#the smoke from the fires in canada has settled in here

[exsqueezememacaroni]

Mike saying Albeh-turkey and Tuckson in Albuquerque and Tucson is what is keeping me going in these (literally dark) times.

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

All Along the Watchtower (Chapter 15)

[Can also be read on AO3]

Pairing: Captain John Price x Fem!OC (3rd person POV)

Word count: 2.8 K

Warnings: Minors DNI - suggestive dialogue, mild angst, flirting, ship's first real kiss, smoking

Summary: The mission is over, and Price and Rory have time alone together at camp

A/N: Rory Sinclair is a dual citizen (both Canada and the UK) who's been living in the UK since she was 14. She is 28 at the time of this fic, Price is 32. This series is set in 2017 before the events of the first MW game. Rory's thoughts are bold and italicized, other italics are used for emphasis

*This is the chapter where the ship finally really and truly kicks off. It does have a fade to black ending as the next chapter is entirely smut and not really necessary for story purposes so if you want to skip the next chapter it's an option*

November 2, 2017 21:18 - Al-Hasakah, Syria

With the outpost removed and the intel in Laswell’s hands, a makeshift campsite had been set up on the outskirts overlooking the desert. A small fire burning for warmth while the stars shone above in the midnight blue sky – tranquil, despite there being a warzone still raging miles away. Sitting in the sand, Rory ate her ration pack of lamb stew as she watched Price pace back and forth several feet away, confirming plans on his phone for the next steps now that the mission was coming to a close, zoning out to the sway of his hips as he walked. 

Slipping his phone into the pocket of his tac pants, he moved back to sit near the fire and start in on his own dinner. Her eyes fell away from him and instead turned to the flames that flickered in front of her as he settled in the sand beside her. 

“Nik'll be here in the mornin’, has to refuel and tune up before he can head out.”

She hummed, poking her spork around in the gray plastic pouch of her ORP. “I'm sure that wasn't a suggestion from the good Captain at all, was it?” Her eyes flicked up to look at him, a teasing little smirk pulling up the corner of her mouth, the flames of the fire of their camp illuminating the amber flecks in her eyes.  

“You think it's my intent to keep you all to myself, Sergeant? Just what are you trying to imply?” The predatory edge to his eyes and tone were near explicit.

“Do you think I'm daft, John?”

He shook his head and laughed, tearing open the heated packet of steak and vegetables. “Oh no, quite the opposite. I think you're too smart for your own good. I think if you had enough time, you could read me like a book.”

He wasn’t far off in his estimate, with the training she had as an interrogator she likely could. However, she would also be having to combat a hardened veteran with sixteen years of experience under his belt and who was trained to resist interrogation methods of all kinds. He had already proven to have a look in his eyes that was impenetrable at most times. For all she knew, it would be a stalemate. 

“Given enough practice I probably could.”

“No probably about it, sweetheart. I also get the feeling that if it came down to it you could beat me in any argument – as long as I don't pull rank.” He looked up from the contents of his packet and she was once again met by that stare she had caught in her scope - that hungry, feral one. 

“That's a given. I'm a barrister's daughter, after all. If I hadn't gone the military route my father was sure I'd make a good one and follow in his footsteps.”

“Why didn't you?”

She scoffed. “Life.”

“Meaning?”

There was a side to John that she had been given just a taste of, the one who used whatever tools he could get his hands on to reach his objective, and in this case, the little alarm bell in the back of her head went off. How much of that was her own trust issues she couldn’t be sure, but giving him too much knowledge about her did put her a little on edge even if he only intended to keep her safe – everything was a weapon to Captain Price.  

“What? You want my life story?” Her eyes narrowed, challenging him just enough. “Is this our first date?” she asked, lifting the MRE packet. “Really splurged on dinner.”

He chuckled at her sarcastic comment and lit a cigar. “Go on,” he said softly, his voice a hoarse murmur on the wind.

“You really want to know?”

“I do.”

She rolled her eyes and put the MRE packet down grabbing her pack of cigarettes and lighting one, taking a long drag before exhaling the smoke into the night with a long stream of breath. “It's rather convoluted, but – in short form – after my mother’s death, I had to leave Canada, leave the life I'd known behind and move to England to live with my father. I was fourteen – angry, grieving – and I was plunked in the house of a man who I only really knew through conversations over the phone and the few summer trips I had across the pond. He wasn't exactly ready for the challenge of raising a hormonal teenage girl… we were both thrown in the deep end of the pool together, quite frankly.” She shook her head at the insanity of the situation she had lived through. “Poor sod getting lumped with me.” She laughed and took another drag of her cigarette, leaving a pregnant pause in her story. “Needless to say, I acted out, rebelled. Skipped school, let my grades fail – I barely graduated. Didn't leave me with many options, so I chose the military.”

“Didn’t do too bad f’ yourself though, did ya?”

“I suppose, other than hefty amounts of trauma,” she snickered at her own comment. 

“Can’t be all bad.” 

“No, no I suppose not. Joining the army did have its perks, this is true.”

“Got to meet me twice because of it.”

A loud burst of laughter came out of her. “Ah, yes, the highlight of my ten-year career. Not receiving the King’s Medal for Bravery as a corporal – spending time with John Price.”

He smiled around the cigar in his mouth, the lines around his eyes creasing softly. “You were awarded a medal as a corporal ?”

“Yeah…”

His brows lifted, giving a little nod, clearly impressed by her history. “Not too many people receive one of those.”

“No, not too many at all,” she said with a quiet sort of pride. 

Humming appreciatively, smoke blew from his nostrils. “You still owe me that number of confirmed kills, darlin’.”

“I did promise you that, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“Thirty three high profile targets. Other soldiers and snipers?” She paused to hum and haw over the numbers. “Lost count around the mid seventies, and that was two years ago.”

“ Jesus ,” he breathed, giving a low groan. “Fucking hell, Rory.” Taking another drag of his cigar as if it were post coitus. 

She giggled at his reaction, the obvious tone of arousal at her competency not lost on her. “Careful, John. Don't want to be popping a stiffy.” 

His piercing gaze flicked up to settle on her and her teasing grin, a wolfish curl to the side of his mouth slowly growing. “Can't have that, can we? Wouldn't be proper of an officer.” 

“Certainly not. Especially not while we're out here, alone , in the dark, with nothing but a pup tent to share.”

Brow lifted, a cocky self-assured smirk grew on his face. “Who knows what might happen.”

Rory licked her lips and tutted her tongue, still pretending as though she wasn't interested, or rather, playing hard to get. She had to admit she had been enjoying this chase of theirs and Price had certainly been persistent as had been promised – ever the hunter, and her the beast waiting for that right moment to strike. “How ever will we fill the time?”

“I can think of a few things,” he purred.

“I bet you can.”

“Mission’s nearly over, darlin’. Don’t need to worry about being a distraction for me anymore, yeah?”

Leaning towards him, she lowered her voice until it was smooth and sultry. “And you think I’m just going to give in like that?”

“Still want me to try and persuade you, eh?”

“I’m still trying to figure out just what it is about me you actually want?” Her warm hazel eyes lifted to take in those unreadable gray-blue ones that looked back at her. Pushing the challenge just a little bit further, prodding him towards showing her just a little of his own vulnerability.

“I want you for all sorts of reasons.” He gave nothing away. 

Her brow cocked, wanting more detail. “Is that so?”

“Don’t think I’ve ever been so interested in another woman before.” His voice grew huskier the longer the discussion went on, body leaning closer to her. 

“Is that right?”

“It is.”

“And what makes me so different?”

“ Everything ,” he said in a deep growl. “You’re a bloody challenge, first and foremost – and you were certainly right about me liking that.”

She paused, letting the closeness between them settle before pushing further, deeper into dangerous territory. Her eyes narrowed, lingering on his features, reading him. “ If I were to let you have me as your girl, would I be just another accolade to your name, John?”

Smirking, he pulled back slightly, understanding where the game was heading between them. “There’s no denyin’ the fact that any man would consider havin’ you as their girl an honor. However , if you’re askin’ if I’d see you as just another notch in the belt, then you’ve got me all wrong, darlin’.”

“So you see me as someone worth going for the long haul with?”

“You bet your arse.”

Chuckling quietly at his expected response, she kept digging. “And you really do just want to take care of me?”

“Always.” His face became serious. All playful, flirtatious intent wiped clean from it. On this he was absolute. The final decision was made up in his mind and he would not be dissuaded. That point was no game for him. 

Her smile faded as reality hit once more. Nothing could be that simple, not for them, not with the rules and regulations of the military. “I wish it was that easy.”

“It doesn't have to be as bloody hard as you’re makin’ it.”

“It does.” She scoffed, “We can’t just bury our heads in the sand over this, pretend that we aren’t breaking rules here – because we are. You have so much more to lose over this than I do.” Sighing, her voice was barely an audible whisper above the night wind. “I don’t want to be something you live to regret.”

His brow furrowed, mouth flinching as he clenched his jaw. “Never gonna happen, love. Never . Fell f’you like a goddamn idiot.”

Rory giggled, covering her mouth as jovial bursts of laughter coming in fits and starts carried across the desert at night. 

“It’s not funny,” he chuckled, eyes crinkling at her reaction to his confession. 

Dragging her hand down her face, she tried to hide the embarrassment they both seemed to be feeling and gazed at him. “I’m sorry,” saying it as genuinely as she could between the little bubbles of laughter that still crept up out of her. 

“You’re a filthy liar.” Shaking his head, his smirk was still plastered to his face. 

Looking at one another, the firelight flickered across from them, warming their skin as much as the laughter and their close proximity was. Silence fell. Their eyes locked. Heart racing in her chest, Rory’s lips seemed to part instinctively as her breath caught in her throat, not realizing she was even holding it. 

John’s gaze roamed down to her mouth, freezing there as she watched his tongue drag across his lips. Throat bobbing with a heavy swallow, his pupils dilated making his steely eyes darker than the night sky above. Biting the inside of his lower lip, he stared at her hungrily. It was clear he was debating his next move. Jaw tensing, the tendons flexing, his hand lifted to scratch at the underside of it as his brow furrowed. 

Nocturnal animals squawked, screamed and chattered out in the darkness that surrounded them. They were completely alone out here. No witnesses, no mission. Just them .

Moving closer, he leaned a little further towards her, the distance between them disappearing quickly until she was moments away from being wrapped around him. The tips of their noses brushed against the other’s, his breath fanning on her lips, the cigar smoke heavy on her nostrils. The heady, bitter scent of tobacco made her bite her lip. Her eyes firmly locked on his, she tried to perceive what his next move was before he did. 

Brushing the hair back that the wind blew into her face, his fingers traveled through her waves as his hand came to rest on the curve of her jaw, thumb stroking at her cheekbone thoughtfully. No words needed to be spoken, enough already had. Just like in a fight, they seemed to know what the next move needed to be before it was even said. Synchronicity . 

Mouth meeting hers, his grip firm, the kiss was passionate and deep. Weeks’ worth of need boiled down into one moment. All that arguing, the bickering, the back and forth, it all had to have been for something and he seemed to be making damn sure that it did as his lips claimed hers. Pulling her in tighter towards him, his hand shifted to lock up into a fistful of her hair at the back of her head. His other arm wrapped around her back, pulling her right up against him as his fingers found themselves sliding underneath the hem of her shirt, caressing the small of her back. Rough, calloused skin on his warm palm rubbed against her, fighting off the chill in the breeze as the temperature decreased the deeper the night became. 

Breaking the kiss for air, John pressed his forehead to hers, his breath short and heavy. “I want this, Ror. Want you. Us ,” his voice thick with a deep need. “This feels right. You know it does.”

“John –” she said his name breathlessly. 

“No, sweetheart. No more reasons not to, yeah?” 

She still wasn’t entirely convinced. In the moment it was easy to forget the real world, to stop herself from seeing sense, but her mind continued to race through every scenario, every possible fantasy and nightmare that could come out of this decision. 

“John…” She brought her hand to his temple stroking her fingers through his hair ruffled by the wind with his boonie hat removed. “I’m really not the easiest person to love, I wasn’t lying about that. Had to learn not to let people in. My job’s been about lying and secrets for years.” 

And from the fear of being hurt, of being left behind once more. 

“Yeah, so’s mine. You know that.” His hand came to rest under her chin, keeping her eyes on his. “Don’t you think that’s what makes us right for each other, my girl? No lies, no bullshit, no pretendin’ to be somethin’ we aren’t. Good, bad, or ugly. Just me and you.”

“You could have a woman who could give you a normal life,” she said quietly. 

“Normal’s boring, love.”

“You’re going to have a retort for everything I say, aren’t you?” Her brow lifted as her mouth curled into a half grin.

“Maybe. Yeah.” His smirk fading to become serious once more. “But I mean it, I wouldn’t know how to handle some bloody white picket fence life. And even then I’d be havin’ to lie to whoever she was f’ the rest of my life ‘bout the things I’ve done. Don’t have to do that with you. Might be nice to get to be honest f’ once.”

Rory shook her head and huffed out a laugh. “Just as smooth as you were five years ago,” she teased.

“I can be charmin’ when I choose to be.”

She hummed, “That’s becoming very apparent.”

“You’re too perfect to let slip through my fingers, Rory,” he purred. 

“I’m anything but perfect,” she whispered softly.

His thumb drifted across her lower lip, pulling at her pout and staring straight into her eyes. “You, my darlin’ girl, are exactly what I need.”

There was no denying the magnetic pull that had always been there between them, and with their mouths so close together it was only getting stronger. She could tell herself to pull away, to repel him, to push him back and carry on, focusing on her career as she always had, leaving her to a lonely world she had come to know so well. Saving herself the pain of loss and distance by never allowing anything good to come from letting anyone in. She found herself unable to do that anymore – not with him. He had been nothing but honest when he said being with him just felt right. 

She wondered if her mother and father ever felt this way, living a life of apparent joy before they too parted and became another statistic. 

Shaking her head clear of those thoughts, she closed her eyes and leaned in to kiss him once more, her lips pressed to his, soft and slow. Tongue sweeping against her pout, he prodded at the part of her lips until she rewarded him with access to her mouth. Climbing into his lap, she grabbed at the shoulder straps of his tac vest, deepening the kiss as her legs came to straddle his muscular thighs. Wrapping her body around his broad expanse, she was protected by him, held in his arms – the way it had always been. 

Exactly the way she wanted him. 

[renatedagmarmilada]

Canada or America? Before and for a while after my ex left us, I had some very strong dreams, something I normally never do. One was thus:

I had to save Joe (now I see why only Joe was in the dream) we crawled on our bellies through out war torn Europe. Eventually we got to safety, my old children's home

in Bavaria. All was empty, the ground scorched, the trees burn out shapes..I settled him to sleep in the glass conservatory at the end of the building..

him in the corner, I  in the middle to keep him safe and to listen out..in the night, though the sky was always at half darkness, a thousand green hands

reached up to pull me down, but he slept safely................................

Another I had was the aegre was coming..rapidly. We were locked in a room, the room had old dark brown oil paint doors etc and no windows.

Somehow I got the children out, but I remained locked in the room, and could only watch as the boys played cricket and rachel pushed around a

doll's pram...they looked happy and didn't even notice my mysery at my prison...playing cricket on the grass as the aegre calmed down and flowed by.

One day when I was walking down a street called Mary street, after we had returned from New Zealand, I suddenly saw not the street but fires burning

and blazing everywhere..all around..everything around me set on fire.

Charles, please don't sneer, we have an odd gift.

You remember the poem in Battleships...of the NEpalese. On Sunday that week, I said to Joe I must go to India...I got there on Tuesday, it happened on

Wednesday. Time and again this has happened in my life.

The Painting of the Princess Diana in the centre of the book, painted in August..the nuns her face destroyed by the car crash ..I was in Leipzig, I cried all night.

A neighbour over the road before died in the night, I wept and cried all night, didn't know..that afternoon, dressed in white by chance, I came up the road

her funeral.

I was on my PGCE..suddenly I went crazy I just had to get to Russia, I had to - I went mad I had to get to Russia. I left my PGCE and went..that week

they brought the bones of the Tsar Nicholas II..

It just has all been in my mind..everything, every little thing. I don't think about it then there it is in front of me again..what every had been said or done.

For your information when I was in america, in Washington I saw a desert - in Florida I saw a thick forest and us living in a little house with trees right

upon us, a bear came up...

Countries have effects on me, I see other pictures than what is in front of me. All the countries I have been to have put pictures into my mind..

Often, mainly it is what I see that I paint.

Now scoff and tell me I am a loony.

It comes from my mother, from the Mongolian side of the family. Ryan has it strongly, but they have as good as killed Ryan (maybe because of it)

and Rachel has it too.

Your crack put friend, but it is all true and much more..

I paint people in the corners of my life whom I never see or should know about. Ok I tried to ignore it since I was small, please dear God, I want to be normal not a freak.

then an american explained it, it has to do with those electric circuits in our brains and now I understand and no longer think I am freak.

By the way, when I was in labour with Shaun for five days, I was near death, suddenly the pain went and I was in a tunnel, with electric lights flashing

since then I have little fear and stick to absolute honesty.

I should have told you I was a freak as there is so much more. I keep away from Yoga etc purposely because the catholic church forbids it and I don't want

to build on my freakishness. I used to sit and meditate a bit and man I don't take drugs, drink or smoke but you should have seen some of the results.

The lab has had the scribblings stolen - here some of it: I had gone to Austria with a party of english, they are disgusting..look, I don't understand,

a catholic country at Christmas..on my way back from midnight mass I found the forget me nots from our dinner table miles away trodden into the snow.

I am sorry but the english a savages of the worst kind. On the way back we passed by Berchtesgarten..at the time the English were jeering at the german

border guards..but later I saw an old man, a table, a telegram, his son had been killed on the russian front.

I saw my father going far away too, long before I met my mother, in my mind, a long long road and a grave. The lab has robbed the paintings of that.,,

as a small child I saw it, as an adult I saw it..If you don't write anymore I will understand.

Renate 

why I keep quiet about such ''visions'' even if the Princess does die, and the oil refinery near Mary street does blow up and friends husbands are killed etc indeed it blows up three times.

I thought that it is about sensitivity. Doc, most people appear to me to run around as though they have no heads, see nothing but shopping, tv, going 'out' etc..I lead a very quiet life, I work hard, every day of the week, but do not indulge in drink or such, try not to gossip other than when to point out that something is normal or as an example though I have a laugh with close friends and family. When in pain I don't like medicines as I feel they just cover the pain instead of letting me cope with it...remembering that I do not have a diseased body. If it were disease coping, I should probably react differently.

Now we all could see that the Princess was running around in agony ..I think that is where the painting came from, deep in the subconscious and so on. The only thing note worthy is that I am not a cryer and only rarely have I cried for myself or other people, and these are distant  persons with future tragedies. I too think it is better just to paint them and leave...I do not like this demented reaction to such 'personal reactions'.. So I never talk of them, only occassionally to someone I think a lot of. I know the Church is against them also..

But I did feel you should know of my reactions. I also thought that as I have never had a stable home or place, or language, a part of my senses which is dormant in many people is still working..

that seems the sensible explanation to me

[pascallllllll1]

We Can Be Heroes: Apocalypse

Marcus Moreno x reader

Summary: Reader has powers similar to the force and meets Missy and Marcus Moreno while trying to survive the apocalypse.

Word count: 1,563

Fuck, I need to find water soon. The airs dry and fills your throat with a gritty sand like texture every breath you take. Smoke continues to rise from the ash off the fallen buildings lining the long stretched street. Pushing your way threw the rotten and decayed bodies, you climb on top of an old black hatchback. From your now raised point of view you spot your next destination just a short distance away. A brick building; roof collapsed, three walls fighting hard to stay standing, while the forth facing the alleyway is torn. With flames still burning in areas and ash still falling from the sky, it’s safe to say the poor excuse for a pharmacy should be free of living, or dead, threats.

Nothing much of what’s deemed valuable to you remains, cleaned out long before you even began your journey to this city. Moving in towards the US seemed like a good idea not too long ago, Canada’s resources and supplies having dried up early in the quarantine stages of the virus, you had hope of finding more left here but now you’re beginning to rethink your actions. Big cities in the US got hit first the hardest, subject one being from New York, travellers began visiting and returning home, spreading the shit around the world like the god damn plague. Airports got shut down pretty quick, no one in or out of their home countries, quarantines put into action. After the bigger heroes began to fall, they brought whole cities down with them. Fighting a zombie is terrifying and hard for regular folks as it is, fighting a super fucking human trying to eat your face off while shooting lasers or invisible is a whole other challenge itself. It would take heroes to fight and defeat undead heroes.

After digging around for roughly 20 minutes you’ve managed to round up some medical tape, a half full plastic bottle of water, blood thinners, Tylenol and a box of granola bars that was hidden in an employee locker out back. A decent haul for now. You’ll need to continue scavenging in order to sustain yourself and keep going. The water though warm and dirty, provides instant relief making you moan into the bottle with your eyes closed savouring this precious moment. Just as you’re recapping the bottle you catch the glimpse of light reflecting off something making its presence now known in the distance. Quickly pulling the bandana back around the lower half of your face and readjusting your backpack, you step through the torn down wall, hand swiping against a bloody patch. You look down at your hand annoyed with a deep inhale, exhaling sharply. Seriously? You wipe the thick crusty blood along the front of the building making your way back to the road to continue your previous route.

“Mom!”

“Mommy is hurts! Make it stoP! MOMMM-“

Your shoot up from your spot slouched against a tree, heart pounding like a marching bands base drum. Static ringing fill your ears and you can’t breath. -I can’t breath. Fuck. I can’t breath. fuCk FUCK FUCKKK. Ground yourself common, breath idiot you can do this. In 1.. 2.. 3.. out 1.. 2.. 3.. Again. Again. Again. The ringing halts, pulse evens out. You’re calm. You’re alive. But you can’t say the same fo-STOP. Closing your eyes you back yourself against the tree again letting your body to slide to the ground, sleep taking over once more not long after.

When you wake your view from the side of the highway you rested at is clearer, less smoke blocking the clouds now that the fires have burned to coals, the remaining ash that once fell from the sky now covers every surface like a fresh blanket of snow on an early winter morning. It’s time to move on, they’ll be coming if they aren’t nearby already. After the smoke settles the dead always come to admire the destruction, called upon by the sounds of screams and fighting. It won’t be long before they come to see what was left behind by whatever undead super caused this. From the laser burns in the road, it looks like they went the opposite way you’re headed. Lucky me.

Later into the day your back is aching, feet swollen and blistered, you’re just about ready to take a well deserved break when you spot a “Welcome to California” sign on the set of lights ahead of you. Picking up your pace you rush forward, eager to make your way towards the inner city.

The heroics base stands tall and proud in its walled in grounds obviously made to withstand a hero’s attack. Walls scorched and dented but still in place, a few windows blown out but still looking better than most places you’ve come across in your journey. You’re taking in the proud building when a metal creaking and something dragging against the parking lot gravel to your left catches your attention. Stilling yourself you look from the corner of your eye. An infected is reaching for you about 15 paces away, pulling along a metal pole it seems to have been tied and locked to. Obviously not very well. You scoff to yourself. Slowly, you reach down to your waste, fingers wrapping around the hilt of your hatchet. In a split second you send the hatchet towards the infected slicing it’s head of clean, pulling the weapon back into your hand with the trusty rope you tied to it, and returning it home to its place on your side. The body drops to the pavement with a wet thud, an unnerving screech follows from between cars piled ahead, almost bursting your eardrums. Sounds of metal being crushed and glass breaking is followed by none other than mrs. Vox’s corpse spider crawling from inside the mountain of vehicles, dead eyes set on you. You activate your force field just as the rotten bitch jumps at you, clawing against your power. Using all the energy you can, you shoot her forward letting down your force field and grabbing your double barrelled shot gun from strapped behind your back as she rushes back, pulling the trigger an blowing her head off as she goes to bite the end of the gun. This would be so much cooler if I could shower but now I’m covered in brains. Awesome.

“Who are you.” It’s spoken like the person it bellowed out of was trying to sound intimidating, strong but came out intimidated and spooked. Young. Spinning around you ready yourself and aim in the direction the unknown voice came from. A young girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, wearing all black combat gear. Brown hair pulled in 2 braids against the back of her head, similar to your own, brown eyes and tan skin. She kinda looks like a little me. Huh.

“You alone kid?”

“I asked who you are.” She responds in a snarky manor, whipping out a pair of katanas. Cracking a grin at her tough girl persona and attempt at being threatening, you lower your shot gun. I like this kid.

“(Y/N).” Putting one hand on your hip, the other resting the gun on you shoulder you ask.

“And you missy? What’s your name?” At that she drops her act and actually laughs, placing her katanas back in their holsters. Giving a genuine smile the young girl reaches out to shake your hand.

“Missy. Missy Moreno.” Oh shit. Meeting her in the middle you shake Missy’s hand then step back, face stoic as ever.

“Missy. Hunny where’s your dad?” Missy’s smile drops almost as fast as your stomach does the second you see it, kid looks at you like you just gutted her puppy in front of her.

“I um, I don’t know, I lost him 5 days ago while we were trying to escape the heroics underground safe house. Miracle guy came back from gathering supplies sick, bu-but we didn’t know.” Missy’s eyes being glazing over and filling to the brim with tears as her words become stuttered. You quickly kneel down and place your hands on the sides of her arms, bending your head to the side trying to get her to keep eye contact.

“Hey, hey, hey, Missy I can help you find him don’t worry, breath for me. We need to be calm in order to think and plan, ok? You got this deep breath 1.. 2.. 3.. out 1.. 2.. 3.. good good, you’re doing such a good job.” Nodding and doing as you say Missy gets herself under control. You stand and survey the surrounding area, the suns setting and any buildings near by seem to be filled with undead. First things first you both need a semi safe place to gather yourselves and form a plan of action.

“Do you know a safe place near by Missy?”

“My house, it’s farther out, about 4 hours walking from here.” Fuck. Too long we need to get there quicker, can’t risk having her out past dark. Noticing your hesitation about travelling that far in the dark Missy speaks up again.

“We could always go inside head quarters, but the infected heroes seem to like to stick around here, if they notice us they’ll call for more to come.” With a deep sigh you nodded once to her.

“Lead the way Miss.”

Part 2?

Idk if I’m gonna continue this or not, we’ll see😪

[kilroytssf]

Kilroy’s Story Thus Far

Born in Vancouver Canada, Kilroy has grown up in environments where family was more than blood. He served in the Canadian Armed forces before being discharged and narrowly avoided being tried as a war criminal. He took to the biker lifestyle like it was his home. Settling with a club he would soon become one of the most valued and respected members of, he now hopes to spread the clubs reach into a new city and establish his own charter with some of his closest brothers at his side.

Born to Gardener Warhier and a mother he never met, Kilroy worked hard and learned what he could from his old man. He raised horses, learned to hunt, and how to live off the land. His father would keep them moving, but this was the life of a backwoodsman. 1892 was a very different life than what he now leads, but that comes with the territory of being over 100 years old. He would live many years into manhood, and lose his father to the brutalities of the wild lands. When the call came to serve in the first world war, Kilroy enlisted. Still seeking a home, a place where he felt he belonged. His unit would become his new brotherhood, the men in hist platoon his blood. And as they served, they would see things no man should see.

Kilroy adopted this new life with eagerness and took great pride in what he did, but the acts he would commit would later be filed under the Geneva convention as war crimes. This would not keep him from serving until the end of the first world war. Upon returning to Canadian soil, Kilroy acquired his first motorcycle. The Norton 16H, and it would serve as his primary form of transportation before re-enlisting in 1939 to fight in the pacific theatre of ww2. Here, he would face new trials, and the darkest moment of his life would begin. While tracking Japanese soldiers in the oceanic jungles, his squad came upon a small encampment. Kilroy, as the squad’s sergeant, called for his squad to pause and spread out around the camp. On his mark, they went in. Gunshots filled the air, smoke rose and as the din of gunfire settled, they took into view who they had found. 3 men in only loincloths and a woman wearing bones, a headdress and her face smeared with white paint. As the squad searched the camp, Kilroy looked closer into the eyes of the woman.

The world slipped away and he now stood alone. The jungle dead silent. As were all of his brothers. Kilroy tried to turn, but realized he was kneeling and the woman stood before him, a strange blade in her hand, with a wicked curve to it. He tried to move, to take her weapon. To free himself.

“Do umui gini goada noho, bona lau do umui badinaia noho ela bona mase, vadaeni lau ese umui emui kwalimu ahuna, mauri, umui dekenai do lau henia.” She whispered.

Light filled the jungle and Kilroy let out a scream that turned into a malicious and maniacal cackle.

“I have returned.”

Kilroy didn’t know it yet, but what had just happened to him would change his life forever. His aging stopped. In fact, it went backwards. His body became stronger and younger. His hair, once jet black, not frosted with white, and his eyes burned. Pupils turned to flame and his flesh would begin to melt. Revealing the exposed skull beneath. As he now stood from the fire, he howled into the still night.

“I am Azrael, I am death.”

Azrael would control him for the duration of the second world war. Allowing Kilroy to survive active conflicts no man should’ve lived through. He killed many and would remember very little of it. He would be redeployed a few months after to what would be considered to be one of the longestest days in military history. Juno beach. On this day, Kilroy would return to control. Azrael would pull him through the initial landing, but the amount of work the fallen angel would be forced to do, would seal away the spirit so he could recover. Kilroy would finish fighting the war himself, but every wound would heal quickly. The angelic power afforded him by Azrael’s presence would give Kilroy healing powers he would become reliant on.

When he returned to Canada, he immediately realized there would always be one more war to fight. He would be living his life in a haze for another 80 years. But all of this would change after he returned from Korea.

With Canada finally opting to serve peace, Kilroy’s need for blood remained unsatisfied. He enlisted for the American armed forces and served in the Vietnam conflict. Here, he learned guerrilla tactics and how to fight when the odds were against him.

His leadership would only get him so far though, it would be his criminal nature that would carry him through. After serving, he would begin serving mercenary groups, private security details and cartels. His dark heart would be his strength, and his cruel nature would be his strength. Kilroy leaned into the power afforded him by Azrael and he would break men. Torturing them. Causing harm brought strength to Azrael, but his hunger for more, would also be his weakness. He became blind to his own destructive nature, and wouldn’t hear the screams of the people he hurt anymore. He wouldn’t feel their suffering and became a weapon of his employers. All until...

“Enough.” Kilroy’s eyes flickered. His heart stopped pounding and he came back to himself. His head turned, and he locked eyes with the closed off, cold eyes of his employer.

“You’re done Warhier. Get out.” Kilroy’s eyes flickered, and he looked back at the eyes of the person he’d been working on. Her eyes were empty. Grey in colour, like the waters that had been soon turned red by the blood. Her eyes were filled with tears, and the blood coloured her sclera. Who was she? Why was she here? Who was he even working for? Kilroy had no answers.

He stepped outside and pulled a cigarette from his pocket. His hands were coated in blood, and he only noticed when he held the lighter to the dart.

He shook his head and wiped his hand on his pant leg. He flicked the flint and held it to the end. It smouldered and he took a deep breath of smoke. He remembered coughing the first time he ever smoked, but the smoke barely even registered in his throat anymore. It passed through to his lungs and he let out the breath slowly. His mind raced and he heard a voice that was once shouting, screaming, laughing... calm. He placed the dart between his lips and held it, while he pulled out his phone.

Half the numbers he saw he didn’t recognize, the other half, he didn’t care. But one number stuck out to him.

Dennis. Who the fuck was Dennis? The name sounded familiar, but from where? Kilroy took another drag and dialed the number.

“Yup” The voice came through.

“Hi, Dennis? It’s Kilroy”

“Yup, what you want?”

“I need to move.”

“Ok?”

“Where are you these days?”

“I’ll get you a ticket. Leave everything behind. You come here, you’re resetting. Got it?”

Kilroy looked stunned, but slowly, he nodded, then said “Ok.”

2 weeks later, Kilroy was stepping off of a plane. Here, he connected with Dennis. A man, who through Kilroy’s adventures in the blind stupor of violence and crime had crossed paths once before. Dennis got Kilroy acquainted with his new surroundings. They pulled some jobs and he learned what it was to be more in control of his actions. Azrael remained dormant. But he still didn’t feel at home. After some time, Kilroy bought himself a bike and made his way up north, arriving in the desert community of Sandy Shores.

Here, he met his new family. The Sinister Sons MC. Kilroy first met the Sergeant at arms, Miguel, who brought Kilroy into the fold, gave him a chance, and the bonds of brotherhood began. He would become connected to Thor and Michael, the clubs president and VP. He’d become the prospect of the club’s Enforcer Damian, and he worked hard, always doing his best to impress and do as he was told. It was through this process Kilroy began to find himself again. The bonds of family that he had so desperately been searching for were finally beginning to take hold.

Here, he learned to ride in formation. To show up for anything his brothers needed him for. To listen when he was spoken to and to keep his mouth shut when he was not spoken to directly. His military background taught him discipline, but these men taught him loyalty in a way he couldn’t ever replace. His first arrest, he stood beside them in a conflict with a street gang. This conflict would escalate into a war Kilroy had never experienced. A street war. Fought unlike any of the pitched battles of the great world wars. With disrespect that resonated with every assault.

As with all conflicts, the end soon came, and with it, one of the most shattering things Kilroy had seen. The club bifurcated. Half of the active members left in favour of starting anew elsewhere. Those who remained presented the then prospect Kilroy with the voice to either remain or walk away. To Kilroy, the choice was simple. Stay.

Soon after, he was given his patch. He would then help train 2 more prospects, Henry and Martin. Not as their sponsor, but as their brother. The three men would become the new backbone of The Sinister Sons. Supporting their President and VP. But under the surface, Azrael was beginning to stir. The calm and rest he had been afforded was beginning to give him back power.

A few months passed and Kilroy took on his first prospect as her sponsor. Her name was Imogen, and they began having an affair. The affair would give rise to Azrael at last and the Fallen Angel of Death would awaken once more. Controlling Kilroy and this control would lead to him almost murdering his prospect. In a fit of lost control, Azrael hacked Imogen up with an axe. Kilroy returned to his senses at the clubhouse, only to be called out to the scene. Here, he found Mike and Imogen as well as some associates of the MC, The Lux Boys. They told Kilroy what had happened and pointed out his hat, which was on the scene. Kilroy had no memory of this, but when Imogen came too, she told them what had happened.

In a panic, Kilroy begged for his life, and that someone could free him of Azrael. He never meant for the spirit to become so strong. A woman named Summer was then called upon. It turned out, she was the daughter of Azrael’s brother Lucifer and his consort Lillith. The Demon daughter managed to seal away the Fallen Angel and Kilroy, for the first time in a long time, began to change again. His skin and muscle recoated the exposed bone of his skull. His hair grew back and so did his beard.

But he would forever now carry the highlighted tint of white brought on by the stress to his body from Azrael.

Kilroy felt truly thankful of Summer’s work, and sought to chase her heart. He took her on a few dates, and was beginning to feel he had found a real relationship. He did not expect what would come in the wake of Azrael’s work, and when Summer broke his heart, he sank into a grim depression. He was all business, all the time. But this wasn’t enough. The club couldn’t overlook his actions at attempting the murder of his former prospect, now the club’s treasurer.

For the first time, he was faced with his own mortality. A meeting with Mr. Mayhem.

The vote was not unanimous, and this spared his life. But it wouldn’t save him from his Brother Martin.

Some time would pass, and Kilroy would be mostly at peace. He still continued his usual ways of flirting with any woman with a heartbeat, but this would bring someone very special into his life. Through Jager’s friend Leprechaun, Lily came into his life. A quiet woman at first, she would become his newest obsession. This beautiful woman who brought true joy to him. Even while being forced to wear the prospect patch once more, she was there and throughout his time, he would fall in love with her.

He would try his hardest to be there for her, but would be so often taken away to work for his club. And all the while, he would be fighting to hide his curse. And it was in this process, Azrael would regain his strength. It was now that the club hierarchy would change. Jager would take over as president, and Mike would become his VP. All the while, Kilroy would be serving his club as best he could.

But it seemed at every turn, Kilroy would lose more of himself and to Lily, he was growing distant. The club consumed him. And his heart was clouded by the darkness of Azrael’s attempts to escape. Until at last, He woke up. The flood gates exploded. Kilroy was gone and Azrael returned. And in this came to light the worst of Kilroy’s choices.

Including the revelation of Kilroy and River’s illicit affair, and the child she now bore. This child, Azrael’s child.

Martin decided to take the justice of the club into his own hands. He took Kilroy into his own home and shot Kilroy in the head. He then dragged the seemingly lifeless corpse out to the Alamo sea and dumped him. But as he sped off, Azrael took over the body of Kilroy once more and saved the dying man.

Kilroy couldn’t remember the events, in fact, he was unaware that his then pregnant consort Rivers, was even pregnant with their child. As time would pass, Kilroy would prospect for his own club a second time. And he fought hard to earn back his patch. In that time, the club had taken on new members, including a rather charismatic bastard named Jager. Kilroy would earn back the patch, but in that time, Rivers would choose a brutal method of aborting her and Kilroy’s child. Cutting her stomach to end the half demon’s life.

This triggered Kilroy’s rage and he struck her. Angry and hurt. And out of Control.

The decision was made to call, once again, upon Summer to attempt to banish the angel once and for all. They took Kilroy to a secluded location. This spot was where Summer had previously performed all manner of witchcraft, and where her power would be at its strongest. This final ritual set him free.

Things would not remain simple or even clear for Kilroy. His loyalties would drive his love from his arms. Lily, now pregnant with Kilroy’s children, would leave him in favour of being away from the man he had become. Kilroy would try to win her back, but would turn his attention away from her for the time being in favour of working on himself and his connection to the club.

But new troubles arose when Jager took control of the Sinister Sons. He began slowly taking away all of the responsibilities of his high table members and making the work of the Sons the task of being his private army. Not the free bikers they were meant to be. This action would drive Kilroy away from his own brotherhood, and 2 of his closest brothers would die in the time. Kilroy knew there was only one way to send a message to the club about the path they’d chosen. He threw down his kutte on the table, and drove his knife through the Reaper. The patch that was his life, his family, his Home. On the knife was affixed a note:

This was my family. This was my home.

Kilroy rode out that day, and went to see his old brother and friend Mike. Mike and Thor had both left because of the creature Jager, but they’d all remained friends, as brotherhood doesn’t end when one walks away, it only ends in death. Kilroy talked to Mike and they agreed to see what future they could forge together.

Kilroy then decided to return his keys to the compound and clubhouse. He wouldn’t need them anymore. But as he entered the compound, he was greeted by his brothers who remained in the Sinister Sons.

“Jager is gone, will you come back?”

At first, Kilroy struggled with this choice. He wanted to return, but he wasn’t sure this was what was best. He looked into his brothers eyes, and saw in their faces the light that had gone missing so long ago. He smiled and nodded.

“Yes, I’ll come back brothers.”

He wore the patch. He took on the role of Tail Gunner and carried his brothers as best he could. Helping them through every crisis and event. But when they began to disregard his words, he once again thought of the bigger world beyond. His ol lady had come back to him now. Lily, now several months pregnant, and with twins no less, was once again his. And he was approached by his Sgt at Arms about opportunity elsewhere. It was this decision that lead him away.

Now he seeks the new home for his charter. Because to him, his family’s future is paramount.

True Sinister Son Forever.

[mi6-cafe]

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Now, here are the drabbles!

#1

Title: Arson Author: artsytarts / Misha Warnings: None

Summary: If there is one talent James Bond has, it’s to give his Quartermaster a headache.

“Can I ask you a question, 007?”

“Not like you’d respect my wishes if I said no, Q. Go ahead.”

“Why is it that you always, without fail, find some way to cause an explosion? I’m starting to believe you have an arsonist streak.”

“I don’t do it on purpose, it just… happens.”

“You do know that you’re supposed to keep things quiet, right? ‘Secret’. It’s in the job description.”

“Not my fault their base lay beneath a firework factory.”

“Wouldn’t have been a problem if you didn’t blow it up!”

“Debatable.”

“I’m sure you mean ‘yes, Q’.”

“Yes, Q.”

#2

Title: Occupational Hazards Author: storm-of-sharp-things Warnings: none Summary: Q would willingly pay extra for the option to have a boring vacation…

Q sat back against James in the little rowboat and stared across the lake as bright jets of sparks shot up from the island. The fiery glow amid the trees was beautiful in the reflection of the dark water. James settled the blanket more comfortably around them, keeping the chill off their bare skin.

“I liked that cabin,” Q finally said.

James sighed. “What’s the probability that our rental cabin would be a hidden entrance to a secret arsenal of explosives?”

With a splash, Alec finally surfaced next to the boat, grinning wickedly.

Q scowled. “One hundred percent, I’d say.”

#3

Title: Postcard Author: sunaddicted Warnings: none Summary: Bond stops in the middle of a mission for a view Q shouldn’t absolutely miss.

“Bond, stop dallying”

“Look, Q”

He sighed, squinting at the screen broadcasting the grainy images coming from the small camera that he had managed to disguise as a lapel pin “What exactly am I looking at?”

“Wait for it”

“Bond, need I to remind you that you’re on- Oh”

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Q was enraptured in the blue fire shooting up towards the dark of night: he couldn’t remember the last time he had looked up at the sky, eyes full of awe “Yes, it really is” he admitted “Thank you, James. Move along now: your contact is waiting”

“Yessir”

#4

Title:Flare Author: Hexiva Warnings: Angst Summary: Alec and James on a stakeout. One moment of hope.

What James remembers from that night in Canada is the fireworks. Fireworks reflecting off the lake as he sat in the dark waiting for morning when their target would walk by. Fireworks reflecting in Alec’s eyes, a manic gleam as he leaned in to adjust Bond’s hand on his rifle. And in the darkness between displays, they looked at each other, the instruments of their bloody work forgotten.

Years later, after everything, after the betrayal, James doesn’t remember who reached out first. All he remembers is the sound of fireworks as they kissed, clinging to each other in the darkness.

#5

Title: Rest & Relaxation Author: SouffleGirl91 Warnings: None Summary: James and Q kiss goodbye to yet another security deposit.

“This was fun. We should do it more often.”

James watched an explosion illuminate the sky, showering white sparks on the carnage below.

“Did you hit your head?”

“What?” Q frowned. “No! Why?”

“You want to do this-” James gestured at the flames, “more often?”

Another loud crack, and the cabin roof collapsed, sending up a plume of smoke.

“Well, maybe not the part where your ex-boyfriend tries to burn us to death in our sleep…”

“So just the murder, then?”

“Pillock.”

James laughed. “If this is what holidays with you are like, I’d love to do it more often.”

#6

Title: Efficiency Author: Anyawen Warnings: None Summary: Bond appreciates competence, whatever it wears.

James ignores the cold of the Canadian spring night, attention focused on the far side of the lake.

“I can get closer,” he offers quietly over comms.

“Stay where you are, Bond. I’ve got this,” Q answers.

Q’s frenzied typing stills, and James hears satisfaction in the silence a moment before an explosion rocks the lodge. He watches, bemused, as stray fireworks streak into the sky.

“The security on their firework storage facility needs work,” Q remarks dryly before utterly failing to stifle a yawn.

Another firework explodes, illuminating James’ fond smile.

“Not bad for a man in his pyjamas.”

#7

Title: Isle of Bond Author: Warnings: none Summary: No man is an island.

They say, “no man is an island,” and they’re right.

Bond would disagree; would claim the title for himself.

He would say that he is a man for himself, as he trusts his life in the hands of friends. He would build a fortress of solitude, only to fly from it in a blaze of glory. He would fence his heart with spikes, spark, smirks, and sex. Until someone is unafraid to get stung.

Bond would lay life, death, heart, and gun at the feet of true love.

“They say, no man is an island, and they’re right,” Bond says.

#8

Title: forget the past Author: scarytheory Warnings: none Summary: In the woods, in the middle of the night, two friends are trying to make peace with everything.

“This is ridiculous,” says Q, looking at Moneypenny. “It’s not New Year’s. Also, do you know how harmful it is to animals?”

She gives him the side-eye: “Your complaining already scared everything within ten miles of here. And it’s symbolic, actually. Because he’s not coming back, not to me, not to you. We need to start over, with a bang. Help me set this off.”

With a sigh, he does.

And here they are, watching fireworks in the middle of March, both feeling lost.

But as she slips her hand in his, he thinks that maybe they will be alright.

#9

Title: Inferno Author: oldestcharm Warnings: fire Summary: Q appreciates the scenery. Bond isn’t pleased.

Q’s eyes are glued to the live feed from the helicopter. “This is very scenic,” he comments. Bond huffs. “Are you talking about the forest fire, the flare guns, or the volcano that’s about to burst now that I obliterated this guy’s lair?” Q hums, considering. “All of the above.” “I’m pleased to know you care so much for my safety.” “You’re just fine, 007,” Q assures him. “I’m standing in the middle of burning debris,” Bond points out. “There is a lake right beside you. Grab a bucket.” “You didn’t equip me with a bucket.” “Maybe next time then.”

#10

Title: Birthday Celebration Author: Nana-41175 Warnings: n/a Summary: Q is gifted with spectacular fireworks for his birthday by Bond

Q was sure he would dislike camping. He did not feel kindly toward the idea of a million insects descending upon him while they roughed it out in the woods. Plus, no internet. Hideous.

But he liked fireworks at dusk, especially when viewed over water. He was touched that Bond wanted him to see this: the lake, the dark circle of trees surrounding the warm, cheery glow of a campfire, the slender strands of bright light as they shot up toward the night sky.

Most of all he adored being in Bond’s arms as his boyfriend whispered, “Happy birthday, darling.”

#11

Title: In the End Author: Venstar Warnings: none Summary: One last goodbye.

Bond stared as the island of Mr. White burned away in a final fiery glow. So many things had been set in place there. Thoughts of Vesper slid through his mind, like a dark oil slick on water. Never to truly be erased. He felt something slide into his hand. A weapon. Something strong and flexible. He squeezed and felt bones move. Q. Something else that had been set in place. A gift, from one madman to another. Silva’s little cogwheel in the bigger scheme of things had inadvertently delivered Q to MI6…and James. He kissed those fingers. His weapon.

#12

Title: Miscalculation Author: Merc/moon_of_mercury Warnings: none Summary: Bond makes a strategic mistake. Q improvises to save the day.

“Gorgeous, aren’t they?”

“No, not really. They’re an unnecessary waste of money, spread heavy metals and other contaminants in the environment, cause noise pollution, not to mention the stress to animals and people who don’t like them–”

“Alright! Fine. I should have asked you first.”

“Or used your head for once. I told you; the cats and I are a package deal. If you plan for me you plan for them. I’m not having fun when my darlings are terrified.”

Before the mood sours, Q pulls James into a kiss.

“But we can always stay in. I’ll show you fireworks.”

#13

Title: How Does He Do That? Author: IrishWitch58 Warnings: Things blowing up, Canon typical violence, 006 and explody stuff Summary: Bond and Q watching the end of a 006 mission

Bond watched intently as Q focused on the terse commentary from the extraction team. Trust 006 to find one of the few primary forests left in Europe to play hide and seek with terrorists. Injured, bleeding but in possession of valued intel he’d been sent after, Trevelyan was being sought by both sides. One of the drone cameras blazed with light, flaring streamers rising from a central explosion. Q blinked, eyes watering before the screen dimmed.

“How does he do that every bloody time? I never issued him any explosives.”

Bond just shrugged, grinning. “When has that ever stopped Alec?”

#14

Title: Beacon Author: solarmorrigan Warnings: None Summary: Q is very good at reading even the smallest signs.

“Come on,” Q murmured.

Images flashed by on his screens: satellite feeds, CCTV stills, personal security system hacks, social media posts – anything he could think of. Windows overlapped, flashed, jockeyed for space and called for attention as new information poured in. Then, at last, a filter-covered photograph from one website or another, a tiny island lit up by a few explosive columns of light, drew Q’s notice.

Unexpected fireworks off the coast, the caption read.

Q checked the location. He checked the time. He smiled.

“There you are,” he sighed, and began the work of piecing together Bond’s trail.

#15

Title: We Don’t Need Fireworks Author: MrKsan / starrboned Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence Summary: Bond makes things explode. Q watches from afar.

The skies were ablaze with stardust and fire. It could’ve been beautiful, Q thought, had it not been his job to clean up the mess after.

Damn Bond and his dramatics.

Footsteps approached from behind, and Q couldn’t help but smile as an arm looped around his waist.

“007,” Gareth sighed. Q snorted, leaning into the warmth. Something exploded in the distance.

“Wish you could join him?” Gareth asked. “Share the action?”

Q turned his head, watching the fireworks reflect in his eyes.

“I got all the fire I need right here,” Q smiled, and leaned in for a kiss.

Go vote!

[alchemine]

👀Party animals for the fandom

I have SO much to choose from for this fandom, but here’s what at least one other person will know as ‘the building explosion fic.’ There’s a lot of it, which makes me worry for how long it would be if I ever actually finished it. 😲

They wedged themselves into the space under the desk, and Danny turned Jo’s face against his shoulder to shield her from the dust and falling debris, then hunched over her, head down, in an attempt to protect himself as well. The rumbling and shaking went on and on, until slowly it stopped with a few faraway booms and a final shower of tiles and insulation from the ceiling. The overhead light panel and Jo’s desk lamp both went dead, followed almost immediately by a bluish-white emergency light coming on over the door. 

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Jo held onto him for a moment longer and then firmly pushed herself away, turning to cough into the crook of her elbow. “What about you?”  

“I’m all right. What the hell was that?” 

“Some sort of explosion,” Jo said. “I saw flames reflected in the window. They’re gone now, but they were there.” 

“Do you think it was…”

Jo shook her head. “I don’t know. We’ve got to get out of here and find out.” 

She crawled out from underneath the desk, and Danny followed her. The office was more in disarray than damaged; there were books scattered everywhere, pictures had fallen from the walls, and the window glass had a long crack running from midpoint to upper right corner, but the walls were still standing and the gaps where the ceiling tiles had fallen looked stable enough. Danny felt cautiously of the door, remembering Scott’s warnings about fires, and then opened it onto a similar scene in the outer office, where his filing cabinet had tipped over and spewed a snowstorm of paper across the floor. 

“It’s so quiet,” Jo said. Her face was sickly pale and strained in the emergency light. 

“Why aren’t we hearing people out in the corridor?” 

Danny looked at his watch. “It’s after eleven, there probably aren’t many people left. Do you want to wait here for someone to come instead? There’ll be emergency crews on their way.” 

“No, I want to go. We can always come back if we need to.” 

“All right. I’ll get my laptop—“

“Leave it,” Jo said. “It’ll only get in the way. I don’t think anyone’s out to steal your research notes at the moment.” 

They went out into the corridor, full of smashed tiles and fallen oil paintings, and along to the lifts, which they found stopped and empty, one at floor level and one below it, with its doors half-open. Inside the lower car, just visible through the gap between the floor and the top of the doors, was a single high-heeled shoe, which made Danny look nervously at Jo.

“It’s not that,” she said before he could ask the question. “Look, even in this light you can see it’s clean in there—no blood or blast marks or anything. Whoever it belongs to lost it, that’s all, trying to get out in a hurry.” 

“Okay,” Danny said, “but we’re not getting in.” 

“Obviously not,” Jo said, and then paused. “Do you smell that?” 

He sniffed the air and caught a distinct whiff of something hot and chemical, like melting plastic or smouldering insulation. “Yeah. I think you’re right and we need to go now. Stairs?”

“Stairs.” She coughed again, not even trying to stifle it this time. “I’m all right. It’s only the dust. Come on.” 

The stairwell was just around the corner from the lifts, and when they got there, they found its door twisted and hanging askew from the upper hinge. Danny nudged it farther open and looked in. 

“Oh shit.” 

“What?” 

“The stairs are gone.” 

“Let me see.” 

Jo pushed in next to him, and they both stared down at a tangled mess of splintered wood and concrete rubble, with a cloud of unidentified particulate matter slowly settling around it. The emergency light just inside the stairwell door was still burning, but with a sputtering flicker that didn’t bode well for its future. The light at the next landing was shattered and useless. A black, jagged hole led from the remains of the landing into an echoing abyss. 

Danny looked over at Jo, who had the lapel of her blazer pulled across her mouth and nose as an impromptu dust mask. “Now what?” 

“Dial 999,” she said, muffled. “They’ll be on their way, if they’re not here already, but we can at least let them know where to look for us.” 

He fumbled his phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. “No service. Can you?” 

“No service on mine either. Let’s try a landline.” 

They backtracked along the corridor to their office suite, the smell of overheated chemicals getting stronger as they went, and Danny checked the phone on his desk and then the one on Jo’s, finding both of them silent and dead. As he set down the second receiver, they heard a faint wail of sirens outside, almost too distant to be audible. At the same moment, a delicate wisp of smoke curled out through the nearest metal grille, and Jo started to cough again, in ugly, racking paroxysms that came from somewhere deep in her chest. 

“You still okay?” 

“Yes,” Jo said between coughs. Her eyes were streaming with involuntary tears, and Danny could feel his own lungs starting to burn with whatever toxic mixture of substances was being drawn through the building’s passive ventilation system. “But not for much longer. It’s worse here. We’ve got to go back to the stairs to wait.” 

The corridor was hazy, but not smoky yet, and they were able to return to the smashed stairwell door easily enough. Danny looked at it; looked at Jo, whose breathing was still harsh and irregular from her last coughing spasm; and pushed his way inside. 

“Christ, Danny, what are you doing?” Jo grabbed his upper arm with an iron grip. “It’s not even a little bit safe in there.” 

“I just want to look. I’ll be careful.” 

He advanced cautiously onto the landing, testing his weight against its strength with every step, as Jo watched him from the open doorway. The vertical column of the stairwell rose above his head, black as a chimney, and he thought about how many times he’d run up and down it during the day, when the building was bustling and humming and alive with busy people, all worrying over their next meeting or the project they’d just been handed. Now it felt like a graveyard, which made him wonder, with a shudder, if there were any bodies lying limp and broken on the floors above or below. Surely there weren’t, though. He and Jo had stayed late, and even they had been about to call it a night and head home.  

“That’s enough, Danny.” Jo was trying for the voice of command she used when she wanted instant compliance from him, but in the dark it just sounded shaky and scared. “Come back before you fall and break your neck.” 

“I’m all right.” He frowned at the wreck of the stairs heading up to the next level, and then inched forward and inspected the hole. “Jo, the steps underneath us? The ones that lead down from four to three? I think they’re still there.” 

“So? Even if they are, there’s no way to reach them.” 

“There might be. Let me see your phone; it’s got a brighter light than mine has.” 

He reached back without looking, and Jo pressed her iPhone into his hand, her fingers icy cold against his. “Thanks.” 

“Can you see anything?” 

Danny strained his eyes, staring down into the depths of the hole. “Yeah. The first two or three steps are blocked, but the ones below those look fine. Can you find something I can toss in to check?” 

Jo ventured a bit farther onto the landing and dug around in the rubble, then handed him a chunk of wood that looked as if it had once been part of a handrail. He dropped it into the hole, and they both listened as it clattered its way down the next flight of stairs. 

“Seems all right.” He looked at Jo, who was white-faced, but determined, then looked back into the hole and swallowed hard. “Okay, we can do this. I’ll go first and then you come down after. It’s not that far.” 

“How do you know the stairs are still strong enough to support us? We both weigh more than a piece of scrap wood.” 

“They’ll have to be,” Danny said. “My chest’s starting to hurt and so is my head. I don’t know what’s burning, but it can’t be good for us. Here–” He gave her phone back to her. “Give me some light so I can see where I’m going.” 

He held onto the rim of the hole, digging his fingers into soft plaster and insulation and wires, and slowly lowered himself until he could drop to the first undamaged step. It was farther than he’d thought, looking at it from up high, and he lost his balance as he landed and fell hard on one knee, with a crunch that felt like bare bone on concrete and sent a red-hot flare of pain all the way up to his hip. He didn’t want to yell and upset Jo, but he couldn’t stop a groan that he hoped she wouldn’t hear from escaping through his clenched teeth. 

“It’s all right,” he called up when he thought he could keep his voice even. “Hang on the way I did and lower yourself down as far as you can, and I’ll help with the last part.” 

“I don’t like heights,” Jo said faintly from above. She edged just close enough to the hole for him to see the top half of her face, with dark, liquid eyes and a smudge of something black across her forehead. “I get dizzy.” 

Danny thought back to a flight he’d taken with her to Canada, when she’d refused to let him open the window shade as they were passing over Greenland. “Okay, I get that, Jo, but I don’t think you’ve got a choice. The air’s lots better down here, for one thing. And I can’t come back up again, so you’ve got to join me unless you want to leave me on my own. You don’t want to do that, do you?”

“Of course not, but if I fall–”

“I’d throw myself off the top of the building before I’d let you fall.” Somewhere high over their heads, there was a creak and then an echoing crash, as if some precariously attached bit of masonry had just let go. His knee stopped stinging and started to throb as if it was thinking about swelling up. “Please come down. I swear I’ll catch you.” 

“All right.” 

He heard rustling sounds, and then Jo sat down and wriggled forward until her legs were dangling through the hole. She turned herself around, gripped its rim in the same place where he’d held on, and stopped for a moment, head bowed. 

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I thought I needed to cough again. Are you ready?” 

“Ready,” Danny said, and she slid over the edge. Her skirt caught on it and pulled all the way up to the tops of her thighs, which under other circumstances might have embarrassed him, but he was so focused on the task at hand he barely noticed. Once she’d begun, she came slithering down fast, and he caught her around the middle and lowered her to the step beside him. 

“See? Easy peasy.”

[altered-karma]

Chocobros Long Dark Au 

The Long Dark, for context, is a story and sandbox game based in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of northern Canada. Players are dropped into areas with hostile creatures and next to no resources depending on the difficulty, with survival of the harshest winter being their only goal. 

Naturally, I had to whump the boys with it.

Ignis wakes up first, body on top of Nocts and surrounded by the burning wreckage of their plane. 

Noct below him is breathing, thank the astral, but he’s out cold, and blood is leaking from his temple that Iggy snaps to healing with a potion

It isn't soon enough, though; a group of what looks like a crossbreed between a dog and a havoc fang are howling and loping closer, and Ignis is down an arm and half frozen to death and only just conscious himself

He takes a risk and discharges magic flask after magic flask, blizzard magic only because who knows what fuels he risks igniting with a single spark?

Needless to say, it takes a fair bit longer to bring the beasts down with an element they're clearly equipped to handle, but he gets the job done just in time for night to fall

And not a moment too soon, because the way the wind is picking up and the clouds are rolling in, Ignis knows that a storm is headed their way

There's a cave nearby that's hardly warmer than the outdoors but at least provides some cover from the wind, so Ignis drags Noctis in as gently as he can before scrounging up what he can to make camp

He tries not to look at any of the bodies just yet; they're charred and frost bitten and it's a horrific way to go and he just doesn't know if he can stomach discovering that Gladiolus and Prompto perished in such a fashion right this moment, not when he and Noctis are very much still at risk for going the same way.

He does spare the poor souls a quick prayer to the Astrals. It's the least he can do for their, hopefully not departed friends 

With a fire burning and Noctis tended to as best as he is able, Ignis settles in for a long night of watch.

Prompto wakes up alone and half buried under freshly fallen snow; only the amount of winter gear Iggy had made them wear is keeping him alive in it now, and even then he can feel the cold leeching into his very core

He's got his equipment but he's alone, and with broken ribs and a sprained wrist he's not really in a position to defend himself from the wolves when they show up.

Thankfully, he's still a hella good marksman, so he only needs them to get near him for him to put them down for good. 

It's a chore for him to get up and walk, but hey, at least he can see the smoke from here.

Noct, Iggy, Gladio, please be okay 

Prompto isn’t really sure where he is or where he’s supposed to go, but the plane that’s on fire and sending up smoke calls to him like a beacon, and Prompto knows that if anyone survived, they’ll head for it. 

Only problem: the plane crash site is at the top of a mountain, and Prompto is at the bottom.

Making his way up the mountain is painful and slow, and he only survives the numerous creatures that have him dead to rights by his magically unlimited ammo. It's his only saving grace as the weather takes a turn for the worse and he has to huddle up near a frozen corpse to survive the blizzard.

Prompto spares a moment to indulge in a rare bout of jealousy; if he’d had Ignis and Noctis latent talent for magic, he wouldn’t be suffering the cold so badly now.

As it is, any time he moves away from the small fire he’s managed to build to yell out of the mouth of the cave for his friends, he feels the hypothermia and frostbite try to set in anew, and it takes time for the fire to return his body to a more comfortable state.

He’s starting to run low on burnable things, in the early hours of the morning, when the storm finally lets up, and he’s up in the next moment to go looking for the others

Hopefully they’d found shelter; he doesn’t think even Cor could’ve survived a storm like that out in the middle of it

Prompto is only half-way up the mountain, is the worst part of it all. He still has a lot of walking to do

And then he spots a massive, burly creature that sends his constant aggressors wimpering for the hills, and suddenly his trek upwards just got a whole lot longer, because the monstrous animal is lumbering right towards the only way across the ravine.

Gladiolus, does not wake up alone. In fact, he wakes up surrounded by people, all survivors of a plane crash a couple of days ago. 

The priest there is convinced he’s one of the passengers, and his strong arm denials only lead the man to insist he not go out into the wilderness

"You don't understand, sir, there is a useless prince put there that I need to find and secure." ��I’m afraid I can’t let you do that. Going out there delusional and without any of the proper gear is just letting you commit suicide.”

Gladio does eventually escape when no one notices, but is immediately herded back into the building by a pack of vicious animals, who don’t give him enough room to swing his sword. 

And he scares them off, but he thinks of Noctis and Prompto hearing he left these people unprotected against a pack of wolves, and so he’s torn between what is duty and what is right, and so he follows the pack’s pawprints up the mountain - towards where the plane crash was

He sees tracks, a second set, deep in the snow and totally different from the way the animals appear to run on top of the snow, and starts to feel a little hopeful; someone else was headed towards the crash site!

His speed picks up, and he’s freer to fight back out here, so his progress up the mountain is quick

Until he hits a little snag; the footprints he’s been following backtrack after a moment

He doesn’t see the issue, and the plane is right there, so he hopes the guy made it alright before crossing fallen tree across the crevice in the mountainside.

And runs smack into a large, brown, muscular creature almost the size of a dualhorn

A beast charging straight at him

[el-trotamundos]

From Canada to the Land Down Under

It’s officially been 2 months since I boarded a plane bound for Australia! As many of you likely know, after 7 years of European adventures (and a six month side trip to China), I did my own version of Brexit trading fish n’chips and cheap pints for scorching sun and kangaroos. While at one point I envisioned myself staying longer in the UK, I am also aware that my restless soul has come to thrive on the challenge of a new country just when I seem to have settled in the last place. Although I will miss the ability to hop on a plane or train and arrive in a different European country in a matter of hours, it was definitely time to make another move. The clock was also starting to tick on Working Holiday Visas (WHV) although Canadians are lucky that many are open to us until age 35. My wanderlust will remain satiated for a while! I kept saying that I would get back to writing actual blog updates during my year in Oz so here’s hoping I follow through* on this New Year’s resolution.

*Highly doubtful. Enjoy what you get. 

WHV and job searching 

Around the time I was planning my move to Australia, the government increased the age eligibility for Canadians to 35, removing the time pressure I’d previously been under. This visa is much more restrictive than the UK version however. It’s only for 1 year and 3 months of regional farm work must be carried out in order to receive a second 1 year visa. Another recent change is that if you do 6 months of regional farm work during the second year, then you’re eligible for a final third year long visa. The second big restriction is that I can only work for an employer for a maximum of 6 months. Then it’s back to job searching. This obviously makes more sense for those travelling the country working on different farms or in hospitality but not so much for me. I don’t plan to go down this route and intend to move on to New Zealand after my year is up. 

Anticipating that this 6 month restriction would be difficult, I signed up with recruiting agencies. November probably wasn’t the best time to job hunt given the holiday was around the corner and I didn’t have any luck until just 2 weeks ago. I’ll start a part time role in January but that also creates another problem - finding a second part time role to cover the remaining days. I’m hoping to hear back soon from another interview I had before Christmas and if I get that job, then I can relax a bit. 

Surviving the heat

So far Melbourne has proved to be like any other city I have lived in, albeit with a higher venomous spider population and unbelievable UV index. Spiders and snakes I have managed to avoid so far (knock on wood) but hiding from the sun is another matter. The seasons are opposite so I arrived in Australia just in time for the start of summer. My one requirement in house hunting was that it had to have air conditioning. Luckily I ended up in one because there have already been several days of above 40 degree heat. The saving grace is that these days aren’t sticking around yet so I usually only have to endure 1 or 2 before the temperature goes back down to the more “manageable” (read: I still think it’s too hot) high 20s/low 30s. Melburnians talk about the “cool change”, the hour where, after a day of oppressive heat, the temperature rapidly drops 10/15 degrees. It’s a glorious thing. Houses here, particularly older ones, are not well insulated. This means the place remains surprisingly cool even as the mercury increases. The downside of these thin walls is that I hear everything from the street - cars, people, dogs - you name it, I can hear it. I’ve never slept with earplugs before but I do now. 

I readily admit I arrived thinking the stereotype of a sunburned country was going to ring true no matter the season. I happily removed bulky sweaters and scarves from my strained suitcases while packing thinking that even if it got “cold”, this Canadian wasn’t going to find it “that cold.” Ah how naive I was. The lack of insulation in the summer may be a god send but when it did cool off for a sustained period, I had a brief glimpse of what winter has in store for me. After getting caught in many a downpour in the UK and Belgium without an umbrella, I thought I wouldn’t need one again. Melbourne is actually known for having the most fickle weather - the city has often been described as having four seasons in one day - but better overall compared to other states. So I’ve told by several people I made the right choice.

But with hot dry conditions comes bushfires. The news probably makes it seem like the whole country is on fire and in truth, large areas are. Canada has even sent firefighters to help. And before I see another tone deaf tweet asking why: Australian firefighters have helped us in the past, this is us returning the favour. I have been extremely fortunate that nothing is burning close to Melbourne. Unlike Sydney, the city skyline has only been obscured by smoke or haze a couple of times. This is just the start of summer; it is horrible to think about the continued devastation that months of this will have on people and wildlife. Yet even in the midst of these catastrophic conditions, the Conservative government remains defiant about climate change and calls to downsize the coal industry. 

[literaryoblivion]

October 28: Fire (Jack/Bitty)

(Read on AO3)

Now that he thinks about it, Bitty must have been possessed by some outdoor-loving devil when he agreed to let Jack take him camping.

Because now that he’s in the thick of it, (and he does mean thick, the forest is dense around them, the lack of any civilization very apparent) he is regretting enthusiastically telling Jack that he would “love to go camping” and that he “absolutely loves nature and the outdoors, honey.”

That’s definitely a lie. A huge, giant, big fat lie.

Bitty loves to stay in hotels and real beds and being inside air conditioning (or heating) is his comfy place, and nature is in fact beautiful, when you can enjoy it through the window while you are inside away from the elements.

Being in a tent, cooking what you find in the forest or the river , over an open fire is not what Bitty thinks is an ideal living situation, no matter how temporary it may be. He has absolutely no signal on his phone either, so it’s not like he can tweet his lamentations about this situation.

But Jack, Lord, Jack looks so darn happy setting up the tent and putting together their fishing poles, that Bitty doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he is in fact miserable and wants to go home, and they’ve only been there for an hour.

So Bitty bites his tongue, smiles wide when Jack hands him a fishing pole and waves him to follow him down to the river. It helps that Jack comes up behind Bitty and wraps his arms around him to show him just how to cast his line and reel in a fish.

And okay, when Bitty does catch his first fish, which turns out to be bigger than he thought it would (it’s about the size of his hand), he’s pretty happy about it. He even begs Jack to take a picture of him holding it so he can send it to Coach, because he’d never caught anything that big when Coach had made him go fishing with him.

When Jack’s caught his own fish, both of them now having enough for dinner, Bitty is more than happy to let Jack clean the fish while he gets the fire going.

It’s… not going well to be honest. He’s tried the matches, but nothing is catching. He tries the lighter he brought and it keeps going out. He’s made a lot of smoke, but no fire, and he’s starting to worry that at this rate, they’ll never be able to cook dinner and they’ll have to eat questionable berries they scavenge in the forest. (That’s not true, he totally snuck granola bars and trail mix in his bag, but he likes to be dramatic.)

“It might be too wet,” Jack says as he approaches Bitty where he’s squatting by the fire pit, cursing it under his breath.

“Huh?” Bitty says, looking up to find Jack holding the now clean and cut up fish filets.

“I think it rained here a few days ago, so the wood’s probably still damp. That’s probably why it’s not lighting, eh?”

“Oh. Um. Okay. So…. what do we do then?”

Jack nods and sets the fish down on the fold up table Bitty had set up earlier. He disappears into the tent and comes back with a wad of newspaper and a few cut up logs. Where on Earth did he get those logs?

Jack grins. “I brought a couple just in case this happened. Here.” He hands Bitty the newspaper, and brushes aside the various leaves and sticks Bitty had originally set up. He sets up the dry logs and digs a little crevice beneath them in the dirt.

“Okay, light the newspaper here,” Jack says pointing to the dip in the dirt, “and these logs should catch better. Once it’s big enough, we can add others.”

Bitty nods and does as instructed and sure enough, the logs light up and the fire grows. Once it’s big enough, Jack moves a cast iron skillet into the flames, letting it hit up. As much as Bitty loves to bake, this whole cooking on an open flame is not his forte and Jack seems to be handling it just fine, so he lets him.

When it’s ready and they eat, it’s not too bad. It’s nothing like Mama used to make when Coach brought fish home, but it’s still good.

“Where’d you learn all this?” Bitty asks, waving his hand to encompass their entire camping experience thus far.

It’s dark, fire still glowing, though they’ve had to add a few more logs at this point. Bitty had tried to make some skillet cookie he had found the recipe for before they had left, but he’d forgotten to spray the bottom of the pan, and then he’d left it in the fire too long and…. Yeah. He’s glad Jack and insisted they bring s’more ingredients, too.

Jack shrugs sets his empty plate down beside him and scoots closer to Bitty, who willingly cuddles up to Jack’s side, feeling warmth from the fire and Jack.

“My parents always took me camping in the off-season. Sometimes others would join in, but it was usually just us.”

“That sounds nice. I’m sure it’s beautiful camping up in Canada.”

“It is. Maybe I can take you sometime?”

And… Bitty could totally tell Jack that camping is not his thing, come clean before he embarrassed himself in front of Bad Bob and Mama Zimmerman. Only… it’s Jack and he can’t. “I’d go anywhere with you,” he says, settling on that answer because it’s true. If Jack asked him to go camping with him again, he would, even if he hated it the whole time.

Jack smiles and kisses Bitty on the cheek before standing up and taking their plates to rinse them in the river. Bitty puts the other things away, gets their sleeping bags ready in the tent.

When they’re finally both settled in their bags, pressed up close together, Jack’s arm wrapped around Bitty’s middle, Bitty is glad he’s there with Jack as much as he’s not loving the fact that he’s sleeping on the floor.

“Don’t worry, Bittle,” Jack says in his ear. “Next time I’ll rent a trailer with a stove and a bed.”

Bitty blushes and twists around, flustered and embarrassed and a little indignant. “Who said you had to do that?!”

Jack chuckles and brushes Bitty’s hair from his forehead. “I know you, Bits. I know how much you don’t like camping, but I’m glad you pretended you did for me anyway.”

Bitty buries his face in Jack’s chest, feeling the rumble of Jack’s laughs. “I tried!” he mumbles into Jack’s chest.

“I know you did. It’s okay, though. I still love you even if you can’t cook over an open flame,” Jack says jokingly.

Bitty hits him, though there’s no force behind it. Jack just pulls Bitty in closer and kisses the top of his head, then his nose and then his lips. “Good night, Bitty.”

“Good night, Jack.”

[rocketwerks]

Imperial Tobacco Company

102-116 South Sixth Streets (Warehouse & Stemmery)

Built, between 1877 - 1896

Demolished, unknown

118-120 South Sixth Street (Office)

Built, 1904

Demolished, after 1977

[RVCJ03] — showing Stemmery & Warehouse at Sixth & Main SW

The British tobacco bully-boys. What’s wrong with a little friendly competition?

(Duke University Libraries) — James Buchanan Duke

This is one of the quaint stories of the Gilded Age, those good old days when men were men and trusts were normal.

The American Tobacco Company (ATC) set aside a massive 30 million dollars to buy up British tobacco companies one by one at the start of the 20th century. The key figure was James Buchanan Duke, head of ATC, whose aggressive methods had created a virtual monopoly for the company in the US. Individually, British companies, even those of the size of WD & HO Wills and John Player & Sons, could not survive.

(Wikimedia Commons)

When Duke arrived in Liverpool in 1901, he walked into Ogden's factory and bought on the spot. Duke then approached other British companies and is reported to have burst in on the Player brothers, saying: "Hello, boys. I'm Duke from New York, come to take over your business." He was politely shown the door, an experience repeated at other companies. Facing such resistance, he paused for reflection.

This pause gave 13 family-run businesses, led by Wills, Players and Lambert & Butler, time to meet and, in December 1901, The Imperial Tobacco Company (Great Britain and Ireland) Limited was formed. (Imperial Tobacco)

[RVCH03] — Wellford C. Reed

Duke’s bluster would come back to haunt him, and it wasn’t long until the fight was brought directly to American Tobacco’s doorstep.

According to information received in the city, Mr. A. F. Thomas of Lynchburg, who, along with Mr. Wellford C. Reed, of this city, was appointed to represent the Imperial Tobacco Company in this country, will remove to this city and will establish himself here. He as sold out his place in Lynchburg and is preparing to make a change in his residence. It is understood that he will come here tomorrow, though hardly to settle here so soon. This will probably be a preliminary visit, with a view to securing residence, office, &c.

(Pinterest) — tin of Repeater, fine cut mild smoking tobacco, product of Imperial Tobacco Company of Montreal, Canada

The determination of Mr. Thomas to locate here casts more mystery than ever over the plans of the Imperial Company with reference to this country. When he and Mr. Reed were appointed it was thought that the two would divide the territory between them, Mr. Reed looking after Virginia and the Carolinas and Mr. Thomas the West, or vice versa. This arrangement seems to be knocked in the head by Mr. Thomas’ action in locating here. It may be, however, that he will undertake to conduct the Western business from this point. One thing seems to be signified by the coming of Mr. Thomas to this city, namely: that Richmond will in reality be the American headquarters of the Imperial. [RT19020315]

[RVCJ03] — James N. Boyd

They started by taking over the buildings of James N. Boyd, a former leaf tobacco broker who’d found a new occupation as President of the Planters Bank and Virginia Trust Company. His warehouse and stemmery commanded most of the western block of Sixth Street between Cary and Canal Streets, a clear finger in the face to Duke, whose American Tobacco buildings stood right across the street. 

(Library of Congress) — Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Richmond (1905) — Plate 11 — showing 102-116 South Sixth Street locations

Nor did it take long for Imperial to make its presence known, leaning hard on its British brethren to not do business with American Tobacco.

London, March 21 — At a meeting of the Edinburg Association of Retail Tobacconists, to-day, a resolution was adopted unanimously declining to sign the Imperial Tobacco Company’s agreement not to sell American goods for a term of years, but expressing a willingness, if the minimum price is raised so as to allow a fair profit to the dealers, to do what is possible, bonus or no bonus, for the sake of British goods. The chairman declared that no one outside a lunatic asylum would sign such an agreement, which would make them the servants of the Imperial Tobacco Company. While the Americans offered a large bonus, no restrictions were placed upon the dealers. [RD19020322]

Indeed, the London tobacconists felt that Imperial Tobacco Company offer “out-Americanized the Americans” and was “unjust and unfair to the dealers, and un-English.”

May 2019 — looking towards 102-116 South Sixth Street today

Such resistance had limits, as Imperial continued to come out swinging, with two announcements in May alone.

The Universal Tobacco Company of this country, it is learned, will work with the Imperial Tobacco Company, of Great Britain, against their common foe, the American Tobacco Company, through a co-operative alliance altogether different from what has bee supposed.

The scheme of co-operation, according to the information received, is to have the Universal Tobacco Company become the selling agents for the Imperial in the country and the Imperial for the Universal in England and Europe.

Such an alliance would be an exceedingly strong one and would be hard to beat. [RT19020511]

[RTD19040177] — Plans for Imperial Tobacco Company’s Splendid Office Building, Sixth and Cary — Richmond Times-Dispatch, Sunday, January 17, 1904

This was followed just three days later with the announcement of the acquisition of the Well-Whitehead Tobacco Company of Wilson, North Carolina.

In July, the Richmond Dispatch announced that British tobacco dealers had been notified that the Imperial was arranging for direct imports of Virginia and Carolina leaf, effectively freezing out American firms from selling to British manufacturers. Later the same month, the Dispatch ran another story that described Imperial’s intention to compete aggressively in the Farmville market during the next tobacco-buying season.

While the general public know nothing of the merits of the alleged controversy between the Imperial and American “giants,” every farmer is in high hopes of larger profits from his labors by reason of the anticipated struggle between these companies. [RD19020713]

(Vintage Richmond) — Imperial Tobacco Company building — March 1977

Duke tried fighting back.  

Through Ogden's, American Tobacco Company began cutting prices and offering free gifts in the UK - tactics that had served it well in the US. But Imperial frustrated ATC at every turn. It acquired the retail business of Salmon & Gluckstein and also set up a customer bonus scheme, whereby a proportion of Imperial profits was distributed among wholesale and retail customers.

After suffering heavy losses in the UK, and faced with a trade war at home, ATC was ready to talk. In September 1902 an agreement was reached - ATC surrendered Ogden's to Imperial while Imperial abandoned plans to enter the American market, except for leaf buying.��The result was the formation of the British American Tobacco Company Limited. (Imperial Tobacco)

(Vintage Richmond) — Imperial Tobacco Company doorway — March 1977

The cessation of hostilities allowed Imperial the luxury of planning a brand new office building, which was constructed in 1904, right across the street from the warehouse and stemmery. Sadly, the giddy good times did not last.

In 1907, American Tobacco Company was indicted in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890. They fought it all the way to the Supreme Court, and in 1911, the justices issued their decision in United States v. American Tobacco Company, holding that American was indeed guilty of attempting to monopolize the business of tobacco in interstate commerce.

The tobacco giant was split into four smaller companies: American Tobacco Company, R. J. Reynolds, Liggett & Myers, and Lorillard. American Tobacco continued to hold the rights to sell a number of Imperial brands in the US, leaving Imperial free to export any of its other brands to the American market. (Imperial Tobacco)

May 2019 — looking toward 118-120 South Sixth Street today

Imperial may have seen the writing on the wall and elected to bail for greener pastures. A 1908 article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch discusses the company’s contemplated move to Henderson, Kentucky, and their transformation into Imperial of Kentucky. Great things were anticipated from the exploitation of the great Western tobacco belt, and they expected to construct a new rehandling plant in Henderson. [RTD19080305]

The warehouse and stemmery buildings continued to be used by Imperial as late as 1924, but the office building became a warehouse for the Western Electric Company, and then Graybar Electric by 1950.

(Imperial Tobacco Company is part of the Atlas RVA! Project)

Note

The always readable Shockoe Examiner has plowed this same topic in a post from 2018. There are additional pictures and details about the office building that are worth checking out.

Print Sources

Newspapers provided by Chronicling America. 

[RT19020315] Richmond Times. Saturday, March 15, 1902.

[RD19020322] Richmond Dispatch. Saturday, March 22, 1902.

[RT19020511] Richmond Times. Sunday, May 11, 1902.

[RD19020713] Richmond Times. Sunday, July 13, 1902.

[RTD19040177] Richmond Times-Dispatch. Sunday, January 17, 1904.

[RTD19080305] Richmond Times-Dispatch. Thursday, March 5, 1908.

[RVCJ03] Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James: The Book of Its Chamber of Commerce and Principal Business Interests. G. W. Engelhardt. 1903.

[madscientistjournal]

Forty-Flesh Barrier

An essay by Tethys, as provided by Raluca Balasa Art by Luke Spooner

Across the bar hangs a sign reading Humans Only.

A man with a seeing eye dog sits exactly twenty-three meters from me, hazy in the smoke under the fire basins. As my colonel banters with the bartender, I study that dog. It is not human. It is an improvement to its owner’s body just as my cybernetic parts are an improvement to mine, but no one tells this man or his dog to leave.

Because dogs are not what started the fourth world war. In the beginning, CanRobotics sent its robots to maintain the Canadarm and the space station. It seemed like a good idea, since the men and women on duty kept getting homesick. At first it was just little things going wrong: astronauts reporting glitches in the technology, minor accidents, power failures. Months later, everyone on the space station was dead and even Earth-bound technology had been affected by the virus. The CEO of CanRobotics was the first on Earth to die by drone attack. Those robots are still up there, replicating themselves until they’re ready to make a move for Earth. The space station has become the deadliest military base in history.

The public’s distrust of machines is everywhere now, in the orange glow of the fire these communes use instead of lamps, the giant sundials replacing clocks because people can no longer stand to see gears. When these villagers look around the bar, they find comfort in the wooden countertops, the old monarchs on the walls. I see only delusion, a refusal to acknowledge the danger I face daily.

Pain sparks through my remade body. First my right shoulder where the shrapnel tore through, then my left leg. These are nothing but sense memories–my cybernetic parts have no synaptic receptors for anything but motion signals. Less than forty-percent of my flesh is now receptive to pain.

But if I am no longer human, my body doesn’t realize it. I still feel longing, if not hunger. I still seek closeness, if not intimacy.

~

Corrina dances with a farmer in a plaid shirt, her body moulding to the music while mine curls defensively around my drink. She is water in a stream. I am a relic lost and buried at sea: once precious, now obsolete.

You said I was perfect, I want to shout at the colonel. He watches her from beside me at the bar, the silver in his hair glinting in the firelight from the basins above. I down my ale. What are flawless skin and a symmetrical face next to flaws carried comfortably? My colonel prefers her crooked legs, the tinge of sweat on her skin, and the tobacco on her breath when she leans close.

On the stage, a bard sings of dragons and knights: a common metaphor for the political situation these days. Men sing along while others drink directly from the ale casks, then are dragged away when they fail to produce their ration stamps. A fireplace crackles in the hearth on the far wall, and above it glistens an oil painting of Queen Helen, England’s last reigning monarch, with her hunting dogs. Rapiers and deer heads decorate the walls. After so much time in the military compounds, I can’t help seeing the real world as archaic. Fear has regressed them hundreds of years, and done worse to me.

Colonel Jurgis shrugs off his coat, revealing his maroon-and-silver uniform and the military insignia on it: crossed rifles over a globe. The Army for Humanity is stitched across the insignia in tiny, glittering letters. A hush falls around us; even the musicians play less heartily when they notice the eyes on us. I can’t tell if it’s my racing heart or the smoke in the air making me lightheaded.

“Military folk, eh?” the bartender says. He tries to sound confident–cheerful, even–but I can tell he’s nervous. “What brings you to Princeton?”

“Passing through on our way to Camp Miller,” Jurgis says, and stretches as if he owns the place. “Another whiskey on the rocks.”

The bartender continues eyeing the insignia. “You don’t got any of those contraptions, do you, friends? Princeton’s a peaceful place. That mechanized devilry isn’t welcome here.”

The gears in my limbs tighten, preparing for flight or self-defence. I wish we’d never stopped in this place. The communes between military compounds in southern England are distrustful even of their protectors nowadays. He sees inside you, my mind screams. He knows. But I force myself to smile and say, “We’re off-duty.” Indeed, neither Jurgis nor my partner dancing across the bar have rifles with them. That’s why they brought me.

The bartender gives a wavering smile. “‘Course, ‘course. Thank you for your service. It’s just that we don’t want no trouble, yeah?”

As if our technology-tainted fingers would draw the enemy like blood draws sharks. If this man knew what I am, he would burn me at the stake. He wouldn’t understand that I was made specifically to avoid the virus that controls all technology. The drones above might be able to turn our weapons against us, but my human sentience makes it impossible for them to control me.

I reach for the whiskey when it arrives. Before I can drink, the colonel’s hand settles on mine. He shakes his head. I wish he wouldn’t touch me. The way I feel about him is not enough to bring me back to life, just enough to keep me guessing.

“Easy, soldier,” he says. The corners of his eyes are wrinkled and his thin lips are invisible when he grins. His nose is too long, his eyes too pale.

“I’m fine,” I say.

“You can still get drunk,” he whispers, bringing his lips close to my ear. I know the gesture means nothing save secrecy, but a shiver rolls down my spine, and I struggle not to lean into him. He is my superior, my protector in a world that hates me. Nothing more.

“I don’t need you to remind me which parts of me still work,” I manage.

“Boo-hoo.” His hand lifts from mine. “Be glad you’re still alive.”

Only I understand that his callousness is a caress. My lips, rebuilt with fat from my hip, twitch into a smile.

“What news from across the pond?” I belatedly realize the bartender addresses me, not Jurgis. I swallow, afraid my voice will give me away, that he will be able to tell what I am if I speak too much. I need to keep him from looking at me too closely, but I can’t tell him the truth: that the United States has joined Canada in funding CanRobotics on the space station. If you can’t beat them, join them. That would only spark more fear.

“I can’t divulge military information.”

“Are they … multiplying up there?” The bartender whispers as if afraid the creatures on the space station might hear. “Can’t die, can they? Heard they were made to maintain each other, like bees.”

“They’re continuing to send down drones, and we’re continuing to destroy them.”

“You ought to be careful in those military compounds. Those demons’ll turn your technology against you.  Use your radios to listen to you and your televisions to watch you from the space station. If you want my advice–”

“We’re off-duty,” Jurgis says. “I’ll have no more talk of the war.”

Being here, I can almost pretend the war doesn’t exist, but it’s impossible to hide from the signs. An old man weaves around barstools with a poster in his hands, asking, “Have you seen my little girl?” He wears a patched coat, and the sight of him extinguishes the warmth I’d felt. Though I sit at the other end of the bar, I hone in on the picture like a sniper on a target. Every detail becomes sharp. It’s a child’s drawing, a stick figure with straw hair. So many have lost themselves in the war. Perhaps I am lucky that I only lost my body.

When I turn, I catch the bartender’s eye. I’m not sure what gives me away–maybe the unnatural turquoise of my eyes against my brown skin, or the scars around my hairline–but he pales and I realize he knows. “She’s one of them.”

He addresses my colonel. Without blinking, Jurgis whips out my papers. “She’s with the Eighth regiment, under the command of Colonel Jurgis. She’s on our side.”

But the bartender begins to shake and back away. “Those dirty ants can hack into any technology they please, no matter how human it looks! Take that thing out of here!”

The chatter at the bar extinguishes. Everyone turns to stare at me. From across the dance floor, she turns too. We lock eyes.

~

I was seven when I first saw Corrina.

Our ox died in the red plague that year. Ma and Pa, too, but only the ox mattered, because he pulled the cart that took my grandpa to town to sell his okra and cabbage. Just so happened the Army for Humanity was offering fifty credits for new recruits that year.

Neither Pops nor I cried when the lieutenant came to take me to the headquarters in Prague. “I’ll come back for you, Teth,” he said, gripping my hand. He looked so sure I almost believed him. “In the meantime, you’ll have food and a warm bed.” More than he could offer.

A week later, I saw Corrina standing at the platoon’s rear, her calves splattered with mud after our five league hike. She was biting her lip and the corporal slapped her for it. “Soldiers do not fidget,” the woman snapped. To this day, I don’t know what possessed me, but I coughed to draw her attention and then picked at my nails for good measure.

The corporal’s insignia glittered on her breast, her boots tapping like a metronome on the packed dirt as she strode toward me. My eyes watered in the sun; I couldn’t look up at her. She grabbed my face in her long-nailed hand. “What’s your name, private?”

“Tethys, ma’am!” I shouted. This close, she smelled of stale makeup. Her lipstick was drawn past the line of her lips.

“You’re a sorry lot,” she said, still holding my chin. “But I’ll make soldiers of you yet. The first thing you’ll learn here is that there is no more you. Here you are more than a community; you are an entity.”

She never asked our names again. We became Platoon Five-Four-Eight.

~

I grew to admire Corrina. She had a passion for calculus and advanced functions, while I showed promise with a rifle. We were an obvious match for drill runs. She cracked every lock and code, neutralized every mine in the minefield, while I covered her. In that way we became one–I was her armour, her bones, and she was my brain.

By the end of our third year, Corrina had become the platoon’s only cryptanalyst. She loved turning linguistic possibility into mathematical certainty, she once told me. Our drone casualties dropped by two-hundred percent. As long as we had Corrina to intercept the enemy’s radio signals, to tell us when and where each drone would be, we were invincible.

Then one day a grenade rolled into our tent, as though blown in with the first autumn leaves.

For the second time in my life, I was faced with a choice that wasn’t a choice at all. Without Corrina, our brain, the platoon would not survive. Bone and muscle, on the other hand, were easy to replace. I covered her.

Turned out they didn’t even need to replace me, only my arm. The fingernail on a finger. No loss to the entity at all.

~

“She’s not hurting anyone,” I hear my colonel saying once I tear my eyes from Corrina’s. The blind man’s dog tries padding toward me, but its owner holds it back. Dogs can’t get enough of me since I lost my human status. I used to think this is because my soul–or whatever you want to call it–is better for my sacrifices. Now I know it’s because dogs are stupid.

“That thing has no business here!” the bartender says. Spittle quivers on his beard.

Colonel Jurgis doesn’t explain that my digestive system still works, as do my taste buds, and that blood still circulates through my core. Rather, he says, “My money is mine to spend as I please.”

Just a month ago, my salary had been mine by law, but with this latest loss on the battlefield–my last natural limb–I’ve also lost my rights to own property and earn wages. I’ve crossed the Forty-Flesh barrier. What I make goes to the regiment now.

Whoever heard of paying a tool? I can still hear World President Amina Bhutia’s campaign speech from five years ago. We must fight fire with fire! Returning to the middle ages soothes peasants, but the army can’t wave swords at enemy drones. Let us make our own weapons, weapons we can control. Replace limbs with resilient metal, but keep the core human. That’ll show those soulless bastards!

I was made to protect this bartender, even though he chooses not to remember. “Let’s leave,” I whisper.

My colonel doesn’t flinch at my words, doesn’t seem to feel my hand on his arm. Only when Corrina’s voice behind us says, “Ready to go?” does he stir.

“This place is a shit-hole,” he growls, scattering some credits across the bar. I trail him and Corrina wordlessly. A holstered weapon.

~

I was sixteen when I met Colonel Jurgis. Already twenty-percent machine, with a cybernetic arm, right kneecap, and left hip. My superiors told me not to worry. I was decades away from the sixty-percent cutoff. Chances were I’d be killed in battle before then.

Corrina and I were promoted to the Eighth regiment that year. I’d been sharing my successes and failures with her since my induction into the army, but it hadn’t made us close. I think she felt guilty, or maybe I felt resentful; either way, we almost never spoke despite being constantly together, and when we did it was about work. I grew to think of her as a tumour–leave it and it saps your strength, but cut it out and you bleed to death.

The colonel stood in the middle of the obstacle course with a whistle around his neck, squinting in the dust his troops stirred. The whistle’s glint blinded me when he turned (I still had my natural eyes then). We approached in our camouflage uniforms and trench boots, Corrina holding up her chin and I slouching in her shadow. We knew what was coming. Corrina, the famous cryptanalyst! No, of course you needn’t run drills. Tethys will take your exercises.

Colonel Jurgis studied us. My hand was shaking from holding the salute when he finally said, “Welcome to regiment Eight. To the ranks.”

“I’m a mathematical engineer,” Corrina spoke up. “I don’t train on the battlefield.”

Jurgis stopped mid-turn and frowned, which made his lips disappear. His hair was long and matted and kept in a knot. “Perhaps if you were less eager to single yourself out,” he said, “you wouldn’t be such an easy target for enemy drones.”

My hip tingled at his words. I’d taken the last hit on Corrina’s life just six months ago. Corrina’s mouth hung open, the first and only time I’ve seen her look stupid.

~

At eighteen I woke to the smell of sulphur and smoke. The barracks, normally cold at night, were stiflingly hot. I leapt to my feet and climbed to the top bunk only to find it empty. The walls glowed with heat, but I could only think of one thing.

My partner wasn’t down the hall or in the outhouses across the street. Snow crunched under my feet as I ran, the icy burn in my soles complementing the heat in my face. It was past 0200 in the morning, but the camp was ablaze with light and for a moment I thought the sun had risen. The alternating hot and cold currents made me dizzy.

Corrina had missed a drone.

I raced into the officers’ barracks. The smoke made a film over my eyes, but I didn’t need them to know where she’d be. I found her fleeing from the colonels’ quarter, dressed only in a soot-stained shift. She kicked and screamed like an animal when I gripped her. Instead of flinging her over my shoulder and taking her out of there, I pinned her arms behind her back. “Where is he?”

“S-still inside.”

So I left her. A colonel was as important as a cryptanalyst, and besides, she had missed a drone. I used all the excuses I could think of.

The frostbite in my feet helped me reach him; if I’d felt the pain of the scalding floor, I would have turned back. As it was, I found him cornered by a wall of flames. He didn’t turn when I called his name. He told me later that all he could see was the white fire imprinted in his retinas.

I suffered third-degree burns on my face, scalp, neck, and shoulders. In the sickbay, white gauze covering my head, drugged by painkillers, he’d looked at me with more tenderness than he looks at me now, when I am more beautiful than ever.

My nose and lips melted off, as well as the epidermis on my face. The doctors amputated both my feet. The nurse smiled when she asked me what I wanted my new face to look like.

“Like me,” I answered.

Her eyebrow arched up her forehead–a fluid, thoughtless motion I would never again be able to achieve. “I haven’t the slightest as to what you looked like, dearie. What shall I tell the surgeons?”

Eyeing Colonel Jurgis in the waiting room and Corrina dozing on his shoulder, I filled the nurse with lies. I’d had raven curls, thick lips and eyelashes, high cheekbones, everything.

And that wasn’t all. Perhaps it was seeing them together–perhaps I thought completing the transition would numb my feelings–or maybe I’d given up pretending. President Bhutia needed volunteers for her mechanized combat force, and I was already mostly machine. The enhancements she required for her army didn’t seem so severe. At least this time, the decision to mechanize would be mine.

~

The night is alive with bonfires. Jurgis and Corrina squint, but my pupils contract in nanoseconds to accommodate the increased light. Before me is a billboard selling smiles and rifles. Join the Army. We’ll Make You Whole.

The night is alive with bonfires. Jurgis and Corrina squint, but my pupils contract in nanoseconds to accommodate the increased light. Before me is a billboard selling smiles and rifles. Join the Army. We’ll Make You Whole.

Thunder rumbles above. I look up and that’s when I see a speck in the deep, pulsing sky. The light pollution and smoke make the horizon a haze, but I see it as clearly as if it were the sun: a red fleck with a white tail coming closer. It’s not a star or an aircraft–I’ve been trained to identify those from afar. What I don’t know is whether its target is Princeton or something, someone, more specific. How coincidental that it should strike just after my arrival here.

Not mine. I whip to Corrina.

She grips Colonel Jurgis’s arm and smiles, and he smiles back. They both look so stupid, leaning there like reeds in the wind. I weigh the options in the time it takes an eyelid to flutter. As usual there is no choice, so I kneel on the sidewalk and extend my arm to take aim.

“Steady there, soldier,” Jurgis laughs. “Drunk already?”

I store the anger away. The silicon skin on my forearm retreats to reveal a rifle’s tip. I can hear the gears shifting in my arm, but not fast enough. People on the streets are coming closer to see what I’m doing, then recoiling when they do. Someone shouts, “Terrorist!” but I don’t let that distract me.

“Stand back,” I warn, amplifying my voice like I’ve been trained to do. “It’s an enemy drone. I can take it down.”

But they won’t hear me. A woman shrieks that I’m a murderer and the crowd before me scatters, refusing to see that I’m aiming at the sky. Hands grab my shoulders. I fire a single shot before I’m pulled back among limbs and heated flesh.

“Restrain it! It’s been hijacked!”

“Monster!”

“The monster is up there! Let me take it down!” I shout, but they can’t see it with their human eyes. Distantly I notice Jurgis flashing his insignia and shouting before the crowd overpowers him too. His lips say: this is a military situation. We are here for your protection. But I can’t help wondering if it’s them or me he wants to protect, and if any of it really matters.

Then knuckles make contact with my face and blood fills my mouth. My heart thrums like it’s trying to escape my metal ribcage. Hands pin me to the concrete. I kick up to free myself of the man on top of me, and he flies across the street. I can’t help my strength now that I’m desperate.

So I wrap my hands around the arms holding me, then clench. Brittle bones shatter. The pressure on me lets up as my attackers scream and recoil. Before I know it, I’m on my feet.

The gun in my arm now points at the crowd.

The civilians back away, replaced by policemen who face me with batons and fibreglass helmets. “Get back!” one shouts. “We’re dealing with a rogue military weapon!”

I know I look insane, blood dribbling down my face, my machinery exposed. Even if I speak, who will hear me? Colonel Jurgis is on the ground, restrained, and Corrina melts among my faceless pursuers. I can’t tell if she’s seeking help or saving herself. She hasn’t looked at me since the first hit I took for her.

“Lower your weapon or we’ll fire!”

My eyes dart across the humans. I’m searching for a reason to save them, any of them. I am more like that drone–a force of calculated destruction, not cruel but programmed with a purpose–than I am like them. A rogue military weapon.

Slowly my gears shift, and I realize I have locked my ammunition into position. My mind weighs possibilities before the policeman’s echo fades. I can fire my gun a second and a half before the policeman fires his, taking down the drone, or I could amputate my tumour and become me again.

Join the Army. We’ll Make You Whole.

I lower my arm. While the militia rushes to restrain me, the light in the sky brightens. I can no longer see Jurgis or Corrina. The faces in the crowd become one.

Tethys no longer remembers her last name. She belongs to the Army for Humanity, which takes her time, wages, and parts of her body as it sees fit. Despite being mostly machine herself, Tethys dedicates her life to defending flesh and fighting machines. Her love for individuals outweighs her distrust of humanity.

Raluca Balasa holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Nevada, Reno. Her approach to writing is character-oriented, often dealing with love-hate relationships, antiheroes, and antagonists who make you agree with them. Her short work has appeared in Andromeda Spaceways, Aurealis, Psychopomp, and Grimdark Magazine, among others. When she’s not writing, she can be found playing the piano or spilling things.

Luke Spooner, a.k.a. ‘Carrion House,’ currently lives and works in the South of England. Having recently graduated from the University of Portsmouth with a first class degree, he is now a full time illustrator for just about any project that piques his interest. Despite regular forays into children’s books and fairy tales, his true love lies in anything macabre, melancholy, or dark in nature and essence. He believes that the job of putting someone else’s words into a visual form, to accompany and support their text, is a massive responsibility, as well as being something he truly treasures. You can visit his web site at www.carrionhouse.com.

“Forty-Flesh Barrier” is © 2018 Raluca Balasa Art accompanying story is © 2018 Luke Spooner

Forty-Flesh Barrier was originally published on Mad Scientist Journal

[writing-royza]

Two Hundred and Eighty-nine - Ultimate Weapon, 3.0

A/N: Happy Sunday, everyone, to my fellow Canadians, Happy Canada Day! I hope you’ll forgive me keeping this short, but between a nasty heat wave and running around a lot this weekend, I’m bushed. Enjoy!

I do not own FMA.

Two Hundred and Eighty-nine - Ultimate Weapon, 3.0

There was an open expanse of bare dirt near the back of the East City Headquarters’ grounds, usually used for drilling troops. It was loose and soft, kept turned up so that it didn’t wind up hard-packed. Tiered seating had been constructed almost as an afterthought along one side, empty now except for a small group of people.

Ed glanced around at the four fire extinguishers, one each beside a member of Mustang’s staff. “I have to ask…. How badly is he expecting to screw up that you’re all ready to douse whatever fire he starts?”

Breda grinned, looking away from the open space ahead, where Roy waited in the centre as Riza planted the last target, completing a second wide circle thirty feet out around him. The first was similar, but ten feet away, and there were four small round balls at each cardinal point, sixty feet away from the man in the centre. “You know Hawkeye likes to be prepared,” he commented. “And what kind of team would we be if we let our leader go up in his own smoke?”

The faint glow of red that seemed to serve Alphonse as eyes grew brighter and slightly wider behind the eye slits of his helmet. “You’re ready in case he sets himself on fire?”

“Him, you, the building… pretty much anything.” Havoc shrugged, mirroring Breda’s smile. “Just because he plays with fire all the time doesn’t mean he’s immune to it.”

Edward grimaced, the image flashing briefly through his mind of the little house in Resembool he’d burned to the ground. “Playing with fire literally and metaphorically, with all the political maneuvering he does,” he murmured, watching as Lieutenant Hawkeye moved to speak briefly with her superior, before retreating to a spot just outside the second circle of targets where her own extinguisher waited. “…I don’t mean to tell you guys how to run practice exercises, but… shouldn’t Hawkeye maybe move a little farther away?”

“The Lieutenant is right where she needs to be,” Falman said quietly, settling in in to watch. “She’ll be all right.”

“It’s both an incentive for the Colonel and a trust thing,” Fuery explained. “Obviously, he doesn’t want to burn the Lieutenant, so he’ll avoid hitting her, and she trusts him not to. She knows he never would, not on purpose.”

“Shhhh, here he goes!” Breda hissed, leaning forward in interest.

There was a moment of silence, and then the faintest sound of snapping fingers. Roy didn’t even raise his arm, but red-gold light snaked out to the first torch in the circle. It flared, catching, and burned steadily.

“Seems pretty basic,” Ed murmured. “How is that any different than–”

He cut himself off suddenly as Roy’s arm came up, the older alchemist turning on the spot as a whooshing sound echoed across the parade ground. Fire flared out in a feathered line, catching first one torch of the inner circle, then another and another around the perimeter.

“Whoa,” Alphonse said softly, leaning forward. “He doesn't just have to be careful; he has to be meticulous. Just enough power and control to get it to the torch heads and no further.”

Breda’s eyes were glued to the exercise, watching every movement sharply. “And the show’s not over yet,” he said distractedly.

It wasn’t. Roy paused long enough to survey what he’d already done, before he nodded to himself in apparent satisfaction. He took on a stable stance, then brought his other arm up with the first. Two simultaneous snaps, and fire raced away from him along the dirt, whirling around the torches of the nearer circle and shooting off toward the second. This time, instead of just the heads igniting, the entirety of the wooden shafts went up.

Roy didn’t hesitate. Even from this distance, his eyes could be seen to narrow in concentration. His left hand shot forward and snapped, and the little ball sixty feet to the north exploded in a shower of dirt and sparks. His right hand went east, where that tiny target also detonated.

He only turned ninety degrees, but the were two more snaps and explosions in rapid succession: his left hand to the south and his right to to the west. The whole quartet if blasts took less than five seconds.

Ed whistled softly, watching as Hawkeye’s extinguisher cleared Roy a path out of the burning torch circles. “Why do I get the feeling that this time, and any other time I’ve seen him fight with alchemy, he’s holding back?”

“Because he is,” Havoc said. His tone this time was grim. “If the boss really opened up and just let fly with it, he could torch the parade ground halfway back to the main building. This today was more about fine-tune control, though, not raw power.”

“It’s almost an ultimate weapon,” Alphonse said quietly, watching Colonel and Lieutenant conferring as they eyed the still burning torches.

Falman nodded agreement. “Almost. But because it’s so strong in terms of offense, it doesn’t really have anything in the way of defense.”

“Which is where Hawkeye comes in,” Fuery chimed in, turning to smile back at the boys. “Every great weapon needs a great defender, and she’s the best he’s got. It’s part of why they work so well together.”

Still watching them in their private conference, Ed’s quick golden eyes caught the look that passed between superior and subordinate. It could have been the distance, but he was almost sure that Hawkeye had a tiny smile, and that Mustang’s eyes darted briefly to her lips while he spoke. Nah, he thought, he’s a player, sure, but even he wouldn’t try to play with someone as out of his league as her.

“Yeah,” he said out loud. “I guess they are.”

[mayhemproduces]

Riley Ishimori (c) vs BLADE vs Sardonyx - MPW Fatales Championship

Pay Per View events are always accompanied by the extra glitter and glam, everybody dressing in their best attire, setting the stage for the chaotic, beautiful hell fire that’s sure to follow, and that carries on into this match. Blade was dressed in a more familiar gear, black based with red accents, and a noticeable red blood streaks flowing from the top, a tribute to the late, great, Scott Hall, and a nod to her Rip City partner, as the two have vowed to leave Darkness Falls victorious as the Shooters look to take all of the gold in MPW. It’s a sight for sore eyes, maybe even bringing a tear to some, but the mood turns more somber during Sardonyx’s entrance. Black and white is her signature look, and she’s even dyed half of her hair to match the clashing styles. She emerges from the crowd like the dead crawling out of their grave, before taking a slow, austere walk to the ring, stopping at the end of the ramp to look over the crowd as the spotlight focuses on her. She slingshots into the ring, kneeling as she looks over the fans once more, before finding her spot against the bottom turnbuckle.

Instead of the exhilarating guitar strums we’re used to, we get a soft, muffled opening, before the song delves into absolute chaos, between the screams, snares, and the flashing lights, it’s the exact type of chaos we’d expect from the self proclaimed King of it.Riley steps out through the rainbow lights and growing smoke. The lyrics wash over her, a familiar comfort that’s nearly drowned out by the sound of the crowd. Her eyes are closed, though, slowly opening as her hand raises the title above her head, cocking her head back to get a better view at the sold out Walter Pyramid. Both Sardonyx’s and Blade’s eyes locked onto Riley as soon as Telescope hit, going from staring daggers into each other to eerily focused on Riley, and she returns their glare as she makes her way down the ring, the title held on her shoulder until she made her way around the ring and onto the apron, leaning forward as she flashed off the belt, raising it above her head before she slipped in through the ropes. She holds it up one more time, getting nose to nose with either of her challengers, holding it up in their faces as Steve Guy prepares to begin his introductions.

The intensity has skyrocketed since the opening bell and has only grown with each passing match, with each high risk, death defying moment. With each heartbreak, each triumph. The surprises… Every match tonight meant something, whether it be a guaranteed opportunity at a better future, settling a grudge, or a title, but this was more than that. This has been building since Thunder in Paradise. This was set in motion when Sardonyx attacked the Second Gear Crew. This was set in motion when Blade rushed into the ring to stand beside the Bullet Club. They’ve evolved so much since then - Riley dumped by the toxicity of ANarChY, Blade drawn towards the dominance of the Rip City Shooters, Sardonyx answering the call of the Fallen. Blade stumbled time and time again but managed to bounce back, refusing to accept defeat. Riley’s held onto the Fatales Championship since last August, defending it against some of the best the industry has to offer, and has broken record after record to get here tonight. But Sardonyx is still undefeated. Nobody’s been able to figure out the puzzle of the elusive, mysterious Savior, but if either of her opponents has a dream or a prayer of walking out with the gold, they’ll have to come up with a solution quickly.

“The following contest is a three way dance, set for one fall, and it is for the MPW Fatales Championship!” Despite the mean mugs surrounding him, Steve Guy is all smiles as he points to his left, “First, the challengers! Fighting out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and representing the Rip City Shooters, she is the Chosen One, BLADE!” Blade’s cocky smirk is all she needs to irritate the others, bouncing on the balls of her feet, knuckles quickly pressing against her jaw before Steve continues.

“Next, hailing from Auckland, New Zealand, and representing The Fallen, she is the Savior, SARDONYX!” The competitor in question merely pulls herself up from the bottom turnbuckle, staring a hole into the Champion and the glittering gold on her shoulder.

“And finally, their opponent,” Steve pauses, “Fighting out of Osaka, Japan, by way of Norwich, England, this is the King of Chaos, the Destroyer, and your MPW Fatales Champion, RILEY ISHIMORI!” The Fatales title is displayed across her shoulder as Riley approaches her challengers, jaw jacking at them as the title is raised above her head. Her grip has turned her fingers a pale white, and she’s reluctant to let go as the referee requests it. A kiss is placed on the nameplate before she hands it off, Jessica holding it up high before passing it on. All three women are checked on, confirming they’re ready to go, and Jessica calls for the bell! This match is underway!

The stakes of this match couldn’t be any higher, and it’s obvious how painfully aware they are of it. This is about more than just the belt on the line. Months of bad blood quietly built between these three until it started to boil at the War Chamber. Sardonyx solidified herself as the challenger that night, defeating Blade in an epic showcase, and later made her presence felt, choking Riley out after she solidified her place here, surviving the War Chamber by the skin of her teeth. It was a destined rematch since their first encounter at Thunder in Paradise, but Sardonyx took it a step further. Attacking Riley, then as we saw recently, targeting Riley in the parking lot, taunting her verbally when Riley was at her most vulnerable, and forcing Riley to attack. The bad blood between them is guaranteed to make this match an all out war, but the added factor of their third opponent makes it that much more interesting. Blade got her by attacking them and forcing Heyman’s head, but they were more than willing to accept the challenge. Blade is a legitimate threat that has a very high chance of playing spoiler if they aren’t careful. She has nothing to lose and everything to gain, while Sardonyx will likely want to keep her streak alive, and for Riley… she could lose everything.

Finally getting this underway, they tease a tie up before Blade decides to start swinging haymakers! Nailing them both with forearms before they retaliate, and they’ve already started duking it out! Eventually, it turns into a gang up on Riley until Blade stops it with a kick to Sardonyx, then another to Riley for good measure. Blade sends Sardonyx into the corner, Riley whipped behind, but Sardonyx goes up and over her, expecting it to be Blade, but Blade is actually behind her, and grabs Sardonyx for a Dragon suplex. Sardonyx rolls out into an arm drag, tossing Blade back, before going the same to Riley. She’s thrown to the ropes, and Sardonyx throws Blade next to her with another arm drag. Sardonyx charges, looking to get them both with one shot, but they turn the tables, each one landing a dropkick! But Riley’s a second faster, already running the ropes, prompting Blade to drop down in front of her, and Riley stalls for a second as she has to step over Sardonyx too. On her way back, they’re both back up already, and try to double team her with an assisted hip toss, but Riley lands on her feet! She whips around, ducking double clotheslines as she bounces off the ropes, evading their next attack entirely by cartwheeling through them! She backflips to her feet, and nails each challenger with a single leg dropkick to the chest, knocking them both out of the ring! As they stumble to their feet, Riley bounces on her heels before running the ropes. She springboards off the top with her built momentum, crushing them both with a corkscrew moonsault! A beautiful move, and she throws Sardonyx into the ring to beat up on, stomping on her before locking in a Sleeper. Sardonyx blindly reaches for the ropes, eventually able to roll over, reaching for them… when Blade slips behind Riley, putting her in the Kirifuda Clutch! Double submissions in the early minutes of this match, and Jessica isn’t quite sure what to do here, but Sardonyx gets to the ropes before anyone taps, breaking it up!

Blade grabs the necks of both of her opponents, and bashes their heads together! They’re both loopy after that one, and Blade takes the time to go out to the apron, setting up for a springboard, when she’s wiped out by a running big boot, courtesy of Sardonyx! She suffers an equally nasty landing, and it’s fair to say that Blade will be out for a good while, leaving Sardonyx and Riley alone to deal with their underlying issues after their last encounter. Thunder in Paradise has been engraved into Riley’s head for months now, one of the many things fueling her to do better, be stronger, faster, smarter, in case their paths ever crossed again, while Sardonyx has been an unstoppable machine. This is Riley’s 14th defense, and marks Sardonyx’s 28th match in MPW. Neither have been defeated in those matches, but that ends tonight, and could end now, as they unload on each other, swinging haymakers into each other’s temples! One forearm has Sardonyx rocking back, bouncing off the ropes, and she puts that momentum behind another forearm - but Riley grabs it and turns it into an omoplata! Beyond Oblivion is locked in! Riley has it locked in DEEP, wrenching back on it in a way that bends Sardonyx’s spine in an uncomfortable angle, trying to force her to tap out here and now, despite the match being so fresh still. But this is a painful submission as is, and Riley’s twist on it puts Sardonyx in a dangerous spot. She’s able to crawl on her elbows, desperately reaching out… and eventually finds the ropes! Sardonyx breaks the submission, and Riley looks pissed off, but before she can do anything about it, she’s ripped out of the ring by Blade, who plants her with a German suplex on the venue floor! With Riley taken out, Blade slides inside to pick up the pieces, planting Sardonyx with a German suplex! But she rolls through, keeping hold of Sardonyx, landing a straight jacket suplex, but Blade rolls through a third time, completing the trifecta with a belly to back suplex! Blade hitches up, connecting the bridge!

1… 2 - Kickout!

As Blade antagonizes Jessica Carr, Sardonyx reaches a reprieve out on the apron, putting significant distance between herself and her opponent. But Blade eventually joins her out there, and Sardonyx instantly tries to dump her with a half nelson suplex, but Blade struggles out, trying to turn it around into a vertical suplex. She successfully gets Sardonyx up, but Sardonyx’s wiggling puts her inside the ring, where she breaks free from Blade’s grasp! She runs the ropes as Blade sets up for a springboard, landing a springboard Forearm! She picks Sardonyx up, putting her in for a pumphandle, before lifting Sardonyx up, and landing the pumphandle Death Valley Driver! Blade hooks both legs, making the cover!

1… 2… Kickout!

One of the newest moves to Blade’s repertoire still isn’t enough to put Sardonyx down for the count, something she learned last match, and looks less upset this time. She already has a new plan in mind, dragging Sardonyx into the drop zone, before Blade begins to climb to the top rope, likely in search of a Frog Splash. Before we can find out, she’s cut off, Riley up on the apron and punching at her ankle! It’s a small distraction, but it gives Riley time to get to the top rope and twist, bringing her and Blade to the mat with an Avalanche Spanish Fly! A harsh landing for both, and Sardonyx tries to capitalize on Riley with a deadlift German suplex, but Riley holds on, fighting and struggling until the bitter end, when Sardonyx finally throws her overhead - but Riley lands on her FEET! She still gets the better of the exchange, and ducks a roundhouse kick thrown at her head, but doesn’t see the second one coming, Sardonyx catching her with a Cyclone kick! Riley looks out of it as Sardonyx slides down, hooking the far leg!

1… 2… BLADE breaks it up!

Sardonyx snags her by the back of the neck and guides Blade to the corner, laying into her with right fists before switching into standing kicks, trying to cave in Blade’s chest. She’s defenseless against the kicks with no room to get her arms up or even think about mounting a comeback, her body gradually giving up on her, Blade sliding down the turnbuckles. Carr scolds them for being on the ropes, but Sardonyx keeps kicking, and kicking, brutalizing Blade’s torso as the Chosen Shooter remains vulnerable. Sardonyx grows tired of the nagging in her ear, and turns around, shoving Jessica Carr to the mat! Perfectly legal, but the Pyramid lets Sardonyx hear their distaste over her disgusting actions, Carr staring up at her in surprised hurt, but Riley gets revenge on her behalf, laying into Sardonyx with forearm smashes. With Sardonyx stunned, Riley runs the ropes, but she’s caught on the way back, Sardonyx bulldozing through her with a bicycle knee strike! Riley’s dropped to her knees, and Sardonyx sends her all the way down with a snap swing neckbreaker, Riley’s skull bouncing off the mat. Sardonyx then bounces off the ropes, falling into a handspring halfway back, and drops two knees to Riley’s stomach. Blade grabs Sardonyx before she can cover, throwing her to the ropes by the back of the head, Blade dropping down on the rebound, but Sardonyx drops down onto the palms of her hands! She walks a few inches as Blade stands up in surprise, Sardonyx backflips closer to Blade, catching her by the neck, and flinging her with a headscissor takeover! Sardonyx finishes the crazy display of athleticism by kipping up to her feet!

With little fanfare, Sardonyx climbs to the top rope, quickly ascending the ropes with her back to Blade. She perches easily, flipping off, rotating twice in the air, before landing on Blade with the double rotation moonsault - but Blade gets the knees up! Sardonyx’s high risk attempt ends with a fatal blow, and Blade follows up quickly, lifting Sardonyx up off the mat by the gut, and delivering a Gutwrench suplex! She blocks a rush by Riley, but follows her towards the corner, Riley getting to the top rope and moonsaulting to avoid the collision, and twists so she lands on the apron. Blade’s knocked back by a forearm smash, giving Riley space to slip in through the ropes, catching Blade with a cutter - but she shoves Riley off! Riley manages to absorb the harsh landing and whip back to Blade, who scoops her up, planting Riley with a Blue Thunder Bomb! Cover by Blade!

1… 2… Kickout!

Blade looks peeved, but doesn’t let the emotions take over, continuing to attack the champion while Sardonyx is MIA. A pair of forearms from each side stun Riley, and Blade sends her to the mat with a spinning backfist. Blade pulls her up to the knees with a fistful of hair before she runs the ropes, picking up steam for her next attack, trying for a bicycle kick, but Riley falls back to her shoulders and kips up under it, grabbing Blade around the waist. She’s driven into the mat with a Northern Lights suplex, but Riley instantly floats back to her feet, pulling Blade up off the mat and overhead, delivering a Brainbuster as well! Two high impact moves for Riley puts Blade in a bad spot, Riley putting her hands together against her cheek, signaling it’s bedtime for Blade. Riley stepped on her stomach on her way to the top rope, stepping off the bottom to pull herself directly to the top, and flipping off with a corkscrew shooting star press - but the pool is empty! Riley’s plan backfires big time, AND BLADE PULLS HER INTO THE KIRIFUDA CLUTCH! Riley flails, desperately reaching for the ropes, but it’s locked in too far from the ropes, and Blade has the forearm DEEP underneath the chin, across the carotid artery. It should be purely academic now, with Riley secluded into two options, to tap out or pass out. The Fatales title has become the most important thing to Riley, holding onto it and getting to defend it against the best is something she’s prided herself over, and she won’t allow herself to lose tonight. Not like this. She manages to roll onto her hands and knees, putting most of the pressure on her left arm as she crawls… moving inch by inch… all while Blade doesn’t let up, doesn’t let her get a breath in. Still, Riley finds herself only fingertips away… until Blade throws herself back, and pulls Riley right back into the Clutch, and to the middle of the ring! Everything Riley just did was for nothing! Riley reaches back, claws at the arm under her jaw, doing everything in her power to try and get out of the submission. She’s forced to try and go back to the ropes, this time getting her feet up under her - almost - desperately trying to stay in contention here, but Blade grabs her arm as she reaches for the ropes, and pulls her back to the mat. As Blade wrenches back on the Clutch, getting in the body scissors, this begins to look like a nature program, a boa constrictor wrapping around its prey. Riley still shows some fight, struggling with every ounce of her soul, but she’s fading, and fading fast. Riley desperately doesn’t want to be submitted to this, not tonight, during one of the biggest matches of her career, against one of the fastest growing rivals she’s made to date, but her body starts to go limp. She can’t fight off nature, and Blade’s seconds away from putting her to sleep….. BUT SARDONYX BREAKS IT UP! She comes from out of nowhere, and keeps this match alive!

As Blade stands, Sardonyx bounces off the ropes, and blasts Blade with a running bicycle knee strike! Sardonyx drags a thumb across her throat, signaling Blade’s time is nigh, but as she lifts Blade up, Blade plants her with a sudden German suplex - but Sardonyx lands on her feet! She spins her opponent around, and lights her up with a quick flash of open palm strikes, finishing the sequence off with a roundhouse kick. Sardonyx follows up with a low kick to the thigh, a sole kick, and hits another roundhouse kick. Blade still stands, albeit incredibly wobbly, and Sardonyx finishes her off with a bicycle kick - but Blade ducks! She slips behind Sardonyx, trapping both arms against her chest, putting her in the straight jacket as she’s lifted off her feet, Blade holding her up as they circle closer to the center of the ring, where Blade finally dumps her, landing the German suplex, bridge intact!

1… 2… Kickout!

Still not enough, and the frustration is clear on Blade’s face! She’s thrown some of her best shots already, gotten covers over both women but nothing’s worked yet. She tries to charge Sardonyx, but gets grabbed by the armpit and lifted up, Sardonyx landing the pop-up knee! Blade’s dazed, falling to the ropes and dangling across them, giving Sardonyx time to run the ropes, swinging through for a tiger feint kick - but Blade moves! Sardonyx ends up dangling in the ropes, and Blade pulls her out in a Piledriver position, holding her up as they turn… PILEDRIVER OFF THE APRON! Sardonyx lands on her HEAD on the VENUE FLOOR! She’s DONE! Sardonyx’s streak is gonna end without her even being involved!

As Blade’s celebrating her small win over Sardonyx, she turns around, and gets wiped out by Riley, the champion hitting a forward roll cutter off the apron! She picks Blade up and throws her on the apron, swiveling Blade around so Riley holds her in a front facelock before dropping down, dumping Blade on her skull with a DDT off the apron! Riley rolls her back inside the ring, but doesn’t cover quite yet. She stomps on Blade’s face a few times, kicking her closer to the ropes, Riley running across the ring to bounce off the other side, squashing Blade with a hesitation dropkick! As Blade rolls away, struggling to shake away the cobwebs, Riley leans against the ropes, looking out at the crowd with a more… solemn expression than we’re used to, but the crowd adores her all the same, screaming loud for the champion. She rolls back, picking Blade up with her, landing an open palm strike! Blade’s head snaps to the side, but Riley pulls her back, hitting a second palm strike, and begging for Blade’s best shot! Blade nods her head, finding her second wind - and she stuns Riley with a bicycle kick! Riley’s dazed, but that doesn’t stop her from getting to her feet, and knocks Blade back with a superkick! But Blade’s able to respond, firing back with a step-up enzuigiri! Both Riley and Blade are on auto-pilot, standing up by sheer will alone, and Riley delivers a Codebreaker before falling to her knees! Blade is just as stunned, already on her knees, but she quickly finds a new rush of adrenaline, and deadlifts Riley, depositing her with another German suplex but Riley STICKS THE LANDING! She twists before Blade realizes it, clipping her in the back of the head with a corkscrew axe kick! She has Blade back on her feet already, trying to finish her off with the Godkiller, but Blade gets her arms free! Waistlock in, Blade trying for another suplex, but Riley won’t budge! She holds on for dear life, bringing them to the ropes to hold on, when Sardonyx is on the apron?! She springboards into the ring, taking Blade down with a sunset flip, while Blade delivers the German suplex to Riley - WHO LANDS ON HER FEET AGAIN!

Blade still takes the brunt of the collision, and Riley stuns Sardonyx with a Brazilian kick, clocking her on the temple! She kicks Sardonyx back into the corner, going to town as she unloads kick after kick, mimicking an American Dragon in her attempt to overcome the unbeatable, Sardonyx sliding down the turnbuckles as the kicks become too much to withstand. Once she reaches the bottom, Riley moves off, making her way across the ring and leaning against those turnbuckles, thumb quickly drawn across her throat before she runs the length of the ring, and crushes Sardonyx’s head with a meteora! Riley draws her back up the ropes, putting Sardonyx on the top before kicking her leg out, and hitting the Death Note! Double knees to the face puts Sardonyx out, and Riley sits on her for the cover!

1… 2… Blade breaks it up by deadlifting Riley, and throwing her overhead, landing another German suplex! Riley suffers a devastating landing on her neck, and she could be out!!

Blade quickly turns her attention to Sardonyx, picking up the pieces Riley left behind, but Sardonyx grabs her hand and slips behind Blade, pulling her into a pumphandle! Blade’s lifted, and her neck nearly broken across Sardonyx’s knee, the Savior delivering a pumphandle neckbreaker! But somehow Blade is still up, barely able to sit, but she’s still in this, and Sardonyx rises up on her thigh, using the other leg to crack the base of Blade’s neck! Blade was just brutally baptized, and may be out cold as Sardonyx makes the cover, trying to win the title!

1…. 2… Riley breaks it up!

Riley lines Sardonyx up, and takes her out with a Codebreaker! But as she stands, Blade makes one more last ditch effort, turning her inside out with a devastating clothesline! It takes everything Blade has, and all three women are down! Jessica scurries to check on all of them, trying to get them back to their feet to keep this match going, when….

“FIGHT FOREVER!”

The claps mimic the beat, the audience chanting it over and over again. Mauro Ronallo and Lenny share their sentiment on the announce table, the two men nearly losing their voices with the back and forth action, from trying to call every moment of this show, not wanting to miss a single thing. This has truly been a show for the ages, and one that we’re never going to forget, but the outcome of this match could change how the competitors feel about the constant reminders. This has always been about much more than a title - it’s about supremacy, legacy. And somehow, by sheer determination, Riley’s already back on her feet, feeling the call from the fans resonate within her heart. Blade and Sardonyx are in this for the gold, to add the hardware to their collection, but this is about more than just a pretty belt for Riley. This is her livelihood. This is everything she’s ever dreamt of, defending her championship on one of the biggest stages in her young career. Her whole reign has been for the fans, giving them classic after classic, doing everything she can to get them excited to see what she does next. Offering them a light through the darkness, and Riley could do so again, as she delivers a moonsault to Blade! Cover!

1… 2… Sardonyx breaks it up!

She rolls Riley back, blasting her with a penalty kick! Riley rolls back from the force of it, and Sardonyx delivers a second penalty kick! Riley’s hit hard enough to propel her back to her feet, where Sardonyx looks to knock her down with a superkick - but Riley grabs it! “Fuck you!” Riley’s shout is followed up by her spinning Sardonyx around, rolling with her, and turning Sardonyx inside out with a discus clothesline! Riley rolls back, resting for a moment as Sardonyx begins to stir, before Riely kips up, and drags Sardonyx with her! A new rush of adrenaline puts the champion in good spirits, popping Sardonyx with a pair of forearm smashes, following up with a low kick to the thigh, and a spinning backfist, before Riley turns to the ropes and runs them. Sardonyx tries to surprise her with a superkick on the rebound, but Riley’s able to slide under it, and lands a European Uppercut on Sardonyx instead! Riley’s feeling it here, as she turns around, and walks right into a forearm smash! But Riley’s able to stay upright and deliver a roundhouse kick! Sardonyx wobbles, but throws an enzuigiri, catching Riley in the back of the head, but she delivers a spin kick, knocking Sardonyx for a loop, but she comes right back with a bicycle kick! That wakes Riley up more than it hurts her, the champ screaming, feeling alive tonight - but she’s caught by a superkick! Riley wobbles, and flips back before she falls, catching Sardonyx with a pele kick! Riley hits the mat as Sardonyx topples over… and wait! She lands on Riley! Cover!

1… 2… Kickout!

Riley narrowly escapes, but Sardonyx can taste the gold on the tip of her fingers. She’s so close, and looks to deliver the final blow as she exposes her bare knee, ripping off the protective knee pad. She waits behind Riley, watching silently as she starts to rise, getting as far as her knees before Sardonyx charges, blasting her in the back of the head with a bicycle knee strike! Riley’s lifted up as Sardonyx hooks both arms, turning Riley over on her back… SARDONYX HITS BAPTISM BY FIRE?!? The most devastating, destructive move in all of wrestling could end Riley’s championship reign as Sardonyx leans over, folding her up!

1… 

2… 

THR - KICKOUT!

Somehow, Riley kicks out, and even better than that, she’s on her feet! Paul Heyman describes his client’s resilience and other worldly stamina in these types of big stage title matches as entering “God Mode”, and Riley’s doing the same here, as she delivers a poison rana to Sardonyx! She goes up to the top rope, trying to follow up with another heavy attack, but before she can deliver, Sardonyx rolls out of the way… and keeps rolling out to the apron! She uses the ropes to pick herself up as Riley climbs down, sprinting across the ring. She jumps over the top rope, grabbing Sardonyx by the neck, and absolutely drills her into the apron! Slingshot DDT spikes Sardonyx on the hardest part of the ring, and she could be unconscious! But Riley has to get her back inside the ring first, a feat that may prove to be easier said than done. Sardonyx’s body is nothing more than a limp carcass now as Riley struggles to get her up, barely getting her back on the apron when Sardonyx comes back to life, only playing possum before, and grabs Riley by the waist! She’s lifted up into a wheelbarrow before Sardonyx falls back, delivering a German suplex into the LED board! The new technical equipment Heyman produced as a surprise for such a big show has been mostly used as a weapon tonight, and it may spell the end of Riley’s hold over the Fatales title as Sardonyx gets them back inside the ring… but as Sardonyx tries to get in through the ropes, she’s stopped halfway by a Codebreaker! Somehow, Riley’s still in this fight!

As Sardonyx struggles to stand, Riley quickly turns to the corner, jumping straight up to the top rope, where she jumps off, trying to catch Sardonyx with a top rope cutter, but she’s caught instead, Sardonyx DUMPING her with a brutal back suplex! Riley’s neck is always a target for her opponents, but this may be the final straw! Sardonyx runs the ropes, planting Riley with a slingblade, but it’s not enough to keep her down! Sardonyx hits the ropes a second time, delivering a bicycle kick now, and she drops down! Cover!

1… 2… Kickout! 

Only two! Not enough to end this just yet, but Sardonyx could be on the precipice of doing just that - when she’s caught by a sole kick! Riley twists, landing a couple of forearms before she runs the ropes, and gets caught on the rebound, Sardonyx hitting a superkick! This time it’s Sardonyx who looks to pick up steam, but Riley catches her on the rebound, rolling through, and landing a jumping cutter! Sardonyx bounces off the canvas, winding up in the corner, and Riley charges straight at her, jumping off the middle rope, and landing a twisting kick to Sardonyx’s jaw. The momentum has Riley sliding back, giving her space to charge Sardonyx again, landing a jumping high knee! Pressed between a rock and a hard place, the knee may be enough to knock Sardonyx out cold, but Riley looks to deliver more punishment as she rolls Sardonyx away from the ropes via a school boy, but pushes Sardonyx through, and into a buzzsaw! She lifts Sardonyx onto her shoulders, spins, and drives her into the mat with a sitout spinning powerbomb!

1… 2… Kickout!

It comes as no surprise when Sardonyx gets the shoulder up, but Riley still looks frustrated. She tries to put it aside to focus on the task at hand, stalking Sardonyx as she stands, and lighting her up with a standing PK to the chest. Riley follows through with an attempt at a roundhouse kick, but Sardonyx ducks under it and shoves Riley to the corner, following a few steps behind. Riley grabs the ropes, trying to go up and over Sardonyx, but she’s not nearly as close as Riley thought she was, and Sardonyx is able to catch her! Wrist clutch into the panhandle, Sardonyx holding her up high, and slamming Riley down right on the base of the neck, hitting a half nelson driver! Cover!

1… 2… THR - KICKOUT!

That was as close to a nearfall as we’ve seen all night, Riley avoiding the three count by inches, but Sardonyx looks unphased. Already considered one of the most dominant wrestlers in MPW with a track record that’s hard to argue against, but joining The Fallen has given her an edge we don’t fully understand yet, but beyond the supernatural, there’s a confidence that Sardonyx has carried since that’s elevated her to an even more dangerous level. And it could help her win the title tonight. Sardonyx points to the ropes, running to them and springboarding off, bending all the way back, completing a beautiful moonsault - BUT SHE’S CAUGHT MID-AIR! BICYCLE KNEE STRIKE FROM RILEY KNOCKS SARDONYX OUT! Riley scrambles to pick her up, holding the arm as Riley slips through… GOMMORAH CONNECTS! The move that finished off Abigail, finished off VIOLET, Riley’s last ditch effort to hold onto her championship does so again! Riley folds Sardonyx up deep! She’s broken the streak, and keeps her title for another week!

1…

2…

KICKOUT!

HOLY.

SHIT.

2.99 but it’s not good enough! Sardonyx survives Gommorah, and Riley SNAPS! Shock isn’t enough of a descriptor for the surprised look on her face, wide eyed, mouth agape, riddled with overwhelming emotion. That should’ve been it. Her music should be playing, the bell should’ve rang… her title… this should be over, and Riley can’t find a rhyme or reason as to why it’s not. Fingers pulling at her hair, she gets in Carr’s face, yelling at her to fix her count, because it must’ve been her, but Carr insists it was two. Riley falls back, face twisted up in an exasperated, overwhelmed expression, but it all turns to rage as Riley tries to center herself, zeroed in on Sardonyx’s fallen form… WHEN SHE EATS A KNEE FROM BLADE! In all the chaotic back and forth action, Blade had been resting, biding her time, and blasts Riley with a jumping knee strike in the corner! Riley stumbles out as Blade runs the ropes, and NAILS THE KILLSHOT! The Killshot lives up to its name as Riley looks like a corpse! But Blade doesn’t go for the cover! She wants the title, but even more than that, she wants to beat Sardonyx. She needs to pin Sardonyx just to say she can! It’s a greedy move, but with everything Sardonyx has endured, it could pay off HUGE, giving Blade the ultimate rub, and solidifying her career! She’s desperate, eyes ablaze as she commands Sardonyx to rise, Sardonyx gradually staggering her way there, and Blade’s finally able to charge… BUT SHE’S CAUGHT BY MASS DESTRUCTION! Just like their last match, Blade is knocked out COLD, and tumbles out of the ring! The first time, Sardonyx looked distraught, but now she doesn’t have the time to react, as she’s blasted with… the Fatales title?! Riley snagged it from the timekeeper’s booth, and knocked Sardonyx out cold?! LA and the commentators are as confused as we are, Riley stacking her up deep?!

1…

2…

KICKOUT!

SARDONYX STAYS ALIVE AGAIN!

Riley’s practically in tears, unable to believe that such a cheap shot didn’t work… what a horrible ending that would’ve been, but we still can’t work out why she even attempted it. It’s a side of Riley we’ve not seen in a very long time, and she’s struggling just to keep the tears from falling. That might’ve been her one and only remaining shot at winning this match, and it all slipped from her fingers… and these people seem happy about it… in an instant, the tears go away, and Riley looks more focused than she’s ever been. With a twitch, Riley charges, looking to send Sardonyx’s head into the third row with a running bicycle knee strike - but Sardonyx moves! Riley keeps running to the corner, springboarding off the middle ropes, and finally catching Sardonyx with the springboard cutter! She rolls backwards, slipping under the bottom rope and setting up on the apron. Anxious limbs twitch as she sizes Sardonyx up, eagerly awaiting her to rise, before Riley steps off the bottom rope and to the top, looking to springboard off, when Sardonyx kicks out the left leg! Riley slips, her legs bouncing off the ropes and right onto Sardonyx’s shoulders! Sardonyx holds her legs, her own legs coming forward to slip around Riley’s as she turns them away from the ropes….

9 OF SWORDS CONNECTS! SARDONYX ROLLS HER OVER! RILEY’S FOLDED UP DEEP!

1…

2…

3!

“Here is your winner, AND NEEEEEEEW MPW FATALES CHAMPION, SARDONYX!”

After ALL of that, the brutal hits, the nearfalls, the blood, sweat, and tears, we have a NEW Champion! 252 days, 14 defenses, 8 months of hard work, and it all comes to an end at the hands of Sardonyx.

The streamers are thrown into the ring again as Sardonyx accepts the title belt, holding it up high as she leans on the ropes, one up on the middle to give her some elevation. She stumbles back, hard cradling the back of her neck as she holds her belt up high, stumbling to the corner, where she climbs the ropes, getting one foot on the second and the other resting on the top rope, giving all of Walter Pyramid, and those watching at home, a view of their new Fatales Champion, and if the past 28 matches have been any indication, that title won’t be going anywhere for a long time.

[bittysvalentines]

Upwards and Onwards

To: @nevermindedanyway

From: @jlzsoftie

Hi! I really hope you enjoy your gift and have a wonderful Valentine’s day! Much love <3

Warnings: mentions Jack’s OD

__________

Four days before Jack and Bitty come out, they leave early for Canada with Shitty and Lardo. It’s been planned for months now and everyone agreed that a few days as far away as possible would be for the best. The Zimmermann family cabin seemed like the obvious choice from the start, with its lake and swing set and just enough reception to make a phone call but not enough to load an article, and yet it took a while to convince Jack to go. It’s been a while since last time and he didn’t know if he wanted to risk tainting every happy memory, but Bitty managed to convince him eventually.

Jack tries to tell himself that it’s just another trip, just another weekend with his friends like all the times they went skiing or surfing or exploring, but he knows it’s more than that. And it deserves to be more than that. It’s huge. Everything has its time, good and bad, and everything that coming out entails isn’t an exception. It deserves memories too.

“This is gorgeous, Jack,” Bitty says on day one. The sun is shining just high enough for the water surface to catch it and it looks like a photograph. Like a picture perfect photograph. You can see the lake from the porch where they’re standing but that’s the only view besides trees that you get for miles in that direction. They’re not too far from the main road on the opposite side though, no matter how isolated it feels.

“Yeah, glad I brought my camera,” Jack says and puts his arms around Bitty’s waist from behind. He places a light kiss on the top of his head and then relaxes.

“I think we’ll wanna remember this. I think it’ll be good,” Bitty confesses. They’ve avoided any predictions thus far, but Jack’s gonna let this one slide. Mostly because he agrees.

“I don’t think we could forget it even if we tried.”

————

Day two and three are spent hiking and catching up. They pick a decent trail and walk until they don’t want to keep going anymore because it’s no longer about getting anywhere in particular. Shitty and Lardo tag along the first time, and it’s the most fun all of them have had together in months, but they stay at the cabin when Jack and Bitty decide to go again the next day.

An hour or two into that second time around they’re sitting on rocks with their backpacks to the side and looking at the view. Most of today’s hike was spent going uphill and now they can see the top of the small town church they passed on their drive here not long before turning onto the dirt road. Bitty picks up a blue flower, “to match your pretty eyes, Mr. Zimmermann”, and puts it behind Jack’s ear. Jack just thinks ‘this is what happiness is’ and kisses him breathless right there.

————

Day four is spent trying not to worry. He gets a text from George in the afternoon that tells him the plan is working so far, plus a ‘You’ll be out in less than 24 hours. I’m so proud of you’, and Jack can’t be sure exactly when she sent it because of the bad reception, but he sends back a thumbs up and turns his phone off.

No one mentions what’s about to happen tomorrow but they all know they need a distraction so they start a bonfire before it even gets dark. It’s a suggestion out of nowhere and no one has any objections. Jack pulls out some old patio lounge chairs from the shed and cleans them off while Shitty and Lardo gather every blanket in the entire cabin. Bitty brings out the food and beer just in time to sit down and they settle in together as the sun goes down.

“And then,” Shitty stops to laugh as he’s trying to tell the end of a very long story. Jack’s heard it before so he’s already laughing at what’s about to come while Bitty and Lardo can’t keep it in just from watching them. “And then he said… ‘dude, this is Harvard fucking Law, I don’t fucking care anymore’ and jumped. And the guy next to me sighed and was like ‘I really hope he defends me in my murder trial’ and jumped too, like what the actual fuck were they on?”

Jack can’t breathe at this point, he’s laughing so hard. Bitty’s throwing his head back onto Jack’s shoulder, laughing almost as much, and clutching the blanket around them like it’s going to keep them from falling out of the chair. Jack suspects Lardo’s probably heard it before too because she’s practically living with Shitty at this point even though she has her own apartment closer to work, but she’s still laughing the hardest.

“Harvard Law sounds ridiculous,” Bitty says when they’ve all calmed down. “We’ve gotta come visit next semester.”

“You better.” Shitty points a finger at them jokingly and then pops a piece of chocolate from the smores tray into his mouth.

It seems like the laughter ended up tiring most of them out and not even thirty minutes later both Bitty and Lardo are asleep. Bitty’s holding onto Jack instead of the blanket now and Jack gets stuck watching him like he always does. When he snaps out of it again he catches Shitty’s stare and knows he’s about to ask. He can feel the question buzzing under his skin and he’s not ready but he also never will be.

“So, now that Bits is asleep,” Shitty says and casually drinks the very last drops of beer left before continuing, “how’re you feeling about this, dude?”

Jack’s smile falters a bit but he immediately picks it up again when he realises Shitty’s just being genuinely curious. They haven’t talked about it much, especially not one on one, especially not with everyone at their busiest, and maybe they should’ve but. Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve. The outcome will still be the same at the end of the day. At the end of today.

“It feels good. The timing feels right and we don’t have to deal with it for another couple of days now so… good.”

Lardo moves around a bit in her chair and they both look at her twisting and turning for a second before settling in again. Shitty’s smile is soft and comforting when his eyes are on her, it always is, but then he turns back to Jack.

“No, how does coming out feel? Forget about the other shit; reactions, time, whatever.”

Jack knows he’s allowed to take his time answering. He’s never been very good at expressing himself when he’s feeling everything at once and Shitty, in his own way, is the same way. Jack gets quiet and thoughtful while Shitty gets loud and regretful. Both have their consequences. This time though, Jack tries not to think too much.

“You know, right before and after I overdosed I couldn’t imagine myself making it past twenty. I wanted to, more than anything, but I wasn’t supposed to-” he stops himself because it’s impossible to describe how much he thought his life was over when everyone else thought it had just begun. “I don’t know, I just never thought I’d see happy days again, you know? It was too messy to ever imagine any other future than disaster after disaster and now… I’m so happy to still be alive. I’m happy I got to have all of this.”

“So… you’re not scared about tomorrow?” Shitty holds his beer tight between his hands and leans forward. He looks pleasantly surprised and hopeful.

“Oh, I’m scared shitless,” Jack whispers and brushes his fingers through Bitty’s hair; smiling again. The light from the fire dances over Bitty’s freckles, flickering from dot to dot as the smoke rises upwards and onwards. “But I’m happy too. No regrets.”

“No regrets,” Shitty repeats a few seconds later.

They bask in the quiet for a while after that. The only sounds around are coming from the fire and the woods and Lardo occasionally snoring. Serene doesn’t even begin to describe it but it’s the closest thing to words that Jack can think of. The chaos and the judgement is so distant that he’s almost forgotten about what’s about to go down in just a few hours.

Eventually Bitty blinks awake though and lifts his head off of Jack’s chest to look up at him. Then there’s a yawn and a stretch and a ‘can we go to bed?’.

“Of course, bud,” Jack says and manages to get up on his feet with a lot more grace than expected while still carrying Bitty in a mess of blankets. The ground under his feet is still a little damp and slippery from some rain that fell earlier so he’s extra careful on his way towards the cabin, praying that he can carry him through this without falling flat. “See you tomorrow, Shits. Goodnight!” he whisper-shouts back towards the fire when he makes it to the porch.

Inside, under a ceiling that still holds glow-in-the-dark stars and posters of hockey glory, Jack dumps Bitty onto their bed and begins to remove his clothes. Bitty’s giggling and trying to convince Jack that he doesn’t have to but he’s also letting him do it. Suddenly, tomorrow feels easier.

“You’re the best, honey.” Bitty sighs and closes his eyes. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Bits.”

————

“Jack?” Bitty asks into the dark, their legs tangled and Jack’s head on Bitty’s chest right above his arms around his waist. Light rain is hitting the window and it’s the sound of a storm approaching. Jack feels ready for it.

“Yeah?” It’s sleepy but aware.

“I’m really, really happy you’re alive, too.”

Jack just holds him tighter.

————

Monday morning comes and goes and the world hasn’t ended yet. The rain killed the fire before time could though and the woods are louder than the night before; full of things that have woken up too, but Jack is still happy. Scared, but happy.

[bubonickitten]

Kitty this is mok, the forrz are so bad in Washington now that they're training the national guard. The phones have all gone down, landlines and cell. Smoke is so thick its blocking signals and things are being vandalized. It's hard to breathe in a sealed house, smoke still gets in. No rain for 3months in Wa. No one talking Bout it. Internet down except in bursts. Pls post, talk Bout us please before nation forgets

Hey all, this is my friend @mehofkirkwall​, who lives in Washington state, which is one of the states that is currently experiencing widespread wildfires (as of 9/5/17). Here’s some stuff I found about current wildfires, all written over the past few days: 

Where is the smoke coming from? Map shows 74+ wildfires burning in western states

Full list of fires burning in Washington, Idaho, and Montana

Wildfires Across Western U.S. Force Thousands to Flee Their Homes

Heat spurs surge in California, Oregon wildfires 

Smoky haze settles in Seattle area as wildfires rage in Washington, Oregon

See also this post by @mehofkirkwall, which talks about the repercussions of wildfires on air quality, and here is a live map of national air quality. This is as of 9/5/17 12:45am EST: 

The red and purple areas are ‘unhealthy’ and ‘very unhealthy’, respectively. More info about ratings is here, but basically, in those areas right now air quality is unhealthy for everyone, and especially so for sensitive groups: older adults, children, people with lung disease, asthma, and other respiratory conditions, etc. 

Washington state also has its own air quality map here, and some areas (e.g. Spokane and surrounding areas) are currently designated ‘hazardous’ re: air quality. 

Keep the western U.S., and the parts of Canada also being affected by these fires, in mind and please feel free to add more info if you have more to share.