#they get their shit together while building the alliance hq so it takes them A While

[relevant-url-incoming]

🌼 Write a short drabble from your OCs POV meeting their LI (or if they don’t have a love interest, their best friend. If you don’t want to do a drabble, describe their first meeting instead!)

For Kit

this is actually so funny because I was just thinking about how little I've written for Kit and Theron rip. thank you for reading my mind and also just sending me this ask in general!!!

It is late and writing is hard, but their first meeting is just how it goes in the game where you get recruited to fight on Korriban, albeit on the inevitable day when I do write that part out it'll be flavoured with a lot of Kit's self-loathing disguised as introspection and a smattering of "this guy is hot. now what" because Kitiver Valath has never had a single thought that didn't send him into a panic spiral. Theron being Theron is very focused on the mission at hand the whole time and only kind of notices that Kit is unusually flustered around him. Also, Kit immediately asked if Theron was related to Satele upon meeting him, because he was thinking Theron might have preconceived notions about him being a fallen Jedi, and Theron took that to mean Kit had preconceived notions about Theron. Because they're dumb like that.

However, I do have this little not-technically-a-drabble from deep in the vaults about one of their slightly later meetings, because the fact that Theron says "I need a drink" to signal that he wants to talk to your character is... too good to pass up.

“I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink,” Theron said meaningfully. Kit blinked, too stunned to muster a response as Theron walked past. It had obviously been an invitation. Maybe in a darker tone than Kit might have expected, but it wasn’t like Kit had ever asked or been asked for this kind of thing before. And Theron was – not that Kit had noticed, being a Jedi. Even if he was a terrible one. Honestly, would meeting a man for drinks be so bad, given the ways Kit had already fallen? And Theron didn’t seem to flinch back at the sight of his eyes, had only raised an eyebrow when Kit accidentally let a little lightning loose. It would be nice to be around someone who wasn’t afraid, and who wasn’t trying to push Kit one way or the other. “Jedi = meet Theron?” T7 asked. “Yes,” Kit said. “Yeah, I – will. A drink sounds good. Uh –“ “Have fun,” Kira said, and Kit didn’t know what expression he’d find on her face if he looked but he knew from the incredulous tone that he wouldn’t appreciate it. “I’ll be wandering the fleet.” Colonel Darok didn’t even acknowledge them as they left. That was for the best. Even as Kit rehearsed the things he might say to Theron – how did people flirt – he couldn’t shake the feeling that something with those attacks had been very, very wrong.

[eeveevie]

Salvation is a Last Minute Business (4/18)

Chapter 4: Bad Luck Can Be a Big Break 

Madelyn and Deacon run their first Railroad operation together and find that they get along better than expected. Nick makes similar observations when finally introduced to the enigmatic man whose been following his partner for weeks. Overwhelmed by sudden feelings of guilt, Madelyn decides it’s as good as time as any to activate her last Christmas gift from Nate—a Mister Handy robot named Codsworth.

“Bad luck either makes a man or destroys him. Are you gonna let it destroy you? Depending how you take it, bad luck can be a big break.” - Police Inspector Nakajima as played by Gen Shimizu (Stray Dog, 1949)

x - x

[read on Ao3] ~ [chapter masterpost]

Madelyn devoted the following days to keeping herself from a full-fledged nervous breakdown. That late Friday evening spent in North End bled into early Saturday morning, and it was nearly sunrise by the time she made it back to the safety of her Cambridge apartment. Robby had escorted her back—or should she call him Drummer Boy? She wasn’t sure she’d adjust to codenames or subterfuge, despite the confidence the organization seemed to have in her capabilities. She was a lawyer, who just so happened to be partnered with a talented detective with a penchant for trouble. Maybe the Railroad needed to extend their invitation to Nick instead. And so she spent that Saturday anxiously pacing her tiny living room, Dogmeat at her heels with a worrying whine.

She had scribbled out all her woes on a notepad—listing out the pros and cons of sticking with the mysterious group. For starters, she considered Desdemona a useful ally, even if her tactics were questionable. In the brief meeting underneath the Old North Church, it was clear that the Railroad leader was efficient and would stop at nothing to get the answers she wanted. Madelyn had also met Glory—a tall, silver-haired woman who worked as an intern at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by day and ran operations for the Railroad by night. She was considered their heavy, taking on the riskier jobs like transporting the ‘disappeared’ where they wanted to go. Well, at least until their base of operations was forced underground. For that, Madelyn etched her name under pros. After careful consideration on having one of their agents as a neighbor, she realized it likely couldn’t hurt to have somebody nearby—and so Drummer Boy was added too.

When Madelyn focused on the cons, her apprehension spiked. All the secrecy and deception was not how she typically operated, even with the Valentine Detective Agency. Nick knew full well she liked to play things clean and by the book as much as possible, seeing as she had the law to uphold. While she enjoyed the thrill of investigating leads and chasing down bad guys, she wasn’t keen on full blown espionage. That being said, she wasn’t blind to the fact that her time with the agency had turned dangerous—Earl Sterling’s case a glowing example. The hunt to corner Eddie Winter would only exacerbate matters. While she carried a pistol in her purse for protection ever since the night Nate died, she prayed she never had to use it. More disadvantages to joining the Railroad: Desdemona had mentioned they were attacked—the deaths swept under the rug by some kind of media conspiracy. So a threat to her life was certainly a possibility. Premature death—con.

Her mind drifted and she thought about their top agent—as Desdemona put it—Deacon. The man who had followed her, tracked her down and ensured she made her way to the Railroad in the first place. Desdemona was now entrusting him to teach Madelyn the ropes, pairing the two as partners, their task to collect more intel on the Railroad’s would-be enemies. When she thought about if this belonged in the pro or con column, she was frustratingly undecided, falling asleep in the corner of her wrap-around couch.

On Sunday, she awoke startled and confused, sure that the last forty-eight hours had all been a dream. The first thing Madelyn did was call Nick, who was on his way out the agency doors to track her down, worried when he hadn’t heard from her after her evening out. Ellie and Jenny had both talked him down from thinking anything horrible had happened to her, and he had stewed behind his desk all, chain-smoking up a storm without getting a moment of work done in the Eddie Winter case—or any other case, for that matter. Nick was relieved to hear she hadn’t been snatched up, but as she expected, had a plethora of questions the moment she mentioned her encounter with the Railroad. Surprisingly, however, the detective was in favor of her newfound alliance, believing the benefits far outweighed the risks. Even if she was reluctant, Madelyn agreed that she would stick to the planned Monday morning meeting with Deacon—whatever that entailed—then rendezvous with Nick to share all the details of her ordeal.

He wished her good luck. Little did she know how much she needed her friend’s good fortune. 

January 20th, 1958

Drummer Boy delivered the instructions for the meeting just after sunrise on Monday—a faded parchment not unlike the one she received on New Year’s Eve—neatly typed lettering directing her to Lexington, specifically on a street corner near the Corvega assembly plant. The industrial complex was a short cab ride from her apartment, and despite the cold-front that had swept in overnight, she elected to wait on the sidewalk, bundled up in her thick, dark blue coat and matching gloves. It didn’t take Madelyn very long to start shivering in place as she waited in the designated spot by the fire hydrant along Massachusetts Ave, wishing she had worn thicker stockings. After five minutes, she glanced down at her watch, irritation rising. At ten-past eight, she dug through her purse and pulled free her compact, compelled for some unbeknownst reason to assess her reflection.

“Didn’t have to get all dolled up just for me, Charmer.”

Madelyn snapped the mirror shut at the sound of Deacon’s voice, turning around to face where he had snuck up on her as if he had materialized straight up from the snow-covered sidewalk like some eldritch being. Or at least, she thought it was Deacon—he looked very different from the last time she saw him. He was dressed much more plainly and comfortably for the weather with a long scarf and gloves. There was something off about his hair, but she couldn’t tell—not with the trilby hat in the way. She wouldn’t have recognized him if it weren’t for the reflective shades.

She was about to respond when she remembered Drummer Boy’s directions. As foolish as she felt, she repeated the memorized phrase. “Do you have a Geiger counter?”

Deacon smiled, impressed. “Mine is in the shop,” he replied. “Catching on quick, I see.”

Instead of offering a proper response, she motioned to his glasses. “Do you ever take those off?”

Deacon deflected, as to be expected. “My face?”  

Madelyn sighed—she didn’t want to appear impatient, but she had been kept waiting and was on the verge of freezing on what was supposed to be Boston’s coldest day of the month. Realizing, Deacon gestured for the two to walk up the incline towards the assembly plant.

“I would’ve worn different shoes if I knew we were going to be heading into Corvega,” she mused, breath frosting in the air before her face.

“We aren’t going inside the plant,” he started with a shake of his head, diverting them behind a small retainer wall. He tapped his shoe down against a metal surface, bending down to sweep the build-up of snow away to reveal a hidden maintenance door. “We’re going through here.”

He pointed to her blue suede heels. “Hope those aren’t designer.”

“You underestimate the mess Nick has dragged me through,” she countered, watching as he lifted the heavy metal plate to reveal a small shaft and a ladder that led down into what she could only assume was a sewer tunnel system. “Can’t say it’s ever been literal shit, though.”

Deacon let out a loud, belly-aching laugh as he sat on the ground, allowing his legs to dangle over the ledge. “Ladies first, unless you’d rather give me the chance at an up-skirt looky-loo.”

Despite the lewdness, Madelyn found herself amused and struggled to hide her smile—there were still some questions she wanted answered before she crawled her way down a mysterious hole in the ground. The letter he sent that morning wasn’t exactly clear, not that she expected it to be. “Where exactly are we going? What are we doing here?”  

“Our old HQ, before we were gassed out was built to be strong, defensible. We thought it was secure. This escape tunnel leads to the base,” he pointed over his shoulder to the Slocum’s Joe in the plaza a few hundred yards away. “Like Dez said, the survivors didn’t have time to grab anything. So we’re getting whatever intel was left behind in the rush.”

Madelyn was held up on secret underground headquarters. “The Railroad had a base under a donut shop?”

“Not every Slocum’s Joe has a massive tunnel complex underneath it,” he grinned, relishing in the fact that he was cluing her in on the big secret. “Used to be a Defense Intelligence Agency research lab during the war—until V-Day, and then some of those spies turned Railroad agents and the rest is history. We called it The Switchboard. Did us good, until more than half of us were snuffed out.”

She frowned, finding the loss of life distressing, compounded by the fact no one outside the organization except their killers and conspirators knew the truth. “What do we hope to find?”

“Something that shows who the sons-of-bitches that did this in the first place,” Deacon responded before flashing a small, grim smile. “I think I left behind some clean underwear, now that you mention it.”

Satisfied on the mission parameters, Madelyn stepped towards the maintenance entrance and began her descent, tightly gripping the metal bars so that she wouldn’t slip. Above her, Deacon watched for a few moments before following, shutting the metal latch closed behind them. Below her there was only a small light to lead her way, and as expected, a large puddle of water that was unavoidable as she approached the bottom. As she stepped through the murky water she groaned, knowing her shoes were now completely ruined—another pair for the damaged by field work box.

“Wet socks, my favorite,” Deacon announced sarcastically as he stepped down next to her, digging through his coat pockets until he produced a small, silver flashlight. He flicked it on, shining it under his chin for dramatic effect before angling it ahead through the tunnel. “Shall we?”

As they crept along the watery path in silence, Madelyn found herself glancing over at her newfound partner, unable to stop her mind from making comparisons to Nick. It wasn’t fair, considering she had known one man for years, and the other for a handful of hours spread across a few days. Deacon was—well he was an enigma, and she was determined to crack the code.

“Desdemona called you her top agent. How does your position differ from Glory’s?” she asked, catching his attention as they walked.

“My job’s mainly intel. So the more places I go, the better I’m doing it,” he turned his head in her direction. “Might have noticed me hanging around if you weren’t so wrapped up in your detective work. What can I say? You’re just one big beautiful distraction,” he beamed. “Plenty of opportunities to learn secrets following you around.”

Madelyn let his overzealous complement slide, focused instead on what he had mentioned. “You weren’t just at the New Year’s gala?”

“Nope.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Nope.”

Figured. She had deduced by that point he was at the Memory Den not only to follow her, but because the Railroad had to have an inside agent there too, and that person could only be Irma, given her position and knowledge of Deacon in the first place. She’d keep that nugget of information to herself for now. Madelyn leaned a little closer—a test, to see if invading his personal space would discomfort him. Of course, he wasn’t bothered in the slightest, as she should’ve known, based on their very first encounter.

“Have you had partners before me, Deacon?” she questioned next, resisting the urge to smile. Now she was just being nosy, even if it was a valid question that had run through her mind. “And why use the codename Deacon anyways? Have a fascination with religious symbolism, or something?”

“What is this, twenty questions?” he joked, feigning annoyance. “I feel like I’m being interrogated!”

Madelyn softly snickered at that. “I could cuff you and take you back to the agency, give you the real experience.”

His eyebrows shot up, lips twisted in amusement. “Kinky.”

Halfway through the maintenance tunnel they came upon a locked gate. Again, Deacon patted at his pockets before reaching directly towards her temple. Understandably, she flinched away, blinking at him in surprise. “Excuse me?”

“Have a bobby pin I can borrow?” he explained, gloved fingers still reaching for her hairline and up-do. Madelyn dodged his invasive approach, pressing her body closer to the iron bars. Maybe she deserved that for testing his personal bubble.

“Good lord,” she sighed, exasperated, pulling free a small iron pin from her golden curls herself. “I can pick a lock too, if you’d only ask.”

Deacon was visibly pleased by her declaration, shining the light on the lock so that she might see her work. “And where might a lovely lawyer such as yourself have learned such a reprehensible skill?”

“My um—” she faltered, deciding now was not the time to tell Deacon about her deceased husband, or the little things he had taught her in their life together. She wondered if there ever would be a time—or if he already knew, and she even needed to broach the subject. The pin snagged and she steadied her hand. “Nick taught me.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her as if he could tell she was being dishonest. She knew if she was going to continue working with him, she would need to get better at the art of lying. She didn’t go to law school for years upon years without developing a silver-tongue—now it was time to put it to good use. Deacon drummed his fingers along the torch.

“I’m used to running Railroad ops solo. But being partnered up with you?” Madelyn glanced out of the corner of her eye to catch a glimpse of his smirk—apparently it was the only expression he knew. “Isn’t too bad. Now that we’re a team, we should have a code name. Like Double Indemnity, or White Heat…the Big Sleep?”

She paused to remove her gloves, stuffing them in her coat pocket. Fingers bare, she had an easier time with the metal pin, even with Deacon’s rambling. “I’m partial to Bogart and Bacall—though I wonder if that movie was only half as good because of their off-screen romance.”

“If this plays out anything like a cliché noir film,” Deacon mused. “I can’t promise you won’t fall devastatingly head-over-heels in love with me by the end.”

Madelyn smiled, but she immediately dismissed the words as harmless banter. So he was a flirt—she could manage that. “I can’t guarantee you won’t be the one doing the falling, Mr. Deacon.”

“Oh, Charmer.”

With a resounding snap, the lock broke free and Madelyn pushed the gate open for the two to advance. These tunnels had more lighting, and beyond another unlocked security door was a small maintenance room, filled with tools, supplies, and boxes. Deacon lingered near the bookshelves, scanning for anything he could salvage. Meanwhile, she peered out through the broken windowpanes and into the large room ahead, overwhelmed by what she saw. A long time ago now, Nate had explained that during his time in the military he had seen intelligence bases that looked straight out of a Hollywood spy thriller, but she always thought he was having her for a laugh—until now.

Even abandoned, the area was spacious, rows of desks set up and prepared for spies—rather, Railroad agents—to research intel on whatever information they saw fit. In an overhead, second-story room sat a large, data computer, powered down and out of commission. She was so caught up in taking in the sight of the so-called Switchboard that she hardly realized Deacon had snuck beside her. She figured he would shed more wisdom on the Railroad’s former base of operations, but instead his next words sent her reeling.

“So you’re married.”

Madelyn nearly choked. “What?”

He tilted his chin down at her left hand and reflexively, she covered the ring with her right, twisting it nervously between her fingers. His expression was too hard to read when he wasn’t grinning at her, eyes always covered up with those ridiculous darkened sunglasses. “That shiny rock you’ve got has implications.”

“Then you should already know the answer,” she said in return, unable to hold back her discomfort. “Right?”

Deacon shrugged. “Maybe not. Maybe I wanted to hear it from you instead of reading it in a file. You know what they say about assuming.”

She hesitated several times, opening and closing her mouth when the words wouldn’t come out. This was an emotional wall so few had breached, and she wasn’t sure if Deacon was one that could be added to the list—not yet anyways. Still, she felt as though she owed him some semblance of the truth, a sign of good faith, if their partnership were to continue.  

“I—I’m widowed,” she spoke softly, avoiding looking at his face. “That’s all I’m willing to say, right now.”

“Fair enough,” he replied with a nod. She hoped that was the end for his line of questioning, but then he tapped his finger along his chin. “You’re a woman of faith, right? Have you ever been to the church in Quincy?”

“Now I feel like I’m being interrogated,” she muttered, flicking her gaze to him, hoping he caught her sarcasm. “Are you going to pull handcuffs out of your pockets?”

Deacon’s lips twisted into a sideways grin. “No, but I can talk dirty if you’d like. Veux-tu voir mon pantalon?”

Madelyn couldn’t help but laugh—the warmth in her chest a bizarre and foreign feeling—but her amusement was real. Delighted by her reaction, Deacon silently beckoned for her to follow through the double doors into the Switchboard proper. “Come on, Bacall, let’s find some intel.”

She wanted to tease him, say something clever about how she saw Nick Valentine as more of the Humphrey Bogart type instead, but the moment they crossed the threshold, the air was sucked out from her lungs. The attack on the former headquarters had occurred months ago and yet the underground building still reeked of gas and death. Madelyn felt the corners of her eyes prickle—the air quality wasn’t enough to harm her, but it was caustic enough to be unpleasant. She grabbed one glove from her pocket and held it over her nose and mouth. When she glanced over to Deacon, he was doing the same with the edge of his scarf. She followed him through the rows of abandoned desks and toppled over chairs, scanning the wooden surfaces for files or anything that looked important. Then again, she wasn’t entirely sure what would be important. Deacon passed through the area dismissively, brushing aside forgotten paperwork with the sole of his shoe.

“Where are you going?” she asked, coughing a little at the bitter taste in the air.

He silently gestured upstairs and continued on his path. In the console room that overlooked the main floor, the air was clearer, allowing her to inspect the surroundings a little more carefully. On the nearby table was a forgotten notepad, the handwriting barely legible.

“What exactly is a MILA, and what does it have to do with…MIT terraforming the Commonwealth?” she asked, hesitantly. As she flipped through the notes, she was sure she had stumbled upon the rantings of a madman.

Deacon let out a boisterous chuckle. “Bring those with you. Tinker Tom will be forever in your debt.”

“Tinker…” she shook her head, deciding not to ask for clarification. She tucked away the small notepad into her purse. “Another one of your operatives?”

“He’s not a field agent anymore,” he explained as they moved through the back-office corridors, Deacon leading them left towards a few scientific research labs. He seemed to know exactly what he was looking for. She gave him the benefit of the doubt, considering he used to work there. “Tom is—how do I put it—our engineer. He invents things, usually things that are incredibly illegal and likely to get us all blown up and killed, but thirty percent of the time, his inventions are helpful.”

“He’s intelligent but has fallen so far off his rocker it’s hard to tell sometimes,” he described further, in a somber tone. “If you were under all that stress from watching your friends die, it’d be hard not to succumb to madness.”

Madelyn didn’t say anything, her mind switching focus to the ­pros and cons list she had drawn up over the weekend. With each new grain of information, the negatives were starting to outweigh the positives. Deacon—she was still undecided. For a moment there, she could’ve sworn she had seen a hidden depth of emotion, but it had faded away just as fast as it appeared. He glanced over his shoulder to look at her, as if he had heard her thinking about him, or rather, felt her staring at the back of his head.

“Our good Doctor Carrington kept a vault up ahead. I can guarantee there’s something we need locked away in there,” he explained. Now there were two names—two Railroad agents in which she needed a face to a name. The back-corner room looked more like a medical lab, albeit with a large, metal door that was better suited for a bank than a doctor’s office. “What’s your lucky number?”

It was a rhetorical question at best, Deacon approaching the safe mechanism eagerly as he removed his gloves. Even though he appeared to know the combination, he made a show of it, leaning in to listen to the gradual ticks of the cogs as they clicked into place. Not a moment later, the lock was open, and he was flashing a self-satisfied grin. “Open says me.”

A gush of air filled the room as the vault door creaked open. Inside, an emergency light flickered eerily, forming elusive shadows out of the metal storage shelves that lined the large safe. Whatever Madelyn expected to find she was astounded by medical and technical gadgets, all abandoned from when the Railroad was forced to evacuate. She was half tempted to pick up a metal contraption of sorts when she was reminded of the possible contamination and focused her attention elsewhere.

“Here we are,” Deacon announced, pulling a large, dusty folder from the shelf. He inspected the contents, allowing Madelyn to gander a peek from over his arm. She was surprised to find many, if not all the pages written in code. “Hadn’t gotten around to deciphering this batch yet.”

“How do you know it’s important then?”

“Because ten people died ensuring it didn’t land in the wrong hands, that’s why.”

Madelyn cocked her head aside, seeing the mission for what it was. “This was the target all along, wasn’t it?” When he nodded, she nearly lost her patience. “You could’ve told me instead of stringing me along for kicks. I went through all of that, and I don’t know why.”

Deacon frowned, realizing he had miscalculated her reaction. “Would you believe me if I said that I don’t know either?”

“No.”

“That’s fair,” he nodded with a small pout. He shut the folder and tucked it into his coat for safe keeping. “Dez approved the op. For all I know, these are instructions on how to brew the perfect cup of coffee.”

She had to take his word for it, hoping everything they had just done was worth the effort. Deacon led the pair towards another maintenance shaft and up a metal catwalk that led to a service elevator. After he pressed the button, she peered at him curiously. “Aren’t we going back the way we came?”

“Speaking of. How do you take your coffee?” he avoided the question, motioning for her to enter the small elevator before him as the doors chimed open.

Madelyn sighed, wondering if it wasn’t too late to ask Desdemona to be paired up with someone else. Still, she humored him. “Two sugars and a little bit of cream.”

Even as they crept through the tunnels, she had doubted that the old Railroad Headquarters was beneath the Slocum’s Joe, but as they exited the elevator into a basement storage room, she was faced with boxes of the coffee shop’s paraphernalia, including a very brightly colored donut costume that was folded over the staircase banister.

“Tinker Tom used to wear that on the street corner while on lookout,” Deacon explained, and she couldn’t tell if he was joking. She followed him up the stairs, but instead of a door there was a false panel of thick wood that took some effort to push open. He stuck his head through the small gap, checking the perimeter. “After you. Cars’ out front if you’d like an escort back to your neck of the woods.”

Madelyn flashed him an indignant stare. She gestured to her ruined shoes. “Two entrances and we had to take the long way around?”

“You’ve shown me you can dance,” he answered. “I wanted to know that you could sneak around too.”

She walked ahead of him through the false bookshelf with half-of-mind to hail a cab as soon as she was outside when his hand hooked into her elbow and yanked her back and into the closest booth. She was about to protest when his eyebrows raised high above his shades. “Act natural.”

She flicked her eyes down to where his hand was covering her own across the table. It wasn’t as an alarming of a shock like the one she felt at the Memory Den, but still, her skin tingled at the unfamiliar contact. Given the circumstances, she didn’t pull away and she squashed the thought that wondered if she would’ve done so otherwise. But if he wanted a ruse, they would need to blend in. She took a moment to shrug off her coat, folding the garment into the space beside her before grabbing the menu tucked behind the napkin dispenser.

Deacon caught on, discarding his own coat and scarf to his right. His left hand breached across the linoleum surface, fingers curling around her right hand again. She wasn’t surprised this was the act he wanted to put on. “Do you see the man at the counter?”

Madelyn barely flicked her gaze up and over his shoulder, grinning like he had told her a joke instead. “The man in black? Yes. He’s wearing sunglasses,” she paused to twist a golden curl around her finger with her free hand—she might have been over doing it. “One of yours?”

“Definitely not,” he responded, disguising his vitriol behind a soft laugh. “But he is here for us.”

She took a glance at the man at the main counter again as discreetly as she could, made easier when a passing waitress collected their coffee orders from Deacon who was all too happy to show off how he had remembered hers. At first glance, the dark-skinned man didn’t look threatening—appeared to be just another businessman on a coffee break—but the way he was scanning the diner with purpose sent a chill down her spine. A hunch told her he wasn’t one of Winter’s men—but then who did he work for?

“Who else knew about us coming here today?” Madelyn asked, not meaning to sound so serious. If this man in black was after the forgotten intel that Railroad agents had died to protect, then he had to belong to the same organization that killed them in the first place. Remembering the facade, she smiled.

He squeezed her hand, either in realization or as part of their charade. “Are you implying we have a mole?”

“Mole, rat,” she shrugged, as if he was talking about something else. The waitress returned with their orders and he stared into his coffee for a long moment before taking a sip. “Afraid it’s been poisoned?”

He chuckled, genuinely this time. “Remember, you can’t trust everyone.”

“Even you?”

Deacon’s fingers flexed against hers again and he flashed a smirk behind the rim of his cup. “Especially me.”

Madelyn didn’t have very long to think about if he was bluffing when she realized the well-dressed man was now advancing towards them. The way Deacon’s foot shifted against her heel told her he also knew they were about to be cornered. She started to run through a myriad of scenarios—one of which included throwing hot coffee—but she wondered if there was something a little more dignified she could do.

Her Railroad partner looked to her, eyebrow arched with a devious expression. “Want to lean over the table and—”

“No—”

“Mads?”

It happened simultaneously, the familiar voice echoing out across the diner—their saving grace—but also Madelyn’s absolute horror. Jennifer Lands came striding over, green heels loud against the tile and matching skirt a flutter as she ducked around the booths to stand right next to their table, circumventing the stranger not a moment too soon. For a moment, Madelyn thought he was going to interrupt but he moved on, flashing one last lingering glance over his shoulder at the booth before moving towards the exit. Only then did Madelyn switch her attention to her friend, who appeared overjoyed, grinning like she had won the lottery. Her hands were clasped under her chin as her eyes shifted between the two.

Oh. Oh no.

Madelyn instinctually pulled her hand away, tucking both beneath the table where she nervously fidgeted with her wedding ring. Deacon straightened his posture, looking too self-satisfied with the change in situation.

“Don’t get shy on account of me,” she beamed, winking at Madelyn. “Won’t you introduce me to your…”

Madelyn was going to regret this. She nodded, gesturing to Deacon. “This is—”

“Humphrey Bogart,” he interrupted, extending his arm.

Jenny giggled, indulging him as she grasped his hand in a polite shake. “It’s not every day you meet a dead celebrity.”

“A friend?” Deacon asked. He used his free hand to point up at Jenny. “I like her.”

Madelyn resisted the urge to groan—to slump into the vinyl diner seat until she could slither underneath the table and out the door not unlike a snake. Or maybe, if she closed her eyes hard enough, she’d spontaneously combust, or she’d wake up and this would have all been a fever dream. Was it possible that she’d inhaled some of the trace amounts of gas while traversing the underground tunnels and was now hallucinating?

“I’m her—”

She snapped herself back to reality before he could say anything—be it the truth or some fantastical lie.

“Jenny, this is Deacon,” she paused, crafting a plausible story in her mind. “He’s an informant for the agency.”

It was obvious Jenny didn’t believe her, still looking at the two expectantly. “You aren’t…on a—”

“No!” Madelyn wouldn’t even let the word come from her friend’s mouth. Deacon smiled, his non-offense to her harsh reaction forcing Jenny to second-guess her observations. The red-head looked ready to question them further when another familiar face appeared from someplace in the diner.

“Jenny isn’t bothering you on the job, now is she?” Nick Valentine—intuition as sharp as ever—gave Madelyn a quick nod. She wasn’t wholly decided on if his presence would make things better or worse. His fiancé seemed to be mulling the information in her mind, still unsure.

Madelyn flashed a toothy smile, gesturing across the table. Her patience was wearing thing. “Nick, you remember our informant from the Memory Den, Deacon.”

Deacon offered a wave. “Nick, you old dog. Good to see you again.”

“Likewise,” Nick nodded, playing along.

He glanced to Madelyn, and she was surprised to find him neither suspicious nor annoyed but amused. A small smirk was pulling at his lips and she had to wonder if he had witnessed their donut-shop antics too. At least the detective knew why she was in Lexington that day and had the sense to put two and two together, unlike his lady love. Jenny wasn’t privy to the finer details of their work—better to leave her in the dark, for her own safety—even if it led to awkward situations such as this.

“We were just going over that information we discussed,” Madelyn said, discreetly.

On cue, Deacon lifted the thick file of paperwork they had just smuggled out from the Switchboard. “What Charmer said.”  

Nick’s eyes lit up, intrigued. “Is that so?” he rested his hand on Jenny’s back, smiling to his beloved. “Sweetheart, do you mind if I have a private, work-related chat with Madelyn? Shouldn’t take but five minutes.”

“Sure,” the red-head replied, her grin a little too devious as she waved Madelyn out of the diner booth. “I’ll keep Bogie here company.”

At Nick’s confusion, Madelyn shook her head, pulling on her coat as the two moved outside. She gave one last fleeting glance to Deacon, who only grinned. Leaving him alone with Jenny was about as bad as the two of them getting caught by the strange man—she only prayed nothing nefarious came of their conversation. In front of the Slocum’s Joe, she busied herself with pulling her gloves back on while Nick watched.

“So that’s Deacon,” he said—a statement, rather than a question. His eyebrows were raised, expression one of mild disbelief. “Not what I expected.”

“Kind of hard to describe a walking question mark, Nick,” Madelyn replied with a low laugh. “He could also qualify as an asterisk. Maybe one of those squiggly accent lines.”

Nick smiled, the mirth in his expression worrying her a little. “I take it the job went well?”

Madelyn hesitated, wondering how much he had seen inside the donut shop. “Very.”

“Suppose there’s competition for being your partner then,” he responded in a playful tone.

“Hardly,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. “I work for the agency. The Railroad isn’t paying me. Unless you count vague lessons on the importance of trust and intuition as currency.” She patted Nick on the shoulder and flashed an over-zealous smile. “Deacon has got nothin’ compared to you.”

The detective laughed, shaking his head. “So that’s why he calls you Charmer.”

Madelyn balked at what Nick was insinuating. “It’s a codename. Mysterious, don’t you think?”

“Fitting,” he countered, looking like she had told him some hilarious joke. “The two of you are getting along then?”

She realized that perhaps Nick had brought her outside for ulterior motives. Shouldn’t they be discussing what her and Deacon found rather than their rapport? She sighed, deflecting with a shrug. “I can get along with anybody. He’s tolerable, I suppose. He’s incredibly strange, and talks in riddles, and I really need to explain that he doesn’t have to try so hard to get me to laugh—”

Why’d she say that last part for? She broke off, feeling unnerved by the way Nick was looking at her, expression soft with a knowing smile. Madelyn felt her face grow hot despite the chill of the Boston winter air. She avoided his eyes, glancing towards the glass windowpane of the diner where she could just make out Deacon and Jenny sitting, laughing over something. Her thoughts betrayed her—but he’s pretty good at making me laugh, and he isn’t that bad to look at—she shook her head sharply, chasing the idea away.

“If I could make an observation,” Nick started, hesitantly. His hand rested on her shoulder, catching her attention. “I haven’t seen you so chatty and bright in a long time. Not since—”

Madelyn’s mood shifted dramatically, and she frowned up at her friend. “Since what, Nick?”

He winced, knowing he misspoke. In true Valentine fashion, he rebounded as well as he could. “It’s a good look, Madelyn.”

This is why she didn’t get close to new people—it only caused a myriad of confusing emotions. In spite of the turbulence she felt, deep down she knew Nick had a point. One she didn’t feel like admitting to yet, but a point, nonetheless. Her newfound partnership with Deacon—one she had resisted at first—had been surprisingly natural. Too natural, apparently. Now, she felt even more conflicted, and the guilt she’d been carrying around for more than a year threatened to flood her senses.

She put on a brave face, like she always did. “Thank you.”

Nick grimaced, breathing out in defeat. She knew he meant well, but the timing still wasn’t right for her. Her happiness was important, yes, but so was the job. They had bigger proverbial fish to fry. Just when she thought to speak on what they’d found beneath the Slocum’s Joe, Jenny’s jovial laugher echoed out into the Boston streets. Deacon followed behind her, boisterous as he retold some wild tale about spying for the agency in Scollay Square. They approached, unaware of the lingering tension in the air.

“I like him,” Jenny mused, nuzzling herself up to Nick’s side as she grasped his hand.

Madelyn found Deacon beside her, but showed some restraint and did not reach out to touch her in any way. She wasn’t sure how to feel about it—pushing the fleeting thoughts away as he flashed her a smirk. “Everybody likes me. Isn’t that right, Charmer?”

“Careful,” she chided in a playful tone, if only to keep the atmosphere light. “You’ll start to sound like a jelly-filled donut.”

The group laughed, and with a quick glance to the detective, he took the cue from Madelyn. “Are you heading home? I can drive you there on the way to Jenny’s hospital shift.”

If she had to guess, if only for a moment, Deacon looked disappointed as he dug for his own keys from the never-ending void that was his coat pockets. No doubt he knew where she lived, but a little voice in her head was telling her that it was time to depart for today and regroup later. Much later—after she’d had some time to think and recharge—and go over that hastily scribbled list of pros and cons again.

“Yes, thank you,” she agreed, turning to face her Railroad companion as Nick escorted Jenny to his parked Cadillac nearby. Madelyn hoped to end their interaction on a positive note. “Would you call today successful?”    

Deacon smiled as he nodded, patting his coat where he had tucked the documents away. “We got what we came for. Its best we split up and meet back at the church.”

She silently agreed but didn’t move right away to catch up with the others. Even though she had just mentally reprimanded herself, she couldn’t let herself walk away without speaking the truth. “We make a good team.”  

“The best,” he replied, delighted by her comment. He nodded, tipping his hat slightly. “See you soon, Charmer.” 

Back in the comfort of her apartment, Madelyn spent most of the evening the same way she had spent the weekend—pacing in a nervous line from her kitchen to her couch, from her couch to the hallway and everywhere in between. She had added more notes, scribbled thoughts and emotions to her Railroad List, reading them over and over as she poured generously from her whiskey bottle with each refill. Even with all the new additions after her escapade at the Switchboard, there was one glaring omission.

Deacon.

Just thinking of the man made her feel uneasy, and not for the paranoid reasons she once held. No, that would be far easier. Instead, she was frustrated by how easily he had gotten past her defenses, knocking down the perfectly built walls she had put up around her heart and mind ever since Christmas 1956. She was capable of being a bubbly, charming person—but it wasn’t supposed to happen so quickly, especially with a practical stranger. Especially with somebody she wasn’t sure she could trust. Wasn’t that what he had been trying to teach her in the first place?  

Nick and Jenny’s observations only made matters worse. In the end, Madelyn only felt conflicted and a compounding amount of guilt—like she had somehow betrayed Nate by letting somebody, anybody get under her skin. Regardless of what Nick, or any of her friends said, she was sure that she didn’t deserve that kind of happiness—not when her late husband’s murderer was still free.

Dogmeat whined, intuitive to her emotions, and she sought comfort in petting the dog, beckoning him to follow her down the hallway so they could get some sleep after a long day. As she passed through the hall, she double backed to the open storage closet, peering inside, just as she had done on Christmas day. Instead of continuing on however, a strange compulsion to inspect the large, dusty box in the corner came over her. The last present she’d ever received from Nate, left unwrapped and hidden for her discover in the garage of the home they once shared. A General Atomics logo was plastered atop the box and below it in white cursive letters read, Mister Handy. Dogmeat shuffled between her legs to get a better look.

“What do you think, boy?” she asked. “Should we open the box?”

He barked, signifying his approval. After the weekend she’d had, perhaps it was time to activate the robot. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have a Mister Handy around to help, as her husband had intended. If anything, the extra company—even one built on artificial intelligence—would do her some good. Still, the action would prove to be a large step in the so-called grieving process. Dogmeat barked again, and she focused, steadying herself as she began lifting the flaps.

Curiously, the manufacturers seal had already been broken. As soon as the box was opened, Madelyn knew why—atop the shiny surface of the robot was an envelope. In Nate’s distantly familiar handwriting were two words: Hi Honey! Her entire body seized up as she let out a quiet sob, suddenly overwhelmed. Through clouded eyes, she pulled the box out of the closet and into the hallway, carefully tipping it over so she could extract the heavy metal frame of the deactivated Mister Handy unit. She sat on the carpet next to the robot, Dogmeat sniffing at the metallic surface as she carefully opened the letter from Nate.

Maddie,

I’ve been thinking a lot about our future, thinking about the possibility of welcoming a child into our lives. Lord knows I’ve been having fun trying for one—practice makes perfect, right? I’ve also been thinking about all the preparations we’ve made for building our family: the crib, the tiny clothes, even joking about potential names. It sounds foolish but even one child, one little life created with you would be enough, no matter how long it takes.

I know you’re a fiercely independent and modern woman who likes to take care of herself, but with our plans to grow our family, I was thinking we could use an extra hand. Or three. Regardless of ol’ Codsworth here, I know you will be an amazing mother.

I love you so much. You are my best friend and my saving grace. The first and last thing I think about in the morning and at night. You have made me so incredibly happy. If I should die tomorrow, I’d die a happy man.

-Nate

PS: Did you know twins run in my family?

Reading his words left a new kind of pain in her heart, a fresh reminder of the plans they had before his life had been cut short. How prophetic of him, to leave such a statement about his assumed death. Madelyn wasn’t sure when the note was written, but it had to have been shortly before that fateful night in Boston Common. With his letter were the General Atomic factory instructions, along with more of Nate’s handwritten scribbles indicating which steps she could skip and simple hacks—a cheat sheet from beyond the pale.

After twisting the upper chassis, she found and pressed the activation button until the robot whirled back to life with a series of beeps and garbled words. Almost immediately it was floating midair, eye-sensors adjusting to its environment. Madelyn stood to be as level as she could with the unit, the way it hovered allowed the machinery to tower over her. Her reflection was distorted in the shiny surface of the Mister Handy as she stared at it, suddenly wondering if this had been a good idea after all.

“You must be Mrs. James,” the robot declared joyously, his three metal arms spinning as if to express that delight, barely missing her body. “I am Codsworth. Your new butler. Oh, how wonderful it is to finally meet you. Sir has spoken so much—”

She couldn’t help the strangled gasp of a cry that escaped her, snapping a hand over her mouth to prevent further disruptions. Hearing this robot—Codsworth—speak so casually as if nothing was amiss made reality come crashing down around her all over again. He floated a little closer.

“Have I upset you, mum?” Codsworth asked in a sullen tone.

Madelyn shook her head in earnest, wiping away her tears on the sleeve of her dress. “No, of course not. Codsworth honey,” she sniffled, baffled by her own term of endearment for the Mister Handy unit. Perhaps the overly posh British accent had gotten to her. But now came the awkward explanation of telling a robot that his master was long dead. “It isn’t you. You should know that…Mr. James is no longer with us.”

“Oh, where has he gone off to?”

She closed her eyes, hoping she wouldn’t have to be so blunt. “He’s dead, Codsworth. Died before he could gift you to me.”

Expressionless, mechanical eyes ‘blinked’ back at her, processing what she had just said. “Well, I’m here now, mum,” he spoke. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss. Sir was so kind when activating me and said so many lovely things about you,” his tone shifted to one of determination. “I look forward to fulfilling the duties I was meant to, if you’ll allow.”

As silly as Madelyn felt to be comforted by a floating Mister Handy unit, she couldn’t help but smile at his words. In a gesture of kindness, she placed her hand against his metal frame, wondering if he—or the wires in his mainframe that made up his personality—understood. It would take some adjustment, but she could get used to having a disembodied voice in her home—the thought made her smile even more.

“Of course, Codsworth,” she agreed. Madelyn released a breath and felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest. This had been a long time coming. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you too.”

[imsfire2]

Recruitment

Dav hunkers down as another explosion rocks the structure at the end of the alley.  Poor bloody bastards, they must have had a decent ammo store.  Well, that’s his recruitment mission shot for shit, then.

It should have been such a good source of people, too.  This mission had looked like repaying his time threefold, with intel and new recruits and supply deals, up until tonight and this.  Chaos and ruin; a battalion of Stormtroopers surrounding the main base of operations of the cell, pouring out gunfire, giving no quarter to the desperate survivors who managed to struggle out of the warren of alleys and the building they surrounded.  Which had just been detonated, blown into the bleak evening sky.

Pretty much every soul he’s met in the past week is now lying dead, either buried under the rubble or sprawled in the blaster-ridden street, in snow that was once grey but is now the colour of blood.  And if he hadn’t gone back to the ship to pick up a spare datapad he would have been dead alongside them.

Damn, damn, damn.

Poor bloody bastards, mown down like sky-corn.

There’s no point in staying here now, though, he’ll just risk drawing attention to himself if he does.  He can’t help the dead.  If he lingers to scatter just one of their bodies with a handful of dirt and say a prayer over them it won’t bring an iota of good to their cause or their dreams of freedom.  They’ll still have lost every hope they ever lived for.  Rank sentiment to feel someone should show respect foe the dead, he should have set that aside years ago.  The dead are dead.

He imagines Colonel Cracken’s distaste if his superior officer could hear his thoughts.  Prayers, funerary rites?  Wake up, kiddo, we’re in a fucking war here, an undeclared, unwearying, goddammed war that will never be ended by good intentions or cherished customs and kindnesses, and respect for the fucking dead.

The bombardment seems to have stopped and there are fewer troops visible already.  They’re moving through the wreckage, picking off anyone still alive; he hears an occasional single shot, the kind of neat point-blank fire that eliminates the need to take prisoners.  A wait, for the mopping-up to be over, and he can at least count the bodies, report back on the casualties here.  One less Separatist group that will never find its way to allying with the rebellion.

He peers over the wall. The sight of the fallen men and women lying in their blood is wrenching, and he curses himself harshly into calm. Report their deaths and serve the cause they died for; or rather, your own cause, that could have marched alongside theirs, given a chance.

Pull yourself together, man.

It’s a milder night than usual, the spring sky overcast, the blood still wet on the ground.  Wet, and pooling, the churned-up slushy snow thawed in places by the body heat of the dead.  

A wriggle of movement catches his eye suddenly; the tiniest ghost of motion, he would have missed it altogether if he hadn’t been staring transfixed at the horror of the street. In the gutter – in the blood in the gutter – worming slowly and carefully backwards towards the low brick arch of a culvert, with his gaze still locked on the last ‘troopers inspecting the destruction – is a child.

Dark hair; dark clothes that wrinkle and bag around him, ill-fitting on a skinny frame; and when the kid glances round at the dark archway Dav sees a face that is thin and shadowed yet still has the round cheeks of neoteny.  Nine, maybe ten years old?

There’s a glimpse of something pale in the shadows of the culvert; he squints, just as it moves forward and resolves into another face that peering out.  A second kid, slightly older, a glare of rage and grief crouching in hiding while the smaller child does the reconnaissance.  

The child crawling in blood; he looks almost feverishly calm.  

The boy in the culvert is familiar; Annio, Dav thinks after a moment.  Geferel’s son.  Geferel, the cell’s charismatic but impulsive commander, is one of the dead women and men lying in the street.

He’s never seen the other kid before.

He watches as the child creeps backwards into the drain and slithers down; sees him pushing away the older boy’s grabbing hands, hushing a garbled question coolly as they both crouch in the darkness.

It’s another half hour before the coast is definitely clear, and he gives it as long again before venturing out of his safe corner tucked behind the low wall around a garbage store. His path to the drain arch takes him past one of the bodies, a girl of 17 or 18 whose head has been blown half-off by close-range fire.  That kid slid right past her; probably has her blood on his clothes now.  Dav hesitates a second before pausing to scoop up a handful of the bloody gravel and slush, casting it over her remains. He doesn’t stay long enough to recite even a line of prayer, but the words echo in his mind just the same, spinning like a sick melody alongside a cynical inner reminder of how worthless they are.  

He crouches low and hurries to the spot where the two children vanished.  

He checks the street one more time, but there’s no sign of the enemy in the gathering duck.  They struck hard and thorough, took no prisoners, and left no part of the cell’s HQ standing; but now they’ve gone and it’s started to snow again.  The temperature is falling fast and the blood that hasn’t trickled away into the drains is beginning to freeze.  Red ice forms on the grey snow.

If those children have nowhere to go better than this, will they even last till morning?

Dav crouches, blaster in hand, and peers inside the culvert.

There’s nothing for a moment; darkness, silence.  Then with a sudden rustle and a current of stinking air the older boy materialises, waving a vibroblade, launching himself with a face contorted in fear and rage. Dav flinches, ancient instinct holding him back from killing a child; and in the split second before he can master himself and bring his weapon to bear, a shadow hurls itself out of the dark on top of Annio.

The two boys tussle for a moment, Annio gasping and cursing and the other spitting in a harsh half-broken voice “¡Déjalo, deja!”  

The fight resolves into Annio on the floor of the drain, knee deep in filth, and the younger kid standing over him, with the knife in his hand.  “¡Idiota que eres, bájate!” he says furiously.

“¡Hijo de –“

“¡Y cállate! Pendejo, ¿no reconoces ese cabrón? Es el republicano.  Con tu madre, ¿no t���accuerdes?  ¡Idiota!”  He flings the blade down in the mess of blood and waste; turns to Dav.  “What do you do here?  His mother is dead.  All dead, only us left.”  His Basic is accented but good.

“I know,” Dav says.  “I can get you off-planet.  If you want. I thought you might need help.” Bracing himself on the archway he clambers down into the darkness to join them.  It’s too low to stand upright, and the floor of the drain squelches under his boots.

“No help,” Annio hisses, pulling himself upright.  “¡Hijo de puta Republicano!” He spits pointlessly into the dirt.  “You’re Alliance.  Alliance to restore the Republic.  We don’t want the fucking Republic, that’s what we are fighting against!”  He adds something fast and guttural to the younger boy, in a Festi so slangy as to be incomprehensible.  Then “Leave us alone!  We will go to Ore City, there’s a cadre there.  We will join with them.”

Not exactly heading for a career in Intelligence, are you, boy?  Dav sighs. “Ore City is a two day journey by speeder; a week away on foot.  And your mother didn’t think much of the cell there.  Force grant her rest,” he adds, because sweet stars, the woman is lying dead not twenty metres away.  “I know the Festan resistance started as a Separatist movement but realists like Geferel have recognized that the Republic isn’t your enemy anymore now. It barely even exists except in name; it’s a tyranny, one man’s fiefdom; in all but name, an Empire.  You seem like smart lads –“ well, one of you does, anyway –“ you must have noticed things changing.  The men you fight – the way they fight…”

The skinny kid is already nodding.  Reluctantly Annio does too.  “They shoot faster,” he says.  “No more bull-horn, no more Stand down your protest – they just shoot at us.”

Dav gives him a nod.  It’s a fair observation.  He turns his eyes to the other boy, tilting his head on one side as if to say Anything else?

Gets a curt nod in reply, as adult as his own.  “Different tactics.  Different uniforms, better weapons and more of them.  Different formations and dispositions.  The curfews are used differently too, not to keep peace anymore – to justify punishing.  And they made everyone take an oath of citizenship.  But they said we are all citizens anyway.  So why make them swear it at gunpoint?”

And that is more than an observation.  It’s a report.  With analysis.

“Did you two swear?”

Annio shakes his head. “Mother hid me.  He did though.”  For a moment, looking at his companion, his eyes are venomous.  

The second boy draws himself up.  “I did not!”

They glare at one another.  Dav prompts the lad quickly “Go on.”

“I didn’t.  I’m too young.  They said I was, not me.  The ‘troopers said.  They told me to go.  But I stayed to watch.  I listened.  Nobody saw me, nobody cares about kids like us.  I wanted to know what happened.  What they made people say.”

Oh, we could use a kid like you…  “And?”

“It was a – a bad oath. Bad words –“ for the first time his excellent Basic falters, as though the recollection hampers his speech.  “Bad words and with – violence.  If I had sworn I would want to undo it, that oath.”  He has very bright dark eyes, this child, looking up at Dav from that babyish face; but the adolescent creaking in his voice suggests he’s older than he looks, perhaps eleven or twelve.  “I want my promises to be clean.”

There’s a silence for a moment, at the emphatic innocence of those words and their honour.

“There’s a place for you both with the Alliance,” Dav says.  “You’d be safe, have enough to eat.  We have weapons, we’d train you.  A chance to fight, help make a real difference.  Avenge your families.”  It’s the most truncated recruitment spiel imaginable, murmured in the stinking dark to these two kids because anything, surely, even this, is better than leaving them to Force-knows what horrors here on occupied Fest.

“Come with me!” says Annio urgently.  “Ore City. ¡Ven conmigo!”

“Vete a la Ciudad, Annio.  Estarás seguro ahí.”

“¡Ven conmigo, Cassian!”

“¡Tu, ven conmigo!”

Annio frowns, bewildered and bitter. “¿Luchar con ellos? ¿Con la Republica?  No, jamás.  No puedo.”

They stare at one another with the mutual blank pitying incomprehension of the idealist and the pragmatist.

Or, if not wholly a pragmatist, soon to be one.  I can make him, we can make him, one.

Cassian crouches down for a moment, running his left hand through the bloody filth at his feet; he straightens holding Annio’s vibroblade and shakes the muck from it; closes it up and offers it back to the older boy.  “Que la Fuerza te acompañe.”

“No te entiendo, no entiendo porque, porque haces –“ Annio’s face is stricken suddenly, all the animosity vanishing as it dawns on him he’s alone.  “Cassian, ¡por favor, no!”

“Buen suerte, Annio.  Vaya con esperanza.”

He half expects them to embrace, after the heat of their argument; but they just stare, until finally Annio swallows and nods his head once, and steps back, his fist tightening on the dirty knife handle.

“If you change your mind,” Dav says into the dark as he vanishes “ask at Stone Corner Spaceport for Darvo Dreckan’s ship.  I won’t be leaving for an hour or two yet.”

There’s no reply.

When he turns round, the boy Cassian is already hoisting himself out of the drain, scanning the ruins almost casually for hostiles.  He glances back saying “It’s clear.  We need to move, señor.”

There it is, that cracked note in his larynx again.  A boy whose voice is just starting to break.  

A child.  I’ve recruited a child.

He’s recruited a realist; saved a child.

I should have tried harder to save them both.  What are Annio’s chances of reaching Ore City, alone, in the middle of a clamp-down?  

And yet –

Better one willing recruit than two who don’t want to be there

Better one life saved than both of them lost

Better a child soldier than yet another dead child

I’ve done what I can, I’ve done all that I can, and we need to move…

He holsters the blaster and braces himself on the lip of the culvert, swings up and out, into the bloody street.   “Let’s go, Cassian.”

Read it on AO3

[frozs]

I only have twelve bullets, and you’re all gonna have to share: Chapter 1/4

Summary:

Hidan and Rock Lee race around the world trying to find Orochimaru, the dickhead who made Hidan immortal. Deadpool inspired fic.

Warnings: Swearing and shit, Hidan x Ino (Is that even a warning? idk) 

Word Count: 3, 527 

@syndellwins​

“For peace, and silence, we have our sacrifices that make Konoha, and the rest of the world yearn for peace…”

All Hidan could hear was: blah blah. blah, blah blah.

(Blah blah).

“For The Will of Fire, amen.”

Everyone said amen at once, except for Hidan, who wasn’t paying attention. His girlfriend, Ino, was sobbing quietly into a polka dot handkerchief next to him. Hidan had only turned up because Ino demanded he pay respects to her father, who’d lost his life during The Fourth World War. He’d been in the intelligence division, and although he didn’t like Hidan very much, Inochi supported their “relationship” - if you could call it a relationship. It definitely wasn’t a normal relationship.

Inopig - Ino’s pet miniature pig - was sitting on a cushion next to Ino, whose handkerchief matched the frilly vest she’d dressed the little creature in. On Hidan’s side was probably some other blonde haired, blue eyed Yamanaka who looked at him accusingly as if he shouldn’t be there.

Ino had said that Hidan should come along to the memorial service, especially because it was religious, and told him to pay his fucking respects as he was a good little god-fearing twit, wasn’t he?

Ino and Hidan were both snarky fuckers who somehow managed to make their relationship work in a war zone. The Yamanakas played a large part in the war, in the area of intelligence-gathering and interrogation. Ino was promoted to head of interrogation after the enemy blew up HQ, and quickly she and Hidan became a close-knit team; she as the interrogator, and he the torturer.

They had mostly argumentative hate sex in the secluded dugout where nobody went - once even someone got shot and died just as they finished. Ino had pushed away, saying that was disgusting. Hidan had paid more attention to the blood splatter on his face while Ino grumbled about getting brains and half an eyebrow on her skirt before they went back to work. Sai came to announce that they’d captured a Kumo spy, so Hidan went to rip their fingernails off with pliers while Ino calmly spoke to them, trying to extract information about the Raikage’s whereabouts, all while giving them a good look at her cleavage.

Hidan had been staring at Ino’s leg for the last few minutes, thinking about the amount of sacrifices he had made to Jashin during the war. Was it eighty-five, or eighty-six sacrifices?

It was definitely eighty-six, said the little fucked up voice named Jashin in his head. Ino elbowed him in the ribs, so he stopped and pretended to pay attention to the long list of names of those who sacrificed their lives for the Fire, Wind, River and Steam countries to ensure peace in the world.

He left the shitty temple with its shitty wooden pews before the shitty people attempted to have an even shittier conversation with him. He was regarded as batshit insane compared to the rest of the folk in Konoha. He was the only person in the world who was pissed the war was over. Hidan was a soldier, not a civilian, and he was not interested in the sissy civilian life of working at a supermarket scanning tampons at eleven o’clock at night - something which might even happen if he continued to be broke and acted like he was talking to some crazy fucker in his head named Jashin all the time.

There was a military parade in the afternoon following the memorial service, showcasing the surviving Konoha, River and Suna soldiers doing the goose step. They looked strong and serious, chins up with rifles to their left side and headbands showing their alliances. Floats with papier mache animals moved their eyes forward and back, as people used rods to move the hands up and down as if they were waving. A marching band played in front of the parade. He recognised the song they were playing, Soldiers of The Old Home Guard, while the leaders of Konoha and Suna, the Hokage and the Kazekage, waved from their seats politely, opposite Hidan and the crowd of mostly women and children clapping and cheering. They didn’t even ask Hidan to participate as the only remaining Yugakure soldier left.

He could figure out why he hadn’t been invited to join in. The nickname Hidan of Hot Water stuck, because of his foul temper, and it was almost as though steam came out of his ears when he was shouting. Not to mention he was from a tourist resort, not a military state. Sometimes he wouldn’t have minded putting his bayonet into asshole Konoha soldiers who smirked when he muttered his prayers at nightfall by the glow of a matchstick (they’d taken his fucking candles) who said that their religion, The Will of Fire, was the correct and only religion that mattered. Hidan tried to argue that it wasn’t a religion, it was more of a tradition, but nobody cared.

Burnt out crates littered Konoha like strays, as nobody had got rid of them yet. Blackened buildings were a common sight. The smell of dirt permeated the air as people’s shoes scuffed up the dirt, making the ground look like brown fog. He could see the parade bringing in more floats of Mount Myoboku, the legendary One Tail and including one that was marked WILL OF FIRE with people handing out pamphlets.

Hidan took one anyway. Be Loyal To Your Country, it read. “Fucking patriotism at its worst,” he mumbled. “Ow!”

Inopig bit Hidan’s ankle and snarled at him. Well, as much of a snarl as a pig the size of a piggy bank could muster. A few people looked around in surprise.

Hidan snarled back - that pig fucking hated him, and he returned the feeling. “What do you want?” he snapped. Usually Inopig had a reason to be following him around, usually outside the interrogation room while he was having a break after slowly pushing pencils into people’s ears while they screamed in glorious agony. He spotted on Inopig’s collar a note shoved between the skin and the ugly jeweled band covering her fat neck.

“Don’t bite - for fucks sake - ow!” Hidan managed to get the note off Inopig before she pushed her snout into his hand to bite him a second time. Pulling himself onto a nearby bench so that Inopig wouldn’t try to attack him again, he read, in Ino’s neat handwriting, Hidan get your ass over here right now, someone’s been looking for you! on ornate Yamanaka Flowers Stationery.

He followed Inopig through the narrow rubble-covered streets of Konoha, ignoring the stares, currently from a mix of Suna and Konoha folk with banners and rifles. Konoha was slowly getting back on its feet after a more than a year of war against the neighbouring large countries. As Inopig and Hidan approached Yamanaka Flowers, he realised there were now little chairs outside with umbrellas over them, and the blackboard a-sign announced new stock: candles, keyrings, vegan treats, stationery sets in store now!

“Oi! Angel of the Morning. You sell candles and vegan shit now?” Hidan said loudly, entering Yamanaka Flowers. Ino didn’t look up, until he reached up where the top lock was on the door and dinged the bell loudly several times with his finger. Ding ding.

Ding.

Dingdingdingdingding-

“I can hear you, shut up,” Ino said, turning around and crossing her arms. Inopig trotted to her owner, who patted her on the head and gave the pig a treat. Inopig squealed in delight, then plonked down on the cushion she usually occupied in the shop corner. Her beady eyes remained on Hidan, who glowered back.

“Can’t you send a carrier pigeon next time, jeez? My poor ankle.” Hidan pulled up a camouflaged leg to show a dark red mark. He didn’t seem to have a spare change of clothes that weren’t the Yugakure military uniform.

“Hmm…” Ino put a finger to her lips and looked up at the ceiling. She spend a few seconds pretending to actually reconsider using a carrier pigeon instead of Inopig to send messages.

“Well?” asked Hidan impatiently.

She smiled. “No.”

Figures. Hidan pretended to look interested in the new stock shelf which had been decorated with plastic orchids.

“What do you want?” Hidan wasn’t even going to try and be nice. Ino knew Jashin came first, and she came a very, very distant second in Hidan’s life. “Is someone pissed at me again?”

“Someone asked me to hand this to you,” said Ino, tapping her finger at a piece of paper while she balanced flower stalks on those metal spike things so they held up on display - Hidan forgot what they were called. “It’s like a Jashin meeting, or something?”

He perked up at the word Jashin.

“Really?” He stalked over and swiped up the paper. It was on pale blue card, typed out neatly, informing that there was a Way of Jashin meeting tomorrow, at the local temple that had held the memorial service this morning. “There must be a Lord Jashin follower around here. Like for fuck’s sake, I thought I was the only one.” He pulled his hair back, cherishing the card as if it was his firstborn.

His heart - his cold dead heart - as Ino called it, felt happy, instead of moody and shitty since the war was over. Ino shrugged. She had no interest in Jashin, and she was up-front about it. One of her hobbies was intentionally pissing Hidan off about it for fun.

“You better go then, see what other freaks will be there who also like taking pleasure in the suffering of others.”

“I think I will,” Hidan put the blue card and put it in his back pocket, “Might find myself a hot Jashinist girl, and we can go sacrificing some lambs together.”

“How romantic,” Ino remarked, with more than a hint of sarcasm. She had finished putting the stalks on the spikes, and was placing them carefully in vases for the front shop window. Inopig had stretched her trotters out and was now snoring loudly.

“I better prepare,” said Hidan, and he waved as he walked out the shop. “See you, bitch.”

“Bye, dickhead.”

In retrospect, he really should have realised something was up, because Jashin followers were almost nonexistent. He knew of several, but they weren’t soldiers - they owned butcher shops, mostly, but spent their night sacrificing lambs in caves and carving the circle-triangle symbol into their chests while screaming in glorious Jashin-filled agony.

Hidan ignored the parade on the way back, which had almost finished up by the time he had crossed the main streets to get back to his hotel. Ino’s mother refused to let him stay in the Yamanaka apartment after Ino mentioned that her boyfriend was a Jashin follower and that they were also pretty mean to each other on purpose. The foreign soldiers were currently staying at the hotel. River and Suna soldiers were just about to get out a pack of cards to play in the lobby after their bit in the parade had finished. They whispered when he approached, gossiping about his exploits during the war.

“Eighty-three hits? Wow.”

“Yeah, but he’s mental. He’s always going on about his delusional God.”

“Jashinists are weird as fuck. Just ignore him.”

He turned around to the Suna moron who had been polishing his headband. “It’s eighty-six confirmed hits, dickhead.”

He then spent the next twenty-four hours studying his scripture, as if he didn’t know it off by heart already. But there was always something new to be found in it, and he had sent off for a copy of the old testamental version through mail order to be delivered to his hotel room. Inopig didn’t come back with any more messages from Ino, so he stayed in his room. He used an old maths compass needle to re-carve his Jashin symbol into his chest, and then two onto the underside of his feet, which represented the earth he would walk on and its sacrifices made for him. Walking through the pain - literally - made him feel closer to God.

At six o’clock the next day, he dodged the crowds of happy veterans all fattening themselves up with ramen and yakitori. He recognised a few faces, such as Sai, who also worked in Intelligence with them, and Shikamaru, an old friend of Ino’s. Sai had that horrible smile on his stupid face again and Shikamaru raised his eyebrow only a tiny bit in acknowledgement when Hidan strolled past.

Can’t believe there’s a fucking Jashin meeting in this temple.

The temple, with its Konoha flags falling down from the ceilings, and polished wooden pews and floor, was empty. The lights were on, but no Jashin symbols… no nothing.

Feeling a bit pissed off, Hidan turned from the room to leave. Then the door slammed, and he hit the floor.

Now he knew he wasn’t here for any Jashinist meeting.

*

Feeling groggy as fuck (the only way he could describe it) and feeling as if someone had dumped him in a pool of anaesthetic, Hidan woke. His first thought was that he had been gassed with Zyklon B. Eyes blurry, head hurting and feeling as if his brain was sloshing around in his skull, his retinas burned as he squinted up at the blurred figures in front of him. He realised they were calling his name. He tried to answer but stopped when he saw who they were. He didn’t recognise them, but he knew the colours.

Two men dressed in Konoha flak jackets were smiling down at him. One of them had a white lab coat over the dark green uniform. Hidan was tied down with rope, sitting propped up with his arms pulled out in front of him like a doll. He could see red pinpricks on them. He was reminded of the children’s game heads down, thumbs up, except this was a much, much more gruesome version of it.

They definitely weren’t here for a Lord Jashin meeting.

“Fuck off, what the hell?! Is this revenge for accidentally putting those Fire country cunts in the gas chamber?!” A pale man with long black hair smiled and his tongue flicked out. It was long. It was even forked like a snake. Gross.

“I knew he was going to be hard to handle,” said the man with the ponytail and glasses. “After all this time, he’s finally woken up.”

“I am Orochimaru. My subordinate is very sorry for gassing you,” said Snake Man, not sounding very sorry at all, but looking down at Hidan’s body with interest. “Kabuto, give me the syringe.”

“What are you fucking doing, fucking nerd?!” Fucking Nerd’s white laboratory coat made him look s if he was going to give a speech on body creams in some CGI skin rejuvenation clinic. A syringe full of red liquid was produced from somewhere, and Hidan couldn’t move. Orochimaru jabbed the syringe into a vein in his arm. The liquid was blinding hot. Almost like he had thrown his arm into a hot spring back home, but hey, he had a high pain tolerance.

“What the hell are you doing!?” Hidan decided on a more nicer and less-sweary approach find out why these two weirdos from Konoha had kidnapped him and tied him up, which was upsetting because it wasn’t Ino doing it, and also put drugs and shit into his system.

“Well, put it this way, I’m going activate a few genes. You are Hidan of Hot Water, the only living soldier from Steam Country.” said Kabuto. “And we have been watching… certain soldiers. During the war. Eighty-eight confirmed kills. Nice.”

“Eighty-six, godless moron.” Why can anyone get it right?

“Out of everyone in the war, you were probably the bravest - yet you didn’t even receive the Kage Cross. You threw yourself into bombs, catching grenades - it’s like you wanted to die.”

“But then I got transferred to torture so that shit stopped,” said Hidan. “Why are you interested in me?”

“What if I told you we are all in a Infinite Tsukuyomi?” Orochimaru suddenly said, putting a long finger on the skin where he had just injected the liquid. Hidan’s blood seeped slowly underneath his finger, and he kept it there instead of getting a cotton ball or whatever the hell creepy Orochimaru had in his creepy room. It was dark, only lit by several candles, so Hidan had no idea where they were.

“Infinite Fucking What?”

Orochimaru sighed.

“This world is an illusion, Hidan.”

Hidan shook his head, strands of silver-purple hair falling over his eyes. “I’m not stupid.”

“It is,” said Kabuto, aka The Fucking Nerd. “Originally, we were all ninjas.”

Hidan gawked. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

Orochimaru and Kabuto raised their eyebrows as Hidan laughed, “Ninjas? Like those old assassins with the swords that stabbed themselves in the stomach when they got sad and shit? Let me go, freaks. I have better things to do then become a meth head.”

“During the Fourth Shinobi War, we were all placed in an illusion. My subordinate and I have figured out how to regain our original powers, but not our memories. My test subjects can do things like walk on water, become water. They can make things explode with only a few hand signals, and even create clones of themselves. They can become stronger than anyone else just by lifting a finger.”

“That’s nice,” Hidan said, not paying attention to them, but rather, seeing if he could somehow get himself out of the ropes. “Let me go, Snake Man.”

“We are bringing your powers back,” said Orochimaru. “We’ve done a lot of work while you were unconscious. Have a good look at yourself.”

Kabuto produced a small mirror from his lab coat, and Hidan had to now “take a good look at himself.”

His hair had grown at least an inch, and his eyes were crazy bloodshot. But that wasn’t what he cared about. The Jashin symbol - the infamous triangle in a circle - which he re-carved religiously into his chest once a week so it would never, ever heal - was gone. It had been a part of him since he was a teenager, since he’d crushed those bird eggs as part of his first sacrifice. The symbol had grown bigger and deeper over the years.

“How long has it been?”

“We knocked you out for a month, while we administered what we needed,” said Orochimaru. “In your real life - that is, the one where the Infinite Tsukuyomi doesn’t exist - you were definitely a ninja, although we do not know what powers you possessed, except for your healing powers and ability to not die.”

That is the true way of Jashin, the voice suddenly said in Hidan’s head. He perked up. Immortality. He knew that at the end of his life he would have been granted a spot by Jashin’s throne, the Death God of the Underworld, who watched over hell.

Wait.

“A month!?” he suddenly squawked. Ino would definitely think I’ve gone off with the rest of the people from that fake Jashin meeting…

“However,” Orochimaru flashed a smile. “I’d like to keep you. Usually those whom I have dealt with work for me afterwards. I think you’d be better off working for me. I myself am not immortal. Although I have the powers from our real world, I do not have what you have. I’m a little jealous, Jashin-boy.”

At this, Hidan realised that it wasn’t quiet in the room. Kabuto and Orochimaru now turned away, writing down notes on their clipboards and mumbling medical jargon Hidan didn’t understand. They said words like hemoglobin and thrombosis and platelet while Hidan listened in silence.

In the distance, he heard the screams of other people. A few minutes later, Kabuto pulled him up by the ropes, and pushed him out the door.

The torturer now being tortured. Fucking great. Candles lit the hallway, which meant that wherever they were in the world electricity hadn’t been restored yet. They passed cells of people, many of them with various muted colours covering their skin. Every single one of them had a mutation - wings out of one shoulder, bones covering their faces - and each was as ugly as the next one. The smell of death lingered when Kabuto shoved him into a small cell with nobody else in it.

For the next few days, every hour, on the hour (they forgot to take away his watch, turns out) they would come in with a syringe, or beat the shit out of him.

“You forgot I get off on that stuff,” he said as they slapped him, cut his arm away and watched it regrow. It hurt, but there was a high threshold of pain Hidan could take, and now everything felt numb and different to what he normally felt like. Watching a baby hand come out of his normal arm was a truly bizarre experience.

One day, being sedated after punching a guard with shark teeth in the face (whose face turned to water), Orochimaru cut his head off.

[reddragoon2691]

Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intermission Review (Spoilers)

******SPOILERS********

I wasn’t the biggest Final Fantasy fan, let alone FF7 fan before FF7 Remake came out. Despite playing Kingdom Hearts and learning about what the series was about I never really got into the series, let along play much of the games. (With FF15 being a disappointment on story and gameplay). However, ever since jumping into FF7 Remake I’ve fell absolute in love with the world and characters which even made me play FF6 (which was a masterpiece in its own right). So I was completely excited to see more of what this DLC had to offer and I was kind of blown away from minute one. 

THE STORY

It’s short but effective, the great ninja Yuffie is on a mission by the provisional Wutai government to infiltrate Shinra HQ and formulate an alliance with the local Avalanche group now that the two are working together. The worldbuilding and context behind this mission is far more interesting than the actual mission itself but since it also has these characters go through fun and character building scenarios it works for what it is. I never expected it to be game changing like the main story was. 

The main star was certainly Yuffie’s introduction and character arc, or atleast the beginning of it. Yuffie’s personality was the perfect balance between bratty but energetic, annoying but kind and enduring. It certainly helped that her VA’s were spectacular, like seriously whoever is in charge of hiring the VA is this series needs a promotion for picking such great people for the job. 

Getting back to her story, it’s a nice tale of a teen who’s readying to dash into the adult world and take responsibility, when in reality she’s probably still needs time till doing those sort of things. Her home life and situation her homeland been through created a world where she did have to grow up fast but it doesn’t change the dangers that plague Wutai for who knows how long. Sonon was a great partner to pair her up cause he’s more seasoned but reasonable to deal with, so when Yuffie has moments of doubt or goes to far he’ll help re-center her and work around those without blowing up at her for messing up or getting in the way of his personal mission. It’s a great dynamic that carried this DLC, and though the death flags were rather obvious, how long it lingers on that death and what it would mean for Yuffie’s story later down the line made it far more effective where it could’ve felt limp. 

My only gripe is that it felt like their were a strong beginning, middle and then a quick end. Chapter one was great in reminding players of the controls and introducing the characters, Chapter two was gripping with the conflicts presented by the antagonists with Nero actually being challenging and creepy (though he was SUPER edgy in a mid-2000′s sort of way). But then it cuts to Yuffie already outside of Midgar and looking for others to join in an upbeat attitude. I understand that it’s a DLC but I personally would’ve gone for one last mission, not even a whole chapter, where Yuffie had to fend her way out of the city so to make the player miss Sonon for not being able to fight with them and showing how Yuffie would handle a dire situation entirely alone. 

Still, it’s a well paced story befitting of an energetic young ninja. 

The CHARACTERS 

I already talked about it but Yuffie was a delight and got the proper treatment the party in the main story got. I can not wait to see how she’ll integrate with them both in fighting style and characters. Sonon, I wasn’t expecting to like since the aforementioned death flags were everywhere for him and if his role in this short story would leave an impact both for me and Yuffie. Thankfully, he was a solid partner in a side story who meshed well with Remake’s world. It was a little interesting that he projected his sister onto Yuffie and his personality mixing really well with Yuffie’s, though I guess I would’ve appreciated a bit more backstory of them working together and see what exactly Yuffie reminded him. 

These new Avalanche characters were very small in their roles but their politics were certainly interesting. Given by Yuffie’s and Sonon’s side conversations, they give off the vibe of being more moderate in their approach of confronting Shinra compared to Barret’s radical splinter cell and we see how much it’s frown upon. Yuffie’s immediate support of these bombings is a great hint to why she joins the party later. It presented a interesting and revealing part of avalanche and where that story thread could lead, and presents why more Radical methods is necessary and justified. Avalanche is a group focused on Midgar issues, first and foremost, and while Midgar is in desperate need of change, the fact that Yuffie point out that they never seen the deadly effect Shinra imperialism has done to other people like Wutai shows they’re short sighted and don’t fully grasps the scope of Shinra’s ambitions and the deadly effects their capitalistic and imperialistic system is capable of. They give of the vibes of wanting to negotiate and compromise with the system, rather than break it down whatever means necessary. It reminds me of the differences to what the first world sees as ‘too far’ and ‘rebellious’ to third world nations where they face the brunt of today’s global systems effects more than anyone. 

It’s all interesting to think about and why I love this series and have confidence in this plot.

Nero and deepground aren’t something I’m familiar with but I think it’s handled well. It’s edgy but just enough of it where it doesn’t become eye-rolling and comes off as comedic. I actually enjoyed it to where I hope we see Nero again as a sort of rival to Yuffie, they did show him grabbing Sonon’s corpse so perhaps it’ll be used to get in her head and challenge her on her personal goal of taking responsibility and being an adult by reminding her of her mistake. 

GAMEPLAY 

What can I say other than perfect and refined. Flying through the air as Yuffie was fluid and fun, and the partner system didn’t feel like a downgrade to the main story but a great addition to scenario’s where its needed. Missions were cute and Fort Condor was great fun, I almost wish for it to be a multiplayer feature. Boss Fights were fantastic in scale and challenge, kind of scared to face Weiss given how tough he is. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

It’s a great stepping stone to what’s to come in part 2 with a after credit scene that shows what travel and scenes will be like and what crazy time shit consequences are waiting for us. 

Final Review: 9/10, it’s gonna be fun and interesting to replay the main story and jump to where intermission takes place while our main group going on their adventure in Midgar.