#something about me going back into lockdown made the wiring of my brain a bit different wtf

[pinksuitman]

*pops open a bottle of champagne* Heres to my comp het disappearing!

[wkemeup]

Guiding Light (13)

summary: It was supposed to be a simple mission. Get the intel and go home. Until everything goes wrong and you’re taken captive by Hydra and now, Bucky can’t breathe without you. Not until he brings you home. If he even can. pairing: bucky x reader chapter word count: 9.4k  warnings: the final chapter 😭, and a little smut and fluff bc yall really deserve it 🖤series masterlist // series playlist

T H R E E  M O N T H S  L A T E R

“I don’t know about this.”

You winced from the cold compress of the patches Shuri gently pressed against the side of your head; wires connecting to machines on your left, monitoring your brain waves and internal chemistry. She pursed her lips at you, giving you that teenage pout, and pressed another electrode to your temple. She’d told you enough times as it was that this was an entirely safe procedure and it was only to ensure that her good work paid off.

In the three months since Hydra infiltrated the compound back in New York, you’d spent your time in Wakanda alongside Shuri. It was supposed to be an easy process to remove the triggers from your mind since she’d already been successful in doing the same for Bucky, but it appeared slightly more challenging with you. It took a bit of extra time but she assured you all the while that you were safe. You didn’t need to go under ice the way Bucky had done.

It took three months but she was able to successfully pull the words from your head. She just needed to prove it. Which is how you ended up sitting in the middle of her lab, heart racing a mile a minute, as she handed a thick red book to Bucky.

Your words. Your triggers. He was going to say them.

“You should strap me down,” you offered for the third time, eyeing Bucky as he flipped the pages of the red book, studying the handwritten notes. He looked up, slowly, a tight smile on his face.

“It’s not necessary, sweetheart,” Bucky said simply. “Shuri’s tech worked. The words aren’t going to affect you. This is all just to give you peace of mind.”

“Sergeant Barnes is right,” Shuri confirmed, smiling brightly at you as she pressed a few buttons on the computer, machine, whatever it was. This technology was far out of your scope. “You will be just fine. I promise. There is no need for restraints.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” you argued, hands shaking and Bucky narrowed his eyes on the tremors running through. 

He quickly set the book down on the table he had been sitting on and crossed the room to you. He knelt by your side, hand brushing your hair back from the wiring, cool metal resting on the nape of your neck.

“If it doesn’t work, I’ll be right here,” he said carefully. “If it comes to that, I’m here, okay? Shuri’s safe. I’m safe. We’ve got a whole army on the other side of that door.”

“You didn’t put up enough of a fight last time, Buck,” you reminded him, voice impossibly quiet and Shuri took a few paces back, occupying herself with something on the other end of the room.

“I know,” he admitted, leaning forward to kiss your shoulder. “I promise it won’t come to that again. If, and I’m saying if, you get triggered, I’ll make sure you don’t hurt anyone. Besides, Shuri has this place on lockdown. You have to know she has a stockpile of weapons around here somewhere and she’s more than capable of defending herself. She had to knock me out a few times back when getting the words out was trial and error. Isn’t that right, kiddo?”

“It was never boring, I’ll give you that,” Shuri grinned as she continued typing away. Bucky nodded for her to return and she jogged back over to you, offering you a reassuring smile. “Whenever you’re ready Sergeant Barnes.”

“How many times do I need to remind you to call me Bucky?” he laughed, and you knew he was trying to lighten the mood because even Shuri started to giggle and teased him back, but your nerves were skyrocketing and you needed to get this over with. He picked up the red book and flipped the page with your words scribbled on it in messy writing.

“Does it have to be you?” you asked timidly.

Bucky gritted his teeth, an exhale from his lungs. “If we want to be as accurate as possible, yes. A single mispronunciation could throw off the whole sequence. Shuri had to fly in a native speaker last time and I figured since I was already here...”

“Okay,” you nodded, readying yourself. You gripped the ends of the arm rests until your knuckles ached.

Shuri flipped on a switch and the whirl of the machines echoed through the lab. She gave the okay to Bucky and without wasting another second, he began to read.

“Марафон, горький, Бруклинский,” he called out, thick Russian heavy in his voice and you disliked the grind of it as it left his tongue. You took a steady breath and tried to focus on the pacing of his feet back and forth and the clenching of his left fist at his side as he continued.

“скаут, боевой, возлюбленная.” He looked up to you, searching for any kind of warning signs to stop but you were still. You closed your eyes and tried to lose yourself in your breaths. In. Out. Steady and even.

“мелодия, вена, шестнадцать,” his voice continued, nine of out ten. You could still think, still had a steady stream of consciousness which you were all too aware of, worry and anxiety leaving a mark in your thoughts. Your jaw was clenched so tightly, it ached.

“страсть,” Bucky said with an exhale. It was the last word.

You kept your eyes closed, waiting, because even though you had been withering from the pain your head by the third word the last time you’d been triggered in the compound, you were certain Hydra would find a way to pull the rug from under you again, make you believe you were safe before they sprung the soldier back into your mind and nearly made you kill the love of your life with your own hands.

“Sweetheart,” Bucky called, his voice close enough to you to startle a jump in your heart. His hand rested on your thigh, running smooth, gentle circles to coax your eyes open again. “It’s over, Y/n. They had no effect on you. Shuri did it.”

Slowly, you opened your eyes to find Bucky kneeling in front of your chair, the widest, most beautiful smile on his face; one filled with love and relief and sincerity. His hand snaked up against the side of your face and pulled you in for a quick kiss, warm lips against yours and you felt the anxiety slip through you like it had never been there. He pulled back just as Shuri stepped by your side.

“Of course, I did it,” Shuri teased as she started to remove the wires from your temple. “Did you ever doubt me?”

“That was my fault, clearly,” you laughed.

“Don’t worry,” Shuri grinned, removing the last electrode, “you won’t make that mistake again.”

***

In all your time in Wakanda, you hadn’t left the palace, let alone the floor you’d been assigned to and the confines of Shuri’s lab. You were too afraid to be out in open spaces, to risk the chance of anyone finding out those awful words and using them against you. Even with Bucky constantly at your side, gentle encouragements, always reminding you that you were safe here, you couldn't seem to get past the elevator doors.

Now, stepping out into the busy streets, holding his hand, you wondered how you could possibly keep yourself from such beauty. Street venders with fresh fruits and hand-woven garments lined the streets, bustling and crowded, but filled with smiling faces and children playing between the shops.

“You want something?” Bucky asked, looking to the layers and baskets of fruits as you walked by, then to the gorgeous display of handmade jewelry, distracted by the organized chaos of the market.

You leaned your head on his shoulder, smiling up at him, reveling in the feeling of his hand woven tight in yours. “Just you.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “Not what I meant, sweetheart.”

“It’s still true.”

He led you through the busy streets until the venders sat further and further apart, the sidewalks were a little less crowded, and the buildings started to fall behind you in exchange for open fields and rolling hills. It was gorgeous, unlike anything you’d ever seen.

“Where are we going?” you asked.

“You’ll see.”

Bucky wasn’t usually one for adventures. It was always you that dragged him off into the city or to a coastal town or convinced him to go apple picking on the back of his motorcycle. It was you that lugged him along to places he’d only figure out where you were taking him once you got there so he didn’t have a chance to back out. It was unusual for him, but if he was ever going to be the one to take you somewhere special, it would be somewhere like this.

Quiet. Peaceful. With open land for miles and the sun setting over the trees in stunning shades of purples and pinks and reds.

Eventually, you came up on a small cottage, almost a hut from the size of it, the only structured building for miles sitting amongst a sea of green grass and shaded trees. He paused as it came into view, a heavy exhale in his chest of something like relief and remembrance.

“It’s beautiful out here, Buck,” you said softly, realizing what this place was to him, “I’m surprised you ever left.”

“I always did have a hard time saying no to Steve,” he admitted, “but if I stayed here, I never would have met you.”

“Don’t you miss all your goats?” you teased, curling up against his arm as you started walking again, together, towards the cottage. He had told you stories once of his time in Wakanda; how he’d lived a quiet life in the country side tending to small farm animals and finding himself again. Shuri and T’Challa came out to check on him every once in a while, but for a long time it was just him and the animals. It was what he needed.

Bucky smiled, looking to the long metal bins approaching on his left where he would lay the feed for the animals. They’d run so fast, tripping over their legs when they were little, just to find a place around the bin to stick their head in and grab their fill before they got shoved out of the way. It was a fond memory. He didn’t have much of those around the time.

“I made sure they all found good homes before I left, don’t you worry,” Bucky said, pinching at your hip and drawing a short yelp out of you before you started laughing. “Maybe we’ll stop and check on Grant.”

You raised an eyebrow, grinning wildly.

“He was the runt of the bunch,” Bucky shrugged, chuckling, and it was magical just to hear his laugh again, “had to name him after Stevie. I left him with one of the kids who used to mess with me back in the day. That little rascal better be taking good care of him...”

“Oh, I'm sure he’s just fine.” You nudged Bucky in the side playfully and he only smiled back at you.

Coming up on the cottage, Bucky stepped forward and opened the door for you. There were no locks, even after three years, because that was the kind of place Wakanda was, is. If Bucky Barnes could sleep soundly without ten different deadbolts, it had to be the safest place in the world. You had no doubt it was.

As you walked inside, you were surprised to find it neatly organized, almost untouched from the day he left. Bed neatly made though the mattress was hard as a rock, something Sam had explained to you about soldiers when they returned from war feeling like they were sinking into anything that gave to his weight even an inch. Pots and pans hung on a drying rack, like he intended to put them away but never had the chance.

What really caught your eye was the bookshelf; bindings of red and green and black that filled row after row of shelves. You almost hit Bucky on the arm, thinking that he had been working on catching up on the literary work he’d missed before he even met you and had simply indulged you, but as you stepped closer, you realized they weren’t novels at all. They were journals.

You let your hand graze over the bindings, pulling dust from their canvas and turning back to Bucky with an aura of awe and surprise in your features. He nodded, ushering you to look because he knew you wanted to. He didn’t mind. He’d let you into the darkest corners of his memories if you wanted. You’d find a way to turn on a light. You always did.

Pulling a random one from the shelf, a deep purple binging that stood out amongst the others, you flipped through the pages. Crinkles and worn with use and thick black ink detailed on each page, you tried your best to skim. Some pages had images, newspaper clippings that Shuri must have brought down for him. Old memories and trains of thought as they came out, trying to determine what was real and what was told to him.

You flipped to a page with an old, faded photograph from the 1940s. Hand to your heart, you gasped at the image. Bucky stood amongst a line of men in combat uniforms, hard hat upon his head and the straps hanging down by his ears. Covered in dirt and grim and the brightest smile on his face you’d ever seen. Short hair and an innocence in his eyes that shocked you.

“It was before the 107th was captured,” Bucky clarified, stepping closer and looking fondly over your shoulder, “those guys became the Howling Commandos once Steve came around.”

You recognized the men from the exhibit in the Smithsonian. Bucky had asked you go with him nearly a year into your friendship and it had been the hardest question he’d ever asked anyone. He could still remember the sweat in his palm and the racing in his heart when he asked you. Of course, you agreed with a beaming smile and asked Tony if you could take the next jet out.

“You were always so handsome,” you smiled, fingertip tracing over his image.

“You think I should cut my hair again?” Bucky teased, wrapping his arms around you from behind and kissing your shoulder.

“That is not a decision I want on my conscious,” you laughed, leaning back into him. “That choice is all yours, baby. I’d love you either way.”

“Even if I shave the whole thing and start from scratch?”

“It’d be hard, but I’d get through it.”

“A hero amongst men,” Bucky declared, grinning against the skin of your neck. He peppered kisses to your collarbone, squeezing his arms tighter around you. Then, just as your hands started to snake over his, he pulled back suddenly. “Wait here.”

You narrowed your eyes suspiciously as Bucky pulled open the middle drawer in his dresser, searching around under layers of garments until he pulled out a laptop. You laughed, figuring you should have realized Shuri wouldn’t let him go entirely without access to technology on his own. He winked at you, firing it up and began typing at the keyboard.

“Buck? What are you doing?”

“Just wait, sweetheart. Patience.”

You sighed, plopping down on the edge of the bed, and though it was firm under you, it wasn’t as uncomfortable as you thought it might be. It was familiar, this feeling. Though it lacked the blood stains and edges of springs you’d had while at Hydra, but it was comforting almost, in the way that mattress had been for you.

You remembered Sam telling you once that he slept on the floor most nights after returning home from the war because the mattress was too soft. You suspected Shuri had this one made for him to accommodate his needs.

Glancing back to Bucky, you laughed under your breath to see his eyes light up.

He pressed a single button on the keyboard and set the laptop up on top of the dresser. The soft strums of a guitar playing delicately through the speaker of Bucky’s laptop began to filter through the room. It was a careful melody of chords you were familiar with, ones that incorporated piano gracefully between the notes, and a pair of voices sitting in contrast of one another, one rough and raspy, one soft and breathy.

Listening carefully, your eyes fell to the floor, just getting lost in the gentle melodies and hymns of the first verse. It was a song from the playlist you’d made him nearly four years ago. You wondered if you should be surprised he still listened to it after all this time.

You looked up in awe to find Bucky leaning against the dresser watching you with the kind of warmth in his eyes as if you’d hung the moon and the stars and the entirety of the universe. He extended a hand to you, wordless, and waited patiently until your lips curved up in a smile and slipped cool metal into your hand. You guided his left hand to rest on your lower back, gathering his right in your own as you let your arm hang off of his shoulder.

Falling slowly, eyes that know me And I can't go back And moods that take me and erase me And I'm painted black

You leaned your head on his shoulder, where metal met flesh, and curled against his neck, closing your eyes as you carefully swayed with him. Silently. Listening. Reveling in the feel of his body so close to yours, the steady beat of his heart thumping under your ear, his hand wrapped in yours, the gentle brush of his thumb upon your back as it rubbed tenderly against your shirt.

Well, you have suffered enough And warred with yourself It's time that you won

Needing to feel him closer, you slowly released his hand, wrapping both of your arms around his neck. Face pressed to the crook of his neck as his arms snaked around your waist. He smelled faintly of fresh soap and the lavender fields you’d passed on your way to the cottage. The swaying faded as the melody continued without you and you found yourself just standing in the middle of Bucky’s room, holding onto him like he was all you had.

Take this sinking boat and point it home We've still got time

Bucky nudged his nose against your cheek, urging your face from its home against his neck. Warm breath tickling against your skin as his lips brushed ever so slightly against your cheekbone, moving down in peppered kisses until he captured your lips against his.

Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice You've made it now

The music began to fade to the background, passionate strums of the guitar, fingers gracing along piano keys, voices singing in harmonies that lifted the soul, rendered silent in comparison to the feel of Bucky’s lips on your own, the only sense your body would allow you to focus on. Soft, plump lips as he took your bottom lip into his mouth, sucking sweetly, his tongue tracing along the edge of your mouth until you parted your lips further. Tongues swept over one another, open mouthed and wanting him as close as he could possibly get.

Your hands grabbed against the fabric of his shirt around the collar, tugging at it until he parted from you for an impossibly brief moment to shed himself of the material. Hardened ripples of muscle under your fingers as you trailed your hands down his chest, over his abs, and he shivered.

His hands grazed against your waist, sliding up under your shirt against the bare of your skin, cool metal and warm flesh running along curves. Wordlessly, he began to lift your shirt until you raised your arms for him, allowing the fabric to be discarded to the ground. He smiled, warm and loving, as he looked at you, eyes trailing over your breasts to your face and you reached behind you to unclasp your bra, shedding it to the floor.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Bucky exhaled as he stepped forward, ushering you to lay on the bed. As you followed his lead, settling against the hard mattress, your hair falling up around your head in a halo, you brought his lips to yours.

“You see a lot of beautiful women lately?” you teased.

“None since I met you,” he replied with warm kissed to the corners of your mouth, then down to your neck. He sucked at a spot that made your back arch, seeking more, before he mumbled, “can’t remember any before you, either. It’s only you. Just you.”

Shocked by his sincerity, not an ounce of teasing in his tone, you cupped the sides of his face, bringing him back to your lips and kissed him sweetly.

“You’re it for me, too, you know,” you said, watching as crinkles formed up by his eyes in the smile curving on his lips. “You’re all I want, Bucky Barnes.”

He hovered over you, arms caged around your head, and you parted your legs, giving him space to lay his body weight against you. He kissed your lips, soft and gentle, and then with a fevered passion as you dragged your core up against him, eliciting a moan, deep and heavy. You could feel the length of his hardness between you, confined by the cloth of his pants but prominent with every thrust against you.

Chest to chest and seeking the sweet release of friction between you, Bucky kissed his way down your neck over your collarbone, until he pulled a hardened nipple into his mouth. Swirling his tongue around the bud, you arched against him, hands raking into his hair. He chuckled softly against you, releasing you from his mouth so he could continue his way down to your waist. Pressing kisses to your hipbones, his fingers curled against the fabric of your pants before he glanced up at you.

You nodded, lifting your waist to help him remove the material, sliding it down your legs along with your panties. Discarding it along with the rest of the clothes, Bucky settled back between your thighs, kissing sweetly at your outer lips, at the creases of your leg to your hip.

“Never gonna get tired of this,” he whispered, warm breath against your core and you shivered.

“You say that now,” you laughed, squirming against him as he ran his fingers through your folds. You’d had more nights together than the first, but every time he touched you it felt like no had ever done it before, no one before him, like every movement was brand new and his touch was all you knew.

“I’ll say it every time,” he insisted playfully, leaning his head against your thigh as he looked up at you, his fingers coating in your wetness. 

He began circling at your clit, watching as your eyes fluttered closed, the evidence of his touch present with the parting of your lips and the moan that slipped through.

“Bucky,” you whined his name just as he slipped a single digit into you, cool and solid, metal. 

Sheets bunched up into your hands and a second finger joined. Slowly, steady pumps as his fingertips grazed over the spot, curving against it, that made your head dizzy. He was heaven and solace and every good thing in this world.

With a gasp, you grabbed onto his hair, tugging as you felt the warm heat of his tongue press to your clit. He was too good at that for someone who’d avoided human interaction for nearly seventy-five years. It was muscle memory, you supposed, though he swore he never touched or kissed or made love to a woman the way he did with you.

The pressure was enough, the swirl of his tongue over the bud as he brought it into his mouth, sucking, fingers thrusting, and you came with cry of his name. Pleasure rushing through your core, your legs, panting in your chest, and you felt Bucky kissing his way back up to your lips.

You hummed against him as he kissed you, tasting yourself on his tongue.

“Love you,” you mumbled hazily and he chuckled.

“Figured you might after I did something like that.”

You laughed, shoving him off of you so he flopped onto his back. Mischievous grin on your face, you crawled down to his waist. He wasted no time and helped you remove his pants, pulling the briefs off as well because the anticipation was killing him. He was so hard beneath the fabric, each brush of the material over his cock drawing a wince out of him, too sensitive.

“Y/n, baby,” he mused as your hands trailed along his thighs, nails gliding over thick muscle, “need you so bad.”

“I know, honey,” you cooed, leaning forward and licking a thick stripe up his shaft from the base to the tip. Tongue pressing against the throbbing vein up his underside before you took his tip into your mouth. He bucked up against you, cursing as he tried to restrain himself.

You pressed your hands to his thighs in an attempt to keep him still as you took in as much of him as you could manage. Hollowing your cheeks, you began to bob your head, sliding his cock against your tongue, reveling in the sweet sounds he produced above you.

Bucky didn’t shy away from the noises he made, noises you drew from him because he knew they only spurred you on. They were sinful. Delicious. And they went straight between your legs, leaving you wet and needy and dripping.

“Ah- fuck, sweetheart,” Bucky moaned, fingers snaking into your hair.

He was throbbing in your mouth, so close to the edge and you were more than ready to milk him dry, when you felt him carefully tug you away. You sat back, narrowing your eyes, to find him staring at you dizzily, blissed out.

“Wanna come in you,” he explained, his voice a little sedated and you giggled, nodding as you climbed on top of him, straddling his waist.

His hands sat on your hips, just brushing softly over your curved until you dragged your soaked folds up along his shaft, covering him in your wetness, and his fingers dug into you. He bit down hard on his lip, eyes closing in the sensation as you rolled your hips again. His hands guided your movements, adding pressure with every roll.

Your walls clenched around nothing and you couldn’t stand it anymore. Lining him up with your entrance, his tip brushing against your clit before you aligned him where you needed him most, and you met his eye. Ocean blue eyes stared back at you filled with a kind of awe and love and surrender that made your heart tighten. 

You sank down onto him in agonizing pace, his cock stretching and filling you inch by inch until you took all of him, sitting against his hips and as close as two people could possibly be.

“Oh fuck,” Bucky exhaled, head falling back to the pillow, “you feel so good, sweetheart, so fucking good.”

“I don’t know how I ever survived before you,” you cooed, rolling your hips and pulled a sharp gasp out of him, “don’t know how I got off without you inside me.”

“God, Y/n, you can’t just say stuff like that to me,” he whined, pushing his waist up against you as you moved to lie against his chest. Slow thrusts from under you, meet you half way as you pushed down against him. Friction like thunder and lightning.

“And why not?”

“We’ll never leave this bed again, doll,” Bucky teased, his voice breathy and panting in the exertion, “I’d just keep fucking you and loving you until neither of us can move.”

“I like how that sounds,”

The sound of your bodies melding together filled the room. His hands were all over you, trailing along the bare of your back, pinching at your nipples, running through your hair, grabbing at your ass to pull you flush against him with every thrust.

You could feel your walls starting to clench around him, the pressure building so sweetly between your legs, and you whined, a moan that let Bucky know exactly where you were. He slipped his hand between your bodies, feeling for your clit and began to rub fast circles against the sensitive bud. You gasped, head falling into the crook of his neck as you grabbed onto his shoulders, fingers only able to find give on his right side.

“O-oh God, Bucky, don’t stop,”

He didn’t let up, his pace relentless and exquisite and explosive and your release hit you suddenly with the push of his hips and the circle of his fingers of your clit. The hardest you’ve ever fallen from that height, the pleasure pulsed through you, drawn out in waves of endless rush as Bucky sought his own release. You cried out, squirming and a moaning mess over him, as he gripped hard onto your hips and rolled you onto your back, not daring to lose contact for even a second.

His thrusts became faster then, more erratic and you could feel how close his was, his cock throbbing and twitching with each push.

“Bucky, ah-fuck,” you gasped, your walls clenching again so close to your last release. It was too much. It wasn’t enough. It was perfect and sinful and worth all of the pain you’d been you just to be with him now, to have this moment, to see him above you with sweat dripping from the ends of his hair and a far-gone look in his eyes because for once he felt something other than pain, he felt pleasure.

“I’m so close, baby,” you cooed, urging him on as the pressure built at your core, “so fucking close. Need you to come for me, baby. Ah- God, I need—I need you to—ah, ah, f-fuck!”

Second waves of pleasure rippling through you, your walls clenching impossibly tight around him and Bucky came with a strangled grunt. Warmth spread through you as he prolonged his release, his lips pressing to your neck as his arms curled around you. His chest flush to yours, he rolled his hips lazily until he was too sensitive for more and stilled.

Head on your chest, you raked your fingers through his hair, pushing it aside to find his face. His was smiling hazily, eyes closed, and you pressed your lips to his forehead. Playing with his hair and listening to the grainy sounds of guitar and Ray LaMontagne singing from the speaker of Bucky’s laptop, he started to move, to pull out of you in an effort to clean the two of you up, but you held him still.

“Just stay here with me,” you urged, kissing his hairline.

“I’ll be right back, sweetheart, I swear it,” Bucky sighed, propping himself up off your chest and brining his lips to yours, soft and chaste and perfect. “We’ve got all the time in the world together, Y/n. I’ll give you all of my days if you want them.”

“It won’t be enough,” you sighed, kissing him sweetly, “I’ll want more after that, too.”

“Might have to take that up with the big guy.”

“Not sure what Banner can do about it but I’ll ask.”

Bucky laughed, his chest vibrating against you and he peppered kisses to your cheek, your nose, your eyelids, your neck. He settled back against your lips, giving you one last kiss, warm and familiar, before he said, “You know I’d spend an eternity in you, darling, but someone’s waiting for us.”

You narrowed your eyes, turning to follow Bucky’s gaze to the small wooden cube sitting on the kitchen table. From the center, a light blue light flashed.

“We’re being summoned back at the palace,” he explained with a smile. “It’s how Shuri would get ahold of me back in the day.”

“Ok fine,” you mumbled teasingly, allowing him to pull away and slide out of you. The emptiness you felt without him between your legs was prevalent, but you tried to push it aside. “She’s lucky she single-handedly cured both of us. Not sure I’d be willing to leave this room for anyone else.”

“We can always come back. I want to hear more of that dirty mouth of yours,” Bucky teased, winking as he disappeared into the bathroom.

The sound of running water filled the room and he returned shortly after, a damp washcloth in his hand. He carefully ran it up your inner thigh, removing the traces of himself from your skin, and rested it between your legs gently.

“I’ll hold you to that,” you laughed, nodding for Bucky to remove the cloth.

“I hope you do.”

***

“What do you got for us?” Bucky asked as he sauntered into the room, hand clasped tightly in your own. He dragged you along behind him, still feeling dizzy from the way he’d pushed you against the wall outside of the lab and kissed you just to tease you.

“You two are disgusting, just so you know,” Shuri laughed, pointing her fingers at the two of you and then tapping the monitor above her computer. It displayed the hallway in perfect definition. Your cheeks flushed red and you swatted Bucky on the arm.

“Shuri,” Bucky warned, a chuckle in his voice.

She rolled her eyes playfully and ushered for you to follow her. Pulling to a stop she stood in front of a series of monitors, all black, and asked you to take a seat. You narrowed your eyes suspiciously, looking to Bucky for support.

“Please, Y/n, you may want to be seated,” Shuri requested again and you slumped down into the chair behind you. Bucky took his place by your side and you felt his hand grab onto yours, squeezing gently.

Shuri sighed, exchanging a knowing look with Bucky. “Sergeant Barnes requested I do some digging on someone very important to you.”

You looked up at Bucky, confused, and he only offered a warm semblance of a smile, encouraging you to listen. Your heart was racing all of a sudden and you wondered how it was so easy to fall between this feeling and the joy you felt holding onto Bucky just moments before.

“His name was Private Daniel Henry Welch,”

An image of Danny appeared on the screen, arms behind his back, chin up, dressed in his formal Army uniform with the American flag behind him, proud. Your hand clamped over your mouth, stifling the gasp as you rose to your feet, walking towards the image. Tears welled in your eyes as your fingers traced over the screen. He was younger than you remembered, more freckles on his face when it was absent of dirt and grime.

“He would have turned twenty-one last week,” Shuri continued softly as tears fell down your cheeks. She stepped back, giving you space, as you stared to read over the list of information upon the screens she had compiled for you.

He was born and raised in New Harmony, Indiana to single mother named Brenda with stunning green eyes and long blonde hair. His eight-year-old brother Nathan was a spitting image of Danny; all smiles and thick, curly, ginger hair with freckles peppered over his nose and cheeks. He played soccer in high school, but for the town over because his school was too small to form a whole team on their own. He won a scholarship for writing a poem in middle school that he ended up using to buy books for his English class in tenth grade. 

He was as kind and sweet and lost as you’d remembered him and you still couldn’t imagine how a boy so soft had ended up on the other side of the world fighting someone else’s war.

He was the boy who rushed off base to help a stranger start his car.

Bucky came up behind you, wrapping his arms around your shoulders and you leaned back against his chest. Tears falling freely, you grabbed onto Bucky’s forearms, keeping him as firm against you as you could manage.

“Has anyone told his mom yet?” you asked Shuri and she shook her head.

“He’s still declared as Missing in Action according to the US Army database but it looks like there’s a lot of speculation that he was killed by rebel forces,” Shuri sighed. “They have no proof of what happened and with you as the only living witness...”

You nodded, brushing the tears from your eyes, pulling away from Bucky’s arms. The world still believed you to be dead. It was Tony that advised you keep it a secret from the public until Shuri could remove the words from your head. You’d had your time to heal and find peace and live in paradise with the man you’d only ever dreamed of seeing again after all that happened to you. You had your moment in the bubble.

You turned to Bucky, determined.

“Call Tony. It’s time we go home.”

***

Tony arranged for a press conference the day you returned. He did most of the talking and explained how Hydra had used a shifter to dissuade the Avengers from continuing their search for you. The room had gone up in chaos when you emerged from behind the door as Tony gestured for you to walk out as proof. Hundreds of questions firing at you all at once, loud voices shouting over one another, as flashes of cameras blinded you enough to cause you to wince.

Thankfully, Tony knew enough to keep you at his side, informing the journalists that all questions could be diverted to him. The room was divided. Some asking how it was even possible you were who you said you were while others praised you for your bravery and resilience.

The public wasn’t much different. Message boards popped up all the country filled with conspiracy theories about how you were the shapeshifter and the real Y/n died that day on the live stream. 

Protests outside of the Avengers tower downtown erupted, demanding the truth, while counter protestors walked the streets to show their support. Parades through Brooklyn and celebrations throughout the city took place once the news hit. Half the city seemed to accept what happened, while the other became wrapped up in Hydra’s lies.

Tony explained who Cain was and how he was the mastermind behind the plan, though he was exceptionally careful not to release information on why they had taken you in the first place and how you’d been conditioned into the soldier. The team had enough backlash against Bucky for the crimes he committed under Hydra’s control, they didn’t need the public speculating about your ability to control your own motivations, too.

Even as Tony ushered you away from the reporters and the flashing lights and invasive questions, throwing yourself into Bucky’s arm as he waited for you outside of the conference room, you felt no relief. Announcing you were alive to the world wasn’t what you were worried about. It was a necessary first step before you could do the very thing you’d left paradise for.

It was how you ended up on the front porch of a suburban house with white paneling and green shutters in an impossibly small town in Indiana. You stared at the dark green door, the flowerbeds handing from the windowsills and the wreath made of woven branches hanging at the center of the door.

“I can’t do this,” you whispered.

“Yes, you can,” Bucky said softly, squeezing your hand. “It’s all you’ve been thinking about.”

“What if she hates me? She's going to blame me for what happened to him, Buck. I couldn’t save him and now he’s gone and--”

“Y/n,” Bucky cut you off gently, turning you to face him. His eyes were the most stunning shade of blue. “If my ma ever knew what happened to me, if she knew I survived, and someone could have told her that while I was being tortured and starved and turned into this monster, I wasn’t alone, that I had someone like you to watch out for me and care for me... I can’t even imagine the relief she would have felt. It makes a world of difference.”

You nodded, trying to take in his words. He was sincere in what he said, you knew that much, and maybe you believed it yourself, but the pain of a grieving mother outweighed good intentions. Bottom line was you couldn’t save her son. You couldn’t protect him. You didn’t know if she’d even want to see your face. You just wanted her to know that he wasn’t alone.

Frozen, you tried to will your hand to the door, to knock, but you couldn’t move. Bucky must have noticed because his closed fist extended to the frame and knocked three times. It only took a few seconds of your heart pounding in your chest before the door swung open, only you weren’t met with Danny’s mother.

You stared into the spitting image of Danny, nothing but curly orange hair and freckles littered across his face. He raised an eyebrow, looking your over before he turned to Bucky, eyes narrowing on his left arm. Bucky tucked it into his pocket.

“Um, mom?” he called back into the house. “We’ve got Avengers on our porch...”

Nathan stepped aside, though he kept his stare on Bucky. His nervousness was mixed with a kind of awe, almost an excitement, that seemed to catch Bucky completely off guard. He licked his lips, waiting as shuffling came from the top of the stairs inside the house, and pointed to Bucky’s arm.

“Is it really made of metal?” he asked, tilting his head to try and get a better look.

A smile curved up on your lips despite the harrowing ache in your stomach as Bucky nodded, pulling his hand from his pocket and flexing his fingers for the boy to see.

“No way! That’s awesome!” Nathan exclaimed, reaching out to touch Bucky’s hand. You were surprised to find Bucky didn’t shy away from it and instead started to chuckle as the kid examined the intricacies of the Wakandan prosthetic.

“Nathan? What’s going on?” a voice called from upstairs, his mother, Brenda, and your heart clenched. She walked down the stairs slowly, drying the ends of her long blonde hair with a towel, though she set it to hang over the bannister as she saw you, her eyes widening. “Agent Y/l/n. Sergeant Barnes. W-what are you doing here?”

You gulped and you felt Bucky’s hand squeeze yours, though he took a step back. This moment was yours and yours alone.

“I saw what happened on the news,” she continued, scratching her head, “about how you’d survived Hydra. I know my Nathan was happy to see that. He always loved the Avengers. My oldest... Danny... he did, too.”

Nathan’s face blushed dark red and he shot his mom a glare, though she smiled softly, sadly. She turned back to you.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, wiping the tears from her eyes before they could fall, “what can I do for you?”

“How much do you know about what happened to your son?” you asked as carefully as you could manage, the shakiness in your own voice betraying you.

Brenda shrugged, shaking her head, “not much. All I was told was that he abandoned his base and was... killed by mercenaries.”

You took a deep breath. She knew even less than you thought.

“Ma’am, if you don’t mind, I can tell you more about what happened,” you offered, watching as her face twisted into a kind of pained realization, “I knew him for a while. I was with him.”

Brenda and Nathan exchanged glances, ones of shock, and she nodded quickly, stepping aside to let you in. She led you to the living room and asked you to sit, offered you tea or water or anything else in her fridge and because you suspected she needed something to do, something to feel useful you took her up on her offer for tea.

As she prepared the hot water, Bucky escorted Nathan out to the back yard, promising to show him a few moves and toss a ball while you talked with his mom. The relief on Brenda’s face was evident as she squeezed Bucky’s forearm in thanks as he walked by.

Glancing around the room while you waited for the high pitched whistle of the kettle, you found yourself looking at old pictures of Danny and his brother. Getting lost in smiling faces and the memories hung upon the wall, you barely noticed Brenda walk back into the room and set the cup of tea on the coffee table in front of you. She smiled fondly at you, noticing your gaze on the pictures.

“He was such a handsome young man. So kind, too,” Brenda sighed. “You said you knew him? How is that possible?”

You took a deep breath, grabbing Brenda’s hand in your own and holding it gently. She needed as much comfort as you could give her. Then, you proceeded to tell her everything you knew.

You told her about how Danny had left the safety of his base to help what he believed to be civilians passing by who’s car broke down, how it had been Hydra who took him hostage, not mercenaries. You told her that he had been placed in the cell next to yours and he single handedly kept you sane with his light hearted jokes, his replenishing optimism, and boy-like wonder as he asked you to tell him all about the Avengers. 

He kept your mind where it needed to be, on your family, on something wonderful and hopeful and away from the horrible place you were.

You told her that while a thick concrete wall sat between you, he’d come to be a friend, a confidant, and you cared about him immensely. As Brenda’s eyes welled up with tears, you spared her the details of the days Danny was taken from his cell, how he was beaten for the information on you he eventually gave up.

She squeezed your hand, nodding along as you told her how brave he was in the end. You told her that you were right there with him and that you did all you could to make sure he knew he wasn’t alone, that his last moments were with someone who cared for him.

You didn’t tell her he had been killed as a means to break you, to strip away your last reason to live so your defenses were lowered enough to warp your mind into their making. She didn’t need to know why he was killed; it wouldn’t make any difference in her heart. Her son was still gone. You hoped that maybe just knowing he wasn’t alone all those months was enough to ease just an ounce of her suffering.

It was painstakingly silent as you finished, tears rolling down your own eyes as Brenda tried to gather herself again. After a moment, she slipped her hands from yours and your heart broke, certain that she was repulsed by you, but instead, her palm grazed over your cheek, brushing away the tears.

“Thank you, my dear,” she whispered, smiling sweetly through the tears on her face. “I can’t tell you how much that means to me. Danny admired the Avengers so much. I think that’s part of the reason he joined the Army, thought maybe he could be a hero like you.”

“He was,” you said firmly, sincerely and Brenda nodded.

“It’s comforting to know he had you through it all,” she concluded, letting her hand fall away. “I just wish there was a miracle for him, too.”

You clenched your jaw, knowing she was hoping that her son could come back from the dead the way you seemingly had. There was nothing you could say to change that.

Brenda glanced over her shoulder, looking out the back window to find Bucky demonstrating a right hook in slow motion, gesturing for Nathan to try, before he moved to correct his form. She chuckled softly under her breath.

“He’s a good one,” she said, and you raised an eyebrow. She clarified, “Sergeant Barnes. My Danny always knew he was more than the papers said, knew before all that came out about Hydra’s torture and brainwashing. He was quite proud of that, of how he defended him before anyone else.”

You nodded, brushing away more tears as they fell, a smile forming on your lips because that was so like Danny and it hurt in your chest.

“Mom!” Nathan’s voice rang through the kitchen, followed by the sharp close of the back door. He charged out into the living room, grinning wildly, wanting to show his mom the new moves Bucky taught him. Bucky trailed in behind, an apologetic grimace on his face.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, “tried to keep him outside but he was really excited to show you his right hook.”

“Check it out!” Nathan shouted in a deep voice that forced a laugh out of you. He demonstrated the move Bucky showed him, doing it about ten times over as Brenda cheered him on. The lingering remorse and grief in the room quickly turned to that of laugher and joy as Nathan tried to push Bucky into sparring with him.

“Ok little rascal, I think Sergeant Barnes has had enough of you,” Brenda laugh, sneaking up to hug Nathan away from Bucky, despite his protests.

“I don’t mind, honestly,” Bucky tried to reassure her but she waved him off. You smiled from the couch, slowly making your way over to Bucky and grabbing onto his hand.

Brenda led you back to the door, hand on your shoulder and she enfolded you into her arms before you stepped outside.

“Thank you,” she said into your ear, pulling back with a warm smile on her face. “Our home is always welcome to you, dear.”

You nodded, not trusting your own voice to speak and felt for Bucky’s hand behind you.

Even as you walked down the driveway, heading to the car you borrowed from Tony, the light squeeze against your palm, you felt a wave of relief swell in your chest. Bucky whispered how proud he was and you wondered if maybe Danny would be proud of you, too.

***

That night as you curled up against Bucky’s side, cool metal fingers trailing in careful patterns down your arm, you wondered if it was possible to be thankful for the worst months of your life. Breathing in the smell of faded leather from the jacket he’d worn all day and the soft thumping of his heart beneath your head resting on his chest, and your months of torture, of pain, of hopelessness and guilt faded away in an instant.

You’d take it again, endure hell and the worst men it had to offer, if it meant you could end up right here, in Bucky’s arms, listening to the gentle humming under his breath as he peppered kissed to your hairline, hands longing to memorize the feel of you against him.

The melody was one you knew well, a song on a list of tracks you'd strung together for him four years prior, and his hums were quiet, vibrating against you. You listened intently as the hums slowly turned to lyrics and his voice was just barely a whisper, low and quiet, but it was there. You curled up tighter to his side.

“Well, the night is still And I have not yet lost my will Oh and I will keep on moving 'till 'Till I find my way home”

You pressed a kiss to his collarbone, just to let him know how much you loved him, how you'd cross the ends of the earth for him, how much you appreciated him coming with you to face the mother of the young soldier who was killed to further Hydra’s vendetta. You could have said it aloud, but he knew, and you didn’t want to interrupt the soft tones of his voice for anything.

“When I need to get home You're my guiding light You're my guiding light”

His hand gently curled into your hair, palm cupping the side of your face, urging you to meet his eye. The most incredible shades of blue stared down at you, filled with an adoration and love and sincerity you’d never encountered from any other man because no man was quite like Bucky Barnes. He kissed you sweetly, chastely, and somehow it still felt like the first time you’d touched his lips, like every moment with him was precious, cherished.

You didn’t realize a tear had fallen down your cheek until Bucky pulled back, concern littering over the warmth in his eyes as he brushed away the tear as it fell.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” you replied honestly, smiling though your eyes were watering it, “just thinking about everything we’ve been through, how after all that hell, we managed to survive and now... I have you.”

“You’ve always had me, sweetheart,” Bucky sighed warmly, kissing your forehead, “you’ve had me since the beginning, since you started dragging me on morning runs and through the city.”

You laughed, wiping away the excess tears on his shoulder. “You were the one that showed up in your running gear that morning and asked to come with me, you know.”

Bucky shrugged, chuckling, “well, I couldn’t stand the idea of not being around you. Needed to spend time with you somehow. I would have taken anything. Might have even agreed to go with you to that hot yoga studio in the city you were obsessed with for a month.”

“Careful what you say, Barnes,” you teased.

“Point still stands,” Bucky smiled, wrapping his arms tighter around you. He lowered his voice, a little more serious though filled with the same sincerity and warmth, and said, “I’d do anything for you, sweetheart. Anything."

You knew. It was in the same way you’d do just about anything for him.

You’d watch old movies where the actors talked with an accent from their decades just because it reminded Bucky of his childhood. You’d take him up to the rooftop at three in the morning in the cold of winter to look at the stars when his nightmares got so bad not even you could calm him down with your touch alone. You’d call down to that restaurant in Brooklyn that used to be an apartment building and convince the owner to let you take Bucky upstairs for a few minutes because this place used to be his home and he deserved to see it again.

You’d tell him you loved him for the first time through the barrier of a glass wall as Hydra agents pulled you away from what you were sure was the last time you’d ever see him. You’d resurrect Cain and give yourself over to him to poke and prod and mutilate your body with scalpels and that godforsaken chair. You’d lose your mind to the soldier and commit unspeakable acts. You’d do anything if it meant you ended up here again.

If it brought you home.

Where you belonged.

To Bucky.

Draping a knee over his thigh and settling it between his legs, you pulled yourself flush against his side. Bucky smiled, his hand resuming the gentle patterns on your arm and shoulder. You sighed contently, reminding yourself every moment you could that this was real and it was Bucky under your touch.

A soft vibration in his chest, and your lips curved against him, listening as he started to sing again,

“So lead me on, and leave me strong Like the road I walk on When I need to get home You're my guiding light You're my guiding light”

---

Thank you so much for reading! ❤️ If you enjoyed this fic, please consider supporting me at my ko-fi account ✨

[wannabeallrounderonli]

DAY 13, 30-04-21, Friday,

Today was shit... sleeping disorder has been on the peak (idk what it even means, my brain’s completely exhausted right now). Woke up late feeling sick, everything that happened after contributed to my unwell being and made me feel only worse about myself and the people around. Tried to gather courage to do something that made me feel good but found myself getting back to that negative zone repeatedly. I give up on this lockdown and quarantine thing now, felt suffocated and wanted to go out for awhile but couldn’t go. Listened to some good music but saw no improvement in my mood. Finally changed my clothes and decided to study on zoom call but i swear I’m not lying, each and everything around me was irritating the shit out of me and neither music nor youtube videos could help. Felt I was falling sick and the only way to feel better was sleep for sometime. Woke up and felt a bit better and now I’ll sit for studying. I know I didn’t wish this for today but I tried my best, and still lost. I know I need to make myself sufficient enough to face all this alone but a little support by my loved ones sometimes would be appreciated.. which I’m totally not expecting but fine. I’m trying to prioritise myself above everyone and thing and will soon do it. Yea that’s it for today.. i know today was shit but couldn’t have skipped the post. Everyone reading this, please take care of yourself, mental health matters more than anything and you’re responsible for how you make yourself feel because no one else gives a shit about you or me. Okay, good luck, and byeeeiee.

Songs of the day:

I know it’s a lot of songs but it was a mood today and I can’t make playlist for each day so just tracking it over here. Hope you’ll like it.

[yurtletheturtlehenderson]

S.T. REWRITE - S2:E8; Chapter Eight, The Mind Flayer - [Pt. 6 - FINAL PART]

A Will Byers x Reader Series

An unlikely hero steps forward when a deadly development puts the Hawkins Lab on lockdown, trapping Will and several others inside.

A/n: we're so close to season 3 you have no idea how excited I am 😭 will and you are ADORABLE in s3. Enjoy a sprinkle of Byler in this ch. for now, sorry it couldn't be more 😂

Oo also, the pov flashbacks are kinda terrible but its kind of on purpose depending how old they're supposed to be. The younger they're supposed to be the more straightforward if that makes sense

Warnings: so much angst ahead, oof, my goodness. Buckle up kids :> this is a quite ambitious chapter but hopefully I handled it okay. Possibly the longest chapter in Cosmic history?? I think??

||Will's POV||

The vulgar smell of chemicals lingers in my nose and sticks to the back of my throat as my eyes adjust to the blinding light.

Immediately I feel his icy presence, and felt myself losing control and all sense of self in a matter of seconds.

But I was still moving, squirming, but I'm not the one commanding my body.

Shit, not again!

This has been happening on and off since he got me, he goes silent until he needs me. But lately, it's all the time. Usually I stand a fighging chance to break free but this time he's in full control. I want to scream and cry, tell my mom I'm here, I'm here! But he won't let me. I'm still trapped in this small corner of my mind, and the longer he stays the smaller the prison gets.

There are four(?) figures looking at me, but it's hard to make out their faces at first. Mom! Mom is here, she'll help me, I know it. And... Jonathan!

Help me! I'm so sorry! I couldn't control it, he made me! He made me!

They don't hear me, everytime I try to speak, yell, cry or do anything, he won't let me. It's been like that since I was admitted. Since the fire in the tunnels.

Just thinking about the pain makes him angry, I can sense it.

I recognize another face, the man they asked me to identify but couldn't. I know I know him. I know I can trust him. But the fog... Ever since the monster got me, a fog has been spreading in my brain, making me forget things. People.

The man, Hopper, I think his name is, steps towards me with a look of concern. He's cautious of me, I can tell. Not that I blame him, but again it makes me want to cry, even though I'm not in control. But I still feel the pain, like the sting in my wrists and ankles as he fights against the restraints.

It's then I fully process I'm actually tied up. I don't have time to react before I hear my own voice speaking without my permission.

"What? What?" I watch as passenger in my own body as he makes me look around the room and down at the restraints. "What is this?"

Nobody answers, and I'm beginning to grow fearful myself. I know they wouldn't hurt me, but they might have to. In order to get him out. And I'm worried about how they plan on doing that.

"What? What is this?" He repeats.

Again, nobody answers, and he fights harder against the restraints hurting me more.

"Why am I tied up?"

Mom steps out from the shadows and I calm a bit, the real me, anyway. She kneels down in front of me, looking up at me seriously.

"Will, we just want to talk to you." She says.

I'm here! I want to talk too, Mom, please hear me.

"We're not gonna hurt you." She says gently.

I know Mom, please just tell me what's going on!

My head rips up, making me look at everyone in the room frantically. There's still one figure I can't quite make out, but he doesn't seem to care about them.

"Where am I?" He demands.

The man kneels down next to me, and I can feel the monster's anger and agitation. He's threatened.

The man holds up a piece of paper, a drawing. I recognize at once that this is something else the fog has touched. I know it, and it must be something I made. Fear takes over me; my own, real fear of the monster that was now apart of me, but I also feel his fear. All I know is the drawing upsets him, and he knows something I don't.

"Recognize this?" Hopper asks, and the shadow monster shakes my head. "Do you recognize this?"

My head shakes again, and I barely hear a soft 'no' come from my lips.

I'm now looking at Mom again, she's staring deep into my eyes. My body isn't mine anymore, but I swear when she looks at me, she's looking at me. Like she knows not only that I'm trapped and that this is not me talking, moving, answering, but she knows exactly where I am. She's looking at my real self that's trapped in this small corner in the back of my mind and I'm certain I'd be crying if I could.

"We wanna help you," She says to me. "But to do that, we have to understand how to kill it."

Oh no.

His anger explodes in an instant, so bright and so intense that even I find myself feeling annoyed. But I remind myself that it's not my anger. I want to help. I want to tell them, but I still can't. Instead, my voice comes out in a hostile shout that makes my mom jump.

"Why am I tied up?" They both try to calm me, calm him. But it doesn't work. "Why am I tied up? Why am I tied up?"

Mom shakes her head, and it's clear to see how uncomfortable she is growing. I just wish she knew for sure this isn't me yelling at her.

He continues shouting the same thing, and I can feel my throat start to sting and ache from screaming.

"Why am I tied up?! Why am I tied up?!" Hopper pushes me back, and my wrists and ankles and even chest begin to sting as he fights against the wires again. "WHY AM I TIED UP?! WHY AM I TIED UP?!"

The lights begin to flicker and my body continues to kick and scream but not the words I wanted to scream. It's just the same question, and he won't stop growing louder. I see the figures, Jonathan and Mike...! But they're scared of me. They're backing away, and Mike briefly looks down at his hand and behind the post. The figure had grabbed his hand, but I still can't quite make them out.

I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!

"WHY AM I TIED UP?!" He screams, now fighting hard against Hopper's hands which are now trying to pin me back. And the more he screams, the deeper my voice goes and I swear it sounds less and less like my own voice. "LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!"

Please... Please, somebody help me.

"LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!"

Hopper now has his arms wrapped around me, and I know it's out of restraint but it's also gentle and sympathetic like a hug. He knows I wouldn't do this, I can tell because he holds me tight and I even hear him mumble encouraging things trying to calm me.

My mom does the same, but I can feel the furious look welded to my face as he screams at her, and yet she still tries to comfort me.

"-sweetie,"

"LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!"

"-honey, it's okay."

"LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!"

Let me go! Leave me and family alone! Go away!

I know it must hear me, but since I am no longer in control all I can do is try to fight it. It's hard, but I don't give up.

Stop it! Just stop it!

I focus as much as I can, as much as I can muster. All I can focus on is the hurt and fear in everyone's eyes. Mike's, Jonathan's, and my moms. Hers hurts the most.

Suddenly I feel my body start to weaken, and my voice starts to lower in volume. But I still feel helpless no matter how hard I fight.

He's angry with me now.

"Let me go! Let me go!"

The shift in Mom's eyes keeps me going. She can tell I'm fighting, but I don't think she knows I can't hold out much longer.

Mom, please...

"Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go..."

My breath is harder and harder to find, and my shoulders heave as my lungs fight for breath. But I can feel it; I slowed him down.

"Go..." he mumbles weakly.

The lights stop flickering and Hopper lets me go. Mom stands briefly to sit across from me on the chair. She watches me carefully, and I can feel the tiniest bit of relent from him.

"Do you know what March 22nd is?" She asks calmly.

He's trying to figure out what to do, he's calculating. And he must be pushing back because I realize that that day sounds familiar. But the way she talks it seems like I should know.

"It's your birthday,"

The fog is coming for me. I can't remember my own birthday, and I've already forgotten other things about myself. Maybe if I keep talking to him?

Please, just let me go!

He wants me gone completely, and already I feel myself slipping back out of whatever control I had. He's winning.

Go away! Please, just go away. Go away... Go away... Go away.

But that's when she sees me again, she looks directly at the real me thats trapped and fighting for my life.

"Your birthday."

All I can do is listen to her, cling to her voice as the fog closes in on me. But I feel it start to slow when she continues, her voice as soft as ever.

"When you turned eight, I gave you that huge box of crayons. Do you remember that?"

Mom smiles a bit as she thinks about it, and I feel a single grain of strength returns to me. I can almost picture the lost memory, it comes back in small details, like a blurred home video with lots of static.

"It was 120 colors," she says, and I can see tears building up in her eyes. "And all your friends, they got you Star Wars toys, but all you wanted to do was draw with all your new colors."

Her smile grew a bit, not once looking away from me and I noticed an overwhelming gleam of pride. But still, I listen completely hooked on her every word. And I don't know if it is because of me, or what, but it almost feels like he's stopped too.

"And you drew this big spaceship, but it wasn't from a movie." She shook her head, gleaming at me still even if her voice began to break. "I-I-It was your spaceship."

Rainbow ship...!

"A rainbow ship is what you called it," her bottom lip began to shake before she smiled brightly once more as she spoke. "A-and you must have used every color in the box. I took that with me to Melvald's and I put it up and I told everyone who came in, 'My son drew this,'"

'Mom! Come on, it's not funny! Just take it down!'

'Honey, how are people supposed to know how great this is if I don't show them?' She asks.

'Mo~m!'

"And you were so embarrassed," she chuckles.

I'm remembering... Mom, I remember! I'm remembering!

But she still can't hear me, I'm still not in control. But he's listening. He's quiet.

"But I was so proud," Mom leans forward looking deep into my eyes. "I was so, so proud."

Mom...

She's fighting back tears now and I hate now more than ever I can't speak my own thoughts.

Mom, please! Keep talking, it's working. Just please keep talking...

Another voice speaks instead.

"Do you remember the day Dad left?"

My head whips up to see Jonathan, and for a moment I don't even know who was in control. I can feel it working, clinging to the stories they are telling me. They feel like home even if I don't remember.

It hurts to see his eyes are watering, and he looks just as worried and sad as Mom.

Like the crayon story I try and search for the memory. I feel as if I'm reaching around in the darkness, trying to find any kind of detail that might help me remember. And he doesn't get mad at me when I don't respond.

He walked towards me instead, and kneels down beside me.

"We stayed up all night building Castle Byers..."

I can feel that my face has softened over time, but still all I can do is listen. He's watching Jonathan, and I can feel his silence. Not his absence, he's still there inside me but it's like he's trying to make sense of what these moments are and why they're affecting me. Regardless, moments of that night came flooding back to me.

'I'm trying, Jonathan!' I whine, stopping to hit the ground with the hammer out of frustration before dropping it all together. "It's this stupid thing, it's balance must be off or something.

'Don't blame the hammer, Will,' Jonathan jokes dryly, not even looking at me.

I drop the hammer in frustration, I practically threw it and I begin to sniffle.

'Well, I do! This stupid hammer isn't doing the one thing it's suppose to do. How are we supposed to make Castle Byers if he's not helping?'

I go quiet, realizing what I had just said. I look to Jonathan shyly, and he's already stopped his hammer to look at me.

'We tried, Jonathan,' I mumble, sniffling. 'but it's no use. Let's just go home.'

'Go home?' He asks. 'No way! We said we were going to build Castle Byers, we always said we would. And we are. With or without Dad. He'll just have to miss out,'

"just like you drew it." Jonathan tells me, his face scrunching up a bit as he chuckles. "And it took so long because you were so bad at hammering."

But you were still patient with me. You helped me get through it even though you were going through the same thing... And I never thanked you for that.

I feel my mouth begin to twitch as I try to say the words, but nothing comes out. It was working, it was almost working! But I don't think he can tell...

"And then it started raining, but we stayed out there anyway." Like Mom, his voice started to crack. "And we were both sick for like a week after that."

You let me stay in your room and we played cards and other games while we were stuck in bed.

"But we just had to finish it, didn't we?"

Suddenly, I felt my fingers tap the sides of the chair. But, it was me! I think it was me!

"We just had to." Jonathan repeated, his voice still breaking.

Jonathan, Mom, anyone! Is anyone seeing its working?

"Do you remember the first day that we met?"

It was Mike speaking now, and my head turned to meet him. Again! I can't quite be sure if it was really my doing but any question of it went out the window when I saw his expression. He had stepped forward, and I noticed he was crying.

"It was... It was the first day of kindergarten." He spoke with a big lump in his throat. "I knew nobody."

A swingset... I remember a swingset...

"I had no friends and..." he sniffled. "I just felt so alone and so scared, but..."

He looked up at me, and for a brief moment it was the same look from that day. The details were still fuzzy but, that look I recognized. Sad but hopeful.

"I saw you on the swings and you were alone, too." He fought a hiccup as he spoke, the kind from crying and another tear rolled down his cheek. "You were just swinging by yourself. And I just walked up to you and... I asked."

'Hi, um, my name's Mike...'

He was looking at me, and he kept shuffling on his feet. He looked a lot more nervous than mean. I look up at him, and decide giving my name wouldn't hurt.

"I'm Will," I whisper.

"I asked if you wanted to be my friend." He chokes. "And you said yes..."

"Do... Do you wanna be my friend?"

Everyone else was picking on me for not knowing anyone. But he wants to be my friend!

I smile, pointing to the open swing next to me. "Yeah! Wanna play?"

Mike smiled at me, and took the seat. He looked pretty happy. But I am too!

"You said yes," he croaks. "It was the best thing I've ever done."

I can feel my face start to break, every twitch is a sign I'm gaining control even though my fingers are still moving as well. With all the strength I can gather, I'm able to turn my head at Mom. Fighting against him feels like I'm swimming up stream.

Mom, please get me out. I think I'm losing...

For once I feel hopeful that she notices something when she starts searching my eyes, my expressions and I'm still fighting. I have to fight for every muscle, and doing that feels like every one of them is made of lead.

Mom must have caught something in my eyes cause of the look in hers. But it's too late. I can feel him pushing back again.

No! Leave. Me. Alone! Leave me alone. I want my mom! I just want my mom!

I feel an overwhelming chill and I feel my body temperature drop again, not even realizing it had started to creep up again. The fog was coming back, and quicker and stronger than ever until I could barely hold on.

Then I hear my voice again.

"Let me go."

No! No, stop! STOP!

But then Mom looks away and down at the floor, sighing, and I feel whatever crumb of hope I had dissapear.

What? No, Mom, look. Just please look! Talk to me, stay with me, just please don't leave!

She looks like she's contemplating something, and then she looks up at Mike asking a question with her eyes. I can't imagine what, but Mike seems to understand. Then, they both look past the post at the figure I had never made out.

"Sweetie, why don't you come say hi?" My mom croaks to the stranger.

My head moves to look all around the room and allowing me to look at the others expressions. They all watch expectantly, and when my eyes land on Mike's he nods at the figure.

My body tenses suddenly but I don't know why. He seems to though, and it feels like another wave of ice is pumped into my bloodstream.

For a moment, there's the sound of shuffling footsteps and I barely detect movement. Like they're inching away from the hiding spot.

Then she steps out from behind the thick sheet of white light wearing a timid, tearstreaked face.

Y/n! You're here!

The one blissful movement I have vanishes in an instant when he takes full control once more. My muscles tighten and I feel my jaw clench shut, and the pain of the wires against my skin comes back as he starts moving me again. My face curls and I hear my voice saying such bad things to her.

"Get out!" She winces, but this time she doesn't listen to him. "GO AWAY!"

"No," she states, but I can tell it's hard for her. "not until I talk to Will."

"GO AWAY! GO AWAY! GO AWAY!"

"-Will" my mom tries.

My body starts to move again, fighting against the restraints and Hopper has to pin me back again.

I can feel his anger again. But there was something else too. The same thing I felt the first time he took total control.

Fear.

Y/n, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I'm trying. I'm fighting! I don't mean it, I don't mean it!

He still fights and kicks, but the longer I see her the less I care about the pain on my ankles and wrists. It's the look on her face, she's heartbroken. She looks destroyed. Just as upset as she was that night, and guilt pulls me back down. My strength for fighting him diminishes, but what stops it from dissapearing altogether is the fact she hasn't moved.

All she had done was take the seat across from me. And just... waited.

He kicked and screamed until I felt my limbs grow tired, but still she waited. Once again since I woke up, I'm happy that Hopper was here to hold me back so I didn't break free.

How are you not leaving? After all I did?

Finally, he starts to stop, and thats when I feel Hopper's hand slowly release me. And even though he stopped, the menacing glare he gave her never weakened.

"Will," she says finally. "I know... I know you're in there."

Like Mike, her voice is already strained as she speaks through her tears. Even her nose sounds a bit clogged and I feel my heart break and stomach sink all over again. How hard I was making her cry.

She sniffles, and she begins wringing her hands revealing her nerves. Then she raises them in defense, her arms still glued to her legs as she leans on them.

"I'm just here to talk, I promise."

I know, Y/n. I trust you. I really hope you know that.

He doesn't agree though, he's furious she's even here. Every nerve is standing on edge and I feel colder than ever.

Leave her alone!

I feel my nerves jump, he's still anxious to get away from her.

"What about the day I officially joined the party? Do you remember that?"

My heart is pounding violently against my ribcage almost to a point it hurts to breathe. She's looking into my eyes, likes she's trying to find me. I think she actually is. Just like what happened with the others, the picture is hard to find. It's all just too fuzzy. The small part of me that's left can tell Y/n knows my answer, and that she's dissapointed. But she still doesn't appear mad at me, even though she has every reason to be.

"It was around fifth grade," she began, "You guys had been friends with Dustin for almost a year, and even though everyone saw, and treated me as Dustin's sister... you didn't."

She paused for a moment, trying to keep her sobs in. I could tell by the way her jaw clenched and she bit the inside of her cheek. My own throat began to swell as I felt an enormous lump growing in the back. I hate seeing her so sad, and I hate even more that I'm the reason. She began shaking her head.

"Sometime during spring vacation, I remember Dustin coming up to me all cranky" she chuckled, and looked down at the floor lost in the memory. I waited for her to continue, wanting nothing more than to soak up the missing details when she smiled. "He had just come home from playing with you guys at Mikes, and he was holding a small yellow card with my name on it,"

Y/n grinned, looking at her hands wistfully as if she could still see the card in her hands.

And then she looks up at me, with a wide, trembling smile but there were still tears in her eyes.

"It was an invitation to your birthday party,"

The thick layer of static over the memory flickered, and for a brief second the image was clear and I could make out one thing. Just a small moment in time.

Y/n, she looked a lot younger. She was standing in my backyard. But she was off to the side, all alone. She was watching Lucas and Dustin bobbing for apples in a big pool.

"From you. You had insisted I come and you knew Dustin couldn't say no," she laughs.

"I was so excited, but," she sniffled, her smile falling. "even Lucas and Mike didn't bother to include me, they all forgot I was there and for a moment I thought nothing would change. But... then you came up to me, smiling all nervously, but without skipping a beat you asked me. You asked if I wanted to do something else."

"It was so casual, too. We weren't even proper friends yet, and it was your birthday party, but you knew something was wrong, and you asked me how I could feel more included."

Y/n shakes her head, seeming disbelieving.

"We talked for a bit, and then you offered to show me Castle Byers. 'It's just over the hill,' you told me. So we went - and figures, the guys never realized we were gone - but I thought it was, just, the best thing. We played in there for a few minutes, these toy cars were all you had in there at the time,"

She chuckled, and held up her hands to demonstrate something of size.

"I remember you had this Tonka Truck, it was just smaller than a toaster and you let me play with it. You said it always cheered you up, and maybe it would help me, too. You even let me keep it at the end of the day, cause you saw how happy I was, even though the truck wasn't what me so happy."

I could feel my face twitching again, my fingers drumming against the chair numbingly. And then I felt a single hot tear slide down my cheek, and his discomfort grew.

"But you told me something in Castle Byers that day, something I don't think I'll ever forget, even if I wanted to..." she was crying again. "You told me, that we could go talk to the others and convince them to let me join, that I could be your guys' friend... I asked you why you were being so nice to me, why you wanted me to apart of your group,"

A small sob came out in the form of a chuckle, and she wiped a tear off her cheek.

"And you told me it was because that was your birthday wish."

The room was dead silent again, and I could hear sniffles coming not only from Y/n, but Mom and Jonathan, too.

"Sure enough, we were all the best of friends just days later. We were building forts, playing cards, I think we even got our walkies a few months later and stayed up all night leraning morse code... You helped me make that happen, Will. And I'll always be greatful for that."

Another tear slips down my cheek, but I feel my face is as still as stone. The next thing I feel is his icy grip pulling me back down, and this time I know in my gut it's for good. In once desperate attempt, I scream for my muscles - my arms, legs, head, anything to see if I can move. And that's when I realize, my fingers are still wiggling. I don't think he can tell. I don't think he knows.

He's too focused on her! I just need them to look. I can get a message out. My fingers tap just a little louder as I try to remember the right combination.

Right. Here.

Right. Here.

As I focus all my energy into the message, I hear her broken voice speak again.

Right. Here.

Right. Here.

Here.

"Will, if-if you're in there," she looks around at eveyone else in the room and back to me. "Please, just talk to us. Say anything, just please help us help you."

Right. Here.

Right. Here.

The fog grows, stretching farther over me and chilling my body.

Right. Here.

Come on, hurry up. Anyone!

Here.

Am I remembering it wrong?

Here.

Here.

Hopper jumps up abruptly, glancing quickly across the room, and back once more at me. Suddenly, his hand dives into his pocket to fish something out.

Here.

Here.

Here.

He pulls out a vial - or is a needle? - I can't quite make it out in the light but I see him uncap whatever it is, walking towards me.

Here.

Here.

Here.

It plunges into my arm and before I know it I feel myself growing sleepy. The last thing I feel is cold fear and the feel my fingers slowing growing sluggish against the cardboard until it stops altogether.

Here...

||3rd Person POV||

Will awakes once more, attempting to process the many things flooding his senses. The return of the chemicals in his nostrils and throat, the blinding white light blocking his vision, and the feeling of being watched. But this time, he does not wake to a dead silent room, but a string of all too familiar music floods his ears.

The first notes of Should I Stay or Should I Go explode through the quiet air, and strangely enough for Will, everyone inside with him has dawned an all new demeanor. They aren't weary anymore, rather they are determined. Jonthan is the first to take a seat across from his brother, an expecting look in his eyes.

"Do you remember the first time I played you this?"

Will's body sits completely still, a lost look in his eyes.

"Mom and Dad were both arguing in the next room," Jonathan continues. "So I played you the mix tape I made you. And it was the first time you got into music. Real music."

Steadily, his fingers begin to tap a new pattern all unbeknownst to the Mind Flayer who watches his captors studiously. Particularly the young Henderson girl lingering in the corner awaiting her turn.

All the while, Hopper stands behind the Byers boy, walkie behind his back as he echoes the boy's message to the other half of the team waiting inside to translate.

Lucas, Dustin, and Nancy surround the kitchen table. Each with a task of their own.

"Dash, dot, dash, dot," Dustin mumbles, feverishly scribbling them on a piece of paper.

Lucas and Max scan the coordinating letter provided on an old guide.

"Dash, dot, dash... Yeah, got it!" Lucas exclaims. "C!"

Nancy transcribes onto a fresh piece of paper and this process continues as the others take turns talking to Will. Mike is next.

"And then the party escaped into the sewers," he recalls excitedly. "and there were those big insect things, and you guys were still on level one. Then you cast Fog Cloud and you saved us. You saved the whole party!"

Another pattern by Will turned into another letter on paper as the kids listened intently to Hopper's incoming message.

"L!"

"Dash dash-"

"-O!"

"We were so happy to see snow," Y/n explains, arms waving as she reimagines the moment. "and we got so wrapped up in our snowball fight, we didn't see my mom open the garage and when you ducked, I knocked over the old floor lamp that had been sitting out there. We had to spend the rest of the day cleaning it up, but we couldn't stop laughing,"

"-S,"

"You saw how sad Y/n was," Joyce says, knowing she was just about to reveal a fact to the girl in the room, a fact she might have missed out. But this doesn't stop her from telling the story, or breaking away from her son's gaze. "and when you two came back from Castle Byers, I saw her thanking you for your Tonka Truck."

"-E."

"and I pulled you aside before she left, and I told you that we couldn't afford to buy another one,"

Y/n's eyes flicker from Joyce back to Will, swallowing the entirely new perspective her side of the story revealed.

"-G."

Joyce began to choke on her words at the pride of her son, as well as Y/n who stood off in the corner with a simultaneous swelling, and breaking of her heart. "You said she should have it because she was sad. She's sad, Mom, and I want to make that go away."

"-A."

"I love you so much," Joyce tearfully coos.

"-T."

"So, so much."

"-E!"

The play button ejects on the Byers boom box, the music coming to an end and the others gather around Nancy at the table. Will's message drips off their tongues simultaneously and a chill spreads through the air at what it reads.

"CLOSE GATE"

A loud, shrill ring pierces the chilled air and a total of six heads whip up at the startling noise of the Byers phone; All who are inside, and the sixth belonging to Will.

The rest in the shed follow suit, and they experience the plunging feeling of fear as they realize what is about to happen.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" Dustin spews through his clenched jaw, the first of his group to reach the phone.

He rips it off the line and slams it back down.

The others look around at one another, silently wondering if they were in the clear. A second shrill ring answers their question, and Dustin scrambles to hang up the phone. Nancy beats him to it, and rips the phone - mount and all - and throws it to the ground with an angred grunt.

Everyone sighs, and Max is first to voice their shared concern.

"Do you think he heard that?"

"It's just a phone," Steve replies, his tone of voice betraying his intended confidence. "It could be anywhere... Right?"

Without his permission, Will's eyelids flutter closed and his head begins to twitch.

The Mind Flayer had begun his search.

"Hey," Joyce jumps up worriedly, placing her palm on her son's knee gently shaking it to get his attention. "Hey, can you hear me?"

His bretahing grows increasingly ragged, his eyes moving under his eyelids as the tunnels begin to spread under his command.

Hopper kneels down beside Will, his voice grave. "It knows. It knows where we are."

"Shit," Joyce hisses.

She jumps from her seat altogether and grabs the remaining dose of anesthesia and plunges into Will's other arm. His head drops in seconds and Hopper, Y/n and Jonathan flood outside onto the lawn. Their eyes scan the trees behind them, as well as the rest of the backyard but it is eerily silent.

Until the piercing cry of the Demodogs carries through the air, and across the night sky announcing their advances.

The others hear it even from inside the house, and they near the window. Moonlight spills onto their faces, illuminating their fear as they realize the dangers to come.

"That's not good," Dustin breaths, paralyzed.

The quartet return to the shed, pushing themselves past the makesshift curtains blanketing the door.

"They're coming!" Jonathan cried to his mother and Mike.

Everyone scrambles to untangle Will from his restraints, and scurry inside, Will over Jonathan's shoulder.

The only one to linger is Hopper, who hesitates outside the shed, and goes back for the rifle that sat amongst the pile of the sheds discarded things.

He's the last to enter the house, closing and locking the door behind him, and yet he does not know what good it will do them. He marches across the kitchen, grabbing the other rifle he had nabbed from the lab, and enters the living room. His eyes widen when he sees the children packed against the windows on the couch.

"Hey." He barks. "Hey, get away from the windows!"

They scramble off the couch and one by one everyone else files into the living room as they prepare. Hopper's scanning eyes land on Jonathan and he holds up one of the rifles.

"Do you know how to use this?"

"What?" Jonathan asks, still processing the sudden change of events.

"Can you use this?" Hopper seethes, turning red in the face as his impatience grows.

Another voice answers.

"I can,"

Dustin and Jonathan part as Nancy steps forward, and catches the rifle in her hands without a second thought. Her and Hopper cock their guns, and take their aim. In a matter of moments, everyone is packed in against one other in a protective huddle, their hearts beating as loud as drums. Some were lucky - and quick - enough to get their hands on anything they could use as a weapon. Apart from Y/n, who began wringing out her hands and attempting to shake out her nerves, and Steve who wielded his signature weapon; the spiked bat.

The tense silence grows thicker, hanging in the air far longer than any one of them would have preferred. The occasional chitter could be heard, and the rusting of branches followed all too soon.

"Where are they?" Max cries, her fear grows when she finds herself without a weapon.

Subconsciously, she moves herself tighter to be near Lucas who has drawn his wrist rocket.

Another silence, and the next noise to be heard beside their ragged breaths is the sudden groaning of the beast who growing closer by the second.

What sounded to a select few like a human cry was drowned out in the several thuds and more screeches from the Demodogs. The sound of branches breaking outside brought everyone's attention - and aim - to the dining room window visible from where they stood.

"What are they doing?" Nancy mumbled through her fearful panting.

Everyone could see the leaves shake violently against the window as if something had landed in the bushes.

The battle cries of the Demodogs flew from window to window at an alarming speed, as did the barrels of Hopper and Nancy's guns.

Everyone watches with great worry and confusion as the battle cries quickly turn to cries of pain. And for one small moment they think they hear the sounds of bones crushing as it screeches in pain.

Before their minds can conjure any possible explanation, the far left window pane shatters as the body of a Demodog comes crashing onto the living room floor. Violent cries of terror rip from everyone's throats as they jump out of the way, turning on the intruder.

Their guards lower on a single notch as they realize the thing lays completely lifeless. And yet, they creep forward to examine the body, Hopper the closest of all as he advances on what he hopes is its corpse.

"Holy shit," Dustin whispers.

"Is it dead?" Max gapes, wearily inching forward towards the monster.

Hopped takes a deep breath, gun still drawn and finger on the trigger and inches his boot closer to the Demodog. It's lifeless head falls to the side limply, and everyone breathes what they know to be a temporary sigh of relief.

The relief is snatched up in seconds, and everyone's guard returns when they hear a soft wooden creak coming from the front door. Everyone returns to their position, weapons drawn ready to fight.

An unusual sight turns their heads as they watch the deadbolt unlock by itself. It's sharp click booms in their ears like thunder. Everyone creeps forward by a mere few steps, and in their heightened adrenaline fueled state, they begin to questions the Demodogs capabilities if only for a fleeting moment before dismissing it altogether.

They watch in awe as the chain lock on the door, slides itself unlocked, and drops instantly, swing limply against the door. It creates a taunting scrape as it grazes the door.

Everyone wonders what they are about to face, everyone apart from a the dutiful chief, a missing experiment, and a certain boy who does not dare let himself entertain the idea in fear of another painful heartbreak.

With soft and muffled clicks from the tumblers, the wooden door creaks open painfully slow. A worn out pair of white sneakers fit around a dainty pair of feet cross the threshold and onto the wooden floors.

All weapons lower immediately in shock as they gape at the sight before them. Standing across the room in a brand-new wardrobe and slightly longer hair blending perfectly with her usual bleeding nose and fierce look in her eye was none other than El.

Her eyes scan the small crowd of familiar and unfamiliar shock-ridden faces until they land on the one she had never stopped dreaming about. Her heart skips a beat when she does not seem him at first before bursting altogether when he steps out from behind Hopper's towering frame.

His widened eyes are swimming in tears as he gazes at her as of she were mirage. Her hard and concentrated glare melts immediately into vulnerability as she meets his eyes, feeling eerily similar to him as if he would inevitably disappear as soon as she woke up.

And instantaneously, matching bright smiles break out on their faces when they know.

Neither of them were dreaming, and at long last, they had finally found one another again.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

PLEASE!!! Don't stop fighting for black lives. This has been said a thousand times and it shouldn't have ever needed be said in the first place but just because it isn't on the news as much anymore, that it's not "trending" anymore doesn't mean it's over. Please continue fighting back and doing what you can. Links below as usual.

Protect Protestors From Federal Officers

[my city of Portland is not the only one to face this, as there are plans of using this tactic on other cities trump views as a threat. Please help!]

[Link]

Black Trans Education Foundation GoFundMe

"We're raising money to provide $3,000 scholarships directly to 20 black trans students."

Donate if you can and please, please share!!

[Link]

rown & black businesses damaged by the protests

"In efforts to help Black & Brown businesses that were damaged during riots this weekend, @ buyblackatl and @ spoiledberry are raising money. Please share this, and if you or anyone you know owns a Black/Brown owned business that was impacted, please contact us. 🖤"

[Link]

+++

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DM me, or drop by my inbox if you want to be added!

[hilmihisham]

#100: "It should be for things much better than this but oh well.."

Yea, #100 looks like a good number for a good content - I thought maybe like a round-up thoughts about everything that's been going on with my life back in LA, but one thing leads up to another and I've been out from university for about 2 1/2 years now and so, the post also been overdue for 2 1/2 years now. I might still do that post someday, or time will made me forgot most of the stuff and thoughts about my life during those time and that post won't happen - only time will tell haha.. what a bad writer am I lol

..and so, this is #100.

The date is 5th June 2021, it's almost a week after we had a total lockdown (again) due to you-know-what thingy, and yeah, I wasn't feeling very good. Or that's how I think I am currently.

I dunno, it's probably one small thing stacking onto another, leading up for it to be a pile of things, and before you know it, it just sort of happen. The off feeling is just there without I realizing it.

I feel off. Mentally tired, I guess. When I sit back after having this feeling and start to trace back what is going on in my head currently that I thought "yea, that's probably it".

This MCO feels like going on for forever that I already forgot when's the last time I've been out basking the sunlight and the heat it radiates. I know it's not that long since I've been out from my room and house, but it feels like so long ago.

And other stuff too. Stuff after stuff keeps happening one after another during this weird time that my brain just simply said "ugh, no more" and kicking itself into tiredness without any input from my own sense. Well, now that I had sit down and tracing back all that is happening, all these stuff, nothing happens to me personally, nothing hitting on me personally; but that too is a problem I guess - nothing really happening to me. Nothing bad, nothing good. If I were to draw a chart to evaluate any stuff happening over time for me, I think it was a solid flat line. Nothing, nada, zero. And that's probably quite bad for a human, no? Well, nothing happens is better than something bad happens, but human can't never be satisfied with nothing, no? haha

Like I said before, things do happens but it's not directly onto me per se. It happens somewhere close by, someone close to me, something related to me from afar, something connected to me from a different time. I dunno how to describe it proper but those things does have connection back to me, either broadband or narrowband, wired or wireless. Y'know, when you heard of all this thing happens, you'd go something like "oh wow, hopefully everything's alright to you" or "ahh, so sorry to hear that" or something similar to that effect. But one thing onto another and another thing onto another and it starts to drain you without you realizing it.

"Things happen to others does hurts you in one way or another too."

I guess that sentence sums up quite good on the situation.

And the way I live my life during this stay-at-home period probably wasn't helping me either. Yeah, it's good that I got to stay and work from home for the most of this MCO time since way from the beginning of it, but I might need to do better about it. Very lazy routine I had during these time - wake up, work, nap a bit, off work, food, internet, sleep, and repeat - that's probably not good at all. Lacking way too much exercise, probably not good for my health too, I suppose.

To be honest, I've been hit with creativity block too before this day happen. At one point before, I've had a very big urge to do something creatively, be it writing or drawing or coding or anything but I just sort of lost and can't get anything to start. Not even starting that step zero. I've said before many years ago: content creation is a part of my life, but a side of me just went "yeah, let's go, let's do something, anything" and the other side simply "uhh, what?". It just couldn't happen.

But to inject something positive into this dark post, I finally got something going again. Well, at least I've started writing again, writing this, so at least something of me had past step zero - matter none how big or small that leap is. I guess it's all thanks to all the books that I have in my mini library. I just simply open that bookshelf door one day, get a chair and seated myself in front of it, grab an unfinished book and start reading again. It feels good, it feels something had come in to me again. Maybe that something into me had got me to give out something again in the form of this writing. I dunno. But, that's one good thing or one step towards a better lockdown life of mine.

For towards a better future me, I better start exercising again, I guess. Not that I'm an exercise kinda character before, but it's totally off now for me. I guess the ratio for physical to mental tiredness is probably at 0:100 right now, and that's not a good thing at all. Even I know that. Gotta start somewhere, slowly. Gotta find one way or another to make it happens, so let's see how it goes.

Or I probably just need a ray of sunshine. No, literally, sunlight.

Well, as to end this very dark post (writing after a long time), I hope that everyone reading this (dark me: who read anything I write anyway haha) have a good day, no matter where you are. It's a tough time for all of us, I've succumbed into it as you can see from this text, but hopefully it doesn't happen to you. Take a good care of your mental, your body, your health. "Stay at home and stay safe" is a cliché phrase, but just live on with it for a bit longer, I guess.

May Allah bless.

[interrogatormentors]

Event Twelve: Underhanded Tactics

Eridan woke up in the medbay, a common occurrence these nights. His whole head throbbed, and he slid his tongue along the roof of his cotton-dry mouth. He cracked open an eye only to screw it shut again, head panging again as a jolt of fear rattled through his gut. The phantom scent of antiseptic teased at his memory, the sound of hair clippers and the saw discordant and lingering as the Empress crooned at his side. You are my confidante, she’d said. You must keep my secrets close, locked tight so no one can pull them from you. Stop crying, guppy, brain surgery ain’t so bad. 

He took a deep breath through his nose, gills flaring as he struggled to avoid hyperventilating. The past couldn’t hurt him, initial panic notwithstanding. His arm itched, a faint movement confirming the IV needle sunk into a vein. He felt around for the needle, ripping it out of his arm and clamping his hand down to stem the resulting spurt of blood.

“Sir!” Eridan ignored the alarmed squawk of a nearby mediculler, sitting up on the medical platform and peeling his eyes open. “You should be resting--”

“I didn’t give nobody permission to bring me in, Icrusa,” Eridan said, voice a rough croak. He cleared his throat, replacing his whole hand with his index finger to put pressure on the IV site instead. The mediculler swallowed hard, shrinking back as Eridan shot him an icy glare. “Told you this the last time.”

“You keep passing out, sir,” Icrusa said. His ears flushed a brilliant yellow as Eridan glowered. “You really shouldn’t be drinking so much, not with your pan in such a delicate state.” Icrusa stopped speaking as Eridan gripped onto the side of the medical platform, highblood strength twisting and warping the metal frame.

“My pan ain’t delicate,” he said. “I’m no different than I was a sweep ago. I’m not some delicate pissblooded helmsman. I can handle it. And the next time you try an’ give me some holier than thou bullshit regardin’ my drinkin’ habits, I’m setting you out the airlock. I didn’ ask for you to give me fuckin’ unsolicited health advice an’ you’d fuckin’ do well to remember that.” He reached for his glasses, shoving them on his face. His finger skipped over the false slap of skin at his temples, hiding the new port for a biowire. His stomach rolled, and he shoved it away. Don’t think about it. Don’t feel. Shut off your emotions, guppy, like a husktop. “I can’t get work done in the medbay. Sign my release form.”

Icrusa hesitated before bobbing his head, scurrying back to his office. He knew better by this point than to point out that yes, actually, it was his job to give health advice considering his status as the ship’s official mediculler after the last time Eridan woke up hungover in the medbay. Eridan watched him the whole time through narrowed eyes, foot tapping at a near frantic pace as he waited. He left the medbay even before the mediculler left his office, lifting the cape folded at the end of the platform and swinging it back around his shoulders. A sweep ago he would have felt childish, wearing a cape again, haunted by wiggler memories of immature games and lofty aspirations he could never hope to reach. But the Empress had given it to him, just for him in her color, gold woven into the hem with his sign etched into the embroidery, marking him as hers. 

He went to his block, avoiding the stares from crew members as he swept past them. He didn’t need their concern or their pity to do his job. The moment he entered he snatched a half-empty flask from his desk, draining the rest of it and sighing as his throat burned. Nothing beat a hangover like a bit of hair of the woofbeast, and a few minutes later his panic faded back into the background. Everything was okay. He was fine, everything was normal, and he could get to work.

Eridan sank into his chair, fumbling around for a bottle of soporific and refilling his flask as he eyed a desk drawer with distaste. He sucked in a breath before opening it, picking up the squirming biowire pinched between his index finger and thumb. He gritted his teeth before flicking the false flap of skin back, putting the wire to his temple. The biowire squirmed and sank into the port, and Eridan flinched as pain shot through his brain. The Empress had assured him the procedure was safe, convenient, but every time he hooked up to a computer Eridan felt like death clawed at his pan. He didn’t have psionics, he didn’t have all the electric pulses constantly thrumming through his body and shortening the neural pathways so the biowire could work efficiently. The biowire twisted his thoughts into agonized tendrils, every transfer of encrypted data giving him a migraine for hours. 

Still he hooked himself to his computer, taking another draft from his refilled flask as he opened up his alerts and tasks for the day. A download automatically started-- a security update for the ship itself, procedures for lockdown in case of a hijacking. The rebellion kept forcing the Empire’s hand, this latest security update a response to the more frequent hijackings by the movement that drew closer and closer to the heart of the fleet. Eridan bowed his head as the details wove their way into the meat of his pan, sinking into the hardware and locking themselves away. His hands shook, and he had to take a few minutes before focusing back on his tasks. His duties as Head Admin hadn’t ceased. Supplies needed ordering, personnel needed allocating, and patrol routes needed vetting. The duties never stopped, they never stopped piling up, and the notifications at the bottom right of his husktop screen with the sheer number of them seared their image into Eridan’s eyeballs.

Eridan leaned back in his seat, scrubbing at his eyes and then staring at the ceiling. Turn off the emotions. He could do that, he needed to do that, in order to keep going. He couldn’t waylay the demands of the Empress, and he had a responsibility to his ship to keep it running. Wasting time freaking out about the lack of time and lack of autonomy held him back. Besides, he never made good decisions for himself in the first place.

The intercom crackled on his desk, and Eridan snarled as he depressed the call button with his finger. “The fuck you need, Shakes?”

“Uh. Sorry to bother you, but we got a docking request,” Shakes said. “You good?”

“Not relevant. The BC Condescension is a galaxy over until the end of the perigee, so tell whoever we ain’t dockin’ for shit.”

“No, no, boss, this ain’t just any old request. It’s, uh, an interrogatormentor cruiser?”

Eridan lifted his head where he’d been resting it on his hand, blood crystallizing into icy shards of fear. “What? Why?”

“Beats me,” Shakes said. “They’ve got all the required security codes all lined up neat for me. I couldn’t get a bead on the helmsman either-- It’s like they don’t even have one. Do I let them dock?”

“It’s th’ bloody interrogatormentors. Do we have a choice?” Eridan plucked the biowire from his skull, shoving it back in his desk and smoothing his hair flat once again. “Let them on. I’ll let the Captain know.”

He met the interrogatormentors in the docking bay as they disembarked their tiny cruiser. The two purples stood out, towering high above the third, weedy troll between them. Eridan had to shake himself as he took in the yellowblood, the image of the decrepit Helmsman superimposed over the far more muscled and smooth-faced interrogatormentor in front of them. The fact the interrogatormentor clearly had helming experience didn’t help, his skin riddled with resealable ports that shone in the overhead lights. That explained the helmsman, then. Of course Shakes wouldn’t be able to get a bead on a helmsman with interrogatormentor training. Eridan cleared his throat, straightened his posture, and approached.

“Are you the captain?” The yellowblood cocked his head an inch, looking Eridan up and down. Something in his tone indicated he already knew the answer to his question, and his lisp niggled at memory in the back of Eridan’s pan.

“No. I’m Head Admin Ampora. State your business and I will fetch the captain for--”

The female purple to the side of the first interrogatormentor held up a hand, cutting him off. She wore no face paint unlike her companion. The male purple in question stared at Eridan openly, twitching as he heard Eridan’s name. It took Eridan a moment to register Gamzee aged as he was, gone through his final adult molt and towering above him. He met Gamzee’s eyes for only a moment before tearing his gaze away. He couldn’t risk Gamzee opening his mouth. He only wondered how Gamzee had landed a position alongside an interrogatormentor squad considering how Eridan faintly recalled outing his rebel connections upon first meeting the Empress.

The yellowblooded interrogatormentor cleared his throat. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. His fangs flashed as he spoke. “You’ve been compromised, Admin Ampora.”

The voice finally knocked something loose in Eridan’s pan, unlocking memories of voice calls at midday and filled with shouting wigglers spouting heresy. “TwinArmageddons?”

“CaligulasAquarium,” the yellow interrogatormentor replied, without missing a beat. 

Eridan stared at him, and stayed silent. They stayed at an impasse for a few moments, neither of them willing to out the other's rebel ties without revealing their own as Gamzee kept looking between them as the treasonous icing on the cake. It was as if Eridan had handed the interrogatormentor a grenade, and the yellowblood had pulled the pin while the grenade sat in their joined hands.

The female purple looked to the yellow, who cleared his throat. “I read his file. He read mine.” Eridan didn’t like how easily he lied, terror still prickling at the base of his skull. He scratched the back of his head, trying to ignore the wicked scar there. 

“So. Right. You here to torture me?” Eridan asked. “Interrogatormentor…?”

“Captor,” the yellowblood said. He indicated the female purple, and then Gamzee. “Interrogatormentor Davrot, Security Officer Makara. We’re responding to an alert your ship is harboring rebels and they are attempting to remove you from your position as the Empress’ consort.”

Eridan’s brows furrowed, and he shook his head. “No. You got the wrong ship. I ain’t recruitin’ rebels. Especially none tryin’ to undermine me.”

Captor snorted, lowering his chin in a clear sign of arrogant condescension. He waved a hand and the two purples separated from his side where they’d clung like remoras to a shark’s parasite-ridden gills. “Strange. The report said you’re the one that caught the alert and brought it to the Empire’s attention.”

Eridan stared, trying to knit together the holes in his memory and recall ever summoning interrogatormentors. He did a lot of his work drunk now, true enough, but he had a handle on it and remembered the important information. If anything he only remembered the Empress, a foggy memory of her praising him for his work against the rebellion. Was this what she meant?

He turned as he heard yelling and a distant commotion, but Captor waved a hand. “Ignore this and get back to whatever you Head Admins call work while we deal with your infestation,” he said. “You’ll be updated when we get what we need.” 

He walked away, silent as before as he ghosted after the two purples. Eridan watched him go before shaking himself back into reality, looking around to see a few crewmates halted in their duties and watching him. “You’re not paid to dick around,” he said, baring his teeth. “Unless any of the rest of you want to be investigated for rebel leanings. Might as well make use of the interrogatormentors while they’re here.” The idle crewmembers jumped back into their work, avoiding Eridan’s eye as he left the room.

Hours passed, and Eridan wanted to throttle something. Everyone wanted to know what the interrogatormentors wanted or needed, and he had nothing to give them. He didn’t even know the name of the troll being investigated, and he didn’t care. As long as the interrogatormentors weren’t knocking at his door and asking what he knew of Feferi and her rebellion, he didn’t care.

Someone knocked on his door. Eridan jumped, almost knocking over his flask onto his keyboard and only just managing to catch it before it fell. He swore and stood, opening the door to see the trio of trolls from earlier, Interrogatormentor Davrot dragging a fourth, barely conscious troll behind her by the hair. Olive blood oozed from multiple lacerations across the troll’s face and arms.

“Bricks?” Eridan tried to not sound so betrayed, but his voice dripped with it.

Bricks stirred, groaning before opening an eye. His other eye was swollen shut. “I’m not a rebel,” Bricks said. He yelped as Davrot yanked his hair up, clinging to her wrist for dear life in a feeble attempt to alleviate the pain.  “I’m not. Don’t listen to them-- I just tried to get you help!”

“Help with what?” Eridan’s fingers curled in the hem of his cape, and he let go only when he caught Captor staring at the gesture like a predator eyeing its prey.

Bricks stayed silent, hissing as Davrot forced him onto his knees. She leaned in, grabbing him by the horn and twisting. “No. No no no-- Not again--” Bricks screamed as Eridan caught the sound of horn splintering, grinding against itself. “The Empress! Stop-- She’s killing you, Ampora, can’t you see it? Anyone with eyes can fucking see it, it’s only the rebellion that might care! I don’t give a shit about anything else they do, I just wanted them to get you out of this place before it gets any worse..”

Eridan bristled, hands curling into his fists. Captor moved forward before he could say anything, footsteps inaudible on the metal tile. He put his hand on Bricks’ shoulder. “He sold you out,” he said. “You’re preaching to the choir now.” Bricks blinked, looking from Captor to Eridan who stood immobile. Captor snorted, snapping his fingers. Davrot grabbed Bricks’ hand, linking her fingers with his and holding it high above his head as Captor leaned in and grabbed Bricks by the chin. “It’s kind of sweet, isn’t it? You selling each other out to try and save your own sorry hides. You thought you could get away with this? With trying to snatch the Empress’ consort out from under her?” Captor dropped Bricks’ face and turned his bicolored eyes on Eridan. “You employ soft crewmembers, Admin Ampora. We didn’t even have to press hard to crack him open.”

Captor moved his left hand, swiping it overtop his right. Psionics shimmered in its wake, coalescing into a solid blade of hard light. Eridan could feel the thrum of power from here, hairs on the back of his neck standing on end in the wake of this blatant flexing of psionic ability. Bricks jerked his hand in Davrot’s grip, but she stood immobile as Gamzee grabbed his uninjured horn and kept him locked in place. “Ampora. Eridan. Come on. Who the fuck do you think keeps scraping your sorry ass off the floor every time you pass out? Tell me they’re lying-- You wouldn’t throw me under like this. I know you.”

“You don’t know me,” Eridan said. He couldn’t remember telling any interrogatormentors about an outgoing message to the rebels, or even mentioning it offhand to the Empress. He didn’t know if he wanted to. The Empress gave him everything, she gave him status and gifts and he served as her comfort and her informant. Bricks wanted to take that all away-- He wanted to ruin everything Eridan had worked so hard for and send him back to step one in the dirt with rebels. Rebels that Eridan had burned so many bridges with it might as well be a scrapyard, that had said to his face and beyond that he would never be welcome until he shaped up. He’d shaped up, he’d shipped out into the stars, and crafted himself into something better that neither Feferi nor any of her other cronies could hope to touch. “I… Yeah. I did.”

Bricks’ face fell, only for him to scream as Captor swiped out with the psionic blade and separated the engineer’s hand from his wrist with crunching bone and the smell of seared flesh. The hand skidded across the floor, smearing a trail of olive blood along the floor and landing at Eridan’s feet. Eridan stared down at it as Davrot and Gamzee let Bricks crumple to the ground, clutching his arm and screaming.

He only looked up as Captor advanced on him, schooling his face back into the blank slate the Empress had taught him. A thin line of yellow blood snaked down the interrogatormentor’s face from his nose due to no doubt immeasurable strain required by him wielding that blade. “Keep this close as a reminder to your crew. I trust you’ll do the right thing,” Captor said. He bent down and picked up the hand, and dropped it into Eridan’s. Eridan’s muscles tensed to throw it away, stomach rolling, but he only stared down at it, conditioned by this point to be totally numb as every instinct screamed at him to do something. Instead, he could be good. He could do nothing. The Empress would be proud of him, or at least he hoped as much. 

He snapped back to attention as Captor inclined his head and spoke again. “Long live the Empire.”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Eridan said, straightening his back as he automatically saluted, expression schooled into a blank mask, the drunken flush from earlier banished from his face. “Long live the Empire.”

Captor swiped at the trickle of blood on his face with his thumb and nodded, turning on his heel. The two purples flanked him again, bringing up the rear as they disappeared down the hall.

Eridan dropped the hand the moment the interrogatormentors went out of sight, skin crawling, but he couldn’t bring himself to so much as whimper. He couldn’t trust his crew. He couldn’t trust his memory. He could only trust the Empress, that she would recognize the dangers pointing daggers at his back and save him, as she no doubt had in sending interrogatormentors to his ship.

He shut the door to his blocks, leaving Bricks sobbing on the floor. He didn’t feel anything, anything at all. Even as he sent the Captain a message about the incident and Bricks writhed on the floor in pain outside his blocks he felt nothing, the tears that finally spilled from his eyes more a physical response to the lingering smell of charred flesh in his nose more than anything. He’d have to do something about the hand eventually, and he wouldn’t put it past a sadistic interrogatormentor to actually make sure he kept the hand on display somewhere. That definitely would not win him any brownie points with the crew, especially with how alienated he felt from them by this point. He doubted even Shakes would give him the time of day after this, with what he let happen to Bricks. Fuck, he needed another drink.

They’d told him in Fleet Academy that space was vast, that space was empty and cruel and cold. But no one had told him, they didn’t warn him, that space was so fucking lonely. 

[gumnut-logic]

We’ll Be Home For Christmas 2.2

Title: We’ll be home for Christmas

Day Two – Aboard This Tiny Ship – Part 2 Prologue | 1.1 | 1.2 | 2.1

Author: Gumnut

14 - 18 Dec 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: The boys can’t fly home for Christmas, so they have to find another way.

Word count: 2576

Spoilers & warnings: language and so, so much fluff. Science!Gordon. Minor various ships, mostly background.

Timeline: Christmas Season 3, I have also kinda ignored the main storyline of Season 3. The boys needed a break, so I gave them one. Post season 3B, before Season 3C cos we haven’t seen it yet.

Author’s note: For @scattergraph. This is my 2019 TAG Secret Santa fic :D I hope you enjoy it.

This section is a touch shorter than the last one, but the next section will be much bigger.

Many thanks to @vegetacide and @scribbles97 for cheering me on and their wonderful support through this craziness. And to @onereyofstarlight for geeking out with me over the setting.

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

 Scott was ready to chew an arm off just to entertain himself by the time Gordon announced they were approaching L’Esperance Rock just after lunch. He’d seen it enough from the air to know it meant they were around halfway home. The thought did give him some relief and he stood at the bow of the boat watching the islet come into view.

A grunt behind him had him turning to find Virgil making his way forward, coffee in one hand, abdomen in the other. He darted in to help his brother up the steps.

“I’m okay.”

“I know you are. Just being useful.”

That earned him a stare and an arched eyebrow. “You’re bored shitless, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“I’m okay.”

Virgil snorted. “I had a bet with John you’d last until tonight at least. You’ve shafted me fifty bucks, big brother.”

Scott grunted. “Well, that explains why he was so happy to steal my phone.”

“He stole your phone?” Brown eyes frowned up at him.

“Oh, yes. On Grandma’s orders apparently.”

“That’s cheating.”

“Heh, that’s between the two of you. I’m only the subject of the bet, not the umpire.”

“Null and void. He’s not getting a cent.”

Scott grinned as he held his brother’s elbow, surprised he hadn’t been shook off.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Virgil’s voice was wistful as they approached the railing. “Sometimes I think we get too busy or just take it all for granted. We do live in a stunning corner of the planet.”

“Dad always thought so. I wouldn’t have called him much of an environmentalist, but he knew what was important.”

“Hmm, I think you underestimate him. You were off the Island when Alan brought two rats home as pets.”

“He did what?!”

Another arched eyebrow. “Yes, he did, early on. Snuck them in. Dad went ballistic when he found out. The words he used had Grandma blushing. Let’s just say that Beau and Belle were deported rather abruptly and Alan now has an unofficial degree in environmental management.”

“Hmph, serves him right.”

Virgil smiled at him. “Sounds like you might be a bit of an environmentalist yourself.”

A tolerant glare at his brother. “I do what is necessary.”

Scott was surprised when Virgil’s response to that statement was a sigh. His brother’s expression was almost sad.

“What?”

“You need to relax.”

“I am relaxing.”

“No, you’re not. You’re wired tighter than Two’s primary generator. You need to find a way to wind down. We’re on vacation.”

“We’re on mandatory lockdown.”

“Grandma is right. We need a break. Preferably before we break something we can’t repair.”

“It’s not just about us!”

“Yes, it is! You need to let go! Focus on you for a change.”

“Dad-“

“Is not here! You have the right to a life, Scott. You have the right to look after yourself, to have a little fun, for god’s sake. When was the last time you read a fiction book? Flew a kite? Sat in front of the projector and binge watched an old television show?”

“There are more important things-“

“Importance is relative. It was you who blew my head off a matter of days ago about priorities, was it not? Our business forces us to prioritise according to lives at risk, I get it. I know it. I live it beside you. But you are my big brother, you are the leader of this team, your health affects our effectiveness. To put it harshly, some may die today, so many more can be saved in the future.” Virgil visibly swallowed. “I know International Rescue is important, but please, take the time, Scott. If you have to, do it for IR, do it for us or me or whatever gets you going, but most of all please do it for yourself.” Quietly. “I can’t lose you.”

What the hell? “You’re not going to lose me.”

“If you don’t look after yourself, we will!” He didn’t think it was physically possible for his brother to frown harder.

“If you don’t look after yourself, you’re going to blow your stitches.”

“This isn’t about me, it’s about you!”

“So, what are you thinking? Yell at me until I crack? I’m not finding this relaxing at all, Virg.”

“Well, it seems I need volume for you to actually hear me, because you certainly don’t listen otherwise.”

He couldn’t think of an immediate retort to that and to be honest he was worried Virgil was going hurt himself if he wasn’t careful, he appeared so uncharacteristically angry. “You’re that worried?”

“Of course, I’m fucking worried!”

Whoops, wrong thing to say.

“Virgil! Calm down. You’re the one who needs to relax.” He reached out and placed his hands on his brother’s shoulders. “Take a breath.”

To his surprise, Virgil was actually trembling a little. He was that passionate about this? He hadn’t been doing that badly, had he?

His brother did as requested and took a deep breath. “You are so hard to look after sometimes.” It was breathy and full of exhaled tension.

“You don’t have to look after me, Virg.”

“Somebody has to.” He looked up and brown eyes caught his. “Because you don’t.”

Ah, shit. A sigh and Scott gently drew his brother into a hug. “Okay, I’m sorry, I’ll try to do better.”

His brother didn’t answer, but he did lean in a little, one big hand reaching around Scott’s back and returning the embrace. “Please try.”

“Okay.”

Virgil pulled away slowly, not looking up at his brother, but focussing on the coffee he held in his other hand. He brought it to his lips and turned away slightly.

Scott stared at the back of his brother’s head and frowned.

The boat slowed as they approached the Rock. As jagged as its distant cousin, the Rock was like a miniature version of their home, the very top of a huge undersea volcano.

“Are we stopping here?”

Virgil’s question echoed his own thoughts. He thumbed his comms. “Gordon, are we stopping here?”

“Only for a moment. Just grabbing a sensor snapshot for Mel.”

Melissa Fisher, their closest neighbour. Blonde and sharp, she would remind him of Penny if it wasn’t for her obsession with all things Kermadec. That and the twigs in her hair. Even Dad had been a little wary of stepping on anything living when visiting Raoul Island. And visit they had. They needed to keep up relations and the woman was a mine of information when it came to ecological stabilisation and rehabilitation. Tracy Island had its issues when his father bought it and ever aware of the ecological importance of the area, once Brains had built the necessary infrastructure, his father had attempted to re-stabilise the ecosystem.

Melissa had been very helpful.

Gordon had taken to her immediately, jabbering in biology terms. For a bit there, Scott had wondered if the two of them might get involved with a different kind of biology, she was a little older than Gordon, only a year younger than Scott, but that might just float his brother’s boat. But apparently, they were too distracted by what they were discussing to notice each other.

Scott hadn’t seen her in years.

The boat came to a complete stop not far from the Rock and a moment later, Gordon appeared on the starboard side and threw out his sensor buoy.

Virgil was staring at him.

Scott blinked. “What is it?”

His brother didn’t answer immediately, those dark eyes assessing him a moment longer before sipping his coffee. But then a decision flickered across his expression and his hand reached out and gently took Scott’s arm. “Come with me.”

His brother turned slowly and led him off the bow. He negotiated the stairs and walked Scott back into the living area where Gordon was once again staring at holographic fish.

“Sit down and wait a moment.” His brother disappeared off into the depths of the living quarters.”

“Yes!”

Gordon’s jubilant yell made Scott jump. What?

His little brother was staring at a huge fish. A huge and weird looking fish. “What is that?”

“That, my wonderful big brother, is a sunfish or Mola mola, to be more specific.”

“And that is?”

Gordon glanced at him and frowned. “Heaviest bony fish on the planet. Came close to extinction twenty years ago. Saved by the World Council and its endangered species bill in 2039.” He turned back to the holographic display. “Though this one appears to have had some challenges.” Gordon’s fingers traced some gouges on the fish’s flank. “Old, but nasty.”

“Shark?”

His brother snorted. “No. That’s net scar. It’s been caught in a fishing net at some point. I can’t see any trace of the net, so this has to be one of the lucky ones.” The giant fish drifted lazily across the table as Gordon grabbed his tablet and stabbed his finger into it several times. “It must be well travelled. We are quite a distance from the fishing zones here.”

“I thought I told you to sit down.” Virgil edged carefully back into the room carrying his keyboard.

“And I thought you weren’t supposed to be lifting anything.” Scott hurried over and took the instrument from his brother’s hands.

“It’s not heavy.”

“So I have to look after myself, yet you don’t?”

Virgil’s shoulders dropped. “Okay, okay. Give me a second.” His brother grabbed a couple of cushions and shoved them together on a lounge chair to support his back and lowered himself into it. “Put it here.” He gestured across the arms of the chair and his lap.

Wary, Scott put the keyboard, that, yes, actually was quite heavy, down where his brother told him too. “Be careful.”

Virgil frowned up him with an expression that plainly said, ‘What am I? Stupid?’

“Well, you did carry the keyboard out here, did you not?”

His brother muttered something Scott couldn’t quite hear and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

“Now, you sit down and close your eyes.” A pause. “No, actually, lie down on the couch and close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Just do as I ask.”

Scott rolled his eyes, but lay down. “You didn’t used to be this bossy.”

“You didn’t used to be this stubborn. Call it evolution in trying times.”

“Smart ass.”

“Shut up and close your eyes.”

Scott muttered under his breath, wriggled where he lay and did as his brother told him. Anything to stop the man from freaking out.

His brother began to play, the keys soft and blending with the water lapping against the hull. With his eyes closed, his mind focussed on the sounds around him. Gordon’s fingers on his tablet, heard just under the music. The distant calls of seabirds. Actually, it wasn’t much of a step from the sounds of home. Virgil playing his piano. Gordon sitting on the lounge playing with his tablet. The balcony doors open to the breeze, the distant sound of the waves on Tracy Island rock, the distant call of the bird colony on Mateo. John would be in his room reading. Alan would be playing a video game in the kitchen while Grandma attempted to make dinner. Brains, as always, would be in his lab.

Virgil playing the piano.

Waves against the rocks.

Birds calling...

Home.

-o-o-o-

Virgil kept playing ever so softly. Gordon had stopped working and was staring at the two of them, frowning.

Scott started snoring.

Gordon’s eyes widened and he mouthed words at Virgil. ‘How do you do that?’

Virgil just smiled and kept on playing, drifting into a long, gentle piece his mother had taught him long ago.

At some point he closed his eyes, too, and let himself go with the music, let his fingers do what the music asked.

He woke to find both Scott and John sitting opposite him.

“That was dirty pool, Virg.”

He blinked. Someone had taken the keyboard away and shoved a few extra pillows into the chair to support him. “You knew what I was doing. I’m just your excuse. How long did you last?”

It was John who spoke up. “About twenty minutes. It was enough. Gordon had to get the boat moving. He woke up the moment the engine started.”

“You, on the other hand, have been out for over two hours.” Scott was smug. “You missed the active volcano.”

Virgil turned to John. “Anything worth looking at?”

His younger brother shrugged. “Looked like an island to me. Bigger than the Rock. No activity at the moment.”

Virgil turned back to Scott. “Sounds like I didn’t miss anything. Where are we now?”

“Anchored at Macauley Island.” Gordon strode across the room. “Hey, Virg. Good to see you awake. You might like to see this.” His fish brother’s grin was highly suspicious.

It took both Scott and John to get him out of the chair. He should not sleep sitting up with abdominal incisions. Ow.

For a moment there he thought Scott was going to send him to bed or demand he take painkillers, but he didn’t. His brother didn’t say anything, and even if he did, a familiar roar distracted Virgil enough that he wouldn’t have noticed if his brother said anything anyway.

He pushed himself forward, leaving his helping hands behind and stepped out onto the deck.

His beautiful ‘bird was roaring in from the north. She moved so fast, he blinked and she was coming to a halt some distance away, VTOL firing her into a hover.

He just stared as she dropped her module.

He blinked as Gordon and Alan suddenly started the engine of an inflatable dingy and tore off towards the module sporting its proud number four.

“Thunderbird Two to Virgil.” Kayo’s voice startled him out of his stare. “So how did I do? Score out of ten.”

The door to the module lowered and Gordon leapt out of the little boat and jumped on board.

“Oh, ten, I guess.”

“Ten?!” Gordon’s outrage yelped across comms as the aquanaut turned in the distance and put both hands on his hips. “I knew he liked you more than me. I haven’t managed anything higher than an eight and I’ve been trying for years!”

Kayo didn’t answer as his ‘bird turned and took off for home, but Virgil grinned. “Keeps you on your toes, bro.”

“You suck.”

Their sister snorted across comms as Alan turned the dingy around and headed back. Gordon glared a glare that made it across the ocean despite the distance and stormed off into the module.

Virgil’s grin just got wider. “Why did he call for Four?”

“Something about helping Melissa. A sensor malfunction in the Macauley caldera.” A glance at Scott found him grinning, too. “You know he’s not going to let that go, don’t you?”

“Yep.”

“We’re stuck on a boat, captained by him, in the middle of the ocean and you want to set Gordon off?”

Virgil shrugged. “He’ll enjoy it.”

“We won’t.”

“We’ll live.”

“If I wake up with pink hair, you’re dead.”

“I love you, too.” Virgil was still grinning.

“You do know that you still have your comms on, don’t you?” His aquanaut brother’s voice was admittedly amused.

“Yes, Gordon, I do. Got some good ideas?”

“I guess you’ll have to wait and see.” And with that, Four’s rear thrusters fired and she shot out of the module and into the ocean.

“You got your uniform on?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Fly safe.”

“FAB.”

-o-o-o-

End Day Two, Part Two

Day Two, Part Three

[someonestole15]

7.62, 6000RPM

Lost the time.

Ticking inside the brain, CPU cooling rapidly from the thoughts it was flooded with, yet I can’t feel calm about any of this. Finger twitching for the trigger, my rifle is buried somewhere beneath the horde of dead clones, most of my armor plating was ripped away by them before the heat kicked in.

Battle seemingly approaching its end, Valkyrie has been working on breaking down the firewall keeping us from accessing the carriers defenses. Head in my hands, organizing the data and talking with her as she runs through the systems have kept my mind in check for the most part. Stabilize breathing, get the job done and live to see another day.

Many a question within my mind, one of them revolving around this Goddess he was obsessed with, does she even have a form?

Brought back to reality by Valkyrie slamming the console, the screen glitched a bit before returning the “ACCESS DENIED” message on it. Back on my feet, I opened up the console and looked around the insides of it. When software doesn’t solve it, you go hardware; connecting a wire to my arm gave off an unsteady and static filled beeping. Tuning the frequency cleared the static and after that, the beeping was clear to hear. Three beeps, and then steady for a moment before resetting. Lock it in, Valkyrie triggered the firewall as I kept the signal steady, it fell silent.

ACCESS GRANTED.

Sometimes hardware, sometimes software, or both, two minds work better than one in most cases. Turrets outside silenced, the alarm died down as the lockdown was lifted.

“Nine, we’re done here, how are you doing?”

“Hostile troops detected. Requesting assistance.”

“Hold steady, we’ll come to you.”

Valkyrie took point, the PDW in my hands left me with little to defend myself but the lack of armor kept me light, and stealing/borrowing a rifle from an enemy might prove useful. Make haste, we routed fastest way through to Nine’s location, the slight smirk on my face as the line formed across my HUD. Whirring within the chest, slight leak of coolant as the mask formed back over my face.

Rack the bolt and let it rip, the corridors from this level would connect with a catwalk within the hangar, and then it was just the descent to worry about. Remote upload with the codes, every door opened up before we reached them, any soldier standing between us and the objective falling from either a burst of 4x6 or a blade of Valkyrie, the final door in sight, I holstered the PDW and forced it open, no codes would work on something with any electronics to hold it shut.

“Nine, we’re ready to go.” Squad of ten soldiers looking around the area where Nine’s transponder was, all heavily armed and protected but that leaves them low on mobility.

“Understood, starting countdown.”

Down from ten, I hooked my grapple up with the railing and lowered myself down as Valkyrie took aim from above, combine the skills of all three and see where it leads you. One shot, the squad turned their attention to me as Nine rushed past them, smoke clouding the area as blue sparks within made the air electric. Besides me, I synchronized my vision with Nine as the smoke covered most of the area, blue glow in both eyes as the visor covered them.

“Got you on sights.”

All yours, it was easier to get around the soldiers in the mist. Stand behind one, Valkyrie took her shot. Fall on the blade; I grabbed the soldiers shotgun as his systems died, 7 shells, I kept my aim steady as the distant shots of the marksman rifle kept my footsteps silent.

“Nine, one here.”

Shotgun shell to knee, Nine tackled the soldier down. A bullet to my back, the force spun me around but the shotgun returned the fate upon the soldier who had hit me, he fell back against the hangar floor. Not today, I pulled myself up and pinned the soldier down, firing two shell into his chest. PDW in one hand, my scanners kept a steady pulse with the soldiers outlines appearing through the smoke, there was no hiding amidst it.

Drop another as they were aiming at Valkyrie, grab a leg, pull, force off balance, shotgun butt to the back of the head.

5 left, the sheer adrenaline kept rushing within as the smoke started to fade. Crimson heavy in the midst, armored like a brick of Tungsten with a gatling gun in his hands; he took aim at the catwalk with a soft whirring of the electric motor spooling up the barrels. Flinching from Valkyrie’s shots, he wrestled the gun towards the catwalk and opened fire.

Sweep the leg, the bullets sprayed all across the hangar as I ripped it away from his hands and released the trigger. Shotgun shell to the chest, another for the road, third one made its mark. Out of rounds, I dismissed the shotgun as I took hold of the minigun. Too heavy for me to operate solo, we formed a plan. Backpack of ammunition on Nine, he stuck close as I kept the gun low and spooled it up.

“Val, hold tight.”

“Oh…I see you’ve found a new toy.”

Symphony of BRRRR, the recoil kept me from moving too fast as it fired, but there wasn’t anything between the soldiers and I, a few stray rounds made their marks on my upper torso, but failed to deal any major damage. Barrels glowing red hot, the belt of ammo still about half-full, no more targets left. Locked in place, I placed the minigun onto my sling and grabbed the slightly lighter ammo pack from Nine.

Regroup, Valkyrie lowered herself down to us and we prepared for evac, the silence on our comms was unsettling to say the least. No signal getting through, the deactivated turrets were a clear indication we were done, but the Empire wouldn’t know we were waiting.

Need a backup plan, hell this is their carrier, why not borrow a ship with zero intention to give it back?

Locate the elevator, prep the gun and stand by. Slow descent, the storage deck seemed quiet, nothing but robots working on repairs to various Corporation issue ships. Hard to remain covert with a gun this size on my back, we moved between the ships and avoided detection were possible, scanning the damage on the ships within the bay to locate one that could still fly.

Out of 17, two of the ships seemed fit to fly without too many issues. One was lacking in oxygen systems and had damage to the reactor causing an occasional power spike, the second one?

Aggressive angles, large caliber gun beneath the cockpit and two more before the engine nacelles. Gunship class, name was blanked out but the damage to it seemed minor enough to fly back home.

Transponder had several error codes and the navigation system was missing, but otherwise it seemed fit to fly. Lacks a jump drive, unable to get out of this system as is, but good enough. No keys, the system access codes were held in a terminal nearby.

Grab the keys and grand theft gunship.

[dehvastation]

The Escape Room Part 2 (With @V_Bloodletter)

V: I stood back and watched all the goings on in the room as if I was detached from the scene before me. I had to give it to Dehv, he was busting ass trying to figure out what the fuck was up. Not once did I have to prod the male into doing something. Nope, he just dove in and started to work on whatever was before him. This was a new way of fucking with the Brotherhood. Whoever devised this shit had way too much time on their hands and really needed to get a new hobby. I didn’t say much as Dehv searched out various ways to get us the fuck out of here. And when he ended up with his arm cradled close to him, I stepped up to the first of many games. “I doubt wiring them correctly was a priority to them.” As I was talking I was presently running my gloved hand around the main structure of a Donkey Kong pinball machine. On the surface it all seemed legit but as Dehv was finding out, there were little differences with the aged old games. And this Donkey Kong was no different. It looked normal but the moment I pushed the white buttons on either side a loud whoosh sound flooded the room. I muttered. “That can’t be good.” Various slatts in the walls and ceiling slid open and metal ping pong balls were suddenly be shot out of all the new holes. I shouted a warning to Dehv… “Take cover…” I didn’t waste time to see if he obeyed before I yanked him by his arm and pulled him under the game with me. The sound pinged off the walls and floors, breaking much of the glass on the various other machines as the assault continued. Just when I thought it all started to slow down another obstacle was thrown our way. The ground became unsteady, acting as if you were on a wave board and tossin us around as if we were little more than washcloths. I kept my facing outwards, taking the brunt of the metal balls shooting at us like oversized bullets. I looked up at the underneath of the game the started this whole clusterfuck and without thinking I rammed my fist up unto the machine. It was more an action out of frustrated anger but who knew that the handful of wires I ripped from it, was happily going to stop one of the issues we were having. I rolled onto my back once the balls seized and I could only lay there a moment before I was on my feet and trying to stay upright. Surfing was never my thing and now I knew why, I sucked at it. I was finding it harder to stay upright than to stop landing on my ass and if that wasn’t bad enough, various areas covering said floor, had spikes ram up through the wood flooring. I made my way to a neon sign hanging on the wall and my diamond eyes locked on the green gems that made up the barmaids tits and then another set of jewels that created the numbers bordering said tacky picture. At first glanced they didn’t look out of the ordinary but up close they resembled buttons and sure enough when I pressed on one of her green tits, it pushed in easy enough and gave this ear splintering squeal. I growled a series of curses and shook my head. “Okay, I will try not to make that fucking sound again.”

Dehv: ~ I rubbed hard at my arm, trying my best to get the tingling to go away. I really wanted to get the fuck out of here, but at the same time I knew that if the doors suddenly opened right now to expel us, we’d burn up before we even reached the road. I snorted at V’s weary reply about the electronics and then huffed. “They’re deliberately wired this way. If I’d been human that would have stopped my heart.” I experimented with rolling my fingers, stretching and curling them until I was satisified my hand worked as it was meant to. Next I moved to my wrist and elbow, letting the muscles know that they could relax and do what an arm was meant to do. I hesitated, knowing I should step up to another machine, but really not wanting to find out this one just stabbed something through my brain and that was that. There had to be something that told us what to do. That’s what they did in the human world right? They had a name and I couldn’t recall it at all, though I knew they were popular. I’d never managed to go to one, but I remembered a few employees talking about them when I’d been visiting one of the main offices. There was a sequence or something. I was about to voice my thoughts when Vishous yelled and grabbed my arm, yanking me to the floor and I got my brain in gear to help with moving under one of the higher machines. I could feel the pain flare from the overly tight muscles in my arm before I got hit by one of the metal balls rebounding off something. I gasped and moved further under the tiny bit of protection we both had. I growled slightly when I realised that Vishous was protecting me from the brunt of the pellets. Though there wasn’t anything I could do but move as far to one side as possible to allow him as much cover as we could manage. But two of us, the size we were, the machine really had no change of managing to cover us all. I was just glad the important bits on us both seemed to be sheltered. I winched again as another hit me, and I could see my watch as I lay curled on the floor. I counted the minutes until it seemed to calm. Then the floor tilted. My arm shot out and I curled my fingers around the edge of the longest part of the machine, hoping it was secure enough to stay put while the floor moved around us. Throwing the two of us from side to side. I felt a searing pain lance up my back, but I didn’t focus on that pain, instead wincing when Vishous put his fist through the bottom of the machine. I reached out and squeezed his shoulder to show as much support as I could while hiding from the giants buckshot. All at once it seemed to stop and Vishous was on his feet. I stayed down a minute longer and then rolled, my back screaming at me when I put pressure on it, but not enough for me to stop until I was on my feet. The uneven and frequently changing floor made it impossible to stand still, but also ridiculously draining to focus on staying upright. “I’m getting fucking sick of this, and we’ve only been here a few hours.” I shook my head and started making my way towards the shaft of light that separated us from the room we’d just been in. I looked like bambi on ice, and was just glad there was no cameras to see me land on my ass more than once. It didn’t help that my anger flared the more I failed. I could do fucking up, but I was just pissed at the whole fucking situation. I managed to get within a few feet of the door before I had to clamp my hands over my ears. The noise shot straight through to my brain and had me feeling like I was seeing stars. “Holy shit, what was that?” I frowned and looked at Vishous, something weird pulling my attention right back again a second later. “V, look.” I pointed, trying to keep the aim true as I shuffled with each shift of the floor. Glad that I’d managed to avoid the spikey shit up till now, or most of me. I was starting to think that was what had fucked up my back. Though it wasn’t enough to pull my focus off a faint outline above the door frame, but behind the shaft of light. I knew that looking at it was liable to make it hard to see for a while, as we were far too close to the sunlight as it was, and every nerve in my body was screaming just that at me. “It’s numbers, two rows of them. Your little screaming thing, does it have numbers like the machines do?” I could feel my heartbeat starting to increase as I rolled out my shoulders, maybe it was a code of an order to play things in. Then a code to open the next door. Though either one of us staring hard enough to actually see the numbers in order was going to cause some damage to our retinas. That was a fight I was sure I’d have with V before we got started. “And tell me how you’re doing? You got pelted hard with those stupid little ball things. You covered me, so now you get me playing nurse.” I focused on the numbers as I spoke, eyes starting to water almost immediately with how close I was and the focus needed to do that and stay standing. I then squinted at the machines, their lights waving slightly and the colours muted. “Are they all still in working order despite the hail storm of metal we’ve just got through?” ~

V: My feet were swiftly becoming my enemies as they kept almost slipping out from underneath me with the constant rolling of the floorboards. I had already shoved out of my mind any other issues I might be having at the moment. Like the onslaught of metal pellets that used my back as target practice. That was nothing compared to what Dehv had already endured so far. And that was an issue. I had a male that was no longer a trainee but not a full on brother yet, and the big ball of light in the sky was out in full glory right now. And I sure as fuck didn’t see things changing in our favor any time soon. “They are definitely wired for us and us alone. All of this is nothing more than elaborate cage set up to catch us and keep us contained.” My diamond eyes traveled around the every moving room. “That is until they are done playing cat and mouse with us and ready to be done completely.” But what did it mean when they were done with us and all the games had been played out? Death, a whole other kind of cage or lockdown? The possibilities were endless and we just needed to make sure that there wasn’t a way for them or who the fuck ever was behind this, to get at us. I ran my gloved hand along the wall, for one, it was to help me with balance and also to feel out any other clues. I was getting ready to run my mouth some more but the words died as soon as the floor switched up the game on me. It went from me trying to surf on the over wobbly ground to it opening up and swallowing me whole before closing over again. I landed on my backside with a loud as fuck thud and my head bounced off the concrete floor a few times before it finally stopped. I let out a ragged breath and slowly sit up. The ceiling slash floorboards that I had been sucked through, looked as if it was a regular ceiling now and nothing more. I might have already said this but damn I really had to give props to the fucker that designed this clusterfuck. But even though, I wanted to gut the bastard and I would eventually. Right now I was separated from Dehv and with no way of knowing how to get back to where he was. I stood up and started in with hunting down a way out. But that wasn’t going to be any easier, considering the room I was in this time, there was nothing. It easily resembled being placed in what they called the hole in prison, padded walls and floor with nothing in it, not even a shitter or sink.

Dehv: ~ I squinted at the stupid wall through the shaft of light while I waited on Vishous looking into the machines. I shifted my feet as best I could, trying to avoid anything spikey as well as stay on my feet. I could balance well enough, but I wasn’t known as the most graceful of males. So trying to not burn my eyeballs out while shuffling in place wasn’t the most fun I’d ever had in the world. I could image that Q would laugh his ass off if this was some kind of fucked up candid camera. Minus the me getting hurt thing, but the rest he’d find amusing in other circumstances. I blinked hard and turned when I heard some kind of weird clunks and squeaks, my gaze landing on Vishous as his gloved hand landed on the wall. The next second he disappeared. I felt my jaw drop before my brain really caught up with what was happening. I started to back up before I felt my back burning in warning that I was getting far too close to sunlight, and burning myself to a crisps. I have enough presence of mind to stumble forward before I gingerly started in the direction Vishous had disappeared from. I watched the floor snap into place again and I instantly dropped to my knees. The whole room shook, but I wasn’t sure whether it was lots of small panels that moved in a pattern, or a whole flat board that just acted a little like a wobble board. I slapped my palm on the hard surface and yelled Vishous’ name. Though I shouldn’t have bothered, even if he replied I had no clue as to whether I could actually hear him speaking. I slammed my hand down on the floor again just from pure frustration and then moved back to the light. “Fuck it, ok. I can do this bloody thing and hope that both of us get out of here without too much injury.” I could barely hear myself over the music that still blared through the various speakers, of the room and the machine. “3,8,2,4” I mumbled to myself as I tried to keep the first set of numbers in my head. My feet were still shuffling from side to side with each slight shift of the floor. It wasn’t as often now, and that almost made it worse, as I wasn’t able to tell at what point I had to be on my guard. It seemed just as I relaxed I was jerked from side to side. And avoiding the odd spikey platform was frustrating as they popped up out of seemingly no where. I rolled my shoulders and moved to the first machine, a little pac-man that chomped his way around. I liked these ones, and this one wasn’t giving me a bloody electric shock. I took that as a good sign and carried on moving until I managed to get through the first, then second level. I kept going, watching the lights on the side as they lit up slowly, not really in time with the level jumps, but I hoped it was like a timer. That when it was full I could move onto the next one. I played until I heard a little beeping noise, then what sounded like a lock being pulled back. I froze as best I could on unsteady legs, then moved to the next machine in the sequence. This was some western with a gun. This I could do, thanks to some of the brothers training. The little bar on the side of the machine also started to rise and I was quickly onto the third and then fourth machine. Each time the metal sliding over metal sound echoed through the room when I’d finished. Without hesitation I rushed back to the sunlight that separated the rooms and squinted through it, my retinas were burning from the exposure, but I needed to get this last bit done in the hopes I could get back to Vishous. I blinked a few times to clear the fuzziness that was starting to creep in around the edges and then moved to that little screamy thing Vishous had upset earlier. Whatever it was I hoped it wasn’t about to kill my eardrums. Being blind and deaf in this place wasn’t going to be an advantage to anyone. I poked the numbers in and let out a little whoop of excitement when the door to my left slid open. I didn’t pause as I rushed through it, instantly regretting it when there was no more floor and I tumbled forward into darkness. ~

V: I heard nothing, not a single creak of footsteps walking anywhere around me or the rush of air that goes through vents when the heating/Ac system kicks in, nothing. It was dead silence and the only thing that I could hear was my own thoughts and breathing. If this wasn’t my own personal hell before, it was easily becoming one now. Being locked down in any fashion, was a headfuck for me, in more way than I cared to think about. Before I was sucked down into the oblivion of basically nowhere, I was only mildly annoyed with this shitshow, now that was no longer the case. I was pissed the fuck off, ready to destroy whatever came my way, to the point that I could taste the need for destruction. Every place I touched was much the same, bare walls with nothing to lead me anywhere. I rubbed over each square inch of my cell, hoping to find a hidden button, something, any fucking thing. But you have heard that saying, be careful what you ask for. I wanted a way out or at the least the knowledge as how to find it and it came to me. A rush of air burst into the small enclosed space and with it a very seasoned Lesser. “Well at least that mystery is solved. The who…” That was about all I got out before he rushed me and when I say that, I basically mean he tackled me. The cage I was locked in was barely big enough for me to sit down with my back to a wall and my legs stretched out in front of me and this smelly fucker was massive in size. I was easily knocked off balance and the air left my chest in a rush as he wrapped his tree trunk size arms around me. A single grunt cut through my decompressed lungs as I struggled to reach my dagger. I was pretty fucking grateful for the whole not breathing thing because being this up close and personal with this lesser would easily make even a sick bastard like me, gag. The baby powdered bitch was at least a head taller than myself and I gave up the fight for my blade and instead went for knocking him off balance. I reared my head back and lifted it up with a savage growl filling the space up right before I sunk my elongated canines into the side of his skull, greedily ripping his ear off in the process. I tasted nothing, more than that, I reached a place to where I felt nothing, air filled my chest cavity back up and it was as if I was on the outside of my body, watching. The simple harm that had been inflicted on me before, now was a memory and I used what the fuck ever this was to annihilate the fucker. I locked my arms around him as he had done me and with a hard side step to the right, we both toppled over and before he could gather his wits about him I came up fast, yanked my dagger from my side and literally pounced on him. I couldn’t say how many times I rammed the blade through random parts of his muscled body before I finally hit the sweet spot and he vanished like a bad dream.

Dehv: ~ I blinked and watched the floor come up to meet me. I was barely able to make it out, and that was something I wasn’t used to at all. I landed hard and rolled, trying to stop myself before I hit something or landed on something I shouldn’t. I quickly thudded to a jarring stop when my body hit the wall on the opposite side to where I had initially stepped into the room. I groaned and pushed to sitting, hissing in a breath as my back stung. I rotated my wrist to ensure I hadn’t broken anything, I hoped it was just sprained as I was able to move all my fingers. My shoulder and hip were burning now, and my eyes were about as happy with me as I should expect from deliberately burning them. I tried for a deep breath and closed my eyes for a minute. I really hoped whatever the fuck this place was, we were nearly out. I licked over my lips and then checked my watch. I felt my eyes widen when I realised that we’d been in this place over four hours already. Not that I was thrilled with that prospect, but it meant that with every passing minute we were getting closer to sunset and our ability to get out of here in one piece. I just had to hope that Vishous was getting out with me. He’s taken a beating with those metal balls, plus the floor spikes, then to be dropped on his ass. And who the fuck knew what was happening to him in the room I couldn’t get to. I gasped as my brain clicked in and I was on my feet before I really realised what I was doing. I surged forward and pounded on the wall, slowly moving along until I heard a change in pitch. It sounded like part of the wall wasn’t as thick as other parts. I drew back my arm and threw my weight into the punch, a thrill running down my spine when it bent under the weight even with my bad wrist using used. I figured if I was going to break anything, I might as well go with the injured side and keep one side strong. I patted the wall and smiled to myself. Hopefully vishous was the other side of the wall and had heard something. I wasn’t about to leave him in this place solo if I could help it. I spun on my heel and looked around the room. It was mostly black with graffiti all over the place. I squinted as my vision dimmed again and I cursed at the timing of it. With a quick swipe of my balled fists I was able to get my vision under control again. It only had to last until we got out of here, then I could feed, rest and it’d hopefully rectify pretty quickly. I inched closer to the wall and then growled as I realised that under the graffiti was scratches. Now I was closer I could also smell the blood and I realised pretty quickly that this was apparently the final room for a lot of others who had been through here. Names and family crests adorned the wall as I kept looking. The most I focused the denser the names became until I was barely able to breath for the panic. I was not going to die in this place when no one knew I was here and Vishous was still out there. I turned fast and threw myself at the wall. I used both hands to work at the wall, the bent becoming a hole. I pulled and tore at the metal, not caring what it did to me really. I’d heal with time, and the pain didn’t register as I worked. Blind rage motivated me past any kind of panic or worry. I just needed to get through to the room Vishous had landed in. If I could do that, we’d manage to work out what the hell to do. The minute the gap was big enough to squeeze through I sucked in a lungful of air and stepped into an even smaller room. I was breathing hard and I knew I was bleeding, though the smell of baby powder, blood and that sticky stuff lessers called tar was strong enough to make me almost throw up. I had to swallow twice before I could speak. “Vishous? Please fuck say you’re here and not a lesser.” ~

Vishous: It was more than a little unsettling to think that those smelly bastards can come through any secret opening that they are only privilege to and I couldn’t do shit about it. That whole control thing was an issue for me. Big shock...Not at fucking all. I felt like the hunted and nothing with that sit right with me. Again, another big shock, fuck no. I wanted to hunt down who the fuck ever was doing this shit but that would have to wait. I wasn’t the only one at risk here. Nope, I have Dehv with me and for that reason alone, I would not let my epic irrational anger issues affect the male. But damn, as soon as we were safely out of here, finding the culprit behind all of this, was going to be at the top of my list of priorities. One thing was obvious, lesser were involved. I just needed to locate the newly appointed ring leader and relieve him of his duties. I leaned back on my haunches, taking a moment to let my rib cage expand after being held in a vice like hold from a male that was the size of the Hulk. “Motherfuck…” I scrubbed a hand over my face before getting to my feet. Instantly I was at the now closed wall, where the Lesser came through. And as I figured, not a fucking thing left behind to easily open the trap door. I would be more elated if something actually did go my way but noooooooo...that was just way too much to ask for. I scraped and dug at the wall with my dagger, pounding at it just as I had hacked away on the previous Lesser. This was like some B-rated horror flick. All we needed now was the dumb blonde to go running around and falling everywhere until the killer slays her in some humiliating way. Suddenly where there was no sound except for my own beating down the walls and then I heard a faint noise. I stayed silent, still my breathing and listened for the interruption again. It was a series of hammering and it was coming through the wall that I had also been working on. I took on a whole new need for speed and destruction. It was either Dehv or who the fuck knew but I didn’t see lesser trying to beat their way through the wall. I dug my dagger into mix, destroying the blade until in a burst of air rushing in, Dehv came through with it. Relief flooded my whole system at seeing the male in one piece and it was even better that he was standing and breathing. I lowered my arm, keeping the blade held firmly in my hand and nodded at the male. “Welcome home, Dehv…” A sinister smirk took up residence on my face. “I say that it is past time that we got the fuck out of here. Oh and by the way, lesser are behind this.” I nodded at the still fresh oily blood mixture smeared and pooled on the concrete floor. “One decided he didn’t want me to feel lonely and stopped by to visit me. Keep your eyes open and obviously expect any fucking thing being thrown our way.”

Dehv:  ~ I snorted loudly and slumped against the wall. “Thanks. I agree entirely and completely. Fuck this home, lets get our asses out of here so we can move somewhere that doesn’t want to kill us.” I nodded and looked around, my gaze dropping to Vishous as soon as I saw that he’d taken out the lesser, checking over to ensure there was no fresh blood. “You took him down, did he get any hits in, or are you doing ok?” I shoved off the wall and looked around the space, knowing I’d have gone ape shit in here if I’d have dropped into the room. It was tiny and with the two of us in here, it was entirely too cramped for my liking. “What the fuck is going on?” I frowned and looked up at the ceiling, noting only when I really squinted that there was tiny cracks in it, I assumed where the mechanism lay for the room above. It still made me shudder at the thought of the loud music and lights. My fingers curled into fists automatically at the memory of the electricity flying through my arm. I exhaled a slow breath, really wanting to forget this place even existed, or to find out it was some kind of freaky nightmare so I could wake up in bed, at Qhuinn’s house like the plan had been all along. Before the night, or day I guessed, had become a clusterfuck of epic proportions. I accepted keeping my eyes open was a good thing to do, I needed to ensure that if a Lesser came through any of the hidden doors in the place, that I had a handle on having Vishous’ back. I knew my eyes were fucked, but right now I could see enough to do what needed done, pushing through the pain was something that I guessed was ingrained in my genes since it wasn’t like the Brotherhood trained you in getting hurt. Though to be fair, they probably should with how often it happened to everyone. That might be something I would have to pop in a suggestion box. I shook my head as I started to wobble slightly on my feet, my eyesight dimming yet again. The sudden change had me patting myself down to check I wasn’t losing blood without realising it. “You feel something?” I swallowed hard and then thumped back against the wall. My panic rising as I realised that I didn’t have control over my body, it was sinking to the ground and no amount of will power was pulling the strength back into my extremities. I managed to flick my gaze to Vishous, mouth opening to speak again before I hit the floor and slumped to the side, head landing right beside the gnarled entrance I’d created breaking into the room. I managed a slow wheeze before my eyelids dropped shut and I lost sight of the Brother with me. ~

V: “I’m sure we fucked up some plans of theirs when you busted down that wall.” A amirk took up residence on my face and I glanced at Dehv. “Damn good job on that by the way. And thank you as well for not leaving me for what the hell ever fate this place had in store for us.” I refused to even acknowledge that there was still a good chance we were fucked and obviously not a way that I would enjoy.  This whole layout was elaborate and that spoke volumes to me. This wasn’t some simple lesser attack to take out a couple vamps. Nah, this shit was designed to do more than just kill. That was stuck in my head from the moment this shity nightmare started and it kept replaying in my head on a constant loop. I stepped outside of my mind because trying to figure out the whys and hows, was not going to happen at this point and time. I gave a short nod. “I’m all good and I agree, let’s get our asses out of here. I could really go for a drink or ten right now.” A dry chuckle rolled out and I was going to add a few other things to Dehv but the words died on my tongue when I saw a sudden change in the male. My diamond eyes narrowed and before I could react, Dehv was down for the count. It happened so swiftly that I barely had time  to take even one step towards him before I watched him get more than a little shaky on his feet and then land against the wall, only to find the floor as his new sleeping place. I had been too fucking engrossed in trying to decipher this crazy puzzle to realize there was a soft hissing sound coming from above us and then the slight smell filled my nostrils. I cut my breathing off instantly, taking in no O2 at all but it was too late. The gas being pushed through the ceiling was already working its way through me. I didn’t even remember face planting on the ground, the last thing that I could grasp onto was the way my limbs felt as though they had been weighted down in cement and then it was lights out from there on.

Dehv:  ~ I blinked slowly and then groaned. Every muscle in my body protesting as I tried to move just my fingers. What the actual fuck was going on? I squinted and then felt panic flash through my body like a cold shower as I realised my vision really was on the fritz. I could see more of less, but I couldn’t make out much in my central vision. “Vishous?” I realised after I’d spoken that I hadn’t checked we were alone, or that we weren’t in some weird death chamber of the devils asshole we’d been in up until now. I flopped to my side and growled when my shoulder, hip, back, arm and wrist decided to pipe up. Yup. That would get old quickly. Thankfully I’d had enough blood in my system for the little cuts on my fingers and hands to have healed up a little. Which meant if I got my hands on a weapon I could at least use it effectively. I blinked and squinted as I looked around the best I could, taking in movement across from me. I pushed to my knees so I could crawl closer, grateful at the ice that greeted me. Those eyes were the most beautiful thing I’d seen all day. Meant we were both alive and they hadn’t thrown us out in the sun while we’d been knocked unconscious. I patted the male’s shoulder and then moved until I could use one of the lower beams to pull myself up to my feet. I wobbled slightly, but then got steadier as more and more of the gas they’d dosed us with leached out of my system. Oxygen chasing it away as if it had never been there in the first place. I looked around and then frowned. I could make out enough of the place to know that we were not in a room, or certainly not one that we’d have to battle out of. The space was deserted. The huge windows that ran along one side showed that we’d been knocked out for hours. And that the sun had set. Though not by long. “They’ve left. How is that even possible?” I shook my head and then swallowed hard. “What do you want to do? I can barely see, and my body is protesting the shit I’ve put it through. How are you? You were left alone while we were knocked out?” I turned to face where I thought the male was and spoke. I knew that even if he hadn’t been, he was unlikely to tell me. I was the trainee, he was the Brother. So even if I did want to know so I could pull my weight, he’d probably turn the tables on me anyway. I waited though. Unsure of what would spring into action if I got too excited about the prospect of getting the fuck out of here and going back to the manse. ~

V: Spinning and noise...Those are the only two things that were registering within my semi unconscious brain. That state of my eyes staying close only lasted long enough for me to feel the movement of another body around me. And then my diamond eyes were snapping open and I was struggling to sit up. It wasn’t often that I had truly felt a drug state.Our kind didn’t react to substance the way that a human would but there were certain meds out there that could easily make us want to crawl in a hole for a whole and escape. I was freezing from the inside out. To the point that I was almost positive my teeth were chattering. I blew out a breath and shoved myself up to a sitting position. “Hello, Dehv...Apparently taking us out was not their ultimate goal.” And that was the part that was digging at me. In what world did a lesser have a vampire at their disposal and yet, they didn’t kill us. Why?! Okay now obviously wasn’t the time or place to try figure this shit out. I would always have that issue of questioning every fucking thing, particularly when things made not one lick of sense. But I would have to dissect this whole night once Dehv and I were out of this shit hole. I scrubbed a hand over my face, took a few more cleansing breaths and then made it to my feet. Once I was fully upright, I looked around and talk about yet another headfuck, we were basically right back to where we started when we walked into the warehouse at the beginning of the night. Once again I scrubbed my fingers over my eyes, just to clear them some more because I still wasn’t convinced that I was seeing things correctly. It was the same and yet not the same. Still yet there was a front entrance and the fucker wasn’t obstructed like the one we originally walked through hours ago. “Alright, so this shit was fucked but right now I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. You’re alive and so am I and there is a way out. The rest of this stuff we will figure out later.” I needed air, that alone would help with the extreme fog still clouding my brain at the moment. I went toward the double glass doors cautiously, still not fully sure if this was some kind of fucking trick or shit and only when I had my hand on the handle, did I actually take a breath of relief. “Dude, let’s get the hell out of dodge.” I cast a look at Dehv and gave a short nod before I had that fucker shoved open and was bounding away from the building just in case somehow that thing could suck us back up inside of it. And it was maybe a few seconds later that I was sending a 911 message to the Manse along with our coordinates.

Dehv: ~ I looked around, squinting as I breathed a sigh of relief. We were getting to go back to the manse. It wasn’t comforting to know that at any point whoever created that death trap could have drugged us and left us for dead. Dragging us into the sunlight, shooing us in the head, or giving us some other mortal wound that would leave us to die a slow and painful death while the other could do nothing to stop it or save them. I nodded along with Vishous as he spoke and pulled my phone out of my pocket. It had a cracked screen where I’d landed on it and I wasn’t sure how well it’d work, but my heart skipped a beat when I realised that there was a signal, which meant we could get the fuck out of here. I breathed in deep and then moved slowly towards the double glass doors that Vishous was testing, huffing out air when I realised that we could actually get away from here and regroup. Maybe bring a few hundred vamps with us next time and torch the place while the sadistic fucker was trapped inside. I was sure there was so many ways we could go about fucking over whoever had put us through this. Though at least we were still alive, which was more than could be said for whoever had put in the call, or those who had come before us. Civilians would have been taken out by the lesser the minute he’d turned up. Unable to defend themselves or have a weapon on them like Vishous did. He’d had hundreds of years of practice. I wasn’t sure how I knew that there had been many casualties here, but I felt it deep in my gut, and I wanted answers, or at least for someone to stop whoever was doing this. I didn’t much care how right at this moment. I moved slowly, keeping my eyes trained on Vishous so I didn’t walk into something I shouldn’t. I needed to feed badly so that my eyesight would hopefully heal. Not to mention everything else. I stepped up beside him and then coughed out a laugh at the obvious relief in his voice. I’d expected no emotions that weren’t pissed off or putting up with. So to see my excitement to get out of here mirrored in the male was soothing in a way I hadn’t realised I needed. I knew I was still training, but I didn’t want to be a burden or like an over excited puppy. “Fuck yes. Please can we get out of there.” I swallowed hard and then followed on after Vishous much slower. I didn’t want to be any closer to the building than he did, but I wasn’t quite as unaffected as him. Though I did take a minute to turn in a circle, squinting hard at the place while I tried to orientate myself. I noted the bus stop where I’d arrived initially. Then I looked at both buildings. My brain trying to tell me something, but wasn’t able to while I was getting over shit. I spun once more and then crashed straight into Vishous. “Sorry. There’s something off about where we came out of and where we went in. I’m not sure what though. I can’t………….think.” I shook my head and then winced. Letting out a frustrated growl before letting my shoulders slump. “Never mind. It’ll come to me. I hope a car is coming. Because I doubt either one of us is in a fit state to….” I snapped my mouth shut as I watched Fritz carefully pull the car around the corner and then slow to a stop beside us. “Ok. Questions answered. Lets get the fuck out of here.” ~ #TheEscapeRoomPt2

[anotherramblingfangirl]

In our brains

Summary:

Some secrets are harder to keep than others. For Brainstorm, amongst the absolute worst of all are those that used to be precious, shared memories. Until the self-inflicted pricks of needles in a friend’s neck made them that no more.

Link to Scattergun fic: Tumblr or AO3

Link to Pivot fic: Tumblr or AO3

Link to this fic: AO3

Fic:

“Are you two amica?” Was asked again, recently.

Not long before he made his way to here, in fact.

It was by a colleague this time. Brainstorm didn’t know them too well. Didn’t care much to.

Too busy, busy, busy with his own work to get to know everybody. They wouldn’t like him anyway. Too intimidated by his genius.

But still in that moment, no matter knowing so very little about them at all, he’d still found himself disliking them immensely.

Not necessarily because of the question, no.

Not really.

But because Brainstorm already knew exactly what answer Tumbler was going to give.

Genuinely, without any sort of hesitation.

“No. We’re not.”

An answer which sent a pang to his very spark itself every time…

 “Brainstorm? It’s Tumbler.”

“Busy!” Brainstorm called without even looking up from what he was doing.

The colour was just starting to shift in the viscous slime he had contained in front of him. Which could mean one of two things: either it was becoming that super-super-glue he was supposed to be making or he had just inadvertently started a new species of sentient slime.

How exciting!!!

“I just need to borrow you. It won’t take long.” Tumbler persisted.

“Maybe later, I’m in the middle of science!” The liquid shifted and made a sudden shift of movement, slamming against it’s containment with a loud thud.

Brainstorm was leaning towards this being a case of him inadvertently starting a new species of sentient slime.

“Brainstorm!” Tumbler meanwhile was not dropping whatever issue he’d come to the lab with. “Can you just- I’ve said it won’t take long.”

“So we’ll do it later then. Go away!”  The slime…seemed to be multiplying. Splitting into smaller slimes which were also slamming against the container with littler thuds.

He wondered what would happen if he added just a bit of-

“You can’t be like this with me.” Tumbler objected, not going away.

“...Because?”

-Maybe adding just a bit of that had been a mistake.

The slime was multiplying and growing much faster now, and he didn’t like the colour it had gone either. The colour it had before looked much nicer.

This new shade was just tacky.

“I’m your friend! Being nice to me’s part of that.”

The container was starting to sizzle. Bubbles forming as the slime creatures stopped their insistent slamming and instead just remained still. The container was already full, their numbers were still growing, and they now seemed to have become corrosive.

It was only a matter of time until they got out now.

Shame. Brainstorm would have liked to have kept them a bit longer. This development of aggressiveness and sentience was fascinating, and he was sure he could find some awesome way to weaponize it!

…But…if it broke out and melted his and Tumbler’s faces off…and ruined all his other projects in here…

“And we can’t do it later. After this shift is done I’m being sent to-“

Tumbler was cut off by a sudden vwoosh as Brainstorm used his failsafe.

The failsafe was an amazing plan he always had on hand for situations just like this.

An ultra-incinerator.

Couldn’t go wrong with- Whoa!

Now that was interesting.

Very bad. Very dangerous but also very cool.

Couldn’t have predicted that happening.

…Actually.

“Maybe going with your plan wouldn’t be such a bad idea Tumbles!” With a cheery thumbs up.

And with that, the lab was very quickly exited and put into immediate lockdown.

With the decision that this was something that would be dealt with later. No biggy.

“We can’t do it in here!” Tumbler shouted over the facility’s now blaring alarms, as they headed away from the locked down reinforced door.

“Obviously, the slime would eat us.”

“No, we can’t do it in the facility because- why did you even make that?!”

“I didn’t hear anybody telling me not to make that.”

“Why did I even ask?” Tumbler questioned to himself.

“But we can’t do it here because Scatters isn’t allowed in. He doesn’t have the clearance.” He then went back to his originally intended explanation.

“Scatters? What’s he to do with this?”

Brainstorm had presumed that Tumbler must have required his brilliance to help him with something, but if his conjunx was also involved…?

“He’s waiting so we need to get a move on. I told him I would be quick.”

Tumbler avoided the question entirely.

And continued to do so for his subsequent questions as they made their way to their destination.

Whereupon reaching it he was greeted by an enthusiastic-

“Stormy!” Hands gripping onto his shoulders. “You made it!”

“Whatcha been up to? Any cool projects?”

“Of course! What do you take me for? Everything I make is cool! What’s in now is super-super-glue.”

“That could be medical!” He’d known that would be what Scattergun caught onto. “Y’know, leaking out all your energon from severed wires, just stick ‘em back together with that and all’s good! ‘Till you get them to a medic anyway.”

“If it weren’t corrosive, sentient and aggressive then yes! That would work perfectly!” Brainstorm agreed.

The smile of Scatter remained on, but at the same time it and the rest of his face became distorted with what was clearly confusion.

“He just had to put his lab into lockdown because of that.” Tumbler anticipated his conjunx’s oncoming question as he made his way further into the room.

Scattergun moved to follow him, letting go of Brainstorm’s shoulders in the process.

“Maybe next time you can make nice sentient super-super-glue! Or normal super-super-clue.” He chimed back as he did so.

Brainstorm considered the idea, resting his hand on his chin in thought.

The question is, how would he ensure the niceness of the substance?

But, actually, another questioned remained that he looped back to too: he’d been forced out of his lab by Tumbler’s insistence along with a very dangerous substance. That much he knew.

But what was he doing here?

That question was then repeated aloud.

“Gonna tell him now?” Scatters asked Tumbler, beaming and looping his arms around his shoulders from behind, before giving a playful tug on his finials.

Tumbler in turn lifted a hand up and took a hold one of his conjunx’s, helm tilting slightly to the side so that both of theirs rested together.

“Brainstorm, you’re my best friend and there’s something I’d like to do. To show that.” Tumbler spoke fondly.

“And since I know, you gave Fins the moral support to propose to me-” Scatters paused to give that Fins a quick peck before unfurling himself from around him and starting to quickly move backwards.

“-I’m here to return that favour.” Was finished with a wink.

Whatever quip Brainstorm might have about this was then cut off before it could even be started, at the sight of Tumbler starting to open his chest plates.

“Brainstorm. I bid you stand in the glow of my spark that you feel the heat of my words and know them to be true. I bid you to receive my light and in doing so become my amica endura- from now until forever.”

…He was never stumped. Brainstorm was never ever stumped. He tool pride in his permanent unstumped-ness. But…

Hands taken by Tumbler in a firm grasp.

“As you are to me, may I be to you, today, tomorrow and always”

Brainstorm knew what he was supposed to do here. The words he was supposed to repeat.

He knew the ceremony to become amica endura.

It’s just he’d never thought anyone would ever want to do it with him.

Meaning, that in an occasion so rare that one might never witness it, Brainstorm hesitated.

Whether it was from the shock of it or because– because he was touched.

And when he did say those words, he meant them with every fibre of his being.

“Today, tomorrow and always.”

 An answer which sent a pang to his very spark itself every time…

Because it was an unknowing lie.

Brainstorm treasured that memory, as much as he’d never said it. Had always kept it close to his very spark.

But for Tumbler, for Tumbler it had died with Scatters.

Purged from his brain by his own needles before Brainstorm had even been able to know to stop it.

…He should have known to stop it.

He was his amica, how could he have not known what Tumbler was going to do?

“I was sure you were.” The colleague had spoken again.

“Nope!” And with that Brainstorm had lied too.

“But that’s an idea! Prolonged proximity to my genius as amica might just boost yours!” He’d turned to face his friend.

His friend who’d then scoffed at the apparent joke, causing Brainstorm to feel his spark break all over again.

…But he couldn’t tell him. He knew what that would do to him.

Couldn’t tell him about Scatters, who had deserved so much better than this, and couldn’t even tell him exactly who he himself was to him either.

He couldn’t do that to Tumbler.

Instead, he just had to watch.

No matter how it hurt or how sometimes it was all he could do to not just tell him! Tell him all those shared things he’d suddenly been forced to keep all to himself.

When asked if they were amica he would lie.

When he listened as Tumbler mused about feeling sad for no reason, or how bare his home seemed and how he just couldn’t figure out why, he would stay silent.

Lie and stay silent as he had to let his friend’s secrets rattle around and around and around over and over and over in his brain, as he kept them from that very friend.

And from you.

With that lingering, ever prevalent thought, Brainstorm spoke at last, looking down.

"Sorry he couldn’t make it again.” He apologised on behalf of a mech who didn’t even know he was here.

“Where are you going?” “Getting minerals! Can never have too many Tumbler!”

“It’s not that he doesn’t care. You know him as well as me. Cares too much.” He fiddled with the container in his hands.

Somebody who didn’t care too much would never have even been friendly with known knock off MTOs who didn’t fit the mould they were made for.

And somebody who didn’t care too much would remember when they became more.

“It’s just he prefers to think of you…before.” Helm further drooped.

“And he does! Think of you that is. Every day. And talk! So much it almost gets annoying really. Blah-Scattergun-Blah.”

And he repeats the same lie as always to a grave who should but never will be visited by their conjunx. A grave he’s visiting now because someone ought too.

Or it would be like the mech contained in it had never even existed at all.

Tumbler had gone a total of once, carrying himself with a strange sort of detachment the entire time, before going off to lock himself away. It had been assumed to just give himself some time.

And then when he came out…

“Who?” A blank, confused face had stared back at him. The worse look he could ever possibly have gotten.

“That’s why he sent me. His favourite scientist and amica extraordinaire to keep you company.” He placed the thing he had down on the ground.

“I brought a gift too! That super-super-glue you liked the idea of. Got it non-explosive, non-corrosive, non-radioactive, non-sentient, non…there was a lot of ways that project turned out that wasn’t super-super-glue. Not that I regret any of them. The science of it was awesome. But this one is just boring regular super-super-glue which could be used for medical stuff. Went back to it for you. You’re welcome.”

There was no reply, of course.

That would be a different issue entirely, if a dead mech was talking.

Brainstorm slumped against the wall, drumming his digits against it.

Thinking.

“His habits have gotten worse since you left.” He confessed at last, because who else was he supposed to confess too now?

And this was the truth this time.

You used to barely be able to notice it at all. Just the occasional gap in a memory. Something that could have gotten passed off as just genuine forgetfulness if you didn’t know any better.

Not so much now.

Not at all now.

“Seems, with you, he didn’t feel the need to do it so much. You were good for him.”

And in his absence, Brainstorm hadn’t been good enough to stop him from spiralling.

No matter how much he had tried.

“But don’t you worry Scattergun, I’ll keep my optics on him. Look after him for you.”

A reassurance that was terribly un-reassuring with that past and current precedence in mind.

But he would do better. He had to.

Because-

“Isn’t that what an amica is supposed to do?”

Today, tomorrow and always

Even if he forgets us.

[itsallavengers]

So this was inspired by @reioka ‘s post here, and Yeah. This is basically what I’m doing instead of all the other Important Projects in my files. Enjoy. It’s probably gonna hurt.

The whole battle had been sort of a laugh, really.

They’d attacked the helicarrier. A whole ship, jam-packed with trained agents and the Avengers. It had been destined to fail from the very beginning.

As the alarm started to blare, Steve, Tony and Bucky all groaned in annoyance. “Absolutely fucking typical,” Tony cursed, shutting his eyes and running a hand through his hair, “villains choose the one time my suit is a thousand miles below me to attack us all. Great.”

Pursing his lips, Bucky pushed his tray of food to the side and silently handed Tony a semi automatic. The other man took it with a grunt of thanks, checking the cartridge and then wincing. “Three bullets? Seriously?”

This time it was Steve who handed him the new cartridge, standing up from his position opposite both Bucky and Tony and then walking over, taking Tony by the shoulder. “Stay with us,” he said shortly, letting his hand linger against the juncture of Tony’s neck before slipping away again to retrieve his shield from the corner of the room.

There was a resounding crash from somewhere- possibly the hull, and Tony groaned again. “They’re stupid. Stupid stupid villains, trying to attack the damn SHIELD helicarrier. Do they want to die? Really? Is that their plan here? Death? Jesus Fucking chr-”

“Tony,” Bucky said with a roll of his eyes, pushing Tony in the shoulder before he could continue, “it won’t last long. You can just stay here and hide if you really want-”

“Alright, robo-cop, that’s enough of that talk,” Tony groused, cocking his gun and pulling a face. “Hey, babe!” He called over his shoulder.

Steve looked up. “Hm?”

“First to ten picks dinner?”

Steve shot him a look. “We don’t even know how many there are here.”

Tony shrugged. “Semantics. I bet I’ll take more than Bucky, anyway.”

Steve gave an audible laugh, walking forward and then bending down to press a kiss against Tony’s forehead. “Whatever you want to believe, sweetheart. Just try not to get shot.”

No one was worried as they made their way out of the cafeteria. Tony was firmly sandwiched in between two grim-looking supersoliders, both with enough weaponry and strength to take out two thirds of the ship on their own.

There was nothing to be afraid of.

(Read more, mobile users!)

According to the SHIELD speaker system which gave them all a handy overview, The Villains of The Day were using some sort of sonic device among the usual machine guns as their chosen weapon, and there appeared to be about 30 of them, all dropping on to the helicarrier from a small aircraft up above. 

“Where are the others?” Bucky asked, grunting as he came into contact with the first enemy; punching him square in the face and sending him into Steve’s waiting arms, which quickly brought unconsciousness along to their attacker.

“Nat and Clint are down with the recruits,” Tony explained, lifting his leg in order to tap Steve’s hip and push him out of the line of fire, “Bruce’s in the labs with Thor. They’ll both be a while- the place goes into lockdown when the siren sounds.”

“Helpful,” Steve muttered, flinging his shield down the corridor and watching in satisfaction as it bounced on the corner and knocked three people to their feet. It appeared they had ended up on the floor in which all the thugs were descending from- useful if Tony had been fully equipped with a functioning Iron Man suit, not quite so useful when all he had was Bucky’s old semi-automatic and a sore neck from working too many nights down in the lab.

There was a sudden tremor, and whilst all the assailants appeared to remain on their feet, all three Avengers went sprawling on the floor. Tony bit back a yell, feeling the shockwave reverberate through the corridor. It was lucky he’d had his jaw unclenched, or all his teeth would’ve been smashed in by the pressure wave.

A hand curled around his waist, pulling him back from careering into the wall head-first, and Tony knew it was Steve’s grip as the man instinctively clutched Tony tight to his chest, preventing any further damage. He could see Bucky, already pushing back off the wall and firing another set of rounds down the hall, taking out the final two on the other side. 

“What the damn hell was that?” Steve asked, holding Tony for an extra second to check over for injuries before releasing again when he found none.

“I’m guessing it was a sonic blast- looked like it came from the top of the ship. The whole airstrip is probably in pieces after that,” Tony replied, hurrying forward and following Bucky as he made his way down the hall again, “it should be fairly easy to dismantle, though. They’ll have to be firing it from the ship they came from; there’s no way to get a blast that big from anything smaller than that. All it’ll take is for me to hop up and pull some wires out.”

Steve glanced over to him, shaking his head fondly as he rounded the corner which led to the stairwell. “You know, I’m pretty sure that would be a big job for anyone else.”

“Do I look like anyone else, Rogers?” Tony gestured to himself and scoffed.

“Will both of you quit flirting for one goddamn second and focus on the mission at hand?” Bucky grumbled, “we’re trying to defend our ship from invasion and all you’re goddamn doing is yappin’ at one another-”

Another quake; this one even more powerful than the other, rumbled at their feet, and once more sent all three of them flying around the corridor. This time it was Bucky who grabbed hold of Tony- and in any other circumstance, Tony probably would have had something to say about all this coddling- but for the time being, he was simply glad Bucky had saved him from braining himself against the floor.

Steve was up a second later, two hands pulling both Bucky and Tony up off the floor. “You okay?” He asked Tony quietly, once again doing a cursory check.

Tony batted his hands away gently, rolling his eyes. “Right as rain. I can handle myself, you know.”

Steve grimaced. “I don’t like it when you don’t have your suit.”

Just as Tony opened his mouth to undoubtedly start a quarrel, Bucky called out to the both of them. “Got the hatch open, if either of you losers fancy actually doing your jobs and stopping this shitshow.”

Steve turned; letting go of Tony and hitching his shield up. “Try not to get shot,” he murmured, before stepping in front of the smaller man and marching on ahead.

“Already said that!” Tony grumbled, but followed on behind him all the same.

Slowly, all three of them made their way through the hatch and out into the exposed, cold air of the surface. Tony had been correct; the entire airstrip was in disarray. Aircraft and vehicles, turned on their heads; bits of the ship that had crumbled away entirely, falling a thousand feet into the Alps they were hovering over. Fire licked across the floor, and angry-looking soldiers in telltale black and red uniform let them know it was HYDRA initiating the op.

“Idiots,” Tony muttered for the fifth time, shaking his head. 

“We need to stop that...thingy, from releasing another burst,” Bucky began, pointing his gun over to the main aircraft which was placed at the edge of top deck, “no doubt the other agents are on their way, but the’re being hindered by the shakes it’s giving off.”

“Well, to be honest- if we get caught in the blast now, then it’s probably gonna be the equivalent of being hit by a brick wall,” Tony frowned, cocking his head and looking over to it, “fortunately- it takes a while for it to garner all that energy. And seeing as we aren’t lucky enough to be wearing HYDRA’S reinforced uniforms, I’m just gonna have to work fast, aren’t I?”

Bucky nodded, and Steve looked less than pleased by the outcome, but didn’t speak out. “Me and Buck will cover you. There aren’t that many left anyway- it should be fairly easy.”

There was another round of agreement, and then Bucky loaded another cartridge into his gun, raising an eyebrow at everyone. “Onward and upward then, fellas?”

Wordlessly, they all began to run. 

The sprint to the aircraft was relatively short, and with both Bucky and Steve shielding Tony, it was almost easy. They all reached the ship after a few seconds, and Steve quickly turned, lifting his shield up in front of Tony’s path so that the other man could leap on. With a grunt, Steve swung the shield up high, and Tony flew upward with it, landing gracefully on the wing of the ship as the momentum propelled him.

“I’ll need two minutes, max!” Tony called, before yanking open the door and quickly dealing with the pilot sat in his spot.

Steve watched him anxiously for half a second before twirling around and hitting an attacker in the face when they got too close. “Bucky, watch the ship,” Steve gritted, sprinting a few paces away in order to try and open the hatch on the other side of the deck, where their backup was undoubtedly waiting behind.

Once he’d managed to open the door for the remaining SHIELD agents to flock through, the fight was short-lived. There weren’t nearly enough HYDRA to combat the wave of defenders, and Steve knew he wasn’t needed any further in regards to the round-up of enemy forces.

He saw Natasha and Clint as he did a quick once-over of the deck, and Clint did a little salute before swinging the butt of his pistol across the temple of some poor HYDRA soldier. Steve grinned back. It never stopped being satisfying, watching Nazi’s get hurt.

He turned back, jogging over to the ship he’d started out on, where Tony was still working. “How’s it going?”

Bucky turned, grinning at Steve’s smug face and jogging over to him. “Tony says he’s got it sorted. Should be out in a few seconds.”

Steve nodded,”you had any trouble?”

“Few of the stragglers, yeah- but they weren’t a problem. They were dealt with accordingly.”

“DONE!” Came a familiar voice, and both Steve and Bucky looked up with grins on their faces as Tony stuck his face back out of the door and beamed over to them. His hair was flicking all over his face in the wind, and he had somehow managed to get yet another streak of grease across his neck from the work.

Steve could feel himself smiling adoringly over at him, but he didn’t even care. Not even when Bucky smacked him across the back of the head and called him a sap.

“You had fun?” Steve called out, beginning to walk forward as Tony started his clamber back to the deck.

“Defeated HYDRA, got to take apart a ship, saved the day? Obviously,” Tony replied, making to swing out of the door before stopping, a tiny little frown on his face.

Steve should have started running, then. If he’d been on form- if he’d been alert, he should have started running.

“Something’s wrong,” Tony said suddenly, humour gone from his voice as he looked back down to the cockpit. “Oh, shit. Failsafe.”

Steve’s eyes widened, and he felt Bucky tense in readiness beside him.

It happened in less than a second.

Tony threw himself forward- sudden and jerky, not bothering to land back on deck with the grace of before. Steve was already moving forward, but Tony looked up, hand moving, telling him to stop. 

“STAY AWAY!” Was the last thing Steve heard Tony say, before one more, final shockwave blew through the air.

Steve felt himself being thrown back, landing a good few meters away and sensing the vibrations on the floor as everything was once more turned on it’s head. There were yells and cries of pain from all over the deck; agents forced to the floor, landing amongst the wreckage that was already littered there- but Steve didn’t care about that.

Tony. Tony was at the epicentre of the wave.

Rolling immediately to his feet, his head shot up, eyes wild as he threw himself forward mere seconds after falling to the floor. His wrist cried in pain, and Steve assumed he’d injured it when he’d stuck the landing, but again, it wasn’t important.

“TONY!” He called, searching through the smoke and rubble.

There was an ominous growling sound that came from below Steve’s feet, and he hurried to steady himself as the entire ship shuddered. “TONY!” He called again, sprinting forward, toward the wreckage of what had once been HYDRA’s aircraft.

That was when he spotted him.

Tony. 

Getting unsteadily to his feet, hair full of dust and face smeared with blood; looking for Steve, waiting for Steve. His balance was shaky and he looked like he’d been pretty injured, but his smile was beautiful and genuine as he spotted Steve hurrying toward him. 

Steve watched Tony open his mouth, readying to call out. Undoubtedly something witty or sarcastic, thinly veiled to hide the genuine relief underneath. But the words never came.

It happened as if in slow motion.

There was one last final growl from below deck, and suddenly a tremendous crashing noise cracked like a whip through the air. Everything shook; huge, violent tremors that sent Steve stumbling to his knees once more. 

Tony yelled, and Steve rolled instantly, turning to face him- just as a horrifying crack tore through the floor.

Steve spotted it immediately, but lost sight of Tony as the plumes of dust shot through the opening it had made. He heard himself call out in panic, but aside from that, it was as if everything else had gone silent.

There was just him, and Tony, and the ledge that was seconds from falling away.

Steve was on his feet like a man possessed. Tearing across what was left of the deck, he ran and he ran and he ran. Even though a part of him knew it wasn’t going to be enough. Even though he knew he was too far away.

In the distance, he saw Tony’s frame, stumbling forward, hand outstretched.

Someone yelled after him, but he didn’t register it. The ground was beginning to crumble away under his feet, he had seconds left, and Tony was going to fall.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t. He couldn’t.

His feet were aching at the speed in which he was running, and he could hear himself screaming Tony’s name again- but the voice was being drowned out by the sound of metal bending and concrete crumbling away.

“STEVE!” 

That was Tony. Tony was calling him. He had to get to him. This couldn’t happen.

Not again.

There was one final crash, and then Steve watched, horror-stricken, as the entire ledge, aircraft and all, simply fell away.

Mere meters away, Tony hurled himself forward, hands outstretched and eyes wide, terrified.

Throwing himself down and clutching on to a jagged shard of metal that had been left exposed, Steve stuck his hand out wildly, to catch Tony- stop him falling to his death.

He felt Tony’s fingers brush against his. And then they were gone.

Steve watched Tony fall; slamming into the remnants of the ship, hands flailing wildly for purchase as the floor fell apart around him.

For a moment, Steve couldn’t tell if it was the helicarrier on SHIELD, or the train running through the mountains.

Steve felt his grip slip a little, and sensed the pain as the metal cut through his skin, but he couldn’t let go- he had to stay and get Tony, stop Tony falling, save him, dear God, he had to save him, this couldn’t happen again-

Tony’s hands found a ledge.

He stopped falling.

Wheezing in audible terror, Steve gauged how far away Tony was. “Oh god, okay- Tony! Tony, sweetheart, just hold on, okay, hold on, I’ve got you, I won’t let you fall, I won’t, I swear-”

Tony was breathing heavily, and his entire body was being slammed against the sharp edges of what had been left of the ship. Every gust of wind made him cry out in pain. “Steve, I can’t- I can’t hold-”

“YOU CAN!” Steve screamed, looking desperately for something, anything he could use to drop lower, to get to Tony, “please, love, please- a little longer, there are people coming to help us, I’ve-”

Tony looked up at him. One last time. And then his fingers slipped away.

Steve stared, silent- rooted to the spot as he watched the second person he loved more than anything else in the world fall to his death.

He had to follow. 

Bucky had survived, the first time around. Steve could survive this. He could get Tony- curl around him, take the impact for him- he was enhanced, he could do it.

“STEVE! STEVE, STOP!” Someone called, and he felt it as someone yanked roughly on his shoulder, pulling him up against his will, throwing him backward on to the deck again.

Steve snarled, and rolled right back on to his feet, sprinting back to the edge, readying to throw himself back off, but someone put out an arm, catching his waist and spinning them both around, using the momentum to shove them to the ground.

That same person pinned him, and Steve lashed out wildly. He could feel himself screaming, desperately attempting to push his attacker off- he had to get back, he was running out of time, Tony was falling.

“STEVE!”

He wasn’t sure who’s voice that was- Tony’s or Bucky’s. There were images in the back of his eyes that didn’t fit the surroundings, and he felt like he was going to be sick.

Tony was dead.

“Thor’s gone after him, he’s okay, Steve, stop screaming, stop it, please, buddy, stop!”

He was on the train and they were in the middle of a war and Bucky had fallen and that was it, Steve had failed him and his best friend was gone-

“Steve, please- I’m okay, Tony’s okay, Thor’s got him. You gotta get back in the room- Tony’s fine. He’s okay. He’ll be back in less than a minute.”

His cheeks were wet, hands pressed tightly into his eyes as he curled into a ball and shook. He felt cold. In his bones, in his soul- Bucky was talking to him, Bucky was pinning him, but he was saying things that didn’t make sense; Tony was gone. Tony had fallen.

Steve had let him fall.

“Please,” Bucky whispered, and he sounded so sad, Steve looked up to him despite himself. “He’s okay, Stevie. Tony’s okay. Look- Thor’s got him, they’re coming up, right now.”

He turned his head to where Bucky was pointing- feeling somewhat as if he was in a dream as he watched the Asgardian fly through the air, rising up above the ship with a hammer in one hand and Tony’s body in the other.

That wasn’t right. Steve had let him fall. 

“He’s there, Steve. He’s okay,” Bucky repeated quietly, voice laced with sadness as he looked down at Steve.

He felt like he was dreaming. Some sort of warped nightmare, where he lost Tony in the worst way possible, and then got him back, only to have him taken away again. 

He was shaking like a leaf, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the ice in his heart or the complete, all-consuming grief.

“Tony,” he choked, grabbing hold of Bucky’s shoulder and looking him in the eyes, “is that... he’s...”

“Yes,” Bucky assured him, “you didn’t let him fall. I swear. It wasn’t your fault.”

Steve didn’t wait for Bucky to speak again.

Scrambling unsteadily to his feet, he gasped in a lungful of air and ran. Ran forward, to Thor, to Tony- who was being let down gently, searching the deck, looking for-

he spotted Steve a second before he was bowled over by the frantic supersoldier. Tony was warm in his arms- heart beating a little fast in his chest. He was alive.

Steve didn’t believe it. 

“Steve?” Tony asked, voice a little panicked as he squirmed, “Steve, baby, I’m okay- but you gotta let go, you’re hurting me.”

It didn’t feel real it didn’t feel real it didn’t feel real.

He knew- some part of what was left of his rational mind- that he was going through a severe PTSD attack, and it was horribly dangerous to keep Tony near when he was like this. 

But he couldn’t let go. He didn’t know what was real and what was a memory any more, and if he lost Tony’s warmth, the ice that had set in his bones might consume him entirely. He had to hold on. He had to.

“Steve!” Tony called again, and there was someone else, someone else calling too- but his eyes were clenched shut against Tony’s neck, and he couldn’t see who they were. They were irrelevant.

Strong hands pulled at his shoulders, but he held on. He had to hold on- that was all he knew. He had to hold on. If he let go, they’d die. Bucky and Tony and everyone he’d loved, all of them, gone, because he couldn’t catch them-

Suddenly, there was a sudden jolt, and Steve felt the pain flare up against his temple as it was hit by something sharp and brutal.

Darkness was almost immediate. The last thing he realised before unconsciousness swept over him was that the near-perpetual screams he’d been hearing since Tony’s fall had suddenly stopped.

It was only in the final millisecond that he realised he had been the one making them.

Waking up the hospital bed a few hours later, the first thing Steve saw was Bucky.

“Don’t scream, please, or you’re gonna make me cry,” Bucky hurried to say, eyes widening as Steve gasped.

There was a cool hand resting over his, and Steve looked down at it, noting how it moved, how it was attached to the rest of Bucky’s body- real and living and breathing.

“I...” Steve began, voice hoarse as he turned his hand over and clutched desperately to Bucky’s, “you...I’m sorry-”

“Steve,” Bucky interrupted, his own voice sounding almost as haunted as Steve’s as he leaned forward and rested a hand over his forehead, “it was not your fault. What happened to me, was never your fault. You did everything you could. I didn’t... I didn’t know you were so affected- I’m so sorry. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t,” he whispered adamantly.

Steve kept looking at him. His mind felt fuzzy and it hurt like a motherfucker from where he’d been hit-

“Tony,” he shot up, sitting ramrod straight and grabbing Bucky’s shoulder, “where’s Tony? Is he okay? What happened to him?”

“He’s fine,” Bucky assured hurriedly, standing up with Steve, pushing against his chest, “but you’ve got to stay here for a bit, okay, you’re hurt-”

“I need to see him,” Steve told him, his voice slowly becoming more frantic as he pushed back. He was stronger than Bucky, and if he really wanted to, it wouldn’t be a problem to get him out of the way.

He had to find Tony. And he would find Tony- whether Bucky attempted to stop him or not.

Wriggling out of Bucky’s hold, he ducked under the arm that stretched across the door and looked both ways.

“Yeah, okay, so how the fuck do you think you’re gonna find him then, bright spark?” Bucky asked dryly, leaning against the frame of the door and shooting Steve an unimpressed look.

“I’m not fucking around, Bucky,” Steve began angrily, but Bucky raised his hands and shook his head.

“He’s gone to get some food from the canteen, he’ll be back in a minute,” Bucky told him, taking his arm and leading him back inside, “you need to lie down until then, buddy, okay- Thor hit you pretty hard.”

Steve followed him; lying back down on the cot and then taking a good, long look over at his best friend. “Are you okay?” He asked quietly.

Bucky nodded, patting him on the shoulder. “Coupl’a scrapes from having to haul your ass back from that ledge, but nothing serious. I’m good, Stevie.”

Bucky sat back, lacing his fingers together and propping his feet on the bed. He looked so calm, so collected; but all Steve could see was the version of him that was seventy years younger, screaming in terror as he fell from the train-

He shook his head and took a breath. That wasn’t now. That was done. Bucky was back, and he was stronger than ever.

(It had almost happened again.)

“You’re awake,”

Steve shot up again in an instinctive response to the sound of that voice. He felt his heart hammer a few times faster as he laid eyes on Tony, bandaged and battered and wonderfully alive.

He made to move, but suddenly Bucky’s hands were there again, sharper, firmer this time, holding him on the bed. “Gently, Steve,” he warned quietly.

“Hey, it’s fine. He’s fine,” Tony told Bucky before Steve had a chance to open his mouth.

He looked in confusion between the two men as they shared a silent conversation between themselves. Eventually, Tony just rolled his eyes and stepped forward, reaching out for Steve’s hand and curling his fingers around the bigger man’s palm. “Just give us a minute, Bucky.”

“Tony, maybe I should just stay, in case-”

“He won’t do it again,” Tony argued, tone firm, hand holding tightly to Steve’s own.

Steve stared in confusion at the two of them. He had no idea what they were talking about- what did he do?

...what did he do.

“Tony,” Steve said quietly, looking up to him with a slowly growing expression of dread on his face, “I didn’t... what happened?”

Tony looked down at him, and then turned back to Bucky. “Five minutes. Then you can come back and mother hen the both of us to your heart’s content,” he told him.

Bucky grimaced, but nodded his head and gave Steve’s shoulder one last squeeze before standing and walking out of the room.

Tony watched him go, before turning back to Steve and running gentle fingers through his hair in greeting. “Hey, babe. Rough day?”

Steve didn’t bother answering; just wrapped an arm around Tony’s waist and pulled him in, tucking his face into Tony’s stomach and clutching his hands across the planes of Tony’s back.

Safe. Warm. Alive.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Steve whispered, eyes shutting in horror once more. “I thought I’d let you fall-”

“but you didn’t,” Tony said, hands cupping the back of Steve’s head, holding him, grounding him, “I’m fine. Thor had my back. It’s all good, baby, I’m okay.”

Steve wrapped his arms a little tighter around Tony’s waist, but upon feeling the squirm of discomfort Tony desperately attempted to mask, he released immediately, pulling his arms back so they were resting lightly against Tony’s hips and looking upward in concern. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Tony said, a little too fast. “Well- I mean, yes. But in all fairness, I did have an aircraft land on my head, so-

Steve delicately lifted Tony’s shirt, despite Tony’s weak verbal protest, and gasped as he saw the bruises which mottled Tony’s right-hand side. They were an angry, deep purple; running from waist to-

Steve stopped as he got to Tony’s shoulder.

“Tony,” he said, very, very softly, “they’re... they’re from hands.”

Tony pressed a hand against Steve’s jaw, tilting it back up to face him once more. “They don’t matter-”

“It was me, wasn’t it,” Steve whispered, mouth falling open in horror. “When I... when I grabbed you. I made them.”

Tony looked like someone had just run over a puppy in front of him, and he pressed a self-conscious hand across his ribs where the bruises were worst. “Steve, you weren’t in your right mind, okay, it wasn’t your fault-”

“Did I break them?” Steve choked, delicate finger tracing the outline of Tony’s ribs, a feather-light caress, before seemingly coming back to himself and snapping it away in horror.

Tony made a whining noise in the back of his throat and grabbed Steve’s hand, pressing it back against his skin, despite Steve’s initial refusal. “Baby, come on- I’m fine. They’re just bruised. Please don’t be like that, it wasn’t your fault-”

“IT WAS!” Steve yelled, absolutely stricken. “I let you fall, I let you... you fell, and I promised myself I’d never ever let that happen again, and then when I get you back I hurt you, oh my god, I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry-”

And Steve just couldn’t contain it any more.

With a final racketing choke, his face crumbled and he felt the sting of hot tears as they spilled over on to his cheeks. He was emotionally exhausted, he was hurt, and so was Tony. Because of him. Because he was too strong, because he hadn’t even been able to hold it together enough to keep Tony safe-

“Oh, Steve, baby, it’s okay,” Tony said softly, dropping on to the bed and pulling Steve in again, “we are all very acutely aware of what PTSD attacks do to a person. I’ve suffered a lot worse from other people and given a lot worse myself. This will heal. It was an accident. You literally did this from hugging me too tightly, babe, that’s really the best way I could imagine getting bruised ribs.”

Steve sniffed, leaning in against Tony’s uninjured shoulder and letting his fingers grip softly against the other man’s neck. He made sure to keep his touch impossibly light- the images of what he’d done before were burned into the back of his mind, and he couldn’t rid himself of them.

“You know, it’s okay to still be fucked up about what happened,” Tony said softly, “it’s okay. And Bucky might look like you just shot his grandmother, but if you need to talk to him about it, I’m 100% certain he will be there-”

“I was supposed to be able to save people,” Steve said suddenly, wiping his eyes with the heel of his palm, “the serum was supposed to... what use am I if I couldn’t even save the people who mean the most? What’s the point?”

Tony made another pained sound as Steve coughed on another sob, and his fingers gently stroked down Steve’s cheeks, wiping the tears from his face and smiling. “See, Steve- the great thing is- the people who mean the most to you?”

Tony bent down, kissing his forehead softly. “They can look out for themselves. Seriously- how many times have both me and Bucky ‘died’? We’re nightmares, honestly, it’s a wonder you keep us around, I’m pretty sure we’ve been cursed.”

Tony stopped, letting his nose fall into Steve’s messed-up hair. “Point is, you are not solely responsible for our wellbeing. You, at no point in history, have ever been to blame for either of us ‘dying’. Because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you would do everything and anything in your power to make sure that does not happen.”

Steve bit his lip, fighting back the urge to clutch Tony a little tighter as the other man leaned into him, hands pressing into the knots of Steve’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said again after a while, shaking his head and pulling away, looking at the floor, “I... for everything.”

Tony made an unimpressed noise in the back of his throat and quickly pulled Steve in again, kissing him soundly on the mouth.”Please don’t be,” he said honestly, “just... let it out. You went through some shit today. It’s okay. I won’t hold it against you.”

“That a promise?” Steve asked, a watery smile on his face as he watched Tony.

“You don’t cry enough for me to be comfortable with, anyway,” Tony said gruffly, “you owe me tears, Rogers- I’m doing all the crying in this relationship right now and that is something I am not comfortable with at all.”

When Steve remained silent, Tony placed a hand on the back of his neck and smiled. “It’s okay. I’m here, baby. And I’ll stay as long as you want me. Just...let it go.”

Steve looked up at him- Tony- battle-worn and and tired and bruised, but alive. Steve hadn’t failed him, Tony was still here.

Steve let his head drop back on to Tony’s shoulder, and he cried.

[stubert87]

I've felt the need to return to my old safe space to put something out into the universe. I've not been in a great place now for at least a month. What started as a mild wobble in confidence & self esteem, has escalated into a severe depressive episode.

I woke up this time 4 weeks ago and didn't want to be alive anymore. I should add some context to that. I didn't want to kill myself, quite the opposite. But all my desire to walk this earth and breathe another breath was gone. As soon as the thought of not wanting to be here appeared in my head, it very quickly made itself comfortable and became a very unwelcome guest. Every day became a nightmare, my head a battlefield on which what little willpower I felt I had slogged it out with the army of negative ideations that had dug their trenches and made their stand.

I think I'd forgotten what this felt like. The overwhelming urge to have the ground swallow you and never be bothered by anything again. The panicked reaction in your head, telling you to hide from the seemingly very real and immeasurable threat. But where do you hide from your own thoughts? How do you run from yourself?

It's been a long four weeks and I'm not sure I'm out of the woods yet. I'm more coasting along the treeline, enjoying the fresh air and sunlight again. I think at this point it's definitely worth reflecting on how I ended up here. How I wound up on the brink of a very dangerous existential crisis.

Between September last year and January this year I unfortunately lost 2 family members. Added to that the trip of a lifetime I'd saved and counted down to went a bit let's tong and it all got a bit much. I listened to my little brain and took some time off. Spending it with family and close friends. Connecting with the amazing support I have in my life. And then 2 months later lockdown happened and all that wonderful support felt like it had been ripped away. It just felt like one knock after another that leaves an already hurting soul, and vulnerable psyche very open to further blows.

Living by yourself, isolated from friends and family back home, having nothing but work to go to day in, day out, whilst managing the fear of this new pandemic, and the multitude of "what ifs" it generates... I know I'm not the only one to have found themselves in this position. The vast majority of humans aren't hard wired to live in isolation, and definitely not an isolation that generates so much fear and anxiety.

But lockdown restrictions have eased now, why is it that my latest episode has hit me now? Why not back in April or May when the lockdown was at its most stringent? The only reasoning I can settle on, is that we've entered the dreaded "new normal". The vast majority of us entered lockdown hoping to spend a few months in isolation and exit lockdown in a joyous victory over covid and go back to our normality. When the fact is we've slowly trickled back out of our anxiety ridden hideaways, into a world of new rules and behaviours and guess what... More anxiety and stress. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, if you will. Nothing about how we're living now is normal. Every masked individual, plastic screen and social distancing sign pushing us further into a state of anxiety and worry.

Even if you're not worried about your own health. There's the worry of the health of those close to you, as well as worrying how people see you, will people judge you for not wearing a mask, how will someone react if you get too close, and the wondering when all this will be over and you can just hug your nana again. An endless lists of what's, what ifs, how's, and why's. It's a draining cycle for all involved. The human fight or flight mechanism isn't the best of states to be living in for a prolonged period of time, and the effects of this long term stress and worry are more and more evident in wider society.

I always try to keep talking to those around me. And I've tried talking my way through this current episode I've found myself in, but what I found petrified me. In an effort to reach out, to talk, to try and steady myself and get help from those around me, I found far too many people in very unsettled states of mind. It added another overwhelming feeling to this all. It seemed like no one was in a position to help, because they themselves needed help. This evidence of living under social distancing induced anxiety was showing on so many people I spoke to. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a good portion of our population on the verge, if not in the midst of a mental health crisis and it worries me deeply.

The biggest thing I can say to you all if you suspect someone close to you isn't in a great state of mental wellbeing and you feel in a position to help is simple. Act. Don't talk. People think that talking is the answer, and to some extent it is. But "it's time to talk" is a years old slogan and we need to progress past this. In order to talk, we that are suffering need help getting un-stuck. Un-stuck from the negative ideations, the constant rumination, and the sluggish brain-fog that consumes us. Sometimes the best way to do that is to kick start us into action. Don't just tell the person you're concerned about that you're here if you need them. Be there. Tell them (don't ask) that you're taking them for a walk, or to dinner, or popping round for a cuppa. The jolt to the system these acts give often helps awaken the senses, and just the same as a tiny spark can set away a blazing inferno, the smallest bit of positivity can snowball and help the person to find their footing on their path again. Be prepared to be cancelled on. But as someone who's been here before, I ask you not to give up on them if they do cancel. For some people the whole process of meeting up can feel too overwhelming and they will try cancelling or making excuses. Gently persevere with them, they're not being inconsiderate, they just can't quite face it yet.

One thing I'd love people to normalise is talking about coping mechanisms. A rather pretentious way of saying "things you do to keep you going". I seem to auto-deploy them these days when I get unwell. I like to meditate and practice yoga to try and calm the mind and align it to my breathing and be present in my body. I try to read. I make sure I make social plans, but also make sure I take time out away from the hustle and bustle. I have to say they're working a treat. Which may sound a bit hypocritical considering the fact I've said I've had one of the worst depressive episodes I've had in a long time, but the last time I felt like this was 2014 and I had to go on medication. Here I am finding myself in a better place without medical intervention, having managed through my coping mechanisms, and some brilliant people who arrived just as I needed them, whether they knew it or not.

It's a hard hard task managing your mental health. For some of us, it will literally be our life's work. But growth doesn't come from never having experienced difficulties, it comes from seeing those difficulties and working through them. I for one am always looking to grow, which means I must expect further difficulties on the way. My biggest offering to those needing help through their poor mental health is to explore and find your coping mechanisms. Even if that's just picking one person a day to phone or text or making one social plan each day. I can never ever stress the importance of some kind of physical activity. It's no surprise my mental wellbeing took an upwards turn the second I re-engaged with my yoga and started cycling again. The mind and body aren't separate entities. They should both be nurtured together.

Before I sign off, I want to say that if anyone reading this is wondering why I never reached out to you, I'm sorry. It's not that I don't value you, or see you as someone who can help. My brain was in a thoroughly irrational state, and didn't make rational choices. But I want you to know I got there. And I will always get there. I know nothing else but to fight this.

[cortex-reaver]

Chapter 62: Reunion [Post System Shock 2 Fanfic]

Warnings; Language, cyborg horror, emotional trauma

Masterpost

Hacker peered down the corridor, mentally wincing at his sensor-enhanced sight. It was so garish it made his old Berserker visions look muted in comparison. He continued poking at his menus and their settings, patiently reducing the mish-mash of sensory data down to something he could tolerate.

That and he'd really rather not see the skeletons or fleshy insides of people he knew quite well already, thank you very fucking much. The first few times he saw Goggles after hooking in would give him nightmares. That much he knew already.

Oh there we go. Reduce deep-radar, deep-scan layers to toggle for when I want 'em...And now modify the scan modes to Moderate to Light so I'm not thinking the floor is fucking transparent even when the limbs are telling me it isn't. Yeah okay. There.

The sensory hailstorm of colors and data dropped to a near monotonous blue-green-red scheme showing heat sources, accessible machinery, systems with wi-fi, and a much better view of Goggles without all her squishy insides. Seeing all the modifications SHObeta had made to her hadn't helped his sanity much either. She was less human than either had realized, and that had been surprisingly disturbing despite his current condition.

A corner of his mind noted that Goggles knew this about herself, and this was why she had withdrawn so much during her time at his apartment. No wonder, he mused.

Moderate scan was now promptly blocked by her armor, and what he got back was information that defined a solid human body in front of him instead of...well, let's not go there.

He blinked his eyes, wondering why in fuck-all had the Super-Reaver frame decided to go rearrange the innards of his eyeballs. He'd managed to stop it from building those sensor plates over his eye sockets, but it had gone right around him and modified his eyes.

He shrugged mentally. Fix that later, just get things useable, and then find out where the damn combat HUD was so he could get at it during a fight. Or better yet, find out where the simple Visible Spectrum view was first.

Oh. There we go—AUUUGH I DID NOT SAY TO GO TO CYBERSPACE! WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THESE MENUS?!

The world around him lay drenched in black, with fluorescent geometric shapes outlined in brilliant lines. Corridors of yellow and gold panels outlined chambers with flickering shapes and symbols around them. Lines of code flitted back and forth. Energy pulsed on the walls like a thing alive. Citadel's cyberspace looked positively boring compared to this.

Now his head hurt again, and not because of the shit he'd let drill into it to wire his brain up--

Fucking hell where's the exit? he growled to himself as he swam about the mass of confusing and brightly lit shapes. This looked more like Cyberspace shot with Stam-Up and a double dose of Berserker, then chased down with some LSD for kicks.

At least navigating here felt mostly the same. Maybe. Maybe not. He couldn't tell. He hadn't been in C-space proper since some of the newer interface softwares for his implant skipped direct cyberspace interfaces in favor of layered symbol grids. Immersion had become outdated over the last twenty years, much to his present chagrin.

After swatting around some several familiar-looking shapes, plenty of swearing, and ducking a trio of floating glitchy skulls he hoped weren't security programs reporting back to the Super-Reavers, he finally found the stop-sign shaped exit and dropped back into--

“Dude, are you okay?” Goggles asked. “You froze up for a second there.”

“Got lost in the menus, then got lost in cyberspace,” he sighed tiredly as he scrubbed at his face with one hand. “This thing's a beast. I was lucky to get the legs working as well as I did back there. Thanks for your help.”

Thank God it was Visible Spectrum Mode he'd dropped back into. He saw her smile, and sighed with relief.

He looked her over, then shook his head amid the Super-Reaver's wiring.

“Damn, those optics are trashed. Sorry about the elevator. I uh, set the speed modifier too high there. Can you see well enough to walk?”

In answer, the soldier simply pried the optics off and regarded him with her natural brown eyes.

“Blurry but decent,” she finally said. “Anyways...we're still alive, we're OK, and we're not being eaten by a mass of Super-Reavers. I'll take busted optics over that any day. How about we tell the others how you made out?”

“Sure. No problem. Y-you might wanna go ahead of me, though. I'm pretty sure I have the super-regen now, but I'm not ready to find out how much it hurts to grow anything back.”

Goggles nodded with a knowing chuckle.

“Yeah, I'll do that,” she remarked, then shook her head with a grin. “Hopefully the Stooges don't decide to grenade first and ask questions later.”

The walk to the Regen room was quiet, save for Hacker's occasional slips and slides while skittering along with his new limbs. Goggles gave him a wide enough berth as he continued sorting out the Super-Reaver's movements. After another moment's walking, she sent her signal ahead.

Goggles: Hey. We're back. Can you like, not shoot when we get there?

Moe: Hey, welcome back. Whaddya mean, not shoot?

Larry: Waitasec. Hacker was gonna get one of those Super-Reaver rigs. Right?

Curly: Yeah yeah yeah how'd you make out?

They reached the three Stooges guarding the doorway several moments later.

“Hey guys,” Hacker called out, waving with one hand. “That answer your questions?”

All three Stooges stared in perfectly synchronized slack-jawed shock. Then abruptly switched to fanged grins accompanied by soft moaning cackles.

Then Larry banged on the door with one limb.

Larry: GUYS YOU GOTTA SEE THIS

Curly: DUUUUUUUUUUUUDE THAT IS SICK

Moe: HOLY SHIT

The door slid open to reveal Dex, who peeked out, then promptly lurched backwards with a horrified scream. SHObeta darted out next, then whirled to race back into the Regen room with a gleeful screech of glitched laughter.

Craig stepped through the door, then did a double-take.

“Hey, you’re not dead! Or a zombie!”

He pulled off his optics, and looked Hacker over. He put them back on with a stunned shake of his head.

“Wow, damn that's some serious freak-ass you're wearing.”

“Tell me about it. Might need you and the Stooges to help with the menus. They're beyond ridiculous.”

“Uh yeah, sure thing,” Craig sputtered as he motioned the soldier and Hacker inside.

Goggles stepped through, then got as far away from the door as possible. Thankfully the entryway was bigger than the elevator's. After a few minutes' frantic limb positioning, Hacker hauled himself into the Regenerator room.

He picked his way to the largest patch of clear floor, then set the Super-Reaver down in a messy coil of limbs with his body sitting atop them. Only after he sat down, did Dex venture to peek out from behind a stunned Bryce.

Hacker waved, hoping to calm him down. The poor Exec-Bot shook harder than the Reaver factory's bots had when they found out Cortie was SHODAN.

A moment later, he got control of himself, and stepped out from behind his friend.

“So it did work,” Bryce remarked with an evil grin rivaling the Stooges'. “You are crazy. Good. Only way to live these days.”

Then he grinned even wider.

“So what can ya do to these bastards now?”

“Plenty,” Hacker answered with a matching grin. “All thanks to null.ethic.”

“Huh. So that bit of code is actually good for something?” Dex marveled. “The times we live in. Sorry 'bout that, Hacker. Call it a flashback to when I got blown up by one of those fuckers.”

“No worries there, dude,” Hacker softly replied, nodding. “I've done worse with my shit.”

He then motioned to the regenerators. “Anybody wake up yet?”

“Nah,” Craig answered. “Not yet. Rebecca's coming out first cause she got the least amount of damage. Mostly a mangled shoulder. Timer's got fifteen minutes left. Rod's next, Tamora's third, and then Suzi last since the Super-Reaver like, almost broke her in half. It's gotta not only rebuild her but her cyberware. Messy.”

He winced sympathetically, then shrugged. He glanced to Goggles, noting the busted optics in her hand. He rummaged in his assorted pockets, then pulled out a brand-new pair of cyber-goggles.

“From the Reaver plant's replicator,” he explained. “Had a feeling you'd need a spare again after the rat hunt.”

The soldier smiled with relief as she took the new optics and secured them to her face.

“Thanks.”

“Looks like the regenerators are making better time than the old Citadel ones,” Hacker remarked, using his Sensearound – only after turning off all the same jacked up sensor-feed bells and whistles on its viewer as well – to closely examine all the stations' timers.

“Means we won’t have to wait too long to regroup, here.”

Goggles nodded.

“Figured as much. Rebecca's the one we need for taking the Bridge the most, so with her out first, we have a better shot at a decent plan. But first...”

She walked up to Cortieball, who had watched the proceedings with saucers for eyes. Gently she lifted her from Bryce's hand, then carried her over to the Hacker.

“...I think you should get Cortie out of lockdown.”

He looked down at Cortie's face, which now had a huge grin of sheer glee to go with her huge eyes.

“Well now this is an old fantasy of yours, isn't it?” he teased with a crooked grin.

Her face remained the same save for an eager nod as Goggles passed her into Hacker's hands.

“Probably something about reaching my full potential as a cyborg,” he remarked with a chuckle. “Well once I get you out, I'll tell you about all the bells and whistles on this thing. This thing is beast.”

Goggles chuckled.

“So you figure out how they did it?” she asked. “Dumped in the ethics code?”

Hacker shrugged in his rig.

“Judging from the wi-fi menus in this thing, my bandwidth is ridic. Could transmit station-wide OSes in minutes. Chances are the ethics params went through in oh...half a second? Maybe less? The tricky part is how they got them in past Cortie's defenses”--

“CYber-r-RspaCE,” Cortie said softly, her face shifting to a somber expression. “I Look-k-Ked at My meMORieS of WHeN thEY aTTAckeD. It...it waS In CyberSPaCe. I waSN't lOokInG theERe WheN thEey caMe. All thEy Had To Do...waSss Get NEaR mEEeee-e-eE. WHICh theY D-d-d-dID. VerRrRy QuickLY.”

“Shit,” Hacker muttered, realization dawning on him. “Classic Cortex Reaver c-space fuckery. That's how they get anybody kicking around in C-space, pretty much. If you're jacked in, they can see you. That's easy enough for a normal Reaver, too. All PsychoDAN had to do was tell 'em what to do once they found you. And soon as you got distracted, wham.”

Goggles snapped her fingers in frustration.

“It's like they were planning for her to be distracted. Defending you”--

“Was exactly it,” Hacker sighed grimly. “They used my blackout against her. It was the perfect opening for them. She'd have to defend me because of how she felt about me and Citadel. The one time she wouldn't be focusing on her brain defense.”

“They used your guilt as a blind spot,” Goggles said softly.

Cortie blinked. Then her face crumpled inside the ball.

“OhHhHhh-H-HhHhh,” she sighed miserably.

Her face settled into the bottom of the ball with a long, mournful sigh. Hacker gently held her to his chest.

“It maAkes PerFEct seNSE,” she whispered. “THeY KnEw whaAT to Hit Me With, whERe, and WHeN.”

“Well now I know how they did it, I should be able to undo it,” Hacker said. “My implant's got a copy of null.ethic. All I'll have to do is go into cyberspace and pop it back into your head. The tricky part is figuring how to replicate the Super-Reavers' little dance move. Boom. Done.”

“It wiLL not bE so sIMple,” Cortie sadly explained as he settled her into his lap again. “I caN onLY speAK in THisS-s-s Form. I WIlL be MuTE theEERe. My sysTEM has ActiVaTed NumerOUS defenSEs againST beINg DIsaB-b-bBLed Or MOdifIEd.”

She paused, letting out a long glitched hiss of a sigh.

“The EthiCS PrograM UsEs theM TO PReveNT tamPerInG. DIeGo gaVE you aCCEss PaSt thoSe. You Do NOt haAVe thaT aCcEs-s-sS nOw. TheY wiLL fiGhT You. I Am ParalYZeD but the progRAm is NoT.”

Hacker blinked as he stared down at the ball in his hands.

“So I'm gonna end up fighting you in cyberspace...again?”

She nodded delicately.

“I aM So SOrR-r-rY...in aDvancE.”

Hacker groaned as he clapped a hand to his face.

“The bright side to this dark cloud is I'm going in as a Super-Reaver,” he muttered. “Which means it's going to work, regardless of whatever I end up dealing with.”

“AnoTheR thiNG,” Cortie added. “I moDifieD my dEFenseS extENSIveLy on CItaDEl and BeyoND. The EthIcs COde USeS whaAT is aVAILable. TheY...THeY arE Not For the FainT-t-t Of HeaRT. YOu wIlL HaVe to Get PaST theEM to SEND meE the Code. It mUst Get intO my MInD or It wiLL bEe DestrOYED by THeEM.”

Hacker stared at her, then groaned again. Yep. Flashback Central dipped in acid and chased down with Berserker. Par for the course.

“I picked a hell of a day to face all my nightmares at once,” he muttered. “Goddammit.”

[aion-rsa]

Host Explained: How it was Made, Easter Eggs and all Your Questions Answered

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Massive spoilers for Shudder original HOST to follow.

Productions are shut down, movie theatres are barely open, we’re fast running out of new things to watch. Then Rob Savage and his talented team of mates make Host in 12 weeks and all bets are off. 

This is the new horror phenomenon from Shudder, a film based entirely around a Zoom call where a group of friends do an online seance and accidentally invite something terrifying into their houses. It runs at a brief 56 minutes but manages to pack that runtime with character development, humour and proper pee-your-pants scares. And don’t just expect creepy things in the background – by the final act, which Savage refers to as “the freak out”, the movie employs full on stunt work, prosthetics and major shocks, all of which were done socially distanced. It really is an extraordinary piece of work which has unsurprisingly taken horror audiences by storm.

It’s also a film full of hints, easter eggs, references and ambiguities. We sat with Savage – via Zoom, of course – for an incredibly spoilery breakdown of Host and how it was made.

It’s been over a week now since Host was released – how has this time been? It must be weird launching your film on lockdown?

Rob Savage: It’s really weird. And it’s really weird because I made the movie basically sitting around in my flat, in my dressing gown. And we released the movie with me sitting around in my flat and in my dressing gown. And the response has happened with me… sat in my dressing gown. So it doesn’t quite feel real. I know everyone says that, but because there hasn’t been a premiere, there hasn’t been some sort of big launch where you can see 100 faces smiling back at you, it kind of just feels like I’m basically just sitting on my laptop like everyone has been for the past six months. So there’s a weird disconnect to the whole thing, but it’s obviously lovely. It’s amazing. It’s amazing that it exploded beyond just the horror community because we made it for horror fans. We wanted to get it out on Shudder and we wanted to give horror fans something fun to watch while they were locked down. But it’s lovely that it’s entered the mainstream a little bit.

I understand this was a project commissioned by Shudder?

RS: Yeah. We had a few people bidding on it. I made a stupid prank video that went a little bit viral and off the back of that, we had a few different companies come to us and this was at the height of lockdown. This was right in the peak and nobody could make anything, everyone was totally grounded.

So are we talking about May, April?

RS: Yeah. God, time has lost all meaning. But I guess it was May, maybe end of April. We had all of these different companies come to us. But that approach was much more typical to a larger production. They were saying, “We want to get this out really fast. We’ll try and get it out in six months.” And it’s like, “No, no, no, no, this needs to be in a matter of weeks. This needs to be something that mirrors back what’s going on right now and what people are living through right now.”

Shudder totally got on board with that. And we basically didn’t have a script. We didn’t really have a concept beyond a bunch of friends doing an online seance. Something scary is going to happen, we’ll figure it out, and you’ve just got to trust us. And to their credit, they came on board and they left us to figure it out.

Haley Bishop in her stunt gear

It’s microbudget but one of the things I loved about it is that it doesn’t look like that. I expected creepy things in the background but then towards the end, there’s actual proper stunt work, which is amazing. I’d like to hear a bit about the decision to do that?

RS: One of the reasons we wanted to go so big at the end is because we knew that people would have very low expectations going in. On paper, it sounds really shit, “Zoom, horror movie.” If I was to read that headline, I’d be like, “Fuck off.” And the fact that we made it under lockdown conditions, I think is always going to be at the forefront of people’s minds. One thing you’re always looking to do when you’re making a movie, especially a horror movie, is to make the audience feel that they’re without a roadmap, that they don’t know what the next turn is going to be. From the beginning, when we blocked it out, we separated it into three acts.

The first act was the seance. The second act was the haunting. And the third act was the freak out. We really wanted it to feel like by about half an hour in, the audience felt like they knew all our tricks. Then we wanted to show them something that was like, “No, you haven’t seen anything yet.” We really wanted to push that final act and make it a roller coaster. 

How did you do those big stunt set pieces – how much VFX was used?

RS: With the stunts there’s obviously VFX clean up and stuff, but it’s all pretty much what you see is what we did. So Teddy really got his face set on fire. Jinny really got picked up in the air and thrown into the swimming pool. Everything is 95% done in-camera with a little VFX cleanup to help it out. We started out by writing a list of all the cool things that we could do because of the people we know, the friends that we’ve worked with in the industry.

We had this amazing moment at the very beginning of the process where we were talking about the fact that we have to shoot it remotely as being this big, negative that we are having to constantly fight against. And then, we had this revelatory moment where we’re like, “Oh, but actually it means that we can work with anyone because anyone who’s got an internet connection can suddenly be on our crew.” So we wrote a big list of people who we knew who were just sitting around twiddling their thumbs. We had pyrotechnic experts. There’s an amazing house full of stunt performers who live with a stunt coordinator, which means that legally, without breaking lockdown, we could do all these amazing stunts. Teddy, as well as being an amazing actor, is also a fully qualified stunt performer who’s done burn work before, so we could get him on board and we could set his face on fire.

It was really out of necessity that we came up with all these ideas. Then, we retrofitted the scare scenes to what we knew we could achieve.

Pool levitation rig

That’s brilliant. So the scene with Jinny over the pool, how did that work?  How was she lifted? 

RS: She’s on a wire, it picks her up. She chokes in midair and then there’s a remote control, like quick release, that lets her go, drops her into the water.

The picnic table at Emma’s death scene was obviously a real picnic table. It’s not a real Emma, though?

RS: Yes, that’s the same. That’s actually Jinny doing that fall. Jinny’s a qualified stunt person as well. We got those both on the same night, she went through a table and then she got hoisted in the air and dropped in a swimming pool. The way that we did that, it was actually the same system. So she was on a rope that dropped her down onto the table from this massive height and just stopped her. Just bungeed her a few inches off the ground. Even though she breaks the table which we loosened like in the old kung fu movies, we weakened it at all the important bits so it broke. She landed with that heavy kind of thump, but she didn’t actually go with all her weight and we didn’t actually break her neck.

That’s incredible.

RS: It was all done with the same rig on the same night. That bit of Emma’s garden is actually – if you were to pan the camera a meter over to the side, you’d see the swimming pool because we shot that in the same location.

James Swanton is your demon….

RS: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He filmed all those bits at his parents’ house. 

I was wondering if he was ever in the same room as anyone… 

RS: No, a lot of the stunts and the scares, it’s just hidden cuts. You go from Teddy’s house and he’s got the torch and the torch dips off-screen for a moment. So you’ve got a black screen and then the torch comes up and suddenly you’re in James Swanton’s house and it’s his mum shooting as he walks up the stairs and we see his face jumping out between the banisters. So it’s all just really lo-fi, little techniques like that. One of the biggest effects moments I guess is the moment where you see James, the demon, underneath Teddy’s pool table because we actually shot that against a green screen in James’s house and added him in to Teddy’s pool table. I think there’s the most VFX going on in that shot. The rest of them are pretty much all done in location.

You also worked with Dan Martin on prosthetics, but remotely, how did that work?

RS: He was great. I’ve worked with Dan a bunch of times and he was one of the first people on our list of awesome people who could probably do something cool for us. I messaged him and we figured that the best way probably was to send little prosthetic pieces to Caroline along with a kind of tutorial video, that Dan very kindly made, explaining how to attach it. So Caroline had a few test pieces that she applied first using this video. Then she had the real pieces that she applied on the day. So Dan basically just came on a Zoom call and took her through inch by inch how to apply the makeup, how to blend it in, how much blood to apply, where to apply it. 

Actor Caroline Ward does SFX prep with SFX Artist Dan Martin, Director Rob Savage and Producer Douglas Cox

We had Caroline with a little cushion just out of sight so she didn’t completely brain herself on the laptop. She’d start with a little bit of blood running from her nose and she’d wack her head a couple of times. Then Dan would say, “Great, let’s do a broken nose now.” Then we’d add a little bit, and we’d crack her nose. Then she’d slam a couple more times and slowly we’d build it up until her face was all torn to shreds. Caroline was loving it. All the blood is basically corn syrup. So she was high as a kite by the end of it.

The whole Zoom background is brilliant because it does work like that, of course. You’ll come in and out of shot depending on where you’re sitting.

RS: Yeah. It’s a distance thing. That was one of the first scares we came up with that we wanted somebody to fly through the kind of threshold of the fake Zoom background. Again, that was just her. We set up her camera on her bed, covered her face in blood, and just had her “Superman” at the camera a bunch of times. Then, we stitched it together in VFX.

There are lots of moments and Easter eggs and things off-screen that people have alluded to. And certainly, I think I’ve seen you or possibly Jed [Shepard] allude to something that happens in the first three minutes?

RS: Yeah. So there’s something, I don’t want to spoil it totally… You should be looking around the moment where Jemma first joins, there’s a little… it’s less of a scare, it’s not a demon sighting or anything like that, but it’s a little clue as to what’s really going on. Yeah, that’s what I’ll say. 

Post-seance, there’re a lot of moments where we’ve got scary things happening in the background or the demon lurking, which is little-blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments where James will pop up. But really the first half, we basically give the audience everything they need to decipher what happens next. In the first five minutes, there’s clues to where the demon comes from, how everyone’s going to die, how the demon’s going to get summoned. Every single time we introduce a character, they’ve got a little clue as to what their fate’s going to be.

One of the big questions is about Seylan and what actually happens to her. There’s a key moment where something comes out of the corner just before she is cut off – to me it looks like something jumping out but it’s a very quick moment. What should we take from this?

RS: The idea is, it’s something bursting out. It’s something bursting out and knocking things flying in that moment. I know what I think when I’m watching it, but there’s no real right answer. In one take I got her to play it one way, and in another take I got her to play it another. But this idea of whether it’s actually Seylan who’s on the phone when they call… Our Terminator 2 moment.

What’s on the screen is a mixture of those two different takes. One where I got it to play it very much from the point of view of she has become the host of something and she’s possessed by something and she’s giving them the wrong information – because if you look at it, it’s only after they reengage with the spirit in the house, and they ask for further communication, that the shit really starts going down and they to get picked off. So Seylan doesn’t really do a whole heap of good there, which there’s a reading of that she’s helping the demon along.

Was the ambiguity important to you?

RS: With a lot of this, the creepiness is in the not knowing. It’s not like we filmed it and had a definitive answer in mind, but we filmed it knowing that we wanted to create a sense of ambiguity there because that’s what keeps you up at night.

Jemma Moore in Host

Jemma’s story, although she says it’s not true is weirdly specific. And then there’s all this hanging iconography, Jinny’s neck, and the noose in Teddy’s place…

RS: Exactly. When me and Jemma were working on how that scene would go, she actually made the decision to base the memory on somebody from her real life, who is still alive, but that’s why there’s that kind of weird specificity to it. And I mean, the way that we always thought about it is that it’s a ‘tulpa��� movie. 

A tulpa is a ghost or a demon that is summoned by groupthink. So the idea is that if you’re all imagining the same person in your mind, they can manifest, even though they were never really alive and they were never really dead. The idea is that Jemma, by creating so vividly this person, that all of the group see in their head while they’re in this kind of weirdly connected state, allows the demon to come through and the demon starts to manifest using these images that Jemma has evoked. It’s kind of the demon’s way of mocking them or kind of toying with them. As the movie goes through, you start to see more and more of the demon in its real form. It becomes less Jack and more demonic. And then, the final shot, you see frames of a transformation happening where the recognizable figure of Jack starts to turn into something a bit more uncanny and demonic.

So in that sense, when Seylan explains the rules and she talks about how it’s a mask then everybody sees it and thinks of it in that way. And then, of course, we have mask iconography.

RS: Yeah. It’s all about that idea of groupthink. They’re in a collective nightmare by that point. The more that they lean into that, the more it starts to manifest.

Was that consciously  a reference point or an allegory for what’s going on in the world?

RS: No, not really. We were really keen to not make it a pandemic movie. It’s a lockdown movie, not a pandemic movie. It’s really about the specifics of being isolated and going stir-crazy and the appearance of being connected, but actually being isolated. That was the main thing we wanted to tap into is it can feel like you’re hanging out in a group and your friends are there, but ultimately you’re on your own. And that’s the horror that we wanted to play out when things start happening, they’re all going through their own individual nightmares and everyone else is just a passenger.

The girls were friends already, right?

RS: We’re all just really good friends. They’re the same people who are in the initial prank video that I did. We were pretty much just hanging out on Zoom anyway, doing Zoom happy hours. And we just basically started pressing record and went from there.

There’s so much brilliant character development done without exposition, which is just really clever. How tightly scripted was it, and how much were they allowed to play?

RS: We gave them parameters for those early scenes. But there was never a conventional script. We had a 10-page outline with certain beats that they needed to hit. I spoke to all the different actors individually and talked about what they might want to bring to the table. I gave them sample lines of dialog that they could play around with, but we never did a full scripted rehearsal.

A lot of the actors didn’t know certain topics that were going to get brought up. It was more just prompts that I knew would be fun. So like the astral plane drinking game, that’s a line in the outline, but I didn’t know how they’d implement that and I didn’t tell Seylan that they were going to start drinking on the word astral plane. So the way that it came up felt kind of very natural and the way that the girls all kind of eyeball each other whenever the word is said is really fun. That’s all just happening for real.

You have mentioned that at points you’re referencing and homaging other movies – obviously there’s quite a bit of Paranormal Activity, what else can we look out for?

RS: Yeah. There’s a lot of Paranormal Activity, and I’m a big found footage guy and I love Paranormal Activity and all of those. Even though we made this in quite a condensed time period, there’s actually a lot more time you get to spend on these kinds of things when you’re filming remotely because you’re not waiting around for the lights to be set up or hair and makeup or any of these things. It means you can really tinker and you can put in these kinds of Easter eggy things, which we had a lot of fun with. I mean, there’s some really big obvious homages, like the final scene with the camera flash is on one end of the scale, we’re referencing the first Saw movie. On a slightly more highbrow end of the scale, we’re referencing Wait Until Dark, which is a movie we love.

The bit with Emma throwing the sheet over the ghost is us giving a nod – it’s sort of the first Conjuring movie, but that wasn’t actually what we had in mind. It was this movie called Satan’s Slaves, which is great. It’s on Shudder. It’s an Indonesian horror movie by this filmmaker, Joko Anwar. It’s really scary. He’s basically the next James Wan. And there’s a great fucking scare with a bed sheet, we were homaging that. Another movie that I love that I wanted to get a reference in for was Alice, Sweet Alice, which is a slasher movie from the ’70s. The mask that floats on the dispossessed demon is a direct reference to Alice, Sweet Alice. The participant ID is the date that Ghostwatch was released, which is a big reference.

Then, the password is DMK, which is from the movie Night of the Comet, which is a movie we love as well. Lake Mungo is a big one that we referenced. The Polaroid picture with the glimpse of Jack was a reference… or not reference, but just we wanted to kind of evoke that same creepiness of that kind of fuzzy, am I seeing what I think I’m seeing, kind of quality that Lake Mungo evokes.

So the obvious question is what’s next? What can we be looking out for? Are you likely to make anything else in lockdown?

RS: Oh, yeah definitely. Because of the success of Host, there’s been a huge interest in doing more. We’ve got lots of ideas that I don’t think people are going to quite expect. The last thing we want to do is try and just repeat Host because it’s such a specific thing, and we did it without any intention of it blowing up like this. So I think if we came at it now with all this expectation, I think it would probably just suck. So we’ve got a really fucking cool follow-up that we want to do that’s in a similar space. That’s going to really take people by surprise.

If Shudder wants us to, we’ve got plenty more of these ideas. And I want to keep making stuff until the world reopens again. It’s so much fun being able to make it… It’s a much more creative process than doing the normal film or TV series, doing it this way in such a condensed time. You can spend years and years developing something that never goes anywhere, but to have a movie conceived and out there in 12 weeks is a dream. So I’d love to do more of them.

Host is available to watch on Shudder now.

The post Host Explained: How it was Made, Easter Eggs and all Your Questions Answered appeared first on Den of Geek.

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