#uk like how the whole plan took a tumble

[unforgivenn]

WOLLEMI DAY 8- TOOK A TUMBLE

CW: Pet whump, young whumpee, coercion, trauma, minor character death, self blaming, manipulation, regret, failed escape attempt, future punishment mention, captivity, psychological distress hehe, false hope

Caleb's heart pounded with adrenaline as he sprinted through the darkened streets, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Somewhat relieved that he had a chance from getting out of Dominic's clutches as he ran towards what he hoped was actual freedom. He tried keeping his mind on positive things. Like how he had totally not drugged his owner and killed one of his guards. Even though it was in self defense. That's what he tried telling himself again and again. Trying not to pass out by seeing the man's blood on his hands.

He felt guilty. How could he do something so.. so selfish? Maybe the man had a wife at home. Hell, maybe even children! The picture of his dead body entered his mind again and he felt like vomiting out all the nauseousness in his stomach. His breath hitched trying to find anyone, anyone that could help him before Dominic's men or god forbid, Dominic himself caught him.

He continued running trying to get out the thoughts about the man out of his head. H-He shouldn't feel guilty. The man had caught Caleb mid escape and tried taking him back to Dominic. In turn, Caleb panicked and threw the thing nearest to him at his head. A vase. A fucking vase. At this point, he probably deserved to get punished by Dominic. Maybe he could just go back. Maybe they didn't notice he was gone yet.

No no. Fuck. That's stupid. They're probably on my tails right now. Lost in his thoughts, he looked ahead. The neon glow of the Police station beckoned like a like a beacon of hope in the night, promising safety and sanctuary from the horrors he had endured. He let out a small cry in happiness, tears fully streaming down his cheeks as he ran towards it.

Caleb burst through the doors of the station, relief flooded through him like a tidal wave. He stumbled forward. Surely they would see the desperation in his eyes and offer him protection from his tormentor.

"P-Please" Caleb pleaded, his voice hoarse and dry. "Y-You have to help me- He's going to kill me- I-"

The officers exchanged glances, their faces etched with sympathy as they guided Caleb to the sitting area shushing him when he mumbled incohorently.

"Take a seat, son." The officer's voice a soothing balm against Caleb's frayed nerves. "We'll do everything we can to help you. Just take a deep breath and tell us what happened."

Caleb's hands trembled as he recounted the horrors he had endured at the hands of Dominic, his words tumbling out in a rush of fear and desperation. Failing, to put all his thoughts in words. "H-He- I-" He stumbled over his words.

The officer sighed putting a calming hand on his back. "Calm down. You're going to be alright. You can tell us what happened later alright?" Caleb gave a small nod holding his head between his hands before he suddenly looked up at the officer.

"I- I killed a-a man. I'm murderer.." His breath hitched, the officer just simply shook his head.

"Try breathing. In and out. You're not a murderer son. I believe that was simply because of the situation that you were forced to." Caleb felt somewhat relieved at his words, maybe.. no he would definately be okay now. Dominic can't hurt him here.

After only a few minutes, the door to the station creaked open making Caleb's head snap towards the source of the sound.

"Oh kitty.. Looks like you've got yourself in quite the predicament." Dominic's voice dripped with both amusement and disappointment.

Caleb's breath caught in his throat, failing to form words. He took a step back until his back hit at one of the officer's chest. "P-Please h-he- Y-You have to help me-" The color drained from his face as they greeted Dominic with smiles, pushing Caleb towards him.

"No!! No please! H-He'll hurt me! No!" Caleb was thrown towards Dominic who just held him as if he was nothing but a mere ragdoll. Caleb's heart sank like a stone as he choked on a sob—Dominic's influence extended even into the hallowed halls of law enforcement.

Caleb couldn't do anything but sob. So he did that. He sobbed as Dominic dragged him back to the car. As the guards threw him in the basement. As Dominic came towards him to punish him for causing him trouble. Because he knew that he could never get away from him. In that moment, the hope drained from his eyes, leaving behind only the resignation to his fate. The plan definately took a tumble.

[itsbeaconhillsbaby]

octopus hearts || tom holland x reader

a/n: how do my intended blurbs turn out so long! god dammit. this idea popped into my head, so I hope you all like it. as always thank you so much for supporting; liking, reblogging, commenting or messaging me about any of my work. I love interacting with you guys and I plan to try and be more of a presence in general, not just with writing. come chat! hope you’re all well x  word count: 1638 warning: none...I think everything I write is pretty tame summary: it’s about time you and tom extended your little family 

“You do know she’s only young...” “And? What’s your point?” “The point is, you’ve managed to find the biggest toy in this whole place!” Tom turns to you, cradling two sacks of dry food to his chest, muscles straining slightly against his t-shirt. In his free hand was a large fluffy purple octopus - all 8 legs dangling centimetres off the ground. You’re both stood in front of the full aisle of toys, picking out your favourites for your new arrival. “She’ll grow! Plus look at it...she’ll love it.” He holds up the toy until it’s eye level with you, its stitched mouth looking at you almost mockingly. You roll your eyes, smiling at Tom’s pleading face, his bottom lip curling upwards into a pout. “Okay, it is cute. But that’s the last one Tom, we don’t even know if she’ll like them yet.” Tom grinned cheekily, slipping the toy into the growing basket you were holding, planting a sloppy thank you kiss onto your cheek as he did so. You laughed as he fist pumped the air before continuing your way through the aisles. The excitement was building, the whole situation becoming more and more real, as you searched for the necessary items.

//// “No peeking!”

If you could’ve rolled your eyes, you would have. You had been sat in the car for around 15 minutes, with your eyes closed and your hands covering your face.

Tom had finally wrapped his latest film in the US, and you had spent the past three days in-between your classes ‘reuniting’ – neither of you surfacing from your shared bedroom unless you were forced to do so. You had assumed Tom had met up with the boys, gone down to his local or played golf during your class time and were therefore extremely confused as to why he suddenly woke up one morning, bribed you to get dressed and dragged you out of the house, only to beg you to keep your eyes closed as soon as you got into the car.

“I’m not sure I like this surprise Tom, where the hell are we going?”

“We’re almost there, you’re going to love it! I promise.”

You felt the car come to a halt, gravel crunching beneath the tyres.

“Stay here one sec.” You heard Tom’s car door slam shut, and soon enough you felt the cold air as yours opened.

He guided you out of the car, allowing you to use him for balance as you struggled to get your bearings, eyes remaining closed the entire time.

“Okay. You can open them.”

You slowly opened them, blinking confused as you looked at a grey building. you eyed tom from the side, seeing his cheeky grin lighting up his entire face before you turned back to the building. It was then that you noticed the sign.

You were at your local dog rescue shelter.

“Tom…what are we doing here?” You fully turn to face him, eyes widening in both excitement and shock.

“Well we’ve lived together for over a year now and I know we said it wasn’t possible. But with this new film, they’re looking at a franchise and it’s an entirely UK based production, so I’ll be here, and I don’t know – you’re graduating soon, I’ve looked into dog sitters and walkers for during the day. My family can help ou-”

You interrupt him mid-sentence, arms wrapping around his neck and shoulders as you pull him towards you, eyes fluttering closed as you kissed him. Your entire stomach erupted into fluttering butterflies at all the thought behind the surprise, at the idea that Tom was genuinely just as excited about adding to your little family as you were.

You push back suddenly, “This is actually happening right now? You’re not messing me around? Because that would be a mean prank…”

“No,” he grins, laughing. You felt his breath tickle your cheek, “it’s all real. Now c’mon, we’re going to be late for our doggy date.”

He tucks you into his side, arm wrapped around you as you head into the building, your stomach doing somersaults the entire time.

////

Your phone buzzed, lighting up next to your laptop. You were in your university library, researching titles of books you needed for your dissertation when a text from Tom popped up:

eta 10 minutes x

You immediately took note of the last couple books on your list, before closing your laptop and stuffing it into your bag. You grabbed the pile of books you’d already collected into your arms before checking them out at the front desk, heading immediately for the nearest train station.

You made it home in record time.

As you unlocked the front door you could hear the pitter patter of tiny feet on the wooden floor. Placing your bag and books on the entry table, you let your keys fall into the bowl alongside Tom’s.

“Hey baby. In here.”

You peeked around the corner into the living room where Tom was lying stretched out on his side in the centre of the room. Holding his head up with his palm, he held up a soft crinkly toy as your new little ball of golden fluff jumped on her hind legs in her attempts to reach it.

“We’re bonding,” he murmured, lifting his head to look up at you, “come join us.”

The little puppy was all legs and floppy ears as she caught her toy and bounced across the room, tripping over it as she tried to hold it up. She paused as you entered, her head tilting dramatically from left to right, her toy immediately laying discarded as she tumbled towards you.

“Hey puppy! Hi Nala.” You kneel down, letting her sniff you to remind herself of who you were, before she wiggled onto her back, paws in the air as you gave her belly rubs. Her white and golden tail thumping on the wooden floorboards.

“Oh my god Tom, I can’t believe she’s here!” He sits up, grinning from ear to ear. He rolls one of the balls next to him and you both watch as Nala bounces after it, attention immediately grabbed. You shuffle towards him, placing yourself in his lap, “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Did she cope with the journey okay?”

Tom winds his arms around your stomach, “She was a star. She’s great in the car, didn’t even cry.”

You nod as he begins peppering kisses on your collarbone, as you watch your new puppy continue to explore her new home.

Your eyes are immediately drawn to one of the discarded toys, the giant octopus that was taking up a scary amount of room on the floor. You roll your head towards your boyfriend smirking slightly, “I take it she didn’t like it?”

He whines quietly, huffing, “So she might have run away from it, I think it freaked her out…” you laugh, tangling a hand into his hair as you pull him towards you, before you hear a noise that causes you both to dart your heads up in search of the destructive sound.

“Oh, fantastic so she’s hates my choice in toys, and she’s a cockblock,” Tom mutters as you stifle a giggle, immediately hurrying after your little pup.

////

You were laying on the couch, Tom’s chest pressed to your back. Nala had completely passed out, lying half in her crate, and half out of it and you couldn’t take your eyes off of her.

“Well, I think that was relatively successful,” you murmur.

“You would think that, it wasn’t your shoe laces that she chewed up,” Tom murmured from behind you.

You’d both had a tiring day with Nala. Once she got bored of playing with her toys, she immediately decided that running outside with Tom’s shoe and hiding under one of the bushes just out of reach would be far more exciting.

“You can’t get mad at her, look at her little face.” You sigh, officially completely head over heels in love, “I can’t believe someone would just dump her, she’s gorgeous.”

You felt Tom brushing a hand up you side absentmindedly as he nodded, “I know. They think she was bought as a christmas present, and then abandoned a couple weeks later.”

“We’re going to give her so much love. And I can’t wait to introduce her to Tess. You think they’ll be friends?” You grasp the fingers trailing up your arm and bring them closer round you, interlocking yours with his.

“For sure...best of friends.” He says as you snuggle further down against Tom, his arms tightening around you as you both relax against each other.

The pair of you let Nala recharge her batteries, diving into an episode of the latest show you had been watching together when you jump with a small gasp at the startling movement beneath you, as Tom sat himself up.

“Oh my god, look!”

You take a glance at Nala. she’d shifted herself in her sleep so instead of laying on the cushioned dog bed and blankets that were in her crate, she’d shimmied out and lay flat out against the giant octopus. Paws tangled with the soft legs of the toy as her head rested on its fluffy body, her pink tongue lolling to one side.

“Yes!” Tom cheered, Nala’s eyes immediately opening from the noise, “I knew she’d love it! Watch this space, Oscar the octopus is going to be her favourite.” He jumped off the couch and hunkered down next to her.

“Wait…do not tell me you named it?”

You took in the man in front of you, lying on his front playing with the pads of Nala’s paws and felt your cheeks begin to ache slightly from the smile on your face.

“Who’s clever! Yes Nala, clever girl.”

You took in your dorky little family, sliding off the couch to join them. The perfect little family of three. 

[panicinart]

A nanny to replace with someone new part 1

Brahms x transman/transmasc reader

Please take my writing privilege away when it's past midnight

There arnt any trigger warnings here and at the moment no gendered words or pronouns is used! I guess there is a bit of queer coding(???) if you squint but nothing to serious or specific

Your phone vibrated with a new message send to you. Scrambling it out of your pants with hasty and shaking fingers while the other hand tryd it's best to not let the travel suitcases fall on the floor. Giving it a quick glance your lips curled into a smile, it was your best friend asking how the flight into the UK was.

So you gave her a quick message on how you got the worst seat imaginable. The guy next to you constantly gave you weird glances, he tryd to be sneaky about it, looking at your way when he thought you were asleep or occupied with something else. The smell that receded from him wasn't pleasant either, betting your left arm that he didn't shower for at least 3 weeks straight.

A few seats away was a couple that constantly started a loud argument with each other about the most random and unimportant things imaginable. When the fly attended tryd to calm them down the whole scenario got even more chaotic, making a kid that was another few seats away cry loudly. You would feel bad for the child if it wasn't for your enormous migraine building up. The only good thing out of the situation was when a bag of salted snacks got accedntly thrown to your way, giving you a free extra snack.

As you clicked send an announcement made it's self know with loud static noises. The train had a one hour delay. At this point your nerves were on edge. With a heavy sigh you walked out of the airport to the underground, at least there was now some time to look at the airport stores. Buying a few snacks here and there and seeing the cute souvenirs lighten up your mood a bit, and you even found a pharmacy!

Munching at your last chocolate bar and swallowing the pill for your migraine as you clumsily walked down the stairs to the subway, you eyes skimmed for a clock, and there it was, old and a bit rusty but it worked just fine showing that it's currently 7:43 pm.

'20 more minutes'

you thought, as you gave it a quick glance with a groggy look,

'Might as well give her a quick text'

•hey,sophie the train has a delay probably will come in like an hour late if everything goes well.

It took a few minutes until she texted you back

▪︎Yea I already thought that, can't have shit in public transport >:/

•yea,,, so,,, how is the babysitting going? Is the kid as bad as the last one you took care of???

▪︎Nope! How should it when it's a doll :)

•....

....

....

a what???

▪︎A doll! It's one of those weird porcelain ones that look like a small child. It's even live sized! I was already weirded out that a couple this old would have small children of their own but that? A whole new level of weird

•,,,,what are you doing with it????

does it just hang around or do you actually take care of it??

As you waited for an answer another announcement was made, the train that should come in now 15 minutes should be here earlier.

You would have made a small victorious smile if the question didn't come crashing down like an avalanche.

Why do they keep it? Why do they need a babysitter when it's just a doll? Why is it live sized? And most importantly, how in the fresh fuck did they managed to let the train come earlier the thought. While being lost in your mind with questions your phone took you back into reality when it vibrated.

▪︎Nope! I just let it sit in the corner, sometimes I put a towel or blanket over it. It's stare is really fucking creepy....

•oh,,, so free money I guess, pretty cool.

hey sophie what was the name of the family??

Something with shire right??

Chestershire??

▪︎Heelshire, why do you ask?

•just out of curiosity, maeby there is an article about them and the doll.

i mean they are a well know family so I can imagine there is something out there about them. also my train is coming later then planned.

they made an announcement that it should come earlier the thought but,,, I think I won't come over today for the sleepover, I'm just too tired, sorry for the late cancelation

▪︎It's fine (Y/N)! You had a shitty flight so I can understand that! So we see us tomorrow :) ?

•ye

▪︎Awesome, can't wait to show you the creepy doll!

And with that the chat ended, your train already making a big entrance with the loud hald of it's heavy metallic wheels.

You took the suitcase back into your hands and tumbled your way into the train.

Looking around, you accepted defeat that there was no seat left for you, your mood slowly dipping from tired annoyance to about to having a small fit. But that wouldn't help your progress, so you swallowed your anger down and leaned to one of the metallic poles. Wobbling a bit from left to right and needing to catch your suitcase to not let it roll over a passengers feet as the train started moving again.

You grabbed your phone, hesitating for a bit

'Do I really want to know what the fuck is going on or???'

You just shrugged your shoulders and gave it a go, the heelshire family is a rich pompous family you're sure there is something about them on the internet.

Aaaaand you were right, it didn't even took a second when hundreds of articles pooped up with dramatic headlines.

Terrible fire at the Heelshire mansion

Mysterious fire in Heelshire property

Heelshire, how their live turned quickly into a nightmare

These were the few that caught your interest.

You gave the articles quick reads, your tired eyes switching between almost falling shut from tiredness and going wide at the gruesome details on the tragedy.

Well that gives you a few indications on why they keep it.

'It's probably some kind of coping mechanism....'

You don't really see yourself as someone who's heart gets torn apart everytime you hear a sad and tragic story, but you still can't shake the heaviness off it all, a family losing their only child in an enormous fire that up to this day nobody knows were it came from.

Too keep your mind off the whole thing you looked outside, still having a bitter expression of the new info as you admired the houses.

It looks like your heading towards a more suburban area, making it look like one of your old English telenovela that you watch every now and then.

As the sun slowly goes down and engulfing the area in beautiful colors was quite a bit breathtaking, infact so breathtaking that you almost missed your station.

In a moment of panic you pushed yourself out of the train almost dropping a few things in it, but luckily you had everything with you.

With lazy steps towards a billboard your eyes scanned the map for the area, the bus stop wasn't far away, just a few minutes walk, but your heavy arms slowly giving up and your feet starting to hurt didn't really help.

You got your headphones out in hopes that listening to your favorite music makes the whole thing a bit more bearable.

Even tho it was just a tiny bit left until you arrived at your destination, somehow everything went wrong one way or another. You almost missed the bus and then one of it's tire pooped, making you wait for the next one that came in like half an hour.

Then one of your water bottles wasn't closed properly making some of your stuff soaked in it, destroying your notes, drawings and a few comics you had with you in the process.

When you arrived in the small but cozy hotel a woman had a giant fight with the manager. One of her kids didn't stop bothering you with weird and uncomfortable questions about your appearance. While the other didn't keep their grabby hands off of you. Then when she finally finished her rant on how the room service didn't left a small piece of chocolate for her children like always, she had the audacity to give you a 'tch' when she walked passed you with a slightly disgusted expression. The manager and her assistant apologized for the inconvenience and offerd you some candy as a sorry gift for the inconvenience, you don't want to sound like a glutton, but it did make you forget about the whole thing for a bit.

Finally you managed to get your keys. On the way to your room you almost dropped all your stuff becoming a clumsy mess that just wants to sleep.

As you opend the door impatiently you more or less threw your stuff on the chairs and floor quickly unpacked your pajamas and hastily puting them on. Dropping your body on the softest bed you ever were able to sleep in like a rock. To say that you were happy to finally be here is taking things way to lighty. With a happy sigh you closed you eyes for the well deserving sleep.

[darkestwolfx]

Legacy - Re-Review #26

We’ve made it! The end of Series 1 is here!

“This is so not good.”

Yeah, I’m with you Gordon.

Because with the end of series one here, of course, so is The Hood. You can’t have a series finale without your series villain. Wouldn’t it be disastrous if this image was how it all ended? Yeah, no thank you. Still, it has to be said that his timing has not improved - because, excuse me Hood, but you don’t interrupt a girl when she’s trying to tell her family something really important! Seriously, this family hardly ever get the time they should together and he interrupts them for a trick? I’m not even going to mention how well planned and thought out it was because I don’t want to be giving the villain credit, but damn he is intelligent.

"Next time.”

“I just hope I’m not too late.”

“Me too.”

And of course we all know that means that it will be. I also love how right from the start in ‘Ring of Fire’, Grandma has been shown to know the truth. She’s a good secret keeper.

Legacy - good title for many reasons. International Rescue was always seen and implied to be Jeff’s legacy, so it makes complete sense.

“It’s like the perfect storm of emergencies all across the globe.”

Of course it is. Because The Hood is actually a good, but ultimately bad, villain!

And look at Grandma back in the main seat and helping out.

“And I’ll take over monitor duty!”

She sounded so happy with that option.

That Island launch for Thunderbird Four though... I have been waiting to see that for a long, long time. It kind of tributes to TOS ‘Terror in New York City’ which saw the only island launch of T4. I know (now of course, but I didn’t know it then), that we will see this launch procedure a few more times, but this first instance made me so, so happy!

And that launch montage that went with it was perfection.

“Everything is RAD.”

“RAD?”

“That’s my new catch phrase..?”

“Alright then.”

But let’s all be honest, everything is not RAD, or even FAB.

No, there’s trouble ahead!

“Tracy Island has been compromised!”

Kayo realised it, which is probably the lifesaving fact of this episode, because else it might have taken Lady P some time to realise and who knows what trouble The Hood could have caused (beyond what he does get away with anyway). Seriously though, this should have been a little expected from ‘Ring of Fire’. Apparently The Hood is good at making explosive devises.

“Scott, I’m back on the Island, we have a situation.”

“You’re not the only one. I’m looking at some kind of explosive devise.”

“Me too.”

“Same here.”

“It’s all of us.”

“You were right about us being tricked, Kayo.”

“That’s not our only problem. Tracy Island has a visitor.”

“Nice view. I think I’ll take it.”

Ur... Mr Hood... You are aware that this isn’t Homes under the Hammer or Escape to the Country or anything like that right? This is Thunderbirds Are Go - which kinda means the Island isn’t on the market.

“You lured every one of us into a trap.”

“And yet only you were able to see through it.”

Yep, family, I’m calling it - and I’ll explain my thinking on it later on in the review.

“When it comes to family, I’m a man of my word.”

I’m sure he is. Well, actually I think he could be. I think that could be the one honest quote The Hood has ever given us. After all, he did save Kayo’s life in ‘Touch and Go’ and he didn’t have to.

“It’s funny how our lives took such different paths. You on a fool’s mission to save the world. And me-”

“Bent on destroying it?”

“Hardly. I want to build. Create. Sometimes that means starting with a clean slate.”

See now that is the sort of brilliant back story hints I’m also going to talk about a bit later! I really wish they’d continued to the end. And let’s just ignore The Hood’s little bit of poetry in that last line. I don’t think he realised that create and slate rhymed... If he did, maybe he’s in the wrong business.

“Execute WASP protocol Alpha.”

That’s another nice reference to TOS backstory considering Gordon worked for WASP.

“I am not amused, Kayo! What have you done?”

Turned into Queen Victoria (apparently) have you now, Hood?

Hmm... anyone see the resemblance..? Because I don’t.

“You have to trust me.”

“Trust? Would he trust you knowing the kind of secrets you’ve been keeping?”

Here we go.

“What’s he talking about.”

“She’s been working for me the whole time.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Is it? And would I be lying when I tell them I’m your Uncle?”

“Kayo, is this true?”

“Yes, it’s true. The Hood is my uncle.”

“The Hood is your uncle? The same evil mastermind responsible for us losing Dad?”

Yes and yes, Gordon. But let’s see in the end we do know about most families that blood is thicker and water, and that family can always be the one we chose, not the one we have by strict genetics.

“There’s only one question we need to be asking ourselves now. What would Dad do?”

Well your Dad knew and still kept her as part of the family so... Yeah, I think they come to the right decision channeling their Father. After all, The Hood was responsible for them losing Jeff, Kayo played no part in that.

I’d also like to say that Grandma and MAX have a pretty good apprehension plan;

“You two look hungry.”

Cue tray of burnt cookies... yeah, I’d rather them than us.

Look at this team of brother’s. They’re unstoppable at the best of times, but we actually forget about a lot of the ground work that Kayo does which is what actually allows these boys to swoop in and be the heroes.

Yes, they probably would have coped, but had they not turned up, I’m pretty sure Kayo still would have had a back-up plan to make sure The Hood didn’t get away. In fact, we should remember that the boys being able to be here to stop The Hood was essentially also part of Kayo’s (hoped) plan.

International Rescue may not be in the “bad guy chasing business” unless they’re making “exceptions”, but the fact is that Kayo, like a shadow (much like the deserved name of her Thunderbird), is always looking out for them even when we don’t necessarily see it. The fact is that her knowing The Hood as her Uncle probably made her know him better. There is a proven statistic that you are more likely to die at the hand of someone that you know. It is also proven that you are more likely to be able to survive at the hands of someone you know - because you know them well enough to either be able to predict or manipulate what they will do.

Kayo may not live with The Hood and she may not accept him as her family, but the fact is, she still knows he lives and thrives off manipulation and mind tricks, and she reflects those right back at him in getting him to think he is gaining and then blowing up Tracy Island. Throwing his own tricks right back at him... pretty successful plan I’d say.

The Hood’s face as they break apart his ship! That was well warranted though in my opinion, and really if we look back at The Hood’s history of escape attempts in TOS we should have known they’d catch up with him in TAG eventually. I mean (warning: big TOS spoilers ahead), we had;

A plane crash [into a building] (’Martian Invasion’)

Car tumbling into a river (’The Edge of Impact’)

Flooded, crashed and exploded submarine (’Desperate Intruder’)

Car falling off a crumbling cliff side (’Cry Wolf’)

Car shot at, set alight, and tumbling over a cliff (’Trapped in the Sky’)

But crucially, he always survived them all - even though I personally think the events of ‘Trapped in the Sky’ and ‘Martian Invasion’ had very slim chances of survival. On the other hand, in ‘Cry Wolf’ he got lucky to be caught on the cliff side and so not in the upturned car - which is actually highly probably in cliff side car falls, because clothes snag on rock and vine (although injuries are usually major, like internal bleeding or debris puncture wounds). But from all that Scott could see it did look highly probable that he couldn’t have survived;

“He couldn’t have stood a chance. Well I guess that’s the last crooked game you’ll ever play.” (Scott, ‘Cry Wolf’)

In fact, out of the six episodes in which The Hood was the main villain, he only made a clean getaway in ‘The Mighty Atom’ and the others - in most real life cases - would have resulted in series injury and/or death. So we should have expected his clean getaways in TAG - ‘Crosscut’, ‘Fireflash’, ‘Unplugged’, ‘Under Pressure’, ‘Touch and Go’ - would eventually come to an end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9pq-4ojxFA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXokXzofNjs

Back when TAG first aired, it was kinda rumoured that Amazon had funded more series’, so I kinda knew The Hood would probably be back in some way, shape or form, but re-watching it again now, I can see all the clues in the animation of how The Hood takes his defeat.

For all the ‘scooby-doo’ moments of-

“Curse those stupid boys, curse their stupid father, curse International Rescue!” (’Cry Wolf’)

As a side note I could go on here about how disappointed i was with TAG’s backstory on The Hood, especially considering this implication and all the one’s they gave us prior, but I’m actually going to do that (and the rest of this) in a separate post, so keep your eyes open.

-along with a miraculous escape which they gave us in TOS, in this it’s defeat taken quietly in the end and that gave everything away; no villain of The Hood’s caliber would go quietly. Not to mention, we know he’s smart and has some serious tech, for we saw him get into a GDF jail to see Janus in ‘Chain of Command’. No cell can hold him and now we’re ready for series 2.

And to end with, this soundtrack is legendary - and not just for the CD cover - I completely recommend it!

By the way, as a complete side note, has anyone else (in the UK at least) noticed all the TV glitches lately? Little coloured lines and patches jumping across the screen or scenes pushing and then skipping ahead a couple seconds? I ask just out of pure interest!

[newstfionline]

Saturday, January 16, 2021

Hot again: 2020 sets yet another global temperature record (AP) Earth’s rising fever hit or neared record hot temperature levels in 2020, global weather groups reported Thursday. While NASA and a couple of other measurement groups said 2020 passed or essentially tied 2016 as the hottest year on record, more agencies, including the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, said last year came in a close second or third. The differences in rankings mostly turned on how scientists accounted for data gaps in the Arctic, which is warming faster than the rest of the globe. All the monitoring agencies agree the six warmest years on record have been the six years since 2015. The 10 warmest have all occurred since 2005. Temperatures the last six or seven years “really hint at an acceleration in the rise of global temperatures,” said Russ Vose, analysis branch chief at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

A siege on the U.S. Capitol, a strike against democracy worldwide (Washington Post) As the Trump administration sought to drive Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro from power, activist Jorge Barragán embraced the effort as the good and moral crusade of the world’s greatest democracy. Then came the siege on the U.S. Capitol. The 22-year-old student activist watched “in shock” from his hometown in western Venezuela last week as a mob inspired by President Trump invaded Congress to attempt to overturn an election loss. Barragán could not pull away from the YouTube images showing the pro-Trump marauders acting very much like Maduro’s colectivos—the extraofficial thugs that keep opponents in check and a dictator in charge. “Our main ally in the fight for democracy has tumbled,” Barragán said. “What does that mean for us?” Four years of Trump had already dimmed the United States’ democratic bona fides. From Egypt to Honduras to Saudi Arabia to North Korea, Trump signaled tolerance for human rights abuses. Analysts now warn of a herculean task ahead for Biden. Global inequality, historic migration and deep polarization have driven satisfaction with democracy to disturbing lows. Biden could be weakened by the millions of Trump voters who still say his victory was illegitimate. Meanwhile, any attempt to preach the rule of law to [other nations] could draw calls to get his own house in order first.

Biden Outlines $1.9 Trillion Spending Package to Combat Virus and Downturn (NYT) President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Thursday proposed a $1.9 trillion rescue package to combat the economic downturn and the Covid-19 crisis, outlining the type of sweeping aid that Democrats have demanded for months and signaling the shift in the federal government’s pandemic response as Mr. Biden prepares to take office. The package includes more than $400 billion to combat the pandemic directly, including money to accelerate vaccine deployment and to safely reopen most schools within 100 days. Another $350 billion would help state and local governments bridge budget shortfalls, while the plan would also include $1,400 direct payments to individuals, more generous unemployment benefits, federally mandated paid leave for workers and large subsidies for child care costs. It is unclear how easily Mr. Biden can secure enough votes for a plan of such ambition and expense, especially in the Senate.

Mexico declines to prosecute ex-Defense Minister Cienfuegos on drug charges (Washington Post) Three months after Mexico’s former defense minister was arrested in Los Angeles on drug-trafficking charges—a shocking move that would strain U.S.-Mexican relations—the case came to a close on Thursday night, after Mexican authorities decided not to pursue charges against Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos. The U.S. Justice Department had initially billed the case against Cienfuegos as a blockbuster. The retired military leader was arrested on Oct. 15 on arrival at the Los Angeles airport on charges he had helped the H-2 cartel send thousands of kilos of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines to the United States. But weeks later, after intense pressure from the Mexican government, the Justice Department made the highly unusual decision to drop the charges and send him home for investigation. The case illustrated the power of Mexico’s military, which has become the main force fighting the country’s criminal cartels. Under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the armed forces have also assumed a variety of other roles—running ports, delivering vaccines during the coronavirus pandemic, and building airports and other infrastructure projects. Many senior military officials were outraged at the detention of Cienfuegos, whom they viewed as an honest leader. They feared the U.S. arrest might lead to future investigations against other members of the armed forces, according to analysts and officials. Stung by the anger among the military and Mexican politicians, López Obrador threatened to limit anti-drug cooperation with Washington.

UK has ‘largest population fall since the Second World War’ (The Independent) Up to 1.3 million immigrants have left the UK—the largest population fall since the Second World War—with coronavirus the likely cause, a study says. In London alone, almost 700,000 foreign-born residents are believed to have moved out, leading to a potential 8 per cent shrinking of the size of the capital, it argues. The study, by the government-funded Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE), draws a clear link with the devastation inflicted by the pandemic on sectors such as hospitality. “It seems that much of the burden of job losses during the pandemic has fallen on non-UK workers and that has manifested itself in return migration, rather than unemployment,” the authors concluded. “It seems that much of the burden of job losses during the pandemic has fallen on non-UK workers and that has manifested itself in return migration, rather than unemployment,” the authors concluded. Brexit is not being pinpointed as a cause of the sharp decline, but could yet have implications for filling jobs when the economic recovery comes.

Dutch government resigns over childcare subsidies scandal (Reuters) Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced the resignation of his government on Friday, accepting responsibility for years of mismanagement of childcare subsidies, which wrongfully drove thousands of families to financial ruin. The resignation follows a parliamentary inquiry last month that found bureaucrats at the tax service had wrongly accused families of fraud. The inquiry report said around 10,000 families had been forced to repay tens of thousands of euros of subsidies, in some cases leading to unemployment, bankruptcies and divorces, in what it called an “unprecedented injustice”. Many of the families were targeted based on their ethnic origin or dual nationalities, the tax office said last year.

Spain rejects virus confinement as most of Europe stays home (AP) While most of Europe kicked off 2021 with earlier curfews or stay-at-home orders, authorities in Spain insist the new coronavirus variant causing havoc elsewhere is not to blame for a sharp resurgence of cases and that the country can avoid a full lockdown even as its hospitals fill up. The government has been fending off drastic home confinement like the one that paralyzed the economy for nearly three months in the spring of 2020, the last time Spain could claim victory over the stubborn rising curve of cases. Unlike Portugal, which is going on a month-long lockdown Friday and doubling fines for those who don’t wear masks, officials in Spain insist it will be enough to take short, highly localized measures that restrict social gatherings without affecting the whole economy.

Merkel’s CDU Gathers to Choose New Leader (Foreign Policy) The next chair of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and possibly the next leader of the country, will be decided over the next two days, as 1,001 party delegates meet virtually to select a successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel as party leader. No matter who wins, they will not only have to live up to German expectations, but the world’s too. For the third year running, Germany topped a Gallup poll where respondents were asked to rate their approval of a country’s leadership. A Pew poll of 14 countries, taken in the summer, showed confidence in Angela Merkel was at all time highs.

U.S. forces in Afghanistan cut to 2,500, lowest level since 2001 (Washington Post) The Pentagon has reduced the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 2,500, according to a statement Friday, completing a previously announced rapid drawdown despite a Congressional prohibition of the move and rising levels of violence in the country. “This drawdown brings U.S. forces in the country to their lowest levels since 2001,” said Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller in the statement. Miller also said “the United States is closer than ever to ending nearly two decades of war and welcoming in an Afghan-owned, Afghan-led peace process to achieve a political settlement and a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire.” But violence is increasing in many parts of Afghanistan, and peace talks in Qatar have made little progress since they were launched in September.

N.Korea holds huge military parade as Kim vows nuclear might (AP) North Korea displayed new submarine-launched ballistic missiles under development and other military hardware in a parade that underlined leader Kim Jong Un’s defiant calls to expand the country’s nuclear weapons program. State media said Kim took center stage in Thursday night’s parade celebrating a major ruling party meeting in which he vowed maximum efforts to bolster the nuclear and missile program that threatens Asian rivals and the American homeland to counter what he described as U.S. hostility. During an eight-day Workers’ Party congress that ended Tuesday, Kim also revealed plans to salvage the nation’s economy, hit by U.S.-led sanctions over his nuclear ambitions, pandemic-related border closures and natural disasters that wiped out crops. Kim’s comments are likely intended to pressure the incoming U.S. government of Joe Biden, who has previously called the North Korean leader a “thug” and accused Trump of chasing spectacle rather than meaningful curbs on the North’s nuclear capabilities. Kim has not ruled out talks, but said the fate of bilateral relations depends on whether Washington abandons its hostile policy toward North Korea.

Indonesia quake kills at least 42, injures hundreds (Reuters) A powerful earthquake killed at least 42 people and injured hundreds on Indonesia’s island of Sulawesi on Friday, trapping several under rubble and unleashing dozens of aftershocks as authorities warned of more quakes that could trigger a tsunami. Thousands of frightened residents fled their homes for higher ground when the magnitude 6.2-quake struck 6 km (4 miles) northeast of the town of Majene, at a depth of just 10 km, shortly before 1.30 a.m. The quake and aftershocks damaged more than 300 homes and two hotels, as well as flattening a hospital and the office of a regional governor. The heightened seismic activity set off three landslides, severed electricity supplies, and damaged bridges linking to regional hubs, such as the city of Makassar. Heavy rain was also worsening conditions for those seeking shelter.

Palestinians announce first elections in 15 years, on eve of Biden era (Reuters) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced parliamentary and presidential elections on Friday, the first in 15 years, in an effort to heal long-standing internal divisions. The move is widely seen as a response to criticism of the democratic legitimacy of Palestinian political institutions, including Abbas’s presidency. It also comes days before the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, with whom the Palestinians want to reset relations after they reached a low under President Donald Trump. According to a decree issued by Abbas’s office, the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, will hold legislative elections on May 22 and a presidential vote on July 31. Hamas, the Islamist militant group which is Abbas’s main domestic rival, welcomed the announcement. But veteran West Bank analyst Hani al-Masri was sceptical that the elections would happen. He cited internal disagreements within Abbas’s Fatah and Hamas, and likely U.S., Israeli and European Union opposition to any Palestinian government including Hamas, which they regard as a terrorist group.

CNN’s correction of the week (Business Insider) After a tumultuous week in the US, most Americans could likely use a little humor. And they got it in the form of an amusing correction from CNN regarding what Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California grabbed during the Capitol siege. “CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated that Rep. Ted Lieu grabbed a crowbar before leaving his office. He grabbed a ProBar energy bar,” a correction for a CNN story states.

[jedivoodoochile]

Release date : 12th May 1972

The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main Street

First manager Andrew Loog Oldham said in the sleeve notes to the Stones’ first album: ‘The Rolling Stones are more than a group, they are a way of life’, and of no album is that truer than Exile On Main Street. The legend persists that it was all created in the dank basement of the former Nazi headquarters in Villefranche-Sur-Mer in the Summer of 1971, although a large portion was overdubbed in sessions in Los Angeles, where other songs were created from scratch. Some of the other recordings predated the trip to France, having been recorded in the UK, at Olympic Studios in Barnes.

However, the SPIRIT of the basement prevails throughout and it is the murky swampiness of the whole endeavour, extending to Mick Jagger’s all but indecipherable vocals, that have seen it acclaimed as the Stones’ most complete statement and possibly the most rock album the band ever made.

The guitar sound is largely due to Ry Cooder, whose involvement in the sessions of 1969’s Performance soundtrack, showed the possibilities of the ‘open G’ tuning on the guitar. Crucially, the guitar is tuned to a chord, but in Keith Richards’ book Life, he describes how he discarded the 6th (lowest) string, giving the lowest string (now a G) the role of a drone, quite appropriate to the blues. It also allowed the mega-riffs of the Mark 2 Stones’ biggest hits: Honky Tonk Women and Brown Sugar, which underpinned new member Mick Taylor’s melodic country/blues lines, melding to create a whole new style. Even now, the first chords of either of the above will pack a dance floor anywhere in the UK. With reference to Exile, the most prominent use of the 5-string open-tuned guitar is on Rocks Off, Happy, Ventilator Blues, Tumbling Dice and All Down The Line.

The Stones had recruited the sensitive 20-year old Mick Taylor in 1969 from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, where he became the third stellar lead guitarist to play the blues in Mayall’s band, following Eric Clapton and Peter Green. His first sessions were for the Let It Bleed album, overdubbing guitar on Country Honk and Live With Me plus some pivotal parts for the Honky Tonk Women single on the 1st June session that ended at 3:15AM.

Honky Tonk Women went to #1 in the UK and the US in July 1969, followed by the Let It Bleed album in December, another triumph. Any doubts created by the subsequent 18-month gap in releases were dispelled by the release of Brown Sugar in April 1971 (another US #1), followed in May by Sticky Fingers, possibly the strongest Stones album to date, and one that showcased the guitar interplay between Keith Richards and Mick Taylor, alongside some great songs, including Sway, Wild Horses and Bitch.

Having recorded sessions at Olympic Studios in Barnes, London, which included tracks like Stop Breaking Down and Sweet Virginia, The Stones had continued recording and writing in the Summer of 1970 at Stargroves, Jagger’s English country house, with the Stones’ own mobile recording studio, a move that became standard operating procedure for other UK bands, including Led Zeppelin. The mobile came in handy when the Stones discovered that in signing with US manager Allen Klein, their copyrights had reverted to him, so when they severed their connection with him in 1970, their income came under threat. They were also in a cash flow crisis, at a time when the UK taxman took 93% of high earners’ income, so they felt that the only thing to do was to get out of town, planning to spend at least 21 months outside the UK from 1971 onwards.

According to Bill Wyman, the band had at least working versions of seven tracks to take with them, including Tumbling Dice (original title: Good Time Women), Black Angel (which became Sweet Black Angel), Stop Breaking Down and Shine A Light.

In early April 1971, the band decamped to France, Mick Jagger marrying Bianca in St. Tropez on May 12th and honeymooning on the Riviera, before settling in Paris with his new bride. Keith Richards rented a villa, Nellcôte, in Villefranche-Sur-Mer, near Nice, while the other band members rented houses further to the west. The basement at Nellcôte became a makeshift studio to record using the band’s mobile recording studio.

In interviews with Ian Fortnam for the 2010 reissue of Exile, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts gave their contemporary perspectives on what went down: ‘They couldn’t get you in jail, so they put the economics on you, the old double whammy,’ said Keith. ‘So the feeling within the band was we’ve got to show them we’re made of sterner stuff and prove you couldn’t break the Stones just by kicking them out of England.’

The band again called on the services of their mobile studio and parked it outside Keith’s villa in order to carry on the recordings for the next album, the second on their own Rolling Stones records label, although according to Keith Richards, that wasn’t their first intention. They had been planning to look for studios in Nice or Cannes, but in the event, the band came to Keith, with the Stones mobile in residence from June 7th.

American producer Jimmy Miller had supervised the two previous albums, but the Nellcôte sessions were much more difficult to coordinate, partly because not all the band were around at the same time. Recording continued sporadically for some months until the French authorities began to apply pressure to rid themselves of the Stones and their entourage, who by then were engaged in various levels of illegal behaviour.

Drummer Charlie Watts was about three hours away, in Thoiras, west of Avignon, and bassist Bill Wyman and guitarist Mick Taylor were ensconced near Grasse, so at least one of the songs on Exile was made without them, although the album credits have never been clear about who actually did what. In the case of one of the most Stones-sounding recordings, very few of the Stones were initially on it. Happy, a showcase for Keith Richards’ vocals and guitar, has producer Jimmy Miller on drums and Keith doubling on bass. The basics were laid down between noon and 4PM one afternoon, with just Miller on drums, Bobby Keys on baritone saxophone, and Richards on the rest, including the lyrics and lead vocal.

Charlie Watts loved Jimmy Miller. ‘I thought he was the best producer we ever had. Jimmy was a hands-on type of guy. When we played he could never keep still, so he’d always be banging something; a drum or a cowbell’ [check out the start of Honky Tonk Women]. Miller insisted that Charlie‘s drums be tested in as many of the basement’s labyrinth of rooms as possible, before settling on one that had the right balance of natural ambience and proximity to the guitar players to maintain the vibe. It took a week or two to get the setup right, but after that, things apparently settled down.

The schedule did become a bit strange, as recalled by Keith Richards. ‘It became known as Keith Time, which in Bill Wyman’s case made him a little cranky. Not that he said anything. At first, we were going to start at two PM [every day], but that never happened. So we said we’d start at 6PM, which usually meant around 1 AM. Charlie didn’t seem to mind.’

But when Keith was on form, he would deliver, as with Rocks Off, which, according to engineer Andy Johns, involved a playback to Keith at 4 or 5AM. Keith went to sleep in mid-track, so Johns took that as the cue to get his own head down, driving the necessary half-hour home. He was just nodding off when the phone rang – it was Keith, asking where he’d got to. So Johns drove back to Nellcote – another half hour – at which point Keith picked up his Telecaster and played the second guitar part on Rocks Off, straight through.

The sessions were at least the backbone of the album. Said Keith: ‘A lot of the songs started off with an idea. Mick’s playing harp, you join in and before you knew it you had a track in the making and an idea working. It might not be the finished track; you’re not trying to force it.’

There was also much space for the interplay between Richards and lead guitarist Mick Taylor. Keith: ‘Brian [Jones] and I would swap roles. There was no defined line between lead and rhythm guitar, but with Mick’s style I had to readjust the shape of the band and it was beautifully lyrical. He was a lovely lead player. I loved playing with Mick Taylor.’

Some of the songs were collaborations, like All Down The Line, which, according to Keith Richards, he started with the basic idea of ‘I hear it coming, all down the line’ and handed it over to Mick Jagger to develop. Richards was extremely prolific and came up with many songs which didn’t eventually make on to the final release, including Head In The Toilet Blues, Leather Jackets (although Bill Wyman lists it as having been recorded at Olympic), Windmill, I Was Just A Country Boy, Dancing In The Light,(noted as possibly being one of Mick Jagger’s), Bent Green Needles, Labour Pains and Pommes de Terre.

Richards described the self-imposed pressure that he and Jagger felt when requiring themselves to come up with song ideas in anticipation of the arrival of the other musicians. Casino Boogie came about when inspiration was lacking and they decided to follow the William Burroughs ‘cut up’ technique (also used occasionally by David Bowie), whereby a book or newspaper is disassembled into component words, which are then re-assembled to create a new lyrical direction.

So, contrary to popular belief, the whole album wasn’t recorded in the South Of France, although most of the backing tracks were. As Keith Richards notes in his book Life: ‘What we brought to LA from France was only raw material for Exile. The real bare bones, no overdubs. On almost every song we’d said, we’ve got to put a chorus on here, we’ve got to put some chicks in there, we need extra percussion on that. So LA was basically to put the flesh on. For four or five months in LA in early 1972, we mixed and overdubbed Exile On Main Street. According to Bill Wyman, most of the Stones flew to LA on November 29th, 1971, followed later by the Wymans, for sessions that went on til February 1972.

It seems to have been planned as a double from an early stage, Richards mentioning ‘all business advice’ that warned against it. Which, to be fair to whoever was dishing out the advice (probably Ahmet Ertegun and Atlantic Records), was usually correct – double LPs had to be competitively priced, but they cost twice as much to manufacture, were heavier to ship, and their length and quantity of material meant they were harder for the public to assimilate, more difficult to review objectively, and took longer to get on the airwaves, at a time when multiple singles releases off an album was not the norm.

At Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, the basic tracks of at least Rip This Joint, Shake Your Hips, Casino Boogie, Happy, Rocks Off, Turd On The Run and Ventilator Blues were given numerous overdubs, including all the piano and keyboard parts, all lead and backing vocals, plus more overdubs of guitar and bass. The sessions included new recordings of Torn And Frayed and Loving Cup and saw Mick Jagger coming into his own, finishing off the vocals and bringing in other contributors.

A host of other musicians assisted the Stones on the LA overdubs, including Nicky Hopkins and Ian ‘Stu’ Stewart on pianos, and a mass of backing vocalists including Gram Parsons, Clydie King, Joe Green, Venetta Fields, Tamiya Lynn, Shirley Goodman, Dr. John, Kathi McDonald and Jess Kirkland. Jazz sessioneer Bill Plummer added upright bass to Rip This Joint and Turd On The Run, Al Perkins from Manassas played pedal steel guitar on Torn And Frayed, Billy Preston contributed keyboards to Shine A Light, and Richard Washington played marimba on Sweet Black Angel. Stalwart Bobby Keys played sax, with Jim Price on trumpet and organ on Torn And Frayed, while producer Jimmy Miller played drums and percussion where necessary.

The first hearing that the public and broadcasters had of Exile was the single, Tumbling Dice, one of the most multi-layered, murky, uneven recordings any band has ever released, and yet it is probably one of the Stones’ five finest records. There is something to listen at every turn, the rhythm is insistent, the lyrics are compelling, there’s rollicking piano, sweet Mick Taylor licks, (and his bass playing, the loudest thing on the track, is exactly wrong, but exactly right). Mick Jagger’s lyrics are almost indecipherable and mixed so far back they’re practically only a texture, but the whole thing is the Stones personified – far from perfect, but still fantastic.

As Keith Richards said in 2010: ‘Mick’s always seemed to have something of an ambivalent attitude to Exile… ‘, and here indeed are Jagger’s comments from 2003: ‘Exile is not one of my favourite albums, although I think the record does have a particular feeling. I’m not too sure how great the songs are, but put together it’s a nice piece. However, when I listen to Exile it has some of the worst mixes I’ve ever heard. I’d love to remix the record, not just because of the vocals, but because generally, I think it sounds lousy.’ Well, it could certainly be mixed with more clarity, but to do that would be to lose its essential Stones-ness, which would upset the millions to have bought it thus far.

Preceded by the UK and US Top 10 hit Tumbling Dice, Exile On Main St. was released in May 1972. It was an immediate commercial success, reaching #1 worldwide just as the band embarked on their celebrated 1972 American Tour, their first for three years. The second, and only other, single from the album, Happy, got to #22 in the US in July.

Many critics judged Exile On Main St. to be a ragged and impenetrable record at the time of its release, but the UK’s Richard Williams, writing in Melody Maker, praised the album in a review entitled ‘The Stones: Quite Simply the Best’. He said the album ‘is definitely going to take its place in history’ and ‘it’s the best album they’ve ever made. This is an album which utterly repulses the sneers and arrows of outraged put-down artists. Once and for all, it answers any questions about their ability as rock ‘n’ rollers.’

Keith Richards has the last word: ‘We didn’t start off intending to make a double album; we just went down to the south of France to make an album and by the time we’d finished we said, ‘We want to put it all out.’ I was no longer interested in hitting Number One in the charts every time. What I want to do is good shit – if it’s good they’ll get it some time down the road.’

[yourdeepestfathoms]

Leather-Blood

[UK Tour; wings AU]

--------------

Technically speaking, Bessie was unconscious when she first met all of them. Or, rather, when all of them met her.

That day had been a blur. It happened two weeks after she grew in her wings and saying she was miserable was an understatement. The bruises painting her back were one thing (Joan said that happened to her, too), but the judgmental stares and whispers were a whole other storm she hadn’t been prepared to go through.

Bats were disgraced beings, creatures of nightmares, and she was one of them now. If it weren’t already hard enough, what with the entire crew of the show knowing she was the slut who got knocked up by the queen’s husband, but now she also had two leathery wings to point out her flaws even further. She was avoided, stared at, whispered about, shunned, and even mocked. They think they do it behind her back, but she knows.

Sometimes, they aren’t even subtle.

Sometimes, they do it right to her face.

Bats don’t have feelings. You can’t pity them. Weaken them before they weaken you.

That’s how it works, apparently.

It had been after a show. Bessie decided to go for a fly, hoping that the fresh air and wide expanse of sky would help clear her muddle brain.

However, it ended up doing the exact opposite of what she wanted.

The sky was like territory, apparently. Bessie didn’t know you could claim chunks of the horizon. Perhaps it was all made up by the birds to keep her from flying near them. They were like that, so she wouldn’t have been surprised if that were the case. Especially because she was chased through the clouds by a trio of falcons that had some grudge against her.

She flew. She flew. Then faltered. Falling. Face into the dirt. Scrambling up, pushing so hard her nails shattered. Blood, an immaterial color in this throbbing, orange haze.

She flew. She flew. Up and up. She flew. Her body became bands of heat, walls of light, pillars of fire. She burned. She burned.

Reaching forward, fingers in supplication. The brambles, the branches, how they cut, how they stung. Blood at the boiling point. Let me be, please gods, let me go. Leave me alone!

She flew. She flew. Up. Up.

Wingbeats close in. Angry falcons with razor sharp talons primed for blood.

No world existed beyond the rushing roar, the concussive beating cracking in her head. She could not tell. Could not know. What lines. What lines exist between the burning and the body?

None. Nothing.

She flew.

But bats are not made for the light. Creatures of darkness is what they are and shadows are what they should stay in. A beam of pale yellow cut through the treetops and glared into Bessie’s eyes.

She stumbled, fell, and gasped.

Trees. Laying in the dirt, she witnessed trees. Swimming. Floating through water. Was anything (she watched this wavering world) real?

(Nothing felt real. Everything felt hollow and holographic beneath her fingers whenever she touched it. The only thing that was true were her wings, so leathery and bony and powerful. They feel real, but she does not)

The falcons close in. They seem more like vultures from how they circle her. She thinks of Maria. Maria would never prey on her.

(Or at least she hopes. You can never truly know)

Bessie can’t move. The tumble she took upon falling hurt a lot more than she had expected. Warmth is spreading throughout her head and hair- she’s sure she’s bleeding somewhere.

The falcons close the distance between her and them. They’re wielding wicked-looking pocket knives.

(It’s okay to kill a bat people will understand)

The largest, a peregrine, grabs a handful of her hair and lifts her head up. It hurts so much, but she can only gurgle and whine weakly. Struggling does nothing. She was helpless to their talons.

But then. A roar.

It didn’t sound...right. Not something bird nor bat could make. All three falcons snap their heads up and stare into the underbrush ahead.

Rustling. Twigs snapping. The falcons are staring up at something.

Something huge.

Bessie can faintly see it above her. It’s giant. One of its grey claws are right beside her head, mere inches away from her face, which it could easily rip off with a flick of its wrist.

But it doesn’t.

No, it doesn’t seem to be hungry for the bat, rather is hungry for the birds.

The falcons flee, but they are no match for the bat-winged beast that goes after them.

Bessie blacks out before she can see the carnage...or even see what exactly had saved her.

—————

Bessie is flying through the night. The moonlight makes their wings stronger. Or, that’s what Eustace says, at least.

Eustace Chapys was a clever male, but was gruff and hard to approach at times. His wings were the strongest out of the colony (they weren’t a flock. flock was bird terminology. they were not birds.) and he called Bessie “pup” because that was the name of baby bats. No longer was she a fledgling, at least to the gang.

Margaret Pole is beside Bessie, sailing smoothly on her reddish-brown wings. She was the oldest and was like the mother hen (no. not hen. they are not birds.) of the colony. Bessie remembered her taking care of her after she woke up.

(It has been a blur, really. Bessie thought she was going to die out in that forest, but when she came to, she was in some underground bunker. Margaret was tending to the welt on her head)

Soaring on a higher air current, Hans and Jane Parker made idle chitchat. Those two had to be some of the smartest avians Bessie has even met before. They were good at planning things and finding ways to hide their wings from prying bird eyes. After all, it was Hans who made the special wing covers.

While nearing the ground, Bessie heard grumbling from behind and whiteish-yellow zipped by, nearly knocking her out of the sky. That was Juana, Aragon’s sister. Juana was fiery, but her anger was a cold, deep, dark thing. When she got mad, she was mad. Hans told Bessie a story about how Juana once poisoned a cardinal who said something rude about Parker. He survived, but she was never caught.

   “Juana!” Margaret scolded, “Be careful. You could have made Bessie crash.”

Juana spreads her wings and halted in her descent, opting to hovering. She pursed her lips and looked up at the pup, who was steadying herself on her air current.

   “Sorry, hun,” She called up.

   “You’re good!” Bessie called back.

Juana nodded and then twirled around, continuing her dive. Parker and Hans soon followed, while Bessie and Margaret decided to take things a little slower to get to the ground.

(Margaret worries about Bessie’s wings. Unlike everyone else, she had hers grown in, not reincarnated with them already attached to her back. Margaret is concerned that they aren’t fully developed yet. Bessie likes that she’s concerned. It makes her feel needed.)

Cromwell and Fran are already waiting at the landing point. They’re both very mysterious and chilling in their own special ways, bearing powerful wings upon their back and clever minds in their heads. There was a reason why Fran was the leader of the colony and Cromwell was his righthand man.

   “Good, you finally made it,” Cromwell said when everyone landed, “Shall we get to work? Bessie, this is your first colony trip, is it not?”

   “Yeah,” Bessie nodded. “I didn’t know people did this!”

   “Well, as you know, birds are too boring to do anything cool like this.” Parker said before sauntering forward into...a graveyard?

   “Just passing through,” Margaret said to Bessie, sensing her confusion. “It’s harder to spot us here.”

   “Plus, there’s scaring the feathers off of any delinquents hanging around here.” Hans added, “It’s the highlight of the whole night!” He and Eustace strode after Parker, shortly followed by Juana. Margaret gently extended a wing around Bessie to guide her along, but Fran stops her.

   “I’m taking her, actually,” He said, making a disgruntled expression appear on Margaret’s face. “Go on. I’ll watch her.”

Margaret looked at Bessie, her eyes portraying worry, but she retracts her wing from around the pup and went after the others, soon disappearing into the fog ahead. Fran made a clucking sound before shaking his head and smiling down at Bessie.

   “Shall we?”

Bessie and Fran made their way through the mist, weaving around gravestones and roots in their stride. Bessie asked many questions, which Fran seemed happy to answer, explaining that they were on their nightly outings, as it was the best time to stretch their wings. Not as many prying eyes.

Bessie thought it was a little weird that they had to come out this far, but she didn’t question it. She was too nervous about getting kicked out if she did.

Through the fog, an odor cut through the air. Fran noticed the way Bessie’s nose wrinkled and he chuckled.

   “You’ll get used to it.”

Bessie has no idea what he meant until she saw the large pile of dirt and the hole. One of the graves was dug up and the casket was wide open, revealing the decomposed body of a bird inside. However, the wings still retained proper colors, feathering shining in the pale moonlight.

Bessie stumbles backwards, eyes bulging.

   “Wh-what-?! What happened?!”

Fran looked at her and tilted his head a little.

   “Calm yourself, darling. It’s not that bad.” He produced a frighteningly large saw blade from his coat and leaned down, lifting the body by one of its wings.

   “What are you doing?!” Bessie cried.

   ���My love,” Fran said patiently, “what do you think the wing covers are made out of?”

[ragehappysecretsanta]

Author: http://achievemenhunter.tumblr.com

Recipient: http://rejectedusername-trashfics.tumblr.com

Warnings: blood, mild violence, someone gets very close to dying but I promise they're okay after

Word Count: 14,698 

Rating: T

Pairing: Gavin Free/Ryan Haywood

Prompt: Superhero AU where Person A just got their powers and Person B tries to train them as their sidekick. Person B ends up falling for Person A instead and changes to train them to fight alongside them as equal partners instead.

~* * *~

Gavin's breath tore sharply at his lungs, making him gasp and stutter as he ran.

Not even in the country for a week and he'd already landed himself in trouble.

"Jesus, kid, just slow down already!" One of the men chasing after him yelled, voice cracking, and Gavin would have scoffed if he could spare the breath.

Yeah, right. Like he was doing that.

Gavin rounded a corner, letting out a squawk of alarm as the ladder of a fire escape bent towards him with a groan, trying to wrap around his middle. He ducked underneath twisting metal, fingers scraping against brick as he tried to maintain his forward momentum.

It just figured that one of the first metahumans he came across in the States was a damn telekinetic.

He hadn't meant to attract attention; hell, the whole reason he'd left the UK was because he'd done a poor job of keeping his own powers under the radar. To be fair, thought, time manipulation wasn't exactly the subtlest of abilities.

And it wasn't like he'd done anything bad with them - he mostly used it for mundane things, like slowing down a bus he was running late for, or to help catch something he'd accidentally knocked over, or speeding up the clock when he'd still been in school so that the class would finish early. Little things. That was about the extent to which he could use his abilities, anyway - he had no formal training with his powers, didn't actively practice to improve them. A part of him was scared of what he might be capable of. In any case, he didn't want to be thrust into the limelight; whilst powers obviously weren't unheard of, they certainly weren't common, and there was a whole lot of publicity involved in a new metahuman being discovered. Gavin just wanted to be able to pretend he was normal.

So when he saw that out-of-control bus full of commuters careening towards a busy intersection, he of course had to be the big damn hero and slow it down before anyone could get hurt.

He'd be impressed, later, that he was even able to pull off such a huge display of his power, compared to what he normally used it for. Now, however, he was cursing his stupid bravery, because it had left him drained and rather ill-equipped to be facing off against two other metahumans.

When he'd stopped the bus, there had been so much chaos and confusion that very few people had noticed the slim figure of Gavin, hands out and eyes narrowed as he focused on keeping the bus from crossing into oncoming traffic. People screamed, cars slowing in confusion as the bus glided serenely towards the intersection.

The two men now chasing after him now had seen him, though, perhaps sensing someone using their powers nearby. Gavin had heard that some people could do that. Just his luck.

Once he'd been sure that there was enough of a gap in the intersection that the bus could safely come to a stop, he let it go, gasping at the release of energy and taking off running. The men had been quick to follow, but neither of them displayed powers of their own until they'd chased Gavin into an empty side street, away from any prying eyes.

That was when the scenery had started to try and trap him.

Gavin cursed as a drainpipe detached itself from the wall and swung towards his legs. He jumped and tumbled over it, skinning his palms, then regaining his feet more through luck than anything else. God, he wished he knew these streets well enough to get back somewhere with other people around. As it was, every turn he took only seemed to get him more lost in the maze of back alleys.

"Seriously, we're not trying to hurt you!" the second man called out. Gavin let out a breathless laugh at that, unable to stop himself. "Could you just slow down already?"

Gavin reached an intersection that he was halfway sure he'd been at once already. From what he could remember, he'd taken a right the first time, so now he swung left, only to come to a despairing halt as he was confronted with a dead end, strewn with bits of garbage and leaf litter swept up against a dumpster by the intermittent wind that blew down the alleys.

He whirled back around, thumping heart sinking as he saw the two men round the corner behind him. He threw out his hands and did his best to focus, but his grip on his powers was tenuous at best after the strain he'd put himself through with the bus, and they only slowed slightly. Despite the placating expressions on their faces, Gavin was still scared, and he backed up slowly, even though he knew there wasn't really anywhere for him to go.

"We're not going to hurt you," the taller of the two told him soothingly. Gavin regarded him with distrust. He didn't look like a bad person - with the depth of the bags under his sleepy blue eyes, he looked like he needed a nap more than anything. But looks could always be deceiving.

"Why don't I believe you?" Gavin retorted peevishly, finally managing to wrest some control over his power and bringing the sleepy-looking man to a near-standstill. A frustrated expression began to gradually inch its way across the slowed man's face.

It became immediately clear that the second man was the telekinetic, because the front of the dumpster behind Gavin suddenly tore free, rubbish spilling onto the ground as the metal wrapped around the Brit's form, encasing him in metal from the neck down. With a shriek, Gavin lost focus.

The taller man rounded furiously on his companion. "What the hell, Ryan? You really think turning him into a burrito is going to make him trust us?"

Ryan held his hands up. "Hey, I was only trying to help you. You might not have noticed, but he got you pretty good with that temporal blast."

"Shut up."

"Oh, and thanks for just tossing my name out there like that, by the way."

The older man's eyes started to glow slightly with warning, but Ryan just raised an eyebrow at him.

"Cute, Geoff."

"Hypocrite," Geoff muttered.

"...Who the bloody hell are you people?" Gavin asked, now more confused than scared.

Geoff sighed. "We're part of a team called the Achievement Hunters," he said, sounding unenthused. "We're a collection of metahumans that use our abilities to protect Achievement City."

"Geoff, please, sound less excited." Ryan regarded him with a bemused expression. "You only created the Achievement Hunters and built up our reputation to the point where people see us as respected authority figures." He let out a small snort. "Not that I can entirely understand why they do, but the point remains."

Now that he wasn't actively fearing for his safety, Gavin took a good look at the two men.

Geoff looked like a stereotypical cool uncle, albeit with a lot more tattoos. Ink covered the back of his hands, spiralling up his arms and disappearing into his shirtsleeves. His hair, brown but receding, was thin and soft-looking, like the down on a baby duck. And Ryan, well…

Gavin had to admit, Ryan was hot. His dark blond hair was swept out of his face, strong nose creating a natural guide down to soft, pink lips. His shoulders were broad, tapering down to a trim waist and hips. His…

Gavin shook his head, trying to drag his mind out of the gutter. He knew what Geoff was surely getting at, and he couldn't let the fact that he found Ryan attractive sway his decision.

"Oh! Sorry," Ryan said belatedly, looking sheepish as he finally released Gavin from his metal cocoon. He fused the front of the dumpster back on, telekinetically lifting all the scattered rubbish back inside. Gavin shuddered a little at the thought of all the bacteria that were surely crawling all over him now. The Brit dusted himself off.

"What can you do, then?" he asked Geoff.

"I'm photokinetic." Geoff looked a little smug. "I can shoot lasers from my eyes."

"Oh. Yeah, I figured it'd be something like that, what with how your eyes were glowing earlier 'n' all."

Geoff deflated a little at Gavin's nonchalance.

"So, what, you two want me to join your little superhero club, is that it?" Gavin folded his arms. "Sorry, not interested." He made to leave, but the two older men didn't move to give him space. He stared at them challengingly. "Am I allowed to go?"

After a few seconds, Ryan stepped aside, gesturing out of the alley with a wide, sweeping motion. Gavin tried not to bite his lip at the way it made the older man's chest flex.

"Of course. Just tell me one thing, though."

Gavin remained defensive. "What?"

"Why did you save that bus?"

"What do you mean?"

Ryan's mouth quirked upwards. "You say you're not interested in being a hero. So why save all those people?'

The younger man shuffled his feet, uncomfortable. "Well, I couldn't let them get hurt, could I? Not when I could save 'em."

"…But you don't want to be a hero."

Gavin was silent.

"What do you plan on doing with your life? Working as a registered superhero isn't just charity work, you know. Sure, everything's regulated - the superhero registry is a government body, of course it's regulated - but you get all your personal needs catered for, plus a modest salary. You get to save lives for a living. It's not a bad deal, when you think about it."

Gavin stumbled at the sudden change of tack. "I don't..." He trailed off, thinking of the dingy hotel room he was currently calling home. Sure, he had some money saved up, but that wouldn't last forever. And did he really want to dredge out his days in some menial, normal job when he could be out actively helping people?

"You have an incredible gift," Ryan continued softly. "Don't you think it's a waste to squander it?"

Gavin rubbed at his arm. "I'm not the best at controlling it," he muttered.

"That's what the Achievement Hunters are for," Geoff told him. "It's not like we just toss you out there and say, 'go get 'em', we train all our operatives before sending them out. Can you imagine all the paperwork we'd have to deal with if we didn't?" He slapped Ryan on the shoulder with a grin. "And we've got the perfect trainer for you right here."

It was Ryan's turn to look uncertain.

"What? Geoff, I've never trained anyone before."

"Hey, you're the one who went all grand-true-calling-speech on him." Geoff gave him an amused smile. "He looks up to you now. You're so inspiring. Besides, it's about time you took on a protégé."

Ryan looked despairingly over at Gavin. "Please tell him you don't want me as your mentor."

"Well…" Gavin couldn't bring himself to say it. Even with his attraction to Ryan aside, Geoff was right - Gavin already found him inspiring.

Geoff cackled in triumph. "Congratulations, Ryan!" he crowed. "Looks like you've got yourself a sidekick!"

~* * *~

Gavin found himself being swept off to the Achievement Hunter headquarters, an unassuming office building in downtown Achievement City. Ryan and Geoff gave him a rundown of how the operation worked, explaining various protocols and procedures that he'd be required to follow.

"Wouldn't have thought being a superhero would be so bureaucratic," Gavin said, wrinkling his nose slightly.

"By nature, it has to be," Ryan told him. "We're civil servants, just like the police. We're not above the law, we're a part of it."

"Yeah, except the cops don't go jumping around in spandex," Gavin muttered, and Geoff laughed.

"Neither do we. Spandex doesn't offer a whole lot of protection. Everyone here gets issued with a specially tailored suit. Kevlar lining, the whole works."

Gavin raised an eyebrow. "Fancy."

Geoff shrugged. "It's not like there's hundreds of us. Less than a dozen, actually. You'll meet everyone later. There's not really enough of us to justify mass-producing anything." He winked. "Besides, just because the suits hide our identities, doesn't mean we can't look cool."

An amused smile tugged at Gavin's lips as they walked down another nondescript corridor. "Wait, you really do go about with secret identities and superhero names and everything?"

"Of course. Not all metahumans find themselves on the right side of the law, that's kind of why the Achievement Hunters exist in the first place. We're the best equipped to deal with a rogue metahuman, because we can combat their powers with our own. No sense in making it easy for them to figure out who we really are."

Gavin digested this information with some glee. "So, what're your superhero names, then?"

"Geoff, ever the master of originality, chose the name Lazer."

"With a 'z'," the older man stressed. Ryan rolled his eyes.

"Of course. Super important. I decided on Exploit."

"Why Exploit?"

Ryan smiled ruefully. "Man, it sounded so much cooler at the time. You've gotta remember I was even younger than you when I started out in the superhero game. I figured that Exploit was a good name for someone who does what I do, manipulating physical objects to my needs. Geoff was just lazy with his." Geoff flipped him off and Ryan grinned, opening a door into what appeared to be a common area, several people sitting around and chatting. "These days, people get their names assigned to them; helps keep the ego down. Take Michael, for example."  Ryan nodded over at a wiry, curly-haired man that seemed to be about Gavin's age, playfully lifting a bench with three people sitting on it over his head. "Technically, he did come up with his superhero name himself, but that was on his first night as an inductee to the Achievement Hunters. He got completely wasted, stuck an empty box of beers on his head and declared that he was 'Lord Mogar, King of Booze'. Making Mogar his superhero name is our way of making sure he won't live it down."

Michael's head twitched in their direction, probably hearing his name being mentioned. He set the bench back down on the floor, the three people atop it jostling slightly as it hit the ground, then walked over. He jerked his chin in Gavin's direction. "Who's he?"

"New recruit. Temporal manipulation." Ryan nudged Gavin forward.

Flustered, Gavin stuck out his hand. "Um, hi, I'm Vav- wait, no, bollocks, I'm Gavin, dammit-"

Geoff cackled with laughter. "Oh man, I think we just found your superhero name! Vav! That's the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life!"

Gavin looked at him aghast. "What? No, Geoff, you can't," he protested. Ryan chuckled.

"He's the boss, I think you'll find he can." He clapped Gavin on the shoulder cheerfully. "Welcome to the team, Vav."

~* * *~

Over the next few weeks, Gavin found himself settling in with the Achievement Hunters. He took a quick trip to the hotel he'd been staying at previously to collect his meagre belongings, but other than that mostly stayed in the main Achievement Hunter complex, becoming acquainted with his new team members and responsibilities.

Despite his initial standoffish manner, Gavin became fast friends with Michael, finding his abrasive sense of humour hilarious. From there, he easily slipped into place among Michael's circle of friends. Lindsay, or Kitty Scarlet, an effervescently cheerful teleporter who was clearly the apple of Michael's eye. Jeremy, also known as Rimmy Tim, a short, stocky man with a superhero suit in horrifically clashing royal purple and burnt orange, who was an autokinetic - someone with the ability to manipulate motor vehicles - with a particular penchant for monster trucks. Jack, a little older than the rest, slightly pessimistic and set in his ways, had the rather unexpected ability to be able to heal other metahumans - something to do with them having a different genetic makeup than the rest of the human population, as he explained it. He never went out on missions himself, abhorring violence, more focussed on speeding the healing process when injured Achievement Hunters returned from the field. Caiti, a pretty, soft-spoken Australian woman and Jack's girlfriend, was arborkinetic, able to manipulate plants to her will. She cultivated a beautiful garden on the roof of the headquarters, full of aromatic flowers and sweet fruit-bearing plants. In the event of an attack on the headquarters, it also had the added benefit as being a source of plant material for her to fuel her powers, as an additional defence to the state-of-the-art technological security measures in place throughout the building.

Although he'd initially been reticent to even join the Achievement Hunters in the first place, Gavin found himself eager to get started in his new line of work. Which was why it was disappointing to find out that it would be months and months of gruelling training before he'd be let out on his first field mission.

"You need to get a better grasp on your powers first," Ryan explained. "What Geoff and I saw you do with the bus was impressive, but even you admitted that you've never done something like that before. We can't have you going up against other metahumans and suddenly realising that you can't pull off something like that when there are lives at stake. And even when you do get better mastery over your powers, you're still occasionally going to have to get physical with other metahumans, as well."

"I did jujutsu all through school," Gavin protested, baulking at the idea of how long he'd have to train before he'd be able to do anything useful.

"That definitely helps, but I'm imagining that you haven't kept it up since you left school?"

"…No," he replied sullenly, feeling childish.

"Well, still, it's much better than having no training whatsoever. A close-combat style like jujutsu is good, too - gun use isn't as common when metahumans fight each other. Take the two of us, for example - you can slow down a bullet enough to be able to sidestep it, while I can just pull the gun out of their hands to stop them from firing in the first place. Ideally, you'll be able to use your powers to keep them at bay, but it always pays to prepare for the worst."

"'Spose that makes sense," Gavin muttered begrudgingly, and Ryan laughed.

"Well, might as well get started then," Ryan announced, grabbing Gavin by the shoulders and steering him down the hall. Gavin tried not to focus too much on the warm strength of Ryan's hands.

"Where're we going?"

"Training room," Ryan told him merrily. "Our powers function quite similarly, in that we can both manipulate forces external to us, so honestly I probably am one of the better-equipped metahumans to take care of your training. Plus, if you're going to be joining me in the field at some point, it'll be good for us to have some experience working together already. But I think I'm getting ahead of myself a little there. Ah! Here we are."

Ryan had stopped them in front of a thick steel door, a small LED next to it like at a therapist's office. The light was off, indicating that the room was not currently in use. Ryan gave it a small tap as they entered. "Always remember to switch this on whenever you head inside," he cautioned. "The last thing we want is someone getting hurt because they came in without realising you were already in here, throwing your powers around all over the place."

Gavin was only half-listening, too busy gaping at the size of the room. It appeared to take up several floors-worth of space, the ceiling towering high above them. He moved further inside, curiously inspecting the random assortment of equipment lining one of the walls, opposite a massive marked-out arena space. He leant over what appeared to be a barrel of sand and poked at its contents, only to jerk back as it began to surge up and cover his hand. Ryan laughed behind him, arm still outstretched as he made the sand form into a crude hand that waved at Gavin. Gavin scowled.

"Hilarious, Ryan."

Ryan grinned. "Impressive is more like it. I'm manipulating thousands upon thousands of grains of sand simultaneously to do this, you know. It's harder than it looks." He let the sand drop, instead levitating a couple of what looked like skeet-shooting clay pigeons off one of the shelves. He nodded in the direction of the arena. "Why don't you get in position, and we'll get started?"

The Brit walked hesitantly over to the centre of the arena. "What, are you just going to toss those things at me?" he asked dubiously.

"Exactly," Ryan replied, and sent the first disc flying directly at him.

It hit Gavin in the stomach, bouncing off and shattering on the floor. "Ow!" he cried out indignantly, and Ryan merely shrugged.

"You stopped a bus before. C'mon, this should be child's play." Ryan threw another disc at him.

Expecting it this time, Gavin ducked out of the way with a squawk. The clay pigeon exploded into dust on the far wall. Ryan shook his head.

"I'm not testing your agility, Gavin, I'm testing your powers. Use them!"

Another disc went sailing at Gavin. The Brit protested even as he flung out one hand, making the clay pigeon come to a near standstill a few metres from him. He stepped out of its path and let it return to normal speed, causing another harmless cloud of dust against the back wall.

Ryan smiled. "Good," he said, then levitated another two clay pigeons, hurling them in Gavin's direction. With another squawk, Gavin slowed them again. Not as much as the first time, but still enough that he could easily allow them to drift serenely past him. He let them go, another two plumes of dust joining the rest. A small pile of shattered clay was starting to accumulate at the base of the wall.

Ryan began to increase the pace at which he threw the clay pigeons at Gavin, as well as the volume, over half a dozen of them in the air at any given time. Whenever it looked like Gavin was starting to get overwhelmed, he'd pull back, not wanting the younger man to actually get injured. He didn't even have to pull back all that often, though, Gavin quickly settling into a rhythm of slowing the discs and sidestepping them.

They kept going until the supply of clay pigeons was exhausted, which took a while. Once Gavin realised Ryan was done throwing things at him, he relaxed out of his ready position.

"Sorry about hitting you with that first one," Ryan offered. "To be fair, I did expect you to stop it. Still, you did remarkably for the rest of the session. Well done."

"Thanks," Gavin mumbled, gently rubbing at his stomach with a grimace. Now that the adrenaline of the training session was starting to fade, a deep ache was beginning to settle into the place where the first pigeon had hit him. Ryan frowned.

"I didn't get you too bad, did I? Here, let me have a look." Ryan stepped forward, concern on his face as he motioned for Gavin to lift his shirt.

Trying to hide the blush creeping across his cheeks, Gavin tugged up the hem of his shirt. Enough time had passed since they'd begun training for a bruise to develop, and Gavin winced at the mottled purple line slashing across his left hip. Ryan's frown deepened.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I've never trained anyone right from scratch before, it was reckless of me to just throw you in the deep end like that. Good news is, once you get your Achievement Hunter suit, you'll barely even feel a hit like that." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Honestly, I should've got Jess to give you your suit before we started training. Ah, well, we can go do that now." He glanced down at Gavin's stomach, covered with his shirt once more, and noticed that the Brit was ever-so-slightly favouring his right side. "Maybe we'll swing by the infirmary first though, have Jack fix up that bruise for you."

"Well, hardly like I can sue you, I'm pretty sure I signed my life away with all that paperwork Geoff made me go through," Gavin joked, and Ryan smiled, relieved that there were no hard feelings.

"I meant it. You did well." He motioned for the door, flicking off the indicator light.

~* * *~

Jack gave Ryan a stern look from behind his fiery orange beard when they reached the infirmary, lecturing him on proper training protocols the entire time that he healed Gavin. After several minutes, he announced that he was done, ambling off to the other side of the room and returning to whatever he'd been working on before they entered. Gavin lifted his shirt to inspect Jack's handiwork, and sure enough, the bruise was almost entirely gone, just a thin line of faded violet and yellow remaining.

"Thanks, Jack, it looks like I got this weeks ago!" A thought struck him. "Hey, d'you reckon I could use my powers like this? If I get injured, just speed up the area I hurt myself in to make it heal quicker?"

"I wouldn't recommend it," Jack warned, swivelling back around in his chair. "Doing it that way would still physically age the affected area. Do it too often, and you'd end up with parts of your body being years older than the rest of you. Who knows how your body would handle that?"

Gavin's nose wrinkled. "Gross. Thanks for the heads up."

"C'mon," Ryan said, motioning his head towards the door. "We'll go see Jess about your suit now."

Ryan led him back to the elevators in the centre of the building, punching in the key to take them down to the third floor. Not for the first time, Gavin wished that there were clearer signposts indicating what was on each floor; without someone else to guide him, Gavin would have gotten lost within five minutes. True, he'd been given a map of the building that did a fair job, but he'd far from memorised it and would have felt like an idiot needing to carry it around.

The elevator dinged and let them off, Ryan leading the wall down the hall. Gavin scampered after him.

"So, does Jess, like, have powers to do with making stuff, or something?"

Ryan smiled. "No, she's good at what she does all on her own. Here we are." He opened one of the doors - labelled with nothing but a number, of course - and ushered Gavin inside, where a young woman, around Gavin's age, seemed so completely absorbed in her work that she didn't even hear them enter.

Bleach-blonde hair tied loosely at the nape of her neck and dark mascara emphasising her already thick lashes, the woman, who Gavin assumed was Jess, was bent over a swathe of fabric played out over a table in front of her. Sewing pins flashed on a pin cushion strapped to her wrist as she marked out patterns with a soft white pencil.

"Afternoon, Jess, how're you?"

Jess started slightly at the sound of Ryan's voice, then lit up the room with a smile.

"Ryan, hi! I'm great, how're you?" Without actually waiting for him to answer, she rounded on Gavin. "You're Gavin, Ryan's new sidekick, right? Oh my god, it's so awesome to meet you, it's been ages since anyone new joined the team!" Jess rushed forward around the table, grandly sweeping Gavin up into a hug. Bemused, Gavin returned the embrace. "I've got your first suit ready to go," she continued, barely a pause between speaking. "Of course, I'm making you more than one, it'd be kinda gross if you had to go out in the same suit a couple days in a row, plus it's good to have backups on hand if you do something to damage one of them. Though you'd have to try pretty hard to put a dent in one of these bad boys." She winked, then pulled out a garment bag with a flourish, proffering it to Gavin. "There's a change room just over there, why don't you go see how it fits?"

Still a little overwhelmed, Gavin accepted the bag with only a nod, stepping into the change room, which ended up being surprisingly spacious. A mirror covered the wall closest to the door, several clothes hooks affixed to the wall opposite. Gavin hung the bag up and zipped it, and couldn't help but grin at the suit inside.

Even just hanging there, it looked like it would fit him very well. The colour scheme was predominantly dark blue, with a bold stripe of dark red streaking down from each shoulder and joining in the centre of the suit's chest, like a capital V. A thinner band of white traced along the top of the red, and everything above that was black. The red stripe repeated itself on the arms and legs.

By now, Gavin had seen Ryan in his Exploit suit, and knew that the colours of his own suit were a perfect match. Eagerly, Gavin peeled off his regular clothes, dumping them in a haphazard pile on the floor and slipping into his new outfit.

The suit was a near-perfect fit, which, considering the only thing Jess had had to go on was presumably the measurements that he'd had taken as part of his induction into the Achievement Hunters and whatever photos had been provided to her, was pretty impressive. The material was thick, but not particularly heavy, leaving Gavin satisfied that he could move in the suit with ease, whilst still being afforded with some protection.

He tugged on the dark, sturdy boots and matching gauntlets - thinner on the palms and front of his fingers so that his dexterity wasn't impaired - and fitted the mask over his head. It tapered down to a point, covering his nose, the shape and colouring matching the stylised V of his suit.

Looking in the mirror, Gavin saw a superhero staring back at him. He grinned.

"You finished checking yourself out in there, Gavin?" he heard Ryan call from the next room.

"Yeah, come give us show," Jess laughed, and, blushing a little, Gavin opened the door and stepped out.

Jess let out a whistle. "I mean, I've just really outdone myself this time," she said, fanning herself with one hand. "Don't you think, Ryan?"

Ryan smiled at him. "You look great."

Gavin became very glad that the mask covered the majority of his cheeks, knowing that they were currently flaming red. "Thanks."

"You ready to go take it for a test drive, see how you're able to use your powers while wearing it?"

"What, now?"

Ryan shrugged. "Sure. No time like the present. You should be all rested up after seeing Jack, anyway."

"You're not just going to throw clay pigeons at me again, are you?"

The older man laughed. "No, I'm pretty sure we burned through the entire supply this morning. I talked with Lindsay earlier, she's offered to help train you. You're going to train with pretty much everyone here at some point - it's beneficial for both sides, so that we all have experience with as many different types of metahumans as possible."

Gavin's stomach gurgled audibly. "Can we have lunch first?" he asked, and Ryan chuckled.

"I guess we have been going at it pretty hard today, huh?" Jess snickered immaturely behind them, and Ryan rolled his eyes. "Alright, we'll head to the break room for lunch first."

Gavin stuck his hand out to Jess. "Lovely meeting you," he said, and she laughed at his formality, dragging him in for a hug.

"Great meeting you too, Gavin. Welcome to the team." She pulled back. "I'll get stuck into making the rest of your suits, I'll have them sent to your room once they're done." She turned to Ryan, grinning as she also swept him into a warm embrace. "Ryan, pleasure as always. Promise you won't be too hard on him."

"Only as much as I have to be," he assured. "You enjoy the rest of your day."

She glanced over her shoulder at her sewing accoutrements and smiled. "I plan to," she replied, without a trace of sarcasm.

~* * *~

Lunch was a simple but delicious, as Gavin found all of the meals at the Achievement Hunter headquarters had been so far. This was because Josh, a cheerful, burly bear of a man and the resident pyrokinetic, was actually a fantastic chef, and delighted in preparing meals for everyone. Gavin ate just enough to quell the vociferous rumblings of his stomach, not wanting to fill up too much knowing that he'd soon be back at training. Lindsay and Michael joined them as they ate, having already started their own meal, and they enjoyed their meal with companionable conversation. Other Achievement Hunters joined them as they filtered in for lunch, and soon the sound of animated discussion filled the room. Not for the first time, Gavin was struck by how easy it had been for him to strike up a camaraderie with the rest of the team; of course he'd had good friends before, but none of them had been metahumans like himself, at least not that he could tell.  Neither of his parents had been metahumans either, and hadn't believed that Gavin was either until he'd demonstrated his powers to them. There was something about being different from normal people that tended to cause a bit of a divide between him and the rest of the world.

Not here. With a small start, Gavin realised that for the first time, he truly felt at home.

"You alright there, bud?" Jeremy asked. "You just jumped about a mile."

"What? Yeah, I'm good," Gavin replied, not wanting to admit to how sentimental he'd been feeling. "It's just that I should probably get back to training, right Ryan?"

Jeremy snorted. "Boring. You're not going to turn him into a workaholic, are you, Ryan? It's his first day of training, you know you're allowed to go easy on him."

Ryan smiled. "Just a friendly match testing his powers, nothing too strenuous. You might call it fun, even. Lindsay's offered to help out."

"I'm running bets," Michael added. "Two to one she kicks his ass."

Lindsay beamed winningly at her boyfriend. "Aw, thanks, babe."

Jeremy's interest was clearly piqued. "You know what, I like those odds. You're on."

"Excellent." The two men shook hands over the table.

"Wait a minute," Gavin protested. "Don't I get a say in the fact that you're gambling on me?"

"Nope," Michael said cheerfully, collecting his plate and stacking it into the dishwasher.

Ryan clapped him on the shoulder. "C'mon, you'll do great. I've been training you, haven't I?"

"For one morning!" Gavin squawked. "By throwing crockery at me!"

"Make that three to one!" Michael called out, already heading off towards the training room, the rest of the group filtering out after him. Gavin sighed as he stood, not particularly pleased that he was going to have an audience for whatever training he was going to participate in with Lindsay.

"You'll do fine," Ryan assured him. "I mean, I'll be honest, you almost definitely will lose. Lindsay's very adept at using her powers. But no one's going to think less of you for it." He smiled. "They will think less of you if you're a sore loser about it, though."

"I'm filled with confidence," Gavin muttered as they entered the training room, Lindsay already waiting for him in the centre of the massive training ring, everyone else seated atop folding chairs lined up against one of the walls.

"Alright, here's the plan," Ryan announced, his voice echoing off the walls. "We're going to run this a bit like a one-sided game of capture the flag, only Gavin, you're the flag."

"Um," Gavin started, and Ryan dragged him to the centre of the arena, inside the bounds of a small ring about two metres across. Concentric rings spread out all the way to the edge of the arena in one-metre intervals.

"Now, Gavin'll stay here in the middle, Lindsay starts on the outmost ring. We'll have one minute on the clock. Lindsay, your aim is to get to Gavin and pin him; Gavin, your aim is to not let that happen. Lindsay can teleport towards you in one-ring intervals - and she can go anywhere along the circumference of the ring, so long as it's only one ring closer to you. If she skips ahead, she has to go back to the beginning. To try and stop her, you're going to have to use your powers to freeze her in place before she can teleport away again. If you catch her in one of your temporal fields, you can hold her for a maximum of five seconds before you have to let her go. Make sense to everyone?" Ryan asked, glancing between the two competitors.

Lindsay saluted him and strode towards the side of the area closest to the spectators, glancing over her shoulder to blow Michael a kiss. Gavin gave Ryan a nervous nod, crouching a little and holding his hands at the ready.

Ryan grinned as he stepped off the playing field. "Ready? Go!" he declared, throwing one hand out to the side to use his telekinesis to start the timer hanging on the far wall.

Lindsay advanced four spaces before Gavin even had a chance to react. Wild cheers erupted from the spectators as she quickly advanced, Gavin reeling and already beginning to panic.

"Relax, Gavin!" Ryan called from the sidelines. "Think of it like the clay discs this morning!"

Another three spaces.

Gavin whirled frantically, then finally caught sight of Lindsay just beginning to emerge from the vague grey mist that accompanied her powers. He flung his hand out in her direction, catching her square on with a blast of temporal energy before she had the chance to even fully re-enter reality. Even louder cheers sounded from the small crowd, Jeremy yelling encouragement to Gavin at the top of his lungs.

"Alright, five seconds, let her go," Ryan called out, and Gavin obediently loosened his grip on his powers, Lindsay disappearing instantly.

She only got two spaces closer this time before Gavin caught her again. More enthusiastic shouting echoed from the stands.

Gavin cracked a grin when he caught her again after only two more spaces. They were at almost half time now, and Lindsay was barely halfway to the centre of the ring. If Gavin kept up this pace, he might actually win.

That thought may have made him overeager. Lindsay advanced three places before Gavin could stop her, then four, then four again, obviously having found her rhythm and a sense of Gavin's reaction time. The jubilation of the crowd increased as she got closer and closer, their enthusiasm bouncing off the walls of the large room.

The timer wound down closer to the single digits, but Lindsay was only a few rings away from him now. Gavin twisted and turned frantically, but as close as Lindsay was getting now, he was just a little too slow each time to catch her. With eleven seconds still on the clock, Lindsay pounced on Gavin and dragged him into a headlock, grinning and giving Gavin a friendly hair-ruffling as the other assembled metahumans found an even greater volume to voice their enjoyment at, several of them standing from their chairs as they pumped their fists into the air. Michael was loudest of all, joyfully picking up his chair and tearing it apart over his head.

Lindsay let Gavin out of the headlock, laughing. "Michael, come on! You know Geoff's going to make you pay for that!"

"You did great, Linds!" he yelled cheerfully back at her, and she rolled her eyes, proffering a hand in Gavin's direction.

"Very impressive for your first go, Gavin," she said, having a moment of seriousness as she shook his hand before breaking out into another grin. "You ready for round two?"

Gavin was panting, despite the limited amount of physical activity he'd been doing. "Round two?"

"Of course! It's hardly effective training if we just do it the once, right?"

Gavin groaned a little, and Lindsay laughed again, vanishing from his side and reappearing at the perimeter of the arena.

They ran through the game once more; Gavin actually did better this time around, having gotten a better handle on the patterns of Lindsay's teleportation. It still wasn't enough to be able to beat her, but it was closer than it had been last time. The next round was even closer, and so was the one after that; on the fifth round, she reached him with just over three seconds to spare.

Then Gavin's strength began to wane.

He had never really used his powers for such an extended period of time, and it was showing. Lindsay would reach him quicker and quicker, and Ryan called it for the day when it became clear that Gavin was getting too drained to improve his performance.

Lindsay clapped Gavin on the shoulder. "Man, sure was frustrating getting caught in those temporal blasts of yours. Great job getting me so often."

He smiled tiredly. "Got pretty close to beating you a couple times there."

She laughed. "Hell yeah, you did. I can't wait to see what you can do once you've had a couple months to start properly training up your powers."

Gavin groaned at the thought as the others spilled into the ring, offering their congratulations to Lindsay and complimenting Gavin on the good effort he'd put in. Jeremy gave him a good-natured pat on the back, praising his abilities and seemingly unfazed that he'd lost some indeterminate amount of money to Michael. Michael, on the other hand, easily hoisted Lindsay up onto his shoulders, parading her around the room.

"You did well," Ryan murmured at Gavin's side, a proud smile on his face, and his mentor's simple praise made Gavin glow more than any amount of cheering crowds ever would.

~* * *~

Weeks turned into months, Gavin's control over his powers improving in leaps and bounds. Ryan began to train Gavin in hand-to-hand combat as well, for the times when his powers weren't enough on their own. He also learned to combine the two, alternately giving himself a boost of speed or slowing down his opponent. There was a written learning component too, Ryan and sometimes Geoff teaching Gavin everything they knew about rogue metahumans that their agency had come across.

Ryan would often leave on missions to deal with one of them. Every time, Gavin would eagerly wait for Ryan to tell him that he'd finally be able to accompany the older man in the field, and every time, he would have his hopes dashed, Ryan gently informing him that he wasn't quite yet ready.

Even though it was a gruelling process, Gavin found a deep satisfaction in how much better he was getting at utilising his abilities, not least of all because of how proud it made Ryan. The bond between only grew as time went on. Gavin fancied that there was some deeper emotion being hinted at whenever Ryan praised his performance, a certain level of intimacy when he gave Gavin an encouraging pat on the back, or wrestled the younger man to the ground in one of their hand-to-hand sparring matches. Gavin would barely even admit to himself that he didn't do as well as he could have in those matches because he enjoyed the feeling of Ryan overpowering him and pinning him down.

Whenever Ryan was away, Gavin would instead train with whoever was available. This often ended up being Lindsay, if only for the fact that their powers worked so well in opposition. They would usually fall back on the capture-the-flag-style match that they'd done in their first sparring session together. Gavin had gotten progressively better at it over the months, so they'd changed the rules to keep the playing field level, allowing Lindsay more time to reach him and shortening the amount of time he could temporally freeze her for.

It was after one such session, where they'd flopped exhaustedly onto the chairs against the back wall, Gavin in the middle of taking a deep swig from his water bottle, that Lindsay asked, "So, when're you gonna make a move on Ryan?"

Gavin choked on his drink. "What?" he said hoarsely, and Lindsay smirked.

"Gavin, I love you buddy, but you're about as subtle as a hammer. The only reason Ryan hasn't noticed you're into him yet is because he's completely dense when it comes to that sort of stuff. So, when are you gonna…" She wriggled her eyebrows at him. Gavin stared at her and she sighed. "C'mon, man, I've got fifty bucks riding on this, I've got until the end of next week or Michael wins."

"You guys're betting on my love life? Is anything you don't gamble on?"

Lindsay rolled her eyes. "Well, it's not like we have a whole lot to do besides train when the city isn't under immediate threat of being levelled by a rogue metahuman. And we both know how little that happens. We've had, what, two buildings get taken down since you joined?"

"That's still a lot, I've only been here a few months," Gavin pointed out, but Lindsay waved him off.

"Ah, c'mon, it's not like a regular crazy person couldn't've cooked up some homemade explosives in their basement and done the same thing. Besides, there's more important things. Like you and Ryan professing your undying love for each other."

"Well, I think that's a bit of a leap!" Gavin protested, his cheeks flaming. Lindsay cackled with delight.

"Look at your face, you're totally into him!" She grinned, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Seriously, you have to tell him. Not because I'll get to rub it in Michael's face - although that would a great bonus - but I can guarantee he feels the same way. Stop pining after him like a puppy and actually ask the guy out."

"Isn't it… I dunno… frowned upon? Him being my mentor 'n' all."

Lindsay sighed, but gave him a fond smile. "Gav, I'm not going to lie. Geoff wouldn't be over the moon about it, because there is the chance that it might affect how the two of you work together. I mean, I know me and Michael are basically the worst-kept secret around here, but it's a little different for us - neither of us are each other's mentor, so we don't have to worry about our relationship being misconstrued as an abuse of power." She shrugged. "But still, no one's actually going to stop the two of you if you want to be together. The Achievement Hunters aren't exactly being swamped with job applications," she continued, smiling wryly. "There aren't a whole lot of metahumans out there, and there's only a small subset of that that would want to use their abilities to work at a government agency." She shrugged again. "So, really, you wouldn't need to worry about your job here being in jeopardy, unless you colossally screw something up."

"Well that's reassuring," Gavin muttered. "Besides, not like I've been doing any actual work with him besides training, anyway."

"You'll get there eventually," she told him sympathetically. "Hell, it was ages before they'd let me go out in the field. That's where all the really difficult, dangerous stuff happens, anyway. You'll end up missing the easy days."

"So you're telling me you don't get any satisfaction from taking down one of the bad guys?" Gavin asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Lindsay's lips quirked. "I mean, I guess some people are into that," she conceded.

"Ah, Gav! There you are, thought I might find you here."

"Ryan!" Gavin stood, happy to see his mentor, especially considering the older man had been gone for close to a week. Lindsay surreptitiously nudged him in the ribs as he got up, wiggling her eyebrows at him again.

"Hey, Lindsay, good to see you," Ryan greeted, and she mock-saluted him with a grin.

"Hey, Ryan. I'll go wash off, let you two catch up," she announced with a wink, leaving the training room and heading for the showers next door.

"How'd the mission go?" Gavin queried, and Ryan grimaced.

"Not great. That's what I wanted to talk to you about, actually." He sighed. "This mission's going to run a lot longer than we originally thought. Geoff reckons at least another week, probably more. I'm not here for long, either, I have to head back out in the morning. We won't really have any time for more training before that." He rubbed at the back of his neck, grimacing again. "I'm sorry to have to leave you in the lurch like this again, I realise that it's interfering with your training. And I know you have the rest of the team to help out, but I still feel like I'm letting you down."

"I'm going with you this time," Gavin told him impulsively, and Ryan blinked, a little startled. Normally, Gavin would accept it with minimal complaining when Ryan told him he wasn't going out in the field yet. He'd never asserted himself like this before.

"…Gavin, you're not ready to head out into the field with me yet. Especially not with the metahumans I'm dealing with on this mission. They're very dangerous people. You've come a long way, there's no denying that, but you're still not ready to face that sort of threat yet. When you do start to go on missions with me, it'll be something a lot more low-risk."

"I've been training for almost six months! How is that not enough yet?"

"I can assure you, it isn't." Ryan's blue eyes were deadly serious. "This isn't like in the movies, Gavin. These are very bad people I'm dealing with, and the reason I got assigned to this mission in the first place is because I have years of experience in combatting other metahumans. One slip-up, and these people would kill you without even thinking about it." His tone was firm. "I mean it, Gavin. You're not going. Least of all on this one."

"What else do I have to do to prove to you that I'm ready for this?" Gavin cried, refusing to listen to reason. "Why can't you trust that I can do this?"

Ryan finally hit breaking point. "Because I'm terrified that I'll lose you!" he yelled, then grabbed Gavin's face and dragged him in for a kiss.

It was short and inelegant, full of clashing teeth, borne of pent-up frustration and concern. Ryan pulled away before Gavin even had the chance to respond. Several seconds of silence followed, neither of them breaking eye contact.

"…I'm sorry," Ryan finally muttered, hands dropping, first to avert his gaze. "I shouldn't have done that. I'm supposed to be your mentor, it's an abuse of power, it's… it's not appropriate. It'd never work, anyway, it'd get in the way of our job."

Gavin was still stunned. "Ryan…"

The older man held up a firm hand. "No, Gavin. Don't try to make excuses for me. You don't have to pretend to be comfortable with my behaviour for my sake. I'll go." He moved towards the door, muttering "I'm sorry," once again as he left.

Gavin stared after him, absently touching his lips and wishing he'd had enough time to comprehend what was happening and kiss Ryan back.

Finally gathering his wits, he made a belated dash for the door. "Ryan, wait!" he called out, but the hallway was already empty before him. Gavin ground his teeth in frustration, wishing that his power wasn't so localised. He began to run down the hall, only to immediately collide with Lindsay as she came out of the adjacent room, freshly showered.

"Oh, Gavin, sorry, are you okay?" She flicked her damp hair out of her face, giving him a worried once-over.

"Sorry, I'm fine. Did… did you hear any of that?"

She looked at him blankly. "Any of what?"

"Never mind. Did you see where Ryan went?"

"Um, I saw him get in the elevator, it was headed up, I think. Maybe he went for the roof?"

"Thanks, Lindsay." He gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder and dashed for the lift.

"Wait, did you finally ask him out?" she called after him. "What did he say?"

Gavin ignored her, repeatedly tapping at the close door button.

"Michael, you owe me fifty bucks!" He heard her yell triumphantly as the door slid shut. He sighed into the ensuing silence, the only sound the soft whir of the elevator's ascent.

A soft chime sounded as he reached the roof, the DNA scanner equipped in every entrance and exit flashing a red beam at him before letting him out.

Caiti's rooftop garden was beautiful, as always, and completely quiet, not even a breeze to ruffle the leaves. Gavin frowned. "Ryan?" he called out experimentally, taking a few cautious steps forward and trying to ignore the trepidation coiling in his stomach. There were plenty of little alcoves up here that Ryan could have ensconced himself in, Gavin tried to reason. Gavin probably just couldn't see him, that was all.

And the fact that Ryan wasn't responding probably meant that he didn't want Gavin to find him.

Gavin's heart sank, but he squared his shoulders anyway, stepping further into the silent garden. They would have to talk about this at some point anyway. No point postponing the inevitable.

"Ryan?" he tried again.

Still no response.

The ground began to vibrate beneath his feet, and Gavin froze, trying to figure out what was happening.

The humming increased in intensity, the leaves of the trees nearby quivering with it, and Gavin bent his knees, preparing to leap off to the side.

"I'd stay very still if I were you," a female voice called from behind him, a Canadian lilt to her words. "You wouldn't want it to go off, now would you? It's very sensitive."

Gavin froze once more. "Bombshell," he muttered, and the woman laughed.

"Great, you've heard of me!" Yeah, no kidding, Gavin had heard of her. The woman had levelled entire city blocks with a wave of her hand. "Then you know how my powers work, right?" Her footsteps were near-silent as she walked across the soft ground towards him. Gavin started to sweat. Ryan was right. He wasn't ready for this. "Don't worry if you don't, I'll explain for you. I'm fragokinetic; I can create explosions with my mind." The voice got closer, and closer, then travelled past his left ear. Gavin's eyes twitched to the side, not daring to move anything else, and watched as Bombshell stepped into his peripheral. At first, all he could distinguish was blonde hair and a dark grey suit, then she moved a little more into clear view, allowing Gavin to see the blue and red piping tracing along her suit, almost like wires, and the wide, beaming grin underneath her dark half-mask, showing off perfect teeth. She gave him a little wave, seeming genuinely friendly, and Gavin just stared at her in horror. "You look a little confused," she pouted. "I can explain more if you like. See, an explosion is basically the rapid expansion of particles, molecules forcing each other out of the way as they get bigger and bigger." She stepped closer to him, and Gavin finally snapped into action, raising his hands in her direction.

"Don't get any closer," he snapped, his face set with determination.

Bombshell laughed. "Oh, Vav, you're funny. I almost feel sorry for you. Tell me, just how much can you slow down time? Do you think it'll be enough for you to be able to safely get away from one of my explosions?"

Gavin grit his teeth, the ground still humming beneath him. He didn't know. He didn't know if he'd be able to save himself.

"I've had years already to learn about my powers," Bombshell told him, almost sympathetically. Her friendliness was more terrifying than any hostility. "You've been at this a few months? Vav, sweetie," she simpered, "You don't have a chance."

"Stop taunting the poor thing, Bombshell," another female voice called. Gavin's heart sank; he recognised the newcomer as well. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to play with your food?"

Bombshell rolled her eyes. "Like you're one to talk, Dollface."

Dollface delicately lifted one shoulder, purple hair cascading down her back. With her colourful locks, pristine white suit, and angelic smile, Dollface looked every bit the hero, but looks were deceiving, especially hers. Dollface was one of the world's most high-profile shapeshifters, able to almost flawlessly mimic the appearance of anyone she desired. Because of this, she was frustratingly difficult to pin down, evading the efforts of the Achievement Hunters and other authorities time and time again. Throughout her career as a villain, she'd taken on the guise of a whole host of different people, for reasons ranging from gaining access to high-security areas, to making important people seem like they'd done something compromising, to just plain humiliating people for fun. The last one seemed to most often be her motivation, apparently finding more joy in sowing chaos than in theft, only really seeming to steal things as a way to fund her escapades. It was no wonder that she and Bombshell regularly partnered up; together, they were a veritable force of destruction.

Gavin was so screwed.

"So, this is Exploit's new pet, huh?" Dollface's eyes flicked up and down. Gavin felt violated by her gaze.

"I'm not anyone's pet," he snapped, only for both women to laugh.

"Oh, the puppy has bite," Dollface teased. "Well, if Exploit doesn't want you, I'll happily keep you for myself."

Gavin bristled. "What do you mean?" How had the two villains known he was going to be up here, anyway? It wasn't like he'd planned on going to the roof before his ill-fated conversation with Ryan.

Dollface grinned, and suddenly Ryan's voice was coming from her mouth. "It's not appropriate. It'd never work, anyway, it'd get in the way of our job."

The Brit's face drained of colour.

Her voice switched back to her own. "I mean, I'd like to say that I was there to hear it, because how delicious, but it was our woman on the inside."

Gavin's confusion cleared. Lindsay had lied to him, led him to the unguarded rooftop garden while Caiti was somewhere else inside the building, blissfully unaware of the situation and unable to take advantage of the garden's defensive capabilities. Lindsay had betrayed them to the enemy.

Michael's going to be devastated.

Dollface's lips curled up into a grin. "You've already figured out who it is, haven't you? You're smarter than you look. I like that." She raked her eyes over him approvingly, laughing when Gavin recoiled with revulsion.

"No? Maybe you'd prefer this?" Dollface's voice shifted into a lower register once more, body morphing, growing broader and taller until Ryan stood before him, fully decked out in his Exploit gear.

Oh, god, no.

"Please don't do this," Gavin whispered through stiff lips. Not when he'd had a crush on his mentor pretty much since they'd met. Not when Ryan had finally admitted he felt the same, only to tell Gavin that nothing could even happen between them.

Dollface chuckled, and Gavin hated that she was such a good mimic that the sound still made a shiver travel down his spine.

"What's wrong, Vav? You can't tell me this doesn't appeal to you." She swept a hand down Ryan's body as she stepped closer, watching him from behind his mentor's face. Gavin probably wouldn't have moved even if Bombshell wasn't threatening to blow him to smithereens. Even though he knew it wasn't actually Ryan, Dollface's mimicry was so unerringly accurate, her expression so compelling, that Gavin couldn't tear his gaze away. She stepped closer still, until her lips touched his, soft and warm, moving slowly. It felt just like he'd imagined his first kiss with Ryan would actually feel, tentative and sweet.

Gavin had never felt more disgusted.

In a panic, he shoved her away, momentarily forgetting the nuclear threat beneath his feet. It wasn't like Bombshell could do anything with her partner standing so close to Gavin, anyway. Dollface pulled back, giving herself room to sweep her leg under Gavin's, grabbing his wrist as he fell. Flailing, Gavin tried to slow her down, but in his rattled state his powers did the exact opposite of what he wanted, giving her a sudden boost of speed, allowing her ample time to pull out a small coil of rope stashed in a zippered compartment of her suit, deftly tying his hands in front of him. She shoved him down, and he grunted as his knees hit the ground.

The ground stopped its ominous rumbling, Bombshell shaking out her hair. "Finally. And you accuse me of toying with him."

Dollface raised an eyebrow. "Careful, Bombshell, that was almost snarky."

The blonde stuck out her tongue.

"Well? You calling Kitty Scarlet in? Or were you planning on us walking him there?"

Muttering some choice words under her breath, Bombshell pulled out a small grey brick phone, firing off a quick text. Within seconds, Lindsay appeared on the rooftop beside them.

Gavin didn't say anything to her. He couldn't say anything to her.

The betrayal in his eyes spoke volumes.

Dollface pouted at the awkward silence. "Aw, come on, aren't you guys friends?"

Lindsay closed her eyes briefly. "Look, are we going, or not? I don't want to stick around here too long, if you don't mind."

The purple-haired villain shrugged. "You're the one that's getting us where we're going," she replied, and Lindsay made an impatient gesture for the three of them to stand closer together. Bombshell and Dollface obediently pressed against Gavin's sides, Lindsay stepping forward to grab hold of his arm.

Reality shifted around them, their bodies transported from one place to the next within an instant. Gavin swayed a little, feeling nauseous, but recovered quickly, taking stock of his new surroundings.

Wherever they'd gone looked industrial, well past its glory days. Years of dust coated every surface, creating a soft haze that the weak incandescent lighting struggled to pierce. Gavin's heart sank. He knew just how extensive Lindsay's teleportation range was. They could be in any one of thousands of abandoned factories in America.

"Now, keep facing forward," Dollface ordered. "Kitty tells me that you can only focus your power when you're using your hands, so I don't want to see them pointed anywhere near me. Understood?"

Gavin grit his teeth. "Yes."

"Good. Start walking."

One of them prodded him in the back, making him stumble forward. With a scowl, he complied, getting another nudge whenever they reached an intersection. Eventually, they reached what had once been the factory floor, long-disused machinery silently rusting under a heavy shroud of dust. Gavin was steered towards a rickety-looking set of stairs that led up to a glass-walled office that overlooked the factory floor, no doubt once the domain of the management team of the factory. Metal creaked in protest under his every step, but still the women urged him upwards, walking him through the abandoned office and into the secondary office hidden behind it.

This room seemed far better tended to than the rest of the building; it clearly had a steady source of power, for one, as evidenced by the multitude of security camera feeds being displayed along one of the walls. Dollface steered him past the rows of empty desks, blocky, utilitarian affairs that were affixed to the floor, towards a desk at the back of the room, raised above all the rest. It had clearly belonged to some sort of overseer before the factory had been abandoned.

A long metal pole ran along the back of the desk, and Dollface give it a tap, making a hollow sound ring out. "Hands, here," she instructed, beaming hugely, and Gavin reluctantly complied. Fortunately, the desk was slanted, like an architect's, and the position wasn't too awkward. Gavin still baulked when Dollface produced another length of rope, deftly tying his bound wrists to the desk. Gavin jerked against the restraints instinctively, but both the knots and the desk remained firmly in place.

"Bombshell, why don't you go make sure that our guest doesn't arrive unexpectedly?"

"With pleasure." Grinning, Bombshell gave Dollface a mock salute, then left. Seconds later, she appeared on one of the camera feeds. She held one hand out before her, likely holding an explosion at the ready just in case she was attacked.

All sign of joviality fell from Dollface's expression as she rounded on Lindsay. "Kitty, I need to go get something. Can I trust you with him?"

Lindsay nodded, just as serious. "I've thrown my lot in with you. The Achievement Hunters would never forgive me for helping you, and I don't want them to."

"Good. Have a nice chat, you two." She left, leaving Gavin and Lindsay to their own devices.

Silence stretched between them for several long seconds, Gavin staring at Lindsay accusingly while she resolutely ignored him.

"Why, Lindsay?" he asked quietly.

She didn't look at him as she replied. "Because I'm tired of pretending like what the Achievement Hunters do is actually helping. Do you know how hard it is, pretending to be so happy all the time, like everything's fine, when you know it really isn't? Regular humans look at metahumans like freaks, like something to fear. All the Achievement Hunters really do is vilify other people like us for the sake of keeping ourselves safe from persecution. They're part of the problem."

"So joining Dollface and Bombshell is better?"

"At least they don't pretend to be the good guys," Lindsay muttered. She looked at him now. "Do you know what happens if a rogue metahuman does get caught by the authorities?"

Gavin was silent.

"If their powers could in any way help them escape prison, they're sedated for the rest of their lives." Her hands balled into fists. "They do the closest thing they can to killing you, because oh no, killing you would be wrong. But keeping you in a coma for the rest of your life is justified." Her eyes dropped away again, her voice soft. "My mother was a teleporter too, and a thief. She got caught, though, someone got in a lucky shot when she was stealing something and knocked her unconscious before she could escape. She's been in a medically-induced coma for seventeen years. I was eleven." Her eyes bored into Gavin's once more. "I'm not saying she's innocent. I know she's a criminal. But that doesn't give the government the right to take any chance of a life away from her."

"…I'm sorry about your mum, Lindsay," he said truthfully. "If you want to talk about justifying things, though, then why would you team up with Bombshell and Dollface, of all people? They're both responsible for so much pain and loss and death in this city. I know it's a cliché, but they're damn evil."

"Well, you know what they say. Beggars can't be choosers. Besides, what else can I do at this point? There's no coming back for me. It's either this, or become a vegetable at some secret government prison. I know which I'd prefer."

"You can come back from this," Gavin insisted. "Just free me, we can take down Dollface and Bombshell together. You can say you saw them take me, that you rescued me from them. You can still be the hero."

"That's assuming I want to be," she replied, shaking her head. "In any case, someone will figure out I've been feeding information to Bombshell and Dollface, it's only a matter of time. I don't want to go back to being a good little drone, and nothing you say can change that."

"What about Michael?" he asked softly, and Lindsay closed her eyes in pain. "He loves you."

"Gavin, please don't." Her words were quiet, but her tone brooked no argument. "That was by far the hardest part of my decision to do this. I will genuinely hate you if you try and use that against me."

"…Why not ask him to go with you?"

She looked momentarily startled by the question, like she'd expected him to give her another reason to change her mind, then she snorted. "You're kidding, right? I know you've only been with the Achievement Hunters a few months, but surely you know Michael well enough by now to know he'd never go for something like this."

"I think he might've," Gavin murmured. "He really does love you."

Lindsay swallowed hard. "…I know. But turning his back on everyone would've made him miserable."

"And you leaving him like this wouldn't?"

Her hands tightened into fists, knuckles white. "He'll get over it," she said tightly. "He's better off this way."

"How're you two doing in here?" Dollface called sweetly from the doorway, grinning in their direction.

"I'll go help Bombshell keep watch for Exploit," Lindsay announced, quickly marching from the room and slamming the door a little louder than strictly necessary. Meg watched her go, amused.

"I'm sure you'll be happy to hear your knight in shining armour will be here soon," Dollface told him, moving towards him. "I've let him know where we are, I bet he's rushing over here as fast as he can."

Gavin glared. "What do you want?"

"Why don't I demonstrate?"

Before Gavin could react, Dollface looped something over the top of his head, deftly tying it around his neck in a series of complicated knots.

"What're you-" Gavin's words were cut off in an awkward gurgle as Dollface tightened whatever she'd wrapped around his neck.

"Now," she murmured quietly, her voice terrifyingly soothing, "you're going to stop complaining and just listen, okay? When your dear friend Exploit gets here, I'm going to give this garrotte a nice tug, which is unfortunate for you, because I've knotted it in a way that once it's tightened, it can't be loosened again." Gavin yanked futilely at the ropes around his wrists, but of course he remained firmly tethered to the railing. Dollface chuckled. "Exploit will try his best to save you, I'm sure, but there won't be a whole lot he can do without killing you in the process. But he'll try, poor thing, and that'll give me plenty of time to get away."

"Why?" Gavin asked, hoping that if he kept her talking she'd give him enough time to formulate a plan. "You've got Kitty Scarlet on your side now, and your own powers besides. If you wanted to get away, you could've just gone. You can literally be whoever you want to be, no one would be able to track you."

"That's not the point," she hissed, tightening the garrotte fractionally. Gavin struggled not to move. "If I just leave without doing anything, then he wins. Do you know how many of my plans Exploit as foiled over the years? It's infuriating. I just want to have my fun, but no, he has to swoop in every time and spoil things. I'm going to ruin his life for a change." Her voice lowered. "I'm sure Kitty Scarlet told you what happens to metahumans like me when they go to jail, right? I'm not letting that happen."

A lightbulb went off in Gavin's head, and he surreptitiously started to twist his wrists inside the confines of his restraints. If he could just get his hands facing towards himself a little more… but he needed to keep Dollface talking, keep her distracted. "If you kill me, you know you're not going to go to jail, right? He'll kill you right back. Slowly."

Dollface laughed, unperturbed. "Like you said, though, no one would be able to track me. I'll happily keep myself below the radar for the rest of my life after this, knowing that Exploit would be out there somewhere, hating me with a burning passion but not being able to do anything about it." She noticed him shifting and simpered at him. "Oh, sweetheart, you're not getting out of those. I'm great at knots." She gave him a wink, which he resolutely ignored, going still once more. He'd gotten his hands in the position he wanted, anyway.

He didn't know if his plan would work. He'd never tried to use his powers like this before.

Anything was better than waiting around as bait.

Movement flickered on one of the security feeds. Gavin's eyes snapped towards it, momentarily distracted from his plan.

It was Ryan.

Dollface made an excited sound. "Ooh, he's here already! That was quicker than I expected!"

Ryan crept down one of the factory's labyrinthine hallways, sneaking up behind Bombshell as she patrolled the building. Gavin waited for Dollface to communicate with her in some way - surely they had some way to talk, otherwise what was the point of even doing a patrol - but she did nothing, watching the screen serenely as Ryan quickly disabled her comrade. The undetonated explosion that Bombshell had been holding onto went off about ten metres in from of her, but Ryan seemed largely unfazed.

"Well, that's unfortunate," Dollface said, calmly watching as Ryan carried the now-unconscious Bombshell over to a storage room, depositing her inside then using his telekinesis to tear free a nearby section of piping to bar the door with.

Gavin shuddered at her callousness. He'd known it already, but her complete lack of concern for someone who had purportedly been her friend for years made it clear she was a complete sociopath. Doing his best not to look at the bank of screens, Gavin focused on the ropes, concentrating on bending time around them, speeding it up. Faster, and faster, making minutes pass for each second of real time. Then hours, days, years. Faster than anything he'd ever done before.

It was hard to control. Gavin was much more adept at slowing things down; speeding something up like this, even something as small as the ropes around his wrists, was well beyond his experience. His control constantly felt like it was on the brink of slipping away from him, like any second it would spin catastrophically out of control. He had no other choice, though. He didn't have the physical strength to bust out of the ropes on his own.

Just when Gavin thought he couldn't possibly hold on any longer, he felt the ropes shift. He fought to keep his expression clear of triumph. His plan had worked - the rope was starting to rot, the fibres loosening as they decayed. On the screen, Ryan pounced on Lindsay from behind, knocking her out before she had the chance to teleport away. Gavin's elation subsided. He had to work faster. He couldn't still be at Dollface's mercy when Ryan found them.

The strain was incredible. He could feel his face going red, could feel a trickle of blood dripping out of his nose as a capillary in one of his nostrils burst. Just a little longer…

With a shout, he tore his arms outward, the ropes snapping. The pressure of Dollface's garrotte increased, the sharp wire drawing blood, and Gavin's tenuous hold on his power finally failed, sending a temporal shockwave rippling through the room. Dollface went flying backwards, the garrotte coiled uncomfortably but not restrictively around his neck, just as the door was literally torn from its hinges, Ryan's furiously desperate face appearing in the gaping hole.

Gavin's power spiralled further out of control. Dollface jerked and twitched, erratically ricocheting between being sped up and slowed down. The entire room shuddered and groaned. Already rotted, the plasterboards making up the office ceiling fell around them, kicking up clouds of dust and exposing the steel beams of the factory interior. The metal fixtures began to grow rust, weakening under their own weight.

"Gavin!" Ryan yelled, anxiously hovering at the perimeter of Gavin's fluctuating powers, not wanting to get caught in the maelstrom. "I'm here, calm down! You need to get a hold on your powers!"

The Brit gave him a frantic look. "I-I can't! I've never done anything like this, I don't know how to control it! I can't!"

"You can!" Ryan insisted, ducking a little as another of the metal pylons started to sag with a screech. He flung out his hand instinctively, using his own powers to help hold it in place. "Just remember what I've taught you! Just focus!"

Dollface continued to writhe, her face contorted with pain, her own powers rippling through her sporadically, her form shifting grotesquely in an attempt to stop the temporal energy from destroying her at a cellular level. Gavin watched her, horrified.

"Ryan, I can't!" Tears stung his eyes as he helplessly watched Dollface squirm. He might not have liked her by any stretch of the imagination, but he would never wish the pain she was clearly experiencing on anyone.

"Yes, you can. Gavin, look at me." Gavin's terrified eyes met Ryan's determined ones. "I love you," he said simply. "And I have faith that you can do this." Taking a deep breath, Ryan launched himself as far into the sphere of Gavin's out-of-control powers as he could.

"No!" Gavin shrieked as Ryan began to scream, the sound distorted as it alternately began to speed up and slow down. The older man was still holding Gavin's gaze - no fear, no doubt, only love and trust, and pain as Gavin's unrestrained powers began to tear him apart. Gavin began to sob. "Ryan, you bloody idiot! I can't stop this!"

Blood sprayed from Ryan's mouth and hung suspended in the air. Rips began to appear in his flesh, bits of skin sagging and decaying as decades passed in the space of seconds. Without his telekinesis to hold the ceiling in place, it began dip dangerously once more, a support beam tearing free and crashing to the floor, perilously close to Ryan's writhing form.

Gavin watched him in despair, feeling helpless. He couldn't do this. Ryan was going to literally be torn to shreds, or be impaled by falling debris, or both, and it was Gavin's fault. Another hot gush of blood shot from Ryan's mouth, his eyes slowly beginning to close.

No. His inability to control his powers was what had made Gavin leave England. He wasn't going to let it cause any more grief.

Gavin gathered what little energy he had left, planting his feet. Ryan's body twitched, eyes no longer watching Gavin. No longer watching anything. Gavin screamed, crushing his eyes shut as he flung his hands out, doing his best to wrap his frayed control around the wild temporal energy coursing through the room.

Everything went still. No pulsing fluctuations of time, no horrific sounds of pain from the two people caught in its throes. Gavin opened his eyes in time to see Ryan and Dollface simultaneously slump to the ground.

Gavin rushed over to his companion's body, heedless of the blood flowing from his nostrils once more. "Ryan?" he whispered, not daring to speak loudly into the heavy silence. Ryan's flesh was still ruined, stretched and torn. "Ryan, please don't be-"

The older man coughed, eyes cracking open and mustering a smile. "Told you you could do it," he wheezed, more blood flecking his lips. His breath rattled in his shredded throat.

"Ryan, you damn bastard." Gavin choked on his tears, vision blurring. "Why'd you have to go and throw yourself into the room like that?"

"Knew you'd… never forgive yourself if… you killed her. Even if she's-" Ryan coughed again. More blood. "-one of the bad guys."

The tears stung a little harder. "But now you're going to die instead."

Ryan cracked a smile. "To be fair... I did expect you to stop it."

Gavin let out a sob.

"She's getting away," Ryan murmured, head rolling to one side.

Gavin looked over to where Dollface had fallen. The villain had shifted back to her normal form, and, whilst bloodied and bruised, clearly had enough energy to stagger to her feet and drag herself out of the room as fast as she could, casting a terrified look back at Gavin before disappearing.

"Aren't you... going to get her?" Ryan asked. Gavin shushed him, smoothing his blood-matted hair.

"Doesn't matter."

"I meant it," Ryan whispered.

"What?"

Ryan smiled again. "I love you."

Gavin laughed helplessly, the tears finally falling. "I love you too," he said, voice cracking. "I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault. 'M the one who jumped."

"And I didn't save you in time," Gavin murmured back. Ryan's eyes began to drift closed once more. "Ryan?" He shook the older man. No response. Only the faint rise and fall of Ryan's chest even showed he was still alive. "No. No! Ryan!" Ryan's body rolled limply in his arms. "Ryan!"

No. This couldn't be happening. He had to be able to fix this.

An idea sparked in his mind.

Surely reversing time wasn't so different to what he could already do? It was essentially just slowing time to a standstill, then pushing past that barrier. It wasn't something he'd ever considered trying before, but he'd gained a lot of control over his powers these last few months. He only needed to reverse a few minutes, and Ryan would be fine.

Gavin closed his eyes, drawing together the tattered dregs of his power, focussing them around Ryan's body. He felt the temporal energies around him shift, and slow, then freeze altogether. Gavin dashed his remaining strength against the blockade. More blood flowed from his nose. A capillary in his eye burst, blood flooding into the sclera, mingling with his tears. He so desperately needed this to work.

Then, with a gasp, he was through. Ryan's body lifted up out of his arms, the blood splattered onto the floor rising back up into his body. His screams sounded even more horrific in reverse, but his skin repaired itself before Gavin's eyes. Or, more accurately, it returned to the state it had been in before he'd so recklessly flung himself into the vortex of Gavin's wildly rampaging powers.

Gavin felt his control start to slip once more, and he struggled to let the energy unwind harmlessly, knowing that he didn't have the strength left to reverse things again.

"Well, that has to be the single most disturbing sensation I've ever experienced," Ryan told him.

The younger man laughed. "I did it," he said happily, tiredly, then promptly passed out.

~* * *~

Even with Jack near-constantly by Gavin's bedside, using his powers to speed up the Brit's healing, Gavin was unconscious for three days after the ordeal. When he finally woke, it was to the sensation of numb legs. For a moment, he panicked, thinking that he'd somehow been paralysed from the waist down, but calmed when he realised it was because Ryan was draped protectively over his midsection, fast asleep.

"Hey," Gavin croaked tiredly. "Get off, you big lump, you're cutting off my circulation."

Ryan blinked owlishly at him, rubbing at one eye as he screwed up his face, clearly still half-asleep. It was adorable.

He blinked a few more times, brain taking a few seconds before allowing him to fully wake and comprehend the world around him. When he did, though, a relieved smile broke across his face and he flung himself forward, gathering the younger man into his arms. Gavin laughed, only for the sound to be smothered as Ryan pressed their lips together. It was only slightly more elegant than the first time they'd kissed, but Ryan didn't pull away this time, and after a few seconds the frantic desperation ceded, the kiss become something far more gentle. Ryan stroked Gavin's hair as he broke away.

"I thought I was going to lose you."

Gavin let out a soft chuckle. "Try it the other way around. You're the crazy bastard who tossed himself into the middle of all that temporal energy when it was very clear that I had no bloody idea what I was doing."

Ryan kissed the tip of his nose, making Gavin scrunch it up. "What can I say? I trusted you could it." He tucked an errant strand of hair behind Gavin's ear. "How're you feeling?"

"Tired," Gavin told him truthfully, then grinned. "Hey, I reversed time," he said proudly.

Ryan smiled in response. "That you did. Patched me up real good. You'll put Jack out of a job." He gave Gavin's hand a squeeze. "He's been here for most of the time you've been out, by the way. He's off getting some rest himself now, but I'm sure he'll be glad to hear you've woken up."

"I'll have to thank him when I see him next," Gavin murmured with a yawn. His eyes drifted over to the bedside table, which was overflowing with a beautiful floral arrangement that wafted a calming scent towards him. Caiti's doing, he was sure. "Think it'll be a little while before I can pull off a stunt like that, though. Or use my powers at all, really, I feel bloody empty."

"I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case," Ryan agreed. "Powers are like muscles - if you put too much strain on them, then you need to give them a chance to rest before you can start training them back up again. And you pushed yourself way beyond what I could have ever expected. I had no idea you could do something like that."

Gavin cracked another yawn. "So much for having faith in me, then," he muttered, but he smiled as he said it. The expression dimmed almost as soon as it appeared. "Wait, what happened with Dollface and Bombshell? Where's Lindsay?"

"They got away," Ryan admitted. "Dollface must have found where I locked the other two up, because they were gone when I called the rest of the Achievement Hunters in after you passed out." He rubbed the back of his head. "Geoff's a little pissed about that, but it's not like I was going to just leave you lying on the floor somewhere while I chased them down."

Gavin didn't say anything. He didn't know whether he was glad or not that Lindsay had gotten away. Whilst obviously she needed to be brought to justice, Gavin was sure that Michael wouldn't be coping well with the knowledge that the love of his life had betrayed them. Perhaps that, if nothing else, made it a good thing that she hadn't been brought in yet; the abrasive strongman would need time to come to terms with her betrayal, or otherwise his anger would likely get the better of him the next time he saw her and make him do something he'd later regret.

"I should let you sleep," Ryan told him when Gavin yawned yet again. "You've still got some recovery to do."

The Brit grabbed at his wrist. "Stay?"

Ryan smiled. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Good." Gavin nodded, smiling back. "I need my partner by my side."

"Partner?" Ryan raised his eyebrow. "Giving yourself a promotion, are you?"

"Yep," Gavin confirmed happily. "I rescued myself before you showed up, didn't I? Hardly sidekick material."

"As I recall, when I showed up I still had to save you from yourself," Ryan pointed out, and Gavin swatted at him half-heartedly.

"Details." He yawned again, longer and wider this time.

Ryan grinned as the younger man's eyes began to drift shut. "Well then, this'll have to be a recommendation instead of an order. Get some sleep.

"Partner."

[aion-rsa]

His Dark Materials Review: An Adaptation Worth Waiting For

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The BBC’s Philip Pullman adaptation is a rich family fantasy that retains the books’ dark power…

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This His Dark Materials review is spoiler-free. It was originally published on Den of Geek UK.

Current wisdom teaches that the age of family home viewing is over; parents and kids no longer crowd around the TV in a tumble of wet-from-the-bath hair, pyjamas and shushing. Instead, they’re dispersed around the home and plugged into separate devices.  

That may be largely so, but it’s not the whole picture. In 2017, Ofcom reported that 70% of UK families still watch a shared TV programme at least once a week. If you’re among them and open to suggestion, then from Sunday the 3rd of November (or November 4th, in the U.S.), make it this one. 

In terms of family viewing, His Dark Materials is the real thing: as Douglas Adams might have said, it’s both complicated enough for children and simple enough for adults. Its richly constructed fantasy world is magical without being cutesy. There’s no wise-cracking sidekick or sickly sweetness. Fear, frustration and a sense of never knowing quite who or what you can trust – things that kids know all about – are woven thrillingly into the adventure.  

read more: His Dark Materials Creator Discusses Religion in TV Show

Episode 1 is wise enough to know that the childish exuberance of escaping, exploring and trespassing is exciting at any age. It’s also clever enough to ground its scares not in fantasy monsters, but the shadowy unknowable world of grown-ups operating with hidden agendas. 

The adventure starts, as the opening scene explains, in a world “both like, and unlike, your own.” The city of Oxford (where much of this episode’s filming took place) exists but its rivers are peopled by water travellers the Gyptians, and its rooftops adorned with animal statues instead of stone gargoyles. These don’t represent true animals, but daemons, the talking, moving human soul in creature form that accompanies each living person in this world. 

While an adult’s daemon is fixed as one animal, children’s daemons swap between forms until puberty. This information is quickly passed on and takes only a little getting used to (there are moments in episode one when a voice seems to be speaking from nowhere until you jolt and remind yourself you’re listening to the words of a computer-generated stoat or snow leopard.) It’s all established with a minimum of fuss, lending a matter-of-factness to the magic of the world that makes it feel satisfyingly lived-in. There will no doubt be questions at home about how it all works, but asking questions is very much the point of this story. Trust these creators, they clearly have all the details worked out.  

read more: Nicole Kidman's 7 Best Genre Roles

The original Creator, or Almighty as he would doubtless not want to be known is Philip Pullman, writer of the original book trilogy published between 1995 and 2000 (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass check). His work has been faithfully adapted here by screenwriter Jack Thorne (The Virtues, This Is England, Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, The Fades) and director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Miserables, Cats). The British production company is Bad Wolf, led by Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner, the two producers behind the 2005 revival of Doctor Who. In other words, it’s been brought to life by a tribe of experienced storytellers.

The story is, as many are in the fantasy genre, about a child, a prophecy, a magical talisman, an all-powerful ruling organisation and a long, dangerous journey. Its engagement with theological and philosophical debate is what distinguishes it from the crowd (dodged by the 2007 feature film adaptation, which watered down Pullman’s criticism of theocracy). It’s been described as an inverted retelling of Milton’s Paradise Lost, from where the title is drawn.  

This version also stands out for its casting, which is so far faultless. Dafne Keen, recognizable from 2017 X-Men film Logan, plays main character Lyra with wilfulness and spark. James McAvoy is terrific as her Byronic uncle Lord Asriel, while you’d call Ruth Wilson a revelation as the glamorous and mysterious Mrs. Coulter if she weren’t always this watchable.   

While the Harry Potter phenomenon proves it can hit big in cinema, British fantasy on TV has struggled to find a foothold of late. ITV’s Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde sank without a trace. The success of Merlin wasn’t matched by its successor Atlantis. Peter Harkness and Check Check’s Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell, a jewel of an adaptation, was tossed away on Tuesday nights in the summer of 2015, when it should have been set, just as this has been, against a dark and wintry backdrop.   

As right for cold Sunday evenings as buttered crumpets and lashing rain, His Dark Materials’ arrival has been timed to perfection. One episode a week from the start to the finale will take you all the way up until the 22nd of December (December 23rd in the U.S.), after which the wait begins for the already-filmed second season. At least one more is planned, to complete the adaptation of the novel trilogy, and a second trilogy set in the same universe is currently mid-publication, so if enough of us climb aboard, who knows where this fantastic journey might take us. 

His Dark Materials premieres on Monday, November 4th on HBO. Find out more about the TV series here.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Review

Books

Louisa Mellor

Oct 30, 2019

His Dark Materials

HBO

Jack Thorne

from Books https://ift.tt/2JBZMwy

[moonwalkertrance]

“These people feel emboldened. They see this as a culture war — and they believe they’re winning.”

That’s what Patrik Hermansson, a Swedish graduate student who spent twelve months undercover in the European alt-right movement, told me. Hermansson was part of Hope Not Hate, a UK-based organization established in 2004. The group is known for combating racist and fascist organizations with unorthodox methods like infiltration.

With the help of Hope Not Hate, Hermansson fabricated an identity — replete with an elaborate backstory and a host of social media accounts — and penetrated one of Europe’s most influential white supremacist “think tanks,” the London Forum.

Over the course of twelve months, he developed relationships with some of Europe’s and America’s most prominent alt-right figures. He attended their events, gave speeches at their conferences, and documented their leadership structure, organizational network, and plans for future events. He even spent much of last summer in the United States, hobnobbing with alt-right leaders and eventually marching at the Charlottesville rally in August.

I called up Hermansson via Skype to talk about what he discovered during his time undercover with the European alt-right. How serious is this movement? How quickly is it expanding? What do these people believe and how far are they willing to go in pursuit of their aims?

What he told me was disturbing.

“A lot of people underestimate how serious this is. They think national socialism is a relic of the ‘30s,” he said. “I can tell you that it definitely isn’t. These people are committed, and racism and anti-Semitism are absolutely at the core of what they believe and do.”

Hermansson also explained that the alt-right is best understood “as a cultural movement above all else.”

“Their goal is to change the culture, and that means making their ideas mainstream,” he told me. “They want it to be okay to hold their opinions in public. They want to be able to express their racist ideas in the public square so that they can be openly talked about.”

Our full conversation, lightly edited for clarity, follows.

Sean Illing

How did you get involved with this project?

Patrik Hermansson

Well, I’ve been engaged in anti-fascism work for a long while and in a lot of different ways, mostly in Sweden. But then I moved to the UK and wanted to continue what I was doing, which was writing, reporting, doing research. Things are different in the UK — they have a longer history of anti-fascist activism, and infiltration is not a new thing. They’ve been doing it for a hundred years.

Sean Illing

So what happened when you got the UK?

Patrik Hermansson

When I got to the UK, I asked what I could do and hooked up with the organization Hope Not Hate. What they needed was someone to help them understand this specific UK-based hate group called the London Forum, which is an odd ideological group that manages to bring in a lot of different far-right types. The far-right has tended to be fractured, but the London Forum was part of a broader movement to consolidate all of these alt-right racist groups under a single umbrella organization.

So we wanted to know how this happened. We wanted to know specific details about their organization — how they’re funded, how they recruit, where they’re going next. And the best way to do that is to get inside the organization, so that’s what I did.

“I THINK YOU’RE GOING TO SEE MORE AND MORE OF THESE PEOPLE COME OUT OF THE SHADOWS. WE SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR THAT.”

Sean Illing

How did you go about doing that?

Patrik Hermansson

It’s easier than you’d think. I set up an elaborate backstory, a social media account, and just educated myself on the movement so that I could converse with these people and answer questions they might ask. I developed a whole personal history — where I came from, what I believed, why I became political. I made it as close to the truth as possible but obviously had to invent most of it. But I told everyone, for example, that I was from Sweden so I could talk convincingly about the place I grew up.

Once my story and online life was in place, I just engaged with these people. I became active on their forums and websites. I asked questions. They’re always hunting for new recruits, so it’s not that hard. They come to you. They pitch you. I’d play the part of a naïve but committed follower, and slowly I built up trust and relationships. Eventually, I was getting invited to drinks and gatherings and events.

Sean Illing

How long did it take you to get your foot in the door?

Patrik Hermansson

That depends on where you think the door is, because there are so many levels. It doesn't take long. I mean, the backstory and stuff, that takes a bit of time to build, so that's a couple of weeks, a month maybe. And honestly, it didn’t take long to get my first sit-down meeting. Basically, these groups want to grow, they want to attract more people, they’re eager to bring new people in.

Ultimately, it took about two months to get invited to my first meeting at the London Forum. Once that happened, I was getting invited to all kinds of social functions outside the actual forum. I was meeting with various leaders for drinks or coffee, picking up speakers at the airport — that kind of thing.

(Patrik checks his recording equipment, hidden in one of the buttons of his shirt, before walking into a London Forum gathering. )

Sean Illing

Once you were on the inside, what did you learn about this movement? How big is it? How serious?

Patrik Hermansson

I learned a lot of little things about how they’re organized and what they’re doing, which is helpful to us but not super interesting to the broader public. I’ll say this, however: A lot of people underestimate how serious this is. They think national socialism is a relic of the ‘30s. I can tell you that it definitely isn’t. These people are committed and racism and anti-Semitism are absolutely at the core of what they believe and do.

They really believe in their Aryanism, in their “master race” theories. They believe in racial purity. They believe in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. They think everything in society is wrong, and that the Nazis had it right. I didn’t quite understand how central these core beliefs were, but they absolutely inform everything that they do.

Sean Illing

At what point does this move from theory to practice? At what point does violence become a central tool in this movement?

Patrik Hermansson

I can tell you this: They really believe in the need to use violence to set the world right. They believe that we’re in a degenerative cycle where everything is getting worse and worse because the people who are in charge are not people who are meant to be in charge. It's not white men in charge anymore, they believe, and that's a problem because white men are the only people with the constitution to be able to lead. That's how they think, so they believe that everything is just tumbling down into destruction and they believe that we need strong white men and violence to set that right. That's quite scary.

Sean Illing

How many of the people you encountered started in this direction with legitimate political or economic grievances and, over time, embraced the racism and anti-Semitism as the centerpiece of their worldview?

Patrik Hermansson

Some might actually start with grievances over actual issues, but hanging out in these groups and online forms pushes you towards these fundamental explanations and conspiracy theories. After a while, you start to see the world through that prism, and it all suddenly falls into place.

Sean Illing

How sprawling is this movement? You’ve written about how hard these groups are working to globalize this movement, to go beyond a European alt-right or an American alt-right and make this a truly organized international effort.

Patrik Hermansson

I would say they’ve already accomplished this. It’s hard to say, and no doubt they still have particular concerns about particular countries, but what social media has allowed them and us and everybody to do is connect internationally. The internet has really changed everything in that sense. They see themselves more and more as an international movement, and they actively engage with people across the globe.

Again, this is why the racist and anti-Semitic ideology is so central: It’s the universal narrative that connects all of these grievances. It’s their organizing philosophy.

(In this picture, taken with Hermansson’s hidden camera, Stead Steadman, one of the leading figures behind the London Forum, partakes in a Nordic drinking ritual. )

Sean Illing

There’s a lot of debate right now, certainly in the US, about how marginal or mainstream the alt-right is. White supremacy isn’t new; fascism isn’t new; but these groups do seem to be elbowing their way more and more into the mainstream.

Patrik Hermansson

You have to see this as a cultural movement above all else. Their goal is to change the culture, and that means making their ideas mainstream. They want it to be okay to hold their opinions in public. They want to be able to express their racist ideas in the public square so that they can be openly talked about.

This is why they focus so much on the media, because media is how we change culture. That’s why they’re so active and so savvy on the internet, on social media, on all these alternative sites. That’s why they’re starting their own book publishing companies. They want to spread these ideas like a virus, and they’re succeeding at it.

What we saw in Charlottesville (and I was on the ground there) was young people, many of them university age — meaning they have their whole lives in front of them — and they weren’t afraid to openly associate with Nazis and the KKK. That says something significant about where we are, about where they think they are.

These people feel emboldened; I know that because they told me countless times. They see this as a culture war — and they believe they’re winning.

Sean Illing

A cultural revolution inevitably becomes a political revolution. They want to change the culture because they want to change the power structure. There are a couple ways to do that: You can work within the system or you can throw off the system altogether.

Patrik Hermansson

I agree completely. Those are the two ways. It’s basically revolution or evolution — one is radical and immediate and the other is gradual and delayed. I’d say the alt-right is more radical in their orientation. They want a revolution. They don’t believe in liberal democracy. They’d prefer a racial dictatorship.

There is the so-called “alt-light,” people who share some of these goals but aren’t quite as radical. I’m thinking of [President Donald] Trump, [Stephen] Bannon, and sites like Breitbart. These elements have a lot of overlap with the truly radical groups, but there are distinctions in terms of beliefs and tactics. I’d say the alt-light wants to change things more peacefully or gradually.

Still, for all these divisions on the far-right, they share a common fundamental agenda.

“THEY WANT TO SPREAD THESE IDEAS LIKE A VIRUS, AND THEY’RE SUCCEEDING AT IT”

Sean Illing

You mentioned that you were at Charlottesville a minute ago. Did you spend a lot of time in the US undercover as well?

Patrik Hermansson

Yeah, I spent a lot of time here during the summer, but during the rest of the year I was in London. I went to a lot of demonstrations in the US. I was in Washington, DC, in June when Richard Spencer held an event. I opened a white nationalist conference in Seattle with a speech. I was able to meet a lot of the behind-the-scenes people involved in these groups here in the states.

Sean Illing

Did the people you met here believe that this is a moment for them? That they’ve got real political and cultural traction?

Patrik Hermansson

Yes, they have that feeling. They see what we see. They see that Trump got elected, that there’s an audience for this stuff. They know that their platforms are expanding, that their numbers are growing, that the traffic on their websites is growing.

They look at Trump’s victory and conclude that the winds are on their side. They feel like they can be more open with their ideas now, and that there won’t be as much pushback as before. I think you’re going to see more and more of these people come out of the shadows.

We should be prepared for that.

[driveaugust1-blog]

What causes heart disease – Part 63

17th March 2019

[Is stress the most important cause of cardiovascular disease?]

Forgetting for a moment attacks by various people, and newspapers, that shalI remain nameless [Mail on Sunday UK], I thought I would return to the more interesting topic of what actually does cardiovascular disease and. As I have done several times before, I am looking at stress/strain.

I know that, deep down, most people feel that stress can lead to illness. ‘Oh, I was terribly stressed, then I went down with the flu.’ Or ‘He has been under a lot of stress and had a heart attack.’ If we go back over a hundred years William Osler, a famous physician, described a man suffering from angina as ” … robust, the vigorous in mind and body, the keen and ambitious man, the indicator of whose engines are always at ‘full speed ahead’ “.

The idea that hard driving Type A personalities were more likely to die of heart attacks gained great popularity at one time. But you don’t hear so much about this anymore. It is all diet, and cholesterol, and blood pressure and diabetes and tablet after tablet. Measure this, monitor that, lower this and that.

I believe that the side-lining of stress to be a monumental mistake. Because it remains true that stress is the single most important cause of heart disease, and I intend to try and explain exactly how this can be. Once more into the breach dear friend.

I shall start this little journey by explaining that stress is the wrong word to use. In fact, the use of the word stress has often been more of a barrier than an aid understanding. This is because, when we talk about stress, we really mean strain.

Stress or strain

It was Hans Seyle who coined the term ‘stress’ to cover the concept of negative psychological events leading to diseases, specifically heart disease. Of course, this is a terrible oversimplification, but it will do for now. Seyle later admitted that, had English been his first language (he was born in Slovakia) he would have used the term strain, not stress.

This is because stress is the external force placed on an object, or a human being. Strain is the resulting deformation or damage that can occur. Therefore, it is the resultant strain that is the driver of ill health.

For example, being told you are a useless idiot by one or another parent would be considered a significant external negative ‘stressor.’ The resultant anxiety and upset then represents the strain. However, the two things do not necessarily match up very well.

If you are highly resilient, or perhaps deaf, being told you are a useless idiot may have absolutely no effect on you whatsoever. You will continue to whistle a happy tune, whilst skipping along the pavement.

If, on the other hand, you are a rather more sensitive soul, or perhaps being told you are a useless idiot is a daily occurrence, then the resultant strain/deformation may be quite severe. In this case, the same external stressor can result in completely different levels of internal strain – depending on the resilience of the individual.

To give another example, some people enjoy giving public talks, they look forward to it. Others would rather chew their own arm off rather than stand up and talk in public. Once again, we have the same external stressor, resulting in completely different levels of internal strain.

The death of a close relative, such as a husband, is a major negative stressor which, for most people would cause a significant burden of strain. However, if the husband was an abusive bully, who regularly beat his wife, the death may be a blessed relief and the levels of strain will be reduced greatly. Then again, the conflicting feelings of guilt, relief, happiness and grief can lead to immense strain.

In short, there is no point in saying that an individual is under a great deal of stress. That may or may not be true, but it is very difficult to define, or measure. What matters is their response to negative stressors – real or perceived. The internal strain.

Of course, this does not mean that you can discount external stressors. These can be very important on both an individual, and a population wide basis. So, before looking at strain in more detail, I am going to review external ‘population-wide stress(ors)’.

Population-wide stressors

Whilst this is a fascinating area, the terminology used is more than a little variable, and confusing. One of the problems is that the terminology swirls around, and people write about the same thing using different words or use the same words to describe different things. A bit like using IHD, CHD, CAD and CVD to describe much the same thing, I suppose.

To keep this simple, and stripping terminology down things down to basics, the concept I am trying to capture, and the word that I am going to use, here to describe the factor that can affect entire populations is ‘psychosocial stress’. By which I mean an environment where there is breakdown of community and support structures, often poverty, with physical threats and suchlike. A place where you would not really want to walk down the road unaccompanied.

This can be a zip code in the US, known as postcode in the UK. It can be a bigger physical area than that, such as a county, a town, or whole community – which could be split across different parts of a country. Such as native Americans living in areas that are called reservations.

On the largest scale it is fully possible for many countries to suffer from major psychosocial stress at the same time. This happened very dramatically after the breakup of the Soviet Union, which started in some countries earlier than others e.g. Poland. But the main event was the fall of the Berlin wall, and the collapse of communism across most of Eastern Europe. It was studied quite closely by a number of researchers. Here is one paper:

‘The mortality crisis in transition economies. Social disruption, acute psychosocial stress, and excessive alcohol consumption raise mortality rates during transition to a market economy.’ 1

As the paper states:

‘Acute psychosocial stress was one of the main drivers of the sharp mortality increase experienced by the former communist countries of Europe. In central Europe, the post-communist mortality crisis was quickly solved, while in much of the former USSR, life expectancy at birth did not return to 1989 levels until 2013.’

The splintering of the Soviet Union is something to be, generally, celebrated. However, it caused a massive surge in premature deaths, mainly from cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Below is a graph which tracks at CVD deaths in men under 65s in four former Soviet countries: Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus. The graph starts in the year 1980 and goes on to 2015 2.

CVD was similar in all four countries and was pretty steady, perhaps gently falling. Then, Berlin wall fell in 1989, with major disruption hitting Russia by 1991 when Gorbachev was ousted by Yeltsin. At which point CVD took off in all country.

It may be easier to see a clear pattern if we look at a single country in the Soviet Union, Lithuania. This is a graph that I have used several times before. Figures are from Euro Heart Statistics.

In Lithuania CVD was gently dropping until 1989 then – Bam! Virtually a doubling of the rate in a five-year period. Then it dropped straight back down again.

If you want a comparator country in Europe, here is the UK during the same time period. A steady uninterrupted fall (completley undisturbed by the launch of statins in 1987) Every other country in Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia etc. show the same pattern as the UK – a steady fall.

Getting back to the Soviet Union, it is it interesting that the main increase in those who died was seen in men, mainly middle aged men. To quote from the social disruption paper again:

‘Looking back, it could have been expected that the European mortality crisis would primarily have affected children, pregnant women, the elderly, and the disabled. Yet, as shown.. men were much more affected than women in every transition country. The fastest relative upswing in mortality was recorded for 20−39 year olds, who experienced a marked rise in violent deaths, while the fastest absolute rise occurred among 40−59 year olds, who were mainly affected by a rise in cardiovascular deaths.’

It seems inarguable that extreme psychosocial stress, as experienced in ex-Soviet Union countries after 1989, drove a massive spike in CVD deaths, which is only now beginning to settle down in many of the countries.

As an important aside, you may notice that, in Russia, the rate of CVD rose quickly from 1990 until about 1995, then dropped. Then it jumped up again in 1998. You may ask, what happened in 1998? Well, this was the year of the collapse of the Ruble – known as the Ruble crisis. It resulted in massive financial chaos, and levels of poverty exploded.

‘Mobs trying to get their savings were barred from entering the banks, executives flew to London to get suitcases full of dollars and coup plans were discussed in the newspapers. The value of the stock market dropped to 10 percent of its value of the previous year, the value of Ruble tumbled by 75 percent, and 18 of Russia’s 20 major banks effectively collapsed under massive debts. Foreign investors, some of them calling Russia “Indonesia with nukes,” fled the country.

Some have said the damage to the economy was greater than that unleashed by Hitler’s armies in World War II. By the time of the 1998 Ruble crash ran its course the poverty level had increased from 2 percent of the population in the Soviet era to 40 percent.’  3

Moving away from the Soviet Union to the population that has undergone the single greatest and most extreme form of social breakdown and disruption, social stress and dislocation known. This is the Australian aboriginals. A group of people that has been subjected to an immense burden of negative stressors.

Here are a few bullet points from a study carried out by the Australian Government:

Stress is a significant factor of the lives of Aboriginal young people.

High levels of self-harming intent and behaviour. Feelings connected to loss of hope – high levels of anxiety and depression

Rapid social change in Aboriginal communities.

Interpersonal violence, accidents and poisoning, stress, alcohol and norms of violence as in male to male fighting.

Domestic violence and child abuse, as well as sexual assault, are further stressors and sources of mental ill health.

These behavioural outcomes reflect the impact of historical factors, colonisation and disadvantage.

What impact has this had, specifically on cardiovascular disease rates? A research study was done, called the Perth Aboriginal Atherosclerosis Risk Study (PAARS) population. The investigators looked at CHD (coronary heart disease), not CVD (cardiovascular disease) – which would also include strokes. Sorry for jumping about in the terminology, but everyone does. Indeed, it is hard to find two studies that use the same terminology, or end points.

Sticking to CHD, which basically means deaths from heart attacks, researchers found that the CHD rate in Austrailian Aboriginals was 14.9 per 1000/year versus 2.4 for the general population. This is 1,490 per 100,000 per year [this is metric most commonly used] and represents the highest rate I have ever seen in any population, in any country, at any time – ever. Although Belarus came pretty close at one point.

What also stands out is that the rate of heart attacks in Aborignal Australians was six fold higher than the surrounding population. However, if we separate the figures from men and woman, we can see something even more astonishing.

For Aboriginal men the rate of CHD was 15.0 versus 3.8 per 1000 per year. A four hundred per cent increase on men in the surrounding population. For aboriginal women the CHD was almost exactly the same as for the men, 15.0 per 1000 per year – which is highly unusual in itself – as men normally have a much higher rate than women.

The astonishing fact is that Australian Aboriginal women had a rate of CHD that was ten times the rate of the surrounding female population. Or, to put it another way. One thousand per cent higher. 4

A similar picture, though less extreme, can be seen in Native Americans. As outlined in this 2005 paper. ‘Stress, Trauma, and Coronary Heart Disease Among Native Americans.’ 5

‘This study quantified exposure to trauma among American Indians, adding to the existing evidence that this population experiences a disproportional amount of trauma. We were intrigued by the statement “It may be that high rates of trauma exposure contribute to the increasing prevalence of cardiovascular disease among American Indian men and women, the leading cause of death among this population” and wanted to lend support to this assertion. Indeed, American Indians now have the highest rates of cardiovascular disease in the United States.

In a study similar to the AI-SUPERPFP study (American Indian Service Utilization, Psychiatric Epidemiology, Risk and Protective Factors Project (AI-SUPERPFP) Team). Koss et al. documented adverse childhood exposures among 7 Native American tribes and compared these exposures to levels observed in the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study conducted by Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a health maintenance organization population. Compared with participants in the ACE study, not only did the American Indians have a significantly higher rate of exposure to any trauma (86% vs 52%), but they also had a more than 5-fold risk of having been exposed to 4 or more categories of adverse childhood experiences (33% vs 6.2%).’

Wherever you look, you can see that populations that have been exposed to significant social dislocation, and major psychosocial stressors, have extremely high rate of coronary heart disease/cardiovascular disease.

This can be supported if we look at the twenty countries in the world that have the highest rates of CVD – both men and women. Figures from WHO 2017 6.  Ex-soviet countries in bold

Turkmenistan

Ukraine

Kyrgyzstan

Belarus

Uzbekistan

Moldova

Yemen

Azerbaijan

Russia

Tajikistan

Afghanistan

Syria

Pakistan

Mongolia

Lithuania

Georgia

Sudan

Egypt

Iraq

Lebanon

I feel that some of these figures may not be entirely accurate. Such as the CVD rate in Syria, or Iraq in the last few years. As for the rest. I would not like to comment on the social and political situations in all of these countries in too much detail. However, we are not looking at peaceful and mature democracies here. Mainly dictatorships and countries riven by internal conflict.

Winding this back to the US, there is a pattern of CHD showing that certain counties suffer much higher rates than others. Figures taken from the CDC. On this graph darker means a higher rate of heart disease, lighter means less heart disease. These are deaths per 100,000 per year. You may discern a pattern.

The UK shows precisely the same sort of picture with inner cities and more deprived areas, having much higer rates than affluent suburbs.

Wherever and however you look it becomes apparent that higher levels of psychosocial stress are strongly associated with CVD/CHD. In some cases, very strongly indeed.

But how can psychosocial stress and factors such as childhood trauma, as seen in the Australian Aboriginals, or Native Americans, lead to a build up of atherosclerotic plaques in the arteries,the main cause of CVD?

Or to put it another way, how does a negative external stressor, lead to the internal physiological strain, that causes CVD? For that we need to turn to Sapolski, Bjortorp and Marmot. Which comes next!

1: https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/298/pdfs/mortality-crisis-in-transition-economies.pdf

2: https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/publications/statistics/european-cardiovascular-disease-statistics-2017

3: http://factsanddetails.com/russia/Economics_Business_Agriculture/sub9_7b/entry-5170.html

4: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20427550

Source: https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2019/03/17/what-causes-heart-disease-part-63/

[babylon-bitch]

Just Friends ~ Making Something Great Out Of A Shitty Situation (part 39)

Harper White is best friends with Luke Hemmings, they always have been. Not only is she friends with the rockstar, but with the rest of 5 Seconds Of Summer, as well as a really nice girl named Erika.

Harper has a few secrets, she can play all the instruments the boys play and many more. It’s a talent she has kept hidden, only very few people know.

What will happen to the six teens, wondering around the world together?

***

We’ve been here in the Maldives for a few days now, we leave in two days. I’ve made some great memories with some of my favourite people. It’s been so nice to just let everything go for a week, I’m nearly stress free. Key work nearly, I’m sorta freaking out as we near the end of this trip, because I’m just gonna dive straight into the deep end and lose contact with the people I love. I can bet you 20,000 dollars, that I’ll lose contact with all the guys and girls, not completely, just not daily. That fact scares the shit outta me, of course I’m gonna try and keep contact, but it’s just sad, from going to seeing each other every day and constantly texting to just a weekly, sometimes not even that. The boy’s will be on tour, I’ll be busy with lectures and revision stuff, Erika and Maddie will still be in Sydney, completely different timezones.

I think timezones are gonna be one of the main problems. Erika and I are yet to discuss our plans for our YouTube channel. So much to sort out in such little time.

I’m really gonna miss everyone, if I think about it too much I get so emotional.  I’m not just gonna my friends and boyfriend, but my parents, school friends, neighbours, the whole community. Just my home town and Australia in general.

I’m looking forward to making new friends and living in a different part of the UK. I’ve never really been up north, only for weekend holidays and such, I’ve never spent more than a week up there, so to think I’ll be living there for three or more years is quite exciting.

It’ll be good to see family and live in my own flat on my own. The flat I’ve gonna (possibly) move into is really nice. I haven’t actually seen it in real life myself, but I’ve seen pictures and scheduled a viewing. Hopefully I get it because if I don’t I’ll be pretty screwed and heartbroken. I’ve been in contact with the landlord and he said that no one has put an offer in, yet. It’s not quite in the whole student premise, it’s quite close to the university, but it wouldn’t be classed as student accommodation.

It’s in a really nice area and I love the whole layout of it all, it also has a shared kitchen which isn’t the worst but it isn’t the best, at least I’ll have some flat mates.

I’ve had the same friends for years now, don’t get me wrong, I love them to death, by I haven really made any new friends recently, besides Maddie of course. I’m not exactly the sociable type, but I love meeting new people. I’ve never really made new friends, I’ve always been with Luke and the other boys, never had any other close friends. Luke and I made friends with a girl in primary school called Carol, but that only lasted a few weeks, I think our weirdness scared her away, no she moved away, but again, we didn’t get close. I’ve always gotten along with boys better than girls, that’s not to say I don’t get along less with Erika and Maddie, I’ve just been able to click with boys better. In primary school I got teased a little because I spent all my time with Luke, so they called me a tomboy and I got so angry with them. Luke defended me though, he was my knight in shining armour. I’ve never seen a problem with being friends with boys.

When Luke introduced me to the boys for the first time we didn’t exactly click instantly. Luke started being friends with them a few months before we all met, I thought I was gonna hate them because they took Luke away from me. Of course I’d seen them in the school halls or when I had to drop something off to Luke in the music room, and they were all in there. I would just place it on a spare chair, whisper something in Luke’s ear, then kiss his cheek before leaving, not even sparing the others a glance. I was fucking ready to throw death glares and start world war three, but we got along really well.

“Are you ready?” Luke asked.

“Yeah, I guess so.” I sigh.

“Listen, they’ll love you, what’s not to love?” He winks causing me to blush.

“Luke, I don’t wanna do it.” I whine and bury my face into his chest.

“Why?” He sighs wrapping his arms around me.

“Because, I don’t like people.” I pout.

“You like me.” He states.

“Yeah, you’re you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He laughs.

“Shut up, I just wanna hang out at my house.”

“Harper, there’s people that wanna meet you in my living room. Could you just be nice to them for me? You don’t even have to spend that much time with them, just half an hour. If you don’t like them, that’s fine, if you do like them, that’s great. You don’t have to like them, but could you just be friendly and polite to them for half an hour? For me please.” He asks as he holds my jaw with his hands.

“Ugh fine but you owe me.” I tell him.

“We’ll have a movie night and you can pick what we watch.” He offers.

“Deal.” I sigh.

“Thank you.” He grins and kisses my cheek multiple times.

“Lets just get this over with.” I mutter.

“Be nice.” He warns and intertwines our hands.

Luke opens the front door and we walk in, hand in hand.

“Guys this is Harper, Harper, this is Michael, Calum and Ashton.” He introduces.

“Hi.” I sigh.

Luke sits down then holds my hips, bringing me to sit on his lap and wrapping his arms around my waist.

“Are you guys dating?” Calum asks the infamous questions.

“Eww, we’re just bestfriends. I’d never date Luke if you paid me to.” I exclaim.

“If I got a dollar for every time people asked us that, I’d be a millionaire by now.” Luke says.

“How long have you guys been friends for?” Ashton asks.

“Well Luke is 14 so 14 years.” I answer.

“Harper is older than me, our parents are friends so we’ve been friends all our life,” Luke explains.

“Unfortunately.” I mutter causing them to laugh.

“Shut the fuck up, White.” He warns.

“Love you really.” I grin.

“Wait, where are you from?” Michael asks.

“I’m from England, Brighton to be specific.”

“Oh, I thought you guys were bestfriends for 14 years?” Ashton questions.

“I moved back when I was younger then came back when I was thirteen. We still kept in contact though.” I explain.

“How did Lukey cope?” Michael teases.

“He didn’t because he loves me.” I laugh and squeeze his cheeks with my hand whilst he stares at me.

“Stop it.” He giggles and bats my hand away.

I unzip my hoodie and throw it over the arm of the armchair. Going into my backpack which I placed on the ground next to the chair. Taking my phone out and responding to a text my class mate sent.

After five minutes of texting her I run my hand through my hair, before feeling some people stare at me.

I look up from my phone noticing them all stare at me, yet Ashton and Luke are having a conversation.

Leaning back on Luke and in instinct he wraps his arms around me, not even looking down at me.

“Why are they staring at me?” I laugh in a whisper.

“What?” He asks looking down at me and Calum and Ashton drift off into a conversation, taking glances at me every now and then.

“They are staring at me.” I point out.

“You’re a girl and they are teenage boys, is all I’ll say.” He tells me.

“I guess this is my life now.”

We all clicked that evening and I wouldn’t change it for the world, I love my boys and they are my best friends.

“But like, British people have no culture.” Michael claims.

“Mate, who do you think came up with oiii fuck off when an absolute banger comes on.” I exclaim.

“Oh my God that was one of the most British things I’ve ever heard.” Maddie laughs.

We are all swimming in the sea, I say swimming, I mean standing and moving around every now and then. Luke has his arms around me, whilst I’m leaning into his chest. This whole trip has been quite romantic to be honest.

“Shut up.” I chuckle.

“How do you deal with her all the time?” Erika asks Luke.

“It’s hard but it’s kinda compulsory.” Luke says.

“Hey.” I pout and look up at him.

“I’m sorry, baby.” Luke apologises and turns me around, before connecting our lips together. I wrap my arm around his neck and placing the other on his chest, his hands are holding my waist.

Our lips move in sync and as the kiss gets more intense, I wrap my legs around his waist, we’re under water so it’s easy.

“Alright that’s enough.” We hear them say but don’t really pay attention because I’m too focused on Luke.

We pull back and flip them off. “We’re not gonna be able to kiss or do anything for a long time, so shut the fuck up.” Luke tells them.

“My hand will do a pretty good job.” Calum sighs.

We both grimace and go back to each other. I’m so gonna miss this boy, but I guess it’s a new chapter in our lives that we’ll have to deal with.

It’s going to be scary and new but in the end, it will probably be worth it. Being in a long distance relationship is going to be new, if we can make it through this, we will be so strong. The time when we do see each other again will be so special. With Luke’s lifestyle, every moment with him isn’t to be taken for granted.

***

It’s the day where everything comes tumbling down. The boys will be off, living their dream, something they’ve worked so hard to get to and they bloody deserve it. It’s a bitter sweet moment, I’m so happy for them yet I’m so fucking sad that they are going. I know that I’ll be in a different country but I’m just gonna miss them so much. I wish we could have an eternity long movie night, all cuddling together, watching a shitty movie and totally judging people, popcorn fights, and security.

I’ve gone through my teenage years with these people and I want to approach and go through my adult life with these people. These people are dorks, complete idiots, but they’re my stupid dorks, and that pulls me apart. Luckily I’m not leaving the girls just yet.

Soon enough it’s all going to be ripped away.

I’m currently driving to the airport with Luke in my car, it’s quite early, 7:15. Their’s some deafening silence going on and it’s almost unbearable. I kinda just wanna jump out of this car and jump in front of another car.

“Harper,” Luke starts, “we’re gonna be fine, we’ve gotton through this before.”

“When, Luke?” I ask.

“When we were younger and you went back to England.”

“That’s different, we barely knew what was happening. The other time you went on tour that clearly ended in shit.” I sigh.

“Harper, please, I don’t want to leave you felling sad. I love you so much, the times we do see each other will be even more special. I promise to text you at all the times I have a chance to, at least every day. How long is your Christmas break?”

“Four weeks on the 20th of December then I go back on the 19th of January. You do get to go home for Christmas right?” I ask.

“Of course, we have two weeks or something. We only have to wait four months until we see each other again. I know it’s probably the longest we’ve been away from each other for a long time but it’s gonna be worth it. It’s not just me going this time, you need to go too.” Luke says.

I nod my head and rest my head on my hand, trying not to cry just yet. I purse my lips and concentrate on the road.

“LUKE!”

“HARPER!”

We screech at the same time as a car comes straights towards us on the wrong side of the road, going really fast.

Luke quickly puts his arm over my chest and waist as a protective barrier. I swerve to the left, dodging the car completely, then stopping by the side of the road.

I let out a breath I was holding in and Luke takes his arm away. “Holy shit what is happe-”

I get cut off my some police cars with flashing lights and sirens going off racing down the motorway lane.

“Um, someone’s in bug trouble.” Luke speaks up after a few seconds of silence.

“Uh, yeah, let’s just keep going.” I let out a sigh and look in my mirrors before driving again.

“Yeah.” He says confused.

I just parked my car in the car park, Luke and I are walking hand in hand towards the airport. “Are you going to be okay?” Luke ask, looking down at me.

“I will be I think. It’s just hard, you know? From going to seeing each other every day to not seeing each other at all for a long period of time. I think once I start uni and the whole student scene, it will take my mind off things. I will get used to it all, especially if this is going to be your life now, I’m gonna need to get used to it all, or I will never get to focus on my own life.” I confess.

“I’m going to worry about my baby.” He pouts.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me, you need to get on with your life. I may be your girlfriend but you don’t need to wrap me in bubble wrap all the time.” I point out.

“That’s my job as a boyfriend and best friend to protect my girlfriend and best friend. You mean way too much to me, for me to lose you. I just love you a lot okay and I can’t stand anything bad happening to you. I’m gonna miss you a lot. It’s all gonna be hard, but we can and will get through this together. You and me make a great team and we should make something great out of a shitty situation. Even if we’re apart I’ll still be with you.”

“Ugh, why can’t we just have an ordinary office job together?” I whine.

“That would make things a lot more simple,” Luke agrees. “Is that really your dream though?” He questions as we approach some fans and paparazzi.

We keep our heads down and keep a firm grip on each other’s hands. “I’m not really sure what my dream is. I love doing YouTube and I get a lot of enjoyment out of that.” I admit.

“What are you and Erika doing about that?” He questions.

“We talked when we were on holiday about how one person will film a video one week, then the next week someone else will film a video. That’s the main structure, but we can upload any other time we want. We have a book coming out, we decided to put that on hold for now, we’ll still write a bit of it, but it won’t be our main focus.” I explain.

“Who’s uploading first?”

“Erika I can think, but it could change. It’s kinda like the week Erika uploads is her week, she can upload how ever many times she wants and can film whatever she wants, visa versa.” I answer.

“Sounds good.” He nods.

“Feels good. Sounds Good Feels Good, that could be an album name.” I muse.

“And then the tour could be called Sounds Live Feels Live. Next album name is sorted.” Luke says and we high five each other.

“Well, there everyone is.” I sigh.

“Come on.” Luke gives my forehead a kiss and wraps his arm around my waist, guiding us towards everyone.

“About fucking time.” Calum exclaims as we walk up to them.

“Shut the fuck up, Cal, I’m not in the mood for your sassyness.” I threat.

“Oh, you got a bitch on your hand this morning.” Calum teases as he talks to Luke.

“You are really mean you know that?” I pout.

“You love it.” He winks and I fake gag.

“Did you guys see the car that was going down the wrong side of the road?” Ashton questions.

“Yeah, we almost hit it.” I tell them.

“Wonder what they did?” Luke muses.

“Robbed a bank, I don’t care.” Maddie shrugs.

“When do you have to go?” Erika asks.

“10, 15 minutes.” Ashton answers.

“I’m just gonna say it, I’m gonna miss you girls so much.” Michael says.

“Aww, Michael.” We all coo.

Erika, Maddie, and I go and give Michael hug.

“I think this is blatant favouritism.” Ashton rolls eyes.

“Agreed.” Luke nods his head.

“Michael is a real ladies man.” Calum adds.

“Well I’m not gonna lie to you,” Micheal grins.

“Okay, okay.” Ashton groans and we all pull away.

“Remember when we first met?” I ask.

“Yeah, you hated us.” Michael laughs.

“I thought I would, because you were taking Luke away from me.” I say. “Still to this day, I don’t know what you were staring at. I asked Luke, like why are they staring at me, all you said was you’re a girl, they’re teenage boys, is all I’m gonna say.”

“We were totally staring at your boobs.” Calum admits.

“Why? I was only 14, you guys were older than me, Ashton was 16.” I exclaim.

“I guess we were hormonal teenage boys.” Michael shrugs.

“How did you control yourself Luke?” Michael questions.

“Because it’s weird looking at my bestfriends boobs or getting turned on by her. Plus, I’d seen her naked many times before that.” Luke answers whilst putting his arm around me.

“When?” I question.

“When we about 6 or 7 we’d have naked water fights, we’ve had baths together, things like that.” He shrugs. “I’ve seen you naked many times, especially nowadays.”

“Take that smirk off your face, Hemmings.” I raise an eyebrow threatening.

“Just stating the truth, babe.” He pecks my lips.

“Shut up.” I push his face away.

“Guys, we should really start staying goodbye now.” Erika warns.

“We have 10 minutes left.” Michael point out.

We all agreed for them to say goodbye to their family at home instead of at the airport. I slept round Luke’s house (damn right we did) last night, just so I could spend more time with him. It was actually really fun, we all played some games, watched shitty tv, had really good dinner, got close with Luke’s brother again. It was kinda like before Luke and I weren’t even near the stage of dating yet, when we would have sleep overs.

I’ve been dreading this moment ever since I found out they were working on an album.

“I guess this is it for three months.” I sigh.

“When do you get Christmas break?” Ashton asks.

“20th of December until the 19th of January, so four weeks. I’ll probably get back to Australia on the 22nd or 23rd.” I answer. “When do you get your break?”

“Um 17th or something around that.” Calum says.

“Okay, I’ll look forward to seeing you guys then.” I smile.

We all hug and say what we need to say, until I get to Luke.

“You be safe out there, okay? It’s It’s real cruel place out there.” Luke starts off.

“I will be, you promise to text or call me as much as you possibly can?” I question.

“Of course I will babe. You mean so much to me and I don’t want this relationship to go down the drain because of loss contact.” He firmly says.

“You’ll stay faithful right?” I ask nervously.

“Yes! I’m not the type to just throw this all away because I have needs, I’ve got a hand for that.” He winks.

“That’s disgusting, Luke. You promise?”

“Do you not trust me?” He asks offended.

“Of course I do, it’s just typical for people to cheat whilst on tour.” I sigh and Luke cups my face.

“We’ve been together for quite a long time now, best friends for years, you don’t deserve that, you’re worth so much more than that. You have to trust me on this.” He begs.

“Yeah, I do.” I smile and kiss him.

“Good, but we are gonna have to help each other out on the sexual aspect of this.” He smirks.

“I will definitely take you up on that.” I wink. “Just don’t leak anything, I know how clumsey you can be.”

“Shut up.” He laughs and captures my lips with his.

He pulls me closer so that we are literally pressed up against each other.

“I’m really gonna miss you. I love you so much.”

[raining-v-coffee]

Harry Potter Crossover fic recs

*Multichapter    ~my notes

Sherlock

Whispers in Corners

Everything started with a stumble - his new life in a new world as well as his surprisingly successful career as a medium.

Business

The Dursleys didn't raise Harry Potter to be a very good boy.

Mildest of fusions with Sherlock Holmes

Patience Rewards Itself WIP

Sebastian Moran's job was simple this time; 'fix' Vernon Dursley. He was prepped to do it. He had no problem doing it. That is, until he sees an unidentified boy with no record of existence at the residence thrown out of the home. Thus, Harry Potter gains an (admittedly unconventional) family, Jim gets a protégé and Seb just hopes that Harry won't wind up quite as...off as his Dad.

Symphony WIP

Despite all the magic in the world, Harry had never encountered magic like that of a genius mind. A whole family of them was bit overwhelming really.

Naruto

Loyalty

Magic, wonderful, strange and unpredictable magic took note of him and instead of doing the logical thing, acknowledging what he is, carving out a place between all the other wondrous creatures in this world – magic lifted him up instead.And left him somewhere else.

~ I had this story under a different classification. Whoops! Many thanks to mori-esque for letting me know!

Growing Strong

A young Jasmine Potter escapes a terrible home situation by teleporting herself to the Elemental Nations. Against all odds, she will turn her life around, gain family and friends, and finally… Grow Strong. Warning: Abuse in first chapter, mentions of abuse in following ones.

And it’s sequel, Chasing Shadows WIP

~ I adore this series.

Gringotts Partnership Mature

Hermione never imagined the doors opened to her when she accepted a job as a Gringotts ward-creator. When she receives an opportunity to study she cannot pass up on it and is introduced to a young jounin Minato Namikaze. This changes everything.

Harry Potter and the Secrets of Konoha WIP

Instead of sending Harry back to Privet Drive to sit on his thumbs after Voldemort's rebirth, Dumbledore sends him, Ron, and Hermione to a village called Konohagakure to learn how to defend themselves.

Harry & Co are 14 (end of fourth year). Naruto & Co are 12-13 (beginning of canon). Pairings (if any) are undecided, but will not be central.

Beautiful Star (Or: Why Studying Equals Ramen) WIP

After an unfortunate incident with a compromised Portkey and some revenge-obsessed Death Munchers, a barely eighteen years old GWL must learn quickly to navigate the Elemental Countries, as well as to raise her baby godson, the only one who tagged along on her next great adventure. Heavily injured, starving herself to feed the little six-month-old and deathly afraid of the very real threat of death, Harry is ready to give up when an unexpected hand helped her out. Jiraiya - who only a few years prior suffered the loss of his most prized student - can't help himself when he finds the tiny girl trying to survive without a real understanding of the world around her. For her child. Somehow the Hokage thinks she's a perfect care-taker for her new neighbor, a five-year-old boy hated by nearly the whole village. Now what the hell did she get herself into this time?

Of Authors, Books and Fuinjutsu WIP Mature

After the war a bitter and disillusioned Hermione decides to move to the pocket dimension called Elemental countries. Watch how certain Konoha shinobi change the course of her life.

Deer tracks WIP Mature

Harriet Potter has to flee from England better yet, she has to vanish from this World. An acquaintance has a solution for the problem but is she really ready for what this entails? Fem Harry Potter

Doctor Who

Not Not-Human

Cold-case disappearances, gruesome murders, and unexplainable disasters, and a spate of terrorist attacks rocked the UK only to end with an explosion in a tiny village. The Doctor and Rose Tyler followed the trail of the invisible war for years, but never thought their search would lead to a baby with a lightning bolt scar.

The Littlest Time Lord

The Doctor answers a distress call and finds that he is not as alone in the universe as he suspected he was.

Just a Wrong Turn

All libraries are one, which is how one late night in the Hogwarts library, Harry Potter finds himself lost in the library on board the TARDIS...

The Rising Storm *

Harry Potter opens a fob watch, and his life and destiny is changed forever.

The Originals

Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt WIP Mature

After Voldemort returned in book 4, Prof. McGonagall decides to ask an old friend for help. 15 years have passed since Dahlia died, so when a owl reaches New Orleans, Elijah gladly comes to the rescue. And while Hermione tries to figure out the secrets of their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Voldemort is looking for an ally to make the fight even again.

Avatar The Last Airbender

Harry Potter and the Avatar's Return

After finding a torn comic in the trash when told to clean Dudley’s room, four year old Harry Potter puts it together with some odd things that have happened around him, and concludes that he’s the Avatar.

- Not a crossover so much as a fic in which Harry Potter is convinced that Avatar: The Last Airbender is a historical documentary.

Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit

The Dragon of Moria

After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry Potter helped with the rebuilding and then went back to school, sitting his NEWTS and graduating with the rest of what The Daily Prophet called ‘The Disrupted Class.’ Following that, everyone expected him to become an auror. Harry himself expected it, right up until the moment came to apply to the academy.

He takes up a hobby instead, and it leads him to a whole new world.

This Dream's On Me * WIP

Fili has heard the whispers, between his uncle and his men. There's going to be a quest, a quest to reclaim Erebor and he wants in. The warrior witch he meets in his dreams doesn't seem to think it's a good idea for him to go though. At least, not alone. Eventual FilixFemHarry

The Avengers

Spellist

The new reality had no wizards or magical nations – but it had a whole boatload of powerful and occasionally inept sorcerers. Who were usually semi-public and sometimes very popular in social media. How it worked, Harry had no idea.

~ Harry/Coulson

Valiant *

When Loki's Staff spat out a girl with a lightning bolt scar, HYDRA were not expecting things to go downhill so fast.

They certainly weren't expecting their new unknown to run off with the Winter Soldier.

Real Enough

Harry Potter, JARVIS and whole lot of artificial existentialism.

where there are no keepsakes

She stalks into his office and throws the letter onto his desk. “Returned unopened, Headmaster,” she says.

There isn’t even an address, just the name Harry Potter. “Oh, dear,” Albus murmurs. Then, with barely a glance at her, “Thank you, Minerva. I’ll handle it from here.”

[AU where Harry Potter did not grow up with the Dursleys -- he was raised by Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes]

Son Of The Champion WIP

Fury needs Coulson to do one quick side trip while passing through England, just a check in on a person of interest to S.H.I.E.L.D.

Daredevil

Wizarding 101: Murderous Megalomaniacs and Their Lasting Effects on Children WIP

Before Voldemort set foot inside Godric Hollow, Vernon Dursley died in a car crash. The shock of it sent Petunia into a catatonic state and, thus, into an institution--but once upon a time, Lily and Petunia Evans' mother was a Nelson, and so when Albus Dumbledore lays Harry Potter at the doorstep of Number Four, Privet Drive, it isn't Petunia Dursley that finds him.

It's Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson.

Ten years later, Harry Jonathan Nelson, of Hell's Kitchen, New York, finds himself a part of a world neither he nor his guardians suspected he was ever a part of, having instead thought of himself as a metahuman with vaguely nebulous powers being trained by the Scarlet Witch, and along with discovery comes danger. It'd be a lot more terrifying, though, if his hometown didn't regularly have supervillains holding up banks and traffic, and if superheroes didn't swing past their apartment every day. And, of course, if one of his parents wasn't Daredevil.

(or: Matt and Foggy raise Harry Potter, with assistance from Karen and Kirsten and some others. things go from there.)

Full Metal Alchemist

The Path of Flame *

Roy Mustang is pretty sure Dumbledore is crazy. Who in their right mind would ask him to raise a newly-orphaned baby?

(Harry Potter's first year at Hogwarts, with changes courtesy of his being raised by the Flame Alchemist. I apologize for nothing.)

~ This whole series is golden. ❤

The Adams Family

Harveste Addams * WIP

Harveste began like this - another inconspicuous day in a slew of boring days, starting off with a perfunctory visit to the market, messing about with what could possibly be a very silly idea, and ending in a sense of accomplishment and the first installment. The day after that, buoyed into hitherto unfamiliar levels of ecstasy by readers’ comments (seriously, thank you so much to my first readers), the second installment. And then it just snowballed from there: the researching, the planning, watching and searching out all the little macabre details in a feverish giddy rush.

~ This is such a delightful concept. From the first time I read it many years ago, to every re-read I fall in love with this story over and over again.

Star Trek

Reaching for the Stars *

Hermione Granger is an Unspeakable on a solo mission tracking down escaped Death Eaters. Unfortunately she has to travel across dimensions in pursuit of her targets. After Gotham she ends up on a one way trip to the future and the stars.

Twilight

Aurora Explicit

Alice Lily Potter survived the war, but not unchanged. Pursued by those who regard her new prophetic ability as a valuable resource, and aren’t willing to take ‘no’ for an answer, Alice makes a difficult choice which sends her tumbling into the unknown. There, she finds a whole new world to explore… and love just waiting to be found.

X-Men

Harry Potter and the March of the Sentinels WIP

Harry has never been what you'd call normal, and he generally expects the unexpected to happen all the time when he's concerned. But what's a guy to think when, barely an hour after he saves his cousin from Dementors, the two of them are attacked by Sentinels? Luckily, the X-Men arrive in time to pull them to safety. But what will the Order of the Phoenix say?

Bleach

Lost Boys

After the Triwizard fiasco, Harry leaves Britain behind for a new life. Uryuu befriends Ichigo at a much younger age. Sirius escapes. Points converge and lost boys find a family. Isshin fails. So does Ryuuken. Kisuke finds a friend. Ukitake covers and cleans up. Fate changes.

Multi

Tumbling HP Crossovers WIP Mature

Crossover snippets done to prompts from Tumblr. Harry Potter centric. Slash, crack, au, etc.

Stargate

D.S.S. Requirement *

The Dumbledore's Army use the Room of the Requirement to get themselves a spaceship.

(Knowledge about Stargate is not necessary to read this story)

Yu-Gi-Oh

King's Jackal WIP

Wrecking all of Dumbledore's plans, the Power Dark Lord Knows Not walks up to Harry in the summer before his fifth year, and asks for directions.

To my Masterpost of Harry Potter Recs <3

I also have rec lists for Naruto and Doctor who.

[theclaravoyant]

AN ~ did I hear somebody ask for 5K of FitzSkimmons wedding fluff? No? I’ll just leave this here anyway. Poly FitzSkimmons. Rated G.

inspired by ”for my sun and stars" – a fitzskimmons marriage aesthetic

there’s an order to this seemingly chaotic universe. there are laws, okay? and one of those laws says that every speck of matter that makes up every animal, vegetable, mineral - no matter how much it changes, it comes from somewhere, belongs somewhere. its natural state. its home

Read on AO3 (~5000wd).

For My Sun And Stars

Daisy ran her eyes over the sets of earrings in the jewellery shop stand. She slowly turned the wheel at the bottom of the stand, turning it around behind the glass so that she could examine the earrings on all sides. There was a pair of silver swooping swallow studs that she quite liked, but nothing that screamed JEMMA at her. The opalescent ones, though beautiful, were too big and chunky. Most of the others looked too cheap, or their symbols felt too wayward and bohemian to suit Jemma’s classical style.

“Maybe I should get her something else,” she murmured, reluctantly backing away from the stand. “I know what clothes she likes, and what drinks.”

Fitz shook his head.

“You’ll know it when you see it. It’s always nerve-wracking buying jewellery for someone for the first time.”

Daisy snorted. “You think that’s bad? Try buying them shoes.”

“Interesting idea,” Fitz agreed. “Come to think of it I’ve never tried buying Jemma shoes before. How about this: you buy her jewellery and I’ll buy her shoes.”

“And she’ll get nothing she actually wants for her birthday? Ooh, that sounds great.”

“No, come on! I’m sure between the two of us, we can work something out. Besides, you’ve only looked at one stand full of earrings. There’s a whole shop in here, and two more in this complex. And I’ve already spotted two suitable pieces.”

Daisy narrowed her eyes. Challenge accepted.

Of course, it fell into anticlimax after that, since jewellery shopping was not exactly the most dramatic of pursuits, but soon enough she did indeed have a few ideas in her mind. Earrings like tiny roses. A rose gold bracelet with pink sapphire inlays. A small butterfly pendant, made from one piece of silver twisted around upon itself to form the stylised outline, and on a chain short enough so that it could sit at Jemma’s collarbone without endangering her work. Daisy was quite proud of herself for having picked them out on her own – even if sometimes Fitz’ slightly too casual observation had nudged her in the right direction. They would make a mess of a set, of course, but individually they were all but perfection. It was not as if she could afford more than one piece, in most cases, anyway.

Definitely not of the rings. Her jaw dropped.

“Oh my – Fitz – “ she spluttered, gesturing at the tray that had caught her eye. Equally curious to see an interesting find or a catastrophic failure of one, Fitz sidled over to see what Daisy was looking at.

“Rings…I’d be careful about,” he said. He’d been trying not to step on her toes, but advice was advice. “She doesn’t often wear rings while she’s working. Which is a lot.”

“Working?!” Daisy gasped. “Oh, no, she needs to get married in these!”

Apparently, classicism was back in style when it came to wedding rings. Uncumbersome bands, delicate stones – usually one, the traditional diamond, with sometimes a few either side or dotted around it. They came in silver and gold, with a variety of colours in the ensemble cast of gemstones. They came with delicate designs, filigree and settings and heart shapes interrupting the band.

Strolling along the bench, awestruck, Daisy came to a silver band with three hearts running along it, each interlocked with the next. Her heart sunk. Fitz touched her shoulder.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Daisy shrugged. Not entirely convinced, Fitz let his hand fall.

“Did you read a price tag?” he wondered jovially. “That’s always my mistake.”

“No,” Daisy assured him. “I mean, I might as well while the mood is dead but – “ her eyes flicked over to the other side of the store, where a salesperson was watching them flatly. In a tone closer to a whisper, she continued – “I was just thinking about marriage, that’s all, and then I thought about how we can’t. You know. Get married. Not all of us, anyway. And it wouldn’t be fair to pick just one of us, so… Nevermind. I just got excited, I guess.”

Fitz put an arm around her shoulder as she dejectedly moved past the bench of rings. As Daisy reset her sights on the next cabinet of necklaces and earrings, Fitz glanced backward over his own shoulder. He’d got excited for a minute there too.

-

Never one to be kept down for long, Daisy rekindled her excitement in the dead of night. She crept out of bed and to the living room, so as not to disturb Fitz and Simmons as she watched her computer light up in her lap, glowing with possibilities.

The beginnings of her search saw her hopes quickly dashed once again though, and while she rode the wave of it better this time around, there was nothing to be done. Multiple marriages were almost universally banned, or if not banned, shunned or only customary. Unless they married in the north of Africa and moved to the UK or New Zealand, it seemed there was no way of having a three way marriage formally recognised. And even then, the state of things seemed fairly ambiguous as to who could actually marry whom. She got the impression that in most cases a man could have many wives, but the wives couldn’t necessarily marry each other. Reading the fifth account of such a situation, Daisy screwed up her nose and pushed her computer away.

She stretched as she stood and wandered into the kitchen lazily, where she set about making a cup of coffee. It was earlier than anyone might have recommended for caffeine under normal circumstances, but her blood was already boiling too much to let her get back to sleep. Instead, Daisy found the window, Jemma’s favourite window, and looked out at the night. Light pollution, clouds and trees hid most of the stars from her so it wasn’t as dramatically melancholic as she might have preferred, but there was a warmth and a sense of hope in knowing that the sun would soon rise here. It was a very Jemma spot, Daisy thought to herself, and then she thought about the bracelet she had settled on buying – the rose gold and pink sapphire one – and realised how much it had reminded her of the sunrise. She smiled, and as she sipped her coffee and waited for the sun, her mind began to make machinations.

By the time she finished her coffee there were still a few hours left until the sun, so Daisy returned to her laptop with a fresh and electric sense of mission. First of all, she wrote some irritated letters to a few members of Congress. They wouldn’t get anywhere, but she felt better for having mentioned it. Then she set about on her real work: finding the rings, and crafting the beginnings of a perfect proposal.

-

The plan was relatively simple, but it took a long time to finally get around to it. Time passed in leaps and bounds. Weeks of agony waiting for the rings to arrive, and then weeks where saving the world got busy and they were all but forgotten at the bottom of a drawer. Days in a flurry of choosing the perfect venue, and then days waiting for their next R&R. Hours of being whisked around between shops and exhibitions and a show, and then the slow, slow minutes of walking into the pocket-park she’d had set up with fairy lights strung up between trees and lamp posts, and a picnic table and a wicker basket – complete with chequered tea-towel – in which their meal awaited. There was a bottle of champagne and three glasses and three candles, waiting to be lit. And a rose in a vase.

Jemma’s jaw dropped.

“Daisy!” she gasped, awestruck, “what is all this?”

Fitz had his eyes upward, studying the lighting. In the city it was hard to see the stars, but the lights made for a beautiful substitute.

“I know it’s super cheesy,” Daisy confessed, “but I wanted to make this night really special.”

“Oh my god.” Jemma bit her lip and danced on the spot. Fitz felt his face flush as he met Daisy’s eyes. She lit the candles slowly and he could see her hands were shaking, just a little. His jaw loosened.

“No way,” he murmured.

“What?” Jemma glanced between the two of them. “Fitz? Do you know something about this?”

“Not exactly,” Daisy assured her. “Now, um. There’s not a lot of literature on how to do this for two so just bear with me.”

She knelt, and from each pocket produced a box small enough to fit in her palm. She had practiced a few times, of course, but with her heart a few inches too high in her chest she was beginning to feel a little lightheaded, and one of the boxes tumbled to the ground.

“Ah, Jemma, do you mind – “ she nodded to the box, and Jemma took it and opened it, and gasped.

“Daisy!! It’s beautiful!”

“Cheater!” Daisy yelped. “You’re supposed to listen to the speech first!”

“Sorry.” Jemma dutifully dropped the box back into Daisy’s open hand, but she didn’t close it. Fitz couldn’t help but let his eyes get drawn to it: a gold band with a twist of silver at the fitting, and dotted with three ruby hearts. It shone richly in the light surrounding them and he was sure that in full daylight it would only be more impressive. He held his breath, feeling his heart was already full to bursting, and Jemma clung to his arm tightly, blinking back tears before Daisy had even begun.

“Look, I’m really bad at this and we’re all hungry,” Daisy began, “so I’ll keep it brief. As you know…I spent a lot of my life bouncing around from place to place. Being bounced, really, against my will. And even though a lot of that was done to try and protect me, it still sucked and I was still alone. I was alone, really, until I met you. And somehow, you loved me. You really did, both of you, and you welcomed me like I had never been welcomed anywhere before. You put your jobs on the line for me, and your lives, and even each other and…I mean, wow. That’s some dedication.” Choking up, she took a deep breath and skipped a few hesitantly planned sentences, jumping to the end.

“What I’m trying to say is I bounced around a lot and I burned a lot of bridges, or had them burnt for me, and I never went back. Sometimes because I couldn’t. Sometimes I didn’t want to. But not you. I always came back to you two, even when I didn’t want to – or maybe, when I didn’t know I wanted to. And you always had me back. And I think it was you, Fitz, who said the other day that no matter how something changes it comes from somewhere, it belongs somewhere. I come from Shield and I belong here. I belong with you. You two are my home and I hope you will be my home for a long time. I love you.”

She blinked, and Jemma took the open ring box and with her free hand, she opened the other and held it up to Fitz.

“Daisy…” he breathed, and took it, awestruck.

“Screw what the law says,” Daisy continued. “Governmental registration’s done sweet all for me anyway. I want this and I’m hoping you do to, so…Fitz. Simmons. FitzSimmons.” She paused to stifle a smirk. “Will you marry me?”

Jemma was already nodding furiously, and squeaked out, Yes! as soon as she was able. The instant Daisy stood, Jemma flung her arms around her neck until they were spinning, and until they’d kissed each other breathless, and Daisy staggered drunkenly away until Fitz caught her.

A few moments passed in silence, and Daisy found the flood of warmth subsiding, giving way to just the slightest whisper of hesitation before Fitz smiled and whispered, yes, of course, and kissed her so fervently she almost thought her knees would give out underneath her.

Jemma popped the champagne and the giddiness came back, and there were more kisses and laughter and the whole tale of Daisy’s ordeal to find the rings and decide on the occasion was told and interrupted and retold over French and Italian cuisine – one of which, Daisy explained, but she couldn’t remember which one – Jemma had once declared ‘the most romantic food of all time.’

-

For a few weeks, they were content like that. Insufferably so, in fact. Jemma had her red and gold ring that shone as rich as fire. Fitz had his; smooth titanium except for a hardy but simple diamond, and comprised of an outer ring that turned around an inner one for when he was feeling fidgety. Fitz and Jemma even sourced one for Daisy, a thin silver band inset with alternating small diamonds and deep purple amethyst all the way around. They showed them off and fawned over them and babbled to whoever would listen about their cheesy romantic evening or how they met or any and all of that romantic nonsense people tended to ask – whether they asked or not. They took great pride in showing the rings off to each other too; when Daisy held Jemma’s hips watching the sunrise, they lay their hands and their rings over each other. When Fitz leaned in the doorway of Jemma’s room, it was always the hand with the ring on it that clung to whatever he was hanging off, glinting in silent pride. When Fitz and Daisy held hands, they switched sides regularly, to the annoyance of many that they met in the halls.

“Ah, young love,” Mack sighed once, as he rolled up a set of foam earplugs and tossed another to May, which she caught without looking.

Soon enough though, for three eager young lovers who already lived and worked together and who already spent every waking moment as engaged as possible, there didn’t seem to be much point in waiting a year for marriage just because that’s what other people did.

“We have to do it properly though,” Jemma insisted, “so we will need at least three months.”

“Of course,” Fitz said, mimicking her lavish enthusiasm.

“We’ll need three separate dates and venues, more like,” Daisy snorted, “knowing how often things get derailed around here.”

Fitz held up his hand as though taking an oath. “I solemnly swear not to get sucked into any parallel universes, realms or dimensions, or become possessed, or be kidnapped or killed for any extended period of time. Or at least until June.”

“At least until June,” the girls repeated, like the Church participation of a prayer. They grinned at their own private joke and then Fitz checked his watch, stood up and bowed.

“Farewell, my sun and stars. Unfortunately, robots don’t build themselves yet so I must leave the ceremony in your faithful hands.” He kissed their outstretched hands like a gentleman of old and grinned as he headed for the door with a bounce in his step. Then the girls set to work: Daisy pulling magazines and colour schemes and cuttings out all around them as Jemma poured the iced tea.

“Iced tea…”Daisy mused, settling back into her seat and examining their options as she lazily dipped and stirred a straw through her drink. “A summer wedding? Beach, maybe?”

“Put it on the list!” Jemma declared, “although personally I think Fitz would prefer somewhere with a little less sand. Or at least if we could find a beach where the wind doesn’t blow the sand in your eyes.”

“No sand eyes, got it,” Daisy said, making a note of it though she couldn’t help but roll her eyes a little and smile at Jemma’s fastidiousness. A beach where sand blew wind into ones eyes had hardly been at the top of her list in making the suggestion. But perhaps a beach wedding was the wrong way to go altogether – or at least, maybe not as a theme.

“Ah,” Jemma sighed, pulling the nearest bridal magazine onto her lap. “Can you imagine how much fun this is going to be? And I mean, all the more fun for not having to track down a civil celebrant and all that nonsense. Oh, and can you imagine, trying to prove our identities to the state?” She shook her head. “I’ll take rose petals and tulle any day over an hour in some bureaucrat’s office.”

“Hear hear.” Daisy’s heart lifted a little, the twist of bitterness unknotting itself slightly. But not enough to deter her from sending a picture of their wedding to a few members of Congress.

Jemma laughed. “What are you thinking about? Fitz’ bachelor party? You don’t get to be best man and bride at your own wedding. Mm. Should’ve thought of that.”

“Petty satisfaction, Jemma dearest,” Daisy assured her. “Nothing you need concern your pretty little head about. Although I’m going to add ‘find a maid of honour’ to the list because I don’t know about you but I thought we had a thing going.”

“We really didn’t plan this well, did we?” Jemma laughed. “Ooh look here I found a list of themes. ‘James Bond – slash – secret agent’, well we’ve got that covered. ‘A day at the races’ – we have no horses and in my opinion, racing is cruel.”

“Mine too.”

“Hmm…Doctor Who? Fun, but no. Pretty in pink? Mmm. Rainbow of memories? Maybe we could finally buy May that jacket made of pom-poms.”

“Yes, and then she can throw up on it because that is a hideous idea! Give me that!”

Daisy snatched the magazine out of Jemma’s hands and the two of them argued well into the afternoon, but the list of ideas got so much longer they almost started another argument about whether or not to buy a wedding binder or binders and if so, how many. They decided to go for a run instead. The next morning, Daisy decided she had to finally start giving proper credit to Jemma’s insistence that exercise was good for the mind, because as they watched the sunrise together, something beautiful happened.

“My sun and stars,” Jemma murmured thoughtfully, turning the words over in her mind. “I rather like that.”

She raised her hand from her hip so that she could study it, and Daisy’s moved along with it. Their rings glinted together in the new morning light. Gold and silver. Red and purple. The bright colours of the sun and the rich, cool night. Intertwined eternally.

Looking over her shoulder, Daisy hummed with satisfaction.

“I rather like it too.”

-

After that, it all fell into place rather easily. With Mack’s help, Fitz created hundreds of lanterns, and sound equipment, and made table settings and a stage and all manner of trappings. He also gleefully participated, of course, in the cake and menu tasting, which was delegated for the most part to Coulson and Elena. May was the designed Maid of Honour, and while a little disappointed they didn’t get the slightly trashy sitcom dramatics they’d been hoping for (just a little) Daisy and Jemma were pleasantly surprised to find that May’s keen eye and cryptic manner served them well while negotiating the flood of wedding-related salespeople.

“My job is to make sure you get what you want,” she explained. “Not what they’re trying to sell you.”

It was effective, and more satisfying than they could ever deliberately explain. (Though their occasional overwhelmed screeching and near-constant beaming said enough for May). They ended up with matching dresses - one in gold, one in dark blue. Perfect shoes. Hairpins, for which they’d spent an eternity searching, in the shapes of the stars and suns. Stunning enough that they weren’t even put off when their search for Fitz’ outfit turned out somewhat less spectacular. It was hard to theme a man’s outfit without making him look ridiculous.

“Well,” May said as the girls perused a rack of suits. “It’s not his fault men’s clothing is dull as a brick.”

“Oh, and you experiment with the variety available in women’s clothing constantly, I suppose?” Daisy teased.

“I know what I like.”

“Clothes that don’t show bloodstains?” Jemma put in. May almost smirked into the suits.

“I was going to say this bowtie,” she suggested instead, changing the topic. The material looked blue at first, but on second glance, was in fact decorated by a smattering of green, purple and white specks, like stars in a galaxy. “Perfect!” Jemma declared.

“You heard the woman,” Daisy agreed.

-

Finally, everything was ready and it was like breathing a sigh of relief. The park had chairs and lanterns marking the isles, lighting it up with stars in the early evening. A small raised dais marked the front where Coulson stood, beaming with joy, waiting to welcome everybody into the fold. At Daisy’s insistence, Fitz’ mother and Jemma’s parents sat in the front row, in pride of place. Mack and Elena were there too, and a few other friends and colleagues that had helped them all along their journey to this place. There was a row of empty chairs too, reserved in silent dedication to their friends who had not made it this far with them.

“It’s a lot smaller than I thought,” Daisy whispered. May checked her hair and the fall of her skirt.

“It is a circle of special people. That’s all we can ask for.”

Daisy nodded. Her heart felt a little broken at the prominence of those empty seats, but in the open air she could see Jemma and Fitz waiting at the end of their isles. The real reasons for this whole thing in the first place.

“Are you ready?”

The music started playing and Jemma and Fitz started making their way toward the centre podium down their own isles. Daisy felt her heart leap into her chest all of a sudden.

“Wait, where’s the-“

She turned to look at May, and felt something pressed into her hand. The leash of a beaming Golden Retriever, to whose back was strapped a pillow and three delicately tied rings.

“Something borrowed,” May whispered. Tears sprung to Daisy’s eyes as she remembered her father’s smiling face; unable to recognise her, but finally at peace in the world. That’s a nice name, he’d said.

May pushed the small of her back a little, and Daisy realised the others were waiting. She jogged down the isle with an apologetic blush, and the dog gambolled along beside her. When they reached their destination he stood until all the rings had been untied, and then sat, panting and grinning at the audience, casual as anything, unaware of the thrumming hearts in love above him.

They moved through the formalities quickly, as most were to do with religious and legally binding elements of the ceremony. Yet for the three standing at the altar, even this quickly felt too long. When at last it came time for Fitz to speak, it felt like unravelling a knot, and the amiable patience turned into hushed anticipation. He pulled a set of note cards out of his pocket, but did not read them, and the audience waited for him to find his voice.

“Jemma,” he began at last. “It has been a pleasure and an honour to know you all these years, and I am so grateful to have had you in my life – as my worthy adversary, my partner, my dearest friend. You challenge and inspire me every day and I cannot wait to start this next stretch of our journey together. And it only makes me happier to have another dear friend join us this time around.

“And Daisy - I remember when Jemma first tried to drag me into the field. I kicked and screamed, bitched and moaned, dug my heels in. I’m sure she could tell you some terrific stories about it - she probably already has – but anyway, she kept at it and as usual, she was right. Since joining this team I have experienced some of the worst, yes, but also some of the best moments and experiences of my life. I’ve been to South America. I’ve built a billion dollar plane with my bare hands. And…I met you. We met you.

“You were a force of nature right from the beginning. I mean, before you became a literal force of nature.” He snorted and Daisy bit her lip, smiling but afraid to let her emotions overwhelm her. “You made me a more daring person and in no small part, that’s why I’m standing here today with two of the most amazing women on this planet and any other. You’re a remarkable soul and a kindred spirit, and I thank you for sharing so much of yourself with me.”

Daisy nodded, blinking her eyes and dabbing at her cheeks.

“Damn, dude, come on,” she rasped. “You’re ruining my make-up.”

The audience chuckled and guffawed briefly and then settled, waiting for her words.

“Um. These guys have already heard most of what I wanted to say, fortunately because I’m not sure how long I’m going to last up here but – I guess what I wanted to say the most is that. I love you. I love both of you so much and I can’t believe in this big crazy world that I found you, and I haven’t lost you yet. I don’t know how much of that is luck and how much is pure determination but I know I’ll hold onto it as long as I can. You’re…so smart – I mean seriously, these guys are freaking geniuses – and you’re such good people, and you always want the best for me.

“Whether its spending hours crafting the perfect wedding lanterns –“ she gestured above their heads, to Fitz’ handiwork – “or nagging me to eat my vegetables or not tear my stitches because I’ve gone and got myself shot or some nonsense – “ she met Jemma’s eyes with a bashful grin, “I couldn’t ask for two more dedicated guardians and lovers.

“You are my home, both of you. Oh geez, here come the waterworks I’d better get on with it. But you are- you are my safe place. My place to rest. I need you and I’m glad every day that you both decided that you need me too. And…Yep, that’s it. That’s all I’ve got. Somebody take the mic here. Jemma?”

Jemma laughed. Her cheeks shone with tears before she even began.

“Looks like I drew the short straw here. Perhaps we should have practiced or read each other’s vows before hand. Wow.”

She wiped at her cheeks and laughed breezily.

“Daisy. I’m so, so glad you found a home with us and I hope we’re where your heart is for a long time to come. But I hope you know you’re part of home for us too, now. You helped us find our dream home and there’s nothing more important in a dream home than having everyone you love under one roof. It wouldn’t be the same without you. We wouldn’t be the same without you, so thank you, and Fitz –

“Fitz. You’re a wonderful man and I know we’ve put each other through a lot over the years but we always come out stronger somehow and I’m so grateful for that. Thank you for helping me find the path when I couldn’t always see it. I hope I’ve returned the favour a good few times. You have a beautiful, beautiful heart and I’m so glad a piece of it is mine. And I couldn’t think of a better person to share it with than Daisy.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to end with a piece of poetry before we do the final part with the rings and such. It’s called ‘The Blessing.’”

She closed her eyes for a moment, drawing it up from her memory.

By the starlight that is spun in your eyes By the moonlight that lights our path By the soft gentle rain that brought us here I give my heart to you this night.

In blue eyes as deep as a summer shadow In brown eyes that reflect the bottomless of night, There in their eyes spin the stars of my heart. Within them I am reflected.  

The Lady has blessed us with her light, The gentle rain that fell cleansed our weary hearts, In their eyes she has placed the stars To guide me through the night.

When she finished, there was a heavy hush as everyone present let the words wash over them and sink in. Fitz and Daisy took one each of Jemma’s hands, and after a long moment, Coulson began to speak.

“Do you, Leopold Fitz, Daisy Johnson and Jemma Simmons, take each other to be your faithfully wedded partners, to have and to hold, from this day forward? For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

“I do.”

“I do.”

“I do.”

Each took a ring, and slipped it onto the finger of the partner to their left. Coulson smiled at how smoothly it went, only to realise then that the last of his duties would not go so smoothly.

“Then by the power vested in me, I pronounce you…husband and wife and wife. You may kiss…whoever you like, I guess. First in, best dressed.”

They laughed, and made a round-robin of kissing until all three of them had kissed each other. It didn’t make for a sweeping gesture, but a Kodak moment of three beaming faces was as good as anything. When they were ready, the lights overhead dimmed to a silvery rather than golden glow, like the stars at night, and Coulson switched from wedding celebrant to chief caterer. He stepped down from the dais and gestured for the chairs to be moved aside, and an array of food five times too large for their small party was brought into the space.

“At the request of the brides and groom, this part of the evening is a public affair, so those who need to, watch your tongues, and for everyone else –“

“Two four six eight!” Daisy shouted. The dog at her heels barked enthusiastically. Coulson bowed and got out of their way.

[cyclinginaskirt-uk]

It started with just a small innocuous advert on the message board of my mountain bike club…..”planning a trip, anyone interested in bike touring get in touch”.

Why not I thought, what harm could there be in just replying……

A lot as it turns out, which is why, a few weeks later, I’m sat around my kitchen table with 3 strapping strangers drinking beer and discussing luggage. Bike luggage.

It seemed only polite at this juncture to get to know my fellow suffer-fest companions as in just a week’s time we are off to Wales to take on the Trans-Cambrian trail, cycling and camping together for three days covering over 100 miles of some of the best remote mountain trails in the UK. It’s nice to put faces to names too with communication thus far being limited to What’s app banter.

M, my long-suffering partner appears with pizza and our intrepid band is complete. For the first time ever on a trip I have done none of the planning or organising which is both wonderful and scary, especially for those of us with control issues. This is Keith’s baby, submitter of advert and veteran cycle tourist he completed the trail last year and apparently enjoyed the pain so much he’s willing to give it another bash.

Two of his friends Gary aka Action Man and Paul, make us the remainder of the party. Gary is hyper qualified in the bike stakes as he’s just returned from cycling across New Zealand – on a bike carrying a disabled ex-service man, one of his many feats of endurance as we will learn.

Fast forward a few days and the next time we meet it’s in the middle of a field on the Welsh borders at Knighton, close to Offa’s Dyke. The river running through the field is the cartographic dividing line between England and Wales or so I’m reliably informed by the sat-nav. Handy information but it doesn’t make up for her failure to direct us to the campsite. After much inching through precipitous single track lanes in the car it’s good old fashioned human-eyesight which finally spots the handwritten felt-tip sign welcoming us to Panpwnton farm hikers camp.

The campsite is small but with a warm welcome and spotlessly clean toilet, which gives it high marks with me even if a bit of a queue forms for the single cubicle at peak times.

Tent pitched, Gary and Keith soon arrive but with the sad news that Paul has had to pull out last minute. One man down already, but undaunted we head to the pub for a pre-event athletes’ dinner of pizza washed down with copious amounts of beer and wine.

The next day dawns misty but dry. In my true organised-bordering-on-obsessive style I’ve have arranged all our kit for the fastest most efficient start possible, with provision for a decent cooked breakfast to send us on our way. M returns from the car with cups of tea, time to start the day and the adventure……

M: Where are the car keys….?

Me: “Very funny”.

M: “No, seriously where are the car keys…..?” And then the rain starts.

Three hours later the breakdown man is shaking his head having tried and failed to open the car using what looks like a credit card, blood pressure cuff and a coat hanger.

All our gear is still firmly imprisoned inside the car, perfectly packed bags, clothes, keys for the bikes also locked to the car.

I’m all for throwing a brick through the window (it’s M’s car) spurred by the heady effect of Hanger (hunger induced anger) and frustration. Fortunately Keith has spare food but the kit is still safely locked away and we’re going nowhere. After hours of scouring the camping field combing knee length grass in the drizzle, our best but unfounded guess is that the keys have been locked in the vehicle. In defeat I sit in the tent listening to the rain. With nothing better to do I decide to check M’s sleeping bag one more time just in case…… I FOUND THEM. Relief washes away frustration as the Breakdown man just rolls his eyes at us and leaves. We finally set off and even the drizzle is clearing up.

The trail: Day One

Knighton to Elan Valley

35 miles, 4150 feet of climbing

It’s great to finally be moving as we cycle up the hill away from the campsite. The car keys are firmly stored in my pocket for when we return in 3 days.

The trail begins after only a mile or so of tarmac. The whole route is advertised as over 70% off road, with any tarmac that there is consisting of small country lanes making it fantastic MTB country.

After turning off onto what looks like someone’s driveway, pedalling up a last bit of steep tarmac, we head through our first (of oh so many) gates leading uphill on a rugged trail. Full of enthusiasm we pedal hard wanting to ride every hill even though Keith has warned us it’s impossible. Panting and blowing at the top there’s a shout below from Keith, we’ve taken a wrong turn (and ridden the hill for no reason). Slightly cowed we turn around, me rolling squarely through some wet dog mess as we do, the pungent turd slathering my tyre and throwing up fumes as we descend.

Back on the track Keith points to a vertical bank of grass behind us. This is where we start pushing.

Any hopes I had of riding the whole way instantly drain away. The hill is monstrous. I’m pushing the bike vertically, using the brakes to stop us tumbling back in to oblivion whilst the sheep look on amused. It takes well over half an hour to reach the top, during which time it starts raining again. I also begin to regret packing quite so many flapjacks and all of my camping equipment as the bike weighs a ton.

As well as being mostly off road the route is also billed as a very respectable 95% ride-able which sounds wonderful until you realise that means that you will need to push/carry your bike for at least 5% of the time and at 108 miles long that’s still 5.4 miles of pushing. It feels like more, much more!

The route continues on soft grass, winding slowly uphill. The grass makes for hard going although it’s thankfully relatively dry. If really wet under wheel it would be exhausting. With blackening sky the day rolls on, the views are of dark sweeping hills and sheep. Many sheep. The aroma of dog shit is joined by the earthy tang of sheep poo which sprays up under wheel and coats pretty much everything. My mood is brightened somewhat when M starts shouting and cursing having gone to grab his water bottle and picked up a handful of steaming dung. Snigger.

The grassland is interspersed by a few gravel walking trails although most of the time we are heading across what look like sheep tracks. Keith’s doing a prime job of navigating even when we look at him askance as he send us away from a lovely gravel road down an invisible path in the grass.

The day passes in much the same way, grass trail across hills and gravel tracks, dipping through farm yards and climbing back out. It’s hard going but the views are spectacular and go someway to reminding you why you are putting yourself through this. At the end of a long day it’s a weary and subdued bunch however that hit the town of Rhayader to raid the Co-op shop before heading the final few miles to our campsite at Elan Oaks.

The site is off of pretty trailway and well set up….. for caravans. Camping seems to have been a bit of an afterthought as we push our bikes to a soggy field past a couple of sad porta-loos and outdoor sinks. True to form, just as we arrives the weather sticks 2 fingers up and starts raining hard as we pitch our tents.

The evening is saved however by the promise of hot food as we regroup in the Elan Valley Hotel across the road. I hang all my wet clothes out to dry in it’s near deserted dining room as the owner smiles tolerantly as he offers a menu and a place to charge my phone. I could have cried.

Over the years I’ve cycled a lot with camping gear, including off road through the mountains of Chile and Argentina, but today was tough. The boggy grass and precipitous hills were something else. To top it all off tonight was actually the last night of camping as we had booked rooms in a pub for the second (final) night of the trip.

It was then that I had a rare moment of genius….in true damsel in distress fashion I appealed to the owners of the pub to ask if we could perhaps leave our (sodden) camping gear with them tomorrow and collect it on the following day on our way home. I have never been so grateful as when they said yes!

An excellent meal with more copious amount of beer and wine left us all feeling good. Even the rain had let up for the walk back to the tent.

The trail: Day Two

Elan Valley to Llangurig

41 miles, 5220 feet of climbing

It can really psych you out when something is billed as ‘the toughest day’ and this was exactly how day two had been described. Now, day one had been tough so this was scary prospect. It would certainly the longest day in terms of miles and the most climbing and it dawned with a sense of trepidation….and the sound of rain lashing against the tent. Waiting and failing to find a break in the weather we de-camped and squelched over to the hotel for breakfast bearing armfuls of soggy camping gear. An hour later and it was with a huge sense of relief and a considerably lighter bike that we headed out, fortified by a large cooked breakfast and minus camping kit. Even the rain had stopped.

The Elan Valley is known as the Welsh Lake District, it covers 70 square miles of lakes and countryside and hosts 6 reservoirs built, not to provide water to locals, but to be shipped to the industrialised city of Birmingham hundreds of miles away to help cope with it’s exploding population.

Leaving the hotel, the trail quickly took us past the first reservoir before dropping down the side of a steep hill. Having missed the on road route we managed to improvise with a sheep track which plunged steeply down the side of a tall hill. Skidding down the rock strewn grass was certainly a good way to shake off the last bits of sleep.

A short pedal and then what goes down must inevitably go up again….and up….and up, a winding tarmac road until stretching out like a wall in front of us which was, Keith proudly informed us, Puke Hill. With an average gradient of nearly 15% it loomed ahead ominously.

The joy of mountain bikes however, over road bikes, is that they have a low ratio of gears of which I was incredibly glad. Coupled with the lack of camping gear my bike felt, if not lighter than air, then something approaching it.

Inch by inch I took on Puke Hill, pedalling and panting until, lungs screeching I topped out. Even if that killed me for the entire day it was worth it, with the added bonus of being able to get a photo of all 3 boys pushing up behind me.

And so the day went. The scenery and terrain differed markedly from day one, there was the inevitable same number of gates to open and close but aside from that the terrain, was varied, technical and wonderful.

After Puke Hill came a section of boulder-strewn undulating tracks full of rocks the size of sheep and traversed by the same. Technical climbing and descending whilst also ploughing through deep water-filled holes never knowing if you’d be just wetting the tyres or the entire bike. The track ended in the magnificent Claerwen dam (and a tarmac road which gave an easier option for arrival) before a steep push to head up and around the reservoir. The lee of it’s banks provided a sunny lunch stop, the rain having decided to take a well-earned day off.

Although rough under-wheel the reservoir tracks allowed us to pick up some speed and flow which continued when we hit the tarmac the other end. Being a roadie at heart I love a bit of tarmac and this was the best kind, smooth and near traffic free, long swoopy undulations, bordered by wild grasslands and lakes. The miles disappeared under-wheel in a way so different from the previous day, spirits soared along with the hawks we kept spotting. By the end of the road section we’d covered half of today’s miles relatively easily. We’d also acquired a new companion….a be-horned sheep’s skull, nicknamed Larry after the 1960’s children’s TV character, Larry the Lamb.

An off road climb next, through pine forest this time, the heady smell of warm sap accompanying us before some of the most beautiful, fast, flowing single track descents thorough the trees which left a permanent grin and many insects plastered across our faces.

Another winding valley road, this one with starker but no less stunning fauna, through abandoned mining stations and derelict houses until the sat nav kindly led us into someone else’s garden….no, not some random house after all but another trail leading up the steep side of the valley. Once a metalled road it had obviously long since fallen in to disuse but a funny strip of tarmac remained down the middle and it was on this we spent the next hour pushing and pedalling up in turn. The summit was a cold and windswept place with spectacular views and the partial descent back down into the sunshine a welcome relief if somewhat hair-raising, brake discs squealing in protest.

Two trails now presented at the bottom and sat-nav seemed unwilling to commit herself as to which one…. the left fork to a bridge which looked like it crossed into a boggy field and the right fork the beginnings of a gravel track into the woods. Both trails headed the way we needed to go, roughly in parallel, separated from each other by 2 small rivers.

Long story short, we chose the right. It should have been the left. It took us less than 10 minutes to discover our error but somehow the idea of retracing our steps seemed a stupid one, after all, they were only small rivers.

Step in Action Man…. as we stood debating the wisdom of trying to cross we were distracted by some loud crashing, splashing noises. Gary was in the river hauling around stones to make a walkway, he then proceeded to carry all our bikes one by one before helping us across. Same process for river number 2. Thirty minutes later we were standing, mostly dry on the other side of both bits of water and right next to the first path that we didn’t take. Somehow the sense of adventure completely outweighed the stupidity of a 10 minute back track.

Anticipation was with us now, it had been a long day but we were nearing the end and, weirdly, nowhere near as bad as anticipated. The last few miles were a steady climb through more sun-bathed fragrant pine forest before an undulating descent into the town of Llangurig. Happily sailing past the campsite on the outskirts of town, a short pedal later and we were pulling, tired, but elated into the car park of the Bluebell Inn our home for the night.

A welcome pint or several, a great meal and no camping. Winner.

The trail: Day Three

Llangurig to Machynllnth

31 miles, 3510 feet of climbing

Despite some serious crossing of fingers day 3 dawned drizzly, but as it was the last of our adventure, spirits were high and we were looking forward to finishing in style. Buoyed by our exertions of the last 2 days and still enjoying the relative freedom of the pared-down kit we fairly flew out of the pub car park, retracing our steps from yesterday for the first few miles to pick up the trail again.

Gates and more gates as we dripped along the edges of farmland before climbing again through fields of sheep and the inevitable poo.

I love sheep and the way they evaluate life and its potential dangers. Little clusters of them would watch us intensely for long minutes as we climbed steadily towards them getting to within feet before finally, one in the bunch would lose his nerve and dash off in panic. Of course the others followed suit but would get tangled up in themselves in their mad-hurry to get away in a noisy thrashing of woolly limbs, a little white tidal wave of bodies surging before us everywhere we went, 0 to 60 mph panic in seconds.

Back to the trail. The rain and mist intensified and for the first time long trousers came out (at least for me) as the temperature dropped. Gaining altitude over the whole morning we squelched across bleak, treeless fields before coming to a loose, slate-covered downhill of narrow single track which Keith was now recalling from the previous journey. It was very gingerly that we scooted and slid our way down the precipitous, shifting slate path, a grass bank towering to our right, a steep drop to the left. It was with some relief that we skidded to a stop at the bottom in one piece only to faced with an equally vertiginous push up the other side.

And the sketchy trails didn’t end there, another cold and windswept area of grassland led to another cliff-like valley edge and more hair-raising single track descents. It required all my concentration and bike handling skills (what little I possess) to navigate the steep downhill slopes of tumbling, loose shale. The panniers’ weight on the rear of the bike added an extra flavour of spice as did the constantly shifting floor beneath your wheels. The only solution was to keep rolling and, in amongst the fear, adrenaline and total concentration there was a huge buzz at the speed and thrill of careening down the hillside, barely in control but flying.

Our brakes were literally smoking at the bottom on the hillside as the pace steadied and we once again hit the tarmac. There was no respite from the hills or the rain however, steep steep climbs on legs that already felt they had cycled far to many miles and we were all feeling the burn and having to dig deeper and deeper on each climb.

After a significant amount of upwards mobility we reached a literal and metaphorical fork in the road. Previously when Keith, our erstwhile planner had gotten to this point during his trip he’d been in severe danger of missing his train home so had had to bail out of the last section and opt for a sprint down the road to the station some 6 miles away. We of course had that option now, to be kind to tired, wet and weary bodies and do the same or……

Bugger, everyone voted to continue the trail. Of course we did, it was only 8 miles after all, just over that ridge over there……!

For the next hour we toiled up a never ending series of steep inclines, first an energy-sucking grassy track followed by a narrow ridge line so steep we were pushing near vertically, struggling for footholds. I was incredibly glad I’d offloaded my stuff but that was the only happy thought that sprang to mind as we cursed and squelched and pushed our way up the ridge, lashed by rain and sliding and stumbling over the rocky ground. Finally reaching the top M announced that, after all that, we’d only covered a measly half a mile, I could have cried.

The only way was down however, via a fast and hair-raising descent along muddy, slippery single track, punctuated by large rocks and larger potholes. I’m going far too fast but so cold and tired now I just want to finish until…. we’re lost. We can vaguely see the direction we want to take through the mist but every path we take the sat-nav says we’re off course unless…. we push up again…..another steep, soggy hillside, another muddy slippery descent and we’re still off course although vaguely in the right direction.

Breaking out google maps we take stock and take shelter from the driving rain. Despite the GPS insisting we’re off course it does at least look like the forest trail we’re now on will get us to a road which will get us to our final destination. A look and a silent agreement passes between us and as one we charge off, bolting down fire-trails and eventually, joyfully finding the road. As it turns out we’re only a mile or so from the original exit point and a soaking speedy dash brings us shivering into Machynllnth, our planned final destination.

Officially the trail ends at Dovey Junction but we’d have to retrace our steps to this point anyway and none of us feels like we’ve missed out. It’s lashing down now and too wet to take a finishing photo as M’s camera has gotten waterlogged and wisely, there are no people about to ask so we squelch to the nearest pub where we are viewed with suspicion as we drip mud, sheep poo and water on their clean floor.

A change of clothes and a coffee is all we manage before thankfully the amazing bike taxi arrives to whisk us back to Kinghton, which feels like hundreds of days ago, not just 3.

Reflecting on the way back to the taxi, trying to ignore the smell of wet, sweaty cycle-wear, I look back on what has been an amazing trip. The scenery and the terrain have both been varies to look at and ride through, demanding and exhilarating. It feels like an achievement and, even more, a real adventure, which at a total distance of 107 miles with nearly 13,000 feet of climbing I can safely say it was.

Would I recommend it, certainly, would I do it again…..hmm ask me later!

In short, what there’s much of:

Gates

Sheep poo

Windmills, forests of them.

Water….. if you’re lucky enough to escape the rain there are still plenty of fords and deep puddles to soak you.

Pushing up hills/hike a bike

Technical single track, climbs and descents, plus a huge variety of scenery, trails and terrain.

Miles, smiles and a sense of adventure.

What there’s not much of:

Spare Oxygen – all used up on climbing!

Shops or humans, once you’re on the trail there’s no nipping to the supermarket for a mars bar. The same when seeking help for injuries or mechanicals problems.

Phone signal, as above. I wouldn’t fancy riding this one alone.

Traffic

Signage, take a good sat-nav/GPS device

For more information on the trail see here

Final thanks go to Keith, Action Man, M and Larry, the best bunch to get muddy and go adventuring with! 

Waterproof socks!

Mountain Bike Touring: The Trans-Cambrian Trail It started with just a small innocuous advert on the message board of my mountain bike club....."planning a trip, anyone interested in bike touring get in touch".

[markburkeyphotography]

July 2017 Photographing beyond the sumps......got there in the end!

With time fast running out, there were just a few bits and pieces that still needed sorting . On some test dives both mine and Christine’s Peli cases flooded and so all the gear would need to be dived through the sump in dry tubes. For added protection I decided to protect the gear in the same way as I do in the UK and heat seal everything in to bags. Fortunately Ashley was driving to Croatia and kindly took a lot of the heavier camera consumables that I would have otherwise struggled with if I’d had to fly with it.  My normal battered and bruised Scurion lamp was also deemed not up to the job and so I am eternally grateful to Rolf at Scurion for the sponsorship of a dive version Scurion for the trip. Christine had already shipped my Apeks dive gear (Also sponsored, see the pattern of thanks and recognition here!) , flash bulbs and walkie talkies, so my packing was looking a little more realistic than normal.  At least it would have if I hadn’t needed to stuff  in a bulky wet suit, wellies, helmet, 3 camera lenses, laptop, various chargers etc, etc……still who needs more than one change of clothes anyway!

Day 1 Fettling Although I managed to forget my mobile phone, the flight out went smoothly and we were soon being collected by Richard Walker and being chauffeured to Krnica Dive centre where we met up with Ashley and Robbie. We were soon fettling gear, analysing gas bottles, putting twinsets together and robbing as much lead as we could get our hands on to try and sink the large dry tubes we would be taking. Soon Ash’s van was overflowing with kit and it was time to grab a quick bite to eat and head to Fuzine to the house we would be using as our base for the next few days and hook up with Rick.

I tested and re-tested every piece of the camera and video kit, sealed everything into bags, ensured there were spares of batteries, cloths, SD cards, added heat packs to make certain the lenses would not fog, just about everything I could think of as once the kit was in the cave there would be few chances for do overs.

In fact I was so focused on trying to make sure I didn’t mess up on the entire reason I had been invited on the expedition that it didn’t even occur to me to be nervous about the impending cave dive itself! Day 2 The big day The drive to Licanke was short, only about 10 minutes and in no time we were unloading a vast amount of gear that would need to be dived through the sump. I busied myself by walking my twinset over to the sump pool and went through all the pre checks Christine had taught me., then went back to keeping myself occupied with taking stills and video of the preparation. Finally it was time. I sealed my camera in to the dry tube and hoped it would all go to plan. I hadn’t given the dive a second’s thought until now. I slipped in to the cold sump pool and Robbie dropped the twinset down to me.  I would be dived through first, chaperoned by Christine and Rich. I was finally feeling a little nervous. In my training I had never worn a helmet in the water and it felt odd and a little off-putting. Rich went through my buddy checks and the dive plan. He would lead followed by me, and then Christine. I dumped the air from my wing and descended in to my first sump.

I was very conscious of my buoyancy and keeping the sump line within easy reach, but quickly these became automatic as I marvelled at the clarity of the water and the passage itself.  It was almost dreamlike, floating in the flooded passage effortlessly, and all too soon we were surfacing. Christine eagerly asked how I’d enjoyed it and I think my grin from ear to ear must have answered her.  Throughout the next couple of days the visibility would deteriorate considerably in the sump, but the enjoyment of diving it would not.

Back to the job at hand - the dry tube was brought through and the flooded camera boxes dried out and filled with equipment. I was possibly more nervous of shooting video than I had been of the diving, but quickly took to the task at hand and begun cataloguing the equipment being dived through, put on to an inflatable raft and scooted across lakes to the large dry cave beyond where it would have to be carried to the 2nd sump.   

Day 3 Back in my comfort zone Again we would be mostly shooting video of the gear being hauled. The combination of the fact that the cave had only ever been visited a handful of times and that it will flood during heavy rains meant there would be a lot of loose and moving boulders, which would have to be carefully navigated. 

Rich took a tumble at the sump pool just to remind us that an accident beyond a sump is something to be avoided at all costs. Ash dove the decompression bottles in to the sump in preparation for the push dive and once filming of this was complete I was allowed back in my comfort zone to take some stills on the way out.

Day 4 The Push This was what the whole thing boiled down to. Christine and Rich vented their pre-dive nerves by squabbling over who’s neoprene gloves had the holes in them……I kept well out of the way! I headed straight for sump 2 to set up the camera whilst Richard and Christine  took their time as they were caving in full dry suits and trying their best not to work up a sweat that would cost them valuable body heat on their push dive. Each diver would have an ‘assistant’ to help them kit up and ensure that everything was checked and re-checked. I tried to get some shots of them for the record, but both were eager to get going before nerves and the cold could take hold.

Ashley and Rik had come up with the awesome plan of taking in a jet boil and making hotdogs so we could keep ourselves busy as we awaited the divers return. We knew they were diving a fluid plan that would allow for a maximum of 60m and were expecting them to be around an hour and a half. We spent a little time taking a couple of photo’s and munching hotdogs as the time ticked on….and on. I had been told I would see their lights at the 6m decompression stop well before they would surface which would give me time to set up the video and capture their return. The hour and a half came and went and still no sign. Ashley and Rik seemed slightly less concerned as they happily begun eating the hotdogs and buns that had been put aside for our heroic push divers to celebrate with! At this point a light appeared in the sump pool and we all eagerly took our stations to record their return. Christine and Rich surfaced, excited and full of adrenaline. There had been a ‘moment’ where in zero visibility the line had snagged on of their many tanks and snapped, separating them. This in my training had seemed the scariest thing I could imagine happening, but fortunately both Christine and Rich are well practiced in their drills and recovered the line before it could pose any risk to them.

Jubilant, they looked to us for their celebration hot dogs. Ashley looked sheepishly at them and completely lied through his teeth telling them the buns had perished in the water so only a couple of sausages remained for them!

Later that evening the line data was analysed and was found to have yielded 99m of new passage with the end still wide open. Fortunately the passage hadn’t gone deep and had in fact levelled out somewhat, but it would mean that to push further next year, re-breathers would be needed.   Day 5 Don’t you pee in your wetsuit? The final day in Licanke would be spent stripping out all the kit. It would be all hands on deck for this and we soon mastered the best way to perform this by creating chains of people across the various obstacles and passing the kit along. After only a few hours we were packing up the dry tube and trying to get enough weight on it, and failing miserably, for Rich to dive it out. Christine asked if I fancied being scootered through the sump and I agreed. She explained that I would need to keep well tucked in behind her and keep a hold of her harness strap at her tail end. Once the other side I was allowed to play in the sump pool and eventually resurfaced giggling like a 6 year old. At some point talk degraded to weeing in your wetsuit and Christine admitted to releasing often in the cold water. I couldn’t help but think that the sump had seemed a little warmer than usual as she had scootered me through and tried to push the image out of my mind! This has been an awesome experience. I have made some great new friends along the way in Ash, Rick, Robbie, Rich and Christine and got to do something I had never imagined I would be capable of.