injuries. But you’re all healed now. You’re better.”

I stretch my limbs out, and something strange shifts. I twist my head back, trying to get a look at it and I see my body.

It looks like Patrick’s. Long limbs, a tail, pitch black skin with a slight sheen to it. I move and everything shifts accordingly. I can feel the texture of the floor under my skin. It is, however unbelievably, my body.

I whip my head toward him. “Wh- what is-”

“It’s all right, don’t panic,” Patrick says in a soothing voice. “You’re safe here. I’ll never let anything happen to you.”

“But I don’t understand- what happened?”

His expression softens and he pats my head. I feel the strange head-tendrils sprouting from my scalp twitch in response. “I told you I would fix you. And I did.”

Yes, I remember- the pain, the terror. I feel strange, but not bad. There’s no pain any longer. In fact, my body feels good, energized. It’s just… “How?”

Patrick smiles. “I’m not human.”

I stare at him. He stares back, as if he’s given some kind of massive revelation. “Yeah,” I say once I realize he’s serious. “I sort of figured that out. What are you, though?”

“We don’t have a name, really. We don’t need one. You can just keep calling me Patrick.” He stretches like a lazy cat. “I came from another world a very, very great distance from here. I didn’t have much of a body, at that point. I was more like spores, seeded into a protective container to carry me through space as I traveled to another planet. Like an egg. Eventually, I landed here, on a habitable planet, and I hatched.

“When my kind reaches a habitable planet, we need to adapt to it. My spores traveled until they found a body they could attach to- one of your former kind.” He smiles fondly. “I don’t have many memories of that time- but I do remember when I finally awoke in my new body. It wasn’t perfectly adapted to the environment, but I could help with that. I just needed to find someone to make a colony with.”

“Someone to make a colony with?” I repeat. My lips feel slightly numb. My heart is pounding in my chest. Patrick leans against me, a contented smile on his lips.

“You,” he sighs, my voice almost like a prayer from his mouth. “I knew it from the moment I laid eyes on you. From the moment I caught your scent. You’re perfect. So clever and sweet and my wonderful mate. My queen. The one I need to start a colony.” He nestles into my side. “Once I found you, I knew everything would be all right. I had to take some time to save up my strength, so I could fully adapt to life here, and prepare for you to join me. I wish I could have done it sooner” His expression darkens and he presses even closer to me, almost like he’s trying to fuse our bodies together. “They should never have gotten the opportunity to hurt you.”

“Hold on,” I say, trying to process things as fast as he’s speaking. “You said we were starting a colony together?”

“Of course. A colony of our very own. We’ll fill this planet with our children, and someday, we’ll send them out through the cosmos to form their own colonies, just like I did.” He sighs dreamily. “I’ll take wonderful care of you, I promise. You’ll never want for anything again.”

“With… with our children?”

“Oh, yes. We’ll have many children together, enough to create a whole hive on the planet. I will care for you, and so will our children. We’ll be a family. And you’ll be the center of it.” He pats along my head and back in long, smooth strokes. “Isn’t that what you wanted? You’re special. You’re important. You’re the most important person in this galaxy. You’re going to be the mother of a whole empire.”

“But the humans,” I say. “If they come back.”

“Then we should be ready to handle them by the time they get here. Our children will grow swiftly, and we have all the supplies left here. They cannot take us on- they cannot hurt us. They will fail. And we will spread through the stars, with you by my side, always cared for and loved. I will do anything for you. I love you. I adore you. My beloved mate. There will never be anything you want for and you will never be harmed again.”

I take in a shaky breath. It sort of feels like I should be crying, but my eyes aren’t getting wet. Patrick holds me, murmuring gently. My chest hurts, but it’s a relieving pain, like ripping off a too-tight bandage. It’s warm. Safe. Just the two of us. Just Patrick, who cares for me more than anyone else ever has. Who will care for me. I never have to worry about anything again, not as long as he’s here.

“I love you,” I murmur into his shoulder. Patrick makes a humming/purring noise, rubbing his body against mine.

“I love you. Adore you. So much.” He presses me down onto my back, kissing and nipping at every bit of exposed skin he can find. His hips grind down against me. “Please- please-”

He can’t get another word out before I pull his mouth to mine for a kiss. Our children will become rulers of the planet, and we will live with them, together forever and always, safe from pain and fear and hardship. In love and safe, forever and ever and ever.

#exophilia #monster romance #alien boyfriend #alien lover #monster boyfriend #monster lover #dark romance #shapechanger

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theninjazebra · 2 years ago

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words by @saxifraga-x-urbium

art by me

full poem below -

1. About four and a half billion years ago You were born, semi-formed Sticky from the womb of the solar system And spinning incontinently; Lacking, one might say, continents.

2. The midwife-slap of meteorites and the gentle cooing mother-voice Of soft interplanetary space assembled about Your strong iron core; and you began to take shape.

3. It was never a foregone conclusion that you'd find yourself, middle-aged, With your craters filled up with the powder and paste of life's detritus, that you'd have so many seismic tantrums erased from your face. It just happened that way.

4. The riverbed that coils left could have coiled right, but roots clumped the earth; The valley scoured by your glacial sulks might have ceased several hundred miles and years sooner, Had circumstances been different.

5. But no matter. You're shaping new islands as we speak, sucking down the foundations of atols, Puking up mountains, Ripping apart rifts and collapsing into your adolescence asteroidal acne. It's a process. It doesn't stop.

6. It's tempting in the moment to look through the lens present (ground-silicon, stress-fired), And say it was all leading up to this. It will be tempting tomorrow too, When everything changes again, And next week, you will look back on the first days of your plutonic youth, and wonder how you came so far adrift from your 'perfect design'.

7. The secret of course is time: geologic is still ephemeral. You were a different place, then; The stars were dancing in strange stratification, as they spin still, And you with them, inseparable from the constancy of change.

8. You've experimented: Pangea; Gondawa. You've fallen apart, slapped together. Seen in sunrises smothered in the ash of your latest reworking; Quietly eroded the peaks you once fired at the sky; Aeons keep rolling by.

9. Not a single day passes when you are not the self you've always meant to be; inconstant, magnetic, flipping poles capriciously, or with great intent; Why look back and wonder where the days vanished? Here and now, You are alive.

#my art #derek's words #geo

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hekateinhell · 1 year ago

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very personal stuff, feel free to skip

Today is the one year anniversary of my uncle's death.

We lived several hundred miles apart most of my life but we were still close even though we hardly ever saw each other when I was a child (once that I can remember). I would get a birthday card from him every year where he'd draw these teeny tiny paw prints on the inside and sign it as his cat. And for the longest time—really far too long—I believed it was his cat even though it would've had to have been the size of a baby field mouse to make a paw print that small. 🐾 <- almost to scale.

He took me in when I was 16, and he and his wife finished the job of raising me when nobody else was up for it. They made sure I got my GED, that I applied and got into college, and pushed me well outside my comfort zone to ensure I would be able to survive on my own one day. They never had kids by choice and instead got the rest of their families' wayward children and grandchildren over a span of 25 years and overlapping three generations.

I left my home country when I was 18, and so I wasn't there when he died and nobody told me. Instead I found out a couple weeks later purely by mistake. My mother said something about him that to me without context sounded utterly ridiculous, and I made a joke to the effect of: "What, is he dead or something?"

Imagine that.

He wasn't sick or anything. It was a sudden heart attack in the garden on a sweltering July morning. He was dead within the five minutes it took someone to get to him, which—if you have to die—is the ideal way to die, really.

Cremation; no funeral, no service. A single line in the local obituary that didn't really say a thing about him except that he had had a business in town and was married. His entire life, condensed into those two things.

And I know most of the time we don't in fact get that closure, that final goodbye. That's a myth.

But I still keep forgetting he's dead, you know? And then I have to remember all over again that he's gone. I'm not used to living in a world where he's not in it... I never had to before. I know I'll go through this again when my parents die and I don't know how I'll go on except that I'll have to.

I'm aware that I'm very rarely a serious person online but I guess I wanted to talk about him even if it's just to the internet, since my family doesn't really talk at all.

I miss him.

[...] as they die, the ones we love, we lose our witnesses, our watchers, those who know and understand the tiny little meaningless patterns, those words drawn in water with a stick. And there is nothing left but the endless flow. ~ Anne Rice, The Witching Hour

#hekate.txt #july 10 2023 #personal

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transarsonist · 2 years ago

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what if we were two planetary bodies, and we were both orbiting the same celestial mass, and our orbits lined up for the first time in several thousand years so that we were a mere several hundred thousand miles apart instead of several million and we were both girls?

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katoktm8 · 5 months ago

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Riot gear and tear gas

Breakfast and headed out. Heard a lot of noise, thought it was a band. We looked and it appeared that a political protest was starting so instead of turning right we turned left and joined the crowd. We were probably one of the first 50 people to be at the protest. Frontline view. All the journalists were there, the stage was set for speakers, and a huge pile of tires was in the street. In addition, police and riot gear guarding the parliament building with tanks of tear gas ready to go. and police Holding gas Masks were lining the street. Did not bother us. We were in it. We found out that people were protesting the current Prime Minister, who apparently has been recorded doing business with gangsters talking about kidnapping people in white vans, and they were also supporting the ex Prime Minister who is under house arrest for some type of apartment sales corruption. So pick your poison. Anyway, people started yelling Free Berini or whatever the ex Prime Minister‘s name was. We scooted along behind the police officers, and the tires were lit on fire and smoke was pouring into the air, and people were chanting. People were screaming. The fire was getting bigger. The firetrucks came in to put out the fire. We got shooed away by a polite policeman a few times, but nothing really seemed to be happening so we got bored and left. There were probably a couple hundred people at this protest. The police were very casual aside from trying to get us out of the way, and unfortunately, we are not living civil historian journalists. We recorded as much as we could thinking that it was all going to go down and we would be witnesses to it. Damnit

We then walked about 4 miles to a cable car in a national park outside of town. It was the steepest longest cable car I’ve ever been on. It took about 20 minutes to get to the top of the mountain. We sauntered around, headed back down and then went to a Bunker museum.

This museum was one of 168,000 bunkers that the dictator of Albania built and he never used a single one. But everywhere you go you see bunker tops throughout the city. This one was the largest. It was five stories high underground and had 106 rooms. This bunker museum told the story of Albania from World War II all the way to present Day Albania. It was fascinating to think that people my age had lived through an entire reign of communism and Democracy. But people my parents age would’ve lived freely in childhood, then under communism, then freely again. The most interesting fact I learned today was that this dictator put a barbed wire fence…an electric barbed wire fence around the entire country of Albania and it was meant to keep citizens of Albania in and people that were not Albanians out. If you got within, a footstep of the fence or tried to escape you would get electrocuted. Several thousand people died from the electric shock before they lowered the voltage and just sent out dogs to hunt the people trying to escape and imprisoned them. They kept the perimeter forever muddy in order to have footprints of the people who were escaping and be easier to track. I think as Americans we just don’t appreciate the fact that we’ve never had a government other than a republic democracy. We don’t understand the trials and tribulations that other citizens and other countries have been through historically… even since we have been alive. We are so lucky.

We walked back, cleaned up, went out for dinner came back and tomorrow We had to a new town up in the mountains. It’s actually a village up in the mountains. Fresh air, and hopefully few people but rumor is that tourists abound

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buckyismybicycle · 2 years ago

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clear as day, there was never any other way [AO3 Link] Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers Rating: Teen Tags/Warnings: Angst, Acceptance, Extreme Measures of Love, Lovers to Strangers, Strangers to Lovers, Canon-Divergent/Adjacent, Loss/Mourning Summary: Nothing could keep them separated. Nothing could pull them apart, whether it be days, years, or decades. Time after time, everyone around them catches on.

Or, simply: This is Steve and Bucky’s world, everyone else simply lives in it.

My @starspangledsecretsanta fic for @kestrafagnor. ��

1943: Kreischberg, Austria

They had to make camp. Steve knows he’s already pushing these men beyond what they had left in the tank, but the more distance between them and Kreischberg, the better.

None of them complained, beaten and sore as they were — they, too, wanted to put as many miles between them and that godforsaken facility as possible.

Every now and then, Steve glances beside him, to make sure that Bucky was still with him. That Bucky was really with him and not an image that Steve’s mind had conjured up, like an apparition born from his sheer will.

But it was real. Bucky was alive, breathing, and walking next to him.

Tim Dugan, a large, sturdy man and Gabe Jones, a quiet but observant soldier, stuck close by, checking in on Bucky almost as much as Steve was. Once upon a time, it might’ve made him jealous. Now, it warmed Steve’s heart to see that Bucky had people looking out for him in Steve’s absence.

“Y’alright there, pal?” Bucky asks with a curious look. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. I’m pale but I ain’t that pale and I sure as shit ain’t dead… Thanks to you.”

He adds that last part in, quieter, with a private smile and an almost-wink.

Steve wants to kiss him senseless. “Yeah! Yeah, I’m…”

He trails off, thinking about all the possibilities he’d tried to stamp down, that crept back into his brain anyway. Like: I thought I’d find you dead.

“I’m alright, Buck,” he doubles down, clapping a hand over Bucky’s shoulder. He lingers for a moment too long, perhaps, but feeling Bucky’s solid form beneath his palm is something he’s hesitant to let go of.

It’s then that he feels the slight tremors in Bucky’s body, the small twitch of his muscles. He looks closer still, to see the way Bucky’s jaw is clenched tightly and he’s got a white-knuckled grip on his rifle.

“We make camp here,” Steve declares, to everyone.

Most of the men collapse where they are, thankful to rest regardless where they are or how hard the ground is. The few supplies they’d swiped from the facility are stretched thin.

“C’mon,” Bucky murmurs beside him with a tilt of his head. He’d been handed a threadbare thing — honestly, Steve’s not sure if it’s a carpet or a curtain — and sets them a small distance from the group. He throws it over his shoulders, leaning against one of several fallen logs and invites Steve to sit, unspoken.

Steve does without hesitation, pressing his body against Bucky’s as close as he can. He tries to convince himself that he’s sharing his body heat, that this would appear perfectly normal to anyone who might happen to look over.

Only once he’s sitting like this, in the dim torchlight through the dark of the night as his adrenaline wears off, does he see how battered Bucky’s body truly is. The bruising, the swelling, the blood from his ears. It makes his breath catch in his throat. His hand moves up to Bucky’s face automatically to wipe the blood away, reminiscent of all the times Bucky’s done this for him after a back alley scrap.

“You saved me,” Bucky whispers, his face so open and earnest that Steve loses his ability to speak. Bucky’s looking at him like he’s a hero — with the same awe and adoration that Steve’s always had for Bucky growing up.

“You saved me first,” Steve reminds him.

He forgets where he is, forgets the hundreds of men behind them and the fact they can’t be doing this — he forgets it all, when Bucky leans in.

“Stuck with me forever, then,” Bucky murmurs against Steve’s lips.

“Forever,” he promises back, pressing in.

He’s dreamt of this, yearned for this every single day Bucky’s been gone. Bucky tastes like the tangy copper of blood from his split lip, but Steve still thinks it’s perfect.

✧✧✧

“I knew it,” Gabe whispers with a wide grin as he turns away from the private moment.

“Well you certainly don’t just drop behind enemy lines without backup for a friend,” Dugan snorts.

“You sayin’ you wouldn’t do that for me? I’m wounded,” Gabe retorts.

“Lookit that, Jonesy finally learns how to listen.”

Gabe huffs a laugh before he glances over at their Sergeant again. “Made for each other,” he murmurs more to himself than Dugan.

Bucky and Steve are curled up, resting their foreheads against each other’s.

“Heaven knows those two gotta have the biggest sets of balls on them,” Dugan says, exasperated. “Or they might just be the biggest pair of idiots I have ever met.”

“Like I said: made for each other.”

They never did quite hide it well enough — it was impossible to, when even across the field it was obvious in the way they looked at each other.

The Howling Commandos never said a thing, but the way they always stood around the two of them, like a herd surrounding their young, Steve and Bucky knew.

Knew that they were safe. Protected from outside eyes.

It was in the way Morita always set them in the same tent, the way Falsworth would wink at them slyly as he left them alone, or they way Dernier always sang softly in French and yet somehow they all knew that these were love songs, secret little odes to the two of them.

Maybe they shouldn’t have gotten so comfortable so quickly, but it was impossible to resist.

Every beat of Bucky’s heart was a signal that he was alive, when Steve had thought he’d lost everything that mattered to him. He had to feel it.

He doesn’t fall asleep until Bucky does and even then, it’s hard not to stare at Bucky’s chest, willing it to rise and fall steadily. Sometimes, he sleeps with fingers pressed to the pulse point in Bucky’s wrist.

They gravitate toward each other no matter how hard they try not to, finally colliding in a tangle of limbs and frantic kisses, every inch of their bare skin pressed together.

✧✧✧

Two years. That’s what they end up getting together. It’s longer than some people get, they should be grateful for it, and yet Steve can’t stop thinking about how unfair it was.

It should’ve been me.

He never said it out loud, but the Howlies knew anyway.

When Bucky fell off that train, they all mourned — they mourned for their friend, their sergeant, and they mourned for Steve, for he was never the same after that.

They mourned for the purest love they could have ever witnessed, the kind of love that inspires and restores faith in humanity during a time of war.

Nobody thought anything of it when the Valkyrie went down. Except the Howling Commandos, who had perhaps thought that Steve crashed that plane a little too eagerly, just coming from Bucky’s death like that.

Decades later, after years of service and medals, children and grandchildren, each of them still remembered Steve’s face. Sometimes it was the way Steve looked at Bucky like the man held the answers to the universe. Other times, it was his face after Bucky’s fall. Both were a testament to how deeply Bucky had been embedded in Steve’s heart.

2011: New York, USA

He wakes to the sounds of a baseball game he remembers, but in a place he can’t remember at all.

He’s told it’s New York, but it doesn’t feel like it. He’s not sure if it’s the noise or the smell. Or because Bucky isn’t here, walking side-by-side with him.

The Empire State Building is right before him though, so he can’t deny that. The city itself is brighter, and yet Steve’s world remains just as dim. What was the point of seeing color if he could never lay eyes on Bucky again?

They say that the world is no longer at war, and that they won. A surrender. He hadn’t thought of it as a possibility back then, but hearing that Hydra had been defeated? But it doesn’t explain why he’s alive. Suspended animation is what they call it.

It sounds like hocus pocus.

They say that the world could still use him. That there’s still work to be done. Then, they hand him back the one thing still left from his time. The shield is tattered and dirty, smudged with the brutality he’d unleashed after the war took Bucky from him. He remembers, in bits and pieces all at once — Bucky, Erskine, Bucky, shield, Bucky, Peggy, Bucky — and it makes his head hurt. Rubbing his temples, he takes a deep breath to orient himself.

“Take your time. God knows if anybody’s earned it, you have. All the same…There’s a place for you on the team.”

He nods and shakes Fury’s hand, but doesn’t give him an answer. He’s not sure he’s ready to go back to war, he’s not even sure he’s ready to be standing in this century. He’s definitely not ready to be alone again.

They mistake his hesitancy for something else, because they give him the files. The Howlies – his family. He knows what each one of them will likely say, and he can’t quite bring himself to read any of it. He likes the last memories he has of them — alive. Covered in grime but young and vibrant. Laughing and teasing each other, talking about their hopes and dreams, where they’d end up in ten years.

Steve had said wherever Bucky is. But that didn’t quite stick, did it?

He hopes that each of his men got what they had wished for, as if somehow his loss — the greatest loss, in his opinion — was enough to even the scales for everyone else to live long, happy lives.

He hands the files back to Fury — all but one — untouched and as crisp as he had received them. When Fury raises an inquiring eyebrow, Steve deflects.

“Where do I sign up?” He asks, and Fury pauses before telling him to be here tomorrow morning. Steve nods once, turns and leaves with a straight back and stiff shoulders, military through and through.

Fury shuffles the dossiers in his hand. Jones, Morita, Dugan, Falsworth, Dernier… As suspected, Barnes’ folder is the only one missing.

2014: Washington, USA

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

Steve never thought five words could do so much damage to his heart. It tears him apart because he revisits that day over and over again. Each time, a new scenario plays out. What if he’d just gotten up faster? What if he hadn’t deflected that shot to rip open the side of that railcar?

The world moves in slow motion, things and people moving around him noisily.

“Drop the shield, Cap!”

What if he had just looked for Bucky? How could he have possibly let himself leave Bucky behind like that? Not even a body to bring home to bury?

“Get on your knees! Get down, get down!”

What if he had just noticed sooner? What if, back in 1943, he’d paid more attention to Bucky? Surely, there must have been signs.

“Down! Don’t move.”

So what if they take the shield from him? So what if they handcuff him on national television? So what if they put a gun to his head while he’s on his knees?

He feels none of it.

Who the hell is Bucky?

He feels pain.

✧✧✧

Sam looks down at the cuffs, heavier than they are. He feels dread and hopelessness, but there’s still fight in him. He wants to finish what they started, except he’s not really sure what that means anymore.

Finding out that the Winter Soldier is Steve’s best friend put a wrench in things. He looks to Steve, who hasn’t said a word and has barely blinked. He nudges Steve’s foot to get his attention and raises an eyebrow in question.

“It was him,” Steve mumbles sullenly. “He looked right at me… Like he didn’t even know me.”

“How is that even possible?” Sam asks, genuinely trying to understand if Steve is certain or if Steve is hoping. “It was like, seventy years ago.”

The chances of finding one super-soldier from the 1940s was already bizarre, Sam can’t imagine what the odds are of finding two.

“Zola,” Steve determines. “Bucky’s whole unit was captured in ‘43, Zola experimented on him and whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. They must’ve found him and…”

Steve gets impossibly paler, and Sam has a pretty good idea of where his mind has gone. There’s a guilt there that Sam recognizes far too well — the feeling of watching someone you love plummet out of your grasp, and not being able to do a damn thing to save them. He wonders if Steve feels the same way about Bucky as he had about Riley.

He wants to reassure Steve that it’s not his doing, but Natasha beats him to it.

“None of that’s your fault, Steve.”

“Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky.”

If Sam hadn’t been sure before, he damn well is now. Steve Rogers, Captain America, was definitely, absolutely in love with the very same person they were trying to stop.

God help him.

✧✧✧

Later, he finds Steve on the bridge, lost in thought with the look of someone mourning. He supposes, in a lot of ways, that is what Steve’s doing. The scenario they’ve somehow landed in boggles his mind. He can’t imagine what Steve is going through and he isn’t sure Steve knows how to handle it all.

“He’s gonna be there, you know,” Sam reminds him, not knowing if that’s supposed to be good news or bad news.

“I know.”

That’s not the voice of a man who’s ready to fight the love of his life.

“Look,” Sam sighs. “Whoever he used to be…” is gone. He doesn’t say it out loud, but he’s sure Steve knows what he’s thinking. “The guy he is now? I don’t think he’s the kind you save. He’s the kind you stop.”

He expected Steve to get angry, or tell Sam he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He expected a fight.

Instead, he gets a somber-looking Steve, who shoves his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

Of course not, Sam wants to say. He saw it when the Soldier’s mask fell off, the way Steve had been so stunned, he hadn’t even moved. He sees it now, with the way Steve’s eyes glaze over as his mind is transported somewhere else — with Bucky.

“He might not give you a choice,” Sam cautions. “He doesn’t know you.”

He’s normally much more optimistic but there’s something wondrous about Steve’s spirit. The hope Steve holds. Sam would hate to see it crushed.

“He will,” Steve states, confident and without reserve, with conviction and absolute certainty. He does, after all, know the Soldier better than anyone.

How can Sam argue with that?

2016: Bucharest, Romania

“I got a baaad feelin’ about this,” Sam whispers to Natasha, who’s perched on the edge of the building with him. She hasn’t taken her binoculars off of the unit across from them, even though the windows are all plastered with newspaper.

“What could possibly go wrong with Steve turning off his comms while he enters an apartment without a clear line of sight to face one of the world’s deadliest assassins, Sam?”

“Not helping,” Sam says in a flat voice. “You see anything?”

The responding grunt indicates she’s got nothing. Sam thinks she’s just as irritated and anxious as he is, on the inside, but just won’t admit it.

��I don’t like this,” Sam repeats, itching to activate his pack and just crash through the window. “What if Steve’s bleeding out on that dude’s carpet?”

“The Winter Soldier doesn’t really strike me as a carpet type of guy.” That, and the fact that she’s pretty confident Steve isn’t in any actual danger. If the Winter Soldier wanted to kill Steve, there have been plenty of opportunities. Not just the Potomac, but ever since they set foot in Romania.

She has no doubt that he’s been vigilantly looking out his window, doing perimeter checks. Old habits die hard, she would know.

Sam grumbles beside her, seconds away from barreling in there, when all hell breaks loose.

“Shit, I think that’s special forces,” Nat says, binoculars trained on the little fleet of incoming vehicles in the distance.

“Heads up, Cap,” Sam says into his earpiece “German Special Forces, approaching from the south. Nat’s got eyes on them.”

✧✧✧

“Understood,” Steve replies evenly, trying not to feel the bubbling frustration spilling over, because he knows Bucky’s behind him. He slowly turns around, and sure enough, there he is. Whole. Alive. Staring back at him.

“Do you know me?” He asks, even though he’s aware that any answer other than “yeah, you’re my Stevie” will crush him.

Bucky stares a moment, likely calculating, before he speaks. “You’re Steve. I read about you in a museum.”

“They’ve set the perimeter.”

Steve ignores Sam’s warning, eyes focused entirely on Bucky, trying to come up with the right words to get him to stay. Not stay here, but with Steve. He knows he’s not just Steve-from-the-museum, he just needs Bucky to accept the truth. “I know you’re nervous. And you have plenty of reasons to be. But you’re lying.”

“I wasn’t in Vienna,” Bucky defends himself, though in a tired, worn out way. “I don’t do that anymore.”

“That’s not what I was talking about,” Steve says. “But it doesn’t matter right now, because the people who think you did it are coming here now. And they’re not planning on taking you alive.”

“That’s smart,” Bucky replies with all the emotion of a brick. He nods in approval. “Good strategy.”

Steve can’t stomach the idea of anyone ever laying their hands on Bucky again. He wants to get on his knees and beg Bucky to come with him, but that wouldn’t work.

“They’re on the roof! We’re compromised.”

“This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck.”

They both turn their heads at the stampede of footsteps outside the door. Steve’s run out of time.

“It always ends in a fight.”

There’s a loud thud, followed by another after a few seconds, the battering ram interrupting their conversation.

“Cap! Five seconds!”

“You pulled me from the river,” Steve says evenly, like they’re not about to be stormed. “Why?”

He knows why, he just wants Bucky to say it.

“I don’t know,” Bucky responds, his body still ready to take off at any minute.

It hurts, deeper than any wound, more painful than any torture, but he refuses to cave in. He refuses to give up on Bucky.

“Three seconds!”

“Yes, you do,” Steve pushes. I know you remember me. Say it, Bucky.

“Breach! Breach!”

Then, the world explodes around them. For a brief moment, he’s back at basic, the grenade coming at him. Except now, he has a shield to smother it, trying not to think about the fact that Bucky kicked it at him.

Bucky has always been tough, but he’s a force of nature now, strong and sturdy yet still quick as a whip. He kicks the table to the door and flings the mattress up to block an attack from the window, calculating and getting ahead of the cops.

Steve watches in a horrified sort of awe, doing his best to buy himself some time when Bucky slams a police officer into the wall.

“Buck, stop! You’re gonna kill someone.” The next second, he’s on his back, and his mind is transported to their previous helicarrier fight, looking up at Bucky’s raised fist.

“I’m not gonna kill anyone,” Bucky says calmly.

Steve can’t help the finch as Bucky brings his hand down, even though he’s never in his life shied from Bucky’s touch. He hears the crunch of splintering wood beside his ear and then Bucky’s gone.

He would rather die than let Bucky out of his sight again, so he follows. He chases Bucky through the apartment and down the stairs, and he refuses to give up when Bucky throws obstacles in his way to slow him down, like flipping officers over the staircase and forcing Steve to catch them. Even though he hates to admit it, it’s a smart move.

Still, Bucky underestimates him.

✧✧✧

After being spotted, Nat and Sam both spring up, ready to jump into action when they see the door of the balcony being kicked in by the operatives. There’s gunfire that can be heard across the street, which is never a good sign. There’s footsteps on adjacent rooftops too, which means they’re no longer safe and hidden. Sam grabs Natasha’s hand, about to fly them across.

Glass shatters from a nearby window, and then their earpiece crackles to life.

“Sam, southwest rooftop.”

Sam and Natasha look at each other, and she lets herself get wrapped up in Sam’s arms before they take to the skies.

“Steve? What floor?” Sam asks, but the earpiece remains suspiciously quiet.

Then, a backpack comes flying out of a unit above them, followed by a body.

Natasha knows it’s not Steve, given the outfit, but she wonders if the Winter Soldier’s recklessness actually rivals Steve’s. They watch as the assassin immediately rolls, picks up the bag and books it across the rooftops, faster than any human should.

A streak of navy blue follows, the shield strapped to Steve’s back catching the sun as he also rolls with his landing, chasing Bucky as they parkour over the city.

Special forces are now joined by local police and Nat can hear helicopters approaching.

“There,” Natasha says, alerting Sam to the predicted path of the soldier. She nudges him and points below. “Get me to that bike.”

He swoops, wings narrowing as he lands her beside the motorcycle in question, before tailing Steve as he makes for the underpass. She jacks the motorcycle as quickly as she can, joining the chase.

The highway is a disaster. Cars are being flipped, swerving to avoid hitting someone or something. Chaos breaks out in the city, until it all comes to a grinding halt, and they find themselves in a standoff.

One motorcycle flip, a masked cat man and a highly publicized arrest later, they’re now waiting for the psychiatrist to be done evaluating Barnes while Steve paces.

There’s something not right, she can tell almost instantly, but she isn’t sure how. Or what.

She’s curious, if perhaps Steve was right. That some part of the Winter Soldier recognizes Steve, and maybe even returns some of the sentiment.

While Steve tore apart the world looking for him, he surrendered for Steve. She’s not sure which of those is more dire, but she’s positive of one thing: the two of them, reunited, on the same page, are a terrifying duo.

She expected the worry and the anxious pacing from Steve.

Steve’s entire body is clenched up and he doesn’t take his eyes off the screen. She doesn’t blame him of course — his long lost partner is strapped down, confined in a glass cell with his arm being subjected to electromagnetic interference, which she’s sure doesn’t feel very pleasant.

What she didn’t expect was the psychiatrist unlocking Hydra’s secrets thought to be long dead.

✧✧✧

She rubs at her neck absentmindedly as they wait for the Soldier to wake up. Sam, beside her, does the same with his jaw. The Soldier had gotten them good. All of them.

“Told you he surrendered in Bucharest,” Nat murmurs. Though, it had been Bucky Barnes or at least the ghost of him, back in Romania. What Zemo had unleashed was certainly not Bucky.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam concedes. After a pause, he touches her elbow gently. “You okay?”

She nods, even if she’s not sure. “I remember him, you know? Back in the day.”

She doesn’t say much else, doesn’t like remembering the Red Room or anything associated with it. But the Soldier…

She can tell Sam wants to ask, he just knows better by now. “But he didn’t recognize me.”

“He didn’t recognize anybody.”

“I’m not so sure,” Natasha says with a tip of her head.

Sam follows her line of sight, to the two super-soldiers. “You think he’s really in there?”

She would have normally said no. That’s the logical answer, because she knows that Hydra sinks their claws in as deep as they can and they don’t let go. But she can’t deny the evidence — what she’s witnessing with her own two eyes.

“Nat, he did get knocked in the head pretty hard,” Sam tries to reason.

She thinks back to 2012, back to Loki worming his way into Clint’s mind and her “cognitive calibration”. Shaking her head, she knows that Sam hadn’t witnessed what she had. Not with Clint, not with Hydra. “If all it took was a knock to the head, don’t you think that’d be a bit of a liability while he was on missions? Besides, you kicked him in the back of the head clear across the road.”

Sam begrudgingly has to admit that she makes a good point.

Steve laughs softly at something Bucky says, and even more surprisingly, Bucky smiles back. Bucky smiles.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Sam mumbles under his breath, to which Natasha can only respond with a hum.

“I’m telling you, Sam, there was nothing there,” Natasha whispers, crossing her arms. “But this…”

There’s one thing that’s painfully clear, and it’s in everything — every move, every look, every touch and every non-touch. It’s in the way Bucky’s slumped, ashamed, trying to keep Steve away for Steve’s own sake. It’s in the way Steve inches closer still, undeterred. It’s in the way Bucky could summon old memories that nobody was sure he’d still have, and the way Steve’s eyes had instantly teared up, nodding along, confirming every word that Bucky says.

“They are sickeningly in love, aren’t they?” Sam asks, knowing the answer.

“They are beyond sickeningly in love,” Natasha confirms, a small smile forming on her face.

“They can hear you loud and clear,” Steve’s voice calls out from where he’s letting Bucky’s arm out of the vice grip.

Sam and Nat share a look, before helping Steve with the contraption.

2017: Birnin Zana, Wakanda

He doesn’t miss the feeling of waking up from cryostasis, that’s for sure. Still, this time around it’s more gentle. Slower and more patient, like someone that doesn’t need a mission completed that very same day.

It’s a girl that he hears first — her voice is light, higher and childlike.

The next voice belongs to the king, low and soft. Soothing.

He’s being woken up by lullabies in comparison to Hydra, which is why he doesn’t immediately panic about the feeling of receding frost in his veins, the lethargy of his muscles.

It doesn’t burn when he blinks his eyes open, and his arms are free to move as he pleases, no restraints.

“Good morning, James.”

“S‘actually morning?” His words are still a little slurred, muscles in his face warming up.

There’s a soft chuckle, before the girl speaks again. “Not at all. But you are just in time for dinner.”

“This is my sister, Shuri,” T’Challa says. “She has been helping us formulate your rehabilitation program.”

Bucky’s brain feels like it’s slowly rebooting, and he should probably mention that eating after cryo seems like a terrible idea, but he’s taken aback by the room. It’s… bright. White, clean, smelling fresh. This is not the musty basement of some Hydra base.

A smoothie of some sort gets waved in his face and he takes it, not wanting to be rude. It smells amazing and his stomach lets out a low rumble, but he’s still hesitant.

“It will not upset your stomach,” Shuri tells him gently, letting go as he grasps it with shaking hands.

“Thank you,” he remembers to say.

“After you are done, let’s take a walk,” the king says gently.

The palace is gorgeous. It’s open and bright, vibrant with colors and shining with gold.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Bucky says eventually, feeling indebted. It makes his stomach twist — he doesn’t like owing people. Never has.

“No need,” T’Challa counters. “Please, think of this as your home for the next little while. We can accommodate you after your deprogramming.”

“D’you really think it’s gonna work?”

“My sister has never failed,” T’Challa answers. “You are in good hands.”

He repeats what he had said to Steve. “I’m not sure I’m worth all this.”

T’Challa seems to digest the words and consider them carefully before changing directions. “Let me show you something.”

Bucky follows him, mostly in silence that doesn’t feel uncomfortable. He takes the time to simply see. He watches T’Challa navigate easily, through a complex, underground system. The rushing roar of a train startles him at first.

“Where are we?” He eventually asks, curiosity getting the better of him.

“Right now we are under Mount Bashenga.”

Bucky watches the trains in fascination, smells the dampened moisture in the cave that they’ve entered, and follows T’Challa as they head towards a soft light above.

He takes a deep breath when they finally emerge, feeling his skin warm up again. The sight is breathtaking. He can see the forests and fields for miles, all kissed gold by the setting sun. It reminds him of Steve’s hair, of Steve’s smile.

The thought summons a sudden surge of emotion, as if it had been building inside him this whole time and it makes his voice crack. “This is beautiful.”

“It is,” the king agrees, lowering himself to sit.

Bucky follows quickly, not wanting to be at a higher elevation than the king for crying out loud.

“This was the last thing I could offer to my cousin, N'Jadaka,” T’Challa tells him softly. “I told him that Shuri could heal the wound I had inflicted on him, but he declined.”

Bucky wants to know the details, but he doesn’t push, letting T’Challa take him through the story of the one that would become known as Killmonger.

“He took his last breath here,” T’Challa concludes. “Even though it was his choice, I felt his blood on my hands for a long time after, but I still find myself here often.”

“I think I would too,” Bucky agrees. There’s something calming about the pleasantly heated hug of the sun while overlooking such a beautiful region.

“Please do.”

They sit together until the sun has given way to the starry sky.

✧✧✧

Steve is nervous about landing. Yes, there’s a fight coming — a big one, at that. But, he can’t stop worrying about Bucky, wondering how he’s been and how the deprogramming is coming along. He’s only received updates here and there, but they’ve kept him in the loop for all the big steps.

He had very nearly flown back here when T’Challa informed him they were planning on taking Bucky out of cryostasis. Now, with the lush forests and vast expanse of rich land beneath them, he feels his anxiety ramp up. He’s so close and yet so far.

When they land, he immediately greets T’Challa. “Seems like I’m always thanking you for something.”

It goes unsaid, but he’s sure the king knows just how much he’s dying to see Bucky.

“So how big of an assault can we expect?” T’Challa asks, bringing Steve back to business.

“Uh, sir, I think you can expect quite a big assault,” Bruce answers for him.

“How are we looking?” Steve asks in return.

“You will have my King’s Guard, the Border Tribe, the Dora Milaje, and —”

“A semi-stable, 100-year-old man.”

Steve’s heart soars at the familiar voice — this one softer and lighter, like the Bucky he grew up with and less like the Winter Soldier. He doesn’t waste a second, walking toward Bucky to meet him in the middle, even if he’s not entirely sure Bucky would welcome the touch.

The tender smile is inviting enough that Steve goes for it, arms outstretched, dying to hold Bucky for the first time in far too long.

“How ya been, Buck?”

“Eh, not bad, for the end of the world,” he replies easily.

Steve tears up then, because if it truly is the end of the world, there’s nowhere else he’d rather be and nobody he’d rather be with.

He doesn’t see Natasha and Sam exchanging looks, or T’Challa’s small, knowing smile.

He doesn’t see anything except Bucky. “I missed you, Buck.”

✧✧✧

“I can’t thank you enough, Your Highness,” Steve says the moment Bucky goes to greet Sam and Natasha, making his amends and starting anew with them.

“It was my pleasure,” T’Challa responds. “Shuri always loves a good challenge, I think it is going well.”

Steve lets out a huge breath of relief. “You… You have no idea how much that means to me. Us.”

✧✧✧

Snap.

That’s all it takes to tear the world down.

“What did you do?” Thor demands of Thanos. “What did you do?!”

Thanos vanishes before their eyes, leaving them with no answers and a feeling of dread.

“Where’d he go?” Steve asks as he’s looking around, trying to see what’s changed, trying to determine if Thanos’s threat was real.

Nobody knows, but Steve still turns to Thor, expectantly. “Thor, where did he go?”

Everything looks the same, smells the same…

“Steve?”

Bucky’s name dies in his throat as he watches the unspeakable happen.

No, no, nononono!

He lunges forward as he watches in horror while Bucky disintegrates before his eyes. The shine of his eyes dulls as he stumbles, limbs evaporating into dust.

“BUCKY!”

He falls to his knees as Bucky literally slips through his fingers. Amongst the shouts for friends and family echoing through the forest, he hears his own anguished cries.

Thor is speechless, Wanda heartbroken, Vision dead. The loss is devastating.

It feels like all the oxygen has left his lungs and all the life drained from him. He wants to lay down, right here on top of Bucky’s ashes, but it feels too close to admitting that Bucky’s gone. No, he can’t give up yet.

“Hang on, Buck,” he promises to the empty space where his heart and soul had been. “I’m coming for you.”

#stucky #stevebucky #stevebucky fanfiction #stucky fanfiction #star spangled secret santa

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cynbx · 9 months ago

Text

The Hitchhiker

Hello everyone, my name is Cynthia. I was listening to an old radio show called “Suspense” and was inspired to try to write this story. It is not very good but I am hoping you guys can give me some constructive criticism on it. Thank you guys for the help.

Malcolm is driving on a deserted highway, heading to his next client. He is listening to the radio when he sees him. Malcolm does not know who the mysterious man but he knows that he will kill him. Malcolm steps on the gas and drives straight toward him.. He hears the sound of this man’s body hitting the car and watch as his body rolls off the car toward the ground.. Just to be sure he is dead, Malcolm drives over him a few times. Once he is satisfied, he continues on his drive knowing he is safe from this murderer.

The BAU has gathered in the conference room to hear about their next case. Garcia stands in front of the screen and says, “The land of enchantment is not so enchanting anymore. Three hitchhikers were ran over a car multiple times. The pictures are on the tablet.” They started looking at the pictures and locations and realized they were scattered over the state, several hundred miles between each murder.

Once they are on the jet, the team starts discussing the case. After they landed, they all split up to investigate. Spencer went to autopsy to look at the bodies, the rest went to the crime scenes. After a while, they all returned to the police station to discuss what they learned.

Spencer began by saying, “The medical examiner reported each victim was crushed by the assault.”

Emily added, “The crime scenes showed the no signs of slowing down. The unsub definitely wanted to kill these victims.”

“Why the overkill? Why is the unsub angry?” David asks. “There are no connections between the victims other than the fact they were hitchhikers.”

JJ added, “Maybe the unsub had a bad interaction with a hitchhiker.”

Emily called Penelope, “Goddess of all knowledge, speak and be heard.”

Emily said, “Penelope, please check to see if there are any reports involving hitchhikers.”

Penelope responded, “Not in the area. Let me widen my search.”

A few minutes later, “There is a report that a man named Malcolm Watson stated that a stranger was trying to kill him. He claims he sees this man on the side of the road, always following him even though he doesn’t see another car on the road.”

“Oh my goodness,” she exclaimed, “Malcolm was involved in the accidental death of a man who just wandered in front of his car while driving.”

Spencer asked, “When did this happen?”

Penelope responded “Two weeks before the first murder.”

Matt said, “This was his trigger. His guilt about the accident was too much for him to handle and believes the victim is after him to avenge his death.”

Emily then asked, “Penny, we need his work and home address.”

Once all the information was sent to them, Emily said, “JJ, Matt and Tara, go to his house. Everyone else, his job.”

JJ, Matt and Tara and some officers arrived at Malcolm’s house but no one was there. One of the officers called out to them to come over. When they arrived, they saw a picture of a man taped to his wall. They believed this is the man Malcolm accidentally killed.

Emily, David, Spencer and Luke were at his job. Malcolm’s boss said he was out meeting with clients around the state. This explained why the kills were so far apart. Emily asked what route he took and the kind of car he used. She and the other agents contacted police stations along the route to be on the lookout.

The team reconvened at the police station and waited. About an hour later, they received a call from a station saying they found him and was arrested.

Once the team arrived, Malcolm was just sitting there yelling saying he had to kill him.

#criminal minds #spencer reid #emily prentiss #jennifer jareau #matt simmons #luke alvez #penelope garcia #criminal-minds-fangirl #incorrect criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fangirl

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dasenergi-diary · 2 years ago

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Over the weekend I said I'll tell the story of "the straw that broke my back." Here it is:

I will attempt to keep all emotion out of it and only state the facts.

The ex-bf lives near me in Ontario, California. In February he started his new job in Palm Springs. That's an 80ish minute drive (70+ miles).

Every day he tells me about all of the accidents he sees on his commute. He said it's worse than his drive into LA (Los Angeles). Every day he describes to me horrible accident scenes. People drive too fast and swerve through traffic.

When he got the job, the plan always was, when his current lease is up at the end of April (beginning of May), he will get an apartment in Palm Springs.

He HATES his current apartment complex. He's been talking about moving out ever since he moved in. He complains about everything about that apartment complex.

Plus we were already aware they were increasing his rent with this renewal. So much so, that in his words, "I'm going to have to take out a loan to pay my rent. Or I could get a second job."

He wasn't exaggerating. He was serious. They're raising it several hundred.

Moving to Palm Springs would be a great new start!

Since I "work from home" most days, I could work from his Palm Springs apartment on weekdays and come home to my house on the weekends with the kids. That way we can have quality time together without someone commuting. He could also stay with me on the weekends too, or explore Palm Springs and make new friends.

He has never belonged to a gay community, he does not have any local gay friends, and I thought Palm Springs would be a great place for him to build both of those.

After he started working and commuting to Palm Springs every day I kept nagging him, "Have you looked for an apartment?"

He hadn't. So I did an online search and sent him several that met his needs.

"Have you called them? Are there any openings? Scheduled a walk-thru?" He hadn't. He kept procrastinating.

Daily on his lunchbreak I would remind him, "Call the apartment lady." (He had a good lead on an apartment from a co-worker.)

Two months went by. Finally last week he scheduled a walk-thru of an apartment. His comments, "It doesn't have an indoor washer/dryer. I'm not using a laundry room."

Here I should mention, his credit score is only 600. Remember, my mentioning he can't "adult"? Managing his finances is one way he can't "adult."

True story: He hired someone to help get his finances in order. He did NOT do what the financial advisor told him to do, and then he fired the financial advisor because he felt guilty about not doing what the financial advisor told him to do - the exact reason why he hired the financial advisor.

He has ruined his credit rating. We both knew most apartments in Palm Springs probably won't take him. We had to set expectations.

This place with the laundry room will accept him AND this place is $700 less than what he is paying now. AND it's super close to work. He'll be saving money to pay off his debts!

Did he look at any other apartments? Nope!

Then last Wednesday he shared with me that he signed the renewal at his current location... the place 70+ miles from work that he can't afford.

The place in Palm Springs was $700 less a month AND no more 70+ mile commute!

Why would he sign that lease???!!!!!

He sent me a video of that Palm Springs apartment, it was perfectly fine. I could totally see him living there. It had just been refurbished with a new bathroom, kitchen, etc. It was cute!

Even if he didn't like that one apartment he saw, he didn't even look at any others.

He has until the end of April to be out of his current apartment. That's still plenty of time (a whole month!) to find a new apartment, or stay with me, or stay with his parents, or stay in a airbnb, until he finds one.

Why did he sign that lease?

I told him to go back to his Leasing Office and say he made a mistake. That he can't afford it. Did he? I don't know. He kept saying, "I can't."

And that's what made me so furious with him. That was the straw that broke my back.

That he signed a lease for an apartment that he hates, that he can't afford and will need to take out a loan to pay rent, and he drives a dangerous 70+ mile commute to work every day, and the bright future of living in Palm Springs is gone.

And I snapped. I couldn't do it anymore. Those were my exact words to him, "I can't do this anymore."

I was done.

The straw that broke my back.

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artdecosupernova-writing · 1 year ago

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Holeph

The Ocean Planet

Origin planet of the lenaya

Overrun by the oceans since The Cataclysm

Land masses uncovered at regular intervals

Speculated to house a species of dragon deep in uncharted waters

Four moons

TOURNALTIS ARCHIVES Holeph, Entry 5 SECRETS IN THE OCEAN - Orthrive'poliea

I have been to Holeph approximately ten times by the date of this archive entry. In previous entries, I've mentioned how much I'm reminded of R'lis—the Golden World of Ashva—whenever I convene with the lenaya on their planet of origin. Their hospitality is identical. Their Resplendent OmmilliCulos harbors similar values as the former head of R'lisian government.

Holeph is a spherical ocean circling a harsh star, a source of heavy radiation and poisonous winds. Its very existence perplexes me. Every attempt to delve deeper into the planet's evolutionary history is met with patient derailment, as the lenaya are secretive about the cataclysmic event that flooded its lands.

In some ways, I understand. The people they had been before the floods are long extinct. From what I've been able to gather, they have relied on copious waters since the dawn of the first intelligent being, but land wasn't a rare commodity either. The Cataclysm, as they refer to it, ended thousands of lives, uprooted their way of life then and for the rest of time.

There is an uncharted area of Holeph. Deep within its waters, halfway across the hemisphere away from the capital city of the southernmost Lyru Faction, there is a roughly three hundred mile section of the planet that, for all intents and purposes, does not exist. No map I have ever seen acknowledges it, nor does it give any indication as to why the lenaya keep absolute silence about it. I've queried many authorities on the subject of Holeph, and each time I'm met with a hapless shrug or a polite response informing me that I have no idea what I'm talking about.

The enigmatic circle has been recorded—or not recorded, as the case seems to be—as far back as Pre-Cataclysm. I've perused ancient charts in my spare time and calculated using their data that within the span of five thousand years, the circumference of the circle has actually shrunk. The seismic activity around the perimeter of the circle is destructive at its best and catastrophic at its worst, which would explain why civilization has smartly opted to avoid a further sixty thousand square miles of its borders.

My initial theory [I can hear you laughing at me already, Corin. - O.] was volcanic activity. Perhaps a cluster of supervolcanoes at the bottom of the ocean cordoned off for the safety of the lenaya. However, thermal imaging scans from satellites and starships reveal that the area is cold. Practically too cold for feasible lenayan living conditions, let alone volcanic activity.

My current theory occurred to me by happenstance. An innocuous glimpse of Warren's calf scar—for his sake, I'll refrain from disclosing why I happened to be looking at it—reminded me of his altercation with the frost dragon of Araleth. Earlier that day I had just finished reading a theorist's take on the mysterious Holeph circle and I wondered, briefly at the time, more of a humorous musing than anything else, if perhaps the lenaya have their own dragon to keep locked away in the depths below.

Now I wonder if I wasn't too far off from discovering the truth.

The graha and the venevans, as we know, have striking similarities within their cultures and even their anatomies. This is something very few have called attention to, and even I've accepted it as "evolutionary approximation" without questioning how that could be possible for groups of people who were, as recently as a thousand years ago, without electricity on planets several light-years apart.

Would it be so strange to assume the same phenomenon of Araleth and Holeph? Araleth, the White Giant, is completely overrun by ice and snow without a single hot spot to relieve the native rowthii. Holeph, overcome by oceans without a permanent patch of land to relieve the native lenaya.

I've yet to do any further digging. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that, if not a dragon, if the specifics of the theory are off, there is something in those waters. Something possibly shameful, possibly dangerous.

Possibly keeping the planet from succumbing to the effects of the sun's radiation.

…Much like the Ammathu did to keep Shaavis from being absorbed into Ashva's supermassive black hole.

[Corin, come see me. I need a sounding board before I continue this entry. - O.]

[I think I'm gonna puke. - C.]

#Darkspace Portent #DP Settings #worldbuilding

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thedryswan · 1 year ago

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This probably won't make its way into a longer HP fanfic, but at least it got me putting pen to paper again...

2 May 2000

With the inevitable march of time, it was once again the second of May. A difficult day for some, full of vivid, painful memories.

As a young man, Arthur Weasley had once attended and been much moved by a Muggle Remembrance Day service, and had, as a result, proposed a solemn remembrance ceremony for the magical community, to be held in the grounds of Hogwarts Castle at dusk on the anniversary of the final battle and the Dark Lord’s defeat.

Hundreds had gathered on the banks of the lake and raised lit wands to the sky as he read excerpts of a poem, a single tear trickling down his cheek.

“They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.”

Silence was kept for several minutes after which, individually or in small groups, the mourners left, waiting until they had passed beyond the magical boundary of the castle’s grounds to disapparate.

Ron and Hermione stood apart from the other Weasleys, her head resting on his shoulder, his arm around her.

“You’re thinking. I can sense the cogs turning.” she stated.

“Mm-hm.” replied Ron.

“So? A knut for your thoughts?”

He pulled away a little to look into her eyes.

“The Time Turner, that thing you used in our third year. What happened to it?”

“I gave it back to McGonagall.”

“Did she destroy it, do you think?”

“Good question, I don’t know. I never thought to ask. Because, if she didn’t-” murmured Hermione, her eyes widening as she suddenly realised the implications of what Ron was suggesting.

“Exactly,” Ron said in a low tone, “If she didn’t, and it fell into the wrong hands, the past… Battle of Hogwarts, the first wizarding war, Grindelwald? Merlin’s beard – even all those Muggle wars, all of that could be overturned in the blink of an eye.”

***

A little over 818 miles away, a man sat at a table, enjoying the warm sunshine and the cup of hot, strong coffee a flirtatious waitress had brought him. Unobserved, he reached for the gold chain around his neck, gently withdrawing the strange pendant in the shape of an hourglass which was usually concealed inside his crisp white shirt and fiendishly expensive black fitted jacket. He laughed softly, it had been so easy, breaking into the office, searching the desk, casting a geminio charm. Had they worked out that the replica was a dud? A useless copy with no magical powers? Well, never mind if they had. It was too late by now and he was too far away.

Sipping his coffee, he considered his position. The course of human history was open to him, with no-one to stop him, he could go anywhen he chose, and right what he saw as terrible injustices. So, when to start?

“Ah. Yes.” he thought, “That’s the ideal moment to begin.”

Leaving enough small change on the café table to cover the bill, he settled more comfortably in his chair, drew his ebony wand from his jacket pocket and activated the Time Turner.

#harry potter #hp fanfic #hp fandom #ron weasley #hermione granger

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hexalianrebel-blackfeathers · 1 year ago

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(Definitely also check out this person's take in the thread, but here I go)

I think it's important to preface that OP is correct in that Peter should have acted, just as a basic adult helping a child in a critical situation. But while the post I linked goes into why he doesn't from a few character perspectives, there's a big piece of OP's point that always stuck out and bothered me:

Peter B Parker is NOT Gwen's mentor. He never was.

At no point in either film is Peter B put in a position to even resemble a teaching figure to her. The first thing she does in her reveal scene as Spider-Woman is one-up him by saving him and Miles during the forest fight. She infiltrates Alchemax on her own and without being spotted at all while Peter and Miles are bumbling through the vents and getting thrown around by Doc Ock. At the time, in those moments, she didn't even need a mentor.

(Frankly, I hesitate to call him Miles' "mentor" sometimes. They were together for, like, 48 hours at most, and what did he really teach him besides learning to swing properly? He's an experienced Spider-Man, an adult that Miles could defer to in the crisis, and a good friend by the end of it, but a "mentor"...?)

I admit I'm biased to not liking Jessica. Her catty tone with Gwen when she messed up triggered too many flashbacks with peers and family. But the reason she's framed as the failed mentor is because she is, on several points, Gwen's mentor.

She advocated, rightly or wrongly, to bring Gwen into Spider Society as soon as she saw her skills, despite knowing Miguel would say no; and, more importantly, knowing why he would say no. Especially after what happened with Gwen's father, Jessica was the one who stepped up and took her under her wing. To the point where it is either well-known around Spider Society--or just a sarcastically thrown running joke--that Gwen is her "star pupil".

Going back to the crux of the issue, though; that being adults standing by while children are in situations they can't handle, I ask everyone this:

Why was Gwen sent to track the Spot in the first place?! Better yet: Why was she sent ALONE?!

Earth-1610 is borderline off-limits because Miguel doesn't want Miles to interact with Spider Society. Gwen is the ONE person who is most likely to screw up that piece of the puzzle. Why was she even allowed to go back? We learn later that her watch can be denied access from dimension jumping, so why can't she be blocked from certain dimensions?

Spider Society--meaning Miguel and Jessica, at the bare minimum--are aware that the Spot is multidimensional threat potential. At that stage, he could peer and reach into other dimensions through portals he was pulling off of his own body. That is not even remotely on par with knocking out one weird Vulture or Prowler.

So, given the literal hundreds of Spiders at your disposal, would you give this mission to the Spider with arguably the LEAST experience of any skilled fighter? (Pavitr doesn't count; he didn't seem to have a watch yet, probably because he didn't have all the Canon Events to make him receptive to the way Society works.)

Frankly, I am willing to blame Jessica for this. She could have sent anyone else; she could have gone herself (I don't know why people seem to think she's pregnant for the entire movie. She looks and moves differently when we see her in Pavitr's dimension; and considering how far along she was in the intro, I can almost guarantee she gave birth within the "months" after Gwen joined); Hell, if it was as big a threat as it literally is, Miguel should have been there himself! There could have been a dozen Spiders storming that little apartment, and Gwen could have had her date with Miles and been none the wiser. Blissful ignorance for both of them.

I don't care if Gwen has a B+ in English, I refuse to believe there's anything she could have been able to say that should have convinced Jessica she was safe to go on her own. Knowing her connection to Miles; Knowing she's inexperienced compared to this kind of potential threat; Knowing that she's probably still in a fragile emotional state and desperate to have a friend she can relate to.

I'm tempted to think Jessica is just soft on Gwen. She saw this poor girl nearly get shot by her own father and her mothering instincts went into overdrive. She seems to let Gwen get away with things, even keeping the secret that she went to see Miles--which we see later didn't matter, because Miguel probably already knew. And that is genuinely sweet of her, to begrudgingly care so much about her, but she is extremely complicit in the Spot getting away. She and Miguel both.

Wanna know why I don't like Peter B.?

Because when Gwen was actively forced into homelessness in front of him, he literally didn't help at all. And then it gets framed on JESS.

Gwen asks for help. And Peter says this:

Jess asks him to stop talking.

And from this moment forward, Peter makes no effort whatsoever to help Gwen.

Mind you. This is AFTER Miles' escape. After the whole 'shocked Peter' gif. Peter knows Miguel is willing to get violent.

But that line is his only attempt to help.

Even as he watches Gwen be fully restrained and physically forced into the machine. He stands there and watches.

He doesn't try to web her. He doesn't try to stop the machine or talk to Miguel. He stands there in silence. Watching Gwen get sent home to a universe he knows she is homeless in.

And the movie just lets him. Despite the fact he's known Gwen longer than anybody in this room.

Instead, Jess is the only mentor at fault. We're told to blame her.

During this scene we never pan to Peter, standing there literally motionless as Gwen gets dragged away. He's not panicking, or trying to talk Miguel out of it. We're just expected to absolve him of blame.

It's Jess' fault. Jess is her 'failed mentor' - despite the fact that Peter has known Gwen longer, is shown to have a better relationship with her, and we're given no reason as to why he wasn't her mentor to begin with.

Jess says this, and we're supposed to judge her for it. While Peter said nothing at all. At most he made a joke and then shut up when he was told.

Jess might've believed she couldn't help Gwen - but what was Peter's excuse? Standing there and watching this happen? He doesn't feel the need to do anything, say anything, or even leave the room.

For him, watching this is fine. And Gwen NEVER confronts him about it.

We're not supposed to blame Peter for letting Miles and Gwen down, repeatedly.

Even when Gwen is being physically forced into homelessness in front of him.

We're told to blame the black woman when the white man who has known Gwen longer literally stands beside Jess motionless.

Had Hobie not left Gwen the watch - We're left to assume that Peter would've just... let her be homeless in her dimension.

He watched her get sent home, said nothing, then went home to his wife and kid to ponder whether or not he was a bad mentor.

Not if Gwen was okay. Or whether he should go check on her????

That's NOT OKAY???!!!! THAT'S TERRIBLE!!!!!!! And this is the man we're supposed to be routing for? This, the dude who shows NO signs he was even gonna go and check on Gwen? The dude who lets child abuse go down in front of him TWICE and he just stands there blinking? That's our Peter Parker?

And I'm supposed to be thrilled to have him on the team??? Despite the fact Gwen had to come TO HIM. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND???? Gwen doesn't see a problem with that?????

I'm supposed to be happy he's here? Forreal???

Oh joy. Thank you so much, Humbling Reality Spider-man. We love you.

I hate Peter B. ALL MY HOBIES HATE PETER B. (Not a typo)

#a panda says a thing #a panda writes a thing #across the spider verse spoilers #into the spiderverse #atsv

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the-firebird69 · 5 months ago

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We're gonna hold you liable for what you've been doing here to our son you are not right and you're not winning anything and you're not going anywhere you haven't figured anything out there's still the same idiots going over the same stupid **** and we don't want to hear about it every few seconds that you haven't figured anything out and we somehow have to tell you things it's ridiculous we can't stand you anymore OK what you need to do is stop doing what you're doing and we we do need you out. These are horrible things that you're saying and doing and we're going to hold reliable for him and we do need you to leave that apt trump you don't have a rental agreement and you should be kicked out by the state he can't seem to get you out of here so there you sit think you're a winner and all your stuff is going away that brings us to the current day and the time is now.

- There are huge numbers of yours falling they are going to all die right now they drilled into seven bunkers and are trying to drop in bombs what they're doing is trying to shoot up the tunnel and stop the bombs from falling and it's not working that good they put stuff in before the bomb and it's heavy metal and they are knocked to **** and the bomb follows and it goes down in crashes in actually it almost at full speed intact and at the five out of the 7 they hit and devastated the bunker systems the other two are getting prepped right now BJ8 is going after your weapons stashes and caches we see you moving and you're trying to get your armies going and you're slow very slow. We do not want you to have all these clones and people yet you sit there making them so we had to make things to stop you and we're getting freed up like this quite a bit and it's going to be hellacious for you right now trump is going to war in:

-mid east of Mexico on the Yucatan and it is fierce. he brings now about one percent of his force thre. soon more.he leaves the apartment to work. soon dave goes. and will try. this area huge and there were several clusters more than usualy and surround a massive cache and stash.

-Western siberia and about the same as mexico huge area and both are 100 by 200 by 50 mile caverns and loaded wiht ammo and ordinance tanks jets nd bombs. tons of it

-southern india and twice the size yes of mx and it is huge. and 200x150 miles and 80 high and loaded iwth seperate floors about ten. no a few hundred and solid steel ti is corroding no they control teh climate and giant numbers. bja organizes ships now and theseas will be rough tons of crabs will die.

-dakotas and it is huge and they are there still nope they blew them and twice the size of mx 200x200 and 400 sories mostly and they move on it now. huge armies go up to try to stop bja now and psuedo empire and trump and at all locations. a war now ok all.

-southeast tx and huge but only 100x75 but 300 high adn it is as large as the largest in russia. and they flow in now the trump bunkers and armies out.

-beliz and hit and are in. they refilled ys. and it is 70x80 but holds all special are in now

-southwest peru and yes huge 80x200 but 60 high. huge and theyi are at it flow in.

-east honduras 60x60x80 full of special they flow in

-west peru north of the other 80x80x80 and not squre though not cicrcular is huge and holds special and missles tons of them tht are five mile and temp heat ocntrolled.

-nicaraua 80x80x60 and 8 more like this in s america and all special and missles unloading it now they are in adn taking it out

-tent imes the size of the last one. west canada 300x300x100 and they are in flow in. and they blew 8 two mre shortly. and they are above the midwest and they shall flow in...and flow up the tunnels for sstoneships. and mostly that there.

OTHER AREAS THAN THE UPPER MIDWEST

ALERT WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY TOMMY ALLEN AND HIS WILL ATTEMPT TO TAKE OVER POPULATED AREAS THEY THINK WE ARE IN. GLOBALLY. THEY HAVE OPENED 8 MEGA CACHE AND GO FOR FOUR MORE IN MOMENTS AND DID ENTER ADN ARE TAKING ITALL OUT. AND HIT THE TRUMPS EASILY AND WIHT IMPUNITY. ARE ANGRY HOSTILE AND MEAN AND ONRY. WE NEED OUR TROOPS ALL OF THEM NOW

this is an emergency

Thor Freya

there are only 8 very large ones left he has 12 and he has about 65% of the large mediuim small ones. and shall move and take probably 30% of them shortly more. and we feel he will take 4 more of the very large forg and others did not move. he is at those now. leaving two.

Olympus

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helenaheissner · 10 months ago

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A Dream of Summer Rain (Chapter 12: I Can Stand My Own Ground)

A murder of crows followed her as she stalked her prey. She led the Wild Hunt through the night, during the change of seasons, the liminal time. Her compatriots were men and elves and all things in between, and the crows followed their hideous wake for regular meals.

They rampaged through the fields of Europe, flying on the wind and carving scars into the land, ripping trees from their bases and sending dust and ash and snow exploding all around. A million souls cried out with each mile they crossed, either ripped apart or forced to join. The city of light fell to the tide of darkness, and the crows descended afterwards to feast.

At the edge of the city was a crater a hundred feet deep. Beneath a black sky threaded with red lightning, a young woman lay dead. She wore an Edwardian gown, and had white hair that flowed down to her waist. A plague doctor’s mask was fused to her face with fire, and liquefied flesh dripped off of her. Crows surrounded the corpse, but did not feed. When the Wild Hunt came upon them, the corpse rose from the crater and launched the crows at the Hunt. The murder was too much for the Hunt- Lacy’s eyes were gnawed from her skull, and her men and elves and monsters met the same fate.

Lacy screamed. She would not tolerate this. This dead woman would not stop her, would not force her to yield. She screamed, and the world froze, and the world burned, and the world drowned.

***

Lacy woke up gasping for breath, her heart a throbbing agony in her torso. Her sheets were soaked through with sweat, and she’d torn her fitted sheet while gripping in her sleep. Lacy sat up, gathered her knees around her chest and held them tight. She breathed through her nose and refused to blink. It was an accident, she thought. But if I’m gonna keep doing this, I’m not gonna be able to keep saying that. I’m gonna have to keep going, and I’m gonna have to keep fighting, and I’m gonna have to… Have to…

I’m gonna have to kill people again.

Hellfire crackled beneath her.

Her breathing shifted to her mouth and grew rapid. She uncurled her hands, released her grip around her knees, and made herself breathe slower. The damp sheets clung to her raw skin, fresh sprouts of body hair beginning to poke through. She forced herself out of bed and sat on the floor of her room, clearing a spot amidst the mess of gears and cogs and springs. She folded her legs together, and she sat up straight, and she opened her ears and listened.

The room was quiet but for her.

The house was quiet but for her.

And Danny. His heartbeat was faint inside the bathroom, slow and sorrowful.

She raised an eyebrow, then checked her phone and saw it was ten in the morning. He was usually at work by now.

She listened. The world outside was awash with rain. It hadn’t let up from yesterday, but rather kept its rhythm. So loud it almost drowned out everything else.

A car approached them. A small one, with a familiar heartbeat inside it.

Gwen.

And from the other direction, behind her house, from the woods- footsteps. Running, bounding towards them. Some on all fours. Some snarling and hissing and growling. None had heartbeats.

Lacy listened, and found radio static. It saturated the room for an eternal instant, and through it she heard Drew’s voice say, “You can’t run from this.”

She opened her eyes, ran out her room, and tore open the bathroom door to find Danny in his boxers, sprawled out in the tub with a half-drunk bottle of Irish whiskey. He hadn’t shaved in several days, by the look of it- his beard was overgrown and threatening to cover his mouth and neck. His eyes were glazed over and he stared at the ceiling like he was searching for something in it. He twitched slightly when he noticed Lacy, then nodded.

“Um…,” Lacy said. “It’s ten in the morning.”

“Yeah? What of it?!” Danny snapped.

“That- that- that’s not important right now,” Lacy said, shoving her hair out of her eyes. “We need to leave. Now. Right this second.”

Danny groaned. “Whyyyyy?”

“Because we’re in danger.”

“What kind of danger?”

“The kind I’ve been dealing with lately! The magic kind!”

He sat up, pinched his nose. “Oh shit.”

Outside, a car skidded to a halt, and rapping soon enough came upon the door. Lacy ran over and opened it, and let Gwen inside. “They’re coming. We need to go.”

Danny crawled out of the bathroom, still holding the bottle of whiskey. “Hey. I’m Danny. Who the hell are you?” he asked Gwen.

Gwen stammered, “Uh….”

Lacy said, “He’s up to speed. Come on, let’s-”

Three heartbeats. An otherwise silent cabin. The submachine gun fire of the spring rains. Five sets of footsteps, closing in on the cabin. Lacy pried the bottle from her friend’s hands, and he released it only with great reluctance. “Please, Danny, just listen to me. Put some clothes on, and then come with me and Gwen. It’s not safe here.”

As if on cue, the footsteps broke into a sprint, and were joined by a dozen more. And a dozen more. And a dozen more. All without heartbeats.

“Okay, okay,” Danny slurred, rubbing his eyes.

“NOW!” Lacy said. She hurried him into his room and tossed clothes at him.

They stumbled out the front door and into Gwen’s car, the thunderous footsteps closing in. They came into view, crashing into the car before it could start. Slate skin, red eyes, with fangs bared and claws sharpened. Many of them had degenerated into their feral forms, protruding jaws and pointed ears and rotting flesh. One leapt onto the roof of the car.

Danny screamed.

Lacy screamed louder.

Gwen screamed the loudest. She twisted the key in the ignition and reversed and slammed her foot on the gas. The ghoul stuck its claws into the windshield as they reversed, while the car slammed into another ghoul behind them. The wheels crushed its decaying bones beneath their weight and force.

More ghouls came. And more. And more.

They piled onto the car, blocking out the light with their bodies. All that remained was the sound of rain from above. Lacy’s entire body ached. Her mind was stretched thin as paper and threatened to tear. Beyond all the other noise was static, and beyond that static was silence.

From that silence, her Star descended.

“You can’t run from this,” Drew said to her from the darkness.

Her heart pounded. “I know,” Lacy said.

Danny screamed. Gwen muttered under her breath, reached for magic. For her Star. It wouldn’t be enough- Gwen’s spells weren’t equipped for this many opponents at once, not during the day and not even with her own Star.

The car was lifted from the ground and tossed through the air.

“Be not afraid,” Drew said.

Lacy reached for her Star. It came through the ghouls, through the roof of the car, and settled on her palm. At first she felt nothing, an absence of sensation she knew all too well. She was alone in the blackness again, where she’d been before, where she’d wanted to escape, where she would live forever if she could. But that wasn’t an option.

Drew stood before her, hands in his pockets, his expression entirely neutral. “You’re absolutely sure about this?” he asked. “There’s no going back from here on in.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice, Lacy. Everyone always does. We simply delude ourselves into thinking otherwise. So I ask you once more: are you sure about this?”

Gwen. Danny.

The dead girl.

Her parents.

Everyone else who these monsters had killed, who would be killed if the ghouls weren’t stopped.

Herself. For the first time, she was concerned for her own life.

“I don’t wanna die,” Lacy said. “And I refuse to let my friends die. And I definitely can’t make up for what I did if I die here and now. If this is the trade-off, then so be it.”

Drew smiled. “Proud of you, girl.”

“Thank you,” Lacy smiled back.

Drew vanished, and for a moment, Lacy was alone in the blackness once again.

Then everything burned blue.

She gathered her fingers into a fist through an inch of soil. Every cell in her body ached with horrible pain, and as she forced herself to move the rust began to shed. Heat and strength and power surged through her, electrifying her one cell at a time. It all stemmed from her heart, beating and sending forth bolts of lightning throughout her body. Her arms came alive again, as did her legs, as did her eyes.

The car was wrapped around a tree, and Lacy was on her stomach with her face in the dirt. She shook her head and made herself sit up, and she saw Gwen and Danny next to her, both uninjured but thrown from the car, both unconscious.

A horde of ghouls charged them. They were in varying states of decay, some running on all fours as they charged. Lacy screamed, and forced the warmth from her heart into her legs, forced herself to her feet in spite of the raging pains that saturated them. The hurt dulled but did not vanish as she stood up. Her heart pounded, and sweat poured down her brow and back. Adrenaline fell from her brain through her body like a waterfall. She held out her hand, and she felt the shape of the words inside her mind. Her words gave it shape, and Starlight gave it power.

The simplest version seemed best as the ghouls began to close the gap between them. “PILEAR UISCE!”

A geyser of Starfire exploded inside her, and she released it all through her raised palm.

The rain became her own personal tommy gun. It gathered into her palm as a sphere, one drop at a time, pressurized as if in a boiler, and launched rapid-fire. Water-bullets tore through the ghouls like tissue paper, but not all of them hit the brain, and not all of them fell. Lacy screamed, forced more Starlight into her attack, forced more rain into her ammunition stock. She fired bullets with increasing rapidity, and her heart pounded faster and faster. The wind rose and swung like a storm of scythes, stripping trees of leaves and branches. Lacy’s chest burned in an intoxicating rush of power- she couldn’t remember the last time she felt so…

So…

So much.

The Star darted around her, then bounced backwards. It guided Lacy’s ears, and she pivoted a hundred and eighty degrees as the sound of new ghouls appeared behind her, from behind where her friends lay unconscious. She didn’t launch bullets, but rather a blade of water like a guillotine that cut the ghouls off at the neck as they burst from the treeline.

Her Star darted forty-five degrees to the left. Lacy aimed her bullet spray and fired, and tore through another swath of ghouls. Her heart beat faster than she could keep track of. Her arms began to ache again as she reached for more Starlight.

“L-Lacy?” she heard from behind her. Danny.

“Not now!” Lacy said.

Her ears twitched. Thirty degrees to the right. She spun, and her pool of water spun with her. Ten ghouls hissed as the bullets tore through them. She heaved up and down as her left arm went limp. She only had her non-dominant hand for aim now. Behind her, stirring. She spun; Gwen rose from the ground. She looked at Lacy, then looked above her at the Star. Gwen’s jaw went slack and her eyes bulged. Danny stared at Gwen, then Lacy, then back and forth a few times in bafflement.

Her Star went back to the cabin, and ghouls ran out from inside it, now armed with the knives she and Danny sold. She was burning through rain faster than it fell, creating massive patches of clear air in the middle of the storm, and so she tried a different tactic: “FREAMHACHA!”

Tree roots shot from the ground and plunged through the ghouls like spears, either stopping them short through the chest or braining them directly through the skull.

Pain shot through her right arm like lightning, and it fell limp at her side, dangling with her left. Shit shit shit shit shit, Lacy thought.

Her Star loomed above her, burning bright. It darted backwards, and Lacy pivoted once more. Behind her friends, a ghoul charged on all fours. Lacy couldn’t raise her arms, and her water bullets were impossible to aim without them. She heard thunder, and she sighed as she realized this might kill her. She gathered the Starlight through her mouth, ignited it, and screamed. It was as if her stomach was a boiling pot of water and air, shifting and turning and surging. It crackled and it exploded, and a wave of pure lighting shot from her mouth. As it hit the ghoul, its skin rippled and contorted as its eyeballs and brains melted out the sockets, and its papery flesh burst into flames.

Lacy heard no more footsteps approaching them, no more hissing, no more barring of fangs and claws, no more screeching.

Her Star returned to her, danced in front of her, then in front of her chest. She let it into her heart, and her breathing steadied. Her arms were limp and her legs were heavy with acid, but she was still breathing, and her friends were still alive.

“Holy shit,” Danny said from his spot on the ground.

Gwen’s face said basically the same thing.

Lacy gave them both a weak smile, then fell forward to meet the ground.

Everything went black.

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