#this is the MOST shellshocked i have been reading through a night's asked and also the MOST sure i've been that yall

[meanbossart]

omg i loved that insight into some of drow's most important relationships it was so juicy...now...i gotta know what orin thought of this guy. we get some idea based off the game and other asks but what did orin really think of drow? especially when he first arrived at the temple it must have been something to be told this feral bastard is another of Bhaal's chosen. when do you think she decided to betray him?

GLAD YOU ENJOYED THE READING I love love Love getting into the nitty gritty of personal relationships so thank god some of you guys also like hearing about it LOL

But boy! That's a difficult one. Orin is a very mysterious character to me, we get a fair bit about her life and a vague idea of her relationship with you, but it's always from a second-hand source - the woman herself seems so stripped of humanity that it's difficult to imagine her doing trivial things like going to sleep at night or eating lunch - let alone how she felt about the people around her.

And there's an allure to that that I'm hesitant to try and demystify; not to mention how it itself was a source of frustration to DU drow. While its not like he ever desired to have a sit down and talk about their feelings together as a bhaalspawn, he did want to be let in, whatever that meant - and Orin never ever allowed that, though she did let him get close enough to keep trying.

I do like to believe they were both much less brazen when they met as young adults, DU drow being the shellshocked looking freak who barely knew how to carry out human interaction that he was, and Orin being a lot more explicitly reliant on Sarevok's approval and guidance to exist in the temple. With this, I think there would have been room to some insecurity - if there's another bhaalspawn, her need and effectiveness would come into far more scrutiny than it already did, after all. She would have probably disliked and avoided DU drow not on the basis of his appearance or past, but just because of this threat that he represented to her alone.

And while they inevitably grew close in a very weird way, that very first impression would have planted this seed of resentment in her which would eventually result in the betrayal; but it definitely wasn't the only thing that led to it.

Orin would have been all too aware that DU drow wanted her as more than a sister or a cohort; he was INCREDIBLY unsubtle and would have made attempts to escalate their relationship at least a few times. Because of my theory that Sarevok wanted them to breed together, this behavior was never discouraged, and while I highly doubt it was ever explicitly and openly discussed, I do think Sarevok would have found ways to imply to her that he would like to see the line continue through them.

Obviously Orin never reciprocated DU drow's feelings or desires, but she did enjoy toying with him - while she probably did love him as family, I don't have to spell out to you how weird a situation this is and how it might lead to a lot of bitterness on her end. I don't know if she "led him on" out of malice, out of a desire to feel in control of the situation, or just because she enjoyed the mind games, but these instances of teasing and holding things over DU drow's head only came after many blunt attempts at shooting him down, and looked very different from any sincere displays of affection they may have had as "siblings". Whenever DU drow wanted to push her boundaries, it would be as if a switch flipped and their dynamic ever so slightly changed - and she met in kind. This would usually reach a peak where it broke out in violence, and always ended with them beaten, bleeding, but laughing. And then it would never be spoken about again.

So, with this growing resentment, plus Sarevok's growing favoritism towards DU drow and his seeming desire to see them mate, PLUS Orin's very real ambition to pursue Bhaal's plan and gain some recognition of her own, she would have eventually decided that she didn't want want DU drow around anymore. What feelings precisely led to this decision I do not know, but whatever they were they had been festering for a very long time.

[sergle]

pov you’re scrolling through my inbox from tonight

[breakdownsbuttlights]

Dratchetparty (still going!): Your Voice / Shellshocked

Combining the prompts... it's come to that. Probably the last one I'll do for this round. This one’s Ratchlock, and it contains some darker themes. It’s also Human AU, for no discernible reason.

It was late in the evening when the call came through, and Ratchet ought to have been asleep. He wasn’t on duty and he wasn’t on call. Good sleep, regular sleep: that was what he needed, that was what everyone told him to get. He wasn’t technically on leave – the thought made him laugh – but Pax had strongly hinted that if he showed any sign of doing anything other than resting for the next couple of weeks, there’d be trouble. Ratchet knew there was no use in explaining that trouble was what happened when he did nothing but rest.

And sleep… well, sleep terrified him.

He snatched his phone from the bedside table with an eagerness that embarrassed him and stared in confusion at its dark, inert screen. The ringtone persisted. It wasn’t his phone. It was… more distant. Muffled.

Realization came slowly, hobbled by a suspicion that he was asleep, and this was another of those dreams from which he’d awake bereft and sick with longing.

Not a dream. He flipped back the covers and swung his legs to the floor, wincing as he did so. Not too fast. He couldn’t help it. He raced toward his desk like a kid to the tree on Christmas morning. It wasn’t in the top drawer. Nor the next. Sometimes he wondered if he hid the damn thing so perversely in order to forget it existed. As if he didn’t charge it up every week and check it hopefully for messages.

It must have been on its twentieth ring by the time he uncovered the second phone. To his ears, there was something teasing in its persistence, something playful and knowing. There was also, if he wanted to hear it, a little bit of a threat: the kind that made his stomach lurch and the blood rush unbidden to his groin. Come on, Doc. I know you’re home. He could hear the white curve of that smile.

He didn’t recognize the number on the display. He never did; it was never the same. Always a moment of pure terror when he answered it, that the voice on the other end wouldn’t be the one he expected. The game was up, they knew where he lived.

And him? Oh, him, he’s dead.

Ratchet accepted the call and held the phone to his ear. The voice on the other end, when it came, said the same thing it always did.

“Are you alone?”

Relief and dark excitement. “Yeah, I’m alone.”

“Are you at home?”

“Yeah.” Ratchet was smiling like an idiot, twirling slowly on the spot like a teenage girl. If the phone had a cord he’d be wrapped in it; he wanted to be wrapped in it, wrapped in that voice; caught like a fish. It had been months since the last call and he’d thought it was over, the light gone out, that they were truly now in the age of lead. To think how easy it had been once, that not so long ago are you home meant can I come over. The kid slipping in with his own key in the middle of the night, clatter of his guns hitting the floor. His feet were always cold when he got into bed. Ratchet could tell by his smell and feel and the way he tasted if he was exhausted, if he’d been in a fight. They rarely turned on the light.

Ever since the incident at the DMF, Ratchet’s building had been crawling with security.

The voice quieter now, a shade darker. “Are you okay?”

Ratchet sat down on the edge of the bed. There were things he couldn’t tell him just as there were things he couldn’t ask. “I’ve been better.”

“Were you asleep?” The question sounded hopeful, like he wanted to imagine Ratchet that way.

“Nope,” Ratchet grunted as he leaned back on the bed. He wanted to steer the subject away from him. “You neither, I’m guessing.”

A soft laugh down the line, followed by a cough. He sounded smoky, a little stoned. “You know me.” Ratchet did. In the hours they spent together, most of them at night, how many had the kid slept through? Every time Ratchet woke, he’d find him sitting up and smoking, face illuminated by the unfathomable contents of his phone. Sometimes he’d be looking at Ratchet and would reach out and stroke his hair. Go back to sleep, Doc.

Ratchet lay down, drew the covers over him, held the phone to his ear. “Are you ok?”

A long silence. A rustle on the line that might have been static, or a sigh. “I’ve been better.” Sad smile Ratchet could hear in the voice. “Stay on the line for a bit?”

Ratchet drew a pillow close to him and clutched it like a lover. It smelled like the rest of his bed, of course, but if he tried hard enough he could remember: smoke, sweat, sex, metal. The vulnerable scent of his unwashed hair. It wasn’t the first time they’d done this, holding each other over the space that separated them. “Of course.”

Where are you? Are you taking care of yourself?

Who have you killed?

The line was quiet for a while, just a suggestion of breathing carried over the space between them. Against his will Ratchet could feel the tug of sleep. He needed it, felt he could have it now, so long as the line stayed open and he could hear those soft breaths in his ear.

I was tortured.

“Doc.” His voice like the voice in a dream. “Do you still have the ring?”

He meant the small signet he’d slipped onto Ratchet’s little finger at Christmas. It had been snowing; there were beads of water on his black eyelashes. He’d said, don’t worry, it doesn’t mean we’re engaged or anything, and then turned bright red and ducked his head away. The ring was removed when they brought him to the hospital after the incident. Ratchet had been terrified they’d see the two letters engraved there and ask what they meant. All the things that had happened, and that was what scared him the most.

“Remember. Just tell them it stands for ‘doctor.’”

Ratchet smiled into the pillow. "I miss you, kid."

"Ratchet?" That smoky voice coming down with him now into his dream. He'd take it there. It would protect him. He could sleep as long as he could hear it.

I miss you.

"Ratchet. I'll kill them."

~

Read the full series on AO3.

[dangermousie]

CFC 104

1. The bit where it says HY believed that XWC was a small mistake on his way to a correct answer “until now he realized maybe XQC was the correct answer.” I am screaming. No, literally.

2. HY shellshocked by his seismic revelation begging to stay and XQC, who has no idea is all “nope.” (But even if he knew, he is miles away from being OK with having HY as a partner so...)

3. XQC bluntly telling HY that HY staying here is torturing him (and XQC is totally feeling sick and I don’t think it’s that he’s exhausted from their night - that may be a minor part of it - but his health is also generally falling apart, clearly, plus he may be having an attack due to strong emotions and he’s also just plain freaking out because of what he did and what he felt voluntarily) and you can just sense HY’s utter sense of loss as he clings and begs (what a change from how he tried his best to hurt and humiliate and seem superior) and XQC tells him they should never do this again.

4. HY wrapping his scarf around XQC’s neck to cover the hickeys. He’s always been protective of XQC’s privacy, even at the craziest, which I love (makes me think of TXJ, as mad and horrific as he was in 0.5 storyline, still never letting anyone know who concubine Chu was, in part out of possessive hoarding tendencies and in part because somehow he knew this is a bottom line that could never be crossed.)

5. Auntie Li asking “wtf were guys fighting everyone heard the noise” ahahahah.

6. XQC is all “ugh I already took a shower but haven’t cleaned everything out yet.” Maybe stop leaving bodily fluids everywhere, HY - who is gonna pay all the extra water and laundry bills? Now I am thinking of the horror it would be to shine a black light in this apartment haha.

7. I love when Meatbun says that if it were before, HY wouldn’t have cared what XQC wanted because his own feelings and wants were the most important, but this has changed. YES!!! This is the number one thing HY needs to learn and he’s learning - that his own needs and wants are not the sole barometers and not paramount. He’s leaving emotional toddlerhood step by step.

8. This really hits. Meatbun is a genius because I loathed HY so much some chapters ago and couldn’t imagine how I’d ever care for him and by now my heart is aching for him.

How does she do it, time after time - write a character doing something horrific, something irrevocable, something terrible and never glossing over or forgetting that slowly drags you into caring for the character as it drags them into a path to redemption. HY just started and I can already tell this is going to be good.

9. He Yu thinking things through and trying to figure out when he fell in love and why and is it body or mind or both. I love this so so so much. Because it adds deliberation to inevitability.

10. OHHHHHH He Yu is beginning to feel pangs of guilt over the club when he thinks XQC tried to save him that night and he poured wine all over his coat YES YES YES SCREAMING!!!!

11. I loved the little nugget that HY has been running a sanatorium for He Jiwei where mentally ill people genuinely get good help all because of XQC told him back way when “cages are reserved for prisoners, not people who suffered too much.” You know, the more the novel goes on, the clearer it becomes how HY’s life has been imbued with XQC - the very fabric of it, the moral and emotional attitudes, his goals and hopes. Remember this passage from one of the very early chapters:

This reads so differently now OMG.

12. “Is he not only in love with Xie Qing Cheng’s body, but also in love with that person’s soul?”

You could probably hear my screams in Peru.

13. He Yu feeling guilt as he finally processes and realizes that the thing that tormented him the most - that phrase from the video where XQC says the life of a doctor is worth more than that of a mentally ill patient is not XQC speaking about HY but speaking of life of QCY being worth more than his own. And I love how HY contemplates XQC’s soul after asking himself whether he’s in love with his soul because it’s such a brilliantly logical and thorough thing to do - ask “if I am in love with soul, what kind of soul does he have” and then answer “OH.”

14. “He Yu always thought XQC hated and feared patients. But what he hates is actually himself.” Stab me some more, will you? “Such a person, such a heart, such a soul...The giant beast in his chest has a name and is circling  in his heart frantically.” I love so much that the feelings HY feels are described as a giant beast because it seems so fitting.

15. “He likes this person’s body, this person’s heart, he likes this person’s scars and devastation, and he likes his sick body.” Swooning!!!

16. He Yu going “XQC, don’t you hurt?” echoing what XQC asked kid HY and QCY asked kid XQC - I love that this phrase seems the key to recognize the humanity of the sufferer - that they are neither monster nor saint but a person lik the rest and can hurt and so need to be cherished. And it flips the caretaker role too - because it’s not just the doctor/protector/whoever asking it of the weaker party as was the case before - now HY is returning that concern back and it’s not one way any more. But HY goes a step further and adds “You are lonely.” Now, he needs to tell all of this to XQC and not just in his heart but good luck because XQC is more closed off than a vault.

[softschofield]

i’m so perpetually frustrated with the audience members who criticise 1917 for having “no backstory or development for the characters”

like, yes, it’s subtle. because they’re friends and friends don’t talk to each other like “oh, yes, remember all these details of my life i’m conveniently and clearly reiterating for an omniscient third party?” but fuck dude, if you pay attention and know basic facts about war or do your goddam research, there is SO MUCH DETAIL TO THEIR BACKSTORIES

like, just from one TINY DETAIL, you get so much: schofield’s wounded stripe on the left sleeve of his uniform. to get a wounded stripe in world war 1, you had to be officially listed in dispatches as being a CASUALTY, not just having been in a field hospital, meaning the wound was BAD. but, wait, what kind of wound could be so well-hidden and subtle? it could be a gunshot wound or trenchfoot, but there were also two categories that could earn a soldier the wounded stripe: gas, or shellshock. it’s therefore entirely possible that he was suffering from trauma rather than a physical wound before he met blake. given that 60,000 rounds of field artillery and 45,000 rounds of heavy artillery were fired in the first DAY of fighting, and one german described the experience of the shelling as “the earth shook, the sky seemed like a boiling cauldron [...] the ability to think logically, and the feeling of gravity, both seemed to have been removed”, shellshock is a very plausible diagnosis.

so, we know he fought in the somme, and we know which battle he fought, meaning he had been at the front for at the very LEAST 7 months. SEVEN MONTHS. that is a LONG time to be in the trenches, and it is a STAGGERING amount of time to have withstood the horror and still come out of it soft, gentle, and compassionate - think on THAT when y’all say schofield is a flat character. think about what kind of a person could kill and see people killed and live in the constant, crushing, claustrophobic terror and boredom and nothing of the trenches for most likely LONGER than that and stay kind and quiet. NEED i say any the fuck more, NEXT

just from that, we then know that blake did NOT fight in the somme, meaning he arrived at the front some time after november 1916. and, judging by his excited and fearful reaction to the front line trench before a predicted push, there’s the distinct possibility he had never seen a battle, meaning his arrival can be placed after the 18th of december 1916 and that he was still deeply innocent.

if he arrived in december and the film begins on the 6th of april, that ALSO means that they had known each other at the most for just over 3 months, very possibly less, and that they had formed a very close bond in that time.

which brings me to my next point: where are their other friends? all the other soldiers are shown to have close-knit groups, so where are theirs? why is it only them? why are they even friends in the first place? why is blake, a new recruit who had only just arrived, already the same rank as a veteran who had been there for very possibly up to or more than a year? why is a veteran hanging around with a chattery, bushy-tailed, never-seen-battle replacement? why isn’t he hanging out with his own cohort of soldiers who has been there the same amount of time as him and could much more easily relate to his trauma and exhaustion? WHY is a middle-class-sounding guy even hanging around with a lower-class farmboy in the first place?

the most plausible answer? all of schofield’s friends he went through training with are dead - probably in the somme - and he’s purposefully isolated himself to grieve with his survivor’s guilt. he was most likely wounded, lonely, and agonisingly depressed for months until a cheerful replacement arrived at the front and befriended him. and THAT’S where schofield’s fanatic devotion to him comes from, and THAT’S what “he saved my life” means, more than in the literal sense - he was lost, and broken, and numb, and blake saved him.

furthermore, because boy have i got more, blake’s backstory, in case someone out there has seen this film and still wants to hit me with that fucking “we know nothing about these characters”: we know he has an older brother, we know he has a female dog called myrtle, we know they live with their mum in a farm in the countryside with a cherry orchard, and we know his father isn’t in the picture and that he most likely hasn’t been for a long, long time, judging by blake’s lack of bitterness and daddy issues, his closeness with his mother, and the fact he isn’t in blake’s family photo. we know, from interviews, that he enlisted as soon as he came of age because his brother was an officer and he idolised him, and we know he was barely this side of 18.

another thing? the story about wilko. blake knows stories about men schofield has almost certainly known for far longer - but he didn’t interact and wasn’t told, and blake did, and he was more familiar with all of them and had stories to tell that schofield would have known if he’d been sitting in the same circle when the gossip was told. how’s THAT for subtle characterisation, chumps.

and if you just think about it, there’s so much depth to blake’s overly trusting nature - because he’s still naive, he’s still innocent, he’s still young. schofield tucks the things most special or necessary away in his inside pocket, where’s it most safe, because he’s learned lessons the hard way; blake puts them carelessly in his trouser pockets where they could fall out. schofield keeps his rifle with him even as he’s going to fetch water for the german pilot; blake discards his rifle and leaves himself vulnerable. if you just LOOK, it’s all there!

FURTHERMORE, we know schofield is in his early 20s and older than blake. we know he has a much more refined accent, and we know from interviews that he’s from cookham, berkshire. we know he has two daughters and a wife (or a sister and nieces, it’s open to interpretation, go to town), we know he suffers from shellshock, we know he most likely couldn’t face going home on his last leave and instead stayed in france and gave his medal away to a french captain, we know the subject of home is deeply triggering for him, we know he refuses to talk about his daughters, we know that his family haunts him as much as he longs for it, and we know that he didn’t receive any mail from his wife - interesting, considering blake received a letter just telling him his dog was having puppies.

and don’t even get me started on the “lack of character development”. watch me scream here about that.

also, some more backstory because now i’m on a fucking roll: lance corporals were typically the second-in-commands or heads of sections, of which there were 4 within each platoon, each comprising 12 soldiers, it's likely blake and schofield were in command of different sections in the same platoon. where does that come into play? well, scho seemed to slip very easily into a position of authority when the convoy got stuck in the mud, didn’t he? MOVING ON.

more? i have more. another little tidbit: lieutenant leslie asks schofield and blake if they are his relief, and then asks when the fuck they’re getting there when they say they aren’t. he and his men are exhausted and it was said by another soldier that “they had been blown to hell a few nights ago” - they’ve clearly been at the front a long time, which, again, is interesting, considering front line soldiers were typically rotated back into reserve after 8 days. clearly, it’s been a lot longer than that, meaning order and routine have completely broken down and a new type of despair, hopelessness, and mess has taken root. there, more backstory again. 

“oh, it’s just a shitty saving private ryan” “oh, it’s definitely no all quiet on the western front”. FIRST OF ALL, it fucking IS all quiet on the western front, have you literally even read it? baumer goes to such lengths to hardly ever use the word enemy because he doesn’t view the soldiers in the other trenches as bad, just as other innocents swept up in a war that no one should be fighting. he spends a whole chapter sobbing over the only man he’s ever killed in close combat. it’s a hundred times slower than 1917 and it hasn’t even GOT a plot. what the FUCK are you talking about?

oh, and it’s just saving private ryan? show me WHERE. a bunch of soldiers have to go into enemy territory to rescue a soldier because all his brothers have been killed in action and his family wants him home. two soldiers are sent into enemy territory with a letter to stop an attack. i am LITERALLY struggling to think of any more similarities than that and even THOSE are fucking reaching.

also, it’s literally a different war. who are you and why are you saying these things to me i am BEGGING you to please use your fucking head for just a few seconds and actually THINK

“it was so convenient that the river just happened to take him to the devons” ??? “the river. it goes there” did you just entirely miss everything lauri told him? the river quite literally flows exactly past where he is supposed to go, that’s the entire POINT, that’s WHY he jumped into it, because he KNEW it would take him there, oh my GOD

“if the convoy was going exactly where he needed to go, why didn’t erinmore tell him to meet it?” i know it might be a shocking concept, but even a general may not have known exactly the route a convoy of trucks was going to take, especially in the confused wasteland the germans had left behind in their retreat. in fact, he might not have known about the convoy at all if they were coming from a different sector of the front - WHICH, guess what, THEY WERE. captain smith mentioned they crossed no man’s land just outside bapaume, which was much further south, in the old somme battlefields. scho and blake’s trench was somewhere near boyelles, 11km north of bapaume. 

“it’s unbelievable that scho would just sit quietly and relax in the convoy truck, and then get out to give orders and take command, after what he’d just been through - and, plus, he would have gotten to écoust quicker if he’d just walked” there’s this thing called trauma. shock. dissociating. compartmentalisation. just shutting down in the face of too much grief when you don’t have the time nor capacity to let yourself feel it, acknowledge it, register it. in the script, scho is said to “almost disappear into the noise of the men.” and, honestly, the emotional illusion of regaining a scrap of control over a situation he was utterly out of control of would have been enough to prompt him to get out and give orders - but as it is that wasn’t the only thing driving him: he was desperate, and an NCO, and he needed to go. AND “he would have gotten there quicker if he’d walked”?? ???????? first of all, he didn’t know that? second of all, scho said it would take them nine hours AT THE MOST to get there and, given the fact they weren’t attacking until dawn and it was most likely morning when he and blake set off, he wasn’t in a TERRIBLE rush. THIRD of all, it was a direct order from a captain. FOURTH OF ALL, do you really think he felt like walking all that way when a truck was RIGHT THERE?

“there are too many coincidences” films are built on coincidences. they are conveniently put with a character who will end up being their soulmate at the end of it all. they conveniently uncover information that would take people in real life months to find. coincidences drive stories - one of the greatest tools of screenwriting? “don’t write what would happen, write what could happen.” what could happen is that scho finds a teenage girl and an orphaned baby sheltering in a ruined town - in a war. what could happen is that a convoy of trucks heading north towards the battle of arras logically uses the road running alongside a farmhouse. what could happen is that scho jumps into a river that he knows runs east. i just don’t understand what you’re trying to say

“oooohh for soldiers on a life-or-death mission to save one of their brothers, they sure do take their time to sight-see” they’ve seen absolutely fucking nothing but the walls of a trench and the reserve camp for months. also, it’s pretty much just common sense to clear out a building before you turn your back on it and keep walking. also, they had 8 hours, scho ended up getting there in under two hours, and blake is allowed to feel more than one emotion at a time and to be excited about exploring new places, ESPECIALLY when it’s almost certain that neither he nor schofield had ever even been out of england. war or not, the french countryside was still beautiful and blake is allowed to appreciate that. next question 

“how was there a milk pail full of milk if there was no one around to milk the cow” german soldiers were stationed in the farmhouse before they got the order to move out. “they’re not long gone.” they left an hour before hand, someone probably milked the cow before they knew they were leaving. you don’t have to read the script to have a functioning braincell 

“unbelievable that they weren’t killed by the tripwire explosion” it detonated in the tunnels, not in the bunker. they wanted to collapse the escape routes first and foremost. please, i am begging you, use your head

“why did they pull an enemy out of the plane” basic human decency. i cannot believe i have to explain this concept. soldiers in the first world war were especially conscious of the humanity of the men in the other trench. you say blake had no character and then get mad when he’s shown to be so kind and selfless that he’ll burn himself rescuing a german. i don’t know what you want from me, get out of my kitchen 

“schofield was an idiot for stopping to interact with lauri and the baby” he was concussed. he knew there was somewhere he had to be but he didn’t remember what or where until he heard the church bells. also, for people who criticise the “lack of character development and backstory”, ya hate to see character building moments. it clearly wasn’t the first time he’s recited that poem to a baby. make the connection dipshits 

“the germans shot like fucking stormtroopers, how did they not hit him?” point one: one of them was blind drunk. when muller is ranting while scho is strangling baumer, he says that maybe they should head back and that maybe they won’t realise they’ve been missing. the implication? either they’ve gone AWOL, or they’re stragglers from the retreat back to the new line. either way, at least one, and very possibly all of them are off their fucking faces, considering the one by the burning church tripped over his own goddamn feet chasing scho. point two: not in a thousand years would they have expected a lone english soldier to just pop up out of nowhere in ecoust. it was so unexpected that you really can’t blame them for being flustered and confused.

“how the FUCK did the letter survive the river in one piece?” he put it in his tin. there’s literally an entire 30 seconds of the convoy scene just devoted to showing scho tucking it in there. i don’t understand how i have to say this

“it’s too gruesome” aside from the hand in the corpse and the dead horses, where? where? also, it’s the first world war. i can’t believe what i’m hearing. who are you people

“it’s not exciting enough, it’s slow, it’s dull” IT’S SUPPOSED TO SHOW THE CONSEQUENCES AND AFTERMATH OF WAR INSTED OF THE SHALLOW EXCITEMENT OF IT YOU DUNCE

in conclusion, suck my ASS anyone who says they didn’t have backstory or development or that there are ~raging plot holes~. FUCK

anyone who doesn’t want the actual soft and only good person in the world William Schofield to live a happy life in peace just isn’t valid and that’s all i’ll ever say on the matter you fucking degenerate scum rotten tomato reviewers

[ziracona]

Ohmygod I want like all of ur headcanons they're all so good. Oml. Would it be okay if I settled on meg headcanons or Dwight & Jake hcs? God you write them so well it makes me so happy

Thank you so much! <3 I know you asked this like this morning, and sorry about that, but I had a lot of fun answering it. Ended up doing Meg. I’m not sure if you want general, or post-ILM so I just kinda did some of both? And got carreid away, haha, it’s gonna go mostly under a read more. :’-)

Meg’s mom did a great job taking care of her growing up. Meg had a hard time making and keeping friends, because she’s full of energy and passion and also very ADHD, so she has a big personality and will talk all the time about what she loves and is a whole lot (in a good way). But a lot of people growing up did not enjoy that about her. Meg wasn’t great at shutting up and acting or lying or falling into a role to get kids at her school to like her, and also just didn’t understand why the rest of them would do that, and didn’t mesh well. With each time she was not accepted, she got a little bit more bristly and ready to defend herself, and it kind of became a self-fulfilling prophecy. It wasn’t like she never had any friends, but she never had any close ones, and a lot of the ones she did have kind of dicked her over for someone else, or moved on, and that was rough. Plus, her dad left her when she was a baby, she was poor, she was loud, and she was Bi. This gave kids a whole lot to bully her for. And they sure did.

Meg’s a fighter, though, and didn’t take shit—she got into trouble a lot, and was mad, because (as y’all who’ve been in the American education system at least know) the faculty never cared if she’d shoved someone because they called her a slur, or said something shitty about her mom, or that she’d punched someone because they’d followed her out of school to say nasty things about her, or that someone else had shoved her, or poured something on her book, or provoked her first. Didn’t even care if it had been four on one, or a guy had come up and fake asked her out to make fun of her in front of his friends—didn’t care about any of what was being done to her, or that she’d just been defending herself. The worst they ever did was talk to the other students, and that just made them want revenge and didn’t stop jack shit. Because of that, she really started to resent faculty and got a huge rebellious streak. She used to get in trouble all the time, before joining track, at her mom’s suggestion. Then, finally, really for the first time ever, even if she didn’t have friends, she had a pack, and that was something. Team didn’t have to like her, they still worked together so they had some kind of a bond and couldn’t just flip, and their track teacher would care if things got nasty, because it lowered performance. Plus, she had natural talent, and a bunch of energy, so it was an ideal fit.

Childhood was all still pretty damn rough though. I wouldn’t say she was miserable all the time or anything, but she was constantly tired of it all. There were some good parts, though. And she had some casual friends she was pretty chill with. Even a kind of almost girlfriend her last two semesters (although that was not exactly the world’s most stable relationship either. Still, not all bad.) While she wasn’t ever tight with them, there were several people at school who thought she was really cool too, because not only would Meg always defend herself, she also was ready in a heartbeat to throw hands for anyone—especially someone weaker or smaller than herself—she saw getting shit from classmates. She was a roaming vigilante of school hall fury by 10th grade, and had earned a certain amount of respect and fear, and a pile of detentions and reprimands, and parent-teacher conferences where her mom chewed out teachers and staff for ignoring the parts of all this where her daughter was getting bullied. Meg used to actually love parent-teacher time, because she got to watch her mom rip people she hated apart, and it filled her with glee to have somebody else fight for her.

Even with school all sucking, Meg had a pretty good childhood basically exclusively because of her mom. Her mom had to raise a kid as a single parent when Meg’s dad abandoned them while Meg was still a baby, and it wasn’t easy. She worked full time when Meg was little as a postal worker. That was unsustainable, though, with how life was going and her wanting and needing to actually be physically present in her kid’s life, so she ended up finding employ as a ghostwriter, and switching to that. It was almost exclusively terrible and ridiculous romances she would get a fraction of the pay and no credit for when published, but Rachel Thomas found a way to make that funny and enjoyable both to herself, and her curious little daughter who would waddle up to her and ask all the time what Mommy was doing and to hear her stories. She would pick safe bits and read them as silly and funny as possible to amuse Meg and feel okay about what she was spending all her time on, and it worked. It made the work enjoyable, when otherwise it would have felt tiring and worthless. Rachel got to be happy with it instead.

She always worked super hard to give Meg a good life, even with very limited resources. She taught herself how to do things like use pencil dust to check for fingerprints when Meg was super into Nancy Drew books as a kid, and how to pick locks, and then taught them to Meg. Meg loved growing up in that house, because her mom was the best. She was always ready to hear about whatever fascinating new thing Meg had discovered, or to pick up a toy sword and go have an epic battle in the backyard as people they’d made up to be. She passed on a love of movies and music and dancing, too, and because she knew that life was rough for Meg, even as a young child, Rachel always went out of her way to make holidays huge productions. Got one really cool present that always had to do with whatever story Meg was the most into usually, and a lot of fun little ones to go with it, so she could open a whole pile of gifts even though the only one who was ever there to give her any presents was her mom. Meg kinda just grew up thinking of holidays like that because of her, and did as big productions for her mom too (to the best of her age-relative ability).

It was super hard on Meg when her mom got sick. I mean, I think it would be on anyone (who had a positive relationship with the parent, or probably even a neutral one), but she took it really hard. She’d been super excited about finally getting out of her hometown and going to college on a track scholarship she’d worked incredibly hard for, but then this had happened, and of course she’d come back to look after her mom. It was really awful though. She wasn’t sure if her mom would survive. At first, the situation had been like, go to college, or go home to help your mom get better, but she realized after a little while with a sinking feeling that it was starting to look like something else. Like give up on your one chance at being able to pay for college, or come home to watch your mom wither away and die while you can’t do a fucking thing to stop it. Her mom had always been a strong and fun and full of life person, so much like Meg herself, in a lot of ways, and she got sick so fast, and so bad. They even looked a lot alike—not just in biological features, but they kind of dressed similarly by nature, and Meg’s mom had also always kept her bright red hair long and liked it like that. Sometime when Meg was little, she’d called her mom’s hair a “fire mane,” older Meg could only assume because she’d been reading picture books about horses, and her mom had loved that and teasingly called it that forever after. The second night after she started chemo that her hair started to fall out, Meg got home to see her shaving her head in the bathroom, because it had been coming out in clumps she hadn’t been able to stand the way that felt. Meg felt heartbroken, and went over to join her and took the scissors on the sink and started to cut hers off too in solidarity, but her mom stopped her and begged her not to. Meg cried and told her she wanted to do it, and her mom comforted her and kissed her on the forehead and asked her to please keep it for her, so that when she got better, she could look at Meg’s as inspiration for what she wanted to get back to. Meg finally agreed, but it was really hard. Harder still to watch her getting weaker and weaker until she just couldn’t do any of the things she used to. And then one day her mom’s doctor had come back and told them he was sorry, but that treatment was failing. She could try a few experimental avenues, and there were people to contact, she could keep trying this in case there was a change, but that she probably only had another year at most to life.

It had been beyond devastating. Meg hadn’t known what to say. Or how to think or cope. She’d just walked out of the hospital feeling shellshocked. And when they’d gotten back in the car, her mom had asked her to pull over at a Wendy’s, and bought them both frostys, and Meg went through the motions, and parked in the lot. And when they were there, her mom had started to eat hers slowly with a spoon, and looked her in the eyes and said, “Don’t worry, Meg. I’ll get better. I promise.”

And Meg had looked up and seen she meant it somehow, even with what they’d just heard. And her mom had said, “You know me. I’m a fighter.” and that had been true, so Meg had sniffed and nodded and said, “Me too. We’ll try all the options.”

Her mom smiled at her and they ate their one dollar treats and went home to research, but Meg had still kind of believed it, because she always believed her mom. She’d had hope then, that she might not die. Even as the weeks went on and she got sicker. And then Meg went for the one jog she didn’t come back from.

Meg and Dwight were the first two to really band together. They survived a trial together and made it to the same fire, and Dwight just unloaded like a whole plan to start systematically picking up other people they met, and theorizing about leaving with them to make it to the same fire, and banding together to survive better, and Meg was kinda ‘no thoughts—head empty’ because she was exhausted from trying to outmaneuver the Nurse, and he was talking so fast and she hadn’t listened at all to the first few lines and now she was playing catchup, but she’d been like, “Oh. Worm I guess?” and agreed. Meg kinda thought Dwight was a pushy little dumbass, and he kinda was, but she also kinda liked him, and waaay faster than Jake did. Meg’s an extremely loyal person, so even though unhooking her and helping her out, or giving her a tool he knew she was better with than he was was just good strategy, Meg’s heart went “Friend saved me” and kinda kept it, so she didn’t mind “New friend is also annoying and full of himself and kind of a douche.” I don’t think she really noticed his change in behavior at first. Just one day like, a month after he’d started working hard to be less of an ass, she was sorting a new toolbox post-trial, and he paused by her and was like, “Hey! Great job in the trial today. Sorry I messed up your escape during that chase—I misjudged how fast he was and thought you’d have time to hide. You really saved us with that last-second chainsaw dodge getting the door open. –Oh here, I found these in a box and I’m still pretty shit at flashlights, but I saved them for you,” and gave her some batteries, and she was just like, “Cool. Thanks. And it’s fine—I almost tripped right over Claudette’s hiding spot yesterday.” and then when he was like halfway back to the fire she was just like WAIT A SECOND and sat bolt upright and stared at him and was like, Didn’t you used to be kind of pretentious and inconsiderate? When did this change??? And was never totally sure, but was pretty jazzed about it. She also remembers way less well than Jake, Ace, or Claudette that Dwight did used to be a loser. If someone else told her that she’d be like, “Oh yeah…huh.” but she’d never really think of it on her own.

This is kind of more a Dwight one than a Meg one, but one of the specific events that was a personal changing point for Dwight was back when it was just the OG four, before even Ace had joined, they had a hard trial with Trapper and Meg was really down. Everyone passed out before Dwight, because he was trying to plan and stayed up, and he noticed Meg having a nightmare and after a minute woke her up because she looked so scared, and she thanked him and then was quiet and just sat there, looking miserable. After about ten minutes he decided to ask if he could do anything to help, and she said she was afraid to go back to sleep, because she thought she might just pick up where she’d left off, and then hesitantly asked him if it was okay if she came over by him, because she thought it might help. He was super surprised, but said yes, and she came over and lay down beside him and leaned on his chest fell asleep. And it felt really nice that someone would seek him out for comfort, and trust him to watch over them. The first time they stayed at the same fire, she’d given him a look and said, “Promise not to come over here while I’m out if I take a nap?” and warned him she was a light sleeper, but she hadn’t even jokingly reminded him of anything like that now. She just trusted him. It made him want to be worthy of that and a lot more.

[ I want to do more bc I’m super into Meg rn, but my word count is shooting me dirty looks so ima do 2 real short post-ILM Meg and call it a night—happy to do more or your Jake-Dwight sometime though. <3 ]

Tapp helps Meg take courses and study up, and gets her certified as a PI, and she actually does really love it. They work cases for cheap for people who need help, and do it together, and it’s very rewarding. That’s not the most sustainable full-time job, but Tapp’s got a little money saved, and David’s…David. Plus, collectors will pay weird money for realm merch sometimes, and Min is…scarily. Worryingly good, even, at finding those people to sell to. So she also has a lot of time to do other things. She can’t exactly do track like she did, but she does long-distance runs for charity, and has fun, and gets to go visit her friends all the time. She loves being able to say she actually is a private detective, and feels like she’s come full circle from being the little her who loved Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie books so much. She’s able to help her mom, too, so her mom is able to actually spend time writing the kinds of things she’d like to, for once, and Meg’s super happy for her and still spends a bunch of time with her, often her and Susie, who her mom took to really fast, together. Meg loves to ambush Susie with gifts when she’s working on stuff and make surprise visits to drop off a drink or something, and thrives on the embarrassed-happy Megggg look on her face if she pulls off flirting in public just right. Sometimes Susie will come with her and Tapp when they’re working to try to help, or just to spend time, especially for the like, long research parts of the job. Meg also makes sure they see Michael Tapp a lot, and that Tapp takes time off to do fun stuff with her and his other friends. She is still definitely trying to get him with her mom. Or Jane when Jane’s there. Or her mom and Jane. Sometimes Ace is in the mix when he’s there. And it all ain’t subtle. It’s rough out there being Meg’s even vaguely parental figure. :’-)

Like Tapp promised, he and Meg get a dog. A retired K9 whose handler died a few years ago, and been retired when that happened because it was old enough it had been set to retire that year or the next, and it took the loss of its handler very hard. With its handler gone, it was open to adoption from other force members or retired ones. It was an old dog that had been alone for a long time, still missing someone dead, so sad looking. Outlived his best friend. Tapp had checked the database on impulse alone when starting to work on honoring Meg’s request, and seen it, and wanted badly to take it home. He’d been kind of nervous asking Meg about getting it though, thinking she would want something that would live longer, but she’d jumped at the chance and been really happy. The German Shepherd had been named Partner, because that had been the sense of humor his handler had, and Meg thought it was cute, to always be saying, “Come on Partner,” to a dog. He had been really sad looking when they’d gone to pick him up. Lonely in the back of a pen, nose between his paws, watching people go by, and hesitant when they’d gone inside. Quiet, all the way to the car, and the whole drive home. Just sat in a seat, looking out the window, no matter how much Meg petted him or talked him, or Tapp did, and then they’d gotten home and taken him inside, to a bed and a food bowl and water dish, and he hesitantly ate, and then started to wag his tail a little. They took him out to the yard after to play and he finally got it, and it was like seeing a totally different animal. He got excited, and barked for the first time, and ran around pretty fast for an old dog and would come press his forehead against their legs while wagging his tail, like he was hugging them, in a way Meg had only seen dogs do a few times. He is now a very happy pup who likes to hop up on the couch and put his head in people’s laps and watch them lovingly while they watch tv, and sometimes puts the old skills to good use if he’s in the mood to walk around and lend aid to a case.

[msjr0119]

Love, Fate, Destiny

Part 12a - Kismet

Riley Brooks is a waitress in a ‘Dive bar” in New York. One Saturday night, her past comes back to haunt her as some unfamiliar punters enter her bar on a bachelor party- one of them being someone who she was once close to.

*CHARACTERS BELONG TO PIXELBERRY*

Tags- @annekebbphotography @burnsoslow @drakesensworld @ladyangel70 @kingliam2019 @bbrandy2002 @butindeed @bascmve01 @drakewalker04 @pedudley @captain-kingliamsqueen @duchessemersynwalker @insideamirage @of-course-i-went-to-hartfeld @kozabaji @texaskitten30 @ibldw-main @kimmiedoo5 @nikkis1983 @dangerouseggseagleartisan @gnatbrain @walker7519 @lodberg @cmestrella @hopefulmoonobject @addictedtodrakefanfic @angi15h @liamxs-world @rafasgirl23415 @notoriouscs @yukinagato2012

There’s two parts... at the bottom of the page click continue reading as Tumblr said it was too long - so had to split it 😫

*****

Liam and the others arrived back at the hotel. Bastien decided to go to his room, he was feeling guilty enough so didn’t want to face Drake and Riley together.

“Drake? Where’s Riley?” Liam asked shocked. He had assumed that they would still be together making up for lost time.

“She... she saw the ring!”

“You fucking moron! We weren’t dragging you round NYC to try and get you to pull.”

“Fuck off Olivia! Maybe if none of you forced me to move on I wouldn’t have to wear a fake wedding ring to stop women trying to hit on me!”

“Did you show her the tattoo? Explain about the ring?” Liam asked, they had just found Riley again and lost her again. Regretting not getting her new number off of her, he didn’t know how they were going to find her again.

“She didn’t give me chance to.” Drake said in a pitiful tone of voice.

I’ve lost her again.

*******

Drake was frustrated with everyone forcing him out all the time -attempting to get him to move on from Riley. Stupidly he had agreed to go out with all the men later that night for a night away in Greece. Previous nights out, he had women drool over him- but he wasn’t interested. One woman said to him “there’s no ring on your finger, so I assume you’re single. Come back to my place.”

Driving into the capitol, he found a jewellery store. Choosing the cheapest ring he could find, he would wear it. If another woman attempted to convince him that he was single he would just rise his left hand up.

Later that day he met the men, and they travelled to Greece. In the first club, Liam tried to push him towards some attractive women- but they weren’t Riley. No one would compare to her. As the women came over, one touched Drake’s arm- he brushed her away and showed her the ring. Liam pulled him to the side.

“Since when did you get married Sir Walker?”

“Does it matter? I’m not moving on Liam! I could have been married to Riley by now. Had children. But no, I got that torn away from me. I don’t want to move on- so please don’t try and make me!”

The night went on, Drake became more and more intoxicated every second that went by. He was even dancing with Maxwell- something that wasn’t his forte.

“Drake... buddy.... why don’t we go for a tattoo.... have matching ones....” Maxwell slurred, not understanding what exactly he had suggested.

“Yes man! Let’s.... go....” Drake suggested as he tried to stable his balance. The two snuck out of the club laughing like naughty school boys.

Entering the tattoo shop, Maxwell flipped through the folders finding a few tattoos they could have. Drake frowned at the options; a flower, a cat with pussay patrol written under it, Winnie the Pooh, Duracell bunny. There was also one for couples, where one person would have ‘Dis’ tattooed on their knee and the other would have ‘ney’ on their - Disney.

“Or you could get a hippo tattoo like me.....we’d be twinnies.”

“Fuck no! I know what... I’m getting.”

The tattoo artist started working on Drake’s tattoo. Once done- he returned to Maxwell.

“That was quick.... did you chicken out bud?” Maxwell impersonated a chicken, making a fool out of himself.

“No! Look...”

“RB? As in Riley Brooks? On your wedding finger?”

“Yep!” The first genuine smile he had on his face for months- he kept picturing her face. Hoping that fate one day would bring them back together.

“Ah Drake... I hope you don’t regret that in the morning. I’m going for the ‘pussay patrol’ tattoo.”

Drake was drunk- knowing that this was a bad idea, he held his laughter in. He couldn’t wait to see Max’s reaction tomorrow- Maxwell may regret his choice of tattoo but Drake certainly wouldn’t.

*******

Riley was an emotional wreck, heading straight to Beth’s apartment she broke down in tears. After explaining what had happened- Beth was shellshocked.

“Tonight! We are going out.. you need it! I’ll pay.”

“Thanks Beth. I need a rebound quick.”

As Riley was getting ready, she had a new friend request - Maxwell. Not wanting to be rude, she decided to accept his message, and had a short conversation with him- keep it simple she thought.

“You ready to go?” Beth asked whilst topping up her lipstick- pouting in the mirror.

“I so am. Drake Walker who?” Riley smirked, whilst putting her heels on.

“That’s the spirit chick! Let’s go!” The two women necked their pre drinks down quickly, before shooting out of the door.

******

Maxwell arranged to meet everyone in the hotel bar. After stalking Riley’s Instagram he had figured out where she was going that night- he knew she was annoyed with Drake and that they were both as stubborn as each other, but he needed to get them back together.

“So glad you could meet me guys. Liam I hope you’ve delayed our flight back. Where’s her majesty?”

“Why? We need to get back to Cordonia as soon as possible! I need to have stern words with certain people. She refused to come- she said and I quote ‘I am not stepping foot in another shithole bar.’ So she’s staying here.”

“Her loss. Guess who’s friends with Riley on Instagram? Oh yes that would be me!”

“And your point is?” Liam questioned, not understanding why this was relevant.

“I know what she’s doing tonight. I spoke to her in a chat- then stalked all her pictures. She’s a professional model now... she’s fucking hot as fuck.”

Drake scowled at him, he felt jealousy burn through him. He knew Maxwell would never make a move on her- he wasn’t like Liam. But it still hurt that he would call his ‘girlfriend’ hot as fuck.

“Wow! She is hot!” Hana’s eyes widened.

“Is she turning you Hana?” Maxwell winked at her and nudged her. Seeing Drake becoming wound up- maybe this might encourage him to win her back.

“Quite possibly she could do haha.”

“Look Liam, Drake, Bastien....”

Bastien gulped, he knew that she was a model- he had stalked her Instagram page ever since finding it. At times he had to knock off the page- as he gained a slight erection. On one occasion he masturbated over one of her pictures- it was a heat of the moment thing. He would never be able to tell Drake the truth about this.

“Yes, she is gorgeous.” He muttered.

“I think she’s out of everyone’s league.” Liam responded after witnessing Drake scowling at everyone’s reactions.

Drake snatched the phone, scrolling through the pictures- he agreed with everyone; she was hot, she was gorgeous and she most certainly was out of his league. Ordering another whiskey, he knew he needed some dutch courage to explain what Riley misinterpreted if they saw her.

*****

“Hey babe, are you still at Kismet?”

Riley’s eyes widened, her heart sank. Regretting tagging herself in things on social media- she now had Maxwell stalking her. Quickly looking around to see if they were there- she couldn’t see any of them.

“Hey Max. No we are in bed, all worn out. Sorry.” Phew- hopefully they won’t come.

Strolling up to the bar, she kept looking over her shoulders. Hoping that they wouldn’t turn up. She had lost Drake due to her poor decision making- it was time to move on and she couldn’t if the bunch of misfits from fucked up Cordonia turned up. Waiting at the bar for Beth to return from the bathroom, she was contemplating what to order.

“Mark. Jesus. You scared the life out of me.”

“Looking good Ri. You’re photos don’t do it any justice.”

Riley noticed Beth on the dance floor- wishing that Beth would stop kissing her boyfriend and head over to rescue her from her ex.

“Erm. Thanks.” Fucking creep. Leave me alone.

“What are you having to drink?” Rolling her eyes, she believed if she accepted a drink he would leave her be and go and pester some other poor person.

“Surprise me.” Mark smirked as he ordered her a drink. When she wasn’t looking he poured an extra ingredient into the cocktail.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I’ve missed you you know.”

“Oh well the feeling isn’t mutual.”

“Come on Ri, we had a good thing going on.”

“It was in college. And you was a rebound. You know that!”

Riley felt uncomfortable in his presence, his hand tightening around her waist- she couldn’t remove it. He began to kiss her neck making her feel physically sick. Pushing him away she wanted to wipe that smirk off his face. Turning around to make her escape she bumped into someone familiar.

“Hey blossom!”

Shit

“Hey, Max. I’m so glad to see you.” Smiling at Max - he was her saviour, her new best friend.

“Who’s this douche?” Mark raised his eyebrows at the stranger.

“This Mark.... Is my boyfriend Maxwell.”

Riley pulled Maxwell closer to her, just please pretend for fuck sake- he’s a creep, follow my lead. Kissing Max on the lips- he was frozen at first, but eventually melted into it. Once they parted Maxwell slapped Riley on her arse, lowering her mouth to his ear, too far Beaumont but I’ll use it.

“Oh he does love spanking me. He’s so cute isn’t he Mark?” Riley said as she caressed Maxwell’s cheeks.

“Er yeah. See ya around Riley. Hopefully sooner rather than later.”

Watching Mark leave the area, she turned to her friend, hoping he wouldn’t berate her on her lie she previously told him.

“Thanks.”

“So you’re in bed are ya?” Folding his arms and raising his eyebrows- Riley knew he was angry. Maxwell was never angry, he was always so cheery and full of life.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t come. So I lied. I’m sorry. But honestly thank you for helping me.”

“Who is he?”

“My college boyfriend. My rebound for Drake.”

“Ohhh talking about Drake...”

“He’s here isn’t he?” Riley looked towards the floor, that was surrounded by the sticky residue of spilts drinks.

“Yeah, come and see him. He’s devastated.”

“Let me finish this drink. I need to use the bathroom too... I’ll be right back. I’ll find you all.”

Continue Reading

[forallyourikemensengokuneeds]

Two become One

The door pulled open and she was instantly sent into the past within her own memories. The building hadn't changed in her seven year absence, instead it seemed almost petrified in time. The air was still stale and hard to breathe. The rancid scent of of the chemicals that were kept on the third floor still seemed to permeate through the building as it did so many years ago when she belonged in a different lifetime. Now she was nothing more than a novelty for the brass that she had impressed so easily back then.

She couldn't go into the field now. She was shellshocked and she had a few other reasons that she couldn't be deployed anymore. She was now more of a pawn for them instead of the shining star she once was before life got in her way. No one begrudged her for her life's decisions but at the same time they didn't know what to do with her either. So they sent her back to the beginning hoping that she could be a spark for some other willing student who could fulfill her promise and destiny.

She knew that was what she was supposed to do at least. It was what they wanted her to do. She had other ideas. She was going to make sure the next genius they picked knew the risks. The damage it did to you. She wanted to save someone else the heart ache of everything she had gone through and the very real consequences she had now. She loved her job she repeated over and over as she carried the box to the back hallway where the instructors offices were kept. She had to swipe her ID card for the double doors to open. Again she was lost in her memories of this hallway and the meetings she had so many years prior as she made her way down the hall looking for her own name on the wall by a door.

"Can I help you?" A voice asked from behind her.

"Looking for my office." She said politely as she turned around.

"And you are?" He prompted.

"Dr. Coleman." She replied.

"You're doctor Coleman?" He asked as his golden brown eyes lit up for a second.

"That would be me." She said, "I would shake your hand but the box is in the way." She flashed a smile at the man.

"Let me help you." He said as he stepped forward and took the box from her arms, "Your office is the last one down the hall."

"Thank you." She replied as they started down the hallway together. She knew he was trying to read her as they walked in silence.

"What brings you to a place like this?" He asked.

"Brass thought I would be able to find my replacement." She said with a small chuckle.

"Excuse me?" He asked.

"The brass invested a lot of effort in me, unfortunately I can't go into the field or be deployed anymore so they have little use for me personally anymore. They stuck me here for two reasons to be punished in a way and to find the next me." She replied as they neared the end of the hall.

"Are you always so blunt?" He asked.

"One thing this job taught me was to be a realist. I lost all my dreams of a normal life when I took it." She said.

"How pragmatic of you." He chuckled. "This is it." Standing beside the open door that had been opened that morning to be aired out he waited for her to go into the empty space.

"Has this even been used since Howell had it?" She asked.

"Not sure who Howell was but it hasn't been used in about five years since I've been here." He laughed.

"Nice to know they stick me in the farthest most unused place." She said as she looked up to find him smirking. "What?"

"Well it seems to fit you. A hole in The wall for a little mouse." He said with laughing eyes.

"I don't even have a desk in here." She sighed. "I thought they would at least have things ready for me to move in."

"Ah, the brass would do something like this." He said. He went towards the door as he placed her box on the floor.

"I didn't get your name." She said suddenly.

"It's Akechi, mouse." He smirked at her. "I will be back in a moment. I am going to call maintenance to get them down here for at least a chair."

"Thank you." She smiled as he walked out.

He called out from the hallway, "It is the least I could do for my neighbor."

She had to look at the figure leaving her empty office. He didn't know who she was, she had to smile at that. He wasn't that bad to look at either. As she walked around the office opening the windows to let the mustiness of the room escape. It looked like the office hadn't been used since she remembered sitting in it as a student in the building. She had been destined for greater things or so they all thought. Unfortunately the reality of her situation had been something no one had seen including her but as she rolled with the punches like the waves. She looked down at her watch and she knew she had a few more minutes before she had to leave.

She could hear the man speaking threw the open window in the office next door. He must have hung up the phone as she could now hear his boots trudging back down the hall.

"They will have a desk, chair, and shelves in here tomorrow morning." He said as he walked in and saw her standing by the doorway.

"Thank you." She replied. "How come you are the only one here?"

"It is stand down between courses." He said. "The rest show up for muster but then leave. I am rewriting my course so I stay a little later."

"What exactly do you teach?" She asked as she tilted her head to look at him.

"Forensic interrogation." He replied.

"Oh." She said as she looked at him again. He did have that hard edge that the interrogators had that she had met beforehand. Still new at this whole idea of teaching she wondered if she could get some tips from him, though at the moment her watch started dinging to alert her that she needed to go. "Thank you for the help."

"Leaving so soon mouse?" He asked.

"I have to." She smiled as she grabbed her bag that she had tossed into the box before bringing it into the building.

"I will lock it for you as you don't have your key yet. All the locks are the same but I don't believe we are supposed to know that. Probably budget cuts." He said as he waved her off. "See you tomorrow mouse."

"Good night Akechi." She said as she made her way through the hallways again. For now it was good enough to have found the office. Tomorrow her life would change and become something different from what she was, tomorrow could wait for a bit.

Her life was nothing like she had planned out it. She went from being the premier to the barely thought of, this transfer wasn't a promotion it was a step down. A peace offering to to keep her right there and under their thumbs but also out of their hair. She couldn't go back into the field at all now. However she knew to much and had to be kept close enough to be watched. As she drove home she wondered about her newest place and if she would enjoy it. She didn't enjoy all that much these days. She knew she had to let go and accept her decisions for what they were. They were her own.

She pulled up i to the driveway of the adobe style house as the older woman walked out and leveled a look at her with a tiny toddler attached to her side.

"You're late." The older woman said.

"No I'm not." She replied as she looked at the time again.

"You should spend more time at home child!" The older woman said sternly.

"I have to pay the bills, Juanita." She said as she reached for the toddler who squeezed into her as his chubby arms wrapped around her neck. "And how is my little guy today?"

"Mommy!" He said proudly.

"His fever is gone." Juanita said as she walked back into the house.

"Thank you Juanita. Same time tomorrow please." She said as she walked in behind her as she gathered her things and she bent down to kiss the boys cheek and pat her on the back.

"You need a man to take care of you." Juanita said as she cupped the younger woman's cheek. "One that will teach him how to be a man."

"Thanks Jaunita." She said softly. A man, she thought as she watched the older woman leave. A man didn't help her when she was alone and pregnant. A man didn't help her as she had her baby alone. She didn't need a man. Though she did miss having one around. She was still bitter about being traded in for a newer model. That had stung more than anything. That hurt more than him denying their son was his. The son he said he wanted to have with her. She was hurt. She honestly didn't know if that hurt would ever go away.

She had resented her own son for a long time until one day she had realized it wasn't the child's fault his father was a prick. When people had commented on the boys looks she would smile and nod. Her son was different but beautiful in his own way. Every other child was the same but she wondered if this was her punishment in a way for dropping her guard and letting the pathological liar in.

"Mommy!" The boy said again as she stood there holding him.

"Yes Josh?" She asked as she looked at the boy in her arms.

"Juany go bye bye." Josh said and she smiled. He was now two and had begun forming real words. She had been so proud of him.

"Juanita had to go to her home, Josh. She will be back tomorrow. Mommy will take you to the park if you are feeling good. I will when I get home from work." She smiled at the boy as she put him down on the ground. He toddled off towards the main living area where his toys were scattered throughout the room. He plopped down and began playing as she looked and saw Juanita had already made dinner and his area was messy so he already ate. She looked at the clock and it was nearly seven already. It had been a long day.

"Come on Josh time for a bath and then night night." She said as she went to pick the boy up and carried him to the bath tub and ran the water to the boys delight. This was the best part of her day.

Soon the lights were off and she was going down the stairs and she curled up on the couch and began to drift off herself.

A man, she thought again, what a joke but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world either.

[bruciewayne]

they got it right. (the butterfly effect remix)

remix of itsallavengers' the butterfly effect. there's an ao3 link somewhere. and a masterpost somewhere, if you want to check them out.

“Bucky’s alive, and he killed Tony’s parents.”

Loki’s words from earlier spin around Steve’s mind, over and over, he’s hardly paying attention to what Fury’s saying, something about ‘being a team’, making the Avengers official. Steve’s fine with that, he’s pretty much only good for war anyway, but all that’s going through his head are those damn words.

Loki had been disguised as Steve, he’d claimed that he wasn’t Loki, but he’d called Stark ‘Tony’. Steve’s almost certain that they’ll never end up on first-name basis.

None of it made any sense, he saw Bucky die, he saw him fall, he heard his scream, still, most nights, Howard died in the 90s, half a century after Bucky did. But then again, he’s alive, 70 years after he thought he was done, after he should be done.

“The Good Captain, daydreaming, are you?” Stark’s voice cuts through his thoughts, from across the conference table.

Steve doesn’t hate him, not after the battle, after the nuke, after how seamlessly they managed to fight, but he’s not sure that he likes him. Tony Stark is an asshole. By all definitions. But he can’t deny that he’s a hero, Steve was wrong before, he’ll freely admit it, Tony Stark is an ass, but he’s also a hero. Steve respects that.

He also can’t deny that the guy has some sort of inexplainable pull, like he’s the world’s brightest light and Steve’s the world’s most confused moth.

“If that’s what they call thinking now,” Steve says, instead any of the moth-bullshit.

It’s fun to play up to the ‘confused old guy’ shtick. He has to. Find joy in it or let it get to him. He has the chance for a new life, he’s not going to spend it miserable. He might even get a chance to live it with Bucky. If Loki was telling the truth.

Stark rolls his eyes and drums his fingers on the tabletop, “We gotta get you more caught up. Anyway-”

The focus shifts back to something else, and before he knows it, everyone’s standing up and shaking hands and leaving.

“Stark, a word?” Steve asks, just as he’s about to leave, the last person, save for Steve himself, who’s still sitting down.

Stark looks confused for a moment but then sits back down, “Sure, Cap, what can I do for you?”

Tony’s pretty sure that he’s gonna try and apologise again, as much as he was a dick back in the helicarrier, Rogers is exactly the way Aunt Peggy described him, but nothing like the way his dad did. Except that he is.

Tony’s not sure what to think of him, he’d never admit it, but Rogers confuses the hell out of him. He’s just as good as the history books, Aunt Peggy and his dad say, Tony’s never been the best at reading people, but even in the way he talks and holds himself, there’s this unmistakable good that he radiates, pure and simple, but at the same time, there’s a melancholy air about him, like a rain cloud above his head. He’d seen him smile once, we won, and it was bright, sunny, like the rainclouds had gone.

And then he’d never seen it again, even though, in the past few weeks, they’ve seen each other quite a bit, but he’s never seen him smile, he’s seen the horribly fake one he puts on for the press and for people who thank him for his duty, and for some reason that tugs at the heartstrings Tony pretends not to have, more than when he watches Rogers drop completely, when he thinks no-one’s looking. It’s not obvious, but his shoulders go from perpendicular to his neck to obtuse.

It tears Tony apart a little, when he sees him, back ramrod straight, every single muscle tensed, when they’re just talking.

He carries the world on his shoulders, Tony realises, because he thinks that it’s his duty. Even though he doesn’t even really know him, not really, hours worth of bedtime stories didn’t count, it feels like a universal wrong for someone that good to be so, so sad but he’s never met a problem he couldn’t solve.

So even though Steve Rogers is a bit of an asshole, he’s also sad, nothing like the guy Aunt Peggy talks about, and yeah, he doesn’t know him, but, if anything, he deserves to be happy.

Stark gives Steve his undivided attention, and a little part of him is pleased, smug, that he’s managed to capture it, Stark is a genius, Howard and a half, maybe, definitely, more, and it’d been almost impossible to get Howard to focus solely on one thing.

Steve's throat closes up, it’s stupid. But he has to make sure, just check. If Loki was right, Stark deserves to know, if he wasn’t, then it didn’t matter.

“Come on Cap, neither of us are getting any younger,” Tony prompts, Rogers is scared, apprehensive of something, it’s plain on his face. It’s making Tony scared, because, despite everything in the last few weeks, Captain America was his childhood hero, he was invincible, to see him scared…

Steve takes a shaky breath, he can’t break down in front of Stark, he respects him, he’s not too sure the respect is mutual, and he’d lose it if there were any if he broke down now, “Loki told me something, Bucky, my friend from before the war, he’s alive. And, and he killed your parents.”

Stark looks at him for a moment, then stands up and leaves.

Tony leaves, he had to, he, God, he’s not going to have a panic attack in the middle of a SHIELD hallway. He makes it a couple steps down and finds an empty office, full of boxes, he stumbles in, locks the door and slides down to the floor.

He takes a few deep breaths, tries to slow down his heart, presses a hand to his arc reactor, waits for the dark spots to fade.

One of them had to be lying. Rogers or Loki. Loki. Probably, hopefully. God, he hopes.

If it is true, first thing, he has to run checks to see if Rogers’ friend is alive, somehow, and then, find footage of the crash.

He’d tried, before, he’d looked at everything he could, every single tape he could find, through legal and more creative means, he’d tried and tried and tried, countless sleepless nights, running on coffee, Adderall, scotch and other, more creative things, right until Aunt Peggy had come in and held him as he cried, and told him to put them to rest.

Logically, it couldn’t be true, Rogers’ friend would’ve been well into his 70s, not to mention that he’d fallen off a train in the Alps in the 40s. But, by all means, Tony shouldn’t be alive, neither should Rogers.

Tony’s never been the guy to stick to petty things like ‘logic’ anyway.

So he gets himself together and goes back to the conference room, where Rogers still is, facing out towards the city below them, standing at parade rest.

Stark didn’t believe him, Steve didn’t blame him, he had to move on, both of them. It’s unfair to him for Steve to bring back his parents’ death, from over 20 years ago, just because he still has his hangups.

He gets up, and then looks over the city, it’d changed so much, cleaner, taller, bluer, but the people were the same, New Yorkers are just as rude and uncaring as they were. As much as he doesn’t like rude people, he finds it oddly comforting. After losing everything, everyone, his home is still somewhat the same.

Not really. His home isn’t his anymore.

He’s crying before he knows it, tears silently sliding over his cheeks and dripping on the star in the center of his chest. He fucking hates it. Everyone and everything he’s ever known is gone, all he has is Captain America, the next fight.

He wipes the tears away, the leather of his gloves scratch roughly on his face, probably leaving marks that’ll fade in seconds. He reminds himself that there’s no point in crying, he’s here, he has to deal, that or die, and people are counting on him, so that’s not an option.

Deal or die. The ice has already proved that he can’t die, so he has to deal.

He hears the door open after five busses have gone down the same road, probably whoever needs the room next, he turns to apologise and get out, but he sees Stark, a little rumpled, a little breathless, and he gets deja vu, Stark looks like the soldiers after shellshock. He doesn’t ask, it’s rude, and Stark is stable.

“Let’s find your friend,” he says, with a hint of a smile.

“Stark, are you sure, I don’t want to, I don’t want to bring up anything you’ve put to rest, or waste your time, Loki could be lying,” Rogers says, so sincerely, earnestly, fuck he’s such a good guy, through and through.

“Rogers. It’s nothing, I can make an algorithm, have it run, update you on the results,” Tony assures him. He has most of the algorithm already, he just needs to adjust some code blocks and functions, maybe set up auto updates, does Rogers have a phone?

“They gave me something called a Nokia. Agent Barton called it a brick,” Rogers says, out of the blue.

“What?”

Rogers turns bashful, the tips of his ears glow red, and he looks uncharacteristically unsure of himself, “You asked if I have a phone.”

“I was talking out loud, of course,” Tony mutters, “wait, a Nokia? Sorry Rogers, no can do, come to Stark tower tomorrow, 1500 hours, we’ll get you a real phone.”

Whatever SHIELD were doing to introduce him into the century, they weren’t doing a good job.

“Stark--”

“Tony.”

This time, it’s Steve’s turn to be confused, “What?”

“My name. It’s Tony. Use it.”

And with that, he spins around and leaves the room again.

SHIELD’s way of introducing him to the century is by giving him a laptop, explaining the laptop. It’s a computer and a typewriter, under an inch thick and has all the world’s information. It blows Steve’s mind.

As soon as he figures out how to use it, he loves it, SHIELD make him take classes on it, what’s acceptable now, what changed, the wars, the politics, who’s who. They’re doing it a decade a week.

Someone, maybe Agent Romanoff, told him that they were going to give him a tutor and books, but giving him a laptop seemed faster, two birds, one stone she’d said. He’s glad they went about it this way, he could put in all the mandatory hours and then explore, all in his own time.

The next day, he took out his motorbike, making sure that his phone and wallet - they’d given him a ‘debit card’ because he has way more money than he knows what to do with, because someone had managed to convince someone else that, technically, wasn’t KIA, only MIA and he has 70 years worth of backpay - were in his pocket and went off to Stark Tower.

Tony’s at the front, sunglasses perched on his nose, doing something on his phone, leaning against the door. He looks up when Steve stops in front of him.

“Afternoon, Capsicle,” he greets, pocketing his phone.

“Capsicle?”

Tony grins, “Yep, Captain and icicle, Capsicle.”

“Yeah okay,” Steve concedes, a smile forming on his face, he misses the camaraderie and friendship of the Commandos, Tony reminds him of them, a little.

“Right, bring the bike ‘round back, there’s an elevator to my workshop,” Tony says straightening up and walking next to Steve as he slowly drives the bike around the tower.

They put the bike on one of the lower floors and then go up to Tony’s workshop.

The elevator ride is awkward, both of them staring at the numbers blinking higher, silent, elevator music hadn’t disappeared, he’s sure of it.

“Tony,” he says, suddenly, “why doesn’t your elevator play music?”

Tony snaps out of his thoughts and turns to face Steve, he laughs a little, “Everyone complained,” he says, shrugging, “JARVIS can play some for you, if you want.”

“JARVIS?” Is there another person in with them? He couldn’t see anyone but himself and Tony, an invisible person?

“Oh, right, yeah, JARVIS say hi,” Tony says, not to Steve.

“Good afternoon, Captain Rogers,” the… ceiling? says, in a smooth British accent. Tony’s elevator is weirder than he thought.

“Tony,” he says slowly, trying very hard not to break down, “why is there an invisible British man in your elevator?” who knows my name!?

“JARVIS,” Tony says, waving his hand about, in lieu of an explanation.

“Captain Rogers, I am an AI created by Tony Stark, I monitor this building, but I can be accessed through most devices, provided certain circumstances, my primary purpose is to ensure the wellbeing of my creator, you can interact with me by speaking aloud.” The ceiling man - JARVIS, says.

“JARVIS, do you know everything?” Steve asks looking up.

“I know as much as I am accessible to.”

“What are you accessible to?”

“Anything online.”

“What’s my middle name?”

“Grant.”

“Wh--”

“You know you don’t have to look at the ceiling every time you ask him something,” Tony cuts in, a fond smile on his face. He can’t help it. Cap, he’s so curious, and so clearly blown away, and in wonder of JARVIS, he feels a sense of pride, somewhere deep within him, because who knew that Captain America is a huge dork?

He gives Tony a look, “His voice comes from the ceiling, so I’ll talk to the ceiling,” he says, determined.

Before Tony can retort, the doors slide open and he’s greeted with his workshop lighting up.

“Holy shit, Tony,” he hears from his side, in a hushed whisper.

Steve’s eyes are wide as he takes in everything, it’s like he stepped into the future again, it’s- incredible.

Tony feels that tiny spike of pride again, because Captain America swore, that he tries to tamp down, because, yeah, he knows he's great, he’s a classified genius, he doesn’t need some nonagenarian to tell him.

Tony takes Steve and sits him down and begins explaining the algorithm, Steve’s attentive, focussed, he asks questions when he doesn't get something, after, maybe an hour, Tony gets JARVIS to run everything, it’ll take a while, but they have time.

Their conversation ebbs and flows, at a quiet moment, Steve suddenly sits up, “Tony, if he is alive, and he did, cause your parent’s death, what- what happens, I can’t- I--”

“Hey, hey, we’ll deal with it, okay,” Tony reassures, he’s the last guy anyone should go to for comfort, but Steve, he needs the support right now.

Tony gives Steve a Starkphone, a model they’ll release in a couple months, it’s ready, all of it, but something about PR and release times mean that they can’t release it just yet. He shows him how to use it and sets up JARVIS, he’s so full of wonder and gratitude, Tony’s heart aches after him.

They talk about the team, the Avengers, Tony tells Steve his plans, Steve tells his of a road trip, they go out to get dinner together, it’s awkward and stilted, but they might be getting somewhere.

Steve thinks that they’re on the way to becoming friends. He can’t fuck it up. He won’t.

Over the next few months, Tony stays in New York more than he has to, and they become no closer to finding Bucky, but closer as friends. Then Tony dies.

But he doesn’t.

“Can’t kill me,” he’d said, banged up, but with a grin. Because his house got blown up, he had to stay in New York, in the Tower, and then everyone stayed in the Tower, Avengers Tower.

Steve meets Dum-E. This time, it’s Tony who’s absolutely blown away, because Steve smiles so, so bright when he’s in his workshop, playing with Dum-E, it’s ridiculous, and Tony feels a spike of affection, and, love, and fear. Because what if he fucks it up.

When Tony lets Steve meet Dum-E, Steve’s in awe once again, because Tony’s opened up a tiny part of his heart to him, and Steve’s determined to make sure that he doesn’t, won’t regret it.

New York, Brooklyn, it still isn’t really home to him, not anymore, but the Tower, Tony’s workshop, being around Tony, he feels at home.

They become closer, best friends then, something more. They don’t fuck it up.

The first time Tony has a panic attack in front of Steve, it’s from a nightmare, about a month into their relationship.

Steve wakes him up by shaking his shoulder, and Tony lashes out in his sleep, punching Steve right on his cheekbone, the bruise is barely there when Tony comes to, but he still notices it.

“Steve, was that--” Tony asks, voice rough, small. He wouldn’t blame Steve for leaving, for breaking up with him, but God, he hopes that they could still be friends.

“You, yeah, but, hey, hey, Tony, it doesn’t hurt, I’d take a thousand punches to make sure you’re ok,” Steve says, wrapping an arm around him and pressing a kiss to his temple, lingering there for a second.

“Okay, thanks,” Tony mumbles, quiet, because, in that moment, he realises that what he has with Steve, it’s a sure thing.

“You don’t have to thank me, sweetheart, it’s what I’m here for,” Steve says, pulling away to look at Tony, promising him a million different things with one look.

He’s beautiful, in the faint moonlight JARVIS let in, Tony doesn’t deserve him, not in a million lifetimes could he do enough good to ever deserve Steve Rogers, but Steve had chosen him, and he didn’t want to give him any reasons to regret it.

Tony just wraps his arms back around him, holding him tighter, leaning his head just above his heart, listening to it beat, strong and steady, letting it lull him back to a dreamless sleep.

In the morning, Steve kisses his forehead to wake him up, with a cup of coffee, and then asks about what he should do, if Tony has a panic attack again. Tony tells him, what’s dangerous, what he doesn’t want, and Steve listens, pays attention.

Tony tells him what they’re about. The army from space. Steve promises him that they’re ok, that, if he wanted to, he could protect the earth.

It reminds him, strikingly of when Steve’d asked if he has shell-shock, voice curious, not judgmental, a few months into their friendship, when they could easily call each other friends. Tony had given him a crash course in the progress of mental health and attitudes towards it.

They call it PTSD, now. And there’s doctors, head-doctors. To help.

Steve had then, tentatively, asked if he could get him in touch with a head doctor. Which had meant that SHIELD hadn’t bothered.

Yeah, sure.

The first thing Tony had done, after making sure Steve gets the best of the best, was go over to SHIELD and tell them what he thought of bringing a guy 70 years into the future and not even checking him for any trouble upstairs.

Tony loves him. It doesn’t hit him, it’s not like a truck to the face, it’s not violent, loud, it’s relief, finallysomething, somewhere, says.

Good thing he loved him back.

Then SHIELD falls. Oversight, protection, it’s needed, but not like that.

Steve wakes up in DC General, Tony’s by his bedside, with Sam, music’s playing, but he only has one thing on his mind.

Tony hugs him, kisses him, desperately, Sam leaves them with a knowing smile.

“You’re not allowed to die, Steve- I--” Tony chokes out, he can’t lose him.

“I’m not going anywhere, baby, I’m right here,” he says, hoarsely, kissing him, over and over.

He’s not allowed to be discharged just yet, so he convinces Tony to sleep in the hospital bed with him, he has to hold him, and he has to tell him.

His heart is beating a million miles an hour, Tony can probably hear it, feel it, he doesn’t want to fuck this up, he can’t.

“Tony, he was right, Tony, Loki was right, Bucky, he, the Winter Soldier killed them,” Steve rushes out, all in one breath.

Tony sits up, suddenly, jolting the bed. Steve grunts a little. “Sorry,” he murmurs, kissing Steve on the forehead.

Tony looks down at Steve and his heart just breaks, Steve looks nothing short of terrified, something he hadn’t seen on him in, years now, he’s looking him in the eye, his eyes are so, so, blue, bright and unrepenting, guarded, his hair’s a mess on his forehead, flopping over his eyes.

It hits Tony, just how much he’s changed since he met him, Steve was, confused, mostly, lost, scared, he used to pretend that he wasn’t, for fear of seeming weak, Tony remembers Steve telling him, when he thought that he was asleep, quietly.

He was so, so guarded, and tense, all the time, now, he’s vulnerable to him, he’s changed and grown so, so much, Tony’s so goddamn proud of him.

He takes a deep breath, “Okay, thank you for telling me.”

“Tony, he was, he’s brainwashed, it wasn’t--” Steve rushes to say, almost pleading, what for, he doesn’t know. For Tony to not leave him, maybe.

“It wasn’t him, I know,” Tony says, softly.

He’s made his peace with it, he’s had two years to entertain the possibilities, but he knows what it means: his boyfriend's previously-dead, now-brainwashed assassin, killed his parents.

It doesn’t look pretty, but he can’t change the past, and even if he could, he had to let them rest. But he could help Barnes, find him, see how they could help him.

“Tony, I get it if you want to break up,” Steve says, small and scared. His voice breaks halfway through the sentence, and Tony’s hand immediately comes out to cup his face, thumb stroking gently over the bruise on his cheekbone.

“I don’t, Steve, you told me, I’m happy that you did, but I don’t, I don’t want to break up.”

The reaction is immediate, Steve relaxes under his hand and leans more into his touch, “We’re good,” he whispers, mostly to himself over and over, until Tony wraps an arm around him, mindful of his injuries.

“Yeah, baby, we’re good.”

[elejah-verse]

I Can Dream About You/3

Fanfiction

Elijah Mikaelson x reader

Another time...another place... A Rock’n’Roll Fable

AU TVD/TO story

With Klaus Mikaelson, Kol Mikaelson, Caroline Forbes, Rebekah Mikaelson, Stefan Salvatore and others

a/n: I just want to say thanks to everyone liking this story and reading. Love you to bits. xoxo

tags @rissyrapp20 @dendrite-lover @elejahforever

_____

Stefan arrived at the Salvatore Mansion parking his bike in front of the main entrance, together with his biker mate Enzo. The walked inside in their muddy biker boots, smelling of machine oil, not caring about where they now took off their jackets. Lily Salvatore, having heard the bikes pull in got out of the lounge to meet her son.

 "How I've missed you"- the woman now moved to her son giving him a kiss on the cheek, which Stefan let her, just to please her. He didn't like her molly-cuddly ways, so he quickly moved away.

"Can you please put the jackets away- if your father sees them with that sign on the back, you know how furious he would get"- Lily asked in a sweet mellow voice.

The jackets had a black reaper sign at the back with the name of his biker gang- RIPPERS.

"I really don't care if he sees it or not. I am not staying long. I just came to get some stuff"- Stefan walking now up the stairs to his room. 

Lily was now slightly agitated and she hurried after her son, trying now to talk to him to reconsider leaving the family altogether.

"He didn't mean it. You know how furious he gets, but then when he calms down, he sees sense"- Lily said referring to the very heated argument Stefan had with his father Giuseppe the day before, adding-

"Your brother is getting married tomorrow. Will you not be standing as his best man?"

"I am. I promised Damon, and I will do it. But that's the last family thing I will do."- Stefan said.

"Oh, Stefan, why are you so stuborn. See, how Damon changed. He found a good girl, he will start a family- what will happen to you?"

"Come on, mom. Damon is doing this for the money." - Stefan said.

"It's not true. He loves Rebekah."- Lily said.

"Keep telling yourself that."- Stefan shot back at his mother.

Lily's eyes now watered. She could not believe, or accept that her sweet little boy changed so much. She blamed it on the bad company he kept, turning him into, what she considered, bandits. She tried to get him away from the bikers and get him back to be her golden boy. But after having felt the taste of freedom, and not having to live according to his father's rules, there was no turning back. 

So, how did Y/N get involved with the likes of Stefan Salvatore? 

Well, after Elijah left, without  giving her any particular explanation, she went from shellshock mode, into sadness, which transformed into anger and then not caring much. And at that point when she was lingering between anger and not caring  much what will be, she hooked up with Stefan at a New Year's party in the Diner. Which was roughly some six months after Elijah had left. And so they went from seeing one another on occasion, to seeing one another quite frequently. He treated her good when they were together. They had fun. It was nothing heavy, and she didn't want it to be, and neither did Stefan. She swore to herself she would never fall hard for a guy, like she fell for Elijah. 

She was in love with the dapper SEALs marine from the first hello they had exchanged when they met at the Mystic Fall's Lake Fest, nearly four years ago. And it was bliss, even though her parents had reservations about her dating seven year her senior. When they met, Y/N had just turned 18. But since he was the most responsible Mikaelson, they didn't mind. He had already had a rank of commander in the Navy Seals. And he was reconsidering retirement and getting out of the force. But there were not many people like him around, so very capable, honourable and reliable, and the Navy couldn’t  let him go just yet, granting him only free time till further notice. It was unheard of, but in certain occasions, certain operatives got more than some ordinary military officer would get. 

After hellish five years of service as part of the special operative forces, living a life that was strictly about the operations, returning home to Mystic Falls, he plunged into what some would call just a normal life, completely giving himself into all that it offered. He enjoyed the time with his family, his sister and brother. Letting himself fall in love. Same as Y/N, he had fallen hard. The military and his operative life seemed to be a different universe, he had blocked out, as if someone compelled him to do so. 

He had told Y/N bits and pieces of what his military past, but he could not tell her exactly what he was doing and definitely not about the ops. And whenever she would start to ask more questions, he would override the conversations kissing her, or talking about some every days stuff, her stuff- or his family's, like he wanted to completely erase that he was a navy officer. 

"Let's talk about how beautiful this sunset is"- he would say as they sat down at their favourite spot at the pier-"navy life is so boring. We're like robots sometimes, everything is 9:00 this or 15:00 that- I love to watch the colours the sun paints tonight- or - how the rays play out the brown shades of your eyes"- looking at her like no other looked at her before. Kissing her like no other did before, making love to her like no other made before.

And then all was gone one day- just like that. Puff. Only a letter remained and a heart that stopped beating with the love. At least with the love it beat for him. 

At the Mystic Falls Lake, now, Y/N  stopped crying. She looked at herself in the review mirror. Her eyes were all puffed up. 

“No more crying over him. This is done.” - she now put the engine on and drove away from the place. As she got back to the house, she tried to wash it with extremely cold water, hoping to reduce the puffiness. She hated feeling the way she felt. All mushy. But, it could not be helped. The emotions she had bottled up for a very long time now played like someone let million butterflies boxed up loose. She now flashed back at the brief moment earlier as his hands on her arms, him being so near her. She now gulped shivering up inside. 

A knock at the bathroom door, hearing Caroline's voice brought her back to reality. She answered her friend that she would be out in a minute. Y/N now wiped her wet face off with a towel. Running her hands through her hair she took a deep breath, and then got out to meet her friend.

As she got out, Caroline noticed immediately that she had been crying.

“What’s happened?”

Y/N now had to tell her what had happened earlier at the Mystic Lake.

"He went there? Oh! That means he is still hung up on you"- Caroline said enthusiastically.

"And so what if he is. What's the point. He will leave again. Maybe already in a few days when the wedding is done. And I am so stupid to even cry over someone like him. I wish I had never met him."- Y/N said with an angry tone.

"And what if he is not"- Caroline said.

"Please can we talk about something else- like are we going out to the movies."

Caroline was not so happy about Y/N swaying of the subject. She would want to now dissect every detail of the conversation, of the move he made, her friend made, what his facial expression was. And, of course make an elaborative plan how to get the man of her friend’s dream back. But, she understood that Y/N wouldn’t want to rake through her heartache involving this particular man, and she now said somewhat resigned with a huff-

"We can do. Streets of Fire are on. Or rebel without a cause"- Caroline said.

"Streets of Fire"- Y/N chose.

"So- how about the non-bachelorette party?"- Caroline asked-"she didn't invite you even though you are Stefans +1"- by she the blonde meant Rebekah.

"Are you kidding me? She would rather have her head shaved than invite me. And who wants to be with those five fakes anyway"- Y/N now referred to Rebekah's female clique. 

"You're right"- Caroline said.

"Plus, I don't think I will go. He will be there"

"Elijah is her brother, of course he will be there.”

"Exactly"- Y/N said.

"But, you are Stefan's +1"- Caroline stressed out again.

"I can't be around Stefan now. Last night-  when he kissed me and we started - you know- but- when he touched me- I could not be with him. I don't know why- I pushed him away- and he left pissed off-"

"Seriously? Did you really push him away?"

"I did. Told him that I was tired and - never mind. I really have a headache. Can we have a rain check. I really don’t feel like going anywhere.”

"Oh, no. You can't stay at home. It would look like you are pining over him- Elijah I mean. And everyone will be out on the town tonight. It’s the bachelor and bachelorette night of the year I also heard there will be a chickie run tonight. De Martels are organizing it. It's all a hush thing- but everyone who is everyone will be there. You can’t miss this.”

Chickie run or a chicken race was a illegal race thing, where guys test their gall and bravery by taking their cars to the cliff and racing them towards the edge. The first one who jumps out is considered chicken.

Y/N hated such things. And she only went once to it back in High School.

"I am not going there."- Y/N said-"it's such an immature thing to do."

"Right. Movies then"- Caroline said.

"Yes, the movies. Ok. Let me change." - Y/N now went to her wardrobe and started looking at the dresses and sweaters. Finally she got her skinny jeans out and decided to wear a white shirt with it. She put her new red high heel shoes, and wrapped a short red scarf around her neck. Deciding after a while what to do with her hair, she pulled it up in a ponytail.

“Ready”- she said to her friend as she got out of the bathroom, giving herself one more look in the mirror.

_____

Earlier, at the Mikaelson Mansion

After the meeting with Y/N at the Lake, Elijah went directly back to the Mansion.  And straight to their gym, down in the area of the cellar. He took his jacket off- put the boxing gloves on  and got all of his frustration out on the punching bag.

Klaus walked in the gym having been told by the many wedding staff that they saw Elijah go down to it. Elijah was still kicking the soul out of the bag.

"I gather you were with Y/N"-his brother remarked. 

Elijah stopped for a second, sweat dripping down his forehead now looking at Klaus-

"What is it? You don't have to check upon me. I just- I will be fine."

"Sure you will."- Klaus said-"ahm- well, Kol and I are going to the bachelor thing. Well, we are crushing it. Wanna come- you can actually punch the real face out of Stefan Salvatore"

"Not interested. We may not like the Salvatores, but Rebekah does. At least one of them. If he comes to the wedding with a busted lip, she will have your guts for garters."- Elijah now took the boxing gloves off adding-"This is my mess. I left the girl broken hearted. It has nothing to do with him." - Elijah grabbed his jacket now and walked out of the gym. 

Klaus followed him continuing to talk him into going out with them anyway. Maybe he would find someone else. Y/N could not be the only woman, surely, Klaus egged him on to look somewhere else.

"Not for me" Elijah said as they walked upstairs to their bedrooms-"why are you bothered so much about me. How is your love life? Kol tells me you and the bartender got close more than once. Forever playing the field? She seems a sweet woman"

"Camille? Well, yeah, she is sweet. But she doesn't move me"- Klaus said.

"Father will expect grandchildren soon"- Elijah said.

"Are you serious? What I am supposed to put shackles on just because he wants an heir. Rebekah is giving him one"

"But you are the first born"- Elijah now joked at the expense of his brother adding-"you know what he is like. Old school- Rebekah will be a Salvatore tomorrow, so- "

"So, you go and find someone and make him loads of grandkids. You're the marrying kind, which brings me to the point- you were so in love with Y/N, and I know she was crazy about her- how come you didn't ask her?"

Elijah now gave Klaus a serious look-"You're seriously asking me this"

"I am seriously asking you this"- Klaus said.

"Did you not see me the way I was when they got me out of that wretched place? By some strange providence I made it alive. And with my body limbs in tact"

When Elijah was rescued from the Burmese prison, Klaus went with Mikael to the Navy hospital in California where they transported Elijah. They could barely recognize him. He was skinny, malnourished. Had broken arm, leg. Beaten severely and mentally tortured. The op went horribly wrong as one of Elijah's squad was a traitor. Elijah spent more than  a year and a half recovering in California. No one knew about it, except for Klaus and Mikael and they were sworn to secrecy. The real truth was kept from Esther, as well as Kol and Rebekah.

Klaus now just nodded his face serious as well, muttering a sorry.

Elijah hated bringing all of that up and now told his brother that he would go get a shower and joined them a little later. 

All the time in California, he worked hard on his recovery. Mental and physical. All that time, as well as in prison, Y/N was always on his mind and in his heart. The thought of her had made him survive when he thought he would break down completely. Many times, during his recovery he would go to the phone and stand there wanting to make a call. But what could he say. And it would not be fair to her to drag her into his messed up world. She should be free to live a life without difficulties and study. He didn't want to take her away from her studies. Little did he know that she would abandon her pre- med and settle to be a nurse instead.

As he was leaving the Mansion, he caught up with Rebekah, who was going out herself-

"Please, make sure they don't get drunk like skunks. Damon, too. I want a nice day tomorrow. That goes for you, too "

"You have my word Miss Mikaelson"- Elijah saluted the blonde.

"Don't joke, Elijah. I'm serious"- Rebekah slapped him across the arm.

"I'm not joking. That's my mission for the night. I know what they are like"

"Good. I'm so happy you're back."- Rebekah said scampering away as her friends now arrived in a car to pick her up.

Elijah got into his Porsche and drove off as well.

💗💜❤️

The full moon smiled down at everyone that night. The bachelor party as well as the bachelorette party started off as usual. Drinks, dance, strippers appearing in each party. Elijah keeping a watchful eye at his brothers, till the De Martel brothers and friends appeared- crashing the party and causing everyone to  end up on the Mystic Hill on a dare. It was, of course about the Chickie race thing.

No matter how hard Elijah tried to convince Damon and Kol not to get into it, nothing could be achieved.

"You of all people know what honour means. This is not the navy, but I have to keep my honour up there"- Kol spat drunken at his brother.

Klaus, who had a bone to pick with Tristan anyway now said that he would go against him.

In all that craziness, Stefan arrived with his biker mates. Y/N and Caroline followed having heard in the diner about the race taking place.

She was a bit surprised seeing Elijah there, but it was soon clear that he tried to stop all of them involved from doing something stupid. And then, something extraordinary happened. One of Stefan's Ripper biker mates punched Lucian as he spat at the biker about something, which blew into a big punch up. In all the madness now Stefan, who was fuelled earlier by Enzo about how he saw Y/N and Elijah together talking sweetly to one another,  went  to Elijah swinging a punch at him. Elijah gave the biker as good as he got. Seeing what was happening, Y/N could not keep away as she knew this was about her now went to separate them, wedging herself between them- "STOP IT"- "ARE YOU MAD- ENOUGH! "

As both men felt their jaws now looking at each other with raging eyes,  someone shouted that cops were on the way, Stefan looked at Y/N meaning are you coming and she shook her head slightly meaning  a no. He just waved with his hand at her a whatever running away to his bike disappearing in the night with his friends.

Elijah now grabbed Y/N’s hand and they ran to his Porsche, her now shouting at him that she has to get Caroline.

"I saw her get away with Klaus"- Elijah said-”come on. We got to get away”

"Are you sure?"- Y/N asked.

"Yes. Don't worry. He'll take care of her."-Elijah replied.

"Ok"- Y/N said slipping inside Elijah’s Porsche now. Him pressing the gas full on, with the car screeching, they literally flying away from the place into the night.

-to be continued-

[occupyscifi]

The free fyre zone

Incendiary bombs lit up the ruins of the civil war torn city. It lit upon the fort lay grand buildings, reduced to ruin by warring militia groups. It lit up the casinos that had become killing ground and the hotels that had become bombed out shells. It also illuminated a straggling line of hipsters making their shell shocked way to the weed choked outdoor theatre. Once there had been great concerts, when the civil war hadn’t turned tourism into a sick joke. When this had been a desirable place to take a holiday. That the hipsters in their burning man tshirts and faux ironic trustafarian beads didn’t seem to have got the memo was just another hollow irony. They came clutching tickets that promised the concert of a lifetime and an experience like no other. That the experience was likely to be death from a either bullet or cholera was not mentioned. “its…its here right?” asked one boy who had been mugged as soon as he’d stepped out of the perfumed safety of the international airport. Relieved of his passport, his bitcoin e-purse and a fair amount of his innocence he had still doggedly journeyed through the desert heat, past wilted palm trees and rubble piles to the bombed out ruin of the old Hilton hotel. “sure…I guess” said a girl whose face was smeared with soot from the cooking fires that had kept her alive. Best not to ask what she had killed and cooked over it, but it was unlikely to be the organic free range fare that her rich complexion was hitherto used to “its menna be…its menna be….” However words had failed as her spirit had been crushed, the thousands of lolcoin spent on flights and supposed exclusivity to the party of the century. “yeah” said another boy, who had used the last of his e-glass charge to google how to make weapons from the everyday trash left behind by the civil war. He held in his hand a shank made from the remains of a crashed drone cam, downed by some local fighter irritated by network news overflights filming their plight for youtube Epicwarfails videos “stage is down here” he gestured down steps that were pocked with bullets. Beyond there lay an amphitheatre that had clearly been used for executions and had what could be charitably described as a stage. That it was daubed with fundamentalist slogans from one of the more extremist militias did not suggest it was likely to host any international pop acts. “three days…” said the first boy “three days and this…” he sighed in exhaustion. The hundred or so other hipsters, representing a mix of nationalities and ethnicities but all hailing from the richest one percent of the youth demographic were either sitting or wandering about in shellshocked horror. What little light there was came from the few remaining working e-glasses or bespoke antique retro blackberries. The rattle of machine gun fire in the distance and the crump of explosions were now so familiar that the hipsters didn’t even look up. Those that had been fashionably slim before were now unfashionably gaunt, gym trained muscles unused to dealing with the strain of living in a war zone. All of a sudden the last of the lights failed and the amphitheatre was plunged into darkness. The sound of booted feet on the stairs and the whispered crackle of callsigns over radios boded no good at all. The audience all suddenly remembered all the stories their nannies had told them about ISIS and White Pride gangs and what they did to little rich kids when they caught them. “oh my god…” said the girl hysteria in her voice “this is….” “ladies and gentlemen!” boomed a voice from speakers hidden all around them “Freefyremedia entertainment are proud to present – the Beastie Boys!” Spotlights flashed on, illuminating the stage. With a flourish the cloth covered slogans calling for death to blasphemers and heretics fell away to reveal to the now iconic flame logo that had become the byword for ultimate extreme live entertainment. On the stage the cloned and copyrighted heirs to the New York rappers struck a pose. “this first one goes out” cried the cloned Mike D, his DNA reset to License to Ill era youth “to all your crazy mofos who hiked through a goddamn desert war to see us. Make some noise!” “epic!” continued the girl drowned in the sound of people fighting (for their right) to party “absolutely epic!”

The idea to run luxury festival in a warzone had come to Gigi Khan Rodriguez Tesla after the fourth time she had been kidnapped on her Instagram sponsored charity yacht tour of Somalia. “it’s like, you have to give something back” she said, being interviewed on the first day of the Free Fyre festival. Behind her the broken skyline of the city served as the perfect backdrop to her earnest interview. Indeed she had called in her own drone team to demolish a particularly unsightly building that had advertised one of her rivals sponsors “I wanted to both create the ultimate party experience for the spartan race, climate change fighting generation -  and to raise money for kids like these” she gestured to where some local boys - their faces  photogenic in their malnutrition -  lounged adoringly. They were skinny, but not too skinny – that would upset people too much -  and they were dressed in Gigi’s own line of refugeeware tees “I mean, we’ve all done burning man, and Coachella got yawny after the third orgithon” she smiled her perfect smile “when you’ve lived in the bubble of luxury all your life what’s left to experience?” she gestured behind her at a city torn in two by civil strife. Where those left behind feared their own government as much as the roving bands of extreme religious militia. Where the buzz of drones overhead meant either foreign bombs or worse, foreign journalists. “except the real world?” “but Gigi” asked a journalist through a small floating camdrone “what about those who say you’re exploiting these kids for your own gain?” the journalist was not, as might be suspected, talking direct to Gigi. Most journalists from serious publication wouldn’t be able to afford the ticket price to a free fyre zone event. Instead this journalist was skyping from a café in downtown Mumbai “that if anything your events actually cause more instability to the communities they are meant to help, and serve as nothing more than a chance for dumb rich kids to pretend they are facing the real world?” “an excellent question” replied Gigi, who had zoned out slightly during the longer sentences. As a seasoned social media pro she was an expert in the art of multitasking. She had been loltagging her latest set of Instagram pics, hitting the right balance between artistically beautiful shots, perfectly toned flesh and serious photo documentary of ruined buildings that her people told her had historical value. Her lack of attention hardly mattered as there were enough of her paid PR staff to feed her the next lines as she paused to look thoughtful over the heat hazed ruins of the city. One reason to chose this particuatl warzone, the desert climate made it an excellent backdrop to their photos, the sunsets alone were worth the ticket price. “you know, these are people that have lost hope” she said, reading the lines of her e-glasses autocue “They’ve been abandoned by their own government . The international community doesn’t care. The UN doesn’t even bother to send aid anymore. If nothing else we’re making this place cool. And if a place is cool then people will care again. Because of us its trending on social media. People are actually talking about this city. That has to help right?” The journalist wanted to ask another question but has been shunted to the back of the queue. There are other media organs who had paid more money and want to shoehorn in either paid hashtagged phrases or to begin some celebrity faux flame war arranged weeks in advance between Gigi and her carefully curated list of frenemies. “Okay good people!” Shouted Gigi to the crowd. It was the last night of the festival and the renaming in hipsters that had not been airlifted out due to injury, food poisoning or their mummies and ad dies getting scared cheered loudly “we’ve had a great time these last couple of days. We’ve all had a blast – literally” she nodded at the members of the vegan fundamentalist militia who had allowed the hipster to get access to their social cache  of weaponry for just a small extra fee. For even more the audience could choose their own list of targets to be destroyed. All proceeds going to a good cause, of course “but we shouldn’t forget the real reason we’re here, and I’m not talking about your awesome pecs, Bieber junior” at the side of the stage the excellently quaffered but definitely illegitimate child of the singer showed his famous chest. That he had been created without his fathers consent hardly mattered, after all if Beiber senior had wanted to remain childless then he should not have tried to pay off his legal bills with access to his own DNA “no, its all about the good people of this city. Kids like the ones I’ve been speaking to” behind her graphics of more cute kids show, all of them with cute injuries – nothing too disturbing. Research shows that kids with arms missing don’t make people feel anything but sad, and sad doesn’t help anyone “they are the ones that have to live here while we get on with our lives” Gigi does her serous face, it’s one she carefully practices and highlight best the doe eyes her parents paid so much money to have encoded into her genes “so let’s give it up one more time for everyone living in…” there is a pause when Gigi realises she’s forgotten the name of the place. Well all these little shithole desert cities in their failed states all sound the same. Was it Spanish? Latin? Arabic? Didit even matter? “ this great city” there is a roar from the crowd of approval and the noise of elegantly manicured hands that have never known a days work clapping away “and now make some noise for our final act!” With that the lights go down and Gigi exits the stage, grabbing her smart glasses from an assistant. “You said I didn’t need these. Said I looked cleverer without” muttered Gigi angrily “I looked like an asshole instead. Not knowing the name of the place” she pulled on the glasses as behind her the band began one of their most famous numbers. The one from the advert, or the film. Gigi never bothered to remember . It was hummable, that was all that mattered. She climbed into her private APC and the engine coughed into life, driving her out of then city and never looking back. As she passed the edge of the city limits a bullet perforated sign reminded her of the name of the city. “Las vegas!” She said proudly, as the former casino city vanished into the background – now one of many front lines in a bitter civil war “how could I forget?” Behind her the sun set and against the backdrop of a rocket attack Coldplay began their set in earnest. It was going to be epic.

[blakavalon]

Black Avalon 1.06

I managed to avoid the werewolves by getting nudged off my path by a couple fellow Keepers a little worse for drink. Not a safe thing to be anywhere, even here. One of them twisted his fingers just so and I did my best to act affronted. We never got drunk here. Good number of us never drank anywhere, stayed keyed up and alert and ready to fight at all times. Seen too much to do otherwise. Bartender understood, mostly served us even more watered down booze, cut with fizzy drinks, but the other people here could not have known. I stumbled away from the "drunks" using the opportunity to scan the room. A Keeper slipping into an alcove, a couple entering through the main stairs. Tattered flannel on the one, of course, and a shellshocked expression on the other. New blood, as it were.

I orbited towards the alcove, trying at nonchalance. Trying not to catch eyes with the other patrons I weaved around. Mostly, the people here looked human. Mostly. Some of them looked human at first, but started to look like something else if you stared too long. Normal people just found them creepy, I hear. Never saw the fangs, the teeth. The- I sidestepped something thick and moist-looking, trailing from the back of a small, thin woman- tentacles? Alcove led to an unremarkable door, opening into a much-repaired tunnel. Rumor had it, the tunnels leading off from Night City covered miles and miles, a spiderweb of safehouses and sunless travel beneath the bulk of the city. The end of this tunnel wasn’t far off, though. The end of this tunnel was a great, sealed door, shiny and new against the dirt. Leading into the Warrens. Of course, some side doors led to the Keeper’s own, little-used saferooms, but so did most of the paths leading into Night City. I surveyed the faces present. Hatchet, looking uncomfortable holding a flashlight rather than his namesake. The new kids, cleaned up somewhat but still wary. A woman that chose her name, Revolver, who had I had worked with before. Great shot, decent person. Others I knew by reputation or face, if not by name. Finally, Lena, arms folded and scowling. Meeting no one’s eye but the few who stood closest to her. Also scowling. More of us than I’d seen outside of the bar proper in long while.

“So,” Hatchet said. “Notice anything strange, these last few weeks? In the club and out on duty?” We spread out to surround him, give him room to speak in the overcrowded tunnel. He deflated a little when no one answered. Not talkative, us Keepers. Not used to gathering, either. “Hell. Alright, look. Something’s happening. The City’s looking a little empty tonight, right?”

This garnered a few murmurs of agreement. On reflection, a certain element was not present in as much force as I remember. And we were just outside the warrens.

“I asked around a bit,” Hatchet said. “Figured out what the few leeches in the bar knew.” I winced, caught the same expression on some of the others. Made a mental note to talk to them soon. “Which isn’t much.” Hatchet folded his arms and glanced significantly at the vault door. “The ones that are out here are stuck out here. The Warren’s closed off. All entrances. No rhyme, reason, or warning. Something’s not right.”

“Something could have happened to them,” I said. Hatchet’s tone was prickling me. Coupled with Lena’s smug grin, I could feel a bubbling of anger beginning. Best to cut this all off at the pass. “Patrols are getting worse. Routine shit’s been turning life-threatening for weeks. Months. I don’t think we’re suddenly all getting worse at our jobs. Who was supposed to be checking in on the Warrens?” Shift the blame from the victim to the protectors. We are not supposed to be the enemy. Yes, even the vampires. Guardians. Keepers. Not just of our side of humanity.

Silence reigned. A few heads craned to look out over the assembled. Finally, someone spoke. “I think Mayhew- erm. ‘Goggles’ was on it, this time.” The vampires liked to have a new Keeper every quarter. Get to know us, allegedly. I think they just got bored too easily.

“And she’s missing?” I knew Goggles. Good Keeper. Little excitable, but with opinions running closer to mine than, say, Lena’s. Or Hatchet’s, it seemed. You think you know a person. “Try calling her.” We waited in silence as the one who had spoken up dialed her number. Waited. Tried again.

“We need in there,” Hatchet said, with the calm and logistical air of innocent suggestion. Technically, we were allowed wherever we wanted in the underground. In the meeting spaces of the night’s children. Protect and prevent, all that. But it was rude and suspicious to show up uninvited. To show up with half the Keepers in the state, well. That was unprecedented. “If something’s happened…” Hatchet using my concern as a bludgeon. Talk to him later, too. “We need to get in there. Any ideas on how to pop the door without any of our gear?”

Lena, bless her heart, was staring straight at me. “Maybe someone here knows a mage?” Fine. Glad to be out of that tunnel, if only for a moment. Out of the alcove, into- Well. Right into Brae. I bounced off, but Brae hardly noticed. Merely raised a hand in greeting, their mask for the evening a flat mirror shaded by their hood.

“That’s the creepiest one yet, Brae.”

Brae set fingertips near the bottom of the mirror, swept their hand downwards.

“Welcome,” I said. “Look, there’s some kind of problem.” I lowered my voice. “In the Warrens. We need a mage.” But Brae was already past me, moving in silence despite their bulk. Watching everyone back against the wall as Brae passed was more satisfying than it should have been. I think I earned some pettiness, though. I winked at Lena as I passed her and to her credit, her eyes barely narrowed. At the end of the tunnel, the door. It was like a bank vault, spanning the width of the passage, covered in locks, runes. It looked rusted and barely used, but that was part of thee facade. Brae examined it, arms folded. They took some dust from the tunnel floor and threw it at the door. Turned back to us. Turned towards the door. reached a single hand out, a single finger, and gently nudged the door. I almost thought it would swing open. Apparently so did everyone else, judging by the combined sigh of relief when it didn't. I took the shake of Brae's shoulders to be a chuckle. They turned to me again, held a hand over my head as if they were measuring me.

Brae turned to the door and set a finger upon the metal surface once more, tracing out a roughly me-shaped silhouette in the dust. I heard snickers behind me and ignored them. Tried to pay attention to what Brae was doing. From their many coats, the mage took a sphere of glass, and shattered it. It took me a moment to realize, but the tunnel had gone silent. I rapped my knuckles against the wall. Nothing. In my distraction, I didn't quite catch Brae's next trick, but I did notice them straighten up, turn, and sprint like all hell back down the tunnel. There was red rune glowing against the dark of the door, pulsing angrily-

I was half caught up to Brae, feet slapping silently against the floor, when I wondered if the others would figure it out before it went off. No noise to the explosion, just a sudden pressure and a burning fist slamming against my back. I landed sprawled in a pile of dust, dirt, and once the sound returned, complaining Keepers. Looking around, I could tell there was annoyance if not outright anger, and some of the new kids were staring at Brae with open admiration. Maybe they would be more open to the presence of mages than the old set. The fact of Brae standing unscathed amidst the destruction could have set awe into anyone. If not for the open tunnel. A hole blown through six inches of steel, leading into complete darkness- vampires didn’t need to keep the lights on. Only lit a few candles in deference to visitors without their comfort in the dark. Nobody wanted to take the first step. Of course. Lena and Hatchet refused to make eye contact. I looked instead at Brae, who as always seemed to read my mind. Their fingers twisted and an orb of light formed above my shoulder, then theirs. Hatchet flicked on his flashlight and followed us. Not so close as to be in front with us. That would have been foolish, walking unarmed and unprepared into a vampire’s den.

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[blogcompetnetall]

Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid

Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid http://www.nature-business.com/nature-we-need-answers-hurricane-michael-leaves-florida-residents-desperate-for-aid/

Nature

Image

People salvaged supplies from a destroyed business the day after Hurricane Michael made landfall.CreditCreditEric Thayer for The New York Times

PANAMA CITY, Fla. — It was two days after Hurricane Michael, and Eddie Foster was pushing his mother in a wheelchair down a thoroughly smashed street, his face creased with a concentrated dose of the frustration and fear that has afflicted much of the Florida Panhandle since the brutal storm turned its coast to rubble.

He was in a working-class neighborhood called Millville, where many residents said they were becoming desperate for even basic necessities. Mr. Foster, 60, and his 99-year-old mother had no car, no electricity. The food had spoiled in his refrigerator. The storm had ripped off large sections of his roof. He had no working plumbing to flush with. No water to drink. And as of Friday afternoon, he had seen no sign of government help.

“What can I do?” he said. “I’m not angry. I just want some help.”

[Follow live updates on Hurricane Michael’s aftermath]

This was the problem that government officials were racing to solve on Friday, as desperation grew in and around Panama City under a burning sun. Long lines formed for gas and food, and across the battered coastline, those who were poor, trapped and isolated sent out pleas for help.

It would take time to reach everyone. Yet the Panama City area, one of those hit hardest by Hurricane Michael, grew into a whirring hive of activity on Friday, as box trucks, military personnel, and rescue and aid workers flowed in from surrounding counties and states, struggling to fix communications and electrical systems that officials said were almost totally demolished.

The death toll from the Category 4 storm rose to 16, stretching as far north as Virginia, where five people died, and it was expected to climb higher as search-and-rescue crews fanned out through rubble that in some cases spanned entire blocks. The toll also included the potential of millions of dollars in damage to aircraft, which were left behind during the storm at Tyndall Air Force Base.

[Read here: Tyndall Air Force Base a “complete loss.”]

For those waiting for relief supplies or the ability to return to their homes, Brock Long, the Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, counseled patience. “Bottom line, it was one of the most powerful storms the country has seen since 1851,” he said. “It’s going to be a long time before they can get back.”

In Panama City, people pitched in when they could. Some even opened stores that lacked electricity: A Sonny’s barbecue restaurant fired up its smokers in the parking lot, feeding many who gathered in the late morning in a line that was at least 100 grateful residents long.

Image

Volunteers assisted members of the National Guard as they distributed water and food to residents in Quincy, Fla., on Friday.CreditJohnny Milano for The New York Times

But in a city of unusable toilets and iffy cellular service — where nearly every street seemed like a set from a disaster movie — tensions were occasionally high as people waited for their first hot meal since Tuesday night. Before noon, a shouting match broke out between two men waiting for their barbecue plates. “Stop it!” a server admonished them at the top of his lungs. “Now we’re all being kind — got it?”

But the line was also full of hugs and tearful reunions, and across the broken region, residents exhibited selflessness and sweat as they began the long slog of putting it all back together. Crews had been able to clear some of the power lines and fallen trees from the main roads of Panama City, but many other areas were still choked with a riot of debris and limbs. Search-and-rescue teams continued to check neighborhoods in coastal Bay County, and Mark Bowen, the county’s emergency services chief, said that officials had estimates of the dead, but would not release them until the work was done.

“We have missing people, O.K.?” he said. “Are they missing because their loved ones can’t contact them, or are they missing because they perished in the storm? We just don’t know that.”

Shellshocked residents continued to stream from their homes, mostly focused on the first steps of rebuilding — finding help, from government assistance to shelters. But for some, the search proved frustrating: Solid answers were scarce, particularly in remote parts of the Panhandle. Some turned to word of mouth, and that was equally unreliable.

“I just keep looking for steeples and long lines, but I haven’t found much so far,” said Lynette Cordeno, 54, a retired Army sergeant who hoped to find a meal service somewhere. “We are walking around with no internet, no cell service, no way to even ask for help.”

Ms. Cordeno had gathered with others outside the Mr. Mart convenience store in nearby Callaway, one of many stores big and small that were rumored to be opening Friday. Some came barefoot and some in storm-battered cars. They came for room-temperature water and beer, charcoal and candy — and critical information.

“This is the working-class part of town. We didn’t have much before and now we have even less,” said Kevin Deeth, who lives four blocks away in a trailer missing jagged chunks of roof. “Now we need answers so we can try to start over.”

At his home, heaps of clothing and toys, now a sodden mess, are everywhere. Parts of the walls disintegrated, coating the living room like a first snow. Mr. Deeth saved some family photos and his children’s framed school awards, but not much else.

For now, Mr. Deeth, his wife and four school-age children are staying with a friend. He said Friday was his son’s 13th birthday, and then he began to cry.

Video

Emily Basham’s home was destroyed by Hurricane Michael. Now the mother of three is wondering how to start over.Published OnOct. 12, 2018CreditCreditImage by Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“Overwhelmed. I guess that is what you would call it,” he said. “I have no idea what to do,” he said. “I am lost.”

The story and the sentiment were common, and they were not likely to abate soon. Mr. Bowen, the emergency services chief, warned on Friday that the area was in for a bout of “long-term uncomfortable, so people kind of need to get into that mind-set.”

Emergency planning experts said the government had not necessarily fallen short in its response so far.

“This is what disasters look like,” said W. Craig Fugate, a former FEMA chief. “Sit tight, help’s coming, but it’s not going to be there 12 hours after the storm passes.”

Likewise, those knowledgeable about disaster planning dismissed the idea that the rapid intensification of the storm had caught emergency responders off guard. Storm preparations, they said, are mostly driven by the population of a threatened region, not the precise dimensions of a storm.

“Once you get to a certain point in this part of the coast, it’s just going to be bad,” Mr. Fugate said.

Appearing Friday afternoon in Marianna, an inland community, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida said that state officials were “constantly reaching out to see what we can do to be helpful.”

“We have put out fuel, water, food in all of the impacted areas,” the governor said. “Where we can get there by truck, we’re getting there by truck.”

Officials in Panama City insisted throughout the day that crucial short-term help would soon arrive, even though the logistics, given the blocked roads and failed communications systems, were daunting. By afternoon, they had released a list of nine Bay County feeding sites.

Video

Hurricane Michael’s powerful winds and rains swept across six states, killing more than a dozen people, causing flash flooding and leaving at least one million without power.Published OnOct. 12, 2018CreditCreditImage by Gabriella Angotti-Jones/The New York Times

Some local officials were worried about the possibility of social unrest in the areas where the poorest residents had not stocked up with multiple days’ worth of supplies. A short drive from Mr. Foster’s home, looting had been seen Thursday at a half-wrecked dollar store, and while some people came for things they wanted, most had come for things they needed — drinks and food.

On Friday, in a sign of the change that could soon roll out across the city, the store was being guarded by military personnel in a pair of Humvees.

Officials said that the Red Cross and religious volunteers were preparing ambitious feeding programs. The Florida National Guard was moving through neighborhoods with food and water. Soon, officials said, the region would be dotted with canteens and “pods” to allow people to drive up for food and water.

In the meantime, with cell service and internet hovering between spotty and nonexistent, residents navigated the ruined landscape with what scraps of information they could. Charlotte Jordan, 68, said that she heard about the free barbecue from her daughter, who called her from Tampa.

Elsewhere in line, Tracey Simmons, 42, was angrier. “They’re doing us like they did New Orleans,” she said. Ms. Simmons, an educator, said she was worried that poorer residents would eventually be moved out, much as they were after Hurricane Katrina. For the time being, she was frustrated by the complicated game of survival that was playing out.

“We know that people are coming,” she said of relief crews, “but where are they?”

Radio personalities played an important role in filling the gap — for those who had radios. One station broadcast a sort of improvised community bulletin board, reading out listeners’ news of store openings, offers of help, people in trouble, and people exasperated:

“Wayne’s Grocery has ice.”

“In the city of Fountain, Fla., can someone get water and formula to a baby?”

“My grandmother needs her meds and she needs her road cleared.”

“We should sue the cellphone companies.”

“You have to be patient, folks,” the host, Shane Collins, advised at one point. “We have been through a major disaster and it takes time.”

It came as a relief to many when a Sam’s Club opened Friday morning, under the watchful eye of National Guard troops. But like so much here, it was also a pain: On one side of the massive building, a two-hour line of sweaty shoppers pushing empty carts snaked through the parking lot. The shoppers were allowed in about 10 at a time, and had few fresh goods to choose from. Most walked out with cases of bottled water, snack food, and the occasional generator.

On the other side, the line for gas was even longer.

“I’m angry,” said Michael Chism, 30, on his third hour of waiting to fill up. “But there ain’t nothing I can do about it.”

Correction:

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misidentified the hurricane that ravaged towns in the Florida Panhandle this week. It was Hurricane Michael, not Matthew.

Richard Fausset reported from Springfield, Fla., Alan Blinder from Atlanta and Audra D. S. Burch from Panama City, Fla. Christina Caron and Matthew Haag contributed reporting from New York, and Patricia Mazzei from Marianna, Fla.

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

A

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

In Storm-Stricken Florida, Desperate for Necessities

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/12/us/looting-stores-hurricane-michael.html |

Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid, in 2018-10-13 11:41:48

[algarithmblognumber]

Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid

Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid http://www.nature-business.com/nature-we-need-answers-hurricane-michael-leaves-florida-residents-desperate-for-aid/

Nature

Image

People salvaged supplies from a destroyed business the day after Hurricane Michael made landfall.CreditCreditEric Thayer for The New York Times

PANAMA CITY, Fla. — It was two days after Hurricane Michael, and Eddie Foster was pushing his mother in a wheelchair down a thoroughly smashed street, his face creased with a concentrated dose of the frustration and fear that has afflicted much of the Florida Panhandle since the brutal storm turned its coast to rubble.

He was in a working-class neighborhood called Millville, where many residents said they were becoming desperate for even basic necessities. Mr. Foster, 60, and his 99-year-old mother had no car, no electricity. The food had spoiled in his refrigerator. The storm had ripped off large sections of his roof. He had no working plumbing to flush with. No water to drink. And as of Friday afternoon, he had seen no sign of government help.

“What can I do?” he said. “I’m not angry. I just want some help.”

[Follow live updates on Hurricane Michael’s aftermath]

This was the problem that government officials were racing to solve on Friday, as desperation grew in and around Panama City under a burning sun. Long lines formed for gas and food, and across the battered coastline, those who were poor, trapped and isolated sent out pleas for help.

It would take time to reach everyone. Yet the Panama City area, one of those hit hardest by Hurricane Michael, grew into a whirring hive of activity on Friday, as box trucks, military personnel, and rescue and aid workers flowed in from surrounding counties and states, struggling to fix communications and electrical systems that officials said were almost totally demolished.

The death toll from the Category 4 storm rose to 16, stretching as far north as Virginia, where five people died, and it was expected to climb higher as search-and-rescue crews fanned out through rubble that in some cases spanned entire blocks. The toll also included the potential of millions of dollars in damage to aircraft, which were left behind during the storm at Tyndall Air Force Base.

[Read here: Tyndall Air Force Base a “complete loss.”]

For those waiting for relief supplies or the ability to return to their homes, Brock Long, the Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, counseled patience. “Bottom line, it was one of the most powerful storms the country has seen since 1851,” he said. “It’s going to be a long time before they can get back.”

In Panama City, people pitched in when they could. Some even opened stores that lacked electricity: A Sonny’s barbecue restaurant fired up its smokers in the parking lot, feeding many who gathered in the late morning in a line that was at least 100 grateful residents long.

Image

Volunteers assisted members of the National Guard as they distributed water and food to residents in Quincy, Fla., on Friday.CreditJohnny Milano for The New York Times

But in a city of unusable toilets and iffy cellular service — where nearly every street seemed like a set from a disaster movie — tensions were occasionally high as people waited for their first hot meal since Tuesday night. Before noon, a shouting match broke out between two men waiting for their barbecue plates. “Stop it!” a server admonished them at the top of his lungs. “Now we’re all being kind — got it?”

But the line was also full of hugs and tearful reunions, and across the broken region, residents exhibited selflessness and sweat as they began the long slog of putting it all back together. Crews had been able to clear some of the power lines and fallen trees from the main roads of Panama City, but many other areas were still choked with a riot of debris and limbs. Search-and-rescue teams continued to check neighborhoods in coastal Bay County, and Mark Bowen, the county’s emergency services chief, said that officials had estimates of the dead, but would not release them until the work was done.

“We have missing people, O.K.?” he said. “Are they missing because their loved ones can’t contact them, or are they missing because they perished in the storm? We just don’t know that.”

Shellshocked residents continued to stream from their homes, mostly focused on the first steps of rebuilding — finding help, from government assistance to shelters. But for some, the search proved frustrating: Solid answers were scarce, particularly in remote parts of the Panhandle. Some turned to word of mouth, and that was equally unreliable.

“I just keep looking for steeples and long lines, but I haven’t found much so far,” said Lynette Cordeno, 54, a retired Army sergeant who hoped to find a meal service somewhere. “We are walking around with no internet, no cell service, no way to even ask for help.”

Ms. Cordeno had gathered with others outside the Mr. Mart convenience store in nearby Callaway, one of many stores big and small that were rumored to be opening Friday. Some came barefoot and some in storm-battered cars. They came for room-temperature water and beer, charcoal and candy — and critical information.

“This is the working-class part of town. We didn’t have much before and now we have even less,” said Kevin Deeth, who lives four blocks away in a trailer missing jagged chunks of roof. “Now we need answers so we can try to start over.”

At his home, heaps of clothing and toys, now a sodden mess, are everywhere. Parts of the walls disintegrated, coating the living room like a first snow. Mr. Deeth saved some family photos and his children’s framed school awards, but not much else.

For now, Mr. Deeth, his wife and four school-age children are staying with a friend. He said Friday was his son’s 13th birthday, and then he began to cry.

Video

Emily Basham’s home was destroyed by Hurricane Michael. Now the mother of three is wondering how to start over.Published OnOct. 12, 2018CreditCreditImage by Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“Overwhelmed. I guess that is what you would call it,” he said. “I have no idea what to do,” he said. “I am lost.”

The story and the sentiment were common, and they were not likely to abate soon. Mr. Bowen, the emergency services chief, warned on Friday that the area was in for a bout of “long-term uncomfortable, so people kind of need to get into that mind-set.”

Emergency planning experts said the government had not necessarily fallen short in its response so far.

“This is what disasters look like,” said W. Craig Fugate, a former FEMA chief. “Sit tight, help’s coming, but it’s not going to be there 12 hours after the storm passes.”

Likewise, those knowledgeable about disaster planning dismissed the idea that the rapid intensification of the storm had caught emergency responders off guard. Storm preparations, they said, are mostly driven by the population of a threatened region, not the precise dimensions of a storm.

“Once you get to a certain point in this part of the coast, it’s just going to be bad,” Mr. Fugate said.

Appearing Friday afternoon in Marianna, an inland community, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida said that state officials were “constantly reaching out to see what we can do to be helpful.”

“We have put out fuel, water, food in all of the impacted areas,” the governor said. “Where we can get there by truck, we’re getting there by truck.”

Officials in Panama City insisted throughout the day that crucial short-term help would soon arrive, even though the logistics, given the blocked roads and failed communications systems, were daunting. By afternoon, they had released a list of nine Bay County feeding sites.

Video

Hurricane Michael’s powerful winds and rains swept across six states, killing more than a dozen people, causing flash flooding and leaving at least one million without power.Published OnOct. 12, 2018CreditCreditImage by Gabriella Angotti-Jones/The New York Times

Some local officials were worried about the possibility of social unrest in the areas where the poorest residents had not stocked up with multiple days’ worth of supplies. A short drive from Mr. Foster’s home, looting had been seen Thursday at a half-wrecked dollar store, and while some people came for things they wanted, most had come for things they needed — drinks and food.

On Friday, in a sign of the change that could soon roll out across the city, the store was being guarded by military personnel in a pair of Humvees.

Officials said that the Red Cross and religious volunteers were preparing ambitious feeding programs. The Florida National Guard was moving through neighborhoods with food and water. Soon, officials said, the region would be dotted with canteens and “pods” to allow people to drive up for food and water.

In the meantime, with cell service and internet hovering between spotty and nonexistent, residents navigated the ruined landscape with what scraps of information they could. Charlotte Jordan, 68, said that she heard about the free barbecue from her daughter, who called her from Tampa.

Elsewhere in line, Tracey Simmons, 42, was angrier. “They’re doing us like they did New Orleans,” she said. Ms. Simmons, an educator, said she was worried that poorer residents would eventually be moved out, much as they were after Hurricane Katrina. For the time being, she was frustrated by the complicated game of survival that was playing out.

“We know that people are coming,” she said of relief crews, “but where are they?”

Radio personalities played an important role in filling the gap — for those who had radios. One station broadcast a sort of improvised community bulletin board, reading out listeners’ news of store openings, offers of help, people in trouble, and people exasperated:

“Wayne’s Grocery has ice.”

“In the city of Fountain, Fla., can someone get water and formula to a baby?”

“My grandmother needs her meds and she needs her road cleared.”

“We should sue the cellphone companies.”

“You have to be patient, folks,” the host, Shane Collins, advised at one point. “We have been through a major disaster and it takes time.”

It came as a relief to many when a Sam’s Club opened Friday morning, under the watchful eye of National Guard troops. But like so much here, it was also a pain: On one side of the massive building, a two-hour line of sweaty shoppers pushing empty carts snaked through the parking lot. The shoppers were allowed in about 10 at a time, and had few fresh goods to choose from. Most walked out with cases of bottled water, snack food, and the occasional generator.

On the other side, the line for gas was even longer.

“I’m angry,” said Michael Chism, 30, on his third hour of waiting to fill up. “But there ain’t nothing I can do about it.”

Correction:

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misidentified the hurricane that ravaged towns in the Florida Panhandle this week. It was Hurricane Michael, not Matthew.

Richard Fausset reported from Springfield, Fla., Alan Blinder from Atlanta and Audra D. S. Burch from Panama City, Fla. Christina Caron and Matthew Haag contributed reporting from New York, and Patricia Mazzei from Marianna, Fla.

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

A

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

In Storm-Stricken Florida, Desperate for Necessities

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/12/us/looting-stores-hurricane-michael.html |

Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid, in 2018-10-13 11:41:48

[magicwebsitesnet]

Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid

Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid http://www.nature-business.com/nature-we-need-answers-hurricane-michael-leaves-florida-residents-desperate-for-aid/

Nature

Image

People salvaged supplies from a destroyed business the day after Hurricane Michael made landfall.CreditCreditEric Thayer for The New York Times

PANAMA CITY, Fla. — It was two days after Hurricane Michael, and Eddie Foster was pushing his mother in a wheelchair down a thoroughly smashed street, his face creased with a concentrated dose of the frustration and fear that has afflicted much of the Florida Panhandle since the brutal storm turned its coast to rubble.

He was in a working-class neighborhood called Millville, where many residents said they were becoming desperate for even basic necessities. Mr. Foster, 60, and his 99-year-old mother had no car, no electricity. The food had spoiled in his refrigerator. The storm had ripped off large sections of his roof. He had no working plumbing to flush with. No water to drink. And as of Friday afternoon, he had seen no sign of government help.

“What can I do?” he said. “I’m not angry. I just want some help.”

[Follow live updates on Hurricane Michael’s aftermath]

This was the problem that government officials were racing to solve on Friday, as desperation grew in and around Panama City under a burning sun. Long lines formed for gas and food, and across the battered coastline, those who were poor, trapped and isolated sent out pleas for help.

It would take time to reach everyone. Yet the Panama City area, one of those hit hardest by Hurricane Michael, grew into a whirring hive of activity on Friday, as box trucks, military personnel, and rescue and aid workers flowed in from surrounding counties and states, struggling to fix communications and electrical systems that officials said were almost totally demolished.

The death toll from the Category 4 storm rose to 16, stretching as far north as Virginia, where five people died, and it was expected to climb higher as search-and-rescue crews fanned out through rubble that in some cases spanned entire blocks. The toll also included the potential of millions of dollars in damage to aircraft, which were left behind during the storm at Tyndall Air Force Base.

[Read here: Tyndall Air Force Base a “complete loss.”]

For those waiting for relief supplies or the ability to return to their homes, Brock Long, the Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, counseled patience. “Bottom line, it was one of the most powerful storms the country has seen since 1851,” he said. “It’s going to be a long time before they can get back.”

In Panama City, people pitched in when they could. Some even opened stores that lacked electricity: A Sonny’s barbecue restaurant fired up its smokers in the parking lot, feeding many who gathered in the late morning in a line that was at least 100 grateful residents long.

Image

Volunteers assisted members of the National Guard as they distributed water and food to residents in Quincy, Fla., on Friday.CreditJohnny Milano for The New York Times

But in a city of unusable toilets and iffy cellular service — where nearly every street seemed like a set from a disaster movie — tensions were occasionally high as people waited for their first hot meal since Tuesday night. Before noon, a shouting match broke out between two men waiting for their barbecue plates. “Stop it!” a server admonished them at the top of his lungs. “Now we’re all being kind — got it?”

But the line was also full of hugs and tearful reunions, and across the broken region, residents exhibited selflessness and sweat as they began the long slog of putting it all back together. Crews had been able to clear some of the power lines and fallen trees from the main roads of Panama City, but many other areas were still choked with a riot of debris and limbs. Search-and-rescue teams continued to check neighborhoods in coastal Bay County, and Mark Bowen, the county’s emergency services chief, said that officials had estimates of the dead, but would not release them until the work was done.

“We have missing people, O.K.?” he said. “Are they missing because their loved ones can’t contact them, or are they missing because they perished in the storm? We just don’t know that.”

Shellshocked residents continued to stream from their homes, mostly focused on the first steps of rebuilding — finding help, from government assistance to shelters. But for some, the search proved frustrating: Solid answers were scarce, particularly in remote parts of the Panhandle. Some turned to word of mouth, and that was equally unreliable.

“I just keep looking for steeples and long lines, but I haven’t found much so far,” said Lynette Cordeno, 54, a retired Army sergeant who hoped to find a meal service somewhere. “We are walking around with no internet, no cell service, no way to even ask for help.”

Ms. Cordeno had gathered with others outside the Mr. Mart convenience store in nearby Callaway, one of many stores big and small that were rumored to be opening Friday. Some came barefoot and some in storm-battered cars. They came for room-temperature water and beer, charcoal and candy — and critical information.

“This is the working-class part of town. We didn’t have much before and now we have even less,” said Kevin Deeth, who lives four blocks away in a trailer missing jagged chunks of roof. “Now we need answers so we can try to start over.”

At his home, heaps of clothing and toys, now a sodden mess, are everywhere. Parts of the walls disintegrated, coating the living room like a first snow. Mr. Deeth saved some family photos and his children’s framed school awards, but not much else.

For now, Mr. Deeth, his wife and four school-age children are staying with a friend. He said Friday was his son’s 13th birthday, and then he began to cry.

Video

Emily Basham’s home was destroyed by Hurricane Michael. Now the mother of three is wondering how to start over.Published OnOct. 12, 2018CreditCreditImage by Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“Overwhelmed. I guess that is what you would call it,” he said. “I have no idea what to do,” he said. “I am lost.”

The story and the sentiment were common, and they were not likely to abate soon. Mr. Bowen, the emergency services chief, warned on Friday that the area was in for a bout of “long-term uncomfortable, so people kind of need to get into that mind-set.”

Emergency planning experts said the government had not necessarily fallen short in its response so far.

“This is what disasters look like,” said W. Craig Fugate, a former FEMA chief. “Sit tight, help’s coming, but it’s not going to be there 12 hours after the storm passes.”

Likewise, those knowledgeable about disaster planning dismissed the idea that the rapid intensification of the storm had caught emergency responders off guard. Storm preparations, they said, are mostly driven by the population of a threatened region, not the precise dimensions of a storm.

“Once you get to a certain point in this part of the coast, it’s just going to be bad,” Mr. Fugate said.

Appearing Friday afternoon in Marianna, an inland community, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida said that state officials were “constantly reaching out to see what we can do to be helpful.”

“We have put out fuel, water, food in all of the impacted areas,” the governor said. “Where we can get there by truck, we’re getting there by truck.”

Officials in Panama City insisted throughout the day that crucial short-term help would soon arrive, even though the logistics, given the blocked roads and failed communications systems, were daunting. By afternoon, they had released a list of nine Bay County feeding sites.

Video

Hurricane Michael’s powerful winds and rains swept across six states, killing more than a dozen people, causing flash flooding and leaving at least one million without power.Published OnOct. 12, 2018CreditCreditImage by Gabriella Angotti-Jones/The New York Times

Some local officials were worried about the possibility of social unrest in the areas where the poorest residents had not stocked up with multiple days’ worth of supplies. A short drive from Mr. Foster’s home, looting had been seen Thursday at a half-wrecked dollar store, and while some people came for things they wanted, most had come for things they needed — drinks and food.

On Friday, in a sign of the change that could soon roll out across the city, the store was being guarded by military personnel in a pair of Humvees.

Officials said that the Red Cross and religious volunteers were preparing ambitious feeding programs. The Florida National Guard was moving through neighborhoods with food and water. Soon, officials said, the region would be dotted with canteens and “pods” to allow people to drive up for food and water.

In the meantime, with cell service and internet hovering between spotty and nonexistent, residents navigated the ruined landscape with what scraps of information they could. Charlotte Jordan, 68, said that she heard about the free barbecue from her daughter, who called her from Tampa.

Elsewhere in line, Tracey Simmons, 42, was angrier. “They’re doing us like they did New Orleans,” she said. Ms. Simmons, an educator, said she was worried that poorer residents would eventually be moved out, much as they were after Hurricane Katrina. For the time being, she was frustrated by the complicated game of survival that was playing out.

“We know that people are coming,” she said of relief crews, “but where are they?”

Radio personalities played an important role in filling the gap — for those who had radios. One station broadcast a sort of improvised community bulletin board, reading out listeners’ news of store openings, offers of help, people in trouble, and people exasperated:

“Wayne’s Grocery has ice.”

“In the city of Fountain, Fla., can someone get water and formula to a baby?”

“My grandmother needs her meds and she needs her road cleared.”

“We should sue the cellphone companies.”

“You have to be patient, folks,” the host, Shane Collins, advised at one point. “We have been through a major disaster and it takes time.”

It came as a relief to many when a Sam’s Club opened Friday morning, under the watchful eye of National Guard troops. But like so much here, it was also a pain: On one side of the massive building, a two-hour line of sweaty shoppers pushing empty carts snaked through the parking lot. The shoppers were allowed in about 10 at a time, and had few fresh goods to choose from. Most walked out with cases of bottled water, snack food, and the occasional generator.

On the other side, the line for gas was even longer.

“I’m angry,” said Michael Chism, 30, on his third hour of waiting to fill up. “But there ain’t nothing I can do about it.”

Correction:

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misidentified the hurricane that ravaged towns in the Florida Panhandle this week. It was Hurricane Michael, not Matthew.

Richard Fausset reported from Springfield, Fla., Alan Blinder from Atlanta and Audra D. S. Burch from Panama City, Fla. Christina Caron and Matthew Haag contributed reporting from New York, and Patricia Mazzei from Marianna, Fla.

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

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In Storm-Stricken Florida, Desperate for Necessities

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Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid, in 2018-10-13 11:41:48

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Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid

Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid http://www.nature-business.com/nature-we-need-answers-hurricane-michael-leaves-florida-residents-desperate-for-aid/

Nature

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People salvaged supplies from a destroyed business the day after Hurricane Michael made landfall.CreditCreditEric Thayer for The New York Times

PANAMA CITY, Fla. — It was two days after Hurricane Michael, and Eddie Foster was pushing his mother in a wheelchair down a thoroughly smashed street, his face creased with a concentrated dose of the frustration and fear that has afflicted much of the Florida Panhandle since the brutal storm turned its coast to rubble.

He was in a working-class neighborhood called Millville, where many residents said they were becoming desperate for even basic necessities. Mr. Foster, 60, and his 99-year-old mother had no car, no electricity. The food had spoiled in his refrigerator. The storm had ripped off large sections of his roof. He had no working plumbing to flush with. No water to drink. And as of Friday afternoon, he had seen no sign of government help.

“What can I do?” he said. “I’m not angry. I just want some help.”

[Follow live updates on Hurricane Michael’s aftermath]

This was the problem that government officials were racing to solve on Friday, as desperation grew in and around Panama City under a burning sun. Long lines formed for gas and food, and across the battered coastline, those who were poor, trapped and isolated sent out pleas for help.

It would take time to reach everyone. Yet the Panama City area, one of those hit hardest by Hurricane Michael, grew into a whirring hive of activity on Friday, as box trucks, military personnel, and rescue and aid workers flowed in from surrounding counties and states, struggling to fix communications and electrical systems that officials said were almost totally demolished.

The death toll from the Category 4 storm rose to 16, stretching as far north as Virginia, where five people died, and it was expected to climb higher as search-and-rescue crews fanned out through rubble that in some cases spanned entire blocks. The toll also included the potential of millions of dollars in damage to aircraft, which were left behind during the storm at Tyndall Air Force Base.

[Read here: Tyndall Air Force Base a “complete loss.”]

For those waiting for relief supplies or the ability to return to their homes, Brock Long, the Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, counseled patience. “Bottom line, it was one of the most powerful storms the country has seen since 1851,” he said. “It’s going to be a long time before they can get back.”

In Panama City, people pitched in when they could. Some even opened stores that lacked electricity: A Sonny’s barbecue restaurant fired up its smokers in the parking lot, feeding many who gathered in the late morning in a line that was at least 100 grateful residents long.

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Volunteers assisted members of the National Guard as they distributed water and food to residents in Quincy, Fla., on Friday.CreditJohnny Milano for The New York Times

But in a city of unusable toilets and iffy cellular service — where nearly every street seemed like a set from a disaster movie — tensions were occasionally high as people waited for their first hot meal since Tuesday night. Before noon, a shouting match broke out between two men waiting for their barbecue plates. “Stop it!” a server admonished them at the top of his lungs. “Now we’re all being kind — got it?”

But the line was also full of hugs and tearful reunions, and across the broken region, residents exhibited selflessness and sweat as they began the long slog of putting it all back together. Crews had been able to clear some of the power lines and fallen trees from the main roads of Panama City, but many other areas were still choked with a riot of debris and limbs. Search-and-rescue teams continued to check neighborhoods in coastal Bay County, and Mark Bowen, the county’s emergency services chief, said that officials had estimates of the dead, but would not release them until the work was done.

“We have missing people, O.K.?” he said. “Are they missing because their loved ones can’t contact them, or are they missing because they perished in the storm? We just don’t know that.”

Shellshocked residents continued to stream from their homes, mostly focused on the first steps of rebuilding — finding help, from government assistance to shelters. But for some, the search proved frustrating: Solid answers were scarce, particularly in remote parts of the Panhandle. Some turned to word of mouth, and that was equally unreliable.

“I just keep looking for steeples and long lines, but I haven’t found much so far,” said Lynette Cordeno, 54, a retired Army sergeant who hoped to find a meal service somewhere. “We are walking around with no internet, no cell service, no way to even ask for help.”

Ms. Cordeno had gathered with others outside the Mr. Mart convenience store in nearby Callaway, one of many stores big and small that were rumored to be opening Friday. Some came barefoot and some in storm-battered cars. They came for room-temperature water and beer, charcoal and candy — and critical information.

“This is the working-class part of town. We didn’t have much before and now we have even less,” said Kevin Deeth, who lives four blocks away in a trailer missing jagged chunks of roof. “Now we need answers so we can try to start over.”

At his home, heaps of clothing and toys, now a sodden mess, are everywhere. Parts of the walls disintegrated, coating the living room like a first snow. Mr. Deeth saved some family photos and his children’s framed school awards, but not much else.

For now, Mr. Deeth, his wife and four school-age children are staying with a friend. He said Friday was his son’s 13th birthday, and then he began to cry.

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Emily Basham’s home was destroyed by Hurricane Michael. Now the mother of three is wondering how to start over.Published OnOct. 12, 2018CreditCreditImage by Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“Overwhelmed. I guess that is what you would call it,” he said. “I have no idea what to do,” he said. “I am lost.”

The story and the sentiment were common, and they were not likely to abate soon. Mr. Bowen, the emergency services chief, warned on Friday that the area was in for a bout of “long-term uncomfortable, so people kind of need to get into that mind-set.”

Emergency planning experts said the government had not necessarily fallen short in its response so far.

“This is what disasters look like,” said W. Craig Fugate, a former FEMA chief. “Sit tight, help’s coming, but it’s not going to be there 12 hours after the storm passes.”

Likewise, those knowledgeable about disaster planning dismissed the idea that the rapid intensification of the storm had caught emergency responders off guard. Storm preparations, they said, are mostly driven by the population of a threatened region, not the precise dimensions of a storm.

“Once you get to a certain point in this part of the coast, it’s just going to be bad,” Mr. Fugate said.

Appearing Friday afternoon in Marianna, an inland community, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida said that state officials were “constantly reaching out to see what we can do to be helpful.”

“We have put out fuel, water, food in all of the impacted areas,” the governor said. “Where we can get there by truck, we’re getting there by truck.”

Officials in Panama City insisted throughout the day that crucial short-term help would soon arrive, even though the logistics, given the blocked roads and failed communications systems, were daunting. By afternoon, they had released a list of nine Bay County feeding sites.

Video

Hurricane Michael’s powerful winds and rains swept across six states, killing more than a dozen people, causing flash flooding and leaving at least one million without power.Published OnOct. 12, 2018CreditCreditImage by Gabriella Angotti-Jones/The New York Times

Some local officials were worried about the possibility of social unrest in the areas where the poorest residents had not stocked up with multiple days’ worth of supplies. A short drive from Mr. Foster’s home, looting had been seen Thursday at a half-wrecked dollar store, and while some people came for things they wanted, most had come for things they needed — drinks and food.

On Friday, in a sign of the change that could soon roll out across the city, the store was being guarded by military personnel in a pair of Humvees.

Officials said that the Red Cross and religious volunteers were preparing ambitious feeding programs. The Florida National Guard was moving through neighborhoods with food and water. Soon, officials said, the region would be dotted with canteens and “pods” to allow people to drive up for food and water.

In the meantime, with cell service and internet hovering between spotty and nonexistent, residents navigated the ruined landscape with what scraps of information they could. Charlotte Jordan, 68, said that she heard about the free barbecue from her daughter, who called her from Tampa.

Elsewhere in line, Tracey Simmons, 42, was angrier. “They’re doing us like they did New Orleans,” she said. Ms. Simmons, an educator, said she was worried that poorer residents would eventually be moved out, much as they were after Hurricane Katrina. For the time being, she was frustrated by the complicated game of survival that was playing out.

“We know that people are coming,” she said of relief crews, “but where are they?”

Radio personalities played an important role in filling the gap — for those who had radios. One station broadcast a sort of improvised community bulletin board, reading out listeners’ news of store openings, offers of help, people in trouble, and people exasperated:

“Wayne’s Grocery has ice.”

“In the city of Fountain, Fla., can someone get water and formula to a baby?”

“My grandmother needs her meds and she needs her road cleared.”

“We should sue the cellphone companies.”

“You have to be patient, folks,” the host, Shane Collins, advised at one point. “We have been through a major disaster and it takes time.”

It came as a relief to many when a Sam’s Club opened Friday morning, under the watchful eye of National Guard troops. But like so much here, it was also a pain: On one side of the massive building, a two-hour line of sweaty shoppers pushing empty carts snaked through the parking lot. The shoppers were allowed in about 10 at a time, and had few fresh goods to choose from. Most walked out with cases of bottled water, snack food, and the occasional generator.

On the other side, the line for gas was even longer.

“I’m angry,” said Michael Chism, 30, on his third hour of waiting to fill up. “But there ain’t nothing I can do about it.”

Correction:

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misidentified the hurricane that ravaged towns in the Florida Panhandle this week. It was Hurricane Michael, not Matthew.

Richard Fausset reported from Springfield, Fla., Alan Blinder from Atlanta and Audra D. S. Burch from Panama City, Fla. Christina Caron and Matthew Haag contributed reporting from New York, and Patricia Mazzei from Marianna, Fla.

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

A

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

In Storm-Stricken Florida, Desperate for Necessities

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/12/us/looting-stores-hurricane-michael.html |

Nature ‘We Need Answers’: Hurricane Michael Leaves Florida Residents Desperate for Aid, in 2018-10-13 11:41:48